March 24, 2024
¿Es posible un gobierno sin tecnócratas?
Hace poco se desató un debate en redes sociales sobre la administración pública, la meritocracia y las formas de gobernar un país: ¿qué es la tecnocracia?, ¿es preferible un gobierno de tecnócratas o de activistas?, ¿cuáles han sido los aportes de la tecnocracia y del activismo al país?
Para este capítulo hablamos con el académico y ex rector de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Moisés Wasserman; con María Angélica García, presidenta de la Unión de Funcionarios de Carrera Diplomática y Consular de Colombia; con Francisco Javier Vera, activista climático; y con el director de Fedesarrollo, Luis Fernando Mejía.
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The day to day is full of
urgent news, controversial noise from fans.
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But for the quietness, the analysis
and what we like to call slow-
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cooking journalism are my questions, an
average rush program made by KFAM inspiring smiles.
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A social media debate recently broke out
on public administration, meritocracy and ways
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of governing a country. What is
technocracy? A government of technocrats or activists
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is preferable. What have been the
contributions of technocracy and activism to the country.
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For this chapter we spoke with the
academic and former president of the National
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University of Colombia, Moisés Basserman,
with MarÃa Angélica GarcÃa, President of the
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Union of Civil Servants of Diplomatic and
Consular Career of Colombia, with Francisco Javier
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Vera, climate activist and FE Development
Director, Luis Fernando MejÃa. I am
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Roberto Pombo, and this is chapter
eighty of my questions welcome. It is
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curious how, in different forms and
allegories, knowledge has been historically represented as
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an enemy, as the devil.
One example I have already cited in several
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chapters is that of the apple of
knowledge, in the Genesis account of the
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Christian Bible, in which Adam and
Eve are expelled from paradise, condemned to
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work and to suffer for eating the
forbidden fruit. In another older religious account,
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as in Greek mythology, it is
presented through the story of promising a
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Titan friend of mortals, stealing the
fire from the gods of the Olympus to
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deliver it to humans and being punished
by the gods because that fire represents the
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knowledge that plucks humans from their innocence. And that' s when we'
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re supposed to know science, what
brought us suffering. And much more recently,
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in that great novel, which is
the name of the rose of the
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Italian writer Humberto Eco, he talks
about how the hijacking of knowledge by the
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Church in the Abbey Library, where
thousands of books that speak about the sciences
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and different cultures of the world are
kept in an airtight manner, guarded by
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Jorge de Burgos, a blind and
fanatical monk who wants to avoid access to
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all that knowledge because he will turn
the human away from the faith and make
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known to him a world of passions. Even more curious is that until relatively
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recently, knowledge was seen as a
secret, a treasure reserved for a few
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and no longer a demon. Think, for example, how in our country,
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when it was not yet a country, those who knew how to read
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and write were clergymen, priests or
royals, a luxury reserved for an elite.
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Knowledge then was or is in many
cases a luxury for a group of
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them, not only names and religious, but men who can access elite universities,
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who look at the world from a
tower. Times have changed and access
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to schools and universities has become a
little wider. Universal education appeared and knowledge
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became an indispensable requirement to aspire to
live in this competitive world. Knowledge then
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became one of the great virtues of
the world, a minimum requirement for those
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who aspire to lead a nation.
But knowledge of a science or technique is
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enough to lead a government. A
few weeks ago this issue became a debate
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of columnists, opinion- makers,
journalists, politicians and social media users,
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which can be titled technocrats versus activists. It all began when several important government
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appointments were questioned because those who were
selected to run these state entities did not
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have the dam to do so.
Former Bogotá councillor Carlos Carrillo, new director
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of the National Unit for Disaster Risk
Management. He is an industrial designer from
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the National University of Colombia with a
master' s degree in art and design.
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Gustavo BolÃvar, director of the Department
of Social Prosperity, is not qualified
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in any career, has been a
screenwriter and senator of the Republic. And
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Alexander Lopez, new director of the
National Planning Department, that lawyer specializing in
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public policy and social enterprise management,
confessed that mathematics has not been his strong
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suit. I am not an economist
or aspire to do so, because mathematics
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gave me very hard, the truth, being that the first route, or
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the first element or the first way
forward, to understand such a complex science.
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But I know below where public policy
has to be directed I want to
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see only one of those cadres based
on national planning who knows this country as
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I know it. Critics point out
that these appointments are inadequate because the new
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directors have neither preparation nor experience in
the subjects they are going to handle.
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Those who defend appointments argue, among
other things, that the technicians and technocrats
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of all life have not done things
well and appealed to the honesty of the
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new directors who are committed to the
cause. For example, President Petro Trinó
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Auro Comillas, Pierre GarcÃa, was
not criticized for having been a member of
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parliament acting as a technocrat. He
led the Duke' s DPS and stole
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it from Gustavo BolÃvares. Guarantee of
transparency. He will lead the government'
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s DPS, of the change I
close quotes. Then began a discussion full
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of cold and corrupt reductionisms and technocrat
cartoons against ignorant but committed activists. As
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usual, we go in order that
he is a technocrat in the strict sense
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of the word, he is a
professional in some economic or administrative UAs math
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in a public office, that pursues
efficiency without ideological considerations or at least that
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says the dictionary of the Rael.
So far the definition sounds good, but
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in a world and a complex country
like the one we live in, nothing
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is ever so simple. Let'
s step back a little bit in time
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to understand better. In the 1930s
and 1940s in the United States, after
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those difficult years of the great depression
prior to World War II, technology was
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beginning to dawn and to leave behind
the industrial revolution. A group of people
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focused on engineering science in New York
City conducted a study on the use of
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energy in the United States and the
relationship between the use of energy and economic
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growth. One of the findings of
that survey was that industrial employment had reached
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a peak of one thousand nine hundred
and nineteen, but that employment was declining
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as industrial production continued to grow.
