Liberal Dreams and Deliberations

LIBERAL DREAMS AND DELIBERATIONS - 24 views of liberalism in the 21st century

LIBERAL DREAMS AND DELIBERATIONS

- 24 views of liberalism in the 21st century 1st edition, 1st print, January 2022.

The copyright of each contribution belongs to the author. Photographic, mechanical, digital or other forms of copying and reproduction are only permitted in agreement with the author. Exceptions are short excerpts for reviews.

Presentation and editing : Henrik Bach Mortensen, Vice President of ALDE

ISBN : 978-87-7519-020-1 Released by : Venstre’s National Organisation Søllerødvej 30 DK-2840 Holte Telephone: +45 45 80 22 33 venstre@venstre.dk www.venstre.dk Published with the support of ALDE, The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe With the support of the ALDE Party and the European Parliament. The sole liability rests with the author; the European Parliament is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

With the support of the European Parliament

LIBERAL DREAMS AND DELIBERATIONS - 24 views of liberalism in the 21st century

CONTENTS Preface: Set the liberal debate free! Jakob Ellemann-Jensen ............... 4 1.

Liberal dreams and discussions: Henrik Bach Mortensen ...................... 9

2.

Freedom is liberal: Marie Bjerre..................................................... 17

3.

The social contract, the liberal and Venstre party: Mads Fuglede .......... 29

4.

The illiberals: Henrik Bach Mortensen .......................................... 37

5.

The liberal social order: Adam Smith - an inspiration for all liberals: Mia Amalie Holstein ........... 47

6.

Liberalism and faith: Carl Holst ................................................. 59

7.

What is science? Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen .................................... 67

8.

Liberal economic policy: Mads Lundby Hansen and Henrik Bach Mortensen .......................... 79

9.

Liberals, freedom and inequality: Henrik Bach Mortensen ................... 93

10.

Liberal cultural policy: Jan E. Jørgensen ....................................... 103

11.

Liberalism and legal certainty in 2022: Preben Bang Henriksen .......................................................... 113

12.

To tax or not? Louise Schack Elholm and Torsten Schack Petersen ........ 123

13.

The climate needs liberal solutions: Linea Søgaard-Lidell .................. 133

14.

Sustainability, agriculture and Denmark in balance: Iben Krog ............ 143

15.

Liberal health policy: from treatment to prevention: Martin Geertsen ............................. 151

16.

The liberal municipality: Trust the citizens: Christoffer Aagaard Melson ...................................................... 161

17.

The winning school: Christoffer Lilleholt .........................................171

18.

The 5 principles of liberal youth policy: Maria Ladegaard Slot ............. 181

19.

Liberal old age: Jane Heitmann ................................................ 187

20.

A liberal immigration policy starts with Grundtvig: Morten Dahlin ........ 197

21.

The EU - a project for liberals: Kim Valentin ....................................207

22.

Liberal development policy: Karen Ellemann and Bo Manderup Jensen... 217

23.

A liberal world order: Jens-Kristian Lütken ......................................227

24.

The Liberal Kingdom of Denmark Aqqalu C. Jerimiassen, Bárður á Steig Nielsen and Bertel Haarder ........ 237 3

SET THE LIBERAL DEBATE FREE!

By Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, Chairman of Venstre

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When I became Chairman of Venstre (The Liberal Party of Denmark) in the autumn of 2019, I promised myself a number of things.

One of them was that I would strive to revive the internal debate culture in Venstre.

Yes, there has always been room for differences when we in the party have discussed everything from the healthcare service to school policy, from taxes and financial responsibility to free choice and municipal and regional structure.

However, the fundamental debate about liberalism, about the liberal and about being a liberal in modern times has to some extent receded into the background. The number of debate books about being liberal has not been overwhelming in recent years. The same goes for columns and debates that, based on our ideological stance, have pushed the boundaries of what one can and will do with liberalism as a starting point.

Now you may be thinking - well, there were the ten theses from some forwardthinking Venstre members years ago.

Yes, there was. But with all due respect to individual biographies, good policy development and skilfully and well-crafted policy briefs, there is little beyond the theses that have seriously nudged the debate on what it is we want, and what is possible when we put our ideology first.

There is nothing wrong with that in principle, and the explanation is the logical one that Venstre has spent 14 years in government since 2001. At the same time, we have held dozens of mayorships, county mayorships and region chairmanships, from which we have had the opportunity to get our ideas on the development of Denmark realised, implemented and brought to life for the country’s benefit and for all of us who live here.

When the authors of the theses published their ideas, it caused a heated discussion. I was not active in politics myself at the time, but I remember it quite clearly. Advocates and opponents interpreted the theses. Scare stories were told and it was warned that if the authors got their way Denmark would be transformed so that the rich got richer and those who could not fend for themselves would end up in the gutter without help from society.

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Looking at the theses today, many of them have become a reality.

Fortunately, the scare stories, however, did not become a reality. Of course, Venstre did something about the public monopoly on the healthcare service for the benefit of patients who do not have to be stuck on long waiting lists because more can be treated and have an alternative with a private provider. We have lowered taxes - there is certainly room for more - but the direction has been right. Not because you should not contribute to the community, but because it should always pay to work, and there should be a balance that ensures just that.

And so it could go on. The point is that the ideas put forward by the authors generated a debate and eventually became a direction that could be realised.

I have initiated this book because I hope that it will help create a debate about where Denmark is going if the liberal compass sets the course.

What does it mean to be a liberal in the 21st century? What does it mean to be liberal, and what does it mean for the way we tackle climate challenges, immigration, economic policy and more? Evil tongues will claim that liberalism is all about profit and that when we talk about freedom, it is only about financial freedom. And that when it comes to social responsibility, community and responsibility for the weakest in society, you will be unwanted if the liberals have their way.

Of course, it’s not like that. Liberalism is not the same as selfishness. And the liberals I know are not selfish and that is not how I read liberal history.

That is not how I see myself either, and I do see myself as a liberal.

Yes, we believe in putting the individual before the system because we believe that the individual is best placed to decide what is most right in one’s own life. If you want to make a lot of money (or lose it) by trading securities - go for it. If you are passionate about giving our children the academic skills to navigate the world, then you should be a teacher. If you want to secure the climate for the next generation, then that is the battle you must fight. However, the closest person to judge what is right for you is and will always be - you.

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The community’s task is to make opportunities available and to support those who fall by the wayside because of a misfortune of some kind. That is the responsibility that comes with freedom. This does not change the fact that we believe in diversity, in freedom and that it is the task of the state to create as many opportunities for the individual as possible so that individuals can choose what suits them best and the ambitions they may have for themselves or their life.

Hopefully, this book can help shed some light on what good, solid, liberal people think and believe. Hopefully, it can kick-start a debate about the paths we can take on some of the big political issues of our time. And hopefully, there is something in this book that will make some people turn their noses up and say - that’s really not possible.

I have no prior knowledge about the contents of this book. It has been a specific requirement on my part that I have not been part of the creation neither in the choice of authors, topics nor contents. I know the editor, I have given him a free hand, and I both expect and hope for the best.

Why? Because it’s liberal. Because the debate must be set free, and because I also want the right to say I agree or strongly disagree. I want to have the right to take part in the debate that I hope this book can create, and I do not want to be the one to put the brakes on such a debate in advance.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Henrik Bach Mortensen for coming up with the idea for the book and for taking on the task of acting as editor. I know he has invested time and effort in it. Thank you also to ALDE for supporting the project and so helping to kick-start the liberal debate again.

I hope you enjoy the book and the debate!

Jakob Ellemann-Jensen Chairman of Venstre

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LIBERAL DREAMS AND DELIBERATIONS

By Henrik Bach Mortensen, Vice-President ALDE, member of Venstre Youth/Venstre since 1972, MSc in Economics, University of Copenhagen, and M.Phil in Economics, University of Cambridge

Venstre has been a central player in Danish politics for a long time. In 2020, in the shadow of the Covid pandemic, Venstre could celebrate its first 150 years as a political party. However, the ideas that underpin Venstre and liberals are based on ideas that go back even further in time and are also relevant to current political considerations in 2022.

Venstre has always been aware of its affiliation to a tradition rooted in liberalism in the broad sense, in Danish history in science and in ideas and commitments linked to our country, history and society.

Venstre has always professed a belief in the individual, in individual freedom and in economic activity. Venstre wants a society with a state that supports freedom for citizens and active interaction between people and nature. Venstre has also always been internationally oriented in its contributions to building Danish society.

Valuable starting points such as these, combined with a practical pragmatic approach, remain the foundation of thinking about the individual and society. It is not a totalitarian ideology with indubitable answers to everything but a set of ideas and a vision of humanity that guides thinking in directions that practical politics makes possible and that meets the challenges of the changing reality.

Venstre and Venstre’s members have always been very attentive to Venstre’s starting points. There has been a strong desire for ideological anchoring and development. There is no “authoritative text” that explains the liberal starting points of Venstre. However, in my view, Venstre’s former leader, Henning Christophersen, sums up some excellent ideas in his 1972 debate book “A Challenge for the Liberals”: “Liberalism took its starting point from three different places. In the Christian view of man, in the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic tradition of freedom and in man’s romantic view. From the hand of God and nature, man was a free, self-determining and responsible being, for better or for worse. Given the freedom to develop the bonds of feudal society would be loosened, and if one were made responsible for one’s own actions, one would develop one’s best qualities to the benefit of oneself and society. However, dangerous urges were also hidden in man that even the best external conditions would not be able to subdue at any time. Therefore, the emancipation of the individual had to be accompanied by a change in the structure that could, so to speak, balance the opportunity for expression of each individual.”

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Henning Christophersen stresses that liberalism is not just about material values. Fundamentally, liberalism’s desire for economic and political fulfilment is “in its deepest sense merely a tool for man’s spiritual emancipation”. Henning Christophersen quotes Grundtvig: “Man is no monkey, destined first to imitate the other animals, and then himself to the end of the world. He is a magical, subtle creature in whom divine forces must manifest, evolve and cope through a thousand generations, as a divine experiment showing how spirit and dust can interpenetrate and be explained in a common divine consciousness.”

In the years following “A Challenge for the Liberals”, many liberalists have contributed to the ideological discussion of the liberal starting point.

Examples include Bertel Haarder, Peter Brixtofte, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Svend Erik Hovmand, Kristian Jensen, Hanne Severinsen and Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Both the so-called four-leaf government of 1982 and governments since the turn of the millennium have drawn effectively and usefully on Venstre’s political tradition. However, decades of practical political work have also created a need to take stock and to build on earlier liberal reflections. There is no doubt that practical politics reduces the accumulated political philosophical capital, and it can be difficult both to deal with concrete issues and to keep the more abstract and long-term, even perhaps universal fixed points in focus.

Personally, at the start of the 2020s, I saw that Venstre had to spend effort and attention on several negative agendas - on phenomena, ideas and developments to which Venstre was vehemently opposed. This meant less attention on positive and development-oriented agendas and projects that Venstre would work to promote.

The situation is fundamentally uncomfortable for liberals. I myself became a member of Venstre Youth and Venstre because I was fired up by the desire to improve life for myself and others and, somewhat loftily, to help create a better world. It is my experience that liberal, then and now, are primarily concerned with how we can best engage with our surroundings in the future.

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Dreams and deliberations To be liberal is also to have “dreams”. Not dreaming that the world will look a certain way in a few years, but dreams of unleashing human freedom, creativity, ambition and love of life. Because then we, as liberals, believe that the world will be the best possible. Precisely because we want the future to be created by the free choices of millions of people, not by an ideological model for the world and life.

That is the starting point for this book. It contains contributions from some liberal-minded individuals who would like to make an effort to “update” the liberal political starting point. Therefore, the book cannot be seen as a specific or precise political programme.

Both the so-called four-leaf government of 1982 and governments since the turn of the millennium have drawn effectively and usefully on Venstre’s political tradition.

Henrik Bach Mortensen

The book stems from a desire and is an attempt to open liberal discussions in the true sense of the word. It could be formulated as: “Let’s address some important current issues and deal with them with our liberal dreams and starting points and so come up with relevant current liberal views”. It is the same approach that many of us have experienced at liberal summer high schools or at debate meetings in our local party organisation, where committed speakers have presented knowledge and points of view that we have collectively subjected to political discussion.

All authors in this book are responsible for their own contributions. No attempt has been made to ensure complete consistency between the various contributions, but this has also created an even better basis for further discussion.

I would like to thank around 50 liberal-minded people, including MPs, organisational people and people on the fringes of Venstre, for the interesting conversations in the preparation of this book. The choice of themes and contributors has been a natural outcome of these conversations.

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Venstre needs to think and act on many levels as a political party. There are pressing political issues to be dealt with by Venstre’s representatives in the Danish Parliament, regional councils, municipal councils and the European Parliament. There are the plans of the parliamentary group and initiatives for the coming period. There are the political programmes of Venstre’s local party organisation. There are Venstre’s medium-term strategies with prioritisation of political views and tactics in the medium term. And there is the programme of principles, which is revised at long intervals. The discussions in this book will hopefully be useful as a basis for all these reflections and activities.

Practical politics One often moves very far from one’s political starting points in practical politics. Today’s challenges often must be dealt with in contexts where liberalists have to enter into negotiations and deliberations with politicians who have wholly or partly different basic attitudes. It has always been possible for liberals. People with very different starting points can tackle a given issue in consensus. What matters for Venstre (and its partners) is whether the desired connection can be seen between a specific decision and a basic position.

There are numerous examples of collaboration across different starting points. Personally, I have worked closely in local politics with councillors from the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten) when legal and civic principles were at stake - even if we disagreed on the council tax. Similarly, Venstre and the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) have been able to collaborate on economic policy despite disagreements over the EU. Practical politics also require dealing with dilemmas that can be avoided in discussions of “pure” political issues. Here, one can either rigidly adhere to clear ideological rejection of the challenges of reality. Or, with your principles in mind, you can engage in difficult trade-offs between fundamental ideas and specific issues.

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Venstre has often shown willingness to compromise between liberal principles and harsh realities. Even if it has been difficult, and even if it may have led to criticism. It’s about being ready to take responsibility, and Venstre has always been ready for that.

This applies to local municipal councils, regional councils, the Danish Parliament, the European Parliament and other international relations. Hopefully, this book’s “liberal dreams and deliberations” can inspire liberals who have to deal with the challenges of reality.

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FREEDOM IS LIBERAL

By Marie Bjerre, lawyer, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), and climate spokesperson

As we know it, the value of freedom depends on using the concept correctly because if the left can succeed in pursuing distributive politics and increased state control under the heading of “freedom”, freedom and so the rule of law itself could be undermined, and then we as liberals have not been good enough at protecting the concept of freedom.

The problem is that the concept of freedom has increasingly become a political commodity, but with very different meanings depending on the political observance. This risks setting in motion a movement in which citizens’ rights to freedom are curtailed rather than expanded and in which the development of our right to make more choices for ourselves risks being reversed. Therefore, there is a need to define where the dividing lines are and what the liberal concept of freedom means.

The original meaning of freedom The West’s social, cultural, and economic progress has been built on the foundation of freedom for its citizens1. Through the Age of Enlightenment and the rebellion against royal power and church privilege, “freedom” became a fundamental western value in the constitutions of all countries and a fundamental element of basic human rights. Perhaps it is precisely because it is a fundamentally positive concept that freedom today has become an ambiguous concept that is widely used, and not least abused, politically.

So, let’s start by defining freedom. It’s not an easy task. If you look up the word, you will see that freedom comes from the Middle Low German ‘Vriheit’, which is related to the word ‘peace’, as well as German ‘freund’ and English ‘friend’. The word originally denoted a particular community that protects against threats or interference from others2. Thus, there is both something individually oriented in the concept and, at the same time, an orientation towards a community.

That freedom is related to peace and protection from harm also fits well, in a way, with the traditional understanding of freedom. One of the earliest known philosophers of natural law is Englishman Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). In his most famous work, Liviathan (1651), he referred to freedom as the absence of external constraints. Moreover, Hobbes is considered the founder of the individual’s natural rights. Hobbes believed that the state must be understood in terms of the individual as a human construct whose legitimacy 1 2

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Lars Tvede (2016). The goose with the golden egg. The surprising story of what it means to be liberal.

Copenhagen: Gyldendal.

Tamm, Ditlev: Freedom from https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/frihed (in Danish)

is based on a self-binding contract between free and rational individuals 3.

Community and freedom must therefore be understood in terms of the individual.

The later English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) is often considered to be the true founder of a theory of political freedom4. According to his Two Treaties of Government (1690), Locke believed that the state should provide effective protection for life, liberty and property. The sole purpose of the state was thus to protect fundamental human rights against abuses5. Locke’s political philosophy was of great importance for later liberal theories, and Locke is therefore believed to be the founder of liberalism. In Latin, freedom is even contrasted with the word ‘liber’. In other words, liberalism means freedom6, which makes sense since freedom as a concept is central to liberalism.

During the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, Locke’s liberal ideas were further developed by Frenchman Montesquieu (1689-1755), who formulated principles on the tripartition of power to ensure individual freedom 7, and by Scotsman Adam Smith (1723-1790), whose theory was that free trade and free competition would lead to prosperity for society as a whole 8.

These liberal ideas represented a significant breakthrough and introduced basic freedoms. Basic freedoms, which today constitute fundamental components of all democratic constitutions. Freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of food, freedom of movement, privacy and religion were introduced.

Thus, the liberal concept of freedom also became a fundamental and defining value for all democratic societies.

The discussion of these individual freedoms and the role of the state as protector, and not least the right of the state to restrict them, is important for the understanding of freedom. Central to this discussion is British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). In On Liberty (1859), Mill makes a fundamental distinction between actions that affect only oneself and those that affect others. Mill believed that society could only act on what affected both oneself and others. Mill wanted 3 4 5 6 7 8

Mikael Jalving’s essay on Hobbes in Henrik Gade Jensen’s (ed. [2008]) 13 freedom thinkers.

Mack, Eric: The Essential John Locke https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/essentialjohn-locke.pdf Tamm, Ditlev: Freedom retrieved from https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/frihed (in Danish) Tamm, Ditlev: Freedom retrieved from https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/frihed (in Danish) Pedersen, John: Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu retrieved from https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/ Charles-Louis_de_Secondat_Montesquieu (link doesn’t work) Koch, Carl. H. & Estrup, Hector: Adam Smith retrieved from https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Adam_Smith (in Danish)

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to enable people to choose for themselves. Individuals must have the right to organise their lives as they see fit - the freedom to act as they see fit, provided that we accept the possible consequences and as long as we know that our actions do no harm our fellow human beings. This understanding of freedom as something about protecting the individual from coercion and abuse was later described by the recent British philosopher Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) as negative freedom.

However, Mill also founded the liberal tradition of positive liberty 9 with his struggle for the self-driven development of the individual. Berlin has emphasised the difference between the positive freedom to fulfil one’s potential and the negative freedom of the absence of interference from others. The concepts of positive liberty and negative liberty are two legal philosophical concepts. If we are to understand the classical liberal concept of freedom, this distinction is crucial.

According to Berlin’s Two concepts of liberty, the terms ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ should not be understood as good and bad but rather as objective designations of two types of freedom. Negative freedom is the right to be free from coercive state interference and is the freedom one has without interference from others. It implies setting limits for politics and the state. The Danish Constitution’s freedoms are typically negative because they protect citizens against abuse by the state or others. For example, the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of faith, see Section 70 of the Constitution, the right to express oneself without censorship and other preventive measures, see Section 77 of the Constitution, and the right to assemble without prior authorisation, see Section 79 of the Constitution.

On the other hand, positive freedom is a freedom that requires something from others (for example, the right to public benefits, housing, food and education) and is intended to empower the individual. There are also examples of such positive freedoms in the Constitution. For example, see Section 75 of the Constitution for the right to public assistance.

To understand freedom, it is relevant to understand these two sides of the concept of freedom. In political terms, liberals emphasise negative freedom, while socialists focus on positive freedom. For example, liberals believe that quotas for women on boards violate the freedom of business owners to choose their own board, while socialists would argue that quotas for women give women the freedom to become board members.

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Schapiro, J. Salwyn: Pioneer of Democratic Liberalism in England https:// www.jstor.org/ stable/2707321

According to Isaiah Berlin, the desire for more positive freedom - that which the individual claims from others or the community - can lead to the dilution of negative freedom. The more the individual or the community must give away in the name of positive freedom, for example, in the form of higher taxes to finance welfare services, the more negative freedom will be curtailed. In this sense, arguing for more positive freedom - an argument that smacks of emancipation on the surface - can actually lead to oppression of the individual. Simply because negative freedom is withering away. It is precisely for this reason that it is problematic when the concept of freedom is hijacked and misused. Therefore, in the following, I will unfold the concept of freedom with specific examples so that we are clear about when there is negative freedom and the concept of freedom is thus abused.

Equality does not give freedom The left increasingly justifies its policies in terms of freedom, and recently we have heard social-democratic ideologues talk about the struggle for real freedom rather than formal freedom, about security giving freedom, and about greater freedom for some giving greater freedom for others10. For example, the Social Democratic Minister of Justice Nick Hækkerup has argued that the freedom of the strong comes at the expense of the weak. Therefore, it may be necessary to curtail some of the freedom of the well-off to ensure that everyone is free 11.

To understand the left’s concept of freedom, it is first essential to understand the starting point. The left’s concept of freedom is based on equality, which is a quite different basis than the classical understanding of freedom as the absence of coercion, see above.

When the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten) talks about freedom, it is about the community setting people free. Free from oppression, poverty and fear of economic hardship12. The Social Democrats have the same understanding of freedom. For example, the Social Democratic Party writes in its manifesto that community institutions are the foundation of the equality that guarantees freedom for most people, regardless of their background 13. According to the left, equality is the guarantee of freedom.

10 11 12 13

Interview with Kaare Dybvad in the national daily newspaper, Berlingske, 12 July 2021.

Interview with Nick Hækkerup: “One of the ways to provide security is surveillance” in the national daily newspaper, Politiken, 17 May 2021.

The Red-Green Alliance’s manifesto. Adopted at the Red-Green Alliance’s 25th Annual Meeting 2014.

The Social Democratic Party’s manifesto Common for Denmark. Adopted at the Social Democratic Congress 2017.

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The notion that freedom is something one can give to others is the positive understanding of freedom, see Isaiah Berlin above. It is important to stress that, from a liberal point of view, there is nothing wrong with the positive understanding of the concept of freedom. On the contrary, positive and negative freedom are not mutually exclusive but complementary and often mutually dependent.

The liberal concept of freedom emerged from the bourgeoisie’s revolt against absolutism, where enterprise was to be rewarded instead of, as had been the case up until then, privileges being dependent on being born into a particular class, for example, the nobility. So, it was about everyone having opportunities.

So, just because liberals are supporters of negative freedom, it does not mean that liberals are opposed to positive freedom - of opportunity. On the contrary, there are good liberal arguments for taxpayer-funded schooling, health care and public unemployment benefits. In some cases, it can actually be said that these public offers - these opportunities - help to give the negative freedom its content. For example, negative freedom - the right to fulfil one’s potential without being restricted - supported by the positive freedom. If you have learned to read, spell, write and do arithmetic through taxpayer-funded schooling (see positive freedom), you can make much greater use of, for instance, one’s freedom of expression (see negative freedom).

Freedom has thus become a zero-sum game.

As if there is not enough freedom for everyone.

Marie Bjerre The problem is that excessive belief in positive freedoms leads to the restriction of the freedom of others (negative freedom) and, thus, to the erosion of freedom and the fundamental principles of constitutional state law. When equality is used to justify freedom, a side is chosen against negative freedom, and then erosion of freedoms occurs. It gives legitimacy to surveillance, regulation, redistribution and repression in the name of freedom. In the extreme, this means that more regulation of the individual means more freedom.

Therefore, equality is a very dangerous marker of freedom. It makes freedom mean something completely different and changes the relationship between citizen and state, where the state increasingly imposes a certain way of life.

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Social Democratic Minister of Justice Nick Hækkerup has stated that the most important thing for the Social Democratic Party is to have real freedom. Real freedom here is to be understood as Isaiah Berlin’s definition of positive freedom. In the same vein, Hækkerup has argued that real (positive) freedom requires regulation and interference, that security gives freedom, and that formal (negative) freedom is not sufficient14. With Hækkerup’s views, a contrast is set up between real (positive) freedom and formal (negative) freedom, and he thereby turns negative freedom into a kind of content-based principal protection “this thing about there being nothing that binds me to do anything - that is the bourgeois ideal of freedom.”15 This is a substantial abuse of the concept of freedom.

Another clear example of the left’s misuse of the concept of freedom is Social Democratic Minister of the Interior and Housing Kaare Dybvad’s statement that “freedom for some gives freedom to others”16. One must understand here that if you are resourceful, you have freedom. Dybvad argues in the same way as Hækkerup, exclusively from positive freedom and does not attach importance to negative freedom. Here it becomes clear that the excessive use of the positive concept of freedom has led to an indifference to the negative concept of freedom. It is even stated quite openly that more freedom for some is necessary and that “the free choice of the individual has meant that others are disadvantaged”. Freedom has thus become a zero-sum game. As if there is not enough freedom for everyone. Freedom has been turned into a question of resources, and the struggle to create more freedom is thus, in reality, a struggle to create more equality because it is equality that is sought, not the absence of coercion (negative freedom).

However, it is wrong to measure freedom only regarding resources, wealth and social conditions. A Saudi princess may be wealthy, but she is not free. Just as the same can be said of security. The bird in the cage may be safe, but it’s not free.

There is reason to be deeply suspicious of this misuse of the concept of freedom to create more equality and security. As one of the co-signers of the American Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) said: 14 15 16

Security and freedom are inextricably linked by Nick Hækkerup, published in the national daily newspaper, Politiken, on 21 August 2021.

Interview with Nick Hækkerup: “One of the ways to provide security is surveillance” in Politiken, 17 May 2021.

Interview with Kaare Dybvad in the national daily newspaper, Berlingske, 12 July 2021.

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“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”.

The point is that when you do not have an eye for freedom (the negative freedom) and are willing to put it aside in order to gain, for example, security, you lose both.

