Talking about Precarity …

23 settembre 2014 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, Peter's Log, social quality, works, projects, publications

Precarity: It is surely in important issue, even if nobody is really sure what it is. There are so many definitions: different in the orientation, different in the reasoning, different in the emphasis and weighing of some aspects and not least different in the exact “mapping” of a complex field, as there are people and groups talking about it.

This is not the most important, though the most secure conclusion from the two meetings over the last week: the one in Berlin, the other in Moscow.

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And in some way a side event seemed to mark the corner stone for the debate: a white swan and a black swan, fighting against each other, each of them flaunting and maintaining its own beauty and each of them hardly acknowledging the other – the question is the old one: to be or not to be. The answer is the old one too: there is only space for one or the other. In Swan Lake finally indeed the one only, and it is “the good” in the sense of the white swan, importantly overcoming deception.

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Talking about moral is then pointing into the direction that may explain to some extent the underlying problemtique hindering some more radical take on the issue: moral, at least in the post-enlightenment thinking, is “structurally individualist”. After humankind took responsibility from the shoulders of gods, accepting humans’ own responsibility, the problem of definition remained in the vein of a reductionist understanding: not the one god but the one person had to decide. Being seemingly general, social,in fact moral had been welded to the idea of individuals’ ratio, decisively expressed in Kant’s definition of the categorical imperative, and formulated much further in the exploration of law. In his Metaphysics we read in the Introduction into the Doctrine of Right:

Inbegriff der Bedingungen, unter denen die Willkür des einen mit der Willkür des anderen bei einem allgemeinen Gesetz der Freiheit vereinigt werden kann.[1]

And we also read:

Man nennt die bloße Übereinstimmung oder Nichtübereinstimmung einer Handlung mit dem Gesetze ohne Rücksicht auf die Triebfeder derselben die Legalität (Gesetzmäßigkeit), diejenige aber, in welcher die Idee der Pflicht aus dem Gesetze zugleich die Triebfeder der Handlung ist, die Moralität (Sittlichkeit) derselben.[2]

All these systems are in actual fact “just” and “legitimate” at least in their own terms, not least as they defined themselves the criteria on the basis of which they allow to be assessed. Here is in my view as well the source for both, the fundamental difficulty of social science to detect the mechanisms behind the processes of valuation and the lack of piety when it comes to “living” certain values. I explored this in a different context, writing

Usual approaches to social policy are characterised by taking some kind of problem as given – so the original idea had been to talk about precarity and poverty. Of course, we can well take at least poverty as a problem and social policy challenge – with precarity it looks a little bit different as it is seemingly a new issue and as such actually not yet defined as policy issue. In any case, there is the danger that we simply replicate structures without considering the underlying societal structures and patterns – this means not least replication without understanding what the actual problem is. In other words, in many cases “looking at the seemingly obvious” means looking for policies of system maintenance.[3]

And one neglected, though hugely important fact is the fundamental continuity and change of the role of the individual – here in particular of interest in the more recent history, namely the two last stages confronted with the question of rightfulness and legitimacy. We can follow Franz Borkenau who highlights the important role played by the individual during the Renaissance and also later in capitalism. It is not that the one era had been more individualist than the other. Important is that

[e]goism of the isolated individual is fundamental for Renaissance AND Reformation. The first sees it in the context of harmonious beauty; not because the life of the time and social stratum had been filled by such beauty – on the contrary –, but because it strives towards a life as landowning money-lenders, following the ideal a balanced aestheticism, standing against the life of ordinary people. Calvinists are nothing else than egoistic individuals, but THEY are, consciously against the ideal or the Renaissance, a life of irrational effort. The financial bourgeoisie profits from this degradation of feudalism; therefore it has to idealise this world.[4]

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Coming back to the question of precarity, we can say that a more fundamental and radical understanding can be elaborated if we forget for a moment precarity as point of departure, at least precarity as matter of changing patterns of employment and subsequent patterns of life and living, social structuration and etc.

Let us first ask in what society we are living in. And in order to do that, let us now continue by going another detour, and look at the previous large-scale transformation of society: the overcoming feudalism, and the emergence of capitalism.[5] By and large we can say that feudalism had been characterised by

oppression and
personal dependence (patronage, clientelism …).

On the other hand, capitalism – or we may better speak of the bourgeois-citizens formation – had been characterised by the claims of

freedom of citizens (citoyen & bourgeois) and
regulation (the contractual systems determining the relations between rational individuals).

Both, feudalism and capitalism had been “systems”, i.e. complex relational entities. And they had been social entities,

understood as interaction between people and their constructed and natural environment. Its subject matter refers to people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships.[6]

More in terms of political economy as social science this is not least concerned with defining the relationship between production, consumption, distribution and exchange.[7]

Looking now at capitalism – fundamentally defined by wage labour as norm(ality) – we can see up to recently, i.e. when looking at “developed capitalism”, the following characteristics:

mass production
mass consumption
nation state
colonialism and imperialism as two complementing “external relationships”
system competition
formal democracy
family

All these, in there interplay, merge to the overall alienation – the famous expression, 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[8] –

gains a meaning that goes much beyond the sphere of the process of work, also characterising the political sphere, underlying consumerism, coining parts of private life etc.

However, looking at the current era, the 7 factors mentioned as characterising the capitalist system changed in one way or another – and in some more or less fundamental way – only short remarks have to do suffice.[9]

1) Mass Production

At least we have to see that mass production changed its face by continuing on a level that changed in two respects: one point in question is the degree of rationalisation and automatisation that characterises many areas (notwithstanding the fact that simple repetitive work is still undertaken as manual labour); another point is about the “variability of products” – though being produced as mass products, we find in many areas possibilities that within this framework the production can answer “individual wants” of customers.

2) Mass Consumption

Here we face the manifest contradiction between consumerism on the one hand and the increasing individualised consumer emerging from here. Though being manifest, the individualisation undermines the conscious tackling of the contradiction. – Looking at mass production and mass consumption together, one of the paradoxes is the fact that the chain between consumer/customer and product is lengthened to an extent that it escapes completely control (evidenced for instance by the length of transport; the virtualisation of ordering, production, and even consumption …) but with this the direct control is also increasing (evidenced for instance by the access of customers being able to individually “assemble” their products by defining the specification when buying a computer).

3) Nation State

The nation state, without loosing it’s meaning, is at least torn between two forms of “regionalisation”. Taking the EU as example, we see on the one hand the aggregation of national powers and on the other hand movements of reclaiming power of sub-national regions (Scotland, Basque Country etc.). It is an ongoing question where this leaves the nation state. Equally important is the question which role the state actually has in the overall political processes and in the tensional field between the firm constitutional settings of the “state of law” (with its meaning for citizen’s rights but also with the right of the state as sovereign over citizens, territory and the social processes[10]) and private instances taking over sovereign functions. Not least, the systems of ”social support” and welfare provisions are hugely undermined in their traditional functioning.

4) Colonialism and Imperialism as two Complementing “External Relationships”

Though imperialism does in many respects regain force, it takes at the same time new forms, not least as the “one empire” does not exist anymore – and it does not yet exist.[11]

5) System Competition

The “blocks” – be it as contest of socialism and capitalism, be it as “developing” and “developed” countries – do not exist anymore as matters of a simple confrontation.

6) Formal Democracy

Though there is no clear line, moreover as little as concepts are clearly defined, we find from different angles claims into directions that are increasingly contesting the monopoly of formal democracy: catchwords as governance, direct democracy, area-related democracy (be it local, be it concerned with specific fields or issues: in the workplace, environmental democracy …) etc. . Important is also that the acceptance of such claims is more and more general, the alternative emerging as mainstream.

7) Family

Notwithstanding the ongoing meaning of “family” there are different moments pointing into the direction of dissolutions: this may be indicated by the increasing number of singles, lone parents, different forms of cohabitation; and this can also be indicated by “family” as stable relationship of a couple (with or without children) taking different forms (in the extreme the commuting marriage, i.e. partners living in different continents and seeing in regular intervals in different places). Again, this has huge implications for the systems of welfare and social support.

Taking all this together, means that we find a different relationing of production, consumption, distribution and exchange. The emphasis of financialisation as major characteristic of current capitalism falls short of capturing the change in a holistic way: we have to consider both, the mode of production and the increasing meaning of consumption and exchange, developing some dominance over production and distribution; and in addition we have to develop an understanding of the interplay between them.

Also alienation takes a new form: the known pattern of the worker feeling

at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home,[12]

is now replaced by the market citizen who feels at home when he left the dwelling and being settled in the dwelling, does not feel at home.

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One of the decisive overall results of the process has to be seen in the fact of a ne accumulation regime that is surely still based in production; however, it is at the very same time increasingly “annexed” as profitability is further detached from the production of use value. As much as it had been always the case that capitalism prioritised exchange value, use value only being a necessary though not sufficient condition as much we face now a shift characterised by use value itself now being changed: many commodities are themselves increasingly “intermediaries”.

Another decisive moment can be seen in the fact of an increasing meaning of consumption as mechanism of socialisation (thought the opposite is equally true). For allowing an understanding we may first refer to the fact that classically the realisation of “value” is only happening ex ante, on the market: a product (commodity) has to be sold and only then the invested labour is acknowledged. It requires the sale of the result of labour that acknowledges the value, i.e. the socially defined useful labour.[13] But here exchange of commodities, the determination of “value” (i.e. the value of the invested work) and use value (as matter of consumption) are immediately interwoven. Looking at the current era we find a shift where this chain cannot be taken for granted as hegemonic pattern. The (surely questionable) supply-demand relationship as mechanism of “determining value” is now in some way turned around: demand is defining and determining in some way demand;[14] and production is also increasingly defining and determining production.[15]

This will not be further explored. Still one important issue has to be raised – at least as outline for further questioning the society in which we are (going to) live. As a general outline of historical development we may refer to the following stages

equality and subordination under nature
power and exclusion in slave societies
privilege
property
sovereignty[16]

By and large this is at this stage an open field, allowing development into different directions. But as much as economic processes are defined by political decisions and struggles between different social interests, the opportunity for a fundamental change, going beyond the borders of an accumulation regime founded in commodity production in the strict sense.

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Not yet a week passed by, standing at the Paul’s Cathedral in Frankfurt/M., discussing labour market issues, green growth and regional labour market monitoring the question is of course obvious: Are we facing a new “Westphalian Peace”, different forms of nation states emerging as it happened in Muenster and Osnabrueck in 1648; is the current situation simply about a new structure of political governance of a small elite as the citoyens that gathered in 1849 as first publicly and freely-elected German legislative institution, backing the final breakthrough of capitalism; or is there an opportunity to make people’s sovereignty in a fundamental sense possible, allowing everybody as social being to control the conditions of production and reproduction of everyday’s life?
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May be the deliberations during the EUROMEMO-workshop, starting on Thursday in Rome, could shed some more light on relevant issues, overcoming the call for a radical change of economic processes in favour of a radical change of the economy.

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[1] Epitome of the conditions, under which one’s arbitrariness can be united in a general law of freedom with the arbitrariness of somebody else.

[2] The pure compliance or non-compliance between an act and the law, without considering its incitement, is called legality (Legalitaet [Gesetzmaessigkeit]); but that, where the idea of the obligation of the law is also the incitement of the act, is called its morality (Sittlichkeit).

[3] Herrmann, Peter, 2014: Social Policy – Production rather than Distribution; Bremen/Oxford: EHV

[4] Borkenau, Franz, 1932: Der Uebergang von Feudalen zum buegerlichen Weltbild. Studien zur Geschichte der Philosophie der Manufakturperiode; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1971: 160

[5] This implies that we are currently witnessing a fundamental shift, a revolutionary development – if we can and have to speak of overcoming capitalism is difficult to say – perhaps the difficulty is here that the terms capitalism and socialism are somewhat misleading (I am well aware of the fact that this is a statement that can easily be misinterpreted).

[6] 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: Palgrave Macmillan: 250-274, here: 260

[7] see the elaboration in Marx, Karl, 1857: Outline of the Critique of Political Economy (Grundrisse) There we read (passim)

(1) Immediate identity: Production is consumption, consumption is production. Consumptive production. Productive consumption. …

(2) [In the sense] that one appears as a means for the other, is mediated by the other: this is expressed as their mutual dependence; a movement which relates them to one another, makes them appear indispensable to one another, but still leaves them external to each other. …

(3) … also, each of them, apart from being immediately the other, and apart from mediating the other, in addition to this creates the other in completing itself, and creates itself as the other. Consumption accomplishes the act of production only in completing the product as product by dissolving it, by consuming its independently material form, by raising the inclination developed in the first act of production, through the need for repetition, to its finished form; it is thus not only the concluding act in which the product becomes product, but also that in which the producer becomes producer. On the other side, production produces consumption by creating the specific manner of consumption; and, further, by creating the stimulus of consumption, the ability to consume, as a need.

