Sunday, May 22, 2011
The lights are on but no one is home-Brussels Economic Forum
Last week I went along to the Brussels Economic Forum which according to its publicity "offers a unique opportunity to discuss the new era of EU economic governance. High level decision-makers, economists, social partners and the media will gather at the Forum on 18 May to debate and exchange ideas.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Inclusive Growth: The Positive Illusion Front
For those not in the EU "bubble"-a short contextual note: Currently discussions/consultations are taking place at EU level on the future of EU Cohesion policy. This accounts for about 35% of the EU budget= about €347 billion for the period 2007-2013.
On monday of this week I took part in the The EU Cohesion Forum-this is EU style "consultation" with about 700 people , all from inside the EU bubble, being asked to comment on the future of EU Cohesion policy in the period 2013-2019.(Yes its January 2011 but this is the nature of the snail like institutional framework that vested political groups and interests have cobbled together).
I first found myself in a workshop which focussed on "sustainable growth"-one of the key pillars underlying the EU 2020 strategy. I left after 45 minutes when it became clear that "sustainablity" was simply being presented as a "technical issue" for which , we just need technical solutions like: the polluter pays;Carbon Trading schemes; investment in renewable energy(including nuclear);carbon capture technology etc.
When will the message get through that "sustainability" also has a large social justice element. Climate change is a social justice issue as well as a technological and life style change process.
So then I found myself in what was called the "Inclusive Growth" workshop.This again is one of the key pillars of EU 2020.
Sadly what I encountered here was the "Positive Illusion Front(PIF)".The PIF is infact key institutions which make up the fabric you find inside the EU bubble.So the PIF included the EC(in the form of the European Commissioner for Employment Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities;ETUC;EP(in the form of the rapporteur on ESF); ESOC(the president no less); EAPN and the Slovenian Minister of Labour .
On the question of how can we have inclusive growth, the PIF created a message in two parts:
On the one hand we've been through a serious crisis;there are signs of worrying disparity;levels of unemployment are worrying; there is a gap between policy and implementation; we need to engage more stakeholders.
But on the other hand, we can address these issues by: re-inforcing partnership by remembering that it takes two to tango;simplify administration and financial control;strengthen the Social Inclusion process;implement active inclusion;connect the National Action plans for Social Inclusion and Protection to the National Reform programmes and above all lets keep ESF as it is in terms of function and institutional oversight.
So for the PIF inclusive growth is also just about better technical regulation.
We live in times in which the PIF is accendent. Positive thinking has become the "soma" of failed institutions and processes.The PIF has successfully removed the EU project from virtually any contact with the world outside the EU bubble.The PIF is a perfect tool for creating existential policy and promises.The PIF has its collective head so far up its own arse that any concession to "external reality" is simply ignored.
Let me explain what I mean- here are some of the external evidence based facts that the PIF simply smiles at and moves on as if they have no consequance in terms of inclusive growth:
1.Growth in the EU since about the mid 1970's has resulted in in greater inequality and thus less inclusive growth. The model we have is inherently "non inclusive". Indeed all periods of growth since the mid 1970's have actually created greater exclusion and poverty.
2. EU 2020 emerges from the back of the totally failed Lisbon strategy. I say totally failed in relation to the issue of Inclusive Growth. The gaol was to make a significant reduction in poverty by 2010..the evidence, the lived reality was the exact opposite..greater inequality , higher exclusion. YET the PIF will happily say lets give EU2020 a chance ..coca cola light may work better than coca cola.
3. The PIF just glosses ove the implications of the crisis with respect to public sector spending. The Lisbon Treaty lays down that EU collective public debt cannot exceed 60% of collective EU GDP. Its virtually running at 90% currently. This means a collective cut of €400 billion in public sector expenditure.On top of that add the special "Austerity" packages in Greece , Ireland, Spain, UK, Portugal, Germany, France, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Romania,Czech Republic, Slovenia are all inherently socially unbalanced in that they disportionately impact on the weakest. These measures are in the process of destroying what remains of social europe.
4. The PIF also just ignores the noise of protest from across the EU. these protests are simply dismissed as irrelevant. Yet for the European project they are far from irrelevant. they signify a growing alienation from our democratic institutions and for the EP they signal a continuatiion of a process which has already undermined the legitimacy of the EP in that so many of its mmebrs have been elected with turnout of less than 40% in the last elections.
5.The PIF ignores the structural nature of unemployment that now is confronting older and younger workers. 1 in 3 of the classes of 2008,2009, 2010 are not in secure and meaningful work . This is on top of the 1 in 5 or 6 who have been in a "holding pattern since" 2000. Inclusive growth will seem very hollow to this "jilted generation". Indeed the prognosis for the next 4 years is no better.Public sector spending has since the second world war been the largest contributor to job creation, however, with EU 2020 requiring governments to cut spending it is clear that the levels of exclusion and precarity will rise.
6. Relatedly, in all the praise for ESF what again is neatly ignored is that far too much of ESF money is simply spent in creating holding revolving door programmes for unemployed people which simply satifies the PIF need for massaging statistics.
In short what the PIF refuses to allow into the bubble is the possibility that the very model upon which EU2020 is based is fundamentally flawed. EU2020 is simply what some writers have dubbed "Selfish capitalism".Its about privatisation of public utilities ; its about deregulation which allows corporations and the rich to avoid paying taxation-look at evidence based campaigns in Belgium, Holland and UK which have identified that tax avoidence through created loopholes is resulting in a collective loss that could diminish by 40-50% the current austerity measures being imposed on citizens as result of the greed of banks and the financial sector. Moreover its a model that is convinced that consumption and market forces can meet our social needs.
In short the PIF projects an optimistic bubble of positive illusion, one that is deceptively rose tinted. Its hubris for which those outside the bubble will pay for dearly.
On monday of this week I took part in the The EU Cohesion Forum-this is EU style "consultation" with about 700 people , all from inside the EU bubble, being asked to comment on the future of EU Cohesion policy in the period 2013-2019.(Yes its January 2011 but this is the nature of the snail like institutional framework that vested political groups and interests have cobbled together).
I first found myself in a workshop which focussed on "sustainable growth"-one of the key pillars underlying the EU 2020 strategy. I left after 45 minutes when it became clear that "sustainablity" was simply being presented as a "technical issue" for which , we just need technical solutions like: the polluter pays;Carbon Trading schemes; investment in renewable energy(including nuclear);carbon capture technology etc.
When will the message get through that "sustainability" also has a large social justice element. Climate change is a social justice issue as well as a technological and life style change process.
So then I found myself in what was called the "Inclusive Growth" workshop.This again is one of the key pillars of EU 2020.
Sadly what I encountered here was the "Positive Illusion Front(PIF)".The PIF is infact key institutions which make up the fabric you find inside the EU bubble.So the PIF included the EC(in the form of the European Commissioner for Employment Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities;ETUC;EP(in the form of the rapporteur on ESF); ESOC(the president no less); EAPN and the Slovenian Minister of Labour .
On the question of how can we have inclusive growth, the PIF created a message in two parts:
On the one hand we've been through a serious crisis;there are signs of worrying disparity;levels of unemployment are worrying; there is a gap between policy and implementation; we need to engage more stakeholders.
But on the other hand, we can address these issues by: re-inforcing partnership by remembering that it takes two to tango;simplify administration and financial control;strengthen the Social Inclusion process;implement active inclusion;connect the National Action plans for Social Inclusion and Protection to the National Reform programmes and above all lets keep ESF as it is in terms of function and institutional oversight.
So for the PIF inclusive growth is also just about better technical regulation.
We live in times in which the PIF is accendent. Positive thinking has become the "soma" of failed institutions and processes.The PIF has successfully removed the EU project from virtually any contact with the world outside the EU bubble.The PIF is a perfect tool for creating existential policy and promises.The PIF has its collective head so far up its own arse that any concession to "external reality" is simply ignored.
Let me explain what I mean- here are some of the external evidence based facts that the PIF simply smiles at and moves on as if they have no consequance in terms of inclusive growth:
1.Growth in the EU since about the mid 1970's has resulted in in greater inequality and thus less inclusive growth. The model we have is inherently "non inclusive". Indeed all periods of growth since the mid 1970's have actually created greater exclusion and poverty.
2. EU 2020 emerges from the back of the totally failed Lisbon strategy. I say totally failed in relation to the issue of Inclusive Growth. The gaol was to make a significant reduction in poverty by 2010..the evidence, the lived reality was the exact opposite..greater inequality , higher exclusion. YET the PIF will happily say lets give EU2020 a chance ..coca cola light may work better than coca cola.
3. The PIF just glosses ove the implications of the crisis with respect to public sector spending. The Lisbon Treaty lays down that EU collective public debt cannot exceed 60% of collective EU GDP. Its virtually running at 90% currently. This means a collective cut of €400 billion in public sector expenditure.On top of that add the special "Austerity" packages in Greece , Ireland, Spain, UK, Portugal, Germany, France, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Romania,Czech Republic, Slovenia are all inherently socially unbalanced in that they disportionately impact on the weakest. These measures are in the process of destroying what remains of social europe.
4. The PIF also just ignores the noise of protest from across the EU. these protests are simply dismissed as irrelevant. Yet for the European project they are far from irrelevant. they signify a growing alienation from our democratic institutions and for the EP they signal a continuatiion of a process which has already undermined the legitimacy of the EP in that so many of its mmebrs have been elected with turnout of less than 40% in the last elections.
5.The PIF ignores the structural nature of unemployment that now is confronting older and younger workers. 1 in 3 of the classes of 2008,2009, 2010 are not in secure and meaningful work . This is on top of the 1 in 5 or 6 who have been in a "holding pattern since" 2000. Inclusive growth will seem very hollow to this "jilted generation". Indeed the prognosis for the next 4 years is no better.Public sector spending has since the second world war been the largest contributor to job creation, however, with EU 2020 requiring governments to cut spending it is clear that the levels of exclusion and precarity will rise.
6. Relatedly, in all the praise for ESF what again is neatly ignored is that far too much of ESF money is simply spent in creating holding revolving door programmes for unemployed people which simply satifies the PIF need for massaging statistics.
In short what the PIF refuses to allow into the bubble is the possibility that the very model upon which EU2020 is based is fundamentally flawed. EU2020 is simply what some writers have dubbed "Selfish capitalism".Its about privatisation of public utilities ; its about deregulation which allows corporations and the rich to avoid paying taxation-look at evidence based campaigns in Belgium, Holland and UK which have identified that tax avoidence through created loopholes is resulting in a collective loss that could diminish by 40-50% the current austerity measures being imposed on citizens as result of the greed of banks and the financial sector. Moreover its a model that is convinced that consumption and market forces can meet our social needs.
In short the PIF projects an optimistic bubble of positive illusion, one that is deceptively rose tinted. Its hubris for which those outside the bubble will pay for dearly.
« What is GPEX ?» :reflections of a new member on the GPEW spring conference in Cardiff
Day One
I haven’t been to a political party conference for quite a while, infact as I travelled down on the train to Cardiff, I suddenly remembered that it was nearly 12 years ago.
Feeling somewhat overawed by that realisation I read my way through the standing orders for the conduct of conference and then undaunted by the turgid prose I even read “So you want to change the green party”, which is also not an easy read and then the party manifesto. I think somewhere between Bristol Parkway and Newport I fell asleep only to be woken by the announcement that the train was pulling into Cardiff.
I recovered my energy by downing a gigantic super size cup of caffe latte(Cardiff seemed to be sponsored by coffee chains) and then with a caffeine charged surge headed for the conference venue. I am a relatively new member but am aware already that the party is organisationally “challenged”. Problems with website, party member database etc. Having registered online I am told that I am not on the list but its ok because there have been problems in updating registration lists. Still the problem has silver lining so to speak as I and the other 50% of the party who have joined in the past year are responsible for this it seems. It’s the old problem of growth.
