3.1 Elite Quality Country Scores and Global Rankings

Visual 3.1 (1/4): EQx2025 table of Country Scores and Global Rankings with Power and Value Sub-Indices

3.2 State of Elites Framework: Country Mapping

The State of Elites framework revolves around the EQx's 2 Sub-Indices, Power and Value. Both represent the degree of Value Creation along a spectrum ranging from high to low.

It is important to emphasize that the State of Elites framework sees the interaction of the present with the future, as it reflects the fact that Power can be converted into Value Extraction. Value Extraction business models require Power to operate and thus Power is described as having future Value Extraction potential in Visual 3.2. In the framework, the 2 axes represent the 2 temporal perspectives and so every country finds itself in a position that captures information about the present (via Value) and the future (via Power).

The State of Elites framework is best comprehended through 4 possible conditions that describe a country's elites in terms of their business models on aggregate: ‘competitive’, ‘enlight-ened’, ‘rentier’ and ‘striving’. The Power Sub-Index I and Val-ue Sub-Index II Country Scores serve as the x- and y-axis of the 2x2 matrix which provide the coordinates that not just lo-cate each political economy in the framework, but most im-portantly serve as a starting point for interpretive work. A country's position is a unique and important source of in-sights to analyze its present situation as well as to understand its prospects, especially given our aim to support the develop-ment of prescriptive views.

Six Introductory Lectures

Main topic of course: relations of domination and subordination in human society – generally, but with special emphasis on the political.

Two preliminary questions: (a) Why is there a special problem about the political? (b) What has philosophy to say about such matters?

• 1. Political authority is said not to be ‘natural’. (But what does this mean?)

• 2. Political authority is not obviously acceded to voluntarily.

1. and 2. together have been thought to give rise to a special problem, which we can take as a starting point from which other problems radiate.

Questions about what is natural in human affairs are very involved: ‘natural’ occurs as one term in many different contrasts: e.g. with ‘conventional’, with ‘artificial’, [with] ‘what would be true of social life considered in abstraction from the political’, ‘corrupt’, ‘primitive’ (equals ‘pre-social’). These distinctions overlap but they often need to be distinguished and have not always been so adequately.

A pervasive theme in political philosophy is that political authority is not just a de facto relation but involves the idea of legitimacy. The significance of this can be brought out by considering the point of view of the subject. He may submit because he feels he cannot do otherwise – the consequences of doing so would be too adverse. Or he may submit because he thinks he ought to – i.e. apart from the question of whether he is constrained. (But the relations between constraint and obligation are tangled, especially in political contexts.) Here he will appeal to the nature of the authority which is making demands on him.

Introduction

In the relatively scant academic literature on the honour and prestige of states,1 states are often treated as if they were human beings eager to defend their good name or vindicate their personal reputation. And while there are certainly affinities between personal repute and the prestige of states, I will argue that this line of thinking basically misses the central point when it comes to explaining what's really at stake when, for instance, states seek revenge to make up for their damaged reputation, bask in the admiration or jealousy of like-minded entities due to some economic or political success or do their utmost to occupy the top spot on international ranking lists (be it of welfare, democracy, happiness or what have you). States, unlike individuals, are power monopolies, but their monopoly of force only counts as such within their own areas of sovereignty. Whatever other influence they might wield is dependent on their success on the international scene, in their interaction with other power monopolies, which all strive to enhance their external reach and/or their international prestige. Whenever their striving for power is suc¬cessful, they potentially add to their international standing, but when it is not, they will do almost anything to restore their honour, sometimes even go to war.

In most cases, therefore, honour, power and interest are closely linked, but states occasionally pursue idealistic goals and defend their prestige for its own sake and with little regard for the ultimate consequences. In the words of Winston Churchill, when, in 1940, he decided to take on the imminent threat of German Nazism, he was guided by ‘emotions which lead me to stake our all upon duty and honour’ (Cannadine, 1990, 175). Donald Kagan was apparently right: ‘For the last 2500 years, at least, states have conducted their affairs and often gone to war moved by considerations that would not pass the test of “vital national interests” […] persisting in this course even when the danger has been evident and the cost high’ (Kagan, 1997).

• A. The education of children

  • 1. Overlooked (catastrophically) by Locke in his discussion of the relation between rationality and freedom (and a fortiori between rationality and authority)2

  • 2. Rousseau

    • a) Sees the relation between education, rationality and freedom

    • b) But misses (or rather rejects) the role of authority in the growth of reason

  • 3. Something on Anscombe again here perhaps on ‘the practices of reason’?

  • 4. Mainly of course Wittgenstein: On Certainty

    • a) and, trailing behind, my ‘Certainty and Authority’!

