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Freedom Under Assail
For millennia, papers and books have been written about the essence and significance of human freedom. In these contributions, competing conceptions of freedom aimed to define the contest between liberty and power. Philosophers Plato and Hobbes, for example, thought that extensive or absolutist rule over society was compatible with their definition of freedom because, in their view, it would prevent society from plunging into violence or even chaos, which they perceived as more detrimental to freedom than a powerful state. Others, such as the 6th-century BCE Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu and the 16th-century Spanish scholastics, expressed and developed ideas consistent with the view of the father of modern political philosophy, John Locke, that freedom implies that an individual not “be subject to the arbitrary Will of another, but freely follow his own” More
The NEET Tag and Intergenerational Existence on Labour Market
The challenge today is to analyse unemployment among young people from different generations in terms of understanding their values and attitudes, as well as their influence on the labour market.The labour force is an important factor of production, but we cannot say about work itself that it is a commodity like everything else, because it involves a man with a whole system of values and expectations that influence his individual decisions. More
Crossroad Years
Human beings are obsessed with identifying trends and motifs in the passage of historical ages and to personalize, even deify, their geographical cradles. From the very sages of cultures and civilization(s) to the common folk, it seems that every turn and twist of time might have a logic of its own, as every chunk of space is teeming with life in its particular rhythms. This craze prevails. It is “sustainable”. More
Will the Coronavirus Amplify the Role of the Government in the Economy?
A defining phenomenon for virtually the last hundred years is the expansion of state influence in all areas. The extreme was reached in the communist and fascist countries, where, under dictatorship, all freedoms were altered. In Western democracies, freedoms made progress, but the struggle between governments and markets to play the central role in managing the economy has sometimes resulted in serious disruptions of market freedom. The alteration occurred due to serious economic difficulties. The drastic limitation of the freedom of financial markets after the crisis of 1929-1933 is known. More recently, the economic and social difficulties that emerged after 2008 have been used by governments to limit the freedom of financial markets and to increase the state’s role in managing the economy. Will a severe recession caused by the coronavirus be an opportunity for a renewed strengthening of this trend? The concern for the principle of market freedom contained in this question could be seen as injudicious, as the functioning of the society seems to be dictated by the rapid resolution of various situations that appear to us as urgent. However, neglecting the principles in decision-making could be a way that may go unnoticed of moving to a type of society that we do not want. More
The Inconsistency of Biological Analogies in Economics
I often tend to use biological analogies either as a simple heuristic or an explanatory model in an analysis, or as a purely illustrative model in support of certain ideas by constructing argumentative structures. For instance, in an attempt to understand how the mechanism of import-export operations at the level of an economy works, I have associated this bidirectional mechanism with the sodium-potassium pump found in the plasma membrane of almost every human cell. But can such analogies actually be used in economics? Can we deal with complex phenomena in economics through such a reductionist approach as biological analogies or, conversely, biological metaphors are a consequence of the complementarity between economics and biology, designed to give rise to a new more complex field, such as evolutionary economics? Nevertheless, one thing is certain: there are reasons for the scepticism towards biological analogies, and the heuristic value of evolutionary biology for economics is still a matter for debate. More
About the “Fair” Sharing of Economic Value Added
Periodically, economists put on the table a remarkably interesting (and disputable, as well) topic, that of model for sharing the value added between labour and capital. The subject is present both on the work table of theoretical scientists and on that of researchers interested in the social justice echo of the income/wealth distribution inside the society (like Piketty, for example). In this intervention, I am interested not in the social justice considerations on the evoked topic, but in a very “ideologically free” approach. More exactly, I shall discuss the possible fair sharing of the value added between labour and capital (as main production factors) from the perspective of economic sustainability. This is distinct from economic optimality or economic fairness, although, as it is well-known, there is a so-called trade-off between equity and efficacy as impact of economic distribution. Without any doubt, the social justice angle of the topic is of multiple interests (including the scientific one) but, as said, this perspective will be postponed for the moment. More
On the Minimal Wage, with Responsibility
The syntagm “minimal wage” used instead the syntagm “minimum wage” is intentioned and requires a little bit of explanation. “Minimum wage” is used in the labour legislation, and signifies the lowest level of the administratively established nominal gross monthly wage in the economy, warranted in paying. In fact, what the law establishes is not the minimum level, but the minimal one. What is that meaning? The minimum wage is the actual wage in the real economy, and thus a wage level generated by the labour market. As a consequence, the minimum wage can vary from time to time and also, of course, it can vary related to the administratively established “minimum wage”, but never below the last. As the administratively established wage must be fixed (at least until the next normative changing), it seems be clear now why this wage must be called minimal but not minimum wage. More
Operational Research of the Libyan Civil War and the EU Neighborhood Policies
The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) concerns the European Union's (EU) relations with 16 of the Eastern and Southern Neighbors. It is a key element of the EU's foreign policy. The political and economic point of view, segueing into security, focuses on stabilizing the region. Essentially, it is an EU external relations body, aiming at developing and stabilizing these countries. The EU offers financial support to ENP countries if they meet conditions for positive change in countries (political and economic reforms, etc.). The actions of the ENP are fourfold: The Eastern Partnership, the Southern Neighborhood, the Cooperation with Countries along the EU's external borders, and cooperation with neighboring countries. More
The Regional Resources of Ukraine and New Opportunities for Economic Development Until 2030
The heterogeneity in the development of the Ukrainian regions leads to rhetoric which states that there are regions which "feed the whole country", but there are also regions which are "eternal dependents". Such rhetoric is extremely dangerous, because it generates a separatist mood. Every region of Ukraine is important and unique – each makes a unique contribution to the overall prosperity of the country. Now in Ukraine there is a situation where the regional development takes place as a competitive struggle between regions for resources (foreign investments, transfers from the state budget, labour resources, etc.), and not as a co-operation. On the one hand, competition supports the strengthening of capacity of the local community, and, on the other, it worsens cooperation between them and prevents the synergy effects from their interaction. More
MIND(s that filled) THE GAP(s)
The Market for Ideas initiated an editorial project in which “international business and economics” students, besides being consumers of quality information, become (co)producers of this “good”. The concept aims for a quadruple gap-filler, with young people, from all over the world, story-telling, in a non-“homework”, but “freestyle” manner, on the value and values of entrepreneurship. More
The Year of Tolerance
My country, the United Arab Emirates, recently celebrated its National Day, marking the celebration of the 48th anniversary of its founding. The UAE strides forward with wisdom and perseverance, under the leadership of the President, HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his brothers their highnesses the members of the Federal Supreme Council, Rulers of the emirates, and following in the footsteps of its founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Through the hands of its loyal daughters and sons, the United Arab Emirates concentrates on pillars of the country’s growth and development, attaining developmental, cultural, economic, political and social achievements. More
Mutating Mindsets and Contagious Behaviours (Part I): An Overview of the Coronavirus Outbreak and Its Insights for Economic Theory
It is no longer a secret that the new coronavirus outbreak is the most significant issue troubling mankind at the moment, generating a level of panic and uncertainty with powerful effects on all level of society, politics and the economy. What began as a biological curiosity in the city of Wuhan in China soon spread throughout the rest of the world through the travels of infected individuals and the virus’ extremely contagious nature. By the time its characteristics and potential lethality became more obvious to authorities, the virus (“baptized” SARS-CoV-2, the “author” of the COVID-19 disease) had already spread outside of China and the Asian continent. The disease it causes is not yet fully understood and how it came to be is still unclear, though scholars tend to agree that the virus was initially confined to a few species of animals before making the jump to humans in China. More
