Forms of Oligarchy
After I looked into Spiral Dynamics I am very sensitive now to any of those evolutionary patterns. I just recently found some in a very interesting article from Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management about the economic crisis, it's causes and how to solve it.
He argues that the U.S. economic recovery will fail unless the "financial oligarchy", responsible for the crisis in the first place is broken. The government, captured by the finance industry is according to Johnson, running out of time needed to prevent a true depression. A highly advanced country like the US also has the most advanced oligarchy and with this statement Johnson describes three stades of political systems, a primitive one in which power is transmitted through violence, e.g. military coups; a less primitive system that is found in emerging markets where power is transmitted via money, e.g. bribes and finally a system in which the
“...financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of cultural capital—a belief system. Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to. Instead, it benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America’s position in the world.”
Although this is the most developed form of oligarchy it is located pretty low on the Spiral. I see patterns of the achievist theme (ORANGE) in which everything is strongly focussed around prosperity and material well-being. Using Johnson's words we are dealing with "a society that celebrates the idea of making money". On the other hand I see elements of Purposeful-Authoritarian/Truth (BLUE). It looks like we need to move up the Spiral as this focus is not good enough for our well being in the future. And although Johnson's overall position seems radical including the solution he suggests at the end of the article I believe it deserves serious consideration...
Posted at
01:19PM Oct 25, 2009
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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France and Strike
In an editorial note the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” on Saturday wrote about Unions and strike in France. There is something about the international reputation of France related to strong Unions and employees fond of going on strike. Let's hold some facts against it: in measured days of strike France is amidst the average countries in Europe. Also the Unions in fact are not as strong as it may look like. Only 8% of employees are organized in Unions which is one of the lowest rates worldwide. The perception we get is formed by a higher percentage of employees in public services compared to the general industry being part of Unions who regularly manage to focus strikes on key parts of daily life as transportation or schools.
Additionally the mood of the population does seem to change. Unions try to mobilize people and fail. Actually President Sarkozy puts reforms in place without encountering too much resistance. People may have understood that in times of international competition change is necessary. Nevertheless there is pressure in the system with energy prices going up and only “la rentree”, the school start after the holidays in September which traditionally is the time for protests will show what the situation is like.
Posted at
07:58PM Jun 23, 2008
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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Russia and Democracy
I really like the idea of cross checking mainstream opinions as you realized from my last entry. These days I came across an interesting perspective on the Russian elections in which President Putin's party won more than 60% of the votes and the perception of Russian democracy. Mostly the elections were described as unfair not giving the opposition parties the means to represent themselves. Other voices even said results were manipulated. In general the reputation of Russia as democracy is very bad in the west and Putin is accused to destroy any elements of it.
Nicholas N. Petro is a teacher of international politics at the University of Rhode Island. He served as the U.S. State Department's special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union under President George H. W. Bush and is bringing different facts to the table that seem to get overlooked by most observers. In his article “Russia through the looking-glass” from February 2006 he lists a few of these to give a true understanding of developments in Russia to challenge the distorted perceptions of western governments, media, and human-rights organizations, as he puts it.
His article in the Herald Tribune “Why Russian liberals lose” that made me discover Petro and his view on Russia simply states that it is not that the opposition cannot get its message to the public but it is about the people representing the opposition who are not credible to their main audience Russia's growing middle class. In this context he mentions that 13% of Russia's population use the internet as their main resource of information which remains completely unfiltered. In the big cities St. Petersburg and Moscow the rate is double. Maybe the lower percentages voting for “Unified Russia” in these areas (only around 50%) are a result of their internet literate populations.
And there are very concrete and evident elements contributing to Putin's popularity: the economy is booming, average salaries have increased from $81 to $550/month, social spending has increased and the poverty level fell from 27 to 15 percent.
Nevertheless there are very critical voices for example in the blog Russophobe which subtitles “Recording the rise and hopefully fall of the Neo- Soviet Union”. Also Kasparov, the former chess champion being one of the disputable figures of the opposition mentioned by Petro, is raising his voice regularly like in this IHT article.
Posted at
05:27PM Dec 07, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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Russia's Dilemma
Now finally I finished reading “The Grand Chessboard” from Zbigniew Brzezinski (former national security advisor in the Carter administration) written in 1997 some years after the end of the cold war. A real interesting book on geopolitics focussing on Eurasia that allows to get more understanding of nations rethorics on the political stage. In German the book was given the title “The only Superpower” (the english subtitle is: “American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives”. So it is also about how the US can sustain it's current role as the Superpower in the world which is closely connected to keeping it's influence in Eurasia.
Brzezinski describes the geopolitical interests and situation of the most dominant nations in Europe (Germany and France), and Asia (China, Japan and to some extent India) and of Russia. Building on my blogs about Russia and Putin's speech it is quite interesting to see Brzezinski's thoughts about Russia. Which geostrategical options does Russia have?
