According to INEGI data, the percentage of middle-class households had been growing steadily and went from 42.4 percent in 2010 to 46.7 percent in 2018. But precisely in that year the opposite trend began, in such a way that in in 2020 that percentage dropped to 42.2 percent. The perceptive reader will surely notice that this percentage is already lower than it was ten years ago.
The reason for this surprising deterioration in the conditions of the Mexican middle class is due to the application of economic policies that do not seek to equalize upwards, but downwards. Thus, for example, instead of promoting individual entrepreneurship, business development and consequently well-paid work, in the current federal administration it has been decided to deliver cash indiscriminately and without strategic social differentiation, since the The objective seems to be to keep millions of Mexicans in poverty, inhibiting their quest for individual prosperity, leaving them without hope for improvement. Similarly, constant attacks on the business sector – in practice and in discourse – have inhibited economic growth, ultimately hurting the middle class. The most conspicuous example was the lack of government support for small and medium-sized businesses during the pandemic.
This government attempt at distorted equality, by way of collective impoverishment, contradicts the promises of the Enlightenment and of the modern economy, whose aim is the prosperity of humanity and not its stagnation. And individual prosperity, when enjoyed by broad sectors of the population, translates into progress. In that sense, it cannot be dissociated from the desire to “live better.” It is in this human aspiration where the Achilles heel of the current government lies, because sooner or later Mexicans will recognize that happiness is not found in suffering deficiencies.
