The most common refrain I have heard from those who advocate a society that expands individual liberty, rather than one that limits individual freedom in favor of more and more government control is: How do we sell the message? Why doesn't the public understand markets? Wherever I go, this is the question most often asked and until now, I have not been able to provide an adequate answer.

     The answer is critical if we are to survive as a free people. In my opinion, the answer to this question is "message minimization" for example, presenting ideas that expand individual liberty in ways the average citizen can understand and accept.

     "De Capital Importancia" (Capital Matters) is an organization that has been launched to develop that understanding among the general public.

     It was founded by Roberto Salinas-León, Francisco Marroquin Fellow, director of economic policy at TV Azteca, with the help of a grant from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation obtained by FFM.

     In the never-ending war of ideas, we face relentless opponents who thrive on power and use distortions, demagoguery, class envy and emotional appeals to sway public opinion on a variety of issues, from taxes to regulation and everything in between.

     The result of their influence is found everywhere, from speech codes at many of our universities to an unimaginable level of corruption in the public sector in Mexico.

     The influence that the advocates of socialism have brought to bear on our societies both in the United States and in Latin America is pervasive. This effort has created abominations such as political correctness and has provided opportunities for leaders like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Fidel Castro in Cuba and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. This influence must be fought with a broad-based education in the principles of the free society. De Capital Importancia is designed to provide that counter-attack, with a bottom-up approach to expanding individual liberty in Mexico, Central and South America, and in the US.

     De Capital Importancia develops marketing strategies for the ideas promulgated by advocates of the free society and distributes that content by way of three 3-minute commentaries per week (modeled after Jose Piñera's 3-minute TV spots in Chile) and broadcast on TV Azteca.

     The commentaries are designed to appeal to "the general public" the "working person" the homemaker, cab driver, bank clerk, dishwasher, etc. Much to the chagrin of those of us fighting for more individual liberty, the "general public" is usually persuaded by the demagogues who tell them their lives will be much better off if the government confiscates, controls and redistributes their income and saves them from the "malicious" actions of private companies. They do not say it using those words, they say, "We just want to help you".

     The enemies of individual liberty make a business of "engineering a fear of freedom" and "promising security". But as Benjamin Franklin once said, "those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither". This insidious bargain that they market so well, is in my opinion nothing short of a "deal with the devil" that concentrates power in the hands of very few, and breeds corruption, protectionism and tyranny in our hemisphere.

     De Capital Importancia is creating content for commentaries that are short, interesting, designed to hold the audience and make people think critically about issues and ideas that affect their lives and our society. These commentaries are currently broadcast to 17 million people in Mexico, Central America and parts of southern California. This is the second and largest effort of its kind in our recent history.

     The only other effort of this type and magnitude ever attempted was undertaken in Chile in 1981 by then Minister of Social Security and Labor, Dr. Jose Piñera. His effort succeeded in selling a private retirement system to a majority of Chile's 14 million people. These were the same people who elected a communist a mere 10 years earlier. Piñera used one 3-minute commentary, broadcast once a week, on Chile's largest television station for six months.

     De Capital Importancia is currently broadcasting three commentaries per week during peak hours, a tactic which has been yielding a very high number of viewers. The first is broadcast once a week as a special report imbedded in the morning news show. The second weekly commentary is broadcast during the novelas, which are the Mexican soap operas, and the third weekly commentary is broadcast during the late afternoon. That is three times the level of exposure that Dr. Piñera had in Chile.

      The broadcast times of the commentaries show that we are not "preaching to the choir".

     The objective is rather to inspire a society to think critically about the impact on their lives resulting from an overbearing and intrusive government. We do this by presenting ideas that expand individual liberty in understandable ways, using common terms and simple analogies to make the point. By presenting ideas this way, people come to conclusions about the impact of an imperious government on their lives and society as a whole.

     Human nature tells us that if people come to a conclusion on their own, they are far more likely to "buy in" to a society that values individual liberty and the market process.

     If you are on this mailing list, then you are someone who values individual freedom, understands the concept of spontaneous order, and knows that free economic systems based on markets work. I encourage you to ask yourself a couple of questions: "When was my moment of enlightenment?" and "Who was it that inspired many of my beliefs?" I would guess that most of you came to your belief system on your own by thinking critically about these larger issues. I can talk to you about these weighty issues from now until the end of time, but that would not advance our shared ideals because our conversation would not convince anyone. We must be in the trenches selling our ideas to those who are apathetic, and at least superficially opposed to the principles that we are all fighting for. One of the reasons I believe this approach is critical to advancing the free society is evidenced by what has transpired recently in Latin American elections. The expansion of Democracy in Latin America shows us that there are opportunities to be exploited, such as the recent elections in Mexico and the number of votes garnered by the opposition (Center-right) party in Chile, and pitfalls to be avoided, such as the outcomes in Cuba and Venezuela as well as the likely outcome of elections in Nicaragua.

