TheMarketForIdeas

Escaping the Middle-Income Trap

The Romanian Academy hosted on October 26^th, 2017, a conference held by the well-known economist, Aurelian Dochia. The event was organized by the Academy’s Institute for World Economy, as part of the activity of its internal reflection group “GLOBAL 3G - Repositioning the Economic Agents in Globalization, the Geostrategic and Geopolitics' Impact”. More

The Anathema of Secession

Octavian-Dragomir Jora

Talking about secession in the house of the modern state is, depending on the tastes and the actual situation of the speaker, either something absolutely hilarious (if not even dangerous), or something absolutely legitimate (if not even necessary). It is a historical fact that the current world, in its settlement as state-centred reality, of cohabiting territorial monopolies of legitimate use of force, was built on a foundation which, in the meantime, became a geopolitical quasi-taboo: the principle of self-determination. This self-determination, in its pure form, does not involve something that should mandatorily be seen as insidious, but a natural prolongation of human liberty and personal property – two civilizational benchmarks which, we must admit, are still treated as indigest on certain lands, in certain times. And if the state is portrayed and perceived as a social contract, then it can only be accepted as valid if closed between free men, within the limits of their legitimate patrimony, including their territorial possessions, under a strictly consented jurisdictional framework. (Or not quite so?)  More

The Transposition of the World

Dragoș Preda

In his paper, Ideology, Religion and Politics: Evolution of a Concept (Ideologia, religia și politica: evoluția unui concept), Associate Professor of Comparative Government and Politics Jeffrey Evan Key said: “Ideology, religion and politics all shape people's attitudes about the way that governments are organized and operate and the roles of rulers and citizens. Though they are related concepts, this relationship has evolved over time. Ideology, religion and politics have varied in their relative importance and sometimes become intertwined. Early in the 21st century, the ties between them are once again in a state of flux. Understanding this complex relationship is important to comprehend such issues as the recurrence of terrorist attacks in the Western world and the new political values ​​espoused during the US Presidential elections in 2016 and beyond. In this, I refer you to a recent article written by Dani Rodrik, a Harvard University professor, titled The Future of Europe remains uncertain (Viitorul Europei rămâne nesigur), published by the World Economic Forum More

Three Unions in a (Life)Boat

Octavian-Dragomir Jora

The unions of states, in their either federalist or inter-governmental setting, are portrayed in economics and political science literature, by certain scholars and pundits, as quasi-romance stories and, by others, as purely-cynical undertakings: they are, for the first, expressions of common destinies, while for the second, mere cartels of political exploitation. Though, beyond charitable or circumspect translation of state gatherings, the undeniable facts are that the state, as an organization of humans, has a maximizing logic and that this logic is exercised as the monopoly of (legitimate?) violence with the privilege of (unconsented?) expropriation, by taxation, regulation and inflationary redistribution of purchasing power. Maximization logic of the state (apparatus) – rightly de-homogenized from the rest of society – leads to a triple choice: to increase domestic exploitation, to expand abroad, or both. More

Budapest, Again the “Capital” of 16+1

Iulia Monica Oehler-Șincai

Budapest hosts this year on the 27th of November the sixth summit of 16+1 Initiative, designed China and its 16 Central and Eastern European (CEE) partners. The first economic forum of the 16+1 countries took place also in Budapest, six years ago. The 16+1 mechanism was officially initiated in 2012 during the Warsaw Summit by the People’s Republic of China in order to stimulate the cooperation with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. The subsequent yearly summits (Bucharest, Belgrade, Suzhou and Riga) and side events such as business forums, national coordinators’ gatherings, seminars and various 16+1 Ministers' meetings have given a new impetus to China-CEE relations.  More

On Free Competition, by the Book

On November 25th, 5pm, at the ASE Publishing House stand from the GAUDEAMUS International Book and Education Fair 2017, Andreas Stamate-Ștefan launches his book entitled Real și Imaginar în Teoria Economică a Concurenței. O Interpretare în Tradiția Școlii Austriece de Economie [Real and Imaginary in the Economic Theory of Competition. An Interpretation in the Tradition of the Austrian School of Economics], part of Studia Praxeologica collection developed by the publisher. The Market for Ideas will be present at the event by two of the book discussants – Professor Dumitru Miron, PhD (honorary editor of TMFI) and Associate Professor Octavian-Dragomir Jora, PhD (Founder and Editor-in-Chief of TMFI). Professor Radu-Cristian Mușetescu, PhD, and Associate Professor Mihai-Vladimir Topan, PhD, the scientific reviewers of the book, will join the debate. As the author himself, all the four speakers come from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, the Faculty of International Business and Economics.  More