Unfortunately, the left is willing to interfere with negative freedom precisely in order to create more equality and security, which is even done under the guise of wanting to create more freedom. This is particularly dangerous because it does not recognise that there is an infringement of freedom. In some cases, the infringement of freedom is even denied. Take, for example, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who said on the floor of the Danish Parliament during the Covid crisis: “I simply do not feel that it is an infringement of my personal freedom that I have to use face masks in my daily life if it can protect weak citizens.”17 Orders to use face masks are unquestionably an infringement of personal freedom.

Such interference may be justified and acceptable, but the problem is that when the interference is denied, there is no need to argue the necessity of the interference, and then the infringement of citizens’ freedoms occurs.

Freedom requires the freedom to take responsibility Now I have explained the original meaning of freedom - why freedom is liberal and given examples of when the concept is abused. However, if we as liberals are to uphold the concept of freedom, we must also clearly understand the dividing lines.

Based on the historical understanding of freedom as the absence of coercion, the liberal concept of freedom relies on the human capacity to act rationally (to take responsibility) and on the belief that the good life comes from using our potential and benefiting from our own efforts. The liberal concept of freedom thus implies that responsibility for the good life should not be left to others.

The best society, by the way, is one where citizens take responsibility for their own lives, rather than leaving it to detailed government regulation. And a crucial condition for citizens to take responsibility is that they have the freedom to do so. Without freedom, the West would not be the equal, free and prosperous society we know today18. A civic concept of freedom must therefore be about strengthening the incentive and diligence of the individual. Similarly,

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Extended party leaders’ debate in Parliament on 13 April 2021.

Niall Ferguson (2011). Civilisation: The West and the Rest. London: Allen Lane.

John Stuart Mill justified freedom on the idea that freedom should ensure the human capacity for spontaneity, originality and independent thought19. If these characteristics are violated, freedom is not present.

The Social Democrats, on the other hand, believe that it is the state that must ensure a safe environment for the individual. This means that fewer people take responsibility, and thus freedom is denied. Therefore, it is precisely at the point of responsibility that the decisive distinction is made between when freedom is used and abused. There is a crucial distinction between those who believe that freedom is secured by the individual taking responsibility for their own lives and those who believe that freedom is guaranteed by the state increasing equality and thus taking responsibility for the individual.

It is precisely this dividing line that is essential to understand if we are to uphold the concept of liberal freedom, and it is this dividing line that I will try to give some concrete and contemporary examples so that it is clear what the liberal concept of freedom is about and what the liberal response is instead to the challenges of society.

One concrete example is the proposal by Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil (S), Minister of Children and Education, to cap self-payments for study trips 20. The social democratic proposal aims to ensure real freedom (positive freedom) by ensuring that everyone can afford to go on a study trip. However, the problem is that this hampers students’ ability to realise their potential, plan the study trip of their dreams and take responsibility for funding. A liberal solution would instead be to provide subsidies to those who cannot afford them so that they are given the opportunity to participate (positive freedom) rather than collectively inhibiting responsibility for their own freedom and opportunities.

Another example is the Green Left Party’s (SF) education spokesman Jacob Mark, who proposed introducing a grade cap on higher education and supplementing admission with an entrance exam21. According to Mark, the grades on the upper secondary school leaving certificate should no longer determine which university course you can be admitted to. The logic is outrageous to a liberal: ‘It-doesn’t-matter-being-diligent-and-getting-highgrades! You-will-do-well-anyway’. Such an approach does not encourage upper secondary school students to perform at their best, and that takes responsibility away from the individual.

19 20 21

John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism 1863, Batoche Books Kitchener 2001: 32.

Press release from the Ministry of Children and Education, 8 January 2020: “The government will put an end to expensive study trips”.

“The Left Green will put a cap on studies,” national daily newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, 1 January 2020.

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The problem arises when individual responsibility has to be replaced by political solutions and a strong state that knows better because it will make the individual less responsible for their own life, and the relationship between the citizen and state will change. The state will become the guarantor of freedom through regulation and interference, and the state’s know-it-all solutions will replace the individual’s freedom.

In such cases, we best protect the concept of freedom by asking whether the proposed policy encourages more people to take responsibility or whether the state takes over responsibility. If it is the latter, it does not give more freedom, and on the contrary, it restricts citizens’ freedoms. A development that we as liberals must not accept.

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THE SOCIAL CONTRACT, THE LIBERAL AND VENSTRE

By Mads Fuglede, Member of the Danish Parliament (V)

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The Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954) tells the story of the fate of a group of English schoolboys on a desert island in the Pacific. War has broken out, so an attempt is made to evacuate the schoolboys, but the plane they are on is shot down over a small island. When everyone comes to, it turns out that none of the adults on the plane survived. The absence of adults means that the boys first enjoy their freedom by lazing in the sun or playing in the waves, but a group of the older boys try to create some semblance of social order in the group and try to get them to focus on a series of tasks, all aimed at helping the entire group. They agree to send an expedition to explore the island they have landed on. Another group must keep a large bonfire burning for passing ships to see so they can be rescued. This group will also build shelters for them all, so they have somewhere to sleep. Lastly, there is a group that must go hunting in an attempt to find food for them all.

Without having to go through a plot that is probably familiar to many, the boys attempt to create a social order based on rational choices ends with the group collapsing into anarchy and violence. The group soon ceases to be rational, and urges constantly tempt them that they cannot control. The hunters are filled with a bloodlust frenzy. The youngest boys start to believe that they are not alone on the island but that they share it with a monster, etc. Finally, when the group of boys is about to kill one of their friends on the beach, they are only prevented from doing so by the appearance of an adult who comes to their rescue. The adult saves them from two things, which of course, is the moral of the whole story. On the one hand, the boys are saved from the island’s isolation, but more importantly, the boys are saved from themselves and the chaos they have sunk into.

The idea of what humans do if there is no natural social order to provide structure in our lives is very old.

As an important thought experiment, the thinkers who created the ideological trajectory in which both liberalism and conservatism moved imagined the social order that would naturally emerge and the social contract in which man has the most interest to enter. Venstre has not always called itself a liberal party, but it is clear that the debate about the most optimal social order and the fairest social contract is not only as old as the Venstre party but also shaped the debates in the parties and movements that came before the party we are today.

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Hobbes and Locke After antiquity, the first political philosopher to deal with the social contract is the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Hobbes had a view of man very similar to that presented much later by William Golding in Lord of the Flies. Man, according to Hobbes, is selfish, vain and incapable of accepting that others can teach him anything. When we meet others who are clearly more intelligent than us, we will refuse to listen because our nature prevents us from doing so. If man is not placed in a social order - a society - with well-defined rules, then our nature will lead us to make life intolerable for each other. Hobbes’ view of man leads him to believe that the social contract with which man is best served is one in which there is a strong man - a sovereign - a monarch who can rein in man’s self-destructive sides. In other words, Hobbes believes that man’s most fundamental political need is a government or ruler to protect us from our own evil. You could say that the horizon for Hobbes is that man can walk down the street without being attacked by others.

By contrast, when the liberal movements began - first in the United States, then in France, England and what was to become Germany - they were characterised by an entirely different view of the nature of man and the optimal social contract than that described by Thomas Hobbes.

The political philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) was strongly inspired by Hobbes. However, while Hobbes’ ideas were especially characterised by conservatism, Locke was especially important to the liberals of this world. Locke had a very different view of man than Hobbes, leading him in another political direction.

Man, according to Locke, is essentially rational. According to Locke, if a group of boys lands on a desert island in the Pacific, they will create a social order based on rational choices. They will elect a government that is tasked with addressing the needs they identify as a group. And if the government you have elected is not up to the task, you will elect a new one. According to Locke, staying with the worldview of Lord of the Flies, when the adults find the boys on the island, they won’t find chaos, violence and murder but a well-ordered mini-society that solves tasks rationally.

When the American War of Independence (1775-1783) led to the expulsion of the English monarch, Locke’s ideas played a crucial role. For the first time in the history of the world, philosophical speculation about the organisation of society became decisive for the form of government and the social contract that was entered into. The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas 31

Jefferson in 1776, marked the belief that man could live and exist in a society in which they elected representatives from among their peers who would, for a time, be given the power to make laws and enforce them for the good of all.

It is essential to understand that the liberal social contract thinking exemplified by Locke and the early United States is tied to the time in which it was developed. Locke and Jefferson were from a time when women, the poor, and people of colour were not included in the group from which representatives were elected. However, that does not change the fact that it is the very source of being liberal - even today.

And although Venstre only began to openly identify itself as liberal when it had become a very mature party, the notion of the social contract was crucial to the party’s self-understanding. To understand the national liberal Orla Lehmann’s struggle to free the people and the nation from an absolute monarchy with a free constitution, it is essential to understand Lehmann’s belief in a rational people.

The government one elects must have its power contained and must operate with the purpose of protecting our liberal rights to speak, think and believe as we please to the greatest extent possible.

Mads Fuglede

In 1841, Orla Lehmann gave his famous Falster Speech, in which he argued that the interests of the people should not be tied to the goodwill of the King. Lehmann spoke mainly of the interests of the peasants, but the essence of his argument is that your rights must be rooted in something other than absolute monarchy. Kings change, Lehmann explained, and so the position of our rights will change. By anchoring our rights in a document - a constitution - we can ensure that the vagaries of absolute monarchy do not challenge the social contract.

This kind of rights thinking is crucial to the emergence of the many liberal movements that later coalesced into the modern Venstre.

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Liberal currents The liberal movements have many sources. For convenience, we can speak of three main liberal currents. One Anglo-Saxon, one French and one German. They all have in common that they seek to overthrow the prevailing feudal order and do away with a society based on privilege.

There must be a democratic revolution starting from the bourgeoisie, which must create a social order in which one elects representatives among one’s peers who will rule for as long as they are elected. The government one elects must have its power contained and must operate with the aim of protecting our liberal rights to speak, think and believe as we please to a large extent. The social contract is established with the aim of guaranteeing the individual against tyranny and giving them equal opportunities in society.

Where the different liberal currents go in various directions is particularly evident when examining the next element of the social contract. What duties must the individual give back to the state, and what is the state? In French and Anglo-Saxon liberalism, liberal rights are seen as universal. The revolution that is underway is, in principle, limitless.

When two of the main architects of the American Revolution (1775-83) Thomas Jefferson and John Adams - finished fighting at home, they immediately left to continue the struggle elsewhere. Human rights should apply to everyone, wherever they may live, are absolutely crucial principles for the way liberals understand the world today.

However, French liberalism soon came to stress other characteristics than Anglo-Saxon. Whereas Anglo-Saxon liberalism remained very idealistic and stressed the importance of creating a state that had the right internal balances, French liberalism ended up stressing the equality aspect also in a materialistic sense.

Americans focused on equal opportunities for all members of the bourgeoisie but were not bothered by the fact that this could lead to great material inequality. Conversely, the French revolutionary thinker Abbed Sieyes argued that the goal was collectivism, division of labour and a very aggressive rebellion against dominant power structures. To use the terminology of this paper, Anglo-Saxon liberalism maintained the view of human beings as rational and creative beings represented by Locke, whereas French liberalism took a more Hobbesian view and wanted to

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make the state so powerful that it could force change in the prevailing political and economic power structures. Another way of explaining the differences is that French liberalism is characterised by class struggle, whereas Anglo-Saxon liberalism is more closely linked to the Age of Enlightenment’s ideals and ideas.

Orla Lehmann, however, went neither to the United States nor to France for inspiration. The liberal mindset Lehmann brought back to Denmark he had found in Berlin. German liberalism (not to be confused with the later ordo-liberalism or the Sonderweg period) stressed the national and historical aspects much more strongly than was seen in France or the United States. When the French and Americans talked about history, it was precisely the history that was done away with. Conversely, in what was to become Germany, community was emphasised as something greater than just liberal ideals of freedom and the social contract. In German liberalism, language, geography, and history play a vital role. The reorientation of society that German liberalism had in mind was as much about creating a nation united around all that had been inherited.

In Danish thinking, we have strong ties to the German during this period.

Although he can by no means be described as a classical liberal, one of the best representatives of this is to be found in Grundtvig, who throughout his life sought to describe the unique Danish national character and spirit.

Orla Lehmann’s national liberal project, and the many liberal movements that emerged in this country, must be seen in this light. When liberalism came to Denmark, it was not only about giving people rights and abolishing absolute monarchy, but it was also about describing what was special about Denmark and the Nordic countries.

Christian Berg It was Christen Berg (1829-91), who, in particular, brought together the many liberal movements in The United Venstre (Det Forenede Venstre). He is the absolute protagonist of Venstre’s past, and it is imperative to understand that Berg created a party that did not contain only one conception of liberalism. Christen Berg understood that there was no true or genuine liberalism but that there were currents that emphasised different aspects from the same main source. The United Venstre was to accommodate all these currents, and Berg saw it as the party’s real strength that it was broad in its self-understanding. At times there was strong criticism of power, and Berg died as a result of his struggle with the injustice with which he admonished his party colleagues never to agree, 30

and at other times there was a readiness to use state power to develop Denmark. It has given birth to a party that has always had a pragmatic approach as its ideological upbringing, but which has always seen it as its role to take responsibility for Danishness and Denmark. And it has created a party where being able to accommodate an inability to keep in step is a virtue.

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THE ILLIBERALS

By Henrik Bach Mortensen, Vice-President ALDE, member of Venstre Youth/Venstre since 1972, MSc in Economics, University of Copenhagen, and M.Phil in Economics, University of Cambridge

The commitment to fundamental liberal views of individual liberty and inviolability is far from universal. Both in the past and in our time, liberalism competes with many illiberal attitudes to the individual and society. This applies, for example, to Marxism, nationalism and identity politics. There may be a good reason to look at some of the main reasons why liberals should reject these illiberal attitudes.

Freedom for the individual The free individual is, in fact, a rare exception in the history of mankind. It is only in limited periods and in limited geographical areas that it makes sense to speak of individual human beings having been - by and large “free”.

In many historical societies, it was obvious that very ‘unfree’ conditions existed for large parts of the population. This applies to slaves in ancient Greece or the Middle East, and this is true of slaves in Viking societies, and it is true of slaves in colonised America. However, it also applies to serfs in Tsarist Russia and peasants under serfdom in Denmark. It applies to women and to religious, sexual or ethnic groups, which have been written out of the target group for personal freedom for much of history.

The enhancement of individual freedom has been a very long and difficult story, with serious setbacks, and it has gone hand in hand with scientific and philosophical innovation, which has been the basis for enhancing individual freedom.

By freedom of the individual, we mean fundamental issues such as freedom of expression, property rights, the right to one’s own life, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to privacy, free sexual orientation, the rule of law etc. Above all, it means that others should not be able to limit the individual’s right to live as he or she wishes. This applies particularly to coercion, restriction or outright repression by the state or other agents of power.

There is a whole range of other political starting points that do not have the liberal starting point at all concerning the position of the individual. Among the most distinctive are predominantly collectivist thought, such as nationalism, Marxism, Nazism, various forms of Fascism, etc., in which the emphasis is more or exclusively on general phenomena and values rather than on the individual and individual freedom. For example, the focus may be on “a class”, “the people”, 44 38

“the nation”, “the race”, “a religious group”, etc., where there may be varying degrees of putting the group before the individual. And where the values are not based on the individual’s wishes, needs, or views.

Marxism, dictatorship and freedom We know many examples of social organisations where it is not the individual but collective systems that are at the centre. In the last century, Japanese nationalism, Nazi racial ideology, Italian Fascism, and other evils have oppressed the individual. However, a unique collectivist movement is Marxism.

It is reckless to pretend that one can present an uncontroversial definition of the concept of freedom in Marxist thought. But common to all shades of Marxism is that the individual’s rights and freedom are utterly subordinate to other considerations.

The various blood-soaked dictatorships, such as the Soviet Union or Pol Pot’s Kampuchea, and various colourful shipwrecked groupings calling themselves Leninists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, Maoists, etc., could probably offer a host of imaginative explanations for the claim that the liberal concept of freedom effectively paved the way for the oppression of the broad masses of the population. And it is incomprehensible that apparently gifted academics here in the 2020s have set out to rehabilitate Marxistinspired thinking as the basis for overthrowing even today’s liberal-oriented society.

In a certain sense, one can feel a little sorry for Karl Marx. As a graffiti artist had written on a famous sculpture of Marx and Engels in East Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall: “Wir sind Unschuldisch” (We are not guilty). But even if Marx was known to be willing to suppress individual rights, it cannot be shown that Marx would nod approvingly at all the crimes against humanity committed in his name.

Marx rejected liberal freedom. This happened not least in a mocking criticism of the German Social Democratic political programme “Gotha Programme” towards the end of the 19th century. Support for liberal ideas of freedom, according to Marx, was an expression of a lack of understanding of what he saw as the oppression by the capitalist society.

For Marx, the concept of freedom is collective. He was preoccupied with a form of freedom in the sense of the absence of constraints on all humanity as a collective. The individual was not the focus because Marx observed that all 45

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people (apart from a small minority of capitalists) lived in appalling conditions in 19th-century newly industrialised Britain and the rest of Europe. For Marx, it was a question of liberating all the people. However, it was from poverty and miserable living conditions that emancipation was to come. It was not about political freedom in the liberal sense.

Marx was fully aware of the amazing capacity of capitalism to produce economic progress and results, but they were too unfairly distributed.

So, the task was to manage the development of the economy so that it would benefit all the people. The aim was to pull everyone out of grinding poverty and into a “communist paradise”, where the romantic Marx imagined a dream world where it would be possible for everyone “to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic”1.

But before mankind reached this stage, Marx believed that bourgeois (or liberal) democracy, including private property, had to be abolished by a revolution in which the “dictatorship of the proletariat” would ensure that capitalists had to hand over the means of production to the collective, which could lead us to communist happiness. However, the abolition of private property would also make the individual utterly dependent on and subservient to the collective.

Central to this is a focus on the concept of collective freedom. If all people collectively experience that their individual freedom is an illusion, for example, because of pervasive poverty, deadly pandemics, natural disasters such as climate change or earthquakes, then this limits the possibilities for each individual to make use of formal freedom.

For example, it may be a framework condition for taking advantage of personal freedom that the population is not dying of hunger, is drowning due to climate change or is succumbing to plague or Covid.

But there need not be any contradiction between combating overall restrictions on human opportunity and advocating individual freedom.

As a liberal, one wants to lift the pressure of hunger, disease, etc., by means that do not suppress the individual’s freedom. For example, widespread hunger should be combated 1

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The German Ideology, marxist.dk: Revolution, Publication of Revolutionary Socialists and Marxist Students.

through liberal development, where the enterprise of people and companies create economic prosperity for all. We do not have to create a “dictatorship of the proletariat” that abolishes individual freedom. We must fight epidemics with medicines developed by competing pharmaceutical companies - not by banning private companies and giving a monopoly to a state-owned pharmaceutical company. And we must fight climate disasters by liberal means and not by putting the whole population on a forced vegetarian diet.

No one wants to live in poverty, hunger, pandemics, etc. Here, individual freedom has proved to be the surest way forward because good collective performance is more often than not based on individual rights, freedom and enterprise.

For a liberal, Marx’s utterly reckless and monumental mistake was to believe that all power could be placed in the hands of the vanguard of the revolution, which would administer the “dictatorship of the proletariat” for the benefit of all.

History has shown how dangerous it is to “temporarily” suspend liberal freedoms and democracy. History is littered with examples of “temporary” rulers very quickly forgetting their promises that their dictatorship would only last through a transition.

History has shown us only too clearly that if democracy and the rights of freedom are “temporarily” suspended, it is no easy task to get them back. Autocratic rulers very quickly develop a taste for absolute power, which they can give any number of explanations for maintaining. And it does not really matter whether the rulers in question went straight for total power or whether they originally called themselves socialists, liberals, nationalists, etc., when they came to power. These are probably manifestations of quite basic sad characteristics of human nature, which must be kept in check by the rule of law, freedom of speech, free choice, etc.

When it comes to the Marxist idea of establishing the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to pave the way for communist happiness, George Orwell describes where things go wrong in his novel 1984. Because it turns out that in the real world: “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of letting it go again.

Power is not a means, it’s an end. You don’t create a dictatorship to carry out a revolution; One makes revolution to create a dictatorship”2.

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Even though we are often led to believe that freedom and democracy are a kind of “natural” state of society, both the history of the last hundred years and current developments in many parts of the world show that freedom and democracy are fragile. It must be won and maintained every day through conscious political, cultural and educational action.

Nationalism, Community and being Danish Liberalism’s fight for individual freedom is not based on any desire to isolate each citizen from other people. All people need to be together with other people. We all want to be part of communities with people we identify with. Communities that work for causes we support. Communities that help us culturally, socially, economically, emotionally and politically.

However, what “communities” have in common is that they are something we choose voluntarily or that we can opt out of if they feel unwanted or constricting. In a nationalist ideology, the “nation” is not a voluntary community. For a nationalist, the nation is seen as defining a group of people who have been brought together according to criteria, not of their own choosing, and the nation is reserved for those who meet objective requirements. In this view, a “nation” is not a community but a closed and exclusive group - a collective to which one belongs, whether one likes it or not. And because you belong to the nation, you may face demands and obligations that take precedence over individual freedom.

For liberals in our country, Denmark is more a community than a nationalistic collective entity. In this context, the classic Grundtvig quote is quite central: “To a people they all belong, who count themselves there, have for the mother tongue ear, have for the fatherland fire”.

2

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George Orwell, 1984, Gyldendal.

The key point here is that it is an individual choice whether you feel Danish.

Well, Grundtvig makes the modest demands that one must master the language and one must have feelings for our country. The crucial point is that the individual declares their allegiance to Denmark - it is not a question of compulsory membership of a collective to which one may feel alienated.

Therefore, it is not possible to establish what is Danish from a liberal point of view once and for all. What is Danish is what Danes choose to perceive as Danish, and that constitutes the Danish community. What we find Danish is different from what was Danish a century ago, which makes neither the present nor the past less “Danish”, but it reflects the dynamic nature of the national community.

Liberalism belongs to no one - not even Venstre.

Liberalism is available to us all.

Henrik Bach Mortensen

Being Danish is not something that can be defined independently by “Danes” because Danes are those who profess and feel obliged to be Danes. Thus, the people who call themselves Danes can be very different. What is Danish is also changeable. It was “Danish” to speak German in the elite and the royal administration three hundred years ago. With Holberg, a case was made for all Danes to speak Danish. With the Reformation, it became Danish to be Protestant rather than Catholic. With The Beatles, Danish popular music became Englishlanguage pop and rock with African-American origins instead of Danish music hall hits written by Kai Normann Andersen.

Danish poet Benny Andersen gets very close in his fantastic poem “Global Citizen in Denmark”, where he entertains with examples of a series of foreign ideas or material things, which we perceive as quite natural in Danish everyday life, even if they were once foreign. For example, “I drink Java coffee and Ceylon tea, French red wine, Scotch whisky, West Indian rum, and Russian vodka, but no matter how much I drink, I sing along in Danish! 4 The question of “what is Danish” is also well illustrated by the Canon of Danish Art and Culture issued by the Venstre and Conservative People’s Party coalition 45 43

government in 2006. It is precisely a collection of examples of Danish culture, which has infinite threads to all countries and cultures. A new Canon of Danish Art and Culture in 2022 would look very different.

For liberal Danes, on the other hand, there is also something that cannot be changed, and that is not up for discussion. It is precisely the very fundamental liberal values, such as individual freedom, gender equality, freedom of expression, etc.

Identity policy The times we live in are strongly influenced by the currents of identity politics.

It is a diverse set of attitudes, but fundamentally identity politics is about more than showing understanding of people’s cultural origins, practices or self-perceptions. We should also take these characteristics into account in the way we organise society, for example in specific legislation, etc. Even if it means that legislation and other rules will differ from person to person and between different population groups.

For liberals, each person is seen as unique, with characteristics that they determine themselves and with cultural, political or social positions that they choose as far as possible. However, precisely the same freedom and rights must apply to all people.

As liberals, we do not want to classify people according to their religion, skin colour, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc. Each individual has the right to their own self-image, which the rest of us should respect.

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From the poetry collection, ‘Over adskillige grænser’ (Over several boundaries) 1988, www.Modersmaalselskabet.dk

But now, this position is confronted with the identity-political view that people should be put into boxes, based on all kinds of explanations and perceptions, which determine their rights, belonging or the views they should subscribe to. And this is even if the persons in question do not want to be put into identity-political boxes.

The problem is well illustrated by Martin Luther King, who, in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, dreamed of a time when his black children could play with white children without anyone caring about each other’s skin colour. Both in the 1960s and now, it is an ideal situation, and there is no doubt that is what liberals want. This is countered by the identity politics approach, which instead believes we should focus on our differences.

A particular problem for identity politics is that it presupposes that it is possible to determine which differences between individuals should be emphasised in identity politics. That is, it becomes highly subjective and politically determined who should have which rights or who should be covered by special rules and rights.

Therefore, identity politics can never be anything other than illiberal, whether it is based on people’s different historical origins, religion, nationality or other factors that can distinguish groups of people from each other.

Who owns liberalism?

In 2020, British author Ian Dunt published a very compelling case for liberalism: “How to be a Liberal”. He summarises some of his views: “Liberalism is the struggle for freedom of the individual. When it is truly followed, it can never be the tool of the powerful. It can never be used to oppress. It can only liberate.....It is committed to empirical reality. It stands up for institutions, diversity, and, chief among all values, every person’s liberty to engage in their own act of self-creation....It pursues freedom because freedom makes all other values possible. Liberalism does not have a party line, and it does not worship leaders.” 5 Liberalism belongs to no one - not even Venstre. Liberalism is available to us all.

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Ian Dunt, How to be a Liberal, Canbury Press 2020.

