Interview with Eduardo Marty
In the early twentieth century,
But the advent of military dictatorship in 1930, followed by Juan Peron’s corrupt regime, led to decades of decline. By the late twentieth century, the country was one of the world’s largest debtors, and an economic basket case.
Fortunately, the situation is slowly changing, in part due to the efforts of Eduardo Marty. Marty is the head of Junior Achievement in his country, which gives students the experience of running their own companies. But Marty has a wider agenda, and his efforts are having wider results. The half-million individuals who’ve gone through his programs learn first-hand that wealth is something that must be created, and that such creation requires a free market. At the 2006 Summer Seminar of The Atlas Society and its
Marty: I’m from
TNI: Congratulations! What exactly is the goal of Junior Achievement?
Marty: Well, we work to inspire and encourage young people to follow their dreams and we teach them how they can reach their goals. But we also show them how they will have the best opportunities in a legal and political framework of freedom that encourages and requires personal responsibility. Both of these things are our goals: to help young people understand the importance of themselves and their productive capacities, and to understand the importance of the social and moral environment in which they must act. I think that’s the best combination we can give them.
TNI: Do you focus on young people who are interested in going into business as opposed to science, the professions or some other area?
Marty: Junior Achievement was founded in 1919 in the
TNI: But you do encourage young people to explore their possible future more broadly?
Marty: That’s right. Right now we are encouraging kids to do a lot of introspection, to know themselves better. Once they discover what their talents are, they have a better chance of formulating reasonable goals that suit them. We show them a hands-on methodology of how to do this. So when they start to trust their own knowledge and the decisions they are making, they gain confidence and self-esteem. This way they have the best chances to reach their goals, whatever they are.
TNI: You also have an international role in Junior Achievement, don’t you?
Marty: Well, I’ve been invited to help organize Junior Achievement in other countries. I helped in
TNI: How is Junior Achievement funded?
Marty: Raising money is my main job. I visit firms and their CEOs and try to convince them why it is important to invest in young people and to share their values with them. I show these businessmen why our work is so important to the future of our country and ask them to fund our activities. I visit more than 200 firms a year, and I’ve been doing that for 15 years.
I have developed an understanding of the kind of appeals that are best in
So I told him this crisis shows the importance of the rule of law and of legislation that protects his property and his profits. I told him if you don’t invest in young people and help them understand the importance of private property, small government, minimal regulations, and the freedom to run your enterprise in a safe environment, you’ll have more of these problems in the future. What you see currently, I said, is a population hostile to business activities. Bad laws and lack of free markets cause these crises, and the hostile population and political demagogues that support such laws then blame businessmen like you, and enact policies that take more of the wealth you create.
I told him that unless
TNI: That’s a lesson that more Americans should learn as well: the importance of investing in these principles.
Marty: Oh, if I were a businessman here in
TNI: So you believe that teaching young people and reminding businessmen about wealth creation is crucial to the progress of freedom and prosperity in
Marty: Yes! Teaching the kids about the process of wealth creation is probably our most important goal. This fact is better understood in the
In
So most of the people in
But we at Junior Achievement emphasize the fact that wealth must be created. It’s not attained by magic. In Anglo-Saxon countries, for example, you take for granted the ability to borrow or raise funds for productive ventures. You assume that producers can use their property as collateral, and that with the return on productive activities they will be able to pay off debts or dividends to investors and keep a profit for themselves. But in Latin American countries as well as in
TNI: Tell us how the Junior Achievement programs work.
Marty: We deliver the programs in both public and private schools during their regular class schedule. So first we convince the Ministry of Education and school principals to let us conduct the programs. We then work to convince the teachers to allow time in their schedules for this type of education.
A class lasts two-and-a-half hours each week for 15 weeks. Usually, the programs are conducted by volunteer business professionals—generally, three per class. That is most important because these volunteers share their experiences with the young people. And the volunteers run the Junior Achievement like an American McDonald’s. By that I mean that the steps are well organized, easy to follow and to understand.
The students really love the programs, in part because of our approach to teaching. What they really like most is that we ask them questions and we offer them different alternatives to consider. We discuss the reasons for certain choices. This is an approach to education that is not often found in the schools in my country or elsewhere in
TNI: In other words, you teach the students how to think.
