College BW: Brede welvaart in historisch perspectief - Studium Generale - Tilburg University

Dear everyone, welcome back to this next episode in the lecture series, the public lecture series on broad prosperity. Well, as you already see and knew, because uh that is why you came, we are going to adopt the uh historical perspective uh from the perspective of broad prosperity. That does n't happen very often. Um, so we are also very happy that there are people who are already practicing that as well. That is also important. We will also notice why a historical perspective on broad prosperity is important for the future. Well, of course, if you can fully understand it, you can also design the future , but that is a general statement, so it will get more specific. My name is Tom Wildhagen. I am, uh, also one of the co-leaders of this university's broad prosperity program . Uh, also City Professor of Tilburg. And I will also, uh, make a contribution myself at the end. It's a contribution that, uh, ends at 5 o'clock because we don't have a panel this time, right? So, uh, but of course we still have well over an hour and a half ahead of us. So, um, this is just the title. There was already a brief mention of the activities, but we might also come up at the end regarding what else is in the pipeline. That will come up in a bit later. Um, let's see . Yes, we start with uh a guest from uh yeah, from Utrecht in any case from uh the Utrecht um Jan Luiten van Sande. It's really nice that you came here anyway. And uh yes, these are some books that do prove that drift is also being looked at from a historical perspective in Utrecht. Uh 1780-1914 is about the state, institutions, economic developments, uh and uh our social capital, a new economic history of the Netherlands 1980-2020. So we are very happy that you uh want to start here. You are emeritus by now, but still very active. That, uh, that is also evident from, uh, these kinds of works. So, um yes, I’d be happy to give you the floor to kick things off and convey your contribution on broad prosperity in historical perspective to us. Thanks, Tom, for this friendly introduction. It is nice to come to Tilburg to share something here about the work we have been doing in Utrecht for a while regarding broad prosperity. Uh, what I'm telling you now is also partly the work of other colleagues. Pas van Bavel, Auk Rijpma, and others contributed to this. But for now, I'll pretend it's just my, uh, story, shall I say. And I do have a bit of my own angle on this story, too. I want to say something about how, thanks to widespread prosperity, we have started looking at the past in a different way, in a slightly different way . The question is, of course, if you have different standards for economic development, what are the consequences for our view of the past? Uh, that's what my story is about. If other standards are irrelevant to the interpretation of the past, if you do not get a different past through different standards, then you will not get a different future either, one could say. So this is also, uh, relevant for the future. Um, for years as economic history, we have worked with what I would call the workhorse of GDP. Uh, that was a concept that was developed in the 30s and 40s in response to the crisis of the 30s and the subsequent rearmament of countries like England and the United States, who wanted to know exactly how far they could go, in a certain sense. And from that a demand for information about the economy arose; from those two things emerged. That 1930s crisis and that rearmament from the 1940s. And there we have that which led to, uh, the development of the concept of national accounts, national income, national product. And I think you are all familiar with it. It is still in the newspaper every day. And uh so it is a fairly recent concept and we have used it since the 1950s to measure how the global economy developed, how countries developed and uh how that uh evolved over time uh uh. And that has led to the GDP concept leading to an enormous increase in our understanding of long terms in the world. So I will start with a brief praise for the GDP, and then we will look at the criticism of it . This is what we knew about economic growth in the 2000s . So it is a picture of the last 1000 years, uh, what has happened in the world economy over the last 1000 years. And in the 0s, we knew—we had an idea of ​​what had happened between 1850 and 1960. So that was the timeframe in which we placed the trends in the global economy. In the 1980s, the statue had already been further expanded. That went back to 1700. And then you already get a good picture of what is called the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization from the 19th century. Uh, uh, then it becomes clearly visible. But this is the picture we are dealing with today . We can go back almost 1,000 years, and we can say something about the GDP per capita in England up to the year 5. I have taken England as an example here because it is so important for that industrial revolution. And uh, you can, for example, check what the impact of the Black Death of 1348 was on uh GDP. You see the Industrial Revolution emerging there, but as a very gradual process. And we can also paste the Netherlands into it, for example . Our Golden Age then turns out to consist of a century in which we are a bit richer than England. And uh then the French come along and then we drop below England. And in the 19th century, that recovered again. And you see that we, as England and the Netherlands, are experiencing very strong economic growth. And that way, for example, you can paste China into it. Uh, we have data left over. So you get a, uh, uh, picture of the divergence of the Chinese economy. In the year 1000, China was the richest country in the world, and uh, in the year 1800, it is completely the other way around. And after that, uh, Europe rushed ahead, and China only uh woke up again in the last 50 years or so . So that BWP thing, that which many people are critical of . Measuring GDP has indeed yielded a great many insightful findings. Above all, you can do everything with it. Poland can join. You can stick all kinds of countries into it, but it has, uh, enormously increased our understanding of the long term in the world. In this story, I primarily want to focus on the last 200 years. And then I start with the BWP GDP 1820 IU to 2022. That is the most recent series derived from the Medicine Project. That is a collaboration of economists and economic historians that maps this kind of data in a systematic way. Um, and there you see, uh, actually the classic image of, uh, the economic growth of the past 200 years. If you look at this, uh, the blue one—let's take a look , that goes on for an hour. Then you actually see that not much is happening in the 19 . In the 20s, it rises sharply . Then you have the crisis of the 1930s, the war years of course, during which the business declines sharply, and then spectacular growth up to the present. So, according to that picture, actually all significant progress in our prosperity is a product of the most recent period. If you apply a logarithmic scale to it, a logarithmic scale—that, uh, you undoubtedly still remember from the final exam, uh, mathematics or something similar. But if you turn that into a logarithmic scale, you immediately get a completely different picture. You see that uh there has been quite a lot of uh economic development economic growth in the 191. There you see the crisis of the 1930s, but the year 20s really stand out . And uh, here it already threatens to falter a bit , the economic growth. Uh, this is the BWP, uh, picture. And what I am going to do now is show you what happens to that picture when we apply broad prosperity after the staff to it and start measuring what happens to the economy in a broader way . I am limiting myself to the Netherlands to stay a bit close to home, but in principle you can do this for all kinds of countries and also for the entire global economy. For BP is, of course, a limited concept, a limited measure of economic success. Um, inequality isn't included, external effects aren't included, right? The fact that we are uh destroying nature uh is not taken into account in the BWP. Um, there are uh all kinds of industries with negative effects that we simply incorporate as positives. So if the gambling industry is liberalized, the GDP per capita rises . While the gambling addiction uh uh explodes. Uh, the fact that the boundaries between commercial and non-commercial production are constantly changing over time is also not taken into account properly. Um and other dimensions of well- being, health, political rights. And then you can make a long list of everything . None of this is taken into account by the GDP. So it is a very limited measure. And as that, uh, use of GDP became more widespread, the criticism of it also became more widespread. Uh, it is the case that Koersnet, one of the inventors of the concept, was already very critical in the 1930s. He already felt that GDP cannot actually be used as a good measure of well-being. But that criticism has been further fueled and become louder over the years. And rightly so. Yes, something has to happen now. Um, the first attempt to address that criticism was the development of the Human Development Index by the World Bank, inspired by this economist Sen, a Nobel Prize winner. So, uh, that sits pretty solid, you would think. Uh, and instead of uh economic growth, they have developed a triple index. the Human Development Index, which also included