Luis Rubio

The sum of the expectations, demands and needs of the population do not allow the new government much leeway. A month after his inauguration, Andrés Manuel López Obrador is now formally in charge and is responsible for the daily and the long-term comings and goings of the country. Now it is his responsibility and on him depend not only the satisfiers that the citizenry presses for, but also the change of perspective that he promised.

The paradox of such a resounding win is that there is no mincing of words in terms of the responsibility involved.  When a government emerges from a plurality of votes, as has been the case from the time the millennium began, the president knows that there is a majority citizen contingency that did not vote for him; however, with such an overwhelming triumph, the responsibility is integral and, in fact, absolute. The government of AMLO is responsible for what ensues and this does not make it freer, but precisely the opposite: it has to produce lasting results. In contrast with minority governments, the expectations are virtually infinite, and in a 6-year government, the short-term achievements must subscribe to the final result: there is no margin for error nor anyone else to blame for what goes wrong.

The problem for AMLO is that he does not control all of the variables that will affect his performance, and even those that are found within his sphere of influence, at least in principle, are subject to factors outside of his control. In terms of the former, the Mexican economy is implanted into the world and its main source of income derives from exports, which entails the enormous virtue that the internal errors (of vast transcendence with a coalition so complex and diverse as that which led to the win) are minimized but, at the same time, constitutes a factor of uncertainty about which the government possesses null influence.

The U.S. economy has been in an expansion period for more than ten years after its last recession and, in recent years, has been growing at rates superior to those of its historical average, which has generated a growing demand for our exports. The problem is that no expansion is perennial and this one shows all the signs of a recession in some months or at the beginning of next year. In addition to this, the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, has started to raise interest rates, due to lesser degree to some inflationary threat than to the rapid growth of corporate debt of that country.  Both factors –the potential recession and the rise in interest rates- imply a strong dollar, that is, a devaluated Mexican peso, and lower economic growth due to fewer Mexican exports.

On the other side, in the upcoming months we will see a perceptible growth in the transfers that the governments makes to the so-called “ninis,” young people who neither work nor study, as well as to older adults. This would involve a source of satisfaction for its beneficiaries and higher consumption, but not more economic growth. Independently of what happens outside, internal expectations will improve, at least for AMLO’s base.

Where expectations will not improve will be in the support platform that swept AMLO into power. In a growing and vigorous economy, the government has at hand many means to parcel out benefits to the diverse groups comprising its coalition, as transpired in the seventies with the oil boom and as undergone by countries such as Brazil and Argentina with the accelerated growth in the demand for their merchandise (grains, meat, steel) from China in the past decades. However, once that exceptional situation was over, the accounts payable reverted and, on not having invested in future growth, the recession ended up being inevitable. That’s what happened in the seventies in Mexico and could well happen again.

The point is that we have at our door a year that should be benign for the Mexican economy, but great thunderheads at the end of this period. The colossal question is how the brand-new government will confront the panorama that presents: will it seek to create conditions for a more accelerated growth in the future, or will it devote itself to identifying guilty parties for a situation that is quite obviously predictable.

Even more important, how will the coalition behind AMLO react: Will it be willing to adapt itself to a complex environment or will it call for immediate satisfiers, benefits and public expenditure?  Faced with the inexistence of options, will it exact radical actions from the government? The scenario, easy to foresee, obliges thinking about potential conflicts or, at least, about the huge complexity in political management on the part of the government.

The essence of politics is the imperative of being able to choose. Galbraith said this in a manner beyond compare: “Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.” The problem for AMLO is, as illustrated by his party’s conduct in the Congress, his followers are not on board with the plan of accepting what is difficult to digest: rather, they are characterized by an absolute intransigence and a total indisposition for understanding the complexity of the exercise of power. In this context, Will AMLO behave like a statesman or like an activist, adding or alienating?

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            Luis Rubio

To my dear Gaby and Rafael in this terrible hour

Every year the same thing happens: one year ends and another begins, like the normal cycle of life. On this occasion, Mexico is starting a new ear, under the promise of a radical change regarding what Mexicans have lived through in recent decades. Like all changes, there is a sense of expectation and worry, anxiety and delirium. However, none of this deprives us of the celebration of the year that is ending and the hopes for the one about to begin.

Each quarter Lapham’s Quarterly devotes its space to exploring the history, meaning and perspectives of topics such as rivalries, time, fear or discovery. An infinite variety, all rich in content and learning opportunities. The first issue of this year was about the rule of law, a subject that I am passionate about and that I have devoted a lot of time to studying, as well as looking for ways to advance it in the country. Here are some of the most interesting quotes I found in this volume.

