Tag: austerity

More to be done

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

Please find a reminder – there is still a possibility to prepare your participation by announcing your input – and the is in any case the opportunity to join our debates, more important then ever.

22nd Conference on Alternative Economic Policy in Europe

from 15-17 September 2016, organised by the EuroMemo Group and jointly hosted with the Faculty of Economics at the University of Coimbra in Portugal

The European Union: the Threat of Disintegration 

The EuroMemo Group conference 2016 will be jointly hosted with the Faculty of Economics at the University of Coimbra, from 15-17 September 2016 (Thursday-Saturday). We would like to invite you to attend the conference and to submit paper proposals. Please find the call for papers here.

All papers that present an alternative economic perspective on the conference theme ‘The European Union: the Threat of Disintegration’ are welcome. In particular, we encourage submissions specific to one of the workshops outlined in the programme below.

The programme will be as follows:

Thursday afternoon: The state of the Union

  • Hans-Jürgen Bieling (University of Tübingen): Political State of the Union
  • Catherine Mathieu (OFCE/Science Po): Economic State of the Union
    • Ricardo Cabral (University of Madeira): The politico-economic situation of Portugal

 

Friday morning: The second day will be dedicated to key themes of EU policy within six different workshops.

 

Friday afternoon: Plenary on policy proposals from workshops and special plenary ‘Disintegration or Refoundation of the European Union?’

  • Cédric Durand (Paris 13 University)
  • Fabio De Masi (MEP GUE/NGL)
    • Angela Wigger (Radboud Univ. Nijmegen) (tbc)

 

Saturday morning: Planning meeting: EuroMemorandum 2017 and other activities

Proposals for papers together with a short abstract (maximum 250 words) should be submitted by 10 July. If possible, please indicate the workshop which the proposal is intended for. If accepted, completed papers should be submitted by 25 August so that they can be read before the conference.

We strongly encourage participants to submit short papers (10-12 pages) and to explicitly address policy implications.

If you would like to participate in the conference and/ or submit a paper proposal, please copy the registration form below into an email and reply by the 10 July 2016 to info@euromemo.eu.

Stop Austerity

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

One of the many answers needed on BREXIT – “it is not about Britain and the Brits”, anyway.

Stop Austerity!

The outbreak of the crisis in 2007 led to many states having to take out emergency loans in order to save banks. Money was tight and interests were increasing. Therefore, some EU countries had to face serious economic problems up to illiquidity. The usual response of relevant institutions and many economists is that this undesirable development can only be corrected by wage reductions and by cutting welfare expenditures. Based on this idea, their solution strategy consisted of strict austerity policy and put high pressure on labour markets and welfare systems which impacted the living conditions of people in a massively negative way.

For this reason, many institutions demand to cut public spending, be it pensions, wages and salaries or unemployment benefits. This policy of savings leads to a permanent repetition of cuttings of public and private expenses and therefore to reduced social security. It is not, however, a solution for the actual problems of rising inequality, unregulated financial markets and recession, but reinforces the negative social impacts of the economic and financial crisis.

We demand solutions which do not consider the economy as an end in itself but serve us, the people.

 *******

For a way out of the crisis we demand:

  • Coordinating economic policy: A common, socially compatible economic policy for the Eurozone is needed. The implementation of a democratic and European economic fund is needed. Its aims are to coordinate monetary and fiscal policies in the interests of humans instead of corporations and banks, to remove imbalances and ensure a fairer distribution in Europe. Therefore, more people will benefit from prosperity.
  • Rebuilding the banking system: Banks must be brought into service of the people again. For this reason, commercial and investment sectors have to be separated. This enables banks to fulfil their main task again – collecting deposits and granting credits. If banks work badly, they have to be able to go bankrupt in an organized way so a bailout paid for by the public will not become necessary.
  • Introducing Eurobonds: Introducing Eurobonds means that Eurozone countries issue joint bonds for government financing and are also jointly liable. As a result, interest rates on government bonds will decrease and government financing as well as financing public projects will be facilitated. Joint liability strengthens the position vis-à-vis financial markets and takes the rating agencies’ influence away.
  • Regulating financial markets: Clear regulations for financial markets are needed in order to reduce the enormous complexity. Thus, financial products and business models which endanger the stability of the financial system have to be controlled or forbidden. The financial system has to be brought into service of the real economy again.
  • Introducing a financial transaction tax: A financial transaction tax adds a percentage surcharge to every purchase and sale on the financial market. Short-term and speculative trading on financial markets therefore becomes unattractive. This leads to more investments in the real economy and therefore to higher employment and additional revenues for the states.
  • Enforcing fair distribution: Fair distribution means to redirect capital from the financial capitalism to the real economy. This ensures the financing of public goods from education to health care. The people therefore can share in the surplus value they, ultimately, produce themselves.

