Peter Herrmann's Blog

Kondratieff – and a new gate for achieving Social Quality?

21 dicembre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, works, projects, publications

Contributing to the debate on “Cyclical Patterns in Global Processes, Kondratieff Cycles and the Concepts of Long-Term Development of Russia and the World”

I’m not entirely sure if and to which extent I can contribute something really new by approaching the topic from different perspectives: economics, political science and sociology. The ambiguity of the Kondratieff approach, the approximate character of the “waves” or “cycles” had been frequently mentioned throughout the years – and actually had been also the point behind contesting his concept from the “official” side during the Soviet times.

My fundamental concern is the following:

it is the aim to present a wider understanding of what the foundation of the cyclical movement is – thus it is about the discussion of some theoretical aspects;
this perspective may help to understand where we are actually today, and not least: what possible political conclusions can be presented.

I. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS – A wider framework for analysing waves

I want to start with a broad reference to the French theory of regulation, and in particular a definition of the accumulation regime given by Andre Lipietz. He strongly emphasis in the fact of a – temporary – correspondence of the actual accumulation as it is part of the production and the pattern of consumption. Looking at consumption, he refers especially to the “unproductive” dimension, i.e. the part of consumption that is part of reproduction of life. Nevertheless, this consumption can only be understood as part of the overall reproductive process of the economy (Lipietz, Alain, 1986: New Tendencies in the International Division of Labor: Regimes of Accumulation and Modes of Regulation; in: Scott/Allen J./Storper, Michael [eds.]: Production, Work, Territory. The Geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism; Boston/London/Sidney: Allen&Unwin: 16-40). In this understanding it is closely linked to Engels’ emphasis of the understanding of the materialist conception of history with the focus on the production of everyday’s life (see Engels, Frederick, 1880: Socialism Utopian and Scientific; in: Karl Marx Frederick Engels. Collected Works Volume 24. Marx and Engels 1874-1883; London: Lawrence&Wishart, 1989: 281-325; in particular 306). In a narrower understanding, this is of course not least a matter of the location of purchasing power within the society’s economy.

From here it is only a small step to fully understand the meaning of civilisational character of the entire question of the development – this had been mentioned in the presentation by Yuri V. Yakovets. I want to refer here to Paul Boccara, who stated in his recent book:

C’est pourquoi, en liaison avec l’ « économie » c’est-à-dire les règles (nomos en grec) de la transformation de la nature extérieure (oekos en grec) ou si l’on veut du système écologique, on peut parler d’ « anthroponomie », pour les règles du système de transformation de la nature humaine (anthropos en grec)

(Boccara, Paul, 2012 : Le Capital de Marx, son apport, son dépassement au-delà de l’économie ; Paris : Le Temps des Cerises : 19)

In this light, technological development is always very much also a matter of specifically “directing” demand – in a side remark I may refer to Alfred Kleinknecht who reminds us that

[t]he expansionary effects on demand of such investments can be described in analogy with the standard Keynesian income multiplier model. The seize of the expansionary multiplier effects would, of course, depend on how revolutionary were underlying innovations, the rate of subsequent (major and/or minor) innovations, and their degree of diffusion.

(Kleinknecht, Alfred: Long-Wave Research: New Results, New Departures – An Introduction; in: Kleinknecht, Alfred/Mandel, Ernest/Wallerstein, Immanuel (eds.): New Findings in Long-Wave Research; New York: St. Martin Press, 1992; 1-12; here: 9)

Before looking a bit more in detailed into this matter, I want to remind ourselves of the two departments – implicitly mentioned already in the quote from Engels’ text. These are about the means of production in department I and the consumables in department II.

I want to suggest in particular in the light of the more or less recent developments – though not referring to the immediate past – to extend this perspective by adding two departments. A department III had been actually mentioned already a long time ago – when finance capitalism entered capitalism at an earlier stage. It had been Rosa Luxemburg who outlined in her book on ‘The accumulation of capital’ the financial sector as department III (see Luxemburg, R., 1913. The Accumulation of Capital. [Trans. A. Schwarzschild, Introduction by J. Robinson, 1951]; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul: passim). In addition, I want to propose a department IV as an umbrella for producing invisible assets as for instance management, knowledge, design, knowledge management etc. . It may well be worthwhile to consider here as well part of public administration with an exponential growth; but also “time” and “space” which can be increasingly seen at least in some way “man-made” with its virtual dimension.

All these invisible assets a surely not new – they, as well as finance capital played a major role earlier. For instance we discussed in the 1960s/70s the role of science as immediate productive force – at least this can be seen as an indicator for the importance we gave it. The new character can probably be grasped by saying that all these factors are now distinct, play a very specific role in the overall shape of the economy.

Of course, we all remember the crucial distinction Marx presented with regard to the overall process, analysing production, consumption, distribution and exchange all being integral part of the process.

My proposal here is to link this with the extend view on departments,

I – means of production

II – consumables

III – “financial services”

IV – “invisible assets”

II WHERE EACTLY ARE WE STANDING NOW?

Given this framework, we can now move to the question of how to understand the current situation.