This raised the specter that technological progress would
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create higher productivity, so less labour
would be needed to produce more and that
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the economic system of the time would
not be able to cope with such productivity
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growth. Thorstein Beblen, in his
book The Engineers and the Price System,
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advocated removing the management of the economy
from the hands of entrepreneurs and putting it
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into the hands of engineers, a
proposal that was quite similar to what people
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thought was happening in the Soviet Union. On September 26th of a thousand nine
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hundred and thirty- two, Time
magazine published an article with these findings and
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put this auro Comillas movement on the
radar. The men who conduct these studies
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on American industrial efficiency call themselves technocrats
close quotes. This new group of engineers
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and professionals promoted the idea that this
new technological world had to be led by
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engineers and experts who strictly applied scientific
principles to everyday problems. As a curious
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fact, between one thousand nine hundred
and thirty- six and one thousand nine
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hundred and forty- one, the
movement reached Canada, where Georshua Hlderman led
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it. Several decades later, his
grandson wants to bring technocracy to planet Mars,
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Tesla' s creator and Twitter owner, Elon Muskeri. That group of
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technocrats and their established movement died.
However, the idea of a group of
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people with specific knowledge leading a government
did not do so, but was redrawn
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years later with a turn in the
1960s, several young Latin Americans were awarded
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scholarships and educated in economics at universities
in the United States, much of it
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in liberal economic doctrines, according to
which the state does not have to intervene
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in the market. In his book
on Chile Project, the Chilean economist Sebastián
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Edwards tells the story of the famous
Chicago Boys, who, if they do
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not know them, are those Chilean
economists who were awarded scholarships to study at
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the University of Chicago and were trained
under the shelter of the liberal economist Milton
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Friedman, and who then held senior
positions and defined economic policy during the Pinochet
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dictatorship. But Edwards also talks about
Colombian economists who returned from studying in the
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United States. They performed in a
completely different context, for while in Chile
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they were able to apply all the
doctrines they wanted. In Colombia, the
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projects proposed by the new technocrats had
to pass first through Congress and then through
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the Court. It is said that
in the country the technocracy had its beginning
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with President Carlos Gerar Restrepo, who
in his term gave an important role to
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those economists that I already mentioned in
the Department of National Planning. And since
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then the following governments have had a
strong presence of economists. According to former
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minister and economist and self- declared
technocrat Roberto Junguito. In a column of
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his, Misael Pastrana Borrero created his
own kind of economists, commanded by two
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foreigners, Locklin Curry and Albert Berry. Alfonso López Mickelsen created an economic team
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by Rodrigo Botero, Miguel Urrutia,
Jorge RamÃrez, Guillermo Perry. Julio César
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Turbay' s president also leaned on
economists to lead the Ministry of Finance,
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such as Jaime GarcÃa Parra and Eduardo
Biezner, and not to continue with the
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list of economists of ministries and senior
positions of the DNP. It is enough
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to sum up that to this day
they remain part of all governments, even
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the current one. What have been
the contributions to the country and the failures
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of these young economists and technocrats?
I asked the Director of Fedevelopment, Luis
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Hernando Mesia. Colombia, for several
decades, has had a strong tradition of
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a technocracy that has been trained in
postgraduate studies abroad and has then returned to
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the country to contribute with its work
its knowledge in such important entities as the
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neighborhood with the Republic, the National
Planning Department and the Ministry of Finance and
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Public Credit. That technocracy has allowed
Colombia to stand out in the Latin American
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arena as an economy with enormous stability, reflected, for example, in the
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fact that Colombia has had only four
years of negative growth in the last one
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hundred and twenty- three years.
The next best country in Latin America is
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Brazil, which has had sixteen years
of contraction. This shows that Colombia has
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ratified a stability norm that has lacked
the technocracy more emphasis on structural issues related
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to the labour market education, that
allow for greater productivity growth, greater social
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mobility and also reduce inequality, which
remains, unfortunately, very high, even
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in the context of Latin America.
However, one criticism of the Colombian technocracy
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is that it is precisely the vast
majority or seems to have brought together a
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homogenous group of elite people who have
been able to gain access to studies in
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large universities and high- ranking officials. Jenny Pierce, professor and researcher at
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Londens School Economics, and Juan David
Velasco, professor at the Faculty of Political
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Science at Javeriana University, wrote on
this topic. The article published in the
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empty chair is an advance of a
book that will be published soon and in
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which we analyze precisely who have been
the directors of the National Planning Department,
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managers and co- directors of the
Bank of the Republic, Ministers of Finance
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and presidents of Copetrol between one thousand
nine hundred ninety- one and two thousand
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twenty- three. On that tour
they found six characteristics that define them as
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a power group. As first,
most are economists trained at the University of
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the Andes. They then did doctorates
at the Anglosajona Universities and have worked at
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the Center for Economic Development Studies,
Development Headquarters or the National Association of Financial
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Institutions ANNIFE. Secondly, they defend
the rights of private property and the rules
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of play pre- established in contracts. Third, they are almost entirely men.
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Only 14 per cent of those on
the Board of Directors of the Bank
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of the Republic have been women.
Fourth, they are orthodox in economic management
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and oppose, for example, a
high increase in the minimum wage. Fifthly,
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they agree with privatization in certain public
goods, such as health, road
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infrastructure and education. And sixth,
and more importantly, they are deeply disconnected
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from the popular field, i e, partner. In the study they are
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people who are not connected to what
happens in the day to day of a
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Colombian on foot and that is why
the authors set an example of how bad
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technocrats have been in the elections,
as in the cases of Mauricio Cárdenas,
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Juan Carlos Echeverry and Alejandro Gaviria.
