Fine example of 1980s art

Hats off (again!) to Vihra Pesheva of Astry Gallery here who has mounted another wonderful celebration of an older Bulgarian artist. This time it is a extensive collection of the work of Vassil Valev from the 1980s. Valev was born in 1934 in a village near Burgas – and his oil and aquarelle work from this period focusses on that. He was Director for a time of Targovishte Art Gallery and is now still a Professor. His intro on the website says simply -

I was born in the village where I spent my childhood and teen years. Many of my stories relate to the village: Cow yards, neighbours gossiping, rural suburbs, rural toil. Even my landscapes from Sofia are the suburbs rather than the noisy city centre. The characters in my paintings are working people, often elderly, those suffering…

AsVihra puts it – "Bulgaria’s period under the socialist regime still arouses complex emotions. The art from this period is, variously, denied, ignored or treated as a collector’s genre rather than appreciated individually. But it is part of our cultural heritage and Vassil Valev’s work offers a rare depth". Whether showing tobacco harvesters, Iraqi nomads or family groups, the works (often gouache) show a deep human sympathy.
Vihra does not have a lot of space in her small gallery - but this time her exhibition offers not only the oils on the wall but a collection of unmounted aquarelles in folders. The average price is about 500 levs. Some of them, for me, have the Ilyia Beshkov touch.
All this in addition to the display of oils and small scupltures in the entrance area from other living artists always makes her gallery a joy to visit.

An interesting conversation in Dobrich

Dobrich in some 30 kilomtres inland from Balchik and has the look and feel of a town double its official size of 93,000 citizens. Its central square is one of the largest I have ever seen – and is adorned by various large buildings, one of which (previously the Court of Justice built under the "occupation") now houses the extensive art collection – which you can find listed on the town’s excellent (English) website (at the end of its list of cultural centres)
While we were admiring the small special exhibition of Vladimir Dmitrov- he Master’s work, we were approached by the Gallery’s Director, Evelina Handzhieva who speaks excellent French and, very graciously, gave us a personal tour of her domain. It started with a group of schoolkids who were receiving some interactive training in the process of paper-making – the gallery, uniquely, has a collection of paperworks produced by the participants of a recent international event held here.
Separate sections are devoted to the gallery’s collection of sculptures and prints – and to local artists as well as old masters - such as this rare work of Ivan Mrkvichka (1856-1938),

one of two Czechs (the other is Jaroslav Vesin) who are credited with setting Bulgarian painting on its modern path.

The breadth of the collection is one of the widest I have seen (with a nice mix of older and contemporary). The exhibition space is so extensive that the tour took more than an hour – with Daniela being loaned a coat to protect her against the cold (no heating again).

I was very taken with this contemporary work by Plaven Valchev (born 1951).
I have been nicely received in all of the Regional galleries I have visited in Bulgaria – but this was the first time I was able to have a proper conversation about the problems of running galleries here at this time. Over a cup of tea, Evelina (like all the Directors here I’ve met an artist herself) explained that it is the Ministry of Culture who set a formula which dictates the number of staff to which regional galleries are entitled. So much for local government autonomy!! And, in Dobrich’s case, with such an huge palace, the staff of 12 (including 2 cleaners and 3 attendants) is simply insufficient. There is no surveillance system - so security is labour-intensive.
As was evident from the number of brochures, the Director is highly proactive in seeking out opportunities for marketing and funding (A Swiss Foundation was mentioned) and the Gallery’s CD lists the various international exhibitions (eg China and Slovakia) which have been mounted with the support of Embassies here. But it is an uphill struggle – a good venture of bussing tourists from the beaches nearby during the summer fizzled out.
It is not easy to produce a winning formula for such a problem. But one thing is clear for me – it requires local solutions and this means removing the dead hand of central control – and encouraging networking between galleries (national and international), hotels, businesses (eg the new owners of the rich agricultural land and the golf courses!!) and educational establishments.
Don't get me wrong - national financial support needs to be maintained (otherwise the galleries could be at more risk)) but on the basis of more imagination......

