Doughnut Economics – Quam Oeconomica

The Search for Oeconomica Phase III

The essence of Kate Raworth’s excellent book, Doughnut Economics, is that economics has to move from an understanding of the world in 18^thor 19^thC terms (based on a mechanical set of analogies) to a 21^stC understanding based on how we understand evolution, our knowledge of systems theory and complexity.

In simple terms, the book suggests, that in order to develop from a perpetual journey to increase GDP and move to a world economy that “Thrives in balance”, we focus on critical issues such as inequality, changes in banking, CO2, new metrics and many other changes via a vast number of small experiments that will, under conditions of complexity, generate changes in our direction and potentially move us from this Phase of our economic experience (Phase II) via a phase transition to another. However, the range of changes that may be needed (this vast number of small experiments) do not appear to be extremely hopeful and each one is tiny compared to the enormous background material in which it exists. Any one may be successful or not and many, if successful together, may generate enough traction to propel society to the phase transition that it needs. However, it, or they, may not!

 

The dynamic set of changes that forged the industrial revolution, the move from a rentier society based around the ownership of land, to a capitalist-driven society based on the ownership of ideas, of speeding up production, of creating demand for goods and services, took on the form of a phase transition (if the continued use of analogies can be permitted). This dramatic change occurred over many years, but traction was firmly in place by the 1830’s in England. Years after this, by the time Karl Marx was writing das Kapital, capitalism had transformed the countries of western Europe and would do the same for the USA and elsewhere. While land remains a high value commodity, the demand for goods and services and the ability to pay for them has transformed most of the world and continues to do so.

 

However, this phase transition (Phase II) remains, even today, in a variety of stages of development. In the USA and western Europe, it is well entrenched. In India and China, it is feverish in its intensity. In sub-Saharan Africa and Afghanistan, it is well hidden. This means that prescriptions for moving beyond this Phase are unclear as different sections of the globe are at such different stages. No mention was made in the book of the Maslow hierarchy (that provides at least some analysis of the individual’s search for sustenance, from meeting purely physical needs to those of mental well-being) and it would be useful to seek some sort of understanding based on regional access to the Phase Transition of the industrial revolution before experimentations can be determined as useful.

 

This is because, while so much attention is given in the media, universities and in books, to the second and third industrial revolutions (supposed to be via computing and then via robotics, AI and bio-engineering), the real focus of Doughnut Economics is beyond this towards a third Phase – a post-capital-only phase. In driving towards that new Phase (if humans are to make it successfully), Doughnut Economics properly focuses on the Georgescu-Roegen notion of entropy being sufficiently understood so that the world  focuses on energy use and utilisation as the crucial underlaying of society, rather than the traditional notion of productivity (the making of goods and services in progressively more ‘economical’ ways). This is right but it is debatable whether this is the prime driver for change, at least from a human viewpoint. Humans exhibit potentially destructive tendencies when caught in a particular way of thinking. Kate Raworth described this in within the book (Easter Island as one example) and it seems that humans need to actually see and feel danger before they react. A good analogy is how the UK reacted to Germany before 1939. Rearmament did not take place until the enemy was rampaging through Europe. Why? Possibly, because the human tendency is not to give up on ways of life (having reached a reasonable plateau) unless forced by external change. Complexity theory would suggest that a plateau of living is only change when externalities require it – with ‘require’ being highly operative.

 

Phase II was driven by, as the book states, the notion of economic gain for those in charge of capital and ideas, focused on the desire of perceived need. This economic gain argument has been transformed over the last 200 years to permeate all of society not just through the notion of GDP at the macroeconomic scale but through accounting at the micro-level. Thus, financialization of the world at both micro- and macro-scales underpin everything that we do. Everything is priced and our utility (our desire for something) is only respected when it has a number against it. Recently, a charity worked out the value we place on parks. This notion of £974 per person per year is then used somehow to justify spending on parklands. The whole notion of natural capital flows from a need to show value of the aspects of life that make life worth living so that even companies and accountants can evaluate them in discounted cash flow techniques. This is where Phase II shows it has conquered the world or it may be showing that Phase II is nearing its end.

 

Changing this is an enormous challenge but Doughnut Economics, while preparing the way, seems to suggest that the world can be redirected by an understanding by economists about how the world is different to their theories and through the use of diagrams.

 

A more detailed analysis of the changes that induced the phase transition in England in the industrial revolution to Phase II would indicate the scale of the challenge now. The doughnut diagram is highly useful and the concepts that underpin Doughnut Economics are highly positive in that they speak in the language of the new century, even if hampered by the limits to our knowledge that such analogies provide.

 

However, if a phase transition in our model of living is required, and the book strongly argues in that way, then we need to assess how this can be done successfully in a world that it markedly at variance region by region and where, as a result, different nations and regions will adopt different attitudes. For example, those countries lower on the Maslow hierarchy (if it or something similar can be utilised on a national scale) will retain their pursuance of basic needs via growth in GDP for far longer than those countries that have reached higher levels of economic maturity, where post-quantitative norms may be considered. If this is the case, and it is highly likely to be, then how do the latter set of nations decide how to remain sufficiently competitive in productive means, assuming that they will not simply give up their desire to at least maintain a level of economic security in a world that will reward economic gains for many years because it is measurable?

 

Doughnut Economics posits, amongst many other things, repeated changes in GDP, up, down, level in no particular order and through a variety of changes in taxation from income and employment to energy usage or externalities. However, different countries will adopt different measures and taxes and there will be a vast range of unintended consequences in such a complex environment that will continue to drag down the impact of the desired moves to a new phase.

 

Of course, we do not even know what a new phase will look like. Doughnut Economics suggests some thoughts on this and they relate to the quality of life beyond the quantity of life that mature economies are building, where, having gained the basics (food, shelter, clothing), we have moved towards the second tier of luxuries (goods and services) and towards Maslow’s higher tiers of self-actualisation (although we would need to see this is national terms rather than individualistic).

 

What can economists and accountants (macro and micro) do for this future? Perhaps the role for such narrow providers of data is disappearing in the same way that the role of horses changed when the motor car appeared. To take us to the next Phase needs a whole new school of thought that understands the different levels of Phase II that has been achieved on a global scale and will address the new mix of qualitative and quantitative requirements of Phase III (against the background of natural resource despoliation and global warming). If the concept of ‘natural capital’ is the last cry of Phase II as an attempt to take a grip of the natural world by the accountants of Phase II, then Phase III has to develop a new breed of expert that can show how humans can retain the dynamism that ‘gain’ provided for many (although by no means all or even the majority) and moves us away from numeric (or financialized) gain towards a qualitative framework, from the historical meaning of economics – the art of managing a household (which, arguably, humans now understand) – to the art of managing quality of life.

 

This is likely to be back to the area of ‘political economics’, the relationship between the production of goods and services and the society within which they are produced and then forward towards an inclusion of the qualitative aspects of life (as individuals and communities) – ‘quam oeconomica’.

Science as a Candle for Democracy

July 14^th celebrates the storming of the Bastille in Paris on that day in 1789. After the War of Independence in America, it was a second revolution to bring democracy to a kingdom, this time in Europe. For Thomas Paine, writing The Rights of Man shortly thereafter (a quote used by the great Christopher Hitchens in his biography of Paine:

“Never did so great an opportunity offer itself to England, and to all Europe, as is prodiced by the two Revolutions of America and France.”

Whether, over two hundred years’ later, the success of the revolutions is properly signalled by the visit to France of the popularist Donald Trump is highly questionable for his visit signifies a distinct darkening of how democracy is faring in the USA, Europe (post-Brexit referendum), Turkey, the Phillipines, India, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel where serious strains are being felt and ‘strong man’ politics is under way.

It may be straining credibility to equate these dark concerns on democracy with the election of Norman Lamb, a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, to the position of Chair of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, a Committee whose purpose is to scrutinise the UK Government on its strategy and programmes in this area. Yet, this linking of science and democracy is central to the changes we are currently seeing in the world of politics.

‘Science in the Soul‘ is a collection of the writings of Richard Dawkins, where he shows his distinct ability to reason and explain to the full.  In the book, Dawkins commends the science populariser, Carl Sagan, as a man that should have won the Nobel Prize: not for science but for literature and it made me re-read his excellent book ‘The Demon-Haunted World‘, published around twenty years ago.

