One of the problems we face in trying to adopt a joined-up approach to the current crisis, with joined-up solutions, is that this crisis has three separate dimensions: a short-term one, the financial crisis; a medium-term one, the economic crisis; and a long-term one, the cultural and political crisis. And in many cases the solutions for one crisis will complicate the situation of the others. Unfortunately, not many people have grasped this.
In addressing one aspect, one tends to forget the others. This occurred in the recent past with the environmental and energy crisis.
The financial crisis led people to forget what came to be a priority battle that would take decades: saving our planet.
The same thing happens within our countries, where solutions that are the salvation of some groups often worsen the situation for others. For instance, just when measures are being taken that will mean income cuts and unemployment for many people, others – such as those in the financial sector – see the stock exchanges increasing the value of their assets.
Hence the abiding need for an ability to take a joined-up approach in terms of understanding, analysis and solutions. Because the truth is that there is never just one solution.
The measures taken to save one country are the same as those which are being questioned in another neighbouring country – precisely to save that country too.
It happened in Europe and in the United States when seeking a way out of the great depression of 1929. The answer lay in greater state intervention to guarantee the stability which the "perfection of the market" was not truly able to provide. The new crises facing us today have already blotted out this experience and the lessons drawn from past crises; and once again it has been the markets that have promised stability and efficiency, even arguing that the party which prevents this is the state. Who is right?
They both are, and this naturally has many implications.
Another very important aspect which I would like to highlight is that those who were behind the radical structural upheavals which have occurred still retain the power to decide what solutions to adopt – these being the only solutions guaranteed to enable their group to survive and reinforce their power. What is happening with the major US financial groups is a case in point.
It is essential that we keep in mind the differing implications of the solutions and measures adopted, if we are to understand the true portent of the solutions being presented in each country as the only possible and inevitable solution.
To take one example: social spending on education, health and care for the elderly are now viewed in Europe as avoidable costs which can be cut, while in Brazil and other emerging economies they are now seen as a strategic investment. Who is right? Of course they both are, with different immediate interpretations of the overall collateral effects.
Within civil society, the professions form a significant part of the middle classes which underpin the growth and sustainability of western society as we know it.
A group of citizens recently took a course of action in their country of origin that was difficult to understand even for those who stood to benefit greatly from it.
In our view, however, it is very easy to understand.
People who have no resources and people who are poor do not pay taxes.
People who have resources and great wealth do not pay taxes either, because they have the power to avoid them.
People who earn their livelihoods from paid work have no alternative, and pay for themselves and for those who don't pay, in order to guarantee the balances which enable society as we know it to keep functioning.
If there was ever any doubt, recent experience has shown that whenever efforts are needed to replenish state coffers, governments see only one solution. They reach into the pockets of those whom they know will pay up immediately: the middle classes.
The middle classes are the main buttress of western society, of the civilised world. They work, produce, consume, pay their taxes, and have children to ensure that the cycle will continue.
Today, by penalising the middle classes so greatly we risk taking away their power to consume; yet it is this consumption which underpins the need to produce, and it is production which in turn provides jobs, which create income that provides a source of taxation, giving the state the resources it needs to enable the whole system to operate – I would add – harmoniously.
In these extremely difficult times for the whole of what was hitherto termed the civilised world, when upheavals have begun to threaten the operation of many economies and of an increasing number of countries to a worrying degree, some clear-sighted people have realised that there is a serious risk of losing all we have achieved, and that society as we know it will cease to function.
Of course, new ones will undoubtedly emerge, but it is natural to fear the unknown.
A "group of the rich" in France have offered to help their country out of the crisis by paying extra tax. What they really are is a group of sensible, concerned citizens.
They are smart enough to see that it is better to make a few sacrifices and help safeguard the mechanism which has made them rich, so that the chicken can go on laying the golden eggs, than to witness the downfall of the middle classes who work, produce, consume, pay their taxes and create the added value and wealth which make this group of sensible, concerned citizens rich.
Unfortunately, this sensible attitude is not apparent in most of the initiatives taken by Europe's governments.
Ridiculous, masochistic and suicidal are the words which greet the announcement of a new draconian measure, which isn't really so bad after all because it will not apply to the millions of people who earn so little that they are exempt from paying tax.
It is a sorry society and a sorry governing class which is able to trot out these feeble arguments without flinching.
The warnings have been coming thick and fast. Indeed, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund has just warned against jeopardising the purchasing power which oils the productive machinery of our economies, provides jobs and ensures cohesive societies.
But of course the mania for direct cuts, for slashing costs here, there and everywhere, gets far more attention.
And this is not surprising, given the financial difficulties which, in turn, and like the other side of the same coin, threaten the balanced operation of our society and of our countries.
As always in life, and naive as it might seem, the key to everything is common sense.
There have been many instances in recent weeks that have highlighted the need for a bit of common sense, for this knowledge gleaned from experience, and the courage to act upon it.
In many situations, the important thing will be to accept the rule that, provided no actual harm is done, we forget the luxury of generating a profit and just allow there to be jobs. A simple exchange, without a winner or a loser, just giving people some work.
Clearly this is a role that can only be fulfilled by the State. One cannot require, or even ask, a private entity to work just for the sake of it, and to renounce or forget about making a profit. That would not make sense.
But to ensure that the "machine" continues to function and that people continue to enjoy the security which our society guarantees them, and to ensure that everything stays the way it is, we have to change something, to "reinvent" something in our civilised society. It is vital that there should be some things or some people that work without the need or obligation to make a profit. With just the guarantee that no actual harm is done: a simple exchange, so that large numbers of people can work and be beneficially occupied, earning some income and not expending their energies on corroding or destroying the social fabric.
The group of sensible, concerned citizens understood this.
And it is this little pinch of intelligence and common sense that is behind the apparently naïve attitude of these worthy individuals.
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Carlos Pereira Martins
Conselheiro - Member
Comité Economique et Social Européen (CESE)
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