Why improve if one can keep on being the same?  Why change if all is well? The natural tendency, perhaps the easiest, is to stay where we are, reject any change, and pretend that we are fine. As in the Middle Ages, our businesspeople take shelter behind the protector government in a search for the modern equivalent of the moats that tended to surround medieval castles. The circumstances were others, but the assertion is the same: impede things from changing. Impede prosperity.

Rejection to change is ubiquitous. The business chambers are perhaps the most vociferous, but are far from being the only ones. Their argument is reasonable, but absolutely erroneous: first let’s fix what’s wrong and then we’ll talk. Of course, the objective is to postpone this “we’ll talk” as much as possible, leaving the economy and the consumers to pay the piper. It is true that many things do not work or that they work poorly, beginning with the fact that the economic liberalization has been very unequal.  However, the opposition of the business sector to any opening is ludicrous.

Perhaps there is no better example of the absurdity of its opposition to opening than that relative to the negotiation of a free trade agreement with Brazil. The argument of the private sector is that the Brazilians saunter around Mexico feeling right at home, while Mexican products and companies encounter a world of protection and discrimination in that nation. If this appreciation turns out to be true, what the private sector should be doing is to demand from the Mexican government, in the most energetic terms, that it proceed to negotiate the immediate opening of Brazil to Mexican products, because equity can only be achieved in this fashion. Despite this obviousness, their argument is exactly the opposite:  no treaty or agreement should be negotiated until things within the country change. One can only conclude that, one of two: Mexican businessmen are lying with respect to “unjust” Brazilian competition (that in reality would be beneficial for the domestic consumer), or they lack any logical argumentation.  It also could be that they prefer not to change anything. There’s no other choice.

The business community’s attitude is not wholly distinct from that which characterizes other societal sectors or groups, an attitude that is reflected in the poor performance of the economy, in the skepticism and pessimism that have become axiomatic and, in general, in the disorder that our country is experiencing. Of course there are reasons that explain some of these attitudes, but what is astounding is the total indisposition to face the reality in which we have been slated to live. As Hayek once wrote, opposing everything is equivalent to attempting to hold back a great amount of water with a small floodgate: sooner or later, the water ends up not only overflowing the dam, but also sweeping away with it everything in its wake. Out-and-out opposition does nothing except negate reality: it does nothing save impeding things from improving.

A better perspective is offered by Héctor Aguilar Camín and Jorge Castañeda in their excellent new book entitled Regreso al Futuro (Return to the Future): “Removing the PRI from Los Pinos was the battle cry for the year 2000. Leading Mexico to prosperity, equity, and a functioning democracy should be the clamor of 2012. In 2000 we wanted nothing less than democracy. In 2012, we should want nothing less than prosperity”. It comprises the important question that we Mexicans all should be asking ourselves: what is needed for establishing the bases for the construction of growing and long-term prosperity.

The ills of the country are many and very pronounced. However, they are not especially distinct from those that characterize other nations. The difference is, in good measure, that we have decided to bestow privilege on the problems instead of attempting to advance solutions. The paradigmatic case is, without doubt, that of Brazil, where violence is greater than that in Mexico and where the infrastructure is much poorer, and, notwithstanding this, the attitude of its population is exactly the opposite: there, the question is what shall we do despite the problems that we face, and not what shall we do to continue without change.

The case of the business chambers is frankly pathetic. Instead of demanding better services, respect for the law, equity in trade liberalization, and the end of abuse, their demand is for privileges, less opening and, in one word, arbitrariness for my benefit and for no one else’s. This can be one definition of modernity, but it is certainly not a wise foundation for the construction of prosperity.

The paradox lies in that the first great beneficiaries of economic liberalization would be the very businesses who today regard any change with dread. One would expect that the entrepreneur would be seeking better ways of doing things, new technologies, improving its processes, raising quality, and, in order to achieve all of this, pressure the government to make a systematic boost of productivity possible. The Brazilian businessmen may enjoy many protection mechanisms, but their attitude is that of a booming sector that is desirous of improving. Our attitude is that of preserving and, inevitably, purposefully or not, abusing the consumer.

It is evident that the country possesses innumerable businesses and enterprises that are as good as any others anywhere, that are capable of competing and that engage in this daily. These entrepreneurs have demonstrated that the entire surroundings do not have to be perfect nor fully resolved in order to be able to compete and be successful. That is, they are successful despite the difficulties that the scenario imposes, despite the governmental regulations, the lack of security, and all of the obstacles that the bureaucracy can conjure up. However, instead of devoting themselves to holding the country back from progressing, they attempt to drive it. Of course, they all defend their interests, many of which are undoubtedly  legitimate. The political process –within the government, in regulatory and in legislative instances- is there, or should be, to ensure that the general interest prevails, beginning with that of the consumer. Being successful does not clash with having a long-term vision that allows for discriminating among the themes that justify opposition to those that are necessary for the advancement of the country.

The history of the most recent decades shows that free trade agreements have served to improve the conditions for the functioning of the economy and this has benefited everyone. These are clearly themes that merit support –and strategy- instead of fanatical opposition. We cannot aspire to prosperity while preserving that which generates backwardness and poverty.

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Justice and legality ought to be identical and simultaneous, but it’s not always like that. Victims want justice independently of strict compliance with the law, while the accused rely on the letter of the law to avoid arbitrariness. The tension between these two fundamental principles of social coexistence is healthy, but not always easy to conciliate. The case of Frenchwoman Florence Cassez, accused of abduction (and the cause of a major, ongoing, political squabble between the French and the Mexican government), clearly falls through the cracks that this tension produces in its wake. Over and above the specific case, the important question for us as citizens is what type of society do we wish to construct: one that adheres to the rules and obliges everyone to comply with them, or one in which justice is capricious and media-oriented, that is, arbitrary.

According to an old axiom derived from the Roman era and attributed to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, one must “let justice be done, though the heavens fall.” The principle is logical and powerful: when an injustice, a crime, or an offence is committed, the victim is fully within their rights to claim that the person at fault pay the price of their act in the corresponding manner: reimburse the cost; pay a fine, or serve a sentence. There is nothing more important for a society than that criminals face up to the law and that justice be done.

