Categoria: contemporary socio-economic situation

more or less a normal thing ….

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

… and nevertheless something that cannot be accepted in any way: the financial crisis. A normal thing as it is

the escalation of the financial instabilities that are unavoidable in capitalist societies.

And nevertheless, these are excesses that need to be answered on the two levels: the search for immediate intervention, aiming on ways to avoid the entire burden falling on the shoulders of those who barely can cope with life with the “normal burdens” of daily life; and the search for long-term policies that require at the end a fundamental overcoming of the conditions that actually caused the crisis.

The Scientific Advisory Board of attac published a document with

Ten Arguments for Dealing with the European Financial Crisis.

the downloadable file is kindly hosted by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Occupy – Occupied … . Claiming the Future by Claiming Today’s Rights

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

The following are some notes I made in preparation of a presentation to the Occupy Cork Camp, which I addressed on Wednesday afternoon. 

 

Perhaps it would have been better to choose another title, saying that claiming the future is not least about claiming yesterday’s rights – and of course I can only make a few points, incomplete, in danger of being misunderstood and hopefully sufficient to spark some new aspects into the debate.

First a question, marking the point of departure and also important in more general terms as point of reference: Talking about occupation has usually something negative – and surely in reality it comes along as something negative. This negativity is about the loss of independence, the loss of self-determination. Such self-determination maybe something we claim as individuals or something we claim as social group or class.

“We”, if I may say so: from the people in the US, angry about the state and development behind the walls of the street, over a more or less organised movement in many EUropean countries and not least with the alter-mondialists of attac to again people like here in Cork are occupying public spaces, in actual fact occupying also the minds of many more people who are present. People in the streets, along some walls and not least behind walls and closed doors.

NB: university walls part of this system of catacombs, places to hide and claiming to be pushing towards paradise, people – at least some of them – playing an unfortunate role in this overall game of gaining power and security for a few.

Still, we easily forget one thing: actually, the occupants are the others, those are sitting in their secure places behind the walls which they can only occupy because and as long as we allow them doing so. And they are not just occupying their pools of money, greedy and egoistically diving every morning into it like Scrooge McDuck. – By the way, is it by accident that Scrooge is Scottish-American: Scottish in going back to the country where liberal economics finds its birthplace, American by showing that economy to live up to its excesses.

They are occupying power positions which they use to develop something that goes much further than what we usually understand as neoliberal strategy. In actual fact they develop an entire new capitalist system of accumulation, if you want: a new capitalism. This is not about conspiracy. Rather it is about the simple fact that they occupy with unimaginable amounts of capital not only industrial centres, not only bank and service centres but also and increasingly public positions of sovereignty. Police as private security services; the educational system as recruitment agencies; voluntary organisations as providers of public housing … – and not least the various governance instances, from public boards to voluntary organisations as assistants of the political system: the golden bars, sweetening the confinement.

Mind the following statement on labour relations, taken from the Introduction by Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to the Consultation on the Reform of the State’s Employment Rights and Industrial Relations Structures and Procedures. He is wants to

  • improve customer service, in light of the acknowledged complexity, backlogs and delays in the resolution of grievances and disputes;
  • provide greater value for taxpayers’ money, in light of current fiscal constraints;
  • rationalise institutions in light of the Government’s public service reform agenda

(1)

Brecht, looking at some stage back on fascism and the post-war developments once wrote that the womb from which fascism emerged had still been fertile, a dangerous ground for the further development of post-war Germany. Looking at the cutbacks, the austerity policy in the country (and in other countries too) we can say: this, the spirit of private responsibility and the way in which it goes hand in hand with occupation of public spaces by the ruling class is the fertile ground, the womb which bearing the new capitalism.

Much can and has to be said – and in my view one set of two points is of special importance, often neglected in these day’s debates: Neoliberalism, as said, I think it is a rather dangerous catchword, easily distracting from the fact that we are confronted with a rather differentiated system of intervention and reregulation. And also easily overlooking the fact that we are facing not simply the redistribution between the rich and the poor – instead it is about the distribution also within the two major classes. And with this the emergence of a specific new form of capitalism.

