Gabriel Calzada: "Latin America, with all its problems, is much more dynamic than Europe"

The dean of the Universidad de las Hespérides,Gabriel Calzada has been interviewed by Swiss magazine Schweizer MonatThe publication, edited in Zurich, has had among its signers Nobel Prize winners like Friedrich von Hayek, James M. Buchanan and Mario Vargas Llosa, literary figures like Hermann Hesse, Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Adam Johnson, along with scientists and intellectuals like Karl Popper, Steven Pinker and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, among others. In the conversation held with Ronnie Grob and published in the latest paper and digital edition, Calzada describes the process of creation .h and offers his point of view on the differences he finds between Europe and Latin America.

They have founded a new university that has finally opened its doors after a long struggle: the University of the Hesperides, in the Canary Islands. How does it work?

It is a hybrid university. Although we have physical campuses with many activities in them, you can also follow everything you need for your degree online. We give our students the flexibility to come to the campus or stay at home.

How many students are we talking about?

For this first year, it will be around 180 students. The 12% of them are from the Canary Islands. In our first cohort, we have students from twenty-one countries. Mainly they are from Spain and Latin America because we have programs in Spanish. But recently we managed to accredit our first English program, a master's degree in economics. It will be launched next year.

"Our university draws inspiration from the liberal arts, the basic curriculum of classical liberal tradition, and does not accept public funding. When we speak to politicians and bureaucrats about these qualities, they didn't like it."

They delayed opening the university for sixteen years due to massive government resistance. What was that resistance like?

In Spain, you need to pass a law to open a new university. Therefore, if the politicians oppose your project, you face a problem. Our goal was to create a rather original university that would pay more attention to learning than teaching and offer what a curious academic would have the privilege of experiencing.

Our university is inspired by the liberal arts, the basic curriculum of classical liberal tradition, and does not accept public funds. When we speak to politicians and bureaucrats about these qualities, which are still part of our university today, they didn't like it. They gave all kinds of responses, ranging from skeptical reactions to total opposition.

For example?

When we sent our programs to the public authorities for approval, we had some courses on public choice theory in economics. They sent them back and refused to allow it, arguing that public choice isn't something university students should learn about. The same thing happened with Law and Economics.

They said: 'Oh, is it online? How can it be online? Because for sure you'll need a multi-purpose sports facility.' When we told them that we could offer our students a Nintendo Wii and a personal trainer, they burst out laughing in front of us. They even warned us that no one would pick up the trash if we dared to open the university.

But it finally happened...

Four years ago, the Parliament of the Canary Islands approved the university. Since then, it took us three and a half years to get the final permit. In between, we had to go through accreditation and put everything into motion, set up the buildings, the campuses, the platforms, the system contracts, the professor contracts...

You're right that would be a huge paperwork and a lot of money spent on lawyers.

The amount of paper we used to satisfy the authorities was obviously so large that at some point last year, we decided to determine how many papers we had sent to administration. We found out that they totalled approximately 105,000 pages with 42 million written words on them. If we stacked them up one by one, we would end up having a twenty-one-metre-tall tower made entirely of paper. Andrew Morriss, former Dean of the Texas A&M School of Innovation, suggested that we make a sculpture out of those 105,000 papers to abstractly represent bureaucracy and place it in front of our campus.

Shouldn't the university be considered by the government as a socially beneficial private initiative?

In our case, the question of whether the university should exist is an obvious one, as it does not require public funds or subsidies and so on. However, universities have become a tool for social control by governments. More and more governments are starting to understand that universities are part of what generates culture in society, and they want to control which groups end up setting them up.

Later is the problem of those who are already established; that is, crony capitalism. So those who already manage a university ally with the government to erect very high barriers of entry that are almost impossible to overcome.

Did you have any support despite opposition?

In Spain you have to present signatures of those who support the programs and projects you propose. Among our supporters we counted Nobel laureates like Vernon Smith or Mario Vargas Llosa, political figures such as George Shultz, Ruth Richardson, Leszek Balcerowicz, or Václav Klaus; also many entrepreneurs and investors like Steve Forbes or Peter Schiff, and high-level academics like Barbara Oakley or Jerry L. Jordan.

But it wasn't enough for the politicians. It was incredible to see how the rules they imposed on us were completely arbitrary and subjective; how one could expand the regulation so much to allow them to conclude their assessments of a proposed university at their own discretion.

The university's motto is "free to learn to be free." Why did you choose that motto?

Indeed, the motto is a play on words in Spanish that says you are free to learn, and you can learn to live freely. Combine the two things we wanted to highlight: the fact that this university is for curious minds that harbor academic curiosity, and the university's mission, which is to explore the role of freedom in personal and social development. I think it also resonates with our focus on entrepreneurial spirit, which, along with finance and economics, forms part of the basic course plan. Therefore, all our students will study entrepreneurial initiative.