The problem, as we Mexicans know so well, is that the reality is not always so clear-cut. For example, it is not obvious that justice is being done when a community acts on its own in the form of a lynching. It is easy to understand that a population beset by grief due to the enormous wave of crime from which it suffers, clamors for justice and tends to accept any means of justice to avenge the crime. Within a context in which there have been thirty thousand deaths in recent years and tens of thousands of abductions and many more robberies than that, the fact that at least some criminals end up in jail would appear to be a reasonable form of justice. But, at what price?

Some years ago, there was an illustrative case in Spain. Narco traffickers received drugs on the high seas, and they unloaded them onto speedboats to ferry them to land for their distribution on the drug market. The drugs flowed without greater ado until the police developed the capacity to intercept these boats. In one specific instance that became paradigmatic, the police were able to detain one such craft. However, when officials boarded the boat, the drugs had disappeared into the sea. Although there were photographs of the cargo being loaded onboard, the drug was no longer to be found on it. The prosecutor presented his arguments before the judge, but the lack of proof was convincing: in this decision, the judge affirmed that he had no doubt about the contents of the boat’s cargo, but from the perspective of the law, the lack of evidence was weightier. The drug lords were set free, not because they were innocent, but because the judge put the rule of law first. Along the same lines, many Mexican criminals in the United States have set free or their sentences lowered not because they were innocent, but because the public prosecutors had failed to comply with due process rules, mostly technicalities such as not calling the Mexican consulate as a foreigner has a right to.

The Rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with laws that are written, publicly disclosed laws that are adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary governance. This is the principle that judges, such as the previously mentioned one in Spain, affirm and with which they exact compliance. These are not mere technicalities; they are the essence of principle of legality, of the rule of law. Poor governmental conduct pays a very high price in the form of judicial failure.

The Cassez case is complicated for these reasons. I have no idea concerning the guilt of the woman. What is clear to me is that there was a multiplicity of violations in the procedures. The victims of the abductions attributed to Cassez evidently, and rightly, cry out for justice. The question is whether any price for that justice is justifiable.

Asserting the rule of the law implies a commitment with a distinct social, political, and legal order. In principle, it entails a disposition to accept the law as the norm and mechanism of interaction among persons and between the latter and the government, whatsoever the matter shall be. It implies that the government (including the police and district attorneys) is required to be scrupulous in its acts. If one contemplates all of the themes in which the society interacts with the government (such as taxes, regulations, murders, robberies, permits, demonstrations), imposing the rule of the law would imply a radical change in our social and political reality. The number of instances in which we the population or the authorities violate the law is amazing.

Certain much-bandied-about cases of crimes (such as abductions or murders) tend to generate an extraordinarily charged environment. The media adopt extreme positions and attempt to lynch the parties presumed to be guilty without there having been a trial. District attorneys incite the mob and fan the flames. Many of these end up with scorched fingers because they were unable to prove their case or because impudence in the procedures defeated them in the end (as in the case of the little girl found dead in her bed a few months ago in the State of Mexico). Our way is that of the crime pages, which is contrary to the essence of the rule of the law, whose main principle is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. The great question is, then, what kind of society do we want to construct: one that achieves revenge at every corner (and regardless of cost), or one buttressed to the main principle of respect for people’s rights, whether victims or the guilty.

Instead of reinforcing legality, and with it, advancing the cause of justice, we have converted all the themes relative to criminality into a media circus. The authorities create montages as proof of their arguments (as if these were uncontestable evidence), reporters have become prosecutors and judges, and the police and district attorneys are consecrated as the least professional and competent professions of the country. Observing figures –criminals- such as “The Barbie” and the “JJ” become popular heroes should cause revulsion in us because there is nothing more contrary to justice. And, nonetheless, this is the form in which justice and the law, the two central tenements of a democratic society, have advanced in the country.

What type of society, and what type of democracy, do we want?

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The popular mobilizations in Egypt have opened up a great debate worldwide. Some governments, such as that of China, immediately declared a lockdown on all information sources deriving from this Arab country to avoid any possible “contagion”. European and U.S. public opinion has been tearing its hair out in a discussion that sometimes appears to have emanated from Rashomon, the Japanese film in which each of the actors has a distinct reading on a same incident. Some have celebrated the uprising against an authoritarian leader who, at his eighty-some years of age, no longer proffers viability even to the members of his traditional coalition. In the many takes on the events of Egypt in recent weeks, there is one question that is repeated over and over again: where else could something like this happen.

The question is not necessarily an idle one, but it is often absurd. There is no doubt but that in the world a broad nucleus of authoritarian governments persists that prefers to be left in peace, by their own populations and by the rest of the world. However, the notion that nations “become infected” says more about those making the assessment than about the history of the world. At the same time, the obvious fact is that the occurrences in Egypt itself are as important as the readings of the political dynamic of these in diverse world capitals. In many senses, the latter appears to be the more significant of the two.

There is no better perspective that that afforded by distance and time. My observations this week are the following:

The incidents in the streets of Cairo and in other cities in Egypt possess their own characteristics that some reporters have related with extraordinary clarity. However, perhaps the most interesting thing to observe is the debate in the Western capitals on what is happening in these localities. In the U.S., the debate pursues two dynamics: on the one hand, applause for the democratization of a country, a process that unifies the left with the right. And on the other, in the U.S. as well as in Europe, the duality is obvious between the much-welcomed opening and fears about a turn toward the most reactionary Islamism. The titles of journalistic articles such as Who Lost Egypt?, as if that decision had to do with Washington, Paris, or Moscow, are not exceptional. The aftertaste of arrogance in much of the debate truly wields an impact, above all because what is being debated has little or nothing to do with what is going on in Egypt: it is all about internal interests and their desire to snag a political point in a dispute that has nothing at all to do with that reality.