This last feature reminds me of an episode
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that remained in the minds of many
Colombians cendo the Minister of Finance, Alberto
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Carrasquilla, considered part of this group
of technocrats, and while pursuing a tax
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reform project. In an interview,
they asked him how much a bucket of
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eggs cost. His response showed his
level of disconnection from my elders. It
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was like a shoe. Let'
s say well, let' s say
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on the issue of eggs, because
it depends on quality, but let'
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s say a thousand eight hundred pesos
in a dozen or something like that is
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what I have in my head to
give them context. At that time,
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the egg bucket was about eight thousand
to nine thousand pesos. Shortly after these
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statements by the former Minister, mobilizations
and protests across the country forced the withdrawal
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of this reform. It is this
same disconnection and coldness that has made technocracy
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unremarkable. White men from privileged families
who have gone to elite universities, who
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have been in charge of the state
for decades, are those who, from
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their offices in the center of bob
O in the north, from a tower
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far away to the rest of the
country, design policies to manage water in
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baranova or the management of land in
condoto. However, not all technocrats are
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types with the same economic or right- wing ideology, and one of these
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exceptions is made by this same government
the former director of the DNP, Jorge
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Iván González, a left- wing
activist and at the same time academic man
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who unfortunately ceased to be part of
the Gabinetti. And although the analysis of
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Colombian technocracies by academics is right,
it seems that the counterpart or suggestion is
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that technicians or officials with economic or
administrative experience should be replaced by activists or
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politicians who have popular recognition and support. This is where the discussion knows no
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nuances, because it is one thing
to seek that the officials, ministers and
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members of the government who dictate policies
are people who are more in context of
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what is happening in Colombia' s
foot, and another very different thing is
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to label as corrupt and incompetent expert
officials who have experience and training in a
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science. He referred to this as
the former Minister of Agriculture. Cecilia López,
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when recently at an event Auro Comillas
said the vapule that this government has
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hit the technocracy is a shame.
What is prevailing at this time is activism
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and contracts. Where' s the
civil service. I' m closing Comillas.
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In this sense, the former Minist
is right. The civil service of
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staff members should be given their real
capacity for office, as if it were
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any job. However, the actions
of the Government point to the fact that
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if, on the one hand,
it despises technocracy, on the other hand,
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it prefers to have loyal and close
officials of the President, even if
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they do not have what is required
for the office, because the three cases
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mentioned at the beginning are only a
few of the appointments questioned and it is
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not a question of hiring someone from
the left or right, close or opposed
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to the Government, but rather people
with experience. The case of Arabian lauras
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is one of them. The young
politician has a short but meteoric career.
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At only thirty years of age,
he is the right hand of the President
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of the Republic. He has been
part of the utl of then Senator Armando
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Benedetti, advisor to the campaign of
the then presidential candidate, Gustavo Petro,
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director of the Department of Social Prosperity
and now director of the Administrative Department of
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the Presidency. But where this trend
has been most seen in the Government is
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in diplomatic positions. The list of
consuls, attachés and ambassadors who have been
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appointed without diplomatic experience is long.
Sebastián Guanumen as Consul of Chile, a
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young man with no diplomatic experience,Ãlvaro Moisés Ninco as Ambassador to Mexico,
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whose appointment was overthrown by the Administrative
Tribunal of Cundinamarca for not fulfilling the requirements
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to occupy the post. Since December
there have been several diplomatic appointments that have
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been sued for not giving priority to
diplomatic and consular career officials to be appointed
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only in December last year were four
and last February were another five appointments demanded
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by the Diplomatic and Consular Union.
Here I want to make a point of
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clarity, and that is that,
although the practice of giving posts in exchange
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for political favours or closeness is not
new or recent, if it is paradoxical
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to do so in a Government that
promised changes. The diplomatic career is perhaps
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one of the areas of public service
that has the clearest technical requirements. However,
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it is the one most used to
pay for political favors. In this
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regard, I asked MarÃa Angélica GarcÃa, the president of Unidiplo, the Union
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of diplomatic and consular career officials of
Colombia, how to dignify the diplomatic career
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so that it does not become the
currency of exchange of governments. This told
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me to diplomatic and consular career already
professional and specialized technique. What should be
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technified is the foreign service in its
entirety, to be started then by strengthening
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the entrance to the diplomatic and consular
career through the public contest that is carried
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out annually, but this must be
much broader and inclusive, that is,
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it must reach each of the regions
of the country and it must result in
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the annual income of at least twenty
to thirty new third secretaries. Provisionality is
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seen as an exception and not as
the rule, as has been the case
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during each of the governments In other
words, career diplomats must be given the
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preferential right to hold positions abroad,
in accordance with the constitutional principle of merit.
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We must also understand the importance of
having an experienced diplomatic corps in countries
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such as Brazil and Chile, which
manage their foreign policy in ninety- nine
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percent, with career diplomats, which
ensures that attention to our foreign nationals is
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adequate and not improvised, and also, of course, the interests of our
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foreign policy are achieved. Designating public
commissions to people who do not meet the
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requirements is also a form of corruption
to prevent the next government from using the
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foreign service as a currency of exchange. The current one must start a transformation
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from now on. That is to
say, this is simply a matter of
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political will. The other part of
this meaningless discussion is that of activists as
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necessary in a country like ours.
Activists are irrigated all over Colombia defending just
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causes. There are no sexual and
reproductive rights environment, anti- racism and
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anti- war activists. For each
cause there is at least one or one
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and it is this profession sadly,
one of the most insecure in the country.
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They are accused of being people with
a great passion for their causes,
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but ignorant of the functioning of the
State, of its bureaucracy, until they
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are pointed out as naive dreamers better
said impractical and efficient for a public office.
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The writer Ricardo Silva reflects on this
in his column when he tells Oro
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Comillas, both technocrats and activists,
he seems to exasperate them with politics as
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things are so far from common sense. It would be a miracle recognized by
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the Church if they understood that only
three percent of the old people in Putumayo
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had a pension. There is a
devastating statistics of the Comptrollership that can only
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be solved if the moral strength of
the activists is driven by the experience of
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the professionals I close quotes. I
looked for Francisco Javier Vera, a climate
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activist better known as the Environmentalist Child, to tell me what the role of
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activism in the country has been.
This told me well. I think to
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understand why assets are important for the
country that let me have that is an
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activist activist. For me he is
a person who has to identify a problem
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and basically seeks to solve those problems. And, of course, our society
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has hundreds and thousands of problems,
including war, automatic change, and so
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on, international injustice, not administta. It has a phrase that seems to
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me very interesting to define it and
it is the tomato injustice as something personal.