Marty: Yes. In the first three classes we discuss different projects, how to make money, how to serve the community, how to decide what products might sell to customers.
Some of the ideas presented by the students are very interesting; some of them are very bad. But we explain to them that an entrepreneur is a person who sees an opportunity and is the first one acting on it, because you can have great ideas, but if you don’t act accordingly and you speculate too long about your idea, somebody else will act first and you will miss that opportunity. You must take risks on your own judgment. The students learn the lesson that if you take action with a good plan, wealth can be created. And, of course, they start to trust themselves in that process.
TNI: So how do you show kids the reality of wealth creation through Junior Achievement? Are the companies that the students start up mainly marketing operations that sell items produced by other companies—for example, by the companies that sponsor Junior Achievement?
Marty: No. The students choose what to sell without any influence from the sponsoring firm, and they actually manufacture most of the items. In some cases, however, the production that takes place in the company is very basic, to avoid accidents.
We show them the process of creating wealth by allowing them to organize and run a small company from scratch. They start with very little capital, perhaps 500 pesos. They might raise this from friends or family. The young people use this money to buy 50 percent of the stock in their company. They sell the other 50 percent. They sell some stocks in the stock exchange to private investors, and also raise another $250 selling 25 stocks at $10 apiece that they buy themselves. And, by the way, they can sell it on the stock exchange of
They also must organize a business plan and a marketing strategy. They must keep all of the business records as well.
In general, what they do, once they get their first capital, is organize a selling force. To determine how best to do this and to teach them how to market products, we encourage them to go to shopping centers and explore different malls. We help them to ask permission of the owners of these centers and malls to organize their own stands and booths.
By running their own businesses they get to play all the different roles in an enterprise. They are workers because they are in the production process. They are staff members because they need to keep records. They set their own salaries and see that if they set their salaries in excess of what the market can pay them, they could go bankrupt. Sometimes they are selling products and they get commissions from the money from the sales they make. And at the same time, they are part of the board and thus they are in the decision process as stockholders.
So from that point of view, they have a complete view of what a company is. And they see that they start with small capital, and at the end of the 15 weeks they have earned a lot of money. Generally, 90 to 95 percent of the companies make money.
Of course, they can also lose money. But if they do, we show them the importance of taking risks. This is part of the process. If they lose money, we encourage them to see how much they’ve learned. We tell them, Okay, you failed this time. And sometimes you hear that out of every ten actual start-up companies in the country, eight or nine lose money and go out of business. But we tell them that they can keep trying for seven or eight times, and in the end make lots of money.
TNI: That’s an excellent point about learning from failure. Henry Ford failed twice before he started Ford Motor Company.
Marty: We want to encourage them to make decisions even though risk is involved— to think big. We teach them about honesty and integrity—all those values that we consider important.
But again let me emphasize, if we get only one message across to them, that message is: Wealth must be created. And if they understand that they must create money, they will understand that money and wealth also can be destroyed. The destruction of capital is a major problem in
TNI: The students must really have a sense of achievement.
Marty: Yes. And, of course, we give them prizes and we congratulate them in different ways. At the end of the period all of the participants go to a big theater, perhaps 30,000 people in all, and have a fun program to celebrate their efforts. You should see the excitement there; you should see the kids who have that feeling of being productive human beings, and see their exhilaration!
TNI: It sounds like Junior Achievement is a capitalist factory, producing capitalists.
Marty: Well, you see, we don’t use those words because the educational community is very sensitive and very leftist-oriented, regrettably. But the students come out of the program understanding both that wealth must be created, and the nature of the creation process. They also understand that wealth, including their own profits, are earned. And if someone tries to touch the fruits of their labors, they will be more likely to defend themselves. They remember the importance of private property.
At the beginning of the process, when they start their companies, the students often still think that property and profits are a kind of privilege for rich people. But try to touch those rewards, the money they earn with their company, and you’ll see their reaction!
TNI: I imagine some would like to continue with their little companies after the 15 weeks.
Marty: Oh yeah. But we must close the companies because there would be serious issues with the law, with taxes, and with various government regulations. But this is a kind of education process where the students move real money. They went into business and had a good job.
TNI: About how many students have participated in the Junior Achievement in
Marty: Well, we have been in business for 15 years, and right now more than half a million students have passed through our Junior Achievement. But not all of them went through the Junior Achievement company, the program I’m describing. We have another course for younger kids to teach them how a businessman thinks, and the way they can develop certain principles to apply in later procedures.
