토토사이트
Advertisement
  • 홈
    • 카지노사이트
    • 도박사이트
    • 룰렛 사이트
    • 라이브카지노
    • 바카라사이트
    • 안전카지노
  • 경제
  • 파이낸스
  • 정치
  • 투자
    • Invest in Amazon $250
  • 암호화폐
    • Best Bitcoin Accounts
    • Bitcoin Robot
      • Quantum AI
      • Bitcoin Era
      • Bitcoin Aussie System
      • Bitcoin Profit
      • Bitcoin Code
      • eKrona Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Up
      • Bitcoin Prime
      • Yuan Pay Group
      • Immediate Profit
      • BitQH
      • Bitcoin Loophole
      • Crypto Boom
      • Bitcoin Treasure
      • Bitcoin Lucro
      • Bitcoin System
      • Oil Profit
      • The News Spy
      • Bitcoin Buyer
      • Bitcoin Inform
      • Immediate Edge
      • Bitcoin Evolution
      • Cryptohopper
      • Ethereum Trader
      • BitQL
      • Quantum Code
      • Bitcoin Revolution
      • British Trade Platform
      • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Reddit
    • Celebrities
      • Dr. Chris Brown Bitcoin
      • Teeka Tiwari Bitcoin
      • Russell Brand Bitcoin
      • Holly Willoughby Bitcoin
  • 온라인 카지노
    • 카지노에서 승리하는 방법
    • 카지노에서 블랙잭을 플레이하는 방법
    • 카지노에서 룰렛을 플레이하는 방법
    • 바카라 게임 방법
    • 카지노 카드 게임을 하는 방법
    • 온라인 카지노를 플레이하는 방법
    • 카지노에 무엇을 입어야합니까?
    • 카지노에서 크랩스를 플레이하는 방법
  • 스포츠 베팅
    • 야구에 베팅하는 방법
    • 축구에 베팅하는 방법
    • NFL 게임에 베팅하는 방법
    • 슬롯 머신에서 승리하는 방법
    • 스포츠 베팅은 어떻게 작동하나요?
  • 슬롯 머신
    • 가장 높은 지불금 슬롯 머신
    • 슬롯 토너먼트는 어떻게 진행되나요?
  • 온라인 베팅
    • 베팅 배당률은 어떻게 작동하나요?
    • 머니라인 베팅이 뭐야?
    • 슈퍼볼에 베팅하는 방법
    • 라운드 로빈 베팅은 어떻게 진행되나요?
    • UFC 경기에 베팅하는 방법
    • 매칭베팅이 뭐야?
    • 경마에 베팅하는 방법
    • 스프레드 베팅이란 무엇입니까?
No Result
View All Result
  • 홈
    • 카지노사이트
    • 도박사이트
    • 룰렛 사이트
    • 라이브카지노
    • 바카라사이트
    • 안전카지노
  • 경제
  • 파이낸스
  • 정치
  • 투자
    • Invest in Amazon $250
  • 암호화폐
    • Best Bitcoin Accounts
    • Bitcoin Robot
      • Quantum AI
      • Bitcoin Era
      • Bitcoin Aussie System
      • Bitcoin Profit
      • Bitcoin Code
      • eKrona Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Up
      • Bitcoin Prime
      • Yuan Pay Group
      • Immediate Profit
      • BitQH
      • Bitcoin Loophole
      • Crypto Boom
      • Bitcoin Treasure
      • Bitcoin Lucro
      • Bitcoin System
      • Oil Profit
      • The News Spy
      • Bitcoin Buyer
      • Bitcoin Inform
      • Immediate Edge
      • Bitcoin Evolution
      • Cryptohopper
      • Ethereum Trader
      • BitQL
      • Quantum Code
      • Bitcoin Revolution
      • British Trade Platform
      • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Reddit
    • Celebrities
      • Dr. Chris Brown Bitcoin
      • Teeka Tiwari Bitcoin
      • Russell Brand Bitcoin
      • Holly Willoughby Bitcoin
  • 온라인 카지노
    • 카지노에서 승리하는 방법
    • 카지노에서 블랙잭을 플레이하는 방법
    • 카지노에서 룰렛을 플레이하는 방법
    • 바카라 게임 방법
    • 카지노 카드 게임을 하는 방법
    • 온라인 카지노를 플레이하는 방법
    • 카지노에 무엇을 입어야합니까?
    • 카지노에서 크랩스를 플레이하는 방법
  • 스포츠 베팅
    • 야구에 베팅하는 방법
    • 축구에 베팅하는 방법
    • NFL 게임에 베팅하는 방법
    • 슬롯 머신에서 승리하는 방법
    • 스포츠 베팅은 어떻게 작동하나요?
  • 슬롯 머신
    • 가장 높은 지불금 슬롯 머신
    • 슬롯 토너먼트는 어떻게 진행되나요?
  • 온라인 베팅
    • 베팅 배당률은 어떻게 작동하나요?
    • 머니라인 베팅이 뭐야?
    • 슈퍼볼에 베팅하는 방법
    • 라운드 로빈 베팅은 어떻게 진행되나요?
    • UFC 경기에 베팅하는 방법
    • 매칭베팅이 뭐야?
    • 경마에 베팅하는 방법
    • 스프레드 베팅이란 무엇입니까?
No Result
View All Result
토토사이트
No Result
View All Result

