字體：小 中 大 |
|
|
|
| 2005/09/05 02:37:03瀏覽714｜回應0｜推薦0 | |
| Estetiska institutionen
Nordic Culture Main Instructor: Bo Hinnerson Familistatism vs. Welfare State An Utopian Idea of the Family-based Welfare State Final Report by Mei, Feng 13 Jan. 2003 Rydsvagen 202A 584 32 Linkoping Tel: 013-26 08 86 Mobil: 0736-48 44 92 E-mail: mei.feng@telia.com Content I. Introduction 3 II. Introduction to the familistatism 3 II-1. Prof. Li, Zhi Chao's definition to the familistatism 3 II-2. The several characteristics of the familistatism analyzed by Prof. Li 4 II-3. Mei, Feng's utopian idea of the familistatism 4 II-3-1. The Confucius' utopian idea of the 'Da Tong world' 4 II-3-2. The reason why the Da Tong world become a fantasy 5 II-3-3. The concept of welfare state is difficult to be accepted and trusted by Chinese 5 II-3-4. In Chinese 'country' means both 'state' and 'family' 5 II-3-5. The familistatism have the same idea with the welfare state basically 5 III. The difference between the welfare state and the familistatism 6 III-1. Sweden is the individual-based welfare state ---- people's home 6 III-2. Familistatism is the family-based welfare state ---- family's home 6 III-2-1. The family equality vs. the individual equality 7 III-2-2. The family-party trapezoid and the individual-president pyramid 7 III-3. The characteristics of the familistatism 7 III-3-1. The Confucianism must have its value 7 III-3-2. The state should try to let the big family existed 7 III-4. The actual realization of the familistatism 8 III-4-1. The family vote in stead of the citizen vote ---- the voting right of children 8 III-4-2. The unseperate right of family 8 III-4-3. The details of the familistatism need more research on 9 III-5. Gender equality of the individual-based welfare state 9 III-6. The Family's Republic of China in stead of The People's Republic of China 10 IV. The original social problems that exit at the welfare state before 1990s crisis and the solutions by the familistatism 10 IV-1. Low fertility rate and immigrant 10 IV-2. Loneliness of the elder and alcoholic 12 IV-3. The economic burden 13 V. The trend of the measures to overcome the 1990s crisis and their effects 13 V-1. The Swedish welfare state has recovered from the 1990s economic crisis 13 V-2. The measures of the trend that towards the familistatism 14 V-3. The measures of the trend that backwards to the capitalism and their side effects 15 VI. Discussion 16 VII. Conclusion 16 VIII. Sources 17 I. Introduction If I do not admire with the Nordic culture, then I will not be here in Sweden and in this course. Nordic culture life although could be expressed in art, craft, dance and music etc. but Nordic culture is greatly influenced by the welfare state especially in the 20th century. As I am a student in social science, and especially interest in the comparison between Nordic and Chinese social policy. So I wish to write this report from this aspect after I have attended the course, read the materials 'Spotlight on Sweden', 'Fact Sheets on Sweden', etc. and combine my four and half year's experience and research of living here. I will try to analyze some phenomenon in Sweden that I deem it as the problems of the individual-based welfare state, and try to use my traditional Chinese ideology of the 'familistatism（家國主義）, which I define as the family-based welfare state, to find the way out mainly for Sweden. As for my home country, although she is of course the main concern of me, but it is still a long way for her to be an welfare state, not to say to be a familistate. For the concept of the "familistatism" has been mentioned only by myself and another professor from the Communist China, Li, Zhi Chao（李志超）, almost simultaneously in Dec. 1999 as far as I know, so I need to introduce it in a more detail way. I will also point out some Swedish measures as to overcome the economic crisis of 1990s, and you could see the trend of the family-based solution to save the welfare state. The other backward capitalism's solutions to the crisis, it seems to me that have cause the society no longer as safe as before, is an phenomenon that we could feel it too. II. Introduction to the familistatism II-1. Prof. Li, Zhi Chao's definition to the familistatism "Prof. Li, Zhi Chao, from the famous University of Science and Technology of Communist China, published his article "The familistatism and Chinese Culture" in Chinese, I will introduce here about his idea of the familistatism. He used the word "familistatism", in contrast with me, from the historical analysis to the traditional Chinese political, economic, social and technological civilization. And defined the traditional Chinese society from the Qin dynasty（秦朝, 221 B.C.-207 B.C.）as a society of familistatism which is mainly based on the philosophy of Confucius for over 2200 years. His main purpose on this article is trying to let Chinese understand that we have had a glorious culture compared with the same period of the world at most of this 2200 years. And we should still follow this magnificent tradition and try to understand how we could shape it into the contemporary society. He analyzed that just as the two different societies, the feudal and the slavery systems came simultaneously after the common ancient militaristic communistic society, so were the two different systems, the capitalism and the familistatism came simultaneously after the same feudalism. The Chinese familistatism after Qin dynasty based on Confucius and Hsuntzuism（法家）already had a very good political and moral system about the theory of state, while this theory of state was found only after the feudalism in Europe. As the Confucius is the main stream of traditional Chinese culture, and the main ideas of Confucius are, "regulate the family（齊家）" first, which mainly belong to the category of moral, and then "manage the state（治國）" , which mainly concern about the political system. So Prof. Li used these main ideas of "family" and "state" to describe the Confucius dominated Chinese society as the "familistatism" as compared to the western capitalism. II-2. The several characteristics of the familistatism analyzed by Prof. Li 1. The main social structure of the familistatism society are family and state, and the families are led by the state. Chinese aristocrat had vanished after the Song dynasty（宋朝 , 960 A.D.-1279 A.D.）, and the civilian could possibly be the aristocrat by their effort. 2. The economic structure of the familistatism mainly based on agriculture, and helped by the industrial and business sectors. It is mainly private owned economy and helped by the state owned industries, and it seems resemble to the nowadays socialism. But as a matter of fact, although the private owned land have the critical merger phenomenon, but still it was different from the feudalism for property and politic power were separated, so the landlord of the capitalism and the familistatism is the same. The industrial and business sectors were too small to compare with the capitalism society today, so it was difficult to become the capitalism, but it is easy to be the socialism. 