• B. The continuing role of authority in adult life

  • 1. On Certainty

  • 2. ‘Certainty and Authority’

  • 3. The political dimension of this to be further explored in next chapter

[Recall Hobbes in the Behemoth [I.A.]]

You may perhaps think a man has need of nothing else to know the duty he owes his governor, and what right he has to order him, but a good natural wit; but it is otherwise. For it is a science2, and built upon sure and clear principles, and to be learned by deep and careful study, or from masters that have deeply studied it. And who was there in the Parliament or in the nation, that could find out those evident principles, and derive from them the necessary rules of justice, and the necessary connection of justice and peace?

Hobbes is trying to persuade his readers. But what sort of ‘persuasion’? (Is he giving them reasons for actions, or trying to cause them to behave differently?) Are reasons causes?

The promiscuous uses of ‘reason’: e.g. [I.B.]

[The first] concerns an inanimate object, [the second] a human being. But (1) and (2) are similar in form when contrasted with (3), which we can re-express: ‘her reason for not coming’. This, in the present context, is one of the most important distinctions we have to keep our eye on.

The twentieth century was a particularly bad time to belong to the esoteric and mystical side of Islam. In a rapidly changing world faced with the challenge posed by industrial modernity, Islam came under severe criticism from within the Muslim society for being the principal cause of backwardness of Muslims. As Muslim societies began to modernise, however, many were inclined to argue that Islam per se was not incompatible with modernity and that it was merely the esoteric and mystical approach to Islam – commonly referred to as Sufism – that made its practitioners unmindful of this world and inclined more towards the concerns for the other world. Most often, the critique of Sufism from within the Muslim societies focused upon the supposed quiescence that Sufis were said to have encouraged, which was believed to have turned Muslims away from the path of material progress.

Needless to say, Sufism was never intended to encourage the kind of quiet¬ism that it has been associated with, which was arguably the result of a kind of ‘drift’ that happened to pervade the Muslim world at the onset of modernity. Just like traditional, revivalist, and modernist readings of Islam, the mystical and the esoteric dimensions of Islam was also capable of a reading completely at variance with the dominant understanding of Sufi Islam. Far from the disinterest in temporal matters that it is often believed to be characterised by, Sufi approach frequently proved strong enough even to galvanise political opposition to political dispensations of the day, including the modern state – running at odds with the idea that Sufis have little or no interest in politics.

In an interview given to The Chronicle at the Exhibition of the Arts and Crafts of India held in Madras (now Chennai) in 1921, James Henry Cousins (1873–1956) not only applauded the Bengal School of Painting spearheaded by Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951) and Gaganendranath Tagore (1867–1938) and followed by others such as Asit Kumar Haldar (1890–1964), but also came down heavily on the European views of Indian art. Describing Cousins as a ‘friend of India’ and ‘an enthusiastic admirer of the Bengal School’, the interviewer drew out of him some of the seminal ideas of the school's art. Asked how he distinguished Indian from Western art, Cousins replied that Western art ‘represents things as they are viewed from the out¬side’. Eastern art (including the Bengal School), Cousins submitted, ‘interprets things from the inside’. Cousins's view could be interpreted as an orientalist view of Indian art by a Westerner, but his case was different, as the following pages would attempt to show. Led on into more contentious questions such as whether the Bengal School bears any ‘stamp’ of ‘national characteristics’, Cousins replied sharply:

Lecture 1

…The dialogue form. Why? At issue are the terms in which human life can be, and is best, discussed. The dialogue represents different approaches to such discussion in action. The Gorgias is not a philosophical treatise as is, say Hume's Enquiry or Kant's Grundlegung.

The ways of arguing are given embodiment in actual characters, which are expressed in the arguments used. Gorgias, Polus, Callicles – and, of course, Socrates. These characters are represented as in a dialectical struggle, a struggle to persuade. And the subject at issue in the dialogue is at first, and in a sense remains, the nature of persuasion and its different forms.

Lecture 2

‘Persuasion’

Gorgias, when pressed as to the nature of his ‘art’ (rhetoric, oratory) would like to content himself with saying it's persuasion: i.e. the art of getting other people to change their opinion in a direction which suits you. Socrates keeps insisting that this isn't enough, since many forms of talk do this. Hence Gorgias's definition doesn't differentiate rhetoric; doesn't show that it is indeed a distinctive art. He gets Gorgias to admit that different kinds of discourse are distinguished by their subject matter. Gorgias submits but (understandably) with reluctance, since this seems to rob rhetoric of its predominant splendour over other forms of discourse. He says that the subject matter of the sophist's art is ‘right and wrong’. (He is thinking of advocacy in law courts and politics.)

One might at this point expect that Socrates would want to say that the kind of discourse he admires and engages in (‘philosophy’) is not a matter or persuasion at all, but is simply a concern with discovering truth. But interestingly, he doesn't do this.

