Books

A delightful day yesterday at the Annual Book Fair held in the huge Pavilion Expo beside the grotesque Stalinist Press House – which was „hoaching” (as we say in Scotland) with people. Shows that the intellectual habit is still alive and well here - despite the generally appalling nature of TV (although there are still some BBC3 type TV programmes). Fours hours passed before we dragged ourselves, rather wearily, from the scrum (and noise) weighed down by plastic bags with the results of our raids. The first two stalls took some time to negotiate – they were a Greek publisher and the Italian Embassy respectively and were not busy. But in the first I was seduced by a superbly produced book on Balkan poetry (with heavy velvet paper and old grey photographs) - 520 pages (all in Romanian) for 10 euros! And, although the Italian Embassy wasn’t selling books, it was displaying interesting editions of (some of) their older writers and had someone on duty happy to talk to us. They had, however, no Albert Moravia!
I was also very pleased with a new book on Bucharest – from village to metropolis (Romanian and English) by Giuseppe Cina, an Italian Professor of Urban Planning at Turin Univeristy; and a collection of the water colours of Romanian buildings by Gheorghe Leahu (both published by Capicel). I snapped up a book with Dan Dinescu’s black and white photos of Maramures; the land of wood which I had long lusted after – reduced to 2.5 euros – and, on opening it at home, immediately regretted not having bought 4 copies (for gifts). A book with the Sapanta cemetery painted headstones (actually carved from wood) completed the Romanian part of the haul. Wallony Region had a nice display – with copies of their great Espace Nord series (Belgian authors of the mid 20th century) on special offer. The final purchase was bought with some guilt – since we have so little space in the Bucharest flat – but I simply could not resist the 500 glorious pages of Cooking with Herbs and Spices (Hermes House) despite already having one book on each already - but up in the mountain house!
My visit to China at the beginning of the year – and the preliminary reading I did for it – has developed my interest in the country at both political and literary levels. A combination of the antics of the political class of the West and Daniel Bell’s books (The Canadian who has taught at a Beijing University for the past 15 years) have made me more sympathetic to the idea that the political model which could emerge there. ChinaBeat offers one of the best perspectives on modern China and this post has an interesting (if jaundiced) summary of a recent book.

All in our Minds?

Good old boffy continues his incredible commentary – with several pages of original take on the economic crisis. The reading which goes into his blog is quite remarkable – his posts are more like mini lecture and replete not only with classic marxist references but also with up-to-date quotations from a range of financial commentators. Was this guy a marxist trader?? Pity Taleb (of Black Swan fame) doesn’t blog. Boffy’s recent posts put the crisis in historical perspective; suggest that the UK housing market has a lot further to fall (60% has been wiped off the value of houses in Ireland and Spain); and argues that the UK Coalition presents a deliberately distorted, populist view of the crisis which runs counter to the needs of big capital.
My own post of yesterday was inspired by the book Injustice which I had just finished reading. Unlike Will Hutton’s book which comes up with a range of policy prescriptions, Dorling’s book is what I would suppose we would call post-modern – with the basic argument that it is our minds which we have to sort out!

We have allowed ourselves to accept the need for elitism, inequality, greed etc and there is little point in producing policy prescriptions until we have shaken off our prejudices. Hence the moral passion and ridicule he pours into his analysis. The recent economic literature on „happiness” which demonstrates that increased wealth gives increased happiness only at low income levels was all very interesting but hardly calculated to inspire revolution. The more recent arguments of Wilkinson and Dorling showing the effectiveness of those societies which are more economically and socially equal is far more powerful – since it begins to lay the moral ground for the attack on the immoralities of the wealthy and powerful. And the attack will come not from government or political parties but from ordinary people. I read an example this morning – of some Manchester United fans who got so sick with the way big capital has transformed their club that they set up their own team and structured it in a cooperative way more similar to that of German clubs. The article refers to other examples in other walks of life.

