Tiempos de nefasta politiquería
La “política” –así, entre comillas— es una auténtica maldición bíblica en el México de la transición democrática. Antes, en los buenos tiempos del nacionalismo-revolucionario-paternalista-corporativista-intervencionista, el sofisticado arte de pactar con el adversario se limitaba a comprar sus voluntades y las únicas peleas reales –salvo esas honrosas excepciones de siempre habidas en los espacios de las “luchas sociales”—ocurrían entre los competidores en las filas del partido de Estado. A decir verdad, imperaba un modelo bastante civilizado: antes de que Calles “institucionalizara” la Revolución, se habían estado matando entre ellos y ahora simplemente se repartían el pastel nacional.
De cara a la galería, por lo tanto, el “sistema” ofrecía una ejemplar cohesión. El único personaje autorizado a tener una personalidad propia era el señor presidente de la República cuyas atribuciones, además, trascendían las fronteras de su mandato en tanto que –vaya ejercicio del poder— él mismo se encargaba directamente de la elección de su sucesor (no hablemos ya de imaginar siquiera la llegada a la silla presidencial de un candidato opositor; la mera idea de que el heredero del trono fuera de otra “corriente” o de un “grupo” extraño era una herejía). Las limitaciones a las iniciativas personales eran tan imperativas que “el que se movía no salía en la foto”, según una frase que describe muy gráficamente la cautela que debían guardar los eternos aspirantes a cualquier cargo público. Se vivía una cultura de la simulación cuyo ingrediente esencial era la permanente adulación al jefe máximo, ese primer mandatario excelso de necesidad capaz de proferir todos los días una frase histórica que el periódico Excélsior reproducía fiel e infaliblemente.
Qué tiempos aquellos: hubo una elección presidencial sin ningún candidato opositor. La política era un simple trámite, la mera administración de canonjías diversas para consumo de los felices adherentes y la interesada repartición de las sobras entre los eternos aspirantes a vivir “dentro de la Revolución”. No debemos confundir este equilibrio logrado por un sistema colosalmente mentiroso con cualquier forma de progreso económico o social: las políticas públicas del antiguo régimen nunca trajeron un auténtico bienestar para la mayoría de los mexicanos por más que sigamos cacareando incorregiblemente los presuntos logros de la “Revolución Mexicana”. Para mayores señas, ahí tenemos al país, delante de las narices, con sus flagrantes desigualdades y los mismos cuellos de botella de siempre. Un dato: el Peso mexicano –al que se le quitaron tres ceros— vale hoy, justamente, la milésima parte de la cuantía que tenía en la década del 60.
En fin, volviendo al tema, hoy padecemos los efectos del exceso de celo, por así decirlo, de una clase política cuyos centros de poder se han desplazado de la casa presidencial a las Cámaras legislativas. Las conveniencias siguen siendo prácticamente las mismas: la nueva casta gobernante, el Congreso, no procura los intereses superiores de la nación sino que gestiona, por encima de todo, sus muy particulares provechos partidistas a la vez que se escuda detrás de una creciente barrera de impedimentos para ser fiscalizada por los ciudadanos: la Ley de Transparencia se termina al cruzar la puerta de los despachos de los diputados.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Showdown in Bali
Joseph E. Stiglitz
BALI – This month’s international meeting in Bali will set a framework that will attempt to prevent the impending disaster of global warming/climate change. There is now little doubt that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are leading to significant changes in climate. Nor is there doubt that these changes will impose huge costs. The question is no longer whether we can afford to do something, but rather how to control emissions in an equitable and effective way.
The Kyoto Protocol was a major achievement, yet it left out 75% of the sources of emissions: the US, the largest polluter, refused to sign. (With Australia’s new government now having signed the Protocol, America is now the sole holdout among the advanced industrial countries.) No requirements were put on developing countries, yet within the not-too-distant future, they will contribute half or more of emissions. And nothing was done about deforestation, which is contributing almost as much to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations as the US.
The US and China are in a race to be the world’s worst polluter; America has long won the contest, but in the next few years, China will claim that dubious honor. But Indonesia is number three, owing to its rapid deforestation.
One concrete action that should be taken at Bali is support for the initiative of the Rainforest Coalition, a group of developing countries that want help to maintain their forests. These countries are providing environmental services for which they have not been compensated. They need the resources, and the incentives, to maintain their forests. The global benefits of supporting them far outweigh the costs.
The timing of the conference is not propitious. George W. Bush, long a skeptic about global warming, and long committed to undermining multilateralism, remains America’s president. His close connections with the oil industry make him loathe to force it to pay for its pollution.
Still, the Bali meeting’s participants can agree on a few principles to guide future negotiations. These include, first, that solutions to global warming require the participation of all countries. Second, there can be no free riders, so trade sanctions – the only effective sanctions that the international community currently has – can and should be imposed on those not going along. Third, the problem of global warming is so vast that every instrument must be employed.