I think this – the new capitalism and the role Ireland plays in it and is ready to play in it – is more important than the ‘fact’ of IMF-intervention, the EU-memoranda and Stefan Gerlach, a Swedish-German, being since September Deputy Governor of the Irish Central Bank

Talking about globalisation all the time we have to accept that this is not about subordination in a simple way – rather it is about the differentiated world-system in which the different countries play different roles, and accept to play them in this way. Seen in this light, austerity policies are very much not least nationally based.

Second, in this sense the actual occupants are those behind the walls of the street(s) and also behind the walls of many academic institutions. Much of it may be willy-nilly, a matter, a matter of ‘structural forces’, and here we find surely also oral irresponsibility, the acceptance of the easy way. The point I want to emphasise is a different one however. What happens right in front of our eyes is a kind of refeudalisation. To be sure, although I used the term n academic publications, we have to be careful. History may be stupid. But it is not so stupid to repeat itself. Important is however that this is a suitable metaphor, capturing well two major developments:

* the occupation of the public sphere, the capturing of the sovereign private interests;

* the increasing de-economisation and de-marketisation.

The latter point is surely provocative – but not less sure is that we easily fall into traps when we use certain terms without further qualification. So it may be seen as provocation and as warning alike: a warning against the thesis of neoliberalism as straightforward concept. Neoliberalism is a catchword, easily used to explain everything and then at the end not explaining anything. The point is that we are facing increasingly a shift towards executing power that is based on the concentration and centralisation of material resources but not on economic processes in the strict sense. Slightly overstretching the argument, one may say tat capitalism has overcome itself – not primarily by the state bailing out the banks (though this is surely also a moment) but more by privately accumulated and centralised wealth, now violently occupying the roles genuinely attributed to the sovereign. It is not by chance that the term sovereign also had been attributed to the old English coin. However, then it had been a public currency, a means of socialising production and also power. Nowadays it is the establishment of the new sovereign: the completion of the capitalist individual will.

Third, coming to the other side then it is becoming a little bit tricky – it is easy to romanticise the good old times. Also, it is too easy to go with mechanisms that had been historically important and successful but that are now out-of-date. – I will return to this issue later. In any case, leaving all limitations aside, one of the relative progressive moments that capitalism claim to have established is rights-based approaches. As such this is by far not anything like perfect. On the contrary, all the rights-talk had been simply a reply on the total disrespect of even the most basic rights to live. This is true n the national levels and also in the intentional perspective. And as well, the then capitalist system itself instrumentally needed a rule of law: an accountable, predictable system of regulation, needed not least to ensure ‘smooth utilisation of capital’. Very much the discussion we find today again.

It is not least in this context that we have to be careful when it comes to pushes from governments like Germany and France, the move of the EU towards finance transfer taxation and we should not get too excited about some big bankers etc. who ask themselves now if Marx possibly had been right.

Fourth, going beyond the trinity the final point I want to make is about …, occupy. After we, ordinary people, had been occupied by capitalism and now pushed with the back against the wall, the occupants try to move even further, and turn to violence: squeezing in the name of an apparently sportive success – reached in Croke Park – additional hours of public servants, not to talk about all the rest of it. And this is why I referred to rights. As contestable as the much of the traditional social rights, as they are known in Europe, are have to be put n the agenda now, more than ever.

This is what we have to occupy – everyone in her or his position. In the position where we are occupied: as educators, as health service providers, as workers … For instance, forms of social economy should not be something at the margins but should be further developed as central moments of a democratically and sustainably developed economy. And we also have to occupy these spaces where we are not occupied. Sure, we have curricula at universities and at schools. And those who are employed there have to stick to them – at least in principle. But it is not less sure that the value of much of those principles is less than the paper on which they are written. The values of teaching are not defined by the formulas and number of rules. The real values are determined by how well they deal with reality – and realities are made by those who occupy positions.

I may return to Scrooge – and quote something that is surely not my favourite source – Wikipedia. There we read:

Scrooge has also opined that only in fairy tales do bad people turn good, and that he is old enough to not believe in fairy tales.