life expectancy and education level. So that was a, uh, already much broader than just Belvoor's GDP. And if you do that for the Netherlands, uh, weight those three indices in a certain way—which is a very technical issue in itself— then you get roughly this kind of racing. Uh, there are different versions that depend on the precise movement and which precise definition of, for example, education level you take. But you show that the uh I shouldn't do it like that. That the growth in the ninth in the 20th century, so the idea that in the 20th century, yes. Are you still cooperating or not? Yes. The idea that everything that is somewhat important in terms of economic development happens in the 20th century is incorrect. You actually see that it is a continuation and that lately, uh, a slowdown is occurring. Uh, but uh, the 19th therefore comes out of this comparison much more favorably than the one from those original GDP charts. You also see, uh, that uh, political rights have been added here; in that fifth series that is kind of floating in between, the political rights have been added. So what happens if you also include political rights as a fourth dimension in the Human Development Index? The World Bank has worked on that. And uh, then you get an even more complete picture after all. Um, this is, uh, political rights naturally increased explosively in 1848 with the constitution. So this is the, uh, the effect of Torbeken, you could say. This is the effect of universal suffrage for men and women. Well, then there is no democracy for a while, of course. But you also see that if you take political rights into account, it deviates a bit here . Because, well, you can't have more than 100% political rights. So at a certain point a goal is almost reached, and then it can no longer generate progress in this type of sequence. And then you see that it leads to a delay. Um, another interesting anomaly is, uh, this series—a colleague of mine, Leandro Prados de la Escozura, a uh, uh, Madrid professor, Spanish professor, thinks that they are n't measuring life expectancy correctly if we only look at 80 years or 78 years or somewhere. You actually have to weigh it. His point is that as you get older, it becomes harder to increase life expectancy. So you have to let years carry more weight. I do n't know if that is true, but in any case, if you do that, you get what is called a quani transformation, and then things have turned out somewhat more favorably in recent years. that the delay that seems to be occurring is actually transformed away by that statistical trick. Um yes, this is kind of what you can see in the Human Development Index. The picture is changing, but it's not changing very radically, is it? It is clear that there has been a very significant increase in prosperity according to the Human Development Index. You can no longer say that the prosperity here is four times as great as here. That this depends entirely on how you weigh and how you transform sequences. You can only compare series with each other in and time. Uh, and from that it appears that those uh uh that the 19th century uh does much better than in the first comparison. Um, next, uh, there is a major breakthrough, I'll tell you; in this type of research, there is the OECD project which has focused on uh, what we call the Battle Life Index, which focuses on measuring 11 dimensions of well-being. Uh uh so besides those three we already uh talked about and uh uh many other dimensions. I'll get back to you on that in a moment. uh to get a very complete picture of uh the uh the broad prosperity of the population. And uh, economic histories have also responded to that. They have also written a number of reports. I've actually been involved in that. How was Life, in which we applied that uh uh OECD framework for measuring broad prosperity to the past for now, to see what that yields for uh our understanding of the trend of uh uh broad prosperity measured via 11 different dimensions. These are the dimensions that will then be addressed. Uh, for example, the number of working hours is taken into account. Uh, holidays, uh, uh, and Americans, for example, work many, many more hours than Europeans. So you need to make a correction for that . But the environment is also already being included as SO2 or CO2 emissions. We try to measure biodiversity. Uh uh and this has already uh led to for the Netherlands a uh uh a new series of uh pre-prosperity. according to these, the 11 dimensions that OCD has distinguished. And then you get a picture like this. Uh, you see that there is a lot of variation in trends there. The general trend is still upward. That is not so surprising, but uh you see that the period after 1945 uh often performs less brilliantly uh than in those first uh graphs that I showed. And that the 19th century actually comes across relatively favorably. The 19th century is, of course, the story of industrialization and proletarization and, well, all sorts of negative effects of industrialization that they know all about here in Tilburg too. But surely you do not see that emerging in the shard of this measure of broad prosperity. You see rather that in the 19th century, actually even before industrialization—so then we are talking about industrialization starting, uh seriously, only after 1860—before industrialization, there was quite a uh uh substantial increase in prosperity already underway. Um, the problem is of course, uh, we now have 11 dimensions and we have all kinds of ways to weight that. We have all kinds of series that can be derived from it . But what happens next? We want, uh, actually we naturally want to have one set of broad prosperity that we can use in politics to evaluate policy. But uh, none of these series is decisively better than other series for theoretical or practical reasons. All these transformations, for example that Kwani transformation, there is something to be said for them. But uh, with just as much goodwill, you could say. That is not correct. We view that differently . Um, so there is a risk of a situation emerging where every researcher, every country, and every region might create their own index and thereby tell their own story, resulting in a kind of fragmentation where, well, actually, everyone has their own bubble. which of course fits in with the times, but that we are not making any progress in, well, general discussions about general prosperity growth. Um, this is, uh, I've actually kind of told you. Um, so the results are heavily dependent on weighting and gopost. That has to do with transformation . Um and uh yes uh oh yes, I'll show you that in a moment . What is also quite funny is that the 1930s are becoming increasingly favorable. So, uh, in the first graph we saw that the 1930s uh came out very poorly, but here you see that they are uh, relatively favorable years uh, compared to uh, the years before. It is because incomes may have been under pressure , but life expectancy and, uh, education levels, for example, uh, continued to rise. So you see all kinds of different accents being placed by different, uh, weighting of different calculations. Um, but so we are kind of in a situation where we can measure a lot, but we uh don't know what the optimal outcome is. Um, and this way of thinking and working on it has gained enormous momentum over the last year due to, uh, I think due to that Covid. That, uh, has definitely had a major impact. Um, broad prosperity has become a bit of a buzzword. You could say so. Everyone is now in favor of broad prosperity. It's just that everyone might define it in their own way. Uh, and I know we haven't gotten much further yet . It looks a bit like the ways where, uh, the same way regarding sustainability and green growth. Green growth is also one of those buzzwords that, in 2 or 3 years, is now even being used by, well, cabinets in which not exactly a whole lot of environmental protection is held in high regard. Is green growth still considered part of the mandate? And that certainly says something about the way the concept has developed. The CVS collects all statistics. The House of Representatives wants the reckoning they conduct annually in May to be based on broad prosperity indicators. But, uh, yeah, there isn't a single prosperity index. There are many of them, and that leads to confusion, you could say. There is a debate among economists regarding the welfare-theoretical foundations of working with all these indices. And uh, I think the most sensible contribution made on that subject is by a Tilburg professor, uh, who concludes that, in essence, the broad discussion on prosperity is about identifying what society views as the most desirable goals . And uh, I think that hit the nail on the head, uh, on the head. Because, uh, it reminds me a lot of the discussions we had right after the war, also about which direction the Dutch economy should take. And then a report was published with the five goals of economic policy. And uh yes, to some extent you recognize those again in the broad discussion on prosperity. Uh, pre-welfare means recognition of other purposes. Um, but it is uh unclear what the weight of those other purposes is. Uh, and it depends entirely on the individual preferences of the person compiling the index whether, uh, which, uh, dimensions of broad prosperity, uh, carry the most weight. Um, so I'm starting to get a bit hesitant about whether we should fully surrender to the broad prosperity debate idea. And I, uh, my last contribution, last slide is about what is it really about? And then, uh, it is about the content