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I think that' s what activists
do. They identify these injustices precisely
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and basically transform them, they are
transforming those problems. They are providing solutions
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to those problems that we have as
a society. And yet, pitifully like
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activism, the word activist is closely
associated with politics. No, I mean,
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pitifully. No. Activism is a
political act. In fact, it
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is an exercise of citizenship, basically
through which we raise our voices. But
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perhaps people are using it more and
more pejoratively, associating it with partisan politics,
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with electoral politics, although it is
not that kind of policy where the
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following delictivism is wanted. Basically so
for me, that' s why activism
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is important and, in addition to
some, protecting them, centivizing them and
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fostering them in society from democracy.
And, on the other hand, it
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is of no value to promote public
education for all if later professionals and people
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who have dedicated their lives to the
academy close the doors of public service.
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In this regard, the results of
the Government' s call for doctors are
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more eloquent. If you don'
t remember, on August 10, two
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thousand twenty- two, just begun
his term of office, President Gustavo Petro,
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launched a call for citizens with a
doctorate degree who resided abroad in the
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country, with the aim of receiving
the profiles of all the people who would
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like to contribute with their knowledge to
the leadership of the government. A few
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weeks later it was reported that the
summons had received living leaves of twenty thousand
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three hundred and forty- nine persons
and that a thousand nine hundred and seventy
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- nine persons had been selected.
However, the selection process left quite a
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few doubts. For example, it
is not known how or by whom was
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the committee that was lecturing the works
of life, the aspects that were evaluated
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or taken into account to make the
selection. Nor is it known in which
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entities the selected ones would work,
nor the type of contract or linkage they
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would have. These concerns have not
yet been clarified. They seem a little
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bit. Then schizophrenic the accusations of
President Petro against technocracy and technicians, while
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breast- feeding for the number of
doctors in his government, the summons of
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doctors and his speech in favor of
universal public education. But just for a
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moment let' s do an exercise. Let' s get technocrats out of
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all public offices. And I am
not just referring to the economists of the
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National Planning Department and the Ministry of
Finance, but to the environmental engineers,
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biologists and herpetologists of the Ministry of
the Environment, and to professionals in education
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as powerful as the Aurora Vergara education
of the Ministry of Education. In this
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sense, I asked Professor Es Basserman
a synthegnocrat government is possible. That'
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s what he told me. I
think the question is wrong. Tecnocracy is
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etymologically the government of technicians, and
I believe that no one here has ever
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pretended that there is a government in
technicians. It is clear that politicians rule.
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What we have is technical and expert
support. And if the question arises,
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then so, if the experts are
necessary, if the technicians are necessary,
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I would say they are absolutely necessary
for a government to succeed. Or
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I' d even go further to
the extreme. The absence of technicians and
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experts would, in my opinion,
guarantee the failure of any government. That
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is not a question of elitism,
it is a fundamental question of knowledge.
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The main knowledge of technicians and experts
is the recognition of where mistakes are made
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and how to avoid mistakes. Economic
experts know which policies are successful and which
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policies inevitably lead to failure. And
those are immense support a great help for
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the success of any ruler. I
believe, as other people have already said,
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that there has been a false dichotomy
between technocrats and activists. I know
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honest and passionate technicians for their work
that they have studied at foreign universities thanks
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to scholarships and we flatter ourselves with
the istex that they have returned to serve
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the country. I know activists who
know and manage the aurocracy of the state
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that go beyond passion and its causes
and that do not stay alone in the
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discourse, but that achieve pragmatic and
tangible changes with their work, the strengths
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of one and the other combined.
They would make suitable officials, who are
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experts in the topics, who work, who have the technical knowledge, but
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who also know the realities of the
country, who govern beyond the figures and
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the tables of excel and are activists
passionate about the public service, beyond the
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bureaucracy and for the good of the
Colombians. The country wants and needs ministers,
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directors, managers, officials in general, who are competent and probos or,
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as Ricardo Silva said in his column
Auro Comillas, it is enough to
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think of a crude ambassador or an
anti- corruption friscal who dedicates free time
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to corruption to realize that the citizenry
does not fear technocrats, activists or s
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s s s cynicals incompetent hill quotes. Knowledge cannot continue to be a cause
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of fear or punishment, such as
the genesis of the Bible, but it
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cannot be synonymous with access to power
for a few in an elite. I
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am Roberto Pombo and this was chapter
eighty of my questions. I' ll
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see you in a next chapter from
now on. This chapter of my questions
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is available on all podcast platforms.
This episode was made possible by Kafam,
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inspiring Smiles. Dirección Roberto Pombo,
Producción General, Juan Abel Gutiérrez, editorial
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00:28:37.960 --> 00:28:42.799
advisor, Daniel san Peerrospina scripts Juan
Abel Gutiérrez and Johnny RodrÃguez. Field production
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00:28:42.839 --> 00:28:48.960
Marcela Salazar and LucÃa Beltrán. Post- production of audio Carlos Bernar
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00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:06.599
The day to day is full of
urgent news, controversial noise from fans.
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00:00:06.639 --> 00:00:11.240
But for the quietness, the analysis
and what we like to call slow-
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00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:19.600
cooking journalism are my questions, an
average rush program made by KFAM inspiring smiles.
4
00:00:27.039 --> 00:00:31.760
A social media debate recently broke out
on public administration, meritocracy and ways
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00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:39.920
of governing a country. What is
technocracy? A government of technocrats or activists
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00:00:40.079 --> 00:00:44.679
is preferable. What have been the
contributions of technocracy and activism to the country.
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00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:50.679
For this chapter we spoke with the
academic and former president of the National
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00:00:50.719 --> 00:00:55.240
University of Colombia, Moisés Basserman,
with MarÃa Angélica GarcÃa, President of the
9
00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:00.920
Union of Civil Servants of Diplomatic and
Consular Career of Colombia, with Francisco Javier
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00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:06.200
Vera, climate activist and FE Development
Director, Luis Fernando MejÃa. I am
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00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:12.599
Roberto Pombo, and this is chapter
eighty of my questions welcome. It is
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curious how, in different forms and
allegories, knowledge has been historically represented as
13
00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:23.560
an enemy, as the devil.
