La Gira

Guest Contribution: Children’s Rights in Social Care Setting under Irish law: Reality or Myth??

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

Lucy O’Leary *

Children’s Rights in Social Care Setting under Irish law: Reality or Myth??

Introduction

The recent Irish referendum has given the impression that children’s rights in Ireland will be placed on some sort of an equal footing with that of their parents. However, the reality is somewhat different. The social care setting is an area of law that is of particular controversy due to the inability of the courts to look at these children as independent entities from their biological parents, foster parents and social workers. Their opinions and feelings are largely framed in terms of the opinions of the social work profession and despite the referendum, aimed at placing children at the forefront of all matters concerning them, this will not change. This is due to the lack of a child based approach in the courts and the adversarial nature of this arena.

This article shall look at the reality of children’s rights in the social care setting in Ireland in light of the referendum, and see what, if any, changes have been made to place the child at the forefront of these disputes. It shall place particular emphasis on the right of the child to have a say in where and who shall take responsibility for their everyday care. It shall also look at the impact that both European and international standards play or should play in the voice of the child being properly heard in these cases.

The Irish Perspective

Children’s rights in Ireland have been the source of debate for decades, especially given that Ireland signed and ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child as early as 1992, and 20 years later, children’s rights had still not been placed within the constitutional framework of this jurisdiction. While the legislative provisions protecting children and potentially giving children a voice are vast[1], the ‘inalienable and imprescriptible’[2] rights of the marital family are regarded as the “fundamental law of the state and must be taken as overriding any pre-existing law inconsistent therewith”[3].

The reality of the marked absence of a child centred approach in the courts has led to much criticism of how Ireland[4] effectively regards the independent rights of the child, as a separate consideration from that of their parents, social worker, foster parents and all other interested parties. The rights of the marital family have led to some extremely contentious decisions by the courts[5], where the best interests of the child were clearly contrary to the outlook of their parents, but due to the hierarchical system that exists within the Constitution, and the placement of article 41 at the top of that system, the rights of the child were outweighed by the rights of their parents.

This was thought to have changed in light of the recent referendum on children’s rights in Ireland. During the campaigning for the yes vote, many criticisms were made about the language of the new article 42A and how this would not, in reality, change the previous hierarchical system[6]. Despite these assertions, there were also fears that the new amendment would dilute the rights of parents to ‘parent’ their children[7]. The reality however is far removed from these fears. The Supreme court has stated time and time again, that the “sanctity of the family and the enduring existence of parental authority seem….to be guaranteed by the provisions [of article 41 and 42]…..and that the framers of the Constitution considered, and enacted, that the best interests and happiness of the child would be served by its being a member of the parental household”[8]. It is very difficult to see how this will change, given the wording of the new article 42 A.

The wording of the amendment, while it does provide some rights to children, is restricted to cases of guardianship, custody and access[9], and is preceded by the words “provision shall be made by law”, as is every insertion of the various provision of article 42A. This means that legislation will need to be implemented, in order to give effect to the rights of the child as asserted by this amendment. The Child Care Acts 1991-2011 and the Children Act 2001 provide for all matters regarding children. These are the legislative provisions available to children in Ireland and therefore, it could be said that this amendment offers nothing new to the realm of children’ rights in Ireland.

It could be said that the most important right for a child to have, is the right to have their views taken into consideration in all aspects of their care, a provision that is contained in the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964, s 25[10], a provision that has not been commenced yet, and which has been described as a ‘relatively mild obligation as it leaves the discretion to the court in relation to the child’s capacity to understand’[11]. While the amendment provides that legislation must be enacted in order to give this provision effect, in the absence of a child centred approach by the courts and the adversarial nature of the system, it could be said that a radical overhaul of the court process would need to be implemented, in order to give proper enjoyment of these rights to children.

The social care system is a further barrier to overcome for children that find themselves encapsulated within it. Not only do they have to try and be heard by their parents and the courts, they also have to try and be heard by their social workers. While the social worker will try and ascertain the views of the child, their obligation is to act in the child’s best interest, which may not correlate with what the child actually wants. This can lead to a further ostracising of the child and a feeling of helplessness in an environment where they already feel loss of control. It has been well established that involvement in the decision making process can increase a child’s “sense of identity, self esteem and personal autonomy”[12]. However, the absence of this approach within the system, can only serve to be of further detriment to the child.

_______________________

* Lucy O’Leary
BCL 2009 in Griffith College Cork
Studied H Dip in Social Policy 2011-2012, UCC
Currently studying LLM Child and Family Law in UCC 2012-2013

This contribution had been written in preparation for publication in SOZIALEXTRA (issue 4/2013). As it is dealing with the situation in Ireland and gives at the very same time an insight into questions that are of general relevance it is worthwhile to be published also in English, not only in the German translation in the journal.

See on this topic also my own post.

[1] Child Care Act 1991-2011, Children’s Act 2001

[2] Article 41.1.1 Bunreacht na hEireann

[3] Re O’Brien (an infant) (1954) IR 1 at 10, per Davitt P

[4] Concluding observations of the UNCRC, CRC/C/IRL/CO/2, 29 September 2006, p.2

[5] N v HSE [2006] 4 I.R, Northern Western Health Board v H.W and C.W, (2001) 3. IR 622.

[7] ibid

[8] Re O’Brien (an infant) (1954) IR 1 at 10

[9] Article 42A.4.1º ii

[10] As inserted by Children Act 1997

[11] Annual Review of Irish Law 2004 (Dublin: Round Hall Sweet and Maxwell, 2005) as cited in O’Callaghan, “ Realising the Child’s Right to be Heard in Private Child Contact Disputes: Progress in Practice?” (2010) Irish Journal of Family Law at 9

[12] J.E Timms, Children’s Representation: A Practitioners Guide (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1995),p 440 as cited in O’Callaghan, “ Realising the Child’s Right to be Heard in Private Child Contact Disputes: Progress in Practice?” (2010) Irish Journal of Family Law at 1.

Class

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

Göran Therborn published an article in the New Left Review 78 which is a hugely important reminder. Not least he highlights the ongoing meaning of the class question for social policy which had been – and still is – largely neglected within the British tradition of social policy and its foundation in social administration.

I think Göran’s contribution is a hugely interesting reading especially today while for another time the current crisis is not discussed with a proper reference to class issues. The debate on the crisis still remains caught within a framework of a supposed general interest, which had been and is always the interest of a minority. This is well known not only from Karl Marx’ work but also getting obvious from a thorough study of the two main works elaborated by Adam Smith (“Wealth of Nations” and “Moral Sentiments”).

