Luis Rubio

According to the new dogma, in 2019 conditions were created for the Mexican economy, and the country in general, to enter into a stage of elevated growth and development during this year. The conclusion -finally- of the new North American Trade Agreement, the high raise in minimum salaries and financial stability are the anchors that will allow for the widely awaited transformation. The only thing missing is for the decision-makers on savings and investment to get on board.

The new mantra makes sense but is not reality. The achievements so extensively celebrated by the president of the CCE (Business Coordinating Council) and his counterparts in the government –indistinguishable some from others- are useful conditions, but not sufficient: investment and savings flow when there are objective as well as subjective elements favorable for growth.

Among the objective elements are found without doubt those mentioned in the first paragraph of this piece, but these are not sufficient: in the XXI century investment as well as savings see the world as their space-of-interest, which implies that Mexico  literally competes with the rest of the planet to finance projects in our territory. In net terms, attracting investment requires appropriate conditions for that, which range from the macro economy to the infrastructure and the legal framework. These also require smoothing the way for projects to materialize. The government has changed the rules of the game and the legal framework and has abandoned any pretense of helping the way for investors and has not made any inroads on the issue of security. In addition to the latter, the new USMCA was designed by the U.S. to not drive investment in key industries for Mexico such as the automotive sector. In consequence, the objective factors that are indispensable for attracting investment are not conducive to satisfying the government’s rhetoric and that of its private trustee.

On the subjective side things are much more complicated, but also more transparent, because the President of the Republic has done everything possible to undermine the confidence essential for investment and savings to materialize. From the decision relative to the airport to the manner of deciding about projects such as the Tren Maya and the Dos Bocas Oil Refinery, any neutral observer could do nothing other than conclude that the only discernible pattern lies in the will of a sole individual. Aggravating these circumstances is the elimination (de jure or de facto) of any counterweight in regulatory matters: entities created over the years precisely to confer certainty on the investor. The way in which the (new) CRE* opened the door to PEMEX for its incursion into predatory practices in fuel sales speaks for itself. In a word, the absence of counterweights and (reasonably) autonomous institutions that limit governmental excesses or that, at least, evidence these, constitute absolute brakes on any investment project.

Objective as well as subjective conditions render it more difficult to suppose that the economy will be reactivated significantly in the upcoming months, even with the infrastructure projects that are in bud.  The question is whether there is something that could be done to improve the panorama.

There are two very clear routes: one is functional and the other ambitious. On the functional side, there are areas where the damage done is not (yet) catastrophic and thus, with relatively few actions, the perspective could be altered.  The case of energy is, by far, the most obvious: in this ambit the legislation has not changed and, with the exception (albeit not a lesser one)    of the composition of the Boards of the CRE and of the CNH**, basic institutions for the functioning of the sector, the government has only stopped soliciting bids. Recreating conditions for the re-launching of the sector is not something inconceivable and would exert the dual effect of strengthening the pragmatic side of the government and encouraging the development of a sector that is key under any premise. If in addition conditions were re-established for renewable energies, the scenario would improve. None of this would dramatically change the perspective, but it would permit reverting the worst tendencies profiling today.

The more ambitious way out, which would permit not only getting on with the remainder of the six-year presidential term of office but also modifying the general future of the country for good, would require a series of reforms that no government of the past four decades was willing to envision and that for which   President López Obrador counts on not only with the legitimacy but also with popular support for carrying out them out. The country requires profound reforms to attack the real lacks that Mexico possesses, such as poverty and inequality, and these would imply attacking the power groups and vested interests that have devoted themselves to impeding development in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas; abusive unions with their daily pillaging; the politico-legal structure that create fiefdoms in state governments; and, in general, the jumble of interests that prey upon, extort and corrupt as their quotidian activity.

If the government truly desires to advance the development of the country, the agenda is not trifling, but its assets for achieving it are enormous.

*Comisión Reguladora de Energía, Energy Regulatory Commission **Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos, National Hydrocarbons Commission

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

For President López Obrador the sixties were the climactic moment of the public life of the country. In that era Mexico grew at rates of nearly 7%, there was order and there was no social conflict. The time seemed idyllic; much more so, on being viewed in retrospect. However, a backward glance at the way that Mexican society functioned during those times reveals circumstances that were much less commendable and, in any case, unrepeatable.

The main characteristic of that time was the almighty presidency that set the course, fixed priorities, resolved disputes and kept the peace. At least so goes the myth, but the undeniable fact is that the post-revolutionary system had achieved an effective equilibrium between the diverse interests of the so-called “revolutionary family” and the requirements of a thriving economy. The governing coalition –and the party’s structure of control that allowed the president enormous latitude- sanctioned a huge capacity of decision and action that, in the specific context of the post-WWII era, created an exceptionally favorable environment for economic growth.

