Continuum of the political-economic processes in Colombia

Abstract

Public policies are a continuum in that, as William Dunn suggests, they work as a bridge between past and present, allowing the development of knowledge and the application of specialized knowledge through history. In Colombia, this process has been associated to the confrontations for the concentration of wealth, so that economic actors and their connections to political decision-making are in fact intentionally defending particular benefits at the expense of territorial development which, regardless of the nominal positions of political parties, have resulted in the historical exclusion of most people. The factors for reversing this continuum lie in the consequences of such intentionality, which implies that it is necessary to strengthen education processes while at the same time making decisions on how to provide job opportunities in agreement with the job offer characteristics—mostly unskilled labor—and, similarly, on how to encourage or strengthen entrepreneurship with intensive employment and with policies associated to greater benefit shares.