Categoria: contemporary socio-economic situation

things in perspective

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, thoughts on life and its philosophy

Yes, the development of Cuban-USNA-relationships is great. Still, there are some things a bit worrying, for instance if we read in a

FACT SHEET: Charting a New Course on Cuba

we read

… it does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people …

There are many more interesting aspects in the formulation that provokes some thoughts … – about who states and people are, about what is good and what is bad …

One source we should not forget when following the debate is surely the one from Cuba itself.

50 Cent – the price of behaving sustainably

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, Peter's Log, social quality

Returning from Milano with Trenitalia, listening to

Joseph Stiglitz:
Restoring Growth and Stability in a World of Crisis and Contagion

Somebody passes, and puts a leaflet on every table a leaflet: itinerRe per le Frecce

EasyFood – comodamente al tuo posto

Tutti i menu a solo 1 €

On top of it: one is encouraged to pay by credit card. The young woman walks back and passes a short time later with the little “mobile bar”. I ask for a coffee but she makes me now again of the special offer which I refuse to buy – finally I just want a coffee.

Certo, 1.50

I stick to my decision, pay, take my coffee

No, grazie; senza zucchero.

take the headphones again and go on listening to the Stiglitz, presenting his ideas about how we get back on the growth path of the economy, increasing the GDP.

Still, I hear as well the words of non-understanding the lady says to the person sitting somewhere nearby:

I offered him this special menu, but he wanted just a coffee ….

both shaking their head.

… Restoring Growth …

As one can listen to Stiglitz without watching I look at the gentleman, enjoying his 1€-EasyFood-menu – he decided for

  • Caffè
  • Succo
  • Croissant
  • Biscotti

all taken out of the paper bag. At least he takes the sugar for his coffee which not everybody would do.

I am a bit torn, experiencing this ambiguity: I failed, did not properly contribute to growth which surely would in some way do good to the Italian economy; I just did not take up on the offer, throwing away

  • Succo
  • Croissant
  • Biscotti
  • Zucchero
  • the bag
  • the little “spoon”
  • the napkin
  • …

Sure, something good I see later: the leaflets are collected towards the end of the journey, and I hope it is for reusing them.

I do not feel too bad, I paid 50 cent, the additional charge for contributing a little bit to protecting the environment, which surely does in every day good to the Italian economy.

Two background noises that come to my mind on this occasion – do not say they do not belong here.

The first one

The other day I picked up the METRO. Il quotidiano gratuito.

The headline on page two:

Salvini balla da solo e punta a Palazzo Chigi

It is about the Lega Nord attempting to move south.

The headline on page three:

Medico e architetto ambulanti per forza

It is an article about a young couple, well educated and starting their career in precarity.

The second one

We all know about the recent success, La Repubblica writing about it under the hedaline

Cuba, la caduta del Mura

We talked about it more or less extensively with Soraya, Hugo, Orietta, José … many other colleagues and comrades from Bolivia, Cuba …. It had been the ever present matter – one that employed the mind. Sure, it is also allowing growth which surely would in some way do good also to the Cuban economy. But …, well, there is a but right?

PS: There is another point on Cuba, the the vulture capitalists already lowering the height of their flight.

The Big Formula – and a “look between the windows”  – or a Pre-Christmas Story

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

I walked back from the library where I had been working during the day – a few days before Christmas 2014 – elaborating a formula that makes it possible to formulate (of course, no formula can calculate) schemes of (dis-)integration of societies – I left my scooter near to the office, so I have to walk down the Via dei Condotti, one of the most luxurious shopping malls in Rome, at this time of the year probably also one of the busiest places in town although many are here just for window shopping, the displays full of surprises showing that the world is a stage, and lost its sense.

It is not often that one sees it, that I see it (may be that I am not often enough walking through the city): a more or less young man, a man in “his best years”, obviously foreigner, migrant, being dragged by another man – “private security” is written on his jacket. That he has to look after his bike while dragging the other along the street does not make things better. A few people turn around … – few people turn around, watching the scene. – What could one do, what we see is most likely legal, according to the letters of the law.

A few meter further: one policeman, one policewomen, their car standing in the way, but still leaving enough space for a large Merc to pass and turn from one of the side streets into the narrow mall; enough space for the not smaller BMW that follows. I am not aware of a sign that limits traffic here but even of their would be –

Wound for a wound, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth

Leviticus 24:20

But here it about something else:

sign for a sign

And of course it is telling – it is also part of the formula on which I had been working – that we find this division of labour between private security service and police, executing sovereign tasks.

