Europe's Sleeping Market @sleepingmarket-blog - Tumblr Blog

Europe's Sleeping Market

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The success of democracy rests on the historical conflict between workers and capitalists. Today, citizens have more opportunities to bring about social change as consumers than as voters. But just like work and capital, consumption an production are interlinked entities of the same economic system. This is the simple idea behind Europe's sleeping market - from consumer to citizen. The market does not thrive on stock market indices or currency fluctuations, but on our collective consumption. If EU's consumers were given the means to also act as citizens, market could awaken from their political sleep, invigorate the European democracy and provide it with a content it lacks today. And perhaps take on the real challenges of the future. Europe's sleeping market - from consumer to citizen provides food for thought and at the same time takes the reader on a journey through Europe. The current challenges of the EU are framed in a historical perspective with personal reflections and with references to politicians and great thinkers. The quintessens of the book is EU'a lack of legitimacy and what half a billion EU citizens could have in common.

On July 10, 2012 Hans Höglund sadly passed away after two months of fierce struggle against an illness, which in the end turned fatal. Perhaps knowing time may turn out much too short, he spent the time between family visits and treatments in the hospital, intensively typing on his laptop in order to finish this book. He felt he had something important to say. Clearer and earlier than many, Hans saw the tremendous achievement of our forefathers of having unified Europe, but also recognized its built‐in controversies and compromises, as well as its threats. He realized the need to find new ways to involve citizens in the shaping of the idea that is Europe. By finalizing the translation into English that Hans had just started, it is our hope that his book will spark discussions on the future directions of Europe and, as Hans put it, the importance of “distancing Europe from divisive lines and taking on the real challenges to democracy”. We want to express a heartfelt thank you to Ingela Ståhl‐Zulu for her very careful translation of Hans text from Swedish to English. Without her generous offer to take on this major task, there would not have been an English version available. Our deepest gratitude also extends to Stephen Barcroft and Solveig Ståhl for assisting Ingela with proof‐reading and editorial suggestions. Hans, as a beloved husband, father, son, brother and friend you remain in our hearts. With this book you also left us many of your thoughts, which we cherish as a dear gift of love. Thank you. Åsa, Nora and Joel Monica and Claes Martin, Lena and Per

In times of crisis Europe finds its solution

I have made a translation of a chronicle on the website of the Swedish think tank Global Utmaning, here: "Malaga, summer 2011. The temperature is 34 degrees, but under the shading curtains above the inner city's elegant shopping streets the wind blows comfortably, as if in an air conditioned shopping mall. The heat is more palpable in the city’s less privileged ourskirts, both in the sun and in the social climate. A notice in the newspaper tells the story of a demonstration in Rincón de la Victoria in support of a woman who has both lost her job and not been able to sell her old home because of the economic crisis. Now the bank requires two homes and a bridging loan she cannot pay. About one hundred indignados prevent court officials from gaining access to the woman's home, while invoking the Constitution's right to housing.

A single woman's struggle against her bank gathers one hundred protesters in the outskirts of Malaga. Something is happening in Spain, as in many other European countries. The economic crisis that became a banking crisis that became a euro crisis has become a matter of confidence in the entire European integration project. The common currency, which much more than a currency was an integration approach, has become counterproductive.

The driving force behind European integration has always been economic. The entire EU's creation rests on the idea that a common market integrates the member states with each other and prevent nations from going to war. Only by giving up its dominance in the coal and steel industries to a supranational authority, France could agree to German sovereignty after the war. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the idea of a common currency was a natural step in the same logic. Only by giving up its strong D-mark for a single European currency, France and other countries could agree to the reunification of Germany.

But now there is a crisis. In part a crisis for the euro as a currency, but in part also for the European recipe prescribing economic projects as solutions to political problems. Meanwhile, history shows that it is in times of crisis that the EU is forced to find a solution that often takes integration a step forward. And the most chronic of the EU's political problems – the general lack of confidence and commitment to the entire integration project - still waits for a solution.

