A relaxed conversation about the Latin American situation and the populist threat, held the historian Enrique Krauze and former president Ricardo Lagos. The request was created on the occasion of the arrival in the country of the Mexican intellectual to present his latest book.
The Mexican historian and thinker, Enrique Krauze, arrived in the country to present his latest book “Spinoza in the park in Mexico”.
In this context, he attended the Chilean Institute of Rational Business Administration (Icare), where Cristián Warnken interviewed him.
Later, both in the company of Gonzalo Rojas-May, visited former President Ricardo Lagos.
The former president received them at his office, at the Fundación Democracia y Desarrollo, located in Providencia, in the Metropolitan region. There they held a relaxed moment, where they talked about the Latin American situation and the present populist threat.
From left to right: Cristián Warnken, Ricardo Lagos and Enrique Krauze
Enrique Krauze is also director of “Letras Libres”, a liberal media outlet -Social Democrat, considered one of the leading magazines in Mexico and Spain.
Krauze’s experience in political and cultural media is vast. In 1976, together with the Mexican Nobel Prize winner Octavio Pazfounded “Vuelta”, considered an icon in the defense of democracy in Latin America, which in the 1970s and 1980s firmly opposed the Latin American right-wing dictatorships, as well as the regimes Castro and Sandinista.
Union between the intellectual and business world
“It is hard to find an intellectual figure in Latin America that reconciles these two worlds,” Warnken said during the interview at Icare, referring to the intellectual and business world. “You grew up in your family’s printing press and have been a cultural entrepreneur. You have said that the company is a natural space for creativity”, added the driver.
At that time, Krauze told about the experience he had in the family business and other printers in which he worked.
“I learned a lot as a small business owner. Respect the businessmen, who have to pay a salary every fortnight, the difficult task of selling. This does not make me a fanatical capitalist by any means. I believe in the role of the State, but at the same time I believe that many times in universities and in academic life,” he said.
& # 8220; In the academic pyramid, the role of the employer. I liked the business world, but I didn’t want to be a printing business. Later I dedicated myself to what we call a cultural company: publishing house, magazine, documentary producer”, recounted the Mexican historian.