Tag: inequality

The power of love – the love of power … The need for genuine truth

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, joys - what we usually take for it, social quality, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications
I am sure many of you know it:
– apparently “one of these videos”, going viral … (sorry, it is youtube but you may manage – or look for “What Did I Do Is For Your Own Good」 – Shanghai Rainbow Chamber Singers”
Can make somebody who is working in third level education thinking …, about “towards what” are we teaching, and also thinking about the doctor and professor uncles and aunties …
There it is also said it would be about love … or something this way. And sure it is: love of people, love of the job and career in terms of “commitment” and “inner devotion”, what Max Weber had in mind when he speaks of personal calling (see e.g. in Economy and Society in the paragraph on Prophet versus Priest; and of course, when he looks as Politics as Vocation and Science as Vocation.
And this is surely something we – as students and teachers (i.e. eternal students) – have to emphasises: it is the love to truth. Something that means also the readiness to engage, eve if it possibly painful at times.
I was thinking about this the other day, when reading an article, dealing with Trump’s “real moves” now.
No, nobody can claim “But I did not know.” And we all have it remember

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Last Sunday I spoke to a friend, also saying: yes, he is dangerous – but sometimes I think the many distractions we saw for instance as determining the recent Davos-Agenda are more dangerous, hiding the agenda  behind …, yes, exactly, behind words of love …..
And yes, harshness of Trump makes if too often forgetting what is behind some of those declarations, makes us forget that others standing the second row, calling for a new leadership. And it makes us equally easily forgetting or overlooking that it is still relevant to speak about
and how they work today, in the supposed of the open community, with the five rules of providing encyclopedic knowledge, written from a neutral point of view, (re)presenting free content – free to us, edit and distribute – offered by people who treat each other with respect and civility, without firm rules, and available where we find all the Wisdom of the Wide World — may be that, while I wrote on “New Princedoms“, I should have asked as well if these New Princedoms are also about repulsing women’s status on a new level.
Power and love is not only a topic for feminism (just some ideas are outlined here;  but .., yes, also for where we, the old and the young want to go together.
Anyway, all the best for the new year …, the year of rooster …, we have to give the bird some wings …!! And talk also about power again … – and the contradictions of hegemonic systems, systems where we can apparently only succeed by using those instruments against which we fight …

the wealthy continue to gain, for most of the others it remains pain

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

Or: fiscal policy as social policy may sound as provocation … though Robbie Pye and Owen Parker rightly state

A greater array of social and labour policy areas have been subsumed within macroeconomic coordination (as discussed further in the following section), wherein they are decided by economic and finance actors in DG ECFIN and the Economic and Finance Council (Copeland and James, 2014; Oberndorfer, 2015; Schellinger, 2015: 6). DG ECFIN has, moreover, repeatedly proposed increasing its own powers of oversight of member state ‘competitveness’ (EPSC, 2015) – conceived problematically in terms of ‘structural reform’ and labour market flexibility – in ways that critics have rightly asserted would amount to the Europe- anisation of the MoU approach and the significant further erosion of social rights (Oberndorfer, 2015: 199).
In this light it does not really matter “who” is delivering – as I stated myself in various contributions on social policy, EUropean integration and Social Quality: the problem is not about weighing social ad economic policies, the problem is what kind of economic policy do we ask for.
Anyway, for Germany it is now apparently getting even clearer what this subordination means – the Bundesbank reviving an old proposal and asking for retirement at 69 – though it still seems to be disputed. Anyway, one sentence from the article in French language
deserves special attention, so my translation follows:
Life expectancy in Germany is 78 years for men and 83 years for women, climbing stubbornly.  … – the legal age (for retirement) is already moving gradually from 65 to 67 years, though the effective age of end employment is approximately 62 years – that’s a lot of years to spend in retirement. Financed through contributions of those who work … and this is a a decreasing number, aging population is under pressure.
At least three questions remain on the table.
* If we are referring to an insurance principle, it is strange that people pay into the system …, and do not get the “premium” paid out
* If it is about solidarity between generations, it remains to be answered if solidarity is a matter killing pro rata temporis
* If it is about global justice and human rights, the most fundamental question remains why there is still this one percent that is allowed to expose the most parasite behaviour and even may fly in their jet for presidential candidature
– For those who like the more sober analysis, may read Branko Milanovic’s book on Global Inequality also showing some interesting global shifts behind this. Indeed, the wealthy continue to gain, for most of the others it remains pain.

Brazilianisation

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

It is always easy – and tempting – to work with slogans and catchwords like Brazilianisation, New Princedoms and the like. One aspect behing putting them forward is the fact that they often focus on one point, by this presenting things neatly. And for this they can and should be always be criticised. But occasionally they also allow us to understand the broader picture that they carry with them. Two recent telesur-reports on the recent developments in Brazil highlight this in an interesting way, highlighting the dangers we are currently facing globally and nationally/regionally.

Dangers we are facing globally means that, of course, what happens there is part of a wider geopolitical strategy:
* Senate-imposed President of Brazil Michel Temer being not much more than a string-puppet to the USNA – yes, the self-elected world gendarme Northern America having again its dirty hands in the game and

Brazil is only the latest Latin American Coup

* the global dimension gets also clear when we understand that the movement is one aiming on getting

Brazil back in the clutches of Washington

Looking at the economic development and the fact that it is to some extent based on throwing off the ropes of the neocolonialist dependencies and obediences, also turning towards BRICS, UNASUR and others are major threats for the overcome system of the global hegemonic structures. – The

Goodbye Washington Consensus

is not really in sight.
Reestablishing inner colonialisation is the second dimension: Brazilianisation is, indeed, about reestablishing the old hegemonies of a white male society, where “austerity” becomes identical with reinstalling a system that ignores human rights, that explicitly opens doors for discrimination and arbitrary rules.