I just leave it there – only asking if we trust we are living in a fairy tale or in 2011-Ireland?

Ireland – Economy and Politics

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

Returning home yesterday on my two wheels I passed two roundabouts. …. – Ops, returning after about 6 month I see they are not roundabouts anymore, They are now back to ordinary junctions.

Surely a strange way of dealing with the fact that the Irish economy isn’t anymore spinning around as it did. Late recognition of the fact that we are at a junction, in need of a fundamental decision on where to go?

Surely an honest one – and not just for Ireland as we recently discussed in the Euromemorandum group.

ireland – austerity or not?

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

So, my “little presentation“, draft, incomplete and actually a more or less lengthy background paper but a suitable framework to discuss the question from above by saying: Yes, but it is much worse. And at the same time: We should not blame Europe where we have to blame capitalism and Irish capitalism.

Talking about austerity easily fails to acknowledge the fact that we are facing a most fundamental restructuration of capitalism, possibly a kind of new phase of what Marx called original accumulation.

A completed version will be elaborated and published later.

________________

PS: My special Thanks go to the University of Eastern Finland, personally to Juhani Laurinkari, who generously supported the research!

A Question …

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

… though it is probably not a deeply academic or philosophical one.

Reading the Economic and Financial Outlook, published with last year’s budget in Ireland I spot on page 24 the following sentence:

In the EU Commission’s assessment of the Programmes, a greater emphasis will be placed on fiscal policies for the following year(s) – in other words, there will be more ex ante analysis of budgetary plans as opposed to the ex post analysis that characterised the approach heretofore.

Now I am seriously wondering if we needed such a thorough global crisis and then further two to three years to arrive at such wisdom?

 

Old Problems

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

We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. … It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.

So far Mr. Abraham Lincoln, a sentence he wrote 1864 in a latter to William F. Elkins. I am afraid, god didn’t really help.

And I can’t help, there may be another point of interest: 1867 saw the publication of volume one of The Capital, written by Karl Marx – now accessible as volume 35 of the Selected works by Marx and Engels.


Joerg Huffschmid Award – press release – German only

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

Pressemitteilung
Attac Deutschland
Frankfurt am Main, 19. August 2011

* Preis in Gedenken an Jörg Huffschmid erstmals vergeben
* Arbeit über Steuergerechtigkeit in der Globalisierung ausgezeichnet

“Determinanten einer nachhaltigen Steuerpolitik im Kontext der
Globalisierung” ? so lautet der Titel der Dissertation, für die die
Politologin Nicola Liebert kürzlich den Jörg-Huffschmid-Preis erhalten
hat. Verliehen haben die Auszeichnung das globalisierungskritische
Netzwerk Attac und sein Wissenschaftlicher Beirat, die Arbeitsgruppe
Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik, die EuroMemo-Gruppe sowie die
Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung. Der Preis in Gedenken an Jörg Huffschmid wird
künftig alle zwei Jahre verliehen und ist mit 2000 Euro dotiert.

In ihrer Doktorarbeit geht Nicola Liebert der Frage nach, wie
Steuergerechtigkeit in einer globalisierten Wirtschaft geschaffen werden
kann. In seiner Laudatio betonte Elmar Altvater, Emeritus der Freien
Universität Berlin und im Wissenschaftlichen Beirat von Attac, die
Arbeit bilde auch deswegen einen wichtigen Beitrag, weil sie sich nicht
nur gründlich mit der Ausgaben-, sondern auch mit der Einnahmeseite des
Staates auseinandersetzt. Elmar Altvater: “Es ist ein Unding, dass
Parteien in der aktuellen Krise weiterhin Steuersenkungen fordern.
Verantwortliche Politik müsste zudem wieder verstärkt die
Vermögensbesitzer zur Finanzierung des Staates heranziehen.”

