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Reformed capitalism will require the state to open businesses as an entrepreneur

Publicist Slavko Goldstein found himself in the spotlight this spring when he was publicly declared the author of the proposal ‘5 points’, which was allegedly meant to replace plan 21, and everything gained an additional dimension as he is also an advisor to Prime Minister Milanović.

Today he explains that these were merely non-binding private reflections, which were misinterpreted in the media. However, Goldstein is now more seriously returning to economic topics and in an interview with Lider sketches how reformed capitalism should look. On the very day this interview is published, he, together with Milan Gavrović, presents the collection of interviews ‘Five Entrepreneurs’.

This is your publicist return to economic topics after almost three decades. Can today be compared to the 1980s, when you and Marijan Korošić proposed the ’10 points’ program to the then Yugoslav government?
– Together with my late friend Korošić, I proposed a reform of the then socialist and quasi-self-managing socio-economic system in 1987, and the book ‘Five Entrepreneurs’ deals with the present and is actually a plea for economic cooperation in the area we call ‘the region’. Different times, different circumstances, and entirely new issues. But I certainly want to say that it was a great pleasure for me to once again have an extensive conversation about economic problems, and that with such interlocutors as three of the most successful entrepreneurs in the region – Ivica Todorić, Emil Tedeschi, and Zoran Janković.

The book ‘Five Entrepreneurs’ primarily deals with entrepreneurship in the region, but it is hinted that you also discussed some general systemic issues. Surely your personal entrepreneurial experience helped you.
– Of course it helped me, although I was a quite small entrepreneur in relation to my interlocutors. Some elements of entrepreneurship are general and timeless. My former intense companionship with Marijan Korošić, one of the most vital economists Croatia has ever had, was also very valuable to me. But for the interest of the book ‘Five Entrepreneurs’, our interlocutors are by far the most deserving, who are not only successful entrepreneurs but also broad-minded individuals, with observations about the current crisis that is not only Croatian but also global, and is not just cyclically transient but also systematically deep. In these conversations, the phrase reformed capitalism occurred to me, which I will certainly discuss further, and perhaps even write about.

>>> Read the full interview in the printed edition of Lider