Tepakán, Yucatán; central park
TEACHINGS OF TEPAKÁN

From various sources I read that all the Earth's human societies in which people support themselves by working at jobs are about to undergo a profound change. The cause will be -- already it's begun -- robots and computers with sophisticated algorithms taking over jobs now performed by humans. They'll do the work better, and cheaper.

What are people who depend on income from their jobs to do? Who will pay taxes for maintaining social infrastructure?

One morning on my way to buy tortillas in Tepakán, when I passed by the town park -- a corner of which is shown above -- it seemed to have something to say on the matter. For, the park was busy with people who have been dealing with the lack of decently paying jobs for a long time. Yet, not only are they surviving, but in fact they seem happier than most northerners. I believe that in the park I glimpsed hints of how they do it.

For one thing, note how few cars are on the street, and how many bicycles. Each morning, along the main roads, men with machetes slung at their sides bike to work. Younger men may have motorbikes. A few have cars, but I think that for travel between towns most people here depend on the excellent and inexpensive bus system. And a lot of people just don't travel much at all.

In the picture, to the left of the shoulder of the man on the three-wheeled-bike, a lady sells hot tamales from her own three-wheeled bike. In the building just beyond the park, in the corner room on the right, a lady serves quick, simple but nourishing meals cheaper than in restaurants. The next room at the left, with a pink lower wall, sells a miscellany of hand mirrors, buttons, shorts, hair ornaments, belts, etc. The next door down opens into the frutería I often visit. No costly signs or lettering announce these businesses because people know where they are. All through town families operate tiny stores in their homes, sometimes selling no more than Cokes, crackers and cookies, and customers are fairly rare. Such stores provide only a tiny fraction of a family's needed income, but they help, so they're kept open.

Many people work at several occasional jobs, some days keeping busy, other days doing nothing. During crises, members of the extended family and friends give what help they can, if only a little. Government at various levels also helps. Families receive subsidies for producing cornfields; free seeds and certain tools may be made available. Schools and a medical clinic are provided, maybe not the best, but at least something. Though everything touching government service is politicized, and there's corruption, in the end things do more or less get done. Many families have members working in Mérida, Cancún or elsewhere, sending money home. In some families, this is the most critical help.

Actually, I've always been mystified by how folks here survive on so little money, so maybe I'm missing something.

Whatever the case, at first glance the above-described survival strategy seems like a hodgepodge of halfhearted efforts, but I think it's a complex social system that has been refined over centuries of "just surviving" under mostly very bad circumstances -- beginning with the Spanish Conquest and slavery, then the encomienda system and the big haciendas, add in the long-running Caste War, up to now.

So, here's the question: Up north where there's been no such period of refining a complex social system tuned for survival without decently paying jobs, what will people do when the current jobs run out?

From my vantage point, I'd say that up north people need to start thinking more in terms of self sufficiency -- their own, and their community's. People need to learn how to garden and presersve foods, how to purify water for drinking, how to make things from junk, how to defend themselves.

But, more than anything, people need to develop a whole new attitude focusing not on getting what they want, but assuring that, on a sustainable basis, they can get at least a little of what they actually need: drinkable water, food, breathable air, shelter, and security.