[8] Marx, Karl, 1844: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts

[9] This can be contested. However, any contestation should consider two points: (i) looking at the persistence and renaissance of some principles and processes (some trends to very conservative family interpretations among young people, the emphasis of claiming formal democracy, indeed the mass consumption in form of consumerism etc.) is probably not least a confirmation of the thesis of their dissolution, motivating people to look for alleged securities of “known” patterns; (ii) the suggested changes are not least understood as trends of which the coming into practice cannot be anything else than a matter of contradictory processes.

[10] This is about politics and policies of social order and also the control of the national economy as “ideal total capitalist”.

[11] Further discussion is needed of the proposal by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000): Empire; Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press

[12] Marx, Karl, 1844: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts

[13] See Marx’ presentation n the first chapter of the first volume of Capital.

[14] for instance the demand of “cheap services” increases the demand of additional services – low fare flights increasing the transport from and to airports, in general and to airports that are distant from well connected centres

[15] for instance the “interplay” between chip production and software production in the IT-industry

[16] In part with reference to a letter written by Polanyi to Robert Schlesinger, quoted in Polanyi-Levitt, 2006: Tracing Karl Polanyi’s Institutional Political Economy to its Central European Source; in: Polanyi-Levitt, Kari/McRobbie, Kenneth [eds.]: Karl Polanyi in Vienna: The Contemporary Significance of The Great Transformation; Montreal et altera: Black Rose Books: 378-391: here: 381; see also already: Herrmann, Peter, forthcoming: Justice as a Question of Politics – Justice as a Question of Economics; in: Laurinkari, Juhani/Tarvainen, Merja (eds.): N.N.

Europe – Yesterday we stood at the abyss

11 settembre 2014 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, works, projects, publications

but now we are moving forward.

Europe is coming to an end …

… at least with the ideas of the new President of the Commisszion.

Now, the summer break is surely ended by now and it is time to look at the awaking world. By now the president of the European Commission is in office. But when looking back, seeing his statement to the European Parliament, then still being candidate for President of the Commission and listening to it is both discouraging. A somewhat boring statement, showing only in few passages some colour, meaning engagement – but this had been not least on occasions where a clear analytical perspective would have been most needed.

Though late, a brief statement on the statement may still be appropriate:

It is amazing in which way, to which extent such candidate, talking to the parliament, i.e. to (the representatives of) the people, can approach burning questions, not least the loss of legitimacy, can argue highly reflexive. Reflexive here is just a nice way, avoiding the use of the term inward looking. Even if he rightly addresses the question of legitimacy (and the lack of it), and in particular the role of the parliament, but also the character of the Commission etc., he overlooked that all this: the institutions and the relationship between them is only about “instruments” to pursue the will of the people or the general will. At least it should be so.

The will of the people or the general will are then in some way addressed later. Leaving the show-off effect out of consideration (Oui, M. Junker, qui est une grande performance: auch ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch, ma la questione è uno dei contenuti; en dit is niet een kwestie van lippendienst, sinó d’abordar realment les qüestions pertinents – sure, limited correctedness and I ask the native speaeker for apologies), it is interesting to see the change to the German language at exactly that point, and even saying it is about changing to the language of the champion. Primus inter pares? Or what is a champion in a Europe of equals.

It is then somewhat worrying – though not surprising – that all this is exactly about those issues as the “Olympic team” (this alludes to the term that had been used a more or less ling time ago when in Germany employability had been closely inked to exactly this point: the orientation on employees as “teams, ready to take part in Olympic games” (“olympiareife Mannschaften”).

Yes, there are without any doubt some valuable points mentioned – the importance of welfare policies that are guaranteeing some minimum standards …

But the overall gist remains sad and saddening. Einstein once stated

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

In clearer language: it is foolish to address the problems we have by making what caused them to instruments to overcome them. However, looking from a point of true political economy at Juncker’s proposals they are just such instruments of foolishness: growth, growth, growth — the outline given for justifying that it will be green viz. sustainable growth, is highly questionable. It had been the orientation on growth as development that sees other than GDP-development only as adjunct, as quasi-automatic, subsequent moves. Growth, even if green, will not stop its destructive force if it is seen as structurally disjoined from sound societal policies.

By the way, Mr Juncker, this had been a major problem standing for a long time always at all those laudable attempts: from Adam Smith’s Moral Sentiments (written before he thought about the Wealth of the Nations) to the surely honest (though in many respect naïve) debates in the circle around Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm, Alexander Rüstow und Wilhelm Röpke etc. (yes, Erhard and Mueller-Armack had been somewhat populist followers of much greater thinkers).

I am not sure if I succeeded, but at least I tried on different occasions to point out that we need an integrated approach, recently for instance in the opening speech, addressing the conference Justice and Solidarity: The European Utopia in a Globalising Era (organised by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts & University of Eastern Finland, in Kuopio – 2./3. September)) and also in a contribution on the “Vatican Spring”, which will soon be published in a book titled “El Papa – ¿Cuántas divisiones tiene?”Sondeo global del catolicismo mundial según el “World Values Survey” y el “European Social Survey” [(Ed. Arno Tausch); The Centro Argentino de Estudios Internacionales, CAEI, Buenos Aires, Study on Global Roman Catholicism].

There is also something that had been discussed recently in Lindau – on the occasion of a meeting of laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (the so-called Nobel Prize for Economics) – there attac (Association pour la taxation des transactions financières et pour l’action citoyenne) organised a symposium, urging for a move to a different approach. But even some of the laureates had not been too happy with how things work in the growth economy, being especially critical about the austerity policy. James Mirrleess contended that the German chancellor has the wrong advisors. So, yes, may the future president of the Commission then join them.

Well, then to a metaphor that is really pointing on the dramatic dimension of the current situation: the “29^th member state”. Yes, there is a major problem: what we discussed (we, i.e. in the political debates in the institutionalised Europe) in the 1970s ff. as poverty and social inclusion reached a level and even more so a quality that deserves some more reflection. And the metaphor of a 29th member state is usefully highlighting the dramatic character. But there remains a … but …

I am not switching to Greek, Irish, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish language, the language of “the losers”. And even if it is indeed laudable that Greece had been rescued, as pointed out in the statement, it had not been really about repairing a plane while in the air. It had been more about crashing the plane, then collecting the valuable parts from the ground while leaving the corpses there, may be giving them a friendly blessing.

The fundamental question is if we should simply look for ways to “enlarge” the Union by including this “29^th member state”, or if we have to look more closely into building a new Union – one which does not allow for such exclusion at first instance.

These will also be issues that will be discussed on the 17^th ff. of September in Moscow (http://www.vcug.ru/conference/conference_eng/) (see also the debate in the recent publication: Herrmann, Peter/Bobkov, Viacheslav/Csoba, Judit: Labour Market and Precarity of Employment: Theoretical Reflections and Empirical Data from Hungary and Russia; Vienna: WVFS; 2014.

It may be worthwhile to look at the end of these brief reflections at a short contribution of the Social Platform, European NGOs gathered to lobby the European institutions, being quite optimist, contending the tension:

I can already hear some of you saying “that does not answer the immediate challenges” or “this is not what the President Elect of the Commission put on the table in July”. And I would say “actually its does”

In the following we read then

The social shield we are calling for includes The President Elect’s proposal to “put in place a minimum wage, and a guaranteed minimum income.” But it brings much more into debate with the financing of social services and the availability of unemployment benefits. The access to quality services we promote could be challenged by the negotiations on the transatlantic trade agreement (TTIP) that the new commission will finalise. The directive blocked by the EU countries to remove discrimination in access to service is another instrument to reach our broader objective. There are bigger challenges in the EU that need broader instruments.

But at the end, al these points are still very much about rebuilding the existing state, actually enforcing it by providing a shield, however forgetting that it is about the need of a real vision, and such real vision has to be one that is seriously taking up the challenge of a fundamental change. In other words:

Looking at the bigger picture will help us with a new EU route

is one way of seeing it.

The other is about the old questions we know from Alice and the Cat.

‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where–’ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘–so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’

In other words: there is the danger of looking for better ways of dealing with the existing faulty systems instead of looking for better systems. May be the cat was right:

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Living on the Margins

19 Maggio 2014 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, Peter's Log, social quality, works, projects, publications

Acknowledgements [1]

Kant is frequently coming to my mind these last day’s – one reason may be that Birgit mentioned him; to be honest she talked about her appreciation of the well-known categorical imperative, as he stated in the second half of the 18^th century

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

But there had been another reason for thinking about him, namely changing the train: the change from going high speed, non-stop from Roma to Milano, and then going on with the regional train to Pavia.

After arriving there, I receive an SMS from Lorenzo:

Welcome in padania

And for a philosopher, trained in the spirit of Western (which means very much German) philosophy there is only a small step from Pandania to Kant. Isn’t the “umbrella story” nearly as famous as the categorical imperative? The story of a philosopher of whom Heinrich Heine wrote:

The history of Immanuel Kant’s life is difficult to portray, for he had neither life nor history. He led a mechanically ordered, almost abstract bachelor existence in a quiet, remote little street in Königsberg, an old town on the northeastern border of Germany. I do not believe that the great clock of the cathedral there performed more dispassionately and methodically its outward routine of the day than did its fellow countryman Immanuel Kant. Getting up in the morning, drinking coffee, writing, giving lectures, eating, walking, everything had its appointed time, and the neighbors knew for certain that it was half-past three when Immanuel Kant, in his gray frock-coat, his Spanish cane in his hand, stepped out of his house and strolled to the little linden avenue called after him to this day the “Philosopher’s Path.” Eight times he walked up and down it, in every season of the year, and when the sky was overcast, or gray clouds announced a rain coming, old Lampe, his servant, was seen walking anxiously behind him with a big umbrella under his arm, like an image of Providence.[2]

I suppose there is a very close link between Kant’s very specific modesty and his imperative.

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And in one way or another this had been the topic of the workshop on the 15^th and 16^th of May in Pavia, organised by the Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori, Pavia, as part of the Laboratorio EXPO+EXPO Milano 2015 in collaboration with the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – I already mentioned it earlier.

One general theme had been the search for responsibility. And of course this means today – and in the context of discussing sustainability (which is one of the focus points of the 2015-EXPO in Milano).

I am not entirely sure, but at least it looks as if I am accommodated these days in an old monastery. Pavia, at least if one comes from Rome, has indeed something of a sleepy little town. We frequently take this as being something negative, but I mean it here very much in a positive sense: People seem to be “in place”. Sure, this is also something, I frequently experience at home, but there it is more something that is located outside of real life: outside of the hassle and bustle of hectic daily life that is concerned with securing …, well, what is it actually securing?

One point, I found especially important during these last days had been the following: Frequently and actually increasingly we speak of responsibility and agency in a seemingly neutral way. We may reach from Kant who has the rational individual in mind – still as if there would be one and only one “unbound” rationality – to Smith who established at least the foundation for thinking in a very restricted way of the homo oeconomicus, leaving the Moral Sentiments outside, a kind of adjunct feature of wishful thinking, characterised in Chapter I of Part IV of the book by the words:

The produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining. The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.

Sure, the chain of persons – philosophers, economists, lawyers and sociologists and others – could be continued. However, having said

leaving the moral sentiments outside, a kind of adjunct feature of wishful thinking

is not quite right and needs at least some qualification. “Wishfulness” in the given sense is about attempting to define appropriateness.

In this way, I am actually not too convinced if Heine had been right, speaking of Kant’s ideas as most revolutionary, radical, as he worded it: “world-crushing thoughts”. Actually, his thought had been very conservative, a matter of conserving the frontiers, encapsulating the world as it is. His categorical imperative had been finally depending on limited scope:

the accountable process – which then indeed had been translated into procedures
the elimination of content/substance
the limited, i.e. accountable space of action

Seen in this light we have to emphasise that the imperative is actually not an innate universal law as long as we cannot fill the formula substantially – broadly speaking it had been the expression of the appropriation of the now stabilised odern nation state by the citoyens. In other words: affirmation of power in space and time.

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As valid as the point Niklas Luhmann made by pointing out the importance of Legimitation by Procedure is, he did not recognise the actually important difference between procedure and process. Sure, both have much in common at first sight; but finally processes are much more, are full of contradictions and connotations which cannot be overcome by simple reference to forms, be they understood as structure or as process.

Mauro van Aken stated in an article that had been also presented during the conference, dealing with Local Management of Common Resources:

Appropriating water, by means of various techniques and solidarity networks, is unavoidable for many farmers facing plant stress or patterns of distribution not adapted to local needs (on the contrary, they are often adapted according to water bureaucracy needs). Taking water out of turn constitutes in fact a ‘savoir-faire’, a set of incorporated practices that become more complex the greater technical complexity and lack of transparency of the distribution system. At the same time, it constitutes a way of making water a public sphere, more closely related to social relations and farming needs. The processes of local participation and institutional restyling according to the new developmental idiom are deeply linked to economic liberalization and neoliberal paradigms imported into the Middle East.[3]

With this we come easily to the in practice difficult to tackle point:

The point of reference for determining substance is people’s production and reproduction of everyday’s life. In this light we are dealing with ‘social production’ as production which is (i) a social process (acting together) but also (ii) a matter of producing relations (between people and between people and the natural environment)
Furthermore the point of reference is demarcation – as matter of appropriation; this is concerned with defining the means that are appropriate to the goal of production and the need and available means of production
Also of relevance is the determination of power structures – in the light of the before mentioned demarcation
Finally – but not least – we are confronted with the issue of resilience as matter of securing congruence.

