Categoria: contemporary socio-economic situation

Development or Change – Today’s Challenges for an Emerging Global Society

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

The following are notes made in preparation of a presentation in La Habana, Republic of Cuba in December 2012.

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The background of this presentation is actually far away – a presentation given by my friend and colleague Laurent J.G. van der Maesen at the 2012 Life & Development Forum in Hangzhou. From there some interest had been established to colleagues here in Cuba. Last year’s forum has to be characterised as

  • global in its very character
  • however, emerging from China and actually even more from the work in Hangzhou and thus marking a specific shift in global development – a shift that can briefly be characterised by emphasising the fact of glocalisation: the recognition of the importance of localities in the part of the global processes. This is not simply a matter of the effects of globalisation on localities but also a matter of recognising the actor perspective of these entities.

Looking at the general agenda of global developments, there are surely many contingencies. However, one may point on at least the following moments as characterising.

  • the future will not be ‘capitalism as we know it’ – and it may be added that we probably even fail when utilising the traditional ‘concepts’ and categories as neo-liberalism, nation state and the like as analytical tools;
  • the future faces the challenges of a new and fundamental threat from the side of environmental hazards
  • with this we have to challenge and overcome following the roots of today’s capitalism, namely the individualism as a major source of mal-development.

NB: In this light socialism had been to some extent caught in the same danger, namely as far as applied the basic principle of capitalist development for an extended time: the focus on the development of the productive forces (with reference to Marx: the development of department I) had been initially surely important; however, it would have been necessary to determine a point from where development is not about development of productive forces, thus implicitly the orientation on quantitative growth of consumption but about development of the quality of goods produced in department II, i.e. the development of means of consumption (in the widest sense) as means of developing social quality.

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The thesis is that in order to fully understand today’s challenges we have to look at the roots of capitalism in a more complex way – reaching beyond the economic and subsequent political perspective. In other words it is about fundamentally allowing the return of political economy in its true sense as investigation of the

organic unity of economy and polity

(Perry Andersen).

Such an approach stands against the development of a theory of political economy in a traditional sense of a politico-moral backing of economic processes as we know it for instance from Adam Smith.

Arte. Es la naturaleza creada por el hombre

(José Martí)

A major and fundamental flaws of capitalist development can be seen on the following moments:

  • the emergence of the bourgeois individual
  • based on the – apparent – loss of ‘ontological relationality’ (Slife)
  • leading to the redefinition of social activities as contractual relationships
  • undermining space for social action, while – though only for some – increasing this space on the individual level.

However, seeing this pattern as societal phenomenon we may summarise it as – for capitalist societies secular – process which Niklas Luhmann famously expressed by saying

All could be different but I nearly cannot change anything.

Paradoxically this goes hand in hand with the fact that the individual is made responsible for everything, being seen as rational actor with unlimited capacities to shape his/her life.

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I do not want to discuss in detail any question of human rights and relevant questions of legal philosophy (see Herrmann: God, Rights, Law and a Good Society; Bremen/Oxford: EHV Academicpress, 2012; Rights – Developing Ownership by Linking Control over Space and Time; Bremen/Oxford: EHV Academicpress, 2012). However, one point is of crucial importance, namely the fact that the Universal Declaration argues solely on the basis of the understanding of individualism in the form in which it emerged from the Western enlightenment. Seen in this perspective it is no surprise that it actually emphasises the ‘normality of the capitalist mode of production’ – with the legimitation of employment as actual basis of human existence, thus also providing a ground for defining ‘citizenship’. And furthermore it is from here that human rights are defined as ‘moral obligation’ (see Herrmann: Presentation Narrowing the Gap Between the World’s Richest and Poorest. Contribution for the Deutsche Welle GLOBAL MEDIA FORUM 2011).

For further exploration we may briefly look at a briefing paper Human Rights and Poverty: Is Poverty a Violation of Human Rights? Edited by the Centre of Economic and Social Rights. It

suggest[s] that violations of human rights can be cause, consequence or constitutive element of poverty.

This is surely important – and it has to be acknowledged that the document mentions as one of the consequences also

the destruction or denial of access to productive resources [which] can clearly cause poverty.

However, the overall formulation of the three points suggests that rights are a matter of provision rather than a matter of constituting and maintaining ‘active citizenship’. Talking then of the three dimensions of

respect, protect and fulfil

is more about a top-down approach than allowing the development of a bottom-up-approach towards rights. And indeed, this supports the thesis that HR are fundamentally an add-on, established to secure a capitalist world order. As any law, human rights law is also just a means – in the words of Iredell Jenkins:

Positive law assumes an ordered social context that exhibits certain deficiencies: it envisages more desirable – an ideal – ordering of the context; it prescribes the steps to be taken in order to move the actual towards the ideal; and it orders that these measures be instituted. That is, positive law is at once expository, normative prescriptive, advisory, and imperative. But it is positive law as a means to an end …

(Jenkins, Iredell: Social Order and the Limits of Law. A Theoretical Essay; Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980: ibid. 75)

Based on such an approach we face the following fundamental limitations in the relevant HR-debates:

  • they are very much based on supposedly eternal and socio-independent moral standards (it would actually not be far from here to speak of a-social standards)
  • the ‘we’, the collective identity, is reduced on aggregates of individuals, even defining ‘collective actors’ as the state, organisations, corporations etc. as ‘legal personalities’
  • finally not allowing to understand global structures and processes as other than the conglomeration of national actors, thus remaining in the limits of international relationships, not seeing the global order as genuine identity in its own right.[1]

Though it is at this stage only a short point, I think it is important to point out that many of contemporary debates focus too much on ‘technical’ and ‘individual solutions’, particularistic in character, to current challenges. These remain very much in the framework of individualised strategies. Though surely an important contribution to overall debates, we can point on the important limitation of the work by Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen. In short their orientation is about development of humans and not about human development, let alone about development of human relationality. This means not least that an important perspective remains faded out, namely the perspective of socio-human existence as part of a complex socio-natural setting. Thus we may also say that the major and fundamental problem of the dominant conceptualisation of human rights remains founded in the dissolution of the individual from its genuine social context. With this we find the reduction of the social as matter of relationships of individuals.