Revolutions, if that is what the culmination of these manifestations and protests turn out being, are always attractive. The euphoria associated with the liberation of the population and the dismissal of old power clusters is an interminable source of fantasies and novelistic opportunities, but rarely solve the problems about which the population is protesting. Egypt is an essentially rural country whose population depends on governmental transfers in the form of subsidies for bread and other basic goods. Those who protest, essentially the urban middle class, follow a universal logic: the liberté, egalité, fraternité that the French Revolution of 1789 continues to inspire. However, very few of these revolutions end in consecrating these elemental principles. Very few end up delivering a democratic outcome, perhaps Indonesia being the most relevant positive example of late. In the final analysis, the majority are spirited off by extremists of one stripe or another: from Robespierre in Paris and Lenin in Petrograd to Khomeini in Iran. After the romantic stage the hard reality sets in, and the contingents that are organized nearly always win here, they share a previously consolidated ideology, and are ready for anything. Some groups start a movement but others end up, in charge. So far it looks as if the army has taken control: to change everything so that all remains the same. In fact, both in its origin and dynamic, this movement has much more in common with the 1968 student movement in Mexico than with Prague or Teheran.

Everything indicates that there is a behind-the-scenes negotiation in Cairo. The old coalition that sustained Mubarak in power was propped up by the Army, which has now taken control of the government. The new prime minister has conducted the affairs of the Egyptian state for years from the organs of security and obviously has the capacity to articulate negotiations with the key groups in that society. While nothing is assured in these processes of sudden change, it appears most probable that the old power structure will be sustained in the government, but now without Mubarak. The old adage telling that the problem is not the power but rather the age of the person who holds it is confirmed once again. Mubarak’s error, like that of so many other authoritarian leaders (Porfirio Diaz comes to mind), consisted of retaining himself in power, considering himself indispensible, thus forfeiting the confidence of his own political support structure. There is no doubt that many Egyptians yearn for a world of freedoms, but it is not obvious that freedom is what they will receive in exchange for these mobilizations.

Is there something that the Egyptian crisis can tell us about the Mexico of today? Some international observers have pointed out that the potential for contagion is very high in the world in general, but above all, in countries whose governments have displayed particular incompetence, and many have exemplified this speculation with Mexico. The truth is that there is no parallel at all. It is possible that some similarity exists with the old system, but the country has evolved in a distinct direction. To begin with, one of PRIist system’s strokes of genius, learned at the knee of the regimen that it intended to institutionalize, the Porfiriato, was that of six-year presidential terms of office: the president could be very strong and abusive, but there were absolute time limits to the abuse. More importantly, however poorly things are transpiring in the country, at present we are able to partake of freedoms that were simply unthinkable before, and, in any case, there wouldn’t be anyone to rise up against. The old system only exists in the minds of some nostalgic PRIists, because all of us other Mexicans know that the power was dispersed and that there’s no turning back. Mexico is a complex country, and this complexity paralyzes it, but it is not an unstable country on the brink of catastrophe.

What the Egyptian case does demonstrate is that the population can tolerate many things, but that its patience is not infinite. Survey after survey demonstrates that the Mexican population does not want violence and that, at the same time, it profoundly understands the complexity of the moment that has been ours to live through. But this does not take away from the fact that the country has legitimate claims for a serious transformation concerning what is most deeply afflicting it at present: crime and economic paralysis. The majority will demand this at the polls, but some will be tempted to go down other paths. In Mexico, the problem is not the authoritarian government, but instead, the poor system and structure of government that we have. The pyramids and other likenesses are interesting, but the essence lies in the dysfunctional nature of our government.

It is an image of great impact. Two brains of three-year-old children: one half the size of the other. The difference: that of the big brain, “normal”, is from a child who enjoys good treatment, love, familial interaction, and positive stimuli. The small brain is that of a child who has been ignored, abandoned, who grew up within a hostile familial context, and who has been uncared for and neglected. The empirical evidence shows, in nearly Freudian overtones, that childhood is destiny: the overwhelming majority of persons who end up engaging in criminality began their lives being neglected and ignored. Likewise, children from modest backgrounds with normal brain development had nearly the same opportunity as that of the most privileged to make it in life.  The issue is fundamental.

Researches existing on these themes* are revealing. One study carried out some decades ago compared hundreds of families with newborns in a U.S. town in the state of Michigan. One group was given all types of support in order for the parents know how to stimulate their children’s development, while parents in the second group, the controls, were left to their own devices. The results of the stimuli exerted notable effects on the manner in which the children developed in subsequent years. From this seminal study arose an avalanche of researches whose results were so convincing that the police in Scotland decided to devote special attention to the development of babies from birth as a preventive measure of later criminality, while other U.S. states utilize the developmental index of these children as a predictive factor of the number of jails that would be necessary to build for when these children reach adulthood.

In one of many studies, one foundation offered a scholarship for the education of each of the newborns in one locality. Awarding a scholarship for merely being born appeared to be lacking in all logic and rationality. Some universities criticized the scheme because they considered it excessive: Would it not be better to grant scholarships to children who had already been accepted at universities, pursuing the logic that these students had already been evaluated and would have a better possibility of finishing their studies? Despite the obviousness of this posing of the question, the study’s proposal, and the financing accompanying the scholarships, was meant to invert the equation. Its objective was to prove whether the availability of scholarships would attract governmental health institutions and those of the civil society to care for these children and to create conditions for them to be successful, given their red carpet treatment from birth. The results were spectacular: not only did the services of the locality improve, but the attention that diverse organizations and institutions paid to these children radically changed the success profile of those with scholarships in comparison with those of previous generations without such an incentive.

The message appears to be evident: competent care of newborns triggers the development of healthy children who are likely to be successful in life. Observed from the opposite view, children who do not develop normally have an extraordinary tendency to end up in criminality and (in seriously minded countries) in prison.

When I first became acquainted with these researches and the results to which they arrived, I remembered the famous prologue of the autobiography of Bertrand Russell. One of the paragraphs reads as follows: “Love and knowledge, as far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old persons a hated burden to their sons, and a whole world of solitude, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me”.

How many of the children of whom Russell speaks, of the ills that characterize our world, and, in our case, the violence and the criminality, derive from an initial childhood of abandonment, neglect, or, worse, contempt. How many of today’s criminals were unwanted, abandoned, or exasperating children? How many of the criminals, abductors, and extortionists were neglected by their mothers from the day they were born? How many children from impoverished families could transform their lives through education? If one reads the results of the researches on these themes, the response is evident.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the implications of the researches conducted by diverse groups of neuroscientists as well as economists devoted to these themes. According to these studies, society’s cost for not paying attention to this theme as a high-priority public health affair is much greater in the long term. The cost of care is measured in relatively modest support mechanisms, education for mothers, calls to charitable organizations and NGOs to focus their energies in this direction, and incentives for society for recognizing and taking action in this regard. The monetary cost is relatively less. Contrariwise, the cost of not attending to it can be observed in what we are experiencing today: criminality, violence, abduction, and all that these imply for persons and companies in material and human losses, low job availability, security expenditures, and, above all, the generalized discouragement that has overtaken the Mexican society.

