Marcos Hilding Ohlsson, a young man with deep convictions based on the values of truth, freedom and justice decided to dedicate his life to politics to fulfill a dream: to work for a more prosperous Argentina.

He studied Economics (Universidad Católica Argentina) and worked as an economic analyst consulting firms (IB&C and Delphos Investment) and then received a Master’s in International Economics, JIBS (Sweden). Prior to becoming a professor of economics at ESEADE and the University of Belgrano, he served as advisor to Congresswoman Cynthia Hotton. A researcher at the University ESEADE and a senior economist in the think tank Libertad y Progreso, his main area of interest is economic development with specific research in poor areas in Argentina.

In 2007, Ohlsson started working full time in politics, as a self-funded politician. Elected in 2009 as a city councilman in San Isidro, he is the youngest member of the council board.

As the Argentinean government has been increasing its pressure and restricting individual rights, Ohlsson has become an advocate for economic and political freedom. He is one of the founders of the civil movement “Argentina Sin Mordaza”, or “Argentina without a Muzzle”, for the defense of freedom of speech and press. In 2009, he was one of the leaders that organized civil protests against the government’s confiscation of private pensions.

A committed Christian, Ohlsson has participated actively in social work and in the Anglican church in Argentina. In 2006, he spent six month working as a missionary in Kayelitsha Township in South Africa. In both his political activity and economic work, he takes the Bible as the lamp to guide his path. 

Ohlsson has been a lecturer in Venezuela, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, the USA, and throughout Argentina, encouraging young people to advocate for economic and political freedom.

Visit Marcos Hilding Ohlsson's website to learn more.

• Rule of Law and the Case of La Cava

  La Cava is this shantytown that stays in the center of the city of Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is one of the richest counties, we call municipalities, of whole Buenos Aires. San Isidro is a district inside of Buenos Aires. So, in the whole suburb area of Buenos Aires and the whole province, San Isidro is one of the richest areas. Inside of one of these richest areas, we’ve got one of the poorest neighborhoods of the province and this is the shantytown where different estimates calculate between fifteen or twenty thousand people live there. It’s an interesting case because it’s a place where there’s no rule of law, where as we’ve seen, policemen don’t go inside of it. There’s no taxes. People don’t even pay for their electricity. And so it’s a place where they live apart from the rule of law.
   

• Lack of Private Property in La Cava

  There is actually no formal private property. Of the people we interviewed, none of them has any documents saying, this is my house or my piece of land. So people will just stay on the land in the house where they were born, or if they want to eventually sell their house, there’s no formal contract. It’s just a pay as you receive, so people would pay as they come into the house, or they can even rent it. But they would only sell or rent to people they knew. And normally, you have to be, they say always be very careful. So actually people in this area will always live on average between fifteen and twenty years in the same house.

• Absence of Effective Law Enforcement Hinders Development

  A few years ago there’s some really high crime rates in the area, the whole of San Isidro, and many people blamed it, that many of the crimes came from people inside La Cava. So the government decided to put policemen, but they put policemen on the borders of La Cava; they are part of the army that is just outside of La Cava, and they go around the streets but they don’t go inside. And it is a sort of wall that they put, because it’s a way of protecting people that live outside La Cava from people that live inside it, but they won’t protect the people that live inside it. They are the ones that actually suffer the most insecurity of all, because most of the people that live inside of it are people that are hard working and they want to have a better life and they want to develop and they try to get their kids to school and they’re really struggling to have a better life.

• Rule of Law and a Successful Economy

  ...to have a good market economy, you need little government intervention, but as well, it’s very important, the enforcement of rule of law, that people can look after their property [and] give proper incentives to the people to work harder.

• Christianity Instills Hope

  When you work in these places, you can see the difference of people who have been transformed by Christ. Actually, as Christianity, it’s not only a spiritual matter, it’s also a social factor of change. You would see, it’s quite encouraging to go on a Sunday evening to church. Church is maybe a small place in a small building, packed, and people probably dressed, and they care about their health and they care about their education, and people begin to read their bibles, and it’s just by reading and thinking and have to take decisions and responsibility for your actions, and that makes them try to prosper.

• Creating Wealth and Developing Incentives to Progress

  The solution to poverty? We should ask ourselves how we can create wealth. And especially in these neighborhoods, we can look at how can people flourish or work in society or in families or in small communities to be able to create wealth, to be able to create value. And actually I think that there is, there’s two parts of it. One is a mental structure, that they start to believe in themselves and that they have something to give to society, that they’ve got something to offer. And that will encourage them to be able to create something or to give something. And on the other side, we need a proper place where they can develop these incentives. Like, we have to create incentives for them to work. I think in that sense we should reduce incentives for people not to work. For example, now they receive a social welfare if you don’t work.