We find this argument already outlined in the reflections on the Critique of Instrumental Reason, written by Max Horkheimer in 1947. He refers to a «new thinking» as subjectivist reason and writes:

In the subjectivist view, when «reason» is used to connote a thing or an idea rather than an act, it refers exclusively to the relation of such an object or concept itself. It means that the thing or the idea is good for something else. There is no reasonable aim as such, and to discuss the superiority of one aim over another in terms of reason becomes meaningless. From the subjective approach, such a discussion is possible only if both aims serve a third and higher one, that is, if they are means, not ends.

It is a multiple issue – requiring looking at economic issues, not least the question of inequality – be it in the commonly discussed understanding but also in terms of “environmental democracy”[4]; the mechanisms of “social support”, revisiting the typology provided by T.H. Marshall[5]; also the questions of rights and legality gain new momentum; and we may also look at mental health – latest since Durkheim’s work on Anomy, the other on Suicide we know that these are specifically relevant also in the context of causing mental illness as matter of power imbalances – sure, it comes not least to my mind as I wrote briefly about it, replying to a mail in which Joanne, a student from a couple of years back, asked for some general points on mental illness – so here the answer then:[6]

… if we look seriously at the “construction” of mental (ill-)health in daily life, we are actually dealing innately with soci(et)al power. And then you may of course come back to what we most likely (even for me teaching is somewhat repeating myself every year, though not literally) talked about: the twofold character of power (being able to, pouvoir, potere, machen) and control (as matter of violence, oppression etc.). On the other hand – and closely linked – the question of appropriation as matter of acquiring property and control over something (or somebody) and the appropriateness as matter of being appropriate, suitable for the subject, person, constellation in which we act.

If you put this into a matrix, you see where (abuse of) power is “causing” madness. Those points where you find massive fractures …. – of course, this is not least also a matter of degrees. Finally we are all somewhat mad: using power that we do not have, doing things we are not completely able to do etc.. I think there is nothing wrong with it – and we may even see here a germ of innovation etc. Though not being too agreeable on Bell in general, there is some validity in the point when he writes:

And even madness, in the writing of such social theorists as Michel Foucault and R.D. Laing, is now conceived to be a superior form of truth.[7]

And as much as I yalked here about mental (ill-)health, it is actually much more and more general: the issue of socio-environmental sustainability or as I wrote in the beginning: of “being in place”.

****

Pavia – Padania – it all comes back again to the point: Think Global, Act Local. Or the paradox may actually by that if we really think local, we may arrive at being able to act finally global.

Economically it is the simple thing that is so difficult to set into place: establishing the congruence of producing use value and exchange value. At the end, at least demarcation should be mentioned again: competition, in particular competition in the global economy, but also more in general: as “competitive lifestyle” and “lifestyle of competitiveness” is actually one factor causing and expressing this shift from being guided by use-values to being guided by exchange values. The first is surely – as well – a matter of subsistence-sustainability based lifestyles where lifestyles are understood as matter of accumulation systems, entailing as such specific patterns of consumption.

______

[1] My special thanks go to the team of IUSS, in particular to Enrica, Enrica and Nadia. I also want to thank the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli for making my participation in the workshop possible. I am especially grateful to Nadia for the interesting conversation the day after the workshop.

[2] Copied from http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/921_footsteps_soc_plato.html

[3] Participating in Agribusiness: Contested Meanings of Rurality and Water in Jordan; in: Agrarian Transformation in the Arab World: Persistent and Emerging Challenges, H. Ayeb, R. Saad eds, Cairo Papers, 2014 Vol. 32. No. 2, The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo

[4] see my presentation, to be delivered in June in Hangzhou, PRC.

[5] see Marshall, Tom H., 1950: Citizenship and Social Class; in: Citizenship and Social Class; Marshall, Tom H./Tom Bottomore; London et altera: Pluto Press1992

[6] She thought as editor of a relevant book I could give her some advise – I edited the book Mental Health and Risk (New York: Nova Science 2006) together with Lydia Sapouna.

[7] Bell, Daniel, 1976: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism; New York: Basic : 34:

I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then

6 Maggio 2014 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, works, projects, publications

I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.

And knowing that they come from the beautiful book ‘Alice in Wonderland’ we may feel tempted to recommend Lewis Carroll’s book as reading for Joseph Stiglitz.

Sure, there is always some temptation to go to events like the one today at LUISS Università Guido Carli, listening to Joseph Stiglitz looking at the question

Can the Euro Be Saved? An Analysis of the Future of the Currency Union.

Part of the temptation may actually sometimes be simply seeing economics another time as questionable subject and as such not so much an academic discipline (sure, fouling the own nest – but there had been more outstanding economists that did so, thus I am only doing the usual thing: standing on the shoulders of giants, though I am not sure how much further I can see).

Be it as it is, my first irritation came right at the beginning of Joseph’s presentation, hearing about recession and subsequently recovery. The terms had been used in connection with the locating European economies in respect of their development.

It is an often-discussed point and an extremely tricky question – recession and depression had been mentioned in the presentation. And indeed it is somewhat funny then to hear that during the time Joseph Stiglitz worked for the World Bank the term depression had been admonished – it would sound so negative, and have such bad effects especially at times where people are already depressed. Still, the question remains if talking about a recession is not as misleading as the reference to depression. Isn’t it much more precise and honest to say what all this is about:

A crisis – and indeed a structural crisis.

And it is not a structural crisis just of the Euro. In fact we are confronted with a crisis of the fundamentals of the capitalist economy. Actually I talked with Marco today in the morning exactly about this question – and we should accept that it is a question and any claim to give an unequivocal answer is pretentious. Before shortly looking at this, there is at least the following that Joseph valuably emphasised: austerity policy is causing huge problems for a majority of the people, not contributing to solve economic problems but evoking a major social downgrading for many.

There are at least the following perspectives waiting for some thorough reflection. One can be seen as capitalism returning to its pure form. There is surely some truth saying that in one way or another, capitalism as it emerged and became known as Manchester Capitalism had been tamed: social and welfare state being one aspect, general working conditions and some forms of respect of workers (also political) rights have to be mentioned. So one way of looking at the current crisis and the harsh ‘restructuration’ may be interpreted in this way: we are returning to pure capitalism.

Another perspective, however, is to see the structural change in connection with some fundamental shifts caused by the development of the means of production. We may then suggest that we are witnessing the emergence of a new mode of production – it is not (necessarily) about capitalism or not-capitalism. It is just about recognising a more fundamental shift that is not directed towards establishing a status-quo-ante. Instead, it is about the emergence of a new system that goes ‘beyond’ the current system.

The social consequences then – not least visible in the development of precarity – would then be somewhat comparable with the development that went hand in hand with the emergence of capitalism. The machinery – i.e. progress – showed devastating consequences for example for the weavers who lost their work. At the same time, the new inventions allowed also progress by way of developing new ways of work and working conditions – objectively surely progressive at the time.

Coming back to the presentation then, there had been two striking points:

* Stiglitz did not engage in any of those questions that had been raised in the 2009-report ‘The Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress’ (see my own comments specifically on this report from a Social Quality Perspective in the article Economic Performance, Social Progress and Social Quality [International Journal of Social Quality 2(1), Summer 2012: 43–57 © Zhejiang University, European Foundation on Social Quality and Berghahn Journals 2012 doi:10.3167/IJSQ.2011.010204]).

* This means at the same time that he oriented very much on a traditional perspective: economic recovery, seen as matter of industrial policy.

Actually I would agree with the need of recovery, but only under strict observation of the following qualification:

It has to be a matter of ‘covery’, meaning a policy that is fundamentally oriented on covering the entirety of economic and social challenges in an integrated way and also covering on a global level the entirety of the population – surely something on which we can easily find agreement. – Actually one of Joseph’s remark pointed into this direction, saying that there cannot be a surplus in all countries – yes, and indeed something also Germany has to accept.
Talking about recovery means that we have to find an integrated approach in terms of bringing the issue of soci(et)al sustainability thoroughly on the agenda. This is not just about ‘balancing different policy areas’ as it had been issued in the Economic Performance and Social Progress-report. A much more fundamental consideration is required.
This means not least to revisit the hugely valuable work issued by Karl Polanyi in his opus magnum on ‘The Great Transformation’, talking about the political and economic origins of our time (if I am not mistaken there is a more or less new edition of the book available – with a foreword/introduction by Stiglitz). Polanyi looked extensively at processes of dis- embedding, i.e. the separation of ‘the economy’ from the soci(et)al context. If we talk about the lost connection between finance and real economy, we surely have to look at the underlying loss of the connection between ‘society’ and ‘economy’.
This brings me to the last qualification when looking at the need for recovery. In a contribution I wrote together with Marica Frangarkis, we spoke about The need for a radical ‘growth policy’ agenda for Europe at a time of crisis (in: Dymarski, Wlodzimierz/Marica Frangakis/Leaman, Jeremy, 2104: The Deepening Crisis of the European Union: The Case for Radical Change; Poznań: Poznań University of Economics Press, 2014). And the kind of recovery, and even the way of thinking of recovery has to start at this point: the quid pro quo. It can only make sense if we start by overcoming the dichotomisation between economic and social thinking, demanding for both a sustainable orientation.

Indeed, the cart in front of the horse is always in danger to be pulled back – and at least this is something where I would strongly agree with Stiglitz: Austerity policies never did any good. But for the rest, we should remind ourselves of the little discussion between Alice and the cat.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

“I don’t much care where –”

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

(from Alice in Wonderland)

per una società più sostenibile

6 febbraio 2014 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, works, projects, publications

That sustainability is not a question of concerns about the environment is shown in some brief reflections that had been made in preparation of the EXPO 2015, in Milano. the presentation highlights that we are talking about societal sustainability. And as such it is concerned with relations – relations of people that are characterising their productive and reproductive activities in every day’s life. Thinking along this line has to take account of the fact that the environment – “natural” and “man-made” – is not external but an entity of which human beings and their praxis are essential part. Re-emphasising praxis is essential as in this way we can go beyond isolated activities – as important as measures to protect nature, traffic control, calls for responsible consumption and the like are, they are conceptually not anything more than a drop in the bucket. Thanks go to the Department of Political and Social Sciences – University of Pavia. Human Development, Capability and Poverty International Research Centre, IUSS Pavia and the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

Qualità sociale e sostenibilità

19 gennaio 2014 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, works, projects, publications

On the occasion of the preparation of the EXPO which will take place in Milan, I attended on the 5th of December 2013 a conference which brought different research strands together. The different strands are all concerned wight he major topic of the forthcoming EXPO, which is “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”
The presentation, of which the transcript will also be published under the title
“Qualità sociale e sostenibilità”
can be found here.

Further information on the preparations of the EXPO can be found on this website of the Fondazione Feltrinelli.
My special Thank You goes to Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti and Nadia con Jacobi, Department of Political and Social Sciences – University of Pavia and Human Development, Capability and Poverty; International Research Centre, IUSS Pavia

Excellence – The Mediocrity of Excellencies and Excellence of Mediocrity

3 gennaio 2014 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, Peter's Log, social quality, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.[1]

Those who know me well, can understand what it means when I write: I do not know since when I am living here now; I do not know if it is for a long time, a small eternity or if I actually just a arrived, still trying to get used to things and developing routines. Those who know me well are aware of the fact that time, units on the calendar, are just like numbers: only meaningful in their uniqueness which is only given by being just a dot on an endless scale.

We may measure it by looking at the time it takes to establish routines … ? Well, it does only take a couple of days to find the right bar where I don’t have to ask for a cappuccino but where I am rhetorically asked Cappuccino? … E mangiare … quale? Right, I do not have the same cornetto everyday, and this is of course part of the routine, quickly established. (Only one of the girls in my ‘Sunday-bar’ still doesn’t know but occasionally I think this may have some special reason.)

And all seems to be so unique when entering a new stage – unique as well in the sense of routines. The other …, well the other seems to be sovereign, able to adapt every day to it: to the new day, not being caught in the need of a straight way, entering the new world. But this uniqueness may be challenged, a sligth irritation. And this challenge is not coming from somebody else ‘entering this new world’, but by somebody who is a firm part of it, exactly by the near-to-irrevocable character of the routine:

7:07 a.m. in the bar – the usual chat between people or the “intimate silence between people”

7:08, looking up, the barman says something: ‘strange, something wrong? New year, new habit perhaps’ – somebody is missed

7:10, two minutes later than usual the door opens and ‘he’ steps in: the ragazzo who had been missed as he always arrives at 7:08, always: since one year, two years, 5 years or even longer?

Two minutes, occasionally even in the eternal city two minutes nay be a small eternity.