Ulrich Brand von der Universität Wien, Mitinitiator des Preises und
Mitglied der Jury, begründete die Einrichtung des Preises mit dem
wissenschaftlichen und gesellschaftspolitischen Engagement des im
Dezember 2009 gestorbenen Jörg Huffschmid. Dieser rief 1975 die
Arbeitsgruppe Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik mit ins Leben, die so
genannte Memorandum-Gruppe. 1995 gehörte er zu den Mitgründern der
Europäischen Memorandum-Gruppe und 2002 des Wissenschaftlichen Beirates
von Attac. “Jörg Huffschmid hat mit seinen Analysen der Finanzmärkte
ganz wesentlich zur analytischen Unterfütterung der
globalisierungskritischen Bewegung beigetragen”, sagte Ulrich Brand.

Für den Jörg-Huffschmid-Preis 2013 können erneut
Studienabschlussarbeiten (Magister-, Master und Diplomarbeiten) sowie
Dissertationen eingereicht werden, die thematisch im Bereich der
politischen Ökonomie der Finanzmärkte angesiedelt sind.

Die Dissertation von Nicola Liebert erscheint kommenden Monat im Verlag
Westfälisches Dampfboot unter dem Titel “Steuergerechtigkeit in der
Globalisierung: Wie die steuerpolitische Umverteilung von unten nach
oben gestoppt werden kann”.

Pressefotos (freie Verwendung bei Angabe der Quelle):

* Nicola Liebert:
(Fotohinweis: Nicola Liebert)

* Jury und Preisträgerin (3.v.l.):
(Fotohinweis: Stefan Thimmel)

Für Rückfragen:

* Ulrich Brand, Wissenschaftlicher Beirat von Attac, Tel.
ulrich.brand@univie.ac.at

* Nicola Liebert, Trägerin Jörg-Huffschmid-Preis, Tel. 0163 – 163 6127

* Stefan Thimmel, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, thimmel@rosalux.de, 030 –
44310 434

Excursus – Reality …. – or: World as Surreal Jigsaw

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

There may be good reason to think occasional writing – reference to Kant, Hegel … are bizarre, a kind of excursus, an excursion into another world of the unreal, surreal …

And there may be equally good reason to think that an occasionally look at the reality is about engaging with something surreal, something that is not real but an invention of thinking, a jigsaw of different pieces which are – and that would be the difference to a real jigsaw – randomly spread across an open field.

I frequently use the actual travel time: the time of actually moving from one place to another, hanging around on airports, being cramped into one of these tubes made from metal, wires, plastic … – the tube called aircraft and while standing at the belt, waiting for the luggage, occasionally for more or less extensive reading of different newspapers – I admit, sometimes it is just because they are there, offered for free. So censorship, own selectivity, availability simply replaced (or complemented) by chance. And I admit that especially the ‘random airport collection’ is occasionally very much a favoured one, especially as it is frequently the more ‘serious’ press that is offered to those who would easily have the money needed to buy them (or to those who paid ‘special money’ for their flight ticket). The ‘serious journalism’ not least of the business papers and the liberal press: liberal here more in the humanist sense rather than its perverted economic stunt.

And a short snapshot may be offered here, yesterday’s reading. The initial reason for writing this short ‘review’ is twofold. An article in Monday’s FAZ. Baerbel, with whom I had been sitting together in the train on the way from Freiburg to Karlsruhe – the first leg of the trip to Finland – gave it to me. An ‘analysis’ offered by Schirrmacher, titled ‘I begin believing that the left is correct’. Though the title raises the expectation to read something extraordinary, the article itself had been very much an ordinary piece about the apocalyptic mood of a bourgeois.

Than later read in the Handelsblatt, if you want: The real German Financial Times (The paper that had been established many years later as German offshoot of the original FT, which goes back to 1884

launched as the friends of the ‘Honest Financier and the Respectable Broker’, with Leopold Graham as editor

is a relative shallow brother) the news about the measures planned by Merkel and Sarkozy: ‘Core Europe hits back’, looking at the ‘anti-speculation campaign’ by the two heads of state, claiming to establish an instrument against short sales. ‘Short sales’…, sounds like ‘zero-‘ and ‘negative growth’.