It has long been said that people affect society much more as consumers than as voters. It is certainly true on deregulated European markets, as it is true on global markets where the EU should be a powerful tool for small European nations to act collectively and gain influence. But so far the European integration has not given citizens the same opportunity to influence the markets, as it has given national politicians and officials.

The world's largest common market consists of much more than import regulations, customs forms and bar codes. It consists of five hundred million European consumers who have the same goods and services to choose from, the same rating symbols and bar codes to decipher, and often the same currency to pay with. The EU is certainly much more than a giant department store, but it is as a consumer that most citizens encounter the EU in their everyday lives.

If citizens are provided a greater opportunity to organize themselves in their role as consumers to approach the decisions of EU institutions, it would not just be a way to try to legitimize the European integration project. It would be a way to gather citizens around various interests that don’t stop at national borders, and provide European democracy with a content. It would also be a way to enable a more democratic public interest to balance the individual, private and not least national interests that influence the decisions in Brussels far too much and far too often.

Under the shading curtains in Malaga’s inner city, next to Plaza de la Constitución, one of all the indignados has scribbled a political message on a temporarily restructured wall. ”Plaza de la Libertà” it says, with an arrow pointing to the square. But the ”R” has been replaced with a hammer and sickle. The Constitution's right to housing may not be enough for the scribbler, who only relies on a communist revolution to give citizens freedom.

I seek no revolution at all. I do not want to overthrow the political power in the EU or even the power in the market. What I seek is a cautious and almost bureaucratic process to integrate citizens with the decisions made in the market so that invisible consumers can become visible citizens. You cannot create a functioning democracy and believe that it is once and for all given, regardless of what happens to the power in society. You cannot transfer power to supranational institutions or to international markets and believe that national democracy will follow by itself. When the power moves, upwards or sideways, democracy must be given a chance to follow along. "

#euro crisis #consumer #Malaga #indignados #EU #democracy

Words are all we have

I consider myself an almost fluent speaker of English and French, but sometimes I need to look up words that occur in the media. One such word is thugs, expressed by British PM David Cameron recently. In 2005 I had to look up the French word racailles, expressed by the then French minister of interior Nicolas Sarkozy, to describe the rioters in the suburbs of Paris. Both words roughly point to the same Swedish translation, and both words were used by top politicians to describe situations of rioting and destruction in the street. Interestingly, the words hardly translate in the same way in the French and British societies. In France, the use of the word sparked an intensive debate in itself, most likely inspired even more rioting, and made president Jacques Chirac express his concern on the use of words in the political language. In Britain, although many are critical to the government’s tough reactions, the use of the word has passed almost without notice, and people rather turn up with brooms to clean up the streets. I sympathise with the British “broom armies”, but I also sympathise with the French concern for the use of words. Because words are all a democracy really has. Democracy means conflict, opposition and debate, but while some words will lead to understanding and solutions, others words will lead to quarrels and violence. A friend of mine found my blog and expected me to comment on the tragic events in Norway three weeks ago. I told him I had no words. But the terror attack has sparked a debate at least in Scandinavia on the use of words in the political language. Although futile as a reaction, I think the events even more point to the need for democracy to find its energy from other conflicts than the cultural, ethnic and religious. If democracy focuses less on words such as immigrant, multiculture and Islamic, and more on words such as poverty, integrity and pollution, it can start to deal with the real challenges. /

