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[Music]
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hello everyone welcome to Junior dones
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Park thank you for joining us my guest
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today is Dr Alex tarov associate
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professor of economics and philosophy at
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northword University Welcome Alex we
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have a disperate audience so I wonder if
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you mind telling us from your point of
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view what is
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economics economics is a study of H
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basically everything uh it studies human
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beings it studies the choices we make it
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it's a science of human behavior the way
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we interact with each other uh whether
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it's uh in terms of uh producing stuff
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exchanging things uh consuming the way
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we interact with the government is also
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studied by uh economists any area of
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human interaction is a focus of some
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economists research so the sociologist
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might say the same thing though how is
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it different there are a bunch of
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different uh social studies economics is
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mostly focused with um with those
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interactions which lead to the
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production of wealth uh and by wealth we
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don't mean money we don't mean
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gold uh wealth is the goods and services
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that we as consumers can afford to
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enjoy is it only things or is it um does
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it bleed into
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relationships it does uh there are
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plenty of economic uh considerations
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that um people have in mind when they uh
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choose uh with whom to associate
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including Mar marriage so there are
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economists who study marriage economists
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who study religion the impact of
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religion on economic choices uh it's
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about as I said everything that's why
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they call it the Imperial science it's
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the only one of the social studies which
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has been recognized by the Nobel
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committee and so every year someone
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receives a Nobel prize in
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economics I guess what I'm asking for
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when you talk about philosophy and
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economics what does philosophy
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contribute
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or the base of or why would you speak of
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it philosophy comes from two Greek words
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one phillow means love and the other
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Sophia which is the city where I grew up
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Sophia is the capital of Bulgaria means
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wisdom so it's love of wisdom and the
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philosophy in ancient Greece developed
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as uh this pursuit of understanding how
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the world Works including the world of
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human beings
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and so over the centuries there were two
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branches of philosophy one natural
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philosophy and that's where we get
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things like physics chemistry biology
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the other is uh moral philosophy and
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when the first modern Economist Adam
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Smith was teaching uh in Scotland he was
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not labeled an economist he was a moral
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philosopher so uh economics comes from
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moral philosophy it's a branch of it
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just like every other social science so
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has economics moved to embrace inner
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satisfaction or inner contentment or
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inner happiness or is it solely have to
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do with things economics has changed a
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lot especially in the uh 20th
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century um when my colleagues at the
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time were looking for I guess
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more Prestige and they were adopting
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gradually the tools from the Natural
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Sciences um economics became more
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heavily reliant on mathematics on
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statistics and that changed the focus
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and that of course also produced very
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undesirable in my opinion uh outcomes
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such as politicians uh using economies
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economics research to
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manipulate uh societies to to socially
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engineer certain outcomes that is that
