Power on Next Generations
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DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT Paula Tiihonen, Doctor of Administrative Sciences 21.12.2015 Committee Counsel [email protected] Committee for the Future Finnish Parliament (all opinions are personal) POWER OVER COMING GENERATIONS case: Committee for the Future in the Eduskunta, the Parliament of Finland Who has the power to decide on behalf of coming generations? Who has the right to speak in the name of coming generations? 1. Power centres and balance Power is in the hands of human beings. We, the people, can use it in many ways, on many levels with many objectives and for many purposes. It is humans who shape the values on which power is based. And we also have the power to change power systems, even the structures. On the level of institutions we have two key power centres: politics and the economy, or should we call them democracy and business? These two main power centres make the majority of decisions that are needed to ensure that the future is good rather than bad for coming generations. So, I think we should first look a bit at the development of these two powers and assess if there is a rational, fair and wise balance between them. Then we should think what kind of new ways there are to work for coming generations, to ensure a better future for them, keeping all the time in mind the delicate and problematic balance between the interests of present and future generations. In the context of politics and democracy, what we must determine in order to have a good understanding is which models of organising work for coming generations are possible and realistic and which are not, which are worth trying even if it is a long hard process, and which are not suitable or even wanted. To facilitate that evaluation I shall briefly outline differences in the basic features of political and administrative systems – the result of different cultures and traditions of governance and citizenship. My aim in doing this is to get a background against which to analyse proposals made by a network called “Roundtable of National Institutions for a Sustainable Future”. The most demanding of these proposals relates to creating the post of UN High Commissioner for Future Generations or widen the mandate of the EU Ombudsman to represent also next generation. Our responsibilities towards coming generations have been endorsed in many international treaties, resolutions and declarations, but this recognition is only a moral principle. An implementation is always more difficult. 1 By the way, one background is personal and clear: I wrote my doctoral thesis on democracy and have worked for over 40 years as a public official in the service of democracy, first in the state civil service and then for the last 20 years as an official in the Eduskunta, the parliament of Finland, specifically with the Committee for the Future. If some readers think “what a bureaucrat”, I am proud of that. Still, I sometimes feel that I am more a gardener, toiling in the garden of democracy and governance. I confess that I take seriously the statement that democracy is one of the great values that our generation have to hand over to future generations. Anyway, democracy is important when considering the rights of coming generations. In a democratic society, the discourse on people’s relationship to decision making concerning themselves is eternal in the sense that every generation must create its own interpretation of democracy, in its various sectors and on its various levels and do this in a democratic way. A set of stage settings depicting democracy is not enough. Not even a good democracy functions without errors in times of transition and upheaval. The long-term and fundamental character of democracy means that maintaining and renewing it can be compared to tending a garden. As a gardener in my parliamentary Committee I am used to being patient, results can be seen only slowly after hard work. You must take care of big old trees, but give opportunities for many new fragile small flowers, have the courage to encounter and support every kind of new and wild things – even unknown unknowns - but at the same time be prepared all the time for risks. As a bureaucratic gardener I think that for the sake of the democratic system’s credibility and future prospects, it would be wise to start evaluating economic power from the perspective of democracy. Democracy and the economy should be spoken of using the same criteria of importance, with the same force, at the same time and in the same forums. Stein Ringen (a Norwegian scholar currently working as a professor in Oxford) identifies five trends in the changing power relations between politics and the economy. Very briefly: 1. With growth in the economy, economic power has increased compared with politics, in which each voter still has only one vote, 2. Economic power has become concentrated in the hands of a small elite, 3. With liberalisation of markets and the economy, the private has entered public arenas, 4. Political power has been thrust out of economic arenas; funding of political activities has shifted to those who have the ability and wish to pay for political activities and whose interests lie in doing so, and 5. With globalisation, deregulation and information technology, capital markets have slipped out of the control of nation-states. Ringen has also highlighted the linkage between the credibility of political democracy and economic power as a long-term question. He has drawn attention to the following two development trends that reduce national legislative power in all democracies: 1. Big actors in the economy have, as a part of globalisation, acquired a new and powerful means of exercising power, the possibility to transfer capital, production, jobs, head offices, taxes, innovations, research and development and new thinking to other countries. This possibility existed earlier as well, but now the right of veto or power to exit is real and credible. 2. Supranational legislation and issuance of various norms (EU, UN, WTO, Council of Europe, World Bank, IMF, G8, and so on) have increased. Some more concrete thoughts on power on different levels of politics. Global economic power and democracy are connected in a very interesting and paradoxical way. Globalisation has added to democracy and equality more than any individual political decision. It has given work and brought prosperity to hundreds of millions (Chinese, etc.) and, through the rapid economic growth that it has brought, given several states opportunities to develop education, health care, infrastructure and other prerequisites for future economic growth and at the same time the fundamentals for human wellbeing at a vigorous pace. At the same time, especially examined in the light of the starting points of citizens in the 2 developed countries and from the perspective of the increasingly higher goals set for democracy, globalisation has distanced people from decision making affecting them. The weakness of legitimisation, the foundation of trust, real or perceived, has been reflected also in the attitude of citizens to the leaders of their own country. Climate change is certainly a future problem that everyone knows and is affected by. The basic question is again who has the right or/and the responsibility to decide on behalf of future generations. Nowadays even some constitutions, especially those adopted in last few decades, refer to generations to come. The constitutional clauses can be grouped into three categories: general clauses for intergenerational justice, ecological generational justice and financial generational clauses. Clauses just formulate a state objective, they do not lay down a public right, a right for each individual citizen. Values on which power is based is not enough; institutions, competence, forums and tools to use power are relevant. But first, some examples of problems relating to balance of powers. China and rich Western countries have profited most from the global economy and globalisation. We are in a situation where Chinese businessmen (worth billions), of whom many also happen be members of the parliament, cannot allow their small children or pregnant wives to walk to kindergarten or to a shopping centre because of the dangerous climate. On the other hand, my two favourite critical examples of a problematic way of life among us Westerners are the following: First, we citizens in rich old countries have invested our future pension money in global insurance firms/banks which, in order to serve us and meet our expectation of a secure and prosperous retirement, must get the biggest possible profit where and whenever they can. They have been getting it from China, directly and indirectly, for 20-30 years now. We see already very clearly that investments are moving to India. We not connect this chain of financial activities to climate change. Second, on the level of the ordinary average man in the consumer society we have to ask the basic moral question of democracy and equality: if my family living in Western wellbeing is accustomed to driving a car or two, why can’t a Chinese or an Indian family have that as well? On the European level you can clearly see a lack of balance between economic and political powers. The tasks of the EU, its organisations or methods of operation were certainly not built specifically from the starting point of democracy. An effort has been made, especially in the 21st century, to bring citizens’ rights and obligations to the fore, but democracy as a matter on the system level is still one of the fundamental problems of the EU. The EURO/EMU is based on interests of finance. The only freedom of movement which is in real action is free movement of capital.