This is a detail of the Valchev painting

Artists' Paradise

Bulgaria's North-East (like most of its other extremities) is pretty poor. It has known better days. The Black Sea was like a mill pond yesterday – and the blue skies and sun had Balchik’s small promenade full. The small town which clings to the white sandstone cliffs is popular with both Bulgarians and Romanians – it is only 30 kilometres or so from the border and did indeed belong to Romania for almost 30 years. After the Second Balkan War, in 1913, the town, styled Balcic, became part of the Kingdom of Romania and was much loved by its Queen Mary. It was regained by Bulgaria during World War I (1916–1919), but Romania restored its authority when hostilities in the region ceased. Quite a lot of the Romanian bourgeoisie built villas - many of which have collapsed due to the soil subsidence which is a problem in the area.
But in 1940, just before the outbreak of World War II in the region, Balchik was ceded by Romania to Bulgaria. When we were last here - 10 years ago (on the way back from a trip to Turkey) - our landlady lowered her voice to speak Romanian.

The town’s art gallery has apparently paintings from that period by Romanian artists – who were charmed by the strong muslim air the town had in those days. The gallery’s website understandably uses the language of "occupation” when it talks about “the group of eleven Romanian artists who have painted Balchik during the occupation of Dobroudzha”. The group includes two favourites of mine - Alexandru Satmari and Samuel Mutzner. Many Bulgarian artists have taken the air here - not least Mario Zhekov (I don't think the villa shown in this painting of his survives) - and the area also boasts famous cliffs further north.
Sadly, however, the permanent collection was closed - due to reconstruction (as with Shumen, the charming young woman could offer no firm date for its re-opening). But a few of the Romanian paintings were on display - as well as a temporary exhibition of paintings by an 84 year old Nedelcho Nanov - mostly miniatures of the area painted variously in the 1960s and 2000s.
He is now based in Sofia - and this "Interior" was, for me, particularly intriguing.


A trip north to Kavarna - which was also a painter's haunt - was, however, disappointing. The town has been built back from the sea - and a curious remote stretch of road leads to the sea and to an eerie ghost town of half-finished modern blocks of tourist flats. The one positive feature of the town was its gleaming new sports facilities.....
A forest of wind turbines as we approached the town suggested a progressive mayor - but turned out to be linked to horrific new golf courses and the usual allien complexes of the rich associated with them. There was even a special Italian/Bulgarian furniture chain standing at the side of the road out of Balchik catering for these aliens. "Green" electricity is apparently more expensive than the local!
Tomorrow we hope to see the Dobrich Art Gallery collection the way back to Sofia (they assure me that it is possible to see the permanent exhibits!). That gallery offers a first for Bulgarian regional galleries – a blog!

Breakdown of the social agreement

Winston Churchill was the source of great quotes – one of which was “If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” Pity he didn’t say something about what happens to political beliefs after you become 60! Of course, a lot depends on the context – both personal and social. And I don’t suppose I am alone in having moved even more left in the past decade.
I have always had a fairly critical perspective on the power structure – but could never join the more radical left in its specific prescriptions. I was too sceptical about social engineering. I profoundly believed in social progress coming from a balance of power. My mistake was to imagine that the power elite accepted the new balance of power which had been forged by the middle of the last century.

