Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
AMLO’s electoral slogan (For the good of all, the poor first) has already shown its true intention. It is the political justification for giving money to people experiencing poverty in exchange for conditioning their votes. It is a transaction where citizens receive money from the government in exchange for losing their freedom of opinion and thought. It also justifies an economic model that ensures eternal poverty so their party remains in power.
The opposition led by Xóchitl Gálvez and Santiago Taboada represents an option for the relationship between the State and society wholly opposed to the one offered by the ruling party. Freedom is placed at the center of their proposal, together with the offer of full employment. The opposition’s economic model consciously and resolutely seeks to eradicate poverty forever. It proposes a middle-class society for the nation. It offers to dismantle the methods of political control that sustain AMLO and his brotherhood in power. The opposition seeks to eliminate poverty, ensuring jobs and well-paying wages for all.
Full employment for women is an integral part of the opposition’s economic proposal. The only way to achieve full equity between women and men is for them to have not only well-paid jobs with equal salaries between the sexes but also the social services that go with that condition, guaranteed by the State. Daycare for all children, primary, secondary, high school, and university education to ensure a promising future for all students. It should include full-time schools and modern internet and computer equipment for their professional development.
Comprehensive health care from birth to death is another fundamental service that must accompany full employment. Full employment implies that the material and spiritual conditions must exist so that the equity demanded by a satisfied and cared-for society can exist.
A public budget oriented to the population’s needs would finance and provide all these services. For this, a fiscal policy must ensure sufficient revenue to cover these needs and, at the same time, create the conditions for private investment to flourish, creating each year the new jobs necessary to incorporate the new generations produced by the country’s educational centers.
The pact that this new model means is that full employment guarantees health, educational, environmental, scientific, and technological development policies in an environment of freedom and creativity, complemented by the private sector.
Freedom is the natural and indispensable accompaniment to full employment in its broadest sense. Freedom is a prerequisite for a society to move forward, creating new ideas, criteria, and conditions to develop its productive, creative, and intellectual forces in the future. Freedom is necessary for the country to think of a future that will bring about constant improvements. We should never be afraid of confronting ideas and political or economic projects. This freedom will enrich the life of the nation.
What would be a step backward would be to limit or lose our freedoms. The ruling government model in Mexico proposes to restrict the freedom of many and, in the case of the recipients of free public resources, it is to cancel their freedom totally.
During the presidential candidates’ debate, the Morenista candidate made clear her anti-libertarian stance. She accused Xóchitl of wanting to consider support “temporary.” She said this because, for her, the only way to remain in power is to keep “the poor” eternally in poverty and, therefore, always dependent on government resources. Her expressed intention to keep the support eternally is a modern form of slavery and the nullification of people’s freedom.
In contrast, Xóchitl proposes to maintain support until full employment is achieved. Full employment offers freedom of movement and thought, allowing society to participate fully in its future development and giving everyone the opportunity to aspire to a better life.
Employment and freedom are necessary to build a more equitable, prosperous society with freedom of action and thought.
In the face of the eternalized modern slavery proposed by the ruling party, the opposition trusts in freedom and employment as the keys to building a better society.
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