of the booklet that is already, uh, lying here. Uh, the dimensions of broad prosperity are actually outward signs of a deeper underlying dynamic in an economy. Um, you actually want to know how healthy, how well-structured this economy is. To what extent is it capable of generating change and innovation effectively, while maintaining social cohesion and other social objectives? Um, actually, you want to know how the engine of the economy keeps functioning. You actually want to look under the hood. Broad prosperity looks at the external characteristics of the economy. towards uh the color and the speed at which the car can go and uh the model and uh uh all kinds of external things that are important. But as a buyer of the car, as a car inspector, you want to know how the engine is put together and whether it is solid. And that engine ultimately consists of the institutions we have in common, which ensure that we can either live together well or that we can no longer live together and cannot maintain a good society. Uh and uh so that societal capital is the sum of a society's institutions that uh is ultimately responsible for, well, the dynamics and uh the uh the social cohesion. Um, so in this booklet I tried to map out that social capital. Various institutional blocs in society isolated and monitored over time. And the question is asked: has our social capital decreased or increased in the past 40-50 years? Uh, that is very difficult, because we have no ways to measure that easily . So I also don't want to say that I figured it out. But so I think we need to make a leap from broad prosperity to looking under the hood of the economy and, uh, search deeper for the, uh, the institutions that are essential to the way we live together. and uh along that path uh need to further deepen our uh understanding of what is happening around us in society and the economy. Um, so in a sense that goes a bit beyond broad prosperity, but of course we can always discuss that further. Thank you for your attention. Paul van Geest is a university professor at this university. But you also have a job in Rotterdam. Uh, and that is about uh church history, among other things. Yes. Yes. Yes. You can, of course, tell it much better yourself. And um, I know that you, uh, are going to speak about how views of human nature can also determine and have determined economic development. Well, furthermore, it is entirely up to you to make that, uh, clear to everyone. Yes. Alright . Yes. Okay . Well then, uh, the floor is for you. Uh, yeah . No, I, um, if I look at you now, I think: "It is always a miracle. I am a Dutch studies scholar and theologian by training." And theologians nowadays, in a secularized society, often sit a bit isolated in Bible clubs and such, right? Because, well, theologians, we are not talking about what, uh, colleague Luen van Zander spoke about. uh things that we can know and measure. My subject of study has risen. There isn't much to measure. So on the other hand, I am also a church historian. And the church, together with the army and the universities, those have of course been precisely the institutions that, on the one hand, have allowed themselves to be regulated by dynamic economic processes. On the other hand, those economic processes have or have not shaped a certain conception of broad prosperity , have led. And in the 23 minutes that still have left for me... Yes, I really have to stick to my time . I'm serious, because I have to catch the 5 train since I'm going with my wife tonight to a theater performance by a group of psychologists at the theater. You heard correctly about marital problems. Well, I’d like to see a theater show of that sometime, but yeah, if I do n’t show up, I’ll rub the show at home, right? So that's just a bit of an issue. Good. Um, the core of my argument. Exactly what Ton already said is that, um, the conception of broad prosperity—how broad that prosperity is in the almost literal sense of the word—that depends on the view of human nature you hold. That is one. Secondly, because 'broad' naturally has a layering in, uh, in the denotation, in the, in the, in the fundamental meanings. And one of the, uh, yes, denotations is also that 'broad' actually suggests that it is more prosperity than just the material. Yes, then the second point is how did the church—that ancient institution which, well , until actually the 19th century was quite a hard power, mind you, make no mistake, Pope Innocent is the third—it was Trump, Putin, and the Pope all at the same time. Mind you. That was a supreme being. And even Alexander VI, the sixth, the worst pope we have ever had, was given the power to divide the new land of America between the King of Spain and the King of Portugal. or uh so or that just to indicate that poers is indeed the most important soft power right now, but that used to be quite different, with all the consequences that entails. Right, first point, the breadth of prosperity depends on everyone. So, you know, that's a bit utilitarian. The greatest happiness for the greatest number depends on the view of human nature you hold. Start at the beginning. In the Roman Empire, uh, when Jesus had not yet been born at Christmas , there was a totally different view of human nature than we hold now, than we currently embrace in the constitution at all. Your dignity as a human being, your dignitas, was entirely based on the social status you held. So that was not intrinsic because you were born. No, you had certain categories of slaves. There was a hierarchy there as well . They had slaves, semi-slaves, uh quasi-free slaves, practically the Liberty, who, um, uh, because they were slaves, so, um, had a lesser human dignity. Ontologically, essentially, than the 10% Liberty. Huh, in the Roman Empire, only 10% of people were actually truly free. And of that, it was 1%. Those were the senatorial families who were the free among the free. So that means that the broad view, look at it that if you consider a human being inferior based on the status they hold in society, right? That had to do with whether you were a slave or not, to what extent you were a slave or not. Uh, a man was worth more, had more dignity than a woman. Women were not allowed to philosophize, and they were also forbidden to drink wine. So, uh, long live Christianity, because it is allowed there. Um, so that dignity was, uh, not intrinsic and incredibly gradual. If, uh, you earned less than the neighbor as a gunsmith, as a baker, then the baker was the one who earned more and had a higher status and could buy a somewhat more refined tunic . He was worth more than you. That translated into peace. Slaves were property. which could be and which could be used as an instrument as a means because their status that if they were really totally unfree because that was the status of um yes their dignity and that was therefore equal to a machine or to a wagon, to put it somewhat exaggeratedly. And so that means that prosperity, well, was actually, uh, incredibly tight. Prosperity applied only to those who, uh, yes, possessed, who had estates that, uh, yes, were free to contemplate oceans, to practice idleness, to be able to philosophize about goodness, truth, and beauty. You needed a fortune for that. And that was actually only 1% of the population. So the prosperity needed to live, think, move, and be free, was determined by the view of humanity that was, um, status-related, that was related to material possessions and money. Um, that was actually incredibly targeted. Yes, that led to a very limited view of prosperity, which was de facto very limited and namely allocated to those behind whom were free. Well, that is the first point. The view of human nature therefore largely determines the way you look at prosperity. Prosperity was completely irrelevant to lesser people. We have a caller. That is always good. No question. Or uh that changed into uh the legislation under Emperor Constantine. So, the second part of my first point. Uh, Constantine, and uh, he legitimized Christianity. Not rendered unfit for the state . State distinction made, but legitimized. He was a born opportunist, wasn't he? A breed. Well, politician, maybe that goes a bit too far. He was emperor, but, um, he regulated things like a Maiavelli Avalet, so that he came out of it extraordinarily well and the tetrarchy ultimately culminated in his person. Even if he had to kill his brother-in-law for it. And eventually staunch Christians, but baptized by an Arian, an Arian bishop, because Arianism, so not Orthodoxy, was more powerful at that time than, well, Orthodoxy. But there was one thing this, uh, opportunistic man did very well. He changed the laws. He said, and that is the beginning of the change in the view of man that will lead to broader prosperity for larger groups in the population of the Roman Empire. Um, he changed legislation to the effect that he said: "Slaves are not instruments. So you certainly cannot brand their faces like you do with cows." Because that happened, you know. Incidentally, it still happens in certain population groups in our time as well. But that was forbidden, because, said Constantine, that is also recorded in the Leges Constantiniane, uh, uh . Every human being is created in the image and likeness of God, Genesis 1:26-28. And implicitly contained within that, therefore, was a view of humanity in which every human being—whether free or not, and to what degree of freedom and state— was determined by freedom and state status, and was therefore equal to dignity. And thus, the concept of dignitas as it had developed