An important article on the Social Europe site by an adviser to the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees puts the failure of the European social democratic movement to make any real electoral headway in a useful historical context -

The current deep ideological and political crisis on the broad left can only be understood in the context of the rather socially peaceful post World War II period, the heydays of the social welfare state and the existence of a class compromise between labour and capital in Europe. This historic compromise was the result of a very specific historic development, in which capitalist forces gave concessions to the well organised working class in Western Europe to damp its radicalism and win workers’ support in the cold war against the Soviet Union. However, in the dominant trade union and labour movement these historic specific achievements gradually formed the basis for a generalised social partnership ideology which became more and more delinked from the analyses of the power relations on which it was built. Thus, it also led to a certain depoliticisation and deradicalisation of the trade union and labour movement. The historic role of the Social Democratic parties became to administer the class compromise, rather than to mobilise the working class for further social progress. This is very well illustrated by the fact that the political and ideological crisis really hit those political parties as the class compromise started to disintegrate from around 1980 – and capitalist forces launched their neoliberal offensive.
What we have seen in Europe over the last 30 years is therefore governments which have pursued some kind of neoliberal policies whether they have been right wing, centre or so-called centre-left governments. The Social Democratic Parties in the EU member countries have, without exception, supported all the neoliberal constitutional amendments of the EU, and the entire construction of a Singel Market, which in reality has been a systematic project of deregulation, privatisation and undermining of trade unions and social welfare.

Most of the European trade union confederations are clinging to what in EU language is called the ‘social dialogue’. This means that they act as if the post World War II class compromise is still intact, and that bi- and tripartite cooperation between labour, capital and the state is still the most effective way of promoting the interests of workers. That the class compromise has come to an end, and that the social forces with which they seek dialogue are attacking public services, wages, pensions and the very fundamental trade unions rights day and night, do not seem to weaken most European trade union organisations’ belief in social partnership and social dialogue as the main way forward…..
The European social model, such as we know it from its heyday, has at any rate been abandoned in reality by the European elites, even if they continue to pay lip-service to it.
A solution to the crisis, built on solidarity, will require massive mobilisation in order to change the balance of power in society. Only if the trade union and labour movement is strong enough to pose a threat to the existing economic order, will the speculators and their political servants start to give in. That is why support for those who are now fighting to contain this cutback policy is so crucial. The restructuring of the political left seems to be part of the task. Either the trade union and labour movement will manage to defend the social progress gained via the welfare state, or it risks being left with a right-wing authoritarian and socially degraded Europe. A great part of the social progress of the last century is at stake.

Open Democracy is running a special series at the moment on various aspects of the global crisis – and I recommend one contribution which carries the marvellous title Alternative Finance Radicals – infusing rebellion with entrepreneurial activity. Two reasons make it a worthwhile read – first the number of links it gives to relevant work elsewhere (a rare generosity these days); and, second, its arguments for the need to break down the barriers which separate people who could be working fruitfully together -

Left-wing, rebellion-based approaches make bold stands against systems perceived as unjust, while entrepreneurial creativity-based approaches seek to make those systems redundant by bypassing them. Both are forms of subversion, although the latter tends to require a keener engagement with the mainstream. Financial activism, traditionally associated with economic justice ‘activists’, should also be thought of as including those who are proactively building new models outside of the traditional activist ‘scene’. Perhaps the ideal is a hybrid radical, well-versed in the micro-level practicalities of alternatives, and possessing an entrepreneurial flair infused with the rebellious spirit of critical theory. Encouraging hybrid radicals entails overcoming silos, and that’s part diplomatic mission, and part a co-ordination problem. It’s also about articulating a common vision that cuts across different networks with different immediate priorities and internal languages.

Two useful blogs I came across today are by Marxist economists – Michael Roberts writes in a clear and forthright manner and gives important data on the global crisis as it is affecting Europe. Another, Critique of Crisis Theory, is theoretical and much harder going – but the link I have given contains a fascinating account of one man’s intellectual journey over the past 40 years.
Until now, Boffy’s Blog was my only Marxist voice – and his latest commentary on ageing, the health service and the public spending cuts in the UK is a good example of the baroque treasure you often get on his site.

