To say that we are in Argentina carries the implicit recognition that rules are not fulfilled like in other countries. Many conflicts suffered by us in a daily basis, whether they are economic or social, have a deep rooted constant change and lack of trust.
Someone that has lived during the last 50 years hasn’t had easygoing decades because that person’s efforts have had to concentrate more in the context’s instability rather than his or her dreams. Modesty was not enforced because modifications have been intense. There were modifications in the pension, tax, health and labour systems as well as in the State’s participation and international geopolitical alliances
It would be like driving in a city where the streets have different directions every single month. Driving would be a very difficult task. It’s related to what Cesar Aira (“El sueño”) called “itineraries made out of contingence”, provided by the next example: someone gives directions to another person by telling him or her to follow a certain path until that person sees a pigeon standing on the sidewalk. Then, the person must turn to whatever direction the white car turns, until bumping into a banana tree with a leaf falling down. Finally, that person must take whatever direction some kids’ ball might head to.
Uncertainty is despair.
How does a person behave in this conditions?
This person won’t be able to do plans, will get stuck by doing calculus and will finally paralyze. This person will become insecure, social relationships will become more complex and the person’s quality of life will deteriorate. The person’s look will focus more on daily issues, ignoring big ideas and realizations that give sense to human life.
Someone might feel constantly threatened if he suffers of work instability, changes in the health system or pension system. Naturally, he will keep his guard up and, because that person feels threatened, he will attack. After a long time, the person will start feeling the repercussions of stress and exclusion. From a psychological point of view, the relationship between institutional destruction and the subject’s destruction is more noticeable with time because there are no references for a reasonable and foreseeable orientation.
How does a company, big or small, face a context of this nature, where the game rules change all the time?
The economic actors increment their transaction costs because they don’t know which is the rule they need to follow or whether the rule is going to last, which translates into investments paralyzing and prices rising, which will finally be paid by consumers.
The SMEs (small and medium enterprises) are the most affected because the laws change, raising costs, which cannot be easily reduced. In addition, in order to grow, they need to associate, which is also difficult if the company is unstable.
How do we interpret rules if there are constantly changing? We assist to the law’s diminishment, perceiving it as something transitory. Hence, it becomes as if it were a suggestion that can be abandoned to attend more urgent needs. On the other hand, the huge number of laws doesn’t inform nor sort out the situation. It confuses us and wears us out.
This constant doubt is, above all, characteristic of a society that is always organizing itself, but that has never stablished long-lasting and basic rules.
The topic is not new. In 2001, I participated in an international congress where a foreign exposer said that we needed to “tropicalize” the norms for them to be adapted to the region. I angrily wrote an article about it called “Argentina tropical” published in a judicial magazine.
Institutions have an important role in nations’ development due to the fact they distribute information, increase or diminish negotiation costs and determine the opportunities available in a society.
Stability generates trust and is the lube of social and economic relationships.
For instance, if we get on a plane, we don’t check the airport controls or the pilot’s capacity. When we buy something on the internet, we don’t investigate the state of the seller’s solvency, the server, the passwords’ functioning or the security system for transactions. We buy a product in the supermarket and we don’t ask for a quality or components analysis.
We always assume someone has sorted out everything in order to make things work.
Economic, social and environmental systems are overwhelmingly complex. Individual conduct tends to simplify because trying to understand each one of them would be exhausting. Against this background, institutional design is fundamental, together with some basic rules that must not change for a while.
Is what we, as a Court, established in a ruling a couple of years ago: “The Constitution and the law must act as commitment mechanisms elaborated by the political apparatus in order to protect itself against the foreseeable human tendency of making hasty decisions. Those who wrote our Constitution knew how emergencies unfold due to the fact they operated in a period of time where our Nation was in the verge of collapsing, but decided to rigidly attain themselves to a Magna Carta whose purpose is to not fall into temptation for necessities of the moment. A stable system of rules and not avoiding them for urgent necessities is what allows to build a State of Law”.
A kid with no future, an adult with no job, a retired person being indigent, a business man that, all of a sudden, needs to face different conditions. Any person that lives in an unforeseeable country understands the importance of having a safe road. The fathers of our nation thought about this protection by stablishing a constitution with basic rules. It’s our generation’s duty to make that happen.