Politics is about making choices: which way should we go? You can hide behind models or spreadsheets that reason out what the deposition of a company or the manure space per sector is. But in essence it is about: what do we really want now, where do we want to go. Last week, the Central Planning Bureau (CPB) advised the government to make real choices for the future in good time and not to wait until the need is urgent and the costs are high. As help, it offered four visions of the future.
What is striking about the images is that they are based on the way in which you could look at society: which values matter? Do you want a country with a lot of freedom with large income differences (Market), a country with a bit more solidarity and equality (Together), a sustainable and green country (Sustainable) or a country with little growth, modest facilities and little immigration (Autonomous). Behind that choice lie deeper views that determine what kind of country we want to live in, what the country can look like. Which you do not achieve with one measure, but with a package that you maintain for longer than a cabinet period.
Changes in economic systems
It reminds me of Nobel Prize winner Oliver Williamson. He once developed a handy four-layer scheme to understand changes in economic systems. The bottom layer is about the use of products and means of production (labor, capital). That is the daily process in which people choose between butter, margarine or olive oil based on various aspects that we find important (price, convenience, health etc.). Or in which a farmer chooses between ploughing or only cultures.
Just as we choose between products, we also choose between organizational forms and find one (for example selling via an auction) more or less convenient than the other (selling under contract and with a quality mark). Growing or buying your own animal feed? Cooperative or private trade? Each organizational form has its advantages and disadvantages, and these differ according to time and place.
Organizational forms restricted by legislation
This level of organizational forms is limited by the level of formal legislation, Williamson's third layer. Laws limit the possibilities of choices or organizational forms. Sometimes a law also creates them, for example by defining a new legal form such as cooperatives or an emission right. If the law does not allow permits to be issued on the basis of emission measurements, Lely cannot sell Spheres. With a livestock density requirement, such an investment has no profit. These laws and regulations are politically determined on the basis of a cultural layer of norms and values. For example, someone with an individualistic view does not want one joint nitrogen assignment for a sector, but emission rights per company.
What is essential now is that these higher layers of legislation and culture influence the lower ones and vice versa. But also that these higher layers often change much more slowly than the lower layer with the use of products and means of production. For a successful transition of a society that has to adapt to changing circumstances and does not want to become rigid, these changes at the upper layers are essential. Just this week, three economists received a Nobel Prize because they have shown how a stable political culture is important for prosperity.
Corners with all kinds of combinations
The CPB scenarios are cornerstones, of course there are also all kinds of combinations possible. And they also have a number of things in common that cannot be prevented: an ageing, but larger society, more expensive care, lack of space and a somewhat smaller agricultural sector (at least in terms of number of farmers and surface area). But the message of the theory and the CPB is clear: whoever wants to get rid of the discussions with models and spreadsheets, should talk more often in politics about the values that are important for modernising our country and make choices with that. In which scenario would you like to live and work?
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