Sagan’s book is about how “scientific thinking is necessary to safeguard our democratic institutions and our technical civilisation” and is so apt in an era of Donald Trump and Brexit (with its Govian taunts about how not to believe experts) that it should be read and re-read by anyone with a desire to understand our current problems and what is needed to extricate ourselves from the hole that we are digging for ourselves. It was also frighteningly prescient. I reprint here, word for word, a sizeable paragraph from the book that accurately forecasts a significant chunk of our world in 2017:

“….science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agenda or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number one video cassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. Beavis and Butthead remains popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. the plain lesson is that study and learning – not just of science, but of anything – are avoidable, even undesirable.”

If an afterlife existed, Carl Sagan would be looking down at the events of 2016, and tut-tutting knowingly, shaking his head and pulling at his long, white beard (all sages have long, white beards in heaven, don’t they?): “I did tell you guys!” he would be shouting, hoping that some mystical ripple would resonate from his screams of despair into our heads, deaf and dumb to all sense.

In the so-called developed world, technology moves forward at a great pace so that major phase transition events bypass us with alacrity. The whole ‘fake news’ environment washed over us only in the last few years as the networked world provided everyone with the ability to be journalists and have an opinion that all can see. As always with new technology, those most capable of utilising it to advantage included the criminally-minded who not just sent emails from Nigeria asking for your money, or emails and texts that would lock up your computer or cellphone if you replied but, more subtly, perverted voting systems and swayed voters by their ability to infiltrate the social networks with lies, distortions and manipulations to a precision that a few thousand votes in the right States resulted in a Trump presidency.

Sagan wrote further on this:

“We’ve arranged a global civilisation in which most crucial elements – transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting – profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

“The scientific way of thinking is at once imaginative and disciplined. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which best fit the facts. It urges on us a delicate balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous sceptical scrutiny of everything – new ideas and established wisdom. This kind of thinking is also an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change.”

Carl Sagan was a sceptic and the book shows how scepticism, used pro-actively, not as a tool to doubt everything for doubt’s sake, is central to understanding. He provided a toolkit for guarding against a fallacious or fraudulent argument. In summary:

• Where possible, independently verify the facts
• Encourage debate on this by opponents and proponents of views expressed
• Discount ‘authorities’ who generally carry no weight; in science there may be experts, not authorities. In politics, beware such experts.
• Spin more than one hypothesis
• Don’t get over-attached to an hypothesis just because it’s yours
• Quantify where you can
• If there’s a chain of argument, show that every link works
• Occam’s Razor – if two solutions exist, choose the simplest
• Always ask if the hypothesis can be disproved (e.g. Brexit will save British taxpayers £350m a week!)

Now, not everyone has the time to go out and do all this. So, we rely on journalists and others to do so. This brings me back to Norman Lamb, a man who has gained tremendous respect across all parties for his honesty and campaigning zeal (in the area of mental life as an example). He is a democratically-elected member of a Parliament often thought of as the home of democracy (Thomas Paine might have doubted that and the first-past-the-post system of elections means that most in the UK are, effectively disenfranchised) and now Chairs a Committee on Science and Technology. We should be using such institutions to galvanise the linkages between science, technology and democracy to challenge ourselves in how we think so that crass assertions made during the Brexit referendum and by Donald Trump and others (that might lead to the USA’s desertion of the Paris Agreement on environment as just one example) are challenged by not just politicians but by all those that should hold us to scientific thinking.

This means that we should understand why those that wish to believe in such perversions of reality actually do so and why scientific thought processes are so easily overturned, that ‘rigorous scrutiny’ is accepted as the norm. A recent article in the Financial Times, by John Gapper on how CP Snow identified the gap in thinking on science by intellectuals in the 1950’s shows that this is not new, but it is not just intellectuals that have the vote in the 21^st Century, it is all the people.

So, a plea to Norman Lamb and his Committee, whatever the Terms of Reference have historically been, it is time to challenge our lack of scientific thinking, the lack of awareness of science and technology throughout the population and how this “combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces” – if it hasn’t already.

Democracy took many lives and many years to establish in the western world and elsewhere. It is not yet extinguished but, like a candle that has been burning for many hours, the light is in danger of failing. Sagan’s book was sub-titled: “Science as a Candle in the Dark”. On the day the French commemorate its own democracy, we should not let that candle flutter to extinction.

Don’t Look, Won’t Find

 

Don’t Look, Won’t Find – Money Laundering in the UK

Transparency International – UK just published “Don’t Look, Won’t Find” which exposes enormous gaps in the UK’s ability to stop illicit money coming into the the country.

The report shows how all sectors, from banking to the enablers of money laundering like the accounting firms, legal firms, company registration firms to the sellers of final products and services like auction houses, private education, fail the test of oversight and reporting on a consistent basis.

This means that huge amounts (tens of billions of £’s) enter the country illegally from China, Russia, Africa and elsewhere – depriving those countries of the money they need and, as a by-product, pumping up house prices in London.

I had the privilege to Chair the Advisory Committee for this report – part of the Corrupt Capital project at TI-UK which aims to uncover how London (a major financial centre) needs to work hard to rid itself of corrupt capital that enters its system here and in the many tax havens to which it is connected world-wide.

Those who have written this report have done an excellent job of uncovering the chaos that exists in oversight and reporting systems in the UK.

 

Don’t Look, Won’t Find

Human Rights v Trade

The Independent today (3^rd October) reports that the Foreign Office is placing human rights below trade in its international efforts.

Sir Simon MacDonald, Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, said this to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, chaired by Crispin Blunt – a Conservative MP. The outrage to this frank admission from those like Amnesty International is understandable but the news is not a surprise. The UK has a default mechanism – overseas trade at almost any costs. It is this default that has, at times, been tempered by those heading our foreign ministries (such as Robin Cook and his “ethical foreign policy” and Douglas Hague more recently) but over more than 200 years, Britain has pursued a trade policy which has been usually unyielding.

Mercantile Britain

From the 17^th Century onwards, this island nation has pursued conquests and material gain in overseas territories that enabled a minor nation (by population) to erect a massive empire. It was a mixture of bravery, opportunism, single-mindedness and adventurism that took Britain throughout the world as searchers for new lands and the rewards that would come with them. Along with the supreme invention of the joint-stock company that somewhat de-risked such ventures, companies like the East India Company not just took advantage of these overseas territories but set themselves up as military governors of them. This company ruled India until as late as 1858 (after the rebellion of 1857).

From then on, British military might was handled directly by Government. Thus, the mercantile underpinning of our international trade, by then as much as the need to export the produce of the industrial revolution as the need for raw materials, was in place. This was an extrovert linkage between might and trade in the nineteenth century, now it is implicit. One of the worst examples of mercantilism were the Opium Wars in China where Britain fought to ensure that the sale of opium into China would continue.

20^th Century Mercantilism

More recently and especially since the end of World War II, when British military might was used to vanquish an evil Nazi regime and almost bankrupted this country, Britain has used its ability to aid overseas trade more subtly. We have now ceased to follow the Palmerston gunboat diplomacy of the nineteenth century but our ability to promote trade along with military capability is still firmly in place.

For much of the twentieth century an example was the Defence Services Organisation (DSO) that promoted our arms exports throughout the world. This was an effective sales force for arms exports that retained the UK’s ability to remain in the top three or four internationally until very recently. Our embassies were (are?) and our military attaches in particular represented not just our Government but the companies that sought to trade in the countries where they were situated.

Alongside this, the UK has developed a record on human rights that is one of leadership on a world-wide scale. In the nineteenth century, our Gladstonian free trade mindset was tempered with a humanity in a section of the population that sought to restrain the might of an empire and restrict its natural tendency to the Benthamite utilitarianism that sought to consider overseas peoples as no more than collateral. While we may seek to measure natural resources in 2015 as “natural capital”, in the nineteenth century, even after we abolished slavery in Britain in 1809, we would still value people our dominions numerically as we would a piece of equipment.

Liberal Free Trade was built on this and while Tories (Conservatives) may have initially tried to stem the Free Trade tide (because of their natural affinity to those that ruled by their ownership of land), they became as fervent in their pursuit of capitalism and mercantilism until now they have adopted the mantle to themselves.

So, while this country spends 0.7% in overseas aid (and trumpets this, rightly, as an example of our desire to alleviate poverty and disease), in this progressively post-Industrial world (where all countries are now so interlinked by trade) we maintain an extraordinary linkage to many tax havens around the world that ensure that companies can reduce their tax burdens at the expense of much of the world’s poorest. London is itself a crucible of money laundering and Tax Justice Network assesses London and its affiliated tax havens in places such as the Cayman Islands, Jersey, British Virgin Islands and elsewhere, as the most secretive combined jurisdictions in the world. This is today’s example of the UK and its desire for financial trade above the rights of the poorest.