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Obviously, this falls short in providing a fundamentally valid perspective on today’s structures. Early capitalist societies had been moving to a systematic de-socialisation of personalities and the undermining of genuine social processes. This could be seen in the difficulties Adam Smith faced in maintaining moral standards within the taken economic perspective – finally resulting in the tendency to separate the question of wealth of a nation from moral sentiments. And equally we can see these difficulties when it comes to German philosophy as for instance expressed in the tension of different reasons in the works by Immanuel Kant.

The Social Quality Approach redresses this flaw by focussing on the social, understood as noun. It

may be conceived as the result of the dialectic (constitutive dependency/c.i.) between processes of self-realization and the formation of collective identities.

(Gaspers, Des et altera, 2013: Connecting ‘Human’ and ‘Social’ Discourses …: 24)

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For the further discussion I want to refer to more recent debates, not least stimulated by developments in Latin-American countries, in particular Bolivia, Ecuador and in the meantime Venezuela. The main point of reference is the constitutional principle of buen vivir or vivir biene. Important is that the standard of defining rights and for the definition of the social is not the individual and his/her well-being. Nor is it about the human existence as such. Instead,

  • understanding the individual as principally relational
  • considering the human existence as part of the overall natural existence
  • emphasising the relation between social and nature as fundamentally constitutive
  • and finally seeing social existence not least as matter of ability to accept collective responsibilities.

The emphasis is on ‘joint existence’ and its sustainability.

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With this in mind, the following issues are of utmost importance – here posed as questions that have to be elaborated and on which the answer has to be searched.

  • the what of production has to be asked anew. Point of departure is Engels’ formulation of the ‘determining factor in history’ according to the ‘materialistic conception’ (see Engels, Frederick, 1884: Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Preface to the First Edition). Whereas in the first instance this had been very much about the development of the means of production, and in particular the development of the productive forces, we are now facing a different situation. In one respect we have to reconsider the meaning of the production of the second department, namely the means of consumption. Though we are apparently living in times of overconsumption, this is not completely true: in actual fact we can see overconsumption in parts of world society going hand in hand with the lack even of the basic means of sustenance in other parts (see in this context for instance Milanovic, Branko, 2011: Global Inequality. From Class to Location, from Proletarians to Migrants; The World Bank Development Research Group. Poverty and Inequality Team; September 201; Working Paper 5820). Another important factor can be seen in the fact that a large part of ‘production’ is actually concerned with processes of transaction. Already in 1994, Douglass C. North, with reference to John J. Wallis and North from 1986 makes us known of

an empirical study that 45 percent of U.S. GNP was devoted to the transaction sector in 1970

(North, Douglass C., 1994: Economic Performance Through Time; in: The American Economic Review. Vol 84.3: 359-368; here: 360)

These are issues that need to be investigated more thoroughly not least in a global perspective.

  • This leads immediately to the second point, namely the question of the relationship between the different departments, in particular department I (production of the means of production) and department II (production of means of consumption); and it means also to investigate the existence of a department III (production of ‘financial services’) and a department IV (production of services)
  • Both, production in department III and IV point into the direction of a new kind of commons. If treated circumspectly we can see development in a new perspective. The development of department I, reaching a certain qualitative point, serves as point of departure for the development of department II as going beyond satisfying immediate needs, allowing qualitative developments. We find with this development a potential release of additional forces, but also of additional ‘needs’ of a higher order: the mentioned processes of transaction and also the growth of services are pointing into the direction of huge potentials of socialisation – and saying potentials means that the technological conditions, under private ownership and control, are in actual fact developing in a counter-socialising way. However, taking the potentials as point of reference we may speak of a development from the production of commons towards the production within commons, or using a different wording: the development of common production.

NB: Stating this does not mean that the development actually follows this path. In actual fact we find right now an extremely problematic development in a global perspective. It is still very much about continuing the old pattern of industrialisation on the one hand – now shifting anew to the NICs and also to new centres (as not least Japan and China); and this going hand in hand with a qualitative orientation of consumer goods in the ‘traditional centres’ (as in especially US and [in particular the old] EU). However, as much as this development is not about a simple ‘shift’ by way of replacement, it is obvious that this development cannot be socially sustainable (let alone sustainable in terms of a simple environmental understanding).

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Let me briefly return to the question of rights in general and in particular human rights. Commonly the Western understanding of rights – this had been outlined earlier – is structurally based n individualism. It may even be said that the very concept of rights depends in its ‘modern’ form on the existence of the bourgeois-citoyen individual. The citoyen – addressed as such during the revolutionary times of – had been understood as individual, socialised at most by reference to the categorical imperative as laid down in 1788 in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Practical Reason:

Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation.