When we then see the term Brazilianistion in its originally intended understanding of the “West” adopting the rules of a then neocolonial country (the origin of the term goes back to the pre-reform Brazil of the late 1990s), the current developments may give us some idea of what we can expect – or it may alert us when it comes to seeing the germs already now:
* Nestle Gains Control of Town’s Water for the Next Half Century
It reminds me of an interview I once heard, the Nestle CEO openly stating that he does not care about people dying because of the lack of access to water.

* A colleague from Austria wrote in a recent mail about the way in which his university deals with applications for academic jobs. He claimed that all applications should be assessed by a well defined catalogue of requirement – the same catalogue used for all applicants. The reply he had to face, coming from the chairwoman:

We surely have the right to assess every person indiviually and flexibly.

Right, this happened in Austria and the chairwoman had been a German. Not yet 100 years ago somebody came from Austria to Germany [and of course, he did not stay there].

* And of course we find the inequality exactly HERE. In a policy note of the

Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

we find the data on the 1 % and the 99 %. But not less interesting is a look at the data of the sources of “income”. As true as it is that “honest labour never makes a person rich”, the gap between those who get income from “work” and those how gain from what is called unearned income, defined as

any income that comes from investments and other sources unrelated to employment services

is also increasing.

That the definition of unearned income also includes social transfers/welfare shouldn’t surprise – the clandestine socialisation of private entrepreneurship. If there would be a law making enterprises pay a “decent income”, we would not face the increasing number of the so-called working poor. And the latter live on state welfare but depend increasingly on charities – yes, Brazilianisation and New Princedoms go hand in hand. One of the differences between the old and the new princedoms is, of curse, that the church though still playing an important role, is to me extent replaced by other good-doers: The foundations of the super-rich, defining in their light what social quality should be and profiling themselves as the new messiahs …

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.

Usefulness of Piketty

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

Much of the debate on Piketty’s book did not go much beyond number-crunching and (possibly abashed) groaning … – yes, the injustice of the world …

An intersting article says, there can be more positive outline from there. the headline reads

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa announced radical plans to support asylum-seekers and stateless people.

Two things are of some special interest, when opening the site. Two links can be found:
RELATED: French Officials Clear Hundreds from Migrants Camps
and
RELATED: Ecuador Congress Reviews Wealth Redistribution Law
Yes, interesting to see things in context, isn’t it?

Hidden Slavery

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy
Chrystia Freeland, in her book
mentions something interesting, a bit sublime perhaps, and subtle, but surely more shocking than all the calculations by beancounters as Piketty – though their work may also be of some importance – at least for those who prefer the wooden hammer info of numbers instead of approaching harsh reality shows of life. So, the reality, the real meaning is grasped in the book I just mentioned, talking about Eric Emerson Schmidt, whom wikipedia sees simply as “Software engineer and businessman” and his “interesting views”.

If you traveled to Mountain View to visit Eric Schmidt when he was CEO of Google, you would have found him in a narrow office barely big enough to hold three people. The equations on the whiteboard may well have been scribbled by one of the engineers who works next door and is welcome to use the chief’s office whenever he’s not in. And while it is okay to have a private jet in the Valley, employing a chauffeur is frowned upon. “Whereas in other cultures, you can drive your Rolls-Royce around and just sort of look rich and have a really good time, in technology it’s not socially okay to have a driver who drives you to work every day,” Schmidt told me. “I don’t know why, but you’ll notice nobody does it.”

This egalitarian style can clash with the Valley’s reality of extreme income polarization. “Many tech companies solved this problem by having the lowest-paid workers not actually be employees. They’re contracted out,” Schmidt explained. “We can treat them differently, because we don’t really hire them. The person who’s cleaning the bathroom is not exactly the same sort of person. Which I find sort of offensive, but it is the way it’s done.”

This is also mentioned in a presentation that is available on the web.
Doesn’t this remind a bit of the treatment of slaves – we are frequently shocked when thinking about the blunt ignorance of ancient times, or the slave trade in modern times. And we may be shocked (only “may be” as not all are) when we hear about migration and the fortress Europe. But the day-to-day trafficking within this system is easily ignored, not even recognised by so many.
I remember, taking part in a conference organised several years ago by the European Commission, taking place in Birmingham. The event’s concern: labour market and using the ESF as means for the integration of the weakest. During the conference dinner a friend of mine asked the waitress a few questions – about income, working conditions … We learned that the lady had been underpaid, and “on call”. Whenever she heard (short notice) that she would be “allowed” to work few hours she had to do it: “you can say “no” once, but surely not more. She had to look then for somebody taking care of her little boy.
All this surely appalling – but it came worse: We went to somebody from the Commission – the organiser. “We cannot do anything. This service had been advertised. We looked for the best bid – and we can only check the technical correctness ….”
****
Switching scene, back to Eric Schmidt. Wikipdia also lets us know:

Schmidt was a campaign advisor and major donor to Barack Obama and served on Google’s government relations team. Obama considered him for Commerce Secretary. Schmidt was an informal advisor to the Obama presidential campaign and began campaigning the week of October 19, 2008, on behalf of the candidate. He was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Chief Technology Officer position, which Obama created in his administration. After Obama won in 2008, Schmidt became a member of President Obama’s transition advisory board. He proposed that the easiest way to solve all of the problems of the United States at once, at least in domestic policies, is by a stimulus program that rewards renewable energy and, over time, attempts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

He has since become a new member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology PCAST.

