I have also heard that Bismark’s Chancellorship is where some of the nascent welfare state policies were first tried in modern politics (like old-age pensions) so perhaps your Lutheran research is very relevant there.

Interesting we are still commenting on this post almost exactly 1.5 years after Oyvind’s first article. A testament P2P blog provoking ideas and avoiding spam 😉

Relevant to Oyvind’s original theme – having done a few errands out on the roads today, I’m still struck by how car-dominated our societies are, and how this contributes to some of the isolation he mentions. Even in relatively inner-city Melbourne, where public transport is OK and by Australian standards many people live in apartments, our road system and most public spaces are almost totally car-dominated. The problem is, having gone down this path so far, and changed our built environment and got dependent on the cheap oil that underlies it all, the system ‘kinda works’ in relative comfort for suburbanites who can afford a car & commit to a steep mortgage while the oil still flows – and is pretty crap for everyone else.

In fact, given the fracturing of more traditional networks for most people – you kinda have to ‘buy in to the system’ of car, suburban house with all mod cons, consumerist buying of labour-saving devices – if you want to have a reasonable chance to hold down a 9-5 job, raise children and or/ have a reasonable social life with other busy and geographically dispersed family and friend network, etc. It seems to me it takes either considerable wealth, persistent creativity, social networks of other rebels, or willingness to sacrifice status and live a more frugal and slow-paced life. Otherwise we are all kinda stuck in the ‘rat race’ as Oyvind puts it and it is hard not to dream for just a slightly better car, comfortable house, bit of garden etc and avoid thinking about the kind of collective problems in the post.

Here in Australia we now have a much more brutally neoliberal govt. since late 2013, and are getting our first real taste of austerity – and it is provoking a pretty strong backlash by the public (though part of this is directed at not just the cuts but some small extra tax levies proposed in concert as a deficit control measure).

Well this comment has got a bit long and maybe rant-ish – I apologise if the latter, maybe a side-effect of southern hemisphere winter beginning in earnest. No romantic (if impracticable) snow for us here, just chilly winds and rainy skies – no wonder we are obsessed with football as a distraction 😉

the welfare state was the result of an alliance of socialist and christian groups, lutherans in the scandinavian context, catholics in countries like Belgium (the christian-democratic workers’ movement was quite strong there)

From his lecture he presented three levels of human existence:

1) The abstract human being.
2) The biological human being.
3) The transcendental human being.

I do now really understand that why I feel so lost and misplaced in the Scandinavian welfare state is because I’m treated as an abstract human being.

But how can a state provide welfare to its people under such conditions? How can you achieve welfare if you are been treated like and feel like an abstract human being? Isn’t the highest form of welfare to achieve the biological and the transcendental human being, and shouldn’t this be the first and top priority of the welfare state?

Please watch the video, it also give an excellent introduction to Le Corbusier and his role in degrading people to machines. After all, the framework of the welfare state is modernism, and in the present world modernist architecture and planning and the welfare state are inseparable entities.

I’ve also made several upgrades in my original article, by me called “The Modern World is Not a Place for Butterflies”: http://permaliv.blogspot.no/2012/01/modern-world-is-not-place-for.html

Yes really, my governments have been really clever in making most of the oil income become a “benefit” for its people, only a fraction of the income goes to the corporations. Here you can see the speed of which the oil billions trickle in (the moving number in the heading): http://www.aftenposten.no/okonomi/Boom-er-ordet-som-gar-igjen-i-oljebransjen-7088824.html

As you see the oil money flows into our economy with a speed of 100.000 N.Kr. every 5 sek., or 1.200.000 N.Kr. every minute or 72.000.000 N.Kr. every hour or 1,73 billion N.Kr. every day. The Oil Fund named “The Government Pension Fund – Global” of the Norwegian State is on about 3700 billion N.Kr., making it the worlds largest pension fund. Still, the pension obligations for the state only to public workers is on 4300 billion N.Kr. And note that this fund is invested into corporations, so the welfare state is completely depended upon the benefit of the corporations.

Note also that the number of public workers increased with 110.000 just the last 7 years, about the size of Norway’s fourth largest city. Or an increase with 15 percent.

