Nordic Ideology

by Hanzi Freinacht

  I think it would be unwise to go ahead with outmoded systems of gov­ernance into an entirely new technological age without even beginning the search for new forms of governance. We should buy the insurance.

  And I think we need to start now.

  Final Countdown for Democracy

  It may not be an exaggeration to claim that we are approaching a final count­down for democracy. The pressures for transnational and regional (like the EU) and global governance are simply mounting with such rapi­dity and force that we will necessarily see the growth of impenetrably thick layers of top-down governance at a supra-state level in the coming deca­des. Because all the most pressing issues are global and transnational, they must be dealt with and regulated at the corresponding level.

  This will place most real power at a hopelessly long distance from the common citizen of the world. A person goes about her life and casts a vote in India or Bra­zil, but the decisions governing her life conditions are made in a closed room on the other side of the planet by people she’s never heard about and may not even know exist.

  As things stand today, that’s where we’re headed—faster than a cann­onball. And how hard will it then not be for democratic forms of govern­ance to maintain their legiti­macy under circumstances where all meaning­ful decision-making is so distant, abstract and foreign?

  The clock is ticking. If the pressures for transnational solutions push us into supranational structures of governance without a corresponding re­juvenation of democratic life and participation at all levels of society, sup­p­orted by—but not limited to—new digital forms of democracy, we will come to a point at which we suddenly live in a global order that is distin­ctly non-democratic. Global non-democracy.

  Democracy will have died the slow heat death. It will not have been killed, simply dispersed under its own entropy, being superseded in all but rhe­toric by a global technocratic elite from which we can expect only a very limited amount of accountability. Trans­parency will be lost, and for all practical purposes, democracy will be lost—globally and, for the fore­seeable future, permanently.

  Again: the clock is ticking. Either we begin the slow and cumbersome pro­­­cess of continuously reinventing and updating democracy, or it sim­ply drifts away into space. If people are engaged and sufficiently em­powered to partake in governance on all levels, and live in a richly demo­cratic cult­ure, and if acc­ountability is expanded and autonomy grows from the bott­om up, then perhaps democratic forms of governance can conquer their way to the top, and we can see the emergence of a deeply democratic global order in the 21st century.

  Where do we start? We start at the meso-level , the middle level of institutions, organizations and regional clusters of innovation (based aro­und a “triple-helix” of companies, city administrations and universities) so often overlooked. We use the state to spur bottom-up demo­cratic inno­vation, which then besieges the distant towers of patronizing state techno­cracy.

  From that position we struggle on, non-linearly, to dem­ocra­tically shape the processes of the emer­gent world order. We start at the meso-level and then we use the increasing organizational and institu­tional leeway to gradually go back and forth between the micro- and macro-levels. Devel­opment starts at the middle and bounces its way up and down in increa­sing magnitude: from changing people’s ideas and habits, to chang­ing nat­ion­al, transnational and supranational structures of gover­n­ance. Demo­cratic development oscillates .

  Will global governance be a mono­lith that follows the lowest common denominator, a frail autocratic coloss­us on clay feet; or will it be a rich, robust and effective ecology of instit­ut­ional inno­vations? Beneath our feet the ground is giving way, a silent abyss of tyranny and decay opening. Above us, the skies are calling us to a greater potential, to higher forms of self-organization, to deeper democracy.

  Ladies and gentlemen—Democratization Politics.

  Aux armes, citoyens ! To arms, citizens. [79]

  Chapter 11:

  GEMEINSCHAFT POLITICS

  “Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to sur­vive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peo­ples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace”.

  —Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an undelivered add­ress for Jefferson Day, intended for April 13 th , 1945.

  The quality of ordinary citizens’ relations with one another can make or break a country. Societies characterized by a strong sense of commu­nity, high levels of trust and mutual respect and understanding tend to be richer, less corrupt and more peaceful. Countries with weak communal bonds, widespread distrust and little sense of belonging often fall apart, sometimes violently. That’s why Gemeinschaft matters.

  If a country fails badly enough at Gemeinschaft you get Yugo­slavia or Iraq, if it succeeds, you get Denmark or Japan.

  So what is meant by Gemeinschaft ? The German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies made the important distinction between Gesellschaft and Ge­mein­schaft . The former refers to the formal system of rules and regu­lations of a society, the latter to the more personal and informal bonds between people. Whereas Gesell­schaft can be roughly translated into “soc­iety”, Gemein­schaft does not have a satisfying equivalent in the English lang­uage. It is often translated into “community”, but that sounds more like we’re talk­ing about a local neigh­borhood or a soccer club. And since we further­more don’t want to imply it is the same as the political philo­sophy of “communitari­anism”, we will use the original German word which more­over has be­come accepted in social sci­ence among English speakers.

