The problems of Mexico are rooted in the weaknesses of Latin culture and Latin colonialism.
I can't believe I'm the first person to use this word in a pre-1900 'Make a nation great!' thread, but the term Meiji comes to mind. A strong, progressive, wide-reaching reform of Mexican society at any point from its founding right up until today could have done wonders for it, even reform from the barrel of a gun.
The most obvious answer is a Mexican Ataturk, someone with the authority, vision, and political capital to totally re-write the society's laws, mores, and culture. Mexico is uniquely suited to this kind of man, thanks to its wide variety of presidents and viceroys and emperors who ended up as ruler by diverse means, so to shoehorn in a suitable Mary Sue from nowhere wouldn't be too difficult. Mexico has plenty of resources like silver, oil, heroin, and hemp which can allow it to flourish if it plays its cards right, and is situated in a strategically viable position for long-term trade.
The problems of Mexico are rooted in the weaknesses of Latin culture and Latin colonialism.
I can't believe I'm the first person to use this word in a pre-1900 'Make a nation great!' thread, but the term Meiji comes to mind. A strong, progressive, wide-reaching reform of Mexican society at any point from its founding right up until today could have done wonders for it, even reform from the barrel of a gun.
The most obvious answer is a Mexican Ataturk, someone with the authority, vision, and political capital to totally re-write the society's laws, mores, and culture. Mexico is uniquely suited to this kind of man, thanks to its wide variety of presidents and viceroys and emperors who ended up as ruler by diverse means, so to shoehorn in a suitable Mary Sue from nowhere wouldn't be too difficult. Mexico has plenty of resources like silver, oil, heroin, and hemp which can allow it to flourish if it plays its cards right, and is situated in a strategically viable position for long-term trade.
The problem for Mexico doing that is that it's too close too the US. I remember Abdul said in a thread in which somebody was comparing Japanese succesfull Meiji restoration and Ottoman's failed attempts to reforme that
geography favoured Japan and didn't favoured the Ottomans: Japan was an island with a lot of people, close only to
one of 1900 word powers, Russia (and only to its least populated parts); the Ottoman empired was sparesely populated, and bordered Russia, Austria-Hungary, and British-controlled Egypt.
If geography was bad for the Ottomans, it was much worse for Mexico, since it had an enormous and undefendable land border with a great power which was the
only one in the continent, and thus had no other great power willing (or able) to limit his expansion.
In early XIX century, "Argentina" had important differences with Mexico: it hadn't been the home of a rich, powerfull and populous pre-columbian empire; thus, it hadn't atracted many Spanish high noblemen and aristocrats who could use the vast amerindian workforce to mantein a high status of living; thus, by 1800, Argentina was far less populated than Mexico. The lack of a
real traditional aristocratacy, the existance of less rigid rules concerning social hierarchization, and the fact that, specially since the late XVIII, the capital of Rio de la Plata was a commercial city instead of one in which the wealth came mainly from the land and the mines created slightly different societies.
Yet both regions shared important cultural aspects. In both places, colonial laws wtitten by people who usually ignored completely the local realities, and who didn't take local interests into account. Thus, they were ignored in the colonnies whenever possible. This created a culture in which there wasn't a great respect for the Law, as "the law" was something so arbitrary and inadecuate to local conditions that cities were often forced not to apply them if they wanted to prosper.
Morover, in both places there wasn't a tradition of self-government (except at a muncipal level with the cabildos, and even their autonomy was relative). This, convined with the lack of respect for the law, created the conditions for a great inestability after the end of the Spanish era. Both countries (and almost all Spanish America) experienced civil wars and tyranies inmediatly after their independence.
Yet Argentina was
far from everybody, and, due to this geograhpical circunstance, had
time to recover. Nobody grabed territoritory during the civil war (well, technically, GB did in 1833, but it only took a couple of islands). Argentina was able to stabilise and then expand greatly in the 1860s and 70s, gaining thousands of square miles of territory.
Mexico, on the contrary, had to face two wars against his inmediate neighbour
before he had time to recover.
Immigration wasn't as adecuate for Mexico as it was for Argentina, because Mexico was far more populated. Argentina could direct immigrants to the pampas (occupied by small groups of Indians till 1870), Patagonia and and to provinces which, even if they were settled, hat still plenty of place, like Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Cordoba, Mendoza, Misiones ond other places. Mexico couldn',t because the lands which were rich and relatively empty had been taken by the US. And even if there were others left, the Texas incident had created a general mistrust towards inmigration, that made most Mexican governments discourage it.
Yet I think your solution of a Mexican Attaturk is possible: but it has to take into account the threat posed by the fact that the US is so close geographically. Maybe if there were troubles in the US when this Mexican Attaturk acted it would have been possible. It's possible, but he'd had to act fast...