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THE LIBERAL SOCIAL ORDER: ADAM SMITH AN INSPIRATION FOR ALL LIBERALS

By Mia Amalie Holstein, MSc in Economics, MA in Philosophy, law student, deputy director and member of the Danish Council of Ethics

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In recent years, Danish liberals have been attacked from several sides. On the one hand, they have been criticised by leftists for being self-interested and selfish ‘homo economicus’ who care only about money and profit. On the other hand, they have been accused by (national) conservatives for being soulless individualists who live in a spreadsheet and therefore “know the price of everything but the value of nothing”. In pursuit of freedom and their own individual needs, they have lost all understanding of fellowship and community 1.

However, both positions are a misunderstanding of the liberal position, which is quite apparent if you follow in the footsteps of one of the great liberal thinkers, Adam Smith.

Adam Smith The Scottish moral philosopher and economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) was basically an odd man. It is said that he had a large nose, bulging eyes, a protruding lower lip, a nervous twitch, and a speech impediment. He walked strangely, talked strangely - and often to himself - and when he got carried away in conversation, he typically spoke very quickly and with extreme attention to detail.

During his lifetime, Smith published two major works: A moral philosophy, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and a political economy, The Wealth of Nations (1776). In his sixth and final edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith made it known that his overall goal was to create a grand intellectual design with three overlapping systems. A moral philosophy, on the one hand, a political economy on the other, and a jurisprudence, A Theory of Jurisprudence, which was to draw both sides together into one grand harmonious system.

But unfortunately, Smith never got that far. He had put off completing his jurisprudence for too long. And finally, he had to realise that it was not possible. In 1773 Smith had decided that all unfinished works should be destroyed upon his death, and they were. However, if we follow in Smith’s footsteps and study his students’ lecture notes, it is actually possible to clarify the structures behind Smith’s grand harmonious system. At the same time, we will also discover how misguided the left and (national) conservatives’ portrayal of liberalism - in its original form - really is.

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Example: Thue Kjærhus in national newspaper, Weekendavisen, on 8 July 2021: Borgerlighed er Frederiksen og Grundtvig.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments The purpose of Smith’s major work in moral philosophy was to examine what virtue is and why man chooses the path of virtue over that of soulless. Ideologically, his work should be seen as a commentary on the views of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Mandeville, who sees selfishness as the driving force behind human actions, to which Smith certainly did not subscribe. On the contrary, Smith believed that man is naturally sympathetic. With the concept of sympathy, Smith refers to the action we take when, as human beings, we form ideas about how others feel by considering how we would feel in a similar situation. 2 Thus, according to Smith, all human beings have a natural inclination to sympathy. If we realise that something brings joy to our fellowman, we become joyful ourselves.

If we realise that something brings grief to our fellowman, we also will feel the sorrow in our own breast. Sympathy thus creates social ties and binds people together. Therefore, according to Smith, sympathy should be the basis of morality.

But sympathy does more than that, and it also builds norms in society because we rejoice in the approval of others and are displeased by the disapproval of others. We therefore try to flatten and reduce our emotions to create harmony and concord with the emotions of those who are around us.3 Thus, according to Smith, human beings are social beings deeply rooted in a fellowship or community, which is in sharp contrast to how many commentators and politicians portray the liberal man.

What is unique about sympathy, however, is that it is not a quality of the human character but rather a variable. And it can manifest itself as three different virtues or motives for action: As benevolence (care for others), self-interest (care for oneself) and as justice (the balancing of care between people).

In his work on moral philosophy, Smith focuses on sympathy manifested as benevolence. In particular, he notes that benevolence decreases as social distance (the distance between people) increases. Because our own feelings are genuine and original, while others’ feelings are reflections that require understanding and knowledge. Benevolence is thus strongest in the family. It diminishes in the eyes of friends, colleagues and neighbours and becomes weak and faded in the global. In war, benevolence is almost non-existent. This should not be understood as a defence of egoism, but as a sober description of man’s emotional life.

2

3

The concept is very similar to what today is called ‘empathy’. It existed in ancient Greek but was not used in Germany before 1858 (Einfülung) and England before 1909 (Empathy). Furthermore, Smith’s concept of sympathy is broader than empathy, as one can, for example, also have sympathy for oneself or use sympathy to weigh caring in society.

Smith (1759): The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Liberty Fund, p. 22.

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The Wealth of Nations Smith’s second major work, The Wealth of Nations, is called a masterpiece but not an original work. The work is not original because he borrows from over a hundred other authors along the way. However, it is a masterpiece because it is the work that lays the foundation of modern economic theory.

At the same time, the work ranges impressively from the manufacture of pins to the later riots in the American colonies to the wasted lives of Oxford students to the statistics of the herring fishery after 1771. Not only in speech but also in writing, Smith is remarkably detailed.

In Smith’s works, one should always notice what the topic of the first chapter is, for the first chapter reveals what Smith finds most fundamental.

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the first chapter is about sympathy. In The Wealth of Nations, the first chapter is about the division of labour because, according to Smith, the division of labour creates the interdependence that constitutes the social bond in the market.

Among commentators and politicians alike, some make the mistake of portraying the liberal man, as shown in The Wealth of Nations. This is a mistake because Smith describes special cases of human nature in his major works. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith describes man as he appears when social distance is great, and sympathy manifests itself mainly as selfinterest. To understand Smith’s whole view of man, one must draw on all his works.

Moreover, many overlook the nuances of Smith’s view of man in The Wealth of Nations. Here, a superficial reading would portray the liberal man as a selfish being, an ‘economic man’ motivated solely by narrow economic self-interest. This misconception typically stems from this quote in The Wealth of Nations: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner but from their regard to their own interest” 4. The quote is a statement that it is not benevolence that makes the butcher, brewer and baker produce for others, but their self-interest. However, although Smith emphasises the self-interest in his political economy, it is premature to conclude that people 4

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Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Liberty Fund, p.

26-27.

are only selfish. Because what many people forget is that the quote about the butcher, the brewer and the baker is in a context that emphasises the need for collaboration: “In civilised societies he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons”5.

‘The economic man’ is thus, even when the social distance is great, a social being.6 For in the barter itself, ‘the economic man’ must show interest in the other, since the language of any exchange in the market is: “Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want.” 7 The person who trades in the market must therefore make use of sympathy and put himself in the other’s place in order to satisfy the other’s needs and make the trade a success. If ‘the economic man’ chooses to cheat and hustle, it will damage his reputation, and no one will deal with him in the future. Therefore, he must be concerned with what others think of him and the trade. The most selfish person in the market is the one who is best at understanding, sensing and empathising with the needs of others.

And according to Smith, the fact that people are also exhibiting self-love when they interact in the marketplace is not a disadvantage, on the contrary, it has many functional advantages. Because often, selfinterested actions will have the best social consequences. Therefore, the state should let everyone pursue their own interests. This is shown by the invisible hand metaphor: “[H]e intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention (…) By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it” 8. And in the market, according to Smith, it is the social consequence that matters, not the individualistic cause.

Lectures on Jurisprudence On his deathbed, Smith burned the work on jurisprudence that would bind his moral philosophy and economic thought into a grand harmonious system. However, from the lecture notes of Smith’s students, we have a good idea of what would have been the content of his book and therefore what minimal functions the state should perform, at least according to Smith. For example, Smith mentions that a good statesman should ensure justice (understood as legal institutions), ensure regulation (including 5

Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Liberty Fund, p. 26.

6 7 8

Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Liberty Fund, p. 26.

Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Liberty Fund, p. 26.

Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Liberty Fund p. 456.

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keeping the roads clean, fighting crime and regulating the market), securing revenue (i.e., collecting taxes to cover government expenditure), and ensuring defence against attacks by foreign powers.

The first chapter of the students’ lecture notes is about ‘justice’.

According to Smith, the most essential task of any government is to maintain justice9, justice being the primary reason we submit to a state.

Here, a superficial reading would portray the liberal man as a selfish being, an ‘economic man’ motivated solely by narrow economic selfinterest.

Mia Amalie Holstein

The purpose of this justice, according to Smith, is to secure liberty10. But what liberty did Smith have in mind? It turns out that Smith uses different notions of liberty in his various major works. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith predominantly uses the negative notion of liberty, i.e., freedom from interference. For example, Smith stresses that the state should not interfere with whom citizens may trade with or prevent them from working. If the state or others cause positive harm to a citizen’s person, property or reputation by violence or theft, this should be sought to be ‘restored’ by a formal penalty.11 Fundamentally, market justice is about what is legal and illegal and about exercising control over self-interest. Smith calls this type of justice commutative justice.

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith predominantly uses the positive notion of liberty. It is about a human being having the liberty to realise oneself. According to Smith, through self-control, man must escape his primitive passions and, through reason, establish his happiness.12 But in civilized societies, the division of labour will cause the jobs of “the labouring 9 10 11 12 52

Smith (1762-1763): Lectures on Jurisprudence, The Liberty Fund, p. 5.

Smith (1762-1763): Lectures on Jurisprudence, The Liberty Fund, p. 274.

Smith (1759): The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Liberty Fund, pp. 9, 269.

Smith (1759): The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Liberty Fund, pp. 23, 25, 237 and 141n.

poor” (which in Smith’s time was the majority of the population) will be reduced to single operations. Over time, it will shape their intellect in a direction where their virtues are stripped13 and where they are left to ‘gross ignorance and stupidity’14. The result is that they will spend their time on ‘drunkenness and riot’15. Smith thus argues that it is not the fault of the citizens themselves but that it is the social circumstances that prevent this group from self-realisation.

Smith is thus not an advocate of a night watchman state. On the other hand, Smith believes that the state should make basic education compulsory for this section of the population16. Because education enables us to practice virtues like truth, justice and humanity, which are essential for us to gain love from those we live with. And the consciousness of being beloved is, according to Smith, the chief part of human happiness. 17 In moral philosophy, Smith does not speak of the lawful, and the unlawful, and wrongdoing is not formally punished. Instead, he speaks of the right and the wrong, which are acknowledged with approval or disapproval. For example, we do injustice to our neighbour if we do not regard and treat him with all the love, respect, and esteem that his character, situation, and relationship with us require. Smith calls this type of justice, which typically belongs to the moral system distributive justice.

Thus, in the institutions of the state, two types of justice meet. In court, for instance, weight is given to both the offender’s intention (distributive justice) and the consequence of the offence (commutative justice). This is where right and wrong are weighed against the legal and illegal. This places great demands on state institutions since, according to Smith, civil servants must perfect all virtues such as self-control, bravery and wisdom.

Smith’s lost legacy I hope that I have succeeded in clarifying the structure behind Smith’s writing with the above. Smith’s view of man is based on sympathy, and this sympathy can be expressed as benevolence, justice and self-interest.

However, even if all motives for action are always present, benevolence will be most prominent in the family and among close relations.

13 14 15 16 17

Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Liberty Fund, p. 782.

Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Liberty Fund, p. 788.

Smith (1762-1763): Lectures on Jurisprudence, The Liberty Fund, p. 540.

Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Liberty Fund, p. 785.

Smith (1759): The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Liberty Fund, p. 41.

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Justice will be most prominent in the state, while self-interest is most prominent in distant relations, for example, in the market.

The figure below shows how benevolence decreases as social distance increases and how self-interest increases as social distance increases. In the family, where we all know each other, the social distance is small, and in the market, where we don’t know each other, the distance is great. The figure also shows how Smith’s three major works are all special cases of human nature. Since all motives for action are always present, it also explains why we have competing methods of moral evaluation: one based on intention, one based on virtue, and one based on consequence.

The predominant virtue is fairness.

Theassessment predominant The moral isvirtue basedison fairness. moral both intention and The consequence. assessment is based both Decisions weigh the right on and the and legal consequence. wrong intention against the and the Decisions weigh the right and illegal. the wrong against the legal and illegal.

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But what can we use this for today? Fundamentally, Smith teaches us that liberalism, in his view, is not just about the market but rests on three main pillars: The good, the just and the self-interested. And while liberals in Denmark are good at talking about the beneficial consequences from a market perspective, we have not been good enough at defining what liberals perceive as benevolence and fairness. At the same time, the left has managed to patent what is good and fair, and this is a political problem for liberal Denmark.

Smith also shows why the left is wrong when they attack liberals for being solely a self-interested ‘homo economicus’, concerned only with money and profit. First, according to Smith, the liberal man is fundamentally a 54

sympathetic being who is also good and just. All motives for action are always present. Furthermore, Smith points out that the market is also based on emotions and sympathy. However, ‘the good’ in from a market perspective is more linked to the useful and the good consequences and less to benevolence and good intentions. That is how it should be.

In fact, one could argue that the left repeatedly makes logical erroneous conclusions when transferring logic belonging to the family and the private sphere to the market. For example, the left often argues that politics should be based on good intentions. The child-staff ratio must be improved in daycare centres, and nurses must be paid more – not because it is socially beneficial, but because they deserve it. However, in the market the conversation should not revolve around the good intentions. Instead it should focus on the good consequences. What freedoms to plan the best possible daycare are we taking away from local institutions if we decide to tie all their resources into improved child-staff ratios? And what welfare are we missing elsewhere in society if we pay nurses a higher salary, knowing that we can generally get enough skilled labour at the current salary level?

Another point is that the left tends to describe the market as a zero-sum game, i.e., the idea that what one may win always must be lost by another.

This type of thinking is usually exclusive to low-growth environments such as the family, where whatever piece of cake one eats always leaves less for the rest of the family. This idea is transferred by the left to society when its followers indicate that the rich must have acquired their wealth at the expense of the poor or that the exchange of work for wages is to exploit the people. However, one of economist David Ricardo’s18 main points with the theory of comparative advantage was precisely that we are getting richer by trading with each other. Similarly, Smith argued that the market is characterised by plus-sum games where everyone is a winner.

If both parties do not benefit from the trade, it will be lost. The logical flaw of the left in both cases is that they assume that we as a society can arrange ourselves as if we were all one family. But the social distance is too great for that. Finally, Smith shows why (national) conservatives are wrong when they accuse liberals of having lost the community. In private life, in the state and in the market, man is a socially anchored being whose life is woven into that of all others. This is the case, for example, in the construction of norms, in law-making and in the division of labour. Maybe the liberals need to get better at articulating 18

While Adam Smith is considered the founder of modern economic theory, David Ricardo (17721823) is regarded as the next great exponent.

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these communities and their value. Take the division of labour, for instance. It is usually said that success has many fathers. However, that is not the case with a division of labour, commerce and growth. No one takes credit for - or even dares to pay tribute to - what must be humanity’s greatest success: how the division of labour, commerce and growth have lifted billions of people out of poverty. This success is an orphan.

Therefore, it is crucial that each generation relearns the fact that division of labour, commerce and growth make each generation richer than the last. Because only then can we lift people out of the zero-sum thinking embedded in us by default from childhood.

Having said that, it is also essential that we as liberals ourselves keep an eye on when we are overstepping the boundaries and introducing logic in domains where they do not belong. For example, when we allow too much competition and market logic in the private sphere, thereby creating norms that push young people into a culture of perfection, where they must be constantly measured and weighed. In the private sphere, usefulness should not be the benchmark.

Fundamentally, liberals in Denmark need to tread new paths of argumentation so that we become better at explaining why a policy proposal not only has good consequences but also why the intention is good and why it is fair. We must awaken a broader understanding of the liberal human being so that he or she is not just a human being who is results-oriented and achieves his or her goals but also a human being who is sympathetic, fair and fundamentally decent. This is how the liberals always have been, but we have partly neglected to tell it.

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LIBERALISM AND FAITH

By Carl Holst, National Leader of Venstre Youth 1993-95, former County Mayor, Regional Council Chairman, Minister, and Member of the Danish Parliament (V)

“Democracy will always be incompatible with an Islamic state because in a democracy, the people decide, and in the Islamic state, only God decides.”

This is what Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane, a Guantánamo prisoner and Danish citizen, said after his release in 2004. But of course, far from all Muslims hold this view.

Within Christian circles, one can also find the view that Christianity should play a greater role in politics. Morten Messerschmidt expresses this in an interview in the national daily newspaper, Politiken, on 29 July 2020, where he makes himself the spokesman for a value policy offensive in which Christianity defines more of the Danish People’s Party’s policy.

The question then arises, which interpretation of Christianity should be the starting point for this greater role in politics? Should it be, for example, vicar Thorkild Grosbøll, who in 2003 said: “I don’t believe in a creating and sustaining God, not in a resurrection or eternal life.”

It is always difficult with people who think they know best and think they have a monopoly on what true Christianity is or what is genuinely liberal.

But what is the relationship between liberalism and religion? Starting from liberal thinking - what role should religion play?

The real issue is not religion versus democracy. No, fundamentalist Islamists or other fundamentalists should not be allowed to suppress different thinking whether the fundamentalists are in the majority or minority.

Democracy in the sense of “collective majority elections” is not relevant. Because, if that were the case, fundamentalists could abolish democracy as we know it by means of majority elections, provided there were enough of them.

No, democracy should be understood primarily as “liberal democracy”, or a form of government in which a constitution guarantees individual civil rights. No one should be able to oppress or persecute their fellow citizens, no matter how large a majority they may have behind them - whether for religious or other reasons.

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There is a contrast between liberal thinkers on the one hand and fundamentalist Islamists - such as Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane - on the other.

The contradiction is essentially not about democracy in the sense of “collective majority decisions”. If Slimane had a majority, he would surely invoke his democratic power. No, the contradiction between Slimane and liberals is that liberals will allow him to think as crazy and oppressive things as he wants - we just won’t let him act on it. Not even if he had a majority behind him.

Individual freedom trumps collective majority choice.

Christianity comes in many forms, but for many liberals, Christianity has helped inspire a strong emphasis on individual freedom.

Religion and Politics But Christianity is religion, not politics. You can be a member of Venstre whether you are a believer or not. However, you cannot join if you have a religious base that does not recognise fundamental liberal rights.

It is also part of our background that Venstre, with its specific historical starting point, has developed in parallel with the development of the ‘People’s Church’ the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, and that the church, at times, especially at the beginning of the movement, was very important in Venstre’s world.

But always that the liberal starting point should be inclusive, liberal and with room for diversity. Therefore, it will never be the fundamental policy of Venstre to ban the use of headscarves as a religious symbol or to ban religious symbols in the public domain. But as recent Danish history has shown, issues can arise where it can be difficult to maintain the ideal position.

Venstre is a political party, not a religious party, which Christen Berg already stated in 1872. But we are neither afraid of the church nor of faith.

A few years after forming The United Venstre, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson wrote a song for the new movement, “Despised by the big, but loved by the small”.

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In addition to the title telling us much about The United Venstre’s self-understanding and identity, the song also tells us something about the foundations and the church's role in forming The United Venstre.

The chorus reads: “For the rule of the people, stand forth! Stand forth! For church, for school, for freedom!”

To understand this, one must look to The Divine Assemblies (De gudelige forsamlinger), a lay religious movement critical of the state church’s unambiguous monopoly on proper religious teaching and practice. First and foremost, The Divine Assemblies was a movement led by the people for the people, although later, the movement also received support from various theologians and priests.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark The Divine Assemblies also became the starting point for the democratic currents that resulted in the first constitution in Denmark in 1849 and, not least, the paragraphs: “The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the Danish national church and as such is supported by the state” and “Citizens have the right to unite in the community to worship God in the manner consistent with their convictions, provided that nothing contrary to morality or public order is taught or done.”

Both paragraphs have remained unchanged through all the amendments that have been made to the Constitution since then. In the autumn of 1850, there were already proposals for further religious freedom the following year. They wanted exemption from compulsory baptism and the introduction of civil marriage. An option that should apply to all, both members and non-members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The proposer was Niels Møller Spandet, who represented the Peasant Friends (Bondevennerne) - one of the groups that later became The United Venstre. At the time, the proposal was considered very extreme and extremist and was voted down by a large majority.

The proposal shows the historical relationship of Venstre to the Constitution’s remark that “The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the Danish People’s Church.” That as much freedom as possible should be given. Not only to people who were not members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. But also within the framework of the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church.

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On the other hand, the Act on parish optionality was passed in 1855, and this gave members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church the freedom to choose a vicar other than the one in their parish of residence. Before this, people had been tied to the local parish church and vicar for centuries.

Venstre is a political party, not a religious party, which Christen Berg already stated in 1872.

Carl Holst

The ability to sever parish ties had been an old desire for increased freedom from the “Venstre ancestors”, who later became The United Venstre. A few years later, the law abolishing compulsory baptism was also passed. Seven years after the proposal was first tabled and had generated so much debate and faced so much opposition. However, the second part of the original proposal, a free choice between church and civil marriage, was not reintroduced until 1922.

In November 1866, Sophus Høgsbro presented a bill to the Danish Parliament to amend the Act on parish optionality. The wish was that at least 20 people who had found a place themselves should be allowed to choose their parish and employ their own vicar.

This had long been the wish of The National Venstre (Det Nationale Venstre), another of the groups that later became The United Venstre. But the concrete reason was the dismissal of the parish vicar, Vilhelm Birkedal, in Ryslinge.

Birkedal was greatly affected by the defeat in 1864 and the loss of Southern Jutland. Following this, in the prayer after the sermon on 4 September 1864, he had asked God to give the king a Danish heart, if possible.

The law on elective congregations was adopted on 15 May 1868. This followed a heated debate in which the proposal had met with fierce opposition, not least from the country’s bishops. In fact, only one of the country’s bishops supported the proposal for elective congregations.

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Freedom in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark Sophus Høgsbro was later the main man behind the formation of The United Venstre on 30 June 1870. The formation was marked by issuing a joint manifesto that read, among other things, “The freedom of the People’s Church should be further extended and consolidated by law.”

This attitude still prevailed when the first Venstre government was formed in 1901 after the system change. Venstre’s manifesto stated that it would work for the influence of congregations when clerical posts were to be filled.

The real leader of Venstre, J.C. Christensen, was appointed Minister of Culture, i.e., Minister of Church, Culture and Education. After the church law had rested for more than 33 years, Christensen democratised the church. Therefore, he proposed the introduction of a universal right to vote for parish councils. But also that this right to vote came to apply to women.

At the same time, proposals were made on the extended use of churches, the extended right to form elective congregations, and the board of independent churches. In May 1903, the laws came into force after lengthy negotiations in which bishops, vicars, and the Inner Mission had all vehemently opposed the proposal.

Because of the extensive opposition, the law on parish councils only applied until 1 January 1910, and initially, the vicar would always be the chairman of the parish council, and finally, the parish council would only be consulted in connection with the appointment of vicars.

This was changed when the law on parish councils was renewed. Since then, the council has elected its own chairman. Furthermore, the parish councils were given a more decisive right to participate in hiring vicars.

The ecclesiastical freedom laws say a lot about the liberal view of freedom of belief, especially freedom of conscience. One is not locked into collectively determined communities but can choose to enter other self-chosen communities.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church never got its own constitution and its own collective majority democratic system with an elected assembly, a synod. The Danish Parliament is still, in principle, the governing body. But instead of an emphasis on the collective democracy, the emphasis in the Evangelical Lutheran Church is on the individual democracy.

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Democracy is exercised through individual choices and abstentions. You can opt out of your local vicar and choose another through parish optionality. You can form your own congregations. You can even use the local church. In this sense, the organisation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is both very liberal and an example of how other communities could be organised.

In a way, the ecclesiastical freedom laws are an inspiration for all liberals in their work in political institutions.

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WHAT IS SCIENCE?

By Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen, PhD, senior scientist at DTU Space, member of Venstre Youth/Venstre since 1976, former member of the executive committee of Venstre Youth and the Danish Youth Council (Dansk Ungdoms Fællesråd)

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Liberal political thought is based on a view of humanity in which it is the individual that makes us human. Individual development can be described as our spiritual and human growth. We find meaning in life through this development and join our fellow human beings in a spiritual and popular community. Therefore, it is a fundamental part of the liberal view of man that man thrives and develops best in freedom under responsibility, and this is the starting point for the formulation of liberal views.

In all specific policy areas, liberal attitudes are based on fundamental values, but they are developed with an acceptance of the framework that must be recognised from a scientific approach to reality. A liberal politician will thus respect the results obtained through scientific work and will not, as a rule, formulate and support a policy based on arguments that cannot stand up to scientific assessment.

The history of science The development of science and universities is one of the great European inventions. The first universities were established in Europe in the 12th century with the support of the Catholic Church, and it is the only European institution that has retained its basic function over the centuries. Although all great civilisations have had institutions of higher learning, European universities have been unique in their high degree of academic freedom.

Many civilisations, such as the Chinese, the Indian and the Arab-Islamic civilisations, have had the potential to develop science, but the scientific revolution has only occurred in a Christian culture in Europe, where science was based on ideas developed back in ancient Greece. Indeed, science is not just a matter of mastering engineering techniques or developing instruments but a way of thinking and acting in the study of nature.

Two Greek inventions, the rigorous proof and the axiomatic system (in which conclusions are drawn from a few basic assumptions), and Aristotle’s philosophy that what is observed pre-sets meaningful criteria for truth, are powerful tools that have underpinned natural science and the whole of modern engineering, which has spread across the globe.

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Christianity has made a vital contribution by developing a tradition of using reason and rationality to understand, interpret and critique the Christian faith. The great scientists of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Age of Enlightenment adopted the rational argument, which we almost take for granted today. Although there have also been major clashes between scientists and the Catholic Church, many of them found inspiration in their Christian faith because there were laws in creation that they could decode in nature, and it became almost a Christian duty to study these laws. In contrast, scientific progress in the Muslim world came to a halt in the 14th15th centuries, mainly because of religious opposition, where the very formulation of natural laws was considered blasphemous because they restricted Allah’s freedom to act as he wished. The Chinese dynasties also had academies, where civil servants were trained to administer the vast empire, but these were not institutions that tolerated independent thought.

The students became masters of calligraphy and could reproduce large quantities of Chinese literature, but the intellectual development stood still for centuries.

Science in modern society Today, science is fundamental to our high-tech society, which would not have existed without numerous scientific breakthroughs. The Covid pandemic thus showed that political intervention and good public behaviour might limit infection, but the reopening of societies was only possible because decades of research into so-called mRNA vaccines and advances in nanotechnology meant that an effective vaccine could be rapidly designed and mass-produced.

