Pablo Tigani

MAGAZINE "FORTUNA", December 6, 2004

By: Pablo Tigani

In his pass by Argentina in 1993, Robert Fogel, Nobel Award in Economics, explained that at his father's funeral and burial, he analyzed the option to have his father buried in the garden of his house. Although the option was cheaper, the problem is that he couldn't bear the idea to have his father buried in the same place were his children play daily.

Lately I noticed how the economic theory might become a dogma, and this conditions young professional who even believe that an abstract mathematics model is more solid than the evidence of a community that hasn’t current water. Many media professionals see in their own interests the incentive to defend some matter that gives them benefit and proceed in function of these results, not even analyzing how their attitude will have effects on the long term. Serious changes in terms of sensibility and probably morality are some of the reasons of my concern for the profession that more has to contribute nowadays. The actual preparation of an economist, judging by interaction, is more dangerous for people, in terms of life quality, than genetic manipulation. Adopting particular focuses might inclusive transform the original vision with which a person was educated by their parents in concepts like solidarity and affection.

Something essential merges in the formation of economists, that one time existed in Adam Smith: a formation of balance. He was not an economist, although he was the father of the economy. Smith was a theologian and a moralist whose last books burned up in a fire. Only God knows how his work continued. How would the solution of that conclusion of the "Homo economicus" drift in terms of a contribution to humanity. He only described a behavior; I don't remotely believe that he thought that the "Homo economicus" should become the paradigm or paladin and model of who study this discipline. There's a behavior of "Homo economicus" type in some economists that does not resist discussion: they don't speak about social matters nor richness distribution. They know about David Ricardo, Keynes, Hayek, Leontieff, Samuelson and Bob Mundell, but don't recognize a famous sculpture, don't know what God says about any theme.

To expose a society and a nation to certain mathematic little models, or to the direction of the economy in technician hands - sometimes politic operators that follow their own benefit - causes society to believe as certain, absolutely unlikely issues.

The idea is to stop training dogs with rabies that after will bite our hand. Rationality is very far from egoism. It is essential to incorporate in the preparation of the economists' moral aspects and exercises in practical issues of a life with more love for the neighbor.