The two Mexicos

“IN ESTABLISHING the rule of law, the first five centuries are always the hardest.” For much of the past two decades, that quip by Gordon Brown, a former British prime minister, has seemed not just dour, but wrong. Buoyed by China, by trade growth and capital inflows, by talk of new middle classes and the bottom billion, it was easy to forget old truths about how hard it is for poor countries to become rich. A breezy assumption took hold: that emerging markets would surely follow the likes of South Korea and Taiwan on the path to wealth.That view of development has crumbled of late, along with emerging markets’ growth rates. China, the locomotive to which many are still hitched, is slowing. Russia, South Africa and Brazil (see ) are in reverse gear. Their currencies drop with every fall in commodity prices; they will no doubt weaken further if the Federal Reserve raises American interest rates in a meeting due to end after we went to press. Trade is growing more slowly than global GDP, a trend that seems unlikely to reverse soon (see article). All of this makes the trajectory taken by the East Asian tigers seem ever more exceptional.