Trade vs Human Rights in the 21^st Century

Since WWII, the UK has (as stated above) been at the forefront of much that is good in the development of human rights world-wide. Apart from our leadership in the establishment of UN and other basic norms for human rights, this country houses many NGOs that lead in this sector. This is now at risk.

Not only is the current government suggesting that we opt out of various human rights bodies (unable it seems to allow ourselves to be subject to best-case international norms), not only are we potentially removing ourselves from the historical capability of being a home for immigrants that are subject to terror in their own countries, but we are looking to enhance our ability to trade in nations that continue to abhor basic human rights in their own countries.

This is a pandering to economic welfare and materialism that has not been seen since the days of Bentham and the focus on such utilitarianism (then at the expense of the poor working class in this country but now internationalized) is a stark throwback to the default mechanism of our forbears – those who maybe knew they were wrong but had no experience to turn to.

Now, we have no such excuses. The desire to trade unabashed world-wide and not concern ourselves with the dire consequences of the countries with which we trade points to a shallow materialism that is in danger of throwing aside all that so many have worked for so many years. That this country, one of the world’s richest, should consider that the problems faced by those in the countries with which we do business are not of any concern to us is not just wrong but a short-termist mistake.

George Osborne’s recent visit to China is a good example of this. He is not just a head of finance but a senior Cabinet Minister that goes with the blessing of the Government. He left China with the endorsement of the Chinese government as voiced through their newspapers for not overstating human rights issues. Apparently, the UK cares less about people than about profits or increasing our GDP.

So, Mr MacDonald’s statement before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee is no surprise but it is a statement that will have chilling effects. It states that we are giving up our responsibilities on the back of a desire to enrich ourselves at the expense of those outside the UK that suffer oppression and poverty. While we maintain out 0.7% (although some of that is being deflected into defence spending) much of that, in effect, buys us more ability to sell products and services.

Robin Cook did not last long in office as a result of his ethical foreign policy beliefs. We no longer even hint that this remains our aim but the lesser aim of maintaining human rights and challenging those that do not follow our example is now not just under threat but clearly is seen as history. It may be that quantity of life is the belief of this government (and the defocusing on climate change is another example) rather than quality of life and the desire to lead lives that are worth living. We do have average levels of material wealth in this country that are envied in many countries and much that our democracy and ability to live relatively freely within out nation that propels many to want to live here.

Yet, in a global economy, it appears that materialism is now the only objective as we go back in time to the nineteenth century. This time, we have no excuses. Human rights as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights are essential components of how we should not just run our own country but how we should see the world.

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.”

 

PREAMBLE

• Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, 
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, 
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law, 
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations, 
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, 
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms, 
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

 

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1.

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

• Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.

• Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

• No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

• No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.

• Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

• All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

• Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.

• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

• Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

• (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.

• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.

• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.

• (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.

• (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.

• (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.

• Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.

• Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.

• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.

• (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22.

• Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.

• (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.

• Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.

• (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.

• (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.

• Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.

• (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.

• Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.Human Rights

Is FIFA-world just a microcosm of the real one?

FIFA-world: a virtual world where you get ahead by what you pay and stay ahead by denying the evidence

“When we get bribed, we stay bribed.”

Jon Stewart on his Daily Show in the USA – his take-down of Sepp Blatter and FIFA. The legal onslaught on FIFA-world  has been 24 years in the making – 24 years before the legal process (headed by the US Attorney General Loretta Lynch) went into motion. As Stewart remarked, “even Switzerland” itself had moved on FIFA.

Yet, Sepp Blatter was overwhelmingly affirmed by FIFA delegates for another four years – on the votes of Africa, Asia and Platini’s France amongst others. This was despite the obviously dangerous legal claims made against many senior employees and representatives of FIFA by the US and Swiss legal authorities. This was despite the fact that Blatter has been President of FIFA for so long – it has been on his watch.

The President of FIFA has (under its latest statutes) the following responsibilities:

32. President

The President represents FIFA legally.

He is primarily responsible for:

a)  implementing the decisions passed by the Congress and the Executive Committee through the general secretariat; 

b)  supervising the work of the general secretariat;

c)  relations between FIFA and the Confederations, Members, political bodies and international organisations.

Only the President may propose the appointment or dismissal of the Secretary General.

The President shall preside over the Congress, the Executive and Emergency Committee meetings and those committees of which he has been appointed chairman.

The President shall have an ordinary vote on the Executive Committee and, whenever votes are equal, shall have a casting vote.

If the President is absent or unavailable, the longest-serving vice-president available shall deputise.

Any additional powers of the President shall be contained in the FIFA Organisation Regulations.

As FIFA’s legal representative on planet earth, it seems clear that Blatter would be held accountable for all its actions whether he knows about them (and he claims a complete absence of knowledge) or not. Yet, FIFA members, by a great majority, supported his continued Presidency.

For some of us, this seems absurd. For those of us brought up under democratic systems, where wrongdoing in an elected body is normally punished by the voter, the inability of FIFA to sort itself out appears naïve as does the apparent understanding of the electorate. Yet, to many of those who voted for Blatter, their response was entirely logical.

How FIFA-World Seems to Work

The world has changed over the last fifty years to an extent that is now becoming highly visible. Until the 1950’s, the great western powers and the USSR held military power (hard power) over the rest of the world. One by one, states outside this power block became politically independent. Asian economic power-houses like Japan grew quickly and then China began its sustained and dramatic economic renaissance. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, instead of democracy, economic power brokers developed (with Putin at the top of that tree).

While we understandably focus on military and security threats posed by those like ISIS, the world has been moving on – with economic growth at the centre (softer power).

However, instead of the west’s domination, there are now various centres of economic power – such as China, India and Brazil – which are breaking down long-established norms.

These norms (such as the desire by Western nations to link good governance with economic aid) are under real threat as newly enriched nations like China care less about the good governance of its supply and customer base outside China than it does internally and less than the stated aims of the earlier economic hegemonies.

This compounds the pent-up pressure on the governments of the newly developing world that may be tired of the continuous pressure put on them to do more of what the west wants them to do – such as reduce corruption and improve good governance. This is not the reaction necessarily of their people (most are completely sick of the bribery and corruption that exists, often sick of the absence of real democracy and the absence of real representation) but in many parts of the world, the people do not have a say.

Also, populations are torn between a natural desire to see things properly run (good governance) and feeding their kids or having a roof over their heads. Elsewhere, like in Russia, the government has a rigid control over their people. The same is true in China.

Finally, nations are now (because of their own economic strength and because of alliances with those like China) less likely to fold against the old hegemonies of the USA and Europe.

For all these reasons, FIFA-world seems symbolic of the new world order that is taking place where an organisation that has been corrupt for so long is able to maintain good relationships with its supporters through its economic success and the ability to pass on that financial success to a range of nations and individuals – upon which it also survives. It pays to support Blatter – even if you are in receipt of dirty money.

Despite pressure from the west (notably the UK – via, mainly, its newspapers like the Sunday Times while government was just as mercantilist when London was in the running for the World Cup), FIFA refuses to change from the inside. As there is no ability to march into Switzerland and take over the company by force (the 19^th Century ideal), the only method remaining is via international law as applied by the US Attorney General and the Swiss. It has taken 24 years to get to this stage.

What could we be learning from FIFA-world?

This microcosm represented by FIFA-world must have lessons for the new real world order but it is not easy to overcome the concern that fifty years of working towards better governance (e.g. where we have seen increases in the number of democracies throughout the world) is under threat.

The natural focus on material wealth as the highest priority for all nations and all people is understandable. Worldwide poverty indicators are reducing (even if mainly from Chinese economic success). As Maslow showed so clearly in the 1930’s, most people focus on material wealth creation well before there is a serious thought given to quality of life issues.

This is clearly seen in practice as the world pursues economic gains even in those countries that are already wealthy. Even the safety and maintenance of nature and the environment becomes translated into a form of costed “natural capital” so that it can enter into our economic thinking. If it has no valuation methodology, then humans seem unable to evaluate it. If we can’t count it, we can’t imagine it, apparently.

This means that issues like corruption are treated as secondary to economic benefit or economic security in most nations. It is no longer just a case of saying “Corruption is bad, stop!” because the complexity of the each situation means that, in the short term, those who gain through corruption and / or being part of a corrupt environment do not visualise the problems quickly enough. Moral crusades are not high enough on Maslow’s hierarchy (which was developed for marketing purposes but serves as a useful tool elsewhere).

