The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Politics

Democracy and how we govern

  • Steve Forbes doesn’t get it – or why having the world’s highest taxes is a good thing

    Taxes

    Steve Forbes was in Denmark this week on a European tour, meeting with political and business leaders. His main message was that while Denmark has arguably the strongest economy in Europe right now, the high danish taxes are limiting our economic growth.

    And danish taxes are very high: The highest tax bracket kicks in after only 40.000$ earned, and you pay 60% taxes on everything you earn over that. This money is used to finance a very high level of public services, including free health care, schools and universities for everybody.

    The high tax level also finances what is called the danish flex-security model: In Denmark it’s relatively easy to fire employess (flexibility) but unemployed danes enjoy great benefits (security). Compare this to Sweden where it’s very, very difficult to lay employees off because the unions have enormous influence or to the US where unemployment benefits are not as generous.

    Forbes argues that the economic success Denmark is currently enjoying comes in spite of the high tax levels, and said “just imagine what you could achieve with lower taxes.” His argument goes something like this:

    1. Because taxes are so high, working more doesn’t pay much, therefore people work less
    2. If taxes were lower (say 40% in the top bracket instead of 60%) people would work more
    3. People would also make more money, meaning the state would take in the same amount of money in taxes
    4. People working harder would result in increased economic growth

    I think he’s wrong, wrong, wrong, and I’ll tell you why!
    (more…)

  • Quote

    And speaking of politics, here’s a quote by Al Gore taken from this NY Times article:

    Politics has become a game of meaningless, mindless battles, conducted by unscrupulous methods and people, designed to transform even the most serious policy debates into sport.

    – Al Gore

  • Reboot democracy interview

    Reboot politicsI’m speaking at the Reboot conference in Copenhagen on june 1-2. My topic is how we can reboot democracy, which is absolutely necessary because I believe politics is broken.

    Leading up to the conference, I was interviewed by podcaster extraordinaire Nicole Simon. We had a great chat about politics, why people don’t care for it and what it would take to get us all involved in creating the future of the world (main keyword: It has to be fun!).

    You can find the podcast here.

  • Funky government

    FunkyKaren Høeg, a good friend of mine, works for the Danish Commerce and Companies Agency and if you think that’s a mouthful you should see it in Danish: Erhvervs- og Selskabsstyrelsen. They are:

    the official place of registration for Danish Businesses. In parallel the DCCA administers legislations regulating Businesses, amongst others the Companies Act and the Company Accounts Act.

    Before you get too many images of a dusty, boring government agency rubberstamping it old-skool, I’ll have you know that they’re actually pretty with-it.

    How can we know that? Because they made we are funky one of their core values. Yep, that’s right, a government agency that wants to be funky. This is great news, and a good sign that public work places can actually be very modern and fun to work at.

    However, the “funky” value did result in one hilarious misunderstanding. During a parliament debate, a politician from the opposition asked the The Minister of Economic and Business Affairs a lot of pointed questions about this choice of values. He simply couldn’t understand why they would want to call themselves funky. Turns out he didn’t know what funky meant, and had looked it up in a dictionary, which said:

    Funky
    1. Having a moldy or musty smell: funky cheese; funky cellars.
    2. Having a strong, offensive, unwashed odor.

  • Let’s reboot democracy

    Reboot the voteI’ll be presenting at this years Reboot conference in june. Here’s the intro to my session:

    Let’s take back politics
    Most democracies are showing serious strain, including distrust of politicians, disproportionate lobbyist influence, low voter turnout and media spin. In the face of this many people simply give up, feeling that “there’s just no way I can make a difference.”

    It’s time for us to take back politics. Let’s discuss how we can use existing web technologies to create a political process where you and I can contribute directly and regularly, instead of just voting every four years. Because politics is too important to leave to the politicians.

    Mitch Kapor has apparently been thinking the same:

    The internet, if kept open and accessible to all, is a tool we can use to reform our politics and create new democratic processes and institutions. By using the internet and building upon its open decentralized architecture, we can help give every person a voice and offer them a forum to participate in creating a healthy politics. The internet provides the tools to build bottom-up systems that are both globally interconnected and locally controlled.

    I have a deep feeling, that introducing a new, bottom-up political process is the best way to solve many of todays problems, and the only way to really develop our societies. Let’s do it! I wrote about this previously here and here.

  • CSR – Doing well by doing good

    CSR works

    Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is defined as voluntary efforts by businesses to contribute to society. It may include

    • Workplace issues (such as training and equal opportunities)
    • Human rights
    • The business’ impact on the community
    • Reputation, branding and marketing
    • Ethical investment
    • Environment
    • Ethics and corporate governance

    I think CSR is great and many corporations practice it already. One percent for the planet, pioneered by Patagonia, is one of my favorite examples.

    And now something even more interesting is going on right here in Denmark: we’re implementing a national policy to enhance corporate growth and sustainable social development by teaching small and mid-sized businesses about CSR .

    I just had a very exciting meeting with Karen Høeg, an old friend who’s currently working on that very project for the Danish Commerce and Companies Agency.