Science is crucial to protect ourselves, our environment, and our economy and to fulfil a fundamental human desire to find answers to questions about ourselves and our universe. This is why there is traditionally broad political support for a significant share of society’s resources to be spent on research. On the other hand, the public expects research to be conducted according to strict scientific principles, where precise and rational arguments justify hypotheses, theories, and results.

However, the relationship between researchers and the public is changing.

Until the mid-20th century, research was seen as an independent and autonomous culture, where researchers enjoyed a high level of trust and, in return, produced reliable results. Especially in recent decades, research has taken on a more central role in society, addressing virtually every challenge facing policymakers but also placing demands 69

on research. Therefore, in a democratic society, is essential to know what science really is and what the role of the scientist is.

We also live in a society where access to information is virtually unlimited.

Millions of research articles are published every year in thousands of academic journals, and in the numerous news stories about science, claims and counter-claims can be very confusing. For example, even for the most interested citizen, it can be challenging to navigate frequently changing dietary recommendations or determine whether nuclear power is a safe technology.

The confusion is not lessened by the fact that scientists are also citizens who have the right to participate in the public debate, but they do not have the right to disguise their political views as science, and some scientists have found it difficult to distinguish between their role as scientists and as activists. The Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in his first New Year speech in 2002: “Experts can be good enough to disseminate factual knowledge. But when it comes to making personal choices, we’re all experts.” In a democratic society, it is therefore important to maintain the division of labour, whereby it is the task of researchers to present results and forecasts, while it is the task of politicians, as the elected representatives of the population, to take political decisions.

What is science?

Some common characteristics describe science. The ideal researcher is thus required to use rational arguments and to be their own harshest critic. In practice, the latter is rarely the case, as it can be difficult to reject one’s favourite theory, and therefore there is also a general requirement for the research community to organise and apply methods so that researchers’ claims can be verified.

Researchers’ working methods depend on the field they are working in and can be divided into natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. In many ways, the natural scientists have the easiest task because they investigate objects and phenomena in nature. It is usually easy to separate what the scientists are studying from the scientists themselves. Their methods typically consist of observing phenomena in nature or conducting experiments in the laboratory, and although it is commonly said that one should not generalise, it is precisely the task of natural science to generalise and find general laws that explain the observations. The researcher thus puts forward a general theory, but not all theories are 70 72

equally good, and here the Austrian-English philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) has developed the requirement for a theory to be scientifically falsifiable.

Popper had realised that it was not enough to find numerous examples that a theory was correct, for there must also be no examples that it was wrong. Therefore, his requirement was that a scientific theory must contain propositions that can be tested - that is, falsified - through observations or experiments and that it must be able to withstand the attempts to falsify the theory. Here, natural science has the advantage that experiments can be repeated and that the results do not depend on who performs them. For example, physicists have rejected the ether theory of light because it predicted that the speed of light was different in different directions, which contradicted measurements. Many physicists over the years have also tried to falsify Einstein’s theory of relativity by finding examples that did not fit with the measurements, but so far without success. Therefore, physicists regard the theory of relativity as a strong theory, which is not necessarily the final truth about the motion of particles in space and time, but which we choose to use because it has so far withstood all attempts to be falsified. Astronomers were also early predictors of solar eclipses, for example, while Popper would deny that astrology (predicting people’s futures based on the position of celestial bodies) is a science because horoscopes’ predictions are typically so inaccurate that they are impossible to falsify.

Marxism also had many supporters in its heyday who thought that Marx's social development theory was science, which Popper rejected on the grounds that Marxists never made specific predictions that could be tested.

Therefore, it is also a common experience that research is self-regulating because wrong theories or results are falsified and disappear again. This assumes that someone will repeat the experiments, which is not always the case, as researchers rarely get credit for replicating the results of others. There is even talk of a replication crisis in medical research in particular because many studies are not being reproduced. Therefore, when presented with new research findings, it is a good idea to consider whether the conclusions are based on a single study or are replicated in many places.

Problems also arise at the borders of science, which are often of great political interest, such as climate research. It is almost impossible to do reproducible experiments in the climate system because the atmosphere, 71 73

for example, is constantly changing, and therefore it is also difficult to falsify theories about the climate. Instead, climate scientists base their knowledge on mathematical models that are sensitive to the assumptions put into the models and therefore generate a stream of data whose truth value depends on these assumptions. Thus, the credibility of the models’ predictions depends on the assumptions, and it is, therefore, the discussion of these assumptions should be at the heart of the climate debate.

Many of the questions politicians want answers to now fall into a category that American physicist Alvin Weinberg (1915-2006) called trans-scientific questions. These questions can be formulated in scientific terms, and often deal with the interaction between society and technologies, but which cannot really be answered by science. Therefore, the answers are not scientific but trans-scientific, because they depend entirely on the aspects the researcher chooses to investigate and how they conduct the research.

There is no sharp line between science and trans-science, but it is transscience, for example, if you ask about the probability of improbable events, such as whether an earthquake will destroy a dam. It is also trans-science when science tries to answer whether we are in a climate crisis or whether nuclear power is safe. In Nevada, for example, a repository for nuclear waste is planned at Yucca Mountain, but even after scientists have spent more than 25 years of researching and USD 15 billion, they have not been able to answer whether the repository is safe.

In Denmark, we also had a long political debate about whether nuclear power was a good idea or not, and where the safety of different reactor designs became part of the public debate. The debate was often highly emotional, and this is the right of the people in a democratic society, but in such trans-scientific issues, the researcher often loses their authority because the discussion is really about political issues, where the researcher’s opinion is not more important than that of the informed citizen.

Problems in science Most politically interesting topics belong to the social sciences because researchers here study human communities, including the political process itself. Social science is particularly important for the democratic conversation in society because social scientists develop, among other

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things, theories of social, economic and political relations and contexts. Inspired by the natural sciences, methods that attempt to establish an empirical basis for the theories are also typically used, including qualitative, quantitative or comparative methods. The social researcher must not only know something about political science but often have a broad knowledge of history, geography, demography, sociology, economics, etc., and here again, it is science because the researcher bases their conclusions on the rational argument and the evidence-based, analytical approach, rather than subjective and emotionally motivated views.

Social science problems arise if the researcher forgets to be critical of their own theories, which is a risk if they have a clear position on the subject they are working on.

Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen Social science problems arise if the researcher forgets to be critical of their own theories, which is a risk if they have a clear position on the subject they are working on. Thus, research on politically sensitive topics such as Islam, immigration and integration has been characterised by researchers also wanting to influence political decisions and, therefore, sometimes compromise scientific methods.

The risk of pseudo-science is also high if, for example, researchers use their own assumptions to support their conclusions. This was the case in a study of sexism at Aarhus University in Denmark, where the researchers assumed that the environment was sexist, and if the interviewees disagreed, they were categorised as sexist, and thus the researchers reached a conclusion that was consistent with their assumption.

It becomes particularly problematic if researchers reject well-established knowledge and evidence-based theories and deny that scientific truths exist. Instead, they believe that scientific laws are merely social constructs or conventions, and therefore one cannot determine what is true or false.

There are several versions of social constructivism. Some social constructivists thus believe that biological sexes, human races and

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nations exist only as social constructs, and the most extreme form even denies that reality exists. Popper calls such theories “universal theories” because they cannot even be criticised. After all, there is no reality against which the theories can be tested. The answer to a critique would be that even this critique and everything we say and do is also only a social construction. According to Popper, if one first rejects the existence of objective facts, one also rejects the possibility of believing in fundamental liberal values. Liberals can accept that a judge is not omniscient and therefore can make mistakes, but if there are no objective facts, then you cannot create a society of law with freedom, equality before the law and fundamental human rights.

Humanities The concept of science is less rigorous in the humanities, where people study and interpret objects that humans have created, for example, languages and texts, historical events, images, works of art and music.

Here the researcher often uses a method called the hermeneutic circle.

Hermeneutics comes from Greek and means to interpret or translate.

Therefore, the method is a process in which the researcher attempts to interpret the situation they are investigating and in which the interpretation includes intentions, opinions, and meanings.

We can recognise the process in ourselves when we first read a book or look at a work of art and form a hypothesis about possible interpretations of the book or work of art. As we know more about the author or the artist, their time and their sources, we may change the hypothesis, in which case we must go back and check whether the new hypothesis is consistent with the other facts. Here we are already in a hermeneutic circle.

Therefore, a prerequisite for the researcher’s understanding is that they possess prior knowledge of the matter or relationship they wish to understand. To understand a part of a text, they must understand the whole, but at the same time, they can only understand the whole when they understand the parts.

Of course, there are also problems in the humanities because there are many hermeneutic methods to choose from, which can make it difficult to reach a consensus on an interpretation of a text. Therefore, no absolute truths can be reached, but the different interpretations can complement each other so that the researchers together reach a deeper understanding of the text.

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An obvious risk is that it can be difficult to keep political, subjective and emotional attitudes out of research, and there are also, unfortunately, examples, for instance in gender research, where the research suffers from social control in the research community and where researchers who challenge the agreed consensus are ostracised by their colleagues.

The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany In the period leading up to the Second World War, dialectical materialism was the only philosophy allowed in the Soviet Union, and in the natural sciences, this led to the conclusion that everything could and should be described deterministically and with classical physics. This meant that Soviet physicists had to distance themselves from Einstein’s and Bohr’s theories because they lay beyond classical mechanics, and after the war, some Soviet philosophers were seconded in this country by the chief Communist ideologue in Denmark, Ib Nørlund, who strongly condemned Bohr’s theories.

Soviet physicists, therefore, ran into problems when Stalin ordered them to develop an atomic bomb, where they were forced to accept the work of both Einstein and Bohr, and over the years, Soviet philosophers were therefore forced to argue that Bohr’s theories were compatible with dialectical materialism after all. Bohr was even made an honorary doctor at Moscow University a few years before his death.

Even more extreme were the conditions at the same time for Soviet research in biology, where genetics was officially declared a bourgeois pseudoscience, leading to thousands of Soviet biologists losing their jobs, being imprisoned, sent to labour camps or executed.

In the human sciences, it is difficult to use Popper’s criterion that theories must be falsifiable, and therefore the risk is that wrong results will not be corrected, and in the worst case, this may result in truth being replaced by power, that is, the majority deciding what is true, and that dissenting views are suppressed in the so-called cancel-culture. In recent years, particularly in gender studies, identity studies and critical theory, the problem has been that accepted truths cannot be criticised.

When the rational argument is also not accepted by activist researchers, the research becomes no longer self-correcting. The result may be that the disciplines’ own journals can no longer distinguish pseudoscience from science.

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An extreme example is the time under National Socialism in Germany, when the goal of the research was to develop a specific German science, such a German physics, German mathematics and German sociology. Here, too, the criteria of scientificity were suspended because the official ideology was that there was an Aryan truth in science that was superior to other truths.

Transparency As this review shows, there are differences between the natural, social and human sciences, but there are also commonalities. Hypotheses that are confused with evidence or inconsistent hypotheses are thus unacceptable because a contradictory interpretation violates scientific ideals and the trust of democratic society in research. It is also a common requirement for scientists that their science should be independent of their own political views, that it should adhere to the scientific norms of criticism, and be based on rationality rather than irrationality. Fortunately, the vast majority of research environments comply with the requirements of good science, but for the citizen who encounters new and perhaps surprising research results, it can be useful to look at the researcher’s sources. Are they based on data or interpretations of motives, and are the conclusions based on a particular preconception of the problem? Is the hypothesis convincing, and is the conclusion logical? Especially if the researcher is trying to convince you that something is morally right or wrong, there is good reason to check whether the arguments are based on the researcher’s own values and judgements.

A basic liberal position must be that research must be transparent, and in a free society, the most solid and valuable research is done when research is open to criticism, just as the best social development occurs when political discussions and the reasoning for legislation and decisions are anchored in reliable scientific insights.

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LIBERAL ECONOMIC POLICY

By Mads Lundby Hansen, Chief Economist and Deputy Director, CEPOS and Henrik Bach Mortensen, Vice President ALDE, member of Venstre Youth/Venstre since 1972, MSc in Economics, University of Copenhagen, and M.Phil in Economics, University of Cambridge

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1776 was a terrible year for regulation and lack of freedom, and the American Declaration of Independence was adopted and set out a number of principles for civil liberty. That same year in Scotland, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, heralding a reckoning with centuries of a lack of economic freedom and regulation.

The view of the individual citizen’s place in the economy and the relationship between state regulation and a free-market economy was seriously altered, and in the following years, there was a continuous development in economic thinking, which is central to liberal considerations of the organisation of the economy.

The socio-economic policy that can be described as liberal today has developed over this long period in a continuous interaction between the development of liberal economic theory and the practical experience of economic reality.

In the following, economic policy will be understood as policy efforts aimed at supporting favourable developments in relation to desired socioeconomic objectives. These can be both national economic objectives (such as high employment and prosperity) and concerns about the economic conditions of citizens.

For long periods up to the end of the 18th century, social and economic thinking and organisation in our part of the world was primarily about securing as much economic scope as possible for privileged rulers in the form of, for example, royalty or nobility. The economic rights of the individual citizen were not given much weight. The idea is called “mercantilism”, and the overall goal was that exports should exceed imports as much as possible, so that wealth and purchasing power could be built up to realise the ambitions of the king/state for construction, warfare, etc.

The general population, mainly peasants, were oppressed through serfdom (i.e., lack of the right to mobility), lack of property rights and lack of opportunities to market their products. Tradesmen were only allowed to practice their profession through regulated guilds and on limited premises. Goods could only be traded in authorised markets. International trade took place through royal trading companies, which were granted monopolies in certain markets. For example, much of the visible wealth in Denmark, 80

around the middle of the 18th century, was created by trade through the Asiatic Company, which was given its rights by King Frederik V (the king whose bust was “rematerialised” by activists who mistakenly believed that the prosperity of Copenhagen was primarily created by the infamous slave trade and the slave economy in the West Indies).

Liberal economic thinking did away with these perceptions. Adam Smith analysed the possibilities of an economy in which consumers, citizens and businesses could act in a free market economy.

The American Declaration of Independence would free citizens from the rule of autocratic rulers. The United States Constitution of 1787, which later inspired the constitutions of many Western countries - emphasised freedom of speech and the press, freedom of organisation, freedom of religion and protection of private property. Private property rights were intended to ensure that citizens could freely buy, use, and dispose of their property. It was stressed that the state could only seize private property in exceptional cases. And if that happens, there must be fair compensation, which is also found in the Danish constitution.

Financially, there was a clear understanding of the importance of private property rights concerning economic growth. Private ownership gives the citizen a strong financial incentive to economise with resources because the owner bears all the costs and benefits of all decisions concerning these resources.

Adam Smith Adam Smith demonstrated that the greatest possible wealth is created in an economy where all citizens are basically striving to serve their own economic interests as best as possible. Consumers seek to use their household budget to meet their needs as much as possible. The wageearner seeks to train and sell their labour to provide the fairest wage.

Tradesmen and other manufacturers are looking to offer the services and products they feel will give them and their business the greatest return.

Adam Smith summed up his observations with the fantastic example of the baker: It’s not because of the baker’s charity that we get the best possible bread at the lowest possible price. On the contrary, because the baker tries to do his best in competition with other bakers, both the baker and we are best off.

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This magical arrangement is ensured by an “invisible hand” through freemarket price formation. If consumers want more of a product, the price rises and producers increase the supply of the product to increase their profits. If more labour is needed in some sectors of the economy, wages will rise, and more citizens will offer their labour so that companies can hire them and produce more.

Following Adam Smith’s liberal thinking, neither state nor politicians should interfere in the free-market economy because they can only harm the self-regulating mechanisms that ensure the best possible returns from our economic dispositions.

Adam Smith focused not only on the division of labour within countries but also between countries. His theory broke with the idea that exports should be encouraged and imports inhibited. If a country can produce goods more cheaply than other countries, other countries will be able to trade for those goods in that country rather than producing them themselves. Countries can thus act together to their mutual benefit.

This was a break with mercantilist thinking, in which profit in commerce with the outside world was an end in itself. Adam Smith thus demonstrates that imports in a free trade system benefit a country’s citizens in the form of new products and lower prices.

However, Adam Smith himself was aware that his free-market economy was not perfect. Both he and later economists pointed to the need for common institutions such as justice, police, defence, etc., which are “collective benefits” that the free market will not cover. There may also be a need to protect consumers from monopolies that can exploit their position concerning citizens. And police and judicial systems are needed to protect private property and other rights.

Other liberal economists such as David Ricardo also demonstrated that free trade benefits the economy as a whole. The greatest possible prosperity can be achieved if goods and services can flow freely across national borders. A good example is the discussion about the Corn Laws in England in the first half of the 19th century. The Corn Laws protected English producers from competition from imported grain with minimum prices but to the detriment of consumers, who were hit in the household budget. The abolition of the Corn Laws ensured cheaper food, while in

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England, cereal producers had to use their resources in other ways where their ability to compete in a free market was greater.

It is thus an essential liberal economic policy observation that any form of regulation of markets risks forcing producers and consumers to act differently than if markets were free. For companies that have benefited from regulation in the past, such as on import and other restrictions on competition, it is, of course, a pity if they lose their privileges. But it is usually in the interest of “the many”, i.e., consumers. For liberals, economic policy must therefore support free competition as much as possible.

Liberal economic theory was further refined according to Adam Smith that, assuming completely free competition and the right of consumers and producers to make completely free choices, the entire economy could be protected to the best possible satisfaction of citizens’ needs and the best possible use of productive resources, including the labour force of enterprises.

The crucial mechanism of the liberal economy is the “price mechanism”.

Prices in different markets contain all the signals from consumers and businesses about supply and demand preferences that ensure consumers and businesses make the most appropriate choices. In principle, prices contain all the relevant information, and economic policy interventions based on purely theoretical thinking can only do harm here. Needs for adjustments and changes in consumption and production can be dealt with through the signals of the price mechanism, and thus the economy becomes fundamentally self-regulating.

The rejection of an active role for politics by pure liberal economic thought understandably met with scepticism - not to say resistance.

From Marx to growth Marxist theory argued that the free liberal economy - or “capitalism” would move from crisis to crisis on its way to its own demise. There was enough misery to build on this scepticism towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Poverty and misery among workers as industrial society developed and severe crises of high unemployment were not exactly seen as signs of the unconditional superiority and self-regulating capacity of the liberal market economy.

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In the practical Marxist tradition, this led to a rejection of the liberal market economy. Instead of free markets, the social economy was to be subjected to highly controlled planning and command, with politicians and bureaucrats organising all decisions on the production and supply of goods and services. It meant a farewell to crucial liberal freedoms, which were sacrificed in favour of compulsory collective objectives.

Marxist economics replaced the price mechanism with total political regulation. Instead of consumption and production are controlled through free markets, where the price mechanism aggregated all decisions of consumers and producers, everything was now to be decided in a centrally controlled planned economy, where the dirigiste decisions of bureaucrats replaced price signals. In short: In the liberal economy, all information is in prices, whereas in the Marxist economy, all information and all decisions must be collected and supervised by the central planner. History has shown that communist or socialist economies in Europe and elsewhere sent both economies and living standards to rack and ruin. At the same time, all liberal freedoms and human decency went the same way (interestingly, the communists in China have learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union and are basically trying to develop an economic system that combines the efficiency of the market economy with the suppression of liberal freedoms.)

The main cause of the communist collapse was pointed out very clearly by the liberal Austrian economists von Mises and Hayek. They demonstrated that the planned economy bureaucrats had no chance of ensuring the same extremely complicated collection and handling of information on the supply of raw materials, production processes, supply and demand, logistics and connectivity challenges, consumer demands and more that the price mechanism can handle without bureaucracy, coercion and intervention. The ability of the liberal economy to handle millions of pieces of information about consumer preferences and the conditions of business production processes ensures an almost “spontaneous order” and continuous adjustment in the economy.

But after all, Marxists and others were right that crises and disequilibrium were regularly observed in liberal market economies. It was clear that countries’ economies were not always in stable equilibrium and that crises with sharp inflation or price falls occurred regularly.

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It was also clear to everyone that economies were not standing still and that changes were occurring all the time. These movements are linked first and foremost to two significant developments. First, neither the business models

of companies nor the social economy are constant. Technological developments happened all the time - manufacturers come up with new products and production processes, and consumer demands change.

Economies are - fortunately - not stationary. Economic growth occurs as new and more efficient production processes are introduced and as production equipment is expanded through investment. At first sight, this does not call for any particular economic intervention, as this development supports increased economic prosperity.

Secondly, one of the most spectacular things about liberal economies is that “creative destruction” is going on all the time. As economist Joseph Schumpeter explained, “entrepreneurs” are always at play. They invent new products and develop new manufacturing methods and new forms of logistics. The consequence of their efforts is that old companies are being outcompeted and “destroyed”. But this is done in a “creative” process that creates progress and increased prosperity.

In today’s parlance, entrepreneurs cause “disruptions”, which disrupt the economy, causes bankruptcy among companies and unemployment for the employees concerned. However, these are not crises in the negative sense, and these are side effects of the dynamics that move the liberal economy towards greater prosperity and increased productive power.

Economic crises Whatever the cause of economic imbalances or crises in the liberal capitalist economy, they can entail politically undesirable human costs in the form of unemployment, low economic growth and social unrest. There may undoubtedly be a well-founded political desire to counteract this.

John Maynard Keynes was the great liberal economist who really started thinking about whether, even as a liberal, you sometimes have to argue for policy interventions to counter economic crises.

Keynes did not reject traditional liberal economic thought, but he concluded that reality does not meet the conditions of rapid and almost painless self-regulation in the liberal economy. Keynes established that perfect competition and the other factors that can ensure a crisis-free economy are far from always present.

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Keynes observed that people act under uncertainty - businesses and citizens cannot know what the future holds. This may cause businesses and consumers to massively hold back on demand for consumption and investment. Sometimes the economy is exposed to “shocks” that are experienced as very difficult to overcome - both in scale and time.

Therefore, an active economic policy can be particularly relevant to curbing fluctuations in the economy.

This was the thinking behind the adherence to a very active economic policy, especially in the decades after the Second World War. Both liberal and social democratic political parties wanted to iron out economic cycles to avoid unemployment and business crises.

However, it soon became apparent that politicians have at least as much difficulty managing and predicting socio-economic developments as citizens and businesses. The result was that throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Denmark also implemented a series of economic interventions to “fine-tune” the l economy.

The consequences were almost fatal for three reasons.

First, policy interventions introduced disruptions into the social economy that could amplify as well as dampen crises.

Second, interventions were often asymmetrically constructed so that fighting unemployment led to increased public spending and higher taxes, while economic tightening to curb inflation was done through lower private demand and tax increases. The only lasting effect was a larger public sector, a higher tax burden and a squeezed private sector. A Danish example of such an intervention was the introduction of the early retirement scheme in 1979. It aimed to reduce youth unemployment (by allowing people nearing retirement to withdraw from the labour market).

When the number of people on early retirement peaked in 2004, there were 180,000 on early retirement, and the cost was DKK 25 billion.

Third, policy ambitions were often out of step with the economy’s capacity, so that, not least, rapid growth in public spending led to rapidly rising inflation and higher interest rates.

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Milton Friedman made a significant break with the legitimacy that many politicians felt Keynes had given them to interfere in the economy.

Friedman also wanted the economy to develop without crises, but the approach was not for politicians to take on the role of economic witch doctors. The right thing would be to build in automatic mechanisms that could stabilise the economy. For example, benefits for the unemployed would help to keep the economy going during a downturn.

The centre-right liberal government led by Poul Schlüter and Henning Christophersen made the clear political choice to return to a fundamentally liberal economic policy.

Mads Lundby Hansen and Henrik Bach Mortensen

Friedman also pointed out very plainly that there are clear limits to how much, for example, unemployment can be reduced through expansionary economic policies, including increased public spending. At a time when the politicians could not measure and register, the trend turned into excess demand and accelerating inflation.

This point turned out to be precisely the interface between liberal and social democratic economic policy.

Economic policy In Denmark, around the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, Anker Jørgensen’s Social Democratic government maintained a reckless economic policy, which did not recognise the limits of political interference in the economy.

In the words of Social Democratic Finance Minister Knud Heinesen, Denmark was driven to the brink of collapse with exploding public debt, rising inflation, sky-high interest rates and accelerating balance of payments deficits.

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The centre-right liberal government led by Poul Schlüter and Henning Christophersen made the clear political choice to return to a basic liberal economic policy, where theoretically unfounded, perpetual and disruptive policy interventions that created economic imbalances had to be abandoned in favour of a more restrained policy based on the underlying real forces of the economy.

From the early 1980s, economic policy became fundamentally liberal in its design: The political system can stabilise economic development with more restrained ambitions. Rather than an unstable devaluation policy, the Danish krone was fixed.

The policy of a fixed exchange was considered credible by citizens and businesses, and therefore the Danish interest rate fell from around 20 to 10% over 4 years. This had a clear stabilising and positive effect on the Danish economy.

Gradually, it was recognised that if employment was to be increased and unemployment reduced on a lasting basis, one of the relevant tools would be to focus on incentives for the unemployed to seek and take up employment and on incentives for companies to invest.

Throughout the 1980s, liberal economic thinking was complemented by what can be called “supply-side economics”. Friedman was part of this school. He was among the first to state that long-term unemployment is determined by so-called structural factors such as the level of unemployment benefits and other factors affecting the supply of labour, etc.

Consensus In Denmark, there has been widespread consensus on the principal ideas of the economic policy. Principal ideas that run through Poul Schlüter’s government, to Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as well as Helle Thorning Schmidt and Lars Løkke Rasmussen. Principal ideas that draw on supply-side economic thinking. The Nyrup government implemented a tax reform in 1993 that significantly lowered the top marginal tax rate, and the Nyrup government was the first to introduce what is called medium-term economic plans. Plans where one of the main elements was a specific objective to increase labour supply. Inherent in this is recognising that increasing labour supply through market adjustment leads to increased employment and 88

prosperity. For there is obviously a correlation between how many citizens in employment and the output and wealth that can be generated.

At the same time, the medium-term plans have aimed at ensuring sound public finances. These medium-term plans’ labour supply targets have been a great success. Since 2001, successive governments have increased labour supply by the equivalent of 250,000 persons.

Of course, there have been differences in elements of specific economic policymaking between governments, but there has been a fundamental acceptance of the division of labour between the private sector, the economy and the political system.

It is only under Mette Frederiksen’s government from 2019 that a reluctance to accept the terms to ensure a stable and responsible economic policy has emerged. The first two years of the government saw a paradigm shift from the precise objectives of increased labour supply that characterised the Nyrup, Fogh, Løkke and Thorning governments.

Mette Frederiksen’s government has thus reduced the workforce by around 10,000 people through the new form of early retirement, known as the Arne pension.

It was ominous when Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen characterised 30 years of economic policy as both “right wing” and “old-fashioned”. It brings to mind both Social Democratic Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen and later Greek Finance Minister Janis Varoufakis during the financial crisis, both of whom acted with fatal fearlessness in the face of their countries’ economic challenges.

At a European level, the challenges were the same as in Denmark in the 1980s. After tumultuous years of varying degrees of economic chaos in European countries, three significant sets of reforms were implemented within the EU, which could promote economic growth and stability. First, the single market was created to underpin increased division of labour and growth in the EU and associated economies. Second, the desire for freedom was extended to world trade. And third, the Euro created a monetary union to maintain stable economic development with inflation at a common low level.

The three initiatives have been highly successful. The single market has fostered a large, well-functioning domestic market while the EU works to establish free trade agreements with other countries and regions.

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The Euro has been strongly criticised partly because it would be desirable for the single currency to be more closely tied to a common economic policy. However, despite much noise, monetary union and EU collaboration were generally instrumental in pulling the whole EU through first the financial crisis and then the economic consequences of the Covid epidemic.

The enlargement of the EU with 10 Central European countries in 2004 contributed to political stability and prosperity in Eastern and Central Europe. Countries have benefited from the single market and the Euro, and there are strict requirements on inflation and public finances to join the Euro. It has disciplined countries’ economic policies and benefited growth.

The other EU countries - including Denmark - have also significantly benefited from eastward enlargement. This is partly through political stability in the Eastern and Central European countries and partly through new, increasingly rich trading countries. But also through a larger European labour market, which has made it possible to increase both the labour force and economic prosperity in Denmark.

For the Liberals in Denmark, the task with the economic policy is to achieve economic growth and prosperity by: • Maintaining stable socio-economic development through supportive economic policies • Improving the structures of the economy through attractive incentives to work, save and invest • Ensuring sound and sustainable public finances • Supporting the rapid adjustment of workers and companies to “shocks” to the economy from, for example, globalisation, technological, digital developments, etc.

• Maintaining a firm anchorage (or connection) to the Euro • Promoting a free global economy through expanded free trade arrangements in the EU.

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LIBERALS, FREEDOM AND INEQUALITY

By Henrik Bach Mortensen, Vice-President ALDE, member of Venstre Youth/Venstre since 1972, MSc in Economics, University of Copenhagen, and M.Phil in Economics, University of Cambridge

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Inequality is a theme that constantly attracts attention in the political debate. It is put forward in many contexts: There is inequality in income, there is inequality between rich and poor countries, there is inequality in health status, and there is inequality in wealth distribution. But is it really about inequality or just about differences between people? Are liberals supporters or opponents of equality or inequality? And are these even considerations that liberals need to worry about? 1 It is more often people of a socialist persuasion rather than liberals who start the discussion about inequality. With this theme, we are given one of the questions that seriously marks the dividing line between liberals and socialists. It is very much about different starting points. However, the issue is so much in the public debate that liberals cannot and should not avoid reflection and a position.

Liberals focus first and foremost on creating the best possible framework for individual freedom and enterprise. On the other hand, the socialist is concerned that there should not be too great a difference between the actual living conditions of different people.

The societal framework for the inequality debate has changed dramatically in recent decades. This is first and foremost because developments in Denmark and globally have proven conclusively that economies that rely on a high degree of market orientation and economic freedom are far superior to centrally and socialist-led economies.

No serious observer doubts any longer that the rules of the market economy generate the greatest output and wealth in society. Planned economy and a socialist economy are the sure way to economic misery. The communists in China in particular have realised this - without, however, leading to a corresponding openness to democracy and personal freedom.

Compared to earlier times, socialists of various kinds in different countries are also not fighting as hard as before to control and socialise production and business. The focus is more on how to influence the distribution of the wealth that is generated.

The liberal starting point usually focuses on individual freedom and economic terms. Therefore, it is fundamentally unwelcome if there is political interference 1 The main points of this chapter have previously been discussed in my op-ed in the national daily newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, on 26 May 2015.

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in the distribution of income and wealth created in the market economy.

Conversely, liberals recognise that different individual’s starting points for participating in the market economy are very different. And therefore, the possibilities of the individual are also, to a greater or lesser extent, strongly influenced by the different starting points of the individual.

Thus, it becomes very relevant to note that liberal attention cannot be limited to ensuring that everyone has the same formal freedom to seek happiness and success in life. We also need to look at whether everyone really has real satisfactory opportunities in life.

The Welfare Society and “The American Dream” In one of the most liberal messages - the American Declaration of Independence - there is a desire to create a society with maximum freedom for the individual.

The immigrants to the United States had fled from European regimes where the individual citizen was oppressed in numerous areas by kings, absolute monarchy, oppressive regulations on business activities and property rights, lack of religious freedom, etc. To be free from the enormous oppression was a gift for those who arrived in the United States. It is precisely for this reason that the Declaration of Independence states that everyone must be guaranteed the right to “the pursuit of happiness” - without the oppression and restraint of the king and state.

However, it is precisely merely the “right to seek happiness” - the right to pursue the American dream of success and wealth. There is no question of the Declaration of Independence promising anything whatsoever to the individual American - other than freedom.

It is here that we come to the most striking difference between the traditional American understanding of their society (which still enjoys firm support among the American population, to the surprise of many Europeans) and the welfare society that most Danes want. A society that not only gives us the right to seek happiness but is also designed to help us if formal freedom is not quite enough to support what we have at different times perceived as a dignified existence.

Liberal market economy and equality As liberals with our political, cultural and historical Danish starting point - whether we are citizens, politicians or economists - we do not need to argue

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about the fact that liberal thinking has won the day when it comes to pointing out which organisation of the economy which best ensures the production of the greatest possible prosperity. But on the other hand, liberals cannot shy away from having an opinion about and an acceptable explanation for the distribution of wealth in society.

Internationally, there has been an increasing debate on inequality for some years. For example, French economist Thomas Piketty believes he can demonstrate a clear trend toward greater inequality. But also, the OECD has focused on the fact that strongly accelerating inequalities can create social unrest, which can harm economic development. Attention to inequality can be linked to different contexts. There is no doubt that globalisation, digitalisation and technological development have massively increased prosperity in many poor countries and that global inequality has been dramatically reduced. However, on the other hand, there are losers in this development who experience relative poverty. This is true, for example, of broad groups of workers in manufacturing industry in the Western world.

There is no doubt that liberals must defend and take credit for the market economy and the wealth it has created. But liberals must also undertake to explain, defend, and influence the distribution of economic benefits that citizens experience in our society.

Therefore, liberals must be able to explain and justify any state of “economic inequality”. This is particularly necessary given that inequality is not just an expression of differences between people’s economic situations but can also mean that a larger or smaller proportion of the population experiences unsustainable living conditions while others live in affluence.

However, the discussion about economic inequality is not straightforward.

Socialists have traditionally had a high degree of equality measured in terms of economic income as a goal in itself. For liberals, equality has been about ensuring equal opportunities for everyone to create their personal income and wealth.

History has shown us that the socialists, with their policies, are able to achieve a situation in which the vast majority are fairly equal economically - unfortunately, in the sense of roughly equally poor. This was the experience of the citizens of communist Eastern Europe, of Mao’s China and today of Cuba, North Korea or Venezuela (curiously, equality was reserved for the general population, while the small political and economic elites enjoyed exceptional privileges).

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Paradoxically, Denmark has a very liberal and market-oriented economic model and at the same time, Denmark is at the top on most parameters when it comes to equality.

The goal for liberals should be: Firstly, there must be a focus on ensuring that policies contribute to providing all citizens with fair and realistic opportunities in order to ensure that everyone gets the possibility of building a dignified life and of achieving a reasonable level of well-being, both in absolute and relative terms.

Secondly, that we must maintain support for a liberal economy, where the free choice of individuals is the starting point for consumption, production, work effort, etc.

Thirdly, it is also essential to state that inequality can never become an end in itself for a liberal. But differences in income that reflect commitment, enterprise or entrepreneurship are perfectly acceptable because they reflect positive contributions to overall wealth creation.

But all this also implies that if we want to reduce the degree of inequality, then efforts must be directed first and foremost at strengthening the starting point for weak citizens, not at weakening the creation of wealth among those who are doing best.

The liberal task is, therefore, to contribute to ensuring that everyone has open and satisfying opportunities to experience a life in which they share in prosperity.

Social mobility From a liberal point of view, the task becomes, as far as possible, to transform what for some citizens is in reality only formal freedom into something they experience as real freedom so that formal opportunities in life also turn out to be real opportunities.

Therefore, all citizens must meet offers and efforts that strive to give each individual the “muscles” to create an economically satisfactory life.

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It is first and foremost about breaking “negative social inheritance”, where given conditions during early life in the broadest sense weaken an individual’s overall chances in life.

Thus, the discussion on inequality cannot stand alone. It should be seen in relation to the degree of social mobility - that is, the extent to which children move up or down the economic pyramid of society, relative to the starting point of their parents.

The degree of social mobility is closely linked to the degree of dynamism and development, as well as the opportunities for individuals in a liberal economy.

Politically, the challenge will be to work on attitudes to different degrees of economic inequality and the possibilities for social mobility. It involves formulating political and moral requirements for the “practical rules of the game” that should apply in society in relation to the social, education, labour market, health and tax policies among other things.

A high degree of social mobility means that children of the rich and poor cannot be sure from birth that they will take over their mother’s or father’s place in society, but that they must, can and will work for their own position in society. Without actual upward mobility, the “American dream” that everyone can reach the top is, of course, an illusion. Conversely, there will, of course, be children who do relatively less well than their parents.

If we want to reduce inequality, we need to focus our efforts on strengthening the starting point for weak citizens, not on weakening wealth creation among the bestoff.

Henrik Bach Mortensen The idea of equal opportunities for all must, of course, sound empty and meaningless if the reality turns out to be that economic prosperity is, in fact, passed down from generation to generation. In a critical light, it is especially criticisable if a society is characterised by both high economic inequality and weak 98

or no social mobility - for that would be a society that has not given all its citizens the same real opportunities in life, to say the least. The actual combination of inequality and mobility thus has important implications for the perceived legitimacy of a society based on a market economy.

The robust citizen As liberals, we want a society built on free and robust citizens. Therefore, it is not a goal that citizens should be able to base their existence on support from the welfare society. Free citizens must make the choices that shape their lives as much as possible. Each individual must show commitment, take responsibility and invest their own skills and efforts in creating a good life.

But we also recognise that the ability to exercise freedom is linked to the personal starting point and the degree of personal robustness. Therefore, the aim is to provide all citizens with the skills and knowledge necessary to master their place in society. The aim is to ensure that each individual has skills that can be supplied in the labour market.

Each individual must be able to deal with the temptations and pressures of social media and commercial interests. Every citizen should be able to cope with life’s challenges as far as possible - on their own and with the help of the community.

For example, each pupil must be able to deal with unsatisfactory grades. We do not create robust citizens by abolishing grades and exams. Nor is a socially correct design about banning the internet, advertising or grades. It is about supporting robust citizens who can critically sort out pressures and temptations from the surroundings.

However, that does not change the fact that we as liberals want to ensure that those citizens who, due to illness, difficult upbringing, etc., cannot take care of their own situation are met with appropriate care from the community.

The moral challenge for liberals The liberal economist Adam Smith was already aware 250 years ago that the desire to create the greatest possible economic prosperity could not stand alone. A market economy without an ethical and political “balancing” risks ending in feudal exploitation, anarchy or unfettered capitalism.

But ethics cannot be formulated in practical politics the same way as the rules of the market economy. In other words: Economic theory can guide politicians and the rest of us about economic efficiency.

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And for all practical purposes, it has been scientifically demonstrated that the market economy generates the greatest economic welfare.

However, there is no scientific answer to the moral side of the issue, which is about designing the specific policy initiatives in the form of education, social, health and other welfare policies that ensure that economic efficiency is accompanied by satisfactory welensure that economic efficiency is accompanied by satisfactory welfare for the population at large.

The liberal philosopher John Rawls has formulated a model of the moral demands that a liberal supporter of the market economy should place on themselves.

Rawls asks us to imagine an experiment in which we are to design the social order and the social rules of the society that we want. But we must do so without knowing what place which we ourselves will occupy in society. We should not know whether we would live a life in sickness or disability, a life of wealth, a life of higher education, or unemployment.

In other words, the task is to argue for and establish the rules of the game for the practical organisation of a society without each of us knowing what our own destiny would be. After all, it’s no big deal to argue for economic freedom or to accept even wild economic inequality if you are set for a life on the sunny side.

The difficulty with this position is that it is, of course, impossible to formulate precisely what this moral obligation should entail in the real world. It will also vary from person to person, and thus it is specifically a political or ethical consideration, and the consideration is not scientific.

Therefore, the somewhat humble but practical and demanding conclusion is the following: All liberals who wish to argue in favour of a liberal market economy with excellent reason must take on a moral challenge. The desire for a market economy must be complemented by a commitment to work for policy initiatives that ensure that we create a society with associated inequality that we ourselves would want to live in, even if we did not know our (current and future) place in society.

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LIBERAL CULTURAL POLICY

By Jan E. Jørgensen, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), Culture and Media Spokesman, and Lawyer

I remember a debate at Frederiksberg Library about cultural policy. A younger Liberal Alliance candidate wanted to abolish all public support for culture and leave it to the market. Her trump card was saying that Mozart didn’t receive public support either, and he was doing fine on market terms.

The assembly was amused - not loudly, but politely and indulgently because Mozart was very much receiving support.

Not in the form of a lifetime honorarium from the Danish Arts Foundation, but he was, among other things, an organist at the archbishop’s court. “An archbishop,” you say? It’s something about government and taxes. He wrote operas on commission for the court in Munich. “Court”, you say? It is something royal, and so state and tax. He became an imperial chamber musician. Give the emperor what is the emperor’s - tax! Which was used to “hold court”, as they say. And Mozart was on the court payroll.

Ludwig van Beethoven was financed by the nobility - the equivalent of the Ministry of Culture civil servants at the time.

It’s the same story with Johann Sebastian Bach. He would have been in a fix if the court and the church had not paid him.

At Christiansborg, the seat of the Danish Parliament, we have the Court Theatre, and I wonder why it is called The Royal Theatre?

The state has always supported culture, and the difference between then and now is mainly that fine culture is no longer the preserve of the well-to-do. Anyone can buy a ticket to The Royal Theatre.

By the way, in the United States, there is also a Department of Arts and Culture that spends taxpayers’ money on culture.

Cultural life and private patrons In the United States, there is a tradition of private patrons supporting the arts. Just think of the range of museums in Washington D.C. - The National Air and Space Museum, for example. National treasures such as space capsules and shuttles are on display, but a third of the museum’s income comes from private donors, who can deduct the funding from their taxes.

We have the same tradition in Denmark.

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That is why a fantastic museum in the middle of Copenhagen is named after a beer. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek was bought and paid for by brewer Carl Jacobsen.

Louisiana in Humlebæk was also founded by a private person - Knud W. Jensen, who had not earned his money from beer, but from cheese.

Trapholt in Kolding came into being because the wealthy dentist and apple plantation owner Gustav Lind gave the municipality some land in return for setting up an art museum.

Ordrupgaard in Charlottenlund began as Wilhelm and Henny Hansen’s private home, with an impressive private art collection on the walls.

And The Hirschsprung Collection in Østerbro was, as the name suggests, founded by tobacco manufacturer Heinrich Hirschsprung and his wife, Pauline.

Political control of cultural life does not ensure diversity On the one hand, I contend that public involvement in cultural life is necessary and that you would have to be a very principled person to think otherwise. On the other hand, I believe that private involvement is at least as important.

Not everyone agrees. A few years ago, the daily newspaper Information had a series of articles about The Powerful Cultural Foundations, in which the funding of cultural life was problematised with the following preamble: “In recent years, private foundations have become increasingly important for cultural life, and their money helps decide which new buildings and projects go ahead and which ones are scrapped. But who is the new power of cultural life? And what does it mean for art and democracy that their influence is increasing?”

In one of the articles from 20 July 2019, with the headline “Private foundations control Danish cultural life”, the old youth rebel Peter Duelund states that an overriding problem with the increasing private funding is the public conversation about culture and the arts is “hidden”.

He tells the newspaper, “It’s easy to forget that when we have a public cultural policy with public support from taxpayers’ money, it helps to stimulate an ongoing cultural debate. By its very nature, this is not the case with foundations. They

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can sovereignly make the support choices they want, without arguing with anyone.”

Not surprisingly, Mai Villadsen, the then culture spokesperson for the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten), fully agreed with the fundamental premise that foundations funding culture entail a lack of democratic control. She is quoted in the national daily newspaper, Information, on 23 July 2019 in an article headlined “The Red-Green Alliance calls for more control of private cultural foundations: They drive development without democratic debate.”

Here she elaborates on the headline by saying, among other things: “In reality, it may be a few individuals with large fortunes who decide what art should be in Danish museums. In the Red-Green Alliance, we want a diverse cultural offer with both popular and niche art.”

I have seen no evidence that this is the case. If I had to give my opinion, I would instead say the opposite. Private funding is a major contributor to the diversity of our cultural offer. What public museums exhibited modern art before private forces established Louisiana? None.

Rindalism And who says that a democratic debate will lead to more niche art? One of the biggest social debates about culture in Denmark was certainly not about more niche, publicly funded art but about less - indeed, none at all.

In 1965, a warehouse manager named Peter Rindal sparked a debate about modern art and not least the brand-new Danish Arts Foundation.

He gave his name to an ism - Rindalism - which is simply about not spending taxpayers’ money to support art and artists. Rindalism had a tremendous popular impact, and Rindalism was the result of a democratic debate, as called for by Mai Villadsen.

In the same article, my predecessor as culture spokesman Bertel Haarder fortunately also said: “The worst thing would be if it were the Ministry of Culture or some its civil servants that sat on all the appropriations in an area. There is a tendency for public funds to be frozen for current purposes, and it’s like a frozen lake, and the ducks are stuck and can’t move. But then, fortunately, some foundations come and break the ice and do something new.”

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Funds ensure arm’s length If you are a liberal, the alleged lack of democratic control over cultural life is not a problem, on the contrary, it helps to ensure that cultural life develops diversely. The arm's length principle is easier to apply when people other than politicians and civil servants are involved in decision-making.

Lord Acton is credited with the quote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, and when power is distributed among several hands, a tight-knit cultural elite is less likely to hand out money to its friends.

There is an old saying that he who pays for the music decides what will be played.

Ideally, this should not be the case when payment is made on behalf of all taxpayers, yet it requires self-restraint for a politician not to steer the culture in the same direction as one’s personal tastes.

An example is when the City of Odense was going to celebrate H.C. Andersen. In the end, the Social Democratic mayor, Anker Boye, spent a small fortune to get Tina Turner to sing “Simply the Best”, but Anker Boye was not the best music booker, and Tina Turner was not the best main name because the choice of artist was retroactive to when the Funen mayor was young. And that was a long time ago.

Or the time when Pia Kjærsgaard of the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) refused to give Lars von Trier more money to make films because he had made Dogville, which she saw as unfairly critical of the United States. The film appears on Information’s list of the 24 best films of the 21st century.

When more people pay the bill, no one is in charge.

The majority drive in the middle of the road There is certainly no guarantee that the public sector will be more courageous and innovative than private foundations. The majority are cautiously in the middle of the road and don't ask the majority if you want to get to the edges, where art becomes dangerous.

If you want to avoid criticism, it is easiest to stick to the familiar and safe. And you know as a politician that you get criticised for spending less in one area, even if it means you can spend more in another.

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We have more libraries than bookshops in Frederiksberg, where I sit on the municipal council. Even though everyone can stream music, listen to audiobooks or watch films online for little money, we still have five libraries in Denmark’s geographically smallest municipality of less than nine square kilometres. It would be obvious to spend some of the money on an art museum or public education instead, but you can be sure that there will not be a proposal to close a branch or two from the library itself.

Artists should be treated as business owners and not as if they were on public benefits.

Jan E. Jørgensen

Discrimination between boxing and ballet Another cultural policy challenge for a liberal is that not all cultural offerings receive equal public support. Some get a lot, others get a little, and many get nothing at.

As a liberal, you do not want to judge how others live their lives. Tastes differ, and we support the freedom to be different.

Shouldn’t everything get equal support? Why should the taxpayer who prefers a good boxing match not receive as much in subsidies as the one who would rather see a ballet?

Part of the difference is undoubtedly historical and can be difficult to explain logically - rather like the distinction between dentists and other doctors.

Why is it free to have a broken knee repaired but not a broken tooth?

Nor is it uniquely Danish that not all culture receives public support. Traditionally, large parts of culture have always stood on their own.

It is the part called mass culture, which got its name because many people love it and are willing to pay for it. It is popular among many, which is why it is also called popular culture.

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It can stand on its own two feet, so it is unnecessary to support it with public money.

Rhythmic music is not supported as much as classical music, and it is not because the Beatles are worse than Beethoven. It is because a symphony orchestra with at least 72 professional musicians is more expensive than a band with four. However, the key difference is that there is a smaller audience at a classical concert than at a rock concert.

The support is not given because it is a pity for those who like classical music, and it is given because classical music has qualities that must not be lost. It is the art that is supported, and not the artists and the audience.

When rhythmic music is supported, it is, for example, out of a desire to have venues outside the major towns and cities. Or to ensure that young people can train as musicians. Or to help export Danish music abroad.

Films are supported for the same reasons. Some films are supported because of their artistic qualities and because they could not be made otherwise, but films that are commercial are also supported under the market scheme. Here the aim is more export support than art support. At the same time, small art cinemas are supported, and the education is publicly funded. So also, in film, the commercial and the artistic coexist, and both are supported, but to different degrees.

So, today there is more equality between the cultural offers that are supported than there used to be.

From entertainment tax to film subsidy The difference is even more striking if you go back in Danish history. In the past, parts of cultural life were punished with an entertainment tax. For example, cinemas had to pay no less than 60% in entertainment tax until it was abolished in 1964.

And music was punished with an excise duty on LPs, cassettes and CDs. Ten liberal cultural theses In conclusion, I will try to set out a liberal cultural policy in a series of theses.

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1. If art can stand on its own two feet, then there is no need to support it. I am not in favour of the social democratic approach, where it is seen as an independent goal to get as many people as possible into The Royal Theatre. It is a good idea to ensure that all young people have the opportunity to experience theatre, for example, free of charge. It is also a good idea to ensure that there are cultural offers across the country, but we support the arts primarily for the arts' sake.

One of the only fingerprints of the Social Democratic Minister for Culture Joy Mogensen was that The Royal Theatre is allowed to stage more musicals - in direct competition with private musical theatres, which receive little or no funding. That is a distortion of competition, and there is no need for it because the music scene is doing fine without public support.

2. If art cannot stand on its own feet, then deductions are better than direct subsidies because that best ensures the arm’s length principle. It would be an excellent idea to extend the tradesmen’s allowance to include an arts and culture allowance.

3. The arm’s length principle is a liberal virtue to the extent that grants are given because it ensures that elected officials do not directly control the arts. Unlike conservatives and socialists, Venstre does want the state to direct culture. And unlike

many other parties, Venstre does not have a static view of culture. We know that Danish culture has evolved throughout history with input from the outside world.

4. To the extent that support is provided, it must be in the form of support for specific projects and not as life-long support, and work grants are better than lifelong support from the Danish Arts Foundation.

5. Artists should be treated as business owners and not as if they were on public benefits. We need to improve the selfsufficiency of artists. Paradoxically, many artists see themselves as left-wing because artists are self-employed business owners.

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6. Artists must be paid properly for their works made available to the public. It can be library money or payment to be played on television and radio. Publicly funded institutions must pay writers, musicians and other artists a fair wage for participating in various events.

7. We must give artists the opportunity to strive for the best in their profession. This is why work grants are a good way to support artists because they provide the necessary peace of mind.

8. Denmark must support the Danish language and culture.

Other countries do not. Denmark is a small linguistic area, which is why public support for Danish films and TV series is necessary.

9. Culture has a value in itself. Paradoxically, cultural policy is not at the top of the agenda when you consider how big consumers of culture the Danes are: Festivals, libraries, theatres, grassroots and elite sport, computer games, film, etc., play a huge role.

Danish culture is therefore particularly important for a cohesive Denmark, and it is also important for, for example, integration, freedom of thought and Danish business, including tourism and exports.

10. An active cultural, sporting and association life in all parts of Denmark is crucial if we want a balanced Denmark with strong mobility and encounters across social backgrounds and origins. It is particularly important that culture should also be for children

and young people, and that Denmark’s unique historical heritage is preserved for posterity.

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LIBERALISM AND LEGAL CERTAINTY IN 2022

By Preben Bang Henriksen, lawyer, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), and legal affairs spokesman

A legal jungle or the law of the jungle?

Liberalism is based on an individualistic view of man and emphasises man's freedom from the state. According to Wikipedia, this is the slightly abbreviated description of “liberalism”, and that is as much freedom as possible and as little state as possible.

It sounds appealing - especially in contrast to socialism. But how far does the need and desire for freedom of the individual really extend in relation to society? What would you rather have: The law of the jungle or a legal jungle? And is that a real choice, or should we look at a more nuanced model and recognise that the state needs to step in and regulate more in modern society than it used to?

The law of the jungle gives victory to the strong in a conflict with the weak. That is not liberalism, and certainly not in 2022. However, in practice, legal certainty in Denmark has primarily gone down this road.