For a more concrete example of how corporate power deals with its so-called partners, have a look at this great John Harris video on what it’s like to be the owner of a “tied” pub in the UK (tied, that is, to a brewery giant)

A year ago
I commented on a promising European initiative by the Guardian – a new site which

as well as drilling down into different nations, we are also keen for the site to reflect – and inspire – more wide-ranging pan-European debates about the future of Europe as an idea and as a project, something that feels particularly urgent in this time of economic, political and social flux”.

My comment was that

"The barrier to our understanding of development in other European countries is not just linguistic. It stems also from the intellectual compartmentalisation (or apartheid) which universities and European networks have encouraged in our elites. European political scientists, for example, have excellent networks but talk in a highly specialised language about recondite topics which they publish in inaccessible language in inaccessible journals. What insights they have about each other’s countries are rarely made available to the wider public. The same is true of the civil service nationals who participate in EC comitology or OECD networks – let alone the myriad professional networks. We talk about gated communities – but they exist virtually as well as physically.
The potentially exciting thing about this venture (as I understand the proposal, it will be a blog site) is that we would hear from than the voices of politicians and journalists. Several of the (ex-pat) respondents on the discussion thread offered to write. Others suggested big names (eg Umberto Eco; Julian Barnes; Claudio Magris; Hans Magnus Enzensburger. I mentioned Geert Mak and Jan Morris). On reflection it would be good to have the contributors to this site being those who know their subject without necessarily being a professional specialist and who can write elegantly (without necessarily being a journalist).
Spiegel and le Monde are easy partners since they already have English versions. But there are a few European level ventures worth plugging into the venture eg Sign and Sight which translates outstanding articles by non-English language authors and Eurozine which is a network of 75 European highbrow journals and translates interesting articles into at least one major European language. I've added these two to the Links on the right-hand column on this blogsite".

Sadly, the hope of the site has not been realised. It has, indeed, an abandoned look about it - sign of the times perhaps as the national shutters go up.....
I'm in Ploiesti at the moment and a nice Romanian site has a good post on one of its small museums.

The Uzbek Connection

I had no sooner blogged earlier in the week about media restrictions – and inserted a link to a good Craig Murray lecture and interview on the topic than he posted the news that these 2 videos had been removed from the site of the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin (the only two videos from the Conference on Free Expression (!) to be subject to this treatment)
One of the discussants on the discussion which followed suggested that this might be connected with some uncomplimentary things Craig had said about German politicians and foreign policy somewhere else in Berlin at the same time, namely -

The former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has also roundly criticized the relationship between Germany and the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan. Speaking at the High Level Hearings on Uzbekistan, held in Berlin on 1 March, Murray said that Termez was the first military base Germany had taken over beyond its own borders since the end of World War II. “It is ironic that Germany’s first overseas military base is being used to reinforce the totalitarian system in Uzbekistan,” said Murray.
He also revealed his contempt for the hypocrisy of European and particularly German politicians who try to justify their cooperation with Karimov by citing dubious ‘progress’ in Uzbekistan’s approach to human rights.
It would be more honest, Murray said, if politicians in the EU and Germany admitted that they cooperate with Karimov because of the military base in Termez which is essential to them in supporting their military campaign in Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan finds itself in a very advantageous position because of the war in Afghanistan, said Scott Horton, editor of the influential Harper’s magazine, at the same Hearings in Berlin Uzbek - Greater security is not all that Karimov has gained by cooperating with NATO, said Horton. A company belonging to his elder daughter Gulnara makes money from supplying goods to NATO troops in Afghanistan, he claims. “All goods that are imported are processed through Gulnara’s company; it’s a win-win situation,” Horton said.

