Why Does Nobody Trust Guatemala? The Serial Sin of Undermining Legal Certainty
Socrates said —according to Plato in his dialogue with Cephalus— that keeping one’s word is a foundational principle of justice and coexistence: “The essence of justice consists in each person fulfilling what was promised and returning what was received.” Aristotle confirmed this in his Nicomachean Ethics (340 B.C.): “Legal justice must be followed once laws […]
What If the Secret of Wealth Were Written in Ancient Laws?
What if the true engine of prosperity were not strongmen, subsidies, or campaign promises, but something far older and simpler: trust written into law? In my previous column I spoke about Guatemala and its serial sin of undermining legal certainty. Today I want to invite you to travel back in time and discover how distant […]
56 Years Later: Our Republic Under Siege Again
In November 1970, Guatemala declared a nationwide State of Siege for the last time. General Carlos Arana Osorio was governing, and the country had spent nearly a decade immersed in an internal armed conflict that had evolved from rural insurgency into urban political violence. That year was marked by events that shook the State: the […]
Neither Caudillo nor Party: Republic
Alisa Zinovievna Rosenbaum was twelve years old when the Bolshevik Revolution arrived in Petrograd. She watched as the State confiscated her family home and her father’s business, a pharmacist who had built his life through his own work. There was no compensation, no due process, no possibility of appeal. The Soviet Constitution of 1918 had […]
One Hundred Reasons to Rebuild the Republic
It was July 1779, and Matías de Gálvez had been in Guatemala for only thirteen months. In that time, he had accomplished what no previous governor had achieved in six years: laying the first stone of the Cathedral, building the Royal Palace, installing public lighting, putting the Mint into operation, and transforming a maze of […]