Mexico's drug wars, talks of flayed faces, headless corpses and acid baths

Mexico's drug wars, talks of flayed faces, headless corpses and acid baths (Juárez is all our futures. This is the inevitable war of capitalism gone mad, 21 June). I study Mexico: a diverse and fascinating country which, when it makes the news, usually does so because of narco-violence – an important phenomenon, to be sure, but one that deserves sober reflection, not sensationalism.

Vulliamy focuses on Ciudad Juárez, "the most murderous city in the world". But Juárez is not typical of the country. In fact, it is a grotesque aberration – seven times more homicidal than Mexico as a whole, 13 times more than Mexico City (the capital's homicide rate, by the way, is about one-third that of Washington DC). In other words, drug-related violence is highly variable within Mexico; Yucatán's homicide rate is less than Canada's. Juárez – where no cartel dominates, street gangs operate with relative impunity, and the murder of women is commonplace – is an extreme outlier, not a typical case.

Vulliamy says: "The thing that really makes Mexico's war a different war, and of our time, is that it is about, in the end, nothing." In fact, the drug war involves a ruthlessly rational battle to control a $40bn US market (which Vulliamy notes in passing but dismisses as a "veneer of a cause" – some "veneer"). Of course, the manner of conducting contraband (a very old story along the border) depends not only on demand in the US, but also on political and criminal organisation in Mexico (another old story). Thus, while demand has grown, central political control – once exercised by the mighty ruling party, the PRI – has given way to chaotic, decentralised conflict, in which rival cartels and their gang affiliates battle for power and profit.

Legalisation, Vulliamy says, is of "tangential importance". However, increasingly, informed opinion in Latin America – including Mexico – is seriously discussing it. Two ex-presidents (Zedillo and Fox) advocate this course; and Mexican public opinion favours an open debate, which President Calderón – his military crackdown having, thus far, failed – now also encourages.

"Narco-cartels are not pastiches of global corporations, nor are they errant bastards of the global economy - they are pioneers of it," says Vulliamy. He's right; but it is precisely their illegality which produces the egregious violence, which is why legalisation – de jure or de facto – makes sense. Capitalism does not work in a lawless state of nature; it needs rules, order and predictability. The North American Free Trade Agreement and the northern-border maquilas (in-bond manufacturing plants) are illustrations. In this sense, Juárez does exemplify globalisation (as do many other – much more peaceful – Mexico cities). But the maquilas – which boomed in the 1990s – are not the cause of recent narco-violence.

The drug cartels, Vulliamy predicts, "point ... to how the legal economy will arrange itself next"; Juárez "is all our futures". But I doubt we will soon see headless corpses swinging from Wall Street lampposts. Corporate capitalism may not be pretty, but it is legal, it needs the state, it is not Juárez writ large. Nor, for that matter, is Mexico.