The UK government is being very clever in the rhetoric it has suddenly started to use – of transforming public services into mutual societies - apparently looking to the unlikely Chavez-led Venezuela for encouragement! I know that New Labour did try to put more support systems in place for community enterprise – and should read this up to see whether enough has been done to make a reality of this rhetoric. Boffy had a useful recent post on this as well. But basically all of this is peripheral as long as elitism is honoured in tax and educational policies.
Another think tank which has sprung up on the equality issues is here.
The lithograph is Tudor Banus' "Saunabibliotech"

our present moral bankruptcy

I usually enjoy the Economist blog (about Eastern Europe) but a recent post – giving the surprising news from the World Bank that the economies of the most recent members of the EU had managed the global crisis very much better than anticipated - grated. It grated since (however true its comment) it implies that the solution to our problems is for the lower paid to make the sacrifices (as they generally have in countries like Romania) - whereas the truth is the exact oposite. It is the pig-swilling greed of the wealthier which has contaminated our social systems in the past few decades; brought most of us (except them!) low; and which must now be brought under effective check.
Since the mid 20th century, various maverick voices such as Leopold Kohr (The Breakup of nations); JK Galbraith (The Affluent Society 1958); EJ Mishan (The Costs of Economic growth 1967); Ernst Schumacher (Small is Beautiful 1973); and Marlyn Fergusson (The Aquarian Conspiracy 1980) – to mention the main names - have warned us against the blandishments of consumerism.

In the 1980s some of us got hooked on community enterprise and business (as we called it then); the social economy (as we discovered the French called it); or social enterprise (New Labour’s phrase) – which got some support from the EU and other governments. Somehow, however, the political point got lost. The ventures were seen mainly as a way of helping marginalised people back into the economy. Only the Greens (and writers such as Richard Douthwaite) kept the more fundamental critique alive – but the energy the Greens have had to devote to the Energy and ecological questions has also diverted them from the larger issues of our economic system.

The literature became more personalised – how to reduce one’s ecological footprint and live simply. Very commendable – but basically being a modern version of Voltaire’s retreat to cultivation of one’s garden (Candide). In the last few years, the critique has come back – with books such as Oliver James’ Affluenza (2007) – arriving just in time for the latest global crisis. The publication in July 2009 of The Spirit Level – why equality is better for everyone seems to have crystallised the contemporary discussion in Britain – and Daniel Dorling’s Injustice – why social inequality persists is a rather tougher ride which gives historical perspective whereas The Spirit Level gives the comparative view.
Dorling’s book has the same caustic humour and philosophy as JK Galbraith’s The Affluent Society which introduced to the phrase about private wealth and public squalour. Tragic that – after such warnings – we have reached this same point of having to persuade so many people of the declining returns from private consumption and the benefits of collective consumption ie state spending on public goods such as railways!
Thanks to Tudor banus for "Inondation"

Things fall apart?

When I walked to the Matache market on Tuesday, I was amazed to fiind the right hand (Gara de Nord) side almost stripped of all buildings (everything between the hotel and the white highrise in the photo). The Turkish kebab service and antique shops had vanished – exposing both a decrepit tenement I had seen a family enter a few weeks back - and a very new villa.
Symbol of a wider picture? A Zeitgeist seems to be building up (I think that can happen to spirits!) – that a very historic blow has been dealt the financial and economic system which has developed in my lifetime and which we have learned to hate in the past decade. My amazingly regular and prolific marxist blogger has posted some interesting stuff and my friends and namesakes at Scottish Review have also sober comment on the Irish crisis.
It's all appropriate mood music for my reading of Daniel Dorling's Injustice - why social inquality persists the power of whose moral critique is reminding me of RH Tawney's Equality written (I think) in the 1940s which played a very powerful role in the development of the mid-20th century UK Labour Party - but which (typically) it is difficult to find on Google. Instead, I offer some Yeat's lines -

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Intimations of mortality

Yesterday was a practical and aesthetic rather than an intellectual day. First an attempt to get some information about the role of the Embassy in the event of my decease here leading to an unpleasant telephone encounter with an arrogant young Romanian (Anca) in the consular section of the British Embassy. She informed me there was no need to come to the Embassy and that she was capable of giving me the relevant information over the phone. This she was not – when I wondered how the Embassy would know who to inform in Britain when they had no information about me, it was I who suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea if I registered with them. And she did not take kindly to a question about who the „authorities” were in London to whom the Embassy would pass the information about my death and what they would do with it. I remarked that she did not have a customer-friendly approach – to which she (typically for this sort) replied that she had come to work with a positive attitude (it was 09.15) and thought she did a good job! I duly made a complaint on the Embassy website (although it gave me no confirmation of the sort one normally gets!) and on the larger UK site – which did confirm receipt. My next task was to make an online registration – which did, however, not seem to fit my case of being resident in the country (It asked me when I would be arriving and leaving); was not designed to deal with the case of both Daniela and me deceasing at the same time (space for only one „next of kin”!); and was a global data-base rather than one of the Embassy here in Bucharest (presumably they are cpable of accessing it?).
Then on to the CEC Bank where we have one of our two local deposits. Although a joint account, it is D’s name which leads the account and we were worried that her relatives might be able to claim a higher right. This time, a very friendly and helpful (older) woman – who confirmed our anxiety. Rather than lose 250 eurpos in interest, we will return in mid-January when the investment matures and switch the account name. Then off on the search for a fotoiu cover – which led us through the string of art and antique shops and in the charming, restored Gabroven St in the old town. Most of the art shops had modern kitsch stuff – but there was one small place which I would deign with the name painting gallery with reasonably original modern stuff (including a painting of what looked very like Sirnea – but overpriced at 500 euros).
Then the 21 tram throu Mosilor street – with sadly decaying terraced merchant houses - to the Obor market. Apparently the street is so called (old man) because the annual celebration of dead people (Mosii de iarna in late October) linked to a huge fair which was held then at Obor (which is a Romanian word for fair (which, in Slav, is known by the wonderful word „Trg” – hence the towns of Targoveste in both Romania and Bulgaria)