This is based on the assumption of the independent, self-referential though rational individual actor. The understanding of rights developing against such a background can only be protectionist in its very character: it is the protection of individuals against possible infringements by others or the protection of individuals against violation by the state (to some extent an exception in this context is the notion put forward by T. Hobbes). To the extent to which we see the development of ‘modern commons’ – in various ways reflected since a long time, for instance by the common goods, general interest, volonté génerale or volonté du tout …) – and to the extent to which collective actors are emerging as truly relevant (see e.g. Meyer, John W., 2010: World Society, Institutional Theories, and the Actor; in: Annual Review of Sociology, 2010: 36: 1-20), we are asked to develop a new understanding of rights. This may be characterised in short by pointing on two moments:

  • They have to be understood as truly social rights. I come back to the definition given earlier, proposing that the social

may be conceived as the result of the dialectic (constitutive dependency/c.i.) between processes of self-realization and the formation of collective identities.

(Gaspers, Des et altera, 2013: Connecting ‘Human’ and ‘Social’ Discourses …: 24)

  • It has to be added that it is not only about the formation but also about the maintenance of the social. Rights are now emerging not as protection of individuals against individuals but as protection of collectivities against individuals (for a very good example in this context Burghardt, Peter, 18.6.2008: Ecuador. Im Dshungel der schwarzen Pest; in: Sueddeutsche.de. Wissen – it has to be mentioned that this is not [only] about corporations but also about interests of individual states in their ‘modern’ performance as legal personalities).
  • Importantly, these rights are not emerging from any moral and normative standards but their definition has to reflect the objective development of the productive forces as it had been outlined before when reference had been made to the development of the different departments of production and their relationship to each other.

[1]            This is even more needed as long as we do not have a global actor in the traditional sense (as e.g. a ‘global state’)

Kondratieff – and a new gate for achieving Social Quality?

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:

  1. 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;
  2. 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.

Details

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?

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

We Got IT – Update Your CV …

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.

Growth, Greek and Teaching

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).

Time to Say Goodbye – Again

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, Peter's Log

Thank you, Auke, for publishing it: Time to say Goodbye. Again.
It links well to the first Time to say Good-bye.

I got several responses to it, to posting the text via e-mail, one speaking of

big decision [towards] more power … for being true to yourself

It is somewhat sad that ‘being oneself’ needs big decisions, and cannot be taken for granted everywhere and for everybody.

Growth and Development

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

Background notes for the EuroMemo conference 2012 in Poznan

I.

In the discussion of growth we face some fundamental problems, emerging from principle tensions.

*        We are living in a capitalist system which is ultimate point of reference and its functioning basic condition when it comes today to searching security and improvement of living conditions.

*        However, exactly this ‘productive order’ is for many of us questionable – one of the reasons that is at this point of special relevance is the structural limitation of a one-sided understanding of the goal: it is the concern with living conditions in a limited, individualised understanding, not allowing a wider understanding of social conditions of life. Perhaps we should go a step further by simply speaking of social life itself.

II.

*        Accumulation is against this background a double-edged sword: on the one hand it is a ‘structural condition and goal’ of the capitalist order;

*        on the other hand, however, it is the permanent accumulation that causes a move away from the actual process of production although it remains depending on production as ultimate condition.

III.

*        Development and growth finds within this system its primary goal in the means of production as means of accumulation – independent of the meaning for the life of producers (working and living conditions). As such, accumulation becomes an empty shell, having lost all substance. Most visible signs are the process by which the different elements of the overall productive process, in particular the emergence of a seemingly independent financial sector are gaining independence from each other; and the disentanglement of productive processes out of the ‘core economic process’ (housework, DIY, SLEA …)

*        However, as consequence of this depletion

[t]his type of development of productivity necessarily approaches a limit. This is reached when the expenditure in past labour wholly compensates economy of living labour and the overall productivity of the system ceases to progress. The resulting evolution of productive forces leads to overdevelopment of the material means used, reduction in living labour and increased unemployment.

(Fontvieille, Louis: 1992: Rate of Profit and its Determining Factors; in: New Findings in Long-Wave Research; Kleinknecht, A./Mandel, E./Wallerstein, I. (eds.); New York: St. Martins Press: 203-224; here: 219 f.)

Both aspects culminate in one aspect that has to be added to the statement in the quotation: This reduction in living labour is to some extent real; however, at the same time it is only shifting living labour into external spheres, thus not least reducing the labour costs while the value of price of the labour force remains unchanged.

IV.

This constellation poses a fundamental challenge which can be put forward by the following outline:

1        It has to be analysed if capitalism has predominantly sufficient resources for reaching a new level of self-regulation and -stabilisation or if such ‘inner-capitalist development’ is unlikely (see: Mandel, Ernest, 1992: The International Debate on Long Waves; in: ibid.: 316-338; here: 332).

2        A ‘non-capitalist perspective’, however, does not necessarily mean a socialist perspective – on another occasion I sketched some issues of a possible re-feudalisation (Herrmann, Peter, 2010: Encore Citizenship – Revisiting or Redefining?; in: Herrmann, Peter, ed.: World’s New Princedoms Critical Remarks on Claimed Alternatives by New Life; Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers: 17-75). And I think (or should I say: I am afraid) that this needs further elaboration. On the other hand, we should follow strictly the proposal put forward by Ernst Bloch who speaks

of four different kinds of possibilities, allowing us with this an informed approach to understanding them in their objectivity. He points on (i) the formally possible – what is possible according to its logical structure; (ii) the objectively possible – possible being based on assumptions on the ground of epistemologically based knowledge; (iii) the objectively possible – possible as it follows from the options inherently given by the object; (iv) and the objectively real possible – possible by following the latency and tendency which is inherent in its elementary form.