Measuring the time by looking at how long it takes to get used to the nuisances and ignorances (not sure why the rule for ‘correct language’ does only know the singular: ignorance) …– eternity would be too short in many cases to get used (and possibly this is the reason behind the fact that the auto-spell check allows eternities, i.e. the plural of eternity although one eternity lasts already …, well eternal). Bureaucratic norms, complains about them, affluence in a poor city, … or poverty in a rich city? And even accepting and living certain rules may still after years and decades end in stating – loud or not: really (you know the one I mean: rrrrrrreaaaaaaally? Actually expressing some kind of ‘I cannot believe it though I know it is true’). Traffic in Rome is surely one of these ‘rrrrrrreaaaaaaally?-stories’. For instance when looking at the car that is parked over night in the ‘second row’, half of the tail reaching into the roundabout; or the other, parked half on the zebra-crossing, half reaching into the roundabout. And if you are still baby-Roman, you may naively mention it, as if it would be something special – the answer is simple

You know why they do it (, don’t you)? Thus they save the parking fee ….

Oh Mama Mia e Maria – Gloria Patri et in Excelsis Deo, it is a stupid question – and after experiencing everyday’s little war: a herd of tiny (and not so tiny) scooters against the army of tiny (and not so tiny) cars, I surely should know that there are other rules than those established in the highway code.

I wrote earlier about it, in the Diary from a Journey into another World. Diaries against nationalism, inspired by trying to overcome personal resentments:

Viva, si permaneces y esperas, morirás de hambre a la muerte – comenzar a luchar. Again I make the experience that learning the exact, the lived rules of traffic is one of the most important parts of intercultural learning. No book and especially no law book will tell us. And the knowledge of getting every single day one day closer to death has to be translated: Come, Grim Reaper – I want to look into your eyes.

And now all this reminds me of another daily occurrence that still attracts my attention: at a certain time, there are different spots where you can see it, for instance along the Tiber: a flock of birds – I am not sure: sparrows? Lorenzo says swallows, only spending short time in Rome before migrating further south. One hears the noise and sees a dark cloud, changing formation, changing the degree of darkness between nearly black and a light grey, seemingly moving with an amazing speed and nevertheless equally seemingly standing. One flock? Or several of these ‘clouds’? Merging and separating from each other, also a move of compression and dissolution … – isn’t depression a word that comes closer to mind as antonym for compression?

*****

Routines – and the many things that still seem exceptional, sooooo exciting; and the other things that will probably never loose their attraction of being special …. – excellence and mediocrity. Time found – and always loosing it. Sure, we all have our ‘own time’; there is such a good reason to ask ‘What time is it there?’ as Tsai Ming-liang does it in his film. – Don’t we have all ‘our own time’?

History – big history, Braudel’s ‘three planes’ and finally personal history cannot be changed, also because they happen for particular reasons. Here we have to reason about differences: if we perceive things and truth differently, and if we see certain things and overlook others, do certain things and do them in a specific way, it is not because ‘we want to’, we decide in this or another way but it is because we produce and reproduce us and with it them …. – and we do this with the ‘material we have’, being drawn and pushed by it, seeing here some kind of invisible hand. It is not the one proposed by Smith which obviously doesn’t exist at least in his understanding. It is an invisible hand that allows us to look at 101 one monuments, only seeing 1. There are only few monuments with more than one person looking at it (it only happens in galleries, 100 visitors standing, gazing at La Gioconda, only 1 standing in the next room, being smiled at by a small, seemingly mousy person of the same master’s hand – yes, man make their own history but not choosing – we know it from Karl Marx’ 18^th Brumaire anyway.

Time, in this perspective, is probably something in between: part of the dialectical tension of moving and movement and being moved: pulled and pushed I mean … – unspectacular single acts being the only thing we can look at, trying to understand from there the entirety and even eternity: starting from learning the rules we are facing every day and in the best cases learning at the very same time all the ‘small and daily infringements’. Sure, the traffic light is red – but is that a sufficient reason to stop? – And it is still this movement, exciting us in the daily gossip.

A short time? Or a long time?

*****

It definitely had been a short time after I moved in: the truck had been here in the morning, bringing some of my stuff, mainly books. Sure, such a move seems to be just unique, only happening to the one person who considers (against better knowledge) that nobody else has a similar or even the same experience. And even if it is actually a very common thing, one perceives it as unique: challenging, the need to deal with everything – and allowing this feeling of uniqueness to grow, it seems to reach even further: god created the world, I am creating a new home, a castle if not even a fortress which for some does not have to be of brigs and mortar …

…. A Mighty Fortress is our God.

Is not exactly this the permanent challenge since we invented ourselves as individuals? Sure, cutting the strings from god had been a simple thing to the extent to which we replaced her by the new god, named I, only allowing the company of the me, my and myself; and of course ultimately accompanied by and expressed in the tin-god money. Mind, not everything had been new – money had been already admonished in 666 by Sophocles

Money! Nothing worse in our lives, so current, rampant, so corrupting. Money – you demolish cities, rot men from their homes, you train and twist good minds and set them on to the most atrocious schemes. No limit, you make them adept at every kind of outrage, every godless crime – money.

Leaving this idolisation aside, we may have a look at a paradox emerging from merging this new independence and individualisation: though everybody is now established and establishing him-/herself as god-like (who else should be god) and unique (as individual it is not just that everything is about me, it is also about us [yes, us: I, me and myself] being the ultimate …, well: incarnation of the standard) that mediocrity is the new excellence. The merger is so close that we easily forget the fact of dealing with two moments: secularisation and individualisation.

Sure, it is a bit awkward writing, even thinking about it: everything I state about and criticise in ‘the other’, is in actual fact something I state about and criticise as part of myself.[2] But what can honesty do …? – Swallow – only sparrows can resist, accepting the fact of being outsiders.

Time to come back to the truck: the king of the road,[3] parked on the little back-road near to the centre of this bit more then 2.5-million-city to offload my stuff. I didn’t dare to offer my help, just asked

Can you please position the vehicle in a way that allows moving the pallets directly on the driveway in front of the house?

He could not, just because he did not want to … – Not telling the entire story, his service – professional and excellent of course – ended in translating ‘from-door-to-door’ to ‘from-door-on-the-road-in front-of-the house’. This left me with the bill and the task to carry the stuff from the street to the little drive way in front of my palace (yes, all Romans live in a palace as much as all Germans drive a Merc – the latter had been what I had been told when arriving in Ireland many years back; and all Irish have red hair and all Chinese make a bow instead of shaking hands and all French drink wine and all Cubans smoke cigars and… and all migrants lost their manners as they lost all standards, while trying to adapt to all the actually lived prejudices). Back to the driveway: from there I had to get the stuff into the rooms which would be the library at some stage later. This excellent service (at this stage you will remember: excellence is a synonym for mediocrity) had been made even more delightful for me by two facts:

imagine carrying a box of books that is twice as large as the box that professionals use for transporting books;
and then imagine to undertake this work while the thermometer had not been lazy, climbing up to somewhere between 35 and 40 degree.

The excellence had been completed as the RAS-excellence resulted in many books damaged: if it does not fit make it fitting. I have to admit that it is purely my ignorance that I did not fully recognise the RAS-excellence. On occasion of a later inquiry I had been told there would not be any reason to complain as ‘we managed much larger removals, including those for the Irish government.’ – Well, the Irish government is surely a warrantor of excellence, even keeping the dead tiger up instead of putting it to rest – the Irish people are still paying the cost for the mummification.

*****

Change of the scene, not of the scenery. Such a relief then – and I will not forget it – when somebody came. He introduced himself by offering me a sack truck.

Sorry, I have to go back to work now. But when I am back later, I will give you a hand. …. I am Zaid, living on the other floor. Welcome here in …

No, he didn’t say palace. Indeed, he came back later and gave me a hand – so at least at some stage the books had been in my flat. – And I surely had been flat: carrying books and some other stuff is not an activity that one needs for a couple of hours, even less when exposed to such temperatures.

Well, things have to be done – and another thing for the time to come had been to get the stuff out of the boxes. This means of course to get the boxes out of the way. As excellence means today: you have to get rid of the packing material – the idea of recycling, using it for the next transport is not part of the hauler’s understanding of professional work, it is just a matter of odds and sods. So: getting books out of the boxes, ‘parking’ the empty boxes in front of the apartment before bringing them to the bin (yes, a recycling bin). … The bell rings

I (am the owner of the apartment 2) – are the boxes at the stairs yours?

Actually I could nearly save the nodding.

Could you please remove them as soon as possible

– and actually he adds

‘no problem’

the expression of Sozi’s utmost humbleness and kindness. (It is just a name – and it shows that nomen non est omen: any resonance of Sozi in terms as social or even socialism is a mere expression of remaining on pure surface.

Well, all this may be understood as personal failure of a hauler and a matter of character, bad and good behaviour etc. And surely it is. But as we are all gods now, we have to live with it: our and their little egos, ritzy without limit – as it is coined by the emancipation from divine power being limited by its individualist character which easily transforms excellence into mediocrity. And of course, the wisdom of this system has an integrated protection as mentioning it – i.e. experiencing it as own personal characteristic or criticising it as characteristic of others – is self-destructive. Nietzsche knows and so does Adorno. …

It is of course easy to see all this in the wider context – as social scientists we are occasionally allowed to do it – and as depersonalised statement (‘it is not me who says it – it is just the facts that show it’; and ‘it is not about real people like you and me, it is about some abstract social existence’): The easy way out is a derivate of the Cartesian paradigm: I think by only recognising that, what exists only what I can see, recognise in its immediacy, does exist. And that means, I only look at the other as individual and as such as an exception. Or I look at the generalised other that does not exist in reality.

In social science the easy way out is the degeneration of social research: a matter of empirio- criticism and suicide.

The problem of recognising this is the underlying dialectics: as much as we are dealing with the result of a secular process of de-deified individualisation, we are also dealing with a process of individualising self-deification. Put less harsh (yes, I do not like being part of it, and I know no reader likes to see him/herself this way), we can detect this vicious circle by expressing it in its economic formula, well known as M-C-M’:[4] the permanent resolution of self-reflexive dissolution. Cogito ergo non sum, lost in mediocrity or the exponential growth of consumption. It is detached from the social dimension as far as it appears as consumption without production; and it is further de-socialised as it actually looses its use-value – even if the latter is not completely the case, it is at least a shift of the relationship. We can assume that the ‘original product’, in a non-capitalist, non-exchange oriented society had been composed as[5]

100 uv – 000 ev

It had not been individual production of goods for individuals but social production where production itself had been a social process: the production of needs and the way towards answering them.

This relationship may be re-modelled as

50 uv – 50 ev

in an idealised ‘original capitalism’: idealised as such model suggests a perfect market where demand is defined by actual needs and supply completely and instantaneously matching such demand. The further development – not based on changing behaviour but as matter of economic logic – pushes to a decrease of uv in favour of ev so that the consumerist society in its (impossible) idealised full development can be expressed by

000 uv – 100 ev

It is an (impossible) idealised state as finally nobody will buy only products without any use value (mind, this does not deny that we probably all buy some products that are entirely without use value in the strict sense, actually they are useless).

Sure, the argument is in this form typical for economics – simplified and reduced on its functioning within the ceteris paribus framework of a limited number of products asked for and an equally limited number of suppliers of these and only these products, framed by the ‘perfect market’.

In reality competition is a factor changing the model calculation;

and additional variables are relevant too:

the fact that markets are never perfect by way of information, time needed to adapt ….
the occurrence of mediators
the production being even under capitalist conditions, highly characterised by alienation and depending on the market to actually realise the value on the conditions and the determination of use value still being an immediately social process
needs not being solely defined by their physical dimension but for instance also as by the fact of being positional goods, merit or demerit goods etc.
and just to add one further point, still without being exhaustive, power as market power, political power, hegemonic power etc., all decisively co-defining ‘needs’ as a normative fundamental and general consensus.

But we find some cunning of reason – more or less opposite to the Hegelian one: complexity is reduced and the concrete in its true sense is made to fade away. As we know from Karl Marx’s Outline of the Critique of Political Economy (Grundrisse)

The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse. It appears in the process of thinking, therefore, as a process of concentration, as a result, not as a point of departure, even though it is the point of departure in reality and hence also the point of departure for observation [Anschauung] and conception.

And of course, communication with the product itself – the reduction of communication on the circle M-C-M(‘) – is taken out of the socio-interactive process, reduced on the ‘reflexive’ process of the individual who (or do we even have to say: which?) is the commodified self. It is dominated by names – though they are nameless like character masks, securing a very specific understanding of the invisible hand: an economy that moves on without substantial orientation, relationships that remain on the surface. It is here, where today’s social science really feels home – and today referring to the era, going beyond the hic et nunc. We may remember the words from the 3^rd volume of Capital – well, it is chapter 48, talking about The Trinity Formula:

Vulgar economy actually does no more than interpret, to systematise and defend in doctrinaire fashion the conception of the agents of bourgeois production who are entrapped in bourgeois production relations. It should not surprise us, then, that vulgar economy feels particularly at home in the estranged outward appearances of economic relations in which these prima facie absurd and perfect contradictions appear …[6]

And we may replace economy by social science – oblate empiricism and contemporalism now claiming excellence where

these relationships seem the more self-evident the more their relationships are concealed from it, although they are understandable to the popular mind.[7]

But indeed

all science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided.[8]

Well, the only conclusion one can arrive at is the following: some academics are – if not as human being so at least as academics – exactly this:

superfluous as much as they see the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coinciding.

