Under the current political conditions that have fostered negative economic, educational, judicial, democratic and social environments, Mexico has no future, but we could have one.
We were not doing well before, but paraphrasing Cantinflas, we were better off when we were worse off. True, there was a lot of inequality, inequity, segregation and corruption, but we were advancing in some aspects such as the economic one with free trade and consolidation of the rule of law; in education with a model that emphasized the importance of learning instead of the imposition of ideology; in the judicial one with a solid Supreme Court of Justice and a scheme that little by little enthroned the professionalization of the judicial career and autonomy of justice over executive and legislative interference; In the democratic sphere, with the authentic autonomy of the electoral authorities and the consolidation of autonomous authorities in various fields that sought to isolate the technical decisions of government from political interference, and, in the social sphere, to the extent that in the highest spheres of the State epithets were not spewed nor was a polarized environment of ideas, discourse and daily life promoted, between good and bad, progressives and conservatives, elites and people, chairos and fifís, oppressors and oppressed, friends and enemies, beneficiaries and resentful.
We live in an era of identity crisis, segregation and revenge. The irony is that the new elites in power, with their new policies, achieve today what they criticized yesterday: economic stagnation or slowdown, segregation and simulated democracy.
No one can be against people being less poor. But the reality is that the poor continue to be poor, and although some of the poverty measurements have improved, in reality it is a fallacy. Let’s see. One can reduce the manifestations of poverty by distributing money or increasing salaries. But the issue is a little more complicated than that. To distribute money in the form of direct transfers, resources are required. In economics, one learns that resources are always scarce for needs, therefore, it is very important to take care of efficiency, to optimize the good use of scarce resources. Given the reality of a limited source of resources, where do the resources to transfer come from? From services that are supposed to be offered to overcome the structural barriers that make the poor poor. What are these structural barriers? Education, security, health, basic goods such as water, electricity, drainage, communications, justice, democracy. So, instead of improving the institutions that provide these services, they are impoverished or eliminated, and from there the resources needed for money transfers are obtained, which, in addition, has a clientelist function.
The fallacy consists in the deception that the transfer entails. Taking resources away from institutions that improve services is not noticed because their benefit is long-term; Instead, transferring money to people fills their pockets. And in Mexico and the world, elections are won with full pockets, not empty ones. The problem will be noticed when in the future public finances are suffocated by mistaken policies and there is no more money to distribute. But the future is not a problem for politicians who need support today.
Mexico also has no future because of the caliber of its public servants, at all levels. When governors win “elections” by popularity, but not by integrity or expertise and the people elect soccer players, corrupt people, heirs, godfathers instead of honest and expert people, the country digs its own grave.
Mexico has no future because corruption is infiltrated in almost all the corridors of public services. There is no future for the people if Mexicans cannot obtain municipal permits without a small or large bribe to build or improve a building, obtain drinking water (buying water trucks), pick up trash, light or pave the streets, obtain a license, repair a wall, remove a crooked tree about to fall. There is no future if Mexicans do not have a government to protect them, honest police and Army, upright officials, well-trained teachers, transparent procedures, ethical traffic officers.
There is no future if the legislators for whom one votes have neither criteria nor autonomy and have lost the ability to think. Why do we have a Legislative Branch with hundreds of legislators who will always vote as the Executive mandates? That is expensive, dishonest, ridiculous and childish.
Mexico has no future without independent, honest, thoroughly trained and certified judges. Why do we have judges if judges have no autonomy, are elected by a “people” who do not know them, nor have any way of doing so, and who will be punished if a small group does not like their decisions? Judges, poorly trained, will make decisions following the shadow of fear, and not in the light of justice.
If in addition to all this we add that Mexico is now more insecure than ever, with a deep crisis of moral leadership at all levels of government, where will the light be found? The aphorisms say: “It is never darker than when it is about to dawn” or “there is light at the end of the tunnel.” Well, Mexico’s dawn is clouded both by a stubborn winter and by a tunnel that never ends. When will the apparatus that supports Mexico collapse? When the resources run out. When will the resources run out? When trust runs out. When will trust run out? When investments fall. When will investments fall? They have already fallen.
According to comparative statistics from the World Bank, foreign investment in current dollars in Mexico has fallen to the levels of 2001, 24 years ago. The peak of FDI in Mexico occurred in 2013: 50.93 billion current dollars. By 2023, FDI in Mexico fell to 30.2 billion. That is, a 40% drop. And the legislative changes that have diminished the rule of law, authentic democracy, the disappearance of autonomous bodies and the control of electoral bodies had not yet occurred.
The economic growth expectation (annual GDP) for Mexico, based on the Survey on the Expectations of Private Sector Economic Specialists of the Bank of Mexico, for December 2013 and December 2024 shows the following data: the growth expectation in 2013 for 2014 was 3.41%; The economic growth expectation for 2025 is 1.12%.
The latest data on Mexico’s annual GDP growth is close to zero%. At an annual rate, national GDP growth for the third quarter of 2024 was 0.1%, despite the fact that the meager dynamism of the Mexican economy has benefited from two phenomena: the historic income from foreign currency in recent years, and the growing interest in Mexico in the nearshoring market derived from the cooling of relations between the United States and China. This interest is added to the also historic market generated by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA first and T-MEC later). That is to say, without the treaty, with a possible massive threat of deportations of illegal immigrants announced by Trump and a lack of interest in nearshoring derived from inadequate national policies and public policies such as those announced above, the future for Mexico is not at all promising. To add insult to injury, on January 6, the IMSS reported in its press release 009/2025 that there was a monthly drop of 405,259 positions (formal jobs). According to analysts, this drop is the worst recorded for the month of December. This data is perhaps a response to a double phenomenon: on the one hand, the uncertainty generated by all the reforms and public policies and, on the other, the increases in minimum wages above inflation imposed by decree. Economic theory stipulates that if wages rise above productivity, employment falls. Perhaps trying to invent the black thread with a new model finds the dark side of economic “generosity.” There is nothing humane about losing a job.
One could say the same about education. Mexico is the country of all the 38 members of the OECD that spends the least per student on education. If we add to this an inefficient allocation of spending that would be watering down, redistributing the scarce educational spending on strengthening institutions (teacher training, pedagogical quality, good learning environments) towards universal scholarships that not everyone needs (which is inequitable because it reduces the amount of resources that could be allocated to those who really need them), or imposing a critical pedagogy instead of an authentic pedagogy towards learning, we will obtain perverse results. This is what the combination of concentration of power and bad public policies does.
With an adequate menu of policies, Mexico would be growing at levels far superior to the meager ones of 2022 and 2023. The best way out of poverty is with strong economic growth and good public policies; the best way to eradicate corruption is with a strong rule of law; the best and sustainable way to promote equality and equity is with very high quality educational (and health) services; the best way to eliminate insecurity is with strong and democratic governments and a true State; a strong State is achieved with separation of powers and authentic democracies. The only future is when we observe the execution of the previous one; everything else, that “people”, the “4T”, “the new model”, “the best democracy in the world”, are back and forth. Time will tell.
Source: redaccion.nexus
