Categoria: works, projects, publications

ireland – austerity or not?

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

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

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

A completed version will be elaborated and published later.

________________

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

The Irish Recovery and Naughty Children

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

What will happen: writing a critical assessment of the Irish economy, approaching it in a radical way, assessing also the current Irish situation Irish in a long term perspective, I am wondering if there will be dear Irish readers who ….

Well, I remember one day few years back now. A colleague, I think he originally came from Belgium to Ireland, had been tabling publicly some fundamental critical points concerned with the Irish Universities, the prevailing clientelism and the fact that there are forces within this system claiming to work for smart developments and factually milking the system for their own sake. As said, he did it publicly, using the all-user-exchange e-mail service: mails circulated to all staff. Now, one of those days I had been sitting with colleagues down for a coffee – and this topic, more precise: his mails came up. There had been not much said against his positions. But one remark mad me  …, well one remark had been perhaps even a little bit of a surprise, not being expected amongst members of the claimed intellectually enlightened elite. Somebody asked the question: ‘But if it is all so bad, why doesn’t he go back to from where he comes?’

I don’t mind in one way: I will write and say what I think I have to write and say – and perhaps somebody will ‘send me back’ as well one day [btw., I never saw the colleague from Belgium again. Though I do not want to say that he had been physically pushed out of the way, I have to say that bullying is …, well: not nice]. Why I am writing about it here has another reason – of course, some readers know by now: nothing simple, and just a short straight line.

* Yesterday I posted on facebook:

of course madness: sitting in Finland, writing on Ireland, to be presented in Austria, and talking to colleague in Turkey on project on HR-finding out that we may meet in Germany as by chance we will be there at the same time. May introduce him then to my Irish students – taking them to Munich for study trip.

seems we are safe – Benedetto won’t be around then. Seen from another angle it is a funny idea thinking about different global players and different global games: from the top and from the bottom.

500-limit, otherwise I would have added: getting interesting info from Yu-ze in Taiwan, on Neurosociology and some news on Gramsci, of course from the south of Europe. All a question of hegemony, right?

And got some photos from back in Ireland. Really nice spot, have to go there one day to make holidays rather than hear from the holidays others make there 😉

* Contrast that with what I stated before ….

* AND NOW:

Reading through the papers that I need for the analysis of the Irish development and situation (and further development from here), looking at documents like budgets, the recovery plan, the ECB-statements, the Taoiseach’s action plan …, I can only find one of the issues confirmed, linking the different positions of “academic-pub talk about opposing colleagues” and governmental analysis together. The confirmation is concerned with one of the governance issues, only linked to the economic policy by allowing the government to proceed in such disgraceful and un-virtuous way of robbing the people, celebrating communities as self-sufficient and self-reliant and serving those who brought us onto the cemetery of the Irish tiger. I am talking about the following:

Of course, much of this can be linked to the following dimensions of ‘insularity’

  • the obvious fact of insularity in geographical terms;
  • the long-lasting  and persisting dominance of agriculture;
  • the persisting parishialisation and communitarianisation

the political ‘segmentation’, welding together what does not belong together – for instance communities and localities, claiming against each other rather than bringing together people whose common interest is based on the social class to which they belong.

And

This socio-political outline is important in order to understand the lack of ‘expressed demand’ of systematic and structurally sound public welfare and also the lack of public protest on a societal level. Family and community orientation has to be understood as being very much a matter of forbearances and inwardness of protest.

So, what do you do with the small, naughty child? ….

Sure, but there they often face the same situation – and perhaps they actually left there because of it: the readiness to assess situations by looking at a broader spectrum of historical explanations than that offered by misbehaviour of virtue-less governance. Hegemony is about more, it is also about acceptance – the larger brother beating up the smaller, saving the parents from doing a proper job.

– Having said this, may be at least some of the parents are less closed, less narrow-minded than the parochial wolves, wearing a cosmopolitan fur.

My neighbour: farmer’s wife, well educated about and having left her job in favour of marriage and farmer’s-wife existence may be about fifty years ago: she won’t read this – but I cannot recall that she said anything like what I reported above. Sitting for a nice cuppa at the kitchen table there had been some undeniable wisdom coming from her.

