Category Archives: Mexico

Mexico Makes The Right Choice

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Two days ago, Mexicans returned the PRI to power after 12 years in the political wilderness, with Enrique Peña Nieto becoming President. The leftist Obrador as well as PAN’s Mota lost. I don’t know much about Mexico but this is how I interpret things.

(1) The PAN seem to be full of neoliberals, who serve foreign and corporate interests and don’t care much for ordinary Mexicans. They favor a hyper-militarized approach to the War on Drugs, but this hasn’t yielded successes, as the Mexican homicide rate doubled in the past 5 years. The socialist Obrador is a poseur, who does not much like democracy (as per his Orange Revolution-like attempts to overturn the results of the 2006 elections). In general, the opposition to the PRI is quite thuggish while attempting to paint itself as transparent and democratic; much like the Russian opposition to United Russia. See the impudence of the Yo Soy 132 student protesters, rich self-entitled thugs who think it cool to physically threaten their political enemies.

(2) The PAN hasn’t had much success in the past 12 years. While north-bound migration has fallen, this was due to economic difficulties in the US as opposed to Mexican success. It doesn’t seem to have become noticeably less corrupt nor did it achieve significant economic growth relative to the developed world (see right).

I don’t think this was mostly the PAN’s fault. After all, Mexico is pretty much where it should be as dictated by its (very modest) level of human capital or national IQ; its position relative to the US hasn’t budged over the past century. That said the PRI is still the better choice. It is the party of the majority, respectably corporatist but also nationalist and mindful of workers’ interests. The same cannot be said of the PAN, who pander to the interests of foreigners and Mexican elites; their electorate are oligarchs and emigres. As for Obrador he is a dangerous demagogue. Mexico made the right choice.

Review of George Friedman’s “The Next 100 Years”

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The Next 100 Years by George Friedman, published in 2010. Rating: 3/5

George Friedman at Stratfor is one of my favorite analysts on world geopolitics. This is because he tries to look at the world as it is, without the pointless moralizing, neoliberal ideologizing and end-of-history triumphalism that clouds too much American geopolitical thinking. Hence whenever I come across new and substantial material from him, although I might not agree with some (or most) of what he says, I nonetheless adjust my beliefs (in a good Bayesian fashion).

And lo and behold!, he comes out with a new book – The Next 100 Years. Funnily enough, it is about the next 100 years, or more specifically, the interplay between technological and demographic trends and geopolitical dynamics that will shape the twenty-first century.

I was originally going to copy out its entire first chapter, Overture (which is available online) and just comment on it. Unfortunately this makes it far too long and I had problems publishing it. So I’ll headline and summarize Friedman’s main points instead and leave my original commentary largely unchanged.

1. The future is unpredictable: “Be practical, expect the impossible”.

Friedman starts off by summarizing the history of the last century in twenty year chunks. Thus we got from the globalized idyll of 1900, through the chaos of 1940, the gathering storm clouds of 1940, the American dominance in 1960, the rising Soviet challenge in 1980 and culminating in the renewed globalized idyll of 2000 – only to be again disrupted by 9/11.

Completely agreed – most commentary is about the short-term, or at best linear extrapolations of short-term things. Good futurists think in terms of differentials, exponents and tipping points.

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