From the MPI-pressrelease: 09.03. – 23.03.
beigewum.de (16.03.2018)
Can the EU still be saved? The implications of a multi-speed Europe. Presentation of the EuroMemorandum 2018
Nennung von Gastwissenschaftler Prof. Peter Herrmann und dem MPISOC
Link (Englisch)
Dr. Julia Hagn
Max-Planck-Institut für Sozialrecht und Sozialpolitik
Amalienstr.33
80799 München
or: learning and living and teaching Europe …
To be more precise: it is not May-Day but the evening before the 1st of May – Uli said the other day: it is in Vienna a special cultural event and if you are around you have to go to the town hall … – surely not the same as one year ago when I gathered on the Plaza de la Revolución in La Havana.
Indeed, I am around, teaching European Integration – latest on the 9th the recordings should be here.
So, may-evening then – I am sitting in a tiny park, munching my Simit while I am waiting for the volksoper – the people’s opera – to open its door.
Thoroughly enjoying the moment – anticipating the tale of the
Man from La Mancha
Sitting there, I am also thinking about the programme of the next days – teaching, writing, rushed trip to Bremen for a presentation and … Vienna again …
Le nozze di Figaro
…. the upcoming performance …. – while waiting that day for the doors to open, I will most likely sit in the small resto-bar opposite of the venue, sipping some wine, tasting a canapé …
… May-Evening …. And I am asking myself if I am wondering or not: why is the one place named people’s opera, the other – the one for the higher echelons of society, the bourgeois – is called state-opera.
as Pierre Bourdieu called them – hadn’t been small at the end (as the German translation suggests) …, they had been about the nearness, even the identification with the centres of power.
L’état c’est moi
Not yet …. The evening of the first of May ….
…. And I am teaching about European Integration …. Indeed
Commodification of labour power and appropriation of surplus value cannot be thought of without an outside, by which they profit in social, economic and ecological terms
(Brand, Ulrich/Wissen, Markus: imperiale lebensweise; Muenchen: oekom: 63)
Which is another formulation of what Dulcinea probably meant:
The world is a dung heap and we are grubs walking through …
So it is a long way until we will say
Je suis e aussi moi es nous sommes le peuples
isn’t there such discussion in political science and sociology? The EU is trendy and we all are creating and shaping Europe now.
Listening to what the leader says and looking at how they expand on it is as rich in content as what we are all asked do now.
Some of my earlier, though recent thoughts on the EUropean question can be found here, here and here.
Being modest, not talking about any top but the bits and pieces, and looking at them scattered … – and scattering may be another issue. So, off we go:
the apple scandal – it is the story of humankind in Christianity … – the general appeal to modesty and austereness as which it may be interpreted, was suggested to be a guiding line, guided by responsibility. And as said: claimed to be general. And many now the story of the first incidence: the rejection of the rule, and the punishment that followed.
But it seems that in the Apple-story today (see also here) things have turned around: apples made themselves to gods, not being eaten but eating … And to remain in the metaphor, it is remarkable how the US-multinational-Apple makes the Irish-snake to its priest, collecting the obulus from the people. In which way ever, and even considering the laudable EU-judgment against tax evasion, the real problem is that superpowers today are the representatives of a system that once stood up against the feudal system – then progressive in their claim for liberty, now being oppressors of any kind of freedom, clandestinely selling our friends. A more or less small thing if it would not solve the entire problem, it surely would avoid much of its emergence: Big enterprises, paying taxes, not “fair taxes”, but according to what they owe, would surely help – a point I recently ventilated elsewhere.
Another splinter: the same Commission that calls “against” (really against????) Ireland to act against tax evasion as it sees unfair competition, sets up a programme that is similar to the Irish on a mich larger scale:
Commission proposes €5.3 million from Globalisation Fund for former Microsoft workers in Finland
Doesn’t that propose exactly the same, factually proposing you make the profits as long as toucan make the profits …, and then you leave a desert behind, turn the back to a Dantesque calamity, leaving the clearing of the place to others?
The third point then … bits and pieces … – splinters … shivers making us shivering …
Apple, Microsoft, and the summiters … they may let us ask how they managed. It had been said in Genesis 3
For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened,
So far so good, but then the story continues
they realised that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
This is what todays summiters do not face: they see themselves beautifully dressed, not hiding between trees but on the contrary: exposing their wealth which they gained by standing on the shoulders of dwarfs …. . dwarfs as long as they believe that it had been the snake, and then the women … . As long as they did not really come to terms with the fact that
There are no supreme saviors,
Neither God, nor Caesar nor tribune;
Producers, let us save ourselves,
We decree common salvation!
So that the thief should offer us his throat
So that spirit be wrested from its cell,
Let us fan the forge’s flames ourselves
And strike while the iron is hot.
Well, there is indeed an easy answer to the question
Why the study of transnational companies should be part of the economics curriculum
It is noted — starting then next week again – trying to educate for building the right normalcy, instead of asking for restoration of one that may well be overcome.
=== PS, Having talked about the top, there is something that deserves as well attention – I read the day after having posted the entry:
The decline in unionization is strongly associated with the rise of income shares at the top.
The European Union: the Threat of Disintegration
The EuroMemo Group conference 2016 will be jointly hosted with the Faculty of Economics at the University of Coimbra, from 15-17 September 2016 (Thursday-Saturday). We would like to invite you to attend the conference and to submit paper proposals. Please find the call for papers here.
All papers that present an alternative economic perspective on the conference theme ‘The European Union: the Threat of Disintegration’ are welcome. In particular, we encourage submissions specific to one of the workshops outlined in the programme below.
The programme will be as follows:
Thursday afternoon: The state of the Union
Friday morning: The second day will be dedicated to key themes of EU policy within six different workshops.
Friday afternoon: Plenary on policy proposals from workshops and special plenary ‘Disintegration or Refoundation of the European Union?’
Saturday morning: Planning meeting: EuroMemorandum 2017 and other activities
Proposals for papers together with a short abstract (maximum 250 words) should be submitted by 10 July. If possible, please indicate the workshop which the proposal is intended for. If accepted, completed papers should be submitted by 25 August so that they can be read before the conference.
We strongly encourage participants to submit short papers (10-12 pages) and to explicitly address policy implications.
If you would like to participate in the conference and/ or submit a paper proposal, please copy the registration form below into an email and reply by the 10 July 2016 to info@euromemo.eu.
The outbreak of the crisis in 2007 led to many states having to take out emergency loans in order to save banks. Money was tight and interests were increasing. Therefore, some EU countries had to face serious economic problems up to illiquidity. The usual response of relevant institutions and many economists is that this undesirable development can only be corrected by wage reductions and by cutting welfare expenditures. Based on this idea, their solution strategy consisted of strict austerity policy and put high pressure on labour markets and welfare systems which impacted the living conditions of people in a massively negative way.
For this reason, many institutions demand to cut public spending, be it pensions, wages and salaries or unemployment benefits. This policy of savings leads to a permanent repetition of cuttings of public and private expenses and therefore to reduced social security. It is not, however, a solution for the actual problems of rising inequality, unregulated financial markets and recession, but reinforces the negative social impacts of the economic and financial crisis.
We demand solutions which do not consider the economy as an end in itself but serve us, the people.
We demand to break with the neoliberal policies of austerity and speculation. We demand a Europe of social equalization and perspectives. We demand to #StopAusterity!
After saying yesterday Easily Condemned, it may be time to think about what is easily overlooked, especially while sliding apparently elegantly on the surface.
The title in the Huffington Post says
and A FT-briefing tells us
Deutsche Bank hit by IMF hazard warning A report has branded the German lender as the riskiest globally significant bank on the back of its failure to pass another US Federal Reserve stress test.
Sure, there are good reasons to distrust these rankings and stress tests. But on the other hand, what comes to mind is the obvious failure of German (misled EU-) policy of externalisation. The exsanguination especially of Greece (though we should not forget Ireland, Portugal, Spain) is not a limited strategy against one (or a few countries), but it is part of a systematic bloc-building: strengthening the centre in order to establish and tighten a fortress that finally culminates in a complex network of systematically fostered “unequal development” (in line with TISA etc.). Andre Gunder Frank’s thesis of the “Development of Underdevelopment” finds a new confirmation, now on the changed global scale.
What Britain actually did is not so different from the EU- and German strategy: a strategy of externalisation, aiming on limiting the cost (which had been very small when considering the increasing strangulation of arms of social EUrope), while redistributing the resources as it already started, considering (so the FT-briefing) that
companies with overseas earnings or in haven sectors have benefited most, while others have announced job cuts and profit warnings
and the chancellor announcing a new easing, while Cameron now pleads for “looking beyond”, aiming on big business for big business: China, India, US and Commonwealth as fields for new harvest.
– And it still is the old story: never tidy up your own places as long as there are fields that can be devastated, i.e. fields that allow you to dump your waste. Will it work? Well, coming back to the article in the Huffington Post it is remarkable to see that
Secondo l’istituto di Washington, inoltre, il sistema bancario tedesco pone il maggior grado di rischi di contagio esterni in proporzione ai rischi interni (seguono Francia, Regno Unito e Usa).