(see Herrmann, Peter, forthcoming: Social Policy – Production rather than Distribution. A Rights-Based Approach – as volume XIX of the socialcomparison series)

Joerg Huffschmid Award – press release – German only

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

Pressemitteilung
Attac Deutschland
Frankfurt am Main, 19. August 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pressefotos (freie Verwendung bei Angabe der Quelle):

* Nicola Liebert:
(Fotohinweis: Nicola Liebert)

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

Für Rückfragen:

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

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

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

Cats and Enlightenment

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

The other day I sent a mail to a colleague and friend: after he let me know about the “very latest” Apple’s laptop; and after I came across the very latest software (OS) …. and after I sent him a devastating negative critique on that software I saw by accident – he replied, saying that he could not share  the critique after installing the OS … Fair enough – maybe that I install it soon myself …, but …: there is a more complicate answer to it, one that is not really about computers …. – so here it is:

Take your point, Kenneth; and not knowing the Lion, the cat itself had not been really my point. Nor Mac/apple or any special brand … . However, I am already since some time and receptively concerned about all these “the latest” and “the best”, quickly moving on to “very latest and the very best” and moving on to … – take food, take washing powder, take computers …, well, and take education and financial markets (of course, subsequently the crisis from 2007, though predictable since 2??? – not sure when exactly in the early 2000s I published something predicting its emergence), getting obvious in 2008, being bemoaned in 2009 (after overcoming the first shock) and now a matter of usage or something like it [perhaps even habit]. Due to the complete crash of my database which until today is not sorted, I installed office I don’t know what (the latest version) – it is so complicated that I cannot handle it, things are so easy, so much “supported” with macros etc. that many things are awkward … – I am now back to the previous version, and for mail I am using mail … – this apparently doesn’t allow me to use BE, at least the spellcheck highlights everything as wrong that doesn’t follow “big brothers” AE-rule.

Talking about rule – brings me to my current position, working on law. Though most of my own work is around philosophy of law, a look at more current issues has to be part of it. As usual, I forgot the figures. Roughly then just one example: the German Social Code – BSHG – had been established in 1962, serving as foundation for the area until 2004. Be assured, there had been many serious problems around the law, and with the BSHG itself and also with the implementation. I remember my own engagement on relevant issues – criticising relevant issues …, long stories, I could tell many and long stories (though I cannot tell you out of hand the dates). At stake had been very fundamental, systemic questions, matters of implementation – and all in between. – Still, for the good or bad this law had been in place until 2004 – changes had been made but only relatively few and not changing fundamentals. In 2005 Hartz-IV changed fundamentally the entire situation. I would be the last who would say: Oh, good old times – why should we change anything? But there is something which really is of concern for me: The same minute when the institutions of the parliamentary democratic system approved Hartz-IV, the very same law had been already discussed in the special committees – and the important point is: they discussed the need for fundamental changes.

As said, I would be the last who would say: Oh, good old times – why should we change anything.

And I surely would be the last who would say: Oh good god. There is no divine power to trust:

No Saviour from on high delivers

No faith have we in prince or peer

….

[You’ll find it somewhere here ;-)]

But the reason had been – so far I am indeed not too far from the humanist thinking as it finds its roots in the citoyenitée, revolutionary at its time, though at the end conservative in its idealism – the force to be guiding: guiding by circumspection, at least striving for providence.

Further a brief note on the law: legal provisions in the US (laws, acts …) are enacted and remain in place for a very short term only – the European had been different and increasingly changes, developing an ever shorter time of turn over. in in some way o the same point: Yesterday I have had a lengthy talk with Lorena, a colleague from Brazil who works here at the institute (really enjoyed it, really brought me forward in my own thinking. We discussed a text which I wrote as part of the book mentioned the other day.

As said, I would be the last who would say: Oh, good old times – why should we change anything. But something is surely remarkable. At one stage she said: most of the literature you refer to, are the classics. There is not much you use from what had been published more recently [though I actually made reference to Hart, Luhmann and other youngsters ;-)]. She mentioned – as missing – for instance Habermas. Sure, I could have included part of his work – but what did and does he really say what had not been said much better already by Kant, Weber … ?

There is good reason for change – but it should be reasoned, not rushed ….

But I have to rush now …, going to the bookshop, getting something to read when I don’t have the privilege of the use of the library here anymore.

And have to read, red, read and write, write, write … – but all with the one point in mind: it is not anout another interpretation, it is about change – that is then the focus next week ….

