Understanding the Mexican Identity
The author reflects on their favorite topic: the Mexican identity, a blend of genius and chaos, talent and improvisation. This unique character is evident in Mexico’s diverse cuisine, its acceptance of tragedy and death, and its flexible relationship with time. The challenge lies in explaining the nuances of the word “ahorita” to foreigners.
Journalist Alan Riding once described a “magical, elusive, almost surreal air” in Mexicans. The author agrees and believes this magic coexists with a web of contradictions that define us both individually and collectively.
Progress through Risk, Competition, and Cultural Openness
The Nobel laureates in Economics for this year, Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt, propose a recipe for sustained progress. Despite different angles, they all agree on a simple yet powerful idea: without risk, competition, and cultural openness, progress is impossible.
Mokyr argues that progress emerged from the dialogue between science, practice, and institutions willing to tolerate disruption. Aghion and Howitt formalized this in their growth destructive theory, stating that only by dismantling the old can the new emerge.
Mexico’s Stalled Progress
The author notes that Mexico’s progress conversation has stalled for years. The country lacks sustained economic growth, and serious projections don’t foresee a change in direction. While public policies can be debated, a cultural oscillation between the desire to transform and comfort in stagnation persists.
Mexico’s economy coexists with two extremes: concentrated oligopolies at the top and widespread informality at the base. This system stifles competition yet hinders growth. The country admires innovation but avoids competition, praises ingenuity often mistaken for improvisation, and the government, from power, fills its mouth with words like science, technology, and innovation—as long as ideas don’t challenge or question.
A Global Phenomenon: The Erosion of Progress
The author argues that cultural and political closure, both in Mexico and elsewhere, undermines the possibility of progress. Countries don’t regress due to a lack of resources but when they fear knowledge.
The market and the state alone cannot generate well-being or sustained progress. The state must create conditions for businesses and individuals to innovate while ensuring that innovation translates into social benefits. Mexico has yet to achieve this balance.
Despite occasional signs of understanding within the government that neither the market nor the state can act independently, ideology often tips the scales towards the state. However, this state is currently strong but fragmented, omnipresent yet slow and bureaucratic to the point of absurdity.
This state regulates everything, resolves little, or arrives too late (as in Veracruz). Perhaps it can all be encapsulated in the hashtag used humorously and resignedly: #MexicoMagico. Behind inventiveness lies an acceptance of fate, a pact with immobility: “that’s how things are here,” “this is where we were meant to live.”
Key Questions and Answers
- What is the Mexican identity according to the author? The Mexican identity is a blend of genius and chaos, talent and improvisation, evident in diverse cuisine, acceptance of tragedy and death, and a flexible relationship with time.
- What do the Nobel laureates in Economics propose for progress? They propose a recipe for sustained progress through risk, competition, and cultural openness.
- Why has Mexico’s progress stalled? Mexico lacks sustained economic growth, and its cultural oscillation between transformation desire and stagnation comfort persists.
- Why can’t the market and state alone generate progress? The state must create conditions for innovation that translate into social benefits.
- What challenges does Mexico face in achieving progress? The fragmented, bureaucratic state hinders progress, embodying a pact with immobility.