#thugs #racailles #riots #political language

A Dangerous European Identity

Holy Island Church, Co Tipperary, Ireland. ”In the debate on a possible common identity for the EU, Adenauer and Schuman have not been alone in their thoughts to base it in Christianity or in Christian values. In the work of the European Convention in 2002 and 2003, to collect feedback, debate and negotiate a new treaty, the reference to God suddenly came up again. A group of members suggested that the treaty article on the fundamental values of the EU, such as democracy, human rights, freedom and equality, would be supplemented by a clarification that these values “include the values of those who believe in God as the source of truth, justice, good and beauty as well as of those who do not share such a belief but respect these universal values arising from other sources”. Without questioning the right to religious freedom, the proposal thus implied every European to support values of which God would be the source, whether they believe in him or her or not. The proposal was defended by the Pope himself, but the Convention President - Valéry Giscard d'Estaing - was not convinced. Any reference to God or Christianity has never been found in European treaties. The introducing preamble of the Lisbon Treaty, however, mentions “the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance”. In his book "Identity and Violence" the award-winning economist Amartya Sen describes how the categorization of people according to religious, cultural or other identities reduces the complexity of each person’s identity and by itself causes conflict. When Samuel P Huntington in his thesis about the clash of civilizations brusquely categorized India as belonging to the “Hindu civilization”, he therefore ignores not only India's 145 million Muslims and give arguments to the Hindu nationalist movement - he denies that all Indians have not only a religious affiliation, but also a linguistic, economic, social, political party, etc. Huntington not only presents a limited picture of India, he also presents a limited picture of every Indian. Whatever religious or cultural identities that we ascribe to the European project, therefore, we diminish the 500 million citizens of the EU to simply hold these properties, and indicate that all the other citizens of the world in some sense do not have that identity. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before Europe will gain the same confidence that its citizens still have in their nations. For nations, however, it took several hundred years, if it was at all successful, and many were the uprisings brutally put down and the peoples and languages suppressed and eradicated in the quest to unify the nation. Such behaviour simply doesn’t fit a union that aspires to be a contemporary democracy with the highest common values. As a first consequence of this notion, all attempts to unite the Europeans by a religion, or to create a common European culture that in itself causes conflicts, must be abandoned”. / (Extract from draft script, during translation…)

#Christianity #EU identity #Amartya Sen #European Convention

Pourquoi seulement Eva Joly?

Eva Joly est une des candidats de la présidentielle qui sont notés dans le média Européen - pas pour sa politique mais plutôt pour son origine. On raconte son histoire des origines simple en Norvège, son arrivé toute jeune à Paris et son avancement extraordinaire dans la société francaise, et on se demand « Comment elle pourrait aller jusqu’à là ? » Avec admiration on parle de son avancement dans un autre pays Européen comme quelque chose presque incroyable. Je suis le premier à partager cet admiration pour Eva Joly, mais je voudrais aussi demander ce qui est vraiment étonnant – le fait qu’un Européen pourrait changer de pays et avancer dans la sociéte jusqu’au niveau des élections présidentielles, ou le fait qu’elle en est la seule? Oú sont tous ces autres nationalités qui parlent bien l’anglais dans la politique britannique? Pourquoi il n’y a pas plus de Turcs dans le Bundestag à Berlin? Pourqoui on n’écoute pas souvent l’accent finnois dans le Riksdag à Stockholm, si courant dans la rue? Parce que dans un monde de plus en plus globalisé et dynamique, ce vieux continent d’Europe garde de ces frontières et de ces barrières. Dans un monde où la mixte des cultures et des réligions dans la rue est le normal, ce vieux continent d’Europe reste comme mariné dans son nationalisme. Et alors qu’est ce qui se passe quand cette francaise normalisée d’origine Norvègienne a bien réalisé que l’ésprit de la république francaise et la révolution ne se trouve pas dans le militaire, et s’exprime sur son souhaite de changer ces traditions assez soviétique du 14 juillet? Alors elle est tout de suite accusé de ne pas comprendre les traditions et les valeurs francais... Ce n’est que fatiguant, ce continent! /