Anyway all is very affably sorted out and I find myself listening to the speeches of the leader of the Greens in Wales and the Caroline Lucas, the leader of the party. Jake Griffiths, is the leader of the greens in Wales and with elections for the Welsh assembly naturally his input was geared to that event and the possibility that Fib DEM discontent will become green votes. I wish him all the best of course but I hope that no one posts the welsh part of his speech on You tube. I say this because whilst Griffiths is clearly a “welsh” name Jake is clearly not welsh except in name. I have English born friends who have been in living Wales and who speak Welsh with a better accent than he managed.
Caroline Lucas was announced like as if she was a prize fighter entering the ring. She spoke well. “Principled, independent and on your side” is how she summed up the key principles of the party. “The other political parties are out of touch with the people they represent”.
Great stuff… I head out to a fringe event that turns out to be a “beyond the fringe” event. Its about class in the green party, or rather the lack of working class in the party. I really couldn’t work out what was the issue. The political class has always been somewhat of an elite and in the past 25 years as politics has become irrelevant for most people (working and middle classes) its not surprising that politics has become the preserve the of relatively small(less than 1% of 18-65 year olds are members of any political party) members of the upper and middle classes and the “educated working class”. Infact as evidenced by an input from a speaker from the Latin American workers association , its migrant workers who now are super exploited in our economy. I doubt if they see their affinity with an English working class. In the end it seemed that the issue was really not about class as such but really about “council estates and poor private rented/owned areas”. Here I suspect its got nothing to do with exclusion or inclusion, its simply the number crunching that guides party resources to areas and communities where there is more chance of voters. The bottom line for a political party is where can we have the biggest impact, not where should we be investing our resources to creative a more inclusive politics. Its an “organisational logic that has “operational logic”, but self-defeating outcomes in terms of the wider philosophical goals relating to equality, social justice and empowerment.
I leave this interesting but muddled discussion and head for a session on “monetary policy”. Having read the manifesto and heard Caroline Lucas speaking so forcefully about the immorality of our financial system, I was expecting some good debate…but there was none. I found myself in a discussion about a motion and an amendment to the motion.
I have never understood why motions arouse so much energy. For me they are the antithesis of debate and discussion. They invite “anoraks” to strip any meaning out of discussion into a discussion over meaning of words and of course procedure.
Having had all my energy sucked out by this session, I went for another gigantic caffe latte and then went on to listen to a debate with Caroline and Jake about “alternatives to austerity: the case for green investment and jobs”. Infact they were talking to the converted so there was no debate, but I do wonder where the million jobs will come from and who will get these jobs? The only “hard” example of what kind of jobs we are talking about was when Jake spoke about home insulation. Home insulation projects have been around along time, infact every job creation programme since the 1980’s has supported these kinds of actions. So I left wondering if the party was in danger of placing too much confidence in “spin” and not enough in “form”. On the Young Greens stand there were prominently displayed copies of the “Jilted Generation”. An excellent analysis of how neo liberal logic has “deprived “ the jilted generation of their future progression in terms of work, housing, access to money, involvement in politics. What’s more the book is not focussing on the “usual suspects” in terms of young people (eg early school leavers, low qualified , certain ethnic groups). The book is actually focussing on the kind of young people that young greens are- educated, motivated, frustrated and wanting to do something. The party needs an “economic policy” that responds to their experience. The green new deal will not create jobs that will necessarily be fulfilling for enough young people. We need to re-think the process of “job creation”. It has to be a more bottom –up process. For example, Holland for some three years had a small but nice programme which simply allowed people who were unemployed to secure an “idea job”. These “idea jobs” were infact created by individuals and especially from people in the “social economy”.A scheme like this with minimum wage funding provided would actually enable a real “flowering” of local initiatives and allow a different form of job/work creation to take place.
Day Two
I made the same mistake as yesterday when I found my self in a session on “policy making”.From my reading of “So you want to change the party”, I had noted that the policy making process was of course the main tool for making change .Once again the focus was a motion. For me the motion was clear, we need a”pre-agenda” phase in the motion setting phase. Why? Because motions arrive at the last moment and no one has seen them. Again I could not see the problem in what was being proposed and after 40 minutes of hair splitting analysis and hand wringing over what it would mean, everyone felt it seems the same as me and we left. In the course of this discussion what was the most important issue was just lost. One person made the point that there was no connection between the policy making process and local parties. This comment just raised a laugh as if this was just self obvious. However, we could not focus on this fundamental issue as the focus was the motion. I will not hold my breath for the impact of this pre-agenda element in the policy making process especially, as it will not be obligatory. Motions, in short will continue to arrive at “5 for 12” and the link with local parties will remain tenuous as best.
Then to a session on diversity and equality in the party. Some twenty years I decided to join a political party. The choice for me was green or labour?I chose labour, why? Because the green party was just a middle class white party. It still is but with the injection of “educated working class “members who have left labour and other parties. In terms of diversity, its basically non existent. A few middle class Asians like me . But what the hell, having been in the labour party, where the diversity looks better, it doesn’t make it a more inclusive party. At a local level the labour party machine operates as a kind of neo colonial machine. Ethnic minority “leaders “ are given red carpet treatment on the understanding that through them the minority vote can be “bought”.
We need to be a party that is post class, post nationalism and of course post material. I suspect I may be in tune with the philosophical basis of the party but out of tune with the political correctness that underpins all such discussions. Lets focus on the real issues, pay gap between men and women, the obscene inequality that the last 30 years has created in income distribution, the structural failure to address discrimination. It’s the failure in these areas that have switched of so many people from politics.
Diversity monitoring may be useful in terms of keeping the issue on the agenda BUT it will change nothing. Lets move on beyond beards and burqua’s.
On a totally different note, I was really taken back by the account given by one delegate regarding failure to take into consideration access issues at the last GPEW conference. Whilst it seemed that this issue had received more consideration in the planning of this event, there was still considerable improvement needed and this was the overwhelming consensus in the workshop.
Then I thought that I would go and meet the GPEX. It seems too many people wanted to do this so I went and watched the rugby.I am always fascinated watching the scrum as for me its like watching a 22 legged crab.
Then onto a session on financial reform. Excellent inputs from NEF and the Bretton Woods project. If we want real policies to deal with the greatest robbery that has taken place, then I suggest we ensure that local parties get briefings from NEF and the Bretton Woods project. We may end up with better motions. The sad news is that the developments at the European Parliament level are just so pathetically irrelevant in terms of re-designing our financial system. The only aspect that the discussion did not touch upon is the close links between the financial sector and big party funding. The Cons raised 3,5 million pounds in the last quarter of 2010. Virtually all of this came from financial institutions. At EU level it’s the same. We have to disentangle this incestuous relationship if we really want to get democratic control into our financial systems. I personally would like to see an international court of financial crimes to also be set up. Of course it will never happen, it would be inundated with petitions.
Day Three
An excellent session with Anne Pettifor and Patrick Harvie. Anne is one of the few people globally who foresaw the global financial crisis years before anyone else.The bad news is that she forsees another crunch..infact a triple crunch, financial, economic and ecological crisis. We need a banking system that is subordinated to addressing social and ecological needs. Her political message just remained undiscussed..”we need to build alliances if we are to take on the monolithic power of the banking system.” Maybe the message went unheard because she is rooted in labour.
Patrick Harvie gave an upbeat message..”its our time”..the recession offers an opportunity. I know that party politicians have to make these kinds of noises but when it came down to how to convert the dissatisfaction into support for the green party it became a bit unclear and not very different from what labour activists will be saying on the door step. Think household economy was the message. How can the party save household bills in these tight times.Insulation was again the big idea, jobs, lower energy bills , lower CO2 emissions. Its a nice mantra but just ignores the bit about changing behaviour.
In fairness he did try to touch this issue by saying that we all needed to stop buying “stuff”. Meaning the “stuff” we do not need.His logic drove him into saying that we just needed to abolish advertisng. This won applause from the audience but some disapproval from party apparatchiks and he quickly retreated his statement. In doing so he exposed the problem. The green party is not now and possibly will not be the party in power for a considerable time.So why do we not just say what we feel and think rather than try and pre-package our messages. Our role should be one of mobilisation, empowerment and exposure of the lies of a busted political model. The party has this within its philosophical base, but there is now a tension in terms of the need of securing votes as a political party. The problem here is organisational capacity and of course the lack of a broad diverse base.
Then on to fringe meeting about selling the no growth economy.Unfortunately the presenter was not present and thus the discussion centered on the setting up of a working group on GP economic policy. This turned out to raise some really important issues. How can we sell no-growth or “steady state” on the door step? Let alone in the media. For the millions who are already experiencing the price of the banking greed, the idea of remaining as they are is hardly attractive. How do we measure growth ? Is it just about GDP? Clearly not but GDP remains coupled to material throughput so we still require this as a measure. The issue then becomes how to complement this. The working group will be grappling with this and other issues with a view to reporting back at the autumn conference.
Day Four
A discussion about “political pluralism” which in plain English simply means that we should work with Labour and dissident lib dems. Neal Lawson from Compass bared his soul in outlining how new labour had betrayed the cause and that we now had a “crisis of social democracy across Europe.”Neal is a good speaker and has some great sound bites: “the poor are getting poorer and the planets burning”. A dissident Lib Dem speaker than spoke about the struggle for the soul of the Liberal party. The “orange book” gang had infiltrated and captured the party at a time when the party had been weak. The question in my mind was when did the Lib Dems have a “soul”, let alone loose it. At a local level , well before the Clegg debacle, there were local lib dem parties working with Tories. There were also some working with labour.What I am saying is that Lib Dems have always just been political prostitutes, there is no distinct philosophical or political core too their position.
I am all for building alliances but please lets not create a fantasy world of pluralism. If we are to engage in such collaboration then which of the other two parties are going to come out in support of no growth, which of them are going to support the local and regional control of our banking system? It will not be labour or lib dems so where does that leave things?
There was much talk in this session about “creating new lines in the campsite”. The metaphor was that political parties are essentially like a collection of tents pitched on some campsite. Some are big tents and other have small tents.So all we have to do is visit each other’s tents or create new spaces for exchange. Sounds fun except that no one focussed on the decay in the campsite. There is no/low trust in politics, there is lack of participation, there is declining membership, there are fewer activists, youth parties are in decline. The political class that lives in this metaphysical campsite first has to wake up to the fact that politics is broken. Its not simply about new policies its about HOW we do politics as well as WHO we do this with.
I ran a fringe event on the theme of “Building Resistance at a European level”. As I walked to the conference venue I saw the main headline in the Dail Mail screaming “EU pension madness”..and then a diatribe about how a new directive was going to cost jobs and money.
For the past 7 years I have been working for a not for profit EU network of local authorities and other ngo’s, and have seen how distant Brussels is from citizens. In the case of the UK even more so than the majority of EU states. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had 15 people at the meeting. The European level is being ignored at our peril. Over 80% of legislation is now originating from Europe. It is impacting significantly on our lives, our environment and democracy. There is hardly any or no accountability or transparency in the EU decision making process. The European Council is like a mediaeval round table, held in secret, no published account, just decisions. In the period of the last EP (2004-2009) nearly 83% of all decision were made by the European Parliament in camera with the European Council. The real irony is that the new pension directive is part of what the European Council (our leaders and ministers) have already agreed. Anyway, as result of the fringe I have agreed to set up online forum. If you are interested then just send me mail.
Then onto an event that for me was another highpoint. Tim Jackson speaking about Equality without growth. This is the core issue we face. Climate change has to be linked to social justice. Its about people AND the planet and not the planet before people. This is still the tension that runs deep in the party(at least as evidenced by interventions at conference).Tim Jackson highlighted the crucial role that the GP could play but he also said that we had to loose our “fluffy” image. We have an economic model that has not only failed on its own terms but has also in the process created a social pathology which is addicted to consumption. We have a society that grants status through consumption. We have an economy that can only flourish if people can be persuaded to buy things they do not need or do not even know they need. We have a level of individual encapsulated in the slogan “the brand called you”. We have “finance capitalism “within which shareholders profits trump all other considerations. This has meant that we have swallowed the myth of “downsizing” meaning improved productivity, when in actual fact there is no, evidence that it did and has done so and yet it’s a myth that still prevails. In fact this myth has allowed for the decoupling of wider social responsibility from the role of the private(for profit) sector. Layoffs are always good news for share holders, they always result in increased share prices –at least in the short term.
We have an economy that is creating sickness and negative entropy. Neal Lawson and several interventions throughout the conference raised the issue of reasserting and making time for human contact and spiritual reflection.
For me its also an economy that is generating a form of politics that threatens our very democracy. I recently read John Dunns book called”Setting the people free:the story of democracy”.He asserts that we now have far greater control of citizens by governments. Democracy in English speaking nations today has come to mean the handing over of vast number of decisions and powers to rulers in return for the freedom to pursue egotistical, hedonistic consumer choices.
In short,we need a new economics that recognises the financial, political and cultural aspects of current economic structures. The starting point has to be about redistribution of available resources. Here I think the party has to perhaps listen to the philosophical (not necessarily tactical) base that underpins Green Left.
Haroon Saad
Waltham Forest and Redbridge GP
h.saad@ludenet.org
The “What is GPEX” in my title is a question I heard between two delegates and for me encapsulated the national /local tension I refer to.
I haven’t been to a political party conference for quite a while, infact as I travelled down on the train to Cardiff, I suddenly remembered that it was nearly 12 years ago.
Feeling somewhat overawed by that realisation I read my way through the standing orders for the conduct of conference and then undaunted by the turgid prose I even read “So you want to change the green party”, which is also not an easy read and then the party manifesto. I think somewhere between Bristol Parkway and Newport I fell asleep only to be woken by the announcement that the train was pulling into Cardiff.
I recovered my energy by downing a gigantic super size cup of caffe latte(Cardiff seemed to be sponsored by coffee chains) and then with a caffeine charged surge headed for the conference venue. I am a relatively new member but am aware already that the party is organisationally “challenged”. Problems with website, party member database etc. Having registered online I am told that I am not on the list but its ok because there have been problems in updating registration lists. Still the problem has silver lining so to speak as I and the other 50% of the party who have joined in the past year are responsible for this it seems. It’s the old problem of growth.
Anyway all is very affably sorted out and I find myself listening to the speeches of the leader of the Greens in Wales and the Caroline Lucas, the leader of the party. Jake Griffiths, is the leader of the greens in Wales and with elections for the Welsh assembly naturally his input was geared to that event and the possibility that Fib DEM discontent will become green votes. I wish him all the best of course but I hope that no one posts the welsh part of his speech on You tube. I say this because whilst Griffiths is clearly a “welsh” name Jake is clearly not welsh except in name. I have English born friends who have been in living Wales and who speak Welsh with a better accent than he managed.
Caroline Lucas was announced like as if she was a prize fighter entering the ring. She spoke well. “Principled, independent and on your side” is how she summed up the key principles of the party. “The other political parties are out of touch with the people they represent”.
Great stuff… I head out to a fringe event that turns out to be a “beyond the fringe” event. Its about class in the green party, or rather the lack of working class in the party. I really couldn’t work out what was the issue. The political class has always been somewhat of an elite and in the past 25 years as politics has become irrelevant for most people (working and middle classes) its not surprising that politics has become the preserve the of relatively small(less than 1% of 18-65 year olds are members of any political party) members of the upper and middle classes and the “educated working class”. Infact as evidenced by an input from a speaker from the Latin American workers association , its migrant workers who now are super exploited in our economy. I doubt if they see their affinity with an English working class. In the end it seemed that the issue was really not about class as such but really about “council estates and poor private rented/owned areas”. Here I suspect its got nothing to do with exclusion or inclusion, its simply the number crunching that guides party resources to areas and communities where there is more chance of voters. The bottom line for a political party is where can we have the biggest impact, not where should we be investing our resources to creative a more inclusive politics. Its an “organisational logic that has “operational logic”, but self-defeating outcomes in terms of the wider philosophical goals relating to equality, social justice and empowerment.
I leave this interesting but muddled discussion and head for a session on “monetary policy”. Having read the manifesto and heard Caroline Lucas speaking so forcefully about the immorality of our financial system, I was expecting some good debate…but there was none. I found myself in a discussion about a motion and an amendment to the motion.
I have never understood why motions arouse so much energy. For me they are the antithesis of debate and discussion. They invite “anoraks” to strip any meaning out of discussion into a discussion over meaning of words and of course procedure.
Having had all my energy sucked out by this session, I went for another gigantic caffe latte and then went on to listen to a debate with Caroline and Jake about “alternatives to austerity: the case for green investment and jobs”. Infact they were talking to the converted so there was no debate, but I do wonder where the million jobs will come from and who will get these jobs? The only “hard” example of what kind of jobs we are talking about was when Jake spoke about home insulation. Home insulation projects have been around along time, infact every job creation programme since the 1980’s has supported these kinds of actions. So I left wondering if the party was in danger of placing too much confidence in “spin” and not enough in “form”. On the Young Greens stand there were prominently displayed copies of the “Jilted Generation”. An excellent analysis of how neo liberal logic has “deprived “ the jilted generation of their future progression in terms of work, housing, access to money, involvement in politics. What’s more the book is not focussing on the “usual suspects” in terms of young people (eg early school leavers, low qualified , certain ethnic groups). The book is actually focussing on the kind of young people that young greens are- educated, motivated, frustrated and wanting to do something. The party needs an “economic policy” that responds to their experience. The green new deal will not create jobs that will necessarily be fulfilling for enough young people. We need to re-think the process of “job creation”. It has to be a more bottom –up process. For example, Holland for some three years had a small but nice programme which simply allowed people who were unemployed to secure an “idea job”. These “idea jobs” were infact created by individuals and especially from people in the “social economy”.A scheme like this with minimum wage funding provided would actually enable a real “flowering” of local initiatives and allow a different form of job/work creation to take place.
Day Two
I made the same mistake as yesterday when I found my self in a session on “policy making”.From my reading of “So you want to change the party”, I had noted that the policy making process was of course the main tool for making change .Once again the focus was a motion. For me the motion was clear, we need a”pre-agenda” phase in the motion setting phase. Why? Because motions arrive at the last moment and no one has seen them. Again I could not see the problem in what was being proposed and after 40 minutes of hair splitting analysis and hand wringing over what it would mean, everyone felt it seems the same as me and we left. In the course of this discussion what was the most important issue was just lost. One person made the point that there was no connection between the policy making process and local parties. This comment just raised a laugh as if this was just self obvious. However, we could not focus on this fundamental issue as the focus was the motion. I will not hold my breath for the impact of this pre-agenda element in the policy making process especially, as it will not be obligatory. Motions, in short will continue to arrive at “5 for 12” and the link with local parties will remain tenuous as best.
Then to a session on diversity and equality in the party. Some twenty years I decided to join a political party. The choice for me was green or labour?I chose labour, why? Because the green party was just a middle class white party. It still is but with the injection of “educated working class “members who have left labour and other parties. In terms of diversity, its basically non existent. A few middle class Asians like me . But what the hell, having been in the labour party, where the diversity looks better, it doesn’t make it a more inclusive party. At a local level the labour party machine operates as a kind of neo colonial machine. Ethnic minority “leaders “ are given red carpet treatment on the understanding that through them the minority vote can be “bought”.
We need to be a party that is post class, post nationalism and of course post material. I suspect I may be in tune with the philosophical basis of the party but out of tune with the political correctness that underpins all such discussions. Lets focus on the real issues, pay gap between men and women, the obscene inequality that the last 30 years has created in income distribution, the structural failure to address discrimination. It’s the failure in these areas that have switched of so many people from politics.
Diversity monitoring may be useful in terms of keeping the issue on the agenda BUT it will change nothing. Lets move on beyond beards and burqua’s.
On a totally different note, I was really taken back by the account given by one delegate regarding failure to take into consideration access issues at the last GPEW conference. Whilst it seemed that this issue had received more consideration in the planning of this event, there was still considerable improvement needed and this was the overwhelming consensus in the workshop.
Then I thought that I would go and meet the GPEX. It seems too many people wanted to do this so I went and watched the rugby.I am always fascinated watching the scrum as for me its like watching a 22 legged crab.
Then onto a session on financial reform. Excellent inputs from NEF and the Bretton Woods project. If we want real policies to deal with the greatest robbery that has taken place, then I suggest we ensure that local parties get briefings from NEF and the Bretton Woods project. We may end up with better motions. The sad news is that the developments at the European Parliament level are just so pathetically irrelevant in terms of re-designing our financial system. The only aspect that the discussion did not touch upon is the close links between the financial sector and big party funding. The Cons raised 3,5 million pounds in the last quarter of 2010. Virtually all of this came from financial institutions. At EU level it’s the same. We have to disentangle this incestuous relationship if we really want to get democratic control into our financial systems. I personally would like to see an international court of financial crimes to also be set up. Of course it will never happen, it would be inundated with petitions.
Day Three
An excellent session with Anne Pettifor and Patrick Harvie. Anne is one of the few people globally who foresaw the global financial crisis years before anyone else.The bad news is that she forsees another crunch..infact a triple crunch, financial, economic and ecological crisis. We need a banking system that is subordinated to addressing social and ecological needs. Her political message just remained undiscussed..”we need to build alliances if we are to take on the monolithic power of the banking system.” Maybe the message went unheard because she is rooted in labour.
Patrick Harvie gave an upbeat message..”its our time”..the recession offers an opportunity. I know that party politicians have to make these kinds of noises but when it came down to how to convert the dissatisfaction into support for the green party it became a bit unclear and not very different from what labour activists will be saying on the door step. Think household economy was the message. How can the party save household bills in these tight times.Insulation was again the big idea, jobs, lower energy bills , lower CO2 emissions. Its a nice mantra but just ignores the bit about changing behaviour.
In fairness he did try to touch this issue by saying that we all needed to stop buying “stuff”. Meaning the “stuff” we do not need.His logic drove him into saying that we just needed to abolish advertisng. This won applause from the audience but some disapproval from party apparatchiks and he quickly retreated his statement. In doing so he exposed the problem. The green party is not now and possibly will not be the party in power for a considerable time.So why do we not just say what we feel and think rather than try and pre-package our messages. Our role should be one of mobilisation, empowerment and exposure of the lies of a busted political model. The party has this within its philosophical base, but there is now a tension in terms of the need of securing votes as a political party. The problem here is organisational capacity and of course the lack of a broad diverse base.
Then on to fringe meeting about selling the no growth economy.Unfortunately the presenter was not present and thus the discussion centered on the setting up of a working group on GP economic policy. This turned out to raise some really important issues. How can we sell no-growth or “steady state” on the door step? Let alone in the media. For the millions who are already experiencing the price of the banking greed, the idea of remaining as they are is hardly attractive. How do we measure growth ? Is it just about GDP? Clearly not but GDP remains coupled to material throughput so we still require this as a measure. The issue then becomes how to complement this. The working group will be grappling with this and other issues with a view to reporting back at the autumn conference.
Day Four
A discussion about “political pluralism” which in plain English simply means that we should work with Labour and dissident lib dems. Neal Lawson from Compass bared his soul in outlining how new labour had betrayed the cause and that we now had a “crisis of social democracy across Europe.”Neal is a good speaker and has some great sound bites: “the poor are getting poorer and the planets burning”. A dissident Lib Dem speaker than spoke about the struggle for the soul of the Liberal party. The “orange book” gang had infiltrated and captured the party at a time when the party had been weak. The question in my mind was when did the Lib Dems have a “soul”, let alone loose it. At a local level , well before the Clegg debacle, there were local lib dem parties working with Tories. There were also some working with labour.What I am saying is that Lib Dems have always just been political prostitutes, there is no distinct philosophical or political core too their position.
I am all for building alliances but please lets not create a fantasy world of pluralism. If we are to engage in such collaboration then which of the other two parties are going to come out in support of no growth, which of them are going to support the local and regional control of our banking system? It will not be labour or lib dems so where does that leave things?
There was much talk in this session about “creating new lines in the campsite”. The metaphor was that political parties are essentially like a collection of tents pitched on some campsite. Some are big tents and other have small tents.So all we have to do is visit each other’s tents or create new spaces for exchange. Sounds fun except that no one focussed on the decay in the campsite. There is no/low trust in politics, there is lack of participation, there is declining membership, there are fewer activists, youth parties are in decline. The political class that lives in this metaphysical campsite first has to wake up to the fact that politics is broken. Its not simply about new policies its about HOW we do politics as well as WHO we do this with.
I ran a fringe event on the theme of “Building Resistance at a European level”. As I walked to the conference venue I saw the main headline in the Dail Mail screaming “EU pension madness”..and then a diatribe about how a new directive was going to cost jobs and money.
For the past 7 years I have been working for a not for profit EU network of local authorities and other ngo’s, and have seen how distant Brussels is from citizens. In the case of the UK even more so than the majority of EU states. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had 15 people at the meeting. The European level is being ignored at our peril. Over 80% of legislation is now originating from Europe. It is impacting significantly on our lives, our environment and democracy. There is hardly any or no accountability or transparency in the EU decision making process. The European Council is like a mediaeval round table, held in secret, no published account, just decisions. In the period of the last EP (2004-2009) nearly 83% of all decision were made by the European Parliament in camera with the European Council. The real irony is that the new pension directive is part of what the European Council (our leaders and ministers) have already agreed. Anyway, as result of the fringe I have agreed to set up online forum. If you are interested then just send me mail.
Then onto an event that for me was another highpoint. Tim Jackson speaking about Equality without growth. This is the core issue we face. Climate change has to be linked to social justice. Its about people AND the planet and not the planet before people. This is still the tension that runs deep in the party(at least as evidenced by interventions at conference).Tim Jackson highlighted the crucial role that the GP could play but he also said that we had to loose our “fluffy” image. We have an economic model that has not only failed on its own terms but has also in the process created a social pathology which is addicted to consumption. We have a society that grants status through consumption. We have an economy that can only flourish if people can be persuaded to buy things they do not need or do not even know they need. We have a level of individual encapsulated in the slogan “the brand called you”. We have “finance capitalism “within which shareholders profits trump all other considerations. This has meant that we have swallowed the myth of “downsizing” meaning improved productivity, when in actual fact there is no, evidence that it did and has done so and yet it’s a myth that still prevails. In fact this myth has allowed for the decoupling of wider social responsibility from the role of the private(for profit) sector. Layoffs are always good news for share holders, they always result in increased share prices –at least in the short term.
We have an economy that is creating sickness and negative entropy. Neal Lawson and several interventions throughout the conference raised the issue of reasserting and making time for human contact and spiritual reflection.
For me its also an economy that is generating a form of politics that threatens our very democracy. I recently read John Dunns book called”Setting the people free:the story of democracy”.He asserts that we now have far greater control of citizens by governments. Democracy in English speaking nations today has come to mean the handing over of vast number of decisions and powers to rulers in return for the freedom to pursue egotistical, hedonistic consumer choices.
In short,we need a new economics that recognises the financial, political and cultural aspects of current economic structures. The starting point has to be about redistribution of available resources. Here I think the party has to perhaps listen to the philosophical (not necessarily tactical) base that underpins Green Left.
Haroon Saad
Waltham Forest and Redbridge GP
h.saad@ludenet.org
The “What is GPEX” in my title is a question I heard between two delegates and for me encapsulated the national /local tension I refer to.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Towards a new paradigm
In the early 1990’s Francis Fukuyama wrote about the fall of the Berlin Wall as signifying the “end of history”. Fukuyama ‘s point was simply that history had climaxed with liberal capitalism. Leaving aside the largely “academic debate “ that surrounded Fukuyama’s claim, the fact is that we have now sort of reached a point where there has to be a significant “rupture” with the way we have lived and created history. The scale of the challenges we face highlight the need for such a “rupture”:
•The banking meltdown triggered the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression.The impact of this crisis just on unemployment and public sector signifies need for structural changes.
•Greenhouse gas concentrations are reaching levels where runaway climate change becomes more and more difficult to avoid. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report – a synthesis of peer-reviewed research on climate change, its causes and effects (including socio-economic consequences) involving over 2500 scientists worldwide – stated that if fossil fuels continued to be burnt at the current rate, global average surface temperatures could rise by 4°C by the end of the century, with an uncertainty range of 2.4–6.4°C. While this implies emissions need to be reduced dramatically and immediately, there is growing evidence that even a rise of 2˚C – the widely accepted maximum ‘safe’ level – could be catastrophic for ecosystems, humans and economies.The 2°C target has been widely accepted as the guiding principle for many climate change policies – for example, it has been the EU negotiating position at climate change talks since 1996.
•Peak oil may be far closer than we think and there is little preparedness for the energy crisis that lurks just around the corner.
•Inequality between countries, as well as within countries, is reaching new highs.
•Life satisfaction even in the most developed countries is at best stagnant, and even declining in some. Overwork for many combines with widespread worklessness for others. Set alongside those who have far more than they need are those who do not have enough. Falling social mobility sees these patterns repeated from one generation to the next, while unsustainable levels of debt affect all parts of society. As real incomes have fallen, many have had to take on debt to fund the essentials of life. For the more affluent, status-driven consumerism, often fuelled by debt, is the norm.
•Ill Health, and especially mental health levels are rising
•Educational attainment levels continuing to show a stubborn failure rate that leaves between 2 and 3 out of 10 young people leaving secondary schools with no or very low educational attainments.
•Demographic shifts in terms of ageing population and a “Jilted Generation” facing a totally different future to ones that their parents secured for themselves in terms of job security, easy access to money, pensions, and access to housing.This in turn has created a high “switching off” from mainstream political parties within this age group. For the “European project”, this is really potentially more destructive than the current “euro crisis”.
The list of challenges could be added to but I hope I have highlighted enough “evidence based “indicators that substantiate the need for a “rupture”.
I reckon a significant minority of people would agree with the scale of the challenges that we face and the need for “radical” or “fast” change. The problem inevitably would be that we would then end up caught up in the traditional political discourse which every where has been the same “left and right” dichotomy as to what we need to do to deal with the above challenges.
I have grown up in an environment at home, school and work where the traditional political discourse has set/created the dominant paradigm within which policy responses at EU, National, Regional and sub-regional levels have been framed.
What I am saying is that we cannot address effectively any of the above challenges unless we also change the political discourse. Does it make sense to speak of socialism in contrast to capitalism? These have been the pillars around which we had political discourse for at least the last 150 years. Of course the theoretical underpinning of the two pillars has different roots, however the practice is not significantly different in terms of outcomes relating to the challenges above. The mainsteam political parties have long ceased to be located in anywhere but the “middle ground”. Those that have remained rooted inside their respective pillars have suffered the fate of “marginalisation “.
But for me the need to reconfigure the political discourse goes deeper than just the useless cut and thrust of political parties. For the majority of people, and particularly young people, the lack of alternatives to capitalism is no longer an issue. Hence the steep decline in political party membership, particularly of political youth groups.
Alongside this acceptance of capitalism as the “only game in town” what we are dealing with now, however, is a deeper, far more pervasive, sense of exhaustion, of cultural and political sterility.
Yet alongside this there is also the clear evidence that people want to have greater control and say in developing policies and responses to the challenges we face.Alvin Toffler speaks of the rise of prosumers.The current generation of twentysomethings are searching for purpose in life to help shape their citizenship.
The government has little to do with this, after all the 1950s are long gone. Back then, purpose was something governed by denominational or political segregation.
Your views on humanity and the world were shaped inside your own 'pillar' in life - morals and values that provided a compass for and meaning to the bourgeois life. For a long time, religion still fulfilled a dominant role in society, particularly as a cultural force: the modern socialist and liberal movements were still indebted to their Christian heritages. Basically the 'pillars' were well organised 'purpose-providing machines'; citizens didn't have to a thing themselves.
However, this is no longer the case and it is evident that the new genrations "gave up" because the system no longer met their needs. The system consists of standard ingredients, fixed people, a fixed caste, with standard procedures and rituals, and this means that 80% of the decisions have basically been taken in advance. This makes achieving real change by participating in institutions difficult. In other words, it's not surprising that young people can’t be bothered to vote any more.
This trend is part of what essentially is the decay of our party political model of representative democracy. Political parties have declining membership. The bird watchers society in the UK has more members than all the UK political parties combined. The same decline in membership is very evident(particularly in EU15 countries). In other words we are electing our leaders from a smaller and smaller pool of people. Our “political class” has in fact diminished to such a state that the very quality of what emerges from within is self evident in the leaders that emerge.
For me however, it is hard to conclude anything other than that the current model just isn’t working.
I watched a film called “The Age of Stupid”, (it’s a more “viewer friendly “version of the “Inconvenient Truth ) and one of the projections based on good proven modelling shows that for everyone to live at the current European average level of consumption, we would need more than double the biocapacity actually available – the equivalent of 2.1 planet Earths – to sustain us. If everyone consumed at the US rate, we would require nearly five. Of course neither of these is a viable option. Of course that means consumption in the developed world must be cut back to preserve the ecosystem
The economic model that has dominated most of the world since 1945 has failed spectacularly. If the theories of self-correcting and efficient markets had been right, the events of the last 28 months could never have occurred. But they clearly did. What we have seen is not just a temporary malfunctioning of the model but its failure on its own terms. Instead of endless, stable growth and high and rising incomes equitably shared, we have had inequity, volatility and crises. These are not anomalies, but a natural and increasingly severe expression of the ‘normal’ functioning of the system. As even Alan Greenspan, former Chair of the US Federal Bank, was forced to admit, there was ‘a flaw … in the model that defines how the world works’.”
While there is a clear case for poor countries growing their economies to improve living standards, increasing consumption further in developed countries is not sustainable or justifiable. In fact, developed countries need to do the exact opposite.
The challenge we know face is to first accept the reality of capitalism and as such put an end to the discourse of left and right. It is about constructing a capitalism that has a local and global paradigm at its heart.
For example within such a paradigm the environmental and economic crises are not separate but interconnected events. It is the high levels of debt-fuelled consumption in developed countries that have landed us with dangerously high concentrations of CO2 and put pressure on ecosystem resources. Astonishingly, this is precisely the path that politicians are trying to return us to. Many of the measures hastily put in place at the start of the recession – VAT reductions and the car scrappage scheme, for example – were specifically designed to kick-start consumption.
Similarly , within such a paradigm there has to be a recognition that promises of “trickle-down”, have been a myth. What we have seen is that the model has seen huge inequalities develop within and between countries.
Research conducted by the New Economics Foundation showed just how unevenly the proceeds of growth are shared out. For every $100 worth of growth, only $0.60 contributes to reducing poverty for the more than one billion people living on less than a $1 a day.
As stark as these inequalities are on a global scale, we should not ignore inequality within countries. And the UK has one of the highest rates in the developed world. The richest 20 per cent have seven times the income of the poorest 20 per cent. One in three children grows up in relative poverty. All this makes for a profoundly unequal society, which matters from a social justice perspective but also because, as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett demonstrate in The Spirit Level, less equal societies have poorer outcomes in nearly every social domain.(vi) And this holds true for people across the income spectrum. So while those on low incomes obviously have a disproportionate share of the poor outcomes, a middle-class person living in a country with high inequality will, for example, have a lower life expectancy than someone of the same socio-economic status in a more equal society.
In summary, we are faced with an unavoidable challenge. A limited form of flourishing through material success has kept our economies going for half a century or more. But it is completely unsustainable and is now undermining the conditions for a shared prosperity. This materialistic vision of prosperity has to be dismantled.
Our obsession with growth and our relentless pursuit of a global system which creates ever greater dependency on it has put us on the road to perdition. This confronts us with an artificial and unnecessary choice between the moral imperative of poverty eradication and the practical necessity of environmental sustainability. We need policies aimed directly at reducing poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability, leaving growth as a by-product. That means a new global economic system which will allow, foster and support such policies at the national level.
At the end there will be the rewards: The rewards from these changes are likely to be significant. A less materialistic society will be a happier one. A more equal society will be a less anxious one. Greater attention to community and to participation in the life of society will reduce the loneliness and anomie that has undermined wellbeing in the modern economy. Enhanced investment in public goods will provide lasting returns to the nation’s prosperity.
•The banking meltdown triggered the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression.The impact of this crisis just on unemployment and public sector signifies need for structural changes.
•Greenhouse gas concentrations are reaching levels where runaway climate change becomes more and more difficult to avoid. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report – a synthesis of peer-reviewed research on climate change, its causes and effects (including socio-economic consequences) involving over 2500 scientists worldwide – stated that if fossil fuels continued to be burnt at the current rate, global average surface temperatures could rise by 4°C by the end of the century, with an uncertainty range of 2.4–6.4°C. While this implies emissions need to be reduced dramatically and immediately, there is growing evidence that even a rise of 2˚C – the widely accepted maximum ‘safe’ level – could be catastrophic for ecosystems, humans and economies.The 2°C target has been widely accepted as the guiding principle for many climate change policies – for example, it has been the EU negotiating position at climate change talks since 1996.
•Peak oil may be far closer than we think and there is little preparedness for the energy crisis that lurks just around the corner.
•Inequality between countries, as well as within countries, is reaching new highs.
•Life satisfaction even in the most developed countries is at best stagnant, and even declining in some. Overwork for many combines with widespread worklessness for others. Set alongside those who have far more than they need are those who do not have enough. Falling social mobility sees these patterns repeated from one generation to the next, while unsustainable levels of debt affect all parts of society. As real incomes have fallen, many have had to take on debt to fund the essentials of life. For the more affluent, status-driven consumerism, often fuelled by debt, is the norm.
•Ill Health, and especially mental health levels are rising
•Educational attainment levels continuing to show a stubborn failure rate that leaves between 2 and 3 out of 10 young people leaving secondary schools with no or very low educational attainments.
•Demographic shifts in terms of ageing population and a “Jilted Generation” facing a totally different future to ones that their parents secured for themselves in terms of job security, easy access to money, pensions, and access to housing.This in turn has created a high “switching off” from mainstream political parties within this age group. For the “European project”, this is really potentially more destructive than the current “euro crisis”.
The list of challenges could be added to but I hope I have highlighted enough “evidence based “indicators that substantiate the need for a “rupture”.
I reckon a significant minority of people would agree with the scale of the challenges that we face and the need for “radical” or “fast” change. The problem inevitably would be that we would then end up caught up in the traditional political discourse which every where has been the same “left and right” dichotomy as to what we need to do to deal with the above challenges.
I have grown up in an environment at home, school and work where the traditional political discourse has set/created the dominant paradigm within which policy responses at EU, National, Regional and sub-regional levels have been framed.
What I am saying is that we cannot address effectively any of the above challenges unless we also change the political discourse. Does it make sense to speak of socialism in contrast to capitalism? These have been the pillars around which we had political discourse for at least the last 150 years. Of course the theoretical underpinning of the two pillars has different roots, however the practice is not significantly different in terms of outcomes relating to the challenges above. The mainsteam political parties have long ceased to be located in anywhere but the “middle ground”. Those that have remained rooted inside their respective pillars have suffered the fate of “marginalisation “.
But for me the need to reconfigure the political discourse goes deeper than just the useless cut and thrust of political parties. For the majority of people, and particularly young people, the lack of alternatives to capitalism is no longer an issue. Hence the steep decline in political party membership, particularly of political youth groups.
Alongside this acceptance of capitalism as the “only game in town” what we are dealing with now, however, is a deeper, far more pervasive, sense of exhaustion, of cultural and political sterility.
Yet alongside this there is also the clear evidence that people want to have greater control and say in developing policies and responses to the challenges we face.Alvin Toffler speaks of the rise of prosumers.The current generation of twentysomethings are searching for purpose in life to help shape their citizenship.
The government has little to do with this, after all the 1950s are long gone. Back then, purpose was something governed by denominational or political segregation.
Your views on humanity and the world were shaped inside your own 'pillar' in life - morals and values that provided a compass for and meaning to the bourgeois life. For a long time, religion still fulfilled a dominant role in society, particularly as a cultural force: the modern socialist and liberal movements were still indebted to their Christian heritages. Basically the 'pillars' were well organised 'purpose-providing machines'; citizens didn't have to a thing themselves.
However, this is no longer the case and it is evident that the new genrations "gave up" because the system no longer met their needs. The system consists of standard ingredients, fixed people, a fixed caste, with standard procedures and rituals, and this means that 80% of the decisions have basically been taken in advance. This makes achieving real change by participating in institutions difficult. In other words, it's not surprising that young people can’t be bothered to vote any more.
This trend is part of what essentially is the decay of our party political model of representative democracy. Political parties have declining membership. The bird watchers society in the UK has more members than all the UK political parties combined. The same decline in membership is very evident(particularly in EU15 countries). In other words we are electing our leaders from a smaller and smaller pool of people. Our “political class” has in fact diminished to such a state that the very quality of what emerges from within is self evident in the leaders that emerge.
For me however, it is hard to conclude anything other than that the current model just isn’t working.
I watched a film called “The Age of Stupid”, (it’s a more “viewer friendly “version of the “Inconvenient Truth ) and one of the projections based on good proven modelling shows that for everyone to live at the current European average level of consumption, we would need more than double the biocapacity actually available – the equivalent of 2.1 planet Earths – to sustain us. If everyone consumed at the US rate, we would require nearly five. Of course neither of these is a viable option. Of course that means consumption in the developed world must be cut back to preserve the ecosystem
The economic model that has dominated most of the world since 1945 has failed spectacularly. If the theories of self-correcting and efficient markets had been right, the events of the last 28 months could never have occurred. But they clearly did. What we have seen is not just a temporary malfunctioning of the model but its failure on its own terms. Instead of endless, stable growth and high and rising incomes equitably shared, we have had inequity, volatility and crises. These are not anomalies, but a natural and increasingly severe expression of the ‘normal’ functioning of the system. As even Alan Greenspan, former Chair of the US Federal Bank, was forced to admit, there was ‘a flaw … in the model that defines how the world works’.”
While there is a clear case for poor countries growing their economies to improve living standards, increasing consumption further in developed countries is not sustainable or justifiable. In fact, developed countries need to do the exact opposite.
The challenge we know face is to first accept the reality of capitalism and as such put an end to the discourse of left and right. It is about constructing a capitalism that has a local and global paradigm at its heart.
For example within such a paradigm the environmental and economic crises are not separate but interconnected events. It is the high levels of debt-fuelled consumption in developed countries that have landed us with dangerously high concentrations of CO2 and put pressure on ecosystem resources. Astonishingly, this is precisely the path that politicians are trying to return us to. Many of the measures hastily put in place at the start of the recession – VAT reductions and the car scrappage scheme, for example – were specifically designed to kick-start consumption.
Similarly , within such a paradigm there has to be a recognition that promises of “trickle-down”, have been a myth. What we have seen is that the model has seen huge inequalities develop within and between countries.
Research conducted by the New Economics Foundation showed just how unevenly the proceeds of growth are shared out. For every $100 worth of growth, only $0.60 contributes to reducing poverty for the more than one billion people living on less than a $1 a day.
As stark as these inequalities are on a global scale, we should not ignore inequality within countries. And the UK has one of the highest rates in the developed world. The richest 20 per cent have seven times the income of the poorest 20 per cent. One in three children grows up in relative poverty. All this makes for a profoundly unequal society, which matters from a social justice perspective but also because, as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett demonstrate in The Spirit Level, less equal societies have poorer outcomes in nearly every social domain.(vi) And this holds true for people across the income spectrum. So while those on low incomes obviously have a disproportionate share of the poor outcomes, a middle-class person living in a country with high inequality will, for example, have a lower life expectancy than someone of the same socio-economic status in a more equal society.
In summary, we are faced with an unavoidable challenge. A limited form of flourishing through material success has kept our economies going for half a century or more. But it is completely unsustainable and is now undermining the conditions for a shared prosperity. This materialistic vision of prosperity has to be dismantled.
Our obsession with growth and our relentless pursuit of a global system which creates ever greater dependency on it has put us on the road to perdition. This confronts us with an artificial and unnecessary choice between the moral imperative of poverty eradication and the practical necessity of environmental sustainability. We need policies aimed directly at reducing poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability, leaving growth as a by-product. That means a new global economic system which will allow, foster and support such policies at the national level.
At the end there will be the rewards: The rewards from these changes are likely to be significant. A less materialistic society will be a happier one. A more equal society will be a less anxious one. Greater attention to community and to participation in the life of society will reduce the loneliness and anomie that has undermined wellbeing in the modern economy. Enhanced investment in public goods will provide lasting returns to the nation’s prosperity.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Mission Impossible: Why the EU strategy for reducing poverty is failing
October 17 is the UN international day against poverty. This year the theme was “From Poverty to decent work: bridging the gap”. 2010 is also the EU year against poverty. We need to remember that this comes after events like Live 8 and the UN Millennium commitments. On one level its strange to have such events because let face it who is it who actually wants poverty? The underlying message from such events has been and remains that “caring individuals” could end poverty directly without any need for political or economic reform. However, the reality is far more different.
The recent mid term review of the UN Millennium goals this year have highlighted the vast gap between the rhetoric and the reality of reducing poverty at global level. Just one statistic highlights the gap: still in 2010 there are 360,000 per year women dying in childbirth. This is an issue that is not difficult to resolve. It’s not about creating new jobs; it’s simply about targeting aid effectively and appropriately.
The same gap between rhetoric and reality is evident at the EU level. This year is in fact the EU year against poverty. The EU held its annual round table on poverty and this highlighted why its mission impossible. The EU round table is billed as kind of “mobilisation of stakeholders”. This year this mobilisation of actors was in two “acts”.
Act One took place as part of what is called the “Round table against Poverty”. I don’t know why its called a “round table” as there is not a round table in sight. This act is infact a traditional stage setting of a succession of people sounding off to an audience that has heard it all before but reacts as if its all new, and greets tired platitudes as if they were new insights that opened up a new world. So we were treated to an MEP calling for people in poverty to have the right to live in “dignity”.Infact she used the word no less than 15 times as if the more she said it the more depth it would carry. Given the fact that this her third mandate in the European Parliament I wondered what she had actually done about addressing this issue in the past 15 years.
”Dignity” infact became the leitmotif as other speakers followed her urging the need for poor people to have the right to “dignity” .Given that this first act was graced by the king and queen of Belgium , who clearly have a surfeit of dignity, I found myself wondering why they could not respond and offer some of their surplus dignity for the benefit of the poor.
Act One , also has the traditional address from someone who is billed as “someone who has experience of poverty”. The person is given a kind of “cult or star” status as they have something that the others can only talk about in second hand way. They have lived in “poverty” and have come to tell the tale. The institutional actors who form the audience for this “confessional” take on the form of anthropologists who politely listen to the word from the “street”. Yes they know the factors that account for poverty in our affluent society but their knowledge is “second hand”.
The irony is that they know the causes of poverty better than the “spokesperson for the poor”, but, in this case, his words are a sort of balm that allows for the shadow of poverty to enter the room and create a collective mediation that reaffirms that their view of reality is in fact grounded in the reality of experience.
The voice of the poor this year was a guy whose story is familiar. Years of back breaking work in an industrial sector that no longer exists, followed by long term unemployment and the corrosive effect of loss of meaning which in his case meant marital breakdown, alcohol problems, short term homelessness etc. This experience has in his case opened up a new possibility and that is to be an “ambassador “for people experiencing poverty. He now attends meetings like the round table, in order to “tell it like it is”.
The sad fact is that, whilst he gets star billing in this act, his words are soon lost in the plethory of Eurospeak that follows him. His problem is lack of meaningful work, but the other actors shift the focus to discussing how to establish a “Platform against poverty”. This platform is one of the so-called flagship initiatives that the EU2020 strategy has come up with.No one knows what this means and it soon becomes clear that the Head of Unit upon whose shoulders this flagship hangs also has no clue what it means. “I prefer to not speak about a platform” she says. “I think its better to think of this as a kind of framework”.