One example I have already cited in several
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chapters is that of the apple of
knowledge, in the Genesis account of the
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Christian Bible, in which Adam and
Eve are expelled from paradise, condemned to
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work and to suffer for eating the
forbidden fruit. In another older religious account,
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as in Greek mythology, it is
presented through the story of promising a
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Titan friend of mortals, stealing the
fire from the gods of the Olympus to
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00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:51.680
deliver it to humans and being punished
by the gods because that fire represents the
20
00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:57.959
knowledge that plucks humans from their innocence. And that' s when we'
21
00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:02.560
re supposed to know science, what
brought us suffering. And much more recently,
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00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:07.680
in that great novel, which is
the name of the rose of the
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00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:12.680
Italian writer Humberto Eco, he talks
about how the hijacking of knowledge by the
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00:02:12.759 --> 00:02:15.759
Church in the Abbey Library, where
thousands of books that speak about the sciences
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00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:22.080
and different cultures of the world are
kept in an airtight manner, guarded by
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00:02:22.199 --> 00:02:25.520
Jorge de Burgos, a blind and
fanatical monk who wants to avoid access to
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00:02:25.639 --> 00:02:30.000
all that knowledge because he will turn
the human away from the faith and make
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00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:35.120
known to him a world of passions. Even more curious is that until relatively
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00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:39.759
recently, knowledge was seen as a
secret, a treasure reserved for a few
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00:02:39.919 --> 00:02:46.080
and no longer a demon. Think, for example, how in our country,
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when it was not yet a country, those who knew how to read
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00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:53.159
and write were clergymen, priests or
royals, a luxury reserved for an elite.
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Knowledge then was or is in many
cases a luxury for a group of
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00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:02.639
them, not only names and religious, but men who can access elite universities,
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00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:09.000
who look at the world from a
tower. Times have changed and access
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00:03:09.039 --> 00:03:15.319
to schools and universities has become a
little wider. Universal education appeared and knowledge
37
00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:23.680
became an indispensable requirement to aspire to
live in this competitive world. Knowledge then
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00:03:23.759 --> 00:03:28.919
became one of the great virtues of
the world, a minimum requirement for those
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00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:34.960
who aspire to lead a nation.
But knowledge of a science or technique is
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00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:40.000
enough to lead a government. A
few weeks ago this issue became a debate
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00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:45.520
of columnists, opinion- makers,
journalists, politicians and social media users,
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00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:52.879
which can be titled technocrats versus activists. It all began when several important government
43
00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:58.919
appointments were questioned because those who were
selected to run these state entities did not
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00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:02.840
have the dam to do so.
Former Bogotá councillor Carlos Carrillo, new director
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00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:09.199
of the National Unit for Disaster Risk
Management. He is an industrial designer from
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00:04:09.199 --> 00:04:12.479
the National University of Colombia with a
master' s degree in art and design.
47
00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:16.560
Gustavo BolÃvar, director of the Department
of Social Prosperity, is not qualified
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00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:20.519
in any career, has been a
screenwriter and senator of the Republic. And
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00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:26.639
Alexander Lopez, new director of the
National Planning Department, that lawyer specializing in
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00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:30.519
public policy and social enterprise management,
confessed that mathematics has not been his strong
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00:04:30.519 --> 00:04:36.000
suit. I am not an economist
or aspire to do so, because mathematics
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00:04:36.040 --> 00:04:40.240
gave me very hard, the truth, being that the first route, or
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00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:45.079
the first element or the first way
forward, to understand such a complex science.
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00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:51.959
But I know below where public policy
has to be directed I want to
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00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:58.279
see only one of those cadres based
on national planning who knows this country as
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00:04:58.319 --> 00:05:04.480
I know it. Critics point out
that these appointments are inadequate because the new
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00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:09.519
directors have neither preparation nor experience in
the subjects they are going to handle.
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Those who defend appointments argue, among
other things, that the technicians and technocrats
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00:05:15.079 --> 00:05:18.920
of all life have not done things
well and appealed to the honesty of the
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00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:24.759
new directors who are committed to the
cause. For example, President Petro Trinó
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00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:30.000
Auro Comillas, Pierre GarcÃa, was
not criticized for having been a member of
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parliament acting as a technocrat. He
led the Duke' s DPS and stole
63
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it from Gustavo BolÃvares. Guarantee of
transparency. He will lead the government'
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s DPS, of the change I
close quotes. Then began a discussion full
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of cold and corrupt reductionisms and technocrat
cartoons against ignorant but committed activists. As
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usual, we go in order that
he is a technocrat in the strict sense
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of the word, he is a
professional in some economic or administrative UAs math
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in a public office, that pursues
efficiency without ideological considerations or at least that
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says the dictionary of the Rael.
So far the definition sounds good, but
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in a world and a complex country
like the one we live in, nothing
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is ever so simple. Let'
s step back a little bit in time
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to understand better. In the 1930s
and 1940s in the United States, after
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those difficult years of the great depression
prior to World War II, technology was
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beginning to dawn and to leave behind
the industrial revolution. A group of people
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focused on engineering science in New York
City conducted a study on the use of
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energy in the United States and the
relationship between the use of energy and economic
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growth. One of the findings of
that survey was that industrial employment had reached
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a peak of one thousand nine hundred
and nineteen, but that employment was declining
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as industrial production continued to grow.
