This article by José Romero originally appeared in the December 5, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Mexico Solidarity Media*, or the Mexico Solidarity Project.*
In Mexico, it has become commonplace to talk about left and right without saying anything of substance. For decades, most political forces have learned to disguise themselves with progressive rhetoric that never even touches the structures that perpetuate inequality. Being right-wing became associated with the Porfiriato; being left-wing, with a convenient label anyone can adopt without questioning the model that keeps the country stagnant. Thus, a useful illusion was born: declaring principles without bearing any costs, expressing outrage without transforming anything. The country ended up becoming accustomed to a superficial left, more attentive to fashionable language than to the material reality of millions.
Into this void emerged, without shame, what can be bluntly called a left-wing neoliberalism. This current embraces legitimate causes—academic feminism, discursive environmentalism, sexual diversity, anti-racism—but avoids, with surgical discipline, any discussion of material power. They prefer to concentrate on debates about language and symbolic representations rather than ask who controls the technology we use, who writes the rules of international trade, or who appropriates the value generated by Mexican labor. They denounce discursive offenses with militant fervor, but tolerate without scandal the economic violence that creates poverty every day. In this view, politics is reduced to sensitivity rather than transformation, to aesthetic discussions that never touch the heart of the problem.
This identity-based progressivism serves the interests of global elites because it moralizes politics without altering its material foundations. It allows marches without questioning foreign capital, protests without demanding wages, and demands for recognition without demanding redistribution. It is a product imported from the North Atlantic, designed to transform politics into emotional therapy. It prefers to correct rhetoric rather than structures. It speaks of care, but not of industry; of inclusion, but not of production; of abstract justice, but never of concrete power. It has become a left that manages symbols while refusing to contest the real economy, content with winning the conversation even if the country loses.
In contrast to this superficial left, there exists another tradition, less vocal but infinitely more serious: the national left. This is the one that speaks of productive sovereignty, homegrown industry, local innovation, decent wages, and real power for the workers. It wasn’t born in privileged classrooms or cosmopolitan NGOs, but in the dispossessed countryside, in precarious factories, in beleaguered unions, and in neighborhoods with no future. This left understands that the State is not an enemy abstraction, but the only tool capable of breaking down structural inequality. It knows that without the State there is no development, and without development there is no justice. And it also knows that national dignity isn’t proclaimed: it is sustained through production, technology, and material strength.
The distance between these two left-wing factions is not ideological: it is moral and strategic. One has turned politics into a perpetual test of personal virtues; the other understands it as a historical struggle for national power. One believes that change comes when we change our tone; the other knows that nothing changes if economic structures are not modified. One is outraged by words; the other by injustice. One administers neoliberalism with progressive rhetoric; the other tries to confront it with projects, not performances. One is obsessed with form; the other with results. One protects privileges with moral discourse; the other confronts those who profit from dependency and benefit from stagnation.
Mexico cannot remain trapped in symbolic battles that don’t even budge the productive apparatus. It needs a left with its feet on the ground and its eyes on the future: a left that talks about complex manufacturing, value chains, applied science, energy, infrastructure, state capabilities, and industrial strategy. A left that believes again that Mexico can produce, innovate, and compete, and that rejects perpetual technological dependence. A left that understands that sovereignty isn’t proclaimed: it’s produced; that well-being isn’t decreed: it’s manufactured; that a country isn’t liberated with speeches, but with machines, engineers, skilled workers, and its own technologies. A left that knows that national dignity comes from the hands that work, not from seminars that debate.
A country that does not protect its workers relinquishes the social cohesion that makes any democracy possible. Freedom without material power is an empty gesture; sovereignty without industry is a ceremony without substance.
Rebuilding a transformative left means leaving behind the cynicism that dominates much of the public debate: the conviction that nothing changes, that Mexico is condemned to stagnation, that any national project is mere nostalgia. This fatalism protects those who profit from managing dependency. A serious left doesn’t lament the present: it confronts it. It doesn’t freeze in the face of the challenge: it embraces it. It doesn’t hide behind the language of identities: it stands firm on the ground where the country’s future is decided. And it understands that moving forward means recovering lost ambition: the capacity to envision a strong, productive Mexico, master of its own destiny.
The challenge facing Mexico is not merely economic: it is existential. A country that does not produce what it consumes depends on others for survival. A country that does not control its energy or technology surrenders its future. A country that does not protect its workers relinquishes the social cohesion that makes any democracy possible. Freedom without material power is an empty gesture; sovereignty without industry is a ceremony without substance.
Mexico deserves a different kind of left: one that thinks big, recaptures lost ambition, and speaks of sovereignty again without apology. One that puts on the table what no one wants to discuss: that without a productive sector, social justice is impossible; without innovation, there is no competitiveness; and without economic power, there is no true independence. Mexico doesn’t need a left that manages its defeats, but one that dares to build its future. Because a country that refuses to produce refuses to decide, and a country that refuses to decide, without realizing it, refuses to be itself.
José Romero is Director General of the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), appointed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. CIDE is a publicly-financed social sciences research center aiming to impact Mexico’s social, economic and political development.
The Decorative Left & The Transformative Left
December 5, 2025
Mexico cannot remain trapped in symbolic battles that don’t even budge the productive apparatus: it needs a left with its feet on the ground & its eyes on the future.
The Needed Debate on Mexico’s Informal Economy
December 5, 2025December 5, 2025
Millions of people in Mexico work outside the legal framework and without social protection, in activities that don’t appear in formal statistics yet sustain much of the country.
People’s Mañanera December 5
December 5, 2025
The Mexican executive’s daily press conference, with comments on approval ratings, water law, Sheinbaum in the USA, disability pensions, and agriculture.
The post The Decorative Left & The Transformative Left appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.
From Mexico Solidarity Media via this RSS feed
You must log in or # to comment.