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous its laws,Tacitus c110

Law is a flag, and gold is the wind that makes it wave. Russian proverb

If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us. Francis Bacon, 1615

When you break the great laws, you do not get liberty; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws. G.K. Chesterton, 1905

The development of our laws has gone on for nearly a thousand years, like the development of a plant, each generation taking the inevitable next step, mind, like matter, simply obeying a law of spontaneous growth. Oliver Wendell Holmes

The law is established from above, but becomes custom below. Su Zhe, c 1100

Petty laws breed great crimes, Ouida, 1880

Under the Draconian code almost any kind of offense was liable to the death penalty, so that even those convicted of idleness were executed… Plutarch c, 46

The benefits of the Code Napoleón, public trial, and the introduction of juries, will be the leading features of your government. And to tell you the truth, I count more on their effects, for the extension and consolidation of your rule, than on the most resounding victories, Napoleon Bonaparte, having established the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807

David Frost: Would you say that there are certain situations where the president can decide it’s in the best interests of the nation, and do something illegal? Nixon: Well, when the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.

There’s a delightful image in Plato that explains why a sensible person is right to steer clear of politics. He sees everyone else rushing into the street and getting soaked in the pouring rain. He can’t persuade them to go indoors and keep dry. He knows if he went out, too, he’d merely get equally wet. So he just stays indoors himself and, as he can’t do anything about other people’s stupidity, comforts himself with the thought: “Well, I’m all right anyway”. Thomas More, Utopia

One law and one justice protects the man of property, the man of wealth, the foreign exploiter. Another law, another justice, silences the poor, the hungry, our people. Ngugiwa Thiong’o, 1976

Anarchism urges man to think, to investigate, to analyze every proposition… Anarchism: The philosophy of anew social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful as well as unnecessary. Emma Goldman, 1906

Laws, like houses, lean on one another, Edmund Burke, 1765

It is perhaps impossible to review the laws of any country without discovering many defects and many superfluities. Laws often continue when their reasons have ceased. Laws made for the first state of society continue unabolished, when the general form of life is changed. Parts of the judicial procedure, which were at first only accidental, become in time essential; and formalities are accumulated on each other, till the art of litigation requires more study than the discovery of right. Dr. Samuel Johnson

The law of the land was vital to civilize society; but it could be a cumbersome and unfair thing. Richard Cohen

The law is like rain –it can’t fall the same everywhere. The person if falls on grumbles, bit it´s a simple matter- the laws like a knife, it doesn’t hurt the one who handles it. Jose Hernandez. The Return of Martin Fierro

There is something of ill omen among us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgement of courts: and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice… There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law… Abraham Lincoln

End and beginning: what’s gone is gone; now comes the time of opportunities, if we know how to grab them.

Happy New Year!

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                                                                                    Luis Rubio

                                                                                    Luis Rubio

A taxi is driven along one of the main arteries of the city, until, suddenly, it stops in its tracks. From a distance it can be seen that traffic at the junction with the branch of one of the city’s “expressways” is practically not moving. The taxi driver looks to the left and observes that, on the other side of the avenue, there is an entrance through which one automobile after another is entering the street. The taxi driver thinks fast and decides to recklessly make the turn and shave a few minutes off his trajectory. The cars coming the other way sound their horns at the driver, reminding him of his maternal ancestry but, in a few minutes, the taxi driver gets his way and handily returns the insult. The taxi driver behaved as many of us do time and again every day when we double park, beep our horn outside a hospital, go down a one-way street in the wrong direction, drive over the speed limit, etcetera. We do it and think we are very smart.

Behind the taxi driver there was another driver on his way to work and who observed the same scenario but who opted to remain in his lane until arriving at the junction, complying with the rules to the letter of the law. The taxi driver gloated over his bad behavior and made fun of the fools waiting in line to merge, while the man in the car behind him got to work late. It turned out to be expensive for the driver who chose to adhere to the traffic rules. This story is not different in any way from that of the exemplary citizen who goes to pay the yearly excise tax on his automobile within the established time limit, while their neighbor puts off going to pay until the last day. The citizen who pays on time later finds out that the local government has awarded a special discount to those who put off their payment. The one opting to follow the rules loses out.

In Mexico compliance with the law is optional, for governors as well as for citizens. Public functionaries decide to either apply the law or change it without the bat of an eye; the worst that can happen to the man-in-the-street for not complying with the law is paying a bribe and later observing, “I got out of it cheap”.  Those who observe the law get there late, pay more and complicate their lives. He who complies with the law is a loser.

In Mexico’s governmental system the law is an instrument that is used when it is convenient for the system: when it satisfies the objectives, usually political, of the functionary-of-the-moment, the law is THE LAW and must be complied with. When a government functionary dislikes what the law exacts, the public servant has two possibilities: one is to ignore it (the most frequent); the other, above all if it is the President or a high-level functionary, is to proceed to modify the law or to promote a new law that adheres to the objective being sought. When President-Elect López Obrador responded to Carlos Slim on the matter of the new airport, his point of departure made it evident that he sees the law as an instrument to adapt to the circumstances: without flinching an eye, he took it upon himself to decide whether he would apply the law or grant Slim the airport as a concession, as if it were his to give. It is not necessary to hold a bidding process, nor for Congress to revise the law or for the process to be transparent. The decision of a sole individual suffices.

