Letter to the Editor

Citation

Parkinson, F. (2000), "Letter to the Editor", European Business Review, Vol. 12 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2000.05412fab.007

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

Letter to Sir Richard Body from Frank Parkinson, 22 August 2000, about "The breakdown of Europe"

Dear Richard,

Quite suddenly this morning, and while thinking of other things, I felt moved to write to you about the present state of Europe and its future. It seemed to me, on reflection, that two things may be taking us to a critical decision point, namely:

1. 1.

   the forthcoming referendum in Denmark; and

2. 2.

   the growing inflation in Ireland.

My feeling is that together they will serve to swing opinion in favour of a clear "No" vote whenever the present Government brings itself to a referendum.

However, even if this should happen, the problem of the European megastate, which you outlined so well in "The breakdown of Europe", will not go away, and unless something is done, we shall watch from the sidelines while its inherent flaws unfold like a Greek tragedy – except that there are, so to speak, no sidelines any more. We shall be embroiled, whether we want it or not.

What can be done? Whatever the answer to that may be, it must begin with a counter-ideal, which creates the emotional dynamic to drive a political process. Two historical precedents come to mind to give us some initial guidance. First, the abolitionist ideal of John Woolman which was translated into statue law by Wilberforce and the Clapham sect and, second, William Penn's constitution for an essentially theocratic Pennsylvania, which so deeply influenced John Locke and, through him, the US Constitution and thereafter the constitutions of every nation state which took the USA as a basic model. However diluted, I think it would be true to say that Penn's religious intuition can be found in the very fabric of the United Nations.

Yet the US ideal of a "nation of states" is now driving a global model in an unthinking and destructive way, giving a logical basis for political gigantism, of which the European Union is only the latest example. At the same time, the drive for devolution is working at a national level, as witness the UK, Belgium, Canada, Spain and the former USSR. This weakening of national authority is accompanied by a new phase in the evolution of the joint stock company, which is now resulting in the concept of "globalization" being identified with the predations of the transnational corporation.

It would need a political philosopher of great skill – perhaps indeed genius – to interpret these grand courants of history. Yet it seems to me that we must embark upon the task, as a preliminary to bringing into existence a counter-ideal to the European Union. The logistics of such a task would certainly require political genius, but history shows that the right individuals arrive when the ideal has been brought into focus. To whom can we, should we, turn to provide a convincing ideal. You have sounded the trumpet in "The breakdown of Europe" by pointing out the flawed assumptions of a European state. I write to ask if you may feel called to take things further and, I say this, knowing that your health is not of the best and a well-earned retirement beckons.

Whatever counter-ideal is to serve as the alternative to the European Union, it must combine the same elements of religious idealism and practical politics that drove the abolitonist movement in the early nineteenth century. Increasingly, I am convinced that we are at a hinge of history in which a new, post-tribal and post-imperial form of religion comes together with a new kind of scientific understanding (metascience, as the physicist Mario Bunge calls it) to bring into being new forms of socio-economic community. If this new birth were easy it would be obvious to common gaze. In fact, it seems to me to depend upon a kind of vision, in the first place, that is prophetic in the fullest religious sense of the word. In the manuscript version of New Science, New Religion, New World, I am groping towards an expression of that conviction, and I hope to do this more adequately before Christmas and publish next year.

In friendship,

Frank,Lytham St Annes, UK