If one's eye wanders even a little, it might catch another driver's eye, and that driver will gently and smilingly ask to be let into the flow of traffic. At this point, the world of personal relations often takes hold of the driver who had been trying to keep things anonymous, and he may gallantly let the other car through. Thus, a British traveler to Mexico may be scandalized at the greedy and impolitic attitudes of the people on the street, whereas a Mexican will complain that no pleas or personal interjections were ever able to move an English bureaucrat to sympathy. Access to an alleged right or to a service in Mexico is very often not universal. Education, for instance, is meant to be available to all, but it is often difficult to register a child in a nearby school or to get him or her into a school at all.
Public medicine exists, but it is always insufficient.
Moving across the Mexico City traffic in an orderly fashion is often made difficult by the overuse of public space. In short, Mexico has never had a state that was strong enough to provide services universally. The system has also generated forms of sociability that help shape a practical orientation that is well suited to the discretionary power that scarcity gives to bureaucrats and other gatekeepers. According to this principle, the wise person never explodes out of exasperation, because he or she can only lose by such an ex-abrupto. A service provider will only clam up when faced with an angry user and, since the service is a scarce resource, he or she will use politeness as a selection criterion.