Anyway, I’ve changed my original text from getting rid of the bureaucratic with getting rid of the corporate welfare state, from inspiration of Michel in another comments thread here recently. He also wrote we need to replace it with a partnership state: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/video-of-the-day-the-story-of-change/2012/12/18/comment-page-1#comment-495695

Bongard will soon launch his book “The Biological Human being” in English! Here’s an interesting comment from him I just came above:

“Godt observert, Jens Andreas. Som du vet har vi i boken vår “Det biologiske mennesket” (Akademika 2010) laget en skisse over en mulig vei å gå for å få kontroll over disse problemene som oppstår i store samfunn, gjennom å benytte nettopp de egenskapene som dukker opp i nære relasjoner (raushet, samarbeid, kontroll over korrupsjon osv). Kaller det for Inngruppedemokratiet, det innebærer blant annet demokratisk styring av produksjon og fordeling. En kombinasjon av Høyres selveierdemokrati og det egentlige målet for miljøbevegelse og venstreside: Rettferdighet, fordeling, bærekraft og trygg framtid.” : http://darwinist.no/er-vi-domt-til-a-gi-opp-velferdsstaten/

My translation:
“Well observed, Jens Andreas. As you know we have in our book “The Biological Human Being” sketched out a possible way to overcome these problems which arise in huge communities, to play on these properties which arise in close relations (generosity, cooperation, control over corruption etc.). We call it In-Group Democracy, it means among others democratic control of production and distribution. A combination of the self-owner democracy of the right and the true goal of environment movements and the left: Justice, distribution, sustainability and a safe future.”

Why I really write you now is because I just got a comment that summarizes perfectly the essence of what I wanted to say with my article, on the Norwegian Deep Ecology blog Kulturverk: http://www.kulturverk.com/2013/01/20/gudstru-pa-avvegar/

“Avhengigheten av en velferdsstat har tatt bort ansvarfølelsen den enkelte hadde overfor det nære fellesskapet. Dette er ikke noe forsvar for liberalisme som kun erstatter velferdsstaten med avhengighet av private institusjoner som utfører de samme tjenester, men da er man i tillegg bundet til et rotterace. Ansvar og fellesskap må være organisk om det ikke skal utvikles til et passivt mekanistisk forhold mellom stat og borgere.” – A. Viken

Translated:

“The dependency of a welfare state has taken away the responsibility the single person felt for his nearby community. This is no defense for liberalism, which only replace the welfare state with dependency on private institutions performing the same services, but when you in addition is bound to a “rats race”. Responsibility and community must be organically if it shall not develop into a passive and mechanistic relationship between state and citizens.”

In these words A. Viken has masterly said everything I wanted to say with my essay.

Also I was tired of everybody criticizing the corporations while nobody criticized the corporate welfare state, I think these people are cowards. Actually I sent my article to permaculturenews.org before giving it to Bauwens, but the editor there was almost mad at me for complaining about my welfare state. Also Bauwens said he didn’t agree with me, but he didn’t mind. For him it was ok to put it up as long as it was somewhat p2p-oriented and might got someone to think.

About transportation I think the most important is to design for walk-ability, and a recent study shows this is best done through self-organizing: http://bettercities.net/news-opinion/links/15408/messy-street-patterns-boost-walking

‘Messy’ street patterns provide the most functional urban space:

“Venice has 1,725 intersections per square mile. “It’s very complex, it’s very messy, and people walk,” said Allan Jacobs, urban design consultant, former San Francisco planning director, and author of Great Streets.

Brasilia, near the opposite end of the spectrum, “has 92 intersections, and you don’t walk there,” The Vancouver Sun reported Jacobs as saying. “Irvine, California is the classic automobile city. It has just 15 intersections, the lowest I’ve ever counted.””

On Zahavi, who discovered the “handicap principle”, his work and it’s significance is brilliantly explained in Bongard’s book, I’ll let you know when it’s published in English and German language. Bongard’s point is that we only have a basic salary decided democratically, while what motivate us is by utilizing the positive energy found in the handicap principle.

By the way, I plan my next essay to be about the thrush bird the Arabian Babbler, which Amoz Zahavi studied for about 40 years. I will write it for Kulturverk first, but hope to translate it into English.