This raised the specter that technological progress would
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create higher productivity, so less labour
would be needed to produce more and that
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the economic system of the time would
not be able to cope with such productivity
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growth. Thorstein Beblen, in his
book The Engineers and the Price System,
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advocated removing the management of the economy
from the hands of entrepreneurs and putting it
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into the hands of engineers, a
proposal that was quite similar to what people
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thought was happening in the Soviet Union. On September 26th of a thousand nine
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hundred and thirty- two, Time
magazine published an article with these findings and
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put this auro Comillas movement on the
radar. The men who conduct these studies
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on American industrial efficiency call themselves technocrats
close quotes. This new group of engineers
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and professionals promoted the idea that this
new technological world had to be led by
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engineers and experts who strictly applied scientific
principles to everyday problems. As a curious
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fact, between one thousand nine hundred
and thirty- six and one thousand nine
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hundred and forty- one, the
movement reached Canada, where Georshua Hlderman led
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it. Several decades later, his
grandson wants to bring technocracy to planet Mars,
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Tesla' s creator and Twitter owner, Elon Muskeri. That group of
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technocrats and their established movement died.
However, the idea of a group of
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people with specific knowledge leading a government
did not do so, but was redrawn
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00:08:31.919 --> 00:08:37.600
years later with a turn in the
1960s, several young Latin Americans were awarded
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scholarships and educated in economics at universities
in the United States, much of it
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in liberal economic doctrines, according to
which the state does not have to intervene
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in the market. In his book
on Chile Project, the Chilean economist Sebastián
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Edwards tells the story of the famous
Chicago Boys, who, if they do
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not know them, are those Chilean
economists who were awarded scholarships to study at
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the University of Chicago and were trained
under the shelter of the liberal economist Milton
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Friedman, and who then held senior
positions and defined economic policy during the Pinochet
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dictatorship. But Edwards also talks about
Colombian economists who returned from studying in the
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United States. They performed in a
completely different context, for while in Chile
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they were able to apply all the
doctrines they wanted. In Colombia, the
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projects proposed by the new technocrats had
to pass first through Congress and then through
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the Court. It is said that
in the country the technocracy had its beginning
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with President Carlos Gerar Restrepo, who
in his term gave an important role to
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those economists that I already mentioned in
the Department of National Planning. And since
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then the following governments have had a
strong presence of economists. According to former
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minister and economist and self- declared
technocrat Roberto Junguito. In a column of
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00:09:56.240 --> 00:10:01.720
his, Misael Pastrana Borrero created his
own kind of economists, commanded by two
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00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:07.039
foreigners, Locklin Curry and Albert Berry. Alfonso López Mickelsen created an economic team
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00:10:07.240 --> 00:10:13.279
by Rodrigo Botero, Miguel Urrutia,
Jorge RamÃrez, Guillermo Perry. Julio César
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00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:16.519
Turbay' s president also leaned on
economists to lead the Ministry of Finance,
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00:10:16.879 --> 00:10:20.919
such as Jaime GarcÃa Parra and Eduardo
Biezner, and not to continue with the
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00:10:22.039 --> 00:10:26.840
list of economists of ministries and senior
positions of the DNP. It is enough
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to sum up that to this day
they remain part of all governments, even
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the current one. What have been
the contributions to the country and the failures
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of these young economists and technocrats?
I asked the Director of Fedevelopment, Luis
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Hernando Mesia. Colombia, for several
decades, has had a strong tradition of
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a technocracy that has been trained in
postgraduate studies abroad and has then returned to
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the country to contribute with its work
its knowledge in such important entities as the
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neighborhood with the Republic, the National
Planning Department and the Ministry of Finance and
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00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:09.919
Public Credit. That technocracy has allowed
Colombia to stand out in the Latin American
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arena as an economy with enormous stability, reflected, for example, in the
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00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:20.320
fact that Colombia has had only four
years of negative growth in the last one
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00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:26.399
hundred and twenty- three years.
The next best country in Latin America is
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Brazil, which has had sixteen years
of contraction. This shows that Colombia has
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00:11:31.399 --> 00:11:35.039
ratified a stability norm that has lacked
the technocracy more emphasis on structural issues related
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00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:41.240
to the labour market education, that
allow for greater productivity growth, greater social
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00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:46.960
mobility and also reduce inequality, which
remains, unfortunately, very high, even
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00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:54.360
in the context of Latin America.
However, one criticism of the Colombian technocracy
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is that it is precisely the vast
majority or seems to have brought together a
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00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:05.120
homogenous group of elite people who have
been able to gain access to studies in
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00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:11.159
large universities and high- ranking officials. Jenny Pierce, professor and researcher at
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00:12:11.320 --> 00:12:16.039
Londens School Economics, and Juan David
Velasco, professor at the Faculty of Political
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00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:20.919
Science at Javeriana University, wrote on
this topic. The article published in the
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00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:24.519
empty chair is an advance of a
book that will be published soon and in
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which we analyze precisely who have been
the directors of the National Planning Department,
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00:12:28.919 --> 00:12:33.120
managers and co- directors of the
Bank of the Republic, Ministers of Finance
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00:12:33.159 --> 00:12:37.600
and presidents of Copetrol between one thousand
nine hundred ninety- one and two thousand
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twenty- three. On that tour
they found six characteristics that define them as
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a power group. As first,
most are economists trained at the University of
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the Andes. They then did doctorates
at the Anglosajona Universities and have worked at
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00:12:52.639 --> 00:12:58.279
the Center for Economic Development Studies,
Development Headquarters or the National Association of Financial
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00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:03.679
Institutions ANNIFE. Secondly, they defend
the rights of private property and the rules
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of play pre- established in contracts. Third, they are almost entirely men.
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Only 14 per cent of those on
the Board of Directors of the Bank
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00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:18.240
of the Republic have been women.
Fourth, they are orthodox in economic management
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and oppose, for example, a
high increase in the minimum wage. Fifthly,
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they agree with privatization in certain public
goods, such as health, road
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infrastructure and education. And sixth,
and more importantly, they are deeply disconnected
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from the popular field, i e, partner. In the study they are
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people who are not connected to what
happens in the day to day of a
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Colombian on foot and that is why
the authors set an example of how bad
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technocrats have been in the elections,
as in the cases of Mauricio Cárdenas,
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00:13:48.360 --> 00:13:52.960
Juan Carlos Echeverry and Alejandro Gaviria.