#Eva Joly #défilé militaire #14 juillet #nationalisme #présidentielle

Our Common European Language

The Vienna Secession "Wien mitte. With a wide grin of light, the silvery underground carriage approaches the platform. Its angular design and the bright orange arcades at Westbahnhof remind of a 1950’s film vision of the future. Line U6 towards Floridsdorf brings me up from the underground and back to the turn of last century. On a track high above the street the carriage crumbles between beautifully decorated facades and flourished balconies. Vienna’s subway is a travel in time rather than space. Perhaps only a capital that for four decades found itself in a Western backwater, surrounded by communistic states, can keep such a subway. I still haven’t spoken with a living person, only with machines and signs in waiting halls and platforms. Mechanically I follow a universal language of stylized symbols, bills and coins, supply and demand. My soul hasn’t landed yet and I am not prepared to understand that I have changed culture and language. Flying over half a continent takes far too little time. I also don’t master the spoken language, but everyone understands a hungry tourist with a few euros in the pocket and a Visa card. We actually do have a common language on our common European market, which functions perfectly well. I stroll in the interior and design shops that spread like a friendly disease in all European cities and amuse myself by trying to guess the identity of the objects. I turn on glass containers, ceramic bowls and wooden dishes, but nowhere do I find a sender. No mark, no designer, not even a country. Just a price and an anonymous bar code. What is the code for worker’s rights? For sustainable forestry? For the firm’s development of the local society? I have to learn the codes of the global market to understand where all the stuff comes from and who have designed them. With the freedom of open borders comes rootlessness. With the mass production of the global market comes a lack of information. And Buddha is apparently the God of the global market. Among sushi dishes and velvet clad candles he stretches out his flesh in red clay, white soap and terra cotta. Why Buddha, who wanted to relief our suffering by erasing our desire? The little statues have certainly not erased our desire for exotic interior design." (Extract from draft script, during translation...)

#EU #langugage #Vienna #consumer

Hessel: Can we "Cry Out" how we wish to consume?

Market stand in Tunis medina - as long as I am an un-organised tourist consumer, the effects of my consumption here is very hard to know anything about.

I just read Indignez-vous!, by Stéphane Hessel (Cry Out is the awkward English title, which should perhaps have been Get Upset). The short book - more like a leaflet - has sparked debate in France and in part inspired the protests currently taking place in Spain and perhaps also elsewhere in Europe. Hessel goes straight to the point and makes a clear argument for human rights and non-violence, and when and how violence might be inavoidable. If it is easy to sympathize with Hessel and agree with him on the importance to get upset, it is less clear to me what to get upset about. Hessel points to poverty, violations of human rights and the state of the planet as reasons that surely are enough, but admits that the youth today doesn't have the same obvious reason to get upset and politically engaged as he had, because the actors behind the action are less clear than before. Hessel ends his leaflet by inviting his readers to react, among other things, against the moyens de communication de masse qui ne proposent comme horizon pour notre jeunesse que la consommation de masse... ("means of mass communication which doesn't propose anything to our youth but mass consumption" my translation). I note two things: Firstly, mass communication proposes a lot more than just consumption. If the term includes Facebook and Twitter or this very blog of mine, it surely proposes ways to communicate and engage people politically to the point of turning down dictators, as recently in Egypt and Tunisia. I don't know how Hessel defines the term mass communication, but it seems somewhat old-fashioned, as referring to the old one-way TV communication. Secondly, and this is the point I would like to stress - what's so wrong with consumption, or even mass consumption? Like so many other thinkers, such as Habermas and Bauman, Hessel seems to look at consumption as an egoistic luxury, conducted by those who can afford it. Even serious consumption sites and organisations frequently picture the "consumer" as a female shopaholic carrying loads of exclusive shopping bags, although overall consumption in any society is much more male than female and has little to do with Gucci and Versace. At times, consumption is of course a luxury, but at times it is an everyday necessity. Consumption comes in many varieties, but it is always a highly political act. Following decades of deregulation and increased competition, not least at the level of the European Union, consumption is probably the most political act of all economic acts performed by citizens. It might be that I have a very flowery look un us citizens when we happen to act as consumers, but I think we are fully capable of much more than passively acting on stimuli from ads, price tags and labelling. At least many economists have long since left the classic notion of the economic man, always acting to maximise his or her own benefit. I think consumers are able to organise themselves in their own right to gather information and express more actively how they wish the market to function, rather than relying on individual consumers' ability to change the courses of the market. When the power is increasingly vested in the market, democracy and an organised citizenry need to be there as well. Talking with Hessel, half a billion EU citizens’ consumption is of course not so much a reason to get upset as a chance to involve in the decision-making of the Union and a tool to empower European democracy. But we all know how much our consumption affects both poverty, human rights and not least the state of the planet. And mass communication is precisely what independent consumers’ organisations would need to analyse who the actors behind the action on the markets really are, and hold them accountable. A couple of weeks after we came home from a holiday in Tunisia, the uprisings against Ben Ali began. As long as tourists aren’t organised and need to rely on travel agency’s information and what media occasionally report, any revolution will happen only thanks to what Tunisians do. But if tourists as consumers were organised, their organisations would at least be able to hold hotels and restaurants accountable for their role in fighting poverty, respecting human rights and protecting the environment. /