What do they expect to achieve?

Our dream is to contribute to a more free and prosperous society by creating an online higher education institution rooted in the liberal educational tradition, of which Liberty Fund, Francisco Marroquin University, and the Mont Pelerin Society are shining examples. Our goal is to offer courses designed for intellectually curious students, ensuring academic rigor while also fostering a vibrant student life both in our metaverse and in on-campus environments. We want to promote individual responsibility within an open learning community that encourages free inquiry.

Are their degrees accepted by the European Higher Education Area and do they have international recognition?

Yes, our BAs and MAs are all accredited studies in the EU. The university and our programs have been accepted by Spanish and European accreditation agencies, so the European Union recognizes them. The annual price ranges around €3,500 for undergraduate students and between €6,000 and €9,000 for graduate students depending on the program.

Today you hear about students from traditional state universities because of the whole culture of cancellation, woke ideas, climate activism, and so on that takes place there. Could this become a problem they have to deal with?

In 2012 we opened a business school in Madrid, which was much easier to set up than the university. Our students have been very committed, far from practicing the culture of cancellation, far from demanding safe spaces and very far from claiming the right not to feel offended. On the contrary, they have challenged each other and enjoyed that aspect of challenging and being challenged. We hope the university will be similar.

"The university has turned into a kind of parliamentary organization over which professors have taken control. In that environment, professors think they can impose their own political views."

Why are there students who don't want to be challenged?

Students who oppose open debate and want to impose their views on other students have been around for many decades. They haven't changed, but the university has: those students and their authoritarian attitudes weren't acceptable back in the day. Unfortunately, too many universities today accept those attitudes that are contrary to inquiry and rigorous intellectual exploration of ideas. Some universities even promote those censorious ideas and protect them against curious and truly academic individuals.

What are the reasons for these changes?

The university has become a kind of parliamentary organization over which the professors have taken control. Once the professors have control but not ownership, they act rationally, using institutions for their own benefit. They maintain a relatively safe distance from the classrooms, reducing teaching time. They extract resources for their own research hobbies. And establish tacit "non-aggression" agreements with students that lead to low academic rigor and inflated good grades.

"Latin America, despite all its social problems, is much more dynamic than Europe. I also see several African countries using fruitfully the dynamism that comes from their great aspirations and hopes. In contrast, Europe is in decline."

In that environment, professors believe they can impose their own political ideas on everyone below them in the university hierarchy and do as they please. Professors don't see students as clients with rights and responsibilities. It's a disaster. If we look back through the centuries and even decades to the early 20th century, universities were never controlled by professors but rather by patrons or owners.

You've lived many years in Guatemala City, at the head of the Universidad Francisco Marroquín, and now you're back in Europe thanks to this university. What are the main differences between South America and Europe today?

Latin America, despite all its social problems, is much more dynamic than Europe. I also see several African countries making fruitful use of the dynamism that comes from their great aspirations and hopes, their positive attitudes towards the future and what can be achieved. In contrast, Europe is in decline. When the Lisbon Agenda was agreed upon, politicians declared that they would transform Europe into the most innovative part of the world within ten years. Twenty-three years later, Europe is one of the least innovative, most rigid, inflexible, and highly regulated parts of the world. It is guided from top to bottom rather than from bottom up, and if we do not see a great change in the coming years, Europe will continue to decline while innovation and prosperity flourish elsewhere.

I see mostly a consistent attitude among people who don't think the future will be better than the present: nothing can be changed. And doing something new is very costly. It requires a lot of energy, won't be recognized as an achievement and might get you labeled as someone disrupting how things are usually done. In reality, disruptive entrepreneurs are very valuable, of course. This is recognized in Latin America: as an entrepreneur there, you're respected by almost everyone in society. If you're an entrepreneur in Europe, they look at you with suspicion.

What advice would I give to an entrepreneur in Germany who is frequently harassed and disrespected by the media and influential people on social networks?

It's a very complicated case, because someone with immovable capital who finds themselves in that situation can only sell that capital or get in touch with organizations that are part of the classical liberal tradition to try and change the situation, people's mentality, as well as the idea of responsibility among the general public.

What Europe has ultimately lost is the idea of responsibility, that is to say, one must be responsible for their actions and consequences. We have become small babies who think we deserve everything from some mythical wolf that will give us all sorts of food and shelter. If we don't change that, I see no future for Europe. The lack of a concept of being responsible and proud of what you do is the core of Europe's problem. It's time to revive that powerful positive idea.