The National School was the scene of the first day of the event this Wednesday Freedom of returnorganized by the magazine Letras Libres in collaboration with Art & Culture of the Ricardo B. Salinas Pliego Center, which brought together writers and academics from different countries to analyze liberal democracy at a time when populism is gaining ground. In the first panel of the day on the relationship between the economy and the crisis of representation, the political scientist David Frum explained that the miracle of the Chinese economy, which according to him Trump wants to emulate, can be explained by its population with a high level of education and by the Chinese government’s plan to repress private consumption so that wealth remains under the control of the state and is also used in large investments. “It’s the strategy of the current Mexican government, but it doesn’t work because the government is not repressive enough,” he commented.
Unlike the previous meeting in 1990, on this occasion China occupied an important space in this first conversation of the day, moderated by EL PAÍS journalist Andrea Aguilar. The speakers of the first debate, including the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev and the Mexican internationalist Carlos Elizondo, agreed on the political and economic strength of the Asian power. Krastev underlined that the Chinese elite differs from the American one in its education: in Beijing it is mainly made up of engineers. For the Bulgarian, this explains that government’s interest in construction projects and the failed health strategy to fight covid-19 a few years ago.
For his part, academic Elizondo argued that Claudia Sheinbaum’s government sees China as an example to follow: “There is enormous admiration for a statism that works, and they themselves imagine they can, in some way, emulate it.” However, he clarified that this is “mere fantasy” and cited as an example the bailouts of Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) carried out by both the Mexican president and his predecessor. “Management skills are so eroded that, I think, they will never be able to do that,” he stressed. Furthermore, he argued that the state does not have the capabilities to support the clientelistic model of the self-proclaimed Fourth Transformation: “The paradox of the populism of López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum is a very small state that gives out money and does almost nothing else.”
The meeting also addressed the earthquake caused by the arrival of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Frum assured that “the global economy is in crisis” and that the rise of the tycoon has also weighed on the freedoms of its citizens and put an end to American leadership. “Where does ‘deglobalization’ lead? It leads to war,” he concluded. Regarding the Trump government’s attacks against alleged drug traffickers, the commentator explained that these offensives are an example of the drastic change in US policy in which there is no form of legitimation: “There is no authorization from Congress, there is no type of authorization from an international coalition, there are no allies, there are no partners.”
Krastev brought the covid-19 pandemic into the debate. For him, this led many to bet on a nationalist economy to reduce their dependence on other countries and, above all, it gave rise to the feeling that “big government was back”. “There was a lot of libertarian resentment,” he said, adding that the restrictions imposed clashed with many people who didn’t want the government telling them how they should live. According to the intellectual, the fact that it was the United States, and not just any country, that chose to go against globalization led others to change their plans too.
The second panel of the day was moderated by the historian and director of the Letras Libres magazine Enrique Krauze. The intellectuals Ian Buruma, Ivan Krastev, Mark Lilla and Leon Wieseltier were tasked with analyzing the malaise of liberal societies, whose discontent and lack of trust in institutions are on the rise. In his first speech, Lilla stated that “something has broken” because states are no longer capable of creating liberal peoples or people with liberal values. Furthermore, he emphasized that liberalism does not just mean “expressing an opinion and voting for people,” but rather refers to a “system of deliberation” that has been lost.
For his part, Leon Wieseltier forcefully emphasized that there is “a fundamentally flawed assumption” about liberalism. “Liberalism will not meet all your needs,” he said. For the academic, “people expect a lot from political frameworks” and perceive them as “totalistic”, that is, they cover all aspects of life. “If you are looking for the key to all mysteries, then liberalism will disappoint you,” he commented. And he assured that “the people frustrated with liberalism are the ones who want definitive answers.” According to Wieseltier, all responsibility should not be placed on the political spectrum because many solutions can be found elsewhere.
The intellectual Ian Buruma has argued that there is no exact definition of the word liberalism because it takes on different meanings in Europe and the United States. Furthermore, he argued that political parties, at least since the Cold War, are no longer interested in supporting the working class nor do they care about economic injustices. They instead focused on cultural and social programs. “The political programs of the parties have been so diluted that they no longer attract people’s attention,” he said.
Religion was also an important variable evaluated by intellectuals, who agreed on the danger of its exploitation for political purposes. Wieseltier was forceful in his defense of religion: “I don’t think we should be afraid of religion.” Although he also outlined some nuances. “I have always believed that the fusion between religion and politics or between religion and nationalism is almost always a very dangerous phenomenon,” he said.
The event Freedom of returnwhich has its origin in the encounter The 20th century: the experience of freedomorganized by the Vuelta magazine, directed by the Nobel Prize winner for Literature Octavio Paz, continues this Thursday with its second day of conferences at the Colegio Nacional. The first, on the authoritarian threat beyond military coups, sees the moderation of the Mexican academic León Krauze and the participation of the former minister José Ramón Cossío, the Spanish analyst José María Lassalle and the writer Celeste Marcus. The journalist Daniel Gascón, the academic Gisela Kozak and the writer David Rieff participate in the second debate, moderated by the literary critic Christopher Domínguez Michael.
