Tomáš Sedláček (economist)

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Tomáš Sedláček

Tomáš Sedláček (born January 23, 1977 in Roudnice nad Labem ) is a Czech economist and university professor. He became known to a wider public through his book The Economy of Good and Evil .

Life

Tomáš Sedláček spent part of his childhood in Denmark and Finland , where his father worked as the director of the representation of the state airline of the ČSSR (then Československé aerolinie , now Czech Airlines ).

In November 2001, when he was still a student, Sedláček became the economic advisor to Czech President Václav Havel . His advisory work ended in February 2003. From January 2004, he was advising the then Finance Minister of the Czech Republic, Bohuslav Sobotka , with the task of reducing the budget deficit and reforming the tax system. He left this position in 2006 "because of the excessive politicization of work in the ministry". Shortly thereafter, Sedláček received a scholarship ( Yale World Fellows Program ) at Yale University in the United States .

Since his return from the USA , Sedláček has been the chief economist at the Czechoslovak Trade Bank AG ( ČSOB ), the largest Czech bank. In 2009 he became a member of the National Economic Council, which advises the Czech head of government. He also teaches economic history and philosophy at the Charles University in Prague and works as a columnist .

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The economy of good and bad

Sedláček quickly became known with his book The Economy of Good and Evil , first published in Czech in 2009 . The book is based on his dissertation at the Institute for Economics at Charles University in Prague , but it was rejected there as scientifically insufficient, and its book version became a bestseller. It was the first non-fictional book to hit the bestseller lists in the Czech Republic in 2009 . It was published in English in 2011 by Oxford University Press in the USA with a foreword by Václav Havel . The book became the template for a play (a scenic reading) that was performed over 80 times during a tour of the Czech Republic and at the Czech National Theater in Prague.

The book is a journey through cultural and economic history, from the Gilgamesh epic to the Old Testament to Thomas Aquinas and Adam Smith , to the films Fight Club and Matrix to Wall Street and the Great Depression from 2007 . Sedláček questions the mathematical-analytical, seemingly value-free view of modern economics and warns that every single purchase decision, no matter how trivial, is ultimately a moral decision. In view of the budget deficit in many countries, he provocatively asks how one can speak of 1% economic growth with 3% new debt. In order to curb the debt that curtails future options for action, Sedláček calls - referring to ( Genesis 41  EU ) - to save up for the lean in good years: the new debt should not exceed 3% of economic output minus economic growth ("Josef Rule") ). He counters greed for growth (both in private and in the economy): "Our worldview suffers from the fact that we only ever see paradise in the future".

Recognition, criticism

In the year of publication (2009) Sedláček received the (Czech) Wald Press Award for the book . Reviews of the English edition (2011) appeared in the Financial Times and New York Times . In 2012 he received the German Business Book Prize for the German edition .

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Peter Vogt praised the German edition for its comprehensive analysis, but did not spare criticism either. He considers Sedláček's remarks on the book title to be too thin. In addition, the author all too often overlooks his approaches to the historical explanation of economic processes and arrives at some questionable hypotheses. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, he discovered the economic theory of the invisible hand , which Adam Smith formulated much later in the form known today. And he interprets Joseph's advice to the Pharaoh as a forerunner of a Keynesian countercyclical fiscal policy . Furthermore, Xenophon has allegedly already written textbooks on micro and macroeconomics . The criticism amounts to reprimanding Sedláček for the permanent application of the “myth of anticipation” because precisely historical explanations could not be given. He probably made this mistake because with the concept of archetypes according to CG Jung he had chosen a rather problematic view of the history of economics and the economics sciences. Historically, the reference to Werner Sombart and his controversial work The Jews and Economic Life is also not convincing , without Sedláček having gone into the anti-Semitic stereotypes there.