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is said uh the over Reliance on those
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tools has caused a lot of damage both to
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economics um we have produced tons of
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research that is completely useless from
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a practical standpoint but it has
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Justified a lot of harmful economic
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policies in my opinion uh it would be
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great if one day we abandon all these
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macroeconomic Aggregates if we stop
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taking measurement of let's say the GDP
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the gross domestic product because when
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we Supply that kind of data as
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professionals to the politicians the
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politicians use it as an excuse to
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implement policies that enrich their uh
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sponsors of their campaigns and acquire
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more power over the
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individuals so what would be an example
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to of things that besides the average
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GDP that you suggest to prefer not to
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have them to yeah I I would prefer them
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to rely on the aan approach to
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understanding Human Action uh and that
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is we are all human beings uh we
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understand what motivates us uh we don't
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really need Empirical research to prove
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any of the laws of Economics economics
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is not a quantitative science although
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most of my colleagues would disagree and
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most of my colleagues make careers on
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quantitative
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research uh and while there might be
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certain uh value to some of it when it
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relates to um certain industries trying
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to figure out how to optimize uh certain
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um outcomes when it comes to government
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policy uh as Hayek uh explained uh it is
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impossible to rely on a central planner
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to acquire all the relevant data and
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process it in a way that would uh
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replace the decision making of millions
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and billions of individuals consumers
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and producers who are the only ones who
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have the information about the local
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circumstances of time and place we need
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to rely on decentralized decision making
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so any macroeconomic data uh is not only
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useless it is harmful because it once
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again it gives the politician an excuse
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to point to a problem and to tell the
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people I have the solution I know how to
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fix it I have those economists who can
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gather the data and they can just solve
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an mathematical problem given the
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resources on one end given the consumer
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needs on the other hand we can find the
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optimal way to connect the two sides of
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this equation we can we can find a
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central plan that works for everybody
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that is that is a dangerous delusion I
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find people who like to be bosses would
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gravitate to that because they get to
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tell people what to do even if they
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think it's for their own good yeah I
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forgot who said it uh that it is the
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most useless and
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dangerous pursuit to try to command the
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lives of other people people you don't
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know and the least qualified for that
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kind of a job is a person who
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intentionally seeks to do it so in your
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own life you grew up in another country
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and another economic system tell us a
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little bit about that I was born in
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Bulgaria uh back in the 1960s during the
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Cold War uh I grew up um from uh the age
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of um probably two years old when both
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my parents had to work it was mandatory
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for all Bulgarian citizens and every
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other citizen of any socialist country
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to have a job so we had zero One
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Employment uh if you choose not to work
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they will uh kidnap you and and they'll
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find a labor camp for you so you'll be
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fully employed U and so because both my
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parents had to go to work uh both of
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them were uh professors at a
