Petitio Principii

This essay contains my personal and professional life interests at the moment I decided to open this BLOG.

In order to understand my present motivations it is fundamental to recall the social and economical environment that surrounded my life and education in Chile and the formidable transformations of this same country during the past 30 years. In this sense, my primary perspectives were intuitively determined by the cultural and political events that occurred in Chile in the aforesaid period, namely: the free election of the “socialist” President Salvador Allende in 1970 until the coup d'état of 1973; the “neoliberal” dictatorship of President Augusto Pinochet as from 1973 until 1989; the democratic governments of the coalition who have ruled Chile as from 1990 until 2005, with the actual “progressist” president Ricardo Lagos. During the period comprising the free election of the socialist government, the interim period of dictatorship and the subsequent recovery of the democracy in 1990, I had the opportunity of living at different moments in Chile, Brazil, Sweden, Austria, The Netherlands and in Germany. These travels, have granted me an invaluable possibility of enlarging my multicultural focus and of modeling my global perspective, which has given me a stimulus to learn and collaborate with an ample vision.

The process of opening the senses to become internationally aware, which Chileans metaphorically explain as “flying across the top of the Andes Mountains”, has always been a target of my education and a life goal. Furthermore, the will to apply in a practical manner this global awareness, within my professional field of knowledge in economy and international taxation, is one of my utmost deep personal aspirations in order to help my family, my local community, my country and the world. As a result of being exposed to multicultural experiences, starting from my education and later practice in privileged academic and professional institutions in Europe, I have been able to constantly reassess the scope of my interests from an emotional, intellectual and spiritual point of view. First, I have been able to reconsider both intellectually and emotionally the historical processes that have occurred in my birth country and analyze how these local economical and social events have had a direct correlation with the context of the world’s history, especially within the 33 years of my life. In fact, although an isolated land, Chile has been a country that in many respects has historically resembled and even anticipated many social and economical movements of the world. Second, it has been very enlightening to discover that Chile, although a developing nation, has been able to overcome the turmoil, continue to grow, rebuild and develop an integration policy with the international community. It is important to underline that even this country is considered today as a paradigm of new applications in many social and economic developments; as for example, the Chilean pension reform, which has become a study model to try to solve that time bomb problem of present western economies, triggered by the increasing of life expectancy and the problem of generation of resources for maintaining older people active and healthy. Third, on the other side, as one of the most interesting mirror effects, although embedded in a neo liberal legal and economic framework, the country has increasing challenges with respect to equitable distribution of its resources, in order to obtain more social cohesion, considering that the rate of inequitable distribution of the inland product is one of the most regressive in the world . In fact, at the moment this is the central discussion topic as the new Presidential campaign arises between two distinguished coalition women candidates and one right wing opposition candidate: economic growth with equitable distribution. Moreover, this topic is perfectly in line with my personal precognitions and the present discussions held at the World Forum at a global level, namely: the procurement of responsible allocation of investment resources to produce growth and positive social impact and the role of the government in finding an equitable balance between private and public protection of economic interests.

As direct link to the aforementioned ideas, the specific issues I would like to deal with in the following years of my life are also driven by the many other queries that I have in the area of economics, investment, taxes, public administration, environment, migration and related areas which are crucial for developing countries. These ideas have been depurated through my international academic and professional experiences. First, I am deeply interested in participating in the tremendous debate concerning environmental issues and the design of regulatory frameworks to guide decisions of investment that produce positive externalities for the present and future generations. In this sense, countries of South America such as Columbia (biodiversity resources), Venezuela (oil resources) Bolivia (gas resources), Brazil (forest, mining, fishing resources), Chile (forest, mining and fishing resources), Argentina (gas, mining and fishing resources) are particularly important. I sustain that there is a need to deal globally with the trans generational problems derived from northern hemisphere business decisions that pressure the scarce natural resources located in the southern hemisphere and that an agreement must be fostered as the only rational business choice for entrepreneurs and governments. Second, the need to fight against overt and covert corruption of private and public entities and institutions in developed and developing countries in South America, Africa and Asia. This comprises the development and enforcement of good governance practices, which are sound with the values of transparency, integrity and responsibility both at the level of individuals, corporations and public institutions. Third, the power of creating and enhancing new technologies for providing access to education in developing countries. This would clearly stimulate development and also help to counter act inequalities, discrimination and poverty. Fourth, the need to increase the awareness of the exposure of human beings to potential disaster situations and the coordination of international efforts in order to make disaster relief possible and recovery of affected persons faster both in material and spiritual point of view. This topic is particular relevant for Latin American Countries which cyclically are exposed to earthquakes, volcanoes, tornados, floods, avalanches and radical unexpected disasters due to the changes in the world climate.

I envision that during the next years I will continue to struggle with the hereinabove issues, both from a local and global perspective. Presently, my opportunities of learning and working are being stimulated from studying in an environment where one is surrounded by people from many cultures and ethnicities and because of the technological tools available to enhance the course work. Thus, I regard on the next years I will struggle to integrate my professional areas of interest with my personal believes and dreams of a better human mankind.