The Road to Serfdom

I have been reading Hayek’s best-selling cult book The Road to Serfdom and the problem is that I don’t know if it is the 1930s again. According to my experience the last 13 years a new type of fascism is back to haunt us. The problem is I don’t know how spread these practices are. In Sweden they could be, as Hayek suggests, the result of years of social democracy that has formed the nation of Sweden.

Behavior wise this might be derived from the need from societal guidance rather than individualism where more people have things to say about each person’s behavior and thus there would be more occasions for punishment which could act over the years. People that are more orderly could suffer from greater risk of cyclically develop fascism. There is a problem with political violence currently.

According to Hayek individualism promotes a social process of super-individual forces that drives the growth of reason. I must say I buy into this principle all the way. It is the same principle that makes basic science work to the benefit of mankind. Hayek said that tending a civilization as a gardener tends a plant by understanding its structure and function is the best approach. Only one civilization bloomed so far in the 1500s to 1600s and this has fertilized all others.

Another point Hayek might have made is that freedom is more important than security, what is called “trygghet” in Swedish. The US is less secure than Europe and risk taking is something that the Americans are fond of. They lie closer to the edge and try more things and it is possible to come back after a bankruptcy. What would be interesting to know if this attitude difference has anything to do with the proficiency and creativity in science as well as in business? Business pays in a way for science so there is definitely an indirect effect. American freedom has lured many a scientist and innovator to the US though, despite of less security.

A person like Hayek is not throwing people on the street though. He says in 1944: “but there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity for work, can be assured to everybody”. This sounds like an ordinary Swedish “försörjningsstöd”. What is becoming more of an issue these days, and which is more readily state by Americans, is that the European welfare model could turn out to be too expensive when four times as many people from China and India is joining the race. The Italian welfare minister cried in public when the new technocrat prime minister laid down his new budget.

Individualism breeds tolerance the lack of which is an increasing problem in Europe the last years. Right wing populism is back and in Hungary Victor Orban is trying to make his country more autocratic which luckily the EU is trying to prevent and is reacting on. Well, how serious is the situation? What bothers me is that everyone is trying to tell me that I should not complain and that I exaggerate. However, if I can’t complain on what I have encountered, there is real trouble in Europe.

I Think I'm Becoming More of a Conservative

I salute David Cameron for his veto to the EU because I think I have become more conservative and appreciate the maintenance of Anglo-American culture versus the new form of polity that is emerging in Europe under the leadership of Germany. Liberal seems to mean merging the Anglo-American culture with the Continental which is not realistic. Gideon Rachman points out in his column that the Netherlands and France seem to be hanging rather lose in the new constellation formed. France because the socialists, if they win in the spring, would opt against. What I don’t like with the Germans so far is the strong anti-Americanism displayed in their English propaganda magazine Spiegel Online International. The English journals and magazines are more neutral against Germany.

Sweden has ended up in a precarious situation the reason for which I am a little unsure. I had this idea that the Swedes that historically have had a soft spot for the strong leader would have liked the EU and to become more of a guided citizen of Europe than a member of the “free world” now when crisis strikes and federalism is back on the agenda. Many politicians and industry in Sweden are German and would like an EMU membership but the populace is to 80% against this development currently. This surprised me actually and the question is if this is Germanophobia, Anglophilia, or just holding tight in your wallet for southern profligacy? The fact that English is used in media and music to a great extent in Sweden probably adds to the ambivalence. Birgitta Ohlsson, the EU minister, Jan Björklund, party leader in the People’s Party, and Carl B Hamilton, chairman of the EU commission today write in Svenska Dagbladet  that Sweden should join the “core of Europe”. That would mean EMU membership or at least membership in the new coalition. The new suggested Left Party leader Jonas Sjöstedt immediately takes a point that they act against the people. It is interesting to find Tories side by side with Swedish Left Partiers!

People are demonstrating in Italy because of Monti’s austerity measures which raise the question if the German austerity way is actually going to destabilize Europe. If these problems become more severe this might lead to a notion from the market that a federalization attempt of the Eurozone would not add to financial improvement. People seem therefore have lost hope and walk out on the street without a clear objective. They do not sense the reality of the emergency. Large numbers are just large numbers and not years of hard work with less to balance the books. They feel unfairly treated and cheated by everybody. Almost all serious writes that publish in the free media diagnose the problem as a problem of a widening gap between the rich and the poor. In order to entice investors Merkozy let the private investors off the hook in the deal and loaded the problem onto the taxpayers, something that did not show very clearly in the aftermath.

What kind of new culture is forming under Germany on the Continent then? It is different both in its economy and in its general culture. Germany is well founded in philosophy, literature and music but it is not clear exactly where they stand politically, except that they have a right of center and a left of center party with a strong former communist block as of recently. Catholicism will be a strong factor in its development. They even have a German-born and raised Pope. That is a factor that ameliorates the fusion with Poland but not with Sweden. Britain is a more secular and religiously open-minded country which fits better with the liberal immigration politics of Sweden. The Orthodox Greeks are culturally and economically way out as I pointed out before. How does Catholicism influence people then compared to a more secular religiously open-minded setting. It could have an effect on the degree of privacy due to the culture of the Confession. Personally I believe strongly that maintaining privacy is a survival factor for future civilizations.

