Luis Rubio
The advent of populist currents, left as well as right, has been accompanied by the rejection of so-called globalization and a systemic summons for the reappearance of an all-powerful government, aiming at correcting the ills afflicting humanity. That narrative does not deny the extraordinary advance of the prosperity and diminution of poverty that has characterized the world over the last decades, but it proposes that this pertains to a “savage” capitalism that gave rise to extreme inequality in income, mainly benefitting the wealthy. The narrative is attractive, but it has served less for improving the population’s welfare than for the consolidation of new interests in power. For Mexicans this furnishes a clear tessitura in the context of the presidential succession: shut the door to the world or find ways that the whole population could reap equitable benefits in the enormous opportunities entailed in the connection with our neighbors to the North.
The economic liberalization that Mexico undertook from the eighties onward was nothing other than accepting that the technological change characterizing the world could not be taken advantage of without effecting great changes in its economic strategy and institutional fabric. Today’s Mexican economy is infinitely greater and more productive than it was a half-century ago and the citizenry enjoys formerly unimaginable political freedoms. The presidential succession that is nearly upon us, whosoever wins, will determine the disposition of the new government to find a direction that permits the entire population to live in an environment of security and certainty or to persevere in the institutional and economic destruction that the outgoing government initiated.
The key point for those whose prime objective is the progress of Mexico must of necessity be that of accepting that globalization is a reality that is inexorable but that, in addition, has been extraordinarily beneficial for the country. The harms with which globalization is often associated with -such as violence, inequality and a lousy educational system- have been the product of what has not been done. In this manner, the country can attempt to abstract itself from globalization only if it is willing to pay the price in terms of low growth, more poverty and more inequality, due to the mere fact that this would isolate Mexico from the technological change on which future progress depends.
The outgoing government has tried to play two contradictory games. On the one hand, it has permitted the interconnection to persist with our northern neighbors, but it did literally nothing to improve the infrastructure of the population’s opportunities to participate in that economic space. On the other hand, it undermined the country’s security, blocked the development of the electric capacity, and created an immense uncertainty with respect to the future, including under this rubric the conditions that will be required for the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) to continue after its compulsory review during the coming year. All this casts doubt on the viability of the sources of current growth. Whoever succeeds in winning the election will have to define herself on this matter immediately.
The nations that, during the last decades, chose to face up to the challenge share very similar characteristics: they dedicated themselves to elevate the quality of their educational systems, built all the infrastructure necessary and modified their legislation in order to facilitate the transition of their economies. Above that, they changed their way of understanding development and, literally, launched a crusade so that all the society would join in the process.
It is sufficient to observe the nations that prosper and those that fall behind to make evident that the successful ones are those that embrace globalization and that continue doing so, in parallel with the adjustment of and adaptation of their strategies and policies to ensure that their populations have access to all possible opportunities.
Very much in Mexico’s peculiar ways, the country has followed a less consistent and uncertain route, concluding with the pathway of the “other data” with which the President avoids responsibility for his actions. Although there was a clear and consistent conception in the first iteration of the Mexican reforms back in the eighties and nineties, the truth is that that consistency did not last long. The liberalization of the economy was inconsistent with how government entities and banks were privatized, while many of the reforms, principally those advanced during the Peña-Nieto administration (these exceptionally ambitious), were processed in such a way that they never gained legitimacy within the citizenry, rendering them politically vulnerable. The crucial issue is that the country has for decades pretended that it is reforming itself when, in truth, it has done nothing more than adapt itself to a changing world at the least possible cost, thus impeding it from garnering more successful and attractive results for the population. That is the true dilemma of the next government.
Ultimately, Mexico has not made the necessity of being successful its own, it has not accepted how imperative (and inevitable) the new reality is, all of which has made possible the attacks that the country is now experiencing against its future. Globalization has not ceased to be there: the question is whether Mexicans will make it theirs or whether the country will continue engaging in the ploy that its economic and political impoverishment is the product of mere chance.
www.mexicoevalua.org
@lrubiof
a quick-translation of this article can be found at www.luisrubio.mx