We have about 7,000 languages that are spoken in the world. Economic language is among the least known
Economic language is complicated. Credit Line: Iakov Filimonov / Alamy / Profimedia
There are about 7,000 languages spoken worldwide. Economic language is among the newest and most known, but it becomes one of the most important.
The result is that citizens live more and more in a world that they cannot model, write Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins in the book “Economcration-about the dangers of leaving the economy to experts.” Without knowing today to discuss “economically”, it is difficult to have a voice to take into account in the way the economy or even the political system is run.
In a survey with YouGov, out of the 1,696 respondents about their opinion about how politicians and media talk about the economy-only 12% said I understand what it is.
As the economy became more and more important, it has become extremely technical. In today's world, the economy is no longer for most people and too little efforts are made to discuss it in a way that normal people can join.
Nobel laureate: “We discuss in some terms of jargon, although I should address to a large audience, not just academics”
Even the governor of BNR Mugur Isarescu recommends for colleagues bankers to give up the “bird” with which they are addressed to the public. “We have to give up the professional jargon, so as to explain to the public in the most accessible language the reasons behind monetary policy decisions,” explained the BNR governor in a presentation sustained on the occasion of the annual meeting of the IMF-the World Bank.
In his turn, a laureate of the Nobel Prize for the economy with which I had the opportunity to talk, Jean Tirole, admitted that the jargon used by the top economists for normal people: “We discuss with all kinds of experts, in the central banks, in the industry, in the entrepreneurial environment … Large.
Every year, tens of thousands of students at the economy finish their studies and become civil servants, consultants, journalists or economists. These people are experts on economics and we rely on them to manage the economy on our behalf.
Only they are educated to speak a language that no one else can understand and integrate without reservation in a system in which they have a considerable authority, while citizens do not have it.
And yet, many of the most important problems that the world face today, such as climatic catastrophe or financial crises, or are missing from most study programs, or are taught in a way that excessively simplify their depth and complexity.
The economy was labeled as a science that sometimes confuses even economists. But, in essence, she says only the story of the individual and collective elections of the nearly 20 million Romanians or of the 8.2 billion inhabitants of the planet.
We are all integrated into the economy: when we work, we contribute to production, and when we buy things, we contribute to consumption.
We rely on the economy, either through income, or through the wealth we have, and the way in which the economy is moving depends on our decisions.
Whether we want or not, we can't get rid of the economy. The 2008 financial crisis is the most obvious recent example, and John Langester expressed perfectly when he wrote:
“There is a huge gap between the people who understand the money and the economy and the rest of us. Some of this gap was deliberately created, by using obscurity; people who deal with money were able to write their own rules and they did very well; and as far as we are, the rest of us, the rest of us was never to do,”
The economy is about everyone just because it affects us all. And it's very important for people to know More about how economic experts think how their tools work (or do not work) and where their knowledge is limited.
Only by better understanding of the knowledge underlying our understanding of the economy, people can start to interact with experts and politicians from equal to, examining their economic arguments and holding them accountable.
