Marcelo Colussi *, Prensa Latina employee
“Laws are like women, they are there to be hurt.”
José Manuel Castelao, Spanish official (who was forced to resign after this statement).
The question is to determine the limit of this trap. Private property (“first theft in history,” Proudhon would say) is now legal. Violating this is a crime. The laws require this. But we must not forget that the law is an order based on power, on the side of the one who occupies a dominant position over the ruled. The millionaire’s half-million dollar Ferrari is legal, the corrupt official’s is questionable. There’s a lot to clarify: Can someone buy one of these cars through their daily work? It is clear that neither the businessman nor the corrupt official bought this luxury model with the sweat of his brow. “Labor is the only source of wealth,” Marx will say. The question is how this wealth will be distributed.
• Anyone who commits a crime, that is, anyone who breaks the law, is a serious criminal. Now, depending on the extent of the power, this violation can be more or less tolerable or abhorrent. In short: What is the main difference between a cell phone thief with a knife and an official who defrauds and withholds several million? Actually in terms of psychological structure: none. The difference comes from the social place that both occupy. One will have more social “highness”, perhaps a doctorate (which he may have usurped by even plagiarizing the thesis), better clothes, he may have traveled more around the world, more access to satisfiers, but nothing distinguishes him in his roots from the thief, whom he steals for the meal of the day or for the dose of drugs. Both are psychologically the same.
• According to the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO) in its tenth edition (ICD 10), “psychopathy” within the framework of “antisocial personality disorders” is characterized by: “1) neglect of social obligations and cold feelings towards others, 2) a important difference between the person’s behavior and current social norms, 3) the impossibility of learning from experience, not even through punishment, 4) low frustration tolerance, because if he suffers from it, he may resort to violence or aggression, 5) the Tendency to blame others for one’s own mistakes shows a personality without moral standards, without feelings of guilt. In other words, the subject with this psychological structure exhibits “a pattern of behavior characterized by contempt and violation of social norms and the rights of others, repeated lying, impulsivity, irritability and aggressiveness.” To illustrate the above with an example: Why should a bisexual person talk about defending the “sacred” heterosexual and monogamous family and denouncing abortion when he violates the same values in his life (obviously questionable)? who defend with tooth and claw?
• If we break all the rules, we get into mischief. Man is the only animal that lies; the other species, no. We can do these “little tricks,” but always with an associated feeling of guilt and fear of being found out. However, there are some who fully enjoy knowing that they are violating these social rules, which are always protected by impunity and which they feel are infallibly on their side. Psychopathology, as we saw in the previous paragraph, calls them “psychopaths”. Common sense and popular culture call them something else and remember their parents. Who has these characteristics? In general, the population that usually ends up in prisons. Or, often, the state government: the so-called “professional” politicians.
• In the modern world based on capitalist industry, the state has become a key actor; Its complexity and specialized division of functions requires increasingly efficient technocrats. For this reason, there are what we could call “professional politicians”, those who, through popular elections, control the levers of this state, making decisions with the support of specialized technical personnel. In this sense, politics, understood in this way, began to occupy a prominent place in modernity, becoming almost a closed caste with its own logic. Bridging the gap between “corrupt” southern politicians and transparent politicians? In the north everyone, or at least the vast majority, seems to be cut from the same cloth. That is: they respond to the psychological profile characterization described above: manipulators, liars, free riders, Machiavellians, untrustworthy… to say the least. If it is true that there are daily cases of corruption in the Global South, is the North developed? is not far behind: everywhere, in Sweden and Japan, in Italy and Spain, there is bribery and financial crime by public officials. In fact, influence peddling, which can be viewed as a despicable, highly corrupt and nepotistic practice, is legal in the United States as there are many lobbying companies. This leads us to the question: what is a professional politician in the context of capitalism? A liar who claims to govern for the good of the country, but above all favors the powerful, those who financed his election campaign. And that he often does his own “deals” with the state treasury.