We demand to break with the neoliberal policies of austerity and speculation. We demand a Europe of social equalization and perspectives. We demand to #StopAusterity!

Values

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy
Ah well, of course
But how obvious is it?
  • We cannot change our core Roman, or were it Greek ? values, as we subdued them by European enlightenment,
  • Smith and Bentham triumphing over Kant and the French tricolore,
  • leveling the field for the yanks who returned with their reinterpretation to Europe and …
  • … and allow today Merkel’s Schäuble to squeeze the Greek like lemons
  • and “allow” Orban’s barbed wires to cut into the veins of migrants who leave war and starvation behind before they can enter Europe
The tricolore did not say that we share with everybody – it only said we have to share something with some — selected. Some – people and countries – have to pay, so said by the slogan of the time:
  • the inner and outer periphery on which the centre can establish its affluence …. –
  • reflecting these values of individual freedom = precarious jobs
  • and equality = not allowing anybody to sleep under the bridges of Paris … – don’t we remember:
La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.
Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily] (1894)
  • and fraternity = the soup kitchens that take the place of the rights that the universal declaration of human rights failed to guarantee ….; where fraternity means redefining sleeping rough by offering a “pillow” near to the churches, softening the hardship by the pretension of a better world, the other world – and for the time being through charity, still leaving space for the question: is there a link between the (name of) the train station Termini in Rome and “its offer of sleeping rough in its protection” – the termination of dignity?
Of course, it may be that these – few – examples also “tell of a political reality far removed from Mr Tao Zhang’s “Europe(an) Dream”, inspired by historical “visions” (let’s take Delors or let’s refer to the founding-FATHERS) and believing in claims that gain much of their positivity not from their inherent greatness but from the fact of a lack of today’s power holders that do not allow to even think outside the ideological and physical fortress of the single finance market.
And of course, all this is about the European Dream which people like Riffkin have, putting like Albert the “Rheinian Model” against the rest of the world – a world order that allows and evokes worries about possibilities to continue  selling the same number of Lamborghinis, Porsches and Mercs to the empire of the middle.
Sure, when it comes to education then, we may have to deal with the
difficulty Chinese students face, particularly in the arts and social sciences, is in adopting the critical thinking that the Quality Assurance Agency insists master’s level courses must inculcate
this does, of course, not exist for European students (and lecturers alike) – used to the censorship of peer-reviewed publications and ranking systems that, to a large extent controlled by quasi-monopolist publishing houses, are very much algorithm-ised like google: write what we know, quote what we and our peers stated for many times, contend what is publicly accepted … and redefine harsh principles by using softened and softening frameworks like social investment, knowledge management and the failure of implementation of strategies … – you may easily make a rocketing career as long as you do not question the strategies themselves.
There is a wider perspective, looking at the secular issues and developments – or a perspective that is very narrow: lookig the current debates – you may take it as you like:
It surely opens a field for debate when people call for
indirectly suggesting the possibility of a national democracy which in actual fact is one of the core breaking points: the contention of the principle of nationality and externalisation – this is how the core value of European democracy worked since the ancient city states until the Fortress EUrope.
And this is the core European and EUropean value that asks if
without considering that we will not have a legitimate parliament – national or EUropean – as long as we have an economic system that leads to the permanent
Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disiganno – the Triumph of Time and Truth
The critical attitude …. – sure, there is some space, though we should not forget that when Baudelaire first presented Les Fleurs du mal, he was condemned to put them aside, allowed to present them later in a revised version, leaving critique to the space of sympbolism, providing there the framework for talking about the Island of the Death (Boecklin) to where Europe seems to be moving, after facing L’angelo ferito (Hugo Simberg) – the disappointed carriers make look grimly but are not allowed to revive the hope they once have had … – not so much changed perhaps, today’s critics turning away from reality and hoping for the savour from Rome who rightly criticises that this economy kills, a critique that is turned down if and when it comes from others who ask for material changes that allow and enforce liberty, equality and fraternity.
.. stating all this does not mean not acknowledging some of the problems mentioned – it means, however, to say that they are much deeper and profound, not least reflecting the need of confronting issues that emerge from the
centre on China’s Confucian cultural tradition
with the issues that are emerging from a limited understanding of rationality that systematically crucifies its own claims and pretensions and sacrifices “Moral Sentiments” on the altar of the “Wealth of the Nations” …
No, we surely cannot change the values for anybody – not for the Chinese, not for anybody … they will pay anyway …
As long as any nation or region claims today that the specifically national or regional core values cannot be changed for those of anybody else we may easily end up as An Idiot Abroad – abroad being everywhere and anywhere, and we being everybody who is still believing in the old answers suitable for dealing with the new questions, questions that are not yet correctly formulated.