The powerful presidency was maintained thanks to the conjunction of remarkable circumstances that, years later, no longer existed. In the first place, the private sector was strongly controlled through requisite permits for investing, exporting and importing. The closed economy gave the government immense carte blanche in terms of decisions and control over this factor of production that, in addition, was complemented by severe limitations to foreign investment and a robust propensity toward endorsing the existence of monopolies. The government regulated competition and determined, indirectly, the profits of the enterprises. For businesses, what was important did not dwell in the quality or the price of their products, but in their close proximity to the bureaucracy.

In second place, the unions worked as a mechanism of control in which the union leaders became wealthy in exchange for upholding control of the bases. The Labor Congress made it appear that there was union democracy, but this was limited to the rhetoric and worked provided that the leaders operated within the clearly delineated rules of the game. The key was control without any dissidence.

In third place, the governors lived under the constraints of the central government, always aware that they could undergo what was known as a “disappearance of powers,” that is, their removal, at the least provocation. Governors who in the recent past have boasted about not having any reason to answer to the president, received instructions from third- and fourth-level civil servants without a flinch.

In a word, this pertained to an authoritarian system centered on the president who, through the party’s tentacles and the mechanisms of reward and punishment sustained an iron-fisted grip on the country. A European diplomat based in Mexico during that time cited a Soviet functionary in that nation’s embassy, affirming that, compared with Mexico, the Russians were mere amateurs because here the construction of an authoritarian system was achieved with complete control but absolute legitimacy,  while in his country control could only be preserved through acute repression.

The success of that era permitted dreaming of its re-creation. The notion that it is possible to subordinate the private sector and economic decision-making to political priorities would lead to an alignment of priorities and higher rates of growth. Workers’ freedom, as mandated by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the new free trade agreement, the USMCA, would facilitate the elimination of corrupt leaderships and their replacement by leaders trained in Canada, upgrading anti-corruption criteria to levels never seen before. The budget endorsed the reconstruction of political controls over governors, subordinating them to the central power and obliging them to cede their ambitions to the designs of the great national leader. Finally, the army would become the touchstone that empowers the central control with absolute dominion over all local and sectorial actors, with no consequences or risk of corruption. In other words, Nirvana, the XXI century version but with a 1960 signature.

The world of the sixties ended badly, not because it was poorly conceived or structured, but because it, simply, ended. As the saying goes, everything used gets used up, and that is what happened to the epoch of stabilizing development. It came to an end because it became unsustainable: because the way of producing in the world changed, because there was a financial revolution and another technological and because, little by little, communications created the conditions for the radical democratization of information.

Instead of leveraging what had been accomplished in order to then transform the political and productive structure as so many other Asian, European and a couple of Latin American nations had done, Mexicans insisted on proceeding stubbornly from crisis to crisis. And there we continue to this day. Pretending to reconstruct that era will not end up distinct because it is not anchored in the reality, but in an unattainable nostalgia.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

The second complete year of the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador commences, a year in which his project and strategies begin to bear fruits. That sown in his first year (in reality, given the circumstances, a year and a half) must yield results. But above all, from now on there is no way to blame the past, as in “they left us a mess.” The country, thus the responsibility for it, lies firmly in the hands of the President.

By now two things are undoubtable: first, the President’s central project –political control- has advanced relentlessly. Second, the economy exhibits severe affectations. The effect of this is manifested in diverse forms, but two sum up the dilemma: on the one hand, there is no private investment (and very little by the public sector), and on the other, tax revenues are ebbing inexorably. The latter is explained in good measure by the lack of growth of the economy, but its impact on public expenditure is dramatic, largely due to the government’s obligations in matters such as retirees’ pensions, which increase systematically, minimizing the so-called “fiscal space,” that is, the amount available for the government to direct toward its programs. In addition to this, the decision of the government to use its increasingly scarce resources to PEMEX reduces its expenditure options to an even greater extent.

Truth to tell, the issue of attracting private investment did not begin with this government. Investment practically disappeared from the time of the Trump campaign with his threat of cancelling NAFTA. That fact, which preceded by far the election of President López Obrador, is an obvious indicator of what prods or inhibits private investment, domestic as well as foreign. What NAFTA supplied was certainty regarding the rules of the game, with respect to what the government had committed itself to in terms of attracting investment. Trump brought investment to a halt and this has not been resolved since because the new USMCA eliminates the nodal source of certainty that was the heart of NAFTA, as well as because the current government displays a thorough lack of understanding (or refuses to accept) of what is required to attract private investment. Its insistence that economic decisions should be subordinated to political decisions evidences a thoroughgoing ignorance of the nature of the XXI century.

The question is whether, in the face of the risk that the economy will remain stagnant or of a recession, the government will be willing to review its premises and correct its course. From my point of view, the AMLO government has a better and greater opportunity historically speaking for confronting the problems that decades of reforms (the majority benign and necessary) were not resolved. The opportunity derives from two circumstances: first, the enormous legitimacy that it possesses and, second, the fact that the priorities that it marked long ago -corruption, poverty, regional inequality and lack of growth- are the national ones.

