Inter-Imperialist Rivalry Behind Mexico’s Energy Reform

The document below is the flyer that members of the Progressive Labor Party distributed at the striking teachers’ encampment in Mexico City and during the protest against energy reform. In total, we distributed 3,000 flyers. Most teachers welcomed them. Many are already familiar with CHALLENGE and some asked for the paper. There was a huge national teachers’ rally to demand the repeal of the approved reforms, including clashes with the police and arrests. A group of comrades once again distributed our literature. There will be more protests in coming weeks, and we will be there to show our support — and, more important, to advance our revolutionary communist perspective.

Global capitalism is in crisis and inter-imperialist rivalry is sharpening, particularly between the U.S. and China. Eventually the bosses’ economic competition will lead to armed confrontation and push the world toward a broader war. The center of this fight is over the control of oil and gas, the raw materials essential to the capitalists’ militaries and industries.
The struggle over energy reform reflects the inter-imperialist rivalry within Mexico. The accord forged by President Enrique Peña Nieto — along with other politicians in the PRI, PAN and PRD parties — is mainly an attempt to benefit the biggest oil companies in the U.S. and Britain: Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, and Chevron.
Over the last three decades, U.S. Imperialists have massacred millions of workers in the Middle East in the name of oil profits.  In spite of their ruthless brutality, their control of the region grows weaker by the day. As inter-imperialist war looms closer, the U.S. will need more secure and accessible sources of energy. Mexico’s energy resources are a big part of the U.S. bosses’ plan.  They have already placed their reliable servants in key positions. For example, Emilio Lozoya Austin, the CEO of PEMEX (Mexico’s state-owned petroleum company), is closely tied to Condoleezza Rice, former Chevron director and former U.S. Secretary of State.      
The Mexican Secretary of the Treasury, Luis Videgaray Caso, is allied with Pedro Aspe, his predecessor under former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Aspe is now co-chairman of Evercore Partners, a leading U.S. investment bank. Through his ties to Alberto Bailleres, Mexico’s third richest man, he also is connected to the largest bank in the world, JP Morgan Chase. In turn, JP Morgan Chase is closely linked to ExxonMobil and Chevron (Bajo la Lupa, July & August 2013). As inter-imperialist rivalries sharpen, these relationships are critical. Some day the U.S. may be in a position to militarily occupy Mexico’s oil reserves.
Nationalism: A False Option
Energy reform will wreak havoc with the lives of workers, perhaps even more so than labor or educational reform. PEMEX currently contributes 40 percent of the federal budget. If the company is privatized, that number would drop sharply and lead to budget cuts to health, education, and social development.
The bosses are using tax hikes to try to compensate for their falling rate of profits. This affects all workers, but particularly public-sector employees working at the mercy of the Secretary of the Treasury.  Both the budget cuts and tax increases will deepen misery and inequality. Meanwhile, the super-rich keep getting tax breaks that amounted to 132 million pesos in 2008 alone. This year the Treasury forgave millions of pesos owed by Televisa.
Andres Manuel López Obrador and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas have called on workers to oppose oil privatization with the argument that natural resources “belong” to the nation. In reality, they are defending the interests of a competing group of capitalists. Their struggle revolves around the question of which set of bosses should own the oil. Even when oil is state property, it is never used to meet workers’ needs.    
Bosses like Carlos Slim (Carso Group), the Garza Sada family from Monterrey ( the ALFA conglomerate), the Del Valle brothers (Latina Drills and Mexichem), and Carlos Ruíz Sacristán (IEnova), among others, have business deals with PEMEX of about $3 million USD (El Financiero, August 2013). A similar amount will be required to build the gas pipeline Los Ramones, which is licensed to the Spanish company OHL (in alliance with British capital), IEnova. and the financial division of Protego de Aspe (Reporte Indigo, August 2013)
During the last five years, PEMEX had earnings of $550 million USD (Bajo la Lupa, August 2013). In the same period, the number of poor people in Mexico increased by 4.5 million (El Economista, July, 2013). Whether they nationalize or privatize, the bosses prosper as workers get poorer. Nationalism is a false option.
We Need Communism
As long as the capitalist system is in place, it doesn’t matter which group of millionaires controls the oil wealth. Under capitalism workers get only crumbs. Assets are concentrated in the hands of the greedy, predatory minority that holds political and economic power.
Only a communist society can be organized for the benefit of the working class. Only under communism can we use oil wealth to meet the needs of the population.
The struggle for a communist society must be led by the workers themselves, united and organized by the revolutionary Progressive Labor Party. We fight to overthrow the dictatorship of the bosses and establish the dictatorship of the working class. Join us!