****
Switching scene, back to Europe again: there is something in all this, that reminds me of an article I read recently, talking about refugees and consumerism. The main argument: The crisis is not least a warning that we have to move away from consumerist attitudes – a bit of solidarity as sharing attitude. Yes, may be there is some truth also in that. But to be honest, the baseline of it is in my view not much more than a left good-doer attitude, not looking FIRST AND FOREMOST at the untouched relations and mode of production. The comments on the article are actually quote telling, and though I agree on many issues with the author, I see (and disagree) as well with the “quasi-religious attitude” behind it, pleading nolens volens for all of us tightening the belt …. Eating less meat and vegetarianism does not make a revolution.
And thus it easily leaves the old patterns intact – the following little episode could well be one that we find referred to in the works of Milton Friedman – I had been revisiting his work recently more or less extensively. There is no free lunch – but the “free market” surely guarantees that inequality remains:
In the journal distributed in Italian trains I saw this ad for luxurious transport bytrain:
Later then, in the same travel journal, the editorial or a dedication presented the move to make train stations public, offering space for those most in need – yes, and it is even free of charge:
And next to it again a fancy ad – but we know such clash from earlier. So to say, the free lunch, falling from the table of the super-rich ….
****
Switching scene, back to the world.
Currently we can follow the UN-debates on the New Sustainability Goals.
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa made some valid and crucially important points in his speech, highlighting the necessity to change the foundations of the current system – not by changing the determinants of exchange (more just etc.), but by changing the foundations of the current system. And these foundations are not about changes of norms, of consumerism etc.: they are about the change of the mode of production. And though we are talking (rightly) about globalisation, and even if we criticise war-mongering, we forget that nationalism is still one of the fundamental features of the current system. It causes the externalisation of cost; and it causes the ongoing debate on migration as matter of “accommodating people from other countries” instead of acknowledging the need for a more fundamental re-thinking, looking for
human mobility laws based on human rights
In his speech, Correa  also criticises “social minimum approaches”, vehemently arguing for the need of moving to social maxima.
Indeed, religion, also in a modernised form, will not get us anywhere. Dealing with distribution, has to be about production.

And in the after-life we are all equal …

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

… though it seems that there are some limitations to this in reality …

 

http://www.humanite.fr/un-bebe-rom-rejete-jusque-dans-la-mort-561623?IdTis=XTC-FT08-AMJJ1J-DD-YFOL-DPGL

 

It is especially worrying as I am just reading

Castel, Robert, 1995: Les Métamorphoses de la Question Sociale. Une Chronique du Salariat ; Paris: Libraire Arthème Fayard,

about the social question …

Backyards – Courtyards*

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

Sure, what Brecht used in his theatre and his theoretical considerations as Verfremdung, i.e. (a specific kind of) alienation has also its linguistic version, comes for across as linguistic Verfremdung.

Having previously spoken of the backyards, the Italian term is perhaps more telling: we speak of the

 cortile interno.[1]

And I also said

there may a good reason to finally open the also doors of the Villa Doria Pamphilj.

Finally then, I contended that

the others, the unknown, the unnamed, the dwarfs and voles didn’t take anything, in first instance.

In social science we know very much about the difficulty which is only in words easily overcome:

the individual being nothing without the social being nothing without the individual.

 Or we may of course also say

the social being nothing without the individual being nothing without the social

For instance we can refer to Norbert Elias. He stated

[t]hat the human being is a process is certainly one of the most fundamental of people’s experiences, but it is usually suppressed from thinking because of the overwhelming tendency of thought to reduce processes to state conditions.[2]

And he continued metaphorically

[o]ne may say that a person passes through a process, just as one says the wind blows, although the blowing is, of course, the wind.[3]

*****

Applying this relational aspect together with the thought of processuality, the story looks more difficult than social science commonly admits, even more so if we include the socio-hierarchical dimension. To put it into a simple (though difficult to answer) question: Can we really imagine development that starts from the premise of not taking anything as primary cause in the first instance? Can we imagine the beauty of a palace like the Villa Doria Pamphilj with initially open doors? – Or would that mean denial of causality?

In any case, there had been nearly always the two sides anyway, up to hitherto not really coming together, always contrasting the two sides, celebrating the one, barely mentioning that another had been involved, and even necessary. And the decisive questions had not been asked by many – Brecht however did:

Who built Thebes of the 7 gates?

In the books you will read the names of kings.

Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?

 

And Babylon, many times demolished,

Who raised it up so many times?

 

In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live?

Where, the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go?

 

Great Rome is full of triumphal arches.

Who erected them?

 

Over whom did the Caesars triumph?

Had Byzantium, much praised in song, only palaces for its inhabitants?

 

Even in fabled Atlantis, the night that the ocean engulfed it,

The drowning still cried out for their slaves.

 

The young Alexander conquered India.

Was he alone?

 

Caesar defeated the Gauls.

Did he not even have a cook with him?

 

Philip of Spain wept when his armada went down.

Was he the only one to weep?

 

Frederick the 2nd won the 7 Years War.

Who else won it?

 

Every page a victory.

Who cooked the feast for the victors?

 

Every 10 years a great man.

Who paid the bill?

 

So many reports.

 

So many questions.

*****

Two examples added, and possibly showing in a very drastic way the bloodshed on which much of bellezza, gloria e lustro are established.

Palazzo Vecchio in Firenze – there is somewhere at one of the houses surrounding the square a memorial plaque, reminding that the place where we see no the palace and the square had been offering at least a place where people lived. It describes as well that this offering a place had been actually not more, and even that is somewhat understating the reality: it had been a location which had been characterised by the nearness of the Arno: Mud, mosquitoes … –and of course the subsequent epidemics. Beauty then, with the building of the palace, replacing the misery, power emerging where the powerless lived.

– They are still on the reading list, but there is probably a good reason for Umberto Eco writing two separate volumes: one on Storia della bellezza, the other on Storia della bruttezza.

Tiny additions can be made to this short excursus to Florence, historical details, not (necessarily) following a chronological order and perhaps not even entirely true – as the real truth has to include asking all the questions of reading workers of which Brecht only mentioned a few.

