A guest post by Louis Mejia: On the atributes of good governance

Dear Reader:

The following post is a quite interesting perspective on the historical context of development and its relationship to governance and the ability of small countries to truly move from Third World to First (see Lee Kuan Yew's autobiography at From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965-2000). This was a response to one of my own posts, published here with permission by the author As many of my readers know, I have been fascinated by the Singapore story, especially after visiting the country earlier this year. Many lessons to learn so that we can build our own model of a country. We can do it. I am confident we can.

Cheers,
Jose Falck Zepeda


A guest post by Louis Mejia
(http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1111382308)

I have been studying this historical vein since I was in college and how nations as small as Switzerland or Singapore can rise to such levels of economic wealth for itself and its citizens and how they could be templates for other nations t...o follow. They have many components. A ruling elite that is not afraid of educating the proletarian class; in fact they encourage it. The building of an infrastructure in anticipation a new generation of a better educated class. Exposure of its citizens to the world at large, sending its best and brightest to the best universities around the world. Have a complete technical base of workers to court foreign investors to set up high tech industries. minimize political unrest. Becoming a regional banking hub. A homogeneous population that can work together towards a common goal that may take a generation or two to complete (yet see fruits of their labors along the way).

I believe legislators in Honduras want to rule with justice, but many factors hinder them. Cultural apathy, cynicism and distrust; Lack of funds to build mentioned infrastructure; Social division between the classes; International distrust of legitimacy of programs; Organized crime and drug trafficking; Large pool of unemployed/underemployed unskilled/underskilled labor; Lack of accountability (which leads to all the lying that Alvarez is writing about), A ruling class that hoards wealth rather than reinvesting it in more businesses and social programs. 

Corruption is tough and difficult to eradicate. It speaks more about greed and morals, fear and justice, religious principles and connections to a society (or a lack thereof). In theory, if a society generates enough wealth then the corruption is hardly noticeable. If a legislator is already wealthy enough AND knows that he has to be accountable for further wealth and benefits generated through questionable means, he is a lot less likely to give in to corruption. But it is the responsibility of an educated people to be interested enough to keep its governors accountable and for more objective media sources that will not have a conflict of interests when reporting the doings of politicians.