About Alexander you’ll hopefully understand how important our physical surroundings are for creating a sound democratic and cooperative spirit of people: http://www.biourbanism.org/sacred-profane-and-geometrical-symbolism-in-architecture/

The built environment, with its geometrical symbolism, talks about the culture that has created it, and expresses the intimate values of a culture. So, if in the past the built environment was interconnected with their physical and spiritual surroundings, the contemporary has expressed the excessive power of a mechanical culture determining the loss of human identity in favor of “artificial identity”. This artificial structure has transferred its cultural reductionism also to urbanism and architecture and caused laceration of society and deformation of ethical and esthetical values. This new design represents and symbolizes new values like hedonism and a devoid sense of nothing, and is the sculptural expression of our society. – Biourbanism

I realise your critique of the ‘welfare state’ is quite complex – it reminds me to some extend of the idea of a need for a more ‘Relational State’ that I think was posted here recently – http://bit.ly/UyjVjA . And in Scandinavia, I saw a talk by Dan Hill (@cityofsound) recently who’s now at SITRA in Finland arguing something a bit similar. Another Scandinavian example (which Michel wrote a chapter towards) is the http://co-p2p.mlog.taik.fi/ book.

But on the energy example in particular, as a good example – contrast Norway’s approach of taking a big share of oil revenue for a sovereign wealth fund, with my home country of Australia’s approach – where the vast majority of our mineral wealth being rapidly extracted is going to multi-nationals, and only a small portion to workers and the state. Of course, there is the Alaskan alternative of just paying an equal dividend to all citizens – a step towards a ‘basic income’ which it seems many of us are in favour of.

I know a little of Alexander’s thinking but haven’t read his books in full – is on my todo list for next year, haven’t come across Zahavi or Bongard.

Whilst I’m generally interested in subsidiarity, devolution etc my current research interest in public transport systems does seem to suggest that in the developed world we do need a strong (but ideally both democratised and readily transparent) state to at least play a strategic and tactical role in organising and providing such services.

As you point out though, the point is not to go backward but imagine forwards, and energy and other environmental constraints suggest a new pattern is needed. One possible future I’ve been thinking about lately is one with a much more democratically controlled industrial sector providing much of our material needs with minimal employment (using automation, P2P principles etc) but with surplus distributed more evenly e.g. a basic wage – along with a flourishing civil society and private sector in service provision, farming, and environmental remediation.

The latter because the issue of ‘unemployment’ does seem persistent and pressing. But there are plenty of useful things to do in our environmentally-stressed world (thinking along permaculture lines etc) – just not within the constraints of a profit-driven capitalist market. So some kind of new settlement with the state (basic income etc) could seem to unlock this potential as a benefit, rather than liability. But as Keynes suggested in ‘Economic prospects for our grandchildren’, this would be a v. difficult social and psychological transition to go through, not just a new economic approach.

“The next twenty to forty years will see an enormous political battle, not about the survival of capitalism (which has exhausted its possibilities as a system) but about what kind of system we shall collectively “choose” to replace it – an authoritarian model that imposes continued (and expanded) polarization or one that is relatively democratic and relatively egalitarian.”: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-12-15/austerity-at-whose-cost

What is for sure is that a relatively democratic and relatively egalitarian system for the future cannot be depending upon energy, recourse and ecosystem abuse.

Even the very word welfare gives me a bad taste, as it at least here more and more has come to mean comfort. And again, comfort, like culture, more and more has come to mean being separated from nature.

In a way the welfare state flattens inequalities, but personally I believe much more in incorporating a diversion of scales. I outlined this in a former comment elsewhere:

“Personally I come from the small minority on the right that is positive to environmentalism, as I’m a nature conservative.

I’m sorry to inform you that you have misunderstood completely. It’s not small that is beautiful, it’s scale that is beautiful. Yes, I understand that you are obligated to your hero Le Corbusier to hate scale, and especially the small scales, as he was a mega-maniac. But scale is, in spite of modernist ideology, a natural law that is fundamental for the universe. This is why Christopher Alexander has set “Levels of Scale” as the first and most fundamental property of wholeness: http://www.tkwa.com/fifteen-properties/levels-of-scale-2/

In fact, levels of scale is fractal and is ? 2,7: meandering-through-mathematics.blogspot.no/2012/02/applications-of-golden-mean-to.html

I find your misunderstanding so serious that I’m determined to write an article called “The Beauty of Scale”.”

A positive side effect of a diversion of scales is that it will do away with mass production, which is not consistent with morphogenesis, the way we have to produce to live sustainable.

Another way to do away with inequalities is by introducing flat income. Flat taxes have been discussed sometimes, but flat income is a much better idea.

Still, what I believe in most is to combine the pattern technology of Alexander with the handicap principle. The handicap principle is a very strong force. While capitalism utilizes the dark side of the handicap principle, we need to grow the bright side of this force. I outlined this in a former comment elsewhere:

“I really look forward to that! Personally I find it immensely promising to combine the good forces of the handicap principle discovered by Amotz Zahavi, with the pattern technology developed by Christopher Alexander. To mix these two are in my eyes dynamite, and can be a major contribution for a more human society.

Unfortunately I know of no others that share my enthusiasm for this idea, I don’t think neither Alexander or Bongard has seen its full potential.

As I see it there is a close relationship between Alexander’s A Pattern Language and Bongard’s The Biological Human. It’s like Alexander’s pattern-technology is made for utilizing the good forces of the handicap principle. I really don’t understand why I’ve not yet met any others that share my enthusiasm for these possibilities?”

Even the very word welfare gives me a bad taste, as it at least here more and more has come to mean comfort. And again, comfort, like culture, more and more has come to mean being separated from nature.

In a way the welfare state flattens inequalities, but personally I believe much more in incorporating a diversion of scales. I outlined this in a former comment elsewhere:

“Personally I come from the small minority on the right that is positive to environmentalism, as I’m a nature conservative.

I’m sorry to inform you that you have misunderstood completely. It’s not small that is beautiful, it’s scale that is beautiful. Yes, I understand that you are obligated to your hero Le Corbusier to hate scale, and especially the small scales, as he was a mega-maniac. But scale is, in spite of modernist ideology, a natural law that is fundamental for the universe. This is why Christopher Alexander has set “Levels of Scale” as the first and most fundamental property of wholeness: http://www.tkwa.com/fifteen-properties/levels-of-scale-2/

In fact, levels of scale is fractal and is ? 2,7: http://meandering-through-mathematics.blogspot.no/2012/02/applications-of-golden-mean-to.html

I find your misunderstanding so serious that I’m determined to write an article called “The Beauty of Scale”.”

A positive side effect of a diversion of scales is that it will do away with mass production, which is not consistent with morphogenesis, the way we have to produce to live sustainable.

Another way to do away with inequalities is by introducing flat income. Flat taxes have been discussed sometimes, but flat income is a much better idea.

Still, what I believe in most is to combine the pattern technology of Alexander with the handicap principle. The handicap principle is a very strong force. While capitalism utilizes the dark side of the handicap principle, the dark force of the power, we need to grow the bright side of this force. I outlined this in a former comment elsewhere:

“I really look forward to that! Personally I find it immensely promising to combine the good forces of the handicap principle discovered by Amotz Zahavi, with the pattern technology developed by Christopher Alexander. To mix these two are in my eyes dynamite, and can be a major contribution for a more human society.

Unfortunately I know of no others that share my enthusiasm for this idea, I don’t think neither Alexander or Bongard has seen its full potential.

As I see it there is a close relationship between Alexander’s A Pattern Language and Bongard’s The Biological Human. It’s like Alexander’s pattern-technology is made for utilizing the good forces of the handicap principle. I really don’t understand why I’ve not yet met any others that share my enthusiasm for these possibilities?”

Instead of being widely shared, the pattern languages which determine how a town gets made become specialized and private. Roads are built by highway engineers; buildings by architects; parks by planners; hospitals by hospital consultants; schools by educational specialists; gardens by gardeners; tract housing by developers.

The people of the town themselves know hardly any of the languages which these specialists use. And if they want to find out what these languages contain, they can’t, because it is considered professional expertise. The professionals guard their language jealously to make themselves indispensable.

Even within any profession, professional jealousy keeps people from sharing their pattern languages. Architects, like chefs, jealously guard their recipes, so that they can maintain unique style to sell.

The languages start out to being specialized and hidden from the people; and then within the specialties, the languages become more private still, and hidden from another, and fragmented.” – Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building,Page 231-232.