Економска мисао др Драгољуба Јовановића

Abstract

ECONOMIC THOUGHT OF DRAGOLJUB JOVANOVIĆ

Although Dragoljub Jovanović’s social and economic point of views seem to form a seemingly unique entity, this study has tried to extract the economic thoughts into a separate topic. Dragoljub Jovanović’s knowledge and interest of economics started to gather as early as his adolescent years in his native town of Pirot and while attending the middle school in Belgrade. The knowledge further grew and took shape during his university years in France and while working in public finance and teaching economics courses at the University of Law in Belgrade, and finally, through his intensive political activities, thus getting to know the whole country of Yugoslavia, as well as its different social segments and economic activities. By chronologically analyzing Jovanović’s works, as well as his entire university and political career, one notices the presence of a common denominator within his views of the economic reality of the times-by considering the existing economic and social atmosphere, and taking into account the availability of both natural and acquired resources, he makes concrete suggestions regarding the setup of economic (and social) relations and their directions for development, while respecting the rationale and the economic responsibility of the methods and programs proposed by the regime. When considering Yugoslavia, especially Serbia, his starting points are the farmers, as the largest labor force (and social group), as well as the fertile soil, i.e. agriculture, as the basic prerequisites of any economic plan. He gives priority to the industrialization of agriculture versus the development of heavy industry, which would have required subsidies. He professes that the hard currency needed for the imports of the raw materials and the equipment needed for the development of the missing industries will come from the revenue derived from exports of Serbia’s agricultural products (once adequate investments were made to modernize the industry). Therefore, he doesn’t neglect the other social and economic segments, he only suggests an alternate, more economically sustainable sequence, according to which an underdeveloped economy should develop itself, while avoiding the sale of valuable national resources to foreigners and overly indebting itself. Accordingly, he proposes certain social changes to complement this economic effort. The consistency of his ideology can be followed starting with the Work Program established by the Serbian student union in Paris in 1918, and all the way through his parliamentary speeches in 1946. and 1947, as well as through his university and political career, i.e. through his elimination from the Faculty of Law and the parliament (while being denied freedom and civil rights). Neither of the dictatorships found him compatible; neither the king nor Tito! The sad confirmation of how realistic his views were regarding the economic opportunities of the Yugoslavia of his time can be observed today status quo in Serbia; agriculture has stayed relatively undeveloped and deprived from needed investment, while many factories built during the communist regime and its planned economy have closed. While Yugoslavia has decomposed itself both politically and as a nation, Serbia has unfortunately missed the mark on the economic scale that it belongs to based on its natural resources, creativity of its people and their potential. The enormous written legacy that Dragoljub Jovanović left behind also represents an honest testimony filled with warnings to which the regimes under which he lived remained deaf to.