蜜芽传媒

Good Morning

Last month I was in Hungary at a conference with delegates from all over Europe, from Latvia to Ukraine. Budapest is a grand European city, its squares bordered by cafes filled with tourists carried there on luxury cruises. The river Danube has become a metaphor for the flow of freedom and wealth that鈥檚 changing Eastern Europe. But on the edge of the city lie the suburban symbols of the old soviet regime 鈥� large grey apartment blocks and even greyer factories.

The soviet shadow still stretches over Europe.

A woman from Latvia told me how the Russians had once controlled their politics 鈥� now, she sighed, we control the politics but they control the businesses!

Yet in parts of Ukraine and elsewhere there are those who still hanker for the securities of the soviet era with the state giving you your flat, your job and your pension.

It seems to me as if the continent of Europe is still making up its mind which way to go. In one direction, freedom for the individual with a belief in the market as the oldest form of democracy; in the other, the responsibility of society to control as much as possible to care for all as fairly as possible. The problem about these alternatives is that ordinary people want both 鈥� fairness and freedom.

The problem鈥檚 compounded by the two major political systems 鈥� capitalism and socialism 鈥� each showing cataclysmic strain.

It鈥檚 difficult appealing to religion to settle the argument. Adam Smith, the author of the Wealth of Nations, thought the church was about preparing people for the 鈥渓ife to come鈥�, and Kier Hardie believed the Labour movement had come to 鈥渞esuscitate the Christianity of Christ鈥� for the sake of the poor abandoned by the church.

Either way the focus of the debate about the future of society has always been on how you should change the State. But given the dominance of business in the world, with many international companies having budgets larger than some nations, perhaps we should shift the debate to how the culture of business might change.

In the week-end papers Charles Moore was commending the business model of co-ownership which is an attempt to blend the freedom of the market with the spirit of cooperation.

Dwight Eisenhower once said, It鈥檚 鈥溾�� only 鈥� fairness鈥� and cooperation (that) can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.鈥�
It would be good to put that on the G20 agenda when they next meet to discuss the future of the world鈥檚 economy.

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