None of this is novel or especially revelatory, but it does portray the clash between Mexicans way of being and their pretensions. Not long ago I watched a highly indignant driver, sounding his horn and shouting at a lady who had parked on Reforma Avenue, a main thoroughfare in Mexico City, creating an enormous bottleneck. One cannot just stop like that on Reforma as if it were a private parking lot. The interesting aspect of this was that just two blocks ahead, the same driver who had done the shouting did exactly the same thing. The driver stopped on a dime, clicked on his emergency blinkers and got out of the car to buy a newspaper. When someone beeped the horn at him, as he himself had done a few moments earlier, his body language was challenging and then threatened: “Want a fight?” He appeared ready to whip out a gun. Mexicans are indignant when another violates the regulations but it appears wholly natural to each of them to repeat that very action when convenient or when it serves their purpose.

Skipping over the procedural hurdles is part of Mexicans’ DNA and they do it every day. The case of the transit issue is perhaps one of the most conspicuous cases or, at least, the most visible, but it is merely a sample of the way we are. On one occasion I attended a session of the U.S. Congress with various Mexican legislators. The police officer at the entrance had a list of the visitors and requested an ID from each of us to check against his list.  One of our group moved up close and, with a tone of authority, told the officer, “I am a Senator of the Mexican Republic”, as if this mattered at all to the official responsible for who enters and exits. In English, the police officer answered in the most natural but unmistakable manner: “If you want to enter you must show your identification.”

The most successful and developed countries stick to the rules and do not dwell even for an instant on the alternative: the rules and the laws are not optional: they are obligatory. Those countries’ public servants have no doubts that the law is what lies within the code and that compliance is obligatory without the uttering of a word: it is not something optional. That is what renders equity and development possible. Someday, we Mexicans will have to decide whether we want a country that is developed and what that implies, beginning with complying with the law and making it be complied with. In the meantime, only the fools (there are better words for this) will comply with it.

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Luis Rubio

Let other boast about how many pages they have written; I’d rather boast about the ones I’ve read
Jorge Luis Borges

Jonathan Tepperman, the editor of Foreign Policy, argues in The Fix, that there are unconventional solutions to the problems that confront countries and that everything depends on the way the crises that come to present themselves are taken advantage of or utilized. Among the examples that Tepperman presents is that of   Botswana when diamonds, its main wellspring of resources, dried up; the manner in which Singapore ended corruption; and the extraordinary reconciliation that Rwanda achieved after the ethnic massacres.

Carlos Elizondo writes, in Los de adelante corren mucho, that the inequality characterizing the Latin American region is not the product of chance but rather, the result of the contradictions typifying our political systems, because they permit arrangements “outside” the legal regimes, lead to the exchange of favors among the elite and, in general, sanction the establishment of their own oligarchies whose logic is not that of development but instead one for their own benefit. The book lays bare the way these societies operate and provides perspective to the enormous challenge entailed in procuring a more equilibrated and across-the-board development.

The technological advance appears unstoppable, now with the connection of all sorts of devices, vehicles, clothing, toys for all ages, and persons to the Internet. Pax Technica, a book by Philip Howard, contends that we are approaching the “algocracy”, the government of algorithms, instruments that have become the most powerful political tools ever created and that threaten to subvert all manner of authority and political organization, beginning with the Nation-State. This author’s vision is catastrophic, thus obliging the rethinking -and reevaluating- of the freedoms that, with all of the obstacles and avatars, we have come to enjoy.

The vote on Brexit and Trump has generated far-reaching debate worldwide on the value and attributes of democracy and its viability. In Democracy and Its Crises, A. C. Grayling analyzes the circumstances that impeded the democratic system from dealing with the social forces that democracy itself had created.

The best book I read this year, without a doubt, was When the World Seemed New: George H.W. Bush and the End of the Cold War, by Jeffrey A. Engel. It is a political study of the foreign policy of the first President Bush, the years during which the Soviet Union collapsed, the first Gulf War, NAFTA, the unification of the two Germanies and the invasion of Panama, all of which came to shape what that President denominated “a new international order.” The work portrays a series of photographs that evidence the dilemmas and calculations that face decision makers at key moments of history, although they are unaware of this at that juncture. The book reflects the human fallibilities, the uncertainties and the complexity in the face of the unknown: Can Gorbachov be trusted or is this nothing more than a ruse? What is the Soviet Union’s real situation? This is a treatise on foreign policy –on the cusp between prudence and pluck- on when the whole world appeared to be at a new dawn. This volume complements that published by Bush himself and his national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed, two decades previously: a dispassionate perspective on what it is to govern. Both reveal in Bush a statesman perhaps less recognized precisely for his having been so solid, cautious and prudent, in dramatic contrast with the present occupant of that same office.