Even the use of legal sanction by the USA, while applauded by many in developed nations, is not so well received elsewhere. Blatter knows how to utilize this reaction by appealing to the sensitivities of nations that do well out of FIFA economically and see themselves (as nations and individuals) threatened economically by the ending of corruption. This is not much different from oil-rich nations like Angola preferring to sell to China than the west – because no-one in China is demanding good governance from Sonangol, the dos Santos-owned oil company. It is similar to tribal leaders in Afghanistan that react badly to the west’s demands for an end to corruption in that country.

Those legal sanctions operating in the West (through a range of anti-money laundering devices, FCPA, Bribery Act and the like) can have great power when used against corporations. They are now extra-territorial in scope and can remove any one nation’s or company’s ability to protect themselves from legal onslaught. However, in the UK, for example, implementation of laws such as the Bribery Act are completely under-resourced so reliance has been placed on the US to widen its military policing role to one of legal challenge – where an individual using US assets (banking, currency or legal) is liable.

Such legal sanction needs to be policed (a) by more than just the USA and (b) in a way that is not seen as hegemony by former military world powers.

The first requires resources and a willingness to attack the problem; the second is far more subtle – a need to assess how to convince the world that corruption is hugely damaging to economies, sectors or society and even security (as is seen in Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and many others vulnerable nations where armed forces are depleted by funding being ransacked by a few elites) when the benefits are clearer than the problems.

As an article in today’s National Post in Canada shows so well, giving the World Cup to a country well down Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Indicator (CPI) is asking for trouble. Yet, not giving the World Cup to such nations (which are developing nations in need of such investment and focus) until they have cleaned up their act would be seen to be counter-productive – and construed as anti-poor. There is no support for such a move.

What needs to happen is that good governance is seen as a central tenet of major corporations and of governments (national and local) and, for this to happen, a huge and relentless shift needs to take place in the way the non-FIFA world works so that the real economic needs of people are met while the ugly needs of vested interests that stand to gain through corruption are not.

For corruption to be minimized should be seen as one of the world’s major aims – where we need nations to meaningfully sign up to this in the same way as we sign up to human rights as corruption erodes human rights as well as any impediment known to humankind.

FIFA-world is a microcosm of how the real world tolerates corruption and the 24-year corruption story in FIFA is by no means finished. We need to learn from that story not just to fix FIFA-world but to fix the way the world tolerates corruption.

Note: I am a Trustee of Transparency International – UK

13th Century – Magna Carta; 21st – a new “Great Charter”?

‘to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice’.

On 15^th June, 2015, Magna Carta will be commemorated. It will be 800 years since King John of England affixed his royal seal to the document at Runnymede – alongside the Thames in southern England. Magna Carta was an agreement between King John and English nobles that sought to overturn the singular rule by a despotic monarch and set the scene for the gradualist changes that resulted in democracy.

Magna Carta emphasized the rights of the individual over the state (even if those individuals in 1215 were just a few nobles).

That fight between the state (and those who want to capture the state for themselves) and the individual is unresolved 800 years later despite successive waves of change.

While in the West we consider the balance between the State and individuals to be rational and where the rights of individuals are upheld by rules such as The Human Rights Act, there is a perpetual seeking after new balances when threats appear or when certain groups capture more of the State. In the USA, for example, this balancing resulted in the splitting of responsibility between Executive, Legislature (itself into two parts) and Judges – which Fukuyama now calls a “vetocracy” which is more and more in the pay of key sectors that know how to manipulate decisions.

More widely, nations like China and Russia have never allowed significance to a balance between the state and individual rights. China, especially, has for 2000 years emphasized rule by law rather than rule of law – where the State (or those that consider themselves to be the State) is above the law. Xi Jinping’s recent attack on corruption appears to be but the latest attempt by one person and his clique to dominate the state.

More recently, like a laser beam to the head, the murders in France of journalists at Charlie Hebdo, of a Muslim policewoman close by and, later, at a Kosher deli, have highlighted that the individual and the rights of any individual are consistently challenged by states and those purporting to act on behalf of a state (or, in this case, an entity that stood before the state or that, in some cases, acts as a state – here, a religion).

The death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia reminds us of the total submission of individual rights in that country beneath the rule of one family – under the aegis of the Wahhabi sect of Islam.

Individual Rights

The battle between the State (whether represented by an elite or an ideology headed by a group purportedly representing that ideology) and individuals is a battle that clearly still rages. The rights of the individual against such groups are key to the different mindsets that distinguish real freedom from all other forms of government and governance.

The spectrum is a wide one but State (with a wide definition of that word) “ownership” ranges from political or quasi-political (such as China) to dictatorial (Equitorial Guinea, Angola) to religious (ISIS) to monarchic / theocratic (Saudi Arabia) to such “democracies” where voting is rigged (such as Zimbabwe and Afghanistan) to enable elites to maintain themselves in power.

This is not a battle between different nations but one where the rights of individuals are challenged by state or state-like bodies.

Whereas we may not see the actions taken against journalists in Turkey by the Erdogan regime to be in any way similar to extreme violence as has just happened in France, it is on that spectrum. Between states that defend the rights of individuals and those which violently oppress them (and subsume them to the so-called state or a religion) lies many variations – but, all can slide in the wrong way to extremism.

The extremists who claimed to be Islamists are one extreme; Erdogan’s government is dangerously edging in that direction as freedom of the press is a crucial embodiment of individual freedom.

Corruption at the Heart

Sarah Chayes has just published “Thieves of State”. It is an extraordinary book that, through her own experiences as a journalist and then on the staff of various military commanders from the US and in places like Afghanistan, enables her to show clearly how corruption is at the heart of so many national and international upheavals. From Afghanistan to Egypt, from Tunisia to Nigeria, governance has been geared towards corruption and becomes the mechanism of government.

Sarah’s aim is to show how the corruption flow in those countries is not top-down, but bottom-up, where so-called “facilitation payments” lead up the chain to larger corruption at the top – whereby nations recast themselves as mafias but, now, emasculating nations.

She shows how Karzai was able to do this in Afghanistan; how the military do this in Egypt; why this was the norm in Tunisia.

Individualism and the right of individuals to have justice have no place in such states. The state is simply a mechanism to suck the benefits of society through corruption to a few at the top who become extremely wealthy and some further corrupt benefits to those further down to makes ends meet. The vast majority of society suffers through lack of funds and the thieving of funds meant for development – for policing, for security, for health services, for education and for the rest of what we in the West would call normality.

This is why the Arab Spring promised so much but gave so little. Only in Tunisia has the promise started to be met. The strength of people in such a country is to be applauded and the recent election of Beji Caid Essebsi in a free and open election to be warmly welcomed.

Similarly, the people of Sri Lanka made a momentous decision at the ballot box by throwing out President Rajapaska and electing Maithripala Sirisena – a man dedicated to fighting corruption and nepotism.

Yet, as Sarah Chayes has shown, outside of these countries, either corrupt states remain ruled by corrupt kleptocrats or the fight back is via religion. Boko Haram and ISIS claim to be against the ways of the West as they see it – the corruption that is embedded in Nigeria or Iraq. At this extreme, even education is seen as the mechanism by which individuals grab the capability to enter into the corrupt system. Chayes views the connivance of the USA in that corruption (she mentions the suitcases of cash that the CIA provided to Karzai as but one example) as leading to the success of terrorist organisations in gaining credibility amongst many people in countries like Iraq because they see this as the only way out of the corruption that wrecks their lives.

Working on the disease

Yet, it is 800 years since Magna Carta – an agreement between a king that believed in his own divinely-given rights as usurping all others and a group of wealthy noblemen that wished to garner some rights to themselves. From that time, many of us have progressed to where individual rights are now enshrined in law and also in practice.

Yet, as recently as the 17^th Century, England was riven with corruption – it was endemic. Samuel Pepys, the renowned diarist of that time, spent six years to work corruption out of the Royal Navy – which was crumbling under the weight of bribery and nepotism – notably, the sale of position and procurement. Although Pepys was not innocent of corruption himself, as his biographer, Claire Tomalin has written, his own honesty went some way to right some wrongs. England gradually, through the 18^th and 19^th Centuries, eroded corruption from its core but it was not an overnight demolition. Chayes’ example of Singapore and its ability to eradicate corruption almost overnight is a good case of a small nation challenging itself and succeeding. Elsewhere, it takes longer

Chayes focuses sensibly on the role of not just organizations like the military within corrupt nations but organisations outside like the CIA in understanding the drivers against the halting the disease of corruption and the complete erosion of justice. However, as the West (via organisations like the OECD and the US FCPA) progressed after World War II to a consensus on governance and how governance would become part of the stated requirement for development assistance, this has, more recently, been unsettled by the rise of China – which has appeared to care little for such governance considerations – notably in its dealings with African states.

This unsettling of the post-WWII consensus (despite Xi Jingping’s drive to eradicate the disease in China – which many suggest is more politically motivated than anything else) is a major challenge that can be added to Sarah Chaye’s list of issues to be assessed when developing an anti-corruption programme.

A “Great Charter” for the 21^st Century

Sarah Chaye’s book puts corruption at the heart of the problem that besets the world.

• While climate change (with its own problems of solution and understanding) has been seen as a world-wide challenge that has to be resolved;
• while health concerns are the subject of huge technological research and financial resolve;
• while economic prosperity is the subject for everyone at all times;
• while nature conservation and the future of human life on this planet is a central consideration of all;
• while terrorism is dislocating masses, murdering thousands, displacing millions – often through the guise of extreme forms of religion – and requires regular government action;
• corruption plays a role in all the world’s key areas of collapse but has far less formal acknoweldgment.

From small-scale facilitation payments to large scale national strangulation, corruption inhibits and destroys.

The world now needs a charter for the 21^st Century that marries the rights of individuals and justice (started with the Magna Carta in 1215) to the rights of individuals and communities to be unhindered by corruption. We now need a formal acknowledgement of its central corrosive ability that destroys nations, destroys security and completely disallows individual and community justice to take place.

“To no one will we sell what is not ours to sell”

“From no one will we take what is not ours to take”

 

‘to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice’.

200 Years of Peace? 200 Years of Rockets and Bombs?

Dec 24, 1814 – Signing of the Treaty of Ghent between USA and UK

Dec 24, 2014 – Arms Trade Treaty

While we have been commemorating the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, it is now exactly 200 years since the UK and USA signed the Treaty of Ghent signaling the end to the War of 1812 and the establishment in British eyes of American equality, firm agreement on borders and freedom to sail the seas and an agreement to seek the end of slave trafficking. The Treaty was deemed to be “an honourable peace” for the United States that many believe was a rallying call to its citizens – honourably exiting the War with firm borders and a fundamental view of nationhood. The UK and USA have been at peace (outside the odd skirmish) for 200 years and “The Star Spangled Banner” (written in 1814 to commemorate the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Chesapeake Bay by the Royal Navy) remains the anthem of the USA to this day – while its lyrics remain constant:

“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air”

During those 200 years, however, the world has been stricken with world wars and regional conflicts that rewrote borders almost everywhere. We live now with the consequences of borders drawn up by Empires that bore very little resemblance to the needs of the people within them. In many countries in Africa and Asia, nations were brought into being that collected many different peoples. In Africa, these people were then subjected to rulers that grouped them into so-called tribes (that Fukuyama describes as newly created) and have been the cause of much bloodshed since then. Nigeria, for example, was never a nation until it was created by the British and the Muslim north and Christian south are uneasy bedfellows.

21^st Century Nationhood

The 21^st Century offers both great opportunities and great risks. The nations that have been established during those last 200 years may, in many cases, bear little resemblance even after all those years to the people that live there.

• We see this in nations like Ukraine where Russia is attempting destabilization through the indigenous Russian populations in the East.

• We see this in a country like Nigeria – split between a Muslim north and a mainly Christian south.

• We see this throughout the Middle East where the so-called Islamic State (IS) calls for a caliphate and an end to the “arbitrary” borders brought in by the British and others after the First World War, where Sunni and Shia are pitted against each other.

• We see it in many African states, where colonial rulers attempted to develop states which had not existed before and where definition by nation is still hugely misunderstood.

• We see it in China where Tibet has long wanted its independence and where the Uighurs still rally against Han domination.

• We see it even in western Europe where, for example, the Scots only narrowly decided to remain in the UK after a referendum, where the Catalans are keen to split from Spain and where many northern Italians yearn to split from the under-developed and relatively ungovernable south.

• We saw it in the Soviet Union which broke up into states that were better aligned;

• We saw it as Yugoslavia split.

• We saw it as Czechoslovakia split.

Multi-National groupings

 

The 21^st Century has, however, witnessed a rapid drive to globalism so that the inter-relationships of countries with others are more complicated than ever. Whether it is China in Africa or the USA in Central America, leading economies are progressively more dependent on others.

This is now a world where multi-national companies are in competitive positions with nations. Maybe not in the same way that the British East India Company – which still had its monopoly intact at the time of the Treaty of Ghent in 1812 – but where agreements under way such as TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) between the EU and USA, companies are expanding their rights to take Governments to court under the ISDS – investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. Several countries (such as South Africa and Indonesia) are now opting out of such arrangements  which provide an equality between corporations and governments that could well be said to be anti-democratic.

Beyond companies, nations are increasingly engaged in arenas such as the UN, EU, NAFTA, African Union, ASEAN and multitudes of other multi-national engagement devices.

With the rise of the internet and social media, it is also far easier for individuals from opposite sides of the world to group together and do so within seconds.

Orwell posited three regional groupings with continuous warfare in his “1984”. 66 years on from when that book was written, the bipolar world of the US and Soviet Union became the unipolar world of the USA and now sees the rise of China fighting for prime position economically and others fighting for the next division placings within a world of fast communication and many forms of potential divisiveness and opportunities for engagement.

Big Brother may well be in place but it is more two-way as Snowden recently showed. As long as there remains a free press and the use of the internet is available, this will continue in ways that Orwell did not foresee (outside of states like North Korea and, at a lower level, China).

 

Shifting sands

It is not just in the Middle East that the sands shift as IS is fought by the Kurds and local national forces.

Sands continuously shift throughout the world as people group around a variety of causes, ideas and faiths and behind a variety of organisations and individuals. In a complex world, change is constant as our experiences evolve. However, it is clear that nations can no longer hide within themselves – each nation is exposed externally and internally as communication systems expand.

It took several weeks for the fact that the Treaty of Ghent had been signed to be relayed to those in the USA still fighting and dying.

Now, drones don’t just provide the means to inflict missiles on enemies but also provide data and information within milliseconds. Mobile phones provide instant photos and videos worldwide. The so-called Arab Spring was clearly accelerated by such media and took Middle Eastern governments by surprise as a result of that speed. In Tunisia, the results have been impressive for democracy even if elsewhere the forces for vested interests have re-emerged.

We do not know how humans will be organized in 200 years’ time. Issues like the environment and global warming will take precedence as the real (rather than promised) effects bite. These and other impacts will provide a changing environment that will, as always, require the most from human ingenuity. As we would appear to the world of 1814, the world of 2214 will feel very different to now – even if we can assume that technology will maintain our enjoyment of the planet.

But, what we assume to be stable – the nations that we are part of – will undoubtedly shift over this century and beyond. As rapid and increasingly ubiquitous communications become ever more the norm for most of us, and, after what may be a long period of difficult adjustment, there could be a tendency towards a better understanding of humanity beyond national boundaries and of our place on this planet.

While the Treaty of Ghent is hardly a cause of much celebration and it has been almost forgotten amongst the sounds of WWI commemorations, it was significant in that it signaled friendly relations between the most prosperous nation on earth at the time (the UK) and its wayward child (the USA) – two “united” nations that remain and prosper 200 years later – much of that owing to their “special” relationship that has matured during that time.

Today, 24^th December, 2014, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) comes into effect. Could this be the positive event that will be celebrated 200 years from now? That Treaty has been signed up to by 130 nations – not even signed by Russia and China and still to be ratified by one of the signatories to the Treaty of Ghent – the USA. It took several months for the ratification of that Treaty by the US Senate in 2015 – owing mainly to communication delays. There is no such excuse in 2014/15. Let the ATT not be delayed any further – let nations not be swayed by the arms companies.

For now – let’s all enjoy the festive season and my best wishes for 2015!

Scotland and the UK’s Democratic Deficit

It was Bogdanov who coined the phrase “the Dictatorship of Democracy” to describe one of the options for a post-Imperialist Russia. It was Mao Zedong who used the term “Democratic Dictatorship” to Orwellianise the role of the Chinese people to attack the Imperialist spirit of Chiang Kai-Shek.