Anyway, the Piazza della Signoria had been at some stage during antiquity also a roman theatre – some of the buildings structures apparently still showing signs of this period. And these theaters had been closely linked to the imperial idea of the panem et circenses – bread and games, of which we easily forget that many of these games had been actually deciding over life and death. And isn’t it striking that such a place is the birthplace of the early republic – the res publica, indeed claiming to give bread and games to the people, actually being the bread and games of the people.

And it still is also the place where Girolamo Savonarola had been executed in 1498. It surely says something that Claiming the Triumph of the Cross had been the crime for which he lost his life about the time when the Medici reclaimed power. And probably it had been claimed that all this had been in the name of the people – surely using other words than today’s court systems do.

In this light we have to be careful when we refer to the origin of bread and games. Juvenal used it in his satire X to reprimand the people’s numbness.

iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli

uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim

imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se

continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,

panem et circenses.

Giordano Bruno, Girolamo Savonarola, Galilee Galileo … – even if they had not been really the people, they are examples for what happens if people are interested in more then bread and games.

Finally entering the palace, we find not just the overwhelming beauty, nearly not allowing us to see the scaffold behind it, the foundation on which it had been erected. The room where Niccolò Machiavelli had his office while being secretary of the new republic, actually employed by developing a strategy for the new prince, not enlightened as Frederick II suggested in his anti-Machiavelli. And as true as it is that Machiavelli’s position had not been clear (finally he also wrote the Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio), it is also true that during his time as servant of the republic the doors of his office showed to the Signoria, the rulers, and not to the people. And there had been still the door to chapel … – a new state, competing with the church and still being its servant, trusting its support … – So true even if we consider the work in the Stanza della Guardaroba – a collection of globes and maps of which the accuracy is even for today’s eyes of surprising precision: didn’t this clear view contradict the ongoing apotheosis. Or it is especially then true, showing the tensions between the new state, the ancient state, present in the two marble pillars, taken from a Roman temple, and the bridging Christianity. The claim of the latter had been clear: the universal state of god, the church speaking of

 umanesimo cristiano, umanesimo integrale, nuova cristiano

only really accepting universality and universal human rights with the Vatican II discourse in the early 1960s.

And in the middle of all this there had been another detail: a hidden room, the workshop of an alchemist, working on the new universalism – it had been known and mentioned in laments of Sophocles which had been mentioned elsewhere. .

Renaissance overcame the lament – instead, now gold and not least its monetarised form had been celebrated and ultimate goal. If it had not been achieved …

… another detail shows the Mephistophelean way: an invisible door leading to another hidden room, even more unknown and only having an entrance, not an exit.

It is the metaphor of what we know from the 24th chapter of Capital

At the historical dawn of capitalist production, – and every capitalist upstart has personally to go through this historical stage – avarice, and desire to get rich, are the ruling passions. But the progress of capitalist production not only creates a world of delights; it lays open, in speculation and the credit system, a thousand sources of sudden enrichment. When a certain stage of development has been reached, a conventional degree of prodigality, which is also an exhibition of wealth, and consequently a source of credit, becomes a business necessity to the “un- fortunate” capitalist. Luxury enters into capital’s expenses of representation. Moreover, the capitalist gets rich, not like the miser, in proportion to his personal labour and restricted consumption, but at the same rate as he squeezes out the labour power of others, and enforces on the labourer abstinence from all life’s enjoyments. Although, therefore, the prodigality of the capitalist never possesses the bona fide character of the open-handed feudal lord’s prodigality, but, on the contrary, has always lurking behind it the most sordid avarice and the most anxious calculation, yet his expenditure grows with his accumulation, without the one necessarily restricting the other. But along with this growth, there is at the same time developed in his breast, a Faustian conflict between the passion for accumulation, and the desire for enjoyment.

The second example, namely the Duomo in the same city. The plan, Brunelleschi submitted for the building of the cupola had been apparently so bold that there had been two reaction amongst the members of the jury: one group said that it would be impossible to build and somebody else should be granted the mandate; another group agreeing that the submission would be extremely bold – but presenting something of this kind would mean that one can only be completely convinced that there it must be possible – so they pleaded for granting the work to Brunelleschi. As the first group finally surrendered, the impossible architectural work had been undertaken. If one believes the legend, it could not be explained until today how this magnificent dome had been actually erected and one version claiming the explanation is that a “scaffold” of sand had been offering the support while the building work had been done; later the poor had been told that inside there would be coins … – so they found eager people doing the dirty work of cleaning the inside, thus actually making this beauty possible. Today, the beautiful fresco does not even allow to presage that something like this could have happened. It may be a rumour – and in any case there is one question to be added to those asked by Brecht.

*****

Taking then the terms together: backyard and cortile interno, we arrive at the different dimensions:

  • Backing something
  • Being internal, and thus element, i.e. elementary
  • Yard, providing the playing ground

And with a tiny alteration we may arrive at inferno on the one hand and courtesy on the other – a kind of arch that seems to characterise historical development, expressed markedly in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto where we read

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

If we read the text carefully we see that it is an in-depth analysis, arguing on four dimensions, looking at

  • the accumulation regime
  • the mode of regulation
  • the living regime
  • the mode of life

These are four dimensions that clearly mark the dialectical relationship between the different levels: there is no economic determinism – instead we are dealing with people who are constituted as actors, responsible for their own life; but it also argues that the hegemonies are not simply a result of one class being superior. The hegemonic power is established by linking the two, the accumulation regime and the living regime, wage labour being the major brace; mode of regulation and mode of life, the major brace being consumption which makes many political scientists speak of ‘political markets’ and stands behind the notion of the so-called consumerist societies.

*****

Walking through Rome then (and it could be any other place), we actually walk in two dimensions: following the footsteps of the great men of history and on the backs of those who had to provide the floor on which these people could walk.