For decades, governments have launched diverse campaigns oriented toward resolving specific problems. This was the case in diseases such as polio and malaria, and, more recently, smoking, AIDS, and cervical cancer. The rationality of these campaigns has been obvious: these are diseases that, cared for from their onset, could transform an entire society, above all because solutions do exist –in some cases a vaccine, in others, a behavioral change- once society assumes the solution as its own, the problem disappears together with the costs for the persons themselves, their families, and the whole society. The theme of newborn neglect merits its being placed at this same level of priority.

*http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/council/ y

 http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/studies/earlychild/

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Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism, said that “he who does not trust enough, will not be trusted”. Mexico’s government officials have never trusted the population, this perhaps the reason that the citizenry’s trust in them is ephemeral. The theme is basic for identifying our lacks enveloping the possibility of adopting a development strategy that is susceptible to being successful.

The old debate with respect to the functioning capacity of a government is concerned with what commands more weight: the leaders, or the institutions. Typically, the least developed societies are characterized by weak institutions, while the most developed are those possessing strong institutional structures that regulate the life of the society and that rapidly funnel the whims of the people into these. From this perspective, there is not the least doubt that the strength of the institutions of a country constitutes a key factor in their capacity for development.

Institutions are important because they depersonalize the decision-making processes and confer certainty upon the citizen. An institutionalized society does not depend on whether an individual –be it the president, the prime minister, or the most modest bureaucrat- gets out on the right side of the bed every morning  or feels like attending to the citizenry. Rather, institutions establish limits and processes that hinder these individuals from abusing power. Thus, a good government can achieve the coherent and effective functioning of the entire governmental structure, but a bad one does not wield sufficient power to wreak damage on it. Institutional strength permits avoidance of abuse of the citizenry by an exceptional but perverse leader.

The function of leadership is more complex. A good leader can do magic in a society, but a bad one can cause terrible damage. Paul Johnson* affirms that Churchill was a great leader because he procured the confidence of the society. “We trusted in Winston Churchill to save us, and he in turn, trusted the British people to have the courage and endurance and the intelligence and strength to make salvation possible”. In institutionalized societies, a good leader can be the factor for transformation without placing social stability at risk.

Something similar can occur in underdeveloped societies, but the risks are much greater. One never knows whether a leader will be a positive or a negative factor. The absence of strong institutions that limit the leader or that make him or her accountable converts him or her into an uncertain factor who could as easily be a dictator as an exceptional constructer. Anyone observing the panorama of our history or that of nations similar to ours will find enlightening examples in this regard. Brazil’s ex-president Lula da Silva proved to be an exceptional leader, but he had to run four times for president to win over the population’s trust.

In the eighties, we had a formidable example of the successes and risks of a strong leader. Carlos Salinas was an exceptional leader who broke with the traditional governmental measuring rods, changed fundamental structures, especially in the economy, and transgressed against the power factors that we currently call “de facto powers”. All of this earned him the trust of the population and made it possible for him to advance a significant reform process. This same person eventually made decisions in the currency exchange arena and through the presidential succession process, in addition to mismanaged familial business dealings, which led to one of the deepest crises in our recent history. Vicente Fox did not lead us into an economic crisis, but was elected within an environment of exacerbated expectations that he did not satisfy, but also one which Fox was not even capable of managing, all of which led to enormous and profound disillusionment. Both cases displayed two sides of the same coin: the risks and virtues of a leader in a society without strong institutions.

It may be that much of the pessimism that permeates our present environment is the product of the destruction of illusions generated by these two presidential figures, exceptional leaders who, in the last analysis, disenchanted the citizenry who trusted in them and who in the end felt betrayed, to the extent of their rebuffing any proposal for change: the population delivered their trust to them, but received nothing in return. Had there been strong institutions, the damage would have been less, but not so the disillusion. When expectations are so great, as Obama is now coming to discover, disillusionment is inevitable.

In the same article, Johnson argues that the transcendence of leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in their respective countries was due to that they earned the trust of the citizens because the leaders trusted in the citizenry. “The processes of earning and granting trust are gradual and almost metaphysical. So it is that a good leader, at some point, ceases to be a politician, an office holder; he or she becomes a trusted institution. And from that point on the nation becomes healthier, more secure, and thus, happier”.

Nomination for the 2012 presidential candidates will take place later this year. The population will surely expect that the individuals who run for this office will be capable of exercising effective leadership, but one that lies within the framework of the institutional frameworks in effect that, no matter how weak, are crucial for avoiding replication of cases such as those of Venezuela. Perhaps the greatest challenge will be to find a leader capable of inspiring the population by his or her integrity and strength of character, as well as by their vision and judgment, all of which are indispensable for gaining the confidence of the citizenry and exercising the presidency effectively. If there is something that we require, it is a leader inclined to confront the special interests that hound and paralyze the country but, at the same time, one who is able to understand the limits conferred by the necessary trust of the citizenry.

Fukuyama, the author of Trust, asserts that societies that achieve development are those that construct a solid foundation of trust: trust among citizens to be able to effect market exchanges and transactions or to arrive at agreements in the political terrain. The sole possibility of breaking away from our institutional weaknesses, as well as from the powers that paralyze the country, resides in a leadership that is capable of understanding the risks and challenges, and one that despite this, earns the trust of the citizenry. For Paul Johnson, this is only possible when the leader trusts the citizenry, something exceedingly more difficult to attain and even worse given our recent experiences.

