Western Europe (part 1)

Already a few decades ago (about 50 years), I began to travel, work (many jobs in different sectors, including at the beginning: factory worker, bartender, cook assistant, etc...), studying in many countries of Western Europe, this relatively intensively with one constant goal: to know the real world. Of course, to study and work it was necessary to learn the languages of the countries in which I lived. It was an opportunity to discover a little-known side of reality. What lessons have I learned from this experience ?

It was the beginning of an adventure but also a shock, because the reality lived live had nothing to do with the media presentation that was made of it. Even if there are certain bases common to the various cultures of the countries crossed, the cultural differences are much deeper than what I thought when I startet. The idea of a Europe sharing a common culture is not very objective, only a slight background of Judeo-Christian culture is present in each of the countries, and again, only in the aspect of the priority given to the individual over the interest of the community. Scandinavia has a very different culture than Germany. This country itself has a profoundly different culture than France. Spain, which is already an extremely divided country within its borders, has, outside a small part of the north of the country, a very different culture from the rest of Europe. Just with this quick approach to the issue it is already possible to understand that there is not really a European culture to speak of. And we have not yet addressed the case of Great Britain, Ireland or the countries that were once part of the Eastern Bloc ...

What are these cultural differences? They result from the effect of history on people as well as climatic and geographical conditions. For example, life in Scandinavia is much rougher than in Spain, which is easily understood. There is virtually no need for heating in most of Spain and there is abundant agricultural production, whereas the opposite is true in Scandinavia. To this must be added the extraordinary difference in luminosity. Just by this aspect, a Spaniard in Scandinavia would have a hard time not falling into depression. To understand this region in the north of Europe, it is necessary to read Scandinavian mythology, otherwise we find ourselves in front of many situations incomprehensible to someone who comes from a country further south. Likewise, without knowing the history of the Inquisition as well as the civil war and the dictatorship of Franco, Spain risks appearing a strange world.

We must take into account the impact of the two world wars on the European countries that participated in them, as well as the consequences of the revolution of 1789 on France. The tensions between Scotland and England seemed surprising to a traveller in the 1970s when today the divide between the two regions is manifest and public. How does the impact of the past manifest itself? In human relations, in relations between men and women, between adults and children, in the fact that individuals have a more individualistic or a little more collectivist mind. This is also manifested in the power of religion, in the way in which the real economy, technology, agriculture or industry are given more or less priority. Wars have had an important effect on the age pyramid, on the average age of populations and the resulting social evolution.

The absence or presence of a colonial past for a fairly long period had an impact on economic development but also on the priority given to the real economy or the financial world, services. Countries that have not had long access to vast colonial wealth, such as Germany and Scandinavia, have a more pragmatic, efficient and real-economy-oriented culture while countries that have had a large colonial empire have seen the creation of a higher layer of the population with a more haughty, "colonial", quasi-feudal mentality with greater disparities in the distribution of wealth and greater social tensions. These differences do not only concern social relations, they are also very noticeable in the way technology education is approached. For example, the French are fond of theoretical concepts without the links with a possible practical application being very clear, the Germans or Scandinavians put much more emphasis on the connection with the real world, practice. In addition, countries that have had large colonies also have a significant minority of the population that is native to these colonies. In general, this population is often clustered near the former industrial zones in which it worked creating culturally different neighborhoods from the basic population of the countries. The dismantling of these industries creates serious employment problems and therefore serious social problems for the young people of these neighborhoods. For example, there are markets in France where the main language of customers and traders is Arabic.

Another surprise awaits the adventurous traveler. This is the discovery of the very large number of foreign (non-European) workers, for example Turkish in Germany, North African in France. But it is not limited to these two countries, there are foreign workers in all the countries of Western Europe. They live most often in very precarious conditions, especially for non-European foreigners, sometimes crammed at 10 or 15 per room with access to a single toilet for 3 or 4 rooms and a single small kitchen. This is not a myth, because of lack of experience I went through it regularly at the beginning of my journey. The only difference is that I stayed there for a maximum of two or three consecutive weeks while some live long years in these conditions. A good question: what about the sex life of these workers ??? In Europe, a large proportion of dangerous, dirty or poorly paid jobs are carried out by immigrants (mainly non-European). But today, even some of the more advanced and sometimes high-level jobs are carried out by immigrants who are then generally less well paid than when these tasks are performed by nationals of old stock.