(Herrmann, Peter, 2010: Human Rights, Health and Social Quality – Realisations and Realities; in: Laurinkari, Juhani (Ed.) Health, Wellness and Social Policy. Essays in honour of Guy Bäckman; Bremen: Europaeischer Hochschulverlag; with reference to Bloch, Ernst, 1959: Prinzip Hoffnung; Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp [written in 1938-1947; reviewed 1953 and 1959]: 258-288)

3        Looking then at growth, it seems to be more appropriate to look at development rather than maintaining the orientation on growth. It is unlikely that the latter allows capturing qualitative moments rather than limiting matters on quantified aggregations. Not least important is the fact that elaborating an understanding of development requires inevitably to outline a systemic understanding of what we re actually talking about – as such we are very much offering a positive contribution to the various debates around ‘Going Beyond GDP’. Furthermore, it allows a qualified critique of ‘New Green Deal’ arguments.

It should be noted with special interest that we find in the literature presentations that do not even consider the need of defining growth. It appears as a ‘given fiat’, something that does not need any definition or conceptualisation, let alone questioning. Furthermore, it is light-heartedly confused with development. Looking for instance at the work on the Diversity of Growth (McMahon, Gary/Esfahani, Hadi Salehi/Suire, Lyn [eds.], 2009: Diversity in Economic Growth. Global Insights and Explanations; Cheltenham: Edward Elgar), we see a striking divergence of the lack of conceptualisation of growth and the eagerness towards a differentiated analysis of the conditions of growth.

V.

In particular with reference to IV j it is suggested to see growth as an in principle static concept. The main orientation is on a ‘soft-landing’ (Mandel), i.e. the maintenance of the accumulation for its own sake. We may see the historical patterns of inner-capitalist development as characterised by the well-known cyclical patterns of three overlapping moments:

  • business cycles – reflecting supply and demand
  • conjunctural cycles – reflecting the aggregate fluctuation as reflection of capacities (and the move between departments and sectors), and
  • major cycles – as matter of major changes of the framework for and basis of accumulation.

Although we are concerned with far-reaching changes, they are only a matter of changes of the capitalist accumulation regime itself. Consequently they do not question the capitalist character of accumulation itself. In other words, the main point of reference is profitability of capital, and with this the rate of profit. Again in other words, the dynamic as presented with these different modes of business, conjunctural and major cycles is nothing else than the capitalist mechanism to counteract the tendency of the profit rate to fall.

VI.

This requires to look for a more differentiated view on accumulation regimes. As reference, Lipietz’ definition is helpful, seeing

the regime of accumulation [as] stabilization over a long period of the allocation of the net product between consumption and accumulation’ which ‘implies some correspondence between the transformation of both the conditions of production and the conditions of the reproduction of wage earners.

(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; here: 19)

1        Crises are well-known as points of change – and we can specify: changes are not only but as well very much concerned with changes of the accumulation regime. The French theory of regulation (Aglietta et altera) refers fundamentally to only two different regimes, namely the Fordist and the Post-Fordist regime. This is in the present author’s view extremely limited, being based on a limited understanding of capitalism[1] and thus failing to realise a much wider potential of the analysis.

    A hint for a wider understanding can be taken from the following presentation:

As capital accumulation becomes more intensive capital tends to become more concentrated , and the relative power of capital vis-à-vis labour … is changing. All this is occurring while the forms of competition, and therefore the industrial and financial structures, evolve. This is the history of contemporary capitalism. The ‘passage’ from a relatively competitive capitalism to one that is often called ‘monopolistic’ took place essentially during the ‘Great Depression’ at the end of the nineteenth century for reasons that were not only economic (economies of scale, market power) but even more social (the centralisation of capital is also the centralisation of capital is also the centralisation of labour, a process intended to heighten the possibility of social control given the rise to trade unionism). ‘Monopoly’ capitalism is thus the product of a stressful long-wave downturn, in which economic conflicts criss-cross with social and political conflicts, and as a result of which a new socio-economic paradigm is put in place.

(Dockès, Pierre/Rosier, Bernard, 1992: Long Waves. The Dialectic of Innovation and Conflict; in: New Findings …; op.cit.: 301-315; here: 309)

2        Tentatively, the following dimensions may be suggested as reference points for a differentiated view on accumulation regimes:

a        capital intensity

b        (raw-)material dependency

c        labour intensity

d        indigeneity/international dependencye        relative strength of department I, II, and III respectivelyf        class relations and regulatory mechanisms

3        Again only tentative, the following regimes are proposed:

a        merchant capitalism/industrialising

b        early industrialist capitalism

c        Fordism

d        state monopolist capitalism

e        service-regulationist capitalism

f        post-Fordist capitalism

g        ‘supra-national state-monopoly capitalism’ (Thomas Kuczynski)

This is surely not an exhaustive classification. One point that springs immediately to mind is concerned with the usefulness of a separate monopolist stage.

4 The perspectives presented under 2 and 3 can now be combined by transferring them into a matrix.

capital intensity

(raw-)material dependency

labour intensity

indigeneity/in-ternational dependency

relative strength of department I, II, and III respectively

class relations and regulatory mechanisms

merchant capitalism/industrialising

early industrialist capitalism

Fordism

state monopolist capitalism

service-regulationist capitalism

post-Fordist capitalism

‘supra-national state-monopoly capitalism’

5        It can now be asked if accumulation is actually also an issue in non-capitalist, here: socialist formations. If we give an affirmative answer we are required to reconceptualise both, the understanding of accumulation and of accumulation regimes. The ultimate point of reference has to be clearly defined by the genuine orientation of an immediate link between human practice (as [re-]production of and in everyday’s life] and the economic process. The mediation based in the capitalist form of commodities must be overcome. Paul Boccara contends for the capitalist formation that

[r]egulation concerns the inciting of progress in material productive forces (and in labour productivity) and the fighting of obstacles to such progress.