I may add a brief comment, putting the perspective on social policy in perspective. Looking at economics, it’s original sin is linked to Marshall, stripping off the political from the economy: whereas all thinking in this area – be it by Xenophon, Ricardo, Smith or Marx to name but a few – had been hitherto seen as essentially political economy, we find now this fundamental shift of an alleged separation. NB: The mathematisation is not as such a problem although it is this that frightens frequently social scientists entering the debate on economic questions. Not least with this lapse we find the birth of social policy in its modern form: separated, entering a hopeless competition, searching its foundation in a claimed “pure reason of values” and prone to be swallowed by administration. The most extreme pattern surely developed in and from the Anglo-American tradition which founds social policy in social administration. Rather than referring to recent debates and examples (see for instance  my own writing: Person oriented services and social service providers in comparative and European perspective. Current debates on changes by liberalisation in a perspective of a theory of modernisation; New York: Nova, 2006, and more recent and relevant: The End of Social Services? Economisation and Managerialism; Bremen: Europaeischer Hochschulverlag, 2012)

I want to draw attention to the work of Karl Polanyi (surely beyond any suspicion of being Marxist): The Great Trsansformation. In his analysis of pauperism, Speenhamland legislation and its ‘antecedents and consequences’ (see part two: The Rise and Fall of the Market Economy; I. Satanic Mill) he clearly shows that this legislation had been genuinely part of the political economy of the time, not a matter of ‘distinct social policy’. And as such it had been established, taken back and re-established in new forms. A quote may show this:

The market pattern, on the other hand, being related to a peculiar motive of its own, the motive of truck or barter, is capable of creating a specific institution, namely, the market. Ultimately, that is why the control of the economic system by the market is of overwhelming consequence to the whole organization of society: it means no less than the running of society as an adjunct to the market. Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system. The vital importance of the economic factor to the existence of society precludes any other result. For once the economic system is organized in separate institutions, based on specific motives and conferring a special status, society must be shaped in such a manner as to allow that system to function according to its own laws.

It is interesting to read then the analysis of the development of the social policy legislation which had been mentioned: the class question always being on the agenda, the bourgeoisie always well aware of acting as class – in a way we may apply the notion brought forward by Marxism when looking at the proletariat, here applied to the ruling class: a class being characterised by the consciousness of being a class for itself rather than being only an objective entity without a consciousness of its existence (cf e.g. Marx,Karl: The Poverty of Philosophy; ; Chapter 2: The Metaphysics … . Strikes and Combinations of Workers). It is also interesting to see that in current debates the bourgeoisie is again (or we may better say: still) well aware of this close intricate link. On the other hand, we find on the (in a political sense) liberal and left spectrum a reluctance to enter the debate of class issues to see social policy as genuinely economic question and vice versa, in other words: to return to a genuine understanding of political economy. Pseudo-radical reference to a Ship of Fools or greed as phenomenon of general deterioration are only apt to distract from the essential question of class. – Sober analysis shows that the fools are actually sitting on board of a social science vessel that understands the social as add-on, aiming on strengthening its meaning rather instead of rooting its meaning in societal objectivity. In a proper understanding the social, then is the

outcome of the interaction between people (constituted as actors) and their constructed and natural environment. Its subject matter refers to people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships. In other words, the constitutive interdependency between processes of self-realisation and processes governing the formation of collective identities is a condition for the social and its progress or decline.

(van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan, 2012: Social Quality and Sustainability; in: van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan [Eds.]: Social quality: From Theory to Indicators; Basingstoke: Macmillan: 250-274, here: 260)

So, in this light a left understanding of social policy has to make a “step back”, returning to the roots if it doesn’t want to allow to be continuously pushed aside by the quest for economic miracles of economic growth of and within marketised societies. To quote another time Polanyi:

The ecomomic system is, in effect, a mere function of social organization.

And social organisaiton and social policy, in one way or another, is a mere expression of class relationships. As such it is a matter of capitalist formations, defined not only by economic interests but by economic power: the control of the means of production and the control of their development and “use”.

China and Asia – A New Capitalist Centre or A New Capitalism?

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

The following are notes only, giving some kind of direction to a presentation in La Habana, Cuba, not the presentation as such.

Western societies under serious threat

The future will not be ‘capitalism as we know it’ – and it may be added that we probably even fail when utilising the traditional ‘concepts’ and categories as neo-liberalism, nation state and the like as analytical tools;

The future faces the challenges of a new and fundamental threat from the side of environmental hazards

With this we have to challenge and overcome following the roots of today’s capitalism, namely the individualism as a major source of mal-development.

NB: In this light socialism has to think also about what today’s challenges are. Industrialisation is now a matter that is intrinsically interwoven with processes of globalisation and going much beyond the traditional patterns. The understanding of what is ‘industry’ changed – they are very much beyond the development of the means of production. It is also about the means of consumption. And it is also about the changed meaning of production: services, transactions etc. play an increasing and seemingly independent role. We can see this from the meaning of the financial sector in the capitalist world and globally. And we can see this by the fact that already in 1994, Douglass C. North, with reference to John J. Wallis and North from 1986 makes us known of

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

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

Second, globalisation is not so much and not primarily about the power of multinationals. Rather, it is about a structure of complex interdependencies. This means not least that any strategy of economic success has to focus increasingly on issues of quality. And as such it has to deal with complex issues of a highly integrated systems of “work” and “life”.

It is about what is produced and in which way it is produced and finally about the way production and reproduction is immediately integrated in the overall life span.

China as part of Asia as new Centre?

All this is traditionally also a challenge for capitalist societies and all this found already answers in traditional patterns of globalisation, namely the global division of labour. We find fundamentally the three “sites”:

  • The socialist countries
  • The countries of the capitalist centre
  • The countries of the capitalist periphery

Looking at China and other Asian countries the situation is a bit tricky: independent of how we assess “socialism in China”, we can say that all the countries, including the PRC had been peripheral in two ways: peripheral to the capitalist formation in terms of the character of their formation, and peripheral in terms of the development of their industrial stage.

Today, the situation is again different in the relevant countries; but globally they can nevertheless be seen as one group in several respects. Their industrialisation is very much based on traditional systems of social integration; and this means that this industrialisation is also very much linked to the traditional concept of industrialisation: it is about the central role of mass production especially of means of production; however, it is at the same time about a promoting role that this production plays: we can see this very much as matter of ancillary industries. Taken together, it is as matter of a certain social structuration, or a specific way of “social integrity”: it is best accounted for by the reference to “social harmony”. Rather than being based on individualism it is the idea of a specific kind of collectivity. The traditional principles still have some meaning.

The principal tension is between only two poles – the good and the evil – and the ideal is actually not something that is principally outside of this tension but it is the solution of the tension. It is the dialectical Aufhebung in the form supersession and sublation. 石頭希遷 (Ts’an-t’ung-ch’i) expresses this pronouncedly in the Zen Buddhist tradition in the poem Harmony of Difference and Sameness, writing for instance:

In the light there is darkness,
but don’t take it as darkness;
In the dark there is light,
but don’t see it as light.
Light and dark oppose one another
like the front and back foot in walking.
Each of the myriad things has its merit,
expressed according to function and place.