Via dei Condotti, one of the most luxurious shopping malls in Rome, at this time of the year probably also one of the busiest places in town although many are here just for getting absorbed by the window dressing of our societies.

Yes, plural as it is only by accident that I see it here; there are so many other places like it, and many more…

Greek elections and financial market upheavals

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation

Guest Contribution by Marica Frangakis[1]

On 9 December the Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, called for early presidential elections for December 17. On the same day, the Athens Stock Exchange fell 13 pc, the biggest one-day drop since 1987. Further, yields on 3-year Greek debt exploded by nearly 300 basis points to 9.52 pc, while Italian and Portuguese yields also increased noticeably. What is the underlying rationale of these developments in the financial markets? What is the latest stage in the Greek saga that began in 2010? We shall probe into these questions and try to provide some answers.

According to the Greek constitution, parliament must elect a new president one month before the end of the incumbent’s 5-year term, which in this case ends in March 2015. Following the announcement of early elections, the first presidential vote takes place on 17 December and, if this fails to achieve a majority of 200 (out of 300) members of parliament, the vote will go into a second round on 23 December, again requiring a 200 vote majority. If in the third and final round to take place on 29 December, the present government coalition fails to obtain the lower requirement of 180 votes, snap parliamentary elections will be held by early February 2015.

The probability of the government’s presidential candidate to be elected by the present parliament is slim. This is because the government coalition of the conservatives (New Democracy) and the socialists (PASOK) has 155 seats in the Greek parliament. Thus it needs to convince 25 additional MPs to support its candidate. Although it could co-opt support from other parties and independent MPs, it is unlikely that it will succeed to secure the required quota of 180 votes. Therefore, early parliamentary elections (20 months ahead of schedule) will have to take place. However, why does a legitimate constitutional process cause such a furore in the financial markets? Why has it led to an instant downgrading of Greek government bonds?

The reason is that the main opposition party SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) is predicted to win the next parliamentary elections. Its appeal to the Greek electorate has been increasing in leaps and bounds since 2009, when it registered 4.9% of the vote in the October elections of that year. For example, in the European parliamentary elections of May 2014, SYRIZA obtained 26.6% of the vote, as compared with New Democracy’s 22.7%. The prospect of a SYRIZA government is unsettling for the financial markets, given that it is highly critical of the ‘cure’ applied to Greece since 2010, which has resulted in five years of depression believed to be ‘longer and deeper than Europe’s worst episodes in the 1930s’.[2]

Brute austerity has been applied in Greece since early 2010, resulting in the shrinking of the economy by almost 30%, as consumption and investment, both private and public, continue to contract, while exports do not make up for the deepening gap in demand. Unemployment has almost trebled reaching 26% of the labour force, hitting especially hard women and the under-25s, while a brain-drain to the US, Canada, Australia, Germany and the UK is taking place, as young, qualified Greeks leave the country in large numbers. Long-term unemployment and poverty are on the rise, making for an explosive situation, as the public services – health and education – have deteriorated irrevocably due to spending cuts.

The prescription of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF (the Troika) for Greece has failed miserably even on its own terms. In particular, the public debt increased from 109.3% of GDP in 2008 to 174.9% in 2013, in spite of a debt restructuring exercise in 2012, which was however funded by new public borrowing.

The dire economic and social consequences of the failed policies implemented in Greece have led to a political re-ordering of great proportions, as the traditionally large parties – New Democracy and PASOK – have lost in credibility, while SYRIZA is gaining in support. At the same time, the fascist party, Golden Dawn, has grown steadily in popularity over the course of the crisis, obtaining 9% of the vote in the 2014 European elections, in spite of the fact that its leadership is in jail for criminal conduct!

Overall, Greece is at the cross-roads. It is very likely that national elections will be held in early 2015. Should this happen, SYRIZA will most probably be called upon to form a government. This will have to deal with a large number of especially difficult problems, including not only the humanitarian crisis faced by large sections of the population and the collapse of the Greek economy, but also the high financing needs of more than €20 billion (11% of GDP) in 2015.

SYRIZA is committed to renegotiating the deal with the EU and the IMF. It will seek some form of debt relief, so as to halt the downward spiral Greece finds itself in and set the economy back on track. Such a renegotiation may well open the way for a meaningful restructuring of the Eurozone architecture, which has been an integral part of the euro- crisis. The more smoothly this is done, the fewer the repercussions on the financial markets.