The economy has grown little on average for a long time due to decidedly explainable reasons. In the first place, in that there has not been greater investment in infrastructure in the South; in the second place, because there are powerful economic, political and/or union interests in the regions that do not grow that impede the development of new investment projects; in the third place, because innumerable regulations and practices promote the growth of the informal economy (which entails limits to its growth due to lack of access to credit and does not contribute to the tax pool) and, in the end, but perhaps summing up everything, because the country is characterized by permanent extortion: inspectors extort the citizens and entrepreneurs, union leaders extort the workers, politicians extort the population, the narcos extort the government and the society in general.  NAFTA did not eliminate extortion, but it did create conditions for it to be controlled in its space.  The rest of the country lives under permanent extortion.

The agenda of changes that the country requires is not difficult to identify and it is all absolutely compatible with the priorities the President earmarked a long time ago as well as with his political base.  In fact, if one observes the (incomplete) list in the previous paragraph, the big losers are always citizens who are small business owners, informal businesses, etc., who are not covered by the protection like the one NAFTA provides. Still worse, the South has fared worst of all, because local unions and politicians extort the population and deny them growth and development opportunities because this would imply altering the local status quo. Were one to evaluate where the regions of greatest poverty and inequity are found, their correlation with these evils is patent.

This incipient year comprises the great -and perhaps last- opportunity for the government to devote itself to attending to the cause of the ills the country suffers from and that, as mentioned previously, are precisely those that the President hand-picked as the axis of his campaign and his agenda. What has not worked to date constitutes a unique opportunity to advance this year. Given Mexico’s six-year term-of-office cycle, what is not done now will not done at all.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Wilson Center – Mexico Institute
January 06,2020
by Luis Rubio
@lrubiof

 There is no border as complex and diverse as that separating Mexico from the U.S. It would be easy to simplify it, rationalize it as a merely commercial matter. The reality comprises an enormous diversity, complexity and multiplicity. The boundary with the U.S. includes legal and illegal crossing points, drugs, contraband, persons, ideas, goods, services and disputes. An old saying from the Mexican side of the region held that “if it fits through the bridge, it can pass”.

From the high plateau of Mexico City, it is difficult to understand the diversity and complexity of the border zone. It concerns a region, on both sides, that experiences a symbiotic relationship in which each lives off each other and neither could explain its existence, and success, in the absence of the other. Many have spoken of a “third” country as distant from Mexico as from Washington D.C., but in reality it entails a space of dynamic exchange where everything comes to pass, the best as well as the worst of both nations.

For decades, U.S. citizens saw the Mexican side of the border as a space for recreation and lust, but also of greater simplicity and ease of living without the very structured life of their country. We Mexicans ended up seeing the border as an inexhaustible opportunity for markets, clients and developments that would never have been possible without the liberalization of trade that took place under the auspices of NAFTA. Beyond the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the devalued successor of NAFTA, and, in general, deriving from the close relationship that existed up to 2016, the ties between the two nations are increasingly deeper and more diverse. The trade war between the U.S. and China opens additional opportunities that would have been inconceivable only a few years ago.

The big question is whether we Mexicans will be capable of converting this juncture into opportunity, now within the context of Trump and of old structural problems of Mexico that never get fixed and are not even part of the public agenda.

The Mexican government recognizes the existence of problems and limitations regarding the development of the country, but it has not been willing to recognize that its preconceptions are unviable and act to the detriment of the government’s objective of relaunching the development of the country. On the side of the problems, it recognizes that the insecurity is persistent, but not that its great purposes can be met with the strategy that it has adopted, which does not even strengthen or standardizes the police forces at the local level.

Mexicans, of any origin and lineage, have demonstrated a huge capacity of adaptation to daily life, while migrants, with an ever-greater capacity and enthusiasm for developing grand projects of economic and commercial transformation, make their appearance in the national life. The bilateral relationship is constant, unequivocal and systematic: source of enormous benefits or intractable conflict. But it does not endure radical changes.

The violence that typifies the relationship is the product of a poorly understood interaction. It is obvious that a large proportion of the arms employed by the mafias of organized crime stems from the U.S. Similarly obvious is the fact that Mexico –at all levels- has not been capable of developing security strategies that confer certainty on the inhabitants of the Mexican side of the border. It is a secret to no one that Mexico has been an immense failure in providing the most basic of rights, which is security, whether in borderline municipalities or in the principal cities of the country.

Mexico leads a life of uncertainty and insecurity that all Mexicans know, independent of the loyalty or rejection that they profess toward the President. Although many respond positively in opinion surveys and with conviction support the President, the same surveys show that the majority wants an improvement and not a radical change.