(Ts’an-t’ung-ch’i: Harmony of Difference and Sameness; http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/sandokai.htm – 15/07/2009 8:13 p.m.)

It is not least a foundation for the role-definitions as we find them in the words of Mencius:

[l]ove between father and son, duty between ruler and subject,
distinction between husband and wife, precedence of the old over
the young, and faith between friends. Fang Hsü said.!
Encourage them in their toil,
Put them on the right path,
Aid them and help them,
Make them happy in their station,
And by bountiful acts further relieve them of hardship.

(Mencius, 300 BC [appr,]: 60 – Mencius. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by D.C. Lau: London et altera: 2003)

One point of special interest is the fact that we find even up to now a strong orientation of Asian cultures along these lines – be it in Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism or other strands of development. This is important to note as it opens the way towards another interpretation of the differences between the Eastern and the Western understanding of the welfare systems. Whereas in Western societies there is barely any doubt about the welfare state serving as point of reference, this is different in Asian societies where the concept of harmonious welfare society is central.

According to Confucius, social harmony, that is a state of cooperation and the absence of social conflict, can be theoretically achieved primarily by two methods. First, it is the self-cultivation of individual moral character; the second is that both leaders and subject behave with propriety and conduct their relationships in conformity with the social rules without coercion (King & Bond, 1985, pp.30-32; Sung & Hahn, 1985, pp.22-23). In other words, the traditional state of social harmony for good governance is the reliance on people, both leader and subject, in the self-realisation of the best of their moral character and in the exercise of propriety in role performance, even in a hierarchical social and economic order. In practice, as reminded by a Western Chinese expert on the current official discourse of social harmony, that in Imperial China, the “self-serving dynastic rulers adopted social harmony as their official ideologie d´etat, using it to impose a paternalistic, ritualistic ethos of political consensus and conformity upon a voiceless, powerless peasantry” (Bauum, 2005).

(Wong, Chack-Kie: Comparing Social Quality and Social Harmony by a Governance Perspective; Paper presented during the International Conference ‘Social Quality in Asia and Europe: Searching for the Ways to Promote Social Cohesion and Social Empowerment’. University of Nanjing, 24-26 October 2008: 3)

This is hugely important as it

includes a rectification of the earlier development bias towards economic development by the global concept of ‘Five Co-ordinations’ – the coordination of rural and urban development, the coordination of regional development, the coordination of economic development and social development, the coordination of human and nature, and the coordination of internal national development and the need of open door to outside. In other words, the earlier ‘growth-first’ model by the slogan of ‘Get-rich-first’ set by the late Patriarch, Deng Xiaoping, is replaced by the present slogan of ‘Both-rich’ (Central Committee, CPC, 2005).

(ibid.: 7)

Still, as far as we are concerned with an inherent tension of the Asian countries, we have to see the conflictual line: as much as the concept of social harmony is ideologically maintained and modernised, as important is to acknowledge that we face a two-layered structure: the traditional mode of production clashes with the patterns that re typical for the NICs, the Newly Industrialising Countries. It is important to emphasise that we are talking about industrialising rather than industrialised countries. This implies that we are facing a two layered shift of the development.

On the one hand Asia is emerging as a new centre of global capitalism. Sure, it is not about a complete shift – although there are good reasons to see this development as equally serious as the shifts that characterise earlier stages of development – Giovanni Arrighi developed this already in detail: the victory of the Dutch mercantile system over the Northern-Italian city states at the end of the Renaissance; the victory of the new heavy-industrialising England over the mercantile system; later the mass-productive systems of the “New World” of the American Dream, dominating the new global order.

With reference to Bob Jessop (Jessop, Bob, 2000: From the KWNS to the SWPR; in: Gail Lewis/Sharon Gewirtz/John Clarke (eds.): Rethinking Social Policy; London et al.: Sage publications; 2000: 171-184) we can look at this in a different way, at least with view on the “developed national capitalisms”. He provided from a different perspective the following two systematic outlines, each reflecting a different developmental stage of capitalism.

1 Keynesian

=

 Full employmentClosed economyDemand management

Infrastructure
2 Welfare

=

 Generalized norms of mass consumptionWelfare rights
3 National

=

 Relative primacy of national scale
4 State

=

 Market and state from mixed economyState corrects ‘market failures’

Keynesian Welfare National State

(from ibid.: 173)

For the latter stage he outlines as follows:

1 Schumpeterian

=

 Innovation and competitivenessOpen economySupply-side policies
2 Workfare

=

 Subordinates social to economic policyPuts downward pressure on ‘social wage’Attacks welfare rights
3 Post-national

=

 Relativization of scale
4 Regime

=

 Increased role of governance mechanisms to correct market and state failures

Schumpeterian Workfare Post-National Regime

(from ibid: 175)

There is a good bit of analysis in Jessop’s work which I want to take up and push further, looking at the process of socialisation and its conditions. In other words, it is about exploring the opportunities and needs for a new socio-economic system, thus exploring the potentials of new steps of socialisation.

Taking up Jessop’s references I propose a new perspective as Gates-Jobsian Patchwork Global Spacetime.

1 Gates-Jobsian = Defining Access to “Employment” but also Defining EmploymentOpen EconomyBlurring Demand
2 Patchwork = Individualised Mass ConsumptionIndividual Rights— Opening frm Law to Rights
3 Global = New Belongings and Identities
4 Spacetimes = “Arbitrary” Social Spaces for Individual Self-Realisation

Gates-Jobsian Patchwork Global Spacetime.

On another occasion I stated on the first element that there is some reason for thinking about a Gates-Jobsian shift emerging from the undefined polyphonic post-Fordism? The new computer-technology and with this the era of information-technology as it is frequently attributed to Gates’ Microsoft and Jobs’ Apple emporium has much deeper implications as we usually see: the digitalisation of everything, the increased accessibility of manything and the potential of anything are visible, lurk around every corner. But we do not see immediately the depletion of substance in algebraic formulae, the unattainability of understanding and the reality of the potential as potentiality of factuality, immersing as something that could be but that is not. A new kind of absolute idea – it is not irrationality but a new rationality and perhaps even a new categorical imperative.

This suggests that we actually reached a developmental stage of the productive forces that are now at a stage which are fundamentally reaching into new patterns of life.

On the other hand it is about the power relations within the Asian region. Japan is highly developed in the traditional mass production industries. However, the other countries of the region are more open – not least as they start from a relatively low level of development. The latter can be seen by the fact that their share in international trade decreased enormously for a long time, however massively catching up since recently. Thus we witness the possible emergence of a new centre-periphery structure: China, with its regional satellites as new centre of the global economy; leaving in the long, or even only medium run Europe and the USNA behind. The recent global crisis shows already that global is somewhat reduced: it is primarily about the “global west”, though surely pulling the old satellites in consequence down.

