Why Mexico has no thriving economy
Perhaps you read this story, or something similar to it, in your local paper. Most interesting about it, for me, was this portion:
[M]any migrants are making fewer passages back and forth between the United States and Mexico. When they do undertake the…journey, some count on divine protection, stopping at churches, makeshift altars and the tombs of saints on the way. The Roman Catholic Church offers a half-dozen patron saints for travelers, but many Mexican migrants turn to someone not recognized by the church: "Juan Soldado," or Soldier John.
Soldado was a soldier who was falsely accused of the rape and murder of a girl and executed by a Mexican firing squad in February 1938. He is worshipped as a man wronged by those in power….
Superstition is one of the reasons that Mexico and similar countries do not have, and will not have, thriving economies. People who believe that some dead guy, “wronged by those in power,” somehow controls their destiny, or their prosperity and welfare, are not very well disposed towards doing those things which bring about economic prosperity. Think of it: When they succesfully thwart our efforts to stop them, they credit a saint like Soldado Juan; when we are succesful in thwarting their efforts to cross our borders, they credit us (i.e., “those in power”) with persecuting them.
Note the absence of any attribution to themselves of responsibility for their success or failure. Such people will hardly undertake the risks involved in a successful capitalist economy. Why should they? Success in life is the result of other people either giving you something because you begged and pleaded for it (e.g., “saints” like Soldado Juan) or taking something from you despite the good intentions of your heart (e.g., the evil gringo, “those in power”). Such people, rather than trying to find a way to create wealth where they are, will flee to where wealth, on their uneducated view of things, just “happens” to be. Those who have do so because they have exploited someone; those who have not do so because they have been exploited by the haves. They come to America because this is where the jobs simply and magically are and not because this is where jobs are actively created by people who have the liberty of doing so and who believe that they live, by God’s grace, in a world in which many things really do depend upon their very real, significant choices and the exercise of their God-given abilities.
This has nothing to do with how hard-working the Mexican is. Very few people deny that he is hard-working. But consider two men, both of them hard-working. Both of them have to roll a boulder up a hill. The first man will roll the boulder up the hill because that is his lot in life. He believes, however, that his success will be due to the gracious activity of some dead saint, and that his failure will be due to the work of some unidentified malefactor who just has it out for him. The second man will roll the boulder up the hill believing all the while that his success or failure will be due to his God-given strength and ability. If he succeeds, he will thank God for the strength and ability; and if he fails he will seek to increase his strength and sharpen his ability. Then he will try it again. He may even start his own boulder rolling business (if he is free to do) and try some boulder rolling innovations that no one else has. Who knows? But this much is clear: there is a world of difference between these two hard-working men; and much of the difference is in their worldview.
Mexico needs a worldview enema.
[M]any migrants are making fewer passages back and forth between the United States and Mexico. When they do undertake the…journey, some count on divine protection, stopping at churches, makeshift altars and the tombs of saints on the way. The Roman Catholic Church offers a half-dozen patron saints for travelers, but many Mexican migrants turn to someone not recognized by the church: "Juan Soldado," or Soldier John.
Soldado was a soldier who was falsely accused of the rape and murder of a girl and executed by a Mexican firing squad in February 1938. He is worshipped as a man wronged by those in power….
Superstition is one of the reasons that Mexico and similar countries do not have, and will not have, thriving economies. People who believe that some dead guy, “wronged by those in power,” somehow controls their destiny, or their prosperity and welfare, are not very well disposed towards doing those things which bring about economic prosperity. Think of it: When they succesfully thwart our efforts to stop them, they credit a saint like Soldado Juan; when we are succesful in thwarting their efforts to cross our borders, they credit us (i.e., “those in power”) with persecuting them.
Note the absence of any attribution to themselves of responsibility for their success or failure. Such people will hardly undertake the risks involved in a successful capitalist economy. Why should they? Success in life is the result of other people either giving you something because you begged and pleaded for it (e.g., “saints” like Soldado Juan) or taking something from you despite the good intentions of your heart (e.g., the evil gringo, “those in power”). Such people, rather than trying to find a way to create wealth where they are, will flee to where wealth, on their uneducated view of things, just “happens” to be. Those who have do so because they have exploited someone; those who have not do so because they have been exploited by the haves. They come to America because this is where the jobs simply and magically are and not because this is where jobs are actively created by people who have the liberty of doing so and who believe that they live, by God’s grace, in a world in which many things really do depend upon their very real, significant choices and the exercise of their God-given abilities.
This has nothing to do with how hard-working the Mexican is. Very few people deny that he is hard-working. But consider two men, both of them hard-working. Both of them have to roll a boulder up a hill. The first man will roll the boulder up the hill because that is his lot in life. He believes, however, that his success will be due to the gracious activity of some dead saint, and that his failure will be due to the work of some unidentified malefactor who just has it out for him. The second man will roll the boulder up the hill believing all the while that his success or failure will be due to his God-given strength and ability. If he succeeds, he will thank God for the strength and ability; and if he fails he will seek to increase his strength and sharpen his ability. Then he will try it again. He may even start his own boulder rolling business (if he is free to do) and try some boulder rolling innovations that no one else has. Who knows? But this much is clear: there is a world of difference between these two hard-working men; and much of the difference is in their worldview.
Mexico needs a worldview enema.
posted by James Frank Solís
at 20:10
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