The Marshall Plan, designed to contribute to the recovery of devastated European nations (above all the losers) after the Second World War, has savored a prestige out of all proportion. It is rare to find a government that has not demanded a similar program to aid poor nations or those who underwent a civil war; in Mexico, this program is frequently invoked as an example to resolve the problems in the country’s South and Southeast. Benn Steil has just published a book in which he provides an explanation of the program in its historical context and its U.S. foreign policy dimension. The book explains that the character of the program was not one of aid, but a means to support local efforts and capacities in order for these countries to emerge from the hole in which they found themselves. Whoever reads this book will know that there are no easy or automatic solutions: development is not accomplished with hand-outs, but with great administrative and managerial capacity. It is no coincidence that Germany and Japan ended up being more successful than Greece.

Stephen Pinker, the author of The Better Angels, a book in which he demonstrated that humanity has experienced a constant improvement with the declining of violence through the centuries, has now published, in countercurrent, Enlightenment Now. Here Pinker presents the exceptional progress that distinguishes the human race, rejecting head-on the Populists who refuse advances and progress. What is fascinating about the book lies in the way it focuses on the propensity to take as a given that what has advanced will last and, within that context, the author’s defense of progress is relentless, in that he presents Populist movements as arrogant and fallacious.

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Luis Rubio

Mexico needs a change of regime just as the citizenry demanded and President López Obrador offered. But not any change will do.

For the second time in a few decades, Mexicans find themselves face to face with the opportunity to modify the regime and build one that responds to the needs of all of the citizens, one that impedes abuse by those in charge of governing -present and future- and that guarantees the stability of the country.  Vicente Fox had the first opportunity in his hands but did not have the vision nor the capacity to grasp it. Now, the circumstances have created a new, perhaps last, opportunity to institutionalize the country and truly transform it. The question is whether the new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will promote a transformation towards institutionalization or authoritarianism.

The key question is what does a regime change mean. This is not a play on words:  for some, the regime is the person, while for others, the matter lies in the nature of the projects that will in fact drive a given government. In reality, the regime is something very distinct and much more fundamental: it is the way that a society is organized to govern itself.

One thing is the political system of a country, while another, very distinct from this, is the nature of the regime. Most European nations govern themselves by means of a parliament that reduces the system into two powers (the legislative branch within which lies the executive and the judiciary), while the presidential system is based on separate powers with a president heading the executive branch. The regime is distinct from the system of government: it is the way that the citizens relate with the political system, as well as the mechanisms that allow for their interaction with the system’s diverse components.

Developed countries have formal and informal mechanisms that constitute counterweights so that no component of the system abuses or imposes itself on the others. Of course, each nation has its own characteristics, the product of its history and experience. In this manner, a constitutional amendment in Denmark, to cite a paradigmatic example, can take years because it requires three votes of the parliament and at least one election. In England there is no written constitution but there is a constitutional tribunal that settles differences among powers and advocates for citizen rights. France is distinguished by a hybrid system, with a strong president and a parliament with its prime minister. Each country is different, but the common denominator of all the developed nations is that they incorporate institutional mechanisms and formal Institutions that obligate the distinct elements to negotiate, interact and adhere to transparent procedures in decision making.

Those mechanisms are the essence of the regime of each country because they constitute the way the citizens are protected -or unprotected. An example says more than a thousand words: in a developed country, no government can expropriate an enterprise without just cause, in addition to that its decision is subject to judicial review. These mechanisms are designed in order for no governmental functionary to abuse his or her faculties to the detriment of a citizen, thus conferring certainty on the citizenry. If President Trump shouts or becomes angry, the average U.S. citizen does not suffer the consequences in their everyday life. In Mexico’s case, if the President decides on an expropriation and the next day changes the law to justify this, the citizen is absolutely defenseless. Something similar takes place when the government spends more money than it has without having to give explanations, engendering with this a devaluation, which immediately affects an entire society in the consequent rising of prices and rents. That cannot happen in an institutionalized regime with effective checks and balances, the latter the necessary condition for development.

The regime emanated from the Mexican Revolution consisted of a political system around which everything functioned. That system continues to operate and now not only in practice, but also even in the overwhelming legislative numbers accompanying the new president. With that power, President López Obrador can transform the country; the question is whether he will do this in the spirit of polarizing the citizenry or constructing the regime of the XXI century, one that fits the needs of the citizens and the economy, or whether he effects this transformation to consolidate his own power and that of his political group.

In 2000, Fox wasted the opportunity of exchanging the institutionalization of the country for making tabula rasa of the past: the conditions were perfect to achieve this because the PRIsts were terrified that the new president would raze everything, including themselves to the ground. Something not very distinct is occuring today: the whole country is on tenterhooks, desirous of building a different future. Everything is lined up to construct a new regime, a modern one, geared to joining all the population together toward a better future. This is the opportunity to break with the unions that hold back the development of the population and the abusive monopolies, with the lack of transparency and with the corruption. There will not be another opportunity. Hopefully AMLO will not squander it by leading the country backward.

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Luis Rubio

The country lost its way when it began to privilege economic decisions over political criteria. Things went well when leaders emanated from the people made decisions that separated -and, in fact, subordinated- the economic power and the interests of the elites to the political power. Therefore, the solution to the problems of the country -from security to the growth of the economy- lies in a change of vectors: from now on, the government will establish priorities and society -including all its social and economic components- will have to adapt. The result will be good because I am not corrupt.

