We do have sufficient regard for the moral and social degradation within our social institutions. And thus for the consequences for the vitality of our democracy and society, researchers Kees Buitendijk and Cor van Beuningen ask themselves.

Suddenly the concept reappears in the financial press: the Minsky moment, now in response to the financial difficulties in China. The Minsky moment is named after the economist Hyman Minsky and refers to a sudden collapse of the financial markets following a long period of apparent stability.

According to this analogy, in the run-up to the Lower House elections it is worth remembering another system thinker: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde. In the 1960s, this German judge and state judge considered the conditions for the functioning of a sound democratic rule of law. Is it "Böckenförde moment', the sudden collapse of the institutions of democracy and the rule of law, of decent society?

Intervention

Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (1930-2019) became especially famous for his theorem: .Der freiheitliche, säkularisierte Staat lebt von Voraussetzungen, die er selbst nicht garantieren kannaj. The democratic rule of law is unable to reproduce its own conditions of existence. Then what are the terms? Böckenförde mentioned two: an individual morality and a binding, collective ethos. These are matters which the State can not impose or guarantee with its intervention repertoire, but which are vital to the proper functioning of society.

Böckenförde saw that morality and collectivity arise within institutions other than those of the state and the market. Then it is about family, family and community; about associations, churches and voluntary associations. In the Netherlands it is also about institutions in the public domain, such as education, poor care, housing, health care, youth work, elderly care. In all these institutions people learn different ways of dealing with each other, and practice their social abilities. By doing so people experience recognition: the feeling to matter and to belong. This is where trust, commitment, interconnectedness arises.

Becoming human

The importance of these daily training processes to the vitality of society is hardly overestimated. It is in these relationships that people become human, that they humanize themselves and each other. The Nijmegen philosopher Paul van Tongeren once expressed this insight as follows: People are not what they are before they enter into relationships of recognition and care with each other. Man becomes human by the way and extent to which he is recognized and loved as a human being. And that recognition and that love are not given separately, but in all the ways that people relate to each other.

In the Netherlands, social domains such as healthcare, housing and education have long been outside the state and the market continue to function. Some of them were not of state or market origin, but of churches and associations. Over the past decades, these institutions and organisations have gradually been taken over by the state, partly reduced and partly subjected to a process of standardisation and scaling, driven by cost efficiency. The institutions were printed in the mould of a bureaucratic system logic. There is no place for trust relations and there is little humanisation.

Financial Standards

Another part was privatised as part of the market economy. The doctor became an entrepreneur, the patient client-consumer. In the process that has now accelerated, many of these social functions become By financial standards: from education, childcare, hospitals, housing to general practitioners and veterinarians. The relationship between patient and doctor was first based on trust and a shared goal, then the patient sat as a client to an entrepreneur, and now he has to deal with a doctor-as-subcontractor, who has the task of a profit margin of 30%.

Over the last few months, newspapers have been full of stories about the social consequences of the marketing of education, care, childcare, veterinary surgeons.. These domains have become transactional and no longer contribute in any way to recognition, commitment, dependency connection. Here stands the production of morality and collective ethos.

Amazing.

We sometimes look with surprise at other countries that risk slipping into democratic regression in a short space of time, and where polarization and hatred are raging. We have not yet reached that point. However, do we have sufficient regard for the moral and social degradation within our social institutions and the consequences that this may have for the vitality of our democracy and society in the long term? Or are we just waiting for the Böckenförde moment?

This essay was published on 28 September 2023 in the Volkskrant.