Immanuel Kant and Germany’s Moral Leadership

admin by admin
September 13, 2015
in Uncategorized
0
0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

by Yanis Varoufakis

[This is the original original English text of Deutschland: Die moralische Nation (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 September 2015). Appeared originally on the author’s blog.]

Economists err when they think that human rationality is all about applying one’s means efficiently in order to achieve one’s ends. That the efficient application of available resources in the pursuit of given objectives is an important dimension of our Reason, there is no doubt. The error however sips in when economists, and those influenced by them, assume that this is all rationality is about.

immanuel.kant.wikipedia.380x300
Immanuel Kant,1724-1804 (Wikipedia)

This type of instrumental approach to the meaning of Reason massively underestimates perhaps the one ingredient of human reasoning that makes us exceptional animals: the capacity to subject our ends, our objectives, to rational scrutiny. To ask ourselves not just questions such as “Should I invest in bonds or shares?” but also questions of the type: “I like X but should I like it?”

This summer we, Europeans, faced major challenges to our integrity and soul. The inflow of refugees tested our humanity and our rationality felt the strain of needing to make hard choices. Most European nations, and their governments, failed the test of history spectacularly. Closing borders down, stopping trains on their tracks, treating people in need as an existentialist threat, indulging in bickering at the level of the European Union as to who will bear a lesser part of the burden – all in all, Europe behaved abominably leading the Italian Prime Minister to utter in desperation: “If this is Europe, I do not want to be part of it.”

One country stood out, showing moral leadership on this issue: Germany. The sight of thousands of Germans welcoming wretched refugees who had been turned away in several other European countries was one to savour and one to extract considerable hope from. Hope that Europe’s soul has not been lost entirely. Chancellor Merkel’s relaxed leadership on the matter, even the magnanimous attitude of otherwise misanthropic German tabloids to the inflowing refugees, made amends for Europe’s failure to rise up to this humanitarian crisis.

Many have imputed ulterior motives to Germany’s generosity. Poor German demographics may be helped by an influx of relatively young, highly motivated, mostly well-educated fleeing Syrians. Guntram Wolff, in the Financial Times, recently drew a historical comparison with a 17th Century influx of French protestant refugees into the state of Brandenburg, who brought in with them skills and dynamism. Employers rejoice at the thought of more workers, putting downward pressure on wage costs, while macroeconomists try to calculate the fiscal costs to the welfare system in relation to the economic benefits from a boost in aggregate demand.

This cynical cost-benefit analysis misses the point, however. That there are benefits from immigration is beyond dispute – except by racists. Host countries (with the United States, Canada and Australia offering living examples) are the ones enjoying enormous net benefits, while the countries abandoned by their people suffer. But this is true for all aging Central and North Eastern European nations. Why is it only Germany and its people that took enthusiastically to welcoming refugees? The answer, clearly, has nothing to do with economics. If there are positive economic repercussions, these are mere byproducts of some other type of motivation that made Germans open their borders and hearts to the refugees. What might it be?

