Sometimes we see a political trend in which all the members of the flock run in the same direction, with no time for either analysis or reflection. Fundamentalist theses evoke joyous bleats – concerning the divine nature of the market, freedom of the movement of capital, unrestricted globalisation and the idea that a society is effective and “modern” when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
That final piece of fundamentalism means that society is split into “me” and “the other”, “us” and “them” and, finally, us against them.
Widening gaps between people lead to conflicts, violence and egoism, alienation and racism. And, in the end, fear – a fear that threatens what we have learned to know as “democracy”.
We see how fear has spread through our poor suburbs, the ones with the greatest visible social problems. A sense of security – and identity – is sought in obscure groups united by threats and hate, whilst any empathy is drowned in fear.
Yet fear also spreads to the well-off. We see how grated windows, guard dogs in gardens and “security” companies patrulling the streets are now a part of our rich European suburbs. What use are big houses, well-tended gardens, low taxes and high incomes when fear is ever-present? What use is the quantitative when the qualitative is ever more hollow?
A society with scared people is a poor society – a poor society for both rich and poor. We produce fear by making political decisions based on something as irrational as values based on ideological disorientation and political flock mentality. Those who have lost their way run in a flock, screaming hysterically to one another that they are on the right track. What values have possessed those in power? How can this gathering of men and women hide away so far from reality that they that they cannot see or understand that the very core of democracy is rotting as a result of increasing economic and social gaps in our society? The reason might, perhaps, be summarised by the word “economism” – the new ideological haven for politicians of all persuasions.
Economism tells us that the human is an economic being. This is, according to the gospel, the most rational and effective way to look at human beings. When we human beings are reduced to economic beings, danger threatens: this is when higher values begin to be denied. Everything is reduced to a queation of pounds and pennies – even people. Human beings are, of course, much more than economic beings. We are biological, social and cultural beings. It is for such beings of flesh and blood that we must build a society – for people who love and cry and laugh. For people with longings, dreams and with an infinite capacity to grow.
If we see human beings as biological, social and cultural beings it is easy to feel amazement – and even loathing – at what is happening before our very eyes. More and more people are made to suffer a poorer environment, social stress and cultural barrenness in spite of the fact that we have never before had such an opportunity to build a socially and ecologically sustainable society. Instead we allow the piranhas to play and thrive in the mistaken belief that their well-being has something to do with democracy. Present-day capitalism has disastrous similarities to yesterdayʼs communism: both violate human dignity, though by different methods. And at the very bottom, always at the very bottom, we find those who are forced to flee. It is hard to find a way into a society which sees itself as a “home for its people” (Swedish: folkhem), even harder to find a way into a welfare state in the process of voluntarily dismantling itself.
Birger Schlaug (Translation from Swedish: Fred Lane)