Should Greece’s Eurozone partners, however, refuse to enter into such negotiations, this will cause a new wave of speculative betting in the financial markets, destabilizing them yet again and reviving the risk of contagion to other Southern European countries, such as Italy. Furthermore, such a refusal will have severe political repercussions, since it would risk humiliating not only the Greek, but also the European Left, while it would drive greater sections of the population to the far-right in Europe.

___________

[1] Independent Researcher (frangaki@otenet.gr); Member of the Board of Nicos Poulantzas Institute (www.poulantzas.gr); Member of the Steering Committee of the EuroMemo Group (www.euromemo.eu)

[2] Evans-Prichard, A, 2014, Greek candidate willing to call European leaders’ bluff, The Telegraph, Dec 10

the same or not …?

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general, quotes, works, projects, publications

‘My dear child, they would have loved you if you had had two hundred thousand pounds,’ George replied. ‘That is the way in which they have been brought up. Ours is a ready-money society. We live among bankers and City big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket. There is that jackass Fred Bullock is going to marry Maria—there’s Goldmore, the East India Director, there’s Dipley, in the tallow trade—OUR trade,’ George said, with an uneasy laugh and a blush. ‘Curse the whole pack of money- grubbing vulgarians! I fall asleep at their great heavy dinners. I feel ashamed in my father’s great stupid parties. I’ve been accustomed to live with gentlemen, and men of the world and fashion, Emmy, not with a parcel of turtle- fed tradesmen. Dear little woman, you are the only person of our set who ever looked, or thought, or spoke like a lady: and you do it because you’re an angel and can’t help it. Don’t remonstrate. You are the only lady. Didn’t Miss Crawley remark it, who has lived in the best company in Europe? And as for Crawley, of the Life Guards, hang it, he’s a fine fellow: and I like him for marrying the girl he had chosen.’[1]

So, did nothing change? Don’t we live also today in a

ready-money society. We live among bankers and City big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket.

Sure there are differences. Searching on the www, using google[2], just “vanity fair” [one difference: there had not been anything like the internet in those years], brings a reference to Thackeray’s masterpiece on the 10th position, by linking to a film from 2004. Though admittedly earlier entries, especially concerned with the journal of that name, makes reference to the work of the novel.

The rest is on “Show, Star, Costume e Cultura” “Star e Gossip” “Abbonati a Vanity Fair” costumes ecc. And on the journal’s website there is a section on “VanityFairConfidential” which seems to be somewhat a contradiction in terms – may be this is new too, another difference. And we have more “global guineas”, jingling on TV-shows, political stages and the like.

But there are also these obvious similarities – I will think about it and probably will re-write the preface to the second edition of my earlier work on “The Organisation” which is to be published soon.

Taking it from the context of another discussion, the difference may be that today the (upper) middle class is very much involved in this jingling. But it is so not by way of redefined values, greed talking over but by a very “simple” mechanism of an accumulation regime that shifted away from its productive base towards finance, though necessarily happening when we look at the inherent mechanisms of capitalist accumulation. Such casino capitalism, as it is frequently called, makes “their great heavy dinners” possibly not more intelligent, but the willingness and instruments to make them publish are developed much further – and even reachable for (sure, only part of) the masses

me-domains, suggesting

“You are one step away from owning the domain name of your dreams.

Personalize your blog, business or website. The possibilities are endless. Get creative!”

also some encouragement

I luoghi – Spazi dove imparare, esercitarsi e discutere

and ultimately the

selfie

Talking about the latter, we should, of course, remember what Kant once wrote about Enlightenment:

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding![3]

And understanding surely does not equal exhibition.

===========

[1]            William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847: Vanity Fair

[2]            google Italy; 6/12/2014: app. 2:29)

[3]            Immanuel Kant, 1784: An Answer to the Question: “What is Enlightenment?”; Koenigsberg in Prussia, 30th September, 1784.

