Obamas kommande tal vid klimatkonferensen?

Snart är det dags för president Obama att göra en insats vid klimatkonferensen i Köpenhamn. Vad kommer han att säga? Vad borde han säga?

George Monbiot, författare till bland annat boken ”Heat – How to Stop the Planet Burning”, har besparat Obama besväret och har istället själv skrivit det tal Obama bör hålla:

Mr Obama, here's your Copenhagen speech.

Ryssland försäkrar sig om att förbli en andrarangsmakt

Jag ser i Svenska Dagbladet (21 juli 2009) att Vladimir Putin, Rysslands premiärminister, vill förbjuda utländska lärare att undervisa vid ryska universitet. Hmmm…

2007 publicerades en bok i USA av Amy L. Chua med titeln ”Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance -- and Why They Fall”. Med ”hyperpowers” avser Amy Chua inte bara vanliga stormakter utan sådana som verkligen dominerat och överglänst alla andra makter, som till exempel Romarriket och Mongolväldet under Djingis Khan.

Vad som karateriserar dessa ”hyperpowers” är, enligt Amy Chua, att de alla var ”toleranta” mot andra folk, inklusive besegrade och minoriteter av olika slag. Det handlade inte nödvändigtvis om tolerans i form av medkänsla med andra individer utan snarare om öppenhet för alla slags idéer, andras erfarenheter och nya kunskaper. När dessa välden i denna mening började bli intoleranta och nationalistiska, då började också deras tillbakagång.

Om Putins förslag blir lag blir det närmast en garanti för att Ryssland kommer att förbli en andraplansmakt – om ens det – oavsett hur nationalismen frodas och krigsmakten byggs ut.

More equality better for all

The most progressive political vision for a country should be to reduce the gaps in society. Because it is the gaps between rich and poor that create our modern social problems – and those problems also fall upon the more well-to-do.

According to the book ”Spirit Level – Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better” (which I first presented at March 25) all groups in society will be affected by higher inequality. People in more equal societies, like Sweden, do better than people in more unequal societies, like the UK. Their health is better, so is life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, mental illness etc...

In poor countries life expectancy etc goes up with the economic development. However, when the economy has reached a higher level there is no longer a correlation between life expectancy and income. That is the case among the thirty or so richest countries in the world.

Among those rich countries there is instead a strong correlation between life expectancy etc and the rate of inequality. In ”Spirit Level” inequality is determined as how much richer the richest 20 per cent of a society is compared to the poorest 20 per cent. In more unequal societies, like the UK and USA, the richest 20 per cent are 8 to 9 times richer than the poorest. In more equal societies, like Japan and Sweden, the richest 20 per cent are about 4 times richer.

What about the trends? Unfortunately, not encouraging. Inequality seems to be more popular than equality, inequality has risen in most developed countries during recent decades. In the UK inequality went up dramatically during Margaret Thatcher and has been high since then. In Sweden, which is much more equal, the income gaps have also widened since the early 1990s.

Most countries in the world need a lot of economic growth, so they can reach the level of standard that we in the rich world enjoy. However, have we in the rich countries reached the end of what economic growth can do for us? Is it time to shift focus from more growth to more equality?

(”Spirit Level – Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better” by Richard Wilkinson dan Kate Picket, Alen Lane 2009.)

Is aiding abetting?

An African author and economist, Dambisa Moyo, is interviewed in Guernica about aid, especially about western aid to Africa:

"Systematic western aid, Moyo argues in Dead Aid, has essentially turned Africa into one giant welfare state. The unending stream of money has created a situation where governments aren’t accountable to their citizens: since they don’t depend on tax revenue, leaders don’t think they owe their people anything—and the people don’t expect anything from their leaders. Moreover, says Moyo, since the money flows virtually no matter what, tyrants like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (three hundred million dollars in foreign aid was sent to Mugabe in 2006 alone, says Moyo) often pilfer it and buy foreign goods, or stow it in foreign bank accounts where it does nothing to help the country. Furthermore, aid stamps out entrepreneurship. Moyo offers the example of an African mosquito net maker. When aid arrives in the form of a hundred thousand mosquito nets, the net-maker is out of business, and one hundred and sixty people (employees and dependents) are now aid-dependent. This, she says, is not a sustainable model."


There are good reasons to question the aid that has flowed into Africa since 1970, because during the same period powerty has gone up from 11 percent of the total population to 66 percent. Instead of more aid Moyo wants trade and investments, which makes a lot of sense. (Read the article: Aiding is Abetting)