Francisco Zarco’s 1857 roadmap for progress.
In recent years, Mexico’s institutional quality has deteriorated: judicial independence has weakened, centralization has increased, and regulatory overreach persists, all within a fragile legal system. This pattern of institutional fragility is not new; it echoes earlier struggles in Mexican history, particularly those faced during the mid-19th century, when the foundations of liberal democracy were still being contested.
The year was 1857. Mexico was in upheaval, plagued with political instability and debate between liberals and conservatives. The conservatives (los conservadores in Spanish) favored centralized power and government intervention in economic life. In the midst of this conflict, Francisco Zarco, an influential Durango-born writer, historian, and politician, emerged as one of the most articulate defenders of classical liberalism. As editor-in-chief of El Siglo XIX, one of the leading liberal newspapers of his time, and as the representative of the state of Durango in the Constitutional Convention, Zarco used his pen and his voice to champion religious tolerance, freedom of the press, economic liberty, and constitutional governance.
His essay “Progress and Innovation” captured the spirit of that era, advocating for expanded individual freedoms and equal treatment under the law. Zarco’s brief but powerful essay remains relevant today, offering fresh insights into the enduring challenges of liberty and governance.
For Zarco, “progress” defies a precise definition—there is no single outcome or utopian vision. Instead, it entails material, intellectual, or moral improvements in everyday life. Such progress is achieved through individual initiative within a system of liberty, not through centralized planning or government control. Wrote Zarco: “For there to be progress, it seems to us that the best system consists in what the economists have called laissez faire…”
Mexico had adopted a new liberal Constitution in 1857, marking a turning point. Both liberals and conservatives presented competing visions for the young nation’s future: Would it remain tied to colonial traditions, or embrace modern, liberal ideals? Zarco’s essay captures the spirit of this transformative moment in Mexican history, offering a solid defense of progress and innovation through free enterprise as both a moral and political imperative. His arguments present a sophisticated vision of innovation and material progress, grounded in liberty:
[T]he tendency to perfect oneself and to improve conditions is inherent in man, whom God endowed with all the powers necessary to elevate his destiny… it is necessary that laws, institutions, and governments do not become an obstacle to the progressive movement of society, and that it is thus appropriate to leave human activity free, to trust individual liberty, not to be alarmed by the right of association, and to free industry, commerce and agriculture from all shackles to make possible the material progress of the people.
Zarco was a well-read intellectual, attuned with the evolution of economic liberalism. His insights on free trade and enterprise echo the lessons of Adam Smith:
The excessive expansion of authority, its distrustful vigilance felt everywhere, the restrictive system with its passports and prohibitions and fiscal investigations, etc., constitute the most unfortunate hindrance to all progress.
Compare that to Smith’s observations in 1776:
The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
Zarco also anticipated a Hayekian understanding of disjointed, local knowledge and spontaneous order:
Progress must be the work of all people; it must be the work of all spirits, of all the intelligence, of all the aspirations; it must satisfy all needs; it is possible within the legal order when in it one encounters neither shackles nor restrictions. And we do not know from where, if not from the people themselves and the force of society itself, must come that prudent and wise direction that orders, that regulates progress.
Although Zarco championed economic freedom, these ideals have never been fully embraced in Mexico. State-led economic programs, clientelism, and paternalism continue to dominate. Political institutions in Mexico have too often served to consolidate power rather than to disperse it, to hinder progress rather than to promote it. We have yet to consider liberty seriously. As Zarco warned: “Material progress cannot be considered to be independent of political institutions.”
As we revisit enduring debates about the role of government and the limits of economic freedom, Francisco Zarco’s 19th-century vision remains relevant, rooted not in centralized control but in the dignity, creativity, and liberty of ordinary people.