* Forbes, November 18, 2010

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A little over one hundred years ago, journalist and historian Francisco Bulnes published his famous book “The Great Lies of Our History”, in which he demystified the life and deeds of Santa Anna. If it were urgent in that era to decode lies, today our shortfall involves truths. Felipe González, ex-President of the Government of Spain, said not long ago that Mexicans appear to be afraid of the truth, and that this fear translates into irresponsibility, and that this is perhaps the main source of our paralysis today. When the truths are not dealt with, candidates promise the moon and the stars, and no one can make them comply because everyone knows from the beginning that it is no more than a game. The problem is that this game is costing us the viability of the country.

It comes as a surprise to no one that we are confronting enormous problems. This is not unusual in the lives of people or nations. What is unusual is the absolute disinclination, not only to confront and resolve these, but even to discuss them. The problems are not discussed, but rather, are eluded because to confront them is politically incorrect. This leads to the proposal and discussion of law initiatives that are not prone to attacking problems at the root, to presenting proposals adjusted to what the legislative power can tolerate and not what is required, or, simply, that evade the relevant themes. This accomplishes nothing more than nurture the circles of distrust that characterize the relationship between politicians and citizens, and even worse, it lays the foundations of cynicism, which is the first cousin of the pessimism that dominates Mexican society these days.

The dilemmas, injustices, and challenges that plague the country cannot be ignored. What follows here is a brief enumeration of some of the most obvious.

• The oil is running out. It is true that the traditional oil wells can be exploited with better technologies, but oil as a source of financing the public deficit and all of the dreams of our politicians and, therefore, as a mechanism of evading reality, is coming to an end. Despite this, in recent years a new corporate regime for the national oil company Pemex was approved and it was decided to build a new refinery, neither of which is appropriate in view of the current reality. Instead of recognizing the fiscal reality of the country and providing the company with a functional and rational system of internal governance that is appropriate for a rapidly changing company and industry, time goes by without anything happening. Just pipe dreams.
• The flip side of the oil theme is the fiscal matter. The financing structure of public expenditure is very poor, evasion is massive, the bureaucracy charged with tax collection is impenetrable, and, to top it all off, the system promotes tax evasion and provides incentives for permanent growth of the informal economy.
• The informal economy is the sole sector with non-stop growth but, paradoxically, it is also the only sector of the economy that has absolute limits to its growth. There are more and more Mexicans involved in the informal economy (some calculate that it comprises up to two thirds of the economically active population) and it represents between one third and one half of the total economy. The problem with the informal economy is that the enterprises of this netherworld cannot reach a sufficient scale to prosper because they do not want to attract the attention of labor and fiscal authorities, but principally, because they have no access to credit, without which growth is impossible. The existence of the informal economy is the best proof of the erroneousness of our labor and fiscal policies.
• Labor legislation was designed to satisfy the big unions and to guarantee the system of a generous trade-off of benefits for union leaders in exchange for the political control provided for the system by these kingpins. This labor regimen met the political needs eighty years ago, but has, at present, become a burden for the country’s development. What is needed is flexibility, the capacity to create and destroy businesses, transfer tangible assets, and generate jobs that are appropriate to a service economy such as that of the XXI century, totally distinct from that of the basic industry of the last century’s thirties. Union opposition to any change is explicable, but the sacrifice of the remaining 95% of the population is somewhat costly… It is impossible to construct a modern nation while four or five unions extort the government.
• In the matter of taxes, the starting point is mistrust: the authorities do not trust the citizenry; thus, they have elaborated a maze of requirements, procedures, reports, and payments that only an army of accountants can satisfy. The result is a tremendous bias in collection that, in fact, promotes tax evasion. In the labor terrain, a modern country that aspires to success in leading-edge activities and sectors of economic development cannot function without a tax collection system that simplifies and facilitates compliance with fiscal obligations, but, above all, one that derives from co-responsibility and trust.  The fiscal bureaucracy is as much to blame for poor tax collection as are, as well, the tax evaders, who do nothing more than take advantage of the system.
• The judicial system is another of our blights. In the executive quarter, the attorney general’s prosecutors (ministerio publico) are an embarrassment: their incompetence calls for a full redefinition due to their corruption or mere incapacity. On the judicial side, the Supreme Court, although timid in assuming its constitutional character, has become a central pillar of the governability of the country. However, the entire tribunal system is in incompliance with its core objective: they spend wagonloads of money, but justice does not materialize. It is not that everything is corruption, but that everything is designed for nothing to work.

We possess an extraordinary predilection for ferreting out the guilty parties instead of finding solutions, or even elucidating the nature of the problems. One cannot pretend that the economy works while fiefs, privileges, and preserves of power prevail. A competitive environment cannot be created from one that excludes, before it starts, key sectors of the economy such as oil, electricity, and communications. Those interests may be very powerful, but as long as these topics are not discussed in public, it is impossible to begin to defeat the former, and reticence to do so winds up being an accomplice. We must call things by their name, and Mexico is experiencing a profound fear of facing the key issues that paralyze us. “The nation that does not love the truth”, said Machiavelli, “is the natura6 l slave of all of the evildoers”.

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“Don’t cross the stream to find water” says a Norwegian proverb, which is perfectly applicable to our dilemmas with respect to growth. Years of listening to governmental projects, independent proposals, and interminable discussions that contrast with the reality have obliged me to rethink my own appreciation of things and reflect on our penchant to ford the stream in search of what is there, directly in front of us.

The initiation of a year, and above all in this bona fide political year, would make it propitious to redefine the basic theme for our country. What follow are ideas, observations, and lessons learned concerning economic growth.