A crucial point is that the capitalist formation had been up to hitherto characterised by

specific forms of marketisation – according to Karl Polanyi markets a not per se a matter of establishing market societies
the emergence of the market principle as dominating production – Polanyi points this out, stating:

A market economy is an economic system controlled, regulated, and directed by markets alone; order in the production and distribution of goods is entrusted to this self-regulating mechanism. An economy of this kind derives from the expectation that human beings behave in such a way as to achieve maximum money gains. It assumes markets in which the supply of goods (including services) available at a definite price will equal the demand at that price. It assumes the presence of money, which functions as purchasing power in the hands of its owners. Production will then be controlled by prices, for the profits of those who direct production will depend upon them; the distribution of the goods also will depend upon prices, for prices form incomes, and it is with the help of these incomes that the goods produced are distributed amongst the members of society. Under these assumptions order in the production and distribution of goods is ensured by prices alone.

(Polanyi, Karl: The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of our Times; Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001: 71)

Continuing, he summarises a little later – with reference to W. Cunningham (Economic Change; Cambridge Modern History, Vol . I)

The extreme artificiality of market economy is rooted in the fact that the process of production itself is here organized in the form of buying and selling.

(77)

the shift to the distinctly dominant market of consumables – this finally representing the decisive step towards the market society
finally the move towards the dominance of invisible assets – including the increased meaning of so-called financial services.

This is in some way a different formulation of the undercurrents of Kondratieff’s waves, taking it from a presentation by Carlotta Perez:

1771 – The ‘Industrial Revolution’ (machines, factories and canals)

1829 – Age of Steam, Coal, Iron and Railways

1875 – Age of Steel and Heavy Engineering (electrical, chemical, civil, naval)

1908 – Age of the Automobile, Oil, Petrochemicals and Mass Production

1971 – Age of Information Technology and Telecommunications

20?? – Age of Biotech, Nanotech, Bioelectronics and New Materials?

(Perez, Carlotta, 2011: The direction of innovation after the financial collapse. ICT for green growth and global development; 9TH Triple Helix Conference Stanford, July 2011: Slide 3)

This always went hand in hand with a specific international division of labour and division of consumption, including a difference between simple and extended reproduction of people’s daily life.

This evokes the proposal of a new phase we are facing now: whereas we find in the earlier development a move towards socialisation of production and consumption and with this socialisation of securitisation, we find currently a move “back forward”:

it is a matter of technological development
it is a matter of shifting productive orders globally and internationally
and it is also shifting patterns of consumption.

In some respect we may put one thesis forward: we find now a real quantum leap of globalisation: although the commonly known divisions between centre and periphery are in many respects maintained, we find nevertheless a more rigid “unification” of the entire capitalist structure in “one global capitalist system”. Of course, in detail a differentiated analysis and debate has to be undertaken – not least in the light of André Gunder Frank’s and Barry Gills’ thesis of the 5,000 years development on the one side (see on this discussion Frank, André Gunder/Gills, Barry K., 1993: (Eds.): The World System. Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand; London/New York: Routledge: 1996) and on the other side of Giovanni Arrighi’s suggestion that we are witnessing a “shift to the east”. A brief and tentative remark on the latter may be made by way of suggesting a historical perspective: it seems to be obvious that all previous shifts – from the Genoese centre and the Italian city states to the Netherlands to England and later to the USA had always been accompanied by a profound increase of international integration. Speaking of a shift then suggests a one-sided interpretation, emphasising – by highlighting the emergence of a new centre – one side, fading out the fact of an increased global integration. The early Italian city states had been still somewhat autonomous, self-sustaining in their more or less small realm; it would be foolish already for the emerging Dutch empire if we would want to maintain such thesis.

Another point has to be made: all these shifts – and we should go much beyond the periodisation commonly suggested in long-wave theories – are in particular concerned with a shift in basic patterns. We can see this in particular as matter of following secular trends:

socialisation of production increases tremendously
and so does the private character of appropriation
we can formulate this in another way, saying that the socialisation of corporate, i.e. private costs
is the reverse of the individualisation of costs of private households, i.e. the costs of living.

This merges into the production of different standards which goes hand in hand with a shortening of circles consumption, the latter, as excessive consumption of a minority, however only serving as crutch for maintaining accumulation. This is true although the number of rich people is somewhat increasing.

III. CHALLENGES

One of the major points of current economic developments is a the emergence of an economy of invisibility. Adam Smith’s invisible hand is now further hidden, transposed into a phantom of invisible assets. Being privately appropriated, they are surely still very much a phantom. And in their phantomised form, they can also be seen as threat as they can temporarily be used as means of accumulation that is more or less completely separated from any real economic basis: the well known bubble-economies, especially manifested by the synchronisation of accumulation and consumption cycles and the synchronisation of their failure.

But the bubble economies are themselves hiding another aspect: the increase of relative poverty. We may assume with some justification a changing pattern of the distribution of wealth/poverty. Tony Atkinson tentatively presented this, by pointing out that the juxtaposition of rich and poor countries needs today some qualification: inequality and the tension between affluence and poverty is now less a matter between countries, in particular between the rich north and the poor south. Rather, we are today more and more confronted with a global minority of affluent people and vice versa a global majority of people with relatively little resources. One indicator can be seen in the fact of a relevant number of the richest people and enterprises in the countries of the south – the richest family in 2012 actually coming from Mexico, rank 7 occupied by a Brazilian (see Forbes: The World’s Billionaires; http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/ – 06/12/2012). This is also reflected in the fact that the previously stable middle classes are increasingly crumbling away, Brazilianisation, we may speak in this respect of an Americanisation, looking at the turn of the society of self-made men towards a society of patchwork men – surely, the role of women even more under that.