This is a change of paradigm: the criteria that have governed the functioning of the country over the past thirty years will disappear, to give rise to a model of society that proved successful in the past and that should never have been abandoned because, in contrast with what followed, the previous one produced economic growth, social mobility, employment and political stability. It is no coincidence that Mexican society lived in peace, order and without violence. Our mandate is to restore the balance that privileged the people as a priority.

The message is transparent: Mexico can solve its problems if it heeds its internal causes, something that was abandoned with the change of economic strategy and the beginning of the reforms from 1982. That economic policy caused poverty and inequality because it did not generate enough growth to employ young people who, due to lack of opportunities, ended up in organized crime. The government will reorganize the political structure because therein lies the key to solving the country’s economic problems and, therefore, the issue of security.

At the heart of the country’s ills lies the corruption that characterized all previous governments, which cannot be prosecuted because there is not enough space in all of the country’s jails. However, as long as everyone is aligned, as was the case in the sixties, the mafia of power that produced all this corruption will disappear and the economy will be transformed to meet the needs of the people.

In terms of security, the strategy has been wrong because it was not understood that the police, military, drug traffickers and criminals -all of them- come from the people and the people are always good. Therefore, we must attend to the symptoms and consequences instead of fighting the causes. Violence is not a solution but, rather, the cause of the problems that affect us today. El Chapo, since he comes from the people, is good and deserves amnesty.

The world that the country abandoned after the sixties worked because the hierarchy of things was prone to development. The State ruled and defined objectives, priorities and rules, assuring benign results for the society. Infrastructure spending set the stage for private investment. The government controlled the private sector via permit requirements and the unions were disciplined through corrupt leaders. The governors were the implementing arms of the presidential priorities. The recreation of that structure requires an inward looking perspective, maintaining effective control of the governors, a new unionism driven by the State and the subordination of the economic power to the political power. The following months we will see the implementation of this new political structure and its results, in terms of economic growth and social peace, will become evident.

Everyone fits into the new project, as long as they accept the new rules -and are willing to give up the freedoms that they have enjoyed in these decades and legal certainty- and this is equally true for citizens, unions, businessmen, governors, investors from abroad, governments of other countries and the financial markets. To the extent that all these key players in Mexican society understand and join the project and respect the rules of the game of the new president imposes, progress will be unstoppable. Success depends on there being the will to address the country’s problems and to bring the people on board, because Mexico is a poor country that has been the victim of abuses by nationals and foreigners.

The previous governments went astray because they did not understand that the solution was in plain sight, in our own past. It was not necessary to look abroad, adapt the education system to the demands of globalization and search for social mobility in the chimera of exports, but to reactivate the domestic market, protect domestic producers and provide for young people who do not study or work. Instead, they engaged in frivolous pursuits: they accepted the imposition of rules from abroad, subordinated national interests to the market and business criteria, built pharaonic infrastructure projects, denationalized our oil resources and decimated the industry that lies at the heart of the development of the country, in the past and in the future.

The project is clear, and the vision leaves no doubt about what the new government wants to achieve. Its challenge lies in ensuring that the reality adapts to the project, because if not, too bad for reality.

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Luis Rubio

Governmental changes are always paradoxical: one administration exits knowing that it did not achieve what it had proposed and another begins believing that the moon and the stars are within its reach. Whatsoever the nation or the moment in history, political transitions are always a study in contrasts between optimism and pessimism, derailed expectations and realism with respect to all that has been gone through. The inauguration of a government is always promising, but the end is closer than it imagines.

The phenomenon is not new and reflects the nature of humanity. In his Letter to Father, Franz Kafka pens a suggestive paragraph:  “…The world was for me divided into three parts: one in which I, the slave, lived under laws that had been invented only for me and which I could, I never knew why, never completely comply with; then a second world, which was infinitely remote from mine, in which you lived, concerned with government, with the issuing of orders and with the annoyance of their not being obeyed; and finally a third world where everybody else lived happily and free from orders and from having to obey.” Kafka was referring to his father, but he could also have been speaking about life in society or a change of government: the ones inside, the ones outside and those who pay the consequences.

Now the most arrogant and simultaneously incompetent adminstration in the modern history of the country is coming to an end: a lethal combination that rendered impossible the consolidation of its pertinent reforms and these becoming the bedrock of a better future. Its arrogance impeded the outgoing government from understanding that the politics of the era of ubiquitous information lies in explaining and convincing, not in imposing, pretending that the future would vindicate it. Its deeds not only defeated it, but also made possible the worst succession scenario that it could have been imagined.

Once the government takes its leave, another begins, which is paradoxical in that the latter has generated the highest level of expectations Mexicans have ever known, but one that sets out from the principle that Mexico is a poor country, incapable of rising up and transforming itself. While Peña Nieto envisioned a grandiose future without having the least idea of –or disposition for- constructing it, López Obrador gives rise to unaccomplishable prospects but does not envisage that the Mexico of the future can be successful. He entertains peak clarity with respect to the urgency of including the entire population in the development project, not only the segment that has been the beneficiary for a long time, but his vision is retrospective and modest.