TNI: So approximately how many students per year might go through your programs?
Marty: Around 70,000 this year. Right now Junior Achievement in
TNI: That’s impressive! It’s very difficult for organizations, especially private, tax-exempt organizations, to document success. Usually you can only document it if there are very narrow goals—passing a law or collecting money for a hospital. What sort of long-term success are you able to document, or do you hope to document in the future, from Junior Achievement?
Marty: That’s difficult. We are trying to collect stories about the successful students who have passed through the Junior Achievement. We have individuals right now who finished 15 years ago, and we are trying to come up with good ways of measuring the results. We already have a kind of millionaires’ club: individuals who passed through the program and have become very successful indeed. Some of them can retire after just applying the knowledge they learned through Junior Achievement.
These examples give others a vision of what is possible when individuals have high goals, organize themselves, and take risks. When you understand the importance of dreaming, focusing on your goals, developing a business plan, trying to track that business plan with your feet on earth, and going step by step to monitor your business results, that method can lead to success. So maybe the first company you found fails. But if you continue to try, you probably will succeed in the long run.
TNI:
Marty: Right. That’s the main reason why we created and started Junior Achievement. And that’s why 100 countries have founded Junior Achievement programs. After this interview, I will be going to
Yet it is a mistake to teach young people the processes of making money and wealth creation without explaining the legal, economic, and political framework necessary for success. Without that framework, instead of forming businessmen, you could be forming people who will get out of your country as soon as they can.
I always tell the students that it is one thing to go swimming after you develop your muscles in a comfortable swimming pool with warm water. It’s quite another thing to swim in a cold river full of debris with the stream against you on a windy day. Unless these students—and, later, when they become businessmen—understand the importance modifying the political environment and promoting legislation for free markets and individual rights, there is little chance to succeed, because the river will be against them.
TNI: That brings us to the deeper philosophical implications of what you’re doing. You not only help these individuals to change their own lives, but you also change the culture, change the society, and ultimately change the political regime.
Marty: Well, as you probably know,
So you see the importance of philosophy. That’s why I attend The Objectivist Center and Atlas Society seminars: to improve my ability to transmit knowledge to businessmen and to our students about the importance of morality, the importance of understanding that they’re entitled to their own happiness, and that they should be free to pursue their own goals. In a country where most of the moral values have been taught by the church or by nationalist thinkers, these better principles are really important.
TNI: Now you mentioned philosophy, and this conference is an Objectivist conference; so I guess Ayn Rand has been important to you in terms of forming your philosophy.
Marty: Oh yes. I discovered Ayn Rand some years ago, before I started Junior Achievement in
That simple explanation opened my eyes to understanding that one can think of the universe and everything in it as operating in a logical and orderly way, without the need for miracles. I understood that to become consistent and coherent, you need to apply logical principles, and in this way you can understand the world.
After that realization, I read
We also see interest in Rand’s books in
TNI: Very interesting. Tell me a little about your background before joined Junior Achievement.
Marty: I got my undergraduate degree at
Countering these attitudes was one of the reasons I started Junior Achievement. I thought that unless I can actually show people that these free market principles apply here as well, they will never believe it.
TNI: And your approach seems to be working.
Marty: What you have here in
TNI: A space that the soul needs?
Marty: Yes. Here in
So I think that the various types of societies usually do not occur just by chance. They develop according to the community’s sense of life. And through Junior Achievement, we are trying to develop the proper sense of life, wherein individuals feel productive and feel entitled to seek their own happiness. We want them to understand the idea of integrity, the importance of trusting themselves in their own decisions. And we think that our society will improve as a consequence of people holding those values in the future.
TNI: I’m curious. You grew up in the
Marty: Well, my grandmother was from
My father hated Peron as a dictator who helped to destroy the country, and Evita as a morally sick woman, a power seeker who was stealing money for her own purposes. My father didn’t have a clear understanding of the philosophical principles of freedom, but he knew what dictators were and he was against them. He valued freedom very much and he let me know what he thought. He was a high school teacher and he was told that if he did not join the trade union that followed Peron’s doctrine, he would be fired. At that time there were spies, people who watched you and listened to what you said. If you were critical of the government, you could have your property expropriated. Peron was an admirer of Benito Mussolini and ran his regime like the fascist that he was.