What does Britain have to offer the Swedes then? Its culture multiplies the knowledge-factor via the second language with a factor of at least ten times. We can directly access the Anglo-American literature and all its text books for academia. Unless Sweden would go back to German as a second language they will always have problems on the Continent. The problem there for the Germans is clear. Their language does not sound that attractive so it does not work as efficiently to foster a culture as English. Therefore there is a risk that there will be harder power than what would be needed in the English case. In an era where teaming up to survive is becoming more and more necessary to challenge the gargantuan Chinese state it is important to realized that Sweden is a small country which has to form ties with for them the right partners. The time has come again for a decision. Last time around Sweden made a U-turn after the war. Will they make a U-turn post battle this time when the smoke clears?

The Post-World War II Era in a Nutshell?

The following is a tale created by excerpts from Samuel P Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies from 1968 with my comments in brackets:

The most important political distinction among countries concerns not their form of government but their degree of government. The differences between democracy and dictatorship are less than the differences between those countries whose politics embodies consensus, community, legitimacy, organization, effectiveness, stability, and those countries whose politics is different in these qualities.

The US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union have different forms of government, but in all systems the government governs. [Fukuyama did not like this one]

I do know, Walter Lippman has observed, that there is no greater necessity for men who live in communities than that they be governed, self-governed if possible, well governed if they are fortunate, but in any event, governed.

In politics, as in economics, the gap between developed political systems and underdeveloped political systems, between civic polities and corrupt polities, has broadened.

During the 1950s and 1960s the numerical incidence of political violence and disorder increased dramatically in most countries of the world. This was due to rapid social change and the rapid mobilization of new groups into politics coupled with the slow development of political institutions.

The equality of political participation is growing much more rapidly that the art of associating together. Social and economic change—urbanization, increases in literacy and education, industrialization, mass media expansion—extend political consciousness, multiply political demands, broaden political participation. The primary problem of politics is the lag in the development of political institutions behind social and economic change.

[Huntington’s book came out 1968 as governments started to apply the technology. The democratic wave he then observed was probably due to this application where political institutions where suppressed rather than extended in scope. We might be in a phase where this suppression is giving in and the social and economic development have ran ahead of the suppressed new-speak political development. It went well in the Age of Transformation and Optimism but now in the Age of Anxiety we will be governed by people that never knew how “normal” life was—the driven people. Has the psychology of man changed with the technology use?]

In American thinking, the causal chain was: economic assistance promotes economic development, economic development promotes political stability. However, economic development and political stability are two independent goals and progress toward one has no necessary connection with progress toward the other.

A second reason for American indifference to political development was the absence in the American historical experience of the need to found a political order. This gap in historical experience made them particularly blind to the problems of creating effective authority in modernizing countries.

Madison warned in The Federalist No 51: the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. The primary problem is not liberty but the creation of a legitimate public order. Authority has to exist before it can be limited, and it is authority that is in scarce supply in those modernizing countries where government is at the mercy of alienated intellectuals, rambunctious colonels, and rioting students.

[The development of social and political order decreased severely with the introduction of technology governance. Development was frozen in time. The worst example was perhaps Libya. In developed countries where the political order was established we found a different development post-1968. However, was the fall of the Soviet Union due to a technology –induced crash? Is the polarization seen in the US right now due to larger hostility between systems of people due to the technology? In my experience people in systems have reverted to clannish behavior. It is on/off behavior.]

Niall Ferguson's Take on Europe?

Niall Ferguson has written a ten year projection on Europe, The Saturday Essay, on wsj.com. I guess this is the kind of thing he dishes out to students at Harvard for comments. Therefore I can’t resist the temptation to comment myself, albeit on a more humble level.

Ferguson thinks Norway will pop the question about a Nordic Union with Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland but he does not think they would be in close contact with Britain. This idea was up for discussion in the Swedish press not long ago. They even speculated on how to fuse the different royal houses into one. At the time I thought this was irrelevant because of the presence of the European Union. Why one more? The foreign minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, thought the same way. The Nordic countries are actually quite different, especially Finland, which is already a member of the Eurozone. Ferguson thinks they would change allegiance, apparently. This is perhaps not so likely. There is a movement in Finland right now in the other direction. They want to remove Swedish from their schools. Finland was taken from Sweden 1809 by Russia after having been together for 700 years. This legacy means many Finns speak Swedish. Being close to Russia after years of Finlandization they rather cuddle up to Germany and the Eurozone for independence of a sort they prefer.

Sweden might also be in the mood of joining the Eurozone according to the politicians and the industry. It makes sense both economically and security wise. It is interesting that very little of current discussions on Europe involves NATO and security issues. America has vanished from the equation. It seems like Germany and the zone has supplanted it. People giving opinions on the matter in the Swedish press thinks Sweden, Denmark, and Britain will be forced to join the zone and support countries in trouble. Only the independently wealthy Norwegians seems to be able to do as they please. If politicians and industry in Sweden want to join Germany, it still might be difficult to convince the populace which watches British and American TV every day and don’t want to pay for the profligate Greeks. However, if the US can’t fix their gridlock in Congress soon and start working on their debt, people will lose their sense of security from the US and turn to Germany for comfort.