Peña Nieto thinks that he has left the country at its most pivotal point in time, at the zenith of development; López Obrador clings to the issue of poverty and devotes himself to the symptoms of a country that have left innumerable Mexicans behind. The Mexico City Airport illustrates the contrast: Peña, expansive, who dreams of a splendid future without having convinced the citizenry, face to face with López Obrador who cannot visualize more than limited and small undertakings for an impoverished country and one without possibilities.

López Obrador entertains a very limpid vision of that he wants to achieve, but not a project specifically designed for this. The strategies he has outlined from the beginning of his campaign, but especially during these long interregnum months, reveal a propensity for annenuating symptoms -of poverty, unemployment, disabled elders- to a greater degree than resolving problems and attacking causes. There is herein a confusion of causes and symptoms and a natural inclination for amassing clienteles and loyalties. There are obsessions rather than strategies.  His problem is that the latter will serve to mitigate the privations and resentments but will not satisfy the enormous expectations that he has generated.

Peña Nieto leaves behind a polarized country, one whose citizenry despises politics and politicians for their corruption and incompetence. But the Mexico that he leaves has a vastly more solid economic platform than most of our neighbors in the continent to the south and of many other latitudes and one with prodigious potential for advancing. Together with the lacks, errors, corruptions and arrogance of those taking their leave, the new team appears to be incapable of recognizing that there are good things on which it can and should build. With greater proclivity for terse judgments than for diagnoses based on solid evaluations, the entering government will soon find the limits to their lack of consistency, as illustrated by the Airport eye to eye with the Tren Maya.

Some years ago I was privy to the anecdote of a Colombian exfunctionary that comes to mind because it is applicable to this time of transition and to each of those who were and will be responsible for heading up domestic affairs. The Colombian, recently named Undersecretary, felt that he was floating on air. A few days after being named to office, on a raw, rainy and stormy night, he got into his automobile, one of the privileges of the post, and gave instructions to the driver. On arriving at the first traffic light, he saw a very well-dressed man, soaked and shivering from the cold, waiting for a taxi. On regarding him carefully, he noticed that the man was none other than his predecessor as Undersecretary. My friend never forgot the lesson: power is temporary and must be used to advance or is wasted and one ends up in utter ignominy. Paradoxes.

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Luis Rubio

Nostalgia is strikingly afoot. The government of Enrique Peña Nieto is finally over, and another is about to begin, about which it will surely be more difficult to find reasons to laugh. In this regard there is a great parallel between Peña and Nixon.

Nixon was a strange person, mistrustful, taciturn and Machiavellian. He plotted dirty tricks of every ilk (Tricky Dick), the product perhaps of a mind simultaneously brilliant and derailed, a mind that could envision a strategy for world peace (Nixon goes to China), and that at the same time could create an ambience that led to a group of “White House Plumbers” to enter and steal documents from the Democrats from a building that became famous for it: Watergate. His personality and contradictions made him an easy target for cartoonists and comedians who exploited every declaration, absurdity or action that made their readers do nothing but laugh.

Art Buchwald, for decades the dean of comedy writers, enjoyed Nixon like few others. For various years, he wrote multiple columns describing, conjuring up and satirizing the President of the time, to the extent that satire about Nixon became a sport for this humor columnist. While most people in the U.S. finally rested when Nixon resigned from the Presidency, Buchwald lamented this as no other: “If the truth to be known,” he wrote in a later column, “I needed Richard Nixon a lot more than he needed me.”

Something like that is happening with Enrique Peña Nieto. Of course, the exiting president is nothing like Nixon in temperament or characteristics but, as with Nixon, the end of his presidential term brought to a stop an entire era in Mexico. Whatever comes to pass with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the country will never be the same again.

Peña Nieto vowed to restore order and return Mexico to the path of economic growth. His offer consisted of restoring what, in his vision, had functioned in the past. Six years later, he leaves the country with some new -and not to be disdained- instruments, such as the energy reform that, were it to continue, would permit the transformation of vast regions of the country in the future. He also leaves Mexicans in the hands of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The two sides of the same coin: the achievements and the consequences.

The paradox of the moment is not small: in their historical vision, both personages, the entering president and the one taking his leave, inhabit a similar world. Both are politicians anchored in the Mexico of the sixties and they uphold an enormous nostalgia for the country that, in their minds, worked well. Both believe that the way to emerge from the problems of today (and that are defined nearly exactly in the same manner: security, growth and order) lies in the rebuilding of the old, all-powerful State of yesteryear. Where they differ, as occurred in the then PRIist world, is in their political philosophy. Peña did not advance his reconstructive project beyond the caricature of the imperial presidency, to a great degree because it is impossible to do so, but also because it flagrantly contradicted his own reforms. One cancelled out the other.