    The project kicked off formally last week and will educate 12.000 danish leaders and employees from small and mid-sized businesses in CSR, helping them to increase their profits while doing something good for society and the planet. It is, as far as I know, the largest CSR project in the world.

    Studies show that companies who do CSR make more money than those who don’t. Quite simply, doing good helps businesses do well.

    I have a simple explanation for why this is the case: Doing good feels good. It makes people happy. And happy people are the best way to business success.

    In my post about Creating a Happy and Rich Business, I outlined the six practices of happy workplaces, and two of these are “Care” and “Think and act long-term”. CSR is an expression of both of these. That’s why it makes people happy, and that’s why it’s good for corporate profits and corporate growth.

    But then again, I would say that, wouldn’t I? :o)

  • Reboot renaisance?

    The time for the 8th Reboot conference is approaching. Thomas Mygdal writes that this year:

    The theme for reboot8 is “renaissance?” – as in renaissance-question-mark. As in renaissance = rediscovery and revitalization. Question mark because it’s a big word and a question to explore whether it’s real, but renaissance because it seems as a healthier and more challenging perspective than the current bubble easy-reality buzzwords currently flowing around. So reboot8 is like reboot7 a journey into the interconnectedness of creation, participation, values, openness, decentralization, collaboration, complexity, technology, p2p, humanities, connectedness and many more areas. Applied towards us as individuals, citizens, teachers, culture workers, entrepreneurs, creators and change makers.

    It feels like we more should think a lot about the emerging new models and how we can help shape them, instead of focusing on how the new models are superior to the current models.
    Explore renaissance question mark at http://reboot.dk/wiki/renaissance

    I think it’s really cool to open the conference planning and the format to the participants, rather than do all of that behind closed doors. I’ll try to get on the program to present my idea on Open Source Politics.

    If you’re asking yourself “What the heck is Reboot all about” you’re in good company. Lots of people love it, few can define it. It’s kind of a tech conference but it’s not really about the tech. There are a lot of geeks there, but few real geek sessions. It’s mostly about the internet and what the internet does (not how it does it). At any rate, it’s great!

  • Wikimania

    The Wikimania conference is the international conference of the Wikimedia foundation. The 2006 iteration is August 4-6 in Cambridge Ma., and they’re currently calling for papers and topics (the deadline is March 30).

    One of my current pet projects is a fundamental rethinking of the way democracy is practiced. A shift from the current top-down political process to one that directly involves large numbers of people bottom-up. I wrote about it here, and there’s a website in Danish about it.

    The fundamental meeting place of this party would be a Wiki. This is where policies would be suggested, examined, improved and voted on. I would LOVE to present this idea at the conference, so I submitted the following abstract:

    The political process in most modern nations suffers from a number of problems including:

    • General mistrust of politicians
    • Disengagement and disillusionment by most citizens
    • Low voter turnout

    Basically, a small group formulate policies and the vast majority of people get to vote every few years.

    The solution is to reshape the political process to allow many more people to participate actively in formulating the policies.

    This can be done by creating new political parties where the fundamental meeting place is a Wiki, where issues are proposed, examined and decided upon bottom-up involving large number of people. Wikipedia already demonstrates how a community can come to decisions on complex and emotionally engaging topics.

    This session lays out a specific plan for a wiki-based political party including:

    • What’s wrong with politics today
    • The technologies and principles involved in the wiki-based party
    • Advantages of the wiki-based party
    • How to implement it
    • Case studies from nations and communities who practice similar approaches

    I would sure love a trip to the US in August to present the idea of the wiki-based party.

  • Snappiest comeback ever

    Bert Bigelow tells the story of the snappiest comeback ever:

    On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.

    At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: “Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?”

    Raskin replied: “Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”

    The room erupted into applause.

    Via Pharyngula.

  • Take back politics

    Reboot the votePolitics is too important to leave to politicians.

    Politics has become a threat to democracy. Distrust of politicians, cynicism, apathy and plummeting voter turnout are just some of the symptoms.

    We have created a situation where a very small fraction of the population formulate policies and the rest limit their participation to voting every 4 years or so. And it’s not working!

    We must create a political process that allows you and me anyone else who feels passionate about some issue to gain direct political influence.

    The tools exist: The internet, modern forms of organization, open source principles, meetup-meetings.

    And the advantage would be obvious: A nation in which people consider themselves an active part of society. Where you can proudly say “I make a positive difference.”

    I’ve written a manifesto on a completely new approach to politics. It outlines an organization which is formally a political party and can function and run in elections like any other party, but which works internally unlike any other party on the face of the planet.

    Imagine a party where:

    • Anyone can be a member regardless of their political position
    • Policies are not decided top-down by a small group of political leaders but bottom-up by every member of the party
    • The heroes are not the smoothest talkers but the best listeners
    • The party platform is a wiki-site that anyone can edit – just like Wikipedia
    • Heterogeneous groups of people work together to create a bettter future for their society

    We’re starting to do it right here in Denmark, and you can read the manifesto here. It’s ony available in Danish so far, but if enough people lean on me I may translate it to English.