Peter Herrmann's Blog

At least somewhat ‘strange’ or: occupying the occupied

8 Maggio 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, publications, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, works, projects, publications

At least somewhat ‘strange’ – or at least remarkable: the fact of being occupied by social spaces and occupying social spaces, namely cities.

It is several years ago that I visited Vienna the first time, and I returned a couple of times. The first time was somewhat unpleasant – unpleasant in terms of disliking the place as exhibiting imperial power. Indeed, having known Budapest already, I joined in the popular saying: Budapest is the ‘nicer Vienna’. The nicer Vienna because it was seen as the city where people, real people, would live. One could surely move towards issues like the ‘Hungarian soul’: a bit of permanent resistance and suffering going hand in hand – Leiden, dass dann führt zu Leidenschaft und Leidenschaft, die Leiden schafft.

Vienna … a space that presented itself to me as occupying, remaining unapproachable, remote … . Anyway, what did it matter? It had been another business trip amongst many. Not so on one later occasion. Actually it may be that I went there for business but in the meantime a friend of mine, Viennese whom I knew for many years from Brussels, lived in Vienna again and I remember that I stayed in his apartment. Another district, in short: Working class Vienna. Much could be said … In a nutshell it was the experience that allowed me to occupy space. Sure, local knowledge helped – the ‘local guide’ who showed me also those places next to the ‘imperial exhibits’: the people’s park, one or the other coffeehouse: and as much as Vienna is shaped by the gallant Cafe Centrale, Vienna is characterised by those Kaffeehäuser that are a bit dingy, humming along with the croaking sound of the violin, the waiters apparently competing in ignoring the guests, the Volksbuhne and those spaces that are occupied the peculiar charm of bohemian, intellectual, critical debates …

Anyway, I returned later on different occasions, stayed in different quarters, though mostly in district VII and VIII. The city gained space, I gave it space in my life even if only for the short times of my stays, always remaining visitor even barely coming as tourist – it had been about short business trips to the government, to conferences, or as the last time for teaching … and of course unforgettable: one year the visit with my students and my friend Joe.

The city gained space, I gave it space in my life …. – even visiting the imperial places as the museum of history of arts – a specifically lost ground which, by the way, hosts also a beautiful collection of Pieter Bruegel’s the older works –, the Albertina and its private collection, the state opera, the Burgtheater and yes, the Cafe Centrale, I visited as well the people’s park, the People’s opera, and the several small galleries and theaters, local stages, the Kaffeehäuser and restaurants … Mixing, merging … becoming a place where the different circles of debates, culture, ordinariness are emerging as a new normal, merging as living space, lived space for some time – not necessarily to be agreed with, but to a large part challenging, demanding to be … occupied again and again.

*****

And Budapest? – Yes, it is still, with its own eccentricities, the beloved place, also the place to meet a good friend …, and yes, there is the shadow of de-occupation: the city loosing its very specific charm which I learned to love, I tried to capture a little bit in the Diary from a Journey into another World: Diaries against nationalism, inspired by trying to overcome personal resentments.

Lectionis et Seminario – De sociali et politica in Europea

7 Maggio 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, works, works, projects, publications

European Integration – a failed political and social union?

2017 S. BA-Course at the University of Vienna, Department of Political Science.

A series of fifteen sessions delivered at the University of Vienna, Department of Political Science. The series is looking at the process of European integration – a wide topic looked at under the guiding question if EUrope failed to deliver the ambitious perspective of establishing a political and social union. The answer is by the present author given in somewhat negative terms: we cannot really say that the EU-institutions failed to reach the target of a political and social union … – it is worse: such targets never existed. So, we have to be clear in our critique. This means not least that we are challenged – and may gain sufficient insight – to develop the EU to something meaningful – meaningful not for the people but a reflection by the people – men make their own history, but it is not only the nightmare of the past, it is also a matter of the conditions of the still present hegemons who employ gatekeepers of different kind – even if the princes today wear the clothes of normal people, it is very much about behind the veils of the most expensive princely garments.

The various sessions, of which the recordings [German language] are available, present the historical development, some key issues and relevant theories in a more or less narrative way.

challenges – attempts to move forward

5 Maggio 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, Peter's Log, projects, works, works, projects, publications

05/05/17

Attributed to Johann Caspar Lavater, the words

Those who do not strive to move forward, are not taking themselves seriously

are at the House of Science in Bremen. It is the venue of yesterday’s symposium to honour Rudolf Hickel.

The symposium is aiming on addressing the

Herausforderungen für Politik und ökonomische Wissenschaft im 21. Jahrhundert/ Challenges for politics and scientific economic disciplines in the 21st century.