Ferguson is bullish on Britain and wishes it will stay out of the Eurozone which is my feeling also. He thinks Ireland would rejoin the English kingdom which I would also believe on cultural vibes. The Brits would not ever join the Eurozone and I have earlier suggested that they would form not Taiwan but Japan outside a Chinese equivalent Continent. He thinks Britain would be preferred for banking by China rather than Brussels although he envisions some sale of assets to the Chinese to go with that. When the ten Euro-countries fall to the Germans, that Ferguson suggests, there will be a new phase in European development built on German language and culture. Maybe Brussels will be moved to Berlin rather than to Vienna that Ferguson suggests. When France, Spain, Italy and seven other countries fall, people would flee to the security of a joined Eurozone that keeps the Russians at bay.

Ferguson seems to have an idea that the SPD would gain momentum is Germany. Angela Merkel, raised in East Germany, does have a streak of Social Democrat over her politics so maybe he is right and that the Eurozone will become something to the clear left of the US and Britain, even if the Democrats rule. Sweden’s center-right is also moving leftwards. What happens in China will probably also be important in terms of foreign investments. If China becomes socialist rather than robber baron capitalist they might favor the Eurozone preferentially over the new English kingdom. Personally I have this naïve idea that the US and Europe would start investing in jobs in their own hemispheres rather than in Asia, despite short sighted growth aspects and then Britain could count on support from this angle as well.

In 2012, Ferguson believes, Israel will attack Iranian nuclear facilities with all problems thus induced, like a blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. I don’t think this is likely. According to The Economist the Israeli military is against such a move which is going to be too problematic. My feeling is that the Arab Spring is slowly going to make the region Islamist/socialist. That would make the Israeli position continuously worsening as the US seems to leave the area for South East Asia in their Pacific Century. The response to the Muslim world is then going to be focused on the relationship with Europe which differs between The New English Kingdom and the Eurozone, or The United States of Europe, as Ferguson calls it. Israel does not have a good relationship with Europe, unfortunately, and might be forced into accepting to give up it Jewish state for something similar to South Africa, since Europe is so heavily on the side of the Palestinians, which I’m personally not. The fact The Arab Union went against Assad, sort of, is though a positive sign for the area, that could speak for a relative future stability.

Wolfgang Münchau at the Financial Times the other day claimed that saving the Euro would destroy the EU. Ferguson is on the same track. It is very likely that Germany with its “not now but later” approach have worked the situation into a two pronged result. Either they become rulers of the Eurozone with a weakened France or the whole thing falls apart with them still standing on the remnants to mind their own business with Russia.

The Next Trend?

Samuel P Huntington wrote the following in his 1996 book Clash of Civilizations:

“In the early 1990s, Chinese made up 1% of the Philippine population but were responsible for 35% of the sales of domestically owned firms. In Indonesia in the mid-1980s, the Chinese were 2-3% of the population but owned roughly 70% of the private domestic capital. Seventeen of the twenty-five largest businesses were Chinese-controlled, and one Chinese conglomerate was responsible for 5% of Indonesia’s GDP. In the early 1990s, the Chinese were 10% of Thailand’s population but owned 9 of the 10 largest business groups and were responsible for 50% of its GDP. Chinese are about one third of the population in Malaysia but completely dominate the economy.”

The US is going Pacific and the UK is pondering Europe. David Cameron is talking about a “networked Europe” rather than a block Europe. The Germans, however, wants “more Europe” which probably means a more German Europe, if Angela Merkel is going to get full support from the Germans. Thus the new trend is that the US is facing stiff competition from the Chinese in East Asia and the Pacific and the UK in Continental Europe.

Another new trend might be the language question. Mandarin Chinese might take over much of the English dominance in East Asia and German might have a renaissance on the Continent. Culture follows power! Before World War II Swedish children learned German as their first foreign language.

Anglo-Americans and also other Europeans might though find comfort in the following statistic:

“If demographic trends continue, well over 50% of the world’s Christians will be in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia within 25 years—a clear shift from Christianity’s traditional home in Europe and North America.”

It is from the 2010 book Religion and Politics in America: Faith, Culture, and Strategic Choices by Robert Booth Fowler et al. Perhaps we should let the Chinese dominate East Asia and focus on South America and Africa which even lies in our time zones and where we are more likely to find hearts and minds than in the assertive Asia.

This book also tries to explain how a religious America works compared to a secular China. The religious pluralism observed in America functions as a vent for freedom making possible a streamlined collective approach in the economy. People will feel free with maintained integrity as long as they can exercise their faith.

The last 20 or so years in the US feature what could be called the Fifth Great Awakening with an increase especially in evangelical Protestantism. The First Great Awakening in American came before the Revolution in the 18^th century. Periodically America turns spiritual and looks for the next political reform. We have yet to see what lies in stock this time.

No More Multiculturalism in the EU?

Angela Merkel, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy have all said that multiculturalism is dead in Europe. That would mean:  we don’t want any Muslim ghettos in Sweden. But do we want any Swedish ghettos in the EU? Sweden represents 2% of the EU population. There are 4% Muslims in Sweden.

I guess this is a way of expressing what I have already said, in so many words, but it is an interesting angle. The low interest in teaching history lately might have been an attempt to make people more European by having them less prone to local identities. They have apparently had the same kind of ideas in the US. People like Niall Ferguson have fought against this trend by pointing out that certain cultures perform better than others and that there is competition in the world. Arguing for history education is thus counterproductive for multiculturalism but it might help people evolve faster by realizing how to compete globally.

