Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Just as some label all their objects of hatred as “neoliberal”, there are also those who proclaim that the concept of “liberalism” can summarize the origins and purposes of a modern, functional, and democratic society.
Using the epithet “neoliberalism” has the purpose of denigrating and offending, building collectivity in the negative. Exalting “liberalism” seeks to explain and exalt the construction of good communion among society.
Anti-liberalism, identified with illiberal postulates, conceives the economy as hegemonically directed by the State. This economic hegemony presupposes that to achieve the objectives of social equality, democratic freedoms must be limited, especially freedom of expression, demonstration, thought, press, and access to information. All its actions are based on the empowerment of the State as the hegemonic bureaucratic power in society, assigning a substitute role to the social collectivity.
Liberalism, on the other hand, is a doctrine based on the defense of the individual and his freedoms in the social context while defending the equality of individuals before the law and postulating the convenience of limiting the powers of the State, both in the economic sphere and in social policy and public affairs.
The world is divided, taking a literary liberty, between liberalism and illiberalism. The liberal world comprises the strategic or occasional allies of the United States and Europe, while the illiberals have found shelter under the Sino-Russian mantle. Obviously, many countries are standing on the dividing line between the two blocs, whose leaders lean, with fervor or opportunism, towards one or the other.
In Mexico, these two conceptions have reared their heads in the electoral contest and placed our country before the dilemma of opting for one of the two blocs. Will Mexico continue to be liberal, or will it opt to be an illiberal nation? The differences between them are abysmal.
Illiberalism offers a collectivist, bureaucratic, and state-controlled society without counterweights to defend the citizens. The State will reign over everything and everyone. For this reason, they propose the disappearance of the institutions that counterbalance the omnipotent power of the person-state that reigns with uncontrolled powers. To abolish the Human Rights Commission is to abolish the protection of the individual against the State. To disappear the Institute of Access to Information (INAI) is to disappear the possibility of accessing public information that reveals the use of public funds in a democratic society. Disappearing the National Electoral Institute (INE) is to allow the establishment of a dictatorial and immovable power.
Liberalism, on the other hand, proposes a scheme of government with checks and balances, based on a State with controls and three branches of government with their own powers. It does not conceive the economy as an area under the control and administration of the State but regulated to generate economic, political, and social equilibrium between economic agents and social classes. Contrary to the collectivist conception, liberalism exalts the individual’s virtues, freedoms, and rights.
Indeed, these are contrasting ideas and conflicting political models. Mexico must choose between individual liberties or monolithic control in the upcoming elections. It will have to define itself between liberalism and the illiberal impulse.
The social experiment called the 4T has led us to this. To division, hatred, and, most tragically, the divided Republic may fragment and fall.
[email protected]
@rpascoep
Further Reading: