When Social Democrats think big, freedom's gotta give

The Social Democrats deserve credit for finally presenting a tentative outline of their political vision. This is a welcome substitute for the piecemeal outpourings of “rights” and the empty reference to sound politics galore which have characterized the Danish GOP. Although it remains to be seen how this long-overdue outburst of ideological fervour will impact on the daily political conduct – especially given the conspicuous verbal absence of the current party leader – these 9 theses constitute a laudable addition to an ideologically starved political sphere. However – and this is a very poignant but – the framework, in its present form does not comprise a vision for the Danish society befitting the 21st century. On the contrary, the document demonstrates deftly, although presumably involuntarily, that the Social Democratic agenda entails continual encroachment on liberty and desire to see the citizens of this country normalized to the confines of blind equality.

Notwithstanding the occasional logical inconsistency between goals and means, such as the overarching concern of decreasing inequality coupled with the ambition to shift taxation towards consumption, there are some curious creative touches to the formulation of the 9 theses. Generally speaking, the first two sentences in the first thesis introduce a central tenet of liberalism – individual freedom – as the starting point for the Social Democratic vision. But this encouraging stepping stone is certainly not to be taken at face value: The author subsequently embarks upon a long journey to dismantle any notion of personal liberty and never stops to look back.

Consider the treatment of the concept of freedom in the first thesis: A focus on individual rights changes into an emphasis on barriers to utilization of abilities, i.e. equality of opportunity, and then transforms into the notion that “the rights and needs of endangered children should carry greater weight than cultural norms which serve to limit equality”. Hence, the true definition of the underlying goal seems to be equality of outcome – which is an entirely different conception from individual freedom. As such, the first two paragraphs span sizeable leaps of logic in a blatant attempt to mask the deep-rooted goal of equality of outcome as a profound concern with individual freedom.
Certainly, individual freedom cannot be limited to choices between a variety of public and private service providers. The current government has contributed to the conceptual reduction of liberty to a string of consumption choices while sadly deserting e.g. basic rights to privacy and a fair trial. Political parties who claim to adhere to liberalism have hitherto not succeeded in presenting a positive and coherent vision of a society based on individual freedom.
The question, however, remains: Why do the Social Democrats perceive a need to propose an inelegantly construed euphemism of individual freedom for their desire to attain equality of outcome?

Without knowing the actual reasoning behind the 9 theses, one can only speculate that it serves as an intended distraction from the following catalogue of limitations on life and liberty. What is a citizen supposed to do in the ideal Social Democratic society? A citizen must adopt a range of norms – currently loosely defined, but in terms of potential legislation necessarily clearly delineated – emphasizing the common good above all else. And not just any common good – a citizen is subordinate to the sacred goal of reducing differences in outcome. Given that talent, ability, luck and sheer will power is undisputedly unevenly distributed in any population, how should this equality of outcome be realized through policy?

• A call for further progressive taxation, thesis no. 6: A citizen cannot expect to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his or her effort or talent in any field. Exceptionality in initiative, entrepreneurship and educational achievement does not merit any substantial reward but the intrinsic satisfaction of contributing to the common good. (Naturally, this cannot possibly constitute one of the barriers to utilization of ability, which thesis no. 1 enumerates as the main obstacle to freedom.)
• Public service provision as the common answer to any welfare issue, thesis no. 2: A citizen should expect to pay in full if he or she prefers a private alternative although he or she is forced to contribute to the financing of public provision via general taxation, effectively ruling out the choice of private alternatives for a large majority of the population. It is uncertain how “every citizen will be ensured optimal influence on all public welfare services”. Given that the choice of personal services is not merely a question of “consumers moving with intolerable easiness on to the next good”, but may touch upon personal values and life choices – the prevalence of a variety of publicly supported private schools are a case in point – this conception of welfare limits the ways in which individual citizen can live their lives.
• Detailed indirect control of consumption via taxation, thesis no. 7: A Social Democratic society wants to define on behalf of the citizens what constitutes “unnecessary” and “normal” consumption respectively. This is per definition a critical venture, but it is clearly implied that the citizen will be punished, if he or she does not stay within the bounds of the commonly defined living allowance.
  
  What about equality of opportunity? In the Social Democratic society, there is a desire to see proportional representation at every level of educational, professional and public life with reference to gender, ethnicity and family background. Individually chosen preferences, values and ambitions are of secondary, if any, importance in this endeavour, and if the current gender quota proposal is anything to judge the Social Democratic policy stance by, any organization – be it private, public or non-profit – will be restricted in their conduct by the imposition of this representational norm for the common good.
  