In fact, multiculturalism is not dead in Europe at all. The EU motto is “united in diversity”. It is like preserving diversity in nature. Save the species! But what is nature’s idea with many species? It is if one does not survive another might. It is an insurance policy. My question is can we afford this insurance today? After all, most of Europe’s countries have been tagging along for quite a while.

OK, the talk of an “ever closer union” might be old hat in some quarters but there seems to be this force around, and people to match, that makes this happen a little in the dark. Inch by inch! People don’t seem to like this, reading from the polls, but, inch by inch. Time has come to ask if this is good or bad.

Harmonizing the rules across the EU actually makes some sense but will the sense of freedom linger while streamlining things. The US unionized with one language 200 years ago. The Chinese 2,200 years ago. I guess what I’m trying to say is that things are moving in a direction where politicians in Europe need to work for changing the motto of the EU. Why not “United at Last”.

I would not mind in principle at all that Sweden disappeared as a sovereign country as long that I felt that we were moving in the right direction. Swedish culture is probably close to a competitive mainstream that would be selected. Some other countries in EU27 would have to adjust more. Personally, I would move to the US, if I could afford it but, I honestly believe that a United States of Europe would be a good thing for Sweden.

The reason for arguing in this direction for me would be that Western civilization performance is at stake if two competitive centers, North America and the EU, don’t form. A two-party system for the Western Civilization.

American Exceptionalism turns Universalism then What?

Samuel P Huntington’s epos from 2004 Who Are We? is an interesting read even for Europeans. The Jews have claimed that they are God’s chosen people, which of course have irritated quite a few,  but if 300m Americans claim the same thing this must be considered preposterous, or? After the fall of the Soviet Union Francis Fukuyama, a student of Huntington, wrote a book called The End of History and the Last Man. We had, according to Fukuyama reached a point where liberal democracy was the Universal remedy for world politics. With the rise of China, without God and democracy, we have seen that East Asia can create prosperity as well. That leaves the Western Civilization divided: Europe, the cradle of Western Civilization and the Scientific Revolution, which could also be called exceptional, and the New World now led by Obama, the first Pacific President, no longer universal.

The attitude to the economy and the respective solutions to the financial crisis is different between the US and Europe. The US want to stimulate and Europe choses austerity. The welfare state is more developed in the EU. The US population is growing whereas the European countries are contracting relatively speaking. Immigration takes place in both with the US filling up with Mexicans and Asians and Europe with Africans and Muslims. The US is highly religious whereas Europe is more secular. Americans work harder than the Europeans, at least more hours per year, and are genetically from adventurous, more risk prone, Europeans. Americans have involved themselves more in world security and have a significantly larger military force. Since World War II the Americans have excelled in science and technology but the Europeans are catching up.  I will always work for maintaining good relations between the US and Europe but have seen during the last years that they are distancing themselves from each other more and more.

There is, however, one big difference: America is the United States of America but the EU can’t make up its mind about federalizing. When I started out in Political Science a few years ago, I thought the United States of Europe was a good idea. I thought English as a second language for all EU states was commendable and would keep a common culture alive trans-Atlantically. Then I realized that this was unattainable due to public nationalism. The European debt crisis gives Europe a push in the United States of Europe direction. How strong this push is going to be is an obvious question? Greeks are out demonstrating for World War II money from Germany so tensions have evolved to a malign degree.

The Davos Men or economic transnationals, that Huntington discusses, live in a global world already where they have less nationalism to start with but they might not actually need the Western Civilization either because they do a lot of business in Japan, India and China as well. However, they might just have to start thinking about getting the public with them a little considering for example the Occupy Wall Street movement. In this sense I am very Huntingtonian. They used to say there is more trans-Atlantically that we have in common than separating us. I still think this is true. The lesser evil is probably to keep the EU together, despite democracy deficit, to develop this market as a global competitor. We are going to need people around us that do business our way and that continue developing science as we started. In this way southern immigration into our civilization becomes a good thing that maintains the Western world in an amiable relationship with this world.

Freedom of Religion in the US is Individualistic

Denis Lacorne wrote in his book that Samuel P Huntington claims that the US is a deeply religious country, defined by an American Creed, and that the US is neither secular nor a religious theocracy. It was actually Gunnar Myrdal who in 1944 defined the American Creed. After reading Huntington’s Who Are We? from 2004, I’m convinced that Huntington’s idea is more correct. He says that the new US was already forming as John Locke was born 1632 thus staying with Tocqueville on this one. American exceptionalism, he says, is not to a little part due to its religiousness. What also makes the US unique and the most religious protestant country is that many sects were allowed to form and thus made possible a more individualist religious life. What Lacorne also forgot to say was that the Catholicism in the US is very protestantized which makes it less authoritarian.

However, if you ask Americans what about the US they are most proud of 85% say the political system. This should be compared with 7% for Germans. It therefore seems like the Americans are united under an American Creed, a political idea, at the same time as they have religion for community and support. In 2002 a court in San Francisco decided by a 2 to 1 vote that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance were a violation of the separation of church and state. The words therefore were unconstitutional. However, this became highly controversial and the Senate passed a resolution 99 to 0 that the decision be reversed. A Newsweek poll claimed 87% of the public supported inclusion of the words while 9% opposed. Atheists are less popular than Muslims in the US.