*****

We can see this in a rather interesting divide: consumerism – and it had been said before that this is the proposed point of reference – is commonly understood as the (reasonably) high-end consumption. Probably one of the most perverse expressions could be seen some years ago in Brussels: a shop selling all the big names, displaying in the window these designer products and …., Klein’s book No Logo, the latter of course as decoration. And the book surely is some decoration of the academic approach to analysing economic processes. What is less obvious – or we may have to say: what is less openly and manifestly perceived – is the other side: today’s economies are, in different forms, factually resting on the pillars of some form of shadow economy, ranging from the illegal production in the sweatshops and the sale of their goods to established street-traders. Maintaining the poor who are not properly integrated into the supply side of the formal economy and also maintaining the poor who are not properly integrated into the demand side of the formal economy. It is not even clear where to draw the exact line, as many ‘discounters’ are surely some hybrids. Excellence also in this way, offering the generics: who dares to clearly detect the original and the faked Vuitton, Gucci, Bvulgari, Rado and Prada etc. pp. (those not mentioned here may be proud – but they should not be so as the true Mafia is hidden anyway). The blurring of borders may be especially interesting – though visible – in the cases of the equality of structure: looking at some models the only difference between VW, Audi and Seat etc. being the label; many years at least computers sold as IBM-compatible which at the end didn’t mean anything else than excellence under a different name – disguise of monopolies. Sure, you may turn the fact in two ways: the excellence of the original spreading, being offered by all the others; or the others being as good as the excelling ones but not being able to present themselves in the same manner. Of course one may say that it does not matter. But it actually does matter in a very fundamental way as much as excellence is becoming mediocre. Traditional economics sees all boats rising; realism suggests that all boats are drowning but some of them are able to cope well under water: the ‘better than’ is made up by the veneration of exponential growth of hiding actual adoration of exchange value behind pretended use value. As presented as the ideal case

000 uv – 100 ev

* Look at today’s computers, compare the specifications with the machines we used 10, 20 years ago – you laugh when remembering that KBs had been a relevant seize, relevant as today MBs and GBs; and you may cry if you consider that there is not really so much more that we do with these tremendously increased capacities of which most of us use only a small portion anyway. This does not mean that there is no progress at all; it only means that this progress is actually very limited. In other words, exponential growth on the side of exchange value is met by marginal growth rates (yes, there is some truth even in the thinking of marginalism and cardinal utility scale; especially when it comes to the added value on the side of the growth of added use value, in particular ‘Gossen’s First Law’ – acknowledging this does not mean to follow Jevons or Walras).

* Look at the relative increase of speed of communication: the use of telegraph increased the efficiency of communication by 2,500 times if related to the snail mail; relating internet-communication and FAX we find an increase of efficiency by 5.[9]

* Look at the qualification – the increase of people holding a degree, a PhD, a professorship …, all being more a reflection of an increase of courses offered (=sold) and a reflection of the formalised structuration of career patterns than being a reflection of qualification.

*****

Sure, quality control is at hand.

One example is that of ISO norms. The simplified, still true, mechanisms is: define your own norms, i.e. say how you want to work and what you see as good performance – if you fulfil these norms you are excellent. Two instructions for practice: (1) set the norms slightly higher than what you are going to achieve so that you can always push being better next time: you push your (co)workers and/or you push your customers with the next product which is better than the best: the washing powder that makes the washing whiter than white; the health care service that makes you healthier than healthy; the financial and insurance service that offers more than 100 % profit and more than security. (2) make sure that nobody thinks about the death poll that allows the 110, 150, 500 %. Especially if we consider that it is possible that we are still alive although we are brain-dead and the body is already decomposing – yes, you have to see it before you believe it. One instruction for advanced practice: Do not talk about the conditions behind the successful achievement. For instance, a service for homeless people may suggest: 30 percent of the people who used the shelter will not return. Achieving this figure is important even if 5 percent of potential returners died: the main thing is that they did not return – do not worry, social policy is not about ‘being good’, it is about maintaining societies ability to handle in which way ever injustice. If you want to blame me …, well, being cynical is one thing; analysing realities and stating the results[10] is another …

You may remember the words from the first volume of Capital:

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

Yes, it is the fact that capital is not a commodity like any other; instead,

Ces pressions et mouvements renvoient à tout le système de domination des capitaux et des marchés. Le capital n’est pas une simple propriété privée de moyens de production, laquelle existe dans le système esclavagiste par exemple. Il est constitue par la propriété d’argent pour faire plus d’argent, comme l’a montré Marx, en passent par son utilisation dans la production. Cela passe aussi par l’utilisation de l’argent et des ressources d’autrui, par le crédit et le marché financier.[11]

The situation is of course a bit more complicated when we move to the deeper level. We may say that we find a shift of the definition. The use value is now shifting in two ways: first, the additional ‘use value’ is an increase of idolatry – not new, if you remember Sophocles’ words quoted earlier, and not new if you remember Aristotle’s distinction between Oikonomia and Chrematistike (and although it is not new, the conditions are new, making it impossible to simply return to the status quo ante. Indeed, there is no point in trying to recall the ‘good old values’ – as little as there is any point in claiming a noble status in academia when entering from management, and referring to a formal ‘von’, ‘de’, ‘van’, ‘della’ or ‘Lord’ …). Second, the use value is shifting from the consumer to the producer: frequent travellers who do not have secretarial support will know the amount of hours they spend for checking flights and accommodation, booking, check-in etc.; there is little temptation for the ordinary online-banker to feel like a big broker, it is more like being a slave of not-really known procedures, in the best case resulting in saving few cents instead of leaving as self-made millionaire; online-shoppers are aware of the fact that there are algorithms, perfectly matching what google, amazon and the thousands of others want what to sell with what you did not know as your desire – just one click away and paradise is closer again (sure, exponential further steps to be made, each just one click away …); and though ‘we know how they work’ we easily click … and … swallow, fulfilling the role of the chased animal that, caught in the trap, still feels as king and queen: not as customer anymore but now the fat stock of the emperor who permanently offers new clothes and new names for the death traps.

Another mechanism of control: peer reviews and academic standards. Admittedly and importantly they had been established as instruments to protect us from the old feudal lords – sure, feudal not because of the power based in any title representing nobility, but feudal because of the academic title. We probably know all about it, acknowledging it to some extent, being annoyed by it on various occasions. In any case, there are some issues barely talked about:

* a German colleague – well he claims to be – founds a publishing house after one of his manuscripts had been turned down

* a German colleague manipulating the result of a PhD-candidate he supervised – it is claimed as case that needs to be ‘justified in respect of the colleague who supervised the work over several years’

* the establishing of a new hegemonic system that makes ‘social policy’ at a Lithuanian university expressis verbis to ‘social technology”

* the renaming of a government department in Ireland, now having the remit of education and skills – at least honest in clearly stating that the knowledge society is in actual fact part of the move to the strictly divided society. Divided between skilled people, reduced to function as annex of machines and a small elite, itself subordinated under the rule of the algorithm once set into motion. – You do not believe it? May be you are right and I just read to much H.G. Wells Time Machine

* a Hungarian student asking for a letter that clarifies to third parties why his marks in my class are not in line with the marks he got in other classes (actually he had been one of the brightest in class but then the letter) – he needed the letter as he wanted to produce it when applying for a grant; having written what I did and felt obliged to write, basically translates into: the marks he received for the work in my class are not especially low; on the contrary it means that at least in my opinion the marks in all other classes had been too generous – an inflation of high marks which is frequently admitted by several colleagues

* the need to use software to detect plagiarism, happening at countless universities in Europe if not worldwide – as if plagiarism would be a simple matter of copy and paste, instead of being a matter of lacking originality and the ability to make an argument.
Sure, Wikipedia may be a useful instrument in some respect – but whereas the old encyclopédistes understood themselves as contestants of values for a better world, here and now, the new wikicyclopaedists apparently lost any sense of and for reality. Or is there any other way to interpret a statement like this?

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.

Yes, of course, the wiki-world should be reduced on one issue at a time, relationlity grasped by ‘links’.

This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2011)

Of course, if you say anything, it is only valid if somebody else states the same

This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. (September 2011)

Found here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion

– and probably changed at some time more or less soon.

The suggestion of value-freedom, the idea of societies without real subjects as we would not have heard and discussed it ad nauseam. And – perhaps paradoxically – it ends in the new gods recognising the fear again, now looking for new comfort, replacing the intellectual by the strict believer, replacing the condemning inquisitor by somebody who, apparently deeply moved, answers the question

Who is Jorge Mario Bergolio?

with the words

I do not know what might be the most fitting description …. I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

This makes Pope Francesco surely more winsome as the new-born infallible princes; and with this he presents himself as somebody who apparently learned – as he definitely had been dangerously political sinner in Argentina and he admitted to have sinned. And we may do what the supposed god did: forgiving him (and all the others) who failed. But I leave that debate to them – I am not and will not be part of that family [so help me god ;-)].

*****

Something else is the moaning of the new gods that …., bemoaning the loss of their privileges, complaining about the fact that their pedestal is made crumbling away instead of acknowledging the fact that this platform had been established on questionable ground.

As this act wears thin , the running down of the middle class leaves us with little but a professional political class flailing around trying to act normally and looking more and more bizarre in the process.[12]

Indeed, for some it is a sign of distress

seeing Marx quoted in everything from the Daily Mail to the Spectator

For others the distress lies in the way in which Marx is quoted … (or even to recognise that Marx is actually not quoted in the linked The Spectator-article.

Still, nice is to see in the present context the reference to Voltaire who (supposedly? – of course, I cannot really check, let alone know everything) said about the British classes – they

are like their own beer; froth on top, dregs at bottom, the middle excellent

(We leave the assessment of the bottom without discussion and only recommend various Dickens-works and the reading of Engels view on The Condition of the Working Class in England. And on this occasion we also do not question Voltaire’s stance on the British middle classes – various Dickens-texts may recommend revision though).

*****

Now, coming back, the list of the claims by the new gods (and the claims of people and institutions being new gods), could be continued ad ultimo, but it would not change much at the final result – taking up on Voltaire: people striving to be part of the froth. Indeed, it is in this way that they may undermine democracy: the attempt to completely enter the illusionary world of free market competition and excellence based thereupon.

Methodological individualism is not just about the suggestion that

in sociological work these collectivities[13] must be treated as solely the resultants and modes of organization of the particular acts of individual persons, since these alone can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action.[14]

We see the problematique of such approach even if we accept the limitation to economics, when looking at Jospeh Schumpeter who claimed that reproaches critiques, stating that

[t]he society they deal with is one which admits private ownership of factors of production, but retains a control of production and distributes the national product according to the principle of efficiency. Land-owners and capitalists have to submit to this social control, and really are land-owners and capitalists only in so far as they receive rent and interest. Every one, so to speak, keeps his factor of production, but gets his orders from society as to what to do with it; or, to put it differently, every one is regarded according to the social appreciation of what he produces.[15]

It is indeed a challenge to go – in thinking and acting – beyond the capitalist economy. So Schumpeter himself claims that

[i]t is further claimed that in a non-communistic state no reality corresponds to the concept of social values and social wants properly so called.[16]

Without exhaustively discussing this, at least the following points are of importance:

* production – in the understanding highlighted by Marx in the Grundrisse[17] – is not just about the production of commodities and the distribution of wealth that is defined by the availability of commodities – thus suggesting that

[m]arginal utilities determine prices and the demand and the supply of each commodity; and prices, finally, tell us much else, and, above all, how the social process of distribution will turn out.[18]

It is, instead, the production of social relationships itself that has to be considered as value, or even merely as fact – and here we have to look at both, the process of production and the structures emerging from it. Commodities, utilities etc. are surely an important but by no way a sufficient moment.[19] In other words, methodological individualism is thoroughly caught in the understanding that the entire life – individually and socially – can be reduced on production and exchange of products, in fact leaving productive consumption and distribution outside of the equation.

* This means as well that methodological individualism is based on the idea of (the legitimacy of) externalisation – of course first and foremost by way of production but consequently also in respect of relations – contract law is probably the ultimate proof, especially taken in connection with the fact of the wide range of application of contractual thinking. This goes hand in hand with the emphasis of utility production as ultimate point of reference.

* Part of this externalisation is about the definition of what is relevant: different to the understanding of economic processes as fundamental, determining in the last instance, i.e. dialectically the superstructure (as in the Marxian understanding of the basis-superstructure relationship), the economy is in the present case seen as dominant in a different way: it is the ultimate measure, taken mechanically as indicator for the entirety of existence.

