The problem is that by failing to acknowledge the real problems with the Zapatistas we undermine our own ability to learn from them and to understand their positive innovations in context. A few weeks ago a Zapatista responsable in the community of Roberto Barrios was macheted to death. I'm convinced that any serious social struggle against capital that is geographically limited in the ways that all such struggles have been, will of necessity reproduce to one degree or another capitalist relations within it. The detection of such a process in the EZLN is therefore not very interesting to me. Thats just too tidy.
Reality makes people advocates of realism.
The indigenous communities of the North, Los Altos and the Selva in Chiapas are facing the threat of extermination and can't wait for some genius to discover the perfect way out that doesn't reproduce in one way or another capitalist relations. They seem to disregard differences in degree of stratification between post and pre-conquest communities as well as the enormous changes that accompanied the colonization of the Selva over the past 40 or so years in which the old cargo system was largely left behind. They stand in my mind still as one of the most significant revolts against capitalist rule in human history. Ejidos exist both as legal entities recognized by the Mexican state and as the actual communities whose practices may or may not conform with the legal norms. Ejidal lands are generally worked individually but owned communally.