The truth of zero-growth is probably that we are really facing a growth of nulls in politics and economy. Indeed, coming to the German Financial Times then, an article, criticise that there are so many Pettifoggers in the Higher Echelons, talking about the fact that Germany’s most important managers do not respect laws and contracts, ant think this is normal.

And we can read that

this is worrying: In place of a sense for justice and injustice which we would especially expect from top managers we find expertises to secure dubious practice which legal experts compose in any required dictum.

(The German term is Absicherungsgutachten).

So far so good – and we all – left and right know that we are facing a

Sick Society, to which the youth rampage in Great Britain left deep wounds

and

judges sentence the rioters in summary trial to prove the superiority of the legal system

(German Financial Times)

Ops, the sick society proves its strength literally: showing its ‘strength’, its ‘power’ by means of coercion? One has to say then that (I may add: fortunately)

The public is not impressed: The Critique of the British societal model is increasing.

How should the public be impressed? Some may even look for strength as long as the hegemonic power is able to stigmatise the youth as hooligans and looters.

But there is more at stake, getting obvious when one looks at UK plans to remove rioter’s benefits as we learn in the short note on page one of the Europe Edition of the Financial Times. As I frequently and on very different occasions pointed out: The new social state is lurking around the corner as state based on mercy and charity, any time possible subject to politicians decision to withdraw it. Again we find the search for protection, for securing measures and their legimitation by procedure rather than the legal right …

Who could deny though that some kind of regulation is needed? But does that justify such breach of principles that we thought off as fundamental and human rights?

Hans Zacher, emeritus in Munich, founder of the MPI (the one to which I am corresponding) and surely more at the conservative end of political spectrum, emphasises in his book on the Social State (which I consider as rather Kantian in its foundation) the close connection between the social and democracy, stating for instance

Therein lies another essential communality between democracy and the social. Democracy is a process. The social is a process. And both processes feed and drive each other forward.

He points as well on the appropriateness of the title of a book edited by Wolf-Dieter Narr and Claus Offe: Welfare State andMass Loyality (Cologne, 1975).

But David Marsh in the Handelsblatt has no problem in taking a broad brush in order to get rid of any Kantian notion of reason, rationality, discourse of rights, employing instead frank words: it is not about benefits for one and withholding them for others. He sees it as fact that it is

only the concentrated power that secures silence.

And back to the economy:

– also when it comes to the financial markets.

Good one may say: finally somebody who sees the need of taking control. It may well be that I am obsessed by this topic: the political, the economic and how it is separated from and merged with each other. And as much – and regrettably – both are frequently separated, here they are dangerously brought together: as if the protest by the young people, though not expressed as political protest, would be the same as the ‘protest by the bankers’, though also not expressed politically. In actual fact the self-aggrandisement of the top-managers is not really a moral abjection. It is the protest that is in some way parallel to the representatives of the heavy industry in the late 1920s/early 1930s: They are looking for expansion and for this they need political control – and this is what they are aiming at.

Could it really be financial capital that plays today the role formerly played by the heavy industry? At least it has to be noted that earlier analysis and statements, drawing on parallels between the 2008(ish) and end of 1920s-ish crisis have to be completed – and actually we may refer to an article in the weekend edition of the Sueddeutsche, where Ulrich Schadefer wrote

What an illusion – and what worrying parallel to today’s crisis, the second world economic crisis as it has to be called in the meantime.

What they mean is that the crisis lasted much longer as politicians admitted (in 1931 they called the crisis off, spoke of returning to growth and prosperity …) and that the crisis could by now means be seen as regionally limited.

If Merkel, Sarkozy and others would be willing and able to act against it (The article in the Handelsblatt states that politicians up to know helplessly watched at development but Nicolas Sarkozy and … Angela Merkel [want] to end this game that is ignoble) would doubtlessly be good.

But reading then the FT’s Europe edition one may loose hope.

Berlin and Paris rule out eurobonds

and what follows is the well-known squabble, concerned with their own – national and personal – princedom, not concerned with any ‘common good’ if such thing would exist at all.