• Transcending all else, the problem is not technical but political. No matter how entrenched special interests and de facto powers are, the country needs ways out. What is required is a combination of project, strategy, and leadership. Countries that have been able to emerge from their respective logjams have assembled these three factors, on occasion surgically and in pre-planned fashion (such as Singapore or Korea), but in the majority of cases, it has been less plan than the political capacity to articulate a solution. This is where we have failed.
• This said, the technical component is fundamental. Years of meetings of the so-called “Huatusco Group” between economists of distinct schools of thought reached agreement on the general, but not on the specific, aspects. Many continue to think that the solution lies in a deficit in public expenditure, while others would leave everything to the market. The former do not recognize that when excessive demand is generated, we begin to import, and this leads us to an exchange crisis. The latter ignore that the government is there to create conditions for things that would otherwise be impossible. Some infrastructure projects are not inherently profitable, but they can make it possible for an entire region to develop, generating economic as well as social returns that transcend the original project by far.
• Our true challenge is the functioning of the government: we went from a government that did everything to one that does nothing, beginning with security. The government must create the conditions for development, blaze the trail, and set the economy on course. The solution does not reside in engendering an industrial future founded on protectionism, but rather, fostering investment in the country, starting with the development of an industry of national and foreign suppliers, but based in Mexico, as well as sectors of obvious potential, such as tourism.
• In Costa Rica, a tiny nation, the government offered a (proportionally) huge subsidy to Intel for them to establish a factory for manufacturing chips. Everyone criticized the project because, they argued, there was no sense whatever in subsidizing a private enterprise. These critics were right, but the government that provided the subsidy was thinking on a grand scale: what it wanted were not 300 direct jobs, but to convert the plant into a trigger of the transformation of Costa Rican into a services economy: the project obligated them to modify the entire educative structure of the country, forced them to construct modern industrial parks, and required investment in physical and health infrastructure comparable with that of other nations who wanted Intel. The result is that the whole Costa Rican economy was transformed from a sole project. No other Central American country has the perspectives that Costa Rica entertains. Leadership and vision.
• The business community complains about lack of credit. The evidence suggests that the problem does not arise there. Instead, our economy has split in two: the big companies that compete and export have no problem at all with acquiring credit, while the small ones have neither project nor capacity for utilizing credit. But the essential problem dwells in the factors that drive the existence of small businesses. One way of understanding the problem is that we have a formal economy made up of, typically, big businesses, and an informal economy composed of small businesses. The informal economy lives in tax and employment obscurity, which pleases many of the proprietors, but impedes the growth of employment, production, and productivity. At the core of the problem are found the tax and employment laws that, in practice, encourage informality. Labor costs and obligations are so trying and costly that they discourage formality; the fiscal procedures make tax evasion attractive. To grow, these two components will have to change. There’s no other way. While the tax bureaucracy and union interests continue to gain, the economy will remain paralyzed.
• Anyone who observes the creativity of the Mexican (from jacks of all trades to the pop and candy sellers in Mexico City traffic loops) knows that the entrepreneurial potential of the Mexican is infinite. However, this potential runs smack into the wall of bureaucracy, informality, insecurity, and rules of the game that favor big business. Creating a business is a hassle, and to registering it on the stock market is a near-death experience. The Brazilians are not better entrepreneurs, but their rules of the game facilitate the development of driven entrepreneurs who are disposed to have a go at it: in excess of one thousand businesses are registered on the stock market every year. Here just one group is worth more than 60% of the stock market.
• To construct a country requires a sense of course and the certainty that the rules of the game will stand up. This is what differentiates rich from poor countries. When rich countries change the rules, as happened recently in the U.S., investment collapses. If this occurred there, where the institutions are so solid, here the challenge and the risk is immense. Time has convinced me that there is no successful country without strong and competent leadership. On lacking strong institutions, someone has to forge them and this implies vision and obliging the interests that have us paralyzed to fall into line. Of course, to bet money on an illuminated leader is equivalent to playing the lottery; but the evidence is enormous: Spain, Korea, Chile, Singapore, India, China, Brazil, South Africa. In each and every one of these cases there was project and leadership. And of course, there are dozens of examples of failed leaderships that led their countries, including ours, to break down. The difference must be made by a society that protects competent leaders but that at the same time delimits them and obliges them to behave. What we don’t need are power seekers, caciques in disguise, gamblers, or hope mongers of revolutionary justice. At the initiation of these pre-election years, it is imperative to meditate on the type of leadership the country needs and on the determinants to be imposed so that, once and for all, it would be the country that would prosper.

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Now that he has finally been freed in order to be able to redirect his life in this world of criminality and abuse, there are two indelible characteristics in my head concerning this man of light and shadows who is Diego Fernández de Cevallos: his infinite disposition for being of service and present under difficult circumstances, and his extraordinary capacity for resolving problems, negotiating situations, and contributing to the nation’s progress. His human quality and his vision as a statesman exceed all other facets of his life as an attorney of interests and causes that are on occasion difficult to defend: the nature of his businesses has never restrained him from being solicitous of the issues and problems of others, and he has always had a special ability for “appearing” at key moments or in crisis situations. No less momentous, he has unfailingly been predisposed to devoting himself to national affairs, and never mistook national affairs for others. The terrible experience that he has undergone is, finally, over, permitting and enjoining us to think of the public Diego, Diego the statesman.

His abduction distressed many, and at the same time served for others to collect on debts and experience what the Germans call schaudenfraude, relishing in another’s misfortune. I suppose that a personality as strong and as involved in such a vast array affairs and themes inexorably generates passions, but it is also too facile a way to ignore, and, above all, disregard, the relevance and importance of a person such as Fernández de Cevallos in the political panorama. The figure of Diego countenances speculation on something historians have always cautioned against: what would have happened had Diego been president instead of the two PAN Presidents.

Fortunately, it is unnecessary to enter into speculation excessively. Diego’s momentum through the legislative power in the eighties and nineties provides irrefutable data as well as tangible examples that illustrate what, predictably, he would have done, at least in terms of his modus operandi, on reaching the presidency. In that era, while Fox literally donned donkey ears on the occasion of one presidential address to the natio to illustrate his anger with the old system, Diego devoted himself to negotiating many of the few reforms that were advanced during that period and that emerged as extraordinary when compared with subsequent ones. Thanks to his lawmaking leadership of the ranking legislative minority, when he was anointed “Chief Diego”, reforms were approved in banking, electoral, agricultural, and commercial matters. Easy enough said, but had Salinas not encountered an opposite number such as Diego, it is perfectly feasible that even the scarce advancement of that epoch would have been impossible. Many will argue that this latter scenario would have been preferable, but it is evident to any reasonable individual that, for over 20 years, the country has been able to survive -economically as well as politically- thanks to that relatively modest series of reforms.

