Luis Rubio
“The political left has never understood that, if you give the government enough power to create ‘social justice,’ you have given it enough power to create despotism. Millions of people around the world have paid with their lives for overlooking that truism.” This is spelled out by Thomas Sowell, one of the keenest scholars in politico-economic affairs, above all in matters of discrimination, in that he is Black. This circumstance distinguishes him from innumerable intellectuals and politicians and gives him great latitude in asking questions that no one else would dare to or to present ideas that contravene “common sense.”
The recent judgement and sentencing handed down concerning García Luna, ex-Secretary of Public Security of Mexico, has situated the entire Mexican political system in the dock. Although Morena has attempted to elicit political rake-off from the verdict arising from the latter, the reality is that the judgement placed all of Mexico in evidence, especially its governments. It would be easy to try to limit the damage by attributing all the blame to the individual being judged or to his former boss, but a more careful observation would reveal that that’s a street fight of little importance. What really occurred in that judgement is that it disrobed the political system in its totality because it functions at the service of organized crime independently of whomsoever is in charge.
The whole system of government has been condemned. If to that one adds the dysfunctionality that the self-same system entails for the exercise of its normal and day-to-day functions, the case-in-point takes on other dimensions. It is enough to observe the unbalanced relationship in which the presidency engages with the remaining two branches of government and their total submission as of late. The same can be said of the relation between the governors and the presidency, all of which nurtures the insecurity throughout the country.
Mexicans live in a nation where the government is heavy-handed in the extreme, but it does not fulfill its responsibility to preserve the peace and security of the population while economic development advances. These essential responsibilities of any government are not complied with because the whole system is dysfunctional or, rather, because it was not designed for those objectives. The system was indeed designed for the control of the population, a goal it no longer achieves either, given that it is, de facto, devoted to facilitate the effective functioning of organized crime in general and of narcotrafficking in particular.
The political system that persists was created after the end of the Mexican Revolution with the purpose of restoring order -civil and political- and, with that, of promoting economic development. The system was created expressly to confer on the president enormous power, to whom very efficient instruments of control and appeasement were granted. The political party, the distribution of political posts and access to corruption were central elements of the project of the post-Revolutionary government.
It is thanks to that structure that narcotrafficking could flourish without collateral damage. When the movement of drugs began through national territory, from the middle of the past century, everything seemed planned for it to operate: a strong government that could establish rules and that was capable of making them be complied with; Colombian narcotraffickers oriented strictly toward the U.S. market, that is, without permanent local ties; and, above all else, an environment propitious for local authorities -governors, political or military chiefs in each zone- to receive “compensation” for their services in facilitating the transit of narcotics. Consistent with the normality of corruption as a tool of government, narcotrafficking prospered without surcease: the functionaries changed but the business, and the concomitant corruption, persevered.
Decades later the situation changed radically. First, however much Morena tries to recreate the old presidency, the country has already become decentralized; the great achievement of that era -iron-fisted control over criminality- disappeared from the map and there is no strategy in place, nor even a conception of what is necessary, to create a security system coherent with the current realities. The economy is infinitely more complex than back in the day; the governors, subordinated to the president as they are, have not engendered instruments to preserve the internal peace or to promote development. In sum, the existing regime doesn’t work: returning to the past is an absurd notion because it is impossible and incompatible with the circumstances of today and insecurity and violence escalate uncontrollably. In a word, there are there many García Lunas who have taken his place in this troubled river: the relationship between politics and organized crime has been normalized.
The central issue is that the country does not have a functional government while the presidency continues to be excessively powerful. However, as Sowell says in quote at the outset, there continues to be a retinue of believers who consider it best to carry on strengthening the presidency with its bent toward despotism. The evil lies in the excessive concentration of power; the solution is in a presidency with the necessary attributes but also with effective counterweights, which impede the individual occupying that function from abusing its power and from causing destruction left and right, with no limit.
@lrubiof