We must have regulation if we want to protect the weak in society, and we must have effective regulation. If you have to wait four years for a civil trial or are punished for murder with a 30-day suspended prison sentence, the regulation is ineffective. Then the strong always win.

Court cases must be decided by independent judges - not by a government or politicians. Already Montesquieu established the “separation of powers”, which was later codified in Section 1017 of the Administration of Justice Act. But how difficult it is for today’s politicians to keep their hands off the pending cases.

The development of criminal cases However, looking at developments in Denmark in recent years, it must be acknowledged that the effectiveness and proportionality of criminal law have become increasingly diluted, and the law of the jungle is, therefore, more and more prevalent.

In Denmark, we currently spend only about 50% of the resources that other countries spend on policing. It is hardly surprising, then, that the efficiency of the police is far from top-notch. Yet we resign ourselves to the way things are, which is why Denmark has become an Eldorado for economic criminals who more or less live by cheating others. And that’s why online crime thrives. That is not liberalism, in my view. It’s the law of the jungle.

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I would like to see a police officer on every street corner. Who wouldn’t like the classic British model of a polite Bobby visibly instilling fear in criminals and reassuring honest citizens? No, there’s just not the resources for it. This means, in turn, that we are primarily forced to use technical aids, be it number plate recognition, cameras, logging, etc. It is clear, at least, that society will not become freer and more liberal if we take the cameras down. It does not promote freedom - liberalism, and it promotes the law of the jungle, including the opportunities for motorcycle gang members, terrorists and dangerous drivers to commit serious crimes.

There is, of course, a need to balance conflicting considerations. Where possible, monitoring, etc., should be directed primarily at justified suspicions or justified needs. At the same time, it is essential to ensure that no authority can misuse the data collected. For example, it should not be changed that a search always requires a warrant as a starting point.

Even as liberals, we need to recognise that what some see as restrictions on citizens’ freedom, for example, CCTV on pedestrian streets, may, in fact, be an extension of freedom that has a preventive effect and ensures that criminals are convicted and the innocent go free. As a practising defence lawyer, I can attest that countless criminals have been caught committing serious crimes through surveillance and logging. These means are not a restriction on citizens’ freedom, and they are a restriction on the freedom of criminals.

A liberal society requires an efficient and speedy judicial system. Here, too, the current system is lagging behind. All criminals who have not committed a weapons, violence or rape crime experience a completely unsatisfactory waiting time in court.

The civil cases In a liberal society, as stated, we do not recognise the law of the jungle.

Nevertheless, it has been widely adopted in civil law, where procedural rules should ensure that everyone gets what is rightfully theirs.

The ever-increasing litigation costs are now deterring people who have a right to have their rights. When the greengrocer receives a rent increase from his landlord of DKK 50,000 a year, he can protest, but if he loses the case on the market rent, he is left with costs of up to DKK 200,000. This risk balancing is not healthy for legal certainty.

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Free legal aid should be a means of safeguarding citizens’ rights so that the state pays both its own lawyer and the costs of the proceedings. But with an income limit for married couples of DKK 437,000 (2021), few people will be eligible for free legal aid.

The Legal Adviser to the Danish Government Freedom in the liberal sense goes utterly wrong when the state is the counterparty. Since 1936, the state has used a particular private law firm (the Legal Adviser to the Danish Government) whose turnover on this basis is somewhere between ½ and one DKK billion annually, all-inclusive. Those who have had the Legal Adviser to the Danish Government as a counterparty will know that here one is faced with a state power whose resources are unlimited and where more lawyers are readily allocated to the prosecution of the citizen in the struggle for the state to win. The cost is irrelevant. Several studies show that the Legal Adviser to the Danish Government charges three times as much in fees as the citizen’s lawyer.

So, if you want less government - and as liberals, we often do - this is a perfect place to start.

Should the Legal Adviser to the Danish Government lose the case, despite their best efforts, the way is paved for an appeal by the state.

Thus, the citizen has to be prepared for the fact that the case is not over for several years and that there remains another unequal battle against the state in the court of appeal. The citizen must finance their own legal fees both in the lower court and during a lengthy appeal procedure.

Finally, even if the citizen wins again in the court of appeal, the costs awarded will only cover the citizen’s own lawyer’s fees in exceptional cases so that the citizen can expect a financial loss after the state’s appeal.

If, as liberals, we want less government, then surely this is an obvious and simple place to start, in the form of limiting the state’s right of appeal after losing the case in the first instance.

Under current conditions, the best advocacy in many cases is when the state sues a citizen: Take affirmative action - admit your guilt! And that’s true whether you are guilty or not. Otherwise, the case will hang over you for years, and you are sure to lose out financially on legal costs.

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Tonnes of documents and lots of court hearings In recent years, the Administration of Justice Act has also developed in such a way that the parties in civil cases can, in effect, overwhelm the court with documents. This can have the effect of driving the financially weaker counterparty to drop the litigation. It does not comply with a liberal desire to ensure the legal certainty of the individual.

During the compensation proceedings from the collapsed EBH bank board, 110,000 pages of documents were submitted by the state (Financial Stability). You’re welcome! For an employee-elected board member who has to finance their own lawyer, the solution is obvious: give up the case and admit defeat! The economy of the case is in a bad way when, for example, the 120 court days (the EBH case) also have to be financed.

We have thus reached a situation where the virtually free production of documents in court means that the weak party is already behind and may even have already lost the case. There is no legal certainty for the weaker party.

Arbitration The handling of civil cases by the Danish courts is getting longer and longer. The EBH case mentioned above, which was dealt with in one instance only, lasted 9 years. More common cases to be dealt with in district and regional courts are probably in the range of 3-4 years.

The handling of civil cases by the Danish courts is getting longer and longer.

Preben Bang Henriksen

It is clear that the waiting time alone may tempt one to agree to arbitration in commercial matters. It is typically characterised by paying for the judges’ time, getting a quick ruling and a ruling that cannot be appealed. However, is this kind of “court of payment” what we want in a liberal society?

Could one not just let experienced staff decide very small cases in a fast process. The system is already known today from the bailiff court, 117

where experienced clerical staff decide simple cases. Perhaps there is no need for a judge to be 100% involved in cases without significant evidence.

Perhaps these cases could be decided/settled directly “in the front office”, with the possibility of appeal to the usual court system.

Lawyer’s inquiries The latest development in alternative justice is “lawyer’s inquiries”.

Here, the person requesting an inquiry - be it a company, a municipality, a region, the state, etc. - obtains a relatively quick “decision” compared to the speed at which our exhausted courts are obliged to work today.

However, it’s not just speed that appeals to the lawyer’s inquiry client.

The client also decides what is to be investigated and - not least - who is to investigate. Many lawyers, for example, have their consciences tested when a major client, who may have paid millions in fees to the lawyer over the years, now wants the lawyer to conduct an “objective” investigation into whether the major client’s decision to suspend a particular employee was not entirely correct. The examples are numerous, but TV2 and the Danish Serum Institute (Danish Ministry of Health) are examples of good “customers” for whom this practice is not unknown. I find it hard to think of examples where lawyer’s inquiries have delivered decisions against the payer!

Fortunately, the Administration of Justice Act contains many rules to protect the accused. As a rule, everything is done in the open so that citizens and the press, in particular, can check that justice is done properly and that it is done correctly. If this is not the case, the convicted person can appeal to the High Court. All rules developed through 100 years of legislation and legal practice based on the motto: better 10 criminals go free than one innocent convicted.

Most importantly, Lady Justice (in most depictions) is blindfolded. Either party does not pay judges in Denmark, and they judge solely on what is proven in court - not popular opinion or newspaper coverage.

Opposite to this system is “lawyer’s inquiries”. No rules apply here. Here the client chooses the lawyer, who receives their fee from the client. Can you

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imagine if a party to a lawsuit handed over a sum of money to the judge to keep the case going?

The result of the lawyer’s inquiry is sent to the client who ordered the inquiry, after which the client chooses whether to publish the result and, if so, how. Should the inquiry indicate that the client is not right, the client can, of course, refrain from disclosure.

When the client then opts to publish the lawyer’s inquiry in the media, there are not many Danes who question the result. The fact that it has been produced in a manner totally unworthy of a constitutional state, and often with entirely wrong results, is rarely a particularly interesting issue of interest to the general public.

One of Denmark’s most renowned lawyers, Eskild Trolle, remarked in the journal Ugeskrift for Retsvæsen as early as 1994: “Every lawyer must have misgivings about this modern and sophisticated form of public ‘stocks’ that public inquiries have developed into.”

Unfortunately, this concern has disappeared in today’s fast-paced society.

Here, one (larger) party chooses the “judge” (the lawyer) and pays for the effort and publishes the result - without any possibility of appeal for the loser.

At a time when speedy inquiries are required, there should at least be a set of rules to be followed in these “inquiries” - not just instructions from this or that organisation. Alternatively, the inquiry should be a refereeing exercise. Basically, the “ruling” via the media after a lawyer’s inquiry is significantly more widespread and unbiased than would be the case with a traditional ruling.

For example, inspiration could be sought in the rules of public servant law on “official questioning” so that a judge at least controls the course of events and ensures a minimum of legal certainty.

Summary To me, it would be wrong if the definition of liberalism in the administration of justice in 2021 were made a question of less state and more freedom. It’s about rights and protecting the individual.

“Liberalism” here is a matter of everyone having the opportunity for a fair trial, without the state or others in one way or another putting 119

obstacles in the way. These may be technical, financial or time constraints.

Against this background, liberalism in the administration of justice in 2022 could be better defined as the access of all citizens to a fair trial, based on the saying that he who is right must also have the right. At the same time, the legal basis must be laid down by Parliament - even if this means more legislation in many areas.

Specific measures to promote “liberalism” in this definition could include: 1. More resources for police and courts - not least for large and complex cases 2. Increased use of technical tools (number plate recognition, cameras, logging, etc.), including for crime detection, but in all cases with full respect for citizens’ rights and privacy 3. Increased possibilities for free legal proceedings and legal aid insurance 4. Ensuring that the resources of the state do not override the usual resources for the case when bringing proceedings against the citizen 5. Abolition of the biased Legal Adviser to the Danish Government system 6. Ensuring that the state can only appeal a case lost by the state in cases of clear error or very large amounts of money 7. Increased possibilities for the court to attribute the case at an early stage, thus simplifying the process 8. Clear procedural rules for lawyer’s inquiries based on the rules of the Administration of Justice Act 9. Increased possibilities to replace lawyer’s inquiries with judge’s inquiries, inspired by “official questioning”.

The list is not exhaustive but merely expresses quite obvious demands for a society with more fairness in the administration of justice.

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TO TAX OR NOT?

By Louise Schack Elholm, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), tax spokesperson, Member of Venstre Youth/Venstre since 1998, and MSc in Economics and Management Torsten Schack Pedersen, Member of the Folketing (V), business spokesman, member of Venstre Youth/Venstre since 1993, and MSc in Economics and Management

The epitome of liberalism is freedom. And freedom equals the absence of coercion. For this reason, taxes always attract the sceptical attention of liberals.

Not only for economic reasons but probably even more so ideologically. Because why should the state be allowed to take what is rightfully mine or yours?

Quite naturally, as a liberal, one would argue that the state’s primary task is to secure the negative liberties of citizens, i.e., the right to be in peace, as long as you do not harm others. This requires the state to have the income to finance defence, police and justice as the most basic tasks of a state. These are collective benefits where it does not make economic sense for them to be financed on a private market. If your neighbour pays for the country’s defence, you will benefit too. It can be said that there is no exclusivity in consumption in these areas. Therefore, financing public benefits is the obvious reason for the state to levy taxes.

For a liberal, however, the state has far more tasks than simply protecting negative freedoms. For a liberal, it is essential that people have equal opportunities. As it says in the chant of Venstre Youth, written by Bertel Haarder: “Equal opportunities for every young person - without fathers’ money.” Each person must have the freedom to pursue the life they want.

Therefore, the welfare society should step in to help ensure, regardless of family background, that the individual must have the freedom and opportunity to pursue the greatest possible happiness. Thus, for example, public spending on education is also part of a political effort to ensure the greatest possible freedom for all. For a liberal, it is natural that there should be a welfare society whose purpose is to promote the actual freedom of citizens, even when it requires tax revenue to the state to achieve this purpose.

However, it is important that taxpayers see fairness in the way taxes are levied.

This applies both to the fact that they can see that others are also paying what they should. But this is also true in terms of seeing fairness in how tax money is spent. It is destructive for tax morale if funds disappear into an inefficient public sector and are used to reward a government’s political “friends” or, in general, used for purposes that do not enjoy wide acceptance.

Non-distortionary taxes So, what is the best way to collect taxes?

From an economic and liberal perspective, taxes should be as non-distortionary as possible. Ideally, the state should not collect taxes in a way that

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destroys the price signals that make the market work well and keep resources flowing where they do the most good. Optimally, taxes will not change the free choices of free people. The state should be as non-prescriptive as possible and refrain from punishing people’s choice of one type of legal behaviour over another. A ‘lump sum’ taxation could be considered based on this consideration.

This means that all citizens in society pay the same amount of tax regardless of income.

However, that raises a whole other question: Is it fair that the richest and the poorest in society should pay the same amount in taxes? No, proportionality seems more reasonable, and those on high incomes should pay more than those who are struggling to make ends meet.

We have had a type of ‘lump sum’ taxation in Denmark - namely the licence. We were not particularly enthusiastic about the abolition of the licence, and it was one of the least non-distortionary taxes, and it was earmarked so you could see where the money came from and what it went to.

Income tax Income tax has been part of the Danish tax system since 1903. For early Venstre folk, it was quite natural that part of the taxation should come from income. In the past, tax revenue mainly came from property taxes and fees. Now personal income taxes make up about half of the total taxation, and in 2019 it was equivalent to DKK 570 billion. So, it’s hard to replace.

However, there are negative consequences associated with income tax. It has a clear effect on individual choice and activity in society. Income tax reduces the incentive to work or to work more. Therefore, taxation has a major impact on the labour supply. Because the higher the tax on work, the cheaper our spare time becomes - relatively speaking. Each individual will seek to optimise the work-life balance. Liberals certainly do not want either society’s or individuals’ prosperity to be reduced by high income taxes.

Therefore, the marginal tax is of great importance. If the marginal tax rate goes up, the incentive to work decreases, and it’s about personal incentives. Central to a liberal view of tax policy is that it should pay to work and to work more.

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It makes the most sense for society to do what you do best. It’s often what you have been educated to do. This means, for example, that it makes no sense for society if a doctor chooses to leave work early to clean the house. Then it is better that the doctor stayed at work a little longer, operated on a few more patients, and hired others to clean the house. After all, the cleaning staff cannot carry out the operations - that requires highly specialised labour.

Taxation of goods As liberals, we are in favour of a single VAT. It distorts the economy as little as possible. If there were lower VAT on children’s clothes, fruit and vegetables or whatever, it would influence consumers to change their consumption away from the consumption mix they really want. Therefore, a single VAT is not only the practical but also the attitudinal starting point for liberals. The single VAT does not involve judges of taste pointing fingers or the favouring of selected producers, and it is also the simplest to administer. For example, in countries with differentiated VAT, it can be a significant challenge for businesses to calculate VAT correctly.

It is a clear economic principle that what you want less of you should tax harder than what you want more of. It is used in the context of excise duties. Smoking is bad for your health and for someone other than yourself. At the same time, it may cause increased public health expenditure to be financed by others. This rationale can historically explain many excise duties. However, there are certainly also many examples where the primary aim has been fiscal and nothing else. In the old days, taxes were levied on windows facing the street or on carriages - even weddings!

More recently, there have been special taxes on electronic equipment and perfume. The only purpose was to get money into the treasury.

If the consumption of goods has a negative externality - that is, my consumption negatively affects the freedom of others - then there may be a liberal argument for introducing a tax to correct a so-called market failure, where the price on the private market does not reflect the socio-economic costs associated with consumption. This is particularly true for pollution and climate change, and this is a liberal argument for CO2 taxation. Individual consumption has a negative impact on the freedom of others, as consumption can lead to negative effects in terms of climate change.

In general, excise duties should be set at the level of the negative externality. If there is no negative externality, then there should be no excise duty.

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However, for climate and energy taxes, as well as excise duties, it is crucial that the constraints of national taxes are taken into account. The best-known examples are cross-border trade in beer, soft drinks and cigarettes. Regardless of the positive effects on public health, a one-sided national focus cannot be advocated.

If citizens avoid national taxation through cross-border or illegal trade, the distortion is only increased, and the national revenue is reduced. And thus, the harmful effect of taxation is increased.

International tax agreements As a liberal, it is natural to want international tax agreements. This is mainly because taxes and duties can be used as barriers to trade. If a country wants to keep other countries’ goods out of the market, it can either ban imports or impose high duties on the goods. Tax policy becomes a trade policy and hinders the free movement of goods and services.

As liberals, we want free movement of goods and services - as well as people. It is, therefore, natural to want international taxation agreements.

As liberals, we want free movement of goods and services - as well as people. It is, therefore, natural to want international taxation agreements.

Louise Schack Elholm and Torsten Schack Pedersen

International tax treaties can provide a common framework for the taxation of international companies. By reaching a common agreement in, for example, the OECD on the taxation of international companies, we avoid a potential trade war.

The latest comprehensive OECD agreement redistributes taxing rights away from the countries where the company is based to the countries where the goods are consumed. This is primarily to meet the European desire for a digital tax, where European countries want taxing rights over US digital companies. Moreover, the agreement contains rules on minimum taxation, and this part is done to avoid companies speculating about placing their headquarters in tax havens. The agreement is conditional on countries not introducing other taxes on digital goods or similar to prevent a trade war.

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Taxation of capital The same international perspective also applies to capital taxation, as capital is one of the easiest things to move around the world. And if capital taxation is higher nationally than internationally, then it is economically rational for capital to move.

If Danish capital taxation makes it less attractive to invest in Denmark or be a Danish investor, the distortion will mean that fewer investments are made in Denmark. In this situation, small and medium-sized Danish companies will look abroad to secure funds for investment. Therefore, the high Danish share tax is a challenge.

Large firms are less dependent on domestic capital because they can better raise capital from foreign investors, including large institutional investors.

According to the Productivity Commission, corporation tax is one of the most growth-impeding taxes there is because it reduces investment. Small countries also rely on low corporation tax rates to attract foreign companies. This is less necessary for larger countries, where a large domestic market makes it natural for multinationals to locate. From this perspective, it makes sense that Danish corporation tax has been reduced by about one percentage point per year since the late 1980s.

But the main argument for holding back on capital taxation is that it reduces our incomes. When we have high incomes in Denmark, it is because we are very productive. And typically, we become more productive by virtue of invested capital. A few simple examples: A man with an excavator can do more than a man with a shovel, and a woman with a computer can do more than a woman with paper and pencil. The capital apparatus makes the difference.

Generational inheritance tax In the discussion about generational inheritance tax, which the Social Democratic government has tripled, liberals should consider several things. Is it reasonable that parents’ wealth can be passed on at low tax rates to their descendants? The liberal answer is yes - because it is already taxed money. Should inheritance be tax-free?

In the perfect world, yes. Why should the state interfere in transferring wealth from one generation to another?

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Moreover, wealth tax is an additional tax on savings. When Danes save, they pay some of the world’s highest taxes on savings. When savings are passed on to your children, they are taxed again, and this hampers savings and lowers prosperity.

Moreover, the inheritance tax entails a drain of capital in the company when transferred between generations.

Housing taxation Housing taxation should also be carried out on a liberal basis. Economists are generally positive towards housing taxation, as housing taxation is generally not considered to be particularly distortive in terms of economic behaviour. At the same time, economists point out that housing is an asset that generates a return that, from a narrow economic point of view, should be taxed in the same way as other income. However, it should be remembered that most people buy a home with the intention that it should be their home - the setting for family life.

At the same time, the fact is that in Denmark, we actually have a high housing tax.

Together, land tax and property value tax amount to more than DKK 40 billion, and Danish housing tax is among the highest in the EU. This is not the impression one gets when, for example, the Danish National Bank speaks about housing taxation.

At the same time, it would be difficult to convert the housing tax into a profit tax, as some have proposed. The tax rate would have to be very high to bring in the same proceeds - probably around 70%. The proceeds to the treasury would also be very variable over the years. In times of crisis, housing sales can come to a complete standstill, and the treasury will be short of billions of kroner.

At the same time, it will affect behaviour in the housing market. There will be a significant tax on a sale, and therefore, many will choose not to sell their home, even when it would make sense to sell a large home to find something smaller. A profit tax would thus affect people’s freedom more than the current taxation.

How to tax liberally?

As a liberal, it’s about freedom. Collecting taxes is really an attack on the everyday life and behaviour of free people. However, it is necessary to promote liberal principles of freedom and equal opportunity regardless of the “father’s money”. Therefore, as liberals, we naturally recognise the

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legitimate right to collect taxes, but it should be done more wisely and efficiently than the long-standing button-pushing of the Danish tax system.

A slightly more pragmatic consideration at the end: The more tax screws there are to turn, the easier it is for politicians to increase taxation. The fat and fuel taxes were good examples of the Danes having enough. It was too foolish a tax, and Thomas Jefferson said that old taxes were good taxes.

Probably mostly because people had got used to them. As a liberal, it is good to know that new taxation is often resisted.

If the tax system is seen as a gas cooker, then as a liberal, it is a question of limiting the number of gas burners that politicians can turn on. Leaving a Social Democrat alone with 157 gas burners means that they can easily turn up a single burner without anyone really noticing. However, if you turn up all the flames simultaneously, the temperature rises so much that everyone says no. That is why it is good liberal policy to remove handles that can be used to increase the tax burden in the hands of the wrong people.

Therefore, the basic principles of a liberal tax policy are that Tax is a necessary evil. Consequently, it must be collected wisely, with the least possible distortion, helping to correct market failures and respecting international realities.

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THE CLIMATE NEEDS LIBERAL SOLUTIONS

By Linea Søgaard-Lidell, Member of the European Parliament (V), Member of the Danish Parliament’s Environment and Economy Committees, and former communications advisor

In the summer of 2021, Europeans felt climate change first-hand. Floods took the lives of 242 Europeans, while the Greek islands caught fire in the middle of the tourist season. At the same time, the UN’s IPCC said that if we continue to emit the same amount of greenhouse gases as now, it will be between 2.1 and 3.5 degrees warmer in 2100. It will change our weather, seas, atmosphere, and lives.

“The signs are unmistakable. The science is undeniable. And the costs of inaction are piling up,” US President Joe Biden wrote on Twitter in the wake of the report. The extreme weather and bleak outlook were a wakeup call. But why? We already knew. Without taking action.

As early as 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius documented the greenhouse effect, and since then, our knowledge of the human impact on the climate has increased steadily. In 1967, scientists produced the world’s first climate models that predicted many of the effects of increased carbon emissions on global temperatures.

In the 1990s, climate change began to attract serious attention from politicians. For example, Social Democrat Svend Auken played a key role in negotiating the 1997 Kyoto agreement and helped put climate change on the agenda. In 2008, then Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen also joined the climate fight, and in the run-up to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen, he proposed creating a global cap-and-trade system for CO2.

Since then, successive governments have made steady progress on climate change, and in Denmark, we have become greener and greener.

But we can no longer be content with building slowly on past actions to take the necessary steps toward a more sustainable way of life. We need to take big steps to rethink our production and our business models.

Everything that has made us rich through industrialisation needs to be rethought.

The easy answer would be to ask people to stop everything. Bringing society to a standstill. But the CO2 crisis showed us that even though we didn’t fly or drive to work and had virtually brought our society to a halt, our CO2 emissions did not plummet. If we want future generations to have the opportunity to continue our high standard of living and for even more people in the world to have that opportunity, then this cannot be the solution either.

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Instead, society must find new ways of doing things, and this is where liberal climate policy comes into its own.

Venstre entered the debate too late The liberals I know are responsible people. They are people who don’t litter but who clean up after themselves. People who want to contribute to society themselves instead of expecting the state to take care of everything. And who does not want to limit the possibilities of their fellow human beings?

Therefore, it is surprising that climate has not historically been at the heart of liberal politics in Denmark in many ways. It did not happen until the popular vote was unavoidable, with two climate elections in 2019, where voters had climate at the top of their agenda. The same summer, Venstre joined the target for Denmark to reduce its CO2 emissions by 70%.

Climate could easily have been a liberal cause from the start because the climate fight is the fight to give future generations the freedoms we have had ourselves. When we pollute, we damage the planet, affecting all those who come after us. But it also has an impact now, and especially for those who live close to nature. On islands, in deserts and rainforests, climate change is already forcing people to either move or change their way of life. So, if we believe that our freedom ends when we limit the freedom of others, then we should have done something a long time ago.

One could argue that it is the biggest political mistake of the decade that Denmark has been so bad at talking about the climate. It is a problem for bourgeois Denmark, but it is not least a problem for the climate.

Because it has allowed the left to run solo on the agenda, and if one faction gets a patent on a political issue, they also get a patent on the solutions. For many years now, the left has been the most credible on the climate agenda - for the simple reason that they have talked the most about it and accepted the message of climate science early on. The red climate narrative has therefore gained wide acceptance.

It is the narrative that climate change has shown us a fundamental flaw in the market. That climate change is a testament to what bad capitalism can lead to. That growth, production and consumption are evil. And if we believe in that story, then we also begin to believe in the

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solutions that the narrative naturally leads us towards. Namely, we can only save the climate by pulling on the left’s handle. Many mistakenly believe that the only way to solve the climate crisis is through heavy regulation, government bans and edicts on what to do, government investment and also special taxes.

But different and more optimistic glasses are needed to find the right solutions.

The market has worn out the climate, but the climate needs the market solutions should not be about the state controlling all progress. That politicians should tax certain polluting actions but not others. That we should slow down growth, or that investment should come exclusively from taxpayers’ contributions.

The problem with those solutions is two things: First, it will cost society dearly. Second, it is not enough to solve the climate crisis.

It is a fundamental misconception that a market failure causes a climate crisis. The market has never had a chance because we have not given the market mechanisms anything to work with. Today, the real cost of goods is not reflected in the price, the so-called negative externality that is the cost of the product on our nature and planet. And as long as that is the case, we cannot benefit from the powerful and efficient force that the market actually is.