All The Same …

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

Something done – timely. Well, saying timely is not absolutely correct as I actually mean: time to get it out of the way after spending extensive time on the work: bringing the different contributions together, working,discussing drafts … – and writing something that is more meaningful than saying that a crontrubuted by saying … and be contributed by saying … Well, still couple of weeks left before it can be bought.

But actually having said ‘timely’ is actually correct too: after so many publications on the crisis since 2008ish (and many good, important contributions without any doubt) the present volume aims on showing the need to go beyond the ‘standard proposals’ – those that are remaining in the structural cage of the growth economies – and this includes to some extent also the post-growth-orientations, as critical and productive many f them are. Actually, via the work in the scientific committee of attac I am involved in these debates too – and there will be surely interesting and challenging debates during the upcoming meeting of the European Network Academy for Social Movements (ENA) – for my part it means leaving Munich-office end of next week, joining at least for some of the debates in Freiburg, also preparing the Euromemo-conference in Vienna, planned for September, and then heading for my Finland job.

Sure, all this travel and these different activities are very much “a private thing” – but they are at the very same time exactly a matter that is at stake also in the book: a new way of work, of living, the actual meaning of what economy is about – ….. AND THE WAY OF ANALYISING IT. At least for me, living globally and working in the different fields – here on Munich it had been very much law, shifting now to political movement (if you want “governance”), and then working again more on economics … – in a way you may say: the privilege  of living what I am working on and writing about – and what Paul called for to think about in new terms: the  modèle anthroponomique

BTW, it is a special pleasure for me that I have been invited to join the Eurasian Center for Big History and System Forecasting at the Lomonosow Moscow State University as as Associate Member.

Anyway, some information on the book now:

All the Same – All Being New

Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change

Peter Herrmann (ed.)

Contributors
Paul Boccara, Judit Csoba, John Bellamy Foster/Robert W. McChesney, Peter Herrmann, Arno Tausch

 

For Paul Boccara

Friendship, Openness, Trust

In Advance……….. 4

Peter Herrmann……….. 5

Deciphering Globalisation – An Introduction……….. 5

Paul Boccara……….. 58

“We must incriminate the basic rules of capitalism”……….. 58

John Bellamy Foster/Robert W. McChesney……….. 63

Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation……….. 63

Arno Tausch……….. 85

Paul Boccara’s Analysis of Global Capitalism……….. 85

Paul Boccara……….. 115

The Global Crisis and Africa : Struggles for Alternatives……….. 115

Alternative Financial System for North and South and Struggles to Master the Market, and for Common and Public Services or Goods, from Local to Global Levels……….. 115

Judit Csoba……….. 126

Goals and tools of Public Employment Programs in Hungary……….. 126

Paul Boccara……….. 144

Labour market, employment and unemployment policies in the European Union……….. 144

Paul Boccara……….. 155

What needs from Marxism?……….. 155

Annex……….. 160

Human Rights – Law and Economy

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

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

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

Human Rights – Law and Economy

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

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

Narrowing the Gap between the World’s Richest and Poorest

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

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

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

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

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

All the Same – All Being New. Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in general, joys - what we usually take for it, works, projects, publications

All the Same – All Being New. Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change

Finally I am really working on this book⏎ , meaning: I am working on finalising the work. It is only editing a book, writing just one contribution myself. The work with the contributors: commenting and you know what is involved is done. And there is some time to come I concentrate on it: after the recent workshops and conferences and … and the visit to Vilnius to where I had to go for two PhD-students, well, since then: two doctors (they are now. Right though – never really get over the confusion with doctors, medical doctors, PhDs …).

Anyway, though an extremely short trip, leaving Munich around Lunch time on Tuesday, returning around lunchtime on Thursday, had been sufficient time to visit also the Opera House, staging Otello. Seems I entered a contemporary piece:

Esultate! L’orgoglio musulmano sepolto è in mar *

And leaving the love story aside, the “Shakespeare/Verdi collaboration” is very much also about the definition of a very specific hegemony – in a nutshell we my say that Shakespeare’s piece is about a crusade without talking much about religion. There is a tiny point that is, in some respect, too small to be even recognised: real hegemony exists only where its reason does not need to destroy the other – be it that it is already completely diminished or for the simple reason of being consistently … , well …., tamed is probably the appropriate, at least the commonly used term. Is it by chance that this is probably in some way Verdi’s most innovative opera, not working with highlights of the grand arias, not aiming on the da capo but following throughout the entire piece, nearly disrespecting even the of the (surely existing four) distinct acts.