President Clinton claimed that America needed a third “Great Revolution”, in addition to the American Revolution and the Civil Rights Revolution, where they “prove that we literally can live without having a dominant European culture”. Huntington means that this multiculturalism would threaten American Identity. He sketches four development possibilities: multiculturalism; bifurcated into Latin and English; exclusivist with revival of racial and ethnic concepts: and a preferred cultural path where Americans stick to their Creed. In light of the dismissal of multiculturalism in Europe this is interesting. Currently “ever closer union” is what seems most popular to save the Union in what could be described as a desperate attempt to find a European Creed.

The Road to Political Freedom

Thomas Friedman claims there is a close connection between economic freedom and political freedom in his book Capitalism and Freedom from 1962. He points out that there is no place with political freedom that does not have economic freedom but he also says that economic freedom does not guarantee political freedom. Seems up to date today! However, Francis Fukuyama discusses the political without the economical in his latest book The Origins of Political Order. I did wonder about that but it is of course a simplification for clarity. Cultural matters might not be sufficiently independent of economic issues to be treated separately.

Fareed Zakaria writes on the Global Public Square blog that President Obama thinks the US has gone “soft”. One thing is that he for example has apologized for America’s conduct, which I think is way out of line. I wonder what he meant by soft? Is it staying democratic and free that is soft nowadays?

There is a tendency to think that China’s and the East Asian authoritative economic miracle is a discovery of a short cut to material wellbeing. The cumbersome and confusing democratic parliamentary way is passé. But if you add the J curve of Ian Bremmer to transit from economic freedom to political freedom there is indeed an obstacle to pass. There is no country that made that pass without exterior help so far. Is it possible? Perhaps the soft nation is rather on the right track and China on its traditional 2,500 year authoritative ditto. You simply have to believe in America like Mitt Romney stated in his recent speech that countered Obama’s idea.

How important is then political freedom? After all Friedman says that economic freedom is an extensive part of total freedom. Is it worth dying for? That is not an obvious question in Europe for example where defense budgets are slashed. The Arab Spring tells a story where people non-violently demonstrate for freedom non ultra descriptus. Is this a reminder?

If political freedom does not add benefits to society in the form of a more developed material wellbeing, the West might be in for trouble of convincing the rest of its glory. This is another way of asking what President Obama meant by going soft. Losing faith in a way of life on a higher qualitative level! I for one think political freedom offers a higher quality life.

What Obama actually said was this:

“The way I think about it is, you know, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft and, you know, we didn't have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track."

This might mean that Obama does believe in democracy but somehow thinks people were a little too “lazy”. But I was not of the understanding that the US had been less competitive rather succumbed to a financial disaster. So, I still wonder what he meant by soft which apparently the two GOP candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry also did.

So, was Friedman right? Is there really a close connection between economic freedom and political freedom? This remains the crucial question for the upcoming decades and perhaps this century.

September 11, 2001?

Daniel Pipes claims, in his book In the Path of God from 1983 which was republished 2002 after the 9/11 catastrophe, that militant Islam, or fundamentalism, is hopeless which I agree with. He drew the conclusion in 2002 and 1983 that Muslims had to westernize in order to modernize. I guess this is not valid because Asian countries have been modernizing without completely westernizing, keeping a distinct original character. Samuel P Huntington, in his book Clash of Civilizations from 1996, claims that the Western civilization is not universal hinting at the possibility that the Sinic and Muslim civilizations will never merge into the Western.  My analysis of this extremely important issue is that the western culture is the most biological and psychologically most correct one. Other cultures have to use more coercion to get people to thrive. This would be an argument for advocating westernization. Already John Locke, who was trained as a physician, set forward psychologically relevant rules and rights. A major risk is that an Asian country could with harsher, inhumane methods push their people to challenge the West economically. Someone said that an equivalent of the Roman Empire development could take place from this time’s democratic embryo. I don’t believe this will happen though. The West is more significant than Greece was at the time.

Why did the destruction of the 11^th September 2001 take place? Pipes argues that westernization is more problematic for the Muslims than modernization and the Arab Spring that we witness today is probably more a modernization attempt rather than a westernization ditto. Since 1983 the population of Egypt and Iran has doubled, and this madness creates a very large youth unemployment. Most Muslims adhered to traditional Islam where people realized that sharia did not work and had come to a compromise which Pipes calls The Medieval Synthesis, although there has been fundamentalists all the way from the beginning. Pipes argues that from about 1970 oil wealth has made Muslims more fundamentalistic although he says in the foreword of the 2002 edition of his book that the issue is more complicated.

Looking back ten years it has become seemingly conventional wisdom, especially in Europe, that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have been completely in vain. I’m not so sure. If the US had not reacted forcefully, terrorism might have been encouraged. Now the swift occupations told governments in the Middle East to prevent terrorism on their soil that might otherwise be dealt with in a similar fashion. Saddam Hussein was also a person that was so disastrous in the region that removing him also set a precedent which Gadhafi now have faced. I therefore do not think the human sacrifice demanded so far have been in vain. What we have learned so far, however, is that being the leader of the free world is making you undeservedly unpopular.

Which culture will make the next major move?

