*** LASZLO ZSOLNAI: Beyond Self. Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions of Economics. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, P.O. Box 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Frontiers of Business Ethics" series, No. 12. 2014, 189 pp. €53.50. ISBN 978-3-0343-1772-6.
The fact that the world is now living under the reign of personal interest is difficult to contest. This behaviour exists in the four corners of the world and was subsequently summed up by the Nobel prize winner for economics, Amartya Sen: self-centred welfare when one's welfare depends only on his or her own consumption; self-welfare goals when one's goal is to maximize his or her own welfare; self-goal choice when one's choice is guided by the pursuit of his or her own goal. This list, as illustrated in the preface to the book is likely to make people uncomfortable to different degrees but does it have to be so for the economic and political movers and shakers who have in fact been responsible for conducting the world to the destination in which it now finds itself? Laszlo Zsolnai believes that this stampede to grasping navel-gazing and elitist delights could lead to a disaster because it is harming the environment, as well as future generations and society at large. Even worse, all this is undoubtedly leading to, “the destruction of both material and non-material values”, directed by the wand of an unbridled and unseeing form of capitalism. This resistible dissent into hell has been criticised for years by the director of the Business Ethics Centre at the Corvinus University of Budapest and his colleague and friend Peter Pruzan (Copenhagen Business School), who wrote the preface and who is one of the major intellectuals for “subversive” action to “undermine the doctrine of self-interest”. The different articles included in this book have also been written collectively by other academics such as Albert Bandura (Stanford University), Gian-Vittorio Caprara ( La Sapienza University, Rome), Antonio Tencati (University of Bocconi in Milan), Luk Bouckaert (Catholic University of Leuven) and Knut J. Ims (Norwegian School of Economics de Bergen) - who testified to the permanent battle he is waging and the necessity of keeping on fighting. It is good to read, for example, that there is, “Overwhelming empirical evidence and strong theoretical arguments” that the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith that is supposed to allow everyone's personal interest to transcend to the point of contributing to the wealth and well-being of everyone is more illusion than reality. On the contrary, this university lecturer who was also active in the Community of European Management Schools, which has now become the Global Alliance in Management Education, points out that the competition carried out can prove destructive, for example when, “self-interested actors employ “moral disengagement mechanisms which allow them to harm others” without realising the full picture or even worse, when the competitors are simply guided by their immediate petty interests and subsequently destroy the common good on which their own lives depend…
The 12 chapters of the book all tend to demonstrate that the competing economic actors on the markets would do well to be inspired by moral and ethical considerations, which, far from penalising them would in fact further “enrich” them individually, without harming the environment and their fellow human beings. In this connection, the author explains, together with Antonio Tencati, that the economy is a “dismal science” in which the majority of its servants “propagate a negativistic view of human nature” because human beings will always be seeking to maximise their own individual benefits. To rectify this situation, he calls on the corporate management classes to replace their “me, me, me” ethos with more spiritual experiences in an effort to improve the ethical character of their decisions, without revising the “moral foundations of capitalism” and examine the economic lessons of the major religions (there is also an article on the “Buddhist economic strategy), which would also be most opportune, in this regard. Laszlo Zsolnai, Hendrik Opdebeeck and Luk Bouckaert, praise the “frugality” which has been made into an art of living that is imperative if we are to reduce “ecological destruction” and “social disintegration”. The article written with Knut J. Ims is the most hard-hitting and accuses modern society of favouring and celebrating “short-term success, pseudo-solutions and window-dressing activities at the peril of ignoring long-term consequences”. If we are ever going to be able to escape from the trap, we have to have a foundation in scientific and technological knowledge, he argues, but he also underlines that, “we also need a better understanding of the existential conditions of human beings to avoid the fallacy of defining most problems as technical/economic/scientific and solving them in purely technical ways”. There are many ideas contained in this book that will undoubtedly irritate a number of people but will they be able to draw the attention of someone like Jean-Claude Junker, who, almost 20 years ago, was one of the first to very openly protest against the phenomenon of golden parachutes! Michel Theys
*** TRIFONAS KOSTOPOULOS: La démocratie locale et l'intégration locale. Editions Papazisi (2 Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 - fax: 3809020 - Email: papazisi@otenet.gr - Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2014, 390 pp. €26. ISBN 978-960-02-2757-4.