TNI: Now Peron, of course, was forced into exile in 1955 but returned in 1973. You must remember those times yourself. It was a violent period with lots of street battles between the left and the right.
Marty: Yes. When Peron was in exile in
What happened is that these “beautiful youth” became terrorists. They planted bombs all over
The day he came back, June 20, 1973, was called “the massacre of Ezeiza” because two groups, extreme leftists and extreme rightists, found themselves in the airport of that name waiting for Peron, and they fought each other for hours. The resulting butchery was a manifestation of bad ideas in action.
Peron was too old and he could not manage the country during the year he was in power. When he died, he left his wife, who had been the vice president, in charge of the country for the following two years. This lady’s main merit was dancing in cabarets. In 1976 the military took power again.
TNI: What happened in the years that followed?
Marty: It was a disaster. The military waged the so-called “dirty war.” People would just disappear. Their friends and relatives had no idea what happened to them, and the government would deny knowing anything about these individuals. In fact, the military was kidnapping and killing these people. The economy was in poor shape as well. To distract attention from these problems, in 1982 the military took over the Falkland Islands—called the Malvinas by Argentines—which were settled and governed by the British but claimed by
TNI: You were in school during those terrible years, weren’t you?
Marty: Yes. I saw those events first hand. Some of the students who studied with me back then are dead now. They were taught the philosophy of Rousseau, Marx, and the French Revolution. They studied “liberation theology.” All of these ideas convinced them to take up guns to fight the military—not for real freedom, but for their own form of dictatorship.
I studied at the university during those years and was taught Mao, Marx, Engels, Hegel, and, of course, Kant. And after a while I decided to escape and to go to study economics in the
TNI: You are doing such a great job in
Marty: I have been to
An example of the poverty is that if you go into the bathrooms in most houses, you will not find any toilet seats. Often you'll find no soap or other sanitary items, either.
If you want to criticize Castro, you need to turn up the radio very loud so that no one will eaves drop on your conversation and report you to the authorities. But what the people lack the most is hope.
TNI: What about the rest of
Marty: I didn’t see the 1990s as a time of great progress, because most people in
If most people don’t have the basic sense of life and knowledge about the virtues of the free market, then you need at least a very enlightened minority who understand the basic principles and can educate others. But the educational system in
To educate people about the morality of capitalism and about wealth creation is the task of organizations like The Atlas Society, The Objectivist Center, and Junior Achievement. In the long run, such education is our only hope. The Internet is helping a lot; people are getting information there. But in the process, a lot of people will suffer, as you see now in
So I’m not optimistic in the short run; but because our ideas are the right ones, I think that in the long run we will be okay.
TNI: Let me ask you one final question. There are several ways you can sell freedom. One way is to teach individuals directly that wealth is created, and to show them, in practice—for example, by letting them run businesses through Junior Achievement programs. Another way is to put forward a bright and shining vision of what is possible—that with freedom, there is no reason why individuals can’t live lives of joy and pride in achievements.
Is that still too abstract for most people?
Marty: I think that you need both approaches. But unless you explain the morality of the system, people will not buy it. People can see the signs of the success of freedom all around them. If they turn on the TV, they can see how beautiful the free market system is. But unless you explain why you are morally entitled to make money and to enjoy the fruits of your labor, or unless they already understand and believe this deep down—in the sense-of-life way that Americans believe it—the foundations of freedom will be shaky.
Take an example from the ideas of Ayn Rand, of an individual who works hard and runs a very successful business. He buys a yacht and is sitting on it, drinking champagne. A poor worker is looking at him. The wealthy man, not understanding the morality of capitalism, thinks: “I’m working and earning money because my goal is to help that worker, and that is what my efforts do.” Yes, his efforts will help the economy and many workers; but he must think: “This is my money; I can do with it whatever I want, because I made it.” Unless you explain to him the morality of capitalism, people will not truly understand or accept the system.
Individuals must ultimately understand private property and why they are entitled to the fruits of their labor at a deep sense-of-life level. In countries like mine, that must start with an explicit, intellectual understanding. In
TNI: Well, let’s all hope so—and hope for a bright future in both our countries.
Marty: Yes, thanks a lot.
TNI: Thank you!