Economics

Af Claus Kold Fra Månen kan man ikke se Danmark, lige meget hvor godt man kigger. Det kan man ikke, fordi Danmark er en kulturlig konstruktion, som er inde i danskernes hoveder, og som derfor ikke kan ses. Man kan heller ikke se Rusland, USA eller Indien. Disse stater er nemlig også kun inde i hovederne på de mennesker, der tilfældigvis er født og opvokset i det, de har valgt at kalde fx Israel. Danmark er m.a.o. en tilfældighed. Det kunne lige så godt ikke eksistere, eller ligge et andet sted eller danskerne kunne tale et andet sprog, som de godt nok ville kalde dansk, men som ikke lød dansk – for os, de rigtige danskere. Stater og statssystemer har ikke altid eksisteret, og op gennem tiden har de, der eksisterede, haft meget forskellige form. De har været religiøse, familieeje, enemandsvælder, étpartistater – i dag er det dominerende ideal territorialt...

Review of John Avery’s book by Dorothy Guyot A Scientist Presses for Action on Many Fronts: A review of the book The Need for a New Economic System By John Scales Avery Selected Works Volume 1, 291 pages Irene Publishing Sparsnäs, Sweden 2015 The Need for a New Economic System by John Scales Avery is an important book for everyone concerned over the future of humanity. The urgent voice of the book stems from Dr. Avery’s seeing the discontinuity between the loving care that people bestow on their children and their failure to reduce the harm to their children from a destructive economic system, climate change, resource depletion, and war. This book of advocacy demonstrates the need for solutions to problems created under the present economic system. Political-economic analyses of the causes of the problems and of solutions are outside of the scope of the book. Scattered through the book...

Washington, DC The Big View is the West doing badly, euro and pound down with miserable growth rates; US $-growth rate better but erratic; China, India, Islam growing, Latin America (CELAC) getting its act together and probably growing. This matters for essentially bankrupt USA: China, India, Islam, CELAC are huge powers with huge minorities inside the USA: they could move in, take over. Last week’s prediction about Trump’s foreign policy came true the next day (Washington Post 22 Mar 2016): less wars, not affordable, less NATO, let Europe do it, no nation-building, building our own. He was then branded “isolationist” with US incapacity for a third option: foreign policy by peacefare. Diagnosis Any economy has two key faultlines: high vs low class, with inequality by exploitation; real vs finance economy, with crises by speculation. LEAP Press Review (noreply@leap2020.net 17 Feb 2016) traces “something Big was about to happen” to February...

to 2007. No wonder a majority of Nigerians consider the Obasanjo years as the best in Nigeria’s history. I have to say in my 40 years of being a writer on foreign affairs and interviewing over 60 heads of government he is the one who has impressed me the most, for sheer brainpower, idealism and wisdom. Boko Haram, the Islamic fundamentalist group who has terrified the poor northern part of Nigeria – and are believed to have close contact with ISIS – came on to the scene after Obasanjo was out of office. Still, he has been very much in touch with the situation and twice, at least, tried to arbitrate between the movement and the government. This is what he had to say to me recently about the situation: “Boko Haram is not simply a menace based on religion or one directed to frustrate anybody’s political ambition. It is...

Let us have a look, and see what can be done. [1] Economies. NYSE is falling; China is consuming, with problems; the West blames China, not itself, for all. The truth is over-reliance on one commodity, oil-gas, hitting vulnerable economies doubly. Steep fall in price: $120-130 to $30-20, close to 1973 from $1 to $10. Steep fall in demand for that globally toxic product; a sign of rationality (but, the other globally toxic product, derivatives for speculation?) The currencies of oil-producers tumble. stocks fall; in Norway to the tune of half the state budget in three weeks (Finansavisen 21Jan 2016). And over-reliance on trade with vulnerable economies. Remedies: To become less vulnerable, through [1] more self-reliance nationally and locally, indeed for basic needs like food, [2] fully-fledged economies with primary-secondary-tertiary-quaternary (care for people and nature) sectors. Simple, sustainable rules. Beyond that: import-export, but with a wide range of countries. [2]...