It was, therefore, highly ironic that, on Monday, I was suddenly asked by a German company if I would take over as Team Leader of an EC project with the Uzbek Parliament!
Part of me was keen to see the country again – not least to visit Khiva and Bukhara and to take the proper opportunity this time to see (and perhaps acquire) some of the country's fascinating art work.
But another part of me, however, questioned whether I could ethically justify this – given how much more repressive the regime has become in the decade since I last lived and worked there. Since I left the country in 2002, several hundreds of people were massacred at Andijan (in 2006); and Craig Murray has exposed the scale of torture And, given the opinions I have about the "political class" everywhere (let alone in Uzbekistan where they are mere ciphers), could I really sleep at night if I was part of a project supposed to be strengthening it????
At a more personal level, I have read cases since I left the country of foreigners driving cars being arrested and held to ransom for several thousands of dollars. I drove myself around Tashkent and the countryside 1999-2002 and had no trouble with the police. But I had a red Cabinet Office pass – which commanded deep respect.
I had to respond immediately – and sent an ambivalent reply, asking whether the team has the same sort of official pass I had a decade ago. I heard no more! So fate solved my ethical dilemma! And, to date, I have had no response from the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy to my query.

update

And, three weeks on, a story appeared which indicates the strength of the set of cards which Uzebistan has as countries such as the UK prepare to pull out of Afghanistan. And how the UK prostitutes itself to ensure a base in this Dictatorship....

setting priorities in municipal services

Razgrad's Ivan Petrov Gallery proved worth the wait. Housed in a superb, modernised and specially-designed building (with EC funding) in the heart of the town right next to the well-kept mosque, it has an enthusiastic Director, Todor Todorov, who personally showed us round the collection on display. This included about 6 Danail Dechevs, a Tanev, a Boris Denev, several Vladimir Dimitrovs and two painters so far unknown to me - Maxim Tsankov (1877-1965) and Kosta Petrov (1894-1973).

Unfortunately Vodaphone here in Romania does not give me the capacity to upload a photo from my camera - that will have to await my return to Bulgaria (on Sunday we go to a workshop at Balcik on the Black Sea for a couple of days. The art gallery there is also well worth a visit - as befits an area which has  attracted so many painters.)  In the meantime I post another example of Dechev's work which has smaller capacity.

Razgrad's permanent exhibition also includes an excellent graphics collection.

The gallery’s catalogue is the best I have seen – with coloured reproductions and English as well as Bulgarian notes on the paintings and painters. It also has a website – although still, clearly, in the process of construction.

Razgrad's gallery, therefore, must go to the top of my unofficial list of best housed, managed and documented regional galleries in Bulgaria - with Stara Zagora a close second. Russe is the worst. Of course, these are not necessarily the best criteria - for example the poorly-housed Targovishte Gallery was abuzz with a group of school-kids - and the unheated Skitnik gallery in Sliven sponsors an annual Plein Air summer school. Such local acess and use should clearly be the core of the mission of any art gallery.

I find these differences an interesting example of the effects and importance of local government - although I've made the point here before that the proper maintenance of older paintings which are part of a country's national patrimony has national significance. The lack of heating which threatens so many paintings in Bulgaria's regional art galleries is a disgrace - but perhaps it is too easy to put this down to lack of municipal funding. I found it curious that one of the galleries I visited had  7 staff.  Of course I never like to recommend job-shedding but, in this case, perhaps lack of heating simplyshows a poor sense of budgetary priorities!

The Razgrad Gallery is the only one I have seen which has used Regional Funds to make such a major refurbishment - which shows both official initiative and political support. I still have to visit Balcik, Burgas, Dobrich, Veliko Tarnovo and Pleven Galleries - and pay homage at Svishtosh to Nikola Tanev. I doubt, however, whether I will find a better gallery!

A Year Ago;
I offered a very useful annotated bibliography on the economic aspects of social change.

The way we live now

This blog has mentioned several times the advantages of the semi-nomadic life. Since renting the flat in Sofia last April, I’ve accumulated a fair number of books and paintings and may well end the rental shortly (the delight of the Carpathian mountains in spring beckons). So each trip north means a box of books, of clothes and a pile of at least 10 paintings. And therefore an opportunity to dip into some books as I travel. Yesterday I started to read, for the second time, Tony Judt’s short Ill Fares the Land (2010). The link gives the book's entire Introduction and is therefore well worth reading. It starts very powerfully "Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today," Judt begins - We are obsessed with money and have lost any sense of community.