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university uh I was raised by the state
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starting with a with a Kinder Garden uh
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and then uh schooling from first grade
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to 12th
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grade um so all my formative years I was
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under the influence of government
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employees teachers and many of them were
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good people uh but they all had to
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comply with a uh certain ideology um
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Bulgaria is an example and all the other
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socialist countries and some of them are
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still around like North Korea for
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example these are the ultimate
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politically correct environments uh you
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cannot deviate from
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the party line the government tells you
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that this is how you have to think uh
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this is right and this is wrong and
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there is no arguing about it there is no
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such thing as critical thinking so I
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grew up as a Marxist I grew up my
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parents actually have a uh somewhere
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probably I can still find it in in
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Bulgaria a uh an audio cassette uh where
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I was uh reciting a poem a poem about
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Lenin
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uh and it went on and on I remember um
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later in in middle school they played it
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to me and I was amazed that at the age
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of maybe four or five years old I had
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memorized uh dozens of um
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um of of lines of verses about what a
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great person Lenin was and how when
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people suffered he came to rescue them
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uh so it was in a way a religion um all
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uh ologists are religious to a certain
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extent if they um if they claim that
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there is a way for some people to tell
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other people how to improve their lives
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and socialism is the ultimate example of
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of a Godless
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religion um so I grew up as a Marxist
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believing that capitalism is rotten um
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at the same time I was a living
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contradiction because uh I was also very
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much
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rebellious and I was always looking for
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ways to uh break the rules and to uh um
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do things contrary to what the people in
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Authority were telling me not so much my
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parents because I would only see them
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briefly for breakfast in the morning and
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then in the evening we'd get together
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and um eat dinner and then watch the
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Soviet news programming uh and some
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Soviet movie about the greatness of the
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Red Army how they defeat Hitler in the
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second world war that was my childhood
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basically uh but any uh other time in
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school uh and school related activities
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uh I was looking for ways to uh express
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myself whether it's by the way I wore my
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hair uh my clothes what I would uh uh
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draw on my desk in school and I would
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get all the time in trouble with the
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authorities with teachers and and the
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principle for those things um so as I
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said contradiction I I believe that
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communism is right but I would reject
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the Communists anything that the the
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people in in Authority the people in the
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government and at the lower level in my
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school were telling me I have to do wear
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a uniform cut my hair short uh don't do
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this don't do that um I would violate
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intentionally all of these with with
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great pleasure interesting what did they
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teach you about
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capitalism oh they they were teaching me
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what Marx uh believed that capitalism is
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a system that was Progressive for its
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day the marxists believe that the
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history of humanity is one constant
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progress It's Unstoppable it is driven
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by technological forces that are Beyond
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human control and that one day
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capitalism will
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inevitably lead to its own