• In Guatemala a few years ago, a political group with the characteristics of a corrupt mafia took over the reins of the state, essentially viewing it as spoils of war for their personal or sectoral desires. In every capitalist country, the state is the mechanism of class oppression, the instrument with which the economically dominant class subjugates the majority and passes off this situation as “normal”, as natural. The country’s real power players on Guatemalan soil: high-ranking companies and the US embassy tolerate this current mafia pact for various reasons. In short, because they “talk good” to the dominant sectors, they pass the necessary laws to keep everything the same and they oppress the “poor” when there is popular protest. And at the international level, they guarantee a positive vote for Taiwan in UN votes. All of this is worth stealing a little (or a lot) so that both the rich, the traditional and the upstart can buy the Ferrari. In short: owners are owners, regardless of how the wealth was accumulated. And of course he never did that with his own work (remember the previous quote from Marx).
• This group, popularly known as the Corrupt Pact, thought that in the last elections they would once again put one of their associates in the presidency and continue to lead the party. But it was not like that. The voting population, fed up with rampant corruption, cast a punitive vote that saw the Semilla movement win the executive branch unopposed in the runoff, with a 20 percent lead over its opponent. Of course, this corrupt and mafia pact does not want to give up power under any circumstances, so it does everything to prevent the arrival of Bernardo Arévalo in the presidential seat, knowing full well that this may be an attempt to give so much stale air with oxygen to enrich. Therefore, he is practically carrying out a technical coup, currently carried out by the Ministry of State, looking for the most absurd legal tricks to prevent the new president from coming to power. In doing so, in an act of arrogance and discrediting the will of the people expressed in the elections, the country is violating the rule of law and is effectively becoming a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. But the elected president, who at least enjoys popular favor in the mass vote, is viewed well by other branches of power, by those who have the final say: the government in Washington.
• For some time now, the media bombardment of the Western capitalist press has portrayed corruption as the evil that is the main cause of human misery. And it’s not like that! Even an ultra-neoliberal like Olav A. Dirkmaat, a staunch follower of Hayek and stronghold of the ultra-neoliberal Francisco Marroquín University of Guatemala, can say: “Corruption is universal and has existed at all times; Moreover, it is inherent in every political and bureaucratic system. Corruption still exists in developed countries, but it is becoming more “sophisticated” and less “blatant.” There is no connection between corruption and savings, corruption and development, nor corruption and social honesty. “The main cause of poverty in Guatemala is not corruption, but the lack of savings and investment.” Perhaps the poverty is not due to a lack of savings and investment, but rather to the unfair distribution of national wealth, but it is undeniable that it is “Fraud” by a corrupt official – remember that these people come from the same Guatemalan population. , does not come from another planet – it is not the reason for the exploitation rates and social exclusion. In any case, it should be looked at differently: Why can some (historic millionaires and new rich) have the half million dollar Ferrari, and the vast majority ride bikes or walk and will continue to do so for themselves? whole life?
• From all this, several conclusions can be drawn: 1) In capitalist countries, the practice of “professional” politics requires people with a manipulative disposition, and not lovers of the truth who are ready to do anything; 2) The representative democracy of these countries gives no real power to citizens; The final decisions that affect the large majorities are made without the right to vote; they are made behind closed doors between the major power factors; 3) In Guatemala, ultimate power remains with the traditional high-level business community (in some cases heirs to the colonial past) and the US Embassy; the “new rich” who have built fortunes through mafia-like actions, are tolerated by the historical powers and, in some cases, leave together; 4) The current power game is not clearly in favor of the pact of the corrupt, although practically all state structures have been taken over. In the name of democracy (weak representative democracy, to be clear), major political actors such as the European Union and the OAS – as I said, “Washington’s Colonial Office” – criticize the quasi-criminal actions of the current government and support the decision that has taken place reflected in the polls in the second round of voting, there was great support for having a new president on February 14, 2024; 5) Bernardo Arévalo’s search for support in the United States to be able to take possession. Obviously – grotesquely – who has the final say in Latin American countries, even though it is now independence month?
rmh/mc
*Political scientist, university professor and Argentine social researcher, living in Guatemala
(Taken from selected signatures)