In Victorian England, Charles Dickens portrayed the misery of hunger with brutal clarity: “Many homeless people, exhausted by hunger, close their eyes in our naked streets and, whatever their crimes may have been, can hardly open them in a more bitter world.” More than a century and a half later, in today’s Guatemala, 49% of Guatemalans admit they have not had enough money to buy food. The past that seemed overcome in books still strikes us in the present, according to the latest CID Gallup public opinion survey (September 2025).¹
Hunger in Guatemala is neither abstract nor statistical. It has a face and an age. It affects above all women, those over forty years old, and those who barely completed primary school. It is that middle-aged woman who can no longer aspire to a dignified future because she cannot secure the most basic things: bread, health, security. In the words of Homer in the Iliad, “No warrior can endure an entire day of battle if he has not tasted bread before nightfall.” Hunger disarms not only the soldier, but also the worker, the entrepreneur, and the citizen facing the harsh battle of surviving in this country.
The poet Jacques Prévert wrote it with a stark image: “Terrible is the small sound of the hard-boiled egg cracking on a tin counter when it echoes in the memory of the hungry man.” Guatemala as a whole knows that phrase, either firsthand or by hearsay. My grandmother lived it: during the years of the First World War, she and her seven siblings knelt before their mother with a stack of tortillas to share the only egg in the house. Hunger is dividing what is not enough.
Meanwhile, the young people who should ignite the engine of a growing country are looking for a way out abroad. They want to leave in the prime of their productive years, and they are the most qualified: 42% of those thinking of emigrating have higher education, and more than half are between 18 and 39 years old.² It is a brutal symptom of the lack of opportunities and possibilities. Hopelessness is so profound that many doubt the ability of the authorities to solve their concerns, and a majority would be willing to exchange freedoms for economic stability or security.³ In the country of hunger, democracy is no longer a foundation; it is a frivolity. As Élizabeth Tchoungui warned: “A hungry man is not a free soul.”
And yet, almost half believe the solution is to copy El Salvador. There, although violence may have receded, the economy is the weakest in Central America: authoritarianism with hunger is still hunger, only watched over by more police officers. That is not the solution.
So, what should be done? There are examples we must examine carefully. The Dominican Republic multiplied jobs thanks to its free trade zones, which today generate around 200,000 direct jobs, integrating thousands of small and medium-sized industries into global value chains.⁴ Ireland, since the creation of the Shannon Free Zone in the 1950s, demonstrated that entrepreneurship flourishes when the State stops being an obstacle and becomes a facilitator: that single zone supports more than 46,000 jobs, and the broader investment attraction policies have enabled more than 540,000 direct and indirect jobs to be sustained in the country.⁵ Bulgaria, with flexible labor reforms and openness to foreign investment, managed to reactivate entire sectors: the automotive industry today employs more than 50,000 people, and the information technology sector adds another 72,500 workers.⁶ Denmark, with its flexicurity model, has made possible a labor mobility system where firing is easy and hiring even easier: three out of four displaced workers are relocated in less than a year, and that confidence sustains a market where net job creation exceeds half a million positions in each turnover cycle.⁷
“Almost half believe the solution is to copy El Salvador. There, although violence may have receded, the economy is the weakest in Central America: authoritarianism with hunger is still hunger, only watched over by more police officers.”
All of them have something simple in common: fewer obstacles, more competition, and an environment where small and medium-sized enterprises are the true engine of the economy. Guatemala can and must follow that path. How can this be achieved? First, by eliminating taxes such as the ISO, which was created as temporary and became permanent, suffocating the most fragile businesses. Second, by reducing income tax so that investing becomes attractive and taking risks is rewarded rather than punished. Third, by facilitating credit backed by service contracts; Guatemala already has a factoring law, but it would be necessary to evaluate whether it functions properly and accessibly for SMEs.⁸ Fourth, by creating a capital market that gives oxygen to those who want to grow. Fifth, by adopting Danish-style labor mobility: flexibility for employers, but strong support for the unemployed. When dismissing employees is simple and fair, hiring becomes easier as well, because the cost of error decreases and no one dismisses someone who is useful to them. Sixth, by allowing hourly or part-time contracts that provide real opportunities to those who cannot work full-time. Seventh, by creating public-private sectoral cluster support institutes —not more bureaucracy— that raise standards, integrate the best companies, and secure international benefits. And eighth, by liberalizing corporate life: opening, transforming, merging, or closing businesses should be fast, inexpensive, and secure, not an endless legal trap.
None of this is theoretical. Ireland, the Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, and Denmark did it and created jobs. Because only those who work with certainty about their income dare to save and invest afterward, and thus emerges the virtuous cycle of growth, which depends neither on the large businessman nor on the government, but on the entrepreneur who creates jobs.
The question, however, is personal: how does one dare to become an entrepreneur when there is no capital, only a bit of experience and an enormous desire to build something different? I know this firsthand. I founded my company after five failed attempts that finally worked once I found the right partner, with whom we have navigated ups and downs and grown the business to conquer the market for more than twenty years. And in the last five years I have launched five more companies, two of them just in the past year. I have not done it because I had abundance, but because I had the hunger to create, to transform, to do something different. And like me, thousands dream of becoming entrepreneurs: according to recent surveys, entrepreneur is the most desired profession in Guatemala.
Joseph Schumpeter explained it in The Theory of Economic Development (1934): “First of all, there is the dream and the will to found a private kingdom, usually also a dynasty… Then there is the will to conquer: the impulse to fight, to prove oneself superior to others, to succeed not for the fruits of success, but for success itself. Finally, there is the joy of creating, of getting things done, or simply of exercising one’s own energy and ingenuity.” The entrepreneur wears no cape and cannot fly, but possesses the will, the energy, and the ideas to transform his own life and the lives of many others.
The future is not built with more space for bureaucrats, but with more space for those who create jobs. And even better if they are founders. And even better if they become highly successful and create many, many jobs. Guatemala will not escape hunger with programs that perpetuate dependency, but with greater freedom to undertake, and in that the government and Congress have an unavoidable responsibility. Hunger is defeated when there is bread on the table, but bread arrives when someone decides to sow, invest, and hire. The solution does not lie in more power for politicians, but in more space for those who build businesses.
For that 49% to stop living in Dickens’s streets, which today are also our streets, we must give every Guatemalan the freedom to undertake. Because, in the end, there is no democracy without bread, but there will also be no bread without freedom.
Notes
- CID Gallup, Guatemala Public Opinion Study, September 2025.
- Ibid., Migration section.
- Ibid., Governance and Democracy sections.
- National Council of Export Free Zones (CNZFE), Annual Report 2024.
- Shannon Chamber, Shannon Group supports 46,000 jobs and €3.6bn impact, 2023; IDA Ireland, Employment Survey 2024.
- Invest Bulgaria Agency, Automotive Industry Factsheet 2024; Bulgarian Software Association (BASSCOM), IT Industry Report 2024.
- OECD, Employment Outlook: Denmark and Flexicurity, 2023.
- Congress of the Republic of Guatemala, Decree 1-2018, Factoring and Discount Contracts Law.