This last feature reminds me of an episode
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that remained in the minds of many
Colombians cendo the Minister of Finance, Alberto
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Carrasquilla, considered part of this group
of technocrats, and while pursuing a tax
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00:14:03.159 --> 00:14:07.320
reform project. In an interview,
they asked him how much a bucket of
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eggs cost. His response showed his
level of disconnection from my elders. It
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00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:16.159
was like a shoe. Let'
s say well, let' s say
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on the issue of eggs, because
it depends on quality, but let'
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00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:28.679
s say a thousand eight hundred pesos
in a dozen or something like that is
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what I have in my head to
give them context. At that time,
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00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:35.799
the egg bucket was about eight thousand
to nine thousand pesos. Shortly after these
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statements by the former Minister, mobilizations
and protests across the country forced the withdrawal
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of this reform. It is this
same disconnection and coldness that has made technocracy
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unremarkable. White men from privileged families
who have gone to elite universities, who
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have been in charge of the state
for decades, are those who, from
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their offices in the center of bob
O in the north, from a tower
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far away to the rest of the
country, design policies to manage water in
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00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:11.399
baranova or the management of land in
condoto. However, not all technocrats are
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types with the same economic or right- wing ideology, and one of these
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exceptions is made by this same government
the former director of the DNP, Jorge
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00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:26.080
Iván González, a left- wing
activist and at the same time academic man
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who unfortunately ceased to be part of
the Gabinetti. And although the analysis of
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00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:33.960
Colombian technocracies by academics is right,
it seems that the counterpart or suggestion is
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that technicians or officials with economic or
administrative experience should be replaced by activists or
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politicians who have popular recognition and support. This is where the discussion knows no
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nuances, because it is one thing
to seek that the officials, ministers and
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members of the government who dictate policies
are people who are more in context of
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what is happening in Colombia' s
foot, and another very different thing is
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to label as corrupt and incompetent expert
officials who have experience and training in a
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science. He referred to this as
the former Minister of Agriculture. Cecilia López,
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00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:15.519
when recently at an event Auro Comillas
said the vapule that this government has
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hit the technocracy is a shame.
What is prevailing at this time is activism
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00:16:19.080 --> 00:16:25.639
and contracts. Where' s the
civil service. I' m closing Comillas.
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In this sense, the former Minist
is right. The civil service of
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00:16:30.279 --> 00:16:33.360
staff members should be given their real
capacity for office, as if it were
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any job. However, the actions
of the Government point to the fact that
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if, on the one hand,
it despises technocracy, on the other hand,
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it prefers to have loyal and close
officials of the President, even if
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they do not have what is required
for the office, because the three cases
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mentioned at the beginning are only a
few of the appointments questioned and it is
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not a question of hiring someone from
the left or right, close or opposed
200
00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:03.399
to the Government, but rather people
with experience. The case of Arabian lauras
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is one of them. The young
politician has a short but meteoric career.
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At only thirty years of age,
he is the right hand of the President
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of the Republic. He has been
part of the utl of then Senator Armando
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00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:19.839
Benedetti, advisor to the campaign of
the then presidential candidate, Gustavo Petro,
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00:17:19.960 --> 00:17:25.799
director of the Department of Social Prosperity
and now director of the Administrative Department of
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00:17:25.799 --> 00:17:30.240
the Presidency. But where this trend
has been most seen in the Government is
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in diplomatic positions. The list of
consuls, attachés and ambassadors who have been
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00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:40.920
appointed without diplomatic experience is long.
Sebastián Guanumen as Consul of Chile, a
209
00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:45.079
young man with no diplomatic experience,Ãlvaro Moisés Ninco as Ambassador to Mexico,
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whose appointment was overthrown by the Administrative
Tribunal of Cundinamarca for not fulfilling the requirements
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to occupy the post. Since December
there have been several diplomatic appointments that have
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00:17:55.440 --> 00:17:59.799
been sued for not giving priority to
diplomatic and consular career officials to be appointed
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only in December last year were four
and last February were another five appointments demanded
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by the Diplomatic and Consular Union.
Here I want to make a point of
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clarity, and that is that,
although the practice of giving posts in exchange
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00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:18.240
for political favours or closeness is not
new or recent, if it is paradoxical
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00:18:18.279 --> 00:18:22.839
to do so in a Government that
promised changes. The diplomatic career is perhaps
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00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:26.839
one of the areas of public service
that has the clearest technical requirements. However,
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00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:33.200
it is the one most used to
pay for political favors. In this
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regard, I asked MarÃa Angélica GarcÃa, the president of Unidiplo, the Union
221
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of diplomatic and consular career officials of
Colombia, how to dignify the diplomatic career
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so that it does not become the
currency of exchange of governments. This told
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me to diplomatic and consular career already
professional and specialized technique. What should be
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technified is the foreign service in its
entirety, to be started then by strengthening
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00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:03.400
the entrance to the diplomatic and consular
career through the public contest that is carried
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00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:07.319
out annually, but this must be
much broader and inclusive, that is,
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00:19:07.559 --> 00:19:11.519
it must reach each of the regions
of the country and it must result in
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00:19:11.559 --> 00:19:18.160
the annual income of at least twenty
to thirty new third secretaries. Provisionality is
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seen as an exception and not as
the rule, as has been the case
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during each of the governments In other
words, career diplomats must be given the
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00:19:26.440 --> 00:19:32.200
preferential right to hold positions abroad,
in accordance with the constitutional principle of merit.
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We must also understand the importance of
having an experienced diplomatic corps in countries
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such as Brazil and Chile, which
manage their foreign policy in ninety- nine
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percent, with career diplomats, which
ensures that attention to our foreign nationals is
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adequate and not improvised, and also, of course, the interests of our
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foreign policy are achieved. Designating public
commissions to people who do not meet the
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00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:10.079
requirements is also a form of corruption
to prevent the next government from using the
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foreign service as a currency of exchange. The current one must start a transformation
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from now on. That is to
say, this is simply a matter of
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political will. The other part of
this meaningless discussion is that of activists as
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necessary in a country like ours.
Activists are irrigated all over Colombia defending just
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causes. There are no sexual and
reproductive rights environment, anti- racism and
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anti- war activists. For each
cause there is at least one or one
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and it is this profession sadly,
one of the most insecure in the country.