(Boccara, Paul, 1973: Etudes sur le capitalisme monopoliste d’Etat, sa crise et son issue ; Paris : Editions Sociales; qouted in Fonvieille, Louis, 1992: Rate of Profite and its Determining Factors; in: New Findings …; op.cit.: 203-224; here: 204)

    Under non-capitalist conditions this should be translated into a concern with the means needed for (re-)producing and improving everyday’s life. ‘The economy’ is now decisively only a means to an end which can be considered as ‘external’, an annex in which social practice finds one and only one expression, as far as it is concerned with the production of the social itself. In actual fact it is more precise to see here the true socialisation of production, i.e. the emphasis of the social character of production.

6        From here we can return to the question of growth as part of development. The two main lines are about growth in capitalist societies and in non-capitalist formations.

    Within capitalist societies we have the different contexts in which growth has to be seen: as cyclical movement aiming on short-term equilibration and as cyclical movement creating new areas fro accumulation after principle breaks in socio-technical respects. A first useful reference can be drawn from Menshikov’s view on ‘overall capital’, i.e.

not only capital materialised in new production equipment and research facilities, but also capital embodied in the whole new economic structure. This includes:

1.   New industries and plants which are built in the course of the technological revolution;

2.   Capital invested in producing new products – producing equipment, consumer and producer goods, new materials and types of energy;

3.   Capital invested in new infrastructure installed to serve new industries;

4.   Capital invested in creating new kinds of business organisation;

       and

5.   Capital in new government institutions and activities which are set up or expanded to support the new economic structure.

(Menshikov, Stanislav, 1992: The Long Wave as Endogenous Mechanism; in: New Findings …; op.cit.: 233-256; here: 246)

Important is also to investigate thoroughly the many parts of the overall actual social and societal production that are not commonly part of the GDP-calculations. Exploring this in detail requires a major empirical effort – even if we take an approach simply to growth as accumulation of capital, we have to consider its multifaceted character by way of itemising the existing GDP and those parts that are systematically left out.

This is a commonly recognised problem, however the readiness to take up the challenge in an integrating way is by and large missing. A telling example is the work of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, chaired by Jospeh Stiglitz, Amartya Sen acting as chair-advisor and Jean-Paul Fitoussi acting as coordinator (see for the work and also for the report http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr – 25/12/2010 10:56 a.m.). Although they criticise the GDP for its limitations, they do not offer a sound solution. Instead we find a kind of crib: if a coherently consolidated (system of) indicators is not in sight, a solution is suggested by running three indicator sets in parallel, concerned with the ‘Classical GDP-Issues’, ‘Quality of Life’ and ‘Sustainable Development and Environment’. This may be seen as progress. But it may also be seen as locking up of disintegration. Such parallelisation misses that a sound elaboration of indicators depends on an integrated approach. Cost-benefit analysis, properly understood, cannot be sufficiently undertaken in a ‘treble-entry accounting’. Rather it has to search for a way that allows fully integrating the different factors rather than setting them side-by-side. The latter results in such paradoxes as the ‘positive value’ of work that is undertaken in order to repair environmental damage (and already the ‘positive value’ of activities that damage the environment); or taking another – typical – example is the loss of GDP-contribution by non-employment-based activities which may contribute to ‘Quality of Life’ or ‘Sustainable Development and Environment’. I discussed relevant issues already in an article on ‘Economic Performance, Social Progress and Social Quality’ (see Herrmann, Peter, 2012: Economic Performance, Social Progress and Social Quality; in: International Journal of Social Quality 2(1), Summer 2012; © Zhejiang University, European Foundation on Social Quality and Berghahn Journals: 43–57 doi:10.3167/IJSQ.2011.010204). Whereas I discussed on that occasion more the conceptual perspective in the light of the lack of a sound understanding of the ‘quality of life’, it is at present of interest to emphasise that we have to look even in an affirmative perspective at more or less simple mechanisms of cost-benefit analysis. The to main factors that are needed for such an analysis are

  • the offset of private and societal costs/benefits and
  • the inclusion of the time perspective.

There are no clear criteria for the length of the latter – for pragmatic reasons it is suggested to refer to one generation the substantial reasoning behind this is rather simple: it can suggest a span of sustainability which then is permanently perpetuated. The overlapping of generations means that under the condition of ‘one-generation-sustainability’ sustainability is secured in the long run.

It is of crucial importance that this is immediately linked to the value of labour power. This is a matter that needs much more exploration, not least as we have to look at both sides: the pressure on the value of labour power, the push in terms of covering the costs of the value of labour power (towards social benefits, ‘low cost provisions’ and ‘outlets’ but also the actual increase of the value of labour power as matter new groups as bearers of new qualifications etc. (see in this context Fontvieille; op.cit.: 210/12).

VII.

To some extent this opens also a connection between micro and macro-perspective. It is the contradiction – as requirement to permanently balance the profit rates, looking at the variable and the constant capital on the level of the enterprise level and the level of the macro-economy.

VIII.

To clarify and gauge patterns of growth, the following questions will be useful as guideline.[2]

1        What grows?

2        What is the purpose of this growth?

3        Who is the direct beneficiary?

    Who is the indirect beneficiary? – Differentiated according to individuals, classes, society, state[3]

4        What are the means of growth?

    Differentiated according to different ‘factor inputs’ and kinds of capital/‘capital sections’

5        What are the costs of growth?

6        Who actually bears them?

    Differentiated according to individuals, classes, society, state[4]

IX.