Had he been president during the post-PRI era, that is, from 2000, it is reasonable to suppose that Diego would have exhibited a negotiating attitude, would have sought out the PRI, but probably also the PRD –his pragmatism supersedes any ideological stumbling block- for advancing the modernization project of the country. Beyond what the government of a pragmatist would have been able to achieve or any speculation on what would have comprised his government’s agenda, there are three things that appear indubitable to me: first, it would have had clear objectives; second, it would have had a strategy to attain these, and three, it would have transcended the hindrances and psychological and historical barriers that characterize and bar most members of PAN from constructing a national agenda. I entertain not the least doubt that his logic would have been one of achieving the objectives and not of collecting on past invoices.

The crux of the matter is that two PANist presidents, each with his own personality and characteristics, have had a sole common denominator: their absolute unwillingness to deal with the PRIists. Lest the first PANist government would have attacked the PRI to the death immediately on assuming the presidency in 2000, the anti-PRI strategy ceased to have any viability after 2001 and became a mere parapet and justification for the lacks and insufficiencies of those administrations. It is evident that one possible strategy would have been that of giving the PRI an ultimatum: institutionalize, or we will respond with the full force of the law to all of the evils caused by their governments. In retrospect, it is impossible to determine how feasible or successful a project of that nature might have been, but no doubt assails me as to whether the opportunity for doing so was available in 2001. After that juncture, everything proceeded to another plane and the PRI became the only practicable counterpart. Fox and Calderón decided not to take this upon themselves and, in so doing, condemned their administrations to the disaster that history will consign to them.

I have no idea of how many pragmatic PANists like Diego exist, but they certainly have not been presidents. The complexity of divided government is not minor, but the former has been accentuated by the absolute absence of pragmatism and recognition of the realities of power in the post-PRI era. Observing the behavior of the most prominent politicians of both stripes from 2000 on, I am left with the distinct impression that we would have been able to advance to a much greater degree had there been the capacity and the negotiating disposition to effect this. Institutional structures are most important, but it is very easy to exaggerate their relevance in a country with such weak institutions. Under these circumstances, effective leadership could have done magic.

Diego, as all of us, has his fallibilities, but within the context of a country with enfeebled institutions that lived for years under the yoke of authoritarianism and the discipline imposed by unwritten rules, he has been the prototype of the “one-man institution”, that rare species of person –of which there are many- who engages in diverse activities –those of government, political parties, business, journalism, etcetera- who is committed to a vision of the State and who places this above other considerations, and without the existence of whom it probably would have been impossible to compensate for the personal as well as institutional shortcomings of our public life. What wields an impact is that this “species” developed at all, particularly because this practically did not occur in most countries that experienced submission to military and authoritarian dictatorships.

It is impossible to imagine what the extent of success or failure of a PANist government headed by a person like Diego would have been in the post-PRI era. What I do not entertain any doubt about is that he would have at least made the attempt, and in this the difference would have been enormous.

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A proposal to solve the problem of narcotrafficking and construct a new development platform is circulating on the Internet. Some perhaps might brand this as unviable, and it certainly is no more than an expression of deep frustration, but a keen and experienced observer of our political/governmental idiosyncrasy affirms that “this is the most serious and best conceptualized program that I have seen. Above all, because it is perfectly feasible and doable by our excellent political class”. The issue merits serious consideration.

The proposal is elegant in its simplicity: it proposes ending narcotrafficking in three years by means of an infallible methodology, the NONAMEX project.

The project comprises five steps: “I. Legalize the drug business; II. Declare it a strategic area for national development; III. Nationalize the narcotics production industry; IV. Create an autonomous entity to run a state monopoly on drug production and commercialization: the National Operator of Mexican Marijuana and Alkaloids (NOMAMEX); V. In a national assembly headed by the following delegates and senators: Carlos Romero-Deshamps; Napoleón Gómez-Urrutia; Joaquín Hernández-Galicia; Elba Esther Gordillo, and Martín Esparza-Flores, among others, constitute the Mexican Union of Narcotics Industry Workers; VI. Wait a couple of years; VII. Create a legislative commission charged with auditing NOMAMEX, and VIII. Problem solved. In the third year, we will be able to observe, among the National Narcobusinesspeople, strikes, internal power struggles, and absenteeism. The narcotics industry will have imploded by then and will require a fundamental judicial reform. It is entirely certain that products will become scarce and will cost 40 to 50 times what they should, completely inhibiting demand and steering all members of the thriving industry headlong into poverty”
The author, presumably an individual named Francisco Vidal-Bolado, added an illustrative corollary: “This methodology has demonstrated its results experimentally, and chief among its achievements have been the oil industry, the sugar cane industry, the agro industry, the electrical power industry, the mining industry, and the fishing industry, among many others”.
One may either laugh or cry on reading this proposal, but we can not but recognize the spirit that produced it. Our politicians believe that no one notices what is going on in our environment. The laws that are approved are not conceived of for normal citizens, those who want to live their lives and take advantage of the opportunities that life generates, but rather are projects designed by and for bureaucrats who engage in nothing better than pillage and plunder. The text also reveals profound resentment toward our public officials, not only because of their waste of national resources, but also due to the absence of practical and workable solutions.

The proposal reminded me of another project of similar depth and disenchantment. Fifteen or eighteen years ago, Josué Sáenz, the self-avowed “high-level functionary of the low-level bureaucracy”, proposed the immediacy of creating a “trust fund for the protection of the penguin”. Due to its geography, said Sáenz, Mexico could claim to be part of the Antarctic Treaty and, as such, could create a legal framework destined to protect the penguins. He proposed sending our ruling class to be in charge of administering the trust fund. The Penguin Trust Fund (FIDEPIN), stated Josué Sáenz, would keep our politicians busy, but the latter, he concluded, “will most certainly finish off the penguin”.

The theme changes but the tenor remains the same. Mexicans need nothing other than a climate of certainty within which to work. The Golden Ages of economic growth in Mexico took place punctiliously when this certainty was achieved. In the fifties and sixties, the population basked in a legal platform that was credible, people trusted in the word of the authorities, and the economy worked: savings and investments were generated. It took the regime emanated from the Revolution decades to win the trust of the population and, little by little, to lay the foundations for the development of an emerging business sector. Years of construction fell through when, at the beginning of the seventies, the government changed the rules of the game and incorporated all types of regulations and restrictions that did nothing more than swell the bureaucracy and restrict economic growth.