However, if we put a price on pollution, as we have done successfully in the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), then the transition will be market-based. So, it’s not up to politicians’ gut feelings and opinion polls how we should transform our society - it’s up to the market, which should act much more rationally.

In its 2020 Environmental Economic Statement, the Economic Council stated that a market-based approach is the most cost-effective and will cost society far less than the planned economy route, where the state controls through subsidies and state investment. Moreover, it will also be much more democratic when everyone has the same conditions to act on.

If we get the framework right, companies can figure out how to manufacture most smartly and efficiently, and individuals can figure out what goods to buy. If it is 136

becomes too expensive to pollute, our companies and entrepreneurs will come up with new innovative solutions that pollute less. Because they have a strong financial incentive to do so. The greenest companies will have the biggest competitive advantage. We need to give the market a chance to show what it can do.

Experience clearly shows that taxes work in such a way that we get less of what we tax. So, if we put the price directly on pollution, we will get less of it. It is essential in the debate whether we should tax, for example, air travel or the cement to build new homes. Because if we as a society are to remain open to the outside world and connected to people on the other side of the globe, it makes sense to keep flying. But we would like to fly in new ways and with planes that do not emit the same amount of CO2 as they do today.

Climate could easily have been a liberal cause from the start because the fight for the climate is a fight to give future generations the freedoms we have had ourselves.

Linea Søgaard-Lidell

And if we as a society are to continue to have high living standards and lift more people out of poverty and into better living conditions, it also makes sense that we continue to build houses, bridges, hospitals and more. But we would have to build all this with cement, which is not as heavy an emitter of Co2 as it is today.

Maybe our cement can even store some of the Co2 from the atmosphere in the new buildings. Such technologies exist, but as Aalborg Portland announced in the summer of 2021, there was not much demand for green cement simply because it was more expensive. The technology was there, but it wasn’t being used.

A price directly on pollution would make climate-damaging cement more expensive than the climate-friendly cement, and when the green choice is the cheapest, the market will really take off and bring the new green solutions to scale and much faster than the current path.

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CO2 does not stop at Kruså In the EU, all Member States have national climate targets that they must meet to achieve the EU’s overall climate targets. The idea is that all countries should contribute, but differently according to the prerequisites of their GDP. With the EU’s new climate target to reduce CO 2 emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, national climate targets also need to be updated. Meanwhile, from the reductions over the past 10 years, we can see that far from all EU countries are living up to the agreement. In fact, by 2021, 13 countries had not met their climate targets. So, it’s too slow and uncertain a path if we are actually going to get there.

At the same time, the EU’s CO2 trading system has been limited by the inclusion of only a few sectors, the fact that many industrial companies receive allowances for free, and the fact that the price of CO 2 has been too low to make much of a difference.

That is why the EU ETS needs to be made better and more efficient.

Because that’s the right way to go. Pollution knows no borders, and regarding the planet, we are undeniably mutual. Therefore, Denmark will never be satisfied with becoming climate neutral and having high targets for reducing our CO2 emissions. If we are to solve the existential crisis we face as a society, we must do so globally.

In fact, the international community should have introduced the global CO2 trading system proposed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen back in 2008, even though there was no international goodwill for it at the time. Today, the mood is very different. It is not only in the EU that we have adopted binding climate targets and ambitions to become completely carbon-neutral; so have the United States, China and many other trading partners.

The world’s biggest companies are transitioning and are already demanding that their subcontractors and partners live low carbon lives and account for their footprint.

There are strong indications that a low climate footprint will be the ticket to trade and that future demand will be climate neutral. It’s a big growth adventure for the Danish companies that can deliver it, and many have already developed green solutions and technologies. If Denmark seizes the opportunity, our companies will be able to supply the solutions that the United States, India and China will soon have a massive demand for.

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If we succeed in putting a price on CO2 in the EU in more sectors than now, we will clearly feel the competitive advantage of our companies all being in the process of transition and already having an energy supply where the share of renewable energy was as high as 80% in 2020.

Old answers do not necessarily solve new crises It seems to me that liberals in the climate debate have too often been preoccupied with defending the status quo and the jobs we know. Much more than they have been concerned with creating new jobs and providing a framework for those we don’t know.

But why should it be particularly liberal to defend the old methods?

Why should it be particularly liberal to hold on to fossil fuels when we know they are helping to destroy the planet?

As liberals, we should not be afraid to challenge the ways of the past, the workplaces of the past when it comes to creating the framework for the workplaces of the future.

If we dared to let go of the reins, the old ways and the left-wing solutions a little bit, we might be in a place where we are ready to create the framework for innovation and market forces to get us there.

The liberal answer could also be that we should create as predictable a framework for our companies and their investments as possible.

And therefore, not wait to act - but act now. Tell the market what it can count on. That pollution costs and that clean technologies are the cheap alternatives.

EU risks losing the green race It is widely argued that countries must be careful not to go too far in the climate fight if they do not want to risk losing competitiveness to other countries. A contradiction between global competitiveness and climate ambitions has long been argued. The question is whether this reasoning actually applies after 2020 when China announced that it had set a target of being climate neutral by 2060. Japan and South Korea also came on board, and Joe Biden was elected US President, putting the United States back on the global climate track.

If the EU faces a risk with its climate ambitions, it is more a risk of being too slow with its climate action. The risk is 139

that China and the United States will take the lead in green technologies instead.

China is no longer just the world’s largest producer of solar panels - it is now also the place where the most innovation in solar panels is being created.

Just 10 years ago, technologies were being developed in the Western world while they were being industrialised in China.

At the same time, we see a United States that clearly sees the technology race as geopolitics. The United States has the capacity to pour money into any problem, and its investment in the green transition is growing.

So, the EU needs to update its view. We simply risk losing an entire segment of the global economy if we end up being too slow. Furthermore, we risk not helping to create the sustainable solutions that will shape the society of the future with the particular set of values that we have.

In the EU, we are already far behind the United States and China in terms of public investment in research and development. At the same time, we are busy creating a more challenging environment for private capital and also private companies. We should focus on creating one ambitious regulatory framework for all 27 EU countries so that our businesses have a big market to grow in.

We still lead in some green technologies, and if we manage to create a good and predictable framework for the green transition, we also have the opportunity to continue to be in the green race.

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SUSTAINABILITY, AGRICULTURE AND DENMARK IN BALANCE

By Iben Krog, parliamentary candidate (V), co-founder and former director of the think tank Frei, former member of the Youth Climate Council, and MSc in Political Science

Diversity is a strength I love the country. My roots are on Lolland. This is where my world goes from. I love waking up to the sun streaming through the punctured pane in my room’s skylight. I love coming down to the breakfast table the size of my two-bedroom apartment and looking out over the garden that first ends where the sun rises. I love the community that only exists because people with big hearts make it happen. I love the freedom of people being able to be a little different in the country. I love the forest. The fields. The birds and the sea. There is something bigger than ourselves. I love the country, and I am most at ease in the country.

I love the city. I love cycling to work through Copenhagen, blending in with the crowd and still knowing that we all feel quite unique. I love looking at people. Finding a new café where young boys eat a Lebanese brunch with dishes I never knew existed. I love that I can always meet with friends, colleagues, contacts, and network. Everything is within a neighbourhood. A friend drops by spontaneously for dinner. You don’t have to worry about the fridge. The supermarket is just around the corner. I love the feeling of being one of the crowd without the fear of hitting someone with my arm gestures that have always been too big for my size. I love the city, and I am most at ease in the city.

Denmark is a small country, and I think many feel the same way. We love the country. We love the city. It does not make us half-human to feel at home both in the country and in the city. It makes us bigger people. In the same way, I am Danish. But I am also European. I believe that we must strengthen our close and, at the same time, strengthen our outlook. We must become stronger internally. And open ourselves to the outside world.

This chapter has three purposes: • Introducing Denmark as an agricultural country with sustainability as a premise • Argue that sustainability is a lever for our rural areas, value creation, interdisciplinarity and cohesion • Finally, to conclude with the concept of “plus-sum”, which I think we should have more of in Danish politics.

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What do we want with agriculture?

Some like to discuss whether Denmark is still an agricultural country. If people have any doubts, I suggest taking a train ride through our beautiful country. There are no mountains or large lakes. Here are fields on either side of the train tracks. 62% of Denmark’s land area is agricultural land.

Denmark is one of the most cultivated countries in the world, producing food for three times as many people as we are Danes. Denmark is a small country but a large agricultural country. That may sound intense, and I think it sounds beautiful.

Just as people should not be able to do the same things, countries should not specialise in the same things. In Denmark, we import many of the goods we use in our everyday lives. For example, our clothes, cars, and iPhones are made abroad. This increases the CO2 emissions of Bangladesh, Germany and China. In Denmark, we specialise in producing food, food products and food technologies - let’s give something back by contributing to the world.

For the past 100 years, we have supplied bacon and butter for the English breakfast. During World War II, we were the granary of the Germans.

We must supply food produced in the most sustainable way possible to the whole world in the future, and we are already doing it today.

Food is an important area to a leader because there are few things we know about the future. But we know that we humans want to eat food, and we know that we have to take care of our planet. Denmark must be the country that shows that the two things can go hand in hand. We won’t do that by having less food production. We do this by improving food production. We do not create sustainable food by saying that we can only have x number of pigs in Denmark or that we must produce x tonnes of chickpeas. Then we just create a planned economy. The solution lies in setting ambitious sustainability targets, investing in technology and development, and introducing EU-level carbon taxation. In doing so, we find the forms of production and technologies that meet the sustainability standards that we owe to the world and to ourselves.

In the autumn of 2021, all parliamentary parties except the Alternative reached an agricultural agreement with a binding reduction target for agricultural and forestry greenhouse gas emissions of 55-65% by 2030 compared to emissions in 1990.Agriculture currently accounts for about a third of Denmark’s total emissions, and you can’t just electrify a pig.

Achieving that climate target will mean a different kind of food production 149

than we know today, but it’s the right way to go. In the green transition, politicians’ roles are to set ambitious targets and a stable framework, not to legislate on how or with how many pigs these targets should be achieved. I trust that skilled researchers, food companies and farmers know better than the politicians at Christiansborg, the seat of the Danish Parliament, how to create an even more sustainable food production.

Sustainability is a constant evolution and premise of being human. Just take the climate as an example. From 2015 onwards, we started talking seriously about climate change - demonstrated, for instance, in the Paris Agreement - and the target of keeping global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees. I have given many presentations and argued that farmers should take the future into their own hands and set climate visions for their own industries. The entire Danish food production sector did so in 2019 when it almost synchronously announced that it would be carbonneutral by 2050. Neither Arla, Danish Crown, nor DLG knew how to do it, but they were brave and set a target for the future that they would work towards. Now it’s 2021. Not even 3 years have passed, but society is impatient, demanding climate action and making demands in new areas.

Now the focus is on a more restrictive use of pesticides and visions for more biodiversity. The farmer does not get to realise an improvement and a vision before a new one is required.

It is hoped that the green transition will generate more revenue and remuneration for the primary production chain, as this is where improvements and innovation will take place.

Iben Krog

Constant demands can seem annoying, but we might as well learn to love them. Society, citizens and time will always set new demands and standards. What was good 15 years ago is not good enough today.

Sustainability is a development that does not go away and cannot be ignored.

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Sustainability is about delivering a better planet than you received, and that is why sustainability is so important at a time when the climate is accelerating, and biodiversity is declining. Then we must do something, and we must be better on the climate, biodiversity, animal welfare, the economy and caring for our fellow human beings. Sustainability is not one stage, one form of production or one 70% target because we can always improve and become more sustainable.

My conventional father, who has 4000 pigs, can become increasingly sustainable, and so can his organic colleague who produces quinoa. My father produces much more sustainably than my grandfather did. Many politicians like to romanticise about the past, but farming was not better in the old days. The pigs were closer together, and the pesticides were more toxic.

My dream is that sustainability requirements and targets should not come from politicians at Christiansborg who have never seen a pig. Everyone has challenges and potential for improvement, and it is the business community itself that knows best where the shoe pinches. Politicians must set the overall direction and framework, and then we must have more confidence in the business community’s solutions.

Denmark needs to be “sustainability ambitious”, but we make the biggest difference to sustainability in collaboration with others. I believe that sustainability will be seen as a premise and a requirement in our international trade in the future. As a standard, of course, we will not make trade agreements with countries where there is child labour. It should be embedded in the WTO’s international trade standards, and the EU should set high and effective sustainability standards when trading with other countries. Denmark must continue to be at the forefront of our sustainable food production, as it creates competitive advantages for us now and in the future.

Sustainability as a lever for rural areas The majority of Denmark’s important manufacturing companies are located in rural areas. We cannot think our way to the green transition we have to act our way to it. Sustainable development and our investment in it will create more value in rural areas and more jobs - the skilled will be our key. There is no electrification without qualified electricians, no mechanisation without qualified engineers, and no innovation in agriculture without qualified farmers.

Hopefully, the green transition will bring more revenue and remuneration to the primary production chain, as this is where the improvements and innovation will 149

take place. For many years, the increased value of a litre of milk was created by turning milk into yoghurt with a blueberry flavour and a nice logo. In other words, dairy engineers and communication graduates from Copenhagen Business School created the increase in the value of our food. They also skimmed the cream off the price increase through their high salaries, while the farmer’s focus was on efficiency. In the future, the value added to a litre of milk also happens on farms. We consumers will pay more for our food because the cow has got even more space, has eaten grass, and because the farmer has created biodiversity while producing more climate efficiently. Producing sustainably becomes a premise, but it also becomes a way to add value to our production, as we consumers have to (re)learn that food costs something.

Skilled workers are the key to the green transition, but academics and multidisciplinary are the critical gaps because nobody can do everything by themselves. A computer specialist will be employed on a farm to program the rotary harvester in the future. A chemist who makes the compound feed. A biologist promotes biodiversity and healthy plants with the farmer. Agriculture must be for more than farmers and rural areas for more than people with vocational training. The green arm movements are realised in Production Denmark. The green transition can create more jobs, more knowledge and more value. Neither the electrician nor the political scientist does it alone. We do it together. That’s a plus, but it also requires a break from how our farming is organised today, where we romanticise self-ownership and the small farm. For me, there is nothing romantic about being alone in everything.

Small can be good, but it is not necessary.

Running something sustainable and caring for the planet is not related to the company’s size, which is linked to the company’s actions, and this is where larger farms have their advantages. Large farms have more capital to invest in technology and machinery that can reduce environmental and climate impacts. Due to technological advances, Danish agricultural production has reduced its environmental and climate impact. Not despite them. I think we are going to see more farms go from being independent businesses with 3-4 employees to being professional businesses where we have to imagine a Christmas party with over 10 people and as many different skills and competencies. This requires new legislation, new education, new thinking, and new people in Danish agriculture, which requires development, courage, and collaboration. Therefore, I believe that 148

Danish agriculture will succeed in this. Sustainable is a lever for our rural areas, value creation, interdisciplinarity and cohesion.

Politics as a plus-sum I do not think any liberal textbook says that you have to be in favour of Danish agriculture or that you have to be in favour of strong rural areas. Nevertheless, a part of us Venstre folk will engage in a political fight at any time and be “on the side of agriculture and rural areas”. As a farmer’s daughter, perhaps I was born to be on the farmer’s team. But it has helped to create ‘us against them’.

We have been fooling ourselves for too many years, seeing politics only as a compromise. We have seen the world as a zero-sum, where we could either create production or sustainability. Agriculture or environment. Either we had to strengthen the cities or the rural areas. Our zero-sum mindset has led to a minus-sum mindset where everyone has lost.

The current government still does. As one journalist put it in the summer of 2021, the Social Democrats are against centralisation, educationism, the consultants, the experts, the calculators, the banks, the techies and those without Danish values. It is a divisive approach that makes Denmark smaller.

I believe that we can both create an environment and production. That we create sustainability by producing. That we should have country and city.

Professionals and academics. Areas in Denmark can do different things.

Without one, the other cannot exist. We don’t have a strong metropolis without a strong hinterland. No Production Denmark without someone to consume. No Danish agriculture without exports to the whole world. I believe sustainability can be the plus-sum that binds us together.

Denmark is a small country, and there is a difference between the town of Nørreballe and the district of Nørrebro. We should not homogenise each other or our areas. It is in the differences that the strength lies. Let us dare to come together and make our differences a strength. Let us set new and high standards for ourselves and each other. We must make each other and Denmark greater.

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LIBERAL HEALTH POLICY: FROM TREATMENT TO PREVENTION

By Martin Geertsen, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), Health spokesman, political leader of Venstre in the Capital Region of Denmark, former Mayor of Culture in Copenhagen, and former Deputy Leader of Venstre Youth

A preventive approach based on rights and guarantees Over the past 20 years, Venstre has left its mark on developing the Danish healthcare service. We have continuously allocated more money to the health sector, contributing to shorter waiting lists and improved quality of care.

Billions of kroner have been invested in modern super hospitals. Far more people are surviving serious illnesses than in the past. Particularly in the field of cancer, significant progress has been made, where Denmark previously lagged considerably behind the other Nordic countries.

It has also been during Venstre’s time in government that patients’ rights have been developed and gradually refined. For example, patients have been given the option of choosing a private alternative if waiting times are too long in the public system.

In the first months of 2019, the then VLAK government reached a political agreement on health reform. This was partly in recognition of that an increasing number of patients with chronic diseases and the fact that we as a population are, fortunately, getting older, risk challenging our hospitals if we do not set the buttons a little differently in the Danish healthcare service.

In order to reduce the number of readmissions and ensure that fewer people fell between different stools in the Danish healthcare service, the idea behind the reform was to create more coherence for the individual patient. Between the general practitioner, the hospital and the municipal services. The reform is also about investing in new medical centres located around the country.

The intention of establishing more medical centres was and is to handle less complicated treatments outside hospitals. Partly to increase the proximity of treatment for the individual and somewhat to reserve hospitals more for those patients who need the highly specialised care.

Venstre has thus expended much political effort and provided the healthcare service with considerable financial resources to provide Danes with good and rapid treatment in the event of illness. Of course, the task is not solved - and never will be, and challenges and opportunities will arise on an ongoing basis and will require policy responses.

One of the areas requiring sustained political attention is the area of construction.

Although it is an independent ambition that each Dane should receive highquality treatment on time when they have fallen ill, we must try to create conditions and a framework that make it possible to avoid illness and instead live as long as possible with as few ailments and disabilities as possible. This 154

could even be formulated as an independent objective, namely that Danes have the least likely need for treatment in the publicly funded healthcare service.

Unfortunately, many Danes live with or face illness as a result of an unhealthy lifestyle. Too much smoking and alcohol, too little exercise, too little variety in diet and psychological and mental challenges lead to a range of chronic or directly life-threatening diseases.

For individuals, unhealthy lifestyles can lead to fewer years of life, with the last years of life marked by illness and frequent contact with the healthcare service. For society as a whole, the cost of treating lifestylerelated diseases is high.

To this must be added the loss of production associated with sick Danes being unable to do their jobs.

Prevention effort Combined, all these factors make it a bottom-line task across the political spectrum to think about a more proactive prevention effort, which is also true of bourgeois liberal Denmark, which should not leave this discussion to the political left.

With this as a starting point, it is, of course, relevant to discuss whether “someone” or “something” can make Danes smoke less, eat healthier and more varied food and take more exercise. So, live a longer and healthier life, which will save us all a lot of money.

In Danish prevention politics, “someone” or “something” is typically the public sector in its many guises. It is usually political decisions and initiatives that initiate various prevention efforts to improve the health status of individual Danes.

At one end of the spectrum of the most commonly used policy instruments for prevention are bans and orders, which have been applied, for example, on smoking. Most recently, in connection with the political agreement on the “Action Plan against Smoking by Children and Young People”, which, among other things, introduces requirements that all tobacco products, ecigarettes and nicotine products must be hidden in shops, and smoke-free school hours on youth education programmes. In the middle, we find the economic incentives that aim to get people to drink or smoke less, for example, from a prevention and health perspective. The financial instrument has been the subject of considerable political debate over the 155

years. Take the alcohol sector, where the view of higher prices for beer, wine and spirits has run up against the argument of the risk of increased cross-border trade. In 2009, the then UK government introduced a sugar and fat tax. In particular, the fat tax was massively criticised for being an administrative burden on the business community, increasing cross-border trade and having an inherent social impact.

At the other end, influence campaigns are seen in many different variations. All with the aim of changing all or part of the population’s behaviour. The effects are controversial. For example, a 2018 report by the Danish Council for Prevention concludes that effective education campaigns in state schools do not work to reduce smoking among children and young people. Conversely, there is evidence that anti-smoking campaigns in the media can reduce children’s and young people’s desire to start or continue smoking.

Taken together, these factors make it a bottom-line task across the political spectrum to think about a more proactive prevention effort.

Martin Geertsen

But should liberals spend any effort on prevention policy at all? The liberal concept of freedom defines freedom negatively. That is freedom from something or someone, which typically means freedom from state interference in the life and conduct of the individual.

While one can argue that government intervention in the individual’s life is a good idea because it can save society a lot of money in the form of fewer hospital admissions, it immediately becomes more challenging for the liberal to argue for protecting the individual from their own way of life.

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Taking the prohibition tool as a starting point, it has some inherent principled and practical issues. In principle, in the sense that there should be limits to how much the state should and can protect the individual from themself. At the same time, political interference with citizens’ freedom should always be proportionate and justified.

To this must be added the practical problems of pressing the ban button. If the most extreme prohibition tool is used, for example, a general ban on the purchase, sale and consumption of cigarettes and alcohol, because this would be appropriate from a prevention perspective, this would probably lead to a massive underground economy, increased cross-border trade and a loss of revenue for the state treasury.

The economic incentives also have their limits. The more taxes are raised, the greater the risk of an underground economy and increased crossborder trade. To this must be added the social impact. The well-off will always be able to afford more expensive cigarettes, alcohol and sweets.

When using the campaign tool, the political ban or the eco-incentives, they typically reach a very broad population. For instance, if you ban a young woman or man of 17 from buying alcohol, you hit both the apprentice carpenter who would drink a cold beer after work and the high school student who is developing very unhealthy drinking habits.

Given these fundamental and practical limitations on prohibition and increased taxation, can an alternative route to prevention policy be identified? Is it possible to develop a prevention effort based on more offers and rights for the individual Dane, starting from a more individualoriented approach?

Since 2001, when Anders Fogh Rasmussen took power in Denmark, successive Venstre-led governments have developed and refined patients’ rights in the Danish healthcare service.

At the heart of Danish patients’ rights are the diagnosis and treatment guarantees, where patients are guaranteed diagnosis and treatment within 30 days, and even shorter in the case of life-threatening illnesses such as cancer.

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Civil governments have thus developed a regime of rights and guarantees for Danes when one has fallen ill.

But what about guarantees and rights to services that prevent illness?

As an alternative to the prohibition and taxation agenda, which has its limitations in principle and practice, one might consider whether Danish prevention efforts should not also include a rights regime along the lines of what we know from the diagnosis and treatment guarantees.

Guarantees and rights for the individual Dane could be the focal point of a strengthened Danish prevention effort.

The Israeli health system has attracted considerable interest among health policymakers in Denmark in recent years. In particular, the great focus of the Israelis on the local healthcare service has been studied intensively from the Danish side. Nadav Shimoni, Director of Business Development at Clalit, one of Israel’s four major health insurance funds, recommended in an interview with the Danish daily newspaper Politiken in January 2020 that Danish decision-makers “be proactive rather than reactive. It’s about meeting the patient earlier and focusing on prevention.”

Health surveys If we want to learn from this statement, we must be more offensive in the Danish healthcare service to provide Danes with more targeted prevention services.

Could one imagine, for example, that all Danes were given a right to and an offer of an annual or biannual health check-up or health consultation at their GP, in a municipal setting or at a private hospital? An interview or examination covering both physical and mental challenges for the individual.

The health talk could lead to a referral for actual treatment in the healthcare service, tailored services in the public or private sector, or one of the many civil society organisations focusing on lifestyle change.

Offers to whole or large parts of the population are not unknown in Denmark. For example, we have national screening programmes for cervical cancer, breast cancer and bowel cancer, which, according to the

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Danish Health Authority, aim “to identify people who would benefit from prevention or early treatment for the disease or condition.”

The idea of a broader prevention effort is also not foreign to the Arthritis Society, which in autumn 2021 proposed a new right in the form of an annual comprehensive consultation for people with chronic diseases.

Under the proposal, the chronic patient would have the right to a consultation with a doctor to discuss all aspects of life as a person with a chronic illness.

It will, of course, be essential that “on the other side” of these prevention talks or health checks, there are sufficient timely and varied offers for those who want a firm and guided framework for changing lifestyle in one or more areas.

At the same time, the importance of continuity of new offers in a more proactive approach to development cannot be overemphasised. It is vital that health talks or check-ups, and consequent prevention initiatives, become part of how we take responsibility for our own health. A one-off offer once or twice in a lifetime is money out the window at best.

It is also important to make efforts to identify the proper communication channels to develop more personalised prevention initiatives. A bit of a caricature, a letter in your inbox is probably appropriate for some and less motivating for others.

The guarantee of prevention could also be extended to institutions, for example, by giving upper secondary schools that have problems with an unhealthy alcohol culture the right to help from the health authorities and thus draw on the knowledge and experience built up here.

There is a tendency for any prevention policy debate to end up in the same corner and usually reduced to a question of more bans and higher taxes. And the easiest politician’s answer is to stomp out proposals for bans and higher taxes when asked about a lifestyle problem. Then you have come out of the interview with your head above water. But it also involves a certain amount of intellectual laziness to address all sorts of problems with more restrictions and more money out of the pockets of citizens. It is based on the assumption that politicians can, and for that matter should, create a risk-free existence for the population. But that is an illusion.

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On the other hand, it is worth thinking about how politicians and the Danish healthcare service can provide more offers and rights that better equip Danes to take responsibility for their own lifestyles and create the framework for a better life with healthier years of life. To complement and perhaps even replace more bans and higher taxes with an individual right to a prevention offer. A prevention guarantee along the lines of the guarantees we know from diagnosis and treatment in the healthcare service.