The event was organised by the University of Bremen, its Institute for Labour and Economy and the Arbeiterkammer Bremen.

In particular André Heinemann put a huge effort into compiling an interesting programme. – And actually he brought me back to Bremen, to the university, from which I obtained my doctorate. A long way if you want as André and myself actually met on occasion of the Shanghai Forum.

Importantly, the sessions and the overall event aimed on creating some space for really reflecting on some of the issues, allowing for more than presentations and Q&As only, and furthermore crossing borders. This did not (only) mean to look at wider issues of political economy but also emphasising the need of developing questions. The evening before we had been actually sitting together, mocking about parts of the current mainstream:

It is not really so important to have a question. Relevant is having data – and then you can define a question from calculating the data in some way that allows you to arrive at some interesting result.

Of course, some answers had been given during the event; and many questions had been raised. For my part, I was continuing [here and here frequently updated information the work] to ventilate the issue of precarity, in this case in close connection with the challenges posed by ‘Industry 4.0’. Soon an update will follow – linking to a text with some background considerations on the topic, titled

Beklagen von Prekarität oder Forderung nach neuen Sicherheiten/Sicherungsstrukturen – Herausforderungen durch Industrie 4.0

the audio recording of the presentation of during the symposium is available and another, more extensive presentation, to be given in early next week in Changsha will follow.

First, back to my students in Vienna … – teaching European integration at times of increasingly disintegrating pressures an interesting topic.

manufacture adé …?

4 Maggio 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in Inspirations

Language – keep it alive … a matter not only of talking as otherwise they will be forgotten as much as the dead are forgotten and the forgotten are dying …, starving to death one may say. And keeping it alive means, allowing the privilege of permanent ‘rebirth’ – REnewing and reNEWing, the offspring never being ‘just the same’ as the parents ….. the genitori as we say in Italian – some form of generating I suppose.

I often just do it, invent, use ‘new words’ … and may forget them, or not.

Here is now a suggested language innovation I have been thinking about for some days, ventilating the pros and cons and meaning and possible misunderstandings of

the brainifacturer

though not only misunderstandings but also better-unferstandings: the brainworker as somebody who works by immediately transforming brain-activity into what we usually call product.

This issue was discussed – in different ways – for a long time, as for instance by suggesting science becoming immediate productive force. And it was questioned too, as such ‘ideas based products’ are hardly products as long as they are not materialised into something, taking the form of something tangible.

Innovation of language? Or is it more about innovation of thinking and social science: Re-thinking products, values, valuation … production … – what if is about and can be about.

A Debate

3 Maggio 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, Peter's Log, works, works, projects, publications

It is – in its own right – an interesting question why and how some ‘books make a career’ – in this case referring to Mazzucato’s ‘The Entrepreneurial State’. I am always skeptical when hearing about such ‘bestsellers’ and actually really hesitant to read, let alone to buy them. Having been invited to take part in a debate on the book I read the text – and now I am somewhat surmised to see that my ‘prejudice’ is in actual fact very much a ‘judice’, i.e. a reflection confirmed by this reading experience. There is not much new in it – it surely summarises important points, and even more sure is that it’s radical character has to be seen in ensuring that there will be no radical change.

Some points from the debate my be of some wider interest – and what follows is not a systematic critique of Mazzucato’s work or even one of the ‘one book’.

The foundation from which her argument is developed remains by and large unclear: there is a bit of economics, some political economy, some political theory and some philosophy and … a lot of confusion caused by not developing from all the wealth of borrowings a systemic approach. Thus, the possible wealth of a merger is lost to eclecticism. And the loss – or wasted opportunity – is even larger when considering the shallow reception of some of the references … – yes, of course, the Smithian ‘invisible hand’, which is taken out of its original context and supposedly suggests that Smith rejected any state intervention – generally and fundamentally and for everybody and at any time. It is not quite true, and leaving aside that there is a

Book V: Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth

there is in my reading of Smith another relevant point. He left with us another major piece of work, namely the

THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. An Essay towards an Analysis of the Principles by which Men naturally judge concerning the Conduct and Character, first of their Neighbours, and afterwards of themselves. TO WHICH IS ADDED, A Differentiation on the Origin of Language

In some way this was one of the genius acts: splitting the task in order to maintain through the backdoor its unity … – and much later this allowed him, namely Smith, to turn up in Beijing, with this remark I am obviously alluding to the highly interesting book

ADAM SMITH IN BEIJING. Lineages of the Twenty-First Century by Giovanni Arrighi.