3. The core ideas to the theory of Confucius based on love（仁）, justice（義）and education, it catches exactly the very basic concepts of human development for survival and development, for human being are socially live together so they must love each other and there must be justice to punish the deviant. The socialized knowledge and virtues need education to transfer to the successive generations in order to keep the development of human being. 4. Since the Qin dynasty, Chinese familistatism already had free and prosperous industrial and business sectors. The capital cities already had the population to around 100,000 even before Qin dynasty. The state owned enterprises also run the industry of salt, iron, wine and tea etc. So even the industrial and business sectors of the familistatism were small compared with the nowadays capitalism, but still the scale is not smaller than the other countries of that time. 5. The power of the emperor（君權）and the bullies（豪強）were the main historical problems to the familistatism society, after the emperor began to corrupt, the bullies started to tease the civilian, and revolution followed until the new dynasty reappeared. (Mei, Feb. 2002, p. 6-7) II-3. Mei, Feng's utopian idea of the familistatism Prof. Li described the historic Chinese culture as the "traditional" familistatism. Different from him that I come from the Free China. And I get this concept after I have studied in Sweden. I based upon the traditional Chinese familism culture, further assemble the modern practices and methods of the welfare state to make my utopian idea of the "future" familistatism. It has the concept of the three generations' family, three generations' housing, or the nearby family households, or even by using the technology such as audio and visual communication to tight a family without living together, in order to take care of each others. II-3-1. The Confucius' utopian idea of the 'Da Tong' world The great utopian idea of 'Da Tong'（大同, it means that everybody has the same good life.）for Confucius around 2500 years ago which have been always deemed as the utmost state goal for every Chinese dynasty. What is a world of Da Tong would be? It was described at the book 'Li Ji' （禮記 , The Book of Rites）which said that: "The best life a society could be is that the whole world is belong to the public. The persons with virtue and ability would be selected as the ruler. Credit and friendliness would behave to others. Love not only our own relatives and care not only our own children. All elders could live well for the rest of their life, all youngsters are useful to the society, all children could grow up well-nourished. The widower, the widow, the orphan, the childless, the disabled and the sicked could all be cared tenderly. All men and women are responsible. Resources could not be wasted and used only for oneself, service to and for oneself could not be done only by others. Then there is no longer tricks and hatred, no longer thief and bandits, and the door does not need to close even when you go out. This is Da Tong." (Mei, Dec, 1999) II-3-2. The reason why the Da Tong world become a fantasy This political utopia was not so difficult to be achieved in the agricultural era at the big family of the ancient Chinese society if the emperor is not so bad. But it is difficult to be achieved at the nowadays industrial era when the big family is difficult to exist because of the great mobility of society. The two generations' nuclear family is difficult to take care of the elders and the children, and when the gaps between the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich, the knowledgeable and the illiterate are too big to catch up with. Sweden and the other Nordic countries are great to achieve the goal of the ancient Chinese Da Tong world which is now deemed as an impossible fantasy in China (PRC & ROC) even in the post-industrial era. II-3-3. The concept of welfare state is difficult to be accepted and trusted by Chinese Sweden is well-known with her welfare state model, but I think this concept is difficult to be accepted and trusted by Chinese, for it's a shame to be always supported by others and 'it is impossible to cook without rice' too. If a state is completely described by the unilateral positive slogan of 'welfare', then it clearly lack the relative counterpart of obligation to it, that is, what is the cost to the welfare. Actually there are always 'give' and 'get' between different people at different periods and different situations in the Swedish welfare state. For example, children and elders 'get more' but they also play the role of 'give more' when they are at the ages of work and sometimes they can help the family even at this period. So I think by my Chinese background, a state should act as a three generations' family with children, parents and grandparents, and every member help each other by their feasible ability at different life periods. II-3-4. In Chinese 'country' means both 'state' and 'family' In Chinese, the word 'country' is written as two words（國家）, （國）means state and（家）means family, and you could simplify（國家）by（國）too. The wisdom of the ancient Chinese could easily be seen. The Chinese 'big family', the main and largest unit of the private sector as compared to the public sector, already existed for several thousand years at the agriculture era and some drastic change have happened only in recent several decades which is influenced by the western industrial era. II-3-5. The familistatism have the same idea with the welfare state basically As you could see that the great welfare state Sweden, who has really accomplished the traditional Chinese Confucius' utopian idea of "Da Tong world". In order to incorporate the traditional Chinese familism value with the Confucian utopian goal to the modern Swedish welfare state, I therefore used the words "family state" to substitute "welfare state", and I use the ideology 'familistatism' to describe the idea of 'family state'. I put the word 'family' before the word 'state' is also to emphasize that it is now a democratic era and no longer a monarchic era, the family is the most important unit of the state, the state is exist to serve the need of the families, unlike most of the ancient societies that the family is exist to serve the need of the state. My idea of the familistatism wishes to looking for a way out for the Chinese, I will be very happy if it could be a mirror to the western society too. I wish to use this concept and other practical methods of the welfare state as a reference, and incorporated with the traditional Chinese value to solve our nowadays problems, which have faced with the impact of the industrialization and democracy of the western society. And I strongly believe that the technology, social democracy and free education etc. will be the underground for us to accomplish a better quality of the familistatism. III. The difference between the welfare state and the familistatism III-1. Sweden is the individual-based welfare state ---- people's home "During the 1930s, Social Democratic leader Per Albin Hansson developed the concept of a "people's home" that would provide economic security to everyone." (Johnsson, 1999, p159-160). "Sweden has roughly 4,1 million households (1998). The average household consists of 2,1 person. Single households constitute the largest group representing 40 percent of the total. Households with two persons are almost as frequent or 30 percent." (Fact Sheets on Sweden, Oct. 2000). "........ there are some obvious difference family caring system between the Chinese and European traditional society before and even after the industrialization ........ the relationship between nuclear family and industrialization has not so definitely relevance with absolute causality as we could see from the relation which had happened in Europe and China. For the nuclear family happened before the industrialization in Europe, but the situations is different in China" (Mei, Jan. 2001, p. 10) Around 20 percent of the total households were co-habitants without children excluding pensioners and single with children (1997) by Fact Sheets on Sweden, Oct. 2000. In Stockholm, around 50 percent were single household by the household statistic 1990. I know that Sweden must be proud of this figure for the superior living standard, but it will probably be deemed as a problem of family dissolution in China. It reveals that the traditional family style in European was mainly nuclear family, and the family caring function is so weak as compared with China. And the church, the private charity and the state often responsible for the caring function of the old, the unemployed, the sick and the disable. The Swedish welfare state stemed from the western Christianity tradition is based on the individualism, which ask the grown up to leave the family in order to show their independence. We know that Sweden has an "explicit and comprehensive family policy" (Kamerman, 1991) too, but the nuclear family is only the inevitable physiological and psychological human need. So all the social insurance is mainly to protect the individual or at most the nuclear family. They seldom have the concept to make use of the big family to help the state caring function. So I defined it as the individual-based welfare state. The grown up youngster to live away from the original family to show their independence instead of to let them to learni to take the responsibility of the big family is a great eastern and western difference. The necessity for this independence education make me doubted always. I think it must have some reasons to do that, but I do not think that it must be better absolutely. If the youngster leave the family forever then it is not good for the familistatism's point of view, but if it is just for temporarily leaving then it is not bad I think. III-2. Familistatism is the family-based welfare state ---- family's home Different from the threatening character such as hell of the western Christianity, the Confucius as the greatest Chinese educator, he always encouraged us to be a gentleman（君子）and never baited us with the untouchable heaven. In his book "Da Xue（大學）", he encourage the elite that "They should first of all cultivate oneself（修身）, then regulate the family（齊家）, after that do your job well for the country（治國）, finally make the world as good as yours（平天下）." You could see that the importance of family to the state for the traditional Confucian concept. III-2-1. The family equality vs. the individual equality The human being is impossible to get real equality between sexes, ages, generations and even individuals, but still we should try our best to looking for ways to get the better equality. Although the equality between families is also not easy to be accomplished, but it has much more real equality than the equality between individuals. For the members of family include different sexes, different generations and probably the weak and the strong, so the equality between families are more fair and important than individuals. The welfare of a family is definitely the most important responsibility for a state, for the three generations' family include the basic element of the society. III-2-2. The family-party trapezoid and individual-president pyramid The Swedish election is party-orientated, I think it is a great improvement at democracy compared to the individual-orientated election of many other countries in the world. Even there is some change at the latest election in Sweden, but the individual election is still under the party. The politics that mainly between the mutual interaction of families and parties is better than that of individuals and president, for the former get the moderated geometric trapezoid than the sharp pyramid of the latter. III-3. The characteristics of the familistatism III-3-1. The Confucianism must have its value In my familistatism's eye, Sweden now have faced so many difficulties to let the state take over the entire function of big family of Chinese after the 1990s crisis, I personally think that it is impossible for a state to do every job where the big family could easily do. The Confucianism which has well survived for over 2500 years must have its value and consequence and should not be abandon just because we face the impact of western industrial revolution, and this big transformation was started under the western culture. Instead, we should learn the causes of progress of the western culture under the basis of our own traditional culture, for we Chinese have more experiences to survive as compared to the rest of other countries. III-3-2. The state should try to let the big family existed The big family have so many advantages compared with the nuclear family, such as replacement, mutual-support, efficiency, social, resource-saving, environment protecting, education, privacy-protection, tradition sustenance, the succession of wisdom, etc. Human being can never live alone, so what a state should do is then easily seen, to make every effort to let the three generations' family without being separated by the industrial era. The big burden of the welfare state is partly because of the selfish of human kind and partly because of the management difficulty. Although education can amend part of this drawback, but it still cannot be solved completely. So the familistatism would be a medicine for it, for most family members don't have too much selfish between themselves, and the selfish of family has less influential to the society than the selfish of individual too. III-4. The actual realization