It may be harsh to turn this phrase on to the UK, but the current referendum in Scotland is showing that there is certainly a Democratic Deficit that being used to characterize why Scotland is turning towards independence (or at the least more devolution) and why English regions and Wales are now excited by the prospect of real, permanent and growing change.

The UK has always had a centralized system of government. Based on English and Scottish monarchic government, the gradual transfer of power to a London-based Parliament composed of the Commons and the Lords testifies to the history of nations that willed government to the centre.

Regional challenges have, over the years, been destroyed – at least until recently. Nothing signified this more than Margaret Thatcher’s destruction of the Greater London Council in 1986 after Labour had won the elections and the Conservative Government could no longer stand its independence. The reinvigoration of London in its new formation – under both Labour and Conservative Mayors – served to provide a key opportunity to test whether the political centre could resist.

Devolution in Scotland and Wales (and the cross-party and cross-religion agreements in Northern Ireland) has been seen as the centre’s evolutionary resistance to change. It was not until the Scotland Act 1998 (just 16 years ago) that devolution was allowed there – having failed in the 1970’s because those in favour of devolution counted to less than 40% of those eligible to vote.

Partly because of the system of elections in the UK (which are first-past-the-post), Governments in the UK have tended to be elected with small percentages of the national vote (around 40%). As a result, the largest minorities gain the majority of the seats (except on rare occasions such as in 2010) and form the Government. This means that regions and nations such as Scotland and Wales may be governed by parties and ideals completely at odds with their own leanings.

For Scotland and Wales, this has been especially galling as they are both, in recent years, anti-Conservative. Whatever they stand for, the Conservatives are not seen in either country as their own. In England, the same can be said for many areas – the South-West (Liberal-leaning), Midlands and North (Labour). It is the south of England (centred around the highly prosperous heartland of London) that dominates national thought and population. Interestingly, London itself is not a Conservative heartland with a tendency towards social democratic ideals, but the outer London Boroughs and the rest of the South-East are dominated by Tory blue.

Democractic Deficit

Centralisation of power is the norm in the UK. The Centre makes all the decisions and regions (outside of Scotland) have modest powers. Most local authorities have decision-making authority over budgets for street lighting, refuse collection, local social care, local policing and similar but the assault on education and on local authority funding from the centre has been fierce in recent years and strengthened the stranglehold of Central Government. Education is a good example. The vast majority of state secondary schools are now Academies – outside of local control and reporting directly to the Secretary of State for Education. There is argument on both sides, but the centering of power into the Department for Education shows itself as part of a default mechanism in England. In Scotland and Wales, this has not occurred.

For Scots, the desire for change has been in evidence since the failed referendum in 1979. The recent debates on Independence focus on the “Yes” position as positive and the “No” position as negative (even if it is named “Better Together” the argument of this position has been entirely negative). David Cameron may have punctured the UK by allowing the referendum to be characterised in this way and none of the UK parties have been able to capture the essence of what positively makes the UK worth having apart from a nod to tradition and the past.

The reality, though, is not much different. Scots do not see the Conservative Party as relevant to them and while devolution has provided much decision-making power, the voice of the UK, spoken through Cameron and his ministers, is a daily reminder of the downside of Unionism. That voice speaks from elsewhere.

Before Cameron was Brown and Blair. Blair was characterized by centrist governance, dogma and, although leading Labour, was still seen to represent a distant (by miles and ideas) government. Brown was so dogged by problems (international finance and personal) that despite being Scottish, he fared no better. He was also a “dyed in the wool” centrist.

This has meant that the desire for self-government is also a desire for real “voice” – one that inspires people. Most Scots are no longer inspired by politicians that they see as remote in terms of distance and in terms of policies. Around half the Scots may well vote that way on 18th September.

Democratising the “Democratic Deficit”

The dictatorship of democracy (that leads to the democratic deficit) by the largest minority is central to UK politics and has been throughout its history in a country that has a relatively benign and social population. Of course, this is not the case in Ireland – a special case. In the rest of the UK (Great Britain), the democratic deficit has not caused national strife since the Civil War in the 17th Century – where there was no democratic ideal even with Cromwell. Apart from skirmishes (such as over the poll tax under Margaret Thatcher), British people have been notably sanguine. There was no Freedom of Information until Tony Blair (and there are many exceptions to this) and ministerial privilege can overturn national accountability such as in the alleged corruption at BAe Systems in Saudi Arabia.

However, the Scots have slightly opened Pandora’s box. Out of this referendum may well come the opportunity to reduce the deficit at least. This has long been a Liberal tradition – blind-sided by the link with Social Democrats in the 1970’s – before the Liberal Democrats came into being. Liberalism was meant to enshrine the spirit of “localism” – against the centrist doctrines of Conservatives and Labour. This localism would have prized a federal Europe (EU) and been at the forefront of devolution for Scotland, Wales and the regions of England.

Devolving as much power as possible to the most local area possible reduces the Democratic Deficit. This is hated by traditional politicians because it loosens power. In a world where national politics is such a profession, it becomes harder to achieve. It is argued that local power begets local corruption – the type of prolonged power that means the same party stays in power for too long and becomes corrupted.

This means that the second pillar of Liberalism, voting by proportional representation, is needed to offset the potential for local dictatorships.

The people of the UK are not naturally inclined to shake up the centre and their desire to maintain first-past-the-post elections shows a desire for little change. It may be that the Scots show the way to change and a reduction in the Democratic Deficit whether they vote “Yes” or “No” on 18th September. It may be a big decision for the Scots – it it already a potential game changer for democracy in the whole of the potentially dis-United Kingdom.

A Bermuda Triangle off the Black Sea

Russia, Ukraine and the Triangle of Mis-rule

 

Everyone knows of the Bermuda Triangle. Not many know of the mysterious area just off the coast of Ukraine that has also suffered a number of strange activities. Various disappearances have occurred in this area which some call the Black Sea’s Bermuda Triangle.

 

Others, not so swayed by superstition, also use a similar phrase to describe the politics of the area. In their paper, “the Black Sea and the Frontiers of Freedom”, Ronald Asmus and Bruce Jackson called that region “the Bermuda Triangle of western strategic studies”. It is an area of confusion, forever (or so it seems) bound up with the history of Russia.

 

Russia’s history is one of suffering and hardship. Its people are hardened by centuries of serfdom, relative poverty and rigid rule from the centre. It is also a history of power and control: from well before the first of the Tsars (Ivan IV) through to the Romanovs, via Lenin and the short-lived Communist regime to the present day. In the West, even after so many years, we misunderstand the core drivers behind the leadership and the people.

 

Russia changed dramatically after the 1905 Revolution and then the October Revolution of 1917 into the expensive experiment that was Communism. Marxist thought was “developed” through Lenin and Stalin into a model of dictatorship that, whilst a complete political change from before, continued the power to rule from the centre.

 

The fall of this elite in 1979 under Gorbachev was an opportunity to ally Russia with western thought on democracy and economics but the power of libertarian economics was too much. For a time, the rush for economic power was electrified across Russia as an elite (the Oligarchs) wrested the power of the economy from the State. The new gangster rule – hugely corrupt, murderous and allowing no opposition – took over from the endemically corrupt regimes that began with Stalin and his underlings.

 

Yeltsin enabled this robbery and corruption by his lethargy and inability to rule a people that prided itself on central control. The West, misunderstanding the rigours of power in Russia, stood by hoping that the new economic opportunities would, somehow, generate a desire for democracy. But, market economics does not need democracy to survive (viz. China) and the Russian economy was not becoming a market economy but a new kind of centrist yet libertarian economy: one that was predominantly corrupt (hugely corrupt) and where individual centres of economic power (whether oligarchs or regional centres) dominated. This new economy was, for a time, the true government of Russia.

 

The Triangle of Mis-Rule in Russia

Vladimir Putin came on to the scene relatively late but enshrines the old order of (mis) rule. He made his way to the top by promising an end to economic shambles and strong centrism in terms of government. The years of Gorbachev and Yeltsin are seen by him (and many Russians) as a disaster – leading to governmental shambles, a loss of Russian honour and an economy shared out between a few ruthless gangsters.