She is followed by other stakeholders representing “civil society”. This constitutes the quango style NGO’s , who masquerade in the Brussels ether as constituting a “ connection” with the field. Infact they are EC funded and EC dependent organisations whose role is to dance a highly choreographed tango with the EC which consists of saying “thank you” and “ can we have more” or “could you please pay more attention to this factor”. This is an institutional charade masquerading as open debate. Criticism when it is voiced is cast in such a vacuous way that no-one can take offence. It’s a kind of Alice in Wonderland moment when no-one really knows the meaning of anything and everyone agrees with the meaning of everything.
Meaningless concepts like the platform against poverty somehow are elevated into new tools that will solve or reduce the problem of poverty. No one voices the reality, that we are creating poverty by supporting a strategy for growth that is based on boosting consumption. No one dares point out that in the European Year against poverty we are breaking all post second world war records of creating poverty. No one questions if the model of growth is fundamentally flawed.
The script for Act One does not permit this discourse. This is long running event, now in its 9th year and still filling theatres of make believe every year so why change the plot or the actors for that matter.
This year, however, to celebrate that it’s the European Year against poverty, the organisers created an Act Two. I don’t know who is responsible for vetting the PR but act two was billed as the “circus against poverty”. A fitting title in my view for Act One.
The circus against poverty took place in a real theatre setting and the first part consisted of a “celebration of the year”. The participants in act two were slightly different than act one. Sure there were the “continuity actors” from act one, that is the EC official and the representatives from the Quango NGO’s, but they were added to by actors from the field. In this case these were people who were not based in Brussels . However, as became clear, these were people whose travel and accommodation were being paid by the EC, they were in fact a “rent a crowd” selected from organisations that had received some kind of funding for organising an event in their localities as part of the European year.
Nevertheless, they brought a freshness into act two that was missing in act one. However, their freshness was fast dissipated as they ran into the reality of the EU dialogue. One young participant from Newcastle asked the panel how they could support the participation of more young people in the fight against poverty. The response was as follows:”Its great to see young people here today..the National Action Plans for Social Inclusion and Protection are envisaged to link into regional and local Action plans and that is how more young people can get involved”.
I asked the young person who asked the question whether she was satisfied with the answer, and before she even spoke her young colleague from Newcastle said “it was a load of bollocks”.
This sentiment must have been pretty widespread because at the start of the first part of Act Two there must have been about 250 people present. After the initial plenary session, the organisers had set up a series of “forums on poverty” but the participants deserted the event and I counted less than 30 actual participants remaining. Clearly, the energy had dissipated, the circus had left town so to speak.
Sure we need to highlight the problems of poverty in our society, sure we need more discourse about possible solutions, but the EU discourse is a redundant one. It is one that is based on simply assuming that growth will “lift all boats”. The underlying fantasy being that western consumerism, far from being intrinsically implcated in systemic global inequalities , could itself solve them. All we have to do is buy the right product. That is the message that we have been hearing for over 30 years and it has simply failed.
There was no discussion about the social damage that this is imposed by our governments led by the EU fixation on the Growth and Stability pact.Spain, Greece, Ireland, UK, Germany, Italy, Austria, Holland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, France, Portugal,Romania, Bulgaria are all member states where unemployment is at record levels, where inequalities have increased, where governments are reducing social transfer payments. For example , the Spanish government has reduced the subsidies for older people by 5.2% and within this has cut housing subsidies by nearly 20%. The German government (where supposedly the economy is now once again strong), subsidies to people with disabilities are being cut. “Austerity” is in fact a cloak for creating greater inequalities. On these realities there was no mention, indeed the EU strategy is based on the belief that the medicine will be good for reducing poverty.
The discourse is also redundant in that it is rooted in a concept of poverty that is limited. Its rooted in material poverty which is not the only issue. It’s the deeper poverty facing our society that is simply airbrushed out of the debate. That is the poverty of ill health(physical and mental), the poverty of failing educational attainment levels, the poverty accompanying the decline of trust and social capital, the alienation from our political structures .
An EU approach that is simply focussed on “a decent wage” plus active inclusion and measures targeted at specific groups is simply too limited and also divisive socially and politically. The roots of poverty in the wider sense are about growing inequalities and that is what we have to focus on, not just material deprivation. That is what makes the EU strategy Mission Impossible, but then its allows for an ongoing play every year which seems to keep everyone happy.
The recent mid term review of the UN Millennium goals this year have highlighted the vast gap between the rhetoric and the reality of reducing poverty at global level. Just one statistic highlights the gap: still in 2010 there are 360,000 per year women dying in childbirth. This is an issue that is not difficult to resolve. It’s not about creating new jobs; it’s simply about targeting aid effectively and appropriately.
The same gap between rhetoric and reality is evident at the EU level. This year is in fact the EU year against poverty. The EU held its annual round table on poverty and this highlighted why its mission impossible. The EU round table is billed as kind of “mobilisation of stakeholders”. This year this mobilisation of actors was in two “acts”.
Act One took place as part of what is called the “Round table against Poverty”. I don’t know why its called a “round table” as there is not a round table in sight. This act is infact a traditional stage setting of a succession of people sounding off to an audience that has heard it all before but reacts as if its all new, and greets tired platitudes as if they were new insights that opened up a new world. So we were treated to an MEP calling for people in poverty to have the right to live in “dignity”.Infact she used the word no less than 15 times as if the more she said it the more depth it would carry. Given the fact that this her third mandate in the European Parliament I wondered what she had actually done about addressing this issue in the past 15 years.
”Dignity” infact became the leitmotif as other speakers followed her urging the need for poor people to have the right to “dignity” .Given that this first act was graced by the king and queen of Belgium , who clearly have a surfeit of dignity, I found myself wondering why they could not respond and offer some of their surplus dignity for the benefit of the poor.
Act One , also has the traditional address from someone who is billed as “someone who has experience of poverty”. The person is given a kind of “cult or star” status as they have something that the others can only talk about in second hand way. They have lived in “poverty” and have come to tell the tale. The institutional actors who form the audience for this “confessional” take on the form of anthropologists who politely listen to the word from the “street”. Yes they know the factors that account for poverty in our affluent society but their knowledge is “second hand”.
The irony is that they know the causes of poverty better than the “spokesperson for the poor”, but, in this case, his words are a sort of balm that allows for the shadow of poverty to enter the room and create a collective mediation that reaffirms that their view of reality is in fact grounded in the reality of experience.
The voice of the poor this year was a guy whose story is familiar. Years of back breaking work in an industrial sector that no longer exists, followed by long term unemployment and the corrosive effect of loss of meaning which in his case meant marital breakdown, alcohol problems, short term homelessness etc. This experience has in his case opened up a new possibility and that is to be an “ambassador “for people experiencing poverty. He now attends meetings like the round table, in order to “tell it like it is”.
The sad fact is that, whilst he gets star billing in this act, his words are soon lost in the plethory of Eurospeak that follows him. His problem is lack of meaningful work, but the other actors shift the focus to discussing how to establish a “Platform against poverty”. This platform is one of the so-called flagship initiatives that the EU2020 strategy has come up with.No one knows what this means and it soon becomes clear that the Head of Unit upon whose shoulders this flagship hangs also has no clue what it means. “I prefer to not speak about a platform” she says. “I think its better to think of this as a kind of framework”.
She is followed by other stakeholders representing “civil society”. This constitutes the quango style NGO’s , who masquerade in the Brussels ether as constituting a “ connection” with the field. Infact they are EC funded and EC dependent organisations whose role is to dance a highly choreographed tango with the EC which consists of saying “thank you” and “ can we have more” or “could you please pay more attention to this factor”. This is an institutional charade masquerading as open debate. Criticism when it is voiced is cast in such a vacuous way that no-one can take offence. It’s a kind of Alice in Wonderland moment when no-one really knows the meaning of anything and everyone agrees with the meaning of everything.
Meaningless concepts like the platform against poverty somehow are elevated into new tools that will solve or reduce the problem of poverty. No one voices the reality, that we are creating poverty by supporting a strategy for growth that is based on boosting consumption. No one dares point out that in the European Year against poverty we are breaking all post second world war records of creating poverty. No one questions if the model of growth is fundamentally flawed.
The script for Act One does not permit this discourse. This is long running event, now in its 9th year and still filling theatres of make believe every year so why change the plot or the actors for that matter.
This year, however, to celebrate that it’s the European Year against poverty, the organisers created an Act Two. I don’t know who is responsible for vetting the PR but act two was billed as the “circus against poverty”. A fitting title in my view for Act One.
The circus against poverty took place in a real theatre setting and the first part consisted of a “celebration of the year”. The participants in act two were slightly different than act one. Sure there were the “continuity actors” from act one, that is the EC official and the representatives from the Quango NGO’s, but they were added to by actors from the field. In this case these were people who were not based in Brussels . However, as became clear, these were people whose travel and accommodation were being paid by the EC, they were in fact a “rent a crowd” selected from organisations that had received some kind of funding for organising an event in their localities as part of the European year.
Nevertheless, they brought a freshness into act two that was missing in act one. However, their freshness was fast dissipated as they ran into the reality of the EU dialogue. One young participant from Newcastle asked the panel how they could support the participation of more young people in the fight against poverty. The response was as follows:”Its great to see young people here today..the National Action Plans for Social Inclusion and Protection are envisaged to link into regional and local Action plans and that is how more young people can get involved”.
I asked the young person who asked the question whether she was satisfied with the answer, and before she even spoke her young colleague from Newcastle said “it was a load of bollocks”.
This sentiment must have been pretty widespread because at the start of the first part of Act Two there must have been about 250 people present. After the initial plenary session, the organisers had set up a series of “forums on poverty” but the participants deserted the event and I counted less than 30 actual participants remaining. Clearly, the energy had dissipated, the circus had left town so to speak.
Sure we need to highlight the problems of poverty in our society, sure we need more discourse about possible solutions, but the EU discourse is a redundant one. It is one that is based on simply assuming that growth will “lift all boats”. The underlying fantasy being that western consumerism, far from being intrinsically implcated in systemic global inequalities , could itself solve them. All we have to do is buy the right product. That is the message that we have been hearing for over 30 years and it has simply failed.
There was no discussion about the social damage that this is imposed by our governments led by the EU fixation on the Growth and Stability pact.Spain, Greece, Ireland, UK, Germany, Italy, Austria, Holland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, France, Portugal,Romania, Bulgaria are all member states where unemployment is at record levels, where inequalities have increased, where governments are reducing social transfer payments. For example , the Spanish government has reduced the subsidies for older people by 5.2% and within this has cut housing subsidies by nearly 20%. The German government (where supposedly the economy is now once again strong), subsidies to people with disabilities are being cut. “Austerity” is in fact a cloak for creating greater inequalities. On these realities there was no mention, indeed the EU strategy is based on the belief that the medicine will be good for reducing poverty.
The discourse is also redundant in that it is rooted in a concept of poverty that is limited. Its rooted in material poverty which is not the only issue. It’s the deeper poverty facing our society that is simply airbrushed out of the debate. That is the poverty of ill health(physical and mental), the poverty of failing educational attainment levels, the poverty accompanying the decline of trust and social capital, the alienation from our political structures .
An EU approach that is simply focussed on “a decent wage” plus active inclusion and measures targeted at specific groups is simply too limited and also divisive socially and politically. The roots of poverty in the wider sense are about growing inequalities and that is what we have to focus on, not just material deprivation. That is what makes the EU strategy Mission Impossible, but then its allows for an ongoing play every year which seems to keep everyone happy.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Trying to put the C in Europe
The last two days have seen two events here in Brussels that for me highlight the mountain that has to be climbed in order for Europe to become really connected to its citizens.