By Richard Falk, David Krieger and Robert Laney Prefatory Note What follows here is An Open Letter to the American People: Political Responsibility in the Nuclear Age. It was jointly written by Richard Falk in collaboration with David Krieger and Robert Laney. The three of us have been long connected with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NAPF. The NAPF focuses its effort on the menace posed by nuclear weaponry and the urgency of seeking nuclear disarmament. The nuclear agreement with Iran and the North Korean nuclear test explosion are reminders of the gravity of the issue, and should serve as warnings against the persistence of complacency, which seems to be the prevailing political mood judging from the policy debates that have taken place during the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign. This complacency is encouraged by the media that seems to have forgotten about nuclear dangers since the end...

Lund, December 10, 2015 On the day of the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at Oslo City Hall To whom it may concern, including the media We know – and Alfred Nobel knew – how devastating war and arms races are, and how little security we get for all the money we spend on military forces. The campaign to reclaim the Nobel Peace Prize is first and foremost a campaign to revive the idea that global peace requires global cooperation on disarmament and replacing the law of force with the force of law. Every day more and more of us see, from the Middle East warfare, from the refugee crisis, and many other chilling reminders, the mandatory urgency of a change in world politics. Alfred Nobel decided to give one fifth of his fortune for a prize to promote disarmament and resolution of all conflicts through negotiations and legal means,...

Keynote, European Peace Research Association – Tromsö, Norway, 7 Sep 2015 Epistemology is the branch of philosophy dealing with valid knowledge; and the focus of this conference is peace in Europe. We live in a wonderful world blessed with many civilizations each with an epistemology, and in a continent with rich diversity. My task is to draw on some of this, and apply it to the peace politics of Europe. René Descartes, in Discours de la Méthode, Leiden 1637, had four basic rules; accepted, mainly unwittingly, by (North)Western science: 1. never to accept anything for true not clearly known to be such; 2. to divide difficulties examined into as many parts as possible; 3. start with the simplest and easiest, ascend to the more complex, pay attention to the asymmetric relation of antecedence and sequence; 4. make enumerations and reviews to assure that nothing was omitted. Giambattista Vico, in Scienza...

Lund, Sweden, September 5, 2015 Updated September 5 and our apologies if you’ve received this before. We want to catch all and miss no one over all these years. Dear friend! We are happy to invite you to the TFF 30th Anniversary Benefit Event ! September 11-12, 2015 Live Lectures by videostream Exciting lectures on world affairs and peace over two days – See program below. This is not an invitation to visit the foundation in person. It is an online, live video streamed event that you will be able to follow from anywhere in the world Here is the link and it’ll also be shown via Facebook, Twitter and on our website. And all the lectures will be available later as videos on our own video channels. Open House at the foundation Saturday September 12 at 14:00-17:00 It’s at Vegagatan 25 in Lund, Sweden – deadline for your registration...

. We think that it’s 30th Anniversary is a fitting occasion to reflect on what has happened in the big world and in our lives with the foundation. It is also a piece of Lund’s research history in general and of peace research and education in particular. Part 2 Weak aspects of TFF • Being outside many networks and institutions – it has become more and more difficult to influence the world if you are small, independent and don’t accept governmental and corporate funds. • A perception that the interest/commitment of TFF is out of sync with the sentiments of times, of the Zeitgeist. In spite of that we maintain the fundamental belief that peace is essential and that we can forget about the rest if major wars or nuclear exchanges take place. • Too ‘academic’/theoretical to forge deeper, permanent links with public opinion and movements. • Too ‘radical’ or...

The game is dirty and has lasted 70 years. It came with the idea of development as imitating, but not catching up, with the West, for all states, including the deluge of states due to decolonization. The formula for big profit is simple: give credit to a country poor enough not to be able to pay it off quickly, yet not so poor that it cannot go on servicing the loan for years. To be worthwhile the project must be capital-intensive, like (air)ports and highways to the (air)ports for import-export, assembling cars–something for the rich. Investment to lift up people in misery, or ravished nature, makes no sense: the poor need very little capital and can only pay back in labor, whereas nature pays back but is not capitalized. Ideally, the country asks for more credit to service the first, and a second, third loan is then offered at higher...

By Farhang Jahanpour The announcement of the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers is a rare moment in history that gives us hope and provides a basis for optimism. By contemplating what the alternative would have entailed, any agreement, no matter how defective, is a great achievement and has to be welcomed. However, the indications are that, as the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has declared at a joint press conference with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, there has been a win-win agreement that will benefit everyone. In short, they have made history. Ms. Mogherini said: “It is a decision that can open the way to a new chapter in international relations. I think this is a sign of hope for the entire world.” The Iranian foreign minister echoed those sentiments and described the deal as “a historic moment”. He continued: “Today could have been...