Took a walk down to the Ersdal Bay and back via the harbor today again, as I did yesterday. 15 to 17 degrees Celsius, thus perfect. Time to make some plans for the fall. The overall subject that I am researching is which culture should carry mankind into the future. Into the unknown. It is not going to be just one. East and West will probably continue to run parallel. The two party system of the world. The main hypothesis is that the West has found out a path of higher fidelity than the East with a more mature political development. Thus assuming that there are no genetic differences between the two populations. The political system of the West is more mature for the simple reason that people are allowed to think and act politically. From Ian Bremmer’s book The End of the Free Market form 2010 it is possible to extrapolate that there is about 25% state capitalists in the world currently which is offsetting the balance and currently causing a slump in the West. Since the rich in the West are making money in the East as austerity is mandated in the West for ordinary people, notable billionaires are talking about paying more in tax for the sake of stability. Personally I think it is not wise with too progressive tax tables since the rich allocate money better than the state for the performance of the economy. Bremmer brings up this point, while claiming that the state is not that good as the shareholders in allocating funds, why state capitalism risks being less efficient economically.

Although I’m not so sure myself, it seems like most people think the power of science and innovation on all levels is going to play out equally well in the East as in the West. That would remove Joseph Nye’s argument of the higher recruitment of talent to the US than to China and leave Gideon Rachman’s focus on the economy more pertinent. The economy will depend on how people organize themselves in the functioning parts of the world and how areas like the Middle East and North Africa develops from lower levels. The fight on how to build up Libya has started and the obvious question is if it’s going to be free-market or state capitalism which is important since Libya’s development could become a blue-print for the entire area. State capitalism is probably easier to apply to a country of Libya’s type, Algeria is already state capitalist to a certain degree and also runs on oil, but I hope they will convince the Libyans to choose free-market capitalism due to the better harmony possible with the EU in this case. Bremmer has a series of comments in his book as to the prognosis of state capitalism and he seems to think that it represents a dead end, which I tend to agree with. Improvements of free-market capitalism are a more probably path of development. In an era where the economists have problems understanding the economy it is troublesome that we ask politicians to regulate it, understanding it even less, but it seems to be necessary.

The Vikings might not have been that bad after all?

According to Francis Fukuyama’s book The Origins of Political Order from 2011 rule of law and accountable government originated in Europe quite early. Rule of law consolidated to the Common Law in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and Rule of law on the Continent came about from the canon of the Catholic Church which they put together from the Roman Justinian Code after having freed themselves from the state by Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085). Individuality also was established from church ideas as well as from the inherent heritage from the barbaric German tribes and Anglo-Saxons. There must have been something inherently fair about these savages, like the Vikings, once they became christened and formalized their rule of law. The strong position of the woman in the family must stem from this source. It is conceivable that the political development had importance for the scientific revolution. The church was also important in the alternative path to democracy and rule of law for example seen in Denmark where the church educated the peasants who were then used by the king to balance out the nobles. The woman’s standing was good in Judaism at the time of David and Solomon but deteriorated down to the time of Christ. Jesus is of course quite kind to the woman, relatively speaking. A christened Europe in any case was a very different place compared to Muslim military slavery run countries, India and China.

Fukuyama pointed out the strong standing of the English woman relative the Muslim and Indian cultures that were also religious. She could sue and get sued, bequeath property and own and sell property without a male guardian from the 13^th century. It is interesting to speculate on cultural difference between western barbarians and more eastern barbarians, the Teutons, that perhaps gives rise to the different philosophy seen between Britain and Germany. Fukuyama also pointed out that the Norman Conquest only changed the top layer of society and not the general organization of England into shires. In the same line of evidence it is then possible to say that christening of Barbarians in Europe did not change organization initially but that the individual character of each tribal society in a way was maintained. Another idea that might be interesting to delve on is that if there were differences in the time between 600 and 1000, are there larger or smaller differences between areas today? It might be possible to say that education homogenizes the populations but it might also be possible to say that different language groups might develop more differently than before because of faster communications. Clovis I was the first Catholic king of France who lived 466-511. Arian Christianity was common among the Goths at the time and the Catholic Venerable Bede christened part of England in 597. Vernacular translations of the Bible came first in England 1382 and then in Germany 1466. Italy and France did their translations later than northern Europe--an early difference in handling freedom.

The World Financial Order?

S&P, one of the three large credit rating agencies in the US, late on Friday, after the markets closed, downgraded US one notch to AA+ from AAA. In this context it should be noted that a Chinese credit rating agency, Dagong, downgraded the US last week to a level on par with Spain. There seems to be a war on the interpretation of what is important and the reason might be that we are witnessing a clash between two economic cultures. The Chinese being state capitalism.

My own confidence in the US and its people is completely unshaken and it should be mentioned that France, Japan and South Korea don’t see any problems with US creditworthiness according to the Financial Times. China, according to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, makes a lot of noise and seems to disregard the fact that you do take a risk buying state papers. Instead they want to remake the world financial order to secure their investments. It would be interesting to read an initiated Swedish article evaluating the benefits or disadvantages to Sweden if China gets their way?

What motivates people who succeed?

Fukuyama writes in The End of History and the Last Man from 1992:

"A civilization devoid of anyone who wanted to be recognized as better than others, and which did not affirm in some way the essential health and goodness of such a desire, would have little art or literature, music or intellectual life."