* Also juxtaposing individual and society seems to be disingenuous: this way the relationality of the social as matter of structures and processes is faded out.

These are, N.B., exactly the shortcomings of approaches that suggest today for instance methods of management intra-organisational knowledge-sharing by a reference to an ‘imagined common good’, instead of bravely embarking on the understanding of the social as processual structuration (as in more fundamental terms for instance Roy Bhaskar does with his dialectical critical realism). The usefulness of systemic thinking has to be defined by the ability to deal with complexity, not by the orientation on borders and environment, systems and sub-systems.

In fact, methodological individualism is a general sentiment that had been established a long time ago, and actually not finding its foundation in academia that is directed to skills, having institutionally expelled generating knowledge as core task. Sure, it is a double-edged sword – but permanently sharpening the one side of the blade by the new aristocrats called a million times and more I, me, myself and bureaucratic hedging while blunting the other by permanently excluding any claim towards fundamental innovation, is not the way to deal with a contradiction – it is, instead, a matter of contraction. And this contraction is rooted in the idea of contractualism as principle that relates free individuals to each other instead of establishing and securing genuine social relationships.

The representatives of the new nobility, surely dangerous enough, are in this game at the end just meaningless string-puppets, perhaps even believing in their sobriety and honesty – what else can they do as self-styled gods: emancipated from deity, and lost in the fear of power which indeed nobody can claim to hold. What made god or the gods supposedly impeccable? Nothing else than the presumption that they (are authorised to) control the social. Remember, here the social is understood as

an 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.[20]

But now we arrived at another point: the new social being transformed into a self-established actor, tyrannising his/her constructed and natural environment.

The new subject matter referring to independent and permanent self-re-production – the new narcissism, attracted by nothing and nobody than the trinity of I, me and myself – not changed by a possible qualification of the ideas behind for, from or through; the capitalist commodity-society does not only replicate this pattern but it moves it further, perfects it in form of the indispensible self-defence of mediocrity by claiming excellence.

It is this new ‘nobility’ – as said it may actually be about people who still consider themselves as honest and good, but as their understanding of good is that of a new god, the new infallibility is actually fading away before being spelled out. It may be telling that for sending relevant, i.e. morally extortive mails, some people use their private mail-address, somewhere in a cloud, hiding their arrogant mediocrity by singing the eternal

alte Entsagungslied,
Das Eiapopeia vom Himmel,
Womit man einlullt, wenn es greint,
Das Volk, den großen Lümmel.

Well, the

heavenly lullaby,
The old song of abnegation,
By which the people, this giant fool,
Is lulled from its lamentation.

The new gods, cocooning in their privacy.

And feeling personally attacked if they are “recognised” in real terms, not in terms of the inflated currency. Of course, as they are usually themselves drivers of inflation they have to insist in this way: in one way or another we may have to accept the inflation – and of course any deflationary policies on the individual level are difficult. It seems to be easier to live with a lie than to die with an honest statement. The truth of John Maynard Keynes deserves not only consideration when it comes to thinking about Monetary Reform – you remember his words?

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.[21]

There is another interesting and important point we can take from the same academic – though stated in a different, i.e. not primarily academic – context. I take the quote and the context from a reflection on the Battle of the dons of war, dealing with the

intellectual ‘self-mobilisation’

academics which (or are they still ‘who’s?) degenerated to beasts on the field of mendacity.

In February 1916, despite being exempt from combatant service because of his ‘work of national importance’ at the Treasury, Keynes insisted on applying for exemption on the grounds of conscientious objection to the war. On January 4 he told Ottoline Morrell he wished for ‘a general strike and a real uprising to teach I those bloody men who enrage and humiliate us’. He told Duncan Grant in December 1917: ‘I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.’

Yes, we may say there is another war today: the one that wants to push mediocrity, skills orientation and the fact that aims are stylised as gains and achievements under the heading of excellence, thus drowning truth and honesty in froth.

And it is interesting in this context, again looking back, that it is

[t]rue, Russell’s opposition to the war cost him a fellowship at Trinity College.

And still, Bertrand Russell is surely one that – in the long run – did not die in terms of being an influential thinker, even in today’s terms, different to the many self-stylised, dishonest want-to-be-celebrities. And still, we find those who take responsibility as serious matter, also today.

*****

There is surely a major continuity if we look at the long and medium term-history. In some way much of what Herbert Marcuse, exploring the capitalist anthropology in a presentation titled Man in a Socialised World[22] is still fundamentally valid. He highlights the following issues as characterising the current anthropological Zeitgeist, pertaining in modern capitalist economies:

life is presented and perceived as plight and alienation
however, there is a ‘better life’: the satisfaction of needs and wants as remuneration of labour – though suffering is the irretrievable foundation of happiness
life is a matter of striving for being – and the substance of life is productivity with and in favour of society
refined values are separated from ever day’s life, from the daily performance. Finding to yourself is left for the time outside of work.

In Marcuse’s explication we find not least the anthropological gist of what Karl Marx explored as matter of specifically capitalist production, namely that

[t]he worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself[23].

Still, there is also a major shift between Marcuse’s time and now: today it is claimed that the better life should be here and now. There would be nothing wrong with it if … – if it would not be based on a wrong assumption and a wrong claim.

The wrong assumption is that previously the world had been better. There may be some truth in it

* one went to university in order to deeply study a subject, approaching a study from different sides or even delving into various subject areas – well, not one but indeed a few only: third level education had been very much an elitist undertaking before the invention of the mass-university

* reviewers – namely the senior academics in their secure tenured positions – knew what they had been talking about: and just required the acceptance of this knowledge before allowing junior staff to ‘assist’, carrying the briefcase had been the first step towards carrying the same knowledge, already then making it extremely difficult for new ideas to enter before receiving the authoritative blessing …

* though not everybody, at least many could rely on a safety net: from cradle to grave – the price had been for many in the extreme cases to get to work as soon as they had been able to walk, and ideally to walk themselves from the factory gate across the street to the graveyard; and the price had been that even this did not apply to those who had been forced to stand outside of the system, in another country for example; or having a radically different worldview …

* though social rights had been defined and calculable, they had been so by way of an extremely tight bureaucratic structure.

Coming to the wrong claim, it is about re-establishing the old privileges of the middle class. One may say there is not so much wrong with this – but such claim can only be maintained as long as this middle class actually has exactly this consciousness: being mediocre in a positive way: being one of the pillars on which society rests, the other and major pillar being the working class. Now the working class had been redefined, being (=made feeling to be) middle-class; and the middle-class having been ‘promoted’, granted the status of excellence as matter of superiority, and entering a special form of suicide: life is not happening where it is properly located in every day as

people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships.

It is reduced on the little apostrophe of the economic process that had been outlined earlier:

M-C-M’

And it translates ideally into the formula

10 uv – 220 ev

The figures 10 and 220 are randomly chosen; important is that in any case such difference of (in this case then) 210 is a solid foundation for the different crises: financial crisis, banking crisis, housing crisis, budget crisis …; but also more fundamental occurrences as the frequently reoccurring anomie; the environmental threats; the renewed search for meaning and research around issues as quality of life, social quality etc.

*****

Sure, one can take it as comfort: our parents and their parents … – they complained all about these and similar issue; and our children repeat this pattern very much. But one may also take it as frightening development: where change should be about improvement, it is actually about something else: growing inequality, not rooted in injustice of the redistribution. Instead it is rooted in the fundamentally ‘wrong’ distributive function of the productive system itself, showing the need to look at social policy not in terms distribution but by way of analysing the mode of production

*****

Il tutto andò in scena la prima volta il 20 febbraio 1877: senza successo.

We find these words in Fedele D’Amico’s comment L’Eleganza di un Sentimento, looking at Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij’s Il Lago dei Cigni. And there are so many ‘failures’. Sure, disappointments for many of those who had been involved. But isn’t especially Swan Lake a piece that shows in a unique form the emergence of excellence out of the collusion of individuality and collectivity? I suppose this is the actual excellence: collectivity in a true sense emerging from a respectful dealing with each other, accepting and valuing non-excellence of all as building block of the overall excellence. We see it throughout history – looking at what happened on the stage, yes, we know it latest from Shakespeare, hearing Jacques in As You Like speaking

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the canon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.[24]

– and it may cum grano salis also be true for humanity and the rise and fall of societies. And in some respect here in Italy, in particular in Rome, we are perfect in ‘staging’: the way people look, one is wondering …: declaring love; showing high rank; acknowledging authority, being welcoming and hospitable, being extremely submissive (well, this latter rarely occurs as a point in question). …

And importantly we have all the history at the tiptoe – kick a stone, and you kick 2,000 years.[25] A day after enjoying Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij’s Il Lago dei Cigni I move just around the corner, down the Via Appia – drive for perhaps 20 minutes from the city centre and face the little chapel: Santa Maria in Palmis

where the question had been posed

Domine quo vadis?

Well, quo vadis? Or better: Where do we go?

Do we move towards excellence? Or do we simply move towards the exaltation by exponential growth of comedy: commodities and the ultimate commodity that claims to represent generic value: money? The rapture of self-rape in consumerism? The new Divine Comedy – perhaps more like that reflected by Dalí in his illustrations.

Money is not really the question I guess. The question has to be concerned with the rules which are not ‘rules’ but commonalities emerging from the common action and activities and practice.

Catch 22 – actually I did not like the book (perhaps just because of the truth it brings merciless to the fore) – and I am sure that I definitely do not like this catch 22 as principle of life: We all want to be individuals and we can be so (and being individual has only meaning) if we follow the rules, beginning with language, passing state bureaucracy, walking across the exchange market of the economy and then standing in front of somebody: Ciao Bella (certo, anche: Ciao Bello or the Bravo, getting a bit annoying at this stage when hearing it where it should be Brava …) – just the melody of the words which do not mean anything which means they can mean everything, the look at you or the way you look, through the fashionable (designer?) glasses in your fashionable (designer?) clothes, leaning against the fashionable Vespa (which in Holland would be the Sparta-bike [not sure, this had been at least the brand of really fantastic bikes …] …., and you look at you and yours (colleagues, friends …), seeing that you are the only one[s] – not seeing that all these designer rules and designer things and designer relations (one of the recent inventions is governance and the inclusion of all stakeholders, being made responsible for the imposed rubbish we have to produce) are multiplied and mass products. And you have to strive for more individuality, exponentially growing, and making you forget the question. – Of course, having said this, I may have to add – just to avoid misunderstandings: the Italian bella and bello are not akin to the Latin bellum, there we talk about guerra; and it may be left to the reader to contemplate about possible new forms of guerra civile.

*****

Quo vaids? It had been already the wrong question. It should have been about the way that has to be carved in togetherness. And consequently the answer had been misleading. Let us briefly recall:

Saint Peter asked

Domine quo vadis

And the answer had been

Eo Romam iterum crucifix

The question should not have been about the lord going anywhere, but about where do WE go – collectively and aiming on maintaining gained collectivity. And the answer should not have been about standing against the rules and accepting crucification as punishment, but about dealing with the existing rules and developing from there true sovereignty … – true excellence of looking for ways to move further instead of confirming status.

– And of course, there is a paradox again: looking for the we, frequently requires to stand against the we: those who claim being divine individuals.

– And of course it is the attraction of exploring the underlying rules – with all the breaking of rules. (It may be that only the language of a country that is so much obsessed by rules as Germany can come up with the specific ‘beauty’ of the terminological monstrosity Regelverletzung – breaking of rules, not accepting that breaking the rule is part of the rule (well, surely Max Weber knew). Actually the real beauty is indeed the beauty of daily life, the magnificence of the ordinary, often hidden by being obsessed by the exotic which is not anything else like allowing us to see the beauty of the swans in their interplay – knowing too well where they go.

I think therefore I only recognise that I ceased to exist: to some extent discharged from the social, as far as the social discharged itself into the realm of the vicious circle of M-C-M’: the permanent resolution of self-reflexive dissolution in which excellence lost its ground.

As much as

[t]he worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself[26]

we move at least on and the modern (wo)man therefore only feels social outside of his/her relationships, and feels social when s/he is cocooned in private.

Somewhat ridiculous, isn’t it? Somewhat reminding of the Roman god of return. His name? Rediculus. May be a hint: the widely spread illusion that repetition of mistakes, hoping that by this wrongdoings, lies, misjudgements will turn to their opposite.

*****

One thing remains at the end:

Nanos gigantum humeris insidentes – Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants

So we all have surely pay due respect – and the best way of doing so is being honest. And the opposite of this is to claim that our wider view is our own, possibly personal merit. And even worse is to overlook the haze of the height that requires special spectacles, not least those that allow accepting danger and failure. Otherwise seemingly small missteps of today may end up in getting in caught in glacial ice tomorrow.

[1] John Maynard Keynes, passim

[2] The mental escape is to think it as ‘part of my own existence’, which is objectified, thus allowing me to say ‘I personally would not do this or that; but I am bound to the rules that define my existence.’