– It is worth to mention in a side remark that going to Lietuvos Nacionalinis Pperos ir Baleto Teatras was again the special pleasure of that place: surely a stage that can well keep up with some of the most famous places, offering especially exciting arrangements. And indeed it had been a performance that surely did justice to Verdi’s strive to maintain a permanence of the tension, going through the entire performance – the accomplished hegemony as the domestication is with this something that is and that is not: a feature of daily life of which we are not aware due to its lack of highlight. We complain, protest, justify, defend positions only when it comes to the headscarf, the cross in classrooms, the war again terror … – and accept exactly these tensions because they are deeply engraved. However, there is a BUT …. as

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow’d.

So, looking at the origin, namely Shakespeare he presented another reality – another facet of the reality. (Likely) a year after publishing Othello, he published in 1623 The Taming of the Shrew

A harshly misogynistic piece? Or a piece that works with a kind of alienation, ridiculing a reality … ?- Leaving aide if it is misogynistic or not, the topic is surely going much beyond, and at the same time is closely linked with others – gender, …, and surely the modern crusades follow all the same principle, suggesting a war against evil, Goethe’s words unwillingly capturing in his Erlkoenig.

“Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.” —
“Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!**

One year between Shakespeare’s two pieces …, Goethe writing these words in 1782, roughly 150 years later and perhaps they can both seen culminating in Verdi’s opera. Why this: 1871 had been the year of national upheavals in Italy and elsewhere, the era of nation building – and this is surely nothing else than striving for hegemony, for (redefining it).

And this is currently the ‘grand narrative’, against defiance of postmodernist ‘openness’ and vacillation. The attempts and failures of establishing a new hegemonic order – looking for its structures by looking at the clash of civilisations, by looking at the structurations by accumulation regimes and the role of financialisation – and by confronting ourselves with the topic:

All the Same – All Being New. Basic Rules of Capitalism in a World of Change

All this is surely not least a question of openly dealing with nearness and distance – Petruchio telling his friend Hortensio of his strive for seeking the future

farther than at home/Where small experience grows”

The words are taken from The Taming of the Shrew but would surely be most appropriate also somewhere in Othello.

Indeed (from Otello again): 

Questa è una ragna dove il tuo cuor casca***

And being caught in such spiderweb it arises as phenomenon of a very peculiar kind that we may not even know about it, moving with it and along its single single fathom, perceiving the glutinous support as savour … – as one of the PhD-candidates lauded: ‘We are experience only 20 years of independence …’, not even thinking about the following:

By totalling up pages in the many volumes of the EU’s Official Journal of legislation we found that the EU has passed a staggering 666,879 pages of law since its inception in 1957.

The figures as such …, who knows if this is really the total – and do numbers really matter? Doesn’t another fact matter much more? The fact of seeing this as independence – a “this” which is a true hegemon standing against the people, the demos as the supposed sovereign?

Sure, it may sound strange, but after enjoying Verdi on Wednesday in Vilnius and just having left a most enjoyable performance of  The Taming of the Shrew on Sunday in Munich, strange people may leave the Bavarian State Ballet, return to the office, thinking that it may be time to return to Kant’s works, looking at his Reflections on Anthropology rather than Habermasian good-will-voluntarism. In volume 15, containing the Handschriftlicher Nachlass: Anthropologie he contends:

We are inclined to wish that vice faces more obstacles. But authoritarian and other extrinsic force would be noxious in this case before the way of thinking is generally improved. Philosophers are already by their undertakings most independent of statutes. They have to make true conventions general. Their pupils, the clergy have to mould their religion accordingly. And the education of the rulers. Rulers will attempt to institute world peace. After that the inner establishment of freedom, law and power. Subsequently educations will follow under the auspices of the common character.

