Thomas Lalime, the Living Economist

By Roromme Chantal “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” John Maynard Keynes In writing these lines in the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes (whose racist remarks about Black people are, incidentally, repugnant) targeted the dogmas of a rigid economic science, more concerned with internal consistency than human truth. He denounced the tyranny of dead theories, which continue to be repeated long after they have ceased to explain the world. In stark contrast to these defunct economists, Thomas Lalime dedicates his intellectual life to keeping economic thought alive, meaning anchored in the present, open to dialogue, and serving the common good. For over ten years, his column in Le Nouvelliste, “Ideas for Development,” has been one of the rare spaces where economics is discussed in clear language, without sacrificing rigor, but without retreating behind jargon or closed models. The Civic Educator Where many economists generally content themselves with commenting on current events, Thomas Lalime strives to interpret the economic world (in Haiti and beyond) as a “total social fact,” in the sense of Marcel Mauss, meaning multidimensional (involving other aspects of social life: legal, religious, political, moral…). He writes about exchange rates, inflation, public debt, but always bringing the numbers back to what they tell us about ourselves: our collective choices, our values, our institutions. What I appreciate most is that, for Lalime, economics is never an abstraction. It is a way of narrating the tensions and hopes of a society. In this, he is more akin to a civic educator than a mere economist, far from the market analyst that most economic columnists too often tend to be. His texts do not seek to predict, but to understand; not to prescribe, but to enlighten. We are then free to do with them as we wish… The Pedagogue Many will agree with me that one of Thomas Lalime’s most remarkable traits is undoubtedly his ability to popularize without betraying complexity. He knows that when economics becomes too technical, it eludes democratic judgment. His weekly column is, in this respect, more than a balancing act; it is a hymn to pedagogy: bringing concepts down from university chairs to the public square, without reducing them to simplistic slogans. The eminent French academic Michel Foucault, author of the seminal book *The Courage of Truth*, recommended that public intellectuals speak truth to power. Through his analyses, Thomas Lalime, author of a remarkable doctoral thesis on financial literacy in Quebec, reminds us that an economically well-informed populace is a freer populace. He provides his readers with the tools to decipher the state budget, the decisions of the Central Bank, or the paths likely to lead to national development. He aims to transform the reader into a citizen, and this is undoubtedly his greatest intellectual and civic contribution. In a landscape often saturated with partisan discourse, carried by “pseudo-intellectuals,” Thomas Lalime distinguishes himself by his clear-sightedness without bitterness. He knows how to point out the system’s contradictions without succumbing to fatalism—which is in itself an exceptional performance in the Haitian context. His thought rejects a condescending stance: it aims to be critical, but constructive. Far, therefore, from the typical Haitian intellectual whose slightest opinion resembles a *deus ex machina*. He is not one of those economists who advocate for austerity while forgetting poverty, nor one of those who preach growth without concern for social justice. He belongs to a generation of economists who still believe that economics can be moral without being moralistic. Economist or Political Scientist? Reading Lalime, primarily a development economist, confounds me: one might rather think one is reading a political scientist. As when, in a column titled “Building Institutions, the Urgency of the Hour” (one of my favorite Lalime columns), he essentially argued that real development, particularly in fragile countries like Haiti, cannot rely on quick or superficial results: solid institutions must first be established. Almost all political scientists would rally to this thesis, informed by decades of social science research, according to which underdevelopment is primarily institutional. To summarize: before being a purely economic problem, he observes, underdevelopment results from institutional failures. Without stable, transparent, and credible institutions (governance, justice, administration), development initiatives are doomed to fail or remain ineffective. As an echo, in Accra, before the Ghanaian Parliament, President Barack Obama (2009) said: “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.” This is the royal road for Haiti, shunned by our obscurantist and kleptomaniac leaders, and a stateless oligarchy, with their eyes fixed solely on their narrowly defined economic interests. Like Lalime, for over a decade, in several forums, I have tried to explain that authentic development cannot be envisioned without strong and legitimate institutions—and that consistent research on the subject has shown that by establishing such institutions, the foundations for sustainable progress can be laid, even in politically unstable or economically fragile contexts. The Witness to an “Endless Transition” With his influential weekly column, Thomas Lalime has, for over a decade, chronicled the transformations of Haiti and the world: financial crises, political upheavals, environmental disruptions. At every turn, he seeks to understand how economic decisions shape collective destiny. His voice, firm and measured, serves as a benchmark. In a country often disoriented by international figures and reports, he offers a language of balance: neither alarmist nor complacent, but attentive to facts, open to nuance. Where Keynes denounced theorists trapped by their models, Thomas Lalime reminds us that economic science is alive only when it dialogues with society. His journalistic and intellectual work is a permanent exercise in decentering: looking at economic facts from the margins, from ordinary lives, from Haiti. Keynes feared that the world would be governed by the ideas of defunct economists. Thanks to Thomas Lalime, generations of readers will have understood that there are also living economists—those who teach us to think freely, lucidly, together. *The author is a professor of political science and a specialist in international relations and Chinese affairs at the School of Public Higher Studies at the University of Moncton.