So we may ask towards the end of this brief reflection if the main challenge of today is an attempt of levelling cycles including the orientation on a turning point; or a distributive shift. The first orientation is for instance strongly underlying contemporary debates on “Green Growth”. However, a problem posed by such orientation is that continues from and even strengthens the hegemony of a market society – mind: I am speaking of market society and not a market economy. Without delving into details, it is important to keep this distinction, as for instance importantly reflected upon by Karl Polanyi, in mind. The prevalent model and development of a market society is exactly that mechanism that is frequently problematised by social science and considered as matter of submitting the entire life under the auspices of the economy. It is about commodification, penetrating all pores of life as one side. And it translates into consumerism in connection with social positioning the wage worker, of which Karl Marx writes in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 that

the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home.

(passim)

The alternative then is, indeed, the “re-establishment of society”. This goes far beyond a simple internalisation of costs, acknowledgement of non-market provisions and performances as part of “generating societal values” etc.. – Some shades of Keynesianism as for instance that advocated for by Joseph Stiglitz would argue for such orientation. It is about looking in a wider sense at the meaning of the production and reproduction of daily life. The Social Quality Approach looks at the social as

outcome of the interaction between people (constituted as actors) and their constructed and natural environment. Its subject matter refers to people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships. In other words, the constitutive interdependency between processes of self-realisation and processes governing the formation of collective identities is a condition for the social and its progress or decline.

(van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan, 2012: Social Quality and Sustainability; in: van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan (Eds.): Social quality: From Theory to indicators; Basingstoke: Macmillan: 250-274; here: 260)

To avoid any misunderstanding, this is not against the materialist understanding of

The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure

(Engels, op cit., passim)

Actually it is very much in support of this materialist conception, taking the entirety of living into consideration. It is about production and reproduction which is concerned with complex personalities and not with a simple de-contextualised biological mechanism. This includes technical and also mental changes the latter amongst other concerned with “modes of togetherness”. And as such changes of the mode of consumption are surely also a matter of course.

I tentatively suggest for further discussion the following moments for the actual changes we have to observe more closely, with this going far beyond searching for emergency measures that would be able to answer the immediate consequences of the current crisis:

the continued real socialisation of production in terms of bringing together

the two dimensions of appropriation, one being a technical matter, the other being a matter property and control (see in this context Herrmann, Peter/Dorrity, Claire, 2009: Critique of Pure Individualism; in: Dorrity, Claire/Herrmann, Peter [eds.], 2009: Social Professional Activity – The Search for a Minimum Common Denominator in Difference; New York: Nova Science: 1-27)
the true socialisation of costs – which paradoxically takes the form of privatisation of externalities
the shortening of consumption circles.

All this can well be captured by revisiting the meaning of assets, taking “invisible” and “non-material” assets closely into account. It is also in this materialist context where we can locate a critical discussion of social values.

Aristotle and the Christmas Dinner

18 novembre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, works, projects, publications

I am glad that I can inform you about the publication of the proceedings of the

2011 ICA Global Research Conference

edited by

Johanna Heiskanen, Pekka Hytinkoski, Tapani Köppä and Hagen Henrÿ.

The proceedings are now electronically and also as hardcopy available.

The contributions – with their various orientations – show one of the fundamental tensions of what is called “social policy” – and the volume shows especially the problematique of a solely value-based approach, treating economy as a distinct area rather than seeing economic processes as fundamentally social.

Of course, first and foremost values play a role in social policy – and this is not about a peripheral role but they stand very much at the centre. Moreover, actually social policy and economic policy can be seen as two elements (i.e. elementary forms) of the social and societal living together. But this perspective means at the very same time that it is a major shortcoming of simply transferring Aristotelean thinking into modern societies. Even at his time, Aristotle’s thinking had been obviously hugely burdened by an inherent trap: Talking about a strictly closed economy (as it will be well known, Aristotle had been as much ‘economist’ as he had been philosopher, and as such he had been talking abut the economy of a household) allowed him to base his entire social understanding on two perspectives:

the management of closed systems which had been more or less autarkic (the oikos)
the good-doing, based on moral standards of the rich – and now doubts: as sure as it is that a well treated slave is in a much better position than a slave that is condemned to suffer from maltreatment as sure is, that both are slaves.

Initially I felt tempted to write

condemned to suffer from injustices

but than I had been getting well aware of the fact that this term is extremely limited in expressing something meaningful. Exactly at this point it is getting obvious that such understanding is essentially limited, has only little real meaning.

Imagine today: People in academic positions (and actually in nominally high positions) being paid an annual income of about 15,000.00 Euro, people doing “good jobs” being left in the loop of insecure contracts, “possibly” prolonged, the conditionality not so much the availability of money but the good-will of an Aristotelian head of an institution that is trapped in managerialist assessment, self- censured, loosing the ability to think by way of opening boxes …, like a wounded fox in the grip of the strangulating clutch.