****************

Finishing the Jigsaw?

The one ‘vision’ of finishing the jigsaw presents itself as total destruction: the power, creating total disorder in the name of order. One may honestly ask if the helpless reaction of a David Marsch* is not leveling the way for people like Anders Behring Breivik …

And one should ask why there is so much debate – in the Handelsblatt even a little special – on the financial market, the debt crisis and obviously related matters, but for instance only leaving a small note in the political section  in the political section on page 8 of the SZ for just briefly announcing that EON, the multinational trust, plans to lay-off 11,000 of 85,000 workforce. In the Handelsblatt it ‘scores better, being left to page 54. Admittedly the SZ has a long article on page 24 which deals more indirectly with the EON issue – but the way it is written suggests it as a distinct, somewhat distant topic.

And one may ask why there is so much talk about liberalisation, free entrepreneurship and these days the division of the German nation – until 1989 the FRG and GDR – and at the same time there is so little attention given to the fact that it had been liberalisation of the finance markets that are a major part of the crisis scenario, that free entrepreneurship led to such a power concentration that today even liberal politicians fail to keep it under control and that today the German society is deeply split by a social wall – I commented already earlier and elsewhere on this issue.

And one may consider the link between the surely in many cases helpless, desperate youth protests, the ‘protest’ by bankers, gamblers and the like, fighting tooth and nail against democratic control and the loss of hope of the middle class. An earlier edition of the Handelsblatt asks

Is it really the money? What is in many cases more important is something else: recognition. Some would say respect. What matters is the self-esteem that is rooted in the sense and certainty of being part, of being valued as human being. If somebody feels excluded of ignored does – in the worst case – not respect property of others or even respect of other people. It is also when we look at the decent of the middle classes where it is not just money, but fear of loosing the respect of society – a respect that is considered to be rightful.

Discussing middle class politics and policies is surely a matter in its own right, a wide and contradictory field. However, reeding in Saturday’s thejournal.ie about Italy austerity measures: Government ‘puts its hands into the pockets of Italian people‘ and learning that

The proposed cuts to such critical services as local transportation and welfare would have “a depressive … effect,” hurting most the underclasses and inhibiting the productive north of contributing to national GDP, Roberto Formigoni, the governor of the northern Lombardy state, told reporters

does not tell much new – and we find a similar article for instance in the German FT; but thinking at the same time about what Philipp Loepfe writes in today’s Tagesanzeiger (Switzerland), namely that Capitalism destroys itself, – a suicide based on the fact that middle classes, small entrepreneurs: the supposed core or the liberal market society is pushed to the margins by the multinational trusts … – and reading in the SZ the somewhat heartening story about a small entrepreneur of the former GDR, too old to continue the business, not finding a successor as all potential successors moved to the former West – the entrepreneur faces now the problem of not having sufficient private resources to retire …. Indeed, after The Underclass Had Been Left Behind (as Wolfgang Streeck titles in the Handelsblatt, writing about the youth protest in London, precarity moves more and more to the centre of society.

Looking at the US, all this plays not least into the hands of the political right, namely the demagogic tea-party.Ands it plays into the hands of some not less anti-growth attitudes. To avoid being misunderstood. I am the last who suggests uncritically following the mainstream growth policy – I made this occasionally clear when talking about Joseph Stiglitz and his reaction on my question during an UN-University-conference to years ago or so. But the Handelsblatt article on Tyler Cowen as ‘The Theorist of Stand Still’ shows how subtle the arguments can easily move into a dangerous direction of a new-new liberalism.

Easily celebrating ‘The Good Spirit of the Neighbourhood’ in the last article of a series in the German FT, looking at ‘Do-It-Yourself-Citizens’, going hand in hand with celebrating the ‘Entrepreneurs emerging from the Street’, and article in the same paper: it is about the new capitalists in the so-called countries of the developing world.