Though the fundamental structure is very much the same throughout history – captured in the German Ideology by emphasising that

[t]he production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life

the patterns, the design of these historical carpets varies.

*****

I talked recently with Birgit who said that some generous spending: e.g. for renting a car without chasing the best offer is not least about “buying time”, gaining leisure time as pleasure time. And after chatting a bit about this, she asked

But what are people coming to Rome want to buy? What is the special pleasure, the experience they are looking for when coming to the so-called eternal city?

No lo so ma sospetto – it is really only an assumption, or a mosaic, a patchwork that possibly merges to some entity, entirety …

… eternality. In any of the areas, perhaps even more those that are closed to the eyes of tourists, it seems that development stopped – better to say: that development took place as maintenance. Not the conversation we find in museums but the functioning of a system with at least many traditional, archaic patterns. Coming here somebody may easily feel in some way time-displaced –and living here is in some respect not so different: it is a bit like living in an encapsulated world with its own laws. Approaching it from another end we may take Norbert Elias’ words who looks at an

era during which functions of protection and control of the individual, previously being pursued by the tighter associations of birth as clans or village, estate owner, guild or estate are transferred on highly centralised and increasingly urbanised statuary associations (Staatsverbaende). In response to this shift the individuals, when grown up, leave these tight, local associations based on birth and providing protection. Their cohesion is lowering according to the increasing loss of the functions of protection and control. And the individual being is within the wider, highly centralised and increasingly urbanised state societies to a larger extent depending on his/her own positioning. There is an increasing mobility of the individuals – understood as local and as social mobility[4]

And actually – sure, using a broad brush, being in danger of missing many other parts – much of what Elias says about the traditional settings – is the admirable charm of the Roman eternity. But what makes it even more charming is that fact that all this is merging closely with modernity: yes, there are buses and not horse carts though many people complain about them; yes, there is a developed system of police and public administration not the antique system of legionaries – and there is still the campanalista even in the city. Referring to campagna, i.e. the countryside, and perhaps not knowing, at least not being aware of two other close links: campanile is the Italian term for bell tower; and campagna also translates into campaign, even if it may only be a campaign for the dole vita.

– Is it then surprising that within the confines of Rome there is the real eternal city, the city state of the Vatican? Indeed it is simple to draw a line:

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth! Break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.[5]

Hic Rhodos – Hic Salta

 But what are people coming to Rome want to buy? What is the special pleasure experience here in the so-called eternal city?

Well, perhaps it is then the experience of being gladiator in the urban jungle, knowing that even in the confines of the Colosseo there are no lions; knowing that the modern emperor will with all his pomp finally not emerge as new Caesar or Nero.

And still it may be exactly this power that is perversely looked for: the string leader that cannot called for in the real world and that could maintain against the odds the claim of justice in this eternal externality. It remains for me an irresolvable riddle how it is possible that an island can be and is maintained that suggests a little bit a communist habitus ….

… dressed in the habit of the “professional believers”, people are allowed to live in some kind of idyll. Doesn’t much remind us a bit of what we read in the German Ideology about

communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

… but it surely is only some kind of idyll …

… at least as long as this world, this system of faith with its very specific institutions allows the many sleeping rough on the doorsteps while proclaiming that

this capitalism kills

not acknowledging being ultimately part of it.

… but it surely is only some kind of idyll …

… at least as long as this world, this system of faith goes hand in hand with unbelievable material wealth – not just the cathedrals, churches and others but also when we look at the wealth of everyday’s life: It is so present that the present pope had to emphasise that he only has a simple cross, if it is true: made from iron, in any case distinct from the pomp of predecessors.

… but it surely is only some kind of idyll …

… at least as long as this world, this system of faith with its very specific institutions that are internally split …, not by different opinions but by power interests.

… but it surely is only some kind of idyll …

… at least as long as this world, this system of faith with its very specific institutions rebuke even an alternative within their own world, not seeing themselves as instrument of liberation.

Nel suo ultimo viaggio in America centrale e riferendosi al Nicaragua, [Giovanni Paolo II] annunciò la morte di questa teologia [i.e. della Teologia della Liberazione], avvenuta dopo la morte del marxismo. …[6]

And

Ecco il contesto di questo affermazione: a settembre del 1984 il cardinale Ratzinger aveva condannato duramente la Teologia della Liberazione ….

Isn’t it striking that Francis now condemns hierarchy, refuses to accept the pomp and vehemently criticises this capitalism, but is also ultimately joining this choir refusing liberation?

… but it surely is only some kind of idyll …

… at least as long as it is only for those who believe in god, but not for those who truly believe in mankind, in human beings being able to interact as people, who are consciously social actors.

… but it surely is only some kind of idyll …

… at least as long as it is not clear to themselves and everybody …

No saviour from on high delivers

No faith have we in prince or peer

Our own right hand the chains must shiver

Chains of hatred, greed and fear

*****

Morning walks … – a little bit exercise every morning, the air still reasonably clean, the traffic limited, where I live there are few people around: some flower shops open – actually open the entire night as the shop keeper can save this way the money for a bedroom; few people around: in some house entrances people cleaning the corridors and court yards; the news paper stands begin to open, some bars preparing for caffè e cornetto … . Women going to work – a few of them I know by now, early in the morning they smile at me, somewhat confused shy, sheepishly … – and while they walk further they turn the eyes down again, the face being covered by the Christian headscarf. They open the gates of one of the palaces from which I hear already the singing of chorals behind the doors, preparing for the day. And as their own, closed society of the faithful

regulates the general production

it

makes it possible for [them] to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as [they] have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

Morning walks … – a little bit exercise every morning, the air still reasonably clean, the traffic limited, where I live there are few people around – a little bit later,

Sunday, at about 7 a.m.,

Via Ombrone: A middle aged man being busy with polishing the black Merc – for the family trip into the countryside? Or for any boss to be driven to the airport? Or …?

