In order to successfully resist the wholesale devastation of local economies at a global scale, it is necessary to pick apart, piece by piece, the philosophical underpinnings of neoliberal economics.  At first glance, this seems an impossible task, since each year billions of dollars are invested to sequester the model within a seemingly impregnable intellectual fortress. Yet, when one takes a closer look, neoliberal economics is fraught with hypocrisy and contradiction.

In Mexico, after over over 10 years of “free” trade under NAFTA, the agreement’s promises are coming apart at the seams. Since NAFTA’s implementation in 1994, Mexican markets have been inundated with a flood of cheap maize from American markets. From 1994 to 2002, Mexican imports of American maize have tripled, arriving at an annual total of six million tons.

According to Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire, government subsidies allow American farmers to dump tons of cheap maize on Mexican markets at a cost of $2.00/bushel, $1.00 less than the actual cost of production. This legalized product dumping, which benefits commodity traders, has caused a 44% drop in maize prices in the Mexican market.

Unable to compete with these unfair trade practices, small-holder Mexican farmers are forced to abandon the centuries old tradition of maize farming. Many times they migrate to larger Mexican cities, or take their chances North of the border in search of alternative forms of income in the United States, thus further exacerbating the contentious issue of border control and immigration.

As Mexican peasants abandon their land, large landowners consolidate their holdings and make a move to further industrialize Mexican agriculture. They too begin to feed cheap corn to livestock and plant vegetables and other high value crops for export to the US market.

And so, in the example of NAFTA, the contradictions and wild idiosyncrasies of neoliberal economics are exposed. Mexico, a hungry and poor nation, is economically compelled to dedicate its most productive lands to producing crops for export to the United States, a nation in the throes of a life or death battle with obesity and overconsumption.

More alarming still, are reports of genetic contamination of Mexican maize with transgenic maize. Such contamination poses a risk to agricultural biodiversity and global food security; as any geneticist will tell you, a species’ survival depends on the diversity of its gene pool.

And, in the case of maize, its genetic diversity also depends on the peasant farmers who have been the caretaker of this invaluable resource for centuries. Without them to plant the crop year after year, we will inevitably lose hundreds, perhaps thousands of maize varieties. With that loss, maize will become more susceptible to disease and pest infestations.

Deconstructing the fortress of neoliberal economics is not difficult. It does not require fancy economic models or volumes of statistics. Each and every case study exposes the faulty reasoning of a philosophy that seeks to benefit the few at the expense of so many.