[3] Some may remember this – and perhaps it is even today still something and somewhere the case (left this business for a long time): if I remember correctly it had been the end of the 1970s/early 1980s when truck-drivers had been granted this status: king of the road. We got ‘our own truck’, not by way of property rights but as ‘personalised’ vehicles; we proudly have had a ‘name tag’ fixed to our ‘royal carriage’

[4] Mind: classical economics frequently escapes reality by using mathematical formulas; this does not allow the argumentum e contrario. In other words, some formulas should be strictly taken as reformulation of reality.

[5] in the following uv standing for use value and ev for exchange value

[6] Marx, Karl, 1894: Capital, Volume III [German first edition 1894]; in: Karl Marx. Frederick Engels. Collected Works. Volume 37; London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1998: 804

[7] ibid.

[8] ibid.

[9] From a personal communication with John Bellamy Foster in 2013

[10] Of course, nobody is personally liableL

[11] Boccara, 2002 Une sécurité d’emploi ou de formation. Pour une construction révolutionnaire de dépassement contre le chômage. Pantin : ESPERE et Le Temps Des CeRISES ; Septembre 2002: 24 f.

[12] Moore, Suzanne, 28/08/2013: The death of the middle class will undermine our democracy; in: the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/death-middle-class-undermine-democracy

[13] such as states, associations, business corporations, foundations (ibid.)

[14] Weber, Max: (1921): Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology; Edited by Guether Roth and Claus Wittich; Berkley et altera: University of California Press; 1978; vol 1: 13

[15] Schumpeter, Joseph, 1909: On the Concept of Social Value; in: The Quarterly Journal of Economics; Oxford University Press; Vol. 23, No. 2: 213-232; here: 225

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882798 .

[16] 231 f.

[17] Schumpeter suggests seemingly a variation of this, talking about ‘production, distribution and exchange’ and refers to their classification by ‘many writers’ as ‘social processes’, interestingly not mentioning consumption as Marx does (s. ibid.: 217).

[18] ibid., 215

[19] see for instance the differentiation of conditional, constitutional and normative factors and their interplay as suggested by the social quality theory.

[20] 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: Palgrave Macmillan; 250-274; here: 260

[21] Keynes, John Maynard, 1923: A Tract on Monetary Reform; London et altera: MacMillan, reprinted 1924: 80

[22] see Marcuse, Herbert, 1966: Der Mensch in einer sozialisierten Welt. Aufnahme: 03.10.1966, BR Technik: Schmitt Laufzeit: 47:13; CD 2: track 1: 2.45 min; from: Der Mensch in einer sozialisierten Welt. Originalvorträge von Herbert Marcuse. Autor: Herbert Marcuse. Sprecher: Herbert Marcuse. Aus der Reihe: O-Ton-Wissenschaft. Thema: Soziologie, Wissenschaft. 4 CDs – ca. 200 Minuten: CD 2: track 1: 2.45 min

[23] Marx, Karl, 1844: [Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844]; in: Karl Marx. Frederick Engels. Collected Works. Volume 3; London: Lawrence&Wishart, 1975: 229-346.: 274

[24] Shakespeare: As You Like It, 2. 7. 139-167; http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/life/lifesubj+1.html

[25] well, these are actually the words used by a Chinese friend, talking about China 😉 – sure, there is the urgent need to overcome Eurocentricsm

[26] Marx, Karl, 1844: [Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844]; in: Karl Marx. Frederick Engels. Collected Works. Volume 3; London: Lawrence&Wishart, 1975: 229-346.: 274

COHESION INSTEAD OF INTEGRATION – SHIFTING BORDERS AND THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION

15 novembre 2013 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general, social quality, thoughts on life and its philosophy

Cohesion instead of Integration – shifting Borders and the Role of Communication*

Abstract

The contribution presents some theoretical and methodological considerations dealing with communication. The fundamental question is if and if so, to which extent communication plays a new role in today’s societies where borders shifted in multiple ways.

The aim is to provoke reflecting on the multitude of shifting borders, incompletely captured by the concept of globalisation. Furthermore, some ideas will be developed towards communication as part of overcoming the tensions that accompany globalisation. A guideline for achieving multilevel-integration reference will be made to the social quality theory.

Introduction

It is some special and also strange pleasure for me to be here in Dublin, having been invited to address this conference.

I can only try to make a humble contribution – looking at the list of speakers and contributors I am too aware of the fact that I am not expert when it comes to the topic of this conference: Conflict and Communication: A Changing Asia in a Globalizing World.

Still, coming back to this special and strange pleasure, you may easily see why I may be able to make such small contribution as generalist. Dublin is actually the capital of the country where I spent up to not too long ago my life. If you want, I am now returning home after settling in Rome – and saying ‘after settling’ is a bit wrong as I still feel very much being commuter: not without fixed abode, though in some way without place where I am entirely rooted in a traditional sense. And this is finally a main part of the topic I’m supposed to look at: shifting borders.

Probably it would have been more correct to say that I am travelling to different places – but of course the textual dramaturgy suggested the term commuting. It goes back to the very same root as communication – the second pillar of the topic I am talking about: The role of Communication.

The root of both is in commonality – etymologically we see the following.

communication (n.)

late 14c., from Old French comunicacion (14c., Modern French communication), from Latin communicationem (nominative communicatio), noun of action from past participle stem of communicare ‘to share, divide out; communicate, impart, inform; join, unite, participate in,’ literally ‘to make common,’ from communis (see common (adj.)).

(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=communication&allowed_in_frame=0 – 11.11.2014)

common (adj.)

c.1300, ‘belonging to all, general,’ from Old French comun ‘common, general, free, open, public’ (9c., Modern French commun), from Latin communis ‘in common, public, shared by all or many; general, not specific; familiar, not pretentious,’ from PIE *ko-moin-i- ‘held in common,’ compound adjective formed from *ko- ‘together’ + *moi-n-, suffixed form of root *mei- ‘change, exchange’ (see mutable), hence literally ‘shared by all.’ (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=common&allowed_in_frame=0 – 11.11.2014)

commute (v.)

mid-15c., ‘to change, transform,’ from Latin commutare ‘to often change, to change altogether,’ from com-, intensive prefix (see com-), + mutare ‘to change’ (see mutable). Sense of ‘make less severe’ is 1630s. Sense of ‘go back and forth to work’ is 1889, from commutation ticket ‘season pass’ (on a railroad, streetcar line, etc.), from commute in its sense of ‘to change one kind of payment into another’ (1795), especially ‘to combine a number of payments into a single one.’ Related: Commuted; commuting.

(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=commute&allowed_in_frame=0 – 11.11.2014)

Taking this as point of reference, it throws us of course into the very centre of the topic as communication is foundation and reflection of the way in which we live together, the way, and with this I come to the third part of the topic: cohesion instead of integration.

I do not want to make things too difficult – but it only means that I do not want to start immediately with the heavy theoretical considerations. Those who are interested in this – and we all should be – will not have to miss this part, but at least have to show some patience.

Let me first take you to a village in an African state. There is a regular event that employs several people. And mind the term ‘employs’ – it is in fact a very simple thing: the braiding of pigtails. Of course we find a division: some of the people gathering are doing the actual ‘work’ of beautification. But actually these roles change as at some stage everybody is barber or customer. There is something that is much more important here: At any stage of this event everybody is actually producing: and this makes the actually relatively simple act of braiding pigtails a real event: people are chatting, exchanging news, making plans etc.. In actual fact, people are producing and reproducing their social existence, the way in which they live together with all the controls and reassurances.

I am more or less just back from Havana. One of the days, I just walked back from the office, walking down the broad green belt that separates the two lanes of the Paseo, four or five cars passed, moving towards the monument of José Martí: obviously tourists, passing in the old neo-colonial USNA-cars of the 1950s: laughing and shouting, giving the street some of the flair of the old colonial times, and of those later times under the regime of the Batista regime. Oppression, violence had been part of the old time; but also a hegemony of which a friend from Havana said recently in a mail it is to impose not only the mode of production but a way of thinking that make [it] very difficult to explore other paradigms and new ways of sustainable development. In some peculiar way this little scene showed the entire ironical paradox: this group of tourists enjoying themselves, taking photos of the old villas, and at the same time ‘making pictures’: creating in some way an image of the good life: exuberance, romanticising a time that had been everything else than romantic for the majority of the people, for the people who then claimed Soy Cuba. And we may see ‘taking pictures’ in a metaphorical way: they took the picture away that actually dominated the area where I had been that moment. A small child, the mother throwing a colourful plastic ball towards him, the child ‘runs’ behind …, and kneels down … to catch some fruit from one of the trees. Some young lads playing football – they did not need anything else than just a ball, and probably they could have even taking something else for it.

*****

No, it is not about praying the sermon of the simplicity of life. And here Dublin, with this Ireland, is actually in some special way an interesting point to meet: When Ireland joined in 1973 the European Community (as it had been called at that time), it had been one of the poorest countries. Part of the already institutionalised Europe of which some complained at the time about the then new member state Ireland, later also about the accessing Greece and Spain. They had been seen as the poorhouse of Europe. And Ireland, in the beginning part of this poorhouse, moved onto a path which made it later the model pupil of the European Union. And the institutionalised Europe had been – for some time at least – happy to see the successful implementation of its claimed strategy proclaimed in Lisbon where the Heads of States declared in 2000:

The Union has today set itself a new strategic goal for the next decade: to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.

It had been obvious though that these tiger years had been a somewhat illusionary and short-sighted orientation. The Celtic tiger, or as we frequently say in Hungary: the dragon economy had been a deception. In short, the hope of a consolidation, of creating wealth by building on foreign sources and forces: foreign direct investment and export of goods and services as main sources of prosperity.

Of course, I do not want to talk about the political situation in Cuba, nor do I want to engage in discussing the economic development of Ireland; and the braiding of pigtails is only in one respect of immediate relevance for the following, namely as metaphor for cohesion which I want to understand here in a very simple and also unconventional way: it is the emergence of a new form of togetherness in which some form of adaptation can be found, though as such going beyond a simple naturalisation, emergence of a minimum common denominator, levelling by way of meeting on a statistical means or something like that. Instead, cohesion in the here understood sense takes a different point of departure: it is not about the distribution of a pool of resources, but about the pooling of productive potentials. With this perspective, we are actually taking a view that finds its sound and sole point of departure in political economy. And it is also profoundly ‘positive’, i,e, starting from the social as

an 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: Palgrave Macmillan; 250-274; here: 260)

With this we may now reinterpret Niklas Luhmann’s stance – as well known amongst sociologists he opinionated that

social systems do not emerge without communication. The various reasons of the unlikelihood of processes of communication and the way, in which they are overcome and transformed into probabilities, regulate therefore the structure of social systems. We can thus understand the process of socio-cultural evolution as remodelling and extension of the probabilities of promising communication, around which society establishes its social systems; and it is obvious that this is not simply a process of growth but a selective process which determines which kinds of social systems become possible and what is excluded as lacking probability.

(Luhmann, Niklas, 1981: Die Unwahrscheinlichkeit der Kommunikation; in: Luhmann, Niklas, 2009⁵: Soziologische Aufklärung 3. Soziales System, Gesellschaft, Organisation; Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften; 29-40, here: 31; own translation)

There are surely good reasons to criticise Luhmann. Taking a sufficiently wider understanding of communication, we have to accept however that the critical points have to be looked for in other areas and indeed we may say – in rewording Luhmann and also rewording the conference theme:

Looking at changing Asia in a globalising world, communication is decisive in marking the development as one of conflictual and or peaceful in its character.

*****

Looking at the second part of the title

A Changing Asia in a Globalizing World.

we see on the one hand the huge difference of small changes of the wording – but we see with this also the ambiguity of the issue in question: It is about changes in Asia but also about changing China in the process of the globalisation and by this very process. Is there an end? Or a beginning?

This brings me to the one of the theoretical dimensions, namely the world systems theory – I only want very briefly point on it, highlighting the fact that differentiation had been something that took shape in different ways – and in one way or another, during history differentiation had been not least a matter of establishing and maintaining or changing power relationship. And these power-relationships can be understood as matter of social processes, i.e.

an outcome of the interaction between people (constituted as actors) and their constructed and natural environment.

Taking such a perspective means not least these power relations are always a matter of communication, understood as process of exchange between people (understood both as individuals and as nations or regions) and their environment.

Looking at the constructed environment, I want to come to the second theoretical perspective, namely the question of conditions that are of crucial importance in this context – conditions that allow to some extent as well explaining shifts in power positions on a global level. I want to refer to the work of Kondratieff who proposed that the economic development is characterised by major shifts in the technological development, he spoke of bol’shie tsiklys, i.e. major cycles, as elementary forms of an overhaul of the entire productive basis. Each of these cycles is characterised by a developmental pattern, namely prosperity, recession, depression and improvement. With this we find the ‘waves’ as succession of steam engine/cotton; railway/steel; electrical engineering/chemistry; petrochemicals/automobiles; and finally information technology.

