“The neoliberal system has infiltrated everywhere.”

The University Program of Studies on Democracy, Justice, and Society (PUEDJS-UNAM) was one of the organizers, along with CLACSO, of the colloquium "Neoliberal Authoritarianism or Democratizing Democracy?: The Dispute over the Future in Latin America," held in Mexico in February. Its director, Mexican sociologist, researcher, and journalist John Ackerman, in an interview with CLACSO TV, asserted that "the neoliberal system has infiltrated everywhere: the armed forces, the judiciary, the very narratives and self-images of who we are, and it has even interfered with our own history."

Interviewed by Gustavo Lema

He also stated that “one of the conclusions I draw from this is that this supposed defeat of the left, of the progressive wave, is actually a temporary defeat. Those who are coming to power, like Macri and Bolsonaro, are not offering a new vision for the country, for democracy, or for justice. They are simply managing the wealth of the oligarchs and allying themselves with Trump and this decaying empire. So, there is a great opportunity because a continuation of that progressive wave of the past is coming, it is already being built, and we have very clear lessons to learn.”

John Ackerman then recounted that “the neoliberal narrative in Mexico was convinced that we had to forget our history, to become ahistorical. And that is one of the things we are rescuing today in Mexico with this idea of ​​the Fourth Transformation. What López Obrador proposes is to understand this moment of transformation—the Democratic Revolution—as being of the same importance as Mexico’s independence, the Liberal Revolution of Benito Juárez, and the Revolution of 1910 to 1917.” He concluded: “If we don’t cultivate other centers of power now, from within the government itself, outside of society, in the media, and even in the international business sector, preparing ourselves for the inevitable backlash, we can very easily lose what we have gained.”