I have earlier said that as far as intellectual life goes curiosity is probably more important than the drive for recognition but this requires a few more comments. The same would be true for art and music.

Could it be that the more physical the endeavor the more important is the recognition component in success? An athlete is motivated by trying to improve himself in his regular training but is then in need of proper competition nerves when in play. Whereas a scientist or artist does the real thing in the lab or study and then just displays it in public. In other words a civilization according to Fukuyama's idea above would have no sport or competitive business but plenty of art and science.

The right of center Allians of Sweden will break up?

Reading today in Svenska Dagbladet about a fragmentation in Swedish politics. The Center party in Sweden wants to break lose from the Allians, a right of center coalition of the Moderaterna, Folkpartiet, Centerpartiet and Kristdemokraterna. Recently the ten year party secretary Maud Olofsson announced that she will leave her post coming a congress in September. She had been instrumental in forming the Allians that initially won the election of 2006.

Small parties like Kristdemokraterna and Centerpartiet have suffered from losing voters being minors in the Allians. People have moved to the largest party Moderaterna to gain influence. They now poll around 4% which is the entrance bar to the Parliament. The finance minister Anders Borg, Moderaterna, have made an invitation at the yearly political gathering in Almedalen to offer collaboration with The Green party. I guess he saw the fragmentation coming. Another reason is that the Alliance is ruling as a minority government, a phenomenon that is common in Swedish politics, and is thus looking for a more stable situation. The Greens are moving forward like in Germany.

Also Jan Björklund, the minister of education, is suggesting that Sweden as the first country in Europe should introduce Chinese at the high school level. He says it will be more important for Sweden than French and Spanish. He did not say German, which gives the general direction of the thinking of government. They are German Chinese in their minds and will combine this with the Anglo-American presence. I have heeard comments that it is easier to collaborate with the Chinese than with neighbors in the EU so I guess it all makes sense. China seems to be successfully ruling by dividing in Europe.

Which brings me to the question of the prospects of the US. Walter Russell Mead, the editor of The American Interest and a professor of foreign policy at Bard College in NY, wrote a very up-beat article about America on wsj.com because of Fourth of July that was nice to read. It all made sense in the gloom given in the press about America at presence. I am a firm believer that the US will work themself out of their current fiscal problems and stand tall again. I even kept my American pension money in New York. Europe on the other hand seems to lean towards Chinese help rather than self-reliance.

Sweden is an engineering country and today there is a debate article in Svenska Dagbladet where people claim they should broaden the engineering education which is overdue. The article is a response to a report issued by Svenskt Näringsliv where the relative role of Natural Science/Technology and Humanistic subjects was discussed. I tried to read most of the main articles in this debacle but did not see the question about what the competition from China and India study. Volumewise they will churn out hundred of thousands, almost a million, engineers per year that work for lower salaries. I guess what Sweden wants to achieve is to produce engineers that can make Swedish companies rather than working for foreign companies in Sweden. This might require a modernization of an earlier successful educuation as Nina Wormbs and Sverker Sörlin argued in their article.

Is it possible to show respect for a country that does not take its citizen's political instincts seriously?

The debate on what you can demand in terms of human rights in China is on since Wen Jiabao is visiting Europe. David Cameron and Guido Westerwelle thinks it is possible to discuss difficult questions at the same time as you trade with each other. I agree fully!

It must be considered difficult to show China respect when treating its citizens in the present way. Wen Jiabao thinks we should show China respect and tolerance. Tolerance OK but treating grown up people like naughty children is not something that is impressive.

The Chinese often brings up their long history. I guess it is a favorite when comparing themself with the US. However, what happened during the last 2-300 years is far more interesting. Also, I have problems with the Mao era where people were severely mistreated during especially The Great Leap Forward and the Culture Revolution. It is what China does now with its new found power that potentially is going to be treated with respect. Will they continue with the first modern dictatorship or invent something new?

Gideon Rachman on FT.com is displeased with David Camerons capabilities in his column today. He thinks you have to treat China as a power and not only as a market. Speaking truth to power does not seem to be a discriminator between Britain and Germany though, even if standing up for freedom in Libya was. The final judgment on Libya will come at the death toll when the debacle is over, though.

Does science have any positive influence on human rights?

Samuel P Huntington was one of Francis Fukuyama's teachers and is most known for his pamphlet The Clash of Civilizations. Fukuyama writes in the Afterword from 2006 of his influencial book The End of History and the Last Man the following:

"Huntington is quite correct when he says that the historical origin of modern secular liberal democracy lies in Christianity which is not an original view. Hegel, Tocqueville and Nietzsche, among many other thinkers, have argued that modern democracy is a secular version of the Christian doctrine of the universal dignity of man, and that this is now understood as a nonreligious political doctrine of human rights. In my opinion, there is no question that this is the case from a historical point of view.

But while modern liberal democracy has its roots in this particular cultural soil, the issue is whether these ideas may become detached from these particular origins and have a significance for people who live in non-Christian cultures. The scientific method, on which our modern technological cililization rests, also appeared for contingent historical reasons at a certain moment in the history of early modern Europe, based on the thought of philosophers like Francis Bacon and René Descartes. But once the scientific method was invented, it became the posession for all of mankind, and was usable whether you were Asian, African or Indian."