what we have lost

As yesterday’s blog indicated, I have developed the habit, in my village redoubt, of keeping scrap vegetables for the cow. And, of course, the wood stoves and system allow me, in the colder seasons, to dispose of cardboard wrappings in the fire. Even some of the plastic bottles are used for the various tasks an older house requires – receptacles for varnish; paint; or simply tap water against the occasional interruption (in august) of supply. But Daniela reminds me that this is nothing compared with the level of ecology practised in villages in earlier years – with various types of refuse (even human faeces) being separated and recycled on the ground. I was reminded of the part of Fred Pearce’s powerful The Rivers run Dry http which reveals how the ancients stored rainwater in a variety of ways (and how even dew can help reclaim land from deserts)
Both Alaister McIntosh and William Blacker in their very different ways) remind us of how easily we lost our innocence and autonomy and slipped into the easy dependence on the convenience goods and fast travel - and the complacent acceptance of (indeed contribution to) the detruitus which goes with the modern world. The Romanians are particularly bad offenders in the way they strew the remnants of picnics around beauty spots. I still have vivid memories of my father coming home - and pausing to pick up any litter on the street near the house. That simple gesture of social responsibility (as well as his bee-keeping and my mother's autumn jam-making) gave far more powerful and sustainable lessons to me than all my father's sermons!
I have always refused to buy anything associated with Coca Cola - initially because of the way they hook kids on high sugar and contribute to obesity but latterly for the way their entry to the bottled water market destroyed good local products (using recyled glass bottles) with their plastic crap. I confess that I am an addict to carbonated water - of course I should drink tap water but this was not really an option in some of the places (like Baku) in which I have lived. I was therefore delighted to see recently the Paris mayor introducing carbonated wayter fountains where people can take their bottles for free topping up.
I had such mixed feelings as I sped smoothly up the (resurfaced) road which links Rasnov across the mountain to Predeal and the main Brasov-Bucharest highway. A few months ago its potholes made the journey an uncomfortable one – the resurfacing (which was still going on) will knock almost 10 minutes off the 15 or so kilometres (at the cost in all probability of a few extra lives a year). Is this really what progress is all about?
Of course life was tough then - but we were generally healthier!!
I noticed today that Paul Kingsworth whose inspiring One no and Many Yeses I have referred to several times recently has now given up hope for us all. He has a fascinating Dark mountain website which sets out a more pessimistic vision.
And a look back to my blog of a year ago!

rural development and progress

Eventually I got around to walking the track which takes me from the house up to the hill opposite where a building is being constructed right on the ridge (shown here) – an encroachment on the landscape which should never be allowed in a civilised country. And outside I discovered a placard with the insignias of the Romanian Government and the EU! It’s one of these dubious investment of bloody SAPARD (The "s"had fallen off so it was announced as APARD). Proudly it told anyone interested that it was being erected in the interests of „rural development”. What a farce - since it will, in the first instance, detract from village life. It will raid an already plenished water supply (in the summer); take money from the pockets of the villagers who offer bed and breakfast; and cause the further deterioration of an already abysmal, pot-holed road which connects the village to the main road.
Of course, some might argue that, in a village of such old people, the arrival of professionals will give the village more political weight than it currently seems to have in its need for basic services. Perhaps indeed it explains why the electricity company has been installing lighting on the track at the bottom of my garden which is used only by the cows! Or perhaps we have literary cows - our friend Florie - Viciu's cow certainly always identifies the blue bag in which I bring her my vegetable scraps and gallops to me. The new lamp now floodlights my front approach (good if you are worried about thieves) but bad if you want to gaze at the stars!