in the Roman Empire shifted . Um, after Constantine, dignitas became something, so dignity became something intrinsic. And that is one. And two, that dignity also had to, uh, take shape in life. So everyone had to be entitled to a bath, bed, and bread. That was quite revolutionary. That was due to the fact that the Christians in that 4th century had simply grown very loud in the Roman Empire. Bishops whom they started acting like senators. That was pure bluff. For that church was not yet that powerful, and that church was not yet that well institutionalized at all. But yeah, dress to impress and you'll get pretty far. And that has, of course, helped the understanding of human dignity—well, it has—into a way where prosperity could become broader for larger segments of the population. Mothers and child slaves were no longer allowed to be separated from each other. for example, those kinds of those kinds of uh uh arrangements ensured that uh family circumstances were taken into account and, above all, that everyone was granted that intrinsic dignity. That caused the economy to adapt to it. And senatorial families were obliged to provide the slaves with an orderly life in well-being. to give a tranquilitas ordinata, an ordered rest in the material eh eh in a material prosperity eh. Or at least, uh, prosperity had to be such, uh, had to be sufficient, you know, the right measure, stoically, so that people could lead an orderly life in well-being. And that is in fact a broader concept of well-being than the material one alone, although the material concept of well-being is presupposed. That is the second part. So the concept of dignity eh changed thanks to Constantinian legislation, thanks in fact to the rise of Christianity which settled comfortably eh there in that Roman Empire. Well, bluff your way around. Christians were actually quite good at that. Even though they were a minority, they were a solid minority. And that meant that prosperity was also, uh, broadened. Can you also see. Uh, that's one side of the story, right? The other side of the story is, and then I skip 1000 years. So I forget, I'll just skip the transition from agrarian feudalism to urban capitalism and the accompanying view of humanity. But the downside was, of course, at some point—I already mentioned Paul Alexander VI dividing the new land. That slavery was invented again. Slavery in the Middle Ages, yeah, there was... serfs were free, but bound to the land, which wasn't that strange in the Middle Ages, because the serfs also had stability, as in... you were bound to your land, right? That sounds scarier, doesn't it? That the serf was bound to the land than you... they were free, free citizens, but... yeah, when America was discovered... well, we know... slavery arose on a whole different scale. And that was... yeah, condemned by Paul, Paul the... For Paul said, yes, slaves do appear in the Old Testament, but they are of a different caliber and a different kind; they belong to the extended family. They have a face. So, you could call it relational slavery. And what you are developing now in America is anonymous slavery. You may not enslave the indigenos, the Indians. And in Simulisdeus, ehm, Pope Paul condemned slavery. That didn't stick one bit in the history of mankind in the West . For the stakes were already so high that the King of Spain and the King of Portugal said: "We are Catholic, but you are not infallible, Pope. We do not obey you ." And what's more, there is a, uh, the court theologian of Charles I who, mind you, was raised by a Utrecht boy, the later Pope Adrian VI. The court theologian of Charles the Idea, Juan Gimenes de Celveda, who said: "Slavery , you see, uh, the view of man is the Billke." For just look at Aristotle, who was very important in scholastic theology as a standardizer of science, you know, he devised a method. Aristotle himself speaks of two kinds of souls. View of man. The servile soul and the free soul. Well, let us in Europe happen to be precisely those free souls and Oarm, the indigenous people within that, you know , the Indians within that, the Americas. Typical cases of unfree souls. So we can certainly enslave them. That is even better for them, too. That was a doctor of theology, wasn't he? That man really shaped macro, meso, and microeconomics until... Z Pelvij was a Dominican, then a completely different Dominican came along who had already gone to America. Bartholomeo de las Casas. He said: "Yes, with all due respect, oh court theologian, um, uh, of Charles V, what you are saying makes absolutely no sense." For where in the Bible do I find the difference between servile souls and free souls? We find examples of slaves and free people in the Bible, but that is not based on their souls. That is not ontological. We are all equal. And the Lascas referred to that Constantinian legislation. He focused on the fact that Aristotle was not as special to Christians as Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. And a dispute arose. in Valadolied and the fraternity won the lasas. Charles the Fifteen passed away, so he saw the view of humanity that we all embrace now, here too as we speak. Um, that was, uh, of the lassas. That was, in theory, accepted by the church, by the state, by the kings. But in practice, uh, the economy just carried on. And that is where the problem lies . Those are indeed dark pages in the institution that, on the one hand, greatly promoted human rights— meaning that prosperity should have been broadened based on the view of humanity— but on the other hand, did too little. Uh, because the powers were simply too great . the king of uh Portugal and the king of Spain. These were powerful figures whom the Pope, as a hard power with his Papal States, also had to reckon with formidably . The Pope was a hard-power politician at that time. He is also now, but more of a soft power. But that is another story. Yes, he had to take that into account. So he did n't follow through, and that is something very slow. How much time do I have left, Tom? Okay. Well, I'm going to manage that. Yeah, otherwise I'll just be stuck with it, right? And my marriage. Um, so that is part two. So there you see that the discussion about views of human nature determines how broad prosperity is and for whom, well, yes. Well, in the 19th century, um, we had the Industrial Revolution. Uh, not much more work came in, or uh, work went away. It turned out differently. Um, people went to the big cities to become factory workers, you know, uh, Charles Dickens et cetera, um uh yeah uh. It soon became clear that in that dynamic of the, uh, the new, the new, new form of capitalism, the rich were getting rich very quickly and very, and the workers were left behind . Um, that was a dynamic that was, uh, at one point denounced by Pope Leo X in a letter written in 1891. Rerom Louarum, who said: "What is happening here is a structure in which sinfulness is perpetuated." For one, as we have known for centuries, we are all equal. The unorganized workers are being squeezed dry. So they will have to be granted the right to organize themselves into syndicates, into unions, so that they can stand up against those who determine their wages. And that is the wealthy manufacturer. Eh Reroer Nouvarum was heard, but eh well, we know that in Brabant, we know that in Twente. Naturally, the large industries were there. Always put into practice. not by the Catholic, um uh, textile swindlers here in, in, um uh, yeah, in Tilburg, or the cigar manufacturers, name them all, Eraso, et cetera. The circumstances were, they got uh unreasonably bad salaries in general, but the preconditions, you know, so the the yarn manufacturer. But tough here in Tilburg, he did finance sports clubs, he did have study funds et cetera for the children of his workers. But anyway, the fact is that the church played cards on the idea that prosperity was supposed to benefit everyone. The soil turmoil had to be served, first of all, with the profit. And if people could not, uh, the principle of subsidiarity, develop themselves in such a way as to—and Leo XIII quotes this regarding the same thing—lead an orderly life in well-being, then the state must assist in this. Uh, the employer must show solidarity with the employee like a sodaal, you know, sodalitas. They are members of one and the same human family, says Paulus Rerum Nvarum. And so it must be the case that because we all intrinsically possess the same skill, regardless of social status—that is, a detail after the decimal point— prosperity must be open to everyone . Well, finally, that same dynamic was brought to attention about 10 days ago by Pope Leo XIV in Magifica Humanitas. Oh, beautiful humanity. Because they now also see that, due to AI, the knowledge and power that exists are now being outsourced from universities. That arrives at a very small group will have access to that knowledge. Can manipulate us, as it were, right before our eyes. He has also already received a lot of criticism in America, precisely from that small Silicon Valley elite. But the Pope says AI must serve the soil exactly as the Industrial Revolution did 135 years ago . Um, uh, yes, the, the, the dignity, uh, the prosperity had to be guaranteed as broadly as possible for the worker. And I see that, says the Pope. That is why he is worried that these things are not happening yet. Well , I hope in this uh quick argument the link between uh the view of humanity, intrinsic dignity or not—that is a fundamental option you must always keep in mind. Having clarified the link with the breadth of prosperity, we