In China the current main challenge is the development of a reasonable own social force. I mean with this, that export orientation can only be a temporary stronghold – allowing some form of economic sustainability only if it manages to develop a sound indigenous economic performance.

Doomed to Fail? The need for a sustainability orientation

However, personally I see the following major difficulties in this respect: Maintaining the concept of a global economy principally based on division of labour fails to see the true challenge of globalisation. It is about emphasising ‘joint existence’ and its sustainability rather than competitive advantage. This accentuates the need to search for a new concept of development that is indeed geared to an understanding of the “we”. For this we may have to learn from each other – and talking about “we” I mean at this moment the work I am involved in as senior advisor to the European Foundation of Social Quality. There is a string collaboration with colleagues in Asian countries. The challenge is to develop an understanding of the social,

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

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

From my personal point of view we have to drive this further. Taking this definition as point of departure we have to look for a way to thoroughly found this definition in its economic meaning, linking it to matters of the development of the productive forces. And we have to found it more serious in terms of a “we” that is not based in traditional values it in real peoples movements.

In particular the latter is, I hope, a point for developing a sound cooperation between colleagues from Cuba and colleagues from other part of the world.

Some Questions: Challenges we Face

It is striking hat we are in many cases dealing with paradigms, concepts and terms that remain unquestioned. This is for instance about the ‘natural character of barter’ (for instance problematised by Karl Poalnyi), the validity of the nation state (even in its modern form) as point of reference, competition as human condition and rational choice as guiding decision making. Issues as reciprocity, altruism, solidarity frequently show up, however remain outside of consideration as constitutive factors. The actual widespread and fundamental meaning of cooperation and the social as

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

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

remain marginalised although they have a prevailing meaning.

It is surely important to discuss the meaning of the accumulation by dispossession. However, we have to look also at developments of accumulation by repossession. Fact is that capitalism inherently destroys its own foundation, competition leading to a process of a ‘clandestine socialisation’.

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

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

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

++++++++++++++++

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

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

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

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

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

++++++++++++++++

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

organic unity of economy and polity

(Perry Andersen).

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

Arte. Es la naturaleza creada por el hombre

(José Martí)

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

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

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

All could be different but I nearly cannot change anything.

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

++++++++++++++++

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

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

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

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

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

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

respect, protect and fulfil

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

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

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

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

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

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

++++++++++++++++

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

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

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

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

++++++++++++++++

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

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

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

++++++++++++++++

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

++++++++++++++++

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kondratieff – and a new gate for achieving Social Quality?

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

Contributing to the debate on “Cyclical Patterns in Global Processes, Kondratieff Cycles and the Concepts of Long-Term Development of Russia and the World”

I’m not entirely sure if and to which extent I can contribute something really new by approaching the topic from different perspectives: economics, political science and sociology. The ambiguity of the Kondratieff approach, the approximate character of the “waves” or “cycles” had been frequently mentioned throughout the years – and actually had been also the point behind contesting his concept from the “official” side during the Soviet times.

My fundamental concern is the following:

  1. it is the aim to present a wider understanding of what the foundation of the cyclical movement is – thus it is about the discussion of some theoretical aspects;
  2. this perspective may help to understand where we are actually today, and not least: what possible political conclusions can be presented.

I. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS – A wider framework for analysing waves

I want to start with a broad reference to the French theory of regulation, and in particular a definition of the accumulation regime given by Andre Lipietz. He strongly emphasis in the fact of a – temporary – correspondence of the actual accumulation as it is part of the production and the pattern of consumption. Looking at consumption, he refers especially to the “unproductive” dimension, i.e. the part of consumption that is part of reproduction of life. Nevertheless, this consumption can only be understood as part of the overall reproductive process of the economy (Lipietz, Alain, 1986: New Tendencies in the International Division of Labor: Regimes of Accumulation and Modes of Regulation; in: Scott/Allen J./Storper, Michael [eds.]: Production, Work, Territory. The Geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism; Boston/London/Sidney: Allen&Unwin: 16-40). In this understanding it is closely linked to Engels’ emphasis of the understanding of the materialist conception of history with the focus on the production of everyday’s life (see Engels, Frederick, 1880: Socialism Utopian and Scientific; in: Karl Marx Frederick Engels. Collected Works Volume 24. Marx and Engels 1874-1883; London: Lawrence&Wishart, 1989: 281-325; in particular 306). In a narrower understanding, this is of course not least a matter of the location of purchasing power within the society’s economy.

From here it is only a small step to fully understand the meaning of civilisational character of the entire question of the development – this had been mentioned in the presentation by Yuri V. Yakovets. I want to refer here to Paul Boccara, who stated in his recent book:

C’est pourquoi, en liaison avec l’ « économie » c’est-à-dire les règles (nomos en grec) de la transformation  de la nature extérieure (oekos en grec) ou si l’on veut du système écologique, on peut parler d’ « anthroponomie », pour les règles du système de transformation de la nature humaine (anthropos en grec)

(Boccara, Paul, 2012 : Le Capital de Marx, son apport, son dépassement au-delà de l’économie ; Paris : Le Temps des Cerises : 19)

In this light, technological development is always very much also a matter of specifically “directing” demand – in a side remark I may refer to Alfred Kleinknecht who reminds us that

[t]he expansionary effects on demand of such investments can be described in analogy with the standard Keynesian income multiplier model. The seize of the expansionary multiplier effects would, of course, depend on how revolutionary were underlying innovations, the rate of subsequent (major and/or minor) innovations, and their degree of diffusion.

(Kleinknecht, Alfred: Long-Wave Research: New Results, New Departures – An Introduction; in: Kleinknecht, Alfred/Mandel, Ernest/Wallerstein, Immanuel (eds.): New Findings in Long-Wave Research; New York: St. Martin Press, 1992; 1-12; here: 9)

Before looking a bit more in detailed into this matter, I want to remind ourselves of the two departments – implicitly mentioned already in the quote from Engels’ text. These are about the means of production in department I and the consumables in department II.

I want to suggest in particular in the light of the more or less recent developments – though not referring to the immediate past – to extend this perspective by adding two departments. A department III had been actually mentioned already a long time ago – when finance capitalism entered capitalism at an earlier stage. It had been Rosa Luxemburg who outlined in her book on ‘The accumulation of capital’ the financial sector as department III (see Luxemburg, R., 1913. The Accumulation of Capital. [Trans. A. Schwarzschild, Introduction by J. Robinson, 1951]; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul: passim). In addition, I want to propose a department IV as an umbrella for producing invisible assets as for instance management, knowledge, design, knowledge management etc. . It may well be worthwhile to consider here as well part of public administration with an exponential growth; but also “time” and “space” which can be increasingly seen at least in some way “man-made” with its virtual dimension.