From the summit of power it is easy to accuse or pardon the supposed transgressors of the law but, for the Mexican citizen in the street, every example of corruption, extortion, murder and flagrant lying is just another milestone in a long history of abuse, imposition and corruption. The President can be impeccable, but his administration has been shown to be indistinguishable from those that have preceded it. Corruption is strangling Morena, as it did with the PRI, the PAN and the PRD. Unless it changes course, its results could not be distinct.

The bilateral relationship poses an opportunity or a curse, depending on the perspective that each Mexican decides to adopt. Whosoever has observed the day-to-day reality of life in the neighborhood knows well that the fundamental problem is not the border, the Americans, or the relationship, but the persistent incapacity of the Mexican side to stabilize the country, to generate local police officers capable of maintaining order and guaranteeing security, likewise to the most modest and the most lofty Mexican.

The President’s agenda is as ambitious as it is blind.  What Mexico requires is solutions; what the President seeks is excuses for going against what the citizenry wants and demands. The question is how much time –and damage- it will take for the obstinacy to cede to the reality.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/the-relationship

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author. 

Luis Rubio

There is no border as complex and diverse as that separating Mexico from the U.S. It would be easy to simplify it, rationalize it as a merely commercial matter. The reality comprises an enormous diversity, complexity and multiplicity. The boundary with the U.S. includes legal and illegal crossing points, drugs, contraband, persons, ideas, goods, services and disputes. An old saying from the Mexican side of the region held that “if it fits through the bridge, it can pass”.

From the high plateau of Mexico City, it is difficult to understand the diversity and complexity of the border zone. It concerns a region, on both sides, that experiences a symbiotic relationship in which each lives off each other andneither could explain its existence, and success, in the absence of the other. Many have spoken of a “third” country as distant from Mexico as from Washington D.C., but in reality it entails a space of dynamic exchange where everything comes to pass, the best as well as the worst of both nations.

For decades, U.S. citizens saw the Mexican side of the border as a space for recreation and lust, but also of greater simplicity and ease of living without the very structured life of their country. We Mexicans ended up seeing the border as an inexhaustible opportunity for markets, clients and developments that would never have been possible without the liberalization of trade that took place under the auspices of NAFTA. Beyond the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the devalued successor of NAFTA, and, in general, deriving from the close relationship that existed up to 2016, the ties between the two nations are increasingly deeper and more diverse. The trade war between the U.S. and China opens additional opportunities that would have been inconceivable only a few years ago.

The big question is whether we Mexicans will be capable of converting this juncture into opportunity, now within the context of Trump and of old structural problems of Mexico that never get fixed and are not even part of the public agenda.

The Mexican government recognizes the existence of problems and limitations regarding the development of the country, but it has not been willing to recognize that its preconceptions are unviable and act to the detriment of the government’s objective of relaunching the development of the country. On the side of the problems, it recognizes that the insecurity is persistent, but not that its great purposes can be met with the strategy that it has adopted, which does not even strengthen or standardizes the police forces at the local level.

Mexicans, of any origin and lineage, have demonstrated a huge capacity of adaptation to daily life, while migrants, with an ever-greater capacity and enthusiasm for developing grand projects of economic and commercial transformation, make their appearance in the national life. The bilateral relationship is constant, unequivocal and systematic: source of enormous benefits or intractable conflict. But it does not endure radical changes.

The violence that typifies the relationship is the product of a poorly understood interaction. It is obvious that a large proportion of the arms employed by the mafias of organized crime stems from the U.S. Similarly obvious is the fact that Mexico –at all levels- has not been capable of developing security strategies that confer certainty on the inhabitants of the Mexican side of the border. It is a secret to no one that Mexico has been an immense failure in providing the most basic of rights, which is security, whether in borderline municipalities or in the principal cities of the country.

Mexico leads a life of uncertainty and insecurity that all Mexicans know, independent of the loyalty or rejection that they profess toward the President. Although many respond positively in opinion surveys and with conviction support the President, the same surveys show that the majority wants an improvement and not a radical change.

From the summit of power it is easy to accuse or pardon the supposed transgressors of the law but, for the Mexican citizen in the street, every example of corruption, extortion, murder and flagrant lying is just another milestone in a long history of abuse, imposition and corruption. The President can be impeccable, but his administration has been shown to be indistinguishable from those that have preceded it. Corruption is strangling Morena, as it did with the PRI, the PAN and the PRD. Unless it changes course, its results could not be distinct.

The bilateral relationship poses an opportunity or a curse, depending on the perspective that each Mexican decides to adopt. Whosoever has observed the day-to-day reality of life in the neighborhood knows well that the fundamental problem is not the border, the Americans, or the relationship, but the persistent incapacity of the Mexican side to stabilize the country, to generate local police officers capable of maintaining order and guaranteeing security, likewise to the most modest and the most lofty Mexican.

