Yearly Archives: 2011

The world is racked with convulsions that shatter paradigms and certainties similar only to those that occur at transformational moments such as those produced by the World Wars: all of the traditional referents have been set on their heads. It is virtually as if the world were reversed, as if Goytisolo’s famous poem were truth […]

When the growth engine is stuck in the mire, one should question oneself as to whether the premises sustaining how to start it up again are valid. Bertrand Russell, the great British philosopher, once affirmed that “I think that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is significantly different from what always has […]

Asked how 30,000 Englishmen “subdued” 200 million Indians, Tolstoy responded: “Do not the figures make it clear that it is not the English who have enslaved the Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves?” Something similar appears to be occurring with economic growth in our country. One of the few issues on which there […]

Beyond the result, what was impacting about the election in Spain two weeks ago was the civility of its contenders. Everything was impeccable: the final results were announced a mere four hours after the voting booths were closed; the losing candidate presented himself to the media to recognize his defeat, to congratulate the winner, and […]

“Competing pressures”, wrote Kissinger, “tempt one to believe that an issue deferred is a problem avoided; more often it is a crisis invented”. That’s how we are with the continuing postponement of solutions to the issue of economic growth.   A key question for us is why doesn’t the economy grow? Or, in other words, […]

The businessman wished to develop a strategy for modifying certain regulations and increasing a few customs duties with the purpose of delimiting the capacity of his competitors’ access to the market. In other words, he wanted to create market failures that would benefit his bottom line. The consultant proposed the need to think on a […]

According to a biblical story, a family lives in a room amidst overcrowded conditions, which generates interminable conflicts. The father decides to consult his rabbi, who tells the afflicted father thathe should put all of his hens in the room and come back after a week. Seven days later, the man can’t stand another minute […]

Whenever I see or find out about cases of corruption in Mexico, I keep thinking of whether the country has changed or whether everything remains the same. Some things continue being the same for decades if not centuries. Others, contrariwise, change swiftly. What is the real Mexico, the one from before or the one now? […]

For Lenin, “the organizational question is at the center of everything”. The Russian revolutionary leader was referring to the way that the Bolsheviks should organize themselves, but the principle is similarly applicable to our present reality. The country’s tiller has been inoperative for years, a situation that has been exacerbated by the poor quality of […]

When in 1688 the last Jacobite sovereign, King James II, decided to ignore the laws of Parliament, he was promptly deposed, giving birth to modern British democracy and its English Bill of Rights for the citizenry. This revolution also made manifest the essence of the functioning of a political system and its cardinal guarantee of […]