There are some things that I hold true regarding to free entreprise and deregulation. They generates in everyone among the population a great incentive towards inovation. But at the same time, provides the tools of innovation only to a small fraction, through the class-system that it seems to inevitably create. So you end up with everyone with more than two braincells having the ambition of a Carlos Slim, with the vast majority of them almost sure to fail.

In the end, free entreprise generates a lot of broken dreams. Of which a significant part eventually will resort to antisocial behaviour. Witch takes us to the problem of criminality in Mexico.

I have yet to see a criminal. I'm typing this on my iPhone-looking smartphone in the crowded metro. But I have seen A LOT of police. The police is everywhere. At every street corner, at every metro station (never in the trains though, where they would have to witness the child labour). Half of them wear bullet-proof jackets, and half of them carry a huge six-shot pistol. The other half walk around wiith a small machine gun at their side. Sometimes, you see a truckload of some sort of special forces in full body armor, assault riffles and rambo facies patroling around the avenues.

And, paradoxically, there is so little trust in that super-powerful national police that everyone with the means hire private protection. And if, when I say "private protection" you imagine a mean-looking shave-headed black-leather-wearing guy at the entrance of a nightclub, add some body armor, a machine gun and an armored vehicle to the picture. They are quite easy to find, just go to the bank or to the shopping mall.

There are cheaper ways to make the citizens feel safer, in particular when I hear the stories of corrupt police arresting you for no other reason than emptying your wallet. I don't think more police makes Mexican citizens feel safer. So I believe that this Vulgar Display of Power is somehow needed and that without it, it would be Baghdad.

And talking about that, since I arrived here, I can't help but notice the similarities between Mexico and the USA. Mexico is in many ways like the USA, but more extreme. The capitalism is more capitalist, the police is more police, the people are more "about the money". So how come they don't have empire state buildings, silicon valleys and bombing campaigns in 3rd world countries too?

Well, it looks like there can only be one USA. If more than one administrative entity (read "country" here) goes headlong down the free-entreprise way, the one that will be a little bit more successful, or that will have benefited from a head start, will, out of a natural process, suck the life out of the others. Right now that's the case of USA. Every Mexican person that, taking advantage of the free-entreprise potential of the Mexican society, would displays genius in whatever field and starts seeing success, will eventually receive an offer to work in the USA. Every successful Mexican engineer, scientist, businessman, rock singer... will be tempted by better salary in another country. Most probably the USA.

Not convinced? I worked as an interner in a research facility in the USA in 2003. Designing prototypes for those now-ubiquitous white LED lamps. My chief was Pakistani, my lab manager was Korean, my colleagues were Malinese, Indian, Chinese and French. That's the team that helped building a greater America. Only the top-mega-boss, that we never saw, was Unitedstater.

There can be only one winner of the race to capitalism, and it fuels itself from the energy of the other competitors. Mexico will never have a silicon valley. Not in this global setting.