Walking and Writing Across Cultures:
Two Experiences

The Faculty of International Business and Economics (REI), together with The Romanian Institute for European-Asian Studies (IRSEA) has organized on the 8^th of May, at 10:30 am, in the Aula Magna of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE), the “ASEAN Day” Conference dedicated to the 50^th anniversary of ASEAN. The event benefited from the presence of their Excellencies, the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia in Romania, Diar Nurbintoro, the Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Tran Thanh Cong, and Dato Tajul Aman Mohammad, the Ambassador of Malaysia in Romania. The moderator of the event was Gheorghe Savuică, the former Ambassador of Romania in Indonesia and the current President of IRSEA. The conference was, firstly, dedicated to the students of the university, who were invited to find out more about the accomplishments of ASEAN as well as the challenges the Member States of ASEAN face in the complex international context. The event also appealed to specialists and other people interested in this part of the world, since they received interesting and valuable information from both the lectures and the discussions. More

Trump’s First Quarter

Andrei Vlășceanu

Donald Trump’s history as a real-estate tycoon and a TV star relied on and enhanced certain qualities which were on display during the presidential campaign, where he managed to confound his opponents and energize the people, thereby obtaining their votes. The main message of Trump’s campaign was and still is “America First” which, initially, was interpreted by onlookers as being a revival of the Monroe Doctrine and of the sentiments expressed in Washington’s farewell address, but then it morphed into a general reassessment of US foreign policy and trade: Russia, China, NATO, Germany, Japan, South Korea, NAFTA, TPP, the Mexican Wall. More

Considerations on North Korea

Alexandru Georgescu

The “hermit kingdom” of North Korea is back in the news, at the center of a new round of exchanges of bellicose declarations, underpinned by failed tests for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that, nevertheless, show the impressive progress of the country’s indigenous program. The missile capabilities are meant to provide a delivery device for the country’s nuclear weapons, the other great program beset by a string of failures and shoestring successes. Western observers are now attempting to “read the tea leaves” in order to predict when the country will have achieved the ability to threaten the continental United States, while the threat to its immediate neighbors, South Korea and Japan, remains real but uncertain. The weapon systems involved are complex and, as has been suggested of the recent failed test, prone to cyber-attacks and sabotage through the component supply chain. Rather, the immediate threat to a country like South Korea is all of the conventional artillery pointed at its capital, which would make flattening Seoul in a matter of hours a foregone proposition. With Donald Trump at the helm of the US and sending carrier groups in the vicinity, a man given to grand gestures as negotiating bids, the latest tensions with North Korea seem momentous, as if some form of denouement to the regime in Pyongyang is looming. The form it would take is critical to its neighbors, who fear both the ways in which the country can lash out violently, as well as the consequences of a collapse of power, such as millions of refugees trying to cross land borders or internecine warfare.  More

Culture and Property Rights

Octavian-Dragomir Jora

The International Book Fair Bookfest 2017 gave me the opportunity to exchange some thoughts, with quite exquisite and exigent readers, on my recent work – Spiritualitate, materialitate și proprietate. Cultura mea, cultura ta, cultura noastră, cultura lor (Editura ASE, 2016) [Spirituality, Materiality and Property. My Culture, Your Culture, Our Culture, Their Culture]. Addressed for now mainly to a Romanian readership (by its publication language) the book basically hosts a worldwide-relevant question, though not so frequently or explicitly asked (to say the least): “Is culture a public(ly enforceable) good or a private(ly producible) one?”. The question is being complicated by the fact that the culture deals with consensual, socializing, public values (we speak of preferences, traditions, beliefs, which, by definition, unite before they separate), as it is also true that the human person is the one who gives meaning to social aggregates (the methodological individualism, despite hasty amendments is crux in social sciences). Or speaking in “economics” (nota bene: the science of human action in a (praxeo)logical, commonsensical, un-sterilely-sophisticated expression): What makes a culture become a Culture? (Economic) freedom or (political) interventionism? More

China Welcomes Representatives from over 100 Countries to the First Belt and Road Forum

Georgiana Boboc

Last week in Beijing, leaders and officials from dozens of countries and international organizations participated in the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Here, Chinese leader Xi Jinping reinforced the need for cooperation in order to achieve mutual benefits and push forward economic development in Eurasia. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the “project of the century”, as Xi Jinping called it, aims to develop infrastructure projects such as railways, ports, roads, linking China to Europe and all the countries along the way. This Initiative carries a great importance not only in terms of economic development, but also in terms of a new alternative economic order. China is also developing a new institutional framework for cooperation, with components such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund, which enhance the geopolitical role. More