Decision Makers 2010   Executive Summary Conclusions Papers Program Participants Book List

				Douglas Merrill On immigration Western Europe needs a new view of immigration. To have responsible politicians saying that there is no immigration in these countries is ridiculous and they need to get over it. On work I think a key answer is somewhere between what Richard Barbrook and Steven O'Connor have said. If the only thing that you have as a career option, is to bow down to a hierarchy for 50 years, there is no question that you're going to want to work as little as possible, retire as early as possible, and end up placing the biggest burden possible on the state system. On the other hand, if you have validation of skills a la Barbrook, and entrepreneurs a la O'Connor - if you have a reconnection between what people do and the rewards they receive, then you have a much healthier working society. A lot of these problems facing the system at the macro-level are going to go away. People who love their jobs, who love their life's work, don't want to retire at 61, 71, they don't want to retire at 81. That means that a lot of existing institutions will face real changes in how they work, but that will bring immense benefits at the micro-level that Christof Erhart just talked about. On governance vs. government Things governments have been trying to do for the last 200 years have worked. Industrialized nations have now problems of success. We have much more education we've ever had before. We have much longer life spans, much healthier lives. So much of what governments have been set up to do has succeeded. And problems that we have now, are problems either of solving new difficulties or of getting governments out of certain areas where their jobs are done. One of the things that we would do as a group helping change to move forward is to identify areas where this giant collective of government or the state is no longer really necessary because people can do it themselves. Governments are fine as long as they actually work, but the key question really is one of governance: Is something happening to solve the people's problems?
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