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self-destruction because capitalism like
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all previous Society is Marxist belief
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uh is uh a a constant conflict between
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those who control the means of
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production and those who need to work in
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order to make a living so there are two
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classes the exploiting class the
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capitalist the Bourgeois and the
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oppressed uh working people the
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proletariat uh and I see this thing
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happening uh again through uh these uh
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critical race theories and diversity
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Equity
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inclusion uh the uh attempts of business
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tycoons to impose on their uh companies
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and employees uh goals that are
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different from the pursuit of profit uh
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the uh environmental governance uh
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social goals the ESG so there is a lot
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of Marx m in America that I can
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identify uh from my childhood it just
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takes a different form it it dresses
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differently instead of talking about
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class struggle they talk about racial uh
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struggles conflicts they they try to pit
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people against each other that is what
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marxists are doing in the old days when
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I was growing up it was capitalist
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versus worker here uh in in America
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today it's uh black versus white man
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versus woman uh all of these uh
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meaningless divisions that they create
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in order to stir conflict and and push
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their ideological agendas on us so
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nowadays with the internet you can be an
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entrepreneur you see how easy it is to
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start services and fail or make it or
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anything do the leaders of the Communist
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Marxist group I guess they don't factor
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that in that maybe times have changed
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and there's more choice about being a
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worker and even an owner I I haven't
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talked recently to many of those
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marxists I I used to go from time to
00:15:39
time to meetings such as the union for
00:15:41
radical political economy these are new
00:15:44
Marx in America uh just to hear them um
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talk about contemporary issues and how
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they would see them in the light of the
00:15:55
traditional Marxist uh Orthodox Theory
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um so things are changing very rapidly
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one thing that uh should bother those uh
00:16:05
uh former comrades of mine the Marxist
00:16:07
is that today there is no distinction
00:16:09
between the capitalist and the worker as
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much as it may have been the case back
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in the middle of the 19th century when
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Marx was writing the capital uh so uh
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everyone I am I am a proletarian you
00:16:22
might say I'm I'm not hiring people to
00:16:24
work for me I am a a hired employee I
00:16:27
work for a salary
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um and despite of this I uh I am also a
00:16:35
capitalist in the sense that a chunk of
00:16:37
my income gets invested every month uh
00:16:41
on the stock market and so I am
00:16:44
part-time owner of capital and so is
00:16:47
almost everybody in America almost
00:16:49
everyone has uh some savings that are
00:16:52
invested on Wall Street and we are all
00:16:55
simultaneously working proletarian and
00:16:58
and capitalist and so there is no
00:17:00
contradiction here we don't exploit each
00:17:03
other or ourselves by um trying to make
00:17:07
income in various ways and of course
00:17:10
today it's so much easier for people to
00:17:12
uh start their own business uh
00:17:15
technology is changing so rapidly I was
00:17:17
just at a conference and there was this
00:17:21
uh space entrepreneur uh talking about
00:17:24
uh how amazingly uh Advanced we are in
00:17:29
reaching to space for profit we can
00:17:32
actually the title of the lecture was
00:17:34
space mining and he was telling us we
00:17:36
have Within Reach with the current
00:17:38
technology enough resources to sustain
00:17:41
the life and and a very wealthy life of
00:17:45
a trillion people we only have eight
00:17:47
billion on planet Earth so he said
00:17:49
listen to Elon Musk go and have babies
00:17:52
we need more of them in order to take
00:17:54
advantage of these amazing
00:17:57
opportunities uh I think the future uh
00:18:00
contains amazing opportunities we we
00:18:03
just have to be careful not to mess it
00:18:05
up if we uh if we clear the way for
00:18:09
people like Elon Musk and every other
00:18:11
entrepreneur it doesn't have to be as
00:18:13
successful as Elon uh you you have small
00:18:16
entrepreneurs everywhere our school
00:18:19
Northwood University Prides itself with
00:18:22
uh the highest percentage of our alumni
00:18:25
of any other school becoming
00:18:27
entrepreneurs one in three of graduates
00:18:31
one day is going to run their own
00:18:33
business it may be a small thing it may
00:18:35
be a multinational corporation uh it
00:18:38
doesn't matter a business is a vocation
00:18:40
that our students embrace it is it is a
00:18:43
great thing it's something that they
00:18:45
should be proud of when they succeed I
00:18:47
tell them don't be ashamed if you become
00:18:50
a millionaire or a billionaire if
00:18:52
someone tells you you have to give back
00:18:54
something don't listen to them you have
00:18:56
already given the world a lot of wealth
00:18:59
you can be charitable it's it is uh it
00:19:02
is great if you decide to help others if