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They are accused of being people with
a great passion for their causes,
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but ignorant of the functioning of the
State, of its bureaucracy, until they
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are pointed out as naive dreamers better
said impractical and efficient for a public office.
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The writer Ricardo Silva reflects on this
in his column when he tells Oro
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Comillas, both technocrats and activists,
he seems to exasperate them with politics as
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things are so far from common sense. It would be a miracle recognized by
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the Church if they understood that only
three percent of the old people in Putumayo
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had a pension. There is a
devastating statistics of the Comptrollership that can only
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be solved if the moral strength of
the activists is driven by the experience of
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the professionals I close quotes. I
looked for Francisco Javier Vera, a climate
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activist better known as the Environmentalist Child, to tell me what the role of
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activism in the country has been.
This told me well. I think to
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understand why assets are important for the
country that let me have that is an
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activist activist. For me he is
a person who has to identify a problem
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and basically seeks to solve those problems. And, of course, our society
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has hundreds and thousands of problems,
including war, automatic change, and so
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on, international injustice, not administta. It has a phrase that seems to
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me very interesting to define it and
it is the tomato injustice as something personal.
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I think that' s what activists
do. They identify these injustices precisely
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and basically transform them, they are
transforming those problems. They are providing solutions
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to those problems that we have as
a society. And yet, pitifully like
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activism, the word activist is closely
associated with politics. No, I mean,
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pitifully. No. Activism is a
political act. In fact, it
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is an exercise of citizenship, basically
through which we raise our voices. But
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perhaps people are using it more and
more pejoratively, associating it with partisan politics,
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with electoral politics, although it is
not that kind of policy where the
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following delictivism is wanted. Basically so
for me, that' s why activism
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is important and, in addition to
some, protecting them, centivizing them and
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fostering them in society from democracy.
And, on the other hand, it
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is of no value to promote public
education for all if later professionals and people
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who have dedicated their lives to the
academy close the doors of public service.
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In this regard, the results of
the Government' s call for doctors are
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more eloquent. If you don'
t remember, on August 10, two
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thousand twenty- two, just begun
his term of office, President Gustavo Petro,
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launched a call for citizens with a
doctorate degree who resided abroad in the
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country, with the aim of receiving
the profiles of all the people who would
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like to contribute with their knowledge to
the leadership of the government. A few
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weeks later it was reported that the
summons had received living leaves of twenty thousand
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three hundred and forty- nine persons
and that a thousand nine hundred and seventy
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- nine persons had been selected.
However, the selection process left quite a
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few doubts. For example, it
is not known how or by whom was
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the committee that was lecturing the works
of life, the aspects that were evaluated
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or taken into account to make the
selection. Nor is it known in which
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entities the selected ones would work,
nor the type of contract or linkage they
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would have. These concerns have not
yet been clarified. They seem a little
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bit. Then schizophrenic the accusations of
President Petro against technocracy and technicians, while
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breast- feeding for the number of
doctors in his government, the summons of
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doctors and his speech in favor of
universal public education. But just for a
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moment let' s do an exercise. Let' s get technocrats out of
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all public offices. And I am
not just referring to the economists of the
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National Planning Department and the Ministry of
Finance, but to the environmental engineers,
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biologists and herpetologists of the Ministry of
the Environment, and to professionals in education
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as powerful as the Aurora Vergara education
of the Ministry of Education. In this
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sense, I asked Professor Es Basserman
a synthegnocrat government is possible. That'
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s what he told me. I
think the question is wrong. Tecnocracy is
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etymologically the government of technicians, and
I believe that no one here has ever
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pretended that there is a government in
technicians. It is clear that politicians rule.
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What we have is technical and expert
support. And if the question arises,
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then so, if the experts are
necessary, if the technicians are necessary,
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I would say they are absolutely necessary
for a government to succeed. Or
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I' d even go further to
the extreme. The absence of technicians and
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experts would, in my opinion,
guarantee the failure of any government. That
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is not a question of elitism,
it is a fundamental question of knowledge.
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The main knowledge of technicians and experts
is the recognition of where mistakes are made
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and how to avoid mistakes. Economic
experts know which policies are successful and which
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policies inevitably lead to failure. And
those are immense support a great help for
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the success of any ruler. I
believe, as other people have already said,
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that there has been a false dichotomy
between technocrats and activists. I know
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honest and passionate technicians for their work
that they have studied at foreign universities thanks
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to scholarships and we flatter ourselves with
the istex that they have returned to serve
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the country. I know activists who
know and manage the aurocracy of the state
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that go beyond passion and its causes
and that do not stay alone in the
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discourse, but that achieve pragmatic and
tangible changes with their work, the strengths
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of one and the other combined.
They would make suitable officials, who are
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experts in the topics, who work, who have the technical knowledge, but
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who also know the realities of the
country, who govern beyond the figures and
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the tables of excel and are activists
passionate about the public service, beyond the
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bureaucracy and for the good of the
Colombians. The country wants and needs ministers,
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directors, managers, officials in general, who are competent and probos or,
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as Ricardo Silva said in his column
Auro Comillas, it is enough to
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think of a crude ambassador or an
anti- corruption friscal who dedicates free time
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to corruption to realize that the citizenry
does not fear technocrats, activists or s
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s s s cynicals incompetent hill quotes. Knowledge cannot continue to be a cause
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of fear or punishment, such as
the genesis of the Bible, but it
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cannot be synonymous with access to power
for a few in an elite. I
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am Roberto Pombo and this was chapter
eighty of my questions. I' ll
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see you in a next chapter from
now on. This chapter of my questions
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is available on all podcast platforms.
This episode was made possible by Kafam,
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inspiring Smiles. Dirección Roberto Pombo,
Producción General, Juan Abel Gutiérrez, editorial
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advisor, Daniel san Peerrospina scripts Juan
Abel Gutiérrez and Johnny RodrÃguez. Field production
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Marcela Salazar and LucÃa Beltrán. Post- production of audio Carlos Bernar