Honduran Institutions

I did not intend for my first post did not come across as anti-Honduran, but I understand how it could have been construed as such. After all, I remarked upon a number of less than savory conditions that any Honduran (or gringo in Honduras) must confront: relentless poverty, the high crime rate, the fear that a tarantula will crawl up your leg while you are taking a dump.

But it is important to understand the difference between people and institutions. Let’s use a hypothetical Honduran as an example; we’ll call him Carlos. Our hombre Carlos went to public school throughout his life. Large class sizes and teacher strikes restricted the quality of Carlos’s education, but he still did better than most of his peers and moved on to study engineering at university. He did well in his college courses, but the quality of his education remains far worse than that of a similar graduate in the United States (even though Carlos is smarter than said student). After graduating, Carlos gets married and has two children. To support the family he loves, Carlos takes a position working for the government; his job is to manage and design water systems. Carlos has the natural intelligence to help produce a better system, but his education has left him short of some of the necessary skills. He would be willing to work overtime to figure out a method of improving the water system so it could handle toilet paper, but the government lacks the funds to pay him more than his base salary. The Honduran people, however, frustrated that their water system stops functioning every week, refuse to pay more in taxes. They already have a miniscule income, and the services they get for their hard earned tax dollars are shit.  So they only vote for candidates who will lower taxes, meaning the education system remains terrible and there remains no overtime. Everyone’s actions are fairly logical- and almost everyone like Carlos is a good guy- but there is institutional failure. This thought experiment leaves out a critical variable that dramatically exacerbates the problem- corruption- but it shows how well intentioned people can become a part of an institutional failure.

Honduras can break out of this trap, but it will not be easy.