Over the last two centuries, the world, and each country at its own pace, has been building a model of society that placed human beings at the center of its concerns and that, despite frequent moments of hypocrisy, placed freedom and democracy at the center of political regimes.
Therefore, the path that was taken towards equality between men and women and the opportunity that each generation achieved to live better than those that preceded them.
That is why even the most ferocious and bloodthirsty dictatorships claim to be democracies, even if they are called “tasteful”, or consider themselves as a transitional period in the lives of people.
And, over the last eighty years, we have been building a set of balances, references and models that have allowed us to live in society, respecting differences, having common and unanimously accepted objectives.
It turns out that a certain deregulation is being superimposed on this model, with force, whatever it may be and whatever its nature, overriding law and sovereign states. At the same time, we have been allowing a larval progression of discontent and lies that are beginning to call into question our ability to live in society, because intolerance dominates, respect for others, whoever and however they may be, is scarce, and human fraternity seems to be lost.
There are new challenges and new realities that we cannot address with the tools of the past.
Just some recent evidence.
Most Western societies do not question the market economy as their economic model of reference. With regulation, with states’ supervisory power and with redistributive balance, certainly.
But, will it fit into our model of society that, using the rules of the market economy, sovereign states acquire companies based in other countries and that produce and distribute mass consumer products on a global scale that can be “spokesmen” for the convictions and models of society dominant among their owners?
How many entrepreneurs or private investors could mobilize fifty billion euros (around 20% of Portuguese GDP) to acquire a single company?
The European Union also seems, through its own responsibility, to be moving towards a change in the paradigm we know.
If changes are expected in the largest countries in Europe, in some countries these changes are already taking place with electoral majorities legitimizing candidates who are admittedly anti-European and defenders of “illiberal democracies”, whatever that may be, in addition to a “contracditio in terminis”.
While everything is happening in front of our eyes, those responsible in Europe and the European Union seem to imitate the Titanic orchestra…
It seems that we are experiencing a real “change of time”.
Are we prepared?
Lawyer and manager