Different capitalist forces and interests and the contradictions between different sections and fractions of the capital should not be neglected. They play a huge role not least in connection with the determination of the cost of labour and the question who actually pays them (see already the statement at the end of VI.)

[1]            In part this can be explained by the origin of the research, namely Aglietta’s empirical study (Aglietta, Michel, 1976: A theory of capitalist regulation. London: Verso) which had been by its own claim limited.

[2]            See already VI. 4

[3]            The differentiation between society and state may be important as in several cases the state will be used as means of distribution or also as means of ‘real cover by societal’

[4]            The differentiation between society and state may be important as in several cases the state will be used as means of distribution or also as means of ‘real cover by societal’

Sustainability, Non-Sustainability and Crime II

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

In the wider context of sustainability we have to deal not least with growth – to be more precise: the obsession with growth. Of course, this term is, at this stage, hugely problematic – a matter that is at this stage even widely accepted in mainstream economics and social science.

It is not least problematic if we take it as universally valid pattern.

(i) Growth is typically biased, limited to a quantifiable development, leaving by its very definition qualitative aspects out of consideration.

(ii) It also undermines even conceptualising systematically any non-commodifiable aspects of life (take happiness e.g.: we would speak of increasing happiness, not of growing happiness).

(iii) Growth is with this perspective in principle and inherently a completely individualist concept – even in its pretended ‘social’ understanding (for instance as matter of macro-economic growth) it is based on methodological individualism.

(iv) It is then difficult (if not impossible) to conceptualise ‘needs’ in a globally differentiated way: conventional growth is surely nothing needed in the so-called developed world; on the other hand we find in many regions severe under-supply of goods; as far as this undersupply is a matter of the lack of means of subsistence and ‘basic goods’, the answer will be obvious. However, in several cases there may be an unquestionable need although the means of satisfaction are not defined. An example for the latter can be seen in India where we find attempts to introduce cheap, i.e. affordable cars. This may well be an example where the need (transport for everybody) cannot and should not be questioned; but where the means to answer this need cannot be seen as given – in some respect the need may actually be limited (spreading availability of services, increasing local production by decentralisation  …); in another respect the means of transport can be directed in different ways rather than orienting on private means.

Fundamentally questionable presumptions are at least the following:

  • Growth is understood as growth of the production of ‘goods’ and with this actually leading to an understanding of economic processes based in consumption as ultimate end of the process. – It would be different by looking at (re)production of daily life (and the related means) as ultimate end. Only then economic growth would be a means rather than an end in itself.
  • This means also that production in the mainstream understanding is only narrowly understood, namely as production of goods. However, it is necessary to go beyond this understanding, searching for ways of determining other ‘means of production’, which themselves produce the ultimate product, i.e. daily life of socio-individual beings.
  • With this, a further qualification emerges: considering the human being as genuinely and indispensably social being requires – in the light of the demand of sustainable sociability – accepting equity not as secondary, i.e. as result of growth of the production of goods (thus is the fallacy of mainstream economics). Instead, equity is condition, i.e. means of production of sustainable sociability. – The latter can easily be shown by several empirical studies, for instance those that point at the Nordic countries facing less problems during crisis; cooperatives being let hit by the crisis etc.
  • Another and fundamental fallacy is that growth strategies as they exist today are to a large extent only mechanisms of (i) distribution and (ii) externalisation. A few remarks may be exemplifying this.

Space

We find some evidence for emerging and increasing poverty, developing in countries exactly at that time when they closely entered the global economy …, and when they did so as ‘explicit periphery’ of the world economy. So-called developing countries had been for a long time sufficiently strong in their own reproductive and sustaining way before entering fully the global economy.[1]

Social I

We find several mechanisms of externalisation, not least ‘shifting costs’ to the organic environment (nature)

Social II

A further social dimension can be seen in ‘by-production’ and parasite-production: enterprises produce political influence (CSOs sitting on political boards); contribute to welfare (foundations); NGOs produce services; households are engaged in DIY-production and so on.

Time

In many cases this can be closely linked to processes of tempoarilisation of costs, shifting them to later generations.

I am not yet sure if ‘development’ is a sufficiently thought through alternative – development carries with it the burden of Rostowian modernism though it can surely be questioned if this is a necessary burden.[2] One additional fundamental critique of growth emerges in this context: growth emerged in the meantime as by and large nationalist concept, being closely linked with the mechanisms of competitiveness. To the extent to which this is true, a Green Deal is highly problematic as long as it is conceptualised with the emphasis on ‘changed growth’ rather than changed understanding of ‘buen vivir’.

As long as we follow the mainstream growth model, we have to be aware that  there are two issues that are of fundamental importance, although they are easily overlooked at least in terms of their consequential character: the current model is based on two patterns that are frequently and in popular gist considered to be exceptions but that are actual fact structural foundation of the system – as such they are closely knit into the factors that had been laid before us in the previous paragraphs:

  • debt is the one
  • the other one is crisis.

The strictly economic side of debt can easily be described – and much had been written about it. It is not always considered sufficiently that there is a fundamental difference between private and public debt but by and large it is probably fair enough to say that the difference is usually seen and only naive political jargon draws simple comparisons. The perspective from political economy is a bit more difficult – but in any case it is also fundamentally a concern with a rather traditional model of growth, in particular looking at the wider understanding of distributing economic components over time. This is then not only a matter of financing current investment on the account of expected gain in the future. At least equally important are various inherent mechanisms of social transfer, as for instance business investment loans financed by agglomerating savings of private households, ‘cold expropriation’ of private and business households by the means of undervalued government loans (e.g. a short note on this here), shifts of public money to private businesses using also mechanisms of tax exemption and tax evasion.