#EU #Hessel #Indignez vous!#consumer #mass consumption #Cry Out #mass communication

You can never know about Finland. From being enthusiastic about EU membership, at least compared to Sweden, the True Finns recently turned Finland into the eurosceptic problem-maker, seriously threatening the European recovery plan for Portugal's economy. As a consequence of this situation, Finland is - as far as I know - the first EU Member State ever to form a government solely on the basis of European politics. When two opposing parties - the Conservatives and the Social Democrats - decide to form a government together with three other parties in order to save a European undertaking, 'Brussels' has somehow outweighed 'Helsinki'. When national politics, even at the level of forming a government, is preconditioned in Brussels, the EU has definitely taken a giant's leap in its integration with Member States. And Finland, recently struck by populism like so many other Member States, remains resolutely European. For better or for worse. /

#Finland #True Finns #integration

We should all be Belgicists

Extract from draft script, during translation... "Many years later media reports that Belgium has beaten the Iraqi world record in longest period without government. The Belgian situation is not new, but worsened. To a political scientist Belgium is two or perhaps three nations in one state. Maybe the real problems began with the awkward decision in 1962 to draw a line through the country to separate those who speak different languages from each other. Since then the constitutional falling apart of the country has continued, and those who belong to a linguistic minority in a particular region - especially French-speakers in Flanders just outside the bilingual capital region - still cause the biggest controversy. Compare Belgium to bilingual Finland, where any language spoken by a certain amount of the population in a community is able to use in all public relations. That way the same rule applies to all citizens and no linguistic lines have ever been drawn through the country, although the native Swedish-speaking minority is naturally concentrated to certain regions. Any line or border always cut apart just as much as it unites. Political science also brought the theory of nationalism as an historical epoch. Born as a political ideal at the time of the Westphalian peace in 1648, when the great religious war was finally over, it peaked during the revolutionary 19th century and died in its most extreme consequences of the Nazi concentration camps. Although this may be both a simplified and Eurocentric way to describe history, one cannot deny that trying to motivate the political power along ethnic and cultural lines today runs counter to the fundamental democratic values that not least the EU tries to uphold. Some 60+ years after the theoretical death of nationalism, it is difficult to know what will be the political ideal for the coming 300 years or so, but the EU is one of many possible answers. Quite logically, there are Brusselers hoping that the European institutions and some 40 000 bureaucrats will bring a kind of European melting-pot culture that can glue Belgium together. Even the draft European constitution was looked at for inspiration to solve the Belgian constitutional crisis. And it is certainly desirable that a country in the midst of the European integration project could realise that it is possible to agree in more than one language and that the division along linguistic or cultural lines belongs to history. At least, a graffiti genius in Brussels realised the impossible. With a reference to the Belgian surrealist René Magritte he or she drew the three colours of the Belgian flag on a wall and wrote ”Ceci n’est pas un pays” (This is not a country). The graffiti spread on the Internet and was much debated. Perhaps Belgium as a surreal creation is what all the different groups of the country can agree on. And quite frankly, not only Belgium, but all countries aren’t more than constructed commonalities that have very much in common with surrealistic pieces of art." /