All these invisible assets a surely not new – they, as well as finance capital played a major role earlier. For instance we discussed in the 1960s/70s the role of science as immediate productive force – at least this can be seen as an indicator for the importance we gave it. The new character can probably be grasped by saying that all these factors are now distinct, play a very specific role in the overall shape of the economy.

Of course, we all remember the crucial distinction Marx presented with regard to the overall process, analysing production, consumption, distribution and exchange all being integral part of the process.

My proposal here is to link this with the extend view on departments,

I – means of production

II – consumables

III – “financial services”

IV – “invisible assets”

II WHERE EACTLY ARE WE STANDING NOW?

Given this framework, we can now move to the question of how to understand the current situation.

A crucial point is that the capitalist formation had been up to hitherto characterised by

  • specific forms of marketisation – according to Karl Polanyi markets a not per se a matter of establishing market societies
  • the emergence of the market principle as dominating production – Polanyi points this out, stating:

A market economy is an economic system controlled, regulated, and directed by markets alone; order in the production and distribution of goods is entrusted to this self-regulating mechanism. An economy of this kind derives from the expectation that human beings behave in such a way as to achieve maximum money gains. It assumes markets in which the supply of goods (including services) available at a definite price will equal the demand at that price. It assumes the presence of money, which functions as purchasing power in the hands of its owners. Production will then be controlled by prices, for the profits of those who direct production will depend upon them; the distribution of the goods also will depend upon prices, for prices form incomes, and it is with the help of these incomes that the goods produced are distributed amongst the members of society. Under these assumptions order in the production and distribution of goods is ensured by prices alone.

(Polanyi, Karl: The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of our Times; Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001: 71)

Continuing, he summarises a little later – with reference to W. Cunningham (Economic Change; Cambridge Modern History, Vol . I)

The extreme artificiality of market economy is rooted in the fact that the process of production itself is here organized in the form of buying and selling.

(77)

  • the shift to the distinctly dominant market of consumables – this finally representing the decisive step towards the market society
  • finally the move towards the dominance of invisible assets – including the increased meaning of so-called financial services.

This is in some way a different formulation of the undercurrents of Kondratieff’s waves, taking it from a presentation by Carlotta Perez:

1771 – The ‘Industrial Revolution’ (machines, factories and canals)

1829 – Age of Steam, Coal, Iron and Railways

1875 – Age of Steel and Heavy Engineering (electrical, chemical, civil, naval)

1908 – Age of the Automobile, Oil, Petrochemicals and Mass Production

1971 – Age of Information Technology and Telecommunications

20?? – Age of Biotech, Nanotech, Bioelectronics and New Materials?

(Perez, Carlotta, 2011: The direction of innovation after the financial collapse. ICT for green growth and global development; 9TH Triple Helix Conference Stanford, July 2011: Slide 3)

This always went hand in hand with a specific international division of labour and division of consumption, including a difference between simple and extended reproduction of people’s daily life.

This evokes the proposal of a new phase we are facing now: whereas we find in the earlier development a move towards socialisation of production and consumption and with this socialisation of securitisation, we find currently a move “back forward”:

  • it is a matter of technological development
  • it is a matter of shifting productive orders globally and internationally
  • and it is also shifting patterns of consumption.

In some respect we may put one thesis forward: we find now a real quantum leap of globalisation: although the commonly known divisions between centre and periphery are in many respects maintained, we find nevertheless a more rigid “unification” of the entire capitalist structure in “one global capitalist system”. Of course, in detail a differentiated analysis and debate has to be undertaken – not least in the light of André Gunder Frank’s and Barry Gills’ thesis of the 5,000 years development on the one side (see on this discussion Frank, André Gunder/Gills, Barry K., 1993: (Eds.): The World System. Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand; London/New York: Routledge: 1996) and on the other side of Giovanni Arrighi’s suggestion that we are witnessing a “shift to the east”. A brief and tentative remark on the latter may be made by way of suggesting a historical perspective: it seems to be obvious that all previous shifts – from the Genoese centre and the Italian city states to the Netherlands to England and later to the USA had always been accompanied by a profound increase of international integration. Speaking of a shift then suggests a one-sided interpretation, emphasising – by highlighting the emergence of a new centre – one side, fading out the fact of an increased global integration. The early Italian city states had been still somewhat autonomous, self-sustaining in their more or less small realm; it would be foolish already for the emerging Dutch empire if we would want to maintain such thesis.

Another point has to be made: all these shifts – and we should go much beyond the periodisation commonly suggested in long-wave theories – are in particular concerned with a shift in basic patterns. We can see this in particular as matter of following secular trends:

  • socialisation of production increases tremendously
  • and so does the private character of appropriation
  • we can formulate this in another way, saying that the socialisation of corporate, i.e. private costs
  • is the reverse of the individualisation of costs of private households, i.e. the costs of living.

This merges into the production of different standards which goes hand in hand with a shortening of circles consumption, the latter, as excessive consumption of a minority, however only serving as crutch for maintaining accumulation. This is true although the number of rich people is somewhat increasing.

III. CHALLENGES

One of the major points of current economic developments is a the emergence of an economy of invisibility. Adam Smith’s invisible hand is now further hidden, transposed into a phantom of invisible assets. Being privately appropriated, they are surely still very much a phantom. And in their phantomised form, they can also be seen as threat as they can temporarily be used as means of accumulation that is more or less completely separated from any real economic basis: the well known bubble-economies, especially manifested by the synchronisation of accumulation and consumption cycles and the synchronisation of their failure.

But the bubble economies are themselves hiding another aspect: the increase of relative poverty. We may assume with some justification a changing pattern of the distribution of wealth/poverty. Tony Atkinson tentatively presented this, by pointing out that the juxtaposition of rich and poor countries needs today some qualification: inequality and the tension between affluence and poverty is now less a matter between countries, in particular between the rich north and the poor south. Rather, we are today more and more confronted with a global minority of affluent people and vice versa a global majority of people with relatively little resources. One indicator can be seen in the fact of a relevant number of the richest people and enterprises in the countries of the south – the richest family in 2012 actually coming from Mexico, rank 7 occupied by a Brazilian (see Forbes: The World’s Billionaires; http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/ – 06/12/2012). This is also reflected in the fact that the previously stable middle classes are increasingly crumbling away, Brazilianisation, we may speak in this respect of an Americanisation, looking at the turn of the society of self-made men towards a society of patchwork men – surely, the role of women even more under that.