  We could also use the Swedish word, gemenskap , which has the same origin and meaning as the German term, better fitting “the Nordic Ideo­logy”. Or the Danish word fællesskab or the Norwegian felles­skap , both of which have the same meaning as Gemeinschaft , but instead share origins with the English word “fellowship”. Over the cen­turies, however, “fellow­ship” has come to mean some­thing slightly diffe­rent than Gemeinschaft —but at least it gets us closer than “com­munity”.

  So we’re getting at a “politics of fellowship”, if you will, a strand of pol­itics which actively and deliberately seeks to impro­ve the sense of fellow­ship among citizens and other aspects of our general relatedness to one an­other. A politics, perhaps even, of friendship. To cultivate a society ba­sed more upon friendship, camaraderie, collaboration. A call to an expan­sion of personal relationships as well as uni­versal, impersonal love.

  A Call to Fellowship

  Whereas Dem­o­­cratization Politics is the politics of developing our formal rela­tions, our govern­ance (corresponding to Tönnies’ Gesellschaft ), Gem­ein­schaft Politics is the politics of developing our in­formal rela­tions; the many personal and civic relationships so vital to every aspect of a good and sustain­able soc­iety.

  Gemeinschaft Politics is about human relationships, including: those between residents in local comm­unities, cultural and sports act­ivities and other forms of volunteering in civil society, how well community builders and local leaders are treated and supported, how class dist­inc­tions play out, relations between different ethnic groups, the inte­gration of immi­grants, relations at work, gen­der relations and sexual and rom­antic inter­plays, fam­ily relations, domestic conflict and violence, rela­tions in school, how much loneliness there is, how much bullying there is, how much peer press­ure there is, cross-generational relations, social safety nets for old age and disability, the qual­ity and prevalence of frie­nd­ships, acquain­tance net­work rela­tions, distributions of social capital and status, levels of inter­pers­onal trust, levels of average inter­personal care and solid­arity, the de­gree to which people are willing to help stran­gers, norms for treating one an­other in public spaces and in general, the level of kindness and under­stand­ing people show one another, how judg­mental or forgiving we are towards each other, how peo­ple
reject one ano­ther and handle norm-break­ers and del­inquents, how many grudges and per­ceived “enemies” we have, what resources there are for conflict resol­ution, which taboos we can’t talk about, how good we are at social pers­pective taking.

  Et cetera .

  Relations. Relationships. Amen.

  In a word: Gemeinschaft .

  We need to apply scientific knowledge to im­prove the quality of hu­man rela­tions, long-term, at all levels of society—just like Franklin D. Roose­velt said it. [80] The value of social bonds and relation­ships is of course imm­eas­urable. Yet, besides this value-in-itself, the qua­lity of hu­m­an rela­tionships is a source of unimaginable wealth or poverty.

  I have already under­scored that there in today’s affluent societies are almost no real material or economic problems left—pretty much none of the fundamental problems of late modern soc­iety are due to a de facto lack of economic resources. Once a postindustrial level of affluence has been achieved, with an annual per capita GDP above 25,000 US doll­ars, the rea­s­on people suffer is no longer because of an actual lack of material resour­ces. The main source of society’s ailments is that people’s behaviors, psycho­lo­gies and social relations don’t function properly. In late mod­ern soc­iety, suffer­ing is soc­ial rather than economic.

  If you look at an issue like unemployment, the challenge isn’t really to feed and shelter the unemployed, but rather to provide them with social status, meaning, dignity, activities and a daily rhythm—to prevent social decay. When it comes to rising housing prices that can burst into market bubbles, the issue is greatly exacerbated by the growth of single house­holds, the need for people to protect their private spaces from intrusions by insen­sitive others who would disturb their peace. A society in which everyone is nicer to be around—where folks are more socially function­al—and where there is greater mutual trust, would be one where people need less distance from one another and thus one of greater living space efficiency, hence with lesser living space competition, and hence with lower housing prices and rents.

  If you look at issues like overconsumption and ecological footprints, it is not difficult to see that a society in which people have less reason to feel insecure about their social status would also be one in which a more post-materialist culture could flourish and people could more easily make sust­ainable choices.

  In a society where people communicate better and are less violent, there is less reason for inter-ethnic fear and resentment to grow, and hen­ce lesser reason for discrimination, and hence lesser reason for racism and ethnic populism. It also means security costs become lower across the board, meaning more resources can be pooled into pre­ventive social mea­sures, meaning society becomes less repress­ive.

  When it comes to issues of mental health, psychological development, how personalities develop, the degree of prosocial behavior to be expected from a population, what per­sonal issues people have that steer their moti­vations, the prevalence of delinquency and crime—it must be obvious that each of them is shaped and defined by people’s relationships.

  These are just a few examples of how the nature of people’s everyday relationships shapes society. Point being: it’s social, stupid.

  Developing the Demos

  Gemeinschaft Politics is closely linked to Democratization Politics. Demo­cracy implies that there is a “demos”, a people that governs society. But for there to be a people, there must be a certain something to bind citizens together; a feeling of communal togetherness, a sense of fellowship, a reas­on why we should belong to the same society to begin with. In short, if you don’t have Gemeinschaft , you’ll struggle to get a Gesellschaft —i.e. to get sound and sustainable institutions.

