Government Failure

The almost twelve years that have passed under the incompetent governments of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, from 2000 to 2012, can be summed up in a single word: failure.

Both governments have failed the country and its people. In terms of the economy, which has shrunk rather than grown and which has been provided with no real opportunities for progress. In terms of the strictly political, because our unstable democracy has become the sum of the interests of an elite which can hardly be said to cover the full range of social forces that exist in Mexico. In terms of social affairs, because poverty and the unfair distribution of wealth have become drastically worse, couple with the application of laws which have hit working and popular classes, widened the jobs gap and left large sectors of the population to seek refuge in the hostile and uncertain informal economy. In terms of employment, where Calderón has continued to irresponsibly apply the anti-trade union politics of his predecessor Fox to attack independent and democratic unions, both presidents having employed contemptible characters like Francisco Javier Salazar and Javier Lozano Alarcón to do this. In terms of education, which has seen nothing but attempts to privatise public education at elementary, middle and higher levels, opening up the possibility that future generations will not be protected by education and will be forced to enter the dangerous world of violence and delinquency. In terms of international relations, where previously the figure and prestige of Mexico commanded respect but today that has been replaced by the degraded image of a government that doesn’t know what its objectives are, much less its goals, and which lacks a vision to steer the country towards sovereignty, justice and wellbeing.

Unfortunately, there has been a huge and perverse complicity in this process of decomposition in the last 12 years. The loss of value of the Mexican economy over the last decade, which went from 9^th to 14^th in the world, compared to Brazil, which went from 15^th to 6^th in the same period – just as Carlos Fernández Vega has signalled – clearly shows the collapse of this government and of the National Action Party.

Macroeconomic indices and widely circulated international studies on Mexico’s national performance leave no room for doubt about this terrible frustration and decline. This is because these two governments have acted in favour of a single sector of society, namely businesspeople, and inside this sector, a small group whose members have monopolised economic power and have illegally taken control of the country and the weak minds of politicians. A government that only acts in favour of one sector and never listens to the majority voices in society in order to move in the correct direction or straighten out crooked paths cannot call itself a government, much less a successful one. It has instead acted as a simple administrator or manager of private interests that have manipulated and used it as a puppet.

The more than 60 thousand deaths in the war on organised crime during the last presidential term indicate the failure of this campaign, and more precisely the failure of a police regime as opposed to a democratic one, with the aggravating circumstance that the basic human rights of Mexicans are not respected. Many outspoken voices have pointed out that this huge military and police operation has the unwritten but clearly identifiable aim of intimidating and restraining popular protests against high living costs, social injustice and widespread corruption.

And there is no way to escape this reality. The government’s latest gesture in its shameful subjugation to large private interests is the swift approval, between December 2011 and January 2012, of the Public-Private Associations Law, with which the government not only irresponsibly prevents the State acting as a State, but also hands over to big businesses the vital task of building infrastructure for national development, with conditions that are more than abusive for public resources. The same has happened with the indiscriminate handing over of the country’s non-renewable natural resources such as minerals, oil and gas to Mexican and foreign private companies.

There is no national problem in which the government’s wholesale failure cannot be observed. The fact cannot be ignored that responsible, authoritative voices have signalled this collapse day in day out, and the people who have fallen victim to it have protested. This means that the entire nation must respond by adopting new policies that imply a radical change from the government’s neoliberal economic model which both Fox and Calderón, and before them Salinas and Zedillo, have imposed on the country.

Social and economic forces must immediately abandon their indifference in the face of this misplaced government strategy and begin to develop a politics that fully reflects our true national interests, to the exclusion of no one. This will be the only way for Mexico to return to the path it never should have left, that of efficiency, fairness, shared social responsibility and nationalist politics, which with all its defects was an efficient and authentic guide for Mexico’s progress.

Big challenges for Mexico and the United States

On Sunday 20 January, Barack H. Obama was sworn in as the 44^th constitutional president of the United States of America. In this second term, he is likely to reinforce his strategies and policies to stimulate economic activity, open up new opportunities, and create jobs and social equilibrium between those who earn most and those who have least. International relations and immigration policy will be fundamental issues, particularly in relation to neighbouring countries: Mexico and Canada.

Mexico and Enrique Peña Nieto’s government must maintain a healthy collaborative distance on some topics and strengthen national sovereignty on others, which might include natural resources, justice, respect and the dignity of the Mexican people. Peña Nieto must live up to what Mexico needs and expects from him. Now is not the time for improvisation or for making serious mistakes that put the nation’s future at stake. There are enough accumulated problems that are the result of foreign policy and Mexico’s prestige and image national and internationally having been neglected for over a decade. The violation of democracy that Felipe Calderón committed in order to get into power, with his motto ‘whatever it were that went on,’ can no longer be projected around the world if we want to regain what is most valuable in Mexico, our prestige, culture, history, traditions and our inevitable insertion with this heritage in modernity. We Mexicans have our dignity, and we need a government that can live up to that.

On the issue of migration, both Obama and Peña Nieto must move towards a real agreement that respects the dignity and rights of Mexican workers in the United States. This has to be one of the major reforms that Obama has already announced and which he will push forward so as to regularise the legal situation of over 11 million people whose status is still undefined. But the Mexican government also has the serious responsibility of creating decent jobs that will stop the outflow of Mexicans towards neighbouring countries in North America. In fact, there are already voices, above all in the US union sector, calling on their government to find a solution for this phenomenon, as declared by Richard L. Trumka, leader of the AFL-CIO, the most important union federation in the US.