So we may ask towards the end of this brief reflection if the main challenge of today is an attempt of levelling cycles including the orientation on a turning point; or a distributive shift. The first orientation is for instance strongly underlying contemporary debates on “Green Growth”. However, a problem posed by such orientation is that continues from and even strengthens the hegemony of a market society – mind: I am speaking of market society and not a market economy. Without delving into details, it is important to keep this distinction, as for instance importantly reflected upon by Karl Polanyi, in mind. The prevalent model and development of a market society is exactly that mechanism that is frequently problematised by social science and considered as matter of submitting the entire life under the auspices of the economy. It is about commodification, penetrating all pores of life as one side. And it translates into consumerism in connection with social positioning the wage worker, of which Karl Marx writes in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 that

the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home.

(passim)

The alternative then is, indeed, the “re-establishment of society”. This goes far beyond a simple internalisation of costs, acknowledgement of non-market provisions and performances as part of “generating societal values” etc.. – Some shades of Keynesianism as for instance that advocated for by Joseph Stiglitz would argue for such orientation. It is about looking in a wider sense at the meaning of the production and reproduction of daily life. The Social Quality Approach looks at the social as

outcome of the interaction between people (constituted as actors) and their constructed and natural environment. Its subject matter refers to people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships. In other words, the constitutive interdependency between processes of self-realisation and processes governing the formation of collective identities is a condition for the social and its progress or decline.

(van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan, 2012: Social Quality and Sustainability; in: van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan (Eds.): Social quality: From Theory to indicators; Basingstoke: Macmillan: 250-274; here: 260)

To avoid any misunderstanding, this is not against the materialist understanding of

The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure

(Engels, op cit., passim)

Actually it is very much in support of this materialist conception, taking the entirety of living into consideration. It is about production and reproduction which is concerned with complex personalities and not with a simple de-contextualised biological mechanism. This includes technical and also mental changes the latter amongst other concerned with “modes of togetherness”. And as such changes of the mode of consumption are surely also a matter of course.

I tentatively suggest for further discussion the following moments for the actual changes we have to observe more closely, with this going far beyond searching for emergency measures that would be able to answer the immediate consequences of the current crisis:

the continued real socialisation of production in terms of bringing together

  • the two dimensions of appropriation, one being a technical matter, the other being a matter property and control (see in this context Herrmann, Peter/Dorrity, Claire, 2009: Critique of Pure Individualism; in: Dorrity, Claire/Herrmann, Peter [eds.], 2009: Social Professional Activity – The Search for a Minimum Common Denominator in Difference; New York: Nova Science: 1-27)
  • the true socialisation of costs – which paradoxically takes the form of privatisation of externalities
  • the shortening of consumption circles.

All this can well be captured by revisiting the meaning of assets, taking “invisible” and “non-material” assets closely into account. It is also in this materialist context where we can locate a critical discussion of social values.

Aristotle and the Christmas Dinner

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

I am glad that I can inform you about the publication of the proceedings of the

2011 ICA Global Research Conference

edited by

Johanna Heiskanen, Pekka Hytinkoski, Tapani Köppä and Hagen Henrÿ.

The proceedings are now electronically and also as hardcopy available.

The contributions – with their various orientations – show one of the fundamental tensions of what is called “social policy” – and the volume shows especially the problematique of a solely value-based approach, treating economy as a distinct area rather than seeing economic processes as fundamentally social.

Of course, first and foremost values play a role in social policy – and this is not about a peripheral role but they stand very much at the centre. Moreover, actually social policy and economic policy can be seen as two elements (i.e. elementary forms) of the social and societal living together. But this perspective means at the very same time that it is a major shortcoming of  simply transferring Aristotelean thinking into modern societies. Even at his time, Aristotle’s thinking had been obviously hugely burdened by an inherent trap: Talking about a strictly closed economy (as it will be well known, Aristotle had been as much ‘economist’ as he had been philosopher, and as such he had been talking abut the economy of a household) allowed him to base his entire social understanding on two perspectives:

  • the management of closed systems which had been more or less autarkic (the oikos)
  • the good-doing, based on moral standards of the rich – and now doubts: as sure as it is that a well treated slave is in a much better position than a slave that is condemned to suffer from maltreatment as sure is, that both are slaves.

Initially I felt tempted to write

condemned to suffer from injustices

but than I had been getting well aware of the fact that this term is extremely limited in expressing something meaningful. Exactly at this point it is getting obvious that such understanding is essentially limited, has only little real meaning.

Imagine today: People in academic positions (and actually in nominally high positions) being paid an annual income of about 15,000.00 Euro, people doing “good jobs” being left in the loop of insecure contracts, “possibly” prolonged, the conditionality not so much the availability of money but the good-will of an Aristotelian head of an institution that is trapped in managerialist assessment, self- censured, loosing the ability to think by way of opening boxes …, like a wounded fox in the grip of the strangulating clutch.

Today academic departments are frequently called schools – and even to imagine that such Aristotelean-idealist approach to society, (surely involuntarily, unwanted) levelling the way for a new slavery, makes school-making of this kind a horrifying path. Such schools being a disgrace, well going hand in hand with those political stances for which it claims offering redress. I discussed several of related issues already in the three volumes.

As said, values play a role – but we have to localise them in a concise way. And Aristotle as reference can surely be meaningfully rethought. Though we do not agree with each other, I appreciate Amartya Sen’s position as surely considerable contribution to such a debate. What he actually does – in my reading – is exactly this: aiming on rethinking issues in such a way that allows working on a “new economy”. Going further in this argument, we may also say (alluding to Polanyi’s Great Transformation): he tries to think a market economy (his Smithian reference) without a market society (his humanitarian ambition). It is surely a huge difference between such a position and the position of Fred Powell – who may just stand as one of many examples of today’s limited approaches towards social policy: striving with reference to Aristotelean thinking for a smart society, thus allowing the continuation of a devastating capitalist society and shaking the head over the prevailing neoliberalism – precarity.

But sure, we have to be good to the slaves: the slaves of the old regimes and those living and working in precarity today. What had been “animalisation” and complete “objectification” of the slaves in ancient, is today the privatisation and charitybilisation – and it does not make much of a difference if it comes along under the papal gown of catholicism (or any other religious colour ) or the gown of leftist academics that hide the lack of readiness to engage with analytical complexities.

– Well, you may say an annual Christmas dinner may give all of us the feeling of being just a citizen of a smart society, all being good to each other, preparing for celebrating the feast of peace (leaving those pieces of society outside who cannot pay for joining the gathering of joy).

Coming back than to the proceedings, in all their variety that provide surely valuable thinking, issues for further debate and contestation – not streamlined for BBC-broadcasts, not worth being quoted by a president, but surely valuable for research that wants to go beyond tagging of the current crisis (e.g. neoliberslism, austerity …) and surely valuable in looking at possible perspectives.

