Stuck in Time

December 7, 2025

Luis Rubio

Paraphrasing Albert Camus, “Every government believes itself destined to remake the world.” Camus was talking about his own generation, but the principle applies neatly to governments that take office imagining they can wipe the slate clean, as if everything that came before were wrong, misguided, or malicious. Morena didn’t invent this way of governing, but it has become its script. The difference is that, unlike some of the predecessors it disparages, its record has not exactly been a story of success. Where did the country get stuck?

Mexico’s first true economic breakthrough came in the mid-20th century during the so-called stabilizing development era, marked by high growth, low inflation, and—above all—rapid upward mobility. It’s no coincidence that many politicians, including López Obrador himself, invoke that era with nostalgia: for a while, everything seemed to work. That moment ended when the anchors holding it in place stopped working.

It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that, ever since, Mexico has cycled through repeated efforts to recapture that capacity for growth. Some administrations tried public spending and debt-financed expansion; others pinned their hopes on high oil prices. Both paths ended in costly crises. Then came the era of financial stabilization, economic liberalization, and the quest to integrate Mexico into global industrial supply chains. Successive governments—from two different political parties—kept the strategy going. But they never managed to consolidate an inclusive, comprehensive vision that delivered clear benefits to most Mexicans. Worse, the shift undermined the old political system’s capacities while failing to build an effective security apparatus. It’s no mystery, then, how a candidate could rise to power by spotlighting the many shortcomings that did in fact exist.

The underlying problem is not difficult to diagnose. Economic liberalization, privatization, and the country’s democratic transition—three mutually reinforcing processes—required clarity of purpose, disciplined execution, and strong political stewardship. They implied a radical redefinition of both the economy and the political system. But somewhere along the way came the fantasy—because it could not be anything else—that Mexico could liberalize without triggering demands for greater political participation. Liberalization advanced without a plan to reorganize the productive base, leaving each actor to improvise. Some displayed exceptional leadership, visible today in countless success stories. But most—numerically if not economically—faced an uphill struggle. While Canada built programs to give everyone a chance to succeed, Mexico simply let things drift.

Given this backdrop, it’s no surprise we ended up in a contradictory landscape captured in clashing descriptions: “an export powerhouse,” “Asian-style growth,” “two decades of pathetic economic performance,” “runaway violence,” “two Mexicos.” In a few short years, Mexico became all of these things at once: prosperous and stagnant; rich and poor; democratic and plagued by killings and disappearances; a country that chooses its leaders and a government unable to govern. What Mexico needed was sharp, clear-eyed, intelligent leadership. What it got was escalating political brawling—long before Morena ever arrived.

Two forces allowed this negligence and aimlessness to persist even today, enabling successive governments to evade the urgent, truly consequential work. Ironically, those same forces now underpin Mexico’s conflict with the U.S. president, along with the risks that confrontation entails.

One was migration; the other, exports. Migration eased—or at least diluted—social pressure for jobs and opportunity. That made it easy for governments to neglect the hard work of building infrastructure, reforming the education system, or developing a functional state. It was simpler to appease abusive unions, avoid difficult negotiations, and rely on unproductive monopolies than to build the country those earlier reforms required and had promised.

Exports, in turn, solved the most persistent economic bottleneck: foreign exchange. Suddenly, revenue from trade—combined with the addiction to remittances born of migration—created the illusion that regional disparities didn’t matter. If Chiapas fell behind, the national averages seemed to compensate. At least until reality knocked on the door.

As Arnold Toynbee wrote, “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”