Today academic departments are frequently called schools – and even to imagine that such Aristotelean-idealist approach to society, (surely involuntarily, unwanted) levelling the way for a new slavery, makes school-making of this kind a horrifying path. Such schools being a disgrace, well going hand in hand with those political stances for which it claims offering redress. I discussed several of related issues already in the three volumes.

As said, values play a role – but we have to localise them in a concise way. And Aristotle as reference can surely be meaningfully rethought. Though we do not agree with each other, I appreciate Amartya Sen’s position as surely considerable contribution to such a debate. What he actually does – in my reading – is exactly this: aiming on rethinking issues in such a way that allows working on a “new economy”. Going further in this argument, we may also say (alluding to Polanyi’s Great Transformation): he tries to think a market economy (his Smithian reference) without a market society (his humanitarian ambition). It is surely a huge difference between such a position and the position of Fred Powell – who may just stand as one of many examples of today’s limited approaches towards social policy: striving with reference to Aristotelean thinking for a smart society, thus allowing the continuation of a devastating capitalist society and shaking the head over the prevailing neoliberalism – precarity.

But sure, we have to be good to the slaves: the slaves of the old regimes and those living and working in precarity today. What had been “animalisation” and complete “objectification” of the slaves in ancient, is today the privatisation and charitybilisation – and it does not make much of a difference if it comes along under the papal gown of catholicism (or any other religious colour ) or the gown of leftist academics that hide the lack of readiness to engage with analytical complexities.

– Well, you may say an annual Christmas dinner may give all of us the feeling of being just a citizen of a smart society, all being good to each other, preparing for celebrating the feast of peace (leaving those pieces of society outside who cannot pay for joining the gathering of joy).

Coming back than to the proceedings, in all their variety that provide surely valuable thinking, issues for further debate and contestation – not streamlined for BBC-broadcasts, not worth being quoted by a president, but surely valuable for research that wants to go beyond tagging of the current crisis (e.g. neoliberslism, austerity …) and surely valuable in looking at possible perspectives.

Details

29 ottobre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general, joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, thoughts on life and its philosophy

or leaving me aside. Leaving me aside – my excitement when experiencing Russian history n a nutshell, really compressed in a short paragraph, a long sentence if you want: Compressed to the imagination of walking along the Nevsky Prospect on the pavement of which once Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin walked …., a Zeitgeist that drove Fjodor Michajlovitsj Dostojevski to gambling; allowing me now to think in similarly eccentric ways as Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy did, when he may have visited this city that has now the name Saint Petersburg; thinking about the greatness of Peter and the likes who, when time matured had been dwarfs standing in the way of the largess of a new society which chased them away, following the call coming from the Aurora and standing at the beginning of conquering the Winter Palace – the storm that later still required The Mother taking rigorous steps, standing up when she had been called.

Details are often forgotten while looking at the large picture. Or is it more that we are blinded by some grandeur?
There are surely the great politicians, the large lines and also the large crimes. And even if one should be careful with premature joys or anger, one should not take the required circumspection as an excuse for holding back with political judgement. And this is a matter of current governments here (yes: HERE) and there (for instance the ridiculous sentence for Berlusconi and the reduction of even this modest conviction. Nevertheless, leaving this major lines aside, looking at something that is more hidden it is sometimes the really small things that make huge differences.
When I went he other day by train with Viacheslav to Petersburg – and while we had been comfortably sitting in the fast train, we had been chatting with Natasha (who is Natasha – It could be a long story now like the many stories usually told from the transsib, even if the train trip took definitely much less time than one of those famous (or infamous?) trips in the “old times”. At some some stage we talked, of course, also about politics – Natasha recalled pre-Perestroika-times (“What are you talking about? When was that?” Viachselav intervened, half jokingly). The woman continued undeterred, though with a little smile:

You know, those times, before Gorbachev. We had been … – we. You,

she pointed on me, as on somebody coming from another world, the world of old capitalism

you start you sentence with I. And you write it with a capital letter, even in the middle of the sentence. it had been different here. It had been about us, about we …

Viacheslav intervened:

Peter knows. He studied also in

Looking at me I helped:

Leipzig – when it still had been in the GDR, although the Campus had been near Berlin.

Yes, the times and the circumstances had been different. But there seems to be more to it. One could speculate about this “it” constituting the we and the I … – and as much as times and circumstances matter, something seems to be still alive here where pure capitalism is on the advance to complete final victory. I thought about this “we” the evening when visiting with Viacheslav and Olesya the Mariinsky theatre, enjoying Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila … – in the program brochure so many details had been listed, the soli in the orchestra even if they seemed to play a minor role. It seems to be a paradox: but here, where it is still about a “we-society”, the I becomes much more important than in societies that pretend individuality and can only do so by limiting it to a sole mate, who has lost the soul.
And in actual fact, the detail gains grandeur when being really part of the we. – And history is a little bit like a love story – a love story being felt like the “story line of history” …

children’s rights – ignorance or weakness?