also have the breadth of prosperity. Yes, it is more than just matter. For in Rerum Novarum it is said that every worker, and the Pope does so in the Magnificat of Humanitas as well, must have enough to grant those entrusted to his care an orderly life in well-being. So you must be free from worries about your possessions, because then your beatitudo—it says so neatly in Latin— is guaranteed. and Beatitudo, bliss, happiness. Yes, that is the goal that we are all focused on. Even Leo X says, somewhat enviously, uh, is Aristotle founded there in his economic ethics? Yeah, those popes are pretty cunning, aren't they? Bastaakzie. Yes , very beautiful. Yes, thank you, Paul. Um, there is an urgent question for you as well. In this long history, this can still be urgent, of course. Yes, there is someone. You started your story about the male, uh, view of humanity. Um, I personally get the impression that it has become increasingly feminine, especially over the last few decades. Uh, women's suffrage, of course, at the beginning of this or the last century. Um, does n't that belong to the story too, I wonder? Yes, that is a very good point. No. Um, now you are going to tempt me into giving a very long speech, but um, what is a fact in that Constantinian legislation is that the position of women—yes, you won't believe it when you read Ephesians 5:25, but I'm not going to go into all that now—but it was, uh, significantly improved in that Constantinian legislation . What I just uh what I said, you know, is uh that women were uh uh forbidden to uh study philosophy, you know. So the peripathic us. Women were forbidden to drink wine. It was said by those early Christians in the 4th to 5th century: "Yes, but how then?" Hey? So at one point in his confession, Augustine mentions his mother: "But you are two things, aren't you? Mother Monica. Complex woman. But this is a very nice one. You are a wine drinker, a mirubula, and you are the smartest among the philosophers. Then you think: 'Yeah, who would call his mother a wine drinker?' Well, that was an expression of empathetic thinking, because women weren't allowed to drink at all. And the fact that he calls his mother, wife, uh, you are the most important among the philosophers, that was quite a jab, because Augustine knew that his self-help booklet *How to Be Happy? Debat Vita* would become a bestseller. He was a saint with an extraordinarily great marketing instinct. So that's one thing. And as for the rest, but then I'll really stop talking about it, because that is a whole other story and then I'll just go completely off the rails. But the image of God, you know, in those days it also became, well, you would think it became like that— I sat in Rome—that's not how it was served to us, but it was indeed like that if you read the primary source. That became increasingly feminine. It really is true. What does Augustine say at one point in a sermon? Yes, God is a father, because God provides. God is responsible for the the creating and the ordering, the creating and the ordering of, uh, the world. Set deus matquiautriit. But God is also a mother, because she nourishes. Creatio is a feminine concept. I mean, but yeah, now I'll stop talking about it again, because, uh, my life is on. Okay, thank you Paul. Yes. Well, my part that, uh, that is about, uh, 100 years of broad prosperity in Tilburg. It is a kind of thought exercise, an experiment, in light of the 100th anniversary we were just talking about regarding the university next year. Um, you did that together with, uh, the former mayor. We recently got a new mayor, but, uh, this is the former mayor Theo Weterings. And what we tried—and that is a first attempt, mind you—so it's all not very rough yet. But we, uh, actually looked at what are now the challenges of this city from the perspective of broad prosperity. And those are documented, because both the city and the university start from the perspective of broad prosperity. So together, uh, with the city and the university, we have quite a process behind us. Uh, and that has resulted in a Broad Prosperity Agenda 2050. And in that, the most important broad prosperity challenges for the city have been identified. And what we have tried is a sort of—you know, popularly called backcasting. If you want to call it scientifically, it is called process tracing. We, uh, we started looking in this exercise, you know, we had those goals set, but what is actually the background to why those goals are the goals? That, that is actually the idea we had, you know . Again, it is a bit experimental. You know, but this is a kind of first version of it. So, uhm, there are two categories in that 2050 broad prosperity. Agenda 1, the matters that really need improvement. Those are listed here. Uh, what are those? Social cohesion in the city and the neighborhoods, strengthening the collective, taking better care of each other, suitable and sustainable housing for everyone, closing the The health gap in the city and maintaining good healthcare for everyone, resilience against state and criminal undermining, and biodiversity, soil quality and quantity, water management, and restoring natural systems . Those are the major goals stemming from broad prosperity. And then we also have goals that continue to require attention. Um, well, Tilburg wants to remain a leading city of education and knowledge. That will come back to us in a moment . Adaptation to climate change, strengthening earning capacity , a healthy economic structure—meaning the material side of prosperity as well—good work and leisure for everyone, adequate mobility, accessibility, happy Tilburg residents who can be themselves and trust each other, and participation for everyone in cultural education and activities with a top-level offering, and cherishing heritage. The latter has certainly succeeded, as Tilburg recently received the award for the city that best manages industrial heritage. So that is also news from recent times. So we looked at that situation, specifically those important goals. Can we trace that back, right? Where does that come from? Not that no one no city would have a goal, right? But where is that actually located? Can you trace that back? You know, that’s not so easy, is it, saying that was back then, that’s why we have that goal. But it is a kind of exercise to try. And I’m not going back that far, you know. We could have, I could have gone further back, of course, uh, like the previous speakers. Um, but the university was founded in 1927, or established, you could say. And uh, that is kind of the year uh, where we started in this uh, process tracing. But uh, if you look at 27, Tilburg was the largest city in Brabant, bigger than Eindhoven. But Eindhoven became the largest city after that. Um, Eindhoven and Tilburg will probably always remain in the top 10 of large cities. And that size of the city clearly has to do with what was just in the picture, right, the textile workers with that development of the textile industry that was also mentioned once before. So around 1700, right, 1694 In 1724, so-called drapers or cloth merchants came from Leiden. These were actually textile entrepreneurs coming to Tilburg. You know, they had a lot of work, and they were attracted by the low wages in Tilburg, you know. It was actually a kind of domestic low- wage country, a step that was being taken . And it was happening very fast, you know, because around 1900 there were already 100 wool fabric factories. That work was hard and low-paid, you know. You might have seen that a bit in the faces of the people in that original photo. And the standard of living that came with it was also relatively poor. Very beautifully documented in a book by Maarten van Reil, *Het verdriet van Tilburg* (The Sorrow of Tilburg) . He was also here recently at the science festival Night University. Then you can see that history too. His grandfather was a textile worker, and he describes it all, how it all affected that man . So that’s the way it is, you know. Health, life expectancy. There was a time when a textile worker lived to be about 40. That was roughly where it ended. So that is, uh, the issue. Um, then, um, that, um, so that last part, you know, that is actually kind of the assumption, you know, that that has had an impact, you know, those, uh, low wages, uh, also quite a significant degree of poverty, uh, health, you know, that will come back a bit later, uh, in relation to the present. What you can also, uh, trace back is, uh, that, uh, Tilburg is a border region, you know. Belgium is 10 km from here. That is close by. And when it comes to, uh, crime undermining as we call it now , you can in any case—and not only in Tilburg—border regions, uh, are regions where smuggling took place, you know. That could be alcohol, it could have been cigarettes until that was no longer lucrative. But our colleague Trans Papus, you know, a criminologist, you know, he shows very strongly that those networks continue to exist and they just go and do other things, you know. So At some point, that became synthetic drugs. Um, and then a whole organization formed around it, but the foundation lay in networks. And what he also shows is that you see that in families, you know, there is a kind of continuity; he calls them criminal families, and there is a whole history of that too, you know. So you can actually explain the goal of uh, undermining by the fact that it is a border region. But yeah, you know, then uh, it became a completely different type of product. Um, that also uh, did create value in the technical uh, in the old