A Defense Of The Mexican Work Ethic — And Critique Of ‘Peronist’ Politics

-Analysis-

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican worker is traditionally an odd-jobs man or a jack-of–all-trades par excellence. It is one of our boldest traits but also inevitable in a nation where most have no choice but to work wherever and however possible to earn a living.

The actor Héctor Suárez honored the condition in the 1983 movie El mil usos (“A Thousand Uses”) about a peasant seeking prospects in a big city. Mixing comedy and social satire, the film depicted the Mexican’s ability to adapt to — and overcome — socio-economic obstacles.

In the early 1980s, a European ambassador in Mexico told me she was stunned by what she saw on her way to visit Teotihuacán, a vast archaeological complex north of Mexico City. Her diplomatic briefings had told her Mexico was a socialist country, so she was expecting a sullen, conformist nation.

But what she saw, along the Avenue of the Insurgents, was a carnival of private enterprise and survival savvy. Every inch of the long avenue, she said, seemed covered in stalls with people selling whatever they could, from soft drinks to sweets, toys and handicrafts.

Not waiting for government handouts

Mexican entrepreneurship and creativity are evident in all aspects of life. Resolved to earn their living, Mexicans work more hours than people in similar situations in other OECD countries. It is a testament not just to a willingness to work but to the country’s dismal socio-economic setup, which inevitably lowers productivity.

The contrast is stark with other OECD countries where the quality of education, healthcare and investments in infrastructures undoubtedly boost productivity. Mexicans have thus had to come up with their own way of creating things and solving problems. In the United States, Americans tend to start businesses fast, as they spot opportunities and seek to make them real to better their lives. Both there and here, they show their can-do attitude, far removed from any sense of entitlement.

Removing the incentive to work is to destroy something essential in human life.

But in Mexico at least, this work is often done without the tools needed to ensure the best results — and that includes the inadequate education the state provides. That hasn’t meant despair or resignation, never mind waiting for government handouts.

When governments decide to pay so people do not have to work, they impede wealth creation and personal development. Evidently not all jobs are equally desirable, well paid or satisfying but all of them contribute to development at every level. Removing the incentive to work is to destroy something essential in human life, and consequently in the life of the nation.

El mil usos (1983)

Balancing government dependence

In the early 20th century, Argentina was one of the world’s wealthiest countries, comparable in its prosperity to Europe or the United States. A combination of natural resources, an essentially middle-class population and an inclination to work forged a successful nation at the time.

One hundred years later, Argentina’s profile is very different, with a markedly lower GDP and evident decline that is in part the legacy of the Peronist movement’s social democracy model. Its welfare and pension policies encouraged broad swathes of the population to stop looking for work. And when people no longer need to work thanks to systematic government aid, expect the country’s inexorable decline.

What the ruling party wants is a mass of docile voters.

That is why the recent proposals on the future of work by Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling party’s candidate for the June presidential elections, so dangerous. The former Head of Government of Mexico City and front-runner in the polls says “it is not true but false” that you cannot have “good living standards” if you do not work. That, she has said, “is the discourse of the past. The government, the Mexican state, must give its support here.”

Work gives you self-esteem

It is, of course, one thing to aid the elderly who can no longer produce, and another to subsidize an entire population because you claim work has no importance. It makes dependence on the government a virtue, while undermining a basic right to better yourself. Worse, it suggests work is not the way to make personal progress or build a country.

I’m not surprised by the socialist candidate’s statements. As the 19th-century powerbroker and president Porfirio Díaz, used to say, “a dog with a bone in its mouth won’t bite or bark.”

What the ruling party wants is a mass of docile voters. For beyond money, as the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb observed, work gives you self-esteem. And that’s not the kind of people politicians want.