Discussing in this context secular stagnation: if one really wants to address this in a radical way, one has to take note of much more radical views, as expressed already a long time ago, for instance by Keynes – here reference is usually made to his writing on the

Economic Possibilities of our Grandchildren

– and even earlier by Mill [for instance in chapter xi ‘Of the Law of the Increase of Capital’ in his

Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy].

Such radical ideas, however, are just what Mazzucato strictly rejects – instead she searches for ways that ensure that there is no ‘quasi-blasphemic’ attitude and politics towards the gods of eternal growth. And her proposal is that, if laymen’s activities are not sufficient, the entrepreneurial state could emerge as high priest, collecting the lost sheep, developing new grazing lands for their new thriving.

Indeed, there are interesting facts on the cowardliness of the stray sheep …, risk averse behaviour which are expressed in the statement

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,

allegedly said 1943 by Thomas Watson, chairman and CEO of International Business Machines (IBM). The entirety of the story, beyond the exiting individual chapters, is not much more than overcoming the stagnation of the history of great men by pulling now women on the same stage, while actually the real problems are about the need of changing the stage. Green growth remains commodity growth, regulated and controlled data extraction remains data extraction, prone to abuse and in need of a real public, common ownership, going much beyond the provision of a seedbed for renewed private profitability, retrieving new sources of value production needs a new understanding of what value is about, going beyond the concept of exchange values only.

The one fundamental problem with the work I see is as follows: As one of the colleagues mentioned during the discussion here in Vienna, he reads the text as reference to the rejection of private entrepreneurs to accept sitting down at the roulette table. And I would agree with such interpretation to some extent – to the extent to which we are talking about the simple game, played by simple minds. The limitation of such metaphor is soon showing up: While accepting ‘The Entrepreneurial State’, thus following Mazzucato’s suggestion, we would be accepting the specific hegemony, i.e. the need and justification of downgrading ourselves to the Dostoyevsky’ian Gamblers, in other words: the acceptance of a new round of what became known as casino capitalism.

It is the acceptance of the reality that I saw expressed in the slogan which was spray-painted on one o the walls:

…. Human capital of all countries, accumulate …

Dulcinea …

2 Maggio 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, works, projects, publications

PS: why we all need our Dulcinea … – or: carrying on the dream.

May-day not anymore … – back to everyday …!! ??

Facts are the enemies of truth

as Cervantes says in his defense … – And he says

it is the most severe frenzy to see life as it is and not as it should be.

Sure, there are two versions of it … the one idealistically glorifying things by white washing, the other demanding, fighting for the visions that are hidden as germs in the dung heap through which, according to Dulcinea, we walk.

And this is, why at the end, she beckons to be Dulcinea, not Aldonza anymore ….

… nous sommes …

– at least we have to try! Try together … as

only when everything is said and done, one is alone

[as I found it remarked in the Schiele-exhibition, at the moment in the Albertina]

with – for – by ?

30 aprile 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in Slow Reading

Europe must be close to its citizens.

This is the concise statement we find on page 26 of the document that became known as Tindemen-report – and it is indeed worthwhile to read here: European Union 1/76 : Report by Mr Leo Tindemans to … – EU Bookshop the ‘old stuff’. the sentence can be found at the end of the first paragraph of the section

IV. A citizen’s Europe

And indeed, also this heading is interesting if we allow digesting it – that is what slow reading is about.

The citizens ‘own it’
and we are actually talking about the citizens as individuals – the ‘citizen’s Europe’, and not the citizens’ Europe
and looking at the other side: this ‘Europe’, it seems that it is somewhat ‘objectified’, a social fact in the Durkheimian understanding: independent from the actors
therefore an actor in its own right and as such confronting the citizens – as said: these being seen as individuals.

Of course, if this is the underlying attitude, determining what politics is about, legitimacy is a permanent challenge – the challenge every hegemon faces, and we can read the Modern Prince in it, well aware of the task that – as we read on page 28 of the report

[a] strenuous effort must be made by the European institutions and by governments to improve the way in which our common activity is presented to public opinion and to link the daily decisions of the institutions to the motivations behind the construction of Europe and to the idea of society which is inherent in it.

Coming from here back to page 26, we may become a bit skeptical, when we read about Europe being

a rapprochement of peoples who wish to go forward together

Whereas it is the individual citizen, it is here the people as collective …, suggested as emerging from

the will of governments

and only because that

alone is not sufficient for such an undertaking

it returns to the individuals, suggesting – to them – that

[t]he need for it, its advantages and its gradual achievement must be perceived … so that effort and sacrifices are freely accepted.