 

Putin has worked to centralize government to himself (the new Tsar) while piecing together an economy based on market basics but which remains heavily unbalanced by corruption and key centres of economic power. This Triangle of Tsarist mis-rule, corruption and economic centres of power are not dissimilar to the pre-communist set-up. It is a reversion to the norm in Russia after communism and the Gorbachev-Yeltsin period of chaos. It is a reversion to what Russia knows best and what its people are still willing to accept – knowing that they cannot have any power of thought, that they will be ruled from the centre both in terms of economics and in terms of the way they live; knowing that corruption will endure and that they will be OK as long as they have enough to get by on and keep quiet. It is a world where the Duma has resumed its original status – merely as an organ to assist the ruler – the Tsar (Putin) – rule.

 

China and Russia – centrism and market economics

 

The world’s heartbeat of communism pulsed in Russia and China. Both countries suffered tremendously for the experiment of their own type of communism – Lenin-Stalinism or Maoism. Both have now moved towards what we perceive as market-driven economies. We (the West) think that our form of economics has won out in both countries and that democracies will automatically follow.

 

Unfortunately, both models show how market-driven economics can be developed in different ways and to suit the ruling elites.

 

China operates as a legalist society whereby the ruling elite sees itself as above the law. This is a blurring of its communist ideology whereby the state is run for the benefit of the ruling ideology. The fact that communism no longer exists means nothing: a ruling elite is considered by itself to be above the law.

 

Of course, the economy is managed very differently to how it was managed under Mao. Deng changed this to entwine market forces within a rigid centrism – made real by ownership of the banks and finance and of key industries and resources. While most pricing mechanisms are set by the market, it is massively influenced by interest rate manipulation, by endemic corruption and by key units of power in local government – and by the family-focused culture. This is a mix of market economics, centrism and Confucianism that is uniquely Chinese.

 

This is wholly different to the Russian model which is far more dominated by the strong man culture. In this way, it could be argued that there is more hope for change. The intertwining of Confucianism with the long-term centrism of Emperor rule through to the Communist rule and now the post-Communist legalism makes China’s “Civilisation State” very hard to break down. Economic change was relatively easy as this was only communist for a relatively short period. Governmental change is far harder to crack.

 

In Russia, this may be true as well but there is no equivalent of Confucianism in Russia and the state apparatus is not as broad in Russia as in China – it was destroyed under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. So, in that short period, the West hoped for real change. Now, Putin has embodied the state apparatus in himself as Tsar.

 

Ukraine – Catch a falling Tsar

 

Putin’s aspirations for a renewed Russia have seen him march into the Crimea and undermine Ukraine. Ukraine was for many years just a smaller version of Russia in Russian minds – Ukainians were termed “Little” or “Southern Russians” in the 19^th Century and Stalin saw them as a tribute nation (similar to the way that China views its neighbours). The Russification began in the 1860’s and it was only the fact that Kruschev was Ukrainian that gave them a measure of independence (and Crimea) around 40 years ago.

 

But, Ukraine is similar in other ways, too. It is endemically corrupt from the top down. It is not just IKEA that has found the corruption difficult to penetrate.

 

Ukraine has seen endemic and high-scale corruption for many years. In 2006, for example, Global Witness (an anti-corruption NGO and this year’s winner of the TED award) published “It’s a Gas” – an expose of the corrupt Turkmenistan – Ukraine gas trade.

 

The report highlighted the case of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who, it claimed, syphoned off huge amounts of money from questionable business practices: money that was then funneled into Swiss Bank accounts. Lazarenko (who served time in the USA) recently had substantial assets seized in the US.

 

The Global Witness report also highlighted the barter economy which anti-corruption experts know as one of the best-known ways to hide massive money transfers illegally.

 

Yet, Lazarenko was not part of the Government clique that Ukrainians pulled down earlier this year. He was closely linked to the earlier regime of Yulia Tymoshenko (the West’s best friend) – very closely linked as an article in January showed.

 

Those in power in Ukraine followed the Russian model. Little Russians modeled themselves on Russia in many ways and this was not limited to one party or one clique. The EU desire to bring Ukraine into the EU tent was not necessarily misguided in the way that Nigel Farage would have us believe but the powerful in Ukraine are essentially part of a highly corrupt clique that dominates the country in the same way that Russia is dominated by its own corrupt. They have divided up the nation’s assets between them.

 

Tsar Gazing

 

This is one reason why Putin is keen to bring Ukraine back into Russia’s control. The horror of the break-up of the Soviet Union was bad enough but assuaged by the economic benefits that accrued to the Putin elite and the retention of power in the hands of the few. This was mirrored in Ukraine – the home of many Russians. The call to patriotism has been partly a response to the shouts for democracy but underneath is a need for Russian mores to be maintained.

 

This is the Triangle of Mis-rule: Tsarist centrism, corruption and economic centres of power that Ukraine has witnessed since it was deemed to have left Soviet control – an exact image of big brother Russia. This is why it is so difficult to break down the stranglehold. Ukraine is fixed within the Bermuda Triangle of the Black Sea.

 

The EU may well have been Tsar Gazing when it simplistically assumed that riots on the streets could topple a government in a bankrupt nation with such a history and such conventions. It appeared not to understand enough about the pull that Russia had on it: Russification going back over 150 years and a model of the economy and government that is a replica of the Russian model.

 

Breaking this down was bound to be a challenge – but it is not clear that the model is sufficiently understood even now. Many write on the endemic corruption but provide little guidance to solving it. Many write on Russification but have no answers other than a hope that “democracy” will triumph. Others write about Putin’s urge to control without too much understanding of the Russian legacy that goes back to the 15^th Century.

 

Can Ukraine break free?

 

It is not just one aspect or another that has to be broken in Ukraine. They have the three corners of the Triangle of Mis-rule to break in addition to the large numbers of Russians – patriots to Russia – in their midst and the larger numbers just over the border in Russia itself.

 

This is a massive challenge and there is no rapid solution.

 

Ukraine is in a mess – as we know. It has lost the Crimea and may well lose the Eastern half of the country. It is not often stated that this may be the best medium-term solution even if it is not one that appears wholly palatable. A loss to Russia of this scale may appear too much and it is, of course, for Ukraine and others to decide. But, the devil’s triangle that operates in Russia and Ukraine is endemic to the Eastern side of the country in a way that could be shaken off more easily in the West. The unthinkable may have to be thought. Without much effort, Putin could regain the Eastern side of Ukraine and the West of Ukraine would then be welcomed into Europe.

 

It is highly likely that governments in the West are already planning for this. As ethnic Russians pore into Ukrainian security buildings, it is clear that the fight for Eastern Ukraine is in its early days. The Western half can, through massive economic help by Europe, be purged of corruption, centrist rule and economic stagnation. Without the East and as part of Europe, it can be made good. While it remains affixed to the Russianised East, it is unlikely to do so for many years.

 

Russia is likely to see eastern Ukraine back in its orbit and remain enclosed with the Triangle of Mis-rule that epitomizes both. What happens after that is something that is also, I am sure, being actively discussed in governments throughout the world.

 

The problem is that nothing will really have changed – Putin’s Russia is endemically riddled with forms of entwined government and economics that are alien to modern-day Europe and the west in general. Changing this will take a long time and Putin, a fit 61 year-old, is in no mood to give up all that Russia provides to him.

 

To an extent, the rest of the world will play a waiting game with Putin. In Ukraine, it may have to understand that Plan B (the break-up of Ukraine) is a potential and real outcome. Maybe, over time, Eastern Ukrainians, bordering an economically advancing Western Ukraine, will begin to appreciate the benefits of freedoms brought by the rule of law that is above all (including government), economic freedoms that are not concentrated in the hands of the few and democracy that can (when done properly) do away with bad government. Maybe, over greater time, Russia (and China) will adapt as well and copy not just the basics of market economics but much more.

 

For the rest of us, understanding the Triangle of Mis-rule would be a good step before the results of misunderstanding are yesterday’s news.

 

 

Antigonistically Speaking – the Permeability of Governance

In a world too confused by the economic rise of China to question whether democracy will ultimately produce the best results for humankind; in a world where fighting between Sunni and Shia, between secular and religious, between Dinga and Machar dominates the news as much as Catholic and Protestant did in the UK not that long ago; in a world where the after-effects of the Arab Spring result in a literal chaos; in a world where street demonstrations in Turkey, Brazil, Thailand and elsewhere have threatened the rule of “law” – we need to question how our political institutions work and whether they are robust and durable enough to withstand the constant pressure that we put them under. In a “global” environment, in the so-called “west”, we should also question what political systems we are operating under – as we fit perilously into local, national, regional and global systems.

