Fabian Tassano
Encyclopedia
Fabian Tassano is an economist and author, known for his radical views on the medical profession, and for his critique of modern culture in general.

Biography

Fabian Michael Tassano was born on 18 May 1963 in Munich to German parents. He changed his original family name of Wadel to Tassano on the marriage of his mother to a Major in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, Michael Tassano, in 1967. He has lived in the United Kingdom as a British citizen since 1973.

Tassano was educated at a variety of schools in Dorset. He studied Natural Sciences at Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.In 1958, a Trust was established with Sir Winston Churchill as its Chairman of Trustees, to build and endow a college for 60 fellows and 540 Students as a national and Commonwealth memorial to Winston Churchill; its...

, specialising in Physics and Philosophy of Science. He graduated with a First in 1984, winning the Bronowski Prize.

In 1991 he qualified as a Chartered Accountant
Chartered Accountant
Chartered Accountants were the first accountants to form a professional body, initially established in Britain in 1854. The Edinburgh Society of Accountants , the Glasgow Institute of Accountants and Actuaries and the Aberdeen Society of Accountants were each granted a royal charter almost from...

, having trained first at Grant Thornton
Grant Thornton
Grant Thornton LLP encompasses the U.S. operations of Grant Thornton International, the largest accounting organizations outside of the Big Four . The member firms of Grant Thornton International comprise a global network of 27,000 employees and 2,207 partners in more than 110 countries...

 and subsequently at KPMG Peat Marwick. He came tenth nationally in the Institute of Chartered Accountants
Institute of Chartered Accountants
Institute of Chartered Accountants may refer to:* Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia* Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales* Institute of Chartered Accountants of India* Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland...

' qualifying exam. He is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

He subsequently took a Master's degree in economics at New College, Oxford
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...

, and carried out research on the economics of vertical mergers for which he was awarded a doctorate by Oxford University in 1996. From 1994 to 2000 he held College Lecturerships at Oxford in Economics, successively at Jesus College
Jesus College, Oxford
Jesus College is one of the colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship Street, Cornmarket Street and Market Street...

, Balliol College
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....

, St. Peter's College
St Peter's College, Oxford
St Peter's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, located in New Inn Hall Street. It occupies the site of two of the University's oldest Inns, or medieval hostels - Bishop Trellick's, later New Inn Hall, and Rose Hall - both of which were...

 and Pembroke College
Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2009, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £44.9 million.-History:...

.

From 2000 to 2002 he was a senior economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest professional services firm measured by revenues and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms....

 in London, working on transfer pricing
Transfer pricing
Transfer pricing refers to the setting, analysis, documentation, and adjustment of charges made between related parties for goods, services, or use of property . Transfer prices among components of an enterprise may be used to reflect allocation of resources among such components, or for other...

 policy.

He is currently a Research Director at Oxford Forum
Oxford Forum
Oxford Forum is a research organisation based in Oxfordshire, founded in 1998 by Celia Green and three academic colleagues, to promote and publish dissident views in philosophy, psychology, economics and sociology....

.

Books

In 1995 Tassano published The Power of Life or Death: Medical Coercion and the Euthanasia Debate (Duckworth). The book had a Foreword by Thomas Szasz
Thomas Szasz
Thomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990 he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social...

, an American psychiatrist well-known for his libertarian views on mental illness.

The Power of Life or Death was essentially an attempt to bring free-market and libertarian ideas into the discussion of medical treatment, and in particular the treatment of the terminally ill. Despite its radical agenda the book received serious, if guarded attention from the medical profession, the British Medical Journal
British Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...

, for example, commenting: ‘We would not recommend this book as comfortable bedtime reading. ... If you like an intellectual challenge this one is for you.’

More recently Tassano has turned his attention to modern culture in general, in a book entitled Mediocracy: Inversions and Deceptions in an Egalitarian Culture (Oxford Forum, 2006). The book argues that both ‘dumbing down’ in the popular media, and the obscurantism increasingly prevalent in academic discourse, are manifestations of the same underlying ideology: one which appears to be egalitarian but is in fact designed to privilege a paternalistic elite and exclude those who might criticise it. In this he sees strong parallels with communism.

Other selected publications

  • ‘Tax aspects of corporate activity’, Energy Utilities, February 1996.
  • ‘Are vertical mergers harmful?’, European Competition Law Review
    European Competition Law Review
    The European Competition Law Review is a monthly journal published by Sweet & Maxwell and dedicated to international competition law. The publication is in English....

    , 7, 1999.
  • 'Information Complexity as a Driver of Emergent Phenomena in the Business Community' (with J. Efstathiou et al.), Proceedings of the International Workshop on Emergent Synthesis, Kobe University
    Kobe University
    Shindai is one of the leading universities in Japan. It can be seen in the several rankings such as shown below.-General Rankings:The university is ranked 10th in 2010 in the ranking "Truly Strong Universities" by Toyo Keizai...

    , 1999.
  • Tax for the Terrified, Tassano & Co, 1994.

External links

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