forgotten rights

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general
Well, toilets are not the most favorite topics: we all use them, but we usually do not talk about them.
Did I say we all use them? Actually I received the other day a mail, linking me to a website with the heading
An amazing and alarming figure. Much has been done, but a lot remains to be done, indeed.
But looking at what is actually done is not less alarming: the use of “public” toilets is increasingly also absorbed in the stream of privatisation, i.e. you have to pay in train stations etc.; last year I used such facilities in a coffeeshop (one if not the one of the most widespread places not only in Germany) and read something like:
I am cleaning this toilet without being paid by the owner. I appreciate your donation.
Yes, I remember the word donation had been used and that the lady had not been paid by the owner.
All this, by the way, gets an additional slant if we think that more and more people in the so-called developed countries are homeless – for them this kind of privatisation is another obstacle in their life.
And there is another additional remark that may usefully be made: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are supporting the UN-initative: the 19th November now being World Toilet Day. Do something good and talk about it … – why not: don’t do any harm initially, then there is not so much reason for doing good to repair the damage.

wage – poverty – death rate II

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, thoughts on life and its philosophy

After having recently written about wage, poverty and death rate, I just want to make readers aware of a post in another blog, by Paul Spicker, titled Feeding Britain. it is especially remarkable that it is about the situation in claimed “triumphant Britain” – some claims are just shames….

Where are we going?

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

Looking at the edition of the 25th of November 2013 of L’Osservatore Romano, and the online version of the article

Between Dignity and Transcendence

we read the report on the pope’s visit in Strasbourg, where he addressed the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.

Opening that page, I saw on the top one of Raphael’s most beautiful frescoes:

The School of Athens

Now, one may take it simply as nice ornament. And actually meaningful as it is frequently claimed that Europe today has the still strong roots in ancient history in particular of Athens and Rome. Looking at Plato and Aristotle at the centre — it is surely a remarkable reference to European tradition then: can we interpret their appearance together as hinting to the claim for a “moral, ethical state”? Plato’s obviously pointing on a merger of dialectics and the trinity – we may take from the book in his hands: the Timeaus the famous passage:

“For whenever in any three numbers, whether cube or square, there is a mean, which is to the last term what the first term is to it; and again, when the mean is to the first term as the last term is to the mean—then the mean becoming first and last, and the first and last both becoming means, they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and having become the same with one another will be all one”.

And we see Aristotle, holding the Nichomachean Ethics in his hands, as a kind of secular challenge, asking for the goodness in the here an now, guided by the two sets of virtues

  • moral virtues are in his view prudence, justice, fortitude, courage, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, temperance;
  • intellectual virtues are in his view justice, perseverance, empathy, integrity, intellectual courage, confidence in reason, autonomy.

There is so much more in it, even the positioning of the various colleagues of the two central figures is telling: For instance Diogenes – the personification of putting into practice of complete modesty and self-sufficiency – somewhat degraded on the stairs, “scientists” as Heraclitus, Euclid or Parmenides somewhat sidelined, working “on the ground”, though it is left open if this is meant to be a positive or a negative reference to the “exact sciences”.

But there we may actually hesitate, assuming that is not so open.

Obviously, at Raphael’s time such fresco had not been a standalone work, and indeed we all know that it is part of La Stanza Della Segnatura, The Room of the Signature. And such “being part of” means nothing less than the different sides of the room being in a “communicating relationship.

This means that the Scuola di Atene is actually only one part of a wider dispute: it is confronted with

accompanied on the one side by the

and on the other side by

Taken together it reflects the dispute between philosophy, theology sidelined by jurisprudence and poesy.

It may be open for dispute in which way La Stanza actually is mainly a reference to humanism and universalism. And it may be left open in which way each of them finally has to be defined. In any case the perspective in particular of the two main sides is eye-catching: the philosophers, “walking out” of the painting, into the room and slightly stepping down … passing the realities: “exact science” science (Heraclitus, Euclid or Parmenides) and “self-chosen modesty” (Diogenes), from there taking us – all of us who are standing in the middle of La Stanza, and thus being part of the entire scene, part of this history – with them: now “ascending”, open for the dispute of the sacrament which is not much different from the last judgement (for that, of course, my favourite is that by Rubens — former students of mine may remember the tour I made with them through the Alte Pinakothek and the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.

Having read the speech in Strasbourg and the interview Francesco gave on the return trip, I realise that … – I think I realize just some surprise. Of course, Im a not against reference to some ancient philosophers — but I am surprised if we stepped from there only about 300 to 500 years (I know, generous with figures) forwards.

====

Coming back to one on the lower levels, Parmenides. He reflected on

Being is all there is.

According to him there are two realities: the one of truth, i.e. the one that objectively is and cannot be changed; according to him, the other is a reality of opinion and appearances – deceitful and tempting on the basis of nothingness.

Sure, the solution sounds simple: acceptance of reality, rejection of appearance.

