Rodrigo Constantino
| Rodrigo Constantino dos Santos | |
|---|---|
| Born | 4. July 1976 Rio de Janeiro |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Institution | Graphus Capital (2005–2013) |
| Field | Economics |
| School or tradition |
Libertarian economics, Classical liberalism |
| Alma mater |
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (1998) Ibmec Business School (MBA, 2000) |
| Influences | Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, Mario Vargas Llosa, Thomas Sowell |
| Awards | Libertas Award (2009) |
Rodrigo Constantino dos Santos is a right-wing Brazilian economist, known for being a controversial columnist for Brazilian magazine Veja from to 2013 to 2015.
In this 2007 article, Constantino criticizes the existence in Brazil of the Black Awareness Day, although this is not a national holiday (but that has been implemented in some states, such as Rio de Janeiro), and illustrates his thesis remembering Martin Luther King Jr. and his speech I Have a Dream, which condemns racism. For Constantino, this holiday can be considered racist. Constantino explains that "Brazil is a country with a recordist number of holidays, as our country isn't rich enough to have that luxury." He believes that, in Brazil, politicians always focus on minority groups, seeking to guarantee privileges in exchange for votes. About the people of the country, he explains that "people do not care about the amount of holidays because it is one more lazy day for a people who idolizes sloth."
Constantino cites Martin Luther King as an example, to have quoted that "it's my dream that my four children would one day live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of character", and that, in Brazil, has been going the opposite: people would be taking advantage of his black condition to get privileges, wanting to be judged by the color of their skin and not by character. Gives as an example the implementation of racial quotas in Brazil universities, and the deployment of blacks holidays, saying: "This is what that are encouraging in the country: totally abandon of the concepts of individual merit, and adopt the skin color criterion, still subject to gross errors like the white people who claim to be black, and still manage to enter into Brazil's universities by racial quotas. Whether the individual is black, yellow, brown or white, it says absolutely nothing about their values and character. There are admirable blacks and perfidious blacks, as well as admirable whites and perfidious whites. But nobody is brave just for being black, because there is no moral choice about it. This would be like admiring someone for being high or low. It makes no sense."
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