Sunday, at about 7 a.m.,

Via Regina Margherita, just around the corner the doors of ENEL – energia alla tu vita as they say – energy for your life: CSR and CER – corporate social and environmental responsibility … an enormous heat coming from the basement …; the guy from security services looking checking the charging stations for the ENEL-e-cars. Yes: CER, and the CSR ad tells us about flexible working time – of course especially for women, allowing a healthy “work-life balance” …

Sunday, at about 7 a.m.,

Via Arno: A man, covered by a woollen blanket, turning around – I cannot really see him, do not get a hint to guess his age; he is trying to turn around, trying to sleep a little longer, having enough time – no family to be driven to the countryside, no need to go to the airport …

CSR – he sleeps under the eaves of the ENEL-building …

Sunday, at about 11:37 a.m.,

Via di Villa Patrizi: a helicopter is leaving nearby, only a short time earlier they arrived there. Presumptions, sure …: an emergency case, admission to the hospital. Sure, only presumptions …:

  • the driver of a Merc, dangerously overtaking whiled driving to the airport;
  • members of a family, a car speeding on one of the country roads, just outside of Rome – the driver trying to “make the most of the weekend”
  • a homeless person, having been injured by a passing car while he stepped out of his “home”: a place in one of the tunnels at the outskirts of the city – such “new settlements” under bridges, in house entrances, in parks and green belts along the city wall are increasingly visible
  • a person who had been desperately disappointed, having lost perspectives …, trying to find the “final solution to the problems” but having been “rescued” though still without hope of being saved.

Presumptions, sure … – and the names of streets can be changed Canterbury Street, Bismarck Strasse, Rue de Pasquale, Youyi Rd, Komsomolskaya Square, Carrer dels Mercaders, Grevgatan, Dongja-dong, Yongsan-gu; the cities are diverse, not only in Europe

Presumptions, sure … – but also a question or two: what is speed when it is disjoined from its meaning? what is the “value” of a life? and why do we wait, then paying the high price although we could do much more with less if we look earlier at the cost?

And there is surely one more general question: Although street names can be changed, are contingent, there is something that is probably not … – you may want to know about the patricians who once lived in the Villa Patrizi, and all those people who gave the names to many streets …

But what are people coming to Rome want to buy? What is the special pleasure experience here in the so-called eternal city?

What kind of idyll is it

… even if it surely is only some kind of idyll?

Part of it is surely that the borders between private and public, between individuals and institutions, between past and presence are in some way blurring, this strange setting that allows people to forget, allowing charisma to develop and take over. Or taking the words from Goethe’s Journey to Italy, the more secular version reads like this:

Wenn man so eine Existenz ansieht, die zweitausend Jahre und darüber alt ist, durch den Wechsel der Zeiten so mannigfaltig und vom Grund aus verändert, und doch noch derselbe Boden, derselbe Berg, ja oft dieselbe Säule und Mauer, und im Volke noch die Spuren des lateinischen Charakters, so wird man ein Mitgenosse der großen Ratschlüsse des Schicksals, und so wird es dem Betrachter von Anfang schwer zu entwickeln, wie Rom auf Rom folgt, und nicht allein das neue auf das alte, sondern die verschiedenen Epochen des alten und neuen selbst aufeinander.[7]

The question from the beginning remains unanswered

Can we really imagine development that starts from the premise of not taking anything as primary cause in the first instance? Can we imagine the beauty of a palace like the Villa Doria Pamphilj with initially open doors? – Or would that mean denial of causality?

And probably it is even the wrong question – it is in now way historical to asks for different pathways of the past.

But looking at it – and merging Dichtung und Wahrheit with Sturm and Drang is surely allowing us to move forward in different ways: not denying the beauties but acknowledging the even more by opening the doors further, opening the doors not least for the producers, allowing all of them

to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

 

* These reflections are also part of the wider considerations in the context of writing two book  contributions,  I had been asked to write: one on liberation theology, the other on a presumed “Vatican Spring”

[1]            Of course, the English also knows the back courtyard but it is not really used often, is it?

[2]            Elias, Norbert, 1980/81: Social Process Models on Multiple Levels; in: Elias, Norbert: Essays III. On Sociology and the Humanities; Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2009: 40-42; here 41

[3]            Elias, Norbert, 1980/81: Social Process Models on Multiple Levels; in: Elias, Norbert: Essays III. On Sociology and the Humanities; Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2009: 40-42; here 41

[4]            Elias, Norbert, 1939: Die Gesellschaft der Individuen; in Norbert Elias. Gesammelte Schriften. Edited on behalf of the Norbert Elias Stichting, Amsterdam. Vol. 10; Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2001: 166 – translation P.H.

[5]            Isaiah 49: 13

[6]            Regidor, José Ramos, 2010: Teologia della Liberazione: Diritti umani, diritti dei poveri, diritti della Terra; in: Boff, Leonardo/Boff, Clodovis/Regidor, José Ramos: La Chiesa dei Poveri. Teologia della Liberazione e diritto dell’uomo; Roma: Datanews: 53-158; here: 89

[7]            Italienische Reise 21 ??; http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/3682/21

 

Mysteries of Progress …

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

There we dare to ask and wonder ….

… about sustainability, simple life styles and overconsumption, greed and modesty and what we really need – Skidelski/Skidelki publishing under the title

 How much is Enough?

 promising to look at

Money and the Good Life[1]

and Thomas Piketty writing about extensive inequality[2] – surely important, and shocking in its way. And in this way surely talking importantly about the Capital of the 21st century. But this way is denying that capital, in which century ever, is established on inequality – which is paradoxically emerging from contractual equality of the one who sells and the other who buys the labour power. This equality and even freedom, presumed by the contract is defined in very simple terms: Two parties engaging freely, i.e. without being forced by the other, with each other and defining ex ante the exact conditions – cost and benefits – of the interaction, defining this way exactly what they can and have to expect from each other – and both parties having the same rights.[3]

And although we may say that everybody talks about it, and is even reasonably honest, the question of the we is a bit tricky.