A non-negligible part of the capitalist world has always been developing connections everywhere in an effort to sacrifice everything in its pursuit of maximum profits, as borne out by the increasingly high levels of restructurings that take place and mergers. It is in this perspective that all the “small” companies get swallowed up. According to the author of this book, a professor at the Department of Sociology at Pantheon University, where he teaches society, communitarianism and local democracy, in addition to European integration and the global economy, society will therefore be forced to adapt to the standards set out by the major corporations. Small-scale cooperatives bodies will no longer be “profitable” or relevant to the needs of capital in the era of neoliberalism and therefore need to be abolished and replaced by large-scale municipalities that are “useful” to the needs of the multinationals. Professor Kostopoulos believes that this trend is very widespread throughout the European Union, even at a local level and is subsequently absorbing significant amounts of government spending. In Denmark, for example, the local authorities account for 37.6% of GDP and 64.3% of public spending, in a country that enjoys the highest degree of economic decentralisation in Europe. It is a completely picture in Greece were the local authorities account for 2.8% of GDP and 5.6% public spending, with the country on the bottom of the Union's league table in this respect. This all adds to the woes and suffering experienced in Greece, where the centralisation of the hydra cephalic state is not exactly the least of its worries. Trifonas Kostopoulos believes that this continues to perpetrate an essentially rotten system with nepotism, financial scandals, corruption and, above all, a deterioration in the people's awareness of what is really going on. Those who manage the system have ensured that there is no real accountability from the people or autonomous control of public spending. The author believes the real problem is that nothing is being done to rectify the situation …(AKa)
*** YANNIS VALINAKIS, PANOS KAZAKOS, NAPOLEON MARAVEYAS (Editors) La sortie de la crise. Des solutions viables et adaptables. Editions Papazisi (see address attached). 2014, 222 pp. €14. ISBN 978-960-02-2975-2.
This study is the result of the collaborative endeavours of three university professors at the University of Athens (Yannis Valinakis, Panos Kazakos and Napoléon Maraveyas who teach foreign affairs and economic relations there) and a group of academics, experts and researchers at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the same university. The following quotation from the epilogue highlights the concerns shared by the authors, “Although we are now in the sixth year of the memorandum, many obvious things that need doing in the country still remain a challenge. The fight against tax evasion, modernisation of the public sector, investment and privatisation, as well an evolution in national mindsets, remain some of the things that need to change”. This far-reaching study of the persisting dysfunctions in Greece, demonstrate the urgent need to provide a new orientation and source of inspiration at a national level in order to be able to find a crisis exit strategy. The ideas and proposals formulated in this connection are both ambitious and realistic. The authors argue that instead of theoretical planning, which has very little to do with the real situation in the country, Greece needs a practical strategy that can be carried out, with out any of the medium or long-term surprises that could hinder such a strategy. They note that this kind of strategy would have to be built on certain very deep-rooted particularities but which would gradually lead the country, thanks to the security provided by the European framework and more united Union economic policy pressure, to becoming a specialised producer in high quality services and products. The authors also emphasise that Greece is indeed a country that can draw from its comparative and non-negligible natural advantages, namely the degree of training amongst its citizens and the country's culture. (AK)
*** LOUKAS TSOUKALIS: L'Union malheureuse. L'Europe a besoin d'un nouveau grand marché. Editions Patakis (38 Panagi Tsaldari, GR-10437 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3650000 - fax: 3650069 - Email: bookstore@patakis.gr). 2014, 136 pp. €7.90. ISBN 978-960-165-8661.