However, another perspective has also to be considered, it is concerned with the soci(et)al time perspective. Both, personal and social history are based on a loan taken from the future, however without sufficient cover. The reason for the lack of security is not a matter of overspending. In order to understand the contradiction, it is not sufficient to consider the (im)balance between spending and borrowing – these are actually by and large brought into congruence with each other via various mechanisms of the economic crisis – a mechanism which is, at least insofar we are talking about a crisis of consolidation, nothing else than forceful negotiations which decide who is paying which share. This can be roughly broken down to the following: the investors, the mediators, the consumers. Still, there is another factor, socially constructed by a specific political-economic understanding, namely the ideology of infinite growth: it is the suggestion that the major share is paid by the future. So – simplified – we end up with the following rough scheme:

Current debt

Loan from future 1

Delayed payment:

Loan from future 2

Societal

Societal

Societal

Investor

Investor

Consumer

Consumer

paid by soci(et)al inequality

paid by societal inequity

remaining unpaid

At this stage it does not play a role if we are talking about debt in monetary terms, energy, raw material, space … . Importantly we have to aim n maintaining the link

  • between production and reproduction of daily life

and also

  • between the needs and means as mentioned earlier with reference to Wilhelm von Humboldt.

And of course, we can then clearly see the justification of speaking in the title of the crime of lacking sustainability: It is even in positive law – in terms of the criteria set by this society – a crime insofar it disrespects the fundamental principle of contracts: contracts are actually drawn with a party that is not part of the negotiations.

We can come back to what had been said before: for understanding the contradiction, it is not sufficient to consider the (im)balance between spending and borrowing. Such perspective is simply limited to the realm of circulation. However, the real imbalances are on the level of production. For a clearer understanding of such localisation we have to distinguish at least analytically the following dimensions – always keeping in mind that the fundamental reference is the production and reproduction of daily life. The following is suggested:

  • Systemic (re-)production, i.e. the (re-)production of the socio-political-economic system itself. Part of it is well reflected in the definition of the accumulation regime as brought forward the Régulationist School. Important is to consider that the definition is established by drawing a close link between production and reproduction, looking at

stabilization over a long period of the allocation of the net product between consumption and accumulation which implies some correspondence between the transformation of both the conditions of production and the conditions of the reproduction of wage earners.[3]

  • Personal (re)production, i.e. the (re)production of individuals and private households, importantly establishing a link between development of personalities and their ‘fit’ into the societal relations and vice versa.
  • National (re)production, i.e. the (re)production which is mainly concerned with a specific part of the systemic (re)production, however, limiting this to a certain social space and in turn providing a basis for specific exclusionary structurations
  • Class and cleavage (re)production, i.e. the (re)production of different relations that socio-politically ‘order’ the positions within the overall relationality.

Two factors are of major importance. First, social and political divisions find their original foundation in the first of these (re)production-schemes, i.e. on the systemic level. However, these can only emerge from the division of roles – a matter of division of labour and also of – only in part subsequent – division of power positions. Second, in all these cases we find specific environmentalisations. With this term I suggest that human beings define themselves as depending in different degrees from the natural conditions of the organic environment, the other way round: the tendency to externalise of organic environment. This independence is itself relative as much as it is defined by human agency’s individual and/or collective ability to control the organic nature. It should be clear, however, that the dependency is a relational one. The highest thinkable degree of independence is one of the ability to make perfect use of the organic forces – though they cannot be overcome nor can human beings transcend their own organic essence.

Tensions and contradictions emerge within each of these realms and also between them – an apparently incalculable net of relations. These tensions and contradictions are in their historically specific form definiens of historical structures of meaning. – And this can be – and is at times – the nihilist demeaning of everything, arbitrariness of existence that is getting aware of the crime of lacking sustainability.

Is there a way out? One way out is the amplified nihilism: denial of the future, suggesting that the debt is already to high to be paid back at any one stage. Another is the religious or otherwise value-ridden suggestion that another world is longed for – and thus it should be possible: the internalisation of a deeply felt enigma and frequently the idealisation of the past and the suggested eternal while facing the crumbling away of parts of reality. There are technical suggestions – green deal and decoupling.

Finally – and in part contradicting the aforementioned suggestions – there is the need to concentrate really on a new mode of production as core of a new societal formation. This surely has to be socialist in its very core. But being socialist has to thoroughly consider a new productive basis under non-industrialist conditions. An important question is in which way socialisation of production can be employed as a means also of ‘steering needs’.

Part of the necessary analysis is to clearly answer in a differentiated way the questions of what is needed, how this is determined and who the actual producer is.

Including importantly the questions of capitalisation and commodification of labour power

This includes material, immaterial, mediated/symbolic dimensions

 What id actually needed for the (re)production of daily life

Important is also the differentiation between the departments (I & II according to Marx; in addition III according to Luxemburg; in my own opinion this needs today further differentiation, for instance by looking at the service sector as candidate for a further department)

Including the question of marketisation[4] and commodification

 How the need is determined – e.g. by physical necessity, social definition, technological requirements or suggestions … (a new approach to Maslow?)
By whom is actually produced (incl. public households,[5] private households, NGOs, as ‘by-product’ of other processes …)

[1]            It remains to be discussed how this relates to the thesis of world systems theory, in particular the interpretation by Gills and Frank (see Frank, Andre Gunder/Gills, Barry K. (eds.) 1993: The World System. Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand?; London/New York: Routledge); furthermore it would be interesting to analyse in this context the theory of major cycles (Kondratieff waves).

