A Barzón, in terms of agriculture, is the yoke-ring to which a rope or chain is attached to pull a farm plow; a hitch-ring, connecting-ring, a pull-ring.
Members of El Barzón were responsible for massive amounts of debt denominated in dollars; which they were expected to pay back with a peso worth half of its previous value.
Their debts would amount to ten times the loan they had originally taken out, and El Barzón refers to the massive social movement where elements of the traditionally quiet middle class rose up and refused to pay the monstrous sums of money that were expected of them by lending institutions.
El Barzón is a decentralized movement, and there were actually two main organizations, one that kept a pro-PRI stance and another that took a more leftist approach, siding with the PRD.
One of the groups consisted of long-time members and supporters of the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) after the devaluation in December 1994 of the Mexican peso.
El Barzón has an institutional and juridical step 13 October 1994, in Monterrey, N. L. In that city, the heart of the neoliberalism in México, with Liliana Flores Benavides, Manuel Ortega González, Juan José Quirino Salas and Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar designed the strategy of these unique social movement in the world.
El Barzón has been criticized as being a movement that promotes a culture of ignoring debt through the use of legal or social pressure channels.