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Excerpt: Finally, an intelligent dissection and critique of Christopher Caldwell’s work on the problem of Muslim immigration in Europe. [B]ecause of his inability to resist the temptation to try to fit virtually every trend, process, and event he considers, from the most lurid to the most mundane, into the tired category of a supine Europe doomed by its failure to breed in sufficient numbers, leached of its ethical strength by relativism and colonial and racial guilt, and complicit in its demise at the hands of an immigration both vigorously fertile and morally self-confident, Caldwell’s argument ends up not being a great deal…
Culture, Society, & Economy
Culture has everything to do with the economy (and politics too for that matter). In that sense, the political and economic systems we end up adapting to, as well as the history we write along the way, is merely a reflection of our collective cultural pasts. We evolve. We do not leap. Here are some articles that reflect how culture holds the key to our economic systems.
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Excerpt: A rant that started with an Audi ad and meandered through the requisite American distaste for conformism eventually arrived at this. Not that the tin-foil helmet crazies are in anyways more desirable than disenfranchised anarchist mobs taking over government buildings. And considering the reasons for protests: one for introducing universal health insurance and/or financial sector bailouts, the other against belt-tightening in wages and benefits, I’m not entirely sure the comparison can really be considered parallel. The majority of us hit by economic hardships just want to put our heads down and get on with the whole thing, kind of like, well, Ireland. But…
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Excerpt: Unlike its OECD brethrens, Australia is facing a population crisis, in the other direction! Australia now has the fastest population growth in the developed world, surpassing that of the U.S. and the United Kingdom, and even many developing countries, including Indonesia and China. Nice. Except in a rather Malthusian twist, Australia has limitations when it comes to natural resources, and even more trouble catching in terms of infrastructure. So what to do? Australian businessman Dick Smith is opposed to population growth and says Australia should cut its skilled migration intake, and encourage people to have fewer children. But an uptick in population density has…
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Excerpt: Along with a heavily distributive society, what else do the Scandinavians get right? A review of The Spirit Level finds the following: Deep down, Norway and the other Scandinavian societies still have it right because there are a host of other social policies (affordable child care and greater paternity leave for men among them) that are sustainable on the back of a redistributive economy, but which themselves provide the basis for a more caring society. So it’s not merely the act of wealth distribution that result in the happier, safer, and nicer societies as outlined in Wilkinson and Pickett’s research. It’s the social…
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Excerpt: Francophone Africa is gradually moving away from its former colonial overlord. Those with resources are finding it easy to make new friends with a clean slate. Gabon has acquired many friends in recent years, including China, the US and a number of wealthy Arab regimes. Beijing is courting, hosting and assisting African leaders, with very few conditions, much as France used to do, and while they may not fight to the death for real democracy in their country, Gabonese nowadays rise up in revolt at the idea of a leader being ‘elected in Paris’. Half a century after the independence of most…
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Excerpt: The Guardian paints a bleak picture of a former Eastern German town, where the population crash has sank the place into a “demographic abyss”: with no children, tons of old people, abandoned buildings and packs of wolves. Wow, that sounds like the ideal setting for a Cormac McCarthy and P.D. James collaboration. The more educated and mobile women moved out, and the men just kind of regressed, Russian-style. Under communism, East German women worked more, and were often better educated, than the more conservative western hausfrau. But when their jobs disappeared in the early 90s, hundreds of thousands of them, encouraged by…
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Excerpt: Just twenty years ago, most Chinese urban families would not even dare to dream of owning a car, most have never been inside of one! Ten years ago, many of the nouveau riche started showing up in them. Nowadays, nobody bats an eyelash if there are two cars per family, as long as they can find, and pay for parking. Needlessly to say, this singular pursuit of the four-wheeled life has marginalized the biking culture. Horrified by the implications of billions of cars on the road – challenges in logistics, infrastructure maintenance, and worst of all, pollution, Beijing is implementing some reforms…
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Excerpt: For decades now, Israel’s experiment with collective farming has remained free of dogma, repression, or, let’s face it, cultist stuff that scares our pants off when the word “commune” comes up. It turns out that in the last years, most of the kibbutz have been transformed into profit-making, capitalist co-operatives. Today, many kibbutzim not only have thriving businesses – including in the tourism industry – that operate exactly like other private enterprises, but some have even decided to embrace the capital market: 22 kibbutz companies are currently listed on stock exchanges in Tel Aviv, New York and London. With annual sales worth…
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Excerpt: Berlin’s a cool city, in that it straddles the line separating east from the west. It’s a great city to be in for history buffs, a poster-child that exhorts the “creative class”. Berlin has worked hard to earn its reputation as a place that attracts artists and creative-types. After all, there’s nothing like cheap rents, low cost of living, relaxed laissez-faire vibes, that attracts those looking for inspirations without a fat checkbook. But as one of the most chronically depressed cities in Europe, it’s also an economic basket-base. With a 20% unemployment rate, the highest percentage of Berliners living in poverty compared to…
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Excerpt:
Image via Wikipedia
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Excerpt: A French minister complained to the UN without the slightest sense of irony, that the US was “occupying” Haiti because it tried to get American planes landed before those from other states. The aptly named French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet forgot two things: one, this is not an Arctic expedition race about whom plucks his flag down first; two, French occupation of the island had lasted longer and arguably caused more structural damage to the Haitian economy than, say, the Americans. The press has given the EU a pretty hard time on its slower, and less coordinated initial response to Haiti. Here’s…
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Excerpt: Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr In this Hoover Institution’s analysis, the authors compared and contrasted the successful agricultural reforms in China, against failed reforms in Russia. The report is fairly lengthy, but there are some real gems. Here are some highlights: 1. Contrary to common perception, China did not succeed because Deng was prescient to the needs of reform and thus instituted gradualist top-down policies. And Russia did not fail because it missed the reform model and moved too quickly to maintain political cohesion. Throughout the reform process, the Chinese Communist Party simply reacted to (and wisely did not…
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Excerpt: Image by wallyg via Flickr First, vocabulary check. Bambocciona (or bamboccioni in male form), roughly means “big baby”, an Italian slang for adult children who don’t leave home. On with the story. In a legal dispute between a father and his 32-year-old daughter seeking living allowance from him to continue supporting her student lifestyle, an Italian judge has sided with the bambocciona. For years, Italians have cited low starting salaries, high housing prices, and unpromising job prospects for the high percentage of adults still living at home. In this particular case: Eight years after she was due to graduate with a degree in philosophy,…
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Excerpt: Addition: Here’s a even more detailed exploration of the root causes behind Haiti’s poverty. Democracy Now has had years of extensive coverage of the Haitian situation. Tyler Cowen asked why Haiti is poor. John Henley’s counts the reasons. “Haiti has had slavery, revolution, debt, deforestation, corruption, exploitation and violence. Now it has poverty, illiteracy, overcrowding, no infrastructure, environmental disaster and large areas without the rule of law. And that was before the earthquake.” Highlights include: 122 years of reparations to France, massive debts to the Americans (to pay off the French), brutal and corrupt military dictatorship laced with voodooism. Since Haiti’s transition from dictatorship…
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