In the 30 years following the Second World War, there was a widespread belief that the state could do a better job than the unregulated market. A benign welfare state would keep us from the poverty of the 1930s. It would protect us from cradle to grave. These assumptions underpinned Butskellism in Britain, the Great Society in the United States and European social democracy. In the 1970s, confidence in the state and a larger public realm fell apart. Since then, many have lost any sense of the state as either efficient or benign. Instead, we have come to believe, as Margaret Thatcher said, that: "There is no such thing as society; there are individual men and women, and there are families."

Judt pulls no punches. This new obsession with wealth, privatisation and the private sector is disastrous. The evidence of public squalor is all around us: "Broken highways, bankrupt cities, collapsing bridges, failed schools, the unemployed, the underpaid and the uninsured: all suggest a collective failure of will." The first chapter, "The Way We Live Now", is a passionate argument against the rise of inequality, the collapse in social mobility and the "pathological social problems" that follow. "Economic disadvantage for the overwhelming majority," he writes, "translates into ill-health, missed educational opportunity and - increasingly - the familiar symptoms of depression." Inequality is "corrosive". "It rots societies from within," he says.
I suspect we can all save ourselves a lot of time by asking about the motives which spurred an author to write – mostly it has to do with academic reputation, money or hubris. When a man is on his death-bed and takes incredible trouble (and pain) to draft a book for posterity it will generally be worth reading. Here is how historian Judt explains its origins in the Introduction -

For thirty years students have been complaining to me that ‘it was easy for you’: your generation had ideals and ideas, you believed in something, you were able to change things. ‘We’ (the children of the ’80s, the ’90s, the ‘aughts’) have nothing. In many respects my students are right. It was easy for us — just as it was easy, at least in this sense, for the generations who came before us. The last time a cohort of young people expressed comparable frustration at the emptiness of their lives and the dispiriting purposelessness of their world was in the 1920s: it is not by chance that historians speak of a ‘lost generation’.

If young people today are at a loss, it is not for want of targets. Any conversation with students or schoolchildren will produce a startling checklist of anxieties. Indeed, the rising generation is acutely worried about the world it is to inherit. But accompanying these fears there is a general sentiment of frustration: ‘we’ know something is wrong and there are many things we don’t like. But what can we believe in? What should we do?
This is an ironic reversal of the attitudes of an earlier age. Back in the era of self-assured radical dogma, young people were far from uncertain. The characteristic tone of the ’60s was that of overweening confidence: we knew just how to fix the world. It was this note of unmerited arrogance that partly accounts for the reactionary backlash that followed; if the Left is to recover its fortunes, some modesty will be in order. All the same, you must be able to name a problem if you wish to solve it. This book was written for young people on both sides of the Atlantic.

The title of his book is taken from these lines of Oliver Goldsmith’s famous 1770 poem -

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.''

and, for me, one of significant things about the book is that each of its chapter headings echoes a famous book of the past century thus eg The World We Have Lost;  What is to be done?; Shape of Things to Come – thus subtly emphasising the recognition (as Google Scholar puts it) that we "stand on the shoulders of Giants”. Our selfish world has too few writers who properly spell out the relevant work by other writers and too many who pretend to have blazed a unique trail (modern book publishing seems to require such hyperbole). The academics go the opposite extreme of referencing so much and so generally that you are left with no real sense of intellectual development.
One extensive review summarised the book’s arguments thus -

He is the most important contemporary representative of a nearly extinct political tendency – the anti-communist, social-democratic Left. His manifesto is driven by his conviction that in rejecting social democracy 30 years ago the West stumbled badly, and by his hope that the social-democratic tradition can now be revived. His manifesto is sober but also urgent, written by a man who knows that time is not on his side, and for this reason deeply moving.

For Judt, social democracy is multifaceted and complex. Originally, social democracy was a response to the barbarity of communism, where the utopian socialist dream was moderated by a commitment to liberal democracy and where eventually a historic compromise with capitalism was struck. After the shock of the Great Depression, social democracy became, in addition, a distinctive form of political economy, inspired by Maynard Keynes. For a generation, under the Keynesian consensus, worldly wisdom triumphed over neo-classical academic orthodoxy. Social democracy was, accordingly, no longer merely one kind of politics but the animating spirit of an era lasting from 1945 until the election of Margaret Thatcher. During this era, social democracy was associated with a series of policy prescriptions: progressive taxation and the “mixed economy” of public and private ownership. It was also primarily responsible for the creation of the protective social-welfare state, its greatest achievement. Yet, for Judt, social democracy is even more than this. It is the most humane moral–political idea, in which, for once, both the two great values unleashed by the French Revolution – freedom and equality – are valued and pursued.
What went wrong for social democracy? Although Judt rather perfunctorily recognises that in the mid-1970s the social-democratic state hit unanticipated economic troubles, his explanation of the collapse places greater weight on cultural factors. By the 1970s, a younger postwar generation had begun to take the achievements of the postwar social-democratic era for granted, and even to chafe at the dullness of the security it had delivered. In addition, the New Left was by now more interested in the politics of personal identity – of race and gender, rather than class – than it was in defending the achievements of the postwar Left. Both factors made the social order vulnerable to an intellectual attack that was mounted by the Austrian émigrés – not only Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, but also Karl Popper, Joseph Schumpeter and Peter Drucker – who were mesmerised by the interwar collapse of liberalism throughout central Europe and who, grotesquely, mistook the creation of the social-democratic welfare state for a way station on “the road to serfdom”.
There is strength in Judt’s explanation of the fall of social democracy, but also weakness. Judt underestimates the degree to which the ‘stagflation’ crisis knocked the confidence of the conventional Keynesian economists, whose thought was premised on the idea that inflation and stagnation were the alternative illnesses to which the capitalist economy might succumb. He is also rather unbalanced about the legacy of the New Left. Even if there was a narcissistic tendency in identity politics, it is also true that the eruption of the ’60s helped trigger a vast cultural revolution that shook centuries-old habits of mind on issues related to gender and race. Not only did this transform Western sensibility unambiguously for the better, it also extended to women and non-whites one idea that Judt places at the heart of social-democratic values: equality.
For Judt it is because of the victory of neo-liberalism, especially in the UK and the US, that the land now fares ill. Most important for him is the toleration shown for the return to pre-Great Depression levels of inequality. Judt begins with tables taken from a remarkable recent study, The Spirit Level. They show that measuring almost everything we value – health, mental wellbeing, social mobility, trust, levels of crime – the more equal societies of north-west Europe perform notably better than the less equal societies of the UK and, especially, the US.

Because of the return of gross inequality, the participatory element of democratic politics has withered. For too long citizens have watched as the wealthy have fashioned the world according to their desires. Without the feeling of belonging to a common world, participation has no point. For Judt, the rise of the “gated” community is a potent symbol of the loss of this common world. Even political leaders – “pygmies”, such as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, compared to their predecessors, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt – have become passive, leaving decision-making to the neo-liberal economic “experts” (the descendants of the Austrian school) whose central role has been to make the world safe for the bankers and brokers. The orthodox economists have, long ago, displaced political thinkers and convinced the world “there is no alternative” to their nostrums. Although discredited by the Global Financial Crisis, so far nothing has filled the void. At the coming of the crisis, Keynesianism made a return of sorts, but this was little more than a neo-liberal “tactical retreat”. At the moment of crisis everyone looked to government for action. Yet, according to Judt, no one is presently thinking afresh about the role of the state.