After the end of the cold war Russia had the expectation as the former second superpower to establish a global condominium with the US in which it was deceived. Then it focussed on it's former sphere of influence and tried to reestablish power in the countries of the former Soviet Union (CIS = Commonwealth of Independent States). But most countries are in fear of Russia and want to keep political and economical distance to Russia not to risk their independence. Russia was politically not strong enough to force these countries to join a closer federation nor economically attractive enough to have them cooperate voluntarily. The next option was an antihegemonial coalition with Iran and China against the US. But there are complicated relationships involved in this model (e.g. Russia and China) and it would only work if the US had bad relationships with both China and Iran.
This leads Brzezinski to talk about a dilemma for Russia only having one beneficial alternative that would help Russia speed up the countries' development process and give it a realistic role as one of the big, important nations in the world. And that is aligning itself with a transatlantic Europe, the EU and NATO. Brzezinski advocates for driving Russia into that direction, reinforcing the dilemma by stabilizing and securing the independence mainly of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, the latter being the most important. According to him Russia needs to give up it's historical ambitions of rebuilding the old Russian empire and clearly decide itself for this European option. With such a different attitude Russia could gain the position as the leading economical partner in the region. I would welcome Russia being more close to Europe!
Posted at
09:22PM Jul 27, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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Heiligendamm
Concerning global politics interesting things are going on here in the North of Germany. Just a few days ago there was the meeting of ASEAN countries with the EU (ASEM: Asia Europe Meeting) in Hamburg. Main topic was the climate change. According to the German weekly Spiegel the meeting was a failure in these regards. Unfortunately there has been a clash with the police from anti-globalization protesters.
Since weeks and even months the German government and the press treat the topic of potential violent demonstrations in the context of the Group of 8 (G8) annual summit in Heiligendamm taking place from June 6.-8. At a G7 summit in Genoa/Italy 2001 the demonstrations of 200.000 people turned into heavy violence that left one dead shot by police. A main international demonstration has been organized for tomorrow in Rostock, biggest City nearby (apparently there are demonstrations organized in other countries as well, see here for US).
Heiligendamm is located on the east German part of the Baltic Sea coast and is a particularly nice place with a long history. It's buildings are dating back to the 18. century. All along the coast east of Luebeck there are old resorts that have unintentionally been protected by communism from bad urban planning and from ugly buildings of the post war era which disturb the picture on the west Baltic coast. With Boltenhagen, Kuehlungsborn, Heiligendamm and several resorts on the islands of Ruegen (e.g. Binz) and Usedom close to the polish border it is from my perspective one of the most authentic, natural and beautiful coasts we have in Europe.
I have been in Heringsdorf on the island of Usedom for the past long week-end only 3,5 hours drive from Hamburg. It is part of the three “Kaiserbäder” (The Emperor's Spas) on a more than 40km long fine sand beach. Ideal for nice long beach walks and never thought of that before, ideal for nice long cocktail lounge nights, as I discovered the Coco Lounge being one of the finest cocktail bars I have ever visited, drinks, music and interior - just perfect! Claus Ermlich will give a special warm welcome to all international guests!
So lets hope for peaceful events during the next days. Generally those demonstrations can be a good thing as they make people aware that the industrialized countries are not alone on this earth and the world's problems are not only resolved by them. It may augment the pressure on them to come up with concrete results. On the other hand the globalization has helped many countries to raise their populations standard of living. It looks like the potential demonstrators have many different mind-sets, from extreme opponents to any globalization to those who say we need to manage globalization, influence it, not just let it go. That's something I would go with too!
Posted at
06:55AM Jun 01, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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Orange and Blue
Friday a week ago the two Viktors in Ukraine, main players on the political scene, one being the prime minister and the other being the president, were agreeing to hold new elections. Although at that time it looked like the crisis was over it appears now that the negotiations about the timing are taking a long time. A crisis which had also been referred to as the blue revolution and again highly destabilized political life in Ukraine raising memories of the orange revolution of 2004.
President Yushchenko is a former president of the national bank who successfully fought hyperinflation and wants to stabilize the countries economy also fighting corruption and the insane mixing up of political and economical interests that is characteristic in ukrainian society. He stands for a closer integration into western organizations like NATO and EU.
Yanukovych on the other side stands for a closer alignment with Russia and has the support of president Putin. He is coming from the eastern industrial region of Ukraine, the Donetzk which is also culturally pretty close to Russia. His party “Ukraine of Regions” got the most votes, during the March 2006 elections and cleared his way to become Prime Minister again. Since then Yanukovych and Yushchenko are having a kind of Cohabitation.