[2]            Part of this is more extensively reflected upon in my article  ‘Indicators – More than Evidence and Maths; forthcoming in: Journal of Globalization Studies’, Association with the Faculty of Global Processes of the Lomonosov Moscow State University; Eds.: Leonid Grinin/Andrey Korotayev/Victor de Munck/James Sheffield; Volgograd: Uchitel; and the more extensive document from the Cork-presentation on occasion of the Poverty Summer School at University College Cork.

[3]            Lipietz, Alain, 1986: New Tendencies in International Division of Labour: Regimes of Accumulation and Nodes of Regulation, in: Production, Work, Territory; Scott, A.J./Storper, M. (eds.); London: Allen Unwin: 16-40, here: 19

[4]            Important to note that marketisation does not necessarily means capitalist markets.

[5]            In addition public goods though they are not necessarily produced by public bodies.

Sustainability, Non-Sustainability and Crime I

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

Debates on sustainability, if taken in as matter dealing with a wider, social understanding of the issue in question, are frequently linked to a rather mechanical understanding of needs, and in this context  reference is not least made to considerations on marginal utility and the subsequent thesis that at a certain point any additional consumed unit does not lead any additional (or only a minimal increase of) satisfaction. Even an adverse effect can be made out in cases where we can speak of definite overconsumption. The commonly presented thesis is that there is a point of saturation  beyond which no ‘added value’ is possible. And of course, there is a close link then also to the Pareto-optimum.

However, the entire approach is based on a fundamental flaw, only dealing with numbers and different weighing, loosing the underlying qualitative aspect out of sight. Utilities can in deed be quantified. However, this is presupposing that use value and exchange value are distinct units, at least in tendency separate from each others. Actually, in this view they both take distinct physical forms, the one being the actual ‘good’, the other its money-form.

Such approach may be fundamentally criticised by bringing two aspects together – which also means by referring to the following two conditions:

  • the consuming and the paying entities are basically identical.
    – Of course, in a macro-economic perspective this can only mean that in a long-term perspective (in the last instance) externalisation is not possible
  • the utility value is not understood as matter of ‘consumption; rather , consumption is itself (part of) a productive process (as outlined for instance in the Grundrisse by Marx) and s such production is meant to be a matter of ‘empowerment’. The ‘utility’ is ‘mastery of life’ – right in the understanding put forward by Engels:

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; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged.

What Engels is presenting is a fundamentally and genuinely social relationship, not simply inescapable but even without a want to escape. Production, products and consumption are very much an entity, in the same way as the individual is not social by his/her interaction with others but its own intrinsic existence.

Against this background we ay turn our attention to Wilhelm von Humboldt and his work on The Limits of State Action.[1] Towards the end of his treatise he looks at the question of prevention of crime, however, importantly linking this to the question of causes of crime.    He contends that

… all prevention of crime must be directed to its causes. But these causes, which are so infinitely varied, might be expressed perhaps in a general formula as the feeling, not sufficiently resisted by reason, of the disparity between the inclinations of the agent and the means in his power for gratifying them. (117 f.)

And from here he continues:

Although it might be very difficult to distinguish them in particular instances, there would be, in general, two distinct cases of this disproportion; firstly, when it arises from a real excess of desires, and, secondly, when it results from a lack of means to satisfy even ordinary inclinations. (118)

We have to try to stripe off all this fundamentalist individualism that characterise Humboldt’s remarks – and then they may actually be rather meaningful to grasp more thoroughly the challenges we face today, as much as we faced them already throughout history of mankind. In other words, the challenges about sustainability and a new understanding of what economic activities are about are not new – however, they are permanently captured by a tensional relationship that is characteristic in different dimensions, sometimes occurring in parallel, sometimes in a somewhat alternating way.

It is frequently said that today’s economies are structurally depending on debt – debt together with quantitative growth are suggested to be an indispensable condition of stability. Leaving the inherent contradiction aside: stability – as far as it resembles stasis – is made dependent on two dynamic aspects, one of the main problems seems to be that  the entire pattern is based on a fundamental contradiction – a tearing apart of entities.

Consumption is in a twofold way separated from its productive dimension: it is suggested as independent from the process of manufacturing (production of goods) and it is furthermore suggested to be independent from the production and reproduction of human existence. However, in bot, economic and social theories these two ‘divisions’ are not sufficiently considered. In other words, difference and connection between productive and non-productive consumption are left outside of analytical considerations. Cum grano salis, the same is true fro production as matter of reproduction. By this, the goal of reproduction is turned away from its original perspective, now not being concerned with human beings but with socio-economic systems.

Thus, the task of policies on social sustainability have to take up the challenge to establish and maintain ‘blocks against externalisation’ as every of the before-mentioned separations are also mechanisms of socio-economic externalisation.

Though it remains for the moment open to properly relate happiness, prosperity, flourishing, wealth etc. we may see a perspective. If we have, according to Amartya Sen, to look at ‘capabilities needed to flourish’ (Sen, see also Nussbaum) we may concretise this by defining flourishing primarily as developing contentness against the disparity as it is outlined by Humboldt, the

disparity between the inclinations of the agent and the means in his power for gratifying them.

Functionings, as frequently centre-staged by Sen, are now also matters of the ‘social individuals’, partially independent of the functioning of social systems – and dialectically in this way determining new perspectives for these systems.

[1]      1791/92; ed.: J.B. Burrow; Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1993