Article written by Corneliu Bodea, CEO of Adrem for republica.ro
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Do you look around and see people who don’t know what they’re talking about, who don’t respect principles, theory, data? Tell them!
Do you participate in news debates in which unfounded opinions are issued? Back off!
Do you hear populist exhortations without cover? Forget them!
Do you see people in key positions who seem to have only certainties? Avoid them!
Do you have doubts and questions? Look for answers!
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Perhaps the 30 years I spent in the midst of transforming the Romanian economy, into what we can call today a European economy, represent a sufficient argument to write this article… or perhaps not. At first there was shock, then hope, then depression, then engagement in battle, then victory, then disappointment, and then battle again.
I’m writing these lines at a time when I don’t know what to believe, but when I’m stubborn enough to be at peace with situations where I don’t know what to believe. Now I am rather frightened by firm convictions, the fanaticism of definite opinions.
Of course you’re wondering what exactly I don’t know what to think!? Well, I don’t know what to think about the quality of the place we have reached as an economy, as a country. On the one hand we have superb, firm, final achievements. Membership in NATO, in the European Union, the record economic growth of the last 10 years, the increase in the quality of life (the average salary in Romania has increased by almost 100% in the last 8 years), the GDP per capita at purchasing parity surpassed Hungary, Greece… On the other hand, we still don’t have highways to connect the north with the south, the east with the west; Romania’s total external debt exceeded 150 billion euros, increasing by over 200% in the last 10 years. Although beneficiaries of huge energy resources, we have transformed from an exporter to an importer of energy and have some of the highest electricity prices in the EU. Industrial production and energy consumption decreased by 5% and 7%, respectively, in the last year, we are still behind the majority of EU states in many areas and we have not been able to access the Schengen area.
I’m sure many more successes as well as failures can be added to my list. The reason why I don’t know what to believe…have I done the right thing in these 30 years!? The question is for me because I consider myself responsible. I was an active actor, an entrepreneur, I was an active citizen, voter, I consider myself responsible for what is happening. I’m not writing to blame or criticize, I’m writing to look for answers with you, to clarify! Now, I don’t want to disappoint, I can live very well without finding out this answer, but I would live much better finding it.
I look around and note with very few exceptions that expertise and competence in general in economics, politics, research, consulting has decreased to alarming levels. Even more alarming is that I don’t see a surplus of competence coming from the future either. With few exceptions, we are easily, easily, surrounded by incompetence that grips like a giant python. Maybe that’s why it’s even more important to unite around the crowd of specialists and competent people struggling in the grip.
I also think that maybe I’m at the age where I’m starting to look through the lenses of generational criticism and that these lenses, as always, distort. It’s why I don’t know, why I doubt, and why I focus on facts and results in an effort to find answers. If the time of people who had wrong values has passed, if the time of the clever thief has also passed, it seems that we are entering the age of the know-it-all. The age of those who have opinions but do not value data, of those who have no questions but only convictions, of those who have goals without caring about resources.
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