We the commoners? We, the decision makers, defining what is common – [in former times these people had been called members of the noble classes]? We, the people with common sense [which the German language translates into something that is linked to health: a healthy way of thinking …..]? We, the people whose life, attitude, belief, need is defined by a common standard?

Well, in one way or another there is a paradox, a trap, which is well described in an article I read the other day. It had been in a book looking at poverty and shaming.[4]

The respective sentences that caught my attention much beyond the actual topic of the book and the issue of employment are concerned with the “work-oriented culture”. In these societies

having a job is not just a matter of economic security. In a social sense, it is a primary arena for attaining the dignity associated with social normalisation.[5]

And in another article of the same book we find a quote, from somebody who lives in poverty – a person in Pakistan:

it is the rich who should be ashamed, not the poor.[6]

Isn’t it also that we as academics should be ashamed for not sufficiently highlighting this dimension of shame; for not sufficiently questioning the standards of normalisation

*****

There is a real problem – not only characterising recent developments

Pronta sempre a disporsi per tutte ugualmente, come quella, che non si satia né si contenta d’una forma sola; ma havendo appetito a tutte, non ha prima l’una sopra di se, che quasi pentita&infastidita, comincia ad aspirare all’altra; non essendole più propria questa che quella: di maniera che molti l’assomigliano ad una publichissima meretrice: percioche, si come una donna tale, della conversazione di qualsivoglia huomo non si satia mai, & non più di questo che di quello essendo amica; non prima sta sotto l’uno che desiderando l’altro, cerca dal primo scostarsi: cosi questa prima materia commune atta, & pronta per natura sua à desiderar tutte le materiali forme,& a poter conseguirle, non essendo possibil che più d’una in un’istesso tempo sostenga mai; è necessario che mentre che sta sotto l’una, per l’appetito c’ha delle altre, so spogli di quella al fine;&quindi della nuova vestita poi, tosto per altre, il medesimo faccia di mano in mano; mentre seccedon le forme l’una dopo l’atera perpetuamente.[7]

The Faustian tragedy, later reflected by Marx in his work Capital (mind, not of the 21st Century or any other century – just the Capital), where we read in chapter 24 of the first volume:

At the historical dawn of capitalist production, — and every capitalist upstart has personally to go through this historical stage — avarice, and desire to get rich, are the ruling passions. But the progress of capitalist production not only creates a world of delights; it lays open, in speculation and the credit system, a thousand sources of sudden enrichment. When a certain stage of development has been reached, a conventional degree of prodigality, which is also an exhibition of wealth, and consequently a source of credit, becomes a business necessity to the “unfortunate” capitalist. Luxury enters into capital’s expenses of representation. Moreover, the capitalist gets rich, not like the miser, in proportion to his personal labour and restricted consumption, but at the same rate as he squeezes out the labour-power of others, and enforces on the labourer abstinence from all life’s enjoyments. Although, therefore, the prodigality of the capitalist never possesses the bona-fide character of the open-handed feudal lord’s prodigality, but, on the contrary, has always lurking behind it the most sordid avarice and the most anxious calculation, yet his expenditure grows with his accumulation, without the one necessarily restricting the other. But along with this growth, there is at the same time developed in his breast, a Faustian conflict between the passion for accumulation, and the desire for enjoyment.

Indeed, as we learn right before,

 original sin is at work everywhere. As capitalist production, accumulation, and wealth, become developed, the capitalist ceases to be the mere incarnation of capital. He has a fellow-feeling for his own Adam, and his education gradually enables him to smile at the rage for asceticism, as a mere prejudice of the old-fashioned miser. While the capitalist of the classical type brands individual consumption as a sin.

*****

So, coming back to the questions about sustainability, simple life styles and overconsumption, greed and modesty, there are the “other people”.

The other day I went to my phone service provider, saying that I would have some problems with my phone.

I know that the battery of this model is extremely weak.

– Oh, yes, indeed ….

She thought admitting the weakness would be enough to get rid of me but …

– … but since some time …, actually I can literally see how the battery is drained.

Exchange of few words …, and 2 percent less power.

 – Please, can you check of there is something running in the background ….; I already made sure that Bluetooth is switched off and localisation  service ….

Indeed, she checked …

– No, I cannot find anything …. – but perhaps you should switch off the 4G service. This really kills the battery.

And I could only confirm that this problem occurred since this service had been introduced.

– And can I switch it off?

She nodded, did so and I left, not necessarily  happily, the shop, heading to the gate at FCO to go just for a two hour meeting to capital of the old Hapsburg empire.

Well, as I have had a little bit of time left, I stopped …: whoever had been at an airport knows the name of the shop, selling electronics and accessories and …

… and I resisted to by one of these “mobile battery chargers”, being still somewhat proud of my phone: slim, small, “handy” as the Germans say (though they actually don’t really mean what they say – but that is another story) and in “allowing me in a small shell doing nearly everything.”

Sure, many reasons to decide this way: lack of greed (I think some would call it avarice); the fear that with another new gadget, or gadget accessory I am again closer to the threshold for hand luggage; the aversion to buy a new suitcase; the fear that I would forget it frequently at home, loose or forget it somewhere, or at least would not find it in my rucksack, bag, pocket or suitcase; the annoyance by having another adapter and another cable ….

Sure, in this context technology plays a role. But looking at battery power of computers today, and comparing the development of computer and phone batteries ….