The question then is whether science have a positive influence on human rights because then liberal democracy might be transferable to for example the Chinese culture? It might via the science of psychology unless the psychology of the Chinese differ from ours. Since the sudden death of behavioralism, psychology have made enormous progress due to the fact that minds can be read. Minds can be read on people that does not know of this and of people that cooperate. Thus psychology knows how people think about human rights. What they prefer. I have a feeling the answer is out there but a little hard to come by. Whether this research was ethical or not is an other question.

Katas in Industry?

I'm working on the problem on which culture is best suited to harbor the future and an interesting thing occurred to me.

The Japanese did very well in making cars. This probably depended on the fact that performing motorical sequences assempling a car resembles performing so called katas in martial art. A kata is a series of motions executed to practise a sham fight. They are practised by repetitive performances and it is known today that some 10,000 repetitions is necessary to optimize a motion program. Katas are part of Zen Buddhism and it is religion for many Japanese.

However, the assembly line was invented in the individualistic USA where free spirits probably suffered more in straight jacketing themselves into repetitive motion schemes. It would appear that the Japanese could have had an easier path to inventing the assembly line by just setting up a series of katas to make a car? Today the Japanese assemble cars faster than the Americans. They also write more patents per capita. They are doing worse on the GDP per capita though. They lost ground against the Americans on this parameter lately.

Perhaps it is time to start talk about what you innovate and not how much you innovate?

I'm beginning to feel that the political culture is very important for the quality of research. Therefore it is very hard to be Swedish globally speaking because what Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton did was trendsetting and very mature early on, still going strong. If Germany is going their own way now, it is also very hard to be a European because they will part philosophically and value wise. If this split becomes real in the wake of the euro-zone debt crisis this might have effects on coordinating research EU wise but it might be good for the competition in Europe.

Differences between the US and Germany?

I have been told that in the US a person that has suffered a bancruptcy can get a second chance but that in Germany such a person is lost forever. It occurred to me that this difference might stem from the Hegelian master and slave problem. A person is not a man if he has not lived through a death challenge. If he does not dare the challenge he becomes as slave. The bancrupt person died, so to speak.

What is not clear is if the nowadays risk-averse Germans, which can be seen in the differences between Germany and the US on the economy and on military matters, on nuclear power, are truly Hegelian or not. A death challenge to become a serious person is a rather silly adventure. Modern education would be meaningless since an educational endproduct would not be useful without a risk to vanish. Hegel spoke before public education though.

One category of functionary in the modern society, the soldier, firefighter and police, could of course be selected on Hegel's basis. I guess we know today that the percentage of humans that qualify in this category is rather small. Smaller in Europe than in the US, apparently.

The US and Germany seems to have less and less to say to each other. When Angela Merkel was over the last time and gave a speech before Congress she irritated the hosts by pushing for greenery. Now recently they took a stand against nuclear everything. The economy, Middle East policy, Libya.

So, while the Swedes sit and watch their BBC productions on TV, do they become more German or Anglo-American? I don't see any polls on these issues. Why are we afraid of discussing this? There was a recent poll on a higher interest for Swedes to join NATO but this is not a discriminatory between Germany and Anglo-America. The German-US split might break NATO. That is probably why Obama gave Angela Merkel the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that can be given a civilian.

What happens if the US pulls out of NATO?

The US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave a talk recently that has been commented today by Gideon Rachman on his FT.com column. Jan Kallberg also writes on his blog about the change in US preferences "after" the war on terrorism. Kallberg says that nuclear weapons are going to make a comeback.

What we observe now is a US that might lower their defense costs a bit and a Europe that is substantially lowering theirs. China is significantly increasing their costs yearly. This obviously reflects how these different power centers view the global risks and the projection of global power. Although I think that the difference in risk taking within NATO is more severe than the actual amounts the countries are contributing, I am not sure why the European countries downplay military risks in this fashion when the economically booming China is thinking otherwise. China is apparently not content with economical weaponry.

Kallberg argues that what is going to become important is the actual military capability. If the European countries cannot even keep up a fight in Libya for a few weeks, as Gates pointed out, there is no capability. So if NATO falls, Europe will be dangerously alone. A country like Sweden would have problems paying for the benefit of being under the US nuclear umbrella and in practice be without defense. I hate to bring this up in this apparently risk-free era but I simply do not trust Russia.

Tony Blair pointed out the other day that the EU for the sake of power should join the US to defend Western values. He also said that he advocated for an elected EU president to minimize the democratic deficit, although he did not see this as realizable but spoke of it as a goal. The president he discussed should not be above the national heads of states in this case. I think it is statesman-like to speak up for the West in light of the above discussion. It is highly reasonable.

However, reasonable or not it does not seem to reflect what is happening even if the EU could need common views on common problems these days of debt problems and polarity in the future of an ever closer union. Proponents against military matching with the US probably say that we can't do much in Libya or Syria anyhow. The fact remains though that a country that crash Iraq in a matter of days has a different leverage on events given a unified West that is not divided on itself.

Returning to the reason for why Europe does not spend much on military defense, it may be very difficult to invade EU with soldiers. However, if nuclear weapons will be in vogue a country like Iran would want to get some and can thus threaten the EU with severe damage, something the EU might have to act upon. If European countries run out of munitions after a few weeks, it would seem like a coordinated raid to eliminate a nuclear threat from Iran would be highly hypothetical?