#Belgium #nationalism

Democracy 2.0 - How consumers may tackle climate change (for example)

I have made a translation of the chronicle I wrote earlier for the website of the Swedish think tank Global utmaning (Global Challenge) - before I realised their website can make a rather useful translation all by itself... So, PLEASE, enjoy!! The chronicle is almost a summary of my draft book, except here I don't explain why these thoughts are such brilliant ideas for the EU.

Tobacco advertise in the suburbs of Sarajevo, photo taken from inside car. Much has been said about the international climate change negotiations. It’s about the UN system, about the division of the world in rich and poor states which becomes less and less relevant, about the obscure nationalism that still provides the basis for international negotiations. Many ask how the parts of the world that really wish to tackle the problem may come around the UN and the tricky negotiations, among them Global utmaning (Global Challenge, a Sweden-based think tank). Global utmaning’s proposal on a European Climate Investment Community primarily aims to establish a technology neutral price on carbon dioxide emissions, which in turn creates a demand for cleaner energy production. But the report also aims to break the political deadlock and create momentum for a radical transformation of our energy systems. To succeed with the latter, a demand in politics for the transformation to actually happen is needed in the first place. Beyond the financial and technical problems, beyond the UN system and the international negotiations, the political demand to tackle the problem is as always too far away. Climate change is everybody’s and nobody’s responsibility, which hardly fits into the regular rules of the political game. Take any environmental problem, we have a tremendous challenge in the transition that an entire society and the economy need to address. How can we enable democracies to actually take such far-reaching political decisions? The fact that our popularly elected leaders are held accountable for their decisions and can be voted down provides a guarantee from the most idiotic decisions to be taken. Such as turning the flow of a river in the opposite direction – such things are not what democracies normally deal with. But things go wrong also in democracies, and not least climate change is proof of that. At best, democracies not only avoid the most idiotic decisions, but also take the decisions that are required. The biggest of such decisions that our democracies have delivered on the demand from a popular majority is of course the establishment of welfare society during the post-war era. Had this huge transformation of society and the economy at all taken place if voters weren’t organised in trade unions and other organisations that clearly indicated which parties they expected to vote for and which decisions they expected after each election? If not, then the decisions required to turn society onto a sustainable path won’t be realised unless voters organise themselves and hold elected politicians accountable more effectively. This is not because I distrust our politicians, but rather, on the contrary, because I believe that democratically elected politicians are prepared to listen to their voters to be re-elected. Only thus can a representative democracy function as it should. In broad terms, the established political parties and the ideologies on the left-right scale were formed in a conflict on the labour market, between labour and capital. That was an excellent conflict for aspiring democracies, because the two sides of the conflict were dependent on each other as parts of the same economic system and had to find a peaceful solution despite grave opposition. In fact, democracy was so effective that the welfare society it delivered meanwhile deprived the conflict of much of its content and made the ideologies and parties less relevant. In a globalised and deregulated society we all know that our real influence is how we consume rather than how we vote or produce. But consumers are very seldom organised. Yet consumers and producers are strongly dependent on each other as parts of the same complex global economic system. The market is not an independent force causing impact on stock index and exchange rates, and Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is only invisible as long as consumers don’t organise themselves. Through the democratic systems, organised consumers could move mountains – or turn rivers around, if that may after all be what is required to adapt the ecosystems to a changed climate. The question might of course be if a popular majority of organised consumers really would demand a stabilised climate, fair trade rules and safe working conditions on the other side of the planet – or just lower prices and higher quality? At the same time, it’s a bit like repeating the fears expressed in the early days of democracy: What will people really demand if everybody is given one vote each? The greatest threat to democracy has always been the opposite thought that an elite or expertise who knows better should take the decisions in our place. Somehow, citizens need to organise in their role as consumers to update the content of politics and give new life to democracy, so that, after having dealt with the social failures of the market, it may move ahead to deal with the ecological and other failures of the market, at the request of a popular majority. It may be difficult to know how consumers can organise themselves, and it may be difficult to know if the miracle of welfare society is possible to repeat. But it may also be a necessary part of a solution. How else do we tell our elected politicians that they may be voted down in the next elections if they can’t agree in Copenhagen and Cancún? If not else, democracy may finally stop bothering so much about religious and ethnic conflicts that never lead to constructive solutions. And start addressing the real problems. /

