State Violence, Capital Accumulation, and Globalization of Crime: The Case of Ayotzinapa

The violence perpetrated against the students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School by the Mexican state constitutes an extreme form of social control and capital accumulation. The forced disappearance of the 43 students can be explained in two dimensions, political and economic. The political explanation is that the state administers institutional repression and dispossession against peasant and indigenous communities to inhibit social protest. The economic explanation is that violence meted out by the state and criminal organizations is used to facilitate capital accumulation both by legal means, through the extraction of natural resources, the exploitation of cheap labor, and the establishment of favorable contracts for transnational corporations, and by illegal means, through drug and human trafficking, money laundering, extortion, and the expropriation of community lands. La violencia perpetrada contra los estudiantes de la Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa por el Estado mexicano constituye una forma extrema de control social y acumulación de capital. La desaparición forzada de los 43 estudiantes puede explicarse en dos dimensiones: la política y la económica. La explicación política es la represión institucional de la protesta social, y la económica es la facilitación de la acumulación de capital tanto por medios legales (la extracción de recursos naturales, la explotación de mano de obra barata y contratos favorables para las empresas transnacionales) como ilegales (el tráfico de drogas y la trata de personas, el lavado de dinero, la extorsión y la expropiación de tierras comunitarias).