Recently Yushchenko's party “Our Ukraine” accused the governing coalition lead by Yanukovych's party to slow down and hinder negotiations on the elections timing. Yanukovych appealed to EU and Russia to mediate between the parties to reach a conclusion. Russia replied promptly being willing to do so. According to polls “Ukraine of regions” would gain 35.5% of the votes, slightly higher than in March 2006.
The Ukraine is a geopolitical linchpin as Zbigniew Brzezinski puts it in his book “The grand chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives”. With approximatly 48 million people of Slavic origin (amongst them 17% Russians) located between new EU members in the west and Russia in the east it is crucial for Russia to keep influence in Ukraine with it's 140 million decreasing population in order to maintain a supreme position in Eurasia. Alone the geostrategic location of Crimea makes the Ukraine important.
It appears to me that the conflict in Ukraine is nurtured by the colliding geopolitical interests of Russia and western Europe / the United States. My guess is that the recent political crisis is not the last one, there will be more to report on Ukraine in the future...
Posted at
09:56PM May 13, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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Putin's Speech
I realized that I wrote my blog about Russia exactly at the right moment (probably couple of days too late). At the Munich Security Conference from 9-11 February Russian President Vladimir Putin held a highly controversial speech (the link guides you to the full English text of it). The reactions ranged from “improper accusations against the US” to “properly describes the world imbalance as it is today”. It is worth having a read through to make up one's own picture.
He talks about many points that are mentioned in Peter Scholl-Latour's book about Russia. Specifically the fact about promises that the NATO should not be extended further east than the former iron curtain. Jens Siegert from “Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung” states in an interview that in the 2 + 4 Treaty this was laid down (in contradiction to the information I had before). His overall comment translates approximately like this: in geopolitical issues there are no friends nor enemies there are only interests and opportunities (former German chancellor Bismarck is said to have used this phrase).
Another fact that gets some proof is that the NATO is looking for a new purpose (strategy). It comes from NATO Secretary General Hoop Scheffer himself calling for a new strategic concept.
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Posted at
11:16PM Feb 12, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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Russia between Europe and Asia
Actually I am reading a book from a well known journalist in Germany who is an expert in analyzing geopolitical conflict situations in different regions of the world. His name is Peter Scholl-Latour and he is now in his eighties. Few of his books have been translated into English, e.g. Death in the Rice Field, reporting on three wars in Indochina.
His age does not keep him from travelling regularly as he did throughout his life. During the last year he has again been in Russia and some neighboring countries. The result is a book about Russia and it's situation being “squeezed” between Europe and Asia. Let me pick up some of his thoughts.
Russia's strong disagreement demonstrated towards US plans to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic reported in late January is raising memories to the times of cold war and iron curtain. Clearly with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) the US sphere of influence is more and more spreading towards the east, towards the borders of russian core country.
Scholl-Latour goes back to the days of Michail Gorbatshov the Russian president of Perestroika who made the German reunification happen. From many of his Russian compatriots though he is regarded as responsible for letting the soviet empire fall apart and carelessly making concessions to the west. During the negotiations about the German unification it was discussed that the NATO should not expand more towards east and verbal promises were made that never appeared in any contractual document and apparently Gorbatshov did not further insist.
Today the NATO has expanded pretty massively further east aiming at countries like Ukraine as future members. No surprise that Russia feels threatened if the US drive to put missiles into past Russian “brother” countries. The NATO seems to corner Russia and it looks like the US does not leave Russia room to stay the No. 2 behind superpower US.
The European Union (EU) and even more some member states are purely driven by loyalty to their perceived protector, the US (although you could probably argue if the modern superweapons that do not prevent to bring the US in trouble in Iraq are still adequate means of defense in times of asymmetric war). The EU does not appear to be a strong partner that speaks with one voice and has an own agenda. The interests of the EU are different from those of the US. For the US the EU is the base on the Eurasian continent on the other side of the Atlantic and with the spreading of the EU also the US influence spreads. The EU is geographically much closer to Muslim countries and to the perceived roots of terrorism. Terrorist attacks have hit more frequently in the past.
A stronger EU would be a better partner for the US and considering more own interests questions would pop up like: should not Russia be a more closely aligned partner for Europe? Why should we focus and insist so much in claiming our way of democracy for Russia?
On the other side of the Asian continent China is on the rise and stepping up to play a part in the “Great Game”. Alignment between Russia and China can bring a lot of combined power to the play. Already Chinese and Russians did maneuvers together. Most of the second half of the book is dedicated to this eastern side of the “squeeze”.
Fitting to this wording describing rivalry and strategic conflict for supremacy is a book Scholl-Latour refers to a lot: “The grand chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives” from Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor in the Carter administration. Suggested it to myself for one of my next reads.
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Posted at
09:00PM Feb 11, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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