#climate change #consumers #democracy

EU-wide candidates, in whose interest?

In the European parliament, any candidate can run for elections in another member state than the member state where he or she is a citizen. So far MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit is, if not still the only one, one of the very few doing so. This is not because there is a lack of integrationists in the European parliament, or because most MEPs prefer a national perspective on European policy-making. This is simply so because the general interest, which every directly elected parliament is supposed to represent in any democracy, is still far more national than European. Yet the parliament's constitutional committee proposes a separate list with 25 EU-wide candidates competing for separate votes, on top of the ordinary votes for a national party. Finding multilingual candidates who are willing to tour the member states shouldn't be a problem, especially among younger Europeans. The problem is rather what policies these candidates are supposed to pursue? What is the European general interest that these candidates are supposed to represent? Like so many times before, European integration finds its form and waits for content to emerge. It might actually be a good idea to do so - in post-war Europe it was absolutely necessary to do so. In fact, a European general interest, however constructed, is perhaps what the EU needs more than anything to balance all the private, national and special interests influencing its decisions far too much far too often. To my mind, what half a billion EU citizens might actually have in common in relation to EU decisions, and have different opinions about that aren't nationally constructed, is that we are all consumers on the same common market every day. Start looking there. /

#EU-wide candidates #Duff #MEPs

Finger-pointing Finland, too...

Italy sends migrants back to Tunisia, which has taken on many times more migrants itself from Libya, and yet France stop trains with Tunisian migrants from Italy. Meanwhile right-wing and/or populist parties are gaining more seats in elections all over Europe, most recently in Finland, and not long ago in my own country Sweden. Welcome to finger-pointing Europe, pointing fingers at anyone who seems somewhat different than oneself. I am sick of this Europe, while building its institutions and integrating its economies, all the more cracking apart in conflicts with migrants, between religions, between nationalities... Where does all this finger-pointing politics come from? Who ever said that anything ever has to be someone's (let alone someone else's) fault? Our democracy gradually evolved around a conflict in society between labour and capital, and almost solved it by way of establishing a welfare state. Conflicts between different cultures or religions or nationalities, on the contrary, will never create anything but more conflict. Equal rights and respect for everybody is a precondition for a democracy, and not where it should find its energy. Debate and the political climate needs to come from peoples' different ideas of a common society, be it consumers and producers or some other interests, to which it is possible to find a common solution and realise the idea of Europe... /