Around 441BC, Sophocles wrote Antigone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigone -a Greek tragedy that, as a school kid, I could immediately appreciate – not through the tragic figure of Creon but through Antigone herself. She dared to push against the tyrannical rule of a king at a time when no-one else, let alone a woman, would dare to do so and lost her life as a result. Opposing the law that Creon laid down was, in her view, proper if that law was wrong – if it was tyrannical. I liked that as a pupil in a school where teachers could appear to be on the wrong side of tyranny.

In nearly 2,500 years since Sophocles wrote Antigone, humans have learned and unlearned the story many times. Because we focus on economics so much (i.e. how we generate wealth) we seem no longer sure whether there are other questions that we should be asking. As 2014 gets under way, maybe we should be questioning what the world needs in order to be Antigonistic – being able to prod the rule of law when that law or the implementation of that law is wrong and to understand where it is impossible to do so.

This is not just an argument for democracy but for a system of government and implementation that is permeable – allowing for change. We also should be asking how we fit into the various levels of government – local, national, regional and global.

It is also worth looking at how we understand where the permeability does not exist at all and where gentle prodding is not likely to succeed – for it is there that fractures happen.

Permeability

It is the ability of our human systems to be permeable (in normal times) that enables them to evolve as our needs change. It means that old-fashioned notions can be changed and that structures which are worn-out can be thrown away. When permeability does not exist, then tyranny wins out.

The permeability of authority is applicable to any organization or structure: from corporate to national government and beyond. In the 21^st Century, as communication systems and capabilities continue to rise, how such structures take in information and change is a critical factor for our social existence.

The change in governmental structures from strong individuals (appointed by the gods) through the tyrannies of dictators and various forms of democracy can be seen in their permeability to new thoughts and to absorb the thoughts of others.

God-given rights to rule (whether Charles I of England or Louis XIV of France) were thought of as indisputable in the same way that the earth was thought of as flat. Such rights were disposed of in the 20^th Century by political “truths” such as communism or fascism. These “truths” swapped god-appointed rulers for political dictators. Elsewhere, the “big man” tradition as shown by Idi Amin in Uganda or dos Santos in Angola is similarly impermeable to change or outside thought.

In China, the story of impermeability is writ large. The civilization state (Martin Jacques) has evolved at the top from god-appointed rule to political dictat but the impermeability remains. Whether the excuse is heavenly authority or communist or legalism, the ability of that nation’s leadership to restrict change through the impermeability of its structures remains.

The Permeability Grid

Any organization can be assessed as somewhere on the grid of permeability. At its worst extreme today, North Korea stands out – completely impermeable to any thought of change or even discussion, it embodies the lunacy of not just tyranny but of the inability to listen to any reason. This is not just about governing but also about the basic rights of its people. North Korea would get 0 on the scale of impermeability.

Of course, moving too far towards complete permeability is towards chaos. The other extreme (100 on the scale) would be where every thought is taken on board and acted on. This represents an organization that has no control – which some would find enjoyable even if chaotic – but often leads to mayhem. An example of this may be Waterworld  or some other dystopian view of the future, but the tendency here is that it leads towards strong group asserting themselves and veering back towards 0.

The balance between tyranny and chaos is commonly held to be democracy and open societies where the key parameters of society allow and enable freedom of thought and opinion with individual and group rights yet within structures that avoid chaos. This is not at the centre politically but may well be at the centre in terms of permeability.

 

This grid works in a similar way to complexity theory – the way that complex adaptive systems work. The tyrannies occupy the areas of stasis at the opposite end to chaos. In the middle, where real evolution happens, stands the “edge of chaos” – it is reasonable to assume that the best democratic, open societies or organisations exist here or should have ambition to do so. It is at the edge of chaos that real permeability exists – the ability of groups of people to listen, understand and adjust. This is where evolution happens without revolution.

The Common Threads blog has been all about how we are mired in rigid 19^th Century establishments – even in democratic nations like the USA and the UK. There are a myriad of examples. Humans have evolved many ways to do itself down and ruling elites, wherever they are, enforce lack of permeability through many devices.  Even in supposedly open societies like the USA and UK, rigidity seems to be the natural default mechanism. This leads to poor voter turnout and reactions to Edward Snowden as we have recently seen.

Of course, these can be considered minor against other nations which vary from terror to corruption. South Africa, for example, has moved decidedly from one extreme – the tyranny of apartheid (terror) – but is in danger of side-stepping back into chaos.

Mandela shined a light into the darkness

The worldwide sadness that accompanies the death of a great man or woman shines some light into the cavernous darkness of those who do not live by the same high principles. This has been the case with the death of Madiba as was witnessed by the South Africa’s President Zuma when he rose to speak in front of his subjects in the memorial event in Johannesburg.

Jacob Zuma has been accused of corruption – millions of Rands of government money allegedly spent on his own property – an excess now termed Nkandlagate after the name of the region. The Guardian reported on this in November.

Yet, both fought the tyranny of apartheid – where a dictatorship of a minority (mainly of whites over blacks) could have been fractured by conflict but was changed by an eventual collapse of belief by the majority (under pressure from the rest of the world and its own black population) and nurtured to a peaceful outcome by Mandela.

Nelson Mandela was not one to overtly criticize those in the ANC that committed corruption. The ANC was his “home” but Mandela’s spirit of understanding and compassion must have been stretched to the limit when seeing his ANC brothers and sisters involved in enriching themselves at the expense of the mass of poor people in his country.

Andrew Feinstein, a former South African MP and ANC member, has written vividly on the post-Mandela corruption in South Africa in his book: “After the Party”

Lighting up the shadows

Under Nelson Mandela’s giant shadow, there lies a worldwide web of corruption that is not just within the borders of his home country. As the boos rang out to embarrass Jacob Zuma, the question is whether they sounded loud enough to make a difference. Can the moments of reflection on Nelson Mandela’s life shine a light into the shadow so that those who see the problem act on it?

Throughout the world, corruption exists in many forms. The recent edition of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index showed that South Africa ranked 72^nd (along with Brazil) out of 177 nations evaluated. Jacob Zuma and his compatriates may have corruption issues but there are (according to the Index) 105 countries in a worse state.

Nigeria – which is 144^th on the 2013 list – has just recently seen a letter from the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria being sent to the President asserting that $50 billion of oil revenues has gone missing – representing 70% of the value of such revenues since 2012. Mr Sanusi’s letter calls for immediate audits of the oil accounts.

Whether or not the revenues have been misappropriated, the fact that the Governor of the Central Bank believes that they may have, this points to a society that is prone to corruption – and it is known to be on a grand scale.

Corruption can be seen as the brother of tyranny. Instead of terror, it provides a method of keeping the population quiet. Zimbabwe’s use of income from the Marange diamond fields ensures that the political leadership there is relatively secure and that real democracy / open society cannot permeate.

Angola is another example where Sonangol (the State Oil business) serves to ensure that oil revenues find their right place in the hands of the President and his family and retinues.

In both, terror accompanies the corruption of the resource curse and shows the methodology of keeping stasis – maximising the chances of ruling elites clinging to power and power over the resources of a nation.

How Do we Want to Live?

The rise of China and our continued reliance on economic growth / GDP as the only measure of our success as humans should give us pause – where “us” includes the Chinese as much as anyone else. If those of us in the democracies of the world believe that open societies are important, how important are they to us? How do they compare with a bit more GDP (knowing how unreliable GDP is anyway as a measure of wealth) and how unreliable is it to see economics as the foundation for the quality of our lives? How threatened are we by the non-democratic regimes elsewhere? Does China’s economic success of the past thirty years) threaten their internal structures or the rest of the world’s? Should we react to other nations’ lack of permeability – statis enforced by terror or corruption or legalism?

Common Threads has been about the impermeability of our legal, political, economic and social structures and changes needed in nations like the UK and USA. With the global economy upon us and with world-wide challenges such as climate change and resource scarcity; with G8 and G20 providing economic mechanisms for mutual dialogue; with Arab nations struggling to maintain the Arab Spring against the drive to stasis in places like Egypt and chaos as in Syria and Libya – how hard should we be pushing the “edge of chaos” – democracy – as the right answer throughout the world, knowing that this may cause us economic harm if the Chinese government, for example, don’t like what we say?

Is the alternative to motivating others to our ideals the fear that we could fall into the trap of impermeable extremism (as Golden Dawn in Greece would extol) or even the trap of Tea Party / Ayn Rand rigidity? China, Angola and many other states need an Antigone but it has to be more than brave students at Tiananmen Square. Antigonism will only work when our governments are brave enough to extol our open government world-wide.