of the familistatism III-4-1. The family vote in stead of the citizen vote---the voting right of children Chinese has an old saying: 'three workers are better than a talent', it means the individual's decision is always not so considerate than the group's. In other words, family's decision under meeting and other democratic procedure must get more multi-aspect considerations than individual. Many unmature thinking would be diminished under family members' discussion, that's the reason we have many family meetings at big and prosperous families in ROC. It is a good democratic education for ordinary people, it is also a good training for a leader at any sector. The range of voting right is increase with the democracy standard in the western civilized societies. The process somehow was like that, at first only the aristocracy had this right, then extended to the rich bourgeois, after that all male citizen, then all female citizen had this right successively. From the familistatism's point of view, it is the time for the children to have this right now, especially under the drastic problem of decreasing birth rate of the industrial countries. The voting right for the children has been advocated by an professor at the G?teborg University and then an association of children's doctor at Ume? for already more than 20 years in Sweden too. But they seems need the theory and practical method in order to be more persuasive. So my familistatism ideology do support them with what they need. Every human being has their right at the state, why shouldn't children vote for the right of their own. If they could not easily express their opinions, then the family who take care of them should decide for them. The more the members, the married couples and the generations in a family, the more voting figure this family should have than the individual. That is the real equality for family have members such as the children and the disabled, for they take much more responsibility than individual for the society. Their consideration include the fundamental interest of different sexes and different generations, and this is the basic structure of a stable society, so how could their opinions be neglected compared with the single individual who cared only oneself. And the consequence of this action would surely make the politician take every effort to support the welfare of the families with elders and children. and the turnout of the election will very possible increase too. III-4-2. The unseperate right of family The state should do her best to protect this important right of family. We should have the law to protect this unseperate right, such as work transfer must be considered for a whole family, the balance progress of every city, etc. As a matter of fact, this proposal has lots of practical examples both in Sweden and China. It just need to be legalized to let more family got this benefit. It will certainly decrease the divorce rate and make the society more peaceful than ever. III-4-3. The details of familistatism need more research on As for the situation of three generations' family which contains over two married couples is then the details of the familistatism and should be studied by every possible way. The idea of the familistatism is to encourage 'feasible married couples' included in a big family, but what is the best figure of this 'feasible married couple' then is the trade off between peace and mutual-supportability between family members. The more the state support at the education and democracy culture the more the feasible married couples will probably be happened as I could imagine now . The following are only some fundamental ideas for the action to the familistatism, these ideas are really so primitive enough, and they need to have more research and discussion on it subsequently. The restriction of the same family members to have too many post at the same public sector, the individualism basis of economic property and political equality, the three generations' housing, family caring salary, children, disabled and sicked allowance, the working hour to ensure normal family life, complete free education of every level, children have the right to live with their own or one of their parents, sambo is encouraged but is discouraged to have children, individualism should not over the value of familism, individual property and family property, the family meeting, the family peace education, the family democracy, the families equality, the encouragement of big family with more married couples, family study, family court, family courteous, family members' equality, elders' pension, etc. III-5. Gender equality of the individual-based welfare state "After the 1998 election, 149 of the 349 members of Parliament were women ---- or 42.7 percent. This meant Sweden could continue to call itself the 'world champion in equality between the sexes,' at least in politics. ..... .Female representation in Parliament climbed past 40 percent, thereby enabling Sweden to eclipse Finland and Norway, which had previously led the field in the gender equality league." (Johnsson, 1999, p 105) "For the first time ever and as the first government in the world, the Swedish Government has a female majority; 11 women ministers to 9 men (Dec. 1999)" (Fact Sheets on Sweden, Feb. 2000) In my familistatism's view, the Swedish women get too much pressure, it could be felt from the high percentage of smoking and fast walking women. Men and women is different just like elders to children, although they are all human being, so why should they have the same percentage in every aspect. The gender equality in Sweden based on the individual equality just force the men and women possess the same value, and totally ignore the huge difference between men and women. Yes, I agree with that men and women should have equal opportunity for vocation, power and education etc., but why should fifty fifty equal percentage in every aspects means "equality". The side-effects show that many Swedish women are force to do something they are not fitted to do by the tremendous unseen pressure of the society. "Women still carry the main burden of home chores and child care. This is one main reason why about one third of women with paid jobs work only part-time. Among men, the corresponding figure is only a few percent" (Johnsson, 1999, p. 106) "In 80 percent of all cases, parents continue to have joint custody after a divorce. But this does not always mean that a child lives partly with the father and partly with the mother. In nine cases out of ten, the child lives with the mother" (Fact sheets on Sweden, Feb. 2000) The familistatism felt that family equality is more important than the individual equality, and family welfare is more important than the individual welfare. Family welfare based on the cooperation function of the family members with different age and gender. Of