18 ottobre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications

Travelling over the last years, I felt here and there a bit ashamed – not because of hearing so bad things about the country. On the contrary, because of the praise I heard. First, it had been because of the celebrated bedside rug which, though from beginning outstretched on the floor pretended to be a tiger. Then, after the final total K.O. of the cat, because

…”Well, you Irish are so self-controlled, so disciplined when it comes to bearing the consequences of the crisis. No useless protests, just carrying on …”

I frequently said I am not too much friend of these attributions: ‘the Irish’, ‘the French’, ‘The Germans’ – dolce vita cannot only be found in bella Italia and the Greek police forces and their (para-)military helpers showed recently how much they are favouring law and order, probably doing better than the home-country of the high-ranking German visitor, Mrs Merkel.
Still, not being friend does not mean one can push such attributions easily away. At times it comes to my mind too: “we Irish”: first pushing the child into the well …, then shedding crocodile’s tears and finally coming up with an attempt to save the child from definite decease.
And as much as this is the pattern underlying the approach to the economy – actually since the 1950s (see the working paper Tíogar Ceilteach – An Enlargement Country of the 1970s as Showcase? in the series of William-Thomposon Working Papers) – it has found a new field of showing evidence, now actually literally dealing with children. All is about a referendum, scheduled for november now. The Taioseach (Irish Primeminister) bravely stepping forward, overcoming his apparent usual schizophrenia by uniting now the two souls:

As Taoiseach and as father I’m asking people to vote yes

Good boy – …good man, I should say and could add: a real politician, not just like the official administrator we know from Max Weber as being characterised by

Sine Ira et Studio

Rather, the real politican, engaged with all fibres of his body and soul. Well done, right? And we may wish to see more in this.

And although I try to be optimist a but asks for being allowed to enter the debate – it is not about “but don’t vote in favour of these rights as they are suggested with the change. It is more about the question

But why are you not really serious when it comes to children’s rights?

Let us have a brief look at the text of the Proposed New Article 42A – I saw it first here in the journal. And it reads as follows:

Children

1. The State recognises and affirms the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children and shall, as far as practicable, by its laws protect and vindicate those rights.

2. 1° In exceptional cases, where the parents, regardless of their marital status, fail in their duty towards their children to such extent that the safety or welfare of any of their children is likely to be prejudicially affected, the State as guardian of the common good shall, by proportionate means as provided by law, endeavour to supply the place of the parents, but always with due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child.

2° Provision shall be made by law for the adoption of any child where the parents have failed for such a period of time as may be prescribed by law in their duty towards the child and where the best interests of the child so require.

3. Provision shall be made by law for the voluntary placement for adoption and the adoption of any child.

4. 1° Provision shall be made by law that in the resolution of all proceedings –

i brought by the State, as guardian of the common good, for the purpose of preventing the safety and welfare of any child from being prejudicially affected, or

ii concerning the adoption, guardianship or custody of, or access to, any child, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.

2° Provision shall be made by law for securing, as far as practicable, that in all proceedings referred to in subsection 1° of this section in respect of any child who is capable of forming his or her own views, the views of the child shall be ascertained and given due weight having regard to the age and maturity of the child.

And it found positive feedback from here and there. Apparently a broad consensus – and that is good so. But I am wondering if we would find this consensus also in case of taking things serious, not looking at the corpses but looking for, i.e. in favour of the living. The state should work towards conditions and their legal anchoring that allow children to develop freely under conditions of respect and equality. – Interestingly, the article mentioned first, making reference to experts, does not refer to children.

Having said before ‘The state should work towards conditions and their legal anchoring that allow children to develop freely under conditions of respect and equality’, means we have to look for a society that is not about

Work. Consume. Be Silent. Die.

as I saw it recently on a website, dealing with a young man who committed suicide.
This person made a choice – a tragic choice. But as tragic and individual, not to say lonely as this choice had been, one sentence on the website shocked me more than the decision itself. The sentence:

Es hat den Anschein, als würde man die gesamte Sozialpolitik in die private Verantwortlichkeit von Individuen verrücken.

or in my translation

It seems that the entire social policy would be shifted to the private realm of individuals.

It is exactly this what moral approaches to social policy frequently forget. It is exactly this what heads who claim to support social rights forget when they reduce these rights on the level of protection, forgetting the more fundamental issue:

Rights are fundamental and need to be defined in a perspective of social quality. They have to be defined as rights for everybody, from the very beginning rather than for the drowning child.

And of course, this goes back to the debate on the stillborn kitten which disguised for some time as strong tiger, before being unmasked as bedside rug. This is not about general values and ethics. It is not about muttering ‘that is neoloiberalism’, briefly shaking the head and continuing business as usuals. – Heads should know this at this stage: heads of politicians, and heads of academics working in the areas of social policy, social work and law alike. – I am freqeuntly surprised that my student’s usually know more about the complexities of realities than highly paid people working Sine Ira et Studio.
__________

PS: Being member of the editorial board, I am currently working for SOZIALEXTRA on one of the special topics of one of the issues: Human Rights – Children’s Rights – Human Rights as Question of Everyday’s Life

Arriving

15 ottobre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, Peter's Log, works, projects, publications

Saying Good-Bye – again — This had been the title of a recent posting. And indeed, there is some deep truth in the formulation John used when he wrote the other day in his really nice mail

as you sadly report, your uprooting and once more wandering, as of course scholars and refugees have done for centuries.

