"Why Isn't Mexico Rich?"
My translation of Gordon H. Hanson’s article is the cover feature this month of Mexican magazine Nexos. Professor Hanson is director of the Center on Emerging and Pacific Economies and professor of economics at UC San Diego.
Look who’s laughing? Just like it’s 1776:
A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures. The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether they consist in wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate. The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got.
-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter 7, paragraph 26.
UPDATE: The Village Voice on Slim, “shady Mexican dude.”