The President’s agenda is as ambitious as it is blind.  What Mexico requires is solutions; what the President seeks is excuses for going against what the citizenry wants and demands. The question is how much time –and damage- it will take for the obstinacy to cede to the reality.

www.cidac.org

@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

Life has its cycles and the calendar too. A year is about to end and the next one begins: the expectation never ceases to be present in the form of hope and fear, opportunity and possibility. As in other years, I take this moment to quote some of the great thinkers, this time regarding one of the great aspirations of all members of the human race: happiness.*

“Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized.” GK Chesterton, 1905

“One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.” La Rochefoucald, 1664

“Here you are, my dear child, my necklace, my feather, my offspring, my progeny, my blood, my color, my blood elation. Now please understand, please listen, for you came to life, you were born, for our omnipresent lord, the maker, the creator, has sent you here to earth…And now that you already see, that you observe how things are, that there is not contentment, there is not happiness, but that there is torment, there is pain, there is weariness; out of it comes misery, torment and pain. It’s difficult on earth; it is a place of weeping, a place of suffering, where affliction and hardship are common. And as cold, chill wind comes up and passes through. It is truly said that the wind cools the sun’s warmth ro4 people. It is a place of thirst and hunger. That’s just the way it is… But on earth life goes on.”  Bernardino de Sahagun, Florentine Codex, 1596

“A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.” George Bernard Shaw, 1903

“I have already enjoyed too much; give me something to desire.” The old man was surprised at this new species of affliction and knew not what to replay, yet was unwilling to be silent. “Sir,” said he, “if you had seen the miseries of the world, you would know how to value your present state.” “Now,” said the prince, “you have given me something to desire; I shall long to see the miseries of the world, since the sight of them is necessary to happiness.” Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, 1759

“Goal Post: 1. Be patient. No matter what.2. Don’t bad-mouth: assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you wouldn’t say to him. 3. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble that yours are to you. 4. Expand your sense of the possible. 5. Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change. 6. Expect no more of anyone than you can deliver yourself. 7. Tolerate ambiguity. 8. Laugh at yourself frequently. 9. Concern yourself with what is right rather than with who is right. 10. Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong. 11. Give up blood sports. 12. Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Don’t risk it frivolously. 13. Never lie to anyone for any reason (lies of omission are sometimes exempt). 14. Learn of the needs of those around you and respect them. 15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to redefine your mission and pursue that. 16. Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun. 17. Praise at least as often as you disparage. 18. Admit your errors freely and soon. 19. Become less suspicious of joy. 20 Understand humility. 21. Remember that love forgives everything. 22. Foster dignity. 23. Love memorably. 24. Love yourself.  25. Endure. I don’t expect the perfect attainment of these principles. However, I post them as a standard of conduct as an adult. Should any of my friends or colleagues catch me violating any of them, bust me.” John Perry Barlow, Principles of Adult Behavior,1977

“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back on its own weight… The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus.

“How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do.” William James, 1902

“Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination,” Immanuel Kant, 1785

“The happiness of society is the end of government.” John Adams, 1776

“It is one of the most saddening things of life that, try as we may, we can never be certain of making people happy, whereas we can almost be certain of making them unhappy.” Thomas Henry Huxley, 1895

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Mahatma Gandhi

“Until death, it is all life.” Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes

“There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.” H.L. Mencken, 1920

*All quotes from Lapham’s Quarterly, volume XII, Number 3, Summer, 2019

www.cidac.org

@lrubiof

 Luis Rubio

“Of all of man’s instruments that is not an extension of the body but of the mind, the most wondrous, no doubt, is the book”

Jorge Luis Borges

There are few themes as culminating in public discussion, in Mexico and in the world, as the manner in which to conduct economic affairs. Trump, Brexit and AMLO personify the countercurrent in the era of trade liberation: the emphasis being not on what has been won and the benefits attained, but rather the losses, the losers and the resulting inequality. John Tomasi confronts the phenomenon directly, but with an exceptional focus: in Free Market Fairness he takes a philosophical approach arguing that it is indeed possible to achieve both things: the economic efficiency that supplies the markets with the justice for which the population clamors. His proposal is that it is feasible to couple the arguments of F.A. Hayek, hero of the liberals, with those of John Rawls, hero of those pursuing justice on the part of equality. For Tomasi, democratic legitimacy is only come by when achieved in the presence of social justice and rights to property, the mainstays of each of the philosophical currents.

Noah Rothman writes a text on social justice, entitled Unjust, in which he affirms that the emphasis on social justice in terms of political activity entails an “identitarian” victimhood view that does nothing other than undermine democracy and freedom of expression. Situated within the context of United States politics, in which the identity of persons or groups has become the central factor in question, Rothman advocates for a well-balanced vision in democracy and the search for equity that lead to social mobility. Read in the Mexican context, very distinct from that of the U.S., the book permits visualizing easily employable philosophical guidelines to improve our own domestic debates.