Four basic questions

The glorious weather of the last few weeks here in the mountains seems at last to be changing. And I shall be heading down to the plains tomorrow – slightly ashamed at not having the fortitude to share the rigours of winter with my old neighbours. But my better half calls – and, now that the car is equipped for the winter (I spent most of yesterday at the garage as they rectified a few faults the car had developed as a result of the 10,000 kilometre battering I gave it in the early summer) we may well head to Sofia soon. The paintings and friends beckon.
In my recent (and rather long) lament about political impotence, I mentioned Will Hutton (and his latest book Them and Us – Changing Britain – why we need a fair society) as one of the people who has the wide inter-disciplinary reading necessary for anyone to have anything useful to say to us about how we might edge societies away from the abyss we all seem to be heading toward. I’ve used the verb „edge” because the calls for revolution which come from the old leftists are unrealistic (if not self-indulgent) but mainly because, historically, significant change has rarely come from deliberate social interventions. It has come from a more chaotic process. More and more disciplines are applying chaos theory in recognition of this – even management which is less a discipline than a parasite! So the call these days is for paradigm shift to help us in the direction of the systemic change the world needs to make in its move away from neo-liberalism. And close readers of the blog may recollect that I suggested that any convincing argument for systemic reform need to tackle four questions -
• Why do we need major change in our systems?
• Who or what is the culprit?
• What programme might start a significant change process?
• What mechanisms (process or institutions) do we need to implement such programmes?

Most books in this field focus more on the first two questions – and are much lighter on the last two questions. The first two questions require pretty demanding analytical skills – of an interdisciplinary sort which, as I’ve argued, the very structure of universities actively discourages. Hence the limited choice of authors – perhaps the two best known being Immanual Wallerstein and Manuel Castells. Both offer complex systemic views and, given the nature of their study, the writing style is not very accessible. Susan Strange made a great contribution to our practical understanding of Casino Capitalism as she called it - until her very sad death a decade ago.
Sadly, two other well-known names with a much more accessible writing style – Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein – tend to focus a lot of their energy on rogue states such as the USA.
William Hutton’s The World We’re In (2002) was as powerful and accessible of the limitations of the anglo-saxon model as you will ever read – and, with his stakeholder concept, carried with it a more optimistic view of the possibilities of reform. David Korten’s various books also offer good analysis – although his focus on the American corporation does not easily carry to Europe (See William Davies' recent Reinventing the Firm for a recent attempt). You can read Korten’s review of a Soros book here. Archdruid offers a contrary view here - although I’m not quite sure what to make of this particular blog – archdruid indeed!!
Most commentary on the recent global financial crisis has identified banks as the culprit – and those governments who made the move in recent decades to free banks from the regulation to which they have been subject. Marxists such as David Harvey have reminded us that government and banking behaviour is simply a reflection of a deeper issue – of surplus capital.
Hutton’s latest book (which I had abandoned a few weeks ago for its rather abstract opening treatment of fairness but dragged from the bookshelf at 04.30 this morning) does gives fairly good treatment to the first 3 questions but does not really even begin to answer the final question. And this is particularly pertinent for Hutton since the stakeholder analysis he brought with his 1995 book The State we’re In chimed with the times; did persuade a lot of people; and seemed at one stage to have got the Prime Minister's ear and commitment. It did not happen, however, and Hutton surely owes us an explanation of why it did not happen. The Management of Change has developed in the past 2 decades into an intellectual discipline of its own - and Hutton might perhaps use some it in a future edition of the book to explore this question. He might find Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Results particularly stimulating (I certainly did)
I would also have wished him to give us some comment on other takes" on our global problems eg the work of David Korten (above); Bill McKibben's Deep Economy: Economics as if the World Mattered; Olin Wright's Envisioning Real Utopias (which instances the amazing Mondragon cooperatives); and David Harvey's The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism. Although he is very generous in his attributions of research work, Hutton is perhaps less so in his recognition of the work of others who are trying to answer what I’ve suggested are the four big questions. There are more and more people trying to understand the mess we are in - and how do get out of it - and more and more books each with its own underlying set of ideological assumption. Will Hutton is one of the few people able to help us make sense of it all.
Finally a site with superb photographs which capture many aspects of Bucharest and Romania.