"At first, they defended him with his cloak and his sword, now nobody is a macroist"

-You have said on the occasion that the question that we must ask ourselves is, what does he live for? After all your life, today, do you have an answer?

-Of course. I have spent part of my life behind this attempt to help get out of a better society than the one in which I was born. And knowing that it's a fight that never ends. No beginning or end. What we call building civilization. There is a mentality that we will one day reach a world where everything is perfect. That does not exist for me. There is little to become permanent where we build a small step.

–There is no time for the conflict to end …

-Never. I think this is inherent in the human condition. And from time to time, some steps are broken and we have to start again. It is not progressive either, it zigzags. The greatest legacy we receive at birth is what is called civilization. It is a kind of intergenerational solidarity, of those who have built the wheel and the fire to those who work today in molecular biology. All this infinite staircase that constitutes what we call civilization. It's a human characteristic, right? We are in part depositors and debtors.

– I asked you a question about the conflict because in Argentina, and I suppose that in Uruguay too, there is a discussion on crack, the end of crack, dialogue, consensus.

-There is a natural crack imposed by the conditions of inequality. What is called liberal democracy more or less contemporary attempts to define that we are equal before the law, is not it? But we all know that there are some who are much more equal. This legislative equality does not equate to real equality. Especially equality in terms of opportunities, when to start more or less in the same living conditions. There is the big difference. So, there is already a crack, which we can mitigate, enlarge, not enlarge, but that exists. So, there are the paradigms of each society, how it carries its business. The company has made great progress for the level of injustice that it contains. There is a contradiction in the evolution of culture and human thought and of sociological and material reality. We tend to think of something that we do not practice in real life.

–We have more books but we live worse …

-Yes. We are hypocritical societies. Pretty cynical.

–How did they live in recent years in which, with a regional vision, one had to be president in a context where governments, beyond differences, were aligned, and in a situation similar to that in which, except in Uruguay and Bolivia, the rest of the continent as Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Ecuador, have they still had a right turn? How do you see the situation in Latin America and how has Uruguay gone through these years?

– I think we have had some partial advances to help mitigate some very profound material differences in our societies. We improve revenue and distribution. It does not mean that we have built citizenship. Many people who have benefited from the benefits do not even know why. And in reality, we have helped to make them followers of the new religion that is the market. They are needy buyers undergoing emergencies. As a result, our projects are frankly limited. And also limited by a feeling of homeland, each reflecting on its reality. And we were very far from building a Latin American reality. Very close to each other in the speech, but in reality the agenda of the national problems of each ended up taking the central part of the effort. And we have not built a Latin American consciousness. This dilemma that Jorge Abelardo Ramos laid down many years ago.

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–The Latin American nation …

-Of course. We have built many countries, we must build a nation. We are in that. That's the deficit we have.

–Do you have hope for the future, with the same-day elections in Argentina and Uruguay, with Bolivia following?

-I think the fight will continue, with advances and ebb. It's hard. But there is nothing gained and nothing finished. There is only one uncertainty and one way of struggle. And nothing more. There is a kind of defeatism that I do not accompany. It is true that there is a version of right in some governments, but we have been much worse. We have been covered by dictatorships. We will not touch the sky with minimal or absolute defeatism. There is a path that will and will not be and depends on the attitude we adopt.

–I want to ask you a question about Alberto Fernández.

-He is an old acquaintance, he was at home many times. This has the advantage of having significant experience in government, and that is a point in favor. Of course, Argentina should not choose Fernandez, a mandrake should choose! (laughs) You need a magician, not a politician. But since it will be impossible to choose a magician … He has a very big challenge. But you must be aware, first, that with the best intention, you do not make any serious mistakes. Argentina has a quick liquidity problem. He would not have to fight, at least initially, with the sector that could bring him the quickest answer, namely cereal farming. Because that is what can bring you a fast currency. And that has a lot of apartments, I know. But in life, you have to have steps. Nothing can generate resources faster than agriculture. I do not know how they will combine that.

–And how did you see Uruguay's Macri government?

-Here at the beginning he was defended by the cape and the sword. Now nobody is a macroist.

–They must have been affected by the business relationship

-Yes now yes. Because the Argentine crisis has first impoverished Argentina, and by impoverishing it, it buys less and spends less. Logic And this affects here. Not only are they indebted, the GDP has dropped, but also the global wealth of Argentina. What happened in Argentina is very serious. But history also shows that the recovery power of Argentina is fantastic. I do not have the pessimistic view of Yankees investors. Argentina has demonstrated a thousand times that she was able to squander a fortune and win her back.

–It's like Germany's Latin America.

-Yes. It's such a thing. He has this treasure that is the wet pampa that is priceless.

-Pepe, how do you live the judicial process in the area, the persecution Cristina, Lula, Correa?

-There is a whole technology that is established to pursue politics, to look for the side of the political persecution that poisons everything. And they are trying to replace the old coups with softer versions of the same thing in other ways. It's quite logical that they do it. We should not expect anything other than that. In short, capitalism is the permanent father-in-law of corruption. It has implemented, generated and managed it. He sowed the idea that to be successful you had to be rich.

-We have a worse part, in a second part, which says that "as he is rich, he no longer needs to steal". That's what Macri said.

-C is also fashionable. In the best case, this version speaks of a terrible naivety. By adopting an angelic attitude of the rich, the vision they will have is based on the reality they live. And they will think that what is good is good for the country. And there is the biggest garrafal of nonsense. You are not a sinner to be rich, no. Sin is in the one-sided vision that inevitably a condition of life gives you as an expression of reality. The reality is very different. So that's where the biggest problem lies. In addition, experience shows that wealth has no limit of ambition. Whoever does not learn to be happy with little will never be happy with anything. Because happiness is not a matter of wealth, happiness is a balance of emotional character that has little to do with wealth. He can not be happy who must live under rainy plates, but he who believes that to be happy, one must live a useless economy, has walked.

-And there is the theme of the cultural battle with capitalism.

-Of course. That's where the problem lies. The Bible says that the happy man did not have a shirt. We can not take it literally because otherwise it would be a tropical country. This discussion is very old. Seneca has defined the poor as the one who needs a lot. For the Aymara, it is the poor who do not have a community. In all forms of ancient law, after the death penalty, the most severe sanction that could be applied was expulsion from the group, exile. Then there is no worse punishment than loneliness.

-You have a lot of hope, but you still say that you have to focus on the young people. How do you think that?

– Let's see, I'm a pessimist. That is to say that I am an informed optimist. I think that in the centuries to come, due to technological change, it will need more and more skilled workers, who will have a university dye. Tertiary training will be the ABC of the workers of the future. This is a big advantage, they will be less stupid. In return, they will be weaker, because they will be more and more integrated into the "honey" of social and cultural modernity, extremely sensitive to the revolutionary and permanent impact of contemporary merchandise. Right-handed in the digital language, unable to barbecue in the open air.