Better incentives must be part of the solution. But there is a raging controversy over whether the Kyoto protocol’s cap-and-trade system or taxes work better. The problem with the Kyoto system is assigning caps that will be acceptable to developed and developing countries. Giving emission allowances is like giving away money – potentially hundreds of billions of dollars.
Kyoto’s underlying principle – that countries that emitted more in 1990 are allowed to emit more in the future – is unacceptable to developing countries, as is granting greater emission rights to countries with a higher GDP. The only principle that has some ethical basis is equal emission rights per capita (with some adjustments – for instance, the US has already used up its share of the global atmosphere, so it should have fewer emission allowances). But adopting this principle would entail such huge payments from developed countries to developing countries, that, regrettably, the former are unlikely to accept it.
Economic efficiency requires that those who generate emissions pay the cost, and the simplest way of forcing them to do so is through a carbon tax. There could be an international agreement that every country would impose a carbon tax at an agreed rate (reflecting the global social cost). Indeed, it makes far more sense to tax bad things, like pollution, than to tax good things like work and savings. Such a tax would increase global efficiency.
Of course, polluting industries like the cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute, emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a tax system. Some firms can even make money off the deal. Moreover, Europe has grown used to the concept of cap-and-trade, and many are loathe to try an alternative. Yet, no one has proposed an acceptable set of principles for assigning emission rights.
For some, this is not a concern. With developing countries standing to lose even more than developed countries if nothing is done about global warming, many believe they can be cajoled, threatened, or induced to be part of a global agreement. Developed countries need only figure out the minimum price they have to pay developing countries to go along.
But developing countries worry that a new global agreement on emissions, like so many other international agreements, will leave them in a disadvantageous position.
In the end, Realpolitik may rule. But the world today is different from the world of 25 years ago, or even 10 years ago. Flourishing democracies in many developing countries mean that their citizens demand fair treatment.
Principles do matter. The Bali meeting’s participants should bear this in mind: global warming is too important to be held hostage to another attempt at squeezing the poor.
BALI – This month’s international meeting in Bali will set a framework that will attempt to prevent the impending disaster of global warming/climate change. There is now little doubt that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are leading to significant changes in climate. Nor is there doubt that these changes will impose huge costs. The question is no longer whether we can afford to do something, but rather how to control emissions in an equitable and effective way.
The Kyoto Protocol was a major achievement, yet it left out 75% of the sources of emissions: the US, the largest polluter, refused to sign. (With Australia’s new government now having signed the Protocol, America is now the sole holdout among the advanced industrial countries.) No requirements were put on developing countries, yet within the not-too-distant future, they will contribute half or more of emissions. And nothing was done about deforestation, which is contributing almost as much to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations as the US.
The US and China are in a race to be the world’s worst polluter; America has long won the contest, but in the next few years, China will claim that dubious honor. But Indonesia is number three, owing to its rapid deforestation.
One concrete action that should be taken at Bali is support for the initiative of the Rainforest Coalition, a group of developing countries that want help to maintain their forests. These countries are providing environmental services for which they have not been compensated. They need the resources, and the incentives, to maintain their forests. The global benefits of supporting them far outweigh the costs.
The timing of the conference is not propitious. George W. Bush, long a skeptic about global warming, and long committed to undermining multilateralism, remains America’s president. His close connections with the oil industry make him loathe to force it to pay for its pollution.
Still, the Bali meeting’s participants can agree on a few principles to guide future negotiations. These include, first, that solutions to global warming require the participation of all countries. Second, there can be no free riders, so trade sanctions – the only effective sanctions that the international community currently has – can and should be imposed on those not going along. Third, the problem of global warming is so vast that every instrument must be employed.
Better incentives must be part of the solution. But there is a raging controversy over whether the Kyoto protocol’s cap-and-trade system or taxes work better. The problem with the Kyoto system is assigning caps that will be acceptable to developed and developing countries. Giving emission allowances is like giving away money – potentially hundreds of billions of dollars.
Kyoto’s underlying principle – that countries that emitted more in 1990 are allowed to emit more in the future – is unacceptable to developing countries, as is granting greater emission rights to countries with a higher GDP. The only principle that has some ethical basis is equal emission rights per capita (with some adjustments – for instance, the US has already used up its share of the global atmosphere, so it should have fewer emission allowances). But adopting this principle would entail such huge payments from developed countries to developing countries, that, regrettably, the former are unlikely to accept it.
Economic efficiency requires that those who generate emissions pay the cost, and the simplest way of forcing them to do so is through a carbon tax. There could be an international agreement that every country would impose a carbon tax at an agreed rate (reflecting the global social cost). Indeed, it makes far more sense to tax bad things, like pollution, than to tax good things like work and savings. Such a tax would increase global efficiency.