Immaterial madness

I have discovered that one of my favourite Italian cafes in my hometown Stockholm, named Tintarella di Luna after a famous Italian song by Mina, had to change its name because - it is named after a famous Italian song by Mina. A quick google revealed that Tintarella di Luna was one of her very first songs and that she had had great success for many years. I might even become so interested in Mina that I buy some of her music after discovering her. This leads me to wonder why on Earth isn't a cafe allowed to name itself after a song or a film? (How many mustn't there be out there?). It's not like they're in the same business and compete over each others' customers, is it? In fact, the case is quite the opposite: The cafe brings attention to a singer whose name many Swedes like myself have probably never heard of before, while the name from the famous song attracted many Italian tourists and citizens alike to the cafe. So it was a win-win situation! It would be interesting to know if Mina has experienced increased sales in Stockholm after the cafe showed up on a very central street, and now a decrease again when it had to rename itself. In any case I don't think the cafe did any harm what so ever to her popularity. It used to be one of those cafes where one could always hear one or two "va bene", and I hope it will stay that way, now that it is called Era Ora...! My conslusion from this little episode, just as an example of all the areas where consumption power should have a say, is that it is ERA ORA (about time) that immaterial rights are at the very least limited to what is, if not the same "relevant market", then at least possibly related. /

Extract from script, during translation...

"Somewhere after the train switch in Rosendaal, when passing the border between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking, or between the Germanic and Latin Europe, I notice that koffie verkeerd changes name to lait russe. The coffee drink being ordered by Italian exchange students who can’t find cappuccino, which the Dutch irony has labelled “coffee the wrong way”, is thus in the aristocratic Brussels turned into “Russian milk”. As if the Germanic realism and irony is being changed into Latin romanticism and exoticism, while the landscape outside my train window also turns hillier and more forestry. I think about the old harbour areas of Rotterdam, in the Kop van Zuid blocks being turned into modern offices, where since long abandoned storage buildings with big green gates carry exotic names such as Borneo, Sumatra and Java. Of course, mixing distant and valuable Java coffee with so much milk from Dutch cows that the beans loose all of their flavour must be “the wrong way” to do a decent coffee. Tons of coffee is still being imported here every day to all over Europe, as neatly packed and carried as during the colonial era, only a bit further out in the enormous harbour, closer to the continuously patrolling ships of the Atlantic and in hermitically sealed containers. But in Belgium nothing can be the wrong way. If one can storm out of the opera and exclaim a new kingdom as late as 1830, one can surely also rename the awkward coffee mixture to something slightly more mythical, as so many other imports to this trading hotspot and cultural crossroads of Europe."

My point of departure

This is my point of departure: Our ((West) European) democracy along with its parties from right to left and more or less attached ideologies evolved around a major conflict of interests between capital and labour. That was a very useful conflict for developing democracies, because both sides were part of the same economic system of production and therefore bound to solve the conflicts peacefully. In fact, democracy was so effective that the European welfare state it delivered made the conflict less apparent and the parties and ideologies less interesting.

In a globalised and deregulated society, our real influence as citizens on society is how we consume rather than how we vote or produce. But consumers are very seldom organised, although consumers and producers are also two sides of the same global economic complexity. That is why a new political scale between right and left should evolve around the citizens' role as consumers and how we relate to production etc. ....Or something like that!

Starting up a blog..?

Today I finally decided I might as well start blogging for real, although my project might not necessarily fit with a blog. Most of the information about my book project can be read under the other pages (above).

The situation is the following: I have a draft script for a book, written in Swedish, which I have so far not been able to publish. I have now begun translating it into English and hope to be able to publish it that way, or publish it through crowd-funding on this site - but so far, it's just another blog.... Hopefully about consumption, democracy and the EU.

This picture is an illustration to liven up this post, taken in Brussels during some art project in the Schuman intersection in the heart of the EU quarters, and not my statement of ambition! I do not seek anarchy, or a revolution in the EU. What I seek is a careful and almost bureaucratic process to integrate citizens with the decisions taken on the European market, in order to vitalise democracy and realise Jean Monnet's vision to integrate people rather than states...! So long...

Yep, it's asleep. Politically asleep. And not just the European market, for that matter. This site presents a general idea on a possible transformation of European democracy. It's about the power in the market and how democracy can be vitalised through the citizens' role as consumers, thereby enabling democracy to make its way onto the international scene. It's also about the European Union, what half a billion citizens actually have in common, and how the decisions of the European institutions can better reflect a common European interest.

But it's not finished, more is coming...

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