  In the past, a shared religion and the myth about the ruler’s divinity suff­iced to maintain a minimum of social coherence. But with the tran­sition to modernity, it became increasingly urgent that people shared the same cult­ure and language. A sense of fellowship was needed to ensure peaceful and productive relations between different classes and people from culturally distinct provinces who now lived side-by-side in crowded indust­rial cities. The nation-building projects of the 19th century can thus be seen as an early version of Gemeinschaft Politics.

  The modern nation state gave rise to what we commonly refer to as “civil society”; the non-governmental and non-commercial arenas where people can organize and act together in pursuit of shared interests, pur­poses and values. A strong civil society is in turn required for liberal de­mocracy to function because the arenas of civil society are where citi­zens can organize themselves in ways to ensure rulers rule in accor­dance with the will of the “people”, the “demos”. But people won’t necess­arily see, or even accept, one another as members of a demos just because the state grants them citi­zenship and equality before the law. The demos can only exist if its alleged members experience mutual feelings of fellow­ship with one an­other, and a democracy can only function if the demos feels their shared destiny is tied to the state. The state can create the legal conditions that define the formal relations between citizens, and between citizens and the state, but the fellowship needed for people to accept one ano­ther as equal mem­bers of society can only be cultivated within civil socie­ty. Democracy thus also needs a civil society because this is where its demos is developed.

  The development of a demos can occur within the borders of a state and justify its existence by a shared citizenship as in the case of France or the US, or it can develop from shared cultural ties stretching beyond state borders as in the case with the formation of Germany or Italy. It is, how­ever, within the many arenas of civil society (clubs, newspapers, organiza­tions of all sorts etc.) that discourses develop about who is to be inclu­ded in the dem­os and thus be considered entitled to citizenship and equal status, and who is to be excluded from the Gemeinschaft .

  This, however, does not mean states did not play a vital role in the for­m­ation of national identities and the cultivation of civic and demo­cratic manners. It merely means that states could not develop the demos through the legal instruments of governance alone since the informal rel­ations deter­mining the demos per definition cannot be legislated about. Yet, this did not prevent the state from using other means to further the nation-build­ing project. Since civil society was where the action was, the state put great care into ensuring that civil society enjoyed favorable con­ditions to bloss­om and that the clubs and organizations that favored the national agenda received additional funding.

  From Public to Domestic to Private

  Modern society required informal relations of a more delicate nature than in the past in order to make the wheels of industry and bureaucracy run smoo­thly. People had to engage in productive relations with strangers from more varied backgrounds and classes than what they had been used to, and they had to follow new intricate codes of conduct in their relations at work and towards authorities. Former peasants had to learn how to avoid bicker­ing and misunderstandings when interacting with the many strang­ers in the densely populated urban environments, and they had to accustom them­selves to the role as factory workers and the instrumental nature of the rela­tionship between workers and factory owners. The state thus took mea­sures to teach its citizens to read and write and speak the same language so that they could better understand one another. Literacy also made it poss­ible to read the national papers. This gave them access to the discourses of civil society that could teach them about their new living conditions in a modern soc­iety, and this made them part of a larger public so as to mold them into the national Gemeinschaft .

  The elite was also compelled to adapt to the new societal relations by revising their manners when interacting with the lower classes in public. Verbal and physical abuse could not be tolerated in a modern society. First of all because the poor had the same legal status as the rich, at least on paper; formally, workers and employers were equals who freely ex­changed labor for wages. The ethos of l
iberalism thus demanded everyone was to be treated with the same amount of politeness and respect. In practice, however, the demand for higher levels of politeness and respect was a societal necessity to prevent daily conflicts from interfering in pro­duction and to avoid stirring up tensions that could easily erupt into upri­sings among an already embittered working class.

  The new ideal of the ruling classes, the “gentleman”, thus became widely promoted in newspapers and magazines and within the salons and clubs where the bourgeoisie gathered. In fact, everyone had to behave nicer and with greater consideration towards others as stress and tensions among thousands of strangers cramped into small spaces made people more susceptible to go off. Consequently, a culture of politeness and strict eti­quettes of public behavior emerged within civil society, and people began to address strangers as “mister” and “madam”, poor as rich, and say “plea­se” when asking for something as a way of showing that they ack­now­ledged one another as equals and free citizens who could not be arbi­trarily ex­pected to follow an order.

  The many new ways the informal relations within the public sphere got adjusted to life and work in an industrial economy would largely develop without direct governmental interference. The state mere­ly made sure that people understood they were equal citizens of the nation state and that public discourse within civil society was suffi­ciently equipped to develop the demos. This can as mentioned be seen as an early variant of Gemeinschaft Politics. All of these changes remained, how­ever, within the public domain. How you treated your wife wasn’t part of the state’s pol­itical project. Domestic and personal issues were left out.