(454 C–455A) Let's consider this. ‘Two kinds of persuasion’: one leading to belief, the other to knowledge. What difference is Socrates pointing to here? Incidentally, the issue isn't of merely antiquarian interest. Cf. Rorty.

The current focus on the effects of climate change and the future quality of urban landscape access is evolving rapidly in many regions, locally and glob¬ally. With the need to produce positive strategies for the management of cli¬mate change and urban livability, cities and towns are articulating strategies focused on climate responses and equitable access as urban enhancements. Cities have begun to apply their strategies with the intention of producing outcomes that respond to climate and equity issues. Some communities rec¬ognized the climate and equity issues several years ago, while other com¬munities have more recently included climate change in their planning and design agendas. With the scientific estimate of climate change and its effects and the current need for regions to quickly respond to climate issues, many cities are committed to producing immediate priorities and potential strate¬gies for the benefit of future livability in their respective locations.

Urban Landscape Priorities, Strategies, and Prospect presents an investigation of urban priorities and strategies dedicated to climate change, including enhancements and equitable access in cities and towns. Three themes—time, resources, and livability—occur in the seven chapters. Time refers to cur-rent and future issues of climate change within the next 10 to 20 years, while resources include the support communities will need to maintain positive ecological and cultural responses to climate change. The quality of livability includes equitable access to enhancements as cities and towns respond to the current and future demands of climate change. Each theme ultimately reflects the goals and objectives of individual communities, including the require¬ments for maintaining livability within their urban settings. For example, community resources depend on economic factors and public support needed to effectively respond to unpredictable climate conditions from year to year.

Esotericism, Mysticism, and Global Religious History: A Conceptual Manifesto

If there is one common central feature, a fulcrum if you will, amidst the diverse approaches to or methods and points of emphasis in postcolonial studies of religion, that is an overarching commitment to unravel the complicity of a preponderantly Eurocentric epistemology of religion with colonial agendas. Religion, with its epistemic provenance in European societies, would be thus symptomatically constructed, deployed, and redeployed in the vast stretches of the colonial world. Thus, as Richard King comments, the very ‘category of “religion” is a social construction, forged in a specifically Christian and post-Christian (‘Enlightenment’) European context’, with its triumphalist journeys in colonial India through the vehicle of ‘European colonialism and of western military and political expansionism’.1 King's observation is par¬ticularly focused on Hinduism. However, one may argue, the global import of European episteme and its hegemonic deployment bolstered by colonial objectives and methods, directly or indirectly through informal channels, remains a key issue in conceptualising ‘religion’ and its cognates or even con¬testing categories in vast parts of the non-West. Yet, were ideas about religion, its cognates, and contending categories well-formed to the extent that they were devoid of any inner tensions? In Europe, one would arguably see an emerging ambivalence towards the mystical, and perhaps a more pronounced disparagement of the esoteric (derived from the Greek esōterikós, referring to those belonging to an inner circle), and the occult (from Latin occultus, i.e. hidden or secret) since especially the Enlightenment moment. As opposed to the organised religions, there emerged a site of religious experience of the mystical variety, frequently associated with the inward-looking esoteric, and typically seen as individualist projects devoid of any broader social commit¬ments and responsibilities – a thesis that, curiously, had its own challengers right in Europe since at least the early twentieth century.

Elite Quality is ‘Macro-level Sustainability’

• Elites are conceptualized as the business models that generate the most income—as such they leverage human, financial, and knowledge resources to provide the necessary coordination ca-pacity that realizes the full development potential of an economy.

• High-quality elite systems are sustainable and their leading business models rely on Value Creation, delivering more value for society than they appropriate; low-quality elites increase political and economic risk by operating rent-seeking Value Extraction models based on value transfers.

What are the Main Findings of the EQx2025?

• 1. Singapore continues to hold the #1 spot in the EQx2025, but thereafter there has been a momentous change, with the US leaping from #16 to #2 overall, ahead of Switzerland, now down one place to #3. This radical reset has been great-ly influenced by the addition of five new AI indicators. China also benefits from its technological leadership in AI and moves up two spots to #19, an incredible achievement for a middle-income country. India is also advancing, now reach-ing #60 (up 3 places from 2024 and a major advance on its 2021 ranking of #118).

  2. Asian economies continue to do well in the EQx. Japan retains its position at #4 overall, while Korea is now close behind, hav-ing risen to #5. On the other hand, Israel has fallen 7 places to #14, while some European countries also experienced signifi-cant falls: the Netherlands is now at #9 (down 6 places); Den-mark is now at #15 (down 5 places); and Finland has dropped to #18 (down 3 places). Two surprising big winners are from the Middle East: Qatar has shot up 12 places to #6, and the same advance has been made by the UAE, now up to #20.