I came by chance upon a relatively old book, on the nature of the Mexican presidency. In “The Man Who Could Everything, Everything, Everything” Juan Espíndola Mata analyzes the myth of the all-powerful presidency. This is a retrospective analysis of the presidency of the PRI era seen from the dysfunctionality that took place in the Fox years. Instead of absolute powers, the author asserts, the president abides within a constant negotiation with interest groups that procured the advance of their objectives. The president, in the nucleus of the system, surely had more power than that which the author concedes, essentially due to the pairing of the party and the presidency itself, but the argument is implacable.

Victor Bulmer-Thomas* argues that the United States is an empire (a term harshly disputed in that country) and that it is on the way to becoming a “normal” nation, which will not be as powerful but that will be at peace with itself.  This is a controversial argument but a powerful one because, in addition to its being sustained upon an thorough historical investigation, it responds to the logic that showed Trump the way to the government, positioning him as one additional symptom of the cause at the very bowels of the war that nation is experiencing with respect to its power, responsibility as a world power and the internal requirements for the solution to daily problems. Good read.

Everything Flows, by Vasily Grossman, was a revelation, thanks to Leonardo Curzio. A novelized chronicle of the Soviet Union’s Stalinist era, the content showcases human fallibility, the destructive capacity of an oppressive and incompetent system of government, human relationships subjected to the fears and manipulations of power and an unviable economy, social tragedy catapulted into broad daylight. Nothing like the absence of freedom to evidence human vitality.

Sophia Rosenfeld** attacks one of the most politicized matters of the moment, truth in political life. Conforming to an historical sequence, this author evaluates the statements in the sense that “fake news” is something novel and comes to a conclusion that is of utmost relevance for the world as polarized as that of today: truth does not exist: like democracy, truth is something that is forged consciously and collectively. Only thus will there be “facts” and perspectives that everyone shares and commends. An enormous challenge for modern society, bedazzled by ubiquitous information, instantaneous and always subject to discordant interpretations.

Peter Pomertansev published this year a sequel to his extraordinary book Nothing Is Certain: Everything Is Possible. In that volume, he described the absurdities of his work on Russian television and the manner in which reality was deformed to house the interests of power. In his new work, This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, Pomerantsev goes beyond the world of Putin to that to which his first work referred for expanding reality toward the trend that has made the strategy of false news its own, the famous “fake news.” What is extraordinary about the book is that, on contrasting the structure of absolute control of communication in the era of the Soviet dictatorship with the media chaos of our times in which anything goes, the world of today lays itself bare, evidencing itself as something not very distinct from that of those former times: the potential for infinite manipulation to control did not change much, it only acquired other modalities.

*Empire in Retreat, **Democracy and Truth

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@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

Politics in the era of the ubiquity of information is about narratives: contrasting visions of the world that exaggerate the differences and attenuate the coincidences, all for the sake of capturing the support of the citizenry and its vote. The essence of politics has not changed, but the speed of the message, the social networks and the confrontation inherent in instantaneous communication produce very different effects from those of the epoch of direct or unidirectional politics, through television. The result is a direct face-off that does not contribute to advancing the objectives that all politicians say they wish to procure, such as peace, security, economic growth and stability.

Over the last four decades, Mexicans have experienced two contrasting narratives: one that exalts the transformation that has produced the structural reforms whose implementation began in the mid-eighties, and the other that reviles the current reality, reproves the reforms and extolls an idyllic past. Between those two narratives exists a reality that the population undergoes daily and that probably entails something of each of those extreme positions, which naturally impacts the perception that the citizenry entertains of politics, of the government and of the future.

The narrative of the reforming success is very clear: reforms allowed for breaking with times of financial crises, stabilized the economy, laid the foundations for an elevated and sustained economy and eliminated inflation as a matter of concern for the population. According to this world vision, integration of the Mexican economy into the international technology, trade and investment circuits has permitted Mexico to become an exporter power, whose modern industry has transformed and converted into one of the most competitive worldwide and one in which all of the personnel associated with this segment of the economy are able to find better paying jobs and with greater benefits.  Entities such as the Mexican states of Querétaro and Aguascalientes are paradigmatic of what a good strategy of development can offer the citizens and the country and shows that, on following the chosen pathway, the country will be consolidated as a robust economy with a democratic political system governed by an all-encompassing Rule of Law.

The narrative of economic, ecological and social chaos highlights the poverty by which the reforms have been accompanied, the lack of economic growth (a mere 2% on average), the insecurity under which the population lives and the poor, uncertain means of livelihood without perks, which characterize the majority of Mexicans. The point of departure of this narrative is the high economic growth that typified the decade of the seventies, the social tranquility experienced and the public security that was the norm. This narrative occupies states such as Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas as paradigms that reveal the worst results of the reforms, the poverty that distinguishes those entities and the inequality that accumulates and that is increasingly obvious in the country. Instead of opportunities and achievements, this narrative has at its fore corruption, insecurity, impunity, and excesses of those in government at all of levels and dimensions. Its proposal is to return to the eras, and the strategies, that rendered possible the steadiness of the old days, which would fortify democracy and citizen participation. The problems started precisely when things deviated from the course with the reforms of the eighties, the very reforms that need to be cancelled to restore the capacity of economic growth and social development.