In the eighties, there was an attempt to restore the climate of certainty, but the sole mechanism found that would be capable of generating confidence was a bilateral agreement with the U.S., the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This instrument eliminated the arbitrary powers of the bureaucracy in many an economic sector, which fostered the growth of investment and, briefly, relatively high rates of economic growth. Regrettably, the political war that began with the rescue of the banking system through the FOBAPROA, the inconclusive political transition, and the lack of a sense of direction as well as of the institutions with which the democratic era came into being, ultimately undermined trust. It is not by chance that the only part of the economy that presently works in a nearly automatic manner is that which is regulated (and, thus, protected) by NAFTA. All of the others stayed behind in history or are alive but harassed by regulations and red tape that hold the country back from flourishing.

Propossals to end narcotrafficking or to save the penguin are none other than the mental lucubrations of desperate Mexicans who know to perfection how our country works. Their proposal is nothing more than a satirical portrayal of daily life, which is obvious to all except to those in whose hands lies the possibility of changing the reality. And worse, experience shows that the obstacles to any change are so formidable –the interests so convoluted- that even when a president that made his early career in business comes into power or when upright officials who understand the problematic are charged with responsibility, they end up entrenched, incapable of carrying out change and constrained to explaining why none is possible. Frequently, Congressional leaders do nothing more than condone the system to safeguard their own privileges.

The political change in 2000 did not transform the power structures in the country: it modified the power flows and the relative checks and balances among those who wield it, but did not change the fact of political, bureaucratic, union, and business control. It is impunity and privileges that render narcotrafficking possible and that hold back the development of the country. Only when both of these take their leave will it be possible to deal with the narcotrafficking, and, if luck would have it, save the penguins…

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The economic crisis of the last few years could hardly have arrived at a more ominous time for the old international order. The institutions, practices, and power relations that arose with the end of the Second World War and the agreements signed in Bretton Woods placed the U.S. at the center of the world and of the institutions that would norm the functioning of the markets, trade, and financial transactions at the heart of international interaction. Sixty years later, things look quite distinct. China has become a formidable international actor, the economy of the so-called emerging countries has taken on unusual importance, and the majority of developed countries are in crisis. The old pyramid has been inverted, changing the political reality.

Ian Bremmer, the author of The End of the Market, a somewhat exaggerated title given the book’s content, says that the great change originated in the new correlation of strengths among the nations of the orb, but responded more than anything else to what the author denominates “state capitalism”. According to Bremmer, a group of countries, the majority with authoritarian or autocratic governments, has distanced itself from the rules of the market in the last several decades thanks essentially to active promotion of their legal enterprises, discriminatory game rules, and sovereign investment funds. With these instruments, they have been able to upset the institutions that modulated commercial and investment relations from the fifties on and that presently threaten the functioning of the existing economic order. Some of these nations, notably China, have distinguished themselves by the manner in which they have led their economies and achieved high economic growth rates, while others have come into power due to the possession of ample oil fields, above all in Russia and Saudi Arabia. The author includes nations as diverse as Egypt, Brazil, India, and Ukraine, and Algeria in his argumentation, throughout which he attempts to prove that the market has worked very well and that the international order runs the risk of coming to a standstill in the coming years.

The real thesis of the book is that the balance of power at the international level has changed, that the U.S. no longer represents the power of days gone by, and that other nations, particularly China, feel that they have the same right to define the form in which economic activity should be adminstered. That is, that the old hegemony has fallen and that the values that the U.S. drove in terms of market economy and democracy have lost legitimacy. The thesis is not novel, but does not cease to be relevant for this reason.

If one analyzes the argument at length, the truth is that the contraposition of stances is interesting but not always accurate. The efficient operation of an economy is not easy to achieve. To create institutions and game rules for a market economy requires not only conviction, but also a government capable of making these work, and this, as we have observed in Mexico over the past years, does not always occur. In addition to this, democracy, altogether necessary in a market economy, as such requires institutions and incentives that make it operate. In the absence of these, it is impossible to expect that it would function thus and that the political actors would behave according to its rules.

In addition to this, many nations have not even assumed the role of constructing a market economy or a democratic political system. It has been difficult for the group of nations cited by the author to distinguish themselves by their attempts to build a functional democracy and, when they tried, as in the case of Russia, the experiment lasted only a few years. It is in these terms that the true thesis of the book comes to be relevant because it entails lessons and consequences that we must not disregard.

What is exceptional concerning the ascent of nations such as China in the international concert does not lie in the fact itself, but inasmuch as the history of the world has been characterized by power transitions time and time again. China’s rise is interesting because it is an enormous nation with a centralized government and with strategic vision that not only is capable of derailing the international power balance, but also, the very way in which the planet operates in ambits ranging from the economic to lifestyle. Other nations that are similarly large, or more so, such as India, will perhaps end up having a lesser impact because they are characterized by a more diffuse internal power structure, independently of whether they have the possibility of being much richer in the last analysis. In addition, the great theme is less who ascends and who descends than how interaction plays out among the most powerful nations.

China and the U.S. have had many years of cooperation, but during recent times, seem to have advanced on a collision course. When one listens to the Chinese officials, the message, loud and clear, is that they do not seek a collision, but rather, a more equitable route to defining the main themes that afflict and characterize the world. China, a proud nation that feels it is in the right, sees no reason for having to submit to the game rules established by the U.S. as the dominant power sixty years thence, or for its internal, economic, and political evolution having to resemble what the Western world has fancied.

For decades, from the time that China reincorporated itself into the world and launched its economic opening, the presumption of the U.S. was that economic growth would lead to demands for political participation, which in turn would transform China into a democracy. This scenario may continue to be possible, but as of today, there is no doubt that the centralized political system whose functioning derives from the Communist Party retains the political power. To date, China has achieved this to a great degree due to its obsession for maintaining high levels of economic growth and its disposition to change whatever is necessary, to reform any structure or institution, with the objective of achieving growth. This strategy, in dramatic contrast with that of our Mexican politicians and governing class, has kept the population of China satisfied.

The current power equilibrium in China and between China and the rest of the world will depend in good measure on how the U.S. negotiates with and appeases, or confronts and threatens, the Chinese government. Whichever the form, what is not subject to doubt is that, as Napoleon said, once the Asian giant awoke, everything would be different.

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