There had been much debate about this model from its very beginning – and there had been surely misunderstandings and imputations. Be it as it is, at this point it is important to see Kondratieff’s argument – which I propose here as heuristic instrument – had been in the meantime interpreted as general pattern to be used for the development of the productive forces. As said, I see it primarily as heuristic tool. Some remarks have to do suffice. First, we can – and this is what Kondratieff himself emphasised – see such development simply in empirical terms – major inventions meaning major shifts in production and consumption. Second, he neglected however that this cannot be seen as a simple linear global development. Although we can surely see major developments of horizontal and vertical dispersion, such outreach is a matter of time and as such also causing major disruptions – such disruptions sometimes taking the form of power shifts or consolidation of power. Third, the relationship between the different shifts can take different forms – I any case a crucially important point is that the thus described development of the productive forces has important implications and consequences respectively: first we see hand in hand with this development a shift in patterns of consumptions – as matter of changing supply and also as matter of changing supply. Second, as much as the change of the productive forces is a matter of interaction with the organic environment, i.e. with nature, we see also a potential change of the centre in terms of space: depending on the resources that are linked to a specific stage of the development of the productive forces, we see a push-and-pull process: the centres of production do move towards profitability, and profitability is given where supply and demand in respect of the production is highest. In other words, where the production is most ‘effective’ where it finds the most fertile ground for establishing and maintaining the profitable process of production. (In this context it is important to note that the department I is that of producing mean of production, not that of consumer goods. In the second volume of Marx Capital we read in chapter XIX

The aggregate value of that part of the annual product which consists of means of production is divided as follows: One portion of the value represents only the value of the means of production consumed in the fabrication of these means of production; it is but capital-value re-appearing in a renewed form; another portion is equal to the value of the capital laid out in labour-power, or equal to the sum of wages paid by the capitalists in this sphere of production. Finally, a third portion of value is the source of profits, including ground-rent, of the industrial capitalists in this category.

(Marx, Karl, 1885 [First English Edition 1907, in different translation]: Capital, Volume II [German first edition 1885; second 1893]; in: Karl Marx. Frederick Engels. Collected Works. Volume 36; London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1997)

This proofs the supposition that the price is determined by demand and supply wrong. Demand and supply are relevant in determining the ‘price of production’, and are less determining factors of the price of consumer goods).

This links to a next dimension of the present investigation – the emergence of knowledge and cycles of communication. The fundamental issue at stake is the multiple interweaving of production, power relationships between people and classes, power structures between regions and communication – it is here the point to recall Niklas Luhmann’s words, that

social systems do not emerge without communication. The various reasons of the unlikelihood of processes of communication and the way, in which they are overcome and transformed into probabilities, regulate therefore the structure of social systems. We can thus understand the process of socio-cultural evolution as remodelling and extension of the probabilities of promising communication, around which society establishes its social systems; and it is obvious that this is not simply a process of growth but a selective process which determines which kinds of social systems become possible and what is excluded as lacking probability.

Communication is in its as such ‘neutral’, a tool; however it is a decisive stimulator and implementer by which the potentialities are actually brought into shape. I come back to an observation I mentioned at the beginning, where I spoke in connection with the group of tourists of taking and making a picture. This may be applied here on communication: it tells the story about production, power relationships between people and classes and power structures between regions and at the very same time it makes this story: the narration is a productive process – something that is well known to those who engaged with Deleuze, Foucault and others.

But in the same way as it is true that

[m]en make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please

(Marx, Karl, 1852 b: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon; in: Karl Marx. Frederick Engels. Collected Works. Volume 11: Marx and Engels: 1851-1853: London: Lawrence&Wishart, 1970: 97- 197; here: 103 f.),

it is trued that communication makes stories, but it does not do so as it pleases but from the

circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past

(ibid.)

And we have to add: it is not only the past but also the present: the conditions and resources it can draw. The conditions are objectively given but nevertheless they are – as relevant facts (thinking of and alluding to Durkheim we may speak of fait significatif) – only given by practice. … Relevance … – looking for a synonym my computer, working with Microsoft ® Word 2008 for Mac (Version 12.3.6 [130206]. Latest Installed Update: 12.3.6), suggests ‘appropriate’. And of course it is only a small step from appropriate, i.e. something being suitable, right, apt to appropriation.

Here we come another time back to Luhmann and this time in direct connection with the given definition of the social. Communication is one of the essential practices: allowing us to interact as people and to interact with our constructed and natural environment in order to produce and reproduce ourselves (so far taken from the definition of the social). And with this we are establishing by our practice probabilities, regulating therefore the structure of social systems, i.e. remodelling and extension of the probabilities of promising communication, around which society establishes its social systems (obviously taken from the paragraph cited from Luhmann).

Communication is then not least a matter of understanding social realities – and this understanding, given by the realities is also shaping these realities.

Here it is useful to refer to Thomas S. Kuhn and his view on ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’. The core of his thesis, and the justification that Kuhn captures political and scientific development in parallel as at times revolutionary is that he sees over time a mismatch emerging between the reality, what we know about the reality and what we need to know in order to maintain our ability to act. Just short time earlier I referred to appropriateness and the fact that it is only a small step from appropriate, i.e. something being suitable, right, apt to appropriation. Taking directly Kuhn’s words in a lengthy quote:

One aspect of the parallelism must already be apparent. Political revolutions are inaugurated by growing sense, often restricted to a segment of the political community, that existing institutions have ceased adequately to meet the problems posed by an environment that they have in part created. In much the same way, scientific revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense, again often restricted to a narrow subdivision of the scientific community, that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way. In both political and scientific development the sense of malfunction that can lead to crisis is prerequisite to revolution. Furthermore, though it admittedly strains the metaphor, that parallelism holds not only for the major paradigm changes, like those attributable to Copernicus and Lavoisier, but also for the far smaller ones associated with the assimilation of a new sort of phenomenon like oxygen or X-rays. Scientific revolutions, as we noted at the end of Section V, need seem revolutionary only to those whose paradigms are affected by them. To outsiders they may, like the Balkan revolutions of the early twentieth century, seem normal parts of the developmental process. Astronomers, for example, could accept X-rays as a mere addition to knowledge, for their paradigms were unaffected by the existence of the new radiation. But for men like Kelvin, Crookes, and Roentgen, whose research dealt with radiation theory or with cathode ray tubes, the emergence of X-rays necessarily violated one paradigmas it created another. That is why these rays could be discovered only through something’s first going wrong with normal research.

(Kuhn, Thomas S., 1962: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1962: 92 f.)

With this reference in mind we can also conclude that conflicts within communication are an essential part also of social quality: as matter of adapting life and living conditions to hat is appropriate – appropriateness, here understood not least as scope of opportunities defined by and defining

the constitutive interdependency between processes of self-realisation and processes governing the formation of collective identities [which] is a condition for the social and its progress or decline.

*****

And of course, we arrive with this at the point of communicating knowledge – taken general it is the set of skills, understanding and adjunct values. In brief we may say that it is following a similar pattern of development – a graph from Alice Chamber Wygant’s/O.W. Markley’s 1988-book on Information and the future (page 122) proposes a cycle which we can suggest as communication cycle. This is characterised by the creative idea, moving to elite awareness, movong on to polular awarness and government awareness and arriving at enactment of new policies.

Interesting is not only the change of relevant actors and ‘media’ – from the general to the concrete – but also that the modes of communication, understood as link to ‘applicability’ and daily life are changing. In a nutshell – and here we return to the relevance of the social quality approach – we see the various means as artistic work, science ficiton and fringe media, mass media and novels or poetic works and legislative acts, all having different functions (see ibid.).

The subject matter of the different communicaitons 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.

The important part here is that the steering of communication is a process that makes things immediate part of the

circumstances in everyday life

and this is a fact that

concern[s] the heart of the matter for the determination of the quality of the social.

(Beck, Wolfgang/van der Maesen, Laurent/WalkerAlan Walker, 2012: Theoretical Foundations; in: in: Van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan (eds.): Social Quality. From Theory to Indicators: Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 44-69; here: 64)

I do not want to suggest independence nor do I think good communication can solve all problems. Nevertheless I think communication is an issue that needs increasing attention. And the reason is … the increasing lack of communication within an increasing multitude of communication. We all know the pictures: people sitting together, one speaking on the mobile phone, one writing an SMS and the third one being connected to the internet. Seemingly communication is getting tighter but actually it is a kind of non-communication as the contact to what is immediately tangible and in control is lost. In this way it is true that our technical means and access is increasing, the substantial dimension is however at least under severe pressure.

I do not want to go in details – especially in details of theory of communication, communication overflow and burden.

Looking at the methodological dimension behind the Social Quality Theory, an important part is the critique of mainstream thinking in social science and its two central ideological pillars:

individualism – and its translation into methodological individualism

and

utilitarianism – and its translation into relations as matter of reciprocal and calculable exchanges.

It is an approach that is in a twofold way de-socialised and the different arrays of society stand in a somewhat isolated way side by side as pillars.

Economic Dimension

Social Dimension

Cultural Dimension

Environmental Dimension

…

Figure 1

In some respect we may speak of non-communicating vessels – based on a zero-sum-assumption, and taking the status quo: dominated by neo-liberal economic thinking and practice. The problems are obvious – sub-systemic functionality may be enhanced; however, systemic functionality is diminished or even completely undermined. Furthermore. Dysfunctions may be temporarily or partly or regionally overcome by exchange between the pillars – or we may say in the present context: by conflictual communication. In economic terms this would be about the internalisation of externalities (for instance by making environmental protection profitable; or including people outside of the employment system into employment based social insurance systems). However, the structural faultiness remains in place.

Against this background the alternative is offered by the Social Quality Theory, starting from the assumption that there is one decisive and ultimate ‘binding link’: the social, and taking up on the spirit of the definition we should better talk about the eco-social, i.e. people interacting in and as part of their environment. With this we can arrive at the de-utilitarisation of relations. With the inclusion of the eco-dimension directly linked to the social – and with this to societal practice – we can also work towards avoiding anthropocentrism. We arrive at the following sketch.

Eco-Social (as Concept and Criteria for Practice

Economic Dimension	Welfare Dimension	Cultural Dimension	Environmental Dimension	…

Figure 2

Though this seems to be a long detour, we find here also a point from which we can access the understanding of the contradiction between increasing means of communication and technical abilities to communicate and easily decreasing ‘meaning of communication’: communication is taken out of context. We may – alluding to what Karl Marx said about alienation – say that communicating people are not saying anything whereas people who are not saying anything are communicating. We can clearly see this when it comes to communication today where we even have to arrange phone calls: time is ‘dedicated’, not lived; contexts are constructed and do not exist.

I want to come to the point mentioned in the title: cohesion instead of integration – better to say: I want to make it explicit. Let me again bring the etymological question to the fore:

cohere (v.)

1590s, from Latin cohaerere ‘to cleave together,’ in transferred use, ‘be coherent or consistent,’ from com- ‘together’ (see co-) + haerere ‘to stick’ (see hesitation). Related: Cohered; cohering.

(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cohere&allowed_in_frame=0 – 11.11.2014)

cohesion (n.)

1670s, from French cohésion, from Latin cohaesionem (nominative cohaesio) ‘a sticking together,’ noun of action from past participle stem of cohaerere ‘to stick together’ (see cohere).

(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cohesion&allowed_in_frame=0 – 11.11.2014)

As such cohesion surely goes beyond of and is different from integration:

integration (n.)

1610s, from French intégration and directly from Latin integrationem (nominative integratio) ‘renewal, restoration,’ noun of action from past participle stem of integrare (see integrate). Anti-discrimination sense is recorded from 1940 in a S.African context.

(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=integration&allowed_in_frame=0 – 11.11.2014)

And

integrate (v.)

1630s, “to render (something) whole,” from Latin integratus, past participle of integrare “make whole,” from integer “whole” (see integer). Meaning “to put together parts or elements and combine them into a whole” is from 1802. Integrate in the “racially desegregate” sense is a back-formation from integration, dating to the 1948 U.S. presidential contest. Related: Integrated; integrating.

(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=integrate&allowed_in_frame=0 – 14/11/2013)

Sure, the terminological dimension is only heuristically meaningful. The point in question is concerned with dealing with the challenge of respecting ‘the other’ – not as social construct but as societal reality – and at the same time allowing something new to develop: communications as establishing something common, in common: a new, and possibly spatially, substantially or chronologically limited community.

– I want to end with a question. Can you imagine why a child and young people playing football in a large city, the latter even disturbing the traffic on the Paseo are communicating more and with less conflict than a group of tourists, exchanging words and laughing over distance while driving up the same Paseo? And though I am not Christian I am wondering if you can imagine why the current pope managed to call thousands of people for a 20-minutes silence against violence – and saying with this silence more than the weapons of wars and trade?

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

* Notes in Connection with the 5th Annual Conference of the Asian Studies Ireland Association (A.S.I.A.). November 15th/16th 2013 in Dublin

You will soon find the edited and complete version as working paper at WWW.WVFS.AT

Cohesion instead of Integration – shifting Borders and the Role of Communication*

Abstract

Introduction

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