In other words, the supposedly strong economies are not only the culprits in terms of being a danger to solidarity, but they are also the real hazard when it comes to global economic disintegration. An interesting measure that is different, seemingly of national scope only, can be found in India:
India’s 10m civil servants The government has approved a 23 per cent rise in salaries, allowances and pensions for current and former civil servants. The once-in-a-decade increase will cost about $15bn and is aimed at boosting private consumption.
Such step is likely to be globally more responsible than the European and British and American fortress building.
It is easy to condemn the Brits for exiting – though it had been only part of them anyway. But is also easy that one overlooks the fundamental flaws of the formation to which they are turning the back. While writing on CSR, i.e. Corporate Social Responsibility, I found this definition on the Commission’s website:
What is CSR?
The Commission has defined CSR as the responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society. CSR should be company led. Public authorities can play a supporting role through a smart mix of voluntary policy measures and, where necessary, complementary regulation.
Companies can become socially responsible by:
following the law;
integrating social, environmental, ethical, consumer, and human rights concerns into their business strategy and operations.
So, the European Union is a place where respecting the law is not an obligation, but a “bonus”?
There is surely much that the “remainers” have to think about in more serious terms: not the lack of legitimacy but the lack of legitime claims of being a legitimate integrative and integrating force.
There may be something to be learned from two contributions I wrote a while back:
… It is easy to chastise the children, and it likely to forget the failure of the parents …
Germany is frequently praised for the policies in connection with migration. And there is surely no reason for any kind of black and white paintings, nor for applying a too broad brush – we are currently elaborating in a small group from the scientific council of attac (Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l’Action Citoyenne (Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Citizen’s Action) a positioning paper.
There is surely one thing that is frequently overlooked, and it is sufficiently shocking to have a look. It is the
Yes, writing “quick comments” is admittedly always dangerous, hastily arriving at wrong conclusions. Still, there is occasionally a huge temptation, and it may be justified as such writing possibly provokes …, well, some really important and not so hasty thoughts, easily overlooked when it comes to detailed analysis of …, well detailed analysis.
Reference at presence is a European Commission’s press release, titled
How digital is your country? New figures show action needed to unlock Europe’s potential
It presents results of the recent study of the DESI.
What is the DESI?
The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) is an online tool to measure the progress of EU Member States towards a digital economy and society. As such, it brings together a set of relevant indicators on Europe’s current digital policy mix.
If I am not mistaken, it fundamentally solves one fear of the past. People were afraid of the development, as they did not want to be “just a number”. We do not have to fear anymore that this may be coming up in the future. It is already the case.
And it also allows us to understand the attitude of those people in the glass palaces towards migration and migrants: Numbers cannot simply decide independently to enter an equation. Only the magician with numbers is The Lord, able and allowed to present the formula …, the white hair and long beard now appearing as netting of bits speeding through fiber glass.
Yes, summits have to be reached – erected like the towers of fortresses. Would it not be an alternative to start with action to reach true global cooperation?
Sure, but I am still wondering if our brain is fast enough to cope with the improvement of obtaining information, barely allowing for the time needed to think about it. – Since some years now I am introducing in my lectures a unit under the heading “slow reading”, the aim of which is UNDERSTANDING.
It may not be much more than a side note, it may be that it actually is more: Apparently there is a paradoxical constellation in China where the language is strongly characterised by characters (instead of letters) and sound/pronouncation. The computer keyboard requires to write first by using letters, and moving from there to “choosing characters”. The consequence seems to be the emergence of a new form of analphabetism.
Two of the issues, if you want: major reference points, in mainstream economics are scarcity and comparative advantage. Well, there is no reason to question the empirical data:
65% of European internet users shop online, but only 16% of SMEs sell online – and less than half of those sell online across borders (7.5%).
However, instead of aiming on change there could be another suggestion: SMEs may claim to move towards comparative advantage: offering something special instead of mass web-products, offer excellent individual advise, offering products that are even individually produced, or produced by individuals working together in cooperatives, and seeing the consumer as co-producer …
Underused? If so, the conclusio may be that there is still hope and people still have more sense than those who govern them.
As said in the beginning, there are problems with such ad-hoc readings – there is much ore to it, including coproducing in particular due to the internet-use etc. – part of it I will deal with next month, when working briefly in Havana. But the problem of blasphemy is not necessarily the heretic; it may well be the self-acclamation of gods who forget that their suggested prayers are mere phantoms as long as their only purpose is … the bubble of their own believe system, the believe system of an old society of which we may say with Shakespeare:
Sure, talking about the believe system of an old society may end in a paradox: it easily lacks the opportunity to get a really good caffellatte.
PS: I hope my students anywhere do not read this blog-entry – as I am required to push them towards the global top, so to say: migrants with global access rights.
Commedia della Vita or Pánta Rêi's Firm Ground 