Liberals

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, general, joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, publications, works, works, projects, publications

We frequently talk about neoliberalism – and the disastrous implication its proponents cause. Indeed, there is the need to criticise these policies. But preparing my presentation for Hungary, soon coming up under the title

Precarity as Part of Socio-Economic Transformation – New Perspectives

 , and of which the abstract can be found already here, I am getting another time aware of the fact how important it is, to overcome the danger not to block oneself by sohrt-termism. I pointed this frequently out, for instance when looking together with Marica Frangakis for The need for a radical ‘growth policy’ agenda for Europe at a time of crisis; or asking  if we face a Crisis and no end?, looking for the Re-embedding economy into life and nature. Already at an early stage I asked Crisis? Which Crisis? aiming on Assessing the Current Crisis in a More Fundamental Way. Ireland as a Case Study.

In empirical terms, some of this may be outdated – actually I am currently preparing also the report for the Max-Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich which I am going to visit during the upcoming weeks – it is the annual report on legal changes in Ireland.

There is one point, we may actually learn from the liberals, expressed by David Lloyd George.

Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.

It may well be questioned if he, as liberal, would agree with proposals of today’s liberals – I have my doubts. But in any case, a radical shift in thinking and acting is needed, anything else will mean not more and not less than death, even if it may mean to Die Slowly:

He or she who abandon a project before starting it, who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn’t know, he or she who don’t reply when they are asked something they do know,
die slowly.
Let’s try and avoid death in small doses,
reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing.

There should be no place for it, for the Lentamente Muore.

No to austerity

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

Elsewhere and in EUrope alike — The One Percent
The one percent being rich is one side of the coin;

the same one percent making poor is the other side of the same coin.

Hunger is just one side of austerity.

Doing a little bit of maths, we easily see that we would not even have to make the one percent poor in order to make the many not living in poverty anymore. We all know the figures, though at times a reminder may be useful

Serious Lessons

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

Lessons have to be learned.

Student asks his principal, “Where is my teacher?”
“Citywide layoffs”, replies the principal.
“My text books?” asks the student.
“State austerity plan”, says the principal.

“Student loan?” continues the student.
“Federal budget cuts”, says the principal.
Finally, exasperated, student asks, “But how am I going to get an education?”.
To which the equally exasperated principal replies, “This is your education”.

We make take it as lesson to be learned from Greece

Austerity

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

Austerity policies (for some more general considerations on austerity see here)  in Belgium are not new – and a 2013 study by Oxfam about

THE TRUE COST OF AUSTERITY AND INEQUALITY

may provide a glimpse at the problem. And it clearly shows the tensions that are not least caused by the European Union policies. So, it is no wonder that we find no measures against countries as Hungary where we find an ongoing battle about the attempts of the Orban-Government to criminalise homelessness and the homeless – relative success stories, informing us that the

Hungary Supreme Court Allows Homeless Back on Streets

are surely overshadowed by the fact that the same policy is now pursued by different means, as according to the same source now

The bill allows district local councils to rule certain areas as prohibited for the homeless. [1]

Of course, it still is a success, not least as we have to recognise in this context that

Civil Rights Groups Rally against Ban of Homeless from Public Areas

But, coming back to Belgium, there is more to it:

In short we may speak of a “convergence” of policies in Europe against homelessness as policies against the homeless.

Noteworthy is that austerity policies in Belgium are increasingly virulent.

In consequence not least of this Belgio-European political course we find that the scale of poverty increased tremendously recently, doubling in just four years.

But that is not all – these dramatic cuts in personal lives are going hand in hand with the redefinition of public spaces and the responsibility of private.

If EUrope really wants to claim its roots in ancient traditions (which is surely dangerous in some respect, e.g. if we think about the abduction of Europe by Zeus)[2]/[3] there would be good reason to revisit for instance Cicero’s work stating in paragraph 22 of the first book of De Officciis

Sed quoniam, ut praeclare scriptum est a Platone, non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici, atque, ut placet Stoicis, quae in terris gignantur, ad usum hominum omnia creari, homines autem hominum causa esse generatos, ut ipsi inter se aliis alii prodesse possent, in hoc naturam debemus ducem sequi, communes utilitates in medium adferre, mutatione officiorum, dando accipiendo, tum artibus, tum opera, tum facultatibus devincire hominum inter homines societatem.

Steven Hill argues that

Europe … was founded on a feudal and Catholic value system which believed that the exercise of privilege by the wealthy came with wider social obligations beyond mere charity. Typical of this view, St. Augustine in the 5th century AD declared, “He who uses his wealth badly possesses it wrongfully.”

But even in Northern American law we find, according to Gregory S. Alexander the notion

that American property law, both on the private and public sides, includes a social-obligation norm, but that this norm has never been explicitly recognized as such nor systemically developed

Sure, engaging in this debate would open a wide field – Aquinas, for instance can be interpreted in both ways, as supporter of equality and inequality alike, as advocate of accumulation and modesty. And there would also be the need to discuss the “translation” of ancient traditions (not only of Christianity but also of Islam and all the others) into “modernity”.

In any case, the reality is rather simple: the public, the common, the general interest had been redefined by these European institutions – and they are further redefined – giving the power away to private bodies that are now building their fortresses within the fortress.

Looking at this fortress then, here the recent excessively violent form, it remains to be discussed if it is in line with Article 1 – Protection of property of the Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [4]

Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.

The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.

Sure, looking at the formulation of this passage from the protocol shows the entire dilemma: lawful is what is said by the law and the law says what the lawmakers say.

There can only be one conclusion then: we need a law made by the people and not for the people …. – and of course, for this we need the public spaces.

Otherwise, there are too many ways of people being killed – and some are slower than this, but not less brute.

 

===================

[1] Hmmmm …: I opened the Wall Street Journal website for several times now and there is always the same ad coming up: “Discover your Perfect Home”

[2] see Maria Mies: Europe in the Global Economy or the Need to De-Colonize Europe; in: Peter Herrmann (Ed.): Challenges for a Global Welfare System: Commack, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.; 1999: 153-171; here: 160 f.

[3]            see in this context also the reflections SURELY PROVOCATIVE – THE STAGING OF ‘RUSALKA’ and EUROPE ANCIENT AND PRESENT

[4] as amended by Protocol No. 11 (Paris, 20.III.1952 – according to the provisions of Protocol No. 11 (ETS No. 155), as of its entry into force, on 1 November 1998)

Language … – or more?

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

The other day I received a mail (I received it as CC), somebody stating

As I mentioned to you, it is clear that our colleague Peter’s mind was not shaped by Central bankers neither other kind of executive format.

Thanks god, though I do not believe in that one.

Interesting as NB is the following: I presented a while back on the same conference as the author of those line – it had been in Cuba, his topic being the Eurocrisis, a reasonably “good” presentation of bad economics, though very affirmative. At the end he also gave out, blaming the victims of austerity etc., and asking for a restrictive monetary and fiscal policy and for further restrictions. Investment, growth as source of eternal wealth — in other words: the ongoing belief in the eternal

… the heavenly lullaby,

The old song of abnegation,

By which the people, this giant fool,

Is lulled from its lamentation.[1]

In the original

das alte Entsagungslied,

Das Eiapopeia vom Himmel,

Womit man einlullt, wenn es greint,

Das Volk, den großen Lümmel.[2]

In my presentation applied in analytical terms but as well in terms of developing a perspective a more complex perspective – much appreciated and welcome. And leading to ongoing cooperation with colleagues from the Cuba government …

for my part I can only see it as praise — and hope that not only the colleagues in Cuba will maintain their critical position to the minds of Central bankers and other kind of executive format.

==============

[1]            Germany. A Winter’s Tale; Text by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856); translated into English by Joseph Massaad; http://www.heinrich-heine.net/winter/wintereng1.htm

[2]            Heine, Ein Wintermärchen caput 1; http://www.heinrich-heine-denkmal.de/heine-texte/caput01.shtml

Death of civilization….

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

I received a mail …

Il giorno 13/set/2014, alle ore 14:30, …

It is a death ,..

Actually I received the mail after arriving in Berlin for a planning meeting of a network on precarity …

I follow the article – thinking that it is a somewhat unusual death notice, though I know the person who sent it. The article is speaking about the library closures going on in the UK, it could and should speak bout the library closures in the global north-west …

… and the moral …?

Never allow dead people making politics or policies …:-(

I rely by adding another point – referring to something I read earlier in another mail:

Libraries ,,doors to knowledge and haven of peace ,,,what is there (in the libraries) not to like. For me ? To make a choice ,,,hate to do as I am greedy about certain things ( eg : books) Having to return them ,,

I personally would have a huge library, part of it destroyed by my parents: you could name it a “private book burning” though in that case they intentionally drowned them. Part of it actually drowned in my Irish estate – d e to frost damaging some pipes; others still existing somewhere I could not store them anymore. Just a side remark on the latter: I offered a huge store to the university library in Cork – for free: interesting unpublished stuff s well, from EU (or EC) times: documents, project documentation, project analysis …. They declined: No space, but not least “it is not in English” (just in alien languages as Dutch, French, German, Italian, Russian, Swedish).

Today the same university library in Cork, as many others, stores the books somewhere, one has to order them and they will be available next day, perhaps even the afternoon of the same day.

Sure, there is a problem of space – but there is a problem of building cages, prisons … I have been very privileged at times: One of the universities where I studied provided all year round access (I think it had been closed just one day, they called Christmas). Overnight and holiday limitations applied: only one entrance open. It had been in a way just one huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge room, probably one entire floor of the University in Bielefeld. All departments; sure “we” have had “our” area: economics, law, sociology; but in some way we shared the “room” with physics, quantum mechanics, nuclear biology, impressionism, renaissance architecture, philosophy of Mencius – things we sometimes (many times) did not know how to spell, we did not know that they existed. But as much as there had been in the 1840s a spectre hunting Europe, there had been the spectre of universal knowledge hunting many of us in such a library. I encountered this spectre also when I worked (did I ever work? Didn’t I only study throughout my life?), so many books I didn’t understand, but being there and begging for respect, though I should have been the begging one: asking humbly to be part of this affluence of knowledge …

… there we come to the tricky point, the im-materialisation of the spectre, emerging as spirit.

Marx said once (something as) The idea turns into a material force if it gains the support of the masses (bad memory, bad translation – I remember only the German original:

Die Idee wird zur materiellen Gewalt wenn sie die Massen ergreift

Another, very special experience when I studied (or worked …, or played, or worked on the project of changing the world?) in Amsterdam. I remember once finding myself in part of the law library, asking one of the librarians a silly question. Actually, silly had been that I asked as he wanted to see my library card which I handed over. He looked at it and said

Hm…, actually you are not allowed to be in this area …. – but …, well for these documents you have to go to the third shelve …, actually I will come with you and give you the box with the commented drafts of the legislation ….

On another occasion I visited the library for anthropology, looking for a special book. I walked along the Prinzengracht (if I remember correctly, may be it had been the Herrengracht) and looked for house number (lets say) 378. Walked along, saw house number 374, 376, 380, 382 — strange, walked back, and the house number 378 had been a house without number, I entered: I saw “glimpses of a library”: a sign with opening hours, the name … . “Glimpses” because it had been just one of the beautiful “private houses” now being used as library. And the library had been only really coming to the fore after I left the corridor – indoors one could walk into house 376 – just the ordinary rooms but full of books. Sure, systematic, but at the same time due to the architecture not: one section ended …, and had been continued in another room, perhaps not the next because that had been used for another subject area.

In such places you CAN CHOOSE; and nothing has to be returned because it cannot be taken out – all remains OURS: written by us, inherited by us, read by us, carried on by us.

I won’t tell you about my stays in the library for theology, for philosophy (sitting under a beautiful “Rembrandt-like “ paining, a “reading cushion” and on it the second addition of Spinoza, in Latin, in front of me (and admittedly the Latin language added to the pleasure, though caused as ell some pain; and I will not expand on being more or less the only reader for several weeks in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: arts …. history, techniques, epochs, great artists, exhibitions … (well, I could have gone to look at van Rijns “Night watch” as break – but going there before, being on my own just with security, had been more fun…) – sitting there in the reading room: computer, fountain pen, book from the library, note book … I remember a gentleman with two kids walking along (it is one of these “show libraries”, but usually people watched from the balcony). The guy, standing with the kids next to me, pointing at me, I could not hear, don’t know if he really said

… You see, this is what they did and how lived in those old times ….

I still buy books, and I get your point

what is there (in libraries) not to like – For me ? To make a choice .. hate to do as I am greedy about certain things ( eg : books). Having to return them …

But try to get my point: I do not know if I really want to buy more books, want to own them, instead of sitting in a good library, reading, browsing, possibly meeting people, talking with them about what they read, what I read, what we read.

It is a privilege – and it is THIS privilege that makes me coming back to Frances: his camminare insieme.

In a completely different context a Hungarian friend of mine wrote

But it is a big question whether spirituality (and genuine morality) ought to have a basis in faith (or religion).

And she did not mean spirituality in the strict sense, but something of empathy, solidarity, justice …

Her answer simply

I don’t think so

And my answer is the same. I replied to her

I think that being only based in this, it will fail – there must be the material force …

And one of the material forces is the provision of common spaces, common ways on which we can walk together. The church, and other orders, provide that; however, “the public” – after undermining its own basis – cannot do so anymore, lost its own ground. – Slowly but surely it pushed people out of the public realm, calling it enlightenment, but actually meaning reducing them on instruments of instrumental reason, torsos calculating utilities …

As I wrote earlier:

Sure, there is a problem of space – but there is a problem of building cages, prisons …

Books, being imprisoned in storerooms warehouses, libraries … closed because of lack of money … – the revenge lurking around the corner: prisons that have to accommodate those people who could not access education, who had been excluded from society, who lived in a society that actually did not exist anymore, that had been reduced by liberals, by the right. Reduced by the liberals? Well, that is exactly it when what Thatcher did when programmatically stating:

There is now such thing as society.

I guess analytically she had been right; but she did not mean it that way, she meant it as program ….

 

Berlin, I walk to the meeting point …, passing memories, memorials.

Walking along the Spree where the life of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht found its end, a memorial plaque saying

The defiance of life and the brutality against human beings show people’s ability to inhumanness. It can and should not be a means to conflict resolution of any kind.[1]

Passing presence and future ….

Paul Farmer, a medical anthropologist stating:

Their sickness is a result of structural violence: neither culture nor pure individual will is at fault; rather, historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.

Surely all this also being part of those things that have to be discussed when we talk about war, standing up against it

 

[1]            Original

Die Missachtung des Lebens und die Brutalität gegen den Menschen lassen die Fähigkeit der Menschen zur Unmenschlichkeit erkennen. Sie kann und darf kein Mittel irgendeiner Konfliktlösung sein und bleiben.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A crisis – and indeed a structural crisis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t much care where –”

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

(from Alice in Wonderland)