Each individual will amend and embellish the description of these narratives, but what is important is that, due to their nature, polarization is pursued: for some everything is right, for others everything is wrong. For the former what is consequential is to do more of the same; for the others everything must be changed. Were one to analyze the concrete data, the differences are less stunning than the narratives suggest, but the relevant part is less the narrative -that concentrates all the attention- than the reality of everyday life.

A more objective vision of recent decades would suggest that the Mexican economy demonstrates extraordinary diversity, that there are regions growing  at more than 7% while there are others that are lagging behind; that the greater part of those who are employed live in a state of relative precariousness; that insecurity is not associated with the reforms but instead with the lack of a transformation of the government itself and the political system; and that it is not possible to return to the past, but that more of the same clearly will not resolve anything either. In addition, the county is not moving in the direction of democracy or the Rule of Law. Perhaps of greater import is that Mexico’s problems are real and transcend the narratives that polarize but do not solve anything.

The great success of former President Salinas in his first five years of government was that he was able to achieve a single narrative and one which enabled the population to look ahead to make this narrative a reality. His failure in his sixth year in office had nothing to do with the reforms themselves but caused the confrontation of narratives that polarize and generate mistrust. AMLO would do better by displaying an ability to join with the citizens and bring that exceedingly destructive gap to an end.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

The bullets did not do the job. Hugs aren’t working either. Insecurity and violence increase and there is no reasonable diagnosis of the problem nor of how to solve it. A threat by President Trump was enough for those responsible of security to forget about the problem or its terrible consequences for citizens, ever more abused: government officials preferred to wrap themselves in the flag, ignoring even the very fact of the violence. Neither coarse nationalism nor the absence of a strategy will fix the problem.

It is imperative to separate two components of the issue: the American dimension and the violence itself: these are two perspectives that respond to different circumstances, although there may be links between the two. On the American side, the debate about the nature of Mexico’s problems has been going on for decades and has changed over time. For many years, after the Revolution, Americans watched as Mexico stabilized its economy and managed to settle a social and political peace. Then, with the beginning of the era of crises in 1976 and, above all, 1982, the debates there began to use terms such as the “failed state” when referring to Mexico. From the American perspective, the NAFTA negotiation at the beginning of the 1990s was a way to help Mexico for it to address its core problems and take a “great leap” towards development, once and for all.

Two decades later, the debate returned: Mexico did not turn NAFTA into a lever for its integral development; rather, its implementation did not go beyond the transformation of a part of its economy. As much as NAFTA has been extraordinarily successful in consolidating an export platform, it was evident in USs eyes (and for all those who wanted to see the reality) that Mexico had used the NAFTA as a mechanism for not altering the political order or affecting the interests close to the political class. It was in this context that ideas began to be debated on how to force Mexico to eradicate corruption and modify its political-bureaucratic structures. Those debates went nowhere, largely because, for the United States, the consequences of adopting an unsuccessful American strategy in Mexico could easily translate into a sudden mass emigration of Mexicans to their territory. In this sense, the natural propensity of Americans to be careful when acting on Mexican issues (even if this does not always appear obvious to Mexicans) has had the by-product of making it ever easier for Mexico’s most pernicious special interests to strengthen the status.

From the Mexican perspective, American concerns of Mexican corruption or violence can be seen as wrong, naive, ludicrous or interventionist, but that is no reason for Mexicans to pretend that there isn’t a major problem. Mexico suffers from a dysfunctional system of government, growing and intolerable violence and a world of corruption and impunity, all of which have the same origin: a political system designed by the winners of the revolutionary movement to prey and plunder. Instead of transforming itself to be effective in the 21^st Century, the system has incorporated new members, while preserving its core objective: to privilege the powerful in the broadest sense of the term.

While the economy has undergone diverse changes and transformations, some very favorable and others not so much, the world of privileges and corruption remains. It was functional in the thirties of the last century, but it is no longer so, no matter how much the president wants to reinforce it with the renewed concentration of power that he’s advancing. Instead of building a new system of government, the country has been paralyzed in this area for almost a hundred years. Therein lies the origin of the current dysfunctionality and, therefore, of the government’s inability to end the violence.

It is in this context that evils such as those of impunity and corruption remain in place (both components inherent to the post-revolutionary system) and, more to the point, that the government is unable to face its undesirable consequences, such as violence.

It is clear that much of the violence is linked to the drug trafficking business that, at least in a significant proportion, originates in the United States. However, the fact that violence takes place in Mexico and not in our neighbors’ turf constitutes proof that the problem lies in our system of government, since the same phenomenon of drug trafficking in the US does not translate into violence.