course it is not good to let the women having the stereotype of house keeper, children raiser and men should do it also. But it is true that man and women show different value and interest in many aspects for thousands of years and all over the world. And should we just because of some women's wish, then force all the other women to possess the same value deviated from their nature. As the statistic of "Distribution of residence permits granted in 1997" indicated that among the total 36,565 adults and children who applied for the residence permits in 1997, 52 percent were caused by the "Relations". And the Thailand's and the Chinese wife crowded to Sweden shows also that extreme feminist will on the contrary, very possible to cause the Swedish women lost their fundamental need of the family. The estimated 80,000 Vietnamese wife in R.O.C. tell us the same signal. I do not against nowadays gender equality policies, but there must be a middle point for the ceiling. Sweden is a young and small country with every possibility, she has the will to win the champions in every aspects. Although this character sometimes is dangerous, however, she has a very good democracy system to turn the measures back too. The example of the recent welfare cut and more conservative attitude to women's body exposure in public could easily show that. That is the reason I could write this article here without worry. III-6. The Family's Republic of China（中華家國）in stead of The People's Republic of China After the German unification, Republic of China (R.O.C.) and The People's Republic of China (P.R.O.C.) also face with this problem more stronger than usual. Chinese is a face-loving people, one of the biggest obstacle for unification is what the future name of the unified country should be, for both the two old names are difficult to be accepted by each other. As a matter of fact, R.O.C. is only the abbreviation of the P. R.O.C. and both were just copied from the west when China was so weak with great frustrated self-despise and under the feet of westerner without own self-respect. They were all unfitted western concept of the People's Republic. For China is indeed a state made of families and with the strong Confucian concept of familistatism, so we should now respect our own culture and be the first Family's Republic of the world. IV. The original social problems that exit at the welfare state before 1990s crisis and the solutions by the familistatism IV-1. Low fertility rate and immigrant "In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sweden's population grew at a relative rapid pace (about 0.6% annually). Contributing causes included high birth rates (2,12 children per women in 1991) and large-scale immigration. Another factor was a continued rise in average life expectancy. During the second half of the 1990s, the country's population growth slowed dramatically. Childbirths declined sharply. The fertility rate ---- childbirths per woman ---- reached lower levels than ever (1,42 in early 1998). Immigration also dropped significantly. Meanwhile the number of older people continued to rise. The annual population forecasts published by Statistic Sweden predict that these trends will continue. By 2015, the number of people aged 65 or older is expected to be 25 % larger than today, while the total population in other age categories will decline somewhat. This trend is not unique to Sweden. The number of old people in most countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will rise significantly over the next few decades. Due to this shift in the age structure of the population, eventually fewer people in the labor force will have to support more people who are not working. Meanwhile demand for medical care and related social services will rise as older people become more numerous. In light of this, high labor force participation and high employment are desirable." (Fact sheets on Sweden, May 2001) "The probable cause is a generally tighter economic situation and cutbacks in the benefits for families with children. Another factor influencing the figures is that because women wish to continue their education, they are waiting longer and longer to bear children. In 1998, the median age of the average women having her first baby was as high as 28 years. "Today, about one fifth of Sweden's population of 8.9 million are immigrants or have at least one foreign-born parent" (Fact sheets on Sweden, April 1999) In my familistatism's eye, the western selfish individualism is one of the main factor to this problem, it happens mainly in the west. But some east industrial countries without supported by the welfare policy who learn from the west blindly have even worse situation, especially my own country R.O.C.. The high labor force participation and high employment in my eye could help less about it for Sweden already has a very high labor force participation in the world. Without the one fifth immigrant, Sweden will face more serious situation. The only practical solution to it is to increase the fertility rate. But it seems that seldom countries including Sweden have really faced with this problem. Why people do not want to have children? One of the familistatism's idea is that the families have not been encouraged practically, the single and the childless couple should be discouraged as compared to the families with children. "The size of the pension depends on the number of years a person has worked and on the size of his or her income. Full ATP is paid to people who have been working for at least 30 years" (Fact sheets on Sweden, April 1999) We could see that in the present Swedish pension system, no matter ATP or the 'New general pension scheme', if we compared with those childless individuals, then besides the burden to raise the children, the families with children have less leisure time and take the risk of worrying about the kids all the time. And they lost lots of great opportunities to have more education and to make more incomes which could increase their pension. Child-raising is only an extra job to favor the society but without any benefit to oneself from the macroscopic point of view. And the children they have raised with great effort will say good-bye to them after they have grown up, for they say that they were raised by the child allowance, the free education and the medical insurance from the government, and they want independent and privacy to have their own family. And around one fifth of their salary will be taxed to give the pension of the other elders who never know them. "It is still the case, however, that 8% of elderly are unmarried and some 18% are childless (51% are married, 10% are divorced.......... Now, as before, public care provision takes over when the family can no longer manage or where there are no close relatives." (Fact sheets on Sweden, Oct. 2000) Except for the sympathetically special