Yearly Archives: 2023

December 31, 2023

Education

Luis Rubio Nothing is more important for the development of a country than education. In fact, some of the nations that succeeded in breaking away from underdevelopment the fastest were precisely those that turned education into a vehicle to transform their countries in an integral manner. Instead of exploiting natural resources, they turned their main […]

December 24, 2023

My Readings

 Luis Rubio Inequality of opportunity is one of the greatest maladies of Mexico, perhaps the worst of all. The deep-seated notion in the mythology that any Mexican that can echo Benito Juárez’s arrival from a remote rural place to the presidential seat of power is clearly false, at least for the overwhelming majority of the population. Raymundo M. Campos […]

December 17, 2023

Philosophies

 Luis Rubio Two philosophies of power divide the world: one seeks its concentration to guarantee that the State has full powers to advance equality, while the other seeks its decentralization to ensure the freedom of citizens. The first, originally articulated by Rousseau, is the favorite of governments that aim to put themselves above the citizenry. […]

December 10, 2023

Compass

Luis Rubio Plying the compass has not been the strong suit of most of Mexico’s governments, certainly not during the contemporary era. But some, such as the current one, knock the ball out of the park. From the end of the Mexican Revolution, more than one hundred years ago, there has not been a sole […]

December 3, 2023

Unity vs. Unanimity

                                      Luis Rubio The world is living through an era of animosity and Mexico is not the exception. The presidential strategy of dividing and polarizing has been utilized by leaders around the world during these convulsive times, […]

November 26, 2023

More of the same?

Luis Rubio According to Simón Kuznets, there are four types of countries in the world: developed, underdeveloped, Japan and Argentina. Argentina has been defying gravity for decades, in fact almost a century: with small moments of euphoria, its economy has gone from bad to worse for so long that this Nobel-winning economist ended up creating […]

November 19, 2023

Uncertainties

Luis Rubio When one reads Kafka’s novels –The Trial, The Castle, The Metamorphosis – there is no way to avoid the sensation of confusion and fascination as one goes through those labyrinths of fear, uncertainty, anxiety, irony, and the every-present lacerating humor. Whoever looks through the pages of the Mexican-national newspapers or is brave enough […]

November 13, 2023

The Risk and the Opportunity

By Luis Rubio on November 13, 2023  The 2024 presidential election promises to be like no other since Mexico began its long, painful, and unfinished transition to democracy. Three factors make this a unique moment: an economy ever more distant from the political cycle; a political structure susceptible to collapse; and a race where the […]

November 12, 2023

Antinomy

Luis Rubio Antinomy, a contradiction between two things such as laws or principles, describes well the dilemma of Mexico, but one which has been systematically sidestepped as if it were not to exist. Instead of facing up to the problem of governance, each of the governments of the past three or four decades pretended it […]

November 5, 2023

Phenomena

Phenomena Luis Rubio John McCain used to say that “it is always darkest before it turns pitch black.” The future is being built every day through the actions of millions of people, companies and governments in Mexico and around the world. Everything interacts and complements each other, giving shape and content to the future we […]