“I
always tried to understand systems and to find the drivers
that allow for the largest effect with the smallest
effort.” – how Prof. Radermacher
wants to solve the problems of the world top down and
why markets need new frameworks.
Prof.
Dr. Dr. Franz Josef Radermacher, Director,
Re-search Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing
(FAW), Ulm, Germany
Today
90% of financial flows are hot, speculative money and
not associated with trade or long-term investments,
 2.8
billion people on our planet live on less than 2$ a
day, over 1 billion do not have adequate ac-cess to
water, 840 million are malnourished, the extreme resource
consumption of the western world destroys our environment
irreversibly – and still there are people out
there who claim that our biggest prob lem
is some fundamentalist terrorists and that we should
still pro-mote our current sys-tem. Of course, there
are thousands of valua-ble initiatives out there, but
as long as we do not change the meta-framework in which
we operate, all of these initiatives will be fighting
the symptoms.
What makes Prof. Radermacher’s work especially
interes-ting is the fact, that he approaches the challenge
of having positive impact in this world top down, not
bottom up, as most of our other interview partners.
As one of the leading system analysts in the world,
he wants to contri-bute to the long-term ability of
our world society to sur-vive by changing the fundamental
frameworks on which all our daily activities are based
on.
In his brand new, still box-filled office in Ulm, Prof.
Rader-macher immediately creates the impression that
he has known for a long time what he wants to achieve
with his work and how this can be done. As he tells
us, “Since my time in school I have tried to understand
systems and to identify areas where small changes lead
to massive posi-tive effects. Because I could never
accept that rational human beings would not be able
to solve their largest problems, I have always tried
to find sensible solutions focusing on the way systems
need to be changed and controlled so that human beings
can live together in peace and harmony.”
He recognized that the current economic system, and
 foremost
the fundamen-talist free-market logic behind it, is
one of the biggest drivers of enormous inequality on
earth which was, and still is, the reason for many problems
we face. To solve this problem, Prof. Radermacher analyzed
the situation in a number of international studies and
his book “Balance or destruction”, and suggests
a push of the eco-social model as an alternative to
our current framework. Since 2003 he coordinates the
“Global Marshall Plan Initiative” that shows
the way to implement this eco-social model.
This
site gives you an impression on Franz Josef Rader-macher’s
thoughts and recommendations, while the book “MyImpact”
will present more of them.
Franz
Josef Radermacher’s selected quotations:
“Very early on I could not accept that the world
is orga-nized and regulated in a way that would not
allow it to solve its own biggest problems.”
“For
me the thing is quite simple. I cannot accept the extreme
inequality existing in our world. So, I tried to understand
why it steadily increased over the last 250 years. Being
a system analyst, I came up with the simple answer that
our current economic framework of the free market economy
- which does not consider sufficiently environmental,
social and cultural aspects - necessarily leads to this
rising inequality and all its negative con-sequences.
The alternative solution I am trying to push with the
help of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative is an Eco-social
market economy. Integrating the environ-mental, social
and cultural guidelines in our framework is the most
efficient way to improve life for 5 billion people on
this planet. ”
“The
world is convinced that market systems can solve all
problems. Markets, however, mean the combination of
competition and frameworks. It is the frameworks that
are insufficient; we are quite good at competition.”
“I
advocate the framework of an eco-social market eco-nomy
as an alternative to the current model of market fundamentalism.
This model will include the social, cul-tural and ecological
needs and not only the economic expectations of a small
wealthy part of our world’s society.”
“The
most important thing to do is to combine the exis-ting
global regulation bodies - WTO, WIPO, ILO, UNEP, etc.
-, institutions - IMF, WB, etc. - and sanction mechanisms
in a way that would bring the world closer to an eco-social
market economy.”
“Living
in a global economy we have to take care of the global
rules. There is no way that economic activities that
contradict global environmental and social rules are
still allowed to make huge profits.”
“The
fact that global mobility and transactions are not taxed,
allows global corporations to exert extreme pres-sure
on high income states to decrease their social sys-tem
standards and environmental regulations.”
“Within
our current international political and economic frameworks
people can use the global economy to trans-fer more
money from the bottom (poor people) to the top (wealthy
people) while claiming to enrich the whole world on
the basis of a free market.”
“The
EU model of “co-financing for standards”
could be-come a world-wide role model to fostering development
in poor countries while achieving social and ecological
targets and standards.”
“Apart
from convincing different interest groups (small and
medium enterprises, students, etc.) to support new rules
we first want to mobilize the EU to say: “No”
to market fundamentalism. We need eco-social struc-tures.””
“I
strongly believe that our world is logical enough to
find sensible solutions for a good future for everybody
and is also able to implement them before new terror
will force us to do.”
Some
facts about Franz Josef Radermacher:
Prof. Dr. Dr. Franz Josef Radermacher (1950) is married
 and
has one son. He made his Ph.D. in mathematics at RWTH
Aachen and his Ph.D. in business administration at the
University of Karlsruhe. In 1982 he did his habi-litation
in Aachen.
Since 1987 he is director of the Re-search Institute
for Applied Know-ledge Processing (FAW) in Ulm, Germany,
and is holding a chair for databases and artificial
intelligence at the University of Ulm. He was and is
member of different organizations and commissions, among
others he led the workgroup on “Sustainability
and Information Society” of the “Information
Society Forum” at the European Commission, is
Vice president of the “Eco-Social Forum Europe”,
is a member of the Club of Rome and coordinates the
Global Marshall Plan initiative.
He is author of more than 200 scientific articles and
several books in the area of applied mathematics, oper-ations
research, applied informatics and systems theory including
questions of ethics/philosophy and consequen-ces of
new technologies.
Some
facts about the Global Marshall Plan/Planetary Contract:
The Global Marshall Plan combines a pragmatic concept
 for
achieving the Millennium De-velopment Goals (halving
extreme poverty, primary education for all children,
gender equality, re-ducing infant mortality by 2/3s
and improving maternal health, fight against HIV/Aids,
global partnership for development) with the long-term
perspec-tive of a worldwide Eco-social market economy
as the framework of global order. This presumes that
the richer countries are ready to co-finance development
in finan-cially poorer countries, which would accept
in return, core social and ecological standards. This
“global contract” should lead to a global
economic miracle.
If you would like to engage with the work of the Global
Marshall Plan Initiative or get to know more about Prof.
Radermacher’s work please visit www.globalmarshallplan.org
Or, for more specific requests, contact joanna.stefanska@myimpact.ch
or wolfgang.hafenmayer@myimpact.ch directly
Two major references
Radermacher
F. J.: Balance or Destruction: Ecosocial Market Economy
as the Key to Global Sustainable Development. Ecosocial
Forum Europe (ed.), Vienna, 2004, available via Fax
+49(0)4082090421 or at: www.globalmarshallplan.org
Radermacher,
F.J.: Global Marshall Plan / A Planetary Contract. For
a Worldwide Eco-Social Market Economy. Global Marshall
Plan Foundation (ed.), Hamburg, 2004, ISBN 3-9809723-0-5
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