Details

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

or leaving me aside. Leaving me aside – my excitement when experiencing Russian history n a nutshell, really compressed in a short paragraph, a long sentence if you want: Compressed to the imagination of walking along the Nevsky Prospect on the pavement of which once Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin walked …., a Zeitgeist that drove Fjodor Michajlovitsj Dostojevski to gambling; allowing me now to think in similarly eccentric ways as Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy did, when he may have visited this city that has now the name Saint Petersburg; thinking about the greatness of Peter and the likes who, when time matured had been dwarfs standing in the way of the largess of a new society which chased them away, following the call coming from the Aurora and standing at the beginning of conquering the Winter Palace – the storm that later still required The Mother taking rigorous steps, standing up when she had been called.

Details are often forgotten while looking at the large picture. Or is it more that we are blinded by some grandeur?
There are surely the great politicians, the large lines and also the large crimes. And even if one should be careful with premature joys or anger, one should not take the required circumspection as an excuse for holding back with political judgement. And this is a matter of current governments here (yes: HERE) and there (for instance the ridiculous sentence for Berlusconi and the reduction of even this modest conviction. Nevertheless, leaving this major lines aside, looking at something that is more hidden it is sometimes the really small things that make huge differences.
When I went  he other day by train with Viacheslav to Petersburg – and while we had been comfortably sitting in the fast train, we had been chatting with Natasha (who is Natasha  – It could be a long story now like the many stories usually told from the transsib, even if the train trip took definitely much less time than one of those famous (or infamous?) trips in the “old times”. At some some stage we talked, of course, also about politics – Natasha recalled pre-Perestroika-times (“What are you talking about? When was that?” Viachselav intervened, half jokingly). The woman continued undeterred, though with a little smile:

You know, those times, before Gorbachev. We had been … – we. You,

she pointed on me, as on somebody coming from another world, the world of old capitalism

you start you sentence with I. And you write it with a capital letter, even in the middle of the sentence. it had been different here. It had been about us, about we …

Viacheslav intervened:

Peter knows. He studied also in

Looking at me I helped:

Leipzig – when it still had been in the GDR, although the Campus had been near Berlin.

Yes, the times and the circumstances had been different. But there seems to be more to it. One could speculate about this “it” constituting the we and the I … – and as much as times and circumstances matter, something seems to be still alive here where pure capitalism is on the advance to complete final victory. I thought about this “we” the evening when visiting with Viacheslav and Olesya the Mariinsky theatre, enjoying Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila … – in the program brochure so many details had been listed, the soli in the orchestra even if they seemed to play a minor role. It seems to be a paradox: but here, where it is still about a “we-society”, the I becomes much more important than in societies that pretend individuality and can only do so by limiting it to a sole mate, who has lost the soul.
And in actual fact, the detail gains grandeur when being really part of the we. – And history is a little bit like a love story – a love story being felt like the “story line of history” …

children’s rights – ignorance or weakness?

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

Travelling over the last years, I felt here and there a bit ashamed – not because of hearing so bad things about the country. On the contrary, because of the praise I heard. First, it had been because of the celebrated bedside rug which, though from beginning outstretched on the floor pretended to be a tiger. Then, after the final total K.O. of the cat, because

…”Well, you Irish are so self-controlled, so disciplined when it comes to bearing the consequences of the crisis. No useless protests, just carrying on …”

I frequently said I am not too much friend of these attributions: ‘the Irish’, ‘the French’, ‘The Germans’ – dolce vita cannot only be found in bella Italia and the Greek police forces and their (para-)military helpers showed recently how much they are favouring law and order, probably doing better than the home-country of the high-ranking German visitor, Mrs Merkel.
Still, not being friend does not mean one can push such attributions easily away. At times it comes to my mind too: “we Irish”: first pushing the child into the well …, then shedding crocodile’s tears and finally coming up with an attempt to save the child from definite decease.
And as much as this is the pattern underlying the approach to the economy – actually since the 1950s (see the working paper Tíogar Ceilteach – An Enlargement Country of the 1970s as Showcase? in the series of William-Thomposon Working Papers) – it has found a new field of showing evidence, now actually literally dealing with children. All is about a referendum, scheduled for november now. The Taioseach (Irish Primeminister) bravely stepping forward, overcoming his apparent usual schizophrenia by uniting now the two souls:

As Taoiseach and as father I’m asking people to vote yes

Good boy – …good man, I should say and could add: a real politician, not just like the official administrator we know from Max Weber as being characterised by

Sine Ira et Studio

Rather, the real politican, engaged with all fibres of his body and soul. Well done, right? And we may wish to see more in this.

And although I try to be optimist a but asks for being allowed to enter the debate – it is not about “but don’t vote in favour of these rights as they are suggested with the change. It is more about the question

But why are you not really serious when it comes to children’s rights?

Let us have a brief look at the text of the Proposed New Article 42A – I saw it first here in the journal. And it reads as follows:

Children

1. The State recognises and affirms the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children and shall, as far as practicable, by its laws protect and vindicate those rights.

2. 1° In exceptional cases, where the parents, regardless of their marital status, fail in their duty towards their children to such extent that the safety or welfare of any of their children is likely to be prejudicially affected, the State as guardian of the common good shall, by proportionate means as provided by law, endeavour to supply the place of the parents, but always with due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child.

2° Provision shall be made by law for the adoption of any child where the parents have failed for such a period of time as may be prescribed by law in their duty towards the child and where the best interests of the child so require.

3. Provision shall be made by law for the voluntary placement for adoption and the adoption of any child.

4. 1° Provision shall be made by law that in the resolution of all proceedings –

i brought by the State, as guardian of the common good, for the purpose of preventing the safety and welfare of any child from being prejudicially affected, or

ii concerning the adoption, guardianship or custody of, or access to, any child, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.

2° Provision shall be made by law for securing, as far as practicable, that in all proceedings referred to in subsection 1° of this section in respect of any child who is capable of forming his or her own views, the views of the child shall be ascertained and given due weight having regard to the age and maturity of the child.

And it found positive feedback from here and there. Apparently a broad consensus  – and that is good so. But I am wondering if we would find this consensus also in case of taking things serious, not looking at the corpses but looking for, i.e. in favour of the living. The state should work towards conditions and their legal anchoring that allow children to develop freely under conditions of respect and equality. – Interestingly, the article mentioned first, making reference to experts, does not refer to children.

Having said before ‘The state should work towards conditions and their legal anchoring that allow children to develop freely under conditions of respect and equality’, means we have to look for a society that is not about

Work. Consume. Be Silent. Die.

as I saw it recently on a website, dealing with a young man who committed suicide.
This person made a choice – a tragic choice. But as tragic and individual, not to say lonely as this choice had been, one sentence on the website shocked me more than the decision itself. The sentence:

Es hat den Anschein, als würde man die gesamte Sozialpolitik in die private Verantwortlichkeit von Individuen verrücken.

or in my translation

It seems that the entire social policy would be shifted to the private realm of individuals.