Sciences do not belong to the determination of the individual but to that of humankind. The individual being has his primary determination by animalism. However, the species finds it in completion of reason, braking with the first. ****

Idealism, sure – but allowing to enter the search for realism … – enabling it to stand on its feet by looking what actually is the same and what did really change. Surely we should be careful: Muley Hassan‘s bitterness, saying

Der Mohr hat seine Arbeit getan, der Mohr kann gehen *****

is only the answer on the arrogance of one who claims to be the one rather than  being just one of many others. And such bitterness needs … education – something to be looked at one of the next days.

The only thing that remains for a while – for me – is the memory of two most beautiful events and the privilege  to be one of the cobblers, working with others for the shoes of such peace which at some stage may allow people to live a life, being educated to live it like an untamed dance ….

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

⏎ TOC so far

Peter Herrmann: Deciphering Globalisation – An Introduction

Paul Boccara: “We must incriminate the basic rules of capitalism

John Bellamy Foster/Robert W. McChesney: Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation

Arno Tausch: Paul Boccara’s Analysis of Global Capitalism

Paul Boccara: The Global Crisis and Africa : Struggles for Alternatives – Alternative Financial System for North and South and Struggles to Master the Market, and for Common and Public Services or Goods, from Local to Global Levels

Judit Csoba: Goals and tools of Public Employment Programs in Hungary

Paul Boccara: Labour market, employment and unemployment policies in the European Union

Paul Boccara: What needs from Marxism?

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

* “Rejoice! The Mussulman’s pride is buried in the sea

** “I love you, your beautiful form entices me;
 And if you’re not willing, then I need force.”
 “My father, my father, he’s grabbing me now!
 Erl king has done me some harm!”

*** This is a spiderweb in which your heart is caught”

**** Denn wir sind schon so dazu geneigt zu wünschen, daß dem Laster mehr in den Weg gelegt würde. Aber der obrigkeitliche und andere außere Zwang würde schädlich hiebey seyn, bevor die Denkungsart allgemein verbessert würde. Die philosophen sind durch ihre Geschafte schon am meisten unabhangig von statuten. Sie müssen die wahre Grundsatze allgemein machen. Die Geistliche, ihre Schüler, müssen die Religion darnach modeln. Und die Erziehung der regenten. Regenten werden den Weltfrieden zu stiften suchen. Hernach die innere Einrichtung der Freyheit, des Rechts und der Macht. Und denn werden die Erziehungen auch unter den Augen des gemeinen Wesens geschehen.

Die Wissenschaften gehören gewiß nicht zur Bestimmung des einzelnen Menschen, aber zur Bestimmung des menschlichen Geschlechts. Der einzelne Mensch hat seine vornehmste Bestimung auf die Thierheit, aber das Ganze Geschlecht auf die Verstandesvollkommenheit, doch mit Abbruch der ersteren.

***** The moor has fulfilled his duty; the moor can leave.

It could be different …

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

It could be different, but it is possible this way too ….

These are words of the last e-mail before the INKRIT-meeting, gathering for some general debates, and mainly working on the Historical-Critical Dictionary Marxism, referring to Brecht’s Three-Penny Opera.

The location of a rather intense couple of days: Esslingen, a small town, or even village in the proximity of Stuttgart, in Southern German. Writing: or even village means that I actually didn’t see it. Arriving there by train Wednesday night, I took the bus to a remote conference-hotel, not really seeing anything of the place. And remote means remote, giving an exciting view: the (low) mountains, the valley covered by the raising fog – a carpet – seen from the height, a ceiling from the other side … It actually is different, depending on the side from which we look.

The usual ‘regular verb’ behaviour, the meeting in of the editorial board of The Argument as new field of activities and then the workshops. A rather interesting, not to say exciting work. Discussions that seem to be as remote even from our daily academic work as the Jaegerhof and even Esslingen. And although the debates are intense, it is in some way relaxing: concentrated on such a wide range of areas as Human Rights to Laughing, as life conduct to courtesan ….. And ranging as wide rural exodus – a term in itself so varied if looked at by the colleagues from Germany or Cuba and Brazil.

And relaxing in any case, being directly engaged – ex officio so to say – with Étienne Balibar on whose draft I comment or as listener, just ordinary participant. And as relaxed as all this is, as open the debate is there is surely also the tension. How to describe it? Between those who own all the experience simply due to age and those who have all impartiality on their side – sure one may also say: the claim of authority versus, or going hand in hand with gormlessness, and the deadlock engaging with innovativeness. The productive tensions as well, growing out of so different people meeting there: Brasil, Cuba, Germany, Italy, France …; villages, large cities ….

