Which type of success?

In economics, politics and philosophy matters, it is rare to find men (...) who remain receptive to new theories. So it is unlikely that ideas that civil servants, politicians apply in common life could be innovative. But it is ideas and not interests who may sooner or later, be dangerous for good or bad reasons"

J.M. Keynes

Humanity has not been able to define how the welfare state should be but paradoxically the biggest part of earth's population has surprisingly agreed a agrragreed a common definition of success. The conclusion is an easy one: money. Economic power is used not only to measure how human beings perform in their individual lives but also to define how nations rate and compare amongst them in a success scale.

And the business of success has also become a good business. A myriad of rating companies have been started and dare not only to rank companies but also to investigate country's expectations and possibilities in "order to publish an influent list dedicated to the short circuit of inter-nation" finance. They are making a non-negligible profit with this business which some times is complemented with additional incomes from lobbying groups that surprisingly get favourable information.

First idea: the lack of a North and the new paradigm

It is sadly true but the lack of a bogus division between western and eastern countries has probably caused that our uncreative governments have taken for granted that the same old ideas are valid independently of their political orientations.

This new political world order is the result of a slow evolution along the XXth century, at the end of the last decade more than ever the panorama of confusion and disorientation is justified with the magnification of the only valid parameter taken as reference: the economic power.

The common definition of success has consequently evolved from:

to...

This means a significant transformation of the structure and mentality of a country but even more important it forces a change: from a social paradigm to an economic paradigm.

Second idea: the economic carpe diem

Since we do not have an ideological reference most of the countries have opted for adopting conventional rules applied in countries with high degrees of success. The result is that the lack of creativity and innovation in politics is forcing a common economic liberalisation regardless of political orientation.

Once more creativity is an important concept, and it should be defined an implemented as either:

Both concepts introduce a new idea of 'changing as a way of progressing'. But changes had never been easy to pursue when we want to refer them to state issues. The reason is that as changes begun to take place many different barriers appear in individuals reluctant to change.

As always a conflict can be identified between changing forces and conservative opinions. But this problem is not new and does not seem easy to find a new solution. Hence if we cannot change the inputs we can only wait for a dynamic mature process of the outputs.

This would imply that processes in countries can evolve from totalitarian practices to democratic processes. At this point some questions appear:

• Can we believe possible a liberalisation process in economic issues without the consequent evolution in politics towards a democratic liberalised panorama?

• If possible would it mean that those regimes could be perpetuated in history based on an economic success?

Nobody has a definitive answer despite we all would prefer them to be liberalised countries, but this is one of the new paradoxes and we have to accept it. Only a few years ago would have been ridiculous to bear in mind that countries like China, Vietnam or Cuba could keep the same structure and make some cosmetic reforms to endemic problems. But those nations are registering somehow a good performance. It might be the "economic carpe diem" consisting in letting the old structures get the best of the new possibilities, in other words to enjoy while it last.

Third idea: the mother of all the changes is still to come

The paradoxical approaches we have just introduced and still applied in some countries have not been eternally as we know them today, every few hundred years throughout western history, a sharp transformation has occurred. Nowadays thinkers realise that structural changes, in cultural and social terms, in the 20th century will be compared in the future to the most memorable periods of history.

Analysing critically our milieu without the confidence that perspective provides we may think that the deepest changes registered have been caused by the development of new technologies. Nothing could be farther from reality if we compare those changes with the adaptation process that social agents have suffered in democratised economies we would understand that the mother of all the changes would define the start of the new roles for:

• Citizens : The citizens have forgotten "L'Esprit de la Revolution" and act as mere spectators of the reality.
•  
• Politicians : A generalised lack of ethic and efficiency has lead to a collective distrust in politicians who act personally instead of collectively
•  
• Media: In the arbours of the digital information society, despite of the false claims of the fourth power for a democratisation of the information, the reality show us that concentration and personal profitability is the-name-of-the-game in the industry.
•  
• Financial Markets: Politicians blame on financial markets because of the growing interdependence of national economies that makes the common volatility a time bomb
•  
• Companies : As Henry Kissinger wrote in Years of Upheaval, companies have become "voracious in its collection of information, impervious to pressure, and implacable in execution".

All those actors do relate to the global arena where the outcome is that economic entities takes the place of the politicians and

Big companies have the capability to legislate

All those concepts and actors evoke the power of transnational corporations who should also play a role in favour of the development of the country. The basic evolution will be based on the integration of international finance and the diffusion of technological innovations towards a commonality that use to be the leaders in the changing process.

The primary processes associated to a typical openness are:

• Culture towards universalization

• Economies trend toward liberalisation

• Polities trend towards democratisation

The dynamics of these concepts are very important because we can see that they follow a logical process. Starting from the population, then the economy and in the last place the politics.

Experts and thinkers try to make this exercise of abstraction to understand the current global arena and look for references in the past in order to extrapolate conclusions for the future. The problem is that:

• Can we assume that individuals and nations will behave now and in ten year time in a similar way?

The increase of information and transparency has caused the possibility to make continuos comparisons between countries that are impossible to stop. Instead of maintaining the same concepts we may try to encourage those comparisons which may contribute to attain and enjoy the welfare state of our benchmark-country population. Comparisons will make that Greeks want to evolve as Portuguese and these would like to do as Spanish did. They would rather prefer to be Italian and there the population would dream for a German status, country where the mode is aspiring to be Nordic.

Aged people must be definitely right when they say that this is life and as far as we are not able to change it, we have to be able to imagine it in a different way

because

• Politicians viewpoint in developing states will remain that few things must change to make everything look the same
• The lack of a social paradigm will continue driving our current society with an economic approach

so...

Let's imagine economic life differently