Of course, polluting industries like the cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute, emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a tax system. Some firms can even make money off the deal. Moreover, Europe has grown used to the concept of cap-and-trade, and many are loathe to try an alternative. Yet, no one has proposed an acceptable set of principles for assigning emission rights.
For some, this is not a concern. With developing countries standing to lose even more than developed countries if nothing is done about global warming, many believe they can be cajoled, threatened, or induced to be part of a global agreement. Developed countries need only figure out the minimum price they have to pay developing countries to go along.
But developing countries worry that a new global agreement on emissions, like so many other international agreements, will leave them in a disadvantageous position.
In the end, Realpolitik may rule. But the world today is different from the world of 25 years ago, or even 10 years ago. Flourishing democracies in many developing countries mean that their citizens demand fair treatment.
Principles do matter. The Bali meeting’s participants should bear this in mind: global warming is too important to be held hostage to another attempt at squeezing the poor.
Futura desaparición de pequeñas empresas
Román Revueltas Retes
Vienen tiempos difíciles: por cortesía de una reforma fiscal confeccionada de tal manera que uno de los grandes mitos nacionales no fuera siquiera cuestionado (bajar el IVA a diez por cien y aplicarlo a todos los artículos y mercaderías, incluyendo los frijolitos y los Alka-Selzers es, por lo visto, una auténtica herejía en el país de los dogmas inamovibles), al comenzar el año próximo año pagaremos más impuestos, es decir, ganaremos menos dinero, afrontaremos una subida de precios debida al aumento de la gasolina y treparemos aún más trabajosamente la inclemente cuesta de enero.
Es cosa sabida que las grandes compañías de este país no pagan los gravámenes que debieran: cuentan, a diferencia del supremo Gobierno, con formidables abogados y expertos fiscalistas para acomodar leyes y reglamentos a su antojo. Muy bien. Pero, de ahí a tomar de rehenes a esos pequeños y medianos empresarios que trabajosamente logran llegar a fin de mes pagando fuertes cuotas, lidiando con una burocracia abominable y bregando con empleados mañosos especializados en entablar querellas laborales perdidas de antemano, hay una gran diferencia.
Lo curioso es que los autores de la tal reforma no se atrevieron a universalizar el pago del IVA pero, a la vez, fueron perfectamente capaces de aplicar el pago de nuevos impuestos tanto a los que tienen fortunas inconmensurables como a los que apenas pueden sostener un pequeño changarro familiar.
Ojalá y que las profecías de esos miles y miles de mexicanos emprendedores que arriesgan sus magros capitales en la iniciativa privada no se vean cumplidas porque, de otra manera, el remedio va a ser mucho peor que la enfermedad. Puede ocurrir la desaparición pura y simple de las pequeñas empresas de este país. Nuestros “nuevos” empresarios son los mercaderes de la economía informal. Nadie se mete con ellos. Los otros, los que pagan impuestos y cumplen con los trámites, están en la cuerda floja sin recibir auxilio alguno. No es justo.
Vienen tiempos difíciles: por cortesía de una reforma fiscal confeccionada de tal manera que uno de los grandes mitos nacionales no fuera siquiera cuestionado (bajar el IVA a diez por cien y aplicarlo a todos los artículos y mercaderías, incluyendo los frijolitos y los Alka-Selzers es, por lo visto, una auténtica herejía en el país de los dogmas inamovibles), al comenzar el año próximo año pagaremos más impuestos, es decir, ganaremos menos dinero, afrontaremos una subida de precios debida al aumento de la gasolina y treparemos aún más trabajosamente la inclemente cuesta de enero.
Es cosa sabida que las grandes compañías de este país no pagan los gravámenes que debieran: cuentan, a diferencia del supremo Gobierno, con formidables abogados y expertos fiscalistas para acomodar leyes y reglamentos a su antojo. Muy bien. Pero, de ahí a tomar de rehenes a esos pequeños y medianos empresarios que trabajosamente logran llegar a fin de mes pagando fuertes cuotas, lidiando con una burocracia abominable y bregando con empleados mañosos especializados en entablar querellas laborales perdidas de antemano, hay una gran diferencia.
Lo curioso es que los autores de la tal reforma no se atrevieron a universalizar el pago del IVA pero, a la vez, fueron perfectamente capaces de aplicar el pago de nuevos impuestos tanto a los que tienen fortunas inconmensurables como a los que apenas pueden sostener un pequeño changarro familiar.
Ojalá y que las profecías de esos miles y miles de mexicanos emprendedores que arriesgan sus magros capitales en la iniciativa privada no se vean cumplidas porque, de otra manera, el remedio va a ser mucho peor que la enfermedad. Puede ocurrir la desaparición pura y simple de las pequeñas empresas de este país. Nuestros “nuevos” empresarios son los mercaderes de la economía informal. Nadie se mete con ellos. Los otros, los que pagan impuestos y cumplen con los trámites, están en la cuerda floja sin recibir auxilio alguno. No es justo.
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