  Summing up, the citizens of Denmark are supposed to be a close-knit, well-behaved brood with healthy (ecological) eating habits, living according to state-sanctioned norms and relying on one-size-fits all public welfare services. It is a society that embraces the feel-good, static goal of equality of outcome instead of moving towards a country which encourages creativity, initiative and a variety of life styles.
  
  In conclusion, it should be absolutely clear that this Social Democratic society fundamentally does not respect individual freedom. Instead, the 9 theses entail a highly selective approach to “rights”. The defining feature of Social Democratic freedom is the partitioning of citizens, whereby individuals are effectively identified and classified by a set of group characteristics. In the Social Democratic society, the government dispenses “rights” to these groups at will, according to a system in which the “rights” of certain groups prevail over all other citizens. Those favoured are the groups that at any given point in time are proclaimed as suffering from some form of inequality, a highly flexible concept which is prone to more or less arbitrary expansion. Hence, the Social Democrats profess a commitment to individual freedom, but as a consequence of their quest for blind equality in the name of the common good, they willingly embrace a skewed distribution of liberty itself.
  
  On the contrary, individual freedom should be stressed as the right of any individual to define and answer basic as well as more insignificant questions of right and wrong independently of any society-imposed notion of normality, whilst respecting other individuals’ right to do the same. Thus, individual freedom allows for a person to determine his or her preferences in any aspect of life and it also allows for a person to prioritize which problems he or she chooses to grapple with – even if “society” would find it “convenient” for that person to answer a certain monotonic string of questions in a certain predetermined way.

The rise and fall of the OLPC

One Laptop Per Child is the great vision, that a small piece of equipment distributed to the children all over the world can change the future for the benefit of all. But the vision has a great flaw: It was conceived in the white halls of wisdom of the western world and the project has thus distanced it self too much from the reality of the children it is trying to help.

The project was launched with a grandeur that has allways been the tone to which the white man tried to relieve his burden. From poverty to prosperity in one generation. The idea is simple enough. Give every primary school child a laptop and you will empower them with the capacity to be knowledgeable engineers of industrialisation and democratisation. The project is also known as the 100$ laptop with reference to the original estimate of the combined cost of production and distribution. The rise and fall of the project is a short story, but I will try to explain, why it seemed doomed from the onset.

Too optimistic
First of all, the budget was too optimistic. The target price of 100$ per laptop has nearly doubled, and that is still only if the projected orders of several million laptops is to become reality. The upfront research and development spending means big losses to all stakeholders if the project fails and as a consequence the atmosphere between the managing group and the producers is very strained at the moment. After a good start for the project, most orders has been withdrawn, and if it wasn't for continuing pilot projects, the project might already have stranded.

One of the reasons the project is suffering is the reliance on governments in developing countries. The laptops was supposed to be ordered by governments in developing countries, who should seek funds form doners. But govenments are risk averse - especially when resources are scarse, and the pool of potential donor money was not grow by the project. This means the OLPC was considered with the same political cost benefit as any other project the governments might consider. In the end, the ones who should actually order the laptops are far less likely to embrace a risky and costly project, than the team who had envisioned it. The model of distribution was flawed in the already too optimistic project.

Not demanded
But the trouble runs deeper. I couldn't help being thinking, that the pictures in the BBC online article about the pilot project in Nigeria are too picture perfect. It represents presicely the image you get from reading the OLPC mission on their website. Poor kids, who used to struggle with the lack of adequate learning tools wandering around with one of the wonders from the past 30 years: the laptop computer. The article states the teachers hadn't used a computer before for professional purposes. Why do they need a laptop? They need books, they need better educated teachers, they need money for field trips to see the parliament, they probably need pencils and paper and in the worst cases they also need basic nesecities such as nutrisious food, clothes, health insurance, savings and so on. I don't know the state of the Nigerian primary education, but from my own expirience with primary education in less developed countries (in Africa), there is a high demand for better educated teachers and better, continually updated text books. Most of my generation had very little experience with computers before highschool, but we still rely on what we learned in primary school: math, reading, spelling and the curiosity to keep learning.

Wrong target
The more you think about it, the more you realise the OLPC project has the wrong target. In many countries secondary school enrolment is low because families can't afford the fees. And what about a programme, that gives secondary school students access to modern computers. Not scaled down toys with a whinch, but real professional productivity tools like spreadheets, databases and reporting programs. And what about subsidising university education, exchange programmes, scientific equipment and access to knowledge. So why is the project focused on primary school pupils? You can't escape the thought, that the founding father of the OLPC, MIT's Nicolas Negroponte, dreamt up the images that we now see: Poor children saved by one small device; the individual revolution that iluminates the future. Many a white man has dreamt of the solution to the poor worlds problems and this project inhibits the focus on the storyline and images as other projects orcastrated by men with dreams. The trouble is ofcourse, that a white mans dream seldom becomes the poor childs salvation - despite the pretty images, the benefit might not be in accordance with the high costs.