And it is indeed about what I had been working on over the last weeks: emphasising in Bonn during the Global Forum on Human Rights, as part of the presentation to the MPI and during discussions with colleagues: again and again criticising the holy trinity as today’s capitalist saviours suggest:

* pre-modern, feudal patronage, charity and self-help – pure individualism as talked about in the contribution with Claire

I* suppression and open violence as means of stabilising the interest of the minority – pure government; governance, dismantled from its embellishing rhetoric and wearing the veil of Corporate Social Responsibility

* globalisation of pure capitalism – the Emperor, like resurrection of a superpower to which we just said farewell.

****************

Today’s Trinity of father, son and holy spirit – Today’s form of securing profit, rent and wages, suggestively merged in the postmodern patchwork biography, based on and leading ‘democratically’ to precarity for everyone. – Sure, there had been even some of the top managers getting suicidal when facing the hard reality of having abused the trust of so many people, facing the reality of having been part of the machinery that destroyed the foundation of the existence of individuals as societies. They faced a kind of reality which recently presented itself to me in form of one of the great pieces of paining: Peter Paul Rubens The Large Great Judgment from 1617.

I started by saying that reference to Kant, Hegel … my be bizarre, a kind of excursus, an excursion into another world of the unreal, surreal … But in either world we surely have to search for criteria

that allow to identify what is just and what is unjust (iustum et inisutum).

         May be after all that the worlds are not so much apart as they seem at first glance.

****************

*******    *    ********

****************

* Marsch (sounds like Marsh) is the German term for march, walk

Human Rights – Law and Economy

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications

But I wouldn’t start from here … – Contribution to Theorising Human Rights

Indeed, it is easy to say what we frequently suggest as solution to some of the problems – the Irish way: “But I wouldn’t start from here!” And indeed, it seems to be a simple thing, just starting from somewhere else and going a smooth part, just forward. The one thing is, of course, that we frequently do not really have a choice: we are just thrown into something, 18th Brumaire: history as nightmare, made by us but under conditions we find, that out of reach for us. But for the sake of truth, don’t we have to admit that we don’t think much about from where we start – not taking account of the variety of options as conceptualised by way of a counter-reality by Musil in his  “Mann ohne Eigenshaften” (“The Man without Qualities”)?

Human Rights – Law and Economy

is the title I gave to a public lecture I had been invited to give in the series of lectures at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, a lecture which is part of my stay in Munich – generously supported by the MPI (and giving work-opportunities in the library that are tempting to stay there over night) – will present some of the tentative results of the on-going research. The aim is to see the connection between Human Rights (legislation) and economy not in terms of the need to strive for just distribution of the wealth of this planet. Rather, at the core of the work are conceptual considerations. Sure, it is correct to say Human Rights begin at the breakfast table, the need to avail of sufficient resources for everybody. But we should not forget that the greatest ‘injustice’ is a system that can claim justice on the formal level. Although this is an underlying topic of the current research – and the presentation – at its heart stands the question of different modes of production and the way in which this has repercussions in the reflection on human rights and vice versa: in which way human rights perspective may impact on developments of the mode of production.

On a very pragmatic and really trivial level, working here again for a while, one has to strive with the every day’s decision from where to start: the library, the desk work (including the need to do the homework, following from teaching in Finland, Hungary and Ireland) or with meeting colleagues for shoptalk or simply for gossiping.

Narrowing the Gap between the World’s Richest and Poorest

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

That had been the title of the workshop to which I contributed during the Global Media Forum, organised in June by the Deutsche Welle. In the meantime the recording is available from a site containing material from (nearly?) all workshops.

The workshop in question, organised by the attac-network, namely its German branch took place on Wednesday the 22nd. In my contribution (from about minute 24 – before Fabian Scheidler, kontext -tv, later then discussion) I emphasised the need to take up the challenge of addressing human rights issues not only and not even primarily as question of distribution. Breach of human rights is primarily an issue of the global mode of production and has to be addressed as such. This has also implications for the way in which we defined these rights.

Some of the questions are also addressed in a book which is currently with Rozenberg publishers where it is prepared for publication. Its title:

God, Rights, Law and a Good Society. Overcoming Religion and Moral as Social Policy Approach in a Godless and Amoral Society (title tbc)