conditions, lots of the pensioned elders who cost more state caring service have never raised children when they were young. For they felt that raising children was boring as compared to have more time to have fun and to the realization of oneself. For they knew that there were always some foolish children-lover's children will pay their pension when they were old. And the most important thing is, the size of their pension is independent to whether they have kid or not. The Chinese traditional familistatism's concept of "raise children to protect my old age" seems so selfish as compared to the western nowadays pension system, which seems with great love to mankind, raising other people's parents. The Chinese survive for around 5000 years must have their wisdom. The familistatism's policy of family vote will definitely amend the present unfair to the families with children, for more voting figure means more power. The politician will of course try to modify the pension law, increase the child allowance, housing allowance and parental benefit etc. to benefit the families with more children. When the unfair situation gone, the fertility rate should be arisen, and Sweden will no longer face with the danger of ethnic elimination, and the immigrant will be less too. IV-2. Loneliness of the elder and alcoholic "Elderly people usually live with their spouses (a little more than half) or alone (about 40%). Only 3–4% live with their children, siblings or other close family members. 8% live in accommodation legally defined as institutional." "Available data indicate, however, that Swedish families help their older members to approximately the same extent as in other countries, but without living together, which in any case neither the elderly nor their children wish to do. Most elderly people have children living fairly close by, and in fact people spend more time with their close relatives today than used to be the case. Towards the end of their lives more elderly people still live alone than the average for the population, namely 70% of elderly women as against 30% of the men. Perceived loneliness is not commoner among elderly people in Sweden than in other western countries (some 10% report often feeling alone), nor is suicide." (Fact sheets on Sweden, July 1999) "Alcoholic, however, continues to be a far bigger problem than narcotics in terms of social and medical damage. Alcohol policy has been a major issue in Sweden for a long time. Because of widespread drunkenness, a strong temperance movement emerged in the 19th century." "Alcoholic problems are considered serious in Sweden, however. According to one government study, 300,000 people have a level of alcohol consumption that endangers their health and social life. The growing consumption of alcohol among young people is especially alarming." (Johnsson, 1999, p. 196-198) In China, although the elders have more economic worrying at the physiological side, but the loneliness feeling in the psychological side seems not as serious as Sweden as I felt from my experience after living in the two countries. The traditional doctrines of Confucius do have some drawbacks in many aspects, but still it really shows its value when faces with the western Christianity. The alcoholic situation in Sweden which is difficult to be found in China, do have some historical, cultural, geographical and weather's factors behind it. But the less family warming tight of the individualism at the western society as compared to China still let me feel the importance of the family warm. IV-3. The economic burden "When the reforms Sweden adopted had been fully implemented, they turned out to be too expensive because economic growth was not nearly as reliable as it had been during the good years of the 1950s and 1960s. Old-aged pensioners became more numerous and required larger health and elder care resources." (Johnsson. 1999, p. 161) "It also turned out that many new social benefits --- including medical care ---- were being utilized to a far greater extent than predicted. In recent years, the growing influx of refugees resulted in unanticipated new expenditures. Because of all these factors, economic pressures on the public sector steadily mounted. For many years, the central government could solve its financial problems by raising taxes, but by the late 1980s it was clear that this alternative was largely exhausted. Tax revenues had reached 55 percent of GDP, a figure far above the OECD average. At the highest income levels, marginal tax on additional earned income was more than 80 percent. It seemed unreasonable to raise taxes further; on the country, a tax cut was unavoidable." (Johnsson. 1999, p. 161) "There was intensive debate on taxes. In 1998, Sweden had the heaviest tax burden of the world's industrialized countries. According to OECD statistics, taxes totaled 54.1 percent of GDP. .... The average for EU countries was 42 percent. The actual difference in taxation between Sweden and the most EU countries is narrower than these figures indicate, however, because of difference in calculation methods. In Sweden, for example, most social welfare benefits are taxed." (Johnsson. 1999, p. 151 ) "Swedish labor costs had risen rapidly. The collective agreements signed in 1975 raised company labor costs (wages and salaries plus employer payroll fees) by more than 40 percent over the subsequent two years. This "cost shock" would have serious consequences for a long time to come" (Johnsson. 1999, p. 143) The probably reflection by me to this burden is, whether nowadays human bing have the right to use so much resource that were many thousand times than our nonindustrial ancestor. And whether the industrial countries should drain out the awfully large benefit from the earth to maintain their high living standard, as compare to hundreds of million starveling under-development countries' people. The most important thing is after the depletion of the precious limited earth's resource, whether there are any other technological ways to let our offspring to live with the same standard as nowadays selfish individulism's capitalist. V. The trend of the measures to overcome the 1990s crisis and their effects V-1. The Swedish welfare state has recovered from the 1990s economic crisis "The 1990s were a turbulent decade in Sweden. A serious economic crisis and important events elsewhere in the world made it necessary to face difficult decisions. Old values faded and society was confronted with new challenges." (Johnsson, 1999, p. 7) "No exact definition of the Swedish model exists. In any cases, the model was declared dead by both the national and international media in the early 1990s, when the Swedish economy began to falter. In many cases, the media drew up their death certificate for the Swedish model with great glee. A recurring theme of their analysis was that the Swedes had been living beyond their means. But this glee gradually subsided, and the world interest focused on Sweden's methods for restoring order in its government finances and re-establishing economic balance. This is because it was evident that the Swedish economic crisis was no isolated phenomenon. In many industrialized countries, governments were forced to cut back social benefit systems that had become too costly." "During one of the dark days of the 1990s crisis in Sweden, one Swedish radio personality agonized: 'Our whole country seems as if it has been put on a stretcher, inside an onrushing ambulance, with a driver who cannot find any hospital.' But at this difficult moment, he found new hope when he read a few foreign newspapers. The times of London portrayed Stockholm as a model city with far better living conditions than London in many respects. Another newspaper wrote about a survey that listed Sweden as one of the world's best travel destinations. 