López Obrador feels the same nostalgia for the overpowering “rector” State of before, but he has been building it with power and not with luxurious artifices or dazzling mirrors. He is not motivated by media histrionics, but by the power to be wielded. As he readies himself to govern, now formally, he counts on a span of control never before possible, at least since there have been open and competitive elections; in addition, in a closed political system centered upon the president and practically without institutional limits in his range-of-action, his capacity “for doing” is practically limitless. If one adds to this the fact that a good part of the press has remained silent, has been intimidated or has engaged in self-censorship, AMLO is found at a rare point in time that may lead either to an extraordinary transformation or to a hecatomb. It all depends on one person.

The old presidency delivered some encouraging results, but also uncontainable, pernicious and highly destructive crises. From a country in ruins after the Revolution, today Mexicans have a vibrant nation with an economy in a much better condition -with all its avatars- than AMLO’s rhetoric during the campaign suggested. In addition, there is a population anxious to take the great leap forward that AMLO has put forth.  With it all, the change, whatever it might be, engenders expectations and fears (again, two sides of the same coin), entailing an enormous responsibility, because the risks -of doing and of not doing- are also great.

New presidency, country in progress. The paradigm shifts, but that does not modify the surrounding reality. The government’s mode-of-action will set the tone and the rhythm, which will inevitably generate opportunities that will confirm prejudices or modify them, so that the satirists, the cartoonists, and the critics talk of the power. The society would also have to define itself; what Norbert Elias called “the civilizing process”.

Buchwald benefited from the lunacy and gaffes of the president at the time, while facilitating the society’s coming out of the trance.   Nations grow and develop when the society acts and is responsible. That is how the Mexico of today must be.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

 Luis Rubio

The government that (finally…) is at the point of concluding lived besieged by what the president himself called the “bad social mood.” This is a vague concept that allows the transference of responsibility to others: It is not my fault but that of the population who does not understand. Using that measuring stick, the citizenry in Mexico has summarily engaged in a half century of “not understanding.” The exiting government never confronted the social mood as a problem, which led it to employ antidotes that not only did not attend to this mood, but that also exacerbated it, as in the famous media campaign, “stop complaining.” If the upcoming government wants to conclude in a better place, it will have to face the issue that all of the prior administrations have evaded and that is, in essence, the citizenry’s trust in the government.

The overwhelming majority of politicians have not wanted to understand that Mexican society lacks mainstays of certainty that confer on it a sense of security and future. Up to the sixties, the post-revolutionary governments achieved both of the latter by means of positive results in economic growth as well as in political stability; when. Beginning in the mid-seventies, crises and expropriations arrived, successive governments lost their bearings and never got them back.

From 1970, the citizenry has been privy to an internal war among politicians who have generated permanent polarization, creating deep-hewn social, regional, economic and political schisms across the length and breadth of the country. The security crisis is not the product of chance, but instead one of the incompetence of our politicians to transform the system of government into one suitable for the XXI century. The result has been an absolute incapacity to generate hope and tranquility, which are crucial for a “good” social mood or, simply, trust. After decades of the same, trust becomes increasingly more difficult to recuperate

Without the trust of the population, said Mao, nothing is possible. One can have arms and food, but there is nothing like having the acquiescence and cooperation of the citizenry to attain development. That trust is won inch by inch, but lost in the blink of an eye. Several of Mexico’s recent presidents achieved an inkling of trust only to subsequently squander it: like Sisyphus attempting to carry the stone to the top of the mountain, rebuilding trust is ever more difficult and costly. I ask myself whether the new government will attempt to do this if it really wants to make a difference.

In December of 1941, when Pearl Harbor was practically annihilated, the U.S felt defeated. President Roosevelt understood that, to win, he had to recoup the mood of the population, for which he pledged his first great effort to modifying perceptions, commencing when his Air Force bombed Tokyo the following April. The politico-social impact was brutal: suddenly, Americans realized that it was possible to win, thus the final stage of the war ensued. Something similar occurred in the U.K. when its coastal fishing and Merchant Marine communities wholeheartedly gave themselves over to retrieving the soldiers trapped on the French coast at Dunkirk.  England seemed to be quashed and on the brink of being invaded, but the heroic performance of the citizenry in transforming the popular mood converted the military endeavor into a true national liberation.

The next president does not have it easy. Although his plans are clearly very ambitious and grandiose, they will only bear fruit to the degree that he faces the deep-seated causes of citizen indifference and their profound distrust in the government. These months have shown that even the president’s most loyal acolytes harbor doubts and hold contradictory agendas. Thus, it is imperative for AMLO to address the distant causes of distrust. And soon.

In Mexico social ill-being goes back to Luis Echeverría (LEA), who destroyed the implicit “social compact” that had served to govern the country since the Revolution. His successor, López Portillo (JOLOPO), initiated his government intending to recover trust, only to end up wreaking havoc on it with his pathetic discourse on the expropriation of the banks. The devastation wrought was so acute that even later generations who have never heard of LEA or JOLOPO are skeptical of the government and reject it instinctively.