Yes, all could be different. And perhaps that is what makes it so inviting: A tension one can perceive as relaxing in its open way, as it aims on producing something new, aims on making a difference rather than continuing to move along, the dogtrot. So remote, even the tensions being so remote that I only mentioning its actual meaning after Mehmet dropped me at Stuttgart’s train station. First plans for future collaboration – the hug when we say farewell – knowing it is this way possible too. And emerging in relaxed atmosphere around Stuttgart’s train-station: people enjoying the sun, licking ice or sitting in the sun” the German Sunday-tradition: “coffee and cake” ….

… and the flowers in front of the station:  a reminder: Stuttgart 21 – not always as peaceful as it appears on the Sunday afternoon, not always as remote from daily quarrels as it suggests this sunny afternoon. And I feel as well how important all these apparently purely academic debates are in order to make sense, to change such reality. 

It could be different, but it is possible this way too …. – and to make it possible that the daily, centered around commodities, consumption, so-called performance possible in everyday’s life we need the remoteness: clear, concise thinking: exhausting, focused, provoking to contradict and not allowing any contradiction.

It is also something that is so simple, and so difficult to achieve. An excellent, energising experience – though showing how remote we are ourselves from really living it, maintaing so many illusions, voluntarily chosen subordinations and authoritative deification. But at least there is an open field for contest – from which academic life distanced itself so much.

All has to be different, it only pretends to be possible this way too …

 

 

 

 

 

Precarity

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in works, projects, publications

If you want you can term it a little bit pretentious the legacy of the research stay and visiting professorship at ODTUe: the new book which had been just after leaving Ankara sent to the publisher and will not take long to be available:

Sibel Kalaycioglu/Peter Herrmann (Eds.)
Precarity – More than a Challenge of Social Security
Or: Cynicism of EU’s Concept of Economic Freedom

It will be published in Bremen by the Europaeischer Hochschulverlag as part of the series Studies in Comparative Social Pedagogies and International SocialWork and Social Policy.

The following Table of Contents gives some overview.

Acknowledgements… 9

Peter Herrmann/Sibel Kalaycioglu…

Introduction… 11

Peter Herrmann…

Precarity and Precarisation in the Light of EU-Integration… 22

Marco Ricceri…

Europe and social precarity Proactive elements for system interventions… 52

Klaus Mehrens…

Precarious Work in the EU – What Can Trade Unions Do?… 77

Pietro Merli Brandini…

Globalisation and Solidarity.  Regulatory reform for a more balanced system adjustment… 83

Alexander Sieg…

Theoretical thoughts for psychosocial interventions in precarious working and living conditions… 95

Sabine Kergel, Rolf Dieter Hepp…

Ways of Precarisation… 104

Sibel Kalaycioglu/Kezban Celik…

Gender dimensions of precarity in Turkey… 120

David Kergel…

Integration or Inclusion – Towards an alternative ‘European Gaze’ on the Roma… 134

Vyacheslav Bobkov, Еkaterina Chernykh, Ulvi T. Aliev…

Precarity in Russia and Labour and Employment Markets Transformation… 145

Appendix 1…

Ankara-10-Point-Memorandum… 164

Ending Precarity – Acting Now for Sustainable Future… 164

Appendix 2…

List of contributors… 167

The book gathers a wide range of contributions – reflecting the complex character of the topic – with its different causes and consequences and the various answers needed. However, the presentations also make clear that the EU which could and should well take a role reflecting the responsibility for developing a European Social Model that fundamentally reflects the need for a new economy rather than limiting itself to striving for a rescue of an outdated model of economic growth.

As editors we come at the end of our introductory remarks to the conclusion:

Thus, we can see how the pillars of such model crumble away in a situation like that of France, Kregel highlighting (in this volume) that it can on the one hand be seen as crèche of the ‘modern Europe’ but on the other hand now showing its inability – or lack of political will – to actually maintain this system which had been inaugurated not least by the supposedly all-decisive great revolution, claiming to be the Procrustean-bed not just of the modern French nation but much beyond of global modernity in general. We surely have to be careful, not throwing the baby out with the bathing water. But we have to be careful as well and look for a new realism. It is a realism that consciously intervenes into shaping a new mode of production.