definition of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), you know . Because the moment we have to clean up all those barrels of uh, waste from that drug industry here in the woods, that is good for material uh, prosperity. Because that is revenue for the companies that have to do that, you know. So uh, in the narrow sense, this is actually quite a success formula, but otherwise, uh, you would say otherwise. Um, so, and that was of course poverty as well. So people might also want to earn a little extra. And that is actually still the case. Well, then uh, is it Also interesting, uh... that... Wait a minute... um, that is interesting in Tilburg's history, isn't it? You could say that was misery and woe and expansion and exploitation by that man from Leiden. Someone from Leiden. Here. No, that... uh... Okay. Uh... but what Tilburg stood for in education, right? So very early on, uh... came... and that is certainly also... uh... does that have a religious background, but... um... education... that was addressed early on. Of course, in that respect, the problem was that... uh... there was a kind of... equality, freedom of religion, but that was only for the Protestants, right? And the Catholics, they basically weren't allowed to do anything. So that meant that... um... the role... uh... also around that education, right... uh... was set up very initially by the Sisters of Charity and the Brothers of Tilburg, right? So they actually established a very good primary education system early on. And you also see that we... uh... our most famous pupil... uh... that Tilburg ever had is Vincent van Groch, but he actually came from Brabant itself... uh... he came to the The first HBS in Brabant, right? The King Willem II College, which was also my school back then. Um, but also the first, the only Catholic boys' gymnasium in Tilburg was the Dulflyceum. And it goes on like that, also with textile education, of course, but also retail in general, right, which are now ROCs for example. Um, and this is an important factor, that the leading role of education and that education built up to all levels of education, right. So not—and I don't see that as some kind of tower of university on top, right—but the entire spectrum of education has developed. Um, and that is still the case. Well, this is, um, when it comes to that education, Johannes Schwijzen is a very important figure. Um, he came from elsewhere and he came to Tilburg and he was shocked by the illiteracy and the neglect. Um, and this man actually started creating broad prosperity. Child protection, social care, education. He saw that as a single whole. Um, later on, he also uh, I think, um, became a bishop. But Paul knows that . Yes, we know that for sure. So this was a sort of thing, you know, for a while he got a lot of things off the ground here . Publishing houses too. Uitgeverijswijze, for example, you know, also started with the Brothers of Tilburg. So these kinds of people could also boost that education . Uh, and that, well, that made a difference once again. This is how our university started in 1927 on Tivolistraat, which is also interesting because there is a lot of contingency in history, you know . Things that happen; if they hadn't happened, the other things wouldn't have happened either. And in Amsterdam there were already the Roman Catholic courses, you know, set up by Moller. And um, well, they weren't quite comfortable there, uh, in Amsterdam. And uh, it was decided to move to Den Bosch in 1913. And uh, and they actually did n't last that long there either. And the offer from Tilburg that, uh, followed, and eventually they decided to come to Tilburg in 1918. And eventually are Those courses, you know, those... those are also the basis of the development of our university and the entire Fundus University of Applied Sciences. So if that hadn't happened, you know, would they have stayed in Amsterdam or in Den Bosch? Every mayor of Den Bosch cries himself to sleep every night because Den Bosch actually felt that, in terms of the city's appearance, they should have had a university . We did give them the Academy for Data Science, together with Eindov Jeronimus . You know, that was some consolation a few years ago. But that's how it turned out. So otherwise, we would n't be sitting here if this hadn't happened, you know. We can actually establish that. So that was indeed the Roman Catholic commercial school, you know. So it all started to be called the university later on too. Well, what do we have, of course, generally known among the people from Tilburg in that history, you know? That textile industry starts to decline at a certain point, you know, it leaves—actually quite ironically— to the Low Wage countries, you know. So first you were a Low Wage part of a country yourself, and now a lot of industry is coming up. elsewhere, uh, and uh, industry is leaving. Uh, and that doesn't mean that the people, uh, that the people were actually strengthened in terms of income, you know, by the social security that emerged at the time, you know. So that was a kind of dampening, you know, of the effects that were also emerging now. Namely, a relatively high uh unemployment during the period when that was happening elsewhere too, you know. So in the 70s and 80s, we naturally had the uh uh oil crisis as well. Uh, the early 80s was a very bad period, but Tilburg, you know, it had to go through an extra difficult time because that very large industry was leaving. Um, and a low point was reached there too, you know. Youth unemployment around 1883 had never been as high uh here as it was back then. But thanks to that education, uh, and the influx of all kinds of students—there are some people here too, I would already come by—who also came to study here and who are still here . Um, we think that was the key to recovery and a kind of comeback city, wasn't it? Former mayor, even older, Ruud Freeman, called it that too, didn't he? There are also cities You know, think of Heer with the term closures, who actually never really got over that, right, because no substantial new employment was created either. So it could have turned out differently. Those students also contribute to growth, and they are also good consumers of certain drinks and stuff and that sort of thing, right. So, um, education in Tilburg managed to drag itself through that period. And after the textile industry, a sort of mixed economy emerges, right. So never going back, no more putting all your cards on something or playing red and black in the casino. Eindhoven is doing that now, and hopefully, that will continue to go well, but Tilburg does n't want to go back to a sort of monolithic economy, right. So now it is manufacturing and creative industry, trade, a lot of transport, still business services, of course, education and culture. And the current situation is that the labor market is functioning well. Unemployment is not above the national average, but you do still see a lot of relatively working poor. Also positive is that the commitment of the business community stands out due to sustainability. That probably doesn't come from the past, right, because that past wasn't that sustainable. set from that bit of, uh, broad prosperity. So it is a trend that came later. It is also interesting how it is, then, that you occupy such a leading position in the business world. And furthermore, yes, it is, uh, there are large companies, but SMEs are very important. That is the case in many parts of the Netherlands. There isn't a kind of ASML here anymore. Uh, so the task is to link those companies together a bit more. Because that also stands out in broad prosperity analyses, including those by Rabo Research. The clustering power for that business community is low, isn't it? That contrasts sharply with that enormous ecosystem, you know, that Eindhoven has around ASML and other companies. That isn't here. So that is definitely something that needs to, uh, be going on, isn't it? Uh, that needs to become stronger. Uh, that is also included in those 2050 goals. And that also applies to the youth sector. That is there. Um, uh, but the trick is to retain it, isn't it? A lot of people come to study, you know. But there is also a lot of departure, you know. The stay rate, uh, that was over. years lower than is actually desirable. Well, and what, um, at the same time you naturally see that, um, let's see what I, uh, oh yes, I just have to tell you this. So what you see, which I think is still a legacy, is that we have the lowest average income in Brabant, right? Lower than Helmond, where it isn't high either. Um, that remains the case, right? Um, Tilburg has invested a lot in social policy, right? It is actually also very innovative in welfare, experimentation, and things like that. But that is also necessary. At the same time, and this seems paradoxical, the level of education is higher than in cities that resemble Tilburg. And that is quite remarkable. And that is of course because there are a lot of people who are still studying or the people who leave after their studies , right? Because if you are studying, then you have, of course, already completed pre-university education, so that counts. But you are, right, you are still working as a team leader at the, uh, Albert Heijn XL, right? So you don't have other jobs yet, right? And the trick is, once again, to retain people. You also see neighborhoods in the city, and that is not unique to Tilburg, huh. You see it in Eindhoven and everywhere too, but there are neighborhoods that lag behind, that continue to need attention, and where