Introduction
One of the dirty secrets of the Cold War was that behind the grandiose statements about ideology, class struggle, and major geopolitical conflicts lay a simpler reality: By the 1980s, the Soviet Union ended depending on large grain importsand a substantial portion of those purchases came from the United States.
That underlying cause, I would argue, was none other than the acceptance of falsehood: first as a tool of state propaganda, but then as a habit that filtered down to all levels of society – and the economy.
Several countries, including Mexico, today run the risk of falling into that dissonant spiral of falsehoodwhere each concession leads to another until ruin becomes the only truth left to face.
Today, some societies face a similar crossroads. Mexico is not condemned to repeat that fate, but it must guard against falling into the comfort of remaining silent. Telling the truth, even when it makes you uncomfortable, is an act of patriotism. And in that sense, figures such as businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego They offer a useful reminder of what it means to have the courage to speak truth to power: to do so with candor, without disqualifying anyone, and with the conviction that honest dialogue strengthens, not weakens, institutions.
The hidden life of the truth
In the history of human societies, few forces have been as quietly transformative as truth. I am not referring to an abstract or metaphysical truth, but to the lived truth: the one that emerges when people talk honestly about costs and benefits, when institutions allow bad ideas to die, and when markets, through messy and often brutal discipline, point out reality.
The truth, in this sense, It is not a moral adornment, but a condition for prosperity. When suppressed (through ideology, conformity or self-interest), economic systems lose the natural feedback mechanisms that allow them to learn, adapt and develop.
As Hayek pointed out in The Use of Knowledge in Society“particular knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place” cannot be aggregated or known by any central planner in the necessary detail. Knowledge is dispersed, tacit, and constantly changing. But, more importantly, decentralization is less vulnerable to hierarchically imposed falsehoods. This does not mean that it always works better, as is sometimes caricatured, but tends to do it.
In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith translates that moral framework into a pragmatic observation: Societies that allow individuals to pursue their self-interest within transparent and competitive markets discover truth through exchange. The prices, in that sense, are reports from the edge of realityeven when that reality is, in part, socially constructed. Therefore, those who dare to question inertia or dogmas, whether business, political or media – fulfill an essential function. Ricardo Salinas, by expressing frankly what many prefer to remain silent, does not challenge authority: he reminds it of its purpose. His example does not seek to divide, but rather to strengthen the dialogue between economic power and political power, for the benefit of the country.
When the State intervenes to set prices, dictate production, or protect inefficient industries, it distorts those reports. It is not always negative or lacking in social purpose, but the result tends to be a waterfall of lies: false signals that confuse companies, citizens and public policy makers.
In praise of feeling bad
To understand the extent to which this can become collective madness, it is enough to remember the disasters of Soviet agricultural planning in the 1930s, which led to the Great Famine.
Since Marxism considered heredity – what we would today call Mendelian genetics – to be a “reactionary” idea, official pseudoscience promoted the Lamarckian belief that acquired characteristics could be inherited. Disagreeing was tantamount to suggesting that some people are born more capable than others, which turned the dissident into a social pariah.
Thus, the State decreed that plants modified during their life must be replanted to produce an equally “modified” crop. Needless to say, what came out of the ground matched the original DNA – for the same reason that giraffes have long necks not because their parents stretched them, but because of natural selection over generations. The result was a famine in which millions died, all to avoid saying the unpleasant but obvious.
That was not an isolated episode, but part of a pattern: the institutionalized wishful thinking. Whether under socialism or under financial euphoria, the underlying pathology is the same: when a group is rewarded for agreeing rather than thinking, when the messenger is punished rather than the false message, the truth disappears – and with it, prosperity.
Markets are not immune to error; In fact, making money on them consists precisely of detecting monetizable errors. But, unlike bureaucracies or ideologized institutions, the markets learn: They punish persistent falsehood with bankruptcy and reward accuracy with profits.
On the other hand, socialist or corporatist planning systems suppress this learning mechanism. When a company fails under socialism, the failure is reinterpreted as a lack of resources or external sabotage, almost never as a consequence of an erroneous assumption. And since losses are socialized and political prestige is at stake, there is no incentive to recognize the mistake. Inefficiencies accumulate until the system collapses under the weight of its own lies, just as happened with the Soviet Union mentioned at the beginning.
Saying what you think, when it would be easy to remain silent, has never been free. Those who dare to do so face criticism, isolation, and sometimes personal or business consequences. But they also open space for others (entrepreneurs, leaders and citizens) to understand that progress is not born from conformism, but from the courage to correct oneself.
That is one Valuable lesson for the Mexican business ecosystem: Development does not depend only on capital or technological innovation, but on mutual trust between those who build and those who govern. When that trust is based on truth, the country advances. And when dissenting voices are punished, society loses its moral compass. It is not about challenging, but about recognizing that honest criticism is a sign of democratic respectnot disloyalty.
Conclusion
Ultimately, defend the markets and defend the truth They are the same causeand those who assume it – like Salinas – must be protected, not marginalized. The truth is, at its core, an exercise in humility: the recognition that knowledge is dispersed, that no one can know everything, and that progress depends on mechanisms that reward correctness, not conformity.
In the simplest terms: Prosperity belongs to societies that tell the truth, even when it hurts. And the world is better because of it.
Radu Magdin was honorary advisor to the Romanian Prime Minister (2014-2015) and the Moldovan Prime Minister (2016-2017). He currently works as a global analyst and consultant.