The crisis has radically transformed the economic and political landscape in Europe. The European Union is now divided between those in debt and those paying for it. The divisions are deep-seated, including those within the countries themselves. There are growing inequalities. Suddenly, nationalism and populism are reaching sky-high proportions, while confidence is collapsing and the economic strategy remains problematic. Loukas Tsoukalis is a lecturer at the University of Athens and president of the European Foundation for European and Foreign Policy. In this book he argues that the idea of governance in the euro zone is neither efficient or legitimate. In his view, stronger common institutions, a credible and democratic control hands and executive power that have the authority to make the necessary decisions are required. If Europe continues to suffer and limp on with half measures, it will be condemned to constant decline, with an increasingly insignificant role to play in a rapidly changing world. This book combines scientific analysis and political insight and has been published simultaneously in six different languages. (AKa)
*** HARIS KASTANIDIS: Le temps de l'essai. Editions Livanis (98 Solonos, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3661200 - fax: 3617791 - Email: webmaster@livanis.gr - Internet: http://www.livanis.gr ). 2014, 216 pp. €12. ISBN 978-960-221-607-1.
On 2 February 2011, Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou announced a dramatic raft of harsh hitting measures to prevent Greece from going bankrupt. In this book, Haris Kastanidis, who has served as a socialist minister on many different occasions, shows the extent to which this dose of austerity has been extremely hard, with hikes in taxes on fuel, property and shares. At the same time, wages in the public sector have fallen much more than planned in the stability programme, the retirement age has been pushed back and recruitment frozen in sensitive sectors such as health and security. The author also underlines that this was only just beginning because even worse measures followed, under the constant pressure of the authorities controlling the country, namely the troika. Haris Kastanidis, however, argues that what is Caesar's must be rendered to Caesar and it is indeed Mr Papandreou who began the budgetary adjustment that is still running its course … (AKa)
*** TORBEN PETERSEN: Steuerplannung mit EU-Holdinggesellschaften für Drittstaaten-Investoren. Peter Lang (see address attached). 2014, 204 pp. €64.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65259-6.
The setting up of intermediate holding societies in the Union, linked to corporate groups in Europe, has helped investors from third countries to optimise corporation taxes involved in this set up. It is therefore in the external investor's interest to choose very carefully the location of where the intermediary holding company will be set up, even though a number of European states where they could potentially set up do allow for attractive fiscal optimisation, as demonstrated in this thesis. The attractive character of many EU member states in terms of setting up intermediary holding companies has been meticulously examined in this study and is the subject of a summary attached in the annex. Torben Petersen also highlights the stakes and role played by the different actors involved in this issue, the external investors themselves, member states, the European Union, before putting forward proposals for a fair and efficient tax policy. (GLe)
*** Fedechoses… pour le fédéralisme. Presse fédéraliste (Maison de l'Europe et des Européens, 242 rue Duguesclin, F-69003 Lyon. Internet: http://www.pressefederaliste.eu ). June 2014, No. 164, 40 pp. €8. Annual subscription: €30.
This invariably pugnacious French federalist publication consistently fights for its cause and in this issue, particular attention focuses on the European citizens' initiative “New Deal 4 Europe”. First of all, Catherine Vieilledent, head of the Europe Group of European Federalists, in Brussels, provides an exhaustive account of the presentation of this initiative to the European Economic and Social Committee, last June. Paolo Ponzano - was one of the Committee representatives providing this presentation, together with Philippe Grosjean and the economist Bernard Barthalay - who illustrate the different reasons underpinning this initiative. It seeks to pursue a number of objectives including the creation of two new own resources, namely, a tax on financial transactions and a “carbon tax” which would help the Union finance some of the public investments deemed indispensable by those who signed it. It remains to be seen whether the 11 member states seeking to introduce the FTT are prepared to contribute to some of the budget. This former senior official at the European Commission confirms, however, the need to take action at a European level in an effort to re-orientate Europe towards growth and job creation. In this connection he cites the incisive warning made by Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, “austerity is up to the states, growth, to the European Union”. Do we still need to be convinced about this? (MT)