Presentation

Call for papers

Letter of Invitation

GEORGE BACOVIA University from Bacau, under the auspices of The National Bank of Romania and in partnership with The Romanian Banking Institute and The Financial Banking University, Bucharest, Romania are organizing the 10th ISINI International Conference with the general theme

 

POLITICS - ECONOMICS - ETHICS CONTINUUM
FOR A FREE, STABLE AND MORAL SOCIETY

 

The International Society for Intercommunication of New Ideas (ISINI) was 20 years old at the end of 2008, and is preparing for having its 10th jubilee conference in December 2009. A glance to the previous conferences (Paris, Boston, Miami, Athens, Maastricht, Ciudad de Mexico, Lille, Wageningen and Bacau) may reveal that their common denominator is to continuously enlarge the scope of any discipline in the so called social sciences (Economics included). It was the steady preoccupation of the founding father of ISINI, Anghel N. Rugina (May, 24^th 1913 - December 15^th 2008), to analyse the economic problem from the social, political, psych(olog)ical, historical, statistical, etc. points of view, so that the understanding of the canvas of the human life would be more and more consistent and clear. Only one year missed to Anghel Rugina to close the circle and to come back to the place where he had his first job: The National Bank of Romania.

ISINI is a society composed of scholars and humanists from over sixty countries from the areas of economics, finance, and the social sciences in general. It is devoted to the study of economic and financial thought, and of current economic problems such as economic and financial globalization, economic development, sustainable growth, sovereign debt, adjustment and structural change, monetary policies, poverty, and economic systems in transition. Through the exchange of ideas and information among its members, as well as with scholars from other applied and pure sciences, it seeks to create or recreate alternative paradigms that can help to formulate adequate policies to solve those problems.

According to the STATUTES and BYLAWS, the purpose of the society is threefold:

a) To foster and support the discovery and dissemination of new ideas, in particular in economics and other social sciences and to arrange for their testing (logical and/or empirical) in the realm of various possible social, economic and political systems, as far as analysis can go.

b) To initiate and cultivate a contact and consultation not only among economists, financial economists, sociologists and political scientist but also between social and natural scientists including men of arts and letters.

c) To study systematically (using both theoretical and practical reason) the application of new ideas to problems of the real world of today and tomorrow in various existing social regimes and considering the diverse levels of development and historical circumstances. A priority goal is to elaborate development, stabilization, and transitional plans for the various countries where the Society is represented.

The concept of intercommunication is preparing the ground for more interdisciplinarity and even for transdisciplinarity. All economic phenomena have their cultural, social, individual, political and moral dimensions, but the fundamental ones seem to be those that are intimately linked with human ends and the adequate means for fulfilling them.

Professor Rugina made a plea for creating a free, stable and just economy. Some should add that we need a free, stable and just (social) policy as well. Another could suggest that micro, macro and global policies & economies need to fit each other in the best possible ways. If it happens, people can consider that they live a moral life.

One question arises: is the content and definition of politics, economics and ethics the same as in the last century? Is it possible to maintain the axiom of the scarce resources when the time of infinite resources has come? If information is the most important resource and it is multiplying every hour, this suggests that we have an infinite resource, not a scarce one. Infinite information (obtainable at lower and lower costs) may generate the possibility and reality of having infinite energy and infinite material resources. Only our consumption will remain finite ... Is this science fiction? Should we change again the general accepted paradigm or shall we experience more competitive and alternative paradigms? Are simultaneous approaches of human action impossible? Or, is this the solution to our problems? (i.e. for how to have a free, stable and moral society). We wait answers and proposals from the participants to the 10th ISINI Conference to be held in Bucharest. As about Bucharest you may note that Bucharest celebrates this year 550 years of certified existence.

A novelty of this Conference is the way we select suggestions and papers for being accepted and published. Since some decades ago I/ we experience a paradox coming from the inevitable conflict between modern and postmodern thinking, old and new, conservative and revolutionary thinking. As a society for new ideas (ISINI) we, the organisers, try to offer space for an open dialog, for fresh and even untested ideas. Of course, old ideas in new context(s) are welcome, especially if they are accompanied by proposals, solutions or suggestions for future. We only suggest some themes and possible sections to be created depending on the proposals received, but please keep in mind the very large area we are thinking at: financial and managerial studies, cultural studies, marketing and communication, semiotics, informatics and linguistics, anthropology, religion, psychology and sociology, strategic (military included) thinking, philosophy, methodologies of research etc. etc. An ideal case is to try to connect all these with our proposed theme, but this is not compulsory. New ideas are welcome no matter the domain, field or discipline.

Another novelty of the jubilee conference is that we invite people to organize sections and to chair them. A section need to have at least 3 papers and 5 papers at most. The chair is free to invite people under a proposed theme that is described and argued as useful for our dialogue.

We do not need to receive from you a finished paper from every participant, but those who have it have a supplementary chance to be published immediately after the conference, or even before it. Other papers will be sent and received later on, in an improved form after serious - formal and informal - dialog at the conference.

The conference is organized by George Bacovia University from Bacau (www.ugb.ro) under the noble auspices of the National Bank of Romania, and hosted by the Romanian Banking Institute from Bucharest.

The language of the Conference will be English.