ABSTRACT
I have argued that the social costs of crisis and structural adjustment in the Eighties were compounded by the policies adopted by the Salinas administration to secure the NAFTA. In the case of rural society, however, the worst may be yet to come, since the fall implications of Salinas's moves to restructure Mexican agriculture will work themselves out during the Zedillo sexennial. Although predictions of the rapid displacement of thirteen million people from the countryside may be exaggerated, it is difficult to be optimistic about the prospects for improvements in rural living standards for those who remain in rural communities. Yet it is equally difficult to regard international migration as an unproblematic way out for Mexico's campesinos.