The fact that Trump might declare drug gangs to be terrorist organizations would have all kinds of repercussions, but it will not solve the problem of violence in Mexico. Hence, instead of Mexicans wrapping themselves in the flag, it would be much more appropriate to carry out a profound and honest diagnosis of the nature of the problem so that, in such context, decide what should be done and, where warranted, to request the type of support from the US that could be relevant to Mexico.

The problem of violence will not be solved by Americans with legal changes or with drones because these do not attack the causes of the phenomenon. Mexico requires strategy to develop a new system of government capable of dealing with the challenge of violence before the US attempts to impose solutions that will not solve anything, but that could end up dismantling the little that does work well.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

WILSON CENTER – Mexico Institute
Nov 24, 2019,
by Luis Rubio
@lrubiof

As the López Obrador administration ends its first year in office, Mexicans can look back to a period of unrestrained change, mostly to recreate the legal structures of the past. The president has not been shy or modest in his objective to establish strong personal control of all institutions and processes; rather, he moved, step by step, to subordinate the Congress, establish control of the Supreme Court and neutralize all the regulatory entities that were supposed to be autonomous.

The rationale is simple: he believes Mexico was successful back in the 1960s when the president had full control of the political arena, the economy and society in general; by recreating that era he expects to bring back the economic growth, stability and peace that characterized those times. Accomplishing this has meant backtracking on the reforms of energy, education, the tax system and the legal structure in general. With an extremely large series of reforms passed by Congress, many of them constitutional amendments, the president has amassed vast discretionary powers to threaten anyone and everyone.

Not surprisingly, the economy has slowed down. Investors, both local and foreign, distrust a government that is destroying the few checks and balances that had been built over the previous four decades and cannot function in a context of a government with ever more discretionary powers and ever changing rules of the game. Government and business clash on the fundamental rationale that divides them: whereas the president wants, in his words, to subordinate economic decisions to politics (that is, to the government), investment decisions in the 21^st century are based on markets, considerations of efficiency and clear-cut rules of the game. The divide is unbridgeable.

Nothing illustrates the nature of the AMLO administration better than its foreign policy, or lack thereof. The president sees no value in participating in international meetings such as the G20 or in developing close links with nations of interest to Mexico. He refused to receive Chile’s president, Sebastian Piñera, but did invite Argentina’s incoming president, Alberto Fernández, to visit Mexico: he will only deal with his ideological brethren. In contrast with most nations around the world which compete for investors’ interest, López Obrador can do without them.

Despite its popularity, the administration is facing dicey prospects. It’s security policy, based on the notion that if the government does not attack organized criminals they will respond in kind, has floundered in Culiacan. Its energy policy -essentially suspending the reforms of the previous administration by not auctioning any more fields or farmouts- has reduced investment in the sector and entails ever growing subsidies for PEMEX, which the government can ill afford given its rapidly diminishing revenues. All that the government can show a year into its six-year administration is a few casualties of corruption in the form of an imprisoned former secretary in Peña-Nieto’s administration, a fallen minister of the Supreme Court and some other prominent figures in jail. The circus these actions permit help sustain the president’s popularity, but solve nothing: they do not even diminish corruption.

The key to the president’s actions, and of his support, is the profound resentment that many Mexicans, but above all his own coalition, hold against the past, the business community, the United States, the reforms carried out in the past few decades, the freedoms that Mexicans have secured, and corruption. Hate is the major impulse that animates his constituency and the president exploits it relentlessly. The problem is that neither the hate or resentment nor the arbitrariness of the government’s actions on the corruption front are conducive to economic progress or less violence. The president has concentrated power remorselessly, but this has not brought back the positive results of the 1960s.

At some point in time, the lack of delivery on economic promises will begin to undermine the president’s credibility, which will force him to respond. The big question is how he responds then. During his campaign, he famously said that “I always think the same but act according to circumstances.” He has proven to be consistent in the pursuit of his objectives and rejects any call to shift direction. Yet, he has also shown to be pragmatic (as in fixing the crisis his own team created on the issue of the gas pipelines), as well as responsible in the management of the fiscal accounts. These factors are more likely to bring him to a standstill than to overstep and, with that, to provoke a financial crisis. Except that it’s no always obvious what might bring about a sudden change in sentiment within the financial markets.

If one takes a long view of Mexico, none of the conundrums that López Obrador is facing (whether he sees them that way or not) are new. In fact, recognizing the nature of Mexico’s legal system and the weakness of its institutions, previous administrations pursued novel ways to provide certainty for investors while gradually institutionalizing the country’s politics. Thus came NAFTA, which was, and is, the key to Mexico’s long-term stability and economic development, which is why the United States agreed to go for it back in the 1990s.

What differentiates AMLO from his recent predecessors is his conviction that Mexico has to retreat from the reforms and changes of the past four decades, rather than move on towards a different future. He deeply believes Mexico ought to look inwardly and diminish its international links and commitments, starting with those with the United States.

He has just finished one year of extraordinary activity and activism. Five more of the same would bring Mexico back to the stone age.

Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/year-retreat