… in fact, though the exact figures  may be contested, there is surely great truth in the supposition that more than half of today’s production is the production of waste, directly or in form of “services” that occur in consequence of mechanisms that make things more complicated by their supposed simplification   ….

At the end so: it is not primarily the trap of overconsumption which puts me off, but the subordination under the rule of overproduction, the permanent and ever-present iron grip into our pockets.

Sure, as Swantje Karich writes on the  18.07.2014 in the F.A.Z. there is an alternative, namely the bench in the park being equipped with a power socket (Die Steckdose in der Parkbank)

In Boston müssen sich die Nomophopie-Geplagten nicht mehr fürchten vor einem längeren Spaziergang abseits von Steckdose und Stromversorgung. Die Parkbänke der Stadt sind jetzt solarbetrieben, haben Anschlüsse zum Aufladen von Akkus, kosten 3000 Dollar, heißen „Soofas“ und sind so konzipiert, dass sich auf ihnen nicht einmal ein sehr müder Bänker querlegen kann. Aufrecht sitzend behält man hier Anschluss an die Welt. Vier Bänke sind auf dem Campus einer Bostoner Universität aufgestellt – damit die Pause auch Arbeitszeit bleibt, man sich bloß nicht mit seinem Nachbarn unterhalten muss.

*****

Yes, sure, there is an alternative. As I saved time, not buying the additional battery, I could sit down at the gate on a bench without power socket, the phone switched on “slow motion”, G3 (which had been high speed a short while back) …

…

A short while, I just wanted to open the book, somebody asked me if I could take the bag from the seat, next to me.

– Certo. …. Per favore, siediti …

I did not open the book …

…

 – And did you have a nice time here?

– I simply loved it. You know it had been the first time that I had been in Rome. People are so friendly, so relaxed …

I could see, feel the excitement

Sitting there and chatting with the person next to me had been so pleasant, relaxing … – and we exchanged addresses. Written on a piece of paper, the old-fashioned fountain pen requiring a bit of time, allowing the ink that had been used to write down where we live, how we can reach each other by email and of course the mobile phone numbers.

So relaxed .. – yes, that is what we think nearly everyday, walking round, having learned not to fall on the same streets which had been used by Jesus, Cesar, Augustus, Nero …,  Pliny, Plotinus … that is what we think nearly everyday, walking round, having learned that there are cars parked in the second and third line – of course, who would dare to park in the proper parking slot and not paying the parking fee?

Sure, the term hoax is actually mostly known from the IT-world, but originates in the world of information without technology, the real world as we frequently name it. May well be then that we actually didn’t really mean what we said – sad enough then. But may be we actually meant exactly what we said. Formulas are not primarily a matter of algorithms but sometimes just a matter of the sound of a voice and what the eyes tell.

[1]            I am not entirely convinced that they kept their promise though it is surely an inspiring reading: Skidelski, Robert/Skidelski, Edwards, 2012: How much is Enough? Money and the Good Life; Allen Lane

[2]            Piketty, Thomas, 2013: Le Capital au XXI Siècle; Paris: Éditions du Seuil

[3]            Ah, sure, considering freedom and equality we remember of course Marx, writing in a footnote:

Proudhon begins by taking his ideal of Justice, of ―justice éternelle, from the juridical relations that correspond to the production of commodities: thereby, it may be noted, he proves, to the consolation of all good citizens, that the production of commodities is a form of production as everlasting as justice. Then he turns round and seeks to reform the actual production of commodities, and the actual legal system corresponding thereto, in accordance with this ideal. What opinion should we have of a chemist, who, instead of studying the actual laws of the molecular changes in the composition and decomposition of matter, and on that foundation solving definite problems, claimed to regulate the composition and decomposition of matter by means of the ―eternal ideas, of ―naturalité and ―affinité? Do we really know any more about ―usury, when we say it contradicts ―justice éternelle, équité éternelle ―mutualité éternelle, and other vérités éternelles than the fathers of the church did when they said it was incompatible with ―grâce éternelle, ―foi éternelle, and ―la volonté éternelle de Dieu?

[4]            Gubrium, Erika K./Pellissery, Sony/Lødemel, Ivar (eds.), 2014: The Shame of It. Global Perspectives on Anti-Poverty Policies; Bristol/Chicago: Policy Press

[5]            Gubrium, Erika K./Lødemel, Ivar, 2014: ’Not Good Enough’: Social Assistance and Shaming in Norway; in: Gubrium, Erika K./Pellissery, Sony/Lødemel, Ivar (eds.): The Shame of It. Global Perspectives on Anti-Poverty Policies; Bristol/Chicago: Policy Press: 111-132; here:102

[6]            Choudhry, Sohail, 2014: Pakistan: A Journey of Poverty-Induced Shame; in: Gubrium, Erika K./Pellissery, Sony/Lødemel, Ivar (eds.): The Shame of It. Global Perspectives on Anti-Poverty Policies; Bristol/Chicago: Policy Press: 111-132; here: 126

[7]            Piccolomoni: Della filosofia naturale, lib 1, chap. 6, fol 14v

The New and The Old

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log

There is a New Christmas Tale, of course one of joy, and it claims to be a global one. It had been released exactly one month before the day that the Christian world celebrates as Christmas Eve.

And there is still an old Tale: The Christmas Carol as we know it from Charles Dickens – not so joyful, and even depressing …,
Perhaps both have something, though vaguely, in common: the potential for mobilising thoughts and people.

But we have to keep in mind: reality and realism are one thing – and though belief may move mountains, it hardly changes realities as long as these reflect a Tale of Two Cities. (Here the more legible version)
Be it as it is, I hope you will a nice holiday – and in which of these cities you live you should consider that the division is not just one established by walls to the sides. Crucially more important are the foundations on which the walls are erected, the soil on which the cities are established.