Hound Dog
Dec 3, 2009, 4:20 PM
Post #11 of 23
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Re: [Zorba] Plan Puebla-Panama. Yay or Nay?
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Personally, I have never believed that infrastructure is intended for the benefit of the common man. He or she may benefit from it, but it is not the government's primary concern. Highways are only built when it is in the best interest of the government and big business. It is all about moving goods and making money.
This is part of the argument against Plan Puebla-Panama. The claim is that the highways, ports etc. are only being developed in order for the rich resources of the region to be shipped out of country to the benefit of foreign multinationals. Furthermore, leftists claim that it will displace the rural poor (multinationals will buy up agricultural land, land will be confiscated for dams and highways, etc.) Rural folk, now landless, have no other option than to work for low wages in the city, at factories. In the end multinationals get cheap resources and cheap labour. The poor become slaves to big business.
I would love to see nice highways that further connect Chiapas to the rest of Mexico. I would be able to get around to other parts of the country more quickly. However, I wonder what will be lost because of it. I would not like to see it done with the displacement and unfair treatment of the indigenous. Furthermore, I get uncomfortable when private companies monopolize water, electricity, communications etc.
But again, I am an odd egg. I wish we could all go back the simple life. Bartering, subsistence farming and gun toting.
Personally, I have never believed that infrastructure is intended for the benefit of the common man. He or she may benefit from it, but it is not the government's primary concern. Highways are only built when it is in the best interest of the government and big business. It is all about moving goods and making money.
This is part of the argument against Plan Puebla-Panama. The claim is that the highways, ports etc. are only being developed in order for the rich resources of the region to be shipped out of country to the benefit of foreign multinationals. Furthermore, leftists claim that it will displace the rural poor (multinationals will buy up agricultural land, land will be confiscated for dams and highways, etc.) Rural folk, now landless, have no other option than to work for low wages in the city, at factories. In the end multinationals get cheap resources and cheap labour. The poor become slaves to big business.
I would love to see nice highways that further connect Chiapas to the rest of Mexico. I would be able to get around to other parts of the country more quickly. However, I wonder what will be lost because of it. I would not like to see it done with the displacement and unfair treatment of the indigenous. Furthermore, I get uncomfortable when private companies monopolize water, electricity, communications etc.
But again, I am an odd egg. I wish we could all go back the simple life. Bartering, subsistence farming and gun toting.
Total nonsense, Zorba and I say that as one who respects your opinion.
Dawg did not just arrive on the cambion de nave.
Dawg grew up in the corrupted, white supremist South Alabama of the 1940s and 1950s before the interstate highway system opened up that dismal swamp to the world and changed the port of
Mobile from a corrupted backwater into an important international port and the steel town of Birmingham from a hard nosed, racist steel mill forge to a city engaged in more intellectual endeavors. I have since seen what highways did to change Highland Chiapas. Do not put down the importance of transportation to Dawg.
(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Dec 3, 2009, 4:26 PM)
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