Mayan peasants fighting for control of their land is far different than a safe zone where Mexican liberals can retreat to. The north also had a lot more independent economic operators - more elites and a stronger middle class. Yucatan would just be impoverished peasants on latifundia or communal village farms.
And yet the north continually lacked the economic and military force to cement their rule over the country, and liberals frequently squabbled amongst themselves.
The rule of law is best understood that the government and the powerful are constrained by the law, not that the people do what they're told by corrupt dictators.
That's a very... classically liberal way of looking at things. I'm viewing the rule of law here as just that, the law running things, not feudal landowners and bandits far away from Mexico City's watchful eye.
And it will happen, because foreign owned capital will try to save costs by reducing the need for dealing with a rentier state and constant bribery. The Foreign capital wants to be the Gatekeepers of the state, not deal with them.
The Porfiriato certainly provided stability in Mexico for a long time and brought in foreign capital, but it also dispossessed peasants from their communal land. It is one thing to split up communal land and assign it to individual families of the peasant village, but another when you claim it as state land and sell it to foreigners dispossessing the peasants from their own land.
This isn't inherently bad. Pushing peasants off land can and has also spurned urbanization as peasants move to cities in search of work.
The true path of modernization relies on expanding the middle class and independent farmers, not keeping the people as campesinos. I don't think the peasants of Oaxaca and Chiapas saw a whole lot of modernization.
Not really, that's one way of doing it but not the only way. Iran modernized very effectively from a premodern basis into a semi industrialized state using elite monopolization of resources to crush regional elites. Similarly, Venezuela, Morocco, Thailand, Egypt, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Sokoto, Russia, etc, all went through phases of rapid economic growth and modernization powered through by illiberal (often landed) elites; not Middle Class landowners or artisans.
Foreign ownership of capital will not prevent the development of industry, increased urbanization and the expansion and overhaul of infrastructure; merely tilt where the profits go to. If anything it will speed modernization up as infrastructure and extractive industry take off faster than OTL, alongside the crushing of bandits and regional gatekeepers, and really, any other barrier to
The long term costs will be of course evident, I don't deny that and have never claimed otherwise, but the short to mid term will be seen as a semi beneficial era.
If Diaz had been willing to leave office in 1910, perhaps he might be considered one of the "enlightened autocrats" who set the path for a modernized nation. But he didn't, and his legacy is just a bit better than that of a Somoza rather than a Lee Kuan Yew or even a Pinochet. Diaz was good for the elite, but the masses of peasants were kept poor and ignorant. That is not a path for modernization.
His policies also led to industrialization, a common language taking hold (Spanish), the growth of an actual urban elite to counterbalance rural landowners, and the destruction of banditry, a drop in infant mortality and a 50% increase in the Mexican population that created the relatively high rates of growth during the period.
Not at all nice for peasants, but history is never friendly to them.
Political stability is important for development, and the government needs to provide law and order, keep people safe and collect taxes.
Stability allows for law and order to take root and for effective methods of taxation to take hold, not the other way around.
But we know the most typical kind of "law and order" provided in Latin America did not lead to North American or European levels of development.
This is more due to economies based solely on resource extraction, tiny populations within states, and the lack of educated classes than merely a corrupt leader(s).
Most of the civil wars in Mexico were not about the central state not being able to collect taxes or provide for law enforcement, it was about the central government trying to take away people's rights so the government can do whatever it wants or breaking the power of the Church.
Which in turn led to regionalization, a hardening of conservative viewpoints, and the dominance of a reactionary elite that was always able to amass more resources than Liberals as they could marshall up peasants who could barely understand what voting meant.
This trend is repeated similarly in Colombia, Guatemala, Argentina, the Dominican Republic- really all throughout Latin America. Constant instability is not worth it if its caused by Liberal victories in war and an inability to control the state and its peoples. Unless the Liberals brutally crush everyone and force reforms down the throat of everyone, you won't get that happy shiny development one saw in North America.
Are you suggesting that Mexico will modernize as Japan did? The two countries are completely different. Japan was a highly literate culture whose population was highly skilled in crafts. Mexico's population was mostly illiterate peasants with low work skills.
I'm suggesting the cartels that become equivalent of Zaibatsu, massive population growth, ISI style industrialization and an emphasis on infrastructure and a strong state.
Gains in productivity the way Japan did can come later after all of that is finished.
I have the feeling we are not going to convincing each other of anything. You seem to have a much higher opinion of the Porfiriato than I do, and discount the possibility that a strongman in charge may not be an enlightened modernizer.
I'm not discounting that; my basis is merely that stability is just as important as providing structural reforms. No point in doing reforms if you can't force them.
Hell even a corrupt strongman that keeps enough stability to provide the change toward industrialization and urbanization has already tilted his state toward the modern era without knowing it. It may require a revolution or 2 to achieve the needed reforms and realize the state's true potential, but the ball's already started rolling.