Local families generally have fewer children than families where at least one parent is an immigrant or the son or daughter of an immigrant. This is not always well represented in statistics because often parents have dual citizenship. In most countries, the ethnic European population is aging and has fewer and fewer children. Yet discrimination against immigrants persists, even though they are the ones who increasingly take on the daily tasks of the real economy and who also contribute more and more to the payment of pensions for ethnic populations. There are the ingredients for a serious problem to come... Not to mention that a substantial part of the immigrant populations have cultural roots in civilizations very different from Western civilization and often come from countries colonized by Europeans. Tensions between immigrant and local populations could lead to significant social conflicts, not to mention the problem of paying pensions when immigrants decide to return home at retirement age.

Most (non-European) immigrants came attracted by much higher wages than in their home countries. What they generally did not know before they came is that the cost of living is related to wages... The goal of the majority of them was to work 10 or 15 years in Europe so that they could buy a small farm or shop in their country and then return home. It is to be able to send the maximum money to their families that they live at 15 or 20 per room in precarious conditions. Some of them went so far as to have two 8-hour jobs a day, a crazy life... I did a little calculation, 48 people in an old 3 bedroom house, this allowed the owner of this house impossible to rent in the state it was in, to get up to 20 times the rent of an equivalent house in good condition. If foreign workers accept this, it is because they each pay less than a rent for a small apartment. Unfortunately, despite their efforts, only a very small minority of foreign workers will achieve their dreams.

It was while traveling that I discovered by experience another vision of the economy : There is less demand for rent for a very large house in very good condition because of the price. Accordingly, the price per square meter is lower. On the other hand, there is a high demand for real estate at very low prices, which allows owners to rent a room of 7 square meters with external access to a kitchen and a common toilet at a price just over 30% lower than a small one-bedroom apartment with a toilet and a kitchen. Similarly, a bed in a room of 12 or 15 people costs 40% less than the room of 7 square meters. The price is more a function of demand than of the quality of the rented property. For example (monthly rent): 2000 euros /150 m2 gives a price per m2 of 13.33 euros, 750 euros / 40 m2 gives a price per m2 of 18.75 euros, 500 euros for the room of 7m2 gives a price per m2 of 71.42 euros. 300 euros for a bed in a room of 16 m2 in which there are 12 beds gives a price per m2 of 225 euros. There are sometimes 16 beds in a room of 16 m2... It is easier to understand the interest of some to welcome foreigners or refugees especially in countries where rents are high ...

Not all non-European foreigners are immigrant "workers". A minority is (or rather was, it may no longer be true today) made up of men who want to know how the world around them really works but also and especially many political activists whose lives were threatened and who had to leave their countries for this reason. This minority, consisting mainly of people from Africa and Latin America and a small number from the Middle East, consists mainly of people who have a good level of education, or even sometimes a very high level of education carried out in several continents. I soon discovered that they know the host country better than the local citizens who usually have limited experience in their social environment and job, which was a surprise. Indeed, at the beginning of my trip, I thought that the majority of the inhabitants of European countries wanted to know as best as possible how their country works, or even the countries that surround them. In fact, I found out it wasn't. Most essentially seek to earn as much money as possible, to deal with their personal problems and are not interested in what does not directly affect them in the more or less short term. On the contrary, they prefer not to be disturbed too much with information about what is happening around them, in their country or in the world.

In fact, I was extremely surprised to find that the majority of people do not ask themselves questions such as " What do I need to live ? How does the economy work, the technology that exists in the products used almost daily ? Who makes these products, Where ? What resources do the country have ? Is there a balance between the resources used and those available ? How social relations work, what about political organization?. What is the foundation of human relationships, relationships between men and women ? "etc... It took me some time to accept the fact that most people follow what should be called a "programming" made by their education instead of thinking about the situation in which they find themselves, their possibilities for future projects, the meaning of their lives. The West favors individualism (everyone follows what he feels) but not the development of individuals (people who think, want to understand, decide their own life according to the world around them, use their brain and not their emotions). But perhaps all this is wanted by the powerful. People who do not ask themselves too many questions and follow what they feel are more docile, more easily manipulated ... Instead of going through all the phases of gaining experience, I quickly realized that it was better to take advantage of the experience accumulated by these better-trained foreigners who have resided in the country for several years. This allowed me to find solutions much faster to improve my life and accomplish my goals. Moreover, these foreigners are an extraordinary wealth of information not only about the countries from which they come but also about the countries where they have stayed, not to mention their capacity for reflection and analysis which has its origin in the many varied difficulties they have had to face. In immigrant circles, there were almost no women, although today this is changing little by little, mainly following the economic crisis.