A lot of questions has arised. The project is only sustainable if several million computers are shipped. If not the cost of maintaining support systems will be too high and the incentive to develop teaching content too low (at the moment wikipedia is the main source of information, and it is not written for primary pupils who are just learning to read). Interestingly the demand for the laptop in the developed world have been quite high. The computer is excellent as the first computer for the tech savy 1. world child. Many people has already ordered the little green wonder for their families and you could easily see the computer used in pre school and the first clases in developed countries. The project might actually be saved to be known as One Laptop Per Rich Child.

I am a proponent of the thought, that information and communications technology can be the means by which the less developed countries can make rapid economic progress and avoid some of the pitfalls of the 20'th century industrialisation. But the OLPC project is an educational advance, that has not even found its way into the most european primary education classrooms. I'm afraid Negroponde has, as it happened with so many development project in the past, invented the solution without taking its point of departure in local needs and demands. The OLPC project will continue to exist, but it seems unlikely that the project will have the reach and impact first envisioned.

Neweuropeans for a fereral and social europe?

Newropeans is the first trans-European political movement, which will run for European elections in 2009 in all EU Member States with the same name, the same programme and the same objective.

That sounds interesting. Neweuropeans is an ambitious new party that might spur up things a little at the next election to the EU Parlament. I would argue, that this party came first with at truly pan European agenda - prove me wrong :-).

Their programme is very interesting and you can only support a federal agenda these days, but having new treaties (*cough* constitution) decided by a simple majority among the EU citizens and countries is very far reaching and something that will never be a reality. They are strong supporters of a more just Europe, but are they also for a more social Europe?

Time will tell and maybe their multilingual magazine will give some hints.

Tillykke SF!

SF vandt valget - oppositionen tabte. Den mere end fordoblede folketingsgruppe skal finde sig til rette på borgen og samtidigt finde fælles fodslag i oppositionspolitikken. Tendensen i valgkampen var klar: S, R og SF stod sammen og tidligere krav til samarbejdet blev droppet. De tre frontfigurer for oppositionen stod sammen - det gavnede dem personligt, men tømmermændene er begyndet at melde sig.

Så ligesom de Radikale efter valget i 2005 står SF nu i de situation, at der skal samarbejdes i oppositionen, samtidigt med at der skal kæmpes om de huller i mediedækningen, der ikke går til regeringen, Pia og Naser. Det bliver svært og vi ved jo alle hvordan det gik med de Radikale.

SF's fordel er, at de mange nye og unge folketingsmedlemmer nok ikke bringer lige så store egoer til tinge som de Radikale havde med i bagagen og samtidigt synes der ingen grænser for hvor populær Villy er i partiet. Den store udfordring for at SF kommer til at fremstå samlet og stærkt hele vejen frem til næste valg, er det, de altid fremhæver som deres store styrke: Den basisdemokratiske model.

SF bryster sig af at være bevægelsernes parti, partiet hvor de grønne, de røde og de lilla kan samles i skøn forening og folkelig fest. Da det er græsrødderne, der skal have magten er den politiske magt delegeret til hovedbestyrelsen og partiforeningsbestyrelserne. Det betyder, at det interne rænkespil i partiet altid står i lys lue. Flere steder praktiseres stadig partiliste, hvilket i 2005 havde den uheldige konsekvens, at to kvinder blev vraget til folketinget frem for to (snart meget upopulære) mænd, der havde langt lavere personlige stemmetal. Partiliste er bare det mest symbolske eksempel på ulempen ved at det er de ikke folkevalgte, der sidder på den politiske dagsorden.

Pointen er, at "basisdemokratiet" forhindrer den nye folketingsgruppe i at fungere, fordi det egentlige politiske arbejde forgår et helt andet sted. Det er ikke muligt at sætte sig sammen og lægge den politiske linje i folketingsgruppen, fordi den bliver lagt af dem, der kan få de alt andet end folkevalgte amtsrepræsentanter i hovedbestyrelsen over på deres side i de interne fraktionskampe. Derfor er der en risiko for, at de politiske skæl, som har præget SF siden starten af 90'erne bliver forstærket og endnu engang kommer til at være det ved SF, som alle taler mest om. For alle de nye folketingsmedlemmer handler de kommende år om at blive genvalgt næste gang. Profilerne skal prøves af, så vi er garanteret show down i det symbolpolitiske (stillingtagen til den nye EU-traktat skal nok sætte gang i tingene).

Jeg ønsker den nye folketingsgruppe god arbejdslyst og velkommen til verden og opfordrer stille til, at hovedbestyrelsen nu endelig erklæres defacto død.