     If the Democratic systems in Latin America are to survive, we must be effective in selling the ideas and principles of the free society to the general public. To do this, we must understand the nature of the market to which we are attempting to sell – and in a broader sense, the market for ideas. Human nature dictates the way in which De Capital Importancia creates these marketing templates for the principles of the free society.

     One of the problems that De Capital Importancia addresses is apathy. The general public does not think much about the problems created by an intrusive and overbearing government until it hits them in the face. Most people spend their lives working hard, caring for their families and making money.

     De Capital Importancia takes a private-sector approach to the development of the commentaries. In an attempt to generate interest in the ideas that promote a free and open society, it tailors the message to people who are not involved in the movement.

     In the effort to promote free economic systems and an open society that is based on individual liberty, we have many producers including: The Heritage Foundation, the Reason Foundation and the Cato Institute in the United States and in Latin America, the 21 + institutes that we support.

     These think tanks collect data, produce studies, formulate policy and present their findings to journalists and politicians, in an attempt to implement a system of government that expands individual liberty, the rule of law, and free economic systems. Think of how much easier it would be for like-minded politicians to implement reforms like social security privatization if they had the support of the majority of the electorate. Think tanks and research institutions are desperately needed - however they are not designed to "retail their ideas." It's not their job. They are in essence producers and wholesalers of ideas.

     With the creation and implementation of De Capital Importancia, we are filling the "marketing gap" that currently exists between those advocating individual liberty and the public, by building an organization that has the aptitude and means to develop the content (3-minute commentaries) and provide the distribution mechanism (TV Azteca) to a broad audience of diverse ideas.

      I'm saving the best for last. TV Azteca and Pappas Telecasting have entered into a joint venture in the United States with Azteca America (http://www.azteca.tv).

     Azteca America has already been launched in Houston and Dallas and is scheduled for the 11 largest Hispanic markets in the United States by the end of this year or early 2002.

     Meantime, by June, De Capital Importancia will have content developed for a weekly commentary tailored for an audience of about 1 million Latinos in New York (produced by TV Azteca and distributed through Puebla, Mexico).

     We expect these commentaries to have a significant impact in the United States for several reasons:

      First, the Spanish-language audience is not just a huge one, but it is one that seldom encounters media in its own tongue, particularly when compared to the extensive market segmentation that has taken place in the English-speaking market.

     Think of how many choices you have when you turn on your television, if you have cable maybe 70-100 channels and if you have satellite 200 + channels. The Hispanic audience has only a few local television stations and two major national networks; Univision and Telemundo. Soon there will be a third, Azteca America.

      To give you an idea of how segmented the English-language market is, the top-rated cable show in the U.S. gets a little more than 1 million viewers if they are lucky. MSNBC gets an average of about 48,000 people at any given time.

     Azteca America, which is a broadcast network, expects to reach at least 15 million people by the time the network is complete.

     Second, the commentaries are designed to catch the interest of the viewer.

     And last, as demonstrated by the similar effort that was developed and successfully implemented by Jose Piñera when he sold his privatized social security system in Chile, we have evidence that such a program can work.

     FFM believes that to broaden freedom in our hemisphere, new entrepreneurial approaches are needed, and we are taking active steps to do just that. Like any business operating in the marketplace, we need to market if we are to succeed. In the marketplace of ideas, failure brings with it far more devastating and severe consequences, for if we fail, the likes of Castro, Chavez, and Ortega will prevail, and in my humble opinion, that is a crime we cannot allow.

      It is rare that we devote an entire quarterly report to a single subject. We have done it because I believe this is one of the most important projects that has come our way in FFM's twenty-plus years. I hope that you share my enthusiasm. We need your help to keep this project going strong.

     You may reach FFM's secure server at www.ffmnet.org

Foundation Francisco Marroquin
P.O. Box 2422, Stuart, FL 34995-2422
Phone: (561) 286-6450 Fax: (561) 288-0670
Emai1: ffm@gate.net http://www.ffmnet.org

"Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again."
Ronald Reagan