As my ability to master new languages grew, I began to buy newspapers from several countries on a regular basis. After some time, I was surprised to see a seemingly insignificant article from a newspaper picked up in a newspaper in another country, then by yet another in a new country, only to finally be the subject of information picked up in many media outlets. The links between these articles and the media campaigns that followed some time after forced me to realize that there was some kind of conductor who was leading this kind of phenomenon. Thus the so-called European free press was in fact in the hands of services manipulating information to lead to a media campaign aimed at certain political or even geopolitical objectives. I was forced to realize that NATO or the United States services were manipulating these media campaigns. What else were they manipulating? Some events intended to create a shock in the population? I have discovered that many immigrants with extensive experience in many countries have become aware of this long before me, as this kind of phenomenon is widely used in their home countries. The revelations about "Gladio" that took place much later were not a great surprise...

Faced with these manipulations of information in the press, I bought, in 1974 if my memory is good, a cheap but very effective Russian international radio station giving me access to almost all radio stations on the planet. It should be noted that at the time, virtually all countries had shortwave broadcasts, at least in English, aimed at an international audience. At that time, I was surprised by the good quality of Swiss international radio broadcasts, the diversity and interest of the opinions expressed by non-European stations. Unfortunately, since the late 1990s, the quality of Swiss radio broadcasts has declined. It ceased broadcasting a few years later. What pressure has been exerted on Switzerland to do so ? Today, the broadcasts of the Swiss international radio have been replaced by a website whose international information is only a copy of some information from one or another "politically correct" Western news agency. Unfortunately, this deterioration in the quality of information has affected many other countries. The pressure of Western financiers is felt, obviously this is hardly surprising in the case of Russia which has switched to neoliberal capitalism. For more than 10 years the internet has replaced radio broadcasts with the advantage of introducing video but above all the possibilities of choosing which type information you want, which has extended the field of exploration of the world around us, provided we know how to use it...

I thought at the beginning that in large companies the goal was to achieve a good product for the customers. I quickly realized that it was not. The goal is, especially within the largest companies,to make money, margin. But even better, each floor of the hierarchy works for its own interest, not necessarily for the long-term interest of the company and certainly not for the floor below. For example, what was not my surprise to discover that the production figures of a chain where I worked and which were transmitted to the higher levels of the hierarchy were different from the reality. I told myself much later, working as a computer scientist, that if the management in these factories was computerized, it could become "interesting". Since I actually had to computerize companies myself, I discovered that it was even more "interesting", even "dangerous" than I thought.

The myth of an efficient and well-managed European industry was quickly shattered. In general, the larger the size of the company and the more information losses as well as" other losses " and the more emphasis is placed on short-term financial gain at all stages, even more by the top of the hierarchy who must be accountable to the financiers who hold the capital, with financial targets that are often three months away. It often happens that production or services are no more than supports or even pretexts for financial operations. I then discovered that financial products could be the main source of earnings for these large companies. Finally, it became logical, from a financial point of view, that under these conditions they would increasingly abandon the production part for the marketing part, sales part, or even essentially to enter the field of credit derivatives (ABS,CDO, CLO, CDS, etc...) or large-scale real estate speculation. To this must also be added the planned obsolescence which is the result of studies carried out to limit the life of products in order to accelerate the sales cycle, "capital rotation". We is very far from an economy organized to produce a response to the needs of the populations by ensuring that natural resources are not wasted! Sometimes it is even the opposite. For example, products harmful to health are placed on the market or used by the agri-food or pharmaceutical industries. In terms of ensuring that resources are not wasted as the mainstream media, politicians and financiers preach to us, one only has to think about planned obsolescence to understand that there is something fishy going on...

As I have had the opportunity to work in "higher" circles, I have found that many executives of large companies are looking more to buy out their competitors, pass laws to ensure a certain monopoly in their favor, or create a new market for their products or services than to develop their own businesses. This is only possible with the existence of links between the political world and these leaders and is particularly harmful to the development of the real economy and innovation and often "deadly" for many SMEs. It is true that many of these executives are primarily in the service of the financiers who hold the capital rather than in the service of their business. These financiers want short-term results, and executives who prioritize long-term goals in the real economy over short-term financial results would be quickly swept away. I realized that financiers want to get a return from their capital that allows them at least to live very well without having to work. It is certainly these same circles that finance the campaigns of political parties...

I was forced to realize that in the West, the real purpose of economic, social and political organization is to provide the maximum resources to the holders of capital (the financiers). This is also true for the "training" given within the educational system, the aim of which is absolutely not to explain what are the real mechanisms at the base of the Western economy or to give a real knowledge of the means of production, of the technologies. So, a question comes to mind: where do the capital of these financiers come from ? Central banks that are actually managed by a few large private banks, i.e. by the main financiers. We are never better served than by ourselves!

CIESINT   Published on 2017-06-22   Read by 4383  Translated on 2021-09-12