Studies of Mexico's political system have yielded little if any information on state policies affecting the distribution of income or those geared toward redressing social inequality. Such studies have nevertheless indicated that the strategy of state-supported industrialization followed since the 1940s has had a regressive effect on the distribution of income. As a result, the aspirations of the workers and peasants who participated in drafting the 1917 constitution have not been realized in

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... e main. Recent literature on this subject constitutes a novel and welcome contribution that is helping fill this gap. As such, it represents an indispensable, albeit still imperfect, starting point for analyzing social inequality in Mexico during the decade that preceded what might be called the 1981 crash. Although diverse in their approaches, this group of books can be examined with two general criteria in mind. First, one may ask the "minimum" question of whether they offer useful and heretofore unavailable or highly dispersed factual information. The second, somewhat more ambitious question is whether they also offer a glimpse into the complex and problematic nature of the process of state intervention in the social realm. COPLAMAR's five-volume Necesidades esenciales en Mexico represents five years of research carried out by the multisectoral agency created in 1977 by President Jose L6pez Portillo's administration. The initial purpose of this research was to establish minimum standards (mini-220