Lilith and the demons of capital

In his book, published in 2015, Sedláček compares economics with psychoanalysis and stories from Greek mythology . The capitalist society in the West - especially in the USA - had suffered from manic depression for 10 years . Manic governments, banks and private households would have caused a collapse because they wanted too much, consumed too much and thus accumulated high debts. Capitalists are addicted to growth because, like drug addicts, they believe that they cannot live without this substance. The associated debt will eventually lead to bankruptcy and could destroy our western civilization. The Joseph rule, which says that in good years, reserves for bad years, as it is told and described in the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament, is hardly observed. Fiscal policy should largely be withdrawn from politicians and transferred to an independent institution such as a central bank. Economic indicators and mathematical models would blind us and lull us into a false sense of security. The economy has become an oracle and a religion and let us believe that we can foresee the future. They believe in profit, selfishness and the invisible hand of the market that leads to good. But the market is an imperfect human invention like all human constructs. It is not an exact science, but has become an ideology and degenerated into an idol. Banks are like father figures who have become impotent. Like Oedipus , one would like to kill the one who created one. We have also become manic-depressive because we can grow quickly without being stable. We could actually be satisfied with what we have materially achieved in the West, the so-called Golden Roof , but instead we are often empty and disappointed. Perhaps we have reached the end of capitalism : Many people would work in jobs they hate and then buy things they don't need.

Fonts

  • Tomáš Sedláček: The economy of good and bad . Translated from American English by Ingrid Proß-Gill. Hanser , Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-446-42823-2
    Czech original edition: Ekonomie dobra a zla . Po stopách lidského tázání od Gilgameše po finanční krizi. 65.pole, Praha 2009. ISBN 978-80-903944-3-8
    English edition: Economics of Good and Evil . The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street. Preface by Václav Havel , Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-976720-5
  • Tomáš Sedláček, David Orrell, Roman Chlupatý: Modesty - For a New Economy , translated from the Czech by Markus Sedlazcek, Hanser, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-446-43486-8
    Original Czech edition: Tomáš Sedláček, Roman Chlupatý, David Orrell: Soumrak homo economicus: Rozhovor s Romanem Chlupatým , 65th pole, Praha 2012, ISBN 978-80-87506-07-3
  • Tomáš Sedláček, David Graeber , Roman Chlupatý: Revolution or Evolution: The End of Capitalism? , Hanser, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3446443044
  • Tomáš Sedláček, Oliver Tanzer : Lilith and the demons of capital: The economy on Freud's couch , Hanser, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3446444577

Web links

Commons : Tomáš Sedláček  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Václav Lavička: Od Kanceláře prezidenta k úspěchu na Yale . Hospodářské noviny, December 12, 2006. (In Czech)
  2. ↑ PhDr. Tomáš Sedláček . Government of the Czech Republic. (In Czech)
  3. ↑ Tomas Sedlacek . amazon.com
  4. ↑ Jak Sedláček neobhájil disertaci , Václav Vislous (October 14, 2009), Sociál, Časopis studentů fakulty sociálních věd UK (in Czech) - quoted in: Sedláček narazil s “kecací” ekonomií. Neobhájil dizertaci - Tomáš Sedláček na Institutu ekonomických studií FSV UK neobhájil svou doktorskou práci. Její knižní verze nicméně patří k bestsellerům , Martin Benda, Hospodářské noviny October 13, 2009 (in Czech)
  5. ↑ Economics of Good and Evil ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 65. POLE (The Czech publisher with the rights to The Economy of Good and Evil ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.65pole.cz
  6. ↑ a b Debt makes us slaves . The economist Tomas Sedlacek on good and bad capitalism, greed for growth and the question of why the euro crisis is like excessive alcohol. Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 4, 2012
  7. ↑ Autogramiáda knihy člena NERV Tomáše Sedláčka , Government of the Czech Republic, June 23, 2011 (in Czech)
  8. ^ Samuel Brittan: Economics of Good and Evil . The Financial Times, June 24, 2011
  9. ^ Nancy F. Koehn: The Moral Behind All the Numbers . The New York Times, July 3, 2011.
  10. ↑ The Economy of Good and Evil
  11. ↑ The Economy of Good and Evil - Article in Handelsblatt online, October 11, 2012
  12. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 28, 2012. Can be found at http://www.buecher.de/shop/fachbuecher/die-oekonomie-von-gut-und-boese/sedlacek-tomas/products_products/content/prod_id/34522083/
  13. ↑ For a more versatile economy. NZZ October 7, 2015
  14. ↑ Vincenzo Capodici: We are intoxicated with growth. Interview. Der Bund, Bern November 28, 2015, pages 29–31.
personal data
SURNAME Sedláček, Tomáš
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sedlacek, Tomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech economist and university lecturer
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Roudnice nad Labem