the differences compared to the average and to other neighborhoods are significant, huh. Neighborhoods where people, uh, live on average 6 years shorter, huh, and have 23 fewer healthy, uh, years of life expectancy. So those differences and that inequality of opportunity and those health disparities, you actually see that that often passes on, let's say, from parents to children, huh. So there is a problem there. Can we prove that that has to do with the past? No, right. But it is something typical of Tilburg. You can't just refer that housing shortage back to the past, because that is everywhere in the Netherlands, huh. So that, uh, that is, I think, a, yes, a general point. But the poverty, uh, the inequality of opportunity, health disparities, and that average income. And many people work, but many people still have a flexible job or another job, which means they quickly belong to the working poor as well, huh. And I think that is an effect, huh, that hasn't been reversed, huh. After that, uh, after that transition to the textile industry. has that actually remained. So, uh, there are legacies of the past, right? I have to tell this in general terms now, but there is also a new future, right? So if you look, you see that the city has developed enormously, spatially and also in a cultural sense, right? So, uh, we do n't have a new Vincent van Gor, but the education and the cultural sectors are strong. Uh, one of our current well-known former students is playing the World Cup as second captain in the Netherlands, Frenkie de Jong and all that. And a lot of people too from the pop music scene, culture, musicals, journalism. Uh, those are all people who come from educational institutions here. So that has gone well. The city has also been renewed with the railway zone, right? That was an old complex, of course, not from the textile industry, but from the NS, uh, and there has been a lot of development there—mind lapse, right? The Institute for a Social Approach to AI has been established there. So those things are good. Actually, there is also crime, but crime, reporting, and undermining are not the same thing, right? Because Um, not uh, all undermining, you see, doesn't consist just of isolated offenses, but crime has actually gone well too if you look at it that way, right? So since 2015, um, you used to have the AD, uh, top 10 of cities or top 20, and uhm, Tilburg ranked high there. Eindhoven too, by the way, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, right? But it stands now as the backmarker of the country, is now roughly in the uh run. between 20 and 30 regarding crime. But undermining is a different order, isn't it? Tilburg is also the, uh, the home of, uh, one of the big, uh, motorcycle clubs, to put it that way. Um, so all in all—and you can show this with figures too, right, when it comes to broad prosperity. Partly the light of history, you know. But I think it is positive necessity. Not because I'm a city professor, you know. But um, you see that Tilburg now—and I'll show you a picture of that in a moment—is a good mid-range performer in terms of broad prosperity. Actually, it doesn't make that much difference compared to Eindhoven. So that also means in Eindhoven that besides that enormous economic growth—that material aspect is very strong—there are other issues as well, you know. The cities actually look quite similar there and both have both, and that is based on research by the University of Utrecht together with Rabo Research. If you look at, uh, if you ask people how they are doing, right, so the subjectively experienced broad well-being, uh, then and you, uh, and you calculate that based on 11 actors, a kind of report, right, then you see that on that whole of those 11, uh, indicators—not action indicators, so health, uh, happiness, uh, income, health, uh, then it is just like in Eindhoven, Eindhoven maybe also 1% more, then 12% of the inhabitants still score. as uh yeah is actually unprosperous on a set of 11 prosperity indicators. So that is a point of attention. Sure, isn't it? The United Nations has Leave No One Behind as the underlying principle of broad prosperity... so it's not unique, is it? You can't say that Tilburg then, can you? I already said it, the difference with Eindhoven is n't actually that big. Maybe that is also in more places. But of course, that simply means that a large group of people cannot keep up with that, uh, that average positive development. Uh, and that's his concern, right? That translates, and we see that as well, of course. We actually also know which people those are and where they live. Uh, the postal code very often determines how your earning capacity and social position develop. So this is the last picture. So it indeed also comes from Rabo Research. Uh orange uh dot is uh then um then you see broad prosperity 2013 and 2021. Uh Tilburg is making good development, right? It's actually just uh at that little arrow uh in a good position. But again, and I think that is one of the most important lessons of broad prosperity, that you can never look solely at averages, because averages can be high and below that you can see that there are a lot of people who score poorly, right? So, uh, it's tempting. Your comparisons between countries are also often averages. The Netherlands also has, on average, a high level of broad prosperity. But if you look a bit more specifically, then, uh, you see a completely different picture. So, um, all in all, um, once again, we think—and of course we still need to work this out further— that there are indeed legacies and causes of the current situation. Not for everything, mind you, because we only started thinking about sustainability for some things quite late. Were those things deterministic? Um well , certainly not all of them, right? There is a positive development too, isn't there? But you do have a kind of, uh, in the whole, uh, life cycle of the region and the city, right? Things from that continue to exist as well. And that is one of the major challenges for Tilburg, to try to repair and restore that as much as possible, also, towards 2050. That was it. Yes, now we had promised that there might be some more questions. We are not going to put down any more benches now. That, uh, we can do. So my suggestion is that I ask, uh, who is asking a question. Um, we have to stop at 5, otherwise you know how things are going to end for, uh, with Paul. Um, and that means that I, um yeah, so if it's a question for the other speakers, then they hand over a microphone and then they might be willing to stand up for a moment. So that means not asking me all the questions, because they are quite willing to do that. Who would like to ask a question or make a comment regarding the entirety of what has been presented here ? Yes. Is it addressed to someone specific? Uh, it's up to you. Oh, that is easy. Um, you point out the strengths of the Brainport region, but at the same time also its weaknesses. Yes. And you indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the Tilburg region. Many SMEs, but not concentrated. It is not a multiplier. But if you were to sit just one degree higher, yes, and you didn't look at the future of Tilburg or Eindhoven, but at Tilburg—at the future of this region— could you then connect those two strong weaknesses more effectively? I think the weak point of Tilburg is that you have a, you know, so a very varied, uh, mixed economy—that's what it was called in insistence studies. Uh, you should try to get a bit more cluster power out of that through connection, right? That is, we all see that too, right? The upcoming coalition will already make a point of that as well . Um, I'm just trying to figure out exactly what you mean by that in relation to what you say about not comparing it to Eindhoven. No, you have, you have two cities. Yes. And they both have their strengths and weaknesses . Yes. But what if you didn't look at those two cities separately for a moment, but the future is a big Brainport. That is Tilburg and Eindhoven. And then you bring those two weak and strong points together administratively as well . Definitely, right? But Eindhoven also has a lot of work to do across eight indicators, right? So it is not the case that if we mix that, we will have one flourishing region . Because, uh, the challenge of Tilburg looks like that of Eindhoven. And Eindhoven has the problem that because so many new people are joining—experts who earn much more and have tax deductions— the differences are growing even faster in proportion, aren't they? So I think they have a lot to offer each other . I see, you know, we once did a broad prosperity lecture about that... you know, my point was, look at a much larger region. Just call it semiconti, which could be the social answer to Silicon Valley. Last today, it became a ferment to the point that the Netherlands needs a new Silicon Valley . I think the semiconductor industry could be much more focused on broad prosperity than Silicon Valley, where the goal is basically for the CEO to get 1,000 billion if he has done something good once, or something like that. So, um, but anyway , thank you. Yes, and I have a question for uh Leiden van Zand and then for you, Ton. Okay, then uh, I'll hand the microphone to you right away. Yes, you are talking about the importance of looking under the hood at institutions. How would you, uh, appreciate, value the situation in the Netherlands and the perspective in the Netherlands right now ? Uh, there was already a reference to the post-war years, guided wage policy, but it is topical now. And