Sure, that was 1975, and one may suggest it is not relevant anymore. And one may even suggest: it is not relevant anymore because the citizen of the state[s] submerged in the meantime completely under the rules of the market, making us to market citizens, feeling and behaving and thinking that way, too often not being away of it, as reading faster is more important than reading more, reading the full content of such tiny statement that

Europe must be close to its citizens

thus never being a Europe that is an entity established by us.

May-Day

30 aprile 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in joys - what we usually take for it, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works

or: learning and living and teaching Europe …

To be more precise: it is not May-Day but the evening before the 1st of May – Uli said the other day: it is in Vienna a special cultural event and if you are around you have to go to the town hall … – surely not the same as one year ago when I gathered on the Plaza de la Revolución in La Havana.

Indeed, I am around, teaching European Integration – latest on the 9th the recordings should be here.

So, may-evening then – I am sitting in a tiny park, munching my Simit while I am waiting for the volksoper – the people’s opera – to open its door.

Thoroughly enjoying the moment – anticipating the tale of the

Man from La Mancha

Sitting there, I am also thinking about the programme of the next days – teaching, writing, rushed trip to Bremen for a presentation and … Vienna again …

Le nozze di Figaro

…. the upcoming performance …. – while waiting that day for the doors to open, I will most likely sit in the small resto-bar opposite of the venue, sipping some wine, tasting a canapé …

… May-Evening …. And I am asking myself if I am wondering or not: why is the one place named people’s opera, the other – the one for the higher echelons of society, the bourgeois – is called state-opera.

Les Distinctions

as Pierre Bourdieu called them – hadn’t been small at the end (as the German translation suggests) …, they had been about the nearness, even the identification with the centres of power.

L’état c’est moi

Not yet …. The evening of the first of May ….
…. And I am teaching about European Integration …. Indeed

Commodification of labour power and appropriation of surplus value cannot be thought of without an outside, by which they profit in social, economic and ecological terms
(Brand, Ulrich/Wissen, Markus: imperiale lebensweise; Muenchen: oekom: 63)

Which is another formulation of what Dulcinea probably meant:

The world is a dung heap and we are grubs walking through …

So it is a long way until we will say

Je suis e aussi moi es nous sommes le peuples

Metaphors, at times closer to reality than sober appraisal?

27 aprile 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in Slow Reading

First, I did not think much about it – though yes, I saw it as another and typical expression of the shortcoming of the European architecture – a paragraph from the document that became known as The Five President’s Report. On page four we read:

Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) today is like a house that was built over decades but only partially finished. When the storm hit, its walls and roof had to be stabilised quickly. It is now high time to reinforce its foundations and turn it into what EMU was meant to be: a place of prosperity based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress. To achieve this, we will need to take further steps to complete EMU.

A more or less desperate attempt to be somewhat ‘poetical’, using a language that makes issues easily accessible and so I filed it first as matter of ‘creative writing’ of the general kind often used in introductory remarks. But it really depicts what all this is about, namely the ‘progress’ towards

a genuine Economic Union
a Financial Union
a Fiscal Union
a Political Union

Twenty four pages, some can be deducted – not metaphors but pictures and blanks … – Still, if I can trust the computer search, the term product* only shows up three times, on page seven and eight respectively: as ‘product market’, as ‘productivity’ and as ‘productive firms’. Searching for industr* brings one hit: on page 11 we find the term ‘financial industry’. – Indeed, a house without foundation, and thus with predictable cracks in roof and walls …. – a typical example for a castle in the air. Established on the exposition of powers, the hegemony-committed knighthood-populace accrediting the exposure with their celebratory HELLOs and enforcing and securing expulsion of those who are already made invisible.

quantitative data

22 aprile 2017 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in Slow Reading

Of course, it is important to make empirical studies – and though we know well about the fundamentals already, I surely am not arguing against further empirical research and the need of it. And an important topic is surely that brought forward by a Eurofound-study, published under the title

Income inequalities and employment patterns in Europe before and after the Great Recession

Being full of expectations, I read in the key findings of the executive summary:

After 2008, EU-level income inequality grew for two reasons: firstly, the process of income convergence stalled, with income levels being more negatively affected in some peripheral countries than in the core EU Member States generally; and secondly, there was an expansion of income inequalities within countries in most sources of income.

Doesn’t it read a bit like: Inequality increased because different people avail of a different amount of resources? Another wording probably would allow a deeper insight into cause and effect.

Autore: Peter Herrmann's Blog