It is about sadness, and it is about this close link between scholars and refugees. And there is also much reflection in the words with which he continues, wishing that I find

an academic refuge, a medieval monastery in which to pursue scholarship and teaching as you would like to do.

Not that I may finally reach the state of a monk, defined as

a member of a religious community of men typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

May be it is poverty that awaits me; chastity is not really something to talk about here – there enough other miseries to report on and there are enough wrong choices in life that one doesn’t have to go with all of them – and finally it is hopefully about ongoing disobedience as it had been such disobedience, some independence that told me that it is Time to Say Good-Bye.

From various feedbacks I learned a bit about my life: I thought I would have been more or less outgoing, vocal and I admittedly missed the affects of it. People not reacting, not listening … – and now learning that part of my life can be apparently seen as “background noise”. Those who read Niklas Luhmann’s later work will probably remember … – And being background noise may be as much a praise of a life as I read from a colleague who felt very pleased when he saw his name mentioned somewhere in footnote of a famous writer. Yes, there are always the two sides. The one is the bright fire, dominant and victorious and showing the way …, the other is the small flame, flickering in the background, not much seen but somewhat indispensable when the clear light fades away, turns to be a dazzling instrument: blinding and misguiding.

Nani gigantum humeris insidentes

– Indeed, there is always the gnome standing on the shoulders of the giant, thus claiming to be able to see further as there is the giant walking across the path of the ant, “shouting justice for all” and guillotining with every step so many of those on which he actually depends. Two sides – at least as long as we live in a society that is characterised by antagonisms they will be and they cannot really be harmonised.

There are also always two sides of Saying Good-Bye: the leaving of “places” and the arriving in “places”. Exciting undertakings. And perhaps all of them, if written down in a very subjective manner, are also allowing others to participate, better even: to make their own experience, to gain new perspectives in and for their life and living.

I tried the writing – impressions from roaming to and through different parts of the world. Kerstin Walsh, a former student and a present friend, contributed some lovely drawings (studying social policy doesn’t necessarily spoil life and the sense for its beauties) and to be honest: all of the people I met during this time, for short moments or for longer spells, played their specific roles – background noises, giants …, small flames and blazing fires ….

Again and again arrivals – Hellos!!!!

student accommodation, studying facilities ….

15 ottobre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy

or what is studying about?

Dear Students – here in Ireland and probably elsewhere.
Recently a mail had been sent to the staff at UCC – it originated from a Senior Lecturer in Science Education at the Department of Education, Uiversity College Cork and stated the following

I am writing to ask you to encourage your students to make use of the weekend study facilities now available in the Campus Kitchen. From now until next May the Campus Kitchen will be open on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holiday Mondays from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day. Feedback from recent talks on “Steps to ensure success in your study of science and engineering in UCC” that I gave to all first year science and first year engineering student students indicates that a significant number of students living in student apartment complexes find it difficult to study in this apartment environment.

Many thanks to Mr … and his security staff as well as … for making this facility available. The Students’ Union will be informing students of the study facilities available but a few words of encouragement from yourselves may help students to settle down to study and to start using the weekend study facilities to help them to keep up with their work. Recent statistics from the HEA (Mooney et al., 2010) on drop-out rates from universities in Ireland are cause for serious concern.

Now, I will be the least to complain about providing additional study facilities to students – when I had been studying, I had been in the privileged position that I could use the library 24 hours a day – there had been one exception throughout the year. though I do not remember exactly, I think it had been the 25th of December that the facilities had not been available.

Leaving various things aside that could be said in this context, I want to raise at least three points:
* is the provision of study-facilities really an appropriate answer on the lack of quality-accomodation for students? – This laves aside the fact that this accommodation is in many cases completely overpriced, pushes students out on the private market, thus contributing via a more or less long chain to problems on the housing markets. If landLORDS (are we still living in feudal times, or is it even meant as prayer?) are making easy money, this, of course, maintains high rents …
* is teaching, organisation of seminars and discussion opportunities so limited during the week that there is urgent need for facilitating additional studies during the week – especially: additional space for individual studies?
* finally, is the lack of space for studying a real and major problem for “high drop-out rates for universities”?
Perhaps such Higher Education Authorities should step down from their pedestals – having a look at the reality of all these supposed *****-universities, excellence universities may cure them. Though it is boring and we all know it it may be stated again: education is perverted to a commodity. It is “goal-oriented” and the sole goal is availing of a paper that states a degree. I do not want to write a plea for the humanist tradition in its traditional form: it had been highly idealist and elitist in its very foundation. Nevertheless, it surely had been more of an empowering spirit than much today’s skill-orientation. And surely had been more emancipatory, independent it is orientation than social scientists who state in a complaining, and even depressed mood:

This is the consequence of liberalism

Turning around after a deep sigh …., continuously walking the old ding-dong-trotten path, welcoming any success, any start gained or maintained, as a success – it is a little bit like Christmas:

Mai le campane risuonano più dolcemente

Isn’t it time to wake up? – Can be sweet too!