00:19:05
you decide to help your Alma M this is
00:19:08
giving this is not giving back you can
00:19:11
only if you steal something so how did
00:19:14
you go from a rebellious child uh at
00:19:18
school to becoming a
00:19:20
professor I uh I just followed
00:19:24
uh for once my my parents advice to uh
00:19:29
uh pursue uh academic uh research and um
00:19:34
I I went to school the same University
00:19:37
where both of my parents were teaching I
00:19:39
got my masters in um industrial
00:19:43
management and chemical engineering uh I
00:19:45
only took one economics class actually
00:19:49
uh and uh I I never attended any of the
00:19:54
lectures I didn't know what that was uh
00:19:57
it seemed like an easy class
00:19:59
uh I was completely unprepared at the
00:20:01
test uh and I failed I got an F my my
00:20:05
first and only economics class in
00:20:08
Bulgaria uh so they uh give the students
00:20:12
who fail in the spring a chance to study
00:20:15
during the summer and take a makeup and
00:20:19
so I studied and I learned a bunch of
00:20:21
stuff and in the fall I got an A uh and
00:20:24
that's what's on my record not the F
00:20:26
that I initially got u i AC it uh but
00:20:30
then uh gradually forgot about it I
00:20:32
became myself a small entrepreneur uh my
00:20:35
future wife and I were teaching uh
00:20:38
English in kindergarten and uh one day I
00:20:42
was just fed up watching the news with
00:20:45
the slow pace of Bulgaria's uh
00:20:47
transformation from a former socialist
00:20:50
into a free capitalist country it was
00:20:53
taking forever and I I I decided to
00:20:57
apply to study
00:20:59
um something um in in a different
00:21:02
country I U I came to visit um um
00:21:06
friends relatives uh in in the United
00:21:09
States and one day it was the summer of
00:21:12
98 it was very hot I was walking uh on a
00:21:16
street uh in Queens New York and uh I
00:21:20
saw a library and I thought well it's
00:21:22
air conditioned I'll go in I'll read
00:21:25
something uh it it was really very hot
00:21:27
and humid and
00:21:29
um I got in and I um looked at the books
00:21:34
and I saw one that said Economic Policy
00:21:38
thoughts for today and tomorrow um it's
00:21:42
it's a tiny book uh based on six
00:21:44
lectures that ludic Fon mes the most
00:21:47
famous Austrian Economist uh gave those
00:21:50
lectures in Argentina back in the 1950s
00:21:53
those notes were uh put together as a
00:21:56
book a six chapter by his wife when he
00:22:00
passed and I started reading and and the
00:22:03
first couple of chap chapters were on
00:22:05
socialism and capitalism and it blew my
00:22:09
mind it explained everything that I had
00:22:11
lived through uh and so uh the next day
00:22:16
I went to uh Manhattan um I um
00:22:21
visited um the University of New York
00:22:25
NYU and I uh I just met a guy the uh
00:22:32
Economist who talked to me said after I
00:22:35
shared a few things and I mentioned
00:22:37
reading mes that small book and he said
00:22:41
you know what uh you grew up in Bulgaria
00:22:44
you like this book here is another one
00:22:46
and he gave me uh the road to serve them
00:22:49
by uh by Hayek and it was amazing once
00:22:53
again I thought I live through that I
00:22:56
understand it this is something that I
00:22:58
want to do and so I went back I was
00:23:02
living with my godfather uh in in Queens
00:23:06
and for the summer uh and I um
00:23:10
immediately started applying to
00:23:12
economics PHD programs uh one of them uh
00:23:15
in the fall of that year uh gave me a
00:23:18
scholarship and the next summer I got
00:23:20
married and my wife and I came to the
00:23:23
United States and I uh and I stayed ever
00:23:25
since uh in my first job I uh was given
00:23:30
an office and the professor who left
00:23:33
that office to me had left a box of VHS
00:23:36
tapes and they were the freeo choose
00:23:40
videos by Milton Freedman so I have
00:23:43
dreamed for a better introduction to the
00:23:45
field of economics and in my
00:23:47
professional development as as as as one
00:23:50
of those economists I started with MES
00:23:53
moved to hyek and then Milton Freedman
00:23:57
and so I had everything that would uh
00:24:00
help me understand human action and the
00:24:03
importance of Liberty uh and well I I I
00:24:08
enjoy my my my life as an economist as a
00:24:12
teacher tell us more about your life now
00:24:15
what part of it do you enjoy uh this is
00:24:18
a great school Northwood uh from the
00:24:21
start has embraced as its mission to
00:24:25
develop entrepreneurs not just
00:24:27
successful business people but people
00:24:29
who appreciate the free enterprise
00:24:32
system uh so we are a perfect match uh
00:24:36
the the school's uh institutional
00:24:38
philosophy and my personal values uh
00:24:41
they uh they are in complete Alliance
00:24:44
and so it's it's always a pleasure when
00:24:46
the uh summer break is over to go back I
00:24:49
mean we visit Bulgaria my mom is there
00:24:52
my wife's of dad is there we have other
00:24:55
friends and relatives and so we visit
00:24:57
every summer children but it's always
00:25:00
such a pleasure to take the flight back
00:25:02
to Midland Michigan and to get ready to
00:25:05
meet the new students in my classroom
00:25:08
how is Bulgaria going to do in the next
00:25:11
10 years uh it's really hard to say
00:25:15
Bulgaria has a very different political
00:25:18
system and a lot in the economy
00:25:19
unfortunately still depends on politics
00:25:23
I hope that they will diminish this
00:25:26
especially considering that in the last
00:25:27
four years
00:25:28
since the uh ridiculous covid
00:25:31
restrictions began in 2020 the Bulgarian
00:25:35
people have not had a normal regular
00:25:39
government uh they keep having elections
00:25:41
every few months they elect new
00:25:44
representatives in in uh the Parliament
00:25:47
and those people uh can never agree they
00:25:50
can never find a majority to elect a
00:25:54
regular uh cabinet a prime minister and
00:25:57
a cabinet they are not elected the way
00:26:00
here we elect our uh chief executive
00:26:02
officer the president uh in in uh
00:26:05
elections the people vote for someone in
00:26:08
Bulgaria those uh people need to be
00:26:11
selected by a majority in Parliament and
00:26:13
there is never a majority in Parliament
00:26:15
so I'm hopeful after 35 years of
00:26:19
transition that the people will finally
00:26:22
realize they cannot re rely on the
00:26:24
government to be their savior that they
00:26:27
themselves need to step up and to
00:26:30
accomplish what they want uh any area
00:26:35
where they can Thrive all they need is
00:26:37
for the government to protect their
00:26:39
lives and to clear way uh from all the
00:26:42
previous rules and restrictions that are
00:26:44
stifling uh entrepreneurs in my former
00:26:47
country I'm a big fan of yours and your
00:26:50
life experience because um you express
00:26:55
it so uh well and you have so much
00:26:57
energy energy and gratitude uh and you
00:27:01
can speak to both systems literally
00:27:04
having lived in both systems so thank
00:27:07
you for being part of this and as I say
00:27:09
every time please go out to the audience
00:27:12
and do something kind for someone you
00:27:14
know and someone you don't know and do
00:27:16
it every day going forward so I'll see
00:27:19
you next time to contact Junia send her
00:27:23
an email at junon thepark gmail.com
00:27:30
for more information program schedules
00:27:32
and news about future guests go to
00:27:35
www. junon thees spark.com
00:27:39
[Music]
00:27:41
thank you for joining us see you next
00:27:44
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