Reforma: Luis Rubio*
Sep. 8, 2019
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Sep. 8, 2019
The government has changed and the perceptions of the citizens have changed, but what has not changed is the Mexican propensity to destroy everything that exists in order to build something totally new without taking advantage of the good of the past or the lessons learned from the mistakes that were made before. Each president feels singled out by a superior being to make his own mistakes and commit his own mischief.
Above all, our system leads to everything being conceived in political terms and not in terms of development: the important thing is to gain power and ignore citizen needs and demands. That is why the wheel is reinvented every six years. Solutions are promised without making a diagnosis of the problem to be solved and programs that do work are abandoned because the new ones that arrive - every six years - want to impose their prejudices instead of building on the existing structures, because of the mere itch to change.
For example, today, very cheap gas is imported from the US because in that country there is a large overproduction, but that circumstance will change as soon as the gas liquefaction terminals that are being built in that country come into operation. The rational thing would be to dedicate the very scarce resources of Pemex to develop gas wells instead of building a new refinery, when there are several others already operating well below their capacity and, in addition, the world's gasoline market is much more stable and predictable than gas. The construction of a new refinery responds to an ideological vision, not a diagnosis of the circumstances that characterize the energy market or its potential evolution.
The point is obvious: there is no continuity or the slightest interest in learning the lessons of the past to improve the future. How, in this context, will it be possible to progress?
The inconsistency between speeches and the results is clear and everyone sees it. A new ruler arrives - at any level - and the first thing he does is to get rid of everyone who knows anything in order to bring in his own experts. Of course, the new ones don't know anything, but they do know one thing: that what exists, what was done in the past, is wrong. This Mexican tradition occurs every six years, without distinction as to individuals or ideologies.
The new team arrives full of verve and certainty that, while they know nothing, they know that the outgoing team was incompetent and ignorant (and, now, corrupt), which is why it is not necessary to consult or learn from them. In this exchange, the little experience and historical memory that exists is lost, which explains the very pathetic results that occur when it comes to crucial matters - such as public safety, the justice system, government and finance. Instead of continuity, the new team begins by pushing the stone up the mountain that, as with Sisyphus of Greek mythology, never reaches the top. By the time officials have learned, it's time for the new team to push the stone up once more.
The new team arrives full of verve and certainty that, while they know nothing, they know that the outgoing team was incompetent and ignorant (and, now, corrupt), which is why it is not necessary to consult or learn from them. In this exchange, the little experience and historical memory that exists is lost, which explains the very pathetic results that occur when it comes to crucial matters - such as public safety, the justice system, government and finance. Instead of continuity, the new team begins by pushing the stone up the mountain that, as with Sisyphus of Greek mythology, never reaches the top. By the time officials have learned, it's time for the new team to push the stone up once more.
Of course, there are many things that must change in the country, but there are many others that work reasonably well. The indisposition of our system of government to differentiate between these two contrasting realities explains, at least to some extent, the need to abandon what does work instead of concentrating the efforts of a new government on issues that effectively require a radically new conceptualization .
The result, observable in one six-year administration after another, is that they never manage to bear fruit in existing programs or show their potential to solve the problems that were intended to be attacked. In fact, in the vast majority of cases, the programs adopted respond more to prejudices, preconceptions and ideological visions than to consolidated diagnoses regarding the nature of the specific problem.
For example, today, very cheap gas is imported from the US because in that country there is a large overproduction, but that circumstance will change as soon as the gas liquefaction terminals that are being built in that country come into operation. The rational thing would be to dedicate the very scarce resources of Pemex to develop gas wells instead of building a new refinery, when there are several others already operating well below their capacity and, in addition, the world's gasoline market is much more stable and predictable than gas. The construction of a new refinery responds to an ideological vision, not a diagnosis of the circumstances that characterize the energy market or its potential evolution.
The fact is that Mexico progresses despite the government's propensity to reinvent the wheel every six years. What is not so shocking or difficult to explain is the reason why ancestral problems such as poverty and the growing lag in the development of the south of the country persist. The country advances despite the government and, at the same time, the government makes it very difficult for the whole country to leave the vicious circles that result from the lack of continuity of public programs and policies. This reminds me of a famous phrase by Bertrand Russell: "The problem in this world is that stupid people are sure of everything and intelligent people are full of doubts." If we use the words rookies for stupid and experienced for intelligent, that provides a good part of the explanation for our perennial underdevelopment.
In Mexico there are many things that must change to ensure a peaceful and non-violent society, to reduce poverty and create opportunities for the emergence and development of millions of new businesses and to give today's children the opportunity to be successful when they reach adulthood and are incorporated into a labor market that will be dramatically different from what existed when the educational programs of today were conceived. If we are going to reinvent the wheel, it is in these areas that it should be done, because that is where the future of the country lies.
*Luis Rubio is president of Mexico Evalúa-CIDAC, an independent research institution. He was formerly president of CIDAC, the Center for Development, before the two research institutes merged in 2017. He was president of the association of political risk scholars and a member of the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District (now Mexico City). He received the Dag Hammarksjold Award (1993) and the National Journalism Award (1998). Among his books are A World of Opportunities and The Dilemma of Mexico: The Political Origins of the Economic Crisis. He holds a doctorate in political science from Brandeis University with a specialization in financial administration. @lrubiof