then in relation to that which brings forward . Ton, you have focused primarily on indicators of Broad Prosperity here in Tilburg. Nice explanation. But if you look under the hood, quoting Zante, what is the institutional situation here in the Tilburg area? Yes, I think that, uh yes , I survived the step too. Uh, I think that the Netherlands has developed a very strong and uh institutional uh framework over the centuries. But the the the my book is about too. Over the last 40-50 years, it has clearly been subject to erosion . Um, we see from all sides that it's creaking and squeaking and that it's not working anymore. And we may have reached the limits of what is still possible within this institutional framework. And you know, the institutions are also being systematically and gradually undermined. So I, uh, I think that if you look, if you compare the Netherlands to any other country, then initially you could still say that everything is reasonably well organized here. So the base is very strong, but it is subject to, uh, strong erosion. And if we don't do anything about that, then that process will continue. That would be a short answer for me. Yes. Well, what I find interesting is that you don't think about regional institutions all that often, because we think it's the same everywhere, right? Because, of course, we have all kinds of municipal laws and things like that. But the point I think I have already made, that institutional education has been of vital importance to Tilburg because of, you see, attracting people from outside. And because of that, you can also do new things, because you simply have an influx of people who, yes, can also simply work in new sectors. Um, and furthermore, regarding what I emphasized, right? Tilburg actively positioned itself as a social and inclusive city quite some time ago. And that's not just a slogan, you know. You also see that in the policy with all kinds of schemes not only involving participation , but it is very inventive there. Yes. And furthermore, those institutions are of course also, well, municipal councils and mayors. And there is, of course, a lot of variation in that, isn't there? But I think that's more of a thing too. I think it's a good point for a future time as well, isn't it, to look at regions from that perspective too. You can say: "No, that is all directed via The Hague and Brussels, and you don't have much room to maneuver." But I don't think that's the point. Um, and you can also establish institutions, whether they are networks that eventually gain a certain status. But a lot is happening in the regions. But I do think it's a very good angle to look under the hood not only nationally, but regionally as well, right? Which is actually also what we do with those broad prosperity analyses of various regions. Certainly. Okay . Um, we still have a little while. I had one too. The microphone is here, isn't it? Yes, that's why. Um, well, uh, about the institutions, but I was also thinking there is a power of social connectedness between people. But I was just thinking a bit about the difference between Tilburg and Eindhoven, without basing anything on that, I think that uh Tilburg uh maybe has that social power more firmly. But how does this relate to that broad prosperity and development in that history? Yes, maybe you want to answer that, uh, answer that. Is being that social force and cohesion also institutional? That is that, that is one of the okay. That is nothing else. The most important core of the institutional system is, of course, the extent to which it leads people to cooperate voluntarily and to commit themselves to society, going beyond ordinary economic principles . Um, I, I, uh, I use the example of healthcare in the book, and then you can compare the United States with the Netherlands, for example. Then you see that in the United States much more is spent on healthcare, while the effects of that on life expectancy are very limited. So we have a really cheap healthcare system because doctors in the Netherlands generally behave as servants of the patients and not as commercial agents pursuing their own interests. Well, I am interested in those kinds of deeper layers within the institutional framework, and how that works and how it changes over time. Yes. Huh, so I think that in the sociological definition of institutions, what was just mentioned are actually institutions too, right? That doesn't have to be an organization, you know. Language is an institution too, by the way, isn't it? So I think we look more broadly under the hood than just, you know, organizations that are official or whatever. Okay, we can keep going for a bit longer. Um yes, it is you, you make the choice. Question for you, Ton. Um, one of the tiles you had indicating the need for improvement was social cohesion in the city and neighborhoods: strengthening the collective and caring for each other. And you also see that a bit in the national trend, increasingly towards communities. People need to start doing it themselves again. Yes. Um, how do you see that improvement, or what is needed for that? Yes, look, there are of course two perspectives: on the one hand, if the old systems—if that is the idea—fail, well, then the citizen just has to come up with something themselves. Or, um, the other angle is that you also try to develop things that are closer to people. That is more of a positive development. And what you see, for example, um, I also have a student who is now uh studying uh that. Um, that is the rise of precautionary circles, right? So people looking after each other in the neighborhood, not just taking them to the hospital. They do n't perform medical procedures, but that is growing now, you know. The entire Varen Beek area has that too, for example, and a lot of cities have it now. So you do see that sometimes people would rather have that, right, than be hospitalized immediately . Not that you can completely eliminate that. So it's two sides, right? On the one hand, because public services can no longer handle everything, also due to budget cuts and staff shortages. On the other hand, there are also developments in which people do take the initiative themselves. You could say that last part is positive, isn't it? Then you do get all sorts of issues, you know, like, yeah, uh, suppose with that precautionary circle you drop someone and uh, liability and things like that are involved. But it is a very interesting development that you see that as well. Um, and that also has to do with that long life, so that, you know, Amsterdam is building long-life bikes now and things like that. In Kopaha, that is very normal. Every neighborhood simply has a house where you can continue living in your own neighborhood, right? But we have to come from further. So we are already organizing that. So in general, I think positively. But if it is simply, well, what was just said, that the institutions can no longer deliver, then it is a different situation. Well , I think this will be the last question . Yes, I have a question for uh Paul Vergeest. Paul, just your last question. Um, it is uh, I agree with him that uh, people's perception uh is also a determining factor in how they understand broad prosperity. Uh, that is, uh, so you can't formulate an objective criterion for broad prosperity. Um, now people are afraid that, for example, the far right in the Netherlands interprets broad prosperity very differently than we do here in this room, right? So, uh, it could very well be that Extreme Rex—and I hope they don't get an absolute majority in the Netherlands— uh, that he uh, that broad prosperity increases there as a result, with asylum seekers out, CO2 policy, uh, abolishing, and so on. What do you think about it? Yes, that is a good point. Look, um the bottom line is uh how you feel about it, right? So a question that is as old as the history of mankind from Quit Homo. What is man? Um, the most basic answer is that everyone is equal, has the same intrinsic dignity. And now I'm taking a very big step. Suppose I start labeling someone as a snob or a Tilburger or uh uh well, name whatever kind of jerk then, uh, I am detracting from that fundamental insight that we are all equal . I often do an exercise on the train . That works against me, because I am a train traveler, you know. Then then um, there sits someone across from me who you can immediately label. Civil servant, city professor. Um, you label, you label, you also sometimes just label, right? Oh, uh, uh, not a taxpayer. With that, you are, um, actually doing injustice once again to that basic disposition of, "Yeah, but just look what would happen if I hadn't labeled you—that's what binds us, right?" God binds us. The person sitting opposite me on the train is that we both have worries about a sick child or something, or uh, we both have to figure out how we, uh, somehow get the, yeah, the, uh, uh, our household budget in order, or whatever. And um yeah, that is. But I'll stop now, because otherwise I'll just be in serious trouble in a minute. Yes , I knew that. Yes. No, but no, but um uh the core is that you uh when you uh meet the people you come across , you know, whether you wish to meet them or not, yes, in one way or another you still get the furthest—that is Augustine uh purely looking at what binds instead of what shits. So, avoidant labeling. City Professor, I think this is a very beautiful conclusion. Uh, Paul is going back to practicing those personal views on the train. Soon . Um, thanks for coming . Um yes, we really enjoyed bringing that in from a historical perspective .