It is exactly this what moral approaches to social policy frequently forget. It is exactly this what heads who claim to support social rights forget when they reduce these rights on the level of protection, forgetting the more fundamental issue:

Rights are fundamental and need to be defined in a perspective of social quality. They have to be defined as rights for everybody, from the very beginning rather than for the drowning child.

And of course, this goes back to the debate on the stillborn kitten which disguised for some time as strong tiger, before being unmasked as bedside rug. This is not about general values and ethics. It is not about muttering ‘that is neoloiberalism’, briefly shaking the head and continuing business as usuals. – Heads should know this at this stage: heads of politicians, and heads of academics working in the areas of social policy, social work and law alike. – I am freqeuntly surprised that my student’s usually know more about the complexities of realities than highly paid people working Sine Ira et Studio.
__________

PS: Being member of the editorial board, I am currently working for SOZIALEXTRA on one of the special topics of one of the issues: Human Rights – Children’s Rights – Human Rights as Question of Everyday’s Life

Arriving

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

Saying Good-Bye – again — This had been the title of a recent posting. And indeed, there is some deep truth in the formulation John used when he wrote the other day in his really nice mail

as you sadly report, your uprooting and once more wandering, as of course scholars and refugees have done for centuries.

It is about sadness, and it is about this close link between scholars and refugees. And there is also much reflection in the words with which he continues, wishing that I find

an academic refuge, a medieval monastery in which to pursue scholarship and teaching as you would like to do.

Not that I may finally reach the state of a monk, defined as

a member of a religious community of men typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

May be it is poverty that awaits me; chastity is not really something to talk about here – there enough other miseries to report on and there are enough wrong choices in life that one doesn’t have to go with all of them – and finally it is hopefully about ongoing disobedience as it had been such disobedience, some independence that told me that it is Time to Say Good-Bye.

From various feedbacks I learned a bit about my life: I thought I would have been more or less outgoing, vocal and I admittedly missed the affects of it. People not reacting, not listening … – and now learning that part of my life  can be apparently seen as “background noise”. Those who read Niklas Luhmann’s later work will probably  remember … – And being background noise may be as much a praise of a life as I read from a colleague who felt very pleased when he saw his name mentioned somewhere in footnote of a famous writer. Yes, there are always the two sides. The one is the bright fire, dominant and victorious and showing the way …, the other is the small flame, flickering in the background, not much seen but somewhat indispensable when the clear light fades away, turns to be a dazzling instrument: blinding and misguiding.

Nani gigantum humeris insidentes

– Indeed, there is always the gnome standing on the shoulders of the giant, thus claiming to be able to see further as there is the giant walking across the path of the ant, “shouting justice for all” and  guillotining with every step so many of those on which he actually depends. Two sides – at least as long as we live in a society that is characterised by antagonisms they will be and they cannot really be harmonised.

There are also always two sides of Saying Good-Bye: the leaving of “places” and the arriving in “places”. Exciting undertakings. And perhaps all of them, if written down in a very subjective manner, are also allowing others to participate, better even: to make their own experience, to gain new perspectives in and for their life and living.

I tried the writing – impressions from roaming to and through different parts of the world. Kerstin Walsh, a former student and a present friend, contributed some lovely drawings (studying social policy doesn’t necessarily spoil life and the sense for its beauties) and to be honest: all of the people I met during this time, for short moments or for longer spells, played their specific roles – background noises, giants …, small flames and blazing fires ….

Again and again arrivals – Hellos!!!!

You may be interested in ordering

Peter Herrmann: Diary from a Journey into another World

Diaries against nationalism, inspired by trying to overcome personal resentments

You can find an extract here in the Rozenberg Quarterly

PS: I am currently working on a larger piece together with Kerstin. Last week she agreed to join the work I am just starting – hopefully together with Susann Staats co-writer) and Tobias Ruhnke (music). It is a children’s operar about a pink elephant ….

student accommodation, studying facilities ….

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

or what is studying about?

Dear Students – here in Ireland and probably elsewhere.
Recently a mail had been sent to the staff at UCC – it originated from a Senior Lecturer in Science Education at the Department of Education, Uiversity College Cork and stated the following

I am writing to ask you to encourage your students to make use of the weekend study facilities now available in the Campus Kitchen. From now until next May the Campus Kitchen will be open on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holiday Mondays from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day. Feedback from recent talks on “Steps to ensure success in your study of science and engineering in UCC” that I gave to all first year science and first year engineering student students indicates that a significant number of students living in student apartment complexes find it difficult to study in this apartment environment.

Many thanks to Mr … and his security staff as well as … for making this facility available. The Students’ Union will be informing students of the study facilities available but a few words of encouragement from yourselves may help students to settle down to study and to start using the weekend study facilities to help them to keep up with their work. Recent statistics from the HEA (Mooney et al., 2010) on drop-out rates from universities in Ireland are cause for serious concern.

Now, I will be the least to complain about providing additional study facilities to students – when I had been studying, I had been in the privileged position that I could use the library 24 hours a day – there had been one exception throughout the year. though I do not remember exactly, I think it had been the 25th of December that the facilities had not been available.

Leaving various things aside that could be said in this context, I want to raise at least three points:
* is the provision of study-facilities really an appropriate answer on the lack of quality-accomodation for students? – This laves aside the fact that this accommodation is in many cases completely overpriced, pushes students out on the private market, thus contributing via a more or less long chain to problems on the housing markets. If landLORDS (are we still living in feudal times, or is it even meant as prayer?) are making easy money, this, of course, maintains high rents …
* is teaching, organisation of seminars and discussion opportunities so limited during the week that there is urgent need for facilitating additional studies during the week – especially: additional space for individual studies?
* finally, is the lack of space for studying a real and major problem for “high drop-out rates for universities”?
Perhaps such Higher Education Authorities should step down from their pedestals – having a look at the reality of all these supposed  *****-universities, excellence universities may cure them. Though it is boring and we all know it it may be stated again: education is perverted to a commodity. It is “goal-oriented” and the sole goal is availing of a paper that states a degree. I do not want to write a plea for the humanist tradition in its traditional form: it had been highly idealist and elitist in its very foundation. Nevertheless, it surely had been more of an empowering spirit than much today’s skill-orientation. And surely had been more emancipatory, independent it is orientation than social scientists who state in a complaining, and even depressed mood:

This is the consequence of liberalism

Turning around after a deep sigh …., continuously walking the old ding-dong-trotten path, welcoming any success, any start gained or maintained, as a success – it is a little bit like Christmas:

Mai le campane risuonano più dolcemente

Isn’t it time to wake up? – Can be sweet too!

At least this colleague seems to have slept while he had been studying … and needs to improve skills, then justifying a position as Senior Lecturer in Science Education at the Department of Education