When Old Virtues Come Back into Favour
At the time of writing, it remains unclear whether Hakan Juholt’s enduring contribution to contemporary Swedish history will extend beyond the launch of the term ‘kulbo’ (‘fun co-habitee’). In any case, one can nevertheless say that a lot of what Juholt did with his kulbo seems to have paid for by us taxpayers (albeit that we seem to be content to get back the money that Juholt, without intent, ‘borrowed’ from us). A trip to Belarus, hire cars and free rent for his kulbo hardly makes life less fun.
In his speech at the Social Democrats’ extraordinary congress in April 2011, Hakan Juholt spoke, however, not so much about having fun. Instead, he talked about one of the seven deadly sins, namely greed. He complained that it is easier to replace a heart in the human body than to ”prevent the heartlessness and greed that is spreading”. Even at that stage, this original comparison should perhaps have given an indication that we are dealing with a man who does not expect to answer for what he says or does.
But even if we ignore the slightly wayward logic of Juholt’s words about greed, it will be noticed in retrospect, of course, that one of the seven deadly sins was mentioned by a man whose recognised carelessness testifies to a rather superficial relationship to the cardinal virtues such as judgement, justice and moderation; but also that he represents a party that has been instrumental in the process of modernisation, which during the 1900s has steered our moral values away from Christianity’s fixed norms.
The latter may, of course, have taken place with the assistance of a capitalist system, which refuses to acknowledge values ??other than economic, and whose internal logic requires constant renewal – that everything fixed and stable will start to break down and evaporate.
Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the Social Democratic welfare state has meant that moral responsibility has been transferred from individual to state. Which also seems to have been the spirit of Juholt’s speech about greed. For the fight against greed was surely meant to be achieved by government actions, with the purpose of reducing the possibilities of sucking out large profits from certain sectors of society? And not in the form of a compelled return to the Christian model of virtue?
But that the proponents of conservative values have, in recent decades, experienced a strong headwind, of course, had to do with the state-regulated low interest rate policy in Europe and the United States, which has encouraged citizens’ consumption and borrowing rather than the old virtues such as thrift and diligence. Lack of judgement and self-control have been promoted at the expense of humility and moderation. All the while, the political and economic elites have not exactly been setting a good example.
Time will tell if it is a sign of double standards or a new moral backlash that the Swedish media, during the month of October, has been maniacally busy investigating the Social Democrat party leader’s seemingly carefree relationship to what he himself, and what other taxpayers will pay for his consumption.
When Expressen and Aftonbladet go so far as to dig out all of Juholt’s receipts and credit card statements from parliament, and in all humility, ask their readers for help in finding any irregularities, one can not help but wonder if this is a consequence of Europe’s economic expertise being occupied by an even larger issue, namely – in the best Lyxfällan (The Luxury Trap TV show) style – dealing with the destructive patterns of consumption of one European country’s population after another.
Greek companies and individuals have registered tax liabilities of as much as 40 billion euros. Something that – like the American loan circus that triggered the 2000s’ previous financial crises – is difficult to contemplate regardless of the ethical rules of conduct that support the behaviour at the micro level of individual salary earners, managers and politicians.
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In this issue of Axess, we consider – in the themes section – the extent to which social value can be generated without a stable foundation of values in the form of e.g. fixed, basic ethical values. But also discussed – in the case files section – is the extent to which we, in the postmodern era, have undervalued the role that traditional industries within agriculture have for political and economic development.
To what extent can fluctuations in grain prices foment democracy? To what extent do the economic and political crises of the 2000s depend on the fact that we have abandoned the old model of virtue? And what role are traditional virtues playing in China’s development and future as an eventual economic superpower?