Anti-Fragile Mexicans

Anti-Fragile Mexicans

By: Erreh Svaia

Caprine Dispersion

We have been able to appreciate it more closely throughout the six year period that is about to end, that spirit of the mythological hydra, that by cutting off a head, responds by generating a couple more, conceptualized by the brilliant writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb, also author of books memorable events such as the Black Swan and the recent Skin in the Game (of which we have already spoken here), as the concept of "Anti fragile", the things that benefit from attacks, chaos or uncertainty, according to the theories of Taleb, organisms, individuals or systems respond mainly in three ways before these attacks, some succumb, others resist, and others, the "anti-fragile" not only resist, but they are strengthened thanks to the offensive, an example of which we have already spoken quite here, it is the muscular development, the how by destroying the internal fibers of the muscle through the intense and progressive lifting of weights, the human body in response, after an adequate rest and feeding recovers those fibers in a bigger, stronger and more resistant way, in this way it becomes "anti-fragile", the same happens with the bones of the martial arts practitioners, who after hitting cement blocks and cause cracks in his bones daily, generate a resistance in his bone structure as an answer, which ends up assimilating the hardness of the block and ends allowing them to break it.

In this regard, we have been able to observe Luis Videgaray (a man with extensive experience in both public and private service), still current Secretary of Foreign Affairs, one of the greatest examples of this "anti-fragility" in the political arena, we saw him arrive as the main campaign coordinator of outgoing president Enrique Peña, get the return of the PRI to the presidency of the country, lost 12 years ago, it could be his first triumph, and his subsequent appointment as Secretary of the Treasury, ensuring his permanence as member of the circle closest to Peña, considered by many, almost like his "viceroy", Videgaray was the main responsible for promoting a fiscal reform that underpinned the treasury strategy that managed to give stability to the government, it was a hard blow for the taxpayer, but that gave economic firmness to the country, without delving unfortunately into the issue of informality (one of the key current problems of the country) managed to eliminate part of the financial uncertainty that was looming in the country, after that, came a controversial decision, in which, faced with the threat of Donald Trump, Peña's team, headed by Videgaray, chose to invite the then candidate to visit the country, the result in appearance was disastrous, a strong damage to the image of the presidency and the country, and an apparent boost to the candidacy of Trump that at that time seemed to collapse and managed to rebound thanks to this event, which for many it could be an error at an image level, it implied a deep closeness between the people of Videgaray and the people of Trump, in spite of it, the exit from Peña's cabinet was immediate, leaving Videgaray apparently out of play, although only for a few months (he would return as Secretary of Foreign Affairs and under the slogan of not knowing about the position, but wanting to learn about it), the reality is that Videgaray could have access to people close to Trump, like its political son Jared Kushner, among others and in this way the strong direct attacks of Trump were softened.

Videgaray's next important step would be to prepare for the possible already announced defeat of his party, the PRI, by establishing almost immediately ties with the incoming new administration to the extent that the appearance of key characters of Videgaray during the administration of Peña, such as José Antonio Meade or Aristóteles Núñez, part of the team of the Secretary of Finance loyal to Videgaray, as well as the continuity of the negotiators and the negotiations of the FTA, in which Videgaray with Idelfonso Guajardo continue to have influence, it is very possible that in this way and with an interesting future vision and risky moves, Videgaray manages to keep current and with a strong influence in the new administration of President-elect Andrés López.

But not only in the individual we have seen examples of the "Anti Fragility" in recent dates, we could observe with attention the advance of that old current of the PRI, exemplified by people like Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, Manuel Bartlett and the same president-elect Andrés López, almost in its majority members of the old authoritarian and hegemonic PRI that ruled the country for decades and described by the Nobel Prize for Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, as "the perfect dictatorship", when that old PRI became the victim of his own populist madness during the 70s and at the beginning of the 80s, the wing more oriented to the "right" (considering the PRI as a party oriented to the center that at that time was trying to balance a left and a right), managed to shift to the left of the helm, and take out through the window the so-called "revolutionary nationalism" in favor of a right center liberalism that rescued the country from economic bankruptcy and that would face the changes in the world economy and politics, that "revolutionary and nationalist" left to separate from the PRI, found a way to reinvent itself as a caudillo party (with the iconic Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas at the helm) left to join the then incipient radical parties Left as the Socialists and Communists, the party managed to reinvent itself and become one of the mass parties (like the PRI) within the country.

Before the changes in the global politics, the extinction of the USSR, the evolution of the old communism and socialism towards the spectrum of social democracy, and finally the fall of the Soviet bloc, the old PRI, now turned into the PRD, sought to move that same path, almost achieved a triumph in the presidential race, and years later obtained the leadership of the then Federal District, the most important political post after the president, and so continue to move forward with the relief of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Andrés López, both characters they would become the undisputed leaders of the left in the following decades, until a new dispute would block democratic progress during the administrations of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, by the time the Enrique Peña administration began, a call for consensus and centralism served of base to throw a group of reforms quite untimely and without the required depth, but necessary from years ago, that movement to the center again caused fissures in the major parties like the PAN and the PRD, new internal breaks were provoked, and before the impossibility of obtaining complete control, Andrés López decided to break with the PRD (in its major democratic search), and create a party through its political current within the PRD, giving life to Morena, an apparently leftist, nationalist, conservative and idolatrous party of the Mexican revolution, making a paradoxical turn back to the roots of the old PRI, in its advance, that old PRI current confronted and grown along with the PRI, has defected from the PRD and has taken that clientelist structure (inherited from the PRI itself), and its mass structure, as well as that orientation to caudillismo , the authoritarianism and hegemonism that many saw die with the PRI in 1988, and that seemed to be reborn with more strength than ever, to the extent of having seized power once again a couple of weeks ago.

Do not forget that examples such as the Brexit, the popular consultation for peace in Colombia and the election of Donald Trump, have been disturbing examples of the theories of "Uncertain" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, have been unexpected events that have been strengthened a somewhat irrational form and that in spite of its many detractors, have become currents capable of success, sometimes becoming powerfully "anti-fragile", others only taking advantage of the weakness of the traditional structures, the anger of the people exacerbated by the social networks, one thing to point out in events such as those mentioned above, and possibly the victory in the presidential race of Andrés López, have been events that have been geared towards dangerous nationalism and protectionism, as well as to the detriment of democracy, actions that could be somewhat confusing and that could disguise as advance a possible higher risk that many seem not to foresee.