THE CLASS CHARACTER OF THE URBAN MASS
movement is a subject of intense debate in Mexico,
given that classical Marxist concepts do not neatly fit Third
World capitalism. Some argue that residents of the poor
neighborhoods belong to the proletariat or its industrial
reserve army, since they lack any ownership of means of
production. Those who are not wage-earners are considered
nonproductive, on the margins of the basic social relations of
production.
Reality is more complex. The urban movement in Mexico
is multi-class. It includes middle-class groups (bureaucrats,
teachers, professionals, private white-collar workers, techni-
cians, etc.), wage-earners, laborers and broad groups of
“informal” and “off-the-book” workers (domestic em-
ployees, peddlers, cab drivers, windshield washers, unem-
ployed and so on), who do not always constitute a self-
conscious social class.
But the class composition of the movement is ultimately
less important than its political practice and its proposals.
From the beginning, the urban organizations that are inde-
pendent of the government and the governing party, such as
CONAMUP and the Asamblea de Barrios, have unequivo-
cally defined their place in Mexico’s broader political struggle:
at the side of the progressive and revolutionary forces,
against capitalist exploitation, and for the creation of a new
social order, democratic and socialist.
The movement’s historical sense of itself-through its
organic expression in social organizations-is as a revolu-
tionary actor defined more by its long-range political project
than by current local demands. Thus the movement in gen-
eral seeks a broad strategy for social change, within which
different political currents may pursue various tactics to
achieve intermediate goals.
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