By Juan Callejas
“We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.” (F.A. Hayek1 )
Twenty years, almost to the date, after I graduated from Regent University and got my MBA, I applied to become a Global Ambassador at Hayek Global College’s Global MBA program. Why in the world would I do this?
I have been blessed with a world-class education, something that is extremely rare in Guatemala, a country where the average years of schooling for a person is 6.32 , which barely gets you out of primary school (7th grade in the US). Having had the privilege of attending and graduating from a private school and university in Guatemala, and then obtaining a full scholarship for an MBA program in the US, I was quite content with my academic achievements thus far.
However, as I grew professionally in my career and because of the wide array of work experience I have been blessed with, I realized two things:
- There is A LOT that I do not know
- Life-long learning is necessary in an ever-changing society
Paradoxically, an MBA is in a very real sense, a “getting back to basics”. Reexamining the fundamental building blocks of business as a key social institution, necessary for building the material prosperity that allows the human person to truly flourish, is a task that perhaps is more necessary now than it was 20 years ago.
We live in a time where all the fundamental institutions of Western society -marriage, the family, the church, government- are not only under intense scrutiny, but under direct attack. Business as an institution is not the exception. Governments and supra-national organizations, as well as the media and the current culture wars, are trying to push businesses to adhere to ideas that challenge the very ethos and telos of business.
Business exists to provide the means through which human creativity and industriousness meets, through free, voluntary, and profitable exchange, with the needs, desires, and aspirations of people from all over the world. Through cooperation, people engage in idea discussion, innovation, contracts, and arrangements to meet those needs at the lowest cost possible, put them in customers’ hands at the right price, and from that, generate resources that drive further growth and innovation that allow us to live better as a society and to focus our sights on higher aspirations beyond meeting our basic physical needs.
The Global Hayek MBA is precisely that forum. Through an enriching and stimulating exchange of ideas, perspectives, and experiences, we go back to basics and rediscover the wonder and romance behind creating a new company, launching a new product, discovering new and exciting blue oceans. My global cohort of classmates from every continent, language, and time zone, are constantly challenging me to think through my ideas and understand exactly how business as a universal language and institution can best serve their communities and nations as it adjusts to their specific context.
Why am I getting a second MBA? Because I believe in the transforming power of free individuals cooperating to build new and better things, to challenge our current social paradigms and rediscover together how we can add value to our neighbors through our vocations.
Business is, at the end, about ideas brought to life. As Friedrich Hayek once stated:
“Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our livliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost. ”
Global Hayek College’s commitment to these ideals through their Global MBA Program can be just the spark you need to reignite the fire and passion for your business, work, and most of all, for your vocation to positively impact the nation and culture where you are. There is no greater adventure in the modern world than this.
This article was originally published in Juan´s blog.
Also check out the follow up live about Juan´s choice:
Sources:
[1] https://harpers.org/2007/08/hayek-on-a-society-based-on-freedom/
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Studies-Philosophy-Politics-Economics-Hayek/dp/071002987X