Today we had the gathering of the European Council with the usual display of political arrogance as our leaders are whisked around Brussels with adreneline charged outriders who get a chance to live their TV dream, whilst the rest of us end up snarled in their wake. Its nothing less than feudalism masquereding as democracy. Our political elite is itself so far removed from its citizens that its no wonder that there is an abyss between the Brussels institutions and the people who are affected by the decisions and laws made here.
We were treated to the sight of Sarkozy giving a press conference in which he defended his decison to expel EU citizens on the grounds that they were a soure of "insecurity". They were living in "bidonvilles" which were not consistent with the right to live in dignity. Leaving aside how many people French colonialism condemend to live in bidonvilles to this day, the irony of his defence is that he was, so to speak "doing the right thing". Of course we know that "security" is the magic word that allows the state to intervene irrespective of human rights. So the solution was to get rid of them. They posed asecurity risk. Furthermore , he went on to say, that were living outside the law. "No-one" he reminded us is above thel aw", except of course politicians. He himself is mired in the revelations around how he got money from Betencourt and now Le Monde has accussed him of using his powers illegally to try and uncover the name of the source of the Betencourt story.Of course he is in good company. Chirac was able to secure a nice deal withe the mayor of Paris to simply overlook his embezzlement of public money when he was mayor of Paris. What's a million euros between friends. I don't have to labour the point of corruption in our political class.
How is it possible for a leader to be able to disciminate against a minority . Surely, the EC should be proscuting the French government. If living in poverty is a crime, then the criminals are infact our political leaders not the powerless and excluded families who were expelled.
Unfortunately, that will never happen as the EC is lead by a bunch of unelected Commissioners who themeselves are appointed by the same politicians.
The European Council is a democratic disgrace. Their meeting are held in secret. We are simply told the decisions. This is feudalism masquerading as democracy. Issues of transparency and accountability just simply do not apply.
Sadly the European Parliament is nearly as bad. During the period 2004-2009, the EP made 83% of its decisions in secret session with the European Council.
This huge democratic charade is possible because hardly any citizen is aware about it. In a recent Eurobarometer survey , only 19% of respondents agreed that the EU institutions were democratic. Its well established that only about 5% of the electorate even know who their MEP's are let alone what they do.
The apologists for this awful state of affairs will say that the need to connect Europe to its Citizens is now high on the agenda. In other words the bureaucrats and politicians have realised that their number is up unless they resussitate the European project. The turnout at the last EP elections(2009) were a wake up call in that they showed the lowest level of turnout since the start of elections in 1979.Whilst the headline average turnout figure was bad enough , what the average masked is that in nearly half of the member states turnout was infact less than 35%. Moreover, where the analysis has been done the participation of under 30 year olds was less than 25%.
Here I turn to the second event, which was a hearing regarding the European Citizens Initiative(ECI). The ECI is an instrument contained in the new Lisbon treat ratified last year.
The ECI is about citizens collecting 1 million signarures and then being able to present this to the EC in order to trigger action.This is all part of the Lisbon teaty that seeks to try and bridge the lacuna between its citizens and its governing institutions. The irony of course is that the treaty came into being by actually ignoring citizens. The No from France , the No from Holland , the No from Ireland, and what would have No's from Denmark, Czech Republic and the UK was just a case of too much citizen input. Hence a process of ratifiaction without any citizen involvement. So this treaty born out of the disregard of the views of citizens , has created the possibility of an intrument to put the C back into Europe.
The hearing of course had no citizens present, it was dominated by MEP's , their assistants and brussels intertest groups.
Alain Lamassoure,MEP spoke about the need through the ECI to create a "direct line for citizens to Brussels". The aim he also said was to "enable citizens to initiate legislation". Coming from an MEP who has grazed around in Brussels for 4 mandates without doing anything to address this issue , I thought it was encouraging to hear of what sounded like direct democracy and real power sharing. Unfortunatly you can't teach an old dog tricks, so after raisng my intertest he proceeded to kill it with a string of technocratic issues and conditions which will reduce the ECI to a relatively toothless instrument. Signicantly he only want those on the electoral register to be able to sign petitions. That in itself will exclude about 30% of EU citizens.
Vice CommissionerMaros Sefcovic(unelected official) proceeded to apply the "brussels methodology" by stating that the EC would have the right to register or not all ECI's. That is to say if a group of citizens want to get a petition together they have to first secure the Ok from the EC(who are unelected). Not only that , he made it clear that once a million signatrures were collected then ther was "no obligation on the EC to act". Infact we then heard from Green peace and the Disability Alliance , that they had "piloted" the ECI and had gone to considerable lengths to secure the required Million signatures and the net result of their effort was a letter from the EC thanking them for their effort but they were not going to take any action.
Last but not least just to add the coup de grace to any illusions of real democracy, the ECI cannot introduce any amendments to the Lisbon treaty.
ECI, I bet, will sadly emerge from the Brussels undemocratic machinary as a technocratic instrument that the average citizen will run amile from let alone see it as a way to democratise Europe.
I left the hearing wondering what currently happens with petitions that the Petitions Committee of the EP receives. The answer is nothing because the vast majority of the petitions are complaints. I suspect that is the real issue that frightens the Brussels elite. Imagine complaints signed by a million people. Now that's something worth considering .
Today we had the gathering of the European Council with the usual display of political arrogance as our leaders are whisked around Brussels with adreneline charged outriders who get a chance to live their TV dream, whilst the rest of us end up snarled in their wake. Its nothing less than feudalism masquereding as democracy. Our political elite is itself so far removed from its citizens that its no wonder that there is an abyss between the Brussels institutions and the people who are affected by the decisions and laws made here.
We were treated to the sight of Sarkozy giving a press conference in which he defended his decison to expel EU citizens on the grounds that they were a soure of "insecurity". They were living in "bidonvilles" which were not consistent with the right to live in dignity. Leaving aside how many people French colonialism condemend to live in bidonvilles to this day, the irony of his defence is that he was, so to speak "doing the right thing". Of course we know that "security" is the magic word that allows the state to intervene irrespective of human rights. So the solution was to get rid of them. They posed asecurity risk. Furthermore , he went on to say, that were living outside the law. "No-one" he reminded us is above thel aw", except of course politicians. He himself is mired in the revelations around how he got money from Betencourt and now Le Monde has accussed him of using his powers illegally to try and uncover the name of the source of the Betencourt story.Of course he is in good company. Chirac was able to secure a nice deal withe the mayor of Paris to simply overlook his embezzlement of public money when he was mayor of Paris. What's a million euros between friends. I don't have to labour the point of corruption in our political class.
How is it possible for a leader to be able to disciminate against a minority . Surely, the EC should be proscuting the French government. If living in poverty is a crime, then the criminals are infact our political leaders not the powerless and excluded families who were expelled.
Unfortunately, that will never happen as the EC is lead by a bunch of unelected Commissioners who themeselves are appointed by the same politicians.
The European Council is a democratic disgrace. Their meeting are held in secret. We are simply told the decisions. This is feudalism masquerading as democracy. Issues of transparency and accountability just simply do not apply.
Sadly the European Parliament is nearly as bad. During the period 2004-2009, the EP made 83% of its decisions in secret session with the European Council.
This huge democratic charade is possible because hardly any citizen is aware about it. In a recent Eurobarometer survey , only 19% of respondents agreed that the EU institutions were democratic. Its well established that only about 5% of the electorate even know who their MEP's are let alone what they do.
The apologists for this awful state of affairs will say that the need to connect Europe to its Citizens is now high on the agenda. In other words the bureaucrats and politicians have realised that their number is up unless they resussitate the European project. The turnout at the last EP elections(2009) were a wake up call in that they showed the lowest level of turnout since the start of elections in 1979.Whilst the headline average turnout figure was bad enough , what the average masked is that in nearly half of the member states turnout was infact less than 35%. Moreover, where the analysis has been done the participation of under 30 year olds was less than 25%.
Here I turn to the second event, which was a hearing regarding the European Citizens Initiative(ECI). The ECI is an instrument contained in the new Lisbon treat ratified last year.
The ECI is about citizens collecting 1 million signarures and then being able to present this to the EC in order to trigger action.This is all part of the Lisbon teaty that seeks to try and bridge the lacuna between its citizens and its governing institutions. The irony of course is that the treaty came into being by actually ignoring citizens. The No from France , the No from Holland , the No from Ireland, and what would have No's from Denmark, Czech Republic and the UK was just a case of too much citizen input. Hence a process of ratifiaction without any citizen involvement. So this treaty born out of the disregard of the views of citizens , has created the possibility of an intrument to put the C back into Europe.
The hearing of course had no citizens present, it was dominated by MEP's , their assistants and brussels intertest groups.
Alain Lamassoure,MEP spoke about the need through the ECI to create a "direct line for citizens to Brussels". The aim he also said was to "enable citizens to initiate legislation". Coming from an MEP who has grazed around in Brussels for 4 mandates without doing anything to address this issue , I thought it was encouraging to hear of what sounded like direct democracy and real power sharing. Unfortunatly you can't teach an old dog tricks, so after raisng my intertest he proceeded to kill it with a string of technocratic issues and conditions which will reduce the ECI to a relatively toothless instrument. Signicantly he only want those on the electoral register to be able to sign petitions. That in itself will exclude about 30% of EU citizens.
Vice CommissionerMaros Sefcovic(unelected official) proceeded to apply the "brussels methodology" by stating that the EC would have the right to register or not all ECI's. That is to say if a group of citizens want to get a petition together they have to first secure the Ok from the EC(who are unelected). Not only that , he made it clear that once a million signatrures were collected then ther was "no obligation on the EC to act". Infact we then heard from Green peace and the Disability Alliance , that they had "piloted" the ECI and had gone to considerable lengths to secure the required Million signatures and the net result of their effort was a letter from the EC thanking them for their effort but they were not going to take any action.
Last but not least just to add the coup de grace to any illusions of real democracy, the ECI cannot introduce any amendments to the Lisbon treaty.
ECI, I bet, will sadly emerge from the Brussels undemocratic machinary as a technocratic instrument that the average citizen will run amile from let alone see it as a way to democratise Europe.
I left the hearing wondering what currently happens with petitions that the Petitions Committee of the EP receives. The answer is nothing because the vast majority of the petitions are complaints. I suspect that is the real issue that frightens the Brussels elite. Imagine complaints signed by a million people. Now that's something worth considering .
Monday, May 24, 2010
Regions for Economic Change-Building Sustainable Growth
Last thursday, like about 500 other people, I attended the annual Regions for Economic Change "bash" that DG Regio organises to beat the drum about the sucesses of its programmes. 500 participants sounds by any standards a good turnout, but as we all know, statistics are very misleading. A quick scan through the list of participants and you suddenly realise its only the "usual suspects". There are participants from projects that are part of the programme, plus of course EC official and the representational offices of Regions from which the projects originate. It is a kind of self congratulatory show.
In the morning I decided to forgo listening to the Urbact workshop and instead experince whats going on the Interreg IVC . Regions for Economic Change is not about economic change its simply about trying to get good ideas "transferred" into Operational Programmes for EU Structural funds. To facilitate this transfer, there are projects labelled "Fast Track", which ineffect are projects "approved and supported by the EC" and thus having this extra kudos. The idea is great, "good idea" in region/city a becomes good idea in region/city B, C, D etc. Why invent the wheel when you can simply copy and paste.
After a series of breakneck speed presentations which all seemed to radiate "success", the first serious problems began to surface. One presenter opened the "can of worms" when he innocently stated that the programme was "flawed" as it did not provide any resources for implementation of new action plans developed through the projects funded. In, other words, it simply talk and talk and then words on paper. The "can of worms" once opened began to also reveal some other problems. Guido Acchlioni from DG Information Society noted that there was little connection between the products produced(the action plans, which we there to celebrate) and the Operational Programmes through which they could be funded. There was a big problem in reconciling the fact that OP's were determined elsewhere and not through such projects. In addition finding scope in 2010 in Operational programmes that had been largely "committed" by 2008, was a bit of ahit and miss affair. From here, it just got worse, or more clear, another intervention highlighted that one of the big weaknesses was that the specific focus of projects was not agreed at the outset.