'In the final analysis, perhaps Europe see us with different eyes than we ourselves do,' the reporter hoped." (Johnsson, 1999, p. 11-13) "The Swedish economy is currently developing satisfactorily. Growth is high. The number of jobs is climbing and unemployment is falling, while inflation is low. Both public finances and the current account are in surplus. Swedish economic performance has not been this good since the late 1960s. Since the mid-1990s, the Swedish economy has undergone major changes. The restoration of order to State finances, the low-inflation policy, investments in education and entrepreneurship as well as the emergence of a globally leading telecommunications and IT industry are among the reasons why the Swedish economy is performing nicely." "Since then, registered unemployment has fallen. By late 2000, the jobless rate had fallen to the government’s target level of 4%. The drop in unemployment is primarily due to the creation of new jobs, but also to the expansion of openings in municipal adult education due to the Adult Education Initiative and of openings in the higher education system." "Over the past two decades, average actual working hours have increased. This is mainly due to a lengthening of women’s working hours. This trend should be seen in light of the expansion that has occurred in the childcare system." "The economic crisis of the early 1990s and subsequent measures to restore order to State finances left less room for local government services. Far-reaching cutbacks and efficiency-raising measures were implemented. Between 1990 and 1997, one out of ten municipal and county council jobs disappeared." "In recent years, the country has taken a number of significant steps to raise the efficiency of its public sector, for example by allowing more competition. State grants to local governments have been restructured in order to streamline resource utilization. A new act on public procurement has been adopted. Social insurance systems have been reformed in various ways to create greater incentives for people to work. Waiting periods for benefits have been introduced, and compensation levels have been lowered. Sweden has adopted a pension reform that provides a clearer link between the fees paid into the system and future pension disbursements." (Fact Sheets on Sweden, May 2001) I am greatly happy that the welfare model which I loved most is recovered by a more delicate and experienced policy. However, by my familistatism's eye, this recovery process included many different policies, some is great that they parade toward to the familistatism's high ways with better future. But some of them walked back to the former hatred capitalism which the people's home wanted to reformed, and make the society less secure and peaceful than the 1950s', and 1960s' great periods. V-2. The measures of the trend that towards the familistatism "The social prerequisites of care and the significance of the family: The most important aspect of this is the fact that many elderly people have an intact family. By comparison with previous situations, many people are still married at an advanced age and have children and other close relatives, usually living fairly nearby. Research indicates that they are both willing and able to help their elderly relatives, and to a growing extent they also seem to be doing this." "Financial support to close relatives: The most important care alternative today, as in previous years, is the family. Quite a lot of the people who use public care of the elderly lack close relatives—they are single and sometimes childless. Various forms of support for close relatives and other close individuals are available. A comprehensive public care system is in itself an indirect form of support for the family via such measures as homehelp and day care. Direct forms of support exist in the possibility of being employed as a home-help provider or of receiving a cash grant for caring for an elderly person. Some 7,000 people are employed as home-help providers, often for less than 20 hours a week, and a similar number receive cash grants for care of the elderly. Despite insistent national proposals and legislation in 1998 with a view to encouraging support to close relatives, this kind of provision varies widely between local authorities, and many have little or no direct support. About 7,400 people are granted leave of absence each year for an average of 10 days, receiving compensation in the form of a close person’s allowance, which is a social insurance benefit. This form of compensated leave of absence is available to someone whose close relative or friend is very seriously ill or dying." "Experts predict a growing need for care which will probably lead care provision further along the path of alternative solutions and bring with it a growing element of care provision within the family." (Fact sheets on Sweden, July 1999) "A care allowance is paid to Parents with children under 16 whose functional impairments mean they need special attention and care for at least 6 months. It includes both compensation for care and for the extra costs this involves. This compensation is taxed." (Fact sheets on Sweden, Jan. 2000) "In light of the alarmingly low birth rate, during the 1998 election campaign the government announced plans to bolster public support for children with families, including higher child allowances and lower day fees." (Johnsson, 1999, p. 111-112) Sometimes the state is unreliable for it is too far to reach especially in China like a pyramid, the kind Swedish government is unbelievable like an angel from heaven to them. But after all, the family will always be the final harbor to every traveler, this is the truth for every generations and countries. We should try to protect the family caring function first, then should we further the protection to those family lost single. Anyway, one thing is definite, the closed relative will be more possible to care about oneself