Students of philosophy may be tempted, as I am, to seek the answer in one of Germany’s grandest gifts to humanity: the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Unlike economists and Anglo-Celtic philosophers, Kant is not satisfied with instrumental accounts of what it means to act rationally. Such accounts are fine for cats and sophisticated robots. But not for humans. Humans must have a capacity for moral reasoning that is, nevertheless, the result not of dogma but of pure Reason.

Kant’s practical Reason demands that we should undertake those actions which, when generalised, yield coherent outcomes. For example, lying cannot be a rational choice because, if universalised, if everyone were to lie all the time, trust in what others say would disappear and language would lose its coherence. True enough, many people refrain from lying because of the fear that they will be found out. But Kant does not consider such instrumental reasons for not lying as fully rational. In his mindset, the rational and the moral merge when we develop a capacity to act on the so-called categorical imperative: of acting in a universalisable manner independently of the consequences. For the hell of it, in plainer language.

Taking refugees in is such a universalisable act. You do not take them in because of what you expect to gain. The fact that you may end up with great gains is irrelevant. The warm inner glow of having done the ‘right’ thing, the boost to aggregate demand, the effect on productivity – all these are great repercussions of one’s Kantian rationality. They are not, however, the motivation. One’s rational acts, according to Kant, are not to be determined by expected gain, that instrumental ‘utility’ that depends on what others do and on a number of contingencies. There is no strategy here. Just the application of the deontological reasoning which requires that we should act upon ‘universalisable’ rules.

There is, of course, no way that one can prove empirically that German solidarity to the refugees was of the Kantian type, and not some instrumental attempt to feel better about themselves, to show up other Europeans, to improve the country’s demographics. Be that as it may, I do not buy these cynical, instrumental accounts. Having observed so many Germans perform countless acts of kindness toward refugees shunned by other Europeans, I am convinced that something akin to Kantian reasoning is at work.

I say “something akin to Kantian reasoning” because full Kantian behaviour is neither observed in Germany nor necessarily desirable. There are times when good people need to lie (for instance when skinheads interrogate you on the whereabouts of a black person they are chasing) and there are several realms where German attitudes are far from consistent with Kantian thinking.

Indeed, this summer there was a second occasion when Europe harmed its integrity and damaged its soul: It happened on 12th and 13th July when the leader of a small European country, Greece, was threatened with expulsion from the Eurozone unless he accepted an economic reform program that no one truly believes (not even Chancellor Merkel) can alleviate my country’s long standing economic collapse, and the hopelessness that goes along with it. On that occasion no universalisable principle was in play, the result being that a proud nation was forced to surrender to an illogical economic program for which everyone in Europe, including Germany, will pay a price.

This is not the place to recount the vagaries of Greece’s never-ending crisis. And nor is there a need since its underlying cause has nothing to do with Greece: the real reason Greece has been imploding, while Berlin and the troika are insisting on a ‘reform’ program that pushes the country deeper into a black hole and keeps it hopelessly unreformed, is that the German government has not yet decided what it wants to do with the Eurozone.

Berlin knows well that, as it is, the Eurozone is non-viable. It needs major reforms. It needs mechanisms for recycling surpluses from the regions where they amass to the regions in deficit. Alas, Berlin has not formed an opinion, yet, on what these reforms should be, what form of European political union it wants, or how to convince Paris to go along with its priorities. So, while the Franco-German elephants tussle, little Greece is being squashed, awaiting the outcome of this interminable clash. In the process, millions of Greeks languish in desperation, hundreds of thousands of educated young men and women flee the country, and the oligarchy is having a field day exploiting the political impasse caused by last July’s surrender of our government.

Setting aside the Greek drama for now, Europe needs moral leadership from Germany. On the question of refugees, we have it – and that’s excellent. On the question of how to deal, at long last, with the Eurozone’s crisis, there has been no German leadership – indeed, quite the opposite, as the German government has been lagging behind developments, stepping in only at the last moment to tackle the symptoms but never its causes.