We cannot ignore the fact that Mexico has become more vulnerable. A natural disaster or any political or social conflict would put the future of a system with only the outward appearance of peace and security at great risk. We must not simply put an optimistic sheen on this, the risks are present and they stem from 12 years of total neglect under the last two administrations which sunk Mexico further into a high-risk potential crisis. Insecurity, unemployment, the global financial crisis, poverty and marginalisation, alongside climate change and unexpected meteorological events, remain latent and time will not allow improvisation or the application of misguided policies that will only make the situation worse.

Mexico, and the anxiety and uncertainty of the Mexican people, can wait no longer. For this reason, the Mexican government, as joint signatory with the United States and Canada of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), must cast aside their neglect of labour issues and fulfil the Complimentary Agreement on Labour Cooperation that is set out in the NAFTA.  This must no longer be simply a commercial agreement, it must become an integral treaty for cooperation and economic and social development between the three countries. The United States and Canada have sufficient presence to revise these aspects of the NAFTA and enable the Mexican government to, firstly, end the constant repression and violation of the working class’s labour and human rights and, secondly, respect freedom of association.

In these circumstances, Peña Nieto is facing the responsibility of securing national reconciliation and finding the new opportunities that the population want and are expecting. The current development model cannot continue to function in a way that benefits only a minority.

This is the reality of a country like Mexico, which has one of the highest degrees of wealth concentration in a few hands. We need a social conscience that can change the high levels of exploitation and injustice to which the huge majority of the population are subjected. This is the terrible reality in which over half of the Mexican population live.

Obama put it very clearly: A country with extreme inequality has no future. To this we could add that a nation without freedom or justice is equally unable to further its development. If there is no true state of law, and what there is only serves to benefit a small minority, then Mexico will be at permanent risk. The Mexican government must be very clear about this and act accordingly. History is our witness.

The New Labor Philosophy

Neoliberal culture has, rather unsuccessfully so far, attempted to prevent workers organising themselves into unions and different associations. Faced with this failure, neoliberals have opted to obstruct, corrupt, confuse and divide, sullying the image of true and authentic social and union leaders.

Unfortunately, certain individuals’ ambition and their lack of principles and values, as well as the power of money, have meant that they have willingly become puppets of the dominant classes, going as far as whole-heartedly joining that group of corrupters, traitors, sell-outs and the civil servants who are complicit in this perverse and immoral strategy. But this behaviour has done no more than generate one of the degrading deviations of union, business and government life. The workers’ true fight for unity, loyalty and class solidarity is far above wickedness and unchecked complicity.

The future of unionism is not at stake because the general and natural tendency of labour relations is and will always be to freely organise to defend and protect labour and human rights. This happens from a perspective of solidarity and common strength so that production systems develop calmly, efficiently and fairly.

The current government, together with ambitious and insatiable businesspeople, have failed to realise that the world is overtaking them and they are being exposed as the true guilty parties of an economic and social failure that will have its repercussions in the immediate development of our society. This serious error has caused a lack of security, self-confidence sensitivity, vision and preparation on the part of the country’s political leaders and of many businessmen who have not allowed workers to participate more in planning and productive decision-making.

The next government will have the huge task of getting Mexico back on track and changing its economic policy, now cold and dehumanised, for one that really listens, corrects and resolves the needs and injustices that Mexicans endure. They must also make the nation’s activity more balanced and reasonable.

The traditional production model in Mexico has reached its limit. The economy cannot continue to grow based on systems that privilege the unchecked concentration of wealth in a few hands and the abusive exploitation of the workforce. However, the country can no longer wait tolerantly while the ignorance and arrogance of a few people destroy the hopes of the great majority who desire a profound change.

The design of a new strategy has to be thorough – as it has been in countries like China, Brazil, Japan, Argentina and others –, and new production relations will have to be based on much clearer concepts of social responsibility and shared responsibility between businesspeople and workers. This must cover the whole range of our society’s productive powers, to give an opening that will allow alternative forms or new participatory models to be incorporated.

Mexico needs, and is going to need all the more, a new labour philosophy, supported by respect, dignity and the participation of workers in processes, plans and programmes, as well as in the strategies for a new system of shared growth. The country needs to adopt a model in which all businesspeople see workers as partners and not as simple objects of exploitation or operational instruments. In making decisions and preparing initiatives they must have and develop greater knowledge and experience, with which they will be able to contribute to balanced production growth and increased justice.

The benefits obtained from this new labour philosophy will become social profits which could be reinvested to create more jobs, sources and centres for work, as well as greater efficiency and productivity and a fairer development of economic activity.

In Mexico, although there has been a lot of talk about applying a culture of work we have  moved towards one that more tightly controls salaries and halts the purchasing power of those salaries, and as a result stops the economic demand of workers in the market. The opposite should be the case: we need a model that stimulates the market with better remuneration and participation, linked to specific strategies of productivity, so as to improve and strengthen the purchasing power of wage-earners, consumption capacity, economic demand and the general wellbeing of the population.

From another perspective, what we need is a new culture among employers whereby they understand and respect workers, a culture that brings together social responsibility and does not obtain concession or benefits from society solely in order to achieve the objective of maximum profit. We must have guarantees that justice, dignity and the true search for the greatest possible happiness for workers will prevail, so that all may benefit.

This is what I have been suggesting as the essence of the new unionism for the 21^st century, which supposes a new labour philosophy and a new economic politics.