then the state does! V-3. The measures of the trend that backwards to capitalism and their side effects "Mistrust of politics and politicians had also been reinforced by various political scandals, mostly at the municipal level. Revelation on how a number of politicians had misused public funds for private pleasures triggered strong indignation." (Johnsson, 1999, p. 99) "The struggle against violent crime, drug-related crime and white collar crime will be prioritized, the Swedish government declared when it unveiled its budget for 1999. The authorities will devote particular attention to crimes with racist element, as well as violence against women and assaults on children. The budget statement also mentioned the 'serious cross border crime' which had emerged during the 1990s and had its roots largely in certain former Communist countries. According to Swedish security police, foreign criminals had established a 'mafia' in Sweden. Another special problem was a number of Nordic motorcycle gangs that demonstrated particularly violent behavior." "A serious of high publicized criminal cases reflected a growing trend toward serious violence ---- one new element was disputes within the 'underworld', many in the form of revenge attacks with fatal consequences. Although Sweden has comparatively rigorous firearms legislation, more and more firearms are obviously in circulation. Among the underlying factors mentioned in the debate are high unemployment among young people, growing TV and video violence, the number of broken families and recent large scale immigration." (Johnsson, 1999, p. 193-194) "During the following years, the government implemented major cutbacks in the social welfare system, while raising taxes and user fees. These reforms affected most people in Sweden and triggered such powerful protests that in several cases, the government was forced to abandon its plans." (Johnsson. 1999, p. 148) "When the social Democrats themselves regained power in 1994, they were forced to continue cutting public spending. Among other things, they reduced child allowances, disability pensions, sick pay and parental insurance benefits." (Johnsson, 1999, p. 162) The welfare state idea at fist was surely devised to conquer the evil of the capitalism. So if there were any problem that happened for the welfare state, the worst solution will be the backward to the original capitalism. For it will just prove the failure of the people's home and all the magnificent achievements in these few decades were all in vain. Actually all the world know the great Swedish model, and Sweden is indeed a great country even after the 1990s crisis. So I strongly encourage Sweden to find out the real causes of her sickness, then use the right medicine to it, to reach another even more greater Swedish model than before. Otherwise we who admire this model will be definitely sad about it. VI. Discussion Finally, I still want to emphasize once again that the individualism's western culture of democracy, education, equality, individual private property, science, etc. are the underground for the realization of the future familistatism, and that is also the reasons why the east is weaker than the west in these latest few centuries. However, the weakness of eastern world doesn't mean that they don't have anything that should be learned by the west especially when the natural intimacy with the closed relatives is the common need of the human being, and some achievements of Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc are the evidence of the familistatism too. As we could see that there are no perfect ideology, and all of the ideologies has their merits and drawbacks, but still we shall try to looking for a best suited ideology to our own society. And I suggest the reform to the existing situation in stead of a completely revolution, for you could not avoid and even disgust your own tradition. You just need to look for the sick places of your society, and search for the best medicine to cure it. But the saddest point is that, the radical Chinese almost completely distrust their own glorious culture, just learn everything from the West. Especially the easiest learned sick places such as homosexual, divorce, etc. But to the exact essence of western culture of education and democracy, it seems that it is very hard to let them fully understand it. As for the West, they are too proud to learn from the East, some of them even deem themselves as the essence of civilization, against them means against civilization. The pride of them let them totally forget their barbarian ancestors as compared to the civilize East just several hundred years ago. VII. Conclusion As I have mention before that the main problems of the traditional familistatism is democracy, socialism and free education etc. which we indeed need to learn from the warfare states of the individualism origin. Democracy could make the main problem of emperor corruption and the following revolution vanished, and free education and socialism will make a more equal society and peaceful family. The social democratic welfare state faced with the big economic burden, and have some tendencies to go backward to the evil capitalism, proved that the extremely individualism do use too much resources of the earth, make the birth rate declining enough to threat the successive of the race, and the 50% rate of single household in Stockholm crashes the family system which is the fundamental social nature of human being. As for the lonely corpse which have been founded after a long period of dying in the modern city, seem to tell us that our selfish enough privacy we have had to our parents who had raised us with so much sacrifice will be punished by the same consequence in the future. And the familistatism need the culture of democracy. So, should I get this conclusion that the social democratic welfare state should try to accept the concept of familistatism, and the traditional familistatism should learn the democracy culture of welfare state. VIII. Sources "Fact Sheets on Sweden", The Swedish Institute Johnsson, Hans-Ingvar, 1999, "Spotlight on Sweden", The Swedish Institute Kamerman, S. B. 1991, "Child care policies and programs: An international overview", Journal of Social Issues Li, Zhi Chao,（李志超）Dec, 1999, "The familistatism and Chinese Culture（家國主義與中國文化）", Cultural China（文化中國）, 1999, 12, No. 23 Mei, Feng,（梅峰）Dec, 1999, "The Familistatism and the Familism（家國主義與家庭主義）", Paper of the course "The Swedish Model", Linkoping University, Sweden Mei, Feng,（梅峰）Jan, 2001, "The Family Caring Function between Europe and China", Paper of the course "The Introduction to Behavior Science", Linkoping University, Sweden Mei, Feng,（梅峰）Feb, 2002, "Gender, Domestic Technology and the Familistatism", Essay of the course "Introduction to Science, Technology and Society", Linkoping University, Sweden |
|
| ( 時事評論｜社會萬象 ) |