What should Berlin do? An excellent start would be to apply the same Kantian principle which has been evident in the case of the refugee crisis. Kant’s practical Reason asks of us to adopt policies that, if generalised, will yield coherent outcomes. Large trade surpluses cannot be ‘generalised’! Just as in the case of lying, securing economic prosperity in a monetary union by means of huge nert exports, and increasing competitiveness vis-à-vis other European countries, fails Kant’s test. And so does a motivated blindness to the fact that one’s surplus is another’s deficit.

Time for Germany to extend its moral leadership from the refugee issue to the Eurozone’s architecture. Evoking Immanuel Kant to ditch the incoherent view of itself as Europe’s export-oriented workshop would be an excellent start.

Previous Post

Earnings and Economic Reports: Week Starting 14 September 2015

Next Post

Why Germany Is Dumping Nuclear Power And Britain Isn’t

Related Posts

Bitcoin Blasts Off to $34K Amid Soaring ETF Hype!
Economics

Bitcoin Blasts Off to $34K Amid Soaring ETF Hype!

by John Wanguba
October 23, 2023
Crypto Enthusiasts Sound the Alarm as Bitcoin Surges to 3-Month High Just Shy of $31K
Economics

Crypto Enthusiasts Sound the Alarm as Bitcoin Surges to 3-Month High Just Shy of $31K

by John Wanguba
October 23, 2023
Addresses With Over 1 Bitcoin Surge To New Highs: Investor Optimism Soars
Econ Intersect News

Addresses With Over 1 Bitcoin Surge To New Highs: Investor Optimism Soars

by John Wanguba
September 29, 2023
Unlocking the Future: Google's Game-Changing Move to Advertise NFT Games Starting September 15th
Business

Unlocking the Future: Google’s Game-Changing Move to Advertise NFT Games Starting September 15th

by John Wanguba
September 8, 2023
Bitcoin Is Finally Trading Perfectly Like 'Digital Gold'
Economics

Bitcoin Is Finally Trading Perfectly Like ‘Digital Gold’

by John Wanguba
August 5, 2023
Next Post

Why Germany Is Dumping Nuclear Power And Britain Isn't

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Browse by Category

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized

Browse by Tags

adoption altcoins bank banking banks Binance Bitcoin Bitcoin market blockchain BTC BTC price business China crypto crypto adoption cryptocurrency crypto exchange crypto market crypto regulation decentralized finance DeFi Elon Musk ETH Ethereum Europe Federal Reserve finance FTX inflation investment market analysis Metaverse NFT nonfungible tokens oil market price analysis recession regulation Russia stock market technology Tesla the UK the US Twitter

Archives

  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • August 2010
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized
토토사이트

After nearly 11 years of 24/7/365 operation, Global Economic Intersection co-founders Steven Hansen and John Lounsbury are retiring. The new owner, a global media company in London, is in the process of completing the set-up of Global Economic Intersection files in their system and publishing platform. The official website ownership transfer took place on 24 August.

Categories

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Bitcoin Blasts Off to $34K Amid Soaring ETF Hype!
  • Crypto Enthusiasts Sound the Alarm as Bitcoin Surges to 3-Month High Just Shy of $31K
  • Addresses With Over 1 Bitcoin Surge To New Highs: Investor Optimism Soars

© Copyright 2021 EconIntersect - Economic news, analysis and opinion.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Bitcoin Robot
    • Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Code
    • Quantum AI
    • eKrona Cryptocurrency
    • Bitcoin Up
    • Bitcoin Prime
    • Yuan Pay Group
    • Immediate Profit
    • BitIQ
    • Bitcoin Loophole
    • Crypto Boom
    • Bitcoin Era
    • Bitcoin Treasure
    • Bitcoin Lucro
    • Bitcoin System
    • Oil Profit
    • The News Spy
    • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Trader
  • Bitcoin Reddit

© Copyright 2021 EconIntersect - Economic news, analysis and opinion.