The tricky thing however is …, well, a world in which appearance is reality. In other words: a world in which a virtual economy: speculation on financial markets, faked insurance of risks which is assessed by corrupt systems … where such a world is the world of Parmedian truth.

Indeed, we have to return to Plato here, and to what he said about dialectics — and to how dialectics had been put on its feet, much later.

====

Raphael, surely one of the most outstanding artists of the renaissance … —

— … the pope’s visit in Strasbourg under the umbrella of La stanza della Segnatura … —

— … the positioning of the event under the heading Between Dignity and Transcendence … —

all this may be a reminder to think about some aspects of what I wrote under the title

Prolegomena. Encore Citizenship – Revisiting or Redefining? in the book I edited under the title

World’s New Princedoms. Critical Remarks on Claimed Alternatives by New Life

(Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers, 2010 and Bremen/Oxford: academicpress, 2012)

Worrying and enlightening is in particular what had been said at the end of the interview, and it should be the Italian (as far I know original) version. It is about a certain denial of the past, of having been archbishop of Buenos Aires – though this personal history remains as such present, the emphasis is now laid on being successor  of St. Peter which is strangely interpreted in a highly Eurocentric way. Is there so little from Latin American historical experience – past and present – that is worth to arrive at a truly global respective, a perspective that is inspired also by the wealth of indigenous people?

So, where are we going? And to where is the pope actually leading us?

It is something that needs to be discussed further – not so much the Vatican’s perspective but the perspective for instance emerging from the socialist movements in Latin America.

A tiny contribution may be found in a chapter I wrote for a book. The chapter is on

Social pedagogy and liberation theology,

written for a book titled

Latin American Social Pedagogy: relaying concepts, values and methods between Europe and the Americas”?

and

edited by Jacob Kornbeck and Xavier Úcar (forthcoming)

wage – poverty – death rate

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation

Yesterday the ILO published the Global Wealth Report 2014/2015. Wages and income inequality

As much as it is about income, it is also about inequality, and in any case it has to be read in the context of non-income. Too often we forget this side: lack of access to resources: to water, health services, food, education, even to the very basics.

Too often we forget it, and still sometimes it is remembered. These days in the Italian press:

Isn’t it remarkable that our societies can easily “cope” with poverty … – as long as for instance an increasing number of people are sleeping rough, at the train station Termini, in some way tolerated, and occasionally individually sanctioned – and “gets aware” of poverty not because of the people’s hardship but because of the “danger” they are “for society”.

Yes, this economy kills – and this is economy is not “this capitalism” but capitalism as brute system, the varieties of capitalism being especially a matter of the death rate.

But we know this, right? It had been stated in a footnote of an important work:

“Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated.‖ (T. J. Dunning, l. c., pp. 35, 36.)

Indeed, one of the essential statements of the detailed analysis which is still valid today.

 

 

Language … – or more?

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

The other day I received a mail (I received it as CC), somebody stating

As I mentioned to you, it is clear that our colleague Peter’s mind was not shaped by Central bankers neither other kind of executive format.

Thanks god, though I do not believe in that one.

Interesting as NB is the following: I presented a while back on the same conference as the author of those line – it had been in Cuba, his topic being the Eurocrisis, a reasonably “good” presentation of bad economics, though very affirmative. At the end he also gave out, blaming the victims of austerity etc., and asking for a restrictive monetary and fiscal policy and for further restrictions. Investment, growth as source of eternal wealth — in other words: the ongoing belief in the eternal

… the heavenly lullaby,

The old song of abnegation,

By which the people, this giant fool,

Is lulled from its lamentation.[1]

In the original

das alte Entsagungslied,

Das Eiapopeia vom Himmel,

Womit man einlullt, wenn es greint,

Das Volk, den großen Lümmel.[2]

In my presentation applied in analytical terms but as well in terms of developing a perspective a more complex perspective – much appreciated and welcome. And leading to ongoing cooperation with colleagues from the Cuba government …

for my part I can only see it as praise — and hope that not only the colleagues in Cuba will maintain their critical position to the minds of Central bankers and other kind of executive format.

==============

[1]            Germany. A Winter’s Tale; Text by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856); translated into English by Joseph Massaad; http://www.heinrich-heine.net/winter/wintereng1.htm

[2]            Heine, Ein Wintermärchen caput 1; http://www.heinrich-heine-denkmal.de/heine-texte/caput01.shtml