Code Monkey Ramblings

Sympathy, mercy, yada yada. These are the things that we are supposed to feel for the poor of the world even if they exercise their right to vote by voting for someone who is completely inimical to their interests. Take the current case of the presidential election in Mexico for example. The very fact that AMLO is polling high on anything other than a few left-wing blogs and forums in first world countries should indicate something rather screwed up about the voting habits of the poor and working class. It happens here too. They often, all too often, vote for the very people whose policies helped tear down the economy in the first place.

Mexico has foreign investment problems that stem from its constitution and legal system and major problems with the government being fair, liberal and consistent. These are the cornerstones of a government that fuels economic growth. No foreign capital, your economy is limited to what it can do with its own resources. In the case of Mexico that would be a problem. No rule of law worth mentioning? The government serves the rich, to the exclusion of everyone else. The socialists and populists make it out to be a middle class barrier to the "common man," but only an idiot would actually think that. Without good law, consistently applying to all classes of society, there is no hope of creating order and peace.

This is why the right to vote was always extended to property owners, not every Tom, Dick and Harry. The poor and working class all too often vote for any despot or demagogue who offers them some free bread and circus. That's why every totalitarian movement from the Fascists and Nazis to the Communist movement has supported extending the right to vote so broadly. They can rely on short-sighted poor people to vote for them. They don't support the universal franchise to genuinely make society freer, just to make it easier for them to exploit the less fortunate. In the end, it's always the less fortunate who bear the deepest wounds for their electoral mistakes. Mexico will be no different if it supports AMLO.