Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 October 2022
“In the last two or three years, … a group of Mexicans …, supported and advised by the private banks, has stolen more money from our country than the empires that have exploited us since the beginning of history…. They've robbed us …, but they will not rob us again.” With these words, President López Portillo nationalized Mexico's private banks and imposed controls on foreign exchange. Many of those attending this State of the Union address on 1 September 1982 stood to applaud, while the president cried and one banker fainted. Mexico's chief of state continued, “The revolution will speed up; the state will no longer be intimidated by pressure groups.”
Some of this article draws on my recently published book, Governing Capital: International Finance and Mexican Politics (1990a). I gratefully acknowledge the comments of Jonathan Fox, Mark Harmon, Terry Lynn Karl, Laurence Whitehead, and several anonymous LARR reviewers on earlier versions. Financial and institutional support was provided by the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica and the Instituto de Banca y Finanzas in Mexico City as well as by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame.