Tag: development

Impressions from a weekend in Yueyang

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

It had been a brief trip – a short distance, it takes about half an hour by train to arrive from Changsha in Yueyang. I had been there earlier, seeing the blueprints and architectural models of what I would visit now as reality already in place – surely part of the reality as it is about an ongoing development (can anywhere and any time be an end to development?).

Sunday morning, the second day of the weekend trip, 收件人 collects me from the hotel and we walk along the lake – although it is cold again, it is nice, especially after having made the first steps and warming up. A modern and clean area – the tennis court, a little lake with goldfish and golf course bring the notion of the “leisure society” to the fore.

After walking on for a while, I see some old houses, a bit stray from the development path – I write development path as the way we walked is part of the ongoing development programme that aims on attracting tourists – for me always a bit of a contradiction in terms, as I ask myself about the self-destructive potential: People come to an area because they are looking for nature, for some remoteness that allows retreating from the daily stress. Anyway, asking for these houses, is met with a question:

Do you want to walk a bit through the countryside?

And so we go, changing from the clean park-street to a more or less muddy pathway. After having walked there for some time an old man looks – a bit  – skeptical at us – his one hand holds the walking-stick; with the other he is looking after the plants.

My father would know all these plants – he grew up in the countryside.

收件人 says. And I want to know a bit more. He is from the real countryside whereas for the people here the little farming is an additional source of income – the elderly and the women doing the jobs “at home”, whereas the “male breadwinner” is working  in some industrial job, perhaps doing some farmwork in the evening. A bit further I see the rubble of destroyed cottages, the real development path: contrasting the old with the new, but more showing the contradictions between them. The rubble and a bit further the new houses – not really skyscrapers, but too high to easily count or estimate the number of stories. I ask where the people will live in the future.

The government provides apartments – and also some subsidies that makes it possible to pay the rent.

So far the new houses look neat – as long as one does not see the large squares  that had been there before; and one can truly acknowledge the greens, the new squares, the nearness to the lake, and the view on the mountains in the distance … – yes, and another feature is again and again delightful – the “monuments”: old stones, pagodas, tablets bearing the inscription of traditional and new poems …, integrating different perspectives.

Synchrony of times and cultures? – Changing the scene ?

We talk about the price of accommodation – those who lived here in the old cottages may gain nicer accommodation – and they get apparently also some support. Finally they need the compensation for the loss of the additional income of subsistence farming. – But is that compensation measurable in terms of money? Do they loose part of what was meaningful for them? Do they loose the burden of the heavy work?

收件人’s parents want to buy a new place and this brings us to a more general perspective which can be put into a nutshell:

  • government buildings, i.e. accommodation tat had been provided by the state,
  • had been replaced by accommodation owned by the employers: tough one did not live at the workplace, one lived in the accommodation provided by the owners of the workplace. Hearing about it, the old Krupp-settlements come to my mind: working for the Krupps, living in the houses the Krupps provided, and buying in the shops the Krupps owned.
  • The new stage of development is as matter of “freedom”: The market provides accommodation and the law of demand is the rule.

Isn’t it what we read in the Critique of the Gotha Program?

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Sure, in the light of the market it refers to the ability to pay, and the need to submit to the rules of competition. And this is major part of the individualism: personal disintegration, taking the form of the need to look after yourself stops all of us from looking for integrated solutions, going beyond the establishment of princedoms and princessdoms.

There may never be one truth

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

But after the contributions last week in Poland – the one on security, the other on precarity I remembered the song

La razza in estinzione

by Giorgio Gaber. Much to think about. And and after workshops with my Chinese students the last two days, I may immediately revise, considering that we are not a lost generation but we still and more than ever can move forward, we only have to be aware that we should not save this “endangered race” of the past; instead we should think more about the future as it is given in the presence, actually this is what I talked about, right?

The two last days made another time clear to me: “we” should not blame “them”. Instead we still can and have to work together to make the future happen instead of continuing to allow that it is “exported to Panama“. Also here it is not “them” who export, but all of us allowing the structures to “make things happen” – again and again. – Also something for the discussion the week after next, in Havana.

Security in insecure times

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

A short presentation, addressing the conference Edukacja Dla Bezpieczeństwa (Education for Security), April 6th, 2016, in Gdansk

Abstract:

Looking at the economic development of the recent years, the first that comes to mind is of course the crisis and its far-reaching impact on the living conditions and perspectives of many people – social security systems are threatened by austerity, and they often appear as at most shunting yard, without offering real and sustainable perspectives. This is obvious, and the need for immediate changes, securing basic human rights – for individuals and societies – is high on the agenda.

However, it is obvious that the crisis is more fundamental, reaching much beyond this and presenting itself as human crisis, crisis of humanity, crisis of agency and the like.

We best may refer to the antroponomic system crisis as outlined by Paul Boccara.

In other words, when we look at the current economic crisis we have to understand that we are confronted with the potentiality of a fundamental change of the entire mode of production. So, the old security of the Keynesian Welfare National State are failing and seem to be irretrievable, the transitory Schumpeterian Workfare Post-National Regime.

Can economics, and possibly social science in general, only bemoan the developments, leaving the search for security to religion and the violent reestablishment of the traditional systems of security? The question is not only one of social security, but even more so one of thoroughly analysing the burning global demand – and potential – for a new antroponomic balance.

 

See here for the recording.

Talking about Precarity …

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

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

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

*********

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

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

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

And we also read:

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

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

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

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

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

*********

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

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

  • oppression and
  • personal dependence (patronage, clientelism …).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All these, in there interplay, merge to the overall alienation – the famous expression, that

the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home[8] –

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

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

1) Mass Production

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

2) Mass Consumption

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

3) Nation State

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

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

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

5) System Competition

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

6) Formal Democracy

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

7) Family

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

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

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

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

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

*********

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

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

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

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

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

*********

Not yet a week passed by, standing at the Paul’s Cathedral in Frankfurt/M., discussing labour market issues, green growth and regional labour market monitoring the question is of course obvious: Are we facing a new “Westphalian Peace”, different forms of nation states emerging as it happened in Muenster and Osnabrueck in 1648; is the current situation simply about a new structure of political governance of a small elite as the citoyens that gathered in 1849 as first publicly and freely-elected German legislative institution, backing the final breakthrough of capitalism; or is there an opportunity to make people’s sovereignty in a fundamental sense possible, allowing everybody as social being to control the conditions of production and reproduction of everyday’s life?
*********

May be the deliberations during the EUROMEMO-workshop, starting on Thursday in Rome, could shed some more light on relevant issues, overcoming the call for a radical change of economic processes in favour of a radical change of the economy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Living Out Of Time, In Globality

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

My life was a world life – I lived the life of the world. But the world stopped living for several decades, and then in a few years it advanced a century! So I am only now coming into my own, having somewhere lost 30 years on the way – waiting for Godot – until the world caught up again, caught up to me. In retrospect, it is all quite strange, the martyrdom of isolation was only apparent – ultimately, I was only waiting for myself. Now the scales are weighed against us – against you, against me – because in ten years, I would stand vindicated in my own lifetime. My work is for Asia and Africa, for the new peoples. The West should bring them spiritual and intellectual assistance; instead the west is destroying the tradition of the 19th century and is even demolishing its Victorian ideals… My ideas at last are drawing opposition and that is a good sign, I would dearly love to live to fight for them, but man is a mortal being.

Karl Polanyi: Letter written to a lifetime friend, Bé de Waard,1958, cited in Kari Levitt and Marguerite Mendell, ‘Karl Polanyi his Life and Times’ Studies in Political Economy, spring 1987 issue no.22 pp. 7-39

quoted from http://www.karipolanyilevitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Chapter-Thirty-Three_Tracing-Polanyis-Institutional-Political-Economy-to-its-Central-European-Source_Kari-Polanyi-Levitt.pdf

 

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

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

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

Abstract

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

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

communication (n.)

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

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

common (adj.)

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

commute (v.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

Looking at the second part of the title

A Changing Asia in a Globalizing World.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But in the same way as it is true that

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

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

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

circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past

(ibid.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

The subject matter of the different communicaitons refers to people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships. In other words, the constitutive interdependency between processes of self-realisation and processes governing the formation of collective identities is a condition for the social and its progress or decline.

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

circumstances in everyday life

and this is a fact that

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

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

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

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

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

  • individualism – and its translation into methodological individualism

and

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

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

Economic Dimension

Social Dimension

Cultural Dimension

Environmental Dimension

…

Figure 1

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

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

Eco-Social (as Concept and Criteria for Practice

Economic Dimension

Welfare Dimension

Cultural Dimension

Environmental Dimension

…

Figure 2

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

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

cohere (v.)

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

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

cohesion (n.)

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

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

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

integration (n.)

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

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

And

integrate (v.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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