At least this colleague seems to have slept while he had been studying … and needs to improve skills, then justifying a position as Senior Lecturer in Science Education at the Department of Education

We Got IT – Update Your CV …

13 ottobre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy

Dear Colleagues,
as it is now clear that EU had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2012, there is some rumour that every EU-citizen can claim to be winner of this prestigious accolade.
You may consider this when updating your IRIS and other information relevant for Quality Assurance.

Most of you know that I had been engaged for many years in EU-policy making – on different levels. From direct contact I know also – just to mention one tiny point – the the current president of the Commission (in my experience the least qualified during my “term in office” which reaches back into middle 1980s) appropriated the responsibility on “social services of general interest”, taking it away from Vladimír Špidla, then Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs …. – I mentioned this occasionally publicly and do it again although it may have been confidential information I obtained in a personal conversation from the Commissioner. Still, although I left that field of activity for different reasons (leaving some minor engagement aside) I am in principle very much a supporter of the European idea. And I am well aware of the ambiguity – what is today the EU surely being an institutional setting that succeeded on many issues we can relate to in positive ways. Nevertheless, I have my serious doubts that the awarding is in any way justified. An idea that is valuable, being set in a harsh structural setting, is as valuable as the chitchat of a smart society in an increasing “refeudalising” economic environment (having used this term, and having published in 2010 on this [the second of the “New Princedoms” just went to the printer] I am myself aware that much economic analysis is still needed to back this thesis).

Anyway, EU-staff and students may claim that they had been awarded. Colleagues from “Third Countries” (sorry, this is the official terminology) may possibly claim that they know Laureats (which is something, isn’t it).
The details on the award ceremony are not yet clear – so, refrain at this stage from buying flight tickets to Stockholm.
Some additional information for foreward looking people: There is some hope that The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel may be soon going to the EU too.

Irish Excellence – just a rant

10 ottobre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia

Just received a job add – adverstising a job at UCD. It may be poiting out an interesting strategy of third level education: completely overpaid professorial positions (in an international comparison), probably reasonably well paid “core staff”, that has to work for the money, and a rather large number of jobs for people who are ready for self-exploitation, working in casual “contract” positions (you MAY TAKE IT as purely accidental that I did not say anything about the work of professorial positions in this country – you MAY …)
It is worth an additional remark. The president of UCC has an income that is shamefully high (I always say: arguing on the ground of morals is useless although some social work and social policy colleagues still don’t get this). And this shamefully high-earning individual suggests that working conditions, security of positions of researchers and lecturers should be more precarised (see the dispute on Tyndall) etc.
And another professor – of maths – claimed not long ago (in a personal conversation) that social science cannot claim the name science.
I am wondering if these people have anythinbg else to offer than a large bag for huge sums of money. But perhaps they don’t have even that and follow in one or another way the traditional way of carrying money: in envelopes.

Sure, you may read this also in a wider context, looking at the Irish crisis, the definition of excellence ….

Growth, Greek and Teaching

10 ottobre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, works, projects, publications

A Change in my teaching program and implications for politics

Well, the title is a bit misleading – but fact is, for me: as abstract many things are when it comes to teaching economics there are so many things very much about daily lives and daily politics.

Some good news – had been asked to change my program for next years teaching in Budapest at the Corvinus University: A course on Development Economics.

A rather challenging task I think – and that is what I like: challenges.

Teaching about about this hugely contradictory issue of development in such a situation where we can see on the one hand that the traditional development model of capitalism failed – and we may add: failed completely – and at the same time it is strongly prevailing and orienting as matter that strongly guides policy makers. Of course, there is this global dimension – and since Rostow manifested his anticommunism in his pamphlet on on “Stages of Economic Growth” the traditional understanding of development is more or a simple translation of the paradigm of GDP-growth. More recent debates do not make major changes although they stepped slightly away from this tradition by including issues of sustainability and “well-being” – I engaged on some aspects and shortcoming of these debates in the contribution to the International Journal of Social Quality, titled

Economic Performance, Social Progress and Social Quality—Social Sustainability Waiting in the Wings

But there is more to it – some aspects I developed in earlier blog entries, looking at questions of growth and trying to link it to the fundamental issue of the structural fracture between use value and exchange value. These entries had been titled Sustainability, Non-Sustainability and Crime I, Sustainability, Non-Sustainability, Crime II and Growth and Development and finally the presentation during the recent Poznan-workshop of the EuroMemo-group, which I elaborated very much with Marica Frangakis (Nicos Polulantzas Institute, Athens), also reflected on these issues.

The new course now – teaching is learning, and not just students sitting down and listening bit developing together with the students the new issues – gives an opportunity to develop this further. One point is surely about the systematisation, or should I even say: the precise formulation of the question. Contrary to the mainstream approaches that tend to give first answers, and after that search for the question, there is some need in return to the drawing board …. But then there is another point, namely the systematic (dis)entanglement of the different layers of the analysis. This concerns especially a differentiated approach with respect to local and “societal” dimensions of development, as well as it requires to look at situations of individuals on the one side and collectivities on the other side. As a working thesis we may say that the separation of use and exchange value is very much complemented by a juxtaposition of different aggregate levels. In other words, we see tensional relationships between

different aggregate levels
individual and social dimensions
relevant proprieties.