In short a gap began to open up between hype and reality. Unfortunately, there was no response or indeed recognition from the intervention by the INTERREG secretariat and it just seemed "business as usual".
Those who have read my blogs about Urbact , will knwo the seriuos concerns I have about that programme. INTERREG IVC seems to share the problems.
Let me make myself clear, Fast track is a good idea in as much it has brought about a gtreater interservices working within the EC. Its also good to involve managing authorities and clearly it supports some mutual learning and sharing of experince. BUT what comes out is questionable. John Walsh from DG Regio correctly said that knowledge is not the same as information, and it seems action plans are not the same as action. Territorial Co-opration programmes are in need of a radical overhaul. There has to be a greater "bottom-up" identification of "problems/issues" that local/regional stakeholders want to address. the current "top-downward" model has given far too much power to civil servants who frankly have very little connection with the reality on the ground.There has to be a stronger commitment to "capacity building" in the programmes, right now its just an incidental spin-off. Within OP's there has to be a built-in component say 15% which is "ear-marked" to support "bottom-up" actions developed through EU or national/regional programmes.
From a workshop on Fast Track, I went to what was billed as a "political debate". The theme was EU2020. The political clout present was considerable, no less than 3 EU Commissioners on the agenda Johannes Hahn(Regional Policy), Marie Geoghegan-Quinn(Research and Innovation)and Janez Potocnik(Environment). In addition there was a member from the Committee of the Regions and the Secreatry General for Innovation , for the Spanish presidency.
There were of course high ranking civil servants from DG Regio and the EIB as well as two academics.
What struck me was that while being billed as a "political debate" there were perhaps no politicians present. EC Commissioners are clearly political appointments but do not have a political mandate from the electorate. Likewise , the CoR member was from Wales, which like the UK "appoints" its members to CoR, so again no clear electoral mandate.To be honest I do not know how these "Presidency " positions are dealt out but perhaps Juan Tomas Hernani, from Spain was the only politician there. My hunch was strengthed by the fact in response to one question from the moderator he specifically referred to 2012, which is of course ingraved into the hearts and minds of Spanish politicians as this will be when they have to face the electorate and explain what went so wrong in a country that only three years ago was being held up a "beacon" of the success of Cohesion policy and European intergation.
Sadly, it was also not a political debate. It was an old style walk on -walk -off series of prepared speeches read out by the three EC commissioners followed by academic input which if properly debated would have cast huge doubts on the validity of the prepared statements.
In this old style format we(the audience) are simply prisoners of what for all intent and purpose is low grade live TV.Infact we have no remote so cannot change the channel, nor can we intervene as no roving mikes have been forseen. We are simply there to watch and make the photo opportunity.
The form of political "style" also was reflected in the content of the debateThat is to say that all the key "buzz words and messages"were uttered. We face multiple challanges, key challenges relating to climate change, the energy crisis, financial crisis, demographics, global competition, etc. However, whilst the analysis is good, the policy and political response is seriously flawed. Johannes Hahn spoke of "Europe" needing "a new economic narrative". Absolutely right, but the new narrative has to start with the recognising that what we face is infact a deep crisis also in our political institutions. Its no longer about fixing the "democratic deficit", politics is broken.There is deep institutional decay and this is reflected in institutional inertia This factor, combinde with the others makes what we have , I believe, at a watershed in the evolution of what can be referred to as the post 2nd World war model for economic growth. The model was based on the idea that growth would “lift all boats”. That is to say that growth would reduce inequality and create greater social cohesion. For this reason our respective leaders in 2000 were able to commit the EU into becoming the most knowledge based economy with quality work AND reduce significantly poverty.
Infact, the evidence points to the inverse. We have created more low quality , low skill, insecure, low pay jobs AND increased social exclusion.Lisbon has proved in every sense to be just “bullshit”. The wreckage of Lisbon is evident and the financial crisis has simply exposed the poverty of the underlying model. It is for this reason that Agenda 2020 simply skips any kind of review of Lisbon. Instead of Coca-Cola, we are now presented with “coca-cola light”. The Greek sovereign debt crisis has already blown away any of the substantial indicators underlying Agenda 2020.
The challenge we face is that the crisis is so deeply multi-faceted-climate change(which is fundamentally a social justice issue- rich people create more carbon foot print than the poor), the fossil fuel energy crisis, politics is broken , our financial system has “robbed us” in order to prop up what is at root “immoral” .
We need a new politics and we need a new value base if are really serious and committed to tackling sustainability and social inclusion, anything short of that is simply “pissing in the wind”
There is an energy and hunger to bring about this change and the key challenge is how to engage this latent social capital. This is the political debate that needs to be had.
We are facing a series of interlinked systemic problems – consuming beyond our planetary limits; untenable inequality; growing economic instability and a breakdown in the relationship between ‘more’ and ‘better’. The only way to overcome these systemic problems is through a new politics.
I recently re-read parts of Karl Polanyi's book "The Great Transformation" published in 1941 . In it he analyses how market processes in the industrial revolution had created severe ruptures in the fabric of social life, and argued strongly that we needed to reverse this and find a balance between the market and the non-market; the private and the public; the individual and the community.
I believe we have reached such a point again and we need to generates a new politics that starts with making politics once again 'service" and not the corrupting career it has become and one that takes its starting point as the redundancy and toxicity of the current model of economic growth.
How to engage and re-engage with those swicthed or simply not reached by the current "white noise " of institutional political discourse, is the challenge and opportunity we have .
In the morning I decided to forgo listening to the Urbact workshop and instead experince whats going on the Interreg IVC . Regions for Economic Change is not about economic change its simply about trying to get good ideas "transferred" into Operational Programmes for EU Structural funds. To facilitate this transfer, there are projects labelled "Fast Track", which ineffect are projects "approved and supported by the EC" and thus having this extra kudos. The idea is great, "good idea" in region/city a becomes good idea in region/city B, C, D etc. Why invent the wheel when you can simply copy and paste.
After a series of breakneck speed presentations which all seemed to radiate "success", the first serious problems began to surface. One presenter opened the "can of worms" when he innocently stated that the programme was "flawed" as it did not provide any resources for implementation of new action plans developed through the projects funded. In, other words, it simply talk and talk and then words on paper. The "can of worms" once opened began to also reveal some other problems. Guido Acchlioni from DG Information Society noted that there was little connection between the products produced(the action plans, which we there to celebrate) and the Operational Programmes through which they could be funded. There was a big problem in reconciling the fact that OP's were determined elsewhere and not through such projects. In addition finding scope in 2010 in Operational programmes that had been largely "committed" by 2008, was a bit of ahit and miss affair. From here, it just got worse, or more clear, another intervention highlighted that one of the big weaknesses was that the specific focus of projects was not agreed at the outset.
In short a gap began to open up between hype and reality. Unfortunately, there was no response or indeed recognition from the intervention by the INTERREG secretariat and it just seemed "business as usual".
Those who have read my blogs about Urbact , will knwo the seriuos concerns I have about that programme. INTERREG IVC seems to share the problems.
Let me make myself clear, Fast track is a good idea in as much it has brought about a gtreater interservices working within the EC. Its also good to involve managing authorities and clearly it supports some mutual learning and sharing of experince. BUT what comes out is questionable. John Walsh from DG Regio correctly said that knowledge is not the same as information, and it seems action plans are not the same as action. Territorial Co-opration programmes are in need of a radical overhaul. There has to be a greater "bottom-up" identification of "problems/issues" that local/regional stakeholders want to address. the current "top-downward" model has given far too much power to civil servants who frankly have very little connection with the reality on the ground.There has to be a stronger commitment to "capacity building" in the programmes, right now its just an incidental spin-off. Within OP's there has to be a built-in component say 15% which is "ear-marked" to support "bottom-up" actions developed through EU or national/regional programmes.
From a workshop on Fast Track, I went to what was billed as a "political debate". The theme was EU2020. The political clout present was considerable, no less than 3 EU Commissioners on the agenda Johannes Hahn(Regional Policy), Marie Geoghegan-Quinn(Research and Innovation)and Janez Potocnik(Environment). In addition there was a member from the Committee of the Regions and the Secreatry General for Innovation , for the Spanish presidency.
There were of course high ranking civil servants from DG Regio and the EIB as well as two academics.
What struck me was that while being billed as a "political debate" there were perhaps no politicians present. EC Commissioners are clearly political appointments but do not have a political mandate from the electorate. Likewise , the CoR member was from Wales, which like the UK "appoints" its members to CoR, so again no clear electoral mandate.To be honest I do not know how these "Presidency " positions are dealt out but perhaps Juan Tomas Hernani, from Spain was the only politician there. My hunch was strengthed by the fact in response to one question from the moderator he specifically referred to 2012, which is of course ingraved into the hearts and minds of Spanish politicians as this will be when they have to face the electorate and explain what went so wrong in a country that only three years ago was being held up a "beacon" of the success of Cohesion policy and European intergation.
Sadly, it was also not a political debate. It was an old style walk on -walk -off series of prepared speeches read out by the three EC commissioners followed by academic input which if properly debated would have cast huge doubts on the validity of the prepared statements.
In this old style format we(the audience) are simply prisoners of what for all intent and purpose is low grade live TV.Infact we have no remote so cannot change the channel, nor can we intervene as no roving mikes have been forseen. We are simply there to watch and make the photo opportunity.
The form of political "style" also was reflected in the content of the debateThat is to say that all the key "buzz words and messages"were uttered. We face multiple challanges, key challenges relating to climate change, the energy crisis, financial crisis, demographics, global competition, etc. However, whilst the analysis is good, the policy and political response is seriously flawed. Johannes Hahn spoke of "Europe" needing "a new economic narrative". Absolutely right, but the new narrative has to start with the recognising that what we face is infact a deep crisis also in our political institutions. Its no longer about fixing the "democratic deficit", politics is broken.There is deep institutional decay and this is reflected in institutional inertia This factor, combinde with the others makes what we have , I believe, at a watershed in the evolution of what can be referred to as the post 2nd World war model for economic growth. The model was based on the idea that growth would “lift all boats”. That is to say that growth would reduce inequality and create greater social cohesion. For this reason our respective leaders in 2000 were able to commit the EU into becoming the most knowledge based economy with quality work AND reduce significantly poverty.
Infact, the evidence points to the inverse. We have created more low quality , low skill, insecure, low pay jobs AND increased social exclusion.Lisbon has proved in every sense to be just “bullshit”. The wreckage of Lisbon is evident and the financial crisis has simply exposed the poverty of the underlying model. It is for this reason that Agenda 2020 simply skips any kind of review of Lisbon. Instead of Coca-Cola, we are now presented with “coca-cola light”. The Greek sovereign debt crisis has already blown away any of the substantial indicators underlying Agenda 2020.
The challenge we face is that the crisis is so deeply multi-faceted-climate change(which is fundamentally a social justice issue- rich people create more carbon foot print than the poor), the fossil fuel energy crisis, politics is broken , our financial system has “robbed us” in order to prop up what is at root “immoral” .
We need a new politics and we need a new value base if are really serious and committed to tackling sustainability and social inclusion, anything short of that is simply “pissing in the wind”
There is an energy and hunger to bring about this change and the key challenge is how to engage this latent social capital. This is the political debate that needs to be had.
We are facing a series of interlinked systemic problems – consuming beyond our planetary limits; untenable inequality; growing economic instability and a breakdown in the relationship between ‘more’ and ‘better’. The only way to overcome these systemic problems is through a new politics.
I recently re-read parts of Karl Polanyi's book "The Great Transformation" published in 1941 . In it he analyses how market processes in the industrial revolution had created severe ruptures in the fabric of social life, and argued strongly that we needed to reverse this and find a balance between the market and the non-market; the private and the public; the individual and the community.
I believe we have reached such a point again and we need to generates a new politics that starts with making politics once again 'service" and not the corrupting career it has become and one that takes its starting point as the redundancy and toxicity of the current model of economic growth.
How to engage and re-engage with those swicthed or simply not reached by the current "white noise " of institutional political discourse, is the challenge and opportunity we have .
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