Comments on: Like new

By: Josue The Captain

Josue The Captain — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:19:29 +0000

WOW! Shoeshine in Mexico. Last time I had a shoeshine was in Atlanta and before then I thought shoeshines only existed in Mexico. I remember getting shoeshines in Guadalajara. Flashback moment.

By: Judy

Judy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:06:21 +0000

Ain’t nothing like a Mexican shoeshine.
These people do it so well, they leave whatever is undignified about it in the dust.

By: Junichiro Watanabe

Junichiro Watanabe — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:13:28 +0000

Felipe Zapata, I assume you are aware that social mobility is much lower in Mexico than in the US -which, together with the UK, has the least degree of social mobility of all developed countries. So I don’t agree with your comment that Mexico offers opportunities for all. So long as you’re born to a middle or upper class household, yes -but those are, at most, 35 or 40% of the country.

About “culture”, the problem is that it’s an all-encompassing, vague concept. What isn’t “cultural” strictly speaking? Geography alone. Moreover, it’s always tricky to pin down specific “cultural traits” to establish a relationship of causality (i.e. “cultural aspect X holds back growth in country Y”). Maybe what causes X is Y(reverse causality), or maybe there’s an omitted variable that affects both X and Y. In the social sciences that’s called “endogeneity bias”.

What I do think is that there are two things affecting human behaviour, everywhere: incentives and “custom”. The former means that people respond to carrots-and-sticks; the latter means that some types of collective behaviour are inertial -people act in certain ways because that’s the custom, that’s the only way of doing things, or of thinking, that people know.

By: Drew

Drew — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:41:15 +0000

If Mexico’s problems were all ‘cultural’, why would it’s business-legal structure be ranked 60th in the world in terms of economic competiveness. Culture definitely plays a factor, but until Mexican laws are changed to allow more competition and less bureaucracy, things for the majority won’t improve. Furthermore, Mexico ranks last among the 28 advanced countries of the OECD. Until politicians make the necessary reforms in this area (and until the people as a whole stand up to force the politicos to do this), it’s hard to blame a typical Mexican for the situation they face.

http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/mexico/219460-1.html

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/GCR09/GCR20092010fullrankings.pdf

By: Alejandro García Magos

Alejandro García Magos — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:05:46 +0000

Bravo for Mr. Andrew Paxman!

By: alexa

alexa — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:03:16 +0000

Ese Felipillo… no seas tan delicado guapeton!

Besos a todos!

By: Paul Roberts

Paul Roberts — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:43:23 +0000

It seems to me that the economic is always mediated by the cultural and vice versa.

I agree that there is a culture of suspicion and mistrust in Mexico. One way to look at this is as a lack of social capital. It interests me to know and understand how this has arisen. I suspect the conquest and subsequent centuries of colonialisation have more than a little to do with it.

By: Jose

Jose — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:56:53 +0000

Once a chilango always a chilango! Felipe is the perfect prototype and example of why they are hated through out Mexico by their own people; Pompous, arrogant and pedantic.

By: Andrew Paxman

Andrew Paxman — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:42:41 +0000

Agreed on the shoeshine, David. Those men are masters of their craft.

As for the “debate” between Felipe Zapata and Happy Camper (whose real name, I suspect, is Angry Camper), here we have a case of two sides making sensible points, yet unwilling to listen to the other. Speaking as a historian, any argument claiming that Mexico’s problems are either *all* cultural or *all* structural is ignoring a wealth of theory and evidence.

By: Happy Camper

Happy Camper — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:46:17 +0000

Lopez-Calva, Luis Felipe and Nora Lusting. “Declining Inequality in Latin America: A Decade of Progress? Brookings Institution Press.

The argument that positions “culture” as the main culprit for poverty and unemployment in Latin America was fully discredited in the 1950′s. It is, plain and simple, a racist argument. There is absolutely no evidence to support it. Of course, lack of empirical evidence never stops anybody for saying all sorts of crap. Right before dying Huntington still bitched that the main danger against the stability USA was the Mexican “culture”. May he rest in hell.