A thorough approach to this multilayered perspective can help in two ways. It may open a way to approaches to the development that are predominantly based on normative settings. And furthermore it allows us to contribute to a sound debate on methodological individualism.

On some political implication of immediate interest. Greece – more than for instance Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland – is currently in the news. This is in various ways interesting.

One interesting fact is at least worth a side remark: The mass protests going on for a lengthy time now, and actually at least comparably strong in Spain and Portugal[1] did not nurture the same media spectacle as the visit of the German Prime-Minister (Kanzlerin) Merkel. This is very similar to the very old patterns: when the emperor comes, the streets have to be ready for the theatre. And so the protests had been countered with even more violence than there had been before. And a shocking photo had been circulated yesterday on facebook – not one of the many photos showing the brute force of security staff (though they surely had been shocking too), but the shocking photo that showed the decoration for the welcome of AM: blue-white—-black-red-gold—-blue-white—-black-red-gold—-blue-white—-black-red-gold—- – I did not count the flags, enough though to cover many of the victims of this war of the people. – And we should not refrain from saying what it is: a war against a people not just on the open battlefield but on the battlefield of an austerity strategy that is “killing softly” – making it nearly impossible for many children to go to school because they are starving, detaining necessary health services …. – and this happens in a country where only few people have sufficient resources to solve the monetary problems. IF they WOULD PAY taxes, the problem would basically not exist. IF they WOULD CONTRIBUTE to solving the national debt problem rather than contributing to the Swiss, Luxembourgian etc banking profits people could successfully claim what human rights declarations grant on paper but do not allow to be an issue in people’s real life. If politicians would people and their representatives serious solutions could be found – solutions meaning something different than huge programs that (simplified, admitted) shift money from the tax payer in Germany to the banks in Greece from the taxpayer in Greece to the banks in Germany (see also the interview I gave earlier in Athens).

This brings us to the second issue. As easy it is for the Greek government to listen to Merkel rather than to the Greek people it is also easy to speak the old prayer of growth. As important as it is to appreciate the need for a development that is rooted in growth, as important is to start thinking about what growth is about. Sure, as biologist Merkel could easily skip the lessons on Aristotle and Marx (admittedly GDR-education had not been perfect – AM is a showcase for failure) – and so she missed that it is necessary to move a bit further and look at the real meaning of development. Let us for instance refer to Aristotle. He contended that

if every tool, when summoned, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it, just as the creations of Daedalus moved of themselves, or the tripods of Hephaestos went of their own accord to their sacred work, if the weavers‘ shuttles were to weave of themselves, then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers, or of slaves for the lords.

But indeed, Marx referred to this paragraph, writing in the first volume of The Capital (from which I took the previous quote):

Oh! those heathens! They understood, as the learned Bastiat, and before him the still wiser MacCulloch have discovered, nothing of Political Economy and Christianity. They did not, for example, comprehend that machinery is the surest means of lengthening the working day. They perhaps excused the slavery of one on the ground that it was a means to the full development of another. But to preach slavery of the masses, in order that a few crude and half-educated parvenus, might become ― eminent spinners, ― extensive sausage-makers, and ― influential shoe-black dealers, to do this, they lacked the bump of Christianity.

And this marks the point any debate on growth has to take as point of departure – the concrete situation of peoples lives rather than the abstract calculation of growth figures. A quick overview over developments shows at least two different things:

the growth, and in particular the extreme and rapid growth had been gong hand in hand with increasing inequalities;
the growth had been in many cases – and Greece is an exemple par excellence – only possible by diminishing indigenous potentials in favour of growth of national and international elites.

In this light, I surely could teach AM some basics in political economy and the course: That development is not about figures but about people in their societies. And the development of societies through and for the people.

Too late for her, I guess – though she should have enough money to pay the fees for the course – unfortunately Mr Orban and his FIDESZ easily succeeded with this program against democratic, accessible education. Still I hope: perhaps one or the other of my students will get into some kind of government position and show: ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE.

[1] The optimistic interpretation of the relative silence in Italy is that people may be afraid that Berlusconi could interpret protest as people calling him back into office (cannot find the article I read recently in some Italian paper); silence in Ireland is more due to the ongoing belief that god, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael freed the country from the British colonialists and thus god, will know when it is time to move towards a better world).

root of history

2 ottobre 2012 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes

Die Wurzel der Geschichte aber ist der arbeitende, schaffende, die Gegebenheiten umbildende und überholende Mensch. Hat er sich erfasst und das Seine ohne Entäußerung und Entfremdung in realer Demokratie begründet, so entsteht in der Welt etwas, das allen in der Kindheit scheint und worin noch niemand war: Heimat.

attempted translation:

The root of history is the working, producing (in terms of creating) being, changing and overhauling the conditions. If he understands himself and founded his existence without kenosis and alienation in a real democratic process, something emerges in the universe that all experience during their childhood but where nobody had been yet: home.

[Ernst Bloch, deutscher Philosoph (1885-1977)]

Autore: Peter Herrmann's Blog