It is clear that for him the damage done will not be easy to repair. Although the welfare state has proven somewhat resistant to the neo-liberal assault – even Margaret Thatcher could not abandon the National Health Scheme – privatisation has made rapid gains in many areas, especially social services and transport, where its influence has been negative, or worse. But the spirit of neo-liberalism has also paralysed the vital organs of the culture. Universities are now overwhelmed by an economistic language of “outputs” and “impacts”. We have taught the young to value nothing more than the pursuit of wealth. Even intellectuals do not escape his scorn. Most are conformist and afraid to dissent. Even when they are not, they prefer to speak about morally straightforward issues rather than the complexity of public policy. (Ouch!) No one now seems capable of expressing, or indeed of feeling, the appropriate anger. Perhaps dangerously, Judt calls on intellectuals and others to trust their “instincts”.

Judt knows that contemporary social democracy is feeble. Since the collapse of communism, the Left no longer believes that its goals are, in the words of Bernard Williams, “cheered on by the universe”. More deeply, it has lost its language; its crisis is thus “discursive”. But he is still convinced that a rebirth of social democracy is possible. In part this is because neo-liberalism has been discredited. In part it is because the quest for equality has not lost its grip on our moral imagination. And in part it is because we live at a time of unprecedented uncertainty – about the economic future, about the dangers of global warming, about the pace and unpredictability of change. The Right is certain to try to exploit the mood of deep uncertainty. Yet, there is on the Left a long tradition of fighting to conserve the human world from the forces that threaten it. If there is to be a return to social democracy, it is almost certain to be what Judt calls “a social democracy of fear”.

The European Commission Terrorists

Daniel Cohn-Bendit has been a breath of fresh air in European politics since 1968. Ensconced in the European Parliament for the past couple of decades (as a Green), his disparaging term for Commissioner Barrosso and his advisers has, apparently, been “The Chicago boys” - a nice conflation of mafia and the source of academic neo-liberalism. Recently, he has started to call them “The neo-liberal Taliban”  and Social Europe has a useful post outlining the various positions taken by the EC which justify this term. So, let’s look at the facts:

• According to the Commission’s reading, the deepest financial and economic crisis since the 1930s is simply a state debt crisis and has little to do with the crash of Lehmann Brothers and other banks. Yet, in reality, states were forced to step in to save the banks and their markets due to the meltdown in the financial industry. Many member states with previously reasonable debt levels assumed private debts and thus increased their public debt. But for the Commission, only the last link of the chain is important: austerity regimes must be established all over Europe to counter the “debt challenge”, to introduce “debt brakes” and the name for these austerity regimes is “economic governance”.
• Under the Troika regime, Greece has been asked to cut debts. The Greeks are willing to save money by cutting the defence budget but the Commission’s reaction has been negative: it recommends cutting pensions instead.
 The Troika regime is asking Ireland to cut salaries. The Irish trade unions have challenged the approach as neoliberal but the Commission’s maintains that it’s all just economics!
• The Commission’s country recommendations follow the same pattern: Belgium should see its long existing wage indexation as a cause of the debts and abolish it; Spain should let collective bargaining agreements extinguish without renewal; France should limit the rate of increase of minimum wages. The Commission will enforce these recommendations via a system of fines and sanctions.
• The recent White Paper on pensions claims to support workers’ mobility. What it actually seems to promote is the mobility of insurance companies and the uniformity of insurance products all over Europe.
• There is still no breakthrough on a Financial Transaction Tax, Eurobonds, strict regulation of financial markets, a split of the banking system etc.
• The so-called “reform agenda” is still under the banner of more smart regulation, more labour market reform, more flexicurity etc.

Europe needs to be protected against this neoliberal dismantling. The financial industry brought the system close to a breakdown and the “neoliberal Taliban” are bringing Europe close to collapse. They overlook the symptoms of growing euroscepticism all over Europe and they fail to deliver solutions. Whether or not austerity works, seems not so important for them.

Another interesting Social Europe post is here