The society that viewed the future with optimism is today waiting for the other shoe to drop in the knowledge that the government –all governments- entertains other agendas, incompatible with those of the average citizen. AMLO might believe that he can count on an immutable base of popular support, but nothing is permanent and now, with the full responsibility on his shoulders, he’ll have end impunity and corruption and, for that, his persona will not be enough. He will have to construct institutions that limit his own power or he will end up like all the others.

The recent election revealed a profound social and political chasm. The winner has in his hands the challenge of polarizing or bringing the whole of the population in and, if it opts for joining all, his sole option will be to build guarantees for the permanence of citizen trust. That is, exactly the opposite of what he proposed to do as the presidential candidate.

www.cidac.org

@lrubiof

AMERICAS QUARTERLY
Web Exclusive

How AMLO’s Airport Decision Signals a Return to Mexico’s Past

BY LUIS RUBIO | NOVEMBER 6, 2018

The end of Mexico City’s airport project reveals much about how AMLO will govern, writes the chairman of Mexico’s Council on Foreign Relations.

Mexico’s President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador likes to frame his coming presidency as the start of a new era in Mexican politics. He also wants to re-establish the role of the presidency as the centerpiece of power. That was part of his justification for holding a $13 billion airport project already underway outside Mexico City up to a public vote in October.

But the informal and legally dubious way that vote was conducted – and López Obrador’s subsequent decision to cancel the project anyway – shows what his goals are and how much of an old-establishment politician he really is. The question now is whether outcry over his decision will be enough for AMLO (as he is widely known) to adjust his approach.

López Obrador has a clear vision of what he wants to accomplish, but no concrete plan for how to get there. Like politicians from the autocratic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the 1960s, he wants to recentralize power to recreate the old, strong presidency, and have the government establish priorities while the private sector follows along. He appears convinced the country lost its way when the old political system was abandoned, and reforms in the 1980s and beyond began to liberalize the economy and create autonomous agencies to provide certainty to investors and the public at large.

It is in this context that López Obrador’s decision to cancel the airport project must be understood. For him, everything is about politics: economic considerations had nothing to do with it. López Obrador’s decision was instead meant to establish new rules of the game, where he, rather than business or what he derisively refers to as “the markets,” will be in charge. But that shift may come with a cost.

Soon after he announced his decision, López Obrador said that negotiations would ensue to settle whatever claims contractors involved in the canceled project might have. It was a revealing statement. As in the 1960s, AMLO assumes that decisions of this magnitude are all about wheeling and dealing with a few influential powerbrokers. While he has already settled with most of the domestic contractors, Mexican style, he neglects the fact that Mexico’s economy has become totally integrated into the world economy and financial system. In other words, AMLO does not wield as much power as he believes.

López Obrador won’t take office until Dec. 1. But his airport decision clearly establishes the nature of things to come.

First, decisions will be political and López Obrador will seek to legitimize them through referenda (he’s already announced plans for a consultation on a rail project in Mexico’s southeast in coming months). If AMLO gets his way, he would also be on the ballot in midterm elections in 2021, giving citizens a chance to revoke his mandate.

Second, AMLO has shown willingness to eliminate, or undermine, independent or autonomous regulatory agencies (competition, telecommunications, energy, hydrocarbons, and so on), so as to further concentrate power in the presidency.

Finally, everything in Mexico in the foreseeable future will be about him. On this point, he’s not very different from the current U.S. president.

What López Obrador seems not realize, at least not yet, is that as Mexico’s next president his decisions carry far more weight than they did when he was an opposition figure. The airport cancellation, which roiled financial markets and the peso, is a perfect example. AMLO’s actions now directly affect Mexico’s ability to service its debt, and decisions made by investors both in Mexico and abroad. To that end, the airport decision – particularly the capricious way in which it was made – create enormous uncertainty for investors and citizens alike.

The current economic environment further complicates matters. López Obrador’s inauguration comes on the heels of the signing of a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement. The new agreement severely reduces legal protection for companies investing in Mexico. The danger today is that this combination – AMLO’s way of deciding and the trade agreement’s weakness – will combine to stall Mexico’s progress. It is worth remembering that NAFTA was originally conceived as a means to provide investors with certainty that the Mexican government would not change the rules of the game arbitrarily, and that this was seen to be in the U.S.’ national interest.

I expect AMLO will soon realize the enormous consequences of his decisions. The question is how he will respond. One possibility would be to search for scapegoats everywhere: from businessmen to Donald Trump to the media. However, the fact that this is coming so early in his administration, even before he’s been inaugurated, could well force him to rethink his ways.

AMLO won the presidency in large part because voters were convinced that “more of the same” wouldn’t fix Mexico’s problems. AMLO has a complex challenge ahead; if he truly wants to be a revolutionary, he should focus his efforts on strengthening institutions, rather than tearing them down.

https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/how-amlos-airport-decision-signals-return-mexicos-past

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Luis Rubio is chairman of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. He writes a weekly column in newspaper Reforma,and is the author and editor of dozens of books. His most recent book is A World of Opportunities, published by the Wilson Center.