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THE LIBERAL MUNICIPALITY: TRUST CITIZENS

By Christoffer Aagaard Melson, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), former committee chairman and group chairman of Venstre in Vejle Municipality, and Master of Journalism

“We will put citizens before the system!” That is what we repeatedly hear when liberals must explain the difference between how the parties on the left and we want to organise the public sector. This is often accompanied by a message that the public sector exists for the citizens - not the other way around.

However, when liberals have to spell out how they will put citizens before the system, they often find it hard to be specific. That is a pity because there are plenty of examples of the public sector being designed with citizens’ wishes and needs in mind, and conversely, there are excellent examples of the public sector succeeding in putting citizens’ wishes and needs first.

Based on my own experiences from many years in local politics, I will give some ideas on how we can create a public sector that puts people before the system.

For me, putting the citizen before the system is about designing the public sector around the wishes and needs of citizens - on their terms. The system must be adapted to the citizen so that what the citizen and their families think provides the most welfare and value for money is at the centre. My starting point is that citizens know best what is right for them and theirs.

The good news is that this approach brings value to citizens and has a wide range of positive side effects.

Citizens are too often put behind the system The municipalities are responsible for large parts of the citizen-oriented welfare services, which form the framework for much of everyday life, especially for children and the elderly in Denmark. Therefore, it may sound strange that municipalities often do not focus on whether citizens experience good quality and high service. Across the public sector, surprisingly little effort is made to investigate or address how citizens actually experience the quality of different services. The lack of curiosity about what citizens really think of public services was what surprised me most when I entered local politics.

Especially from the red bloc side, the quality of welfare and municipal services was overwhelmingly about how much money was spent. If necessary, some interest could be aroused in what the employees’ trade union representatives could tell about their conditions in, for example, the daycare centre or the care home. Last but not least, there were a few - well supported by the press -

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who thought that the most important thing was to avoid mistakes and consistently chase individual cases. Not many people were interested in what we actually got for the money and whether citizens were satisfied.

As I talked to more local politicians from other municipalities, I found that this was a general challenge. It was certainly not only in Vejle municipality that there was a lack of focus on what citizens thought of the offer, and thus whether the quality was really in line with the costs. If anything, the lack of interest was even more prevalent in other municipalities than it was and is in Vejle Municipality.

I recognise that the level of resources spent on an offer or service is important, but it is difficult to understand why in many municipalities, it is the overriding management tool. How do you know if more funds are needed or if you are getting value for money if you do not continuously monitor how citizens experience the quality of the services they receive? And how do you develop the services in the best possible way if you do not constantly compare the quality across the municipality’s services and with services in other municipalities?

Employee satisfaction, job satisfaction and error rates are also important, of course, but like the economy, they are crucial first and foremost to support the real goal - that citizens are satisfied with and receive the right quality. If we lose focus on citizens, we let them down.

The failure of Else Marie Larsen from Aarhus is one of the most glaring examples of this. The documentary “Care homes: behind the facade”, broadcast on 30 July 2020 on TV2, shows how bad things can get when you do not listen to citizens and their relatives. Else Marie Larsen had dementia, and in desperation, her family had TV2 set up a hidden camera in her room because they had complained for years about the treatment she was receiving without it being taken seriously.

This kind of neglect of vulnerable citizens and indifference to family complaints, I am convinced, could have been avoided. If Aarhus Municipality had regularly asked residents and their relatives what they thought about life at the care home, and if the municipality had listened to the citizens, the critical conditions would have come to light much earlier. Citizens’ experience of welfare quality should be a key parameter in assessing quality. Instead, the primary quality control was a series of reports from staff. Among other things, a form in which the carers note which medicine Else Marie Larsen had received.

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However, the documentary revealed, among other things, that the medication was also noted when the medication was not given. Unfortunately, the experience of citizens and relatives of the quality of the specific care home was neither publicly available nor apparently part of the management focus at Aarhus Municipality.

Another example of an area where the lack of focus and openness on citizens’ experience of quality is striking in the area of daycare.

There is transparency about the standards, resource consumption, educational background, sick leave, and health and safety reports concerning our children’s everyday lives. What parents think about the quality of the daycare centre in question, on the other hand, is impossible to find in almost all municipalities.

The tools are there but not being used The sad fate of Tilfredshedsportalen.dk is probably the best overall proof of how far down the list citizens’ experience of the quality of municipal services is.

Tilfredshedsportalen.dk was a service provided by the state from 2013 until 1 March 2020, when the then Minister of Social Affairs and the Interior, Astrid Kragh, closed the site, partly due to a lack of interest from municipalities.

Tilfredshedsportalen (The Satisfaction Portal) was a portal where municipalities could voluntarily upload comparable standardised satisfaction surveys.

Unfortunately, very few municipalities chose to do so. In response to a question from Eva Kjer Hansen and myself, the Minister said that only 18 municipalities had published results at a municipal level for daycare, while only 5 had published satisfaction surveys at an institutional level. In schools, only 11 municipalities published results at a municipality level, while only 1 municipality published data at an institutional level. In the field of the elderly, 19 municipalities published the satisfaction surveys at a municipal level on the portal, but only 1 municipality also published the more detailed results at the district and institutional level in this field. Concerning care homes, overall satisfaction across the municipality could only be seen for 8 municipalities, and here too, only 1 municipality made the figures available at an institutional level.

It is planned that tilfredshedsportalen.dk will be replaced by national user satisfaction surveys in the individual welfare areas, which the state will be responsible for conducting. At the time of writing, only the school surveys

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from the new project were published. Unfortunately, the figures show that there is very little correlation between resource use, academic performance, parental satisfaction, and pupil satisfaction and well-being with the local school offer in many places.

Of course, in some places, poor performance despite high resource use can be explained in whole or in part by a challenged pupil population or geography that makes it necessary to maintain very small and expensive schools. In many places, however, there are large variations between municipalities that are very similar both in terms of population and geography.

From the few voluntarily posted results on the now-defunct satisfaction portal, we know that we will see a similar picture when the results are published in the area of elderly and daycare. Namely, there is a huge difference in the quality of care provided for the same tax money in different parts of the country and across different municipalities.

The experience already gained from comparable satisfaction surveys thus shows that there is enormous potential for learning by creating openness about where things are going well and where there are challenges. Work at a local level should, of course, be followed by a closer examination of whether the causes are differences in population, culture or management. This is crucial information if we as politicians are to have any real chance of improving the quality of welfare.

The experience of using tilfredshedsportalen.dk and its fate show that there is a general lack of interest in designing the public sector based on citizens’ wishes rather than those of the system. However, the fact that user satisfaction surveys are now being prepared and published at an institution level for all municipalities provides the best opportunity yet for political forces that want to strengthen citizens’ voices in the development of municipal welfare to put the issue on the local agenda. The new tool will only make a difference if there is local political ownership and systematic work on results.

Why are citizens not being listened to?

There are many explanations for why there is often a lack of interest in and openness about citizens’ views on public sector quality.

I am convinced that the fear that the truth is politically inconvenient plays a major role. In municipalities where a lot of money is spent

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on daycare and elderly care, for example, it is easy to claim that you are doing well in these areas. If it were to emerge that citizens were less satisfied with the services on offer despite the high level of consumption than the national average, the political case would suddenly be a bad one.

The lack of transparency about citizens’ assessment of the quality of welfare services in most municipalities is also one of the reasons why we see pressure for further bureaucracy.

Christoffer Aagaard Melson

The inability to compare satisfaction across municipalities when the many individual cases find their way to the press can seem convenient. When no one can say whether the municipality concerned is actually providing a reasonable quality of service concerning the funds spent, it is possible to get away with the easy answer that one very often hears from municipal politicians. Namely that there is a lack of money. This is also often the answer, even if the error occurred in one of the municipalities that spend the most money in a given area. It is much easier than dealing with issues of poor management, poor culture, etc.

Besides being a political failure, the debate on quality in the public sector is so often reduced to money and staff numbers and a journalistic failure. Why does the press repeatedly let local politicians get away with merely pointing to a lack of resources? Rarely a critical look is taken at what is actually being done with the money in each area in the municipality where a citizen has experienced a failure. Indeed, it is far from always that the problems that are covered are only due to a lack of resources. One sometimes gets the impression that for the press, too, it is most convenient to simply hold a minister or a local politician to account for a lack of resources rather than having to deal with a complex reality.

We will have a better public sector if we listen to citizens Today, we have a public sector where citizens’ wishes and needs are not the central focus too often. In the short term, the lack of transparency may be convenient for both politicians and municipal employees, but it also prevents us from creating a better public sector for citizens.

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By looking primarily at process measures, such as the number of minutes home care workers are present, the number of baths older people receive per week or the percentage of pedagogues (educators) who are trained, the focus is taken away from a very large part of what it takes to deliver the proper care. These are qualities such as empathy, presence and human understanding. Only citizens’ own experiences of the services provide a real insight into whether we are delivering the right service. It is also much less resource-intensive to ask citizens than the apparatus of records that is most often used today. At the same time, it is my experience that managing with the goal of making citizens satisfied makes much more sense and creates much more job satisfaction for employees than the quantitative and procedural goals.

As well as believing that we deliver the best services to citizens by managing with a starting point in their needs and aspirations, this approach has some other benefits.

First, we will have a consistent measure of quality across municipalities and services offered in both public and private settings. It is also a goal that users of the various welfare services actually have a chance to understand. Insight into the perceived quality of individual institutions and units is vital for citizens when choosing where their child will be cared for or deciding, together with the elderly relative, where to live. If citizens do not have comparable knowledge about the quality of the different services, their choice will be based solely on hearsay and hunches.

In this way, we provide citizens with the information they need, and we create a genuine free choice for all. The implication of making it easier for citizens to vote with their feet will be that the less popular offers will have to learn from those that do better if they want to survive. Today, unfortunately, we see that years go by without a bad culture being put right because, in some places, the fact that citizens are not thriving has no consequences for operations.

The lack of transparency about citizens’ assessment of the quality of welfare services in most municipalities is also one of the reasons why we see pressure for further bureaucracy. Citizens who are uncomfortable with the service a child or perhaps a parent in a care home is receiving will demand documentation of what exactly is being provided. Transparency of satisfaction in a way that is easy to compare with other offers removes much of the uncertainty and thus the perceived need for documentation.

Finally, contrary to intuition in many places, I believe that openness about citizens’ assessment of the offer they receive will lead to more nuanced coverage in the press 167 169

and less political detail. Otherwise, a single mistake that is not put into perspective can push politicians to introduce new rules and controls to reassure relatives and the press that it will not happen again.

Experiences with openness about satisfaction with daycare services in Vejle Municipality I have personally experienced what a difference it can make when you start to manage more according to citizens’ satisfaction.

In 2015, Vejle Municipality introduced comparable user satisfaction surveys across the municipality’s daycare centres and nurseries to systematically work on at an institutional and political level.

The initiative was initially met with scepticism among municipal employees, especially from the red-bloc employees and politicians. The fear was that they would be used to showcase individual institutions, which would then risk experiencing children leaving.

Fortunately, this fear was put to rest. Some institutions that had faced harsh criticism in the press actually turned out to have quite happy parents overall. This meant that both politically and in the press, for example, the explanation that these were individual parents with whom it was difficult to collaborate had to be accepted. These were explanations that it had not been possible to get across before. Many also found it an excellent tool for engaging with parent boards on issues where staff and parents saw the institution differently. Many saw it as an opportunity to learn from other institutions about which parents had a more positive view.

Overall, my impression is that the introduction of parental satisfaction surveys and the systematic work with them has led to better daycare centres in Vejle Municipality and it being much calmer in the area.

The user satisfaction surveys also showed that satisfaction in Vejle Municipality in the area of daycare is better than the national average. The initiative was thus also instrumental in creating a majority in the municipal council, where there continued to be support for the view that it is, of course, possible to run a municipality efficiently and provide good public services.

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We win if we dare to have the debate I hope that the above reflections can give liberals the courage to continue working on policies that put citizens before the system.

If we want to deliver and disseminate the best solutions, we must end the fear that you can be criticised as a politician or municipality because others do it better. To succeed in improving the quality of public services, we need to learn from each other across institutions in each municipality and across municipalities.

I also hope that at some point, more of my colleagues on the left will realise that it is vital that citizens feel they are getting value for money if they are still to support the fact that we have one of the largest public sectors in the world.

And that it is therefore incredibly short-sighted to discourage openness about what it delivers.

If we engage in this debate, I am convinced that it is a debate that we liberals will win.

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THE WINNER SCHOOL

By Christoffer Lilleholt, Councillor in Odense (V)

Think of a state school you know. Why does it look like something from the 1970s? Why are toilets still a place that no adult will approach without a hazmat suit? Not to mention the indoor climate. Neither our children and young people nor our educators and teachers will be successful in the physical setting.

At the same time, we have created a state school that has become too grey, shackled by changing governments.

The answer for some liberals is free choice - the freedom to choose independent and private schools, which is a great option and solution for a small part of society.

However, society cannot be content with creating solutions for a small part of the population. We need to create solutions for everyone. Venstre is a people’s party, and therefore, the only answer is not only free choice.

We are a party that takes responsibility for the whole population and thus also for developing the state school that too many governments have neglected.

Venstre and the state school Over the past decades, state schools have evolved based on the belief that if everyone can’t learn, no one should. This development is contrary to the spirit in which state schools were founded.

There are many authors and architects behind the education system Denmark has today. There was a close relationship between schools and the church in the Middle Ages. During the Reformation, responsibility was transferred to the state, where the first Danish School Act of 1536 stipulated that all towns should establish a Latin school for the preferential teaching of Luther’s Small Catechism. In the following centuries came the Age of Enlightenment, and in particular, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy, view of man and children became a source of inspiration for the further development of the school tradition.

Rousseau believed we had set up a political system that did not allow us to be free. That man was born free, but everywhere he was in chains. These ideas were propagated in pedagogy as the free education of children and young people, which formed the basis of modern pedagogy.

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These ideas were also a large part of the background for the Danish high school tradition with N.F.S. Grundtvig’s and Christen Kold’s

school ideas, where the formation of ordinary Danes was the goal. The formation was about giving people the knowledge to participate in society.

High schools operated in a free market, where those who managed to attract students survived while others had to close, which meant their product and, therefore, education had to be of high quality, developmental and at a reasonable price.

It was at these high schools, and through Grundtvig’s thought in particular, that J.C. Christensen developed what we largely know as the state school today. Christensen was born in West Jutland on a farm owned by his family.

He studied at several high schools, where he either paid for accommodation or taught himself some of the time to receive teaching. He later became the de facto leader of the Venstre Reform Party (Venstrereformpartiet), later Venstre, and the first truly elected head of government in Denmark in the early days of democracy.

With the Act on schools providing higher general education of 1903, J.C. Christensen created the state school we know today, with a basic education that prepares children and young people for life. Until Christensen’s school reform, we had urban schools and a superstructure of Latin schools, which were sought by children from towns where their parents could afford to pay for their education.

The Venstre Reform Party and J.C. Christensen had long wanted a more democratic school that would create a coherent school curriculum where the children of peasants, teachers and workers could continue their education if their abilities allowed it. It was to create the people’s school, where everyone had equal opportunities and where the pupil’s abilities rather than their parents’ money were decisive. It created social mobility so that the class divisions of the time did not determine the chances of the next generation to have a good life. A child born to peasants or labourers could now become a student, provided they displayed the right amount of diligence.

During a difficult period, J.C. Christensen’s work and political acumen enabled Denmark to create a school system where pupils could attend a coherent municipal primary and lower secondary school for all up to upper secondary school. The system that was founded under the Venstre Reform Party in the early 1900s has since formed the framework of the state school we know today. Social mobility was created with this school reform, and the Danish class society was broken up. The Venstre Reform Party and J.C.

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Christensen’s reform of the school system was an essential starting point for the prosperous society for which Denmark is known and of which we are proud.

Independent and state school We should be happy when parents choose independent schools because they do something different and extra. However, it hurts when it is opting out of the state school and its community. Opting out due to lack of learning, unrest, poor culture, run-down facilities and lack of education.

And it has to be different.

If we take a closer look at independent and private schools, they are often known for their pedagogy, attitude, and professionalism. State schools have become too grey, tied down by changing governments, preventing them from flourishing and making the unique mark on pupils and communities that they should.

State schools must be a focal point for our entire society. Here, children from different backgrounds will see each other. It gives an understanding that we are not the same, but that despite our remarkable similarities and short distances, Denmark has many differences.

Support for the state school is declining. More parents are opting out of state school right from the start or during their children’s schooling. If it was due to a choice of independent and private schools, it was not a problem, but it was often due to a state school choice. A choice with different explanations, but best summed up in the lack of ability to embrace both pupils who have challenges and pupils who are more intelligent than others.

If state schools are to be the focal point of our communities, they must be able to challenge and embrace the whole population, not just focus on those pupils who are struggling and forget the rest in a hurry.

When we look at the numbers, they speak for themselves. Over 20% of parents with school-age children opted out of state school in 2019, a rate that has only been rising over the past 10 years. This means that 122,132 pupils attend independent or private schools, while 526,687 choose state schools. If the trend of the last 10 years continues, it will no longer be possible to call state school the ‘people’s school’.

For many years, Christiansborg, the seat of the Danish Parliament, has tried to micromanage schools. Placing demands, setting the direction, schedules, administration, national learning objectives, national exams and all-day school.

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This uniformity does not create followers, and it gives peace of mind to politicians but not to parents and children, which is a shame for pupils, parents and staff.

Exams, requirements and bureaucracy make politicians and ministries comfortable with what is happening in local schools, ensuring that the bottom line of school performance is above a certain level, which gives peace of mind about the minimum amount of teaching. However, this is not good enough for Denmark, which wants to be a leader in entrepreneurship, innovation and quality, and our state schools must reflect this.

How can the ‘people’s school’ become an attractive, unique offer that all parts of society opt for? By providing free opportunities, you will see creativity and possibilities flourish. We must relax tight control because we will never get the extraordinary if we do not give freedom. We need to create unique schools because uniqueness allows both the teacher and pupil to develop to their best, and not with an iron grip on how things should be, on the contrary.

My own experiences I myself am one of those children who was sent to an independent and private school because of a family tradition, and I have seen what can be achieved in an independent and private school. Here, there is an extra gear in the form of more committed teachers because they are given free rein to define what the teaching should contain.

Since then, I have spent 8 years dealing with the Odense municipal primary and lower secondary school through my work as a local politician and councillor. There are many differences between schools, but basically, all 17 schools that I have visited experienced an increase in administration, rules and requirements around teaching. In some places, you succeeded anyway - like the bumblebee that shouldn’t be able to fly. While in other places, you are stuck.

However, it hurts when it is opting out of the state school and its community.

Christoffer Lilleholt From a grey state school to a unique living community We need to shine a light on the state school, to liberate it from the grey, boring rules and give it back its freedom.

State schools can be the focal point for our whole society. Children from different backgrounds need to see each other and learn that their upbringing is 175 177

unique and that there are many different ways of living. It explains that we are not all the same but that Denmark is diverse despite its great similarity and short distances.

As politicians in municipalities and parliament, we are responsible for taking up the competition. Independent and private schools force state schools to stand on their toes and jump to keep up. Unfortunately, this is not possible everywhere. We must create the conditions for state schools to leap into freedom with the responsibilities that come with it. That some schools may choose a particular focus, for example, on languages, mathematics, robots or sport.

In this way, schools can stand out from the crowd and create incredible environments where both pupils and teachers can develop. At the same time, it creates pride in one’s school, not only because of the geographical area in which it is located but also because of its learning. Dedicating themselves to a direction and a topic will excite teachers and give them opportunities to develop, especially when they themselves help to choose the direction. Of course, the foundation and backbone must still be the set objectives for learning in all subjects, but it must be different beyond that.

Too many state schools and, for that matter, care homes, nurseries and kindergartens are a big grey mass. A grey mass where it becomes boring to go to work and where you don’t feel you are making a difference.

But we need to create the courage, creativity and energy to stand out and do something different. We must inspire and create a framework for this in state schools across the country and municipalities.

Cultures change through leadership The research and empirical evidence are not in question. Leadership is critical to the success of organisations in achieving their purpose. A pronounced criticism of our school system is the lack of leadership and the great autonomy of state school teachers in relation to the head and management methods. Some groups may perceive good leadership and governance as less freedom, but it is the opposite in reality.

Good leadership ensures that both pupils and teachers develop and reach their full potential. Therefore, it is necessary that the leadership is clear and has the competencies to realise the potential of all employees. Clear leadership is about matching expectations, career goals, full information, understanding and compassion.

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You don’t learn that from being the person who has been in the organisation the longest or being the one on playground duty who has spent the most hours in the school playground. You learn it through education, courses and, above all, management experience to varying degrees and in several workplaces.

A legal requirement for a state school head is that the person is a trained teacher. You might ask yourself, are you the best school head because you are a trained teacher? This is an entirely misguided claim and is not matched by the claim of a manager in other parts of society.

It is precisely diversity that makes many organisations successful. Diversity in workplaces ensures that issues are seen from different angles and that the best solution is found. Diversity is about gender, age, ethnicity, and education and experience.

The head is a very crucial person for the future life of the 200-500 pupils.

Therefore, the selection of the state school head should be professionalised. In many municipalities, this is a process that takes place solely between the school administration and the school board. Instead, the selection should involve a professional recruitment agency, where the whole market of candidates is scanned, thus ensuring that the head is selected from a wide range of candidates.

What does it take?

Freedom must return. We must give power back to school boards, and they must be able to make the state school special and give it a specific profile.

We need to rebuild a state school where everyone is challenged and feels welcome. Where each school is allowed to specialise in a particular profile and our children and young people can fulfil their potential to the full, whatever level they come from and want to reach.

The important thing is that the school, the head and the school board choose the direction themselves. They could have a focus on languages, technology, international outlook or entrepreneurship. Here the school will use extraordinary efforts in its field to become specialised and characterised by a specific direction. It should not be at the expense of other subjects but as an extra layer added on top of the existing teaching.

It will produce committed teachers who go the extra mile to create something extraordinary.

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Furthermore, bureaucracy and regulations such as national exams must be removed. The full-day school must be abolished as a national framework for schooling. Because what works in a rural community in Jutland does not necessarily work in the centre of Copenhagen. There are differences between pupils and parents, so they need to find out for themselves what suits them best. This means that they should have the freedom to decide how they test pupils and how many hours they need in each school.

The economy is a factor in this upheaval. Schools must also be given more autonomy here. Schools know what it takes to run a school, and we have skilled and competent school heads, teachers and parents. That is why they also need to take back power over the school’s finances. They must be able to decide what they want to spend the money on and, therefore, how they want to prioritise.

However, the greater freedom also gives schools a big responsibility. Of course, to ensure that this responsibility is met, certain rules must be observed, of course.

First of all, not all state school teachers are the best in the world, just as not all used car dealers are cowboys. Therefore, the management must ensure that bad teachers are replaced and have the attitude that just because you are a trained teacher, it does not mean a permanent position.

In the same way, we as a society must also place significant demands on school heads. When recruiting a school head, the head must be hired with an awareness of the impact they will have on pupils.

Changing state schools will not be easy, and many will probably fall through the holes. But we have an obligation to try. We must create better state schools with higher standards and do it with freedom.

State schools can do more, and they must do more.

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THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF LIBERAL YOUTH POLICY

By Maria Ladegaard Slot, National Leader of Venstre Youth

If young people become adults in a society where everything is both the responsibility and the state’s fault, they will not learn to take responsibility for their own lives. And it follows them into adulthood.

Liberal youth policy is, thus, in many ways, the prerequisite for creating a liberal society, for it is with free people, as Hal Koch wrote about democracy: It must be acquired with each new generation. Otherwise, it perishes.

That is why liberal youth policy is important and why I have set out five principles that can serve as a starting point and guide for such a policy: Principle 1: The liberal view of humanity also applies to young people The first and most fundamental principle of liberal youth policy is that the liberal view of humanity also applies to young people. Each person has the right to their own life, and this must necessarily also apply to young people who, in the transition from childhood to adulthood, have to learn to stand on their own two feet.

Therefore, liberal youth life must be based on the fundamental idea of freedom under responsibility, that young people can and should make choices on their own behalf, and that the state’s role (also) in young people’s lives should be minimal.

The liberal view of humanity also applies to young people and is the starting point of liberal youth policy. That is why it is the first - and most important - principle.

Principle 2: Society must provide opportunities In the vast majority of cases, the role of society in liberal youth life is limited to creating, mediating, and facilitating opportunities. Opportunities we must dare to let young people manage themselves.

Ensuring good educational opportunities is, therefore, central to liberal youth policy. Upper secondary schools and vocational training in urban and rural areas are both mainstream and with special profiles. Our society needs to be built by our youth’s clever hands and minds, which means educating them.

Many opportunities can confuse young people. Which way should I go?

How do I do it best? How should I spend my life? What do I really want?

Questions we must take seriously. Therefore, as liberals, we must also 182 184

take educational guidance seriously in state schools and upper secondary schools.

Here we must equip young people to find their way in the opportunities we as a society provide them. Opportunities are not worth much without the ability to navigate them. But we must remember to guide - never to dictate - young people’s choice.

In a liberal youth life, there is no need for a stick or carrot. With a liberal youth policy, we believe that young people can make their own decisions - so we let them.

We equip young people with good opportunities and constructive guidance to create their own future, which is the state’s role.

Principle 3: Don’t feel sorry for young people It is easy to get the impression that young people are a group in need in the public debate. Society has created a culture of perfection, young people are more stressed, are left with a climate burden, and face big questions about identity and sexuality. Despite being among the most privileged people born, more and more feel powerless on their own behalf and on behalf of society.

In this context, it is central both to remember the cornucopia of opportunities with which young people in Denmark are equipped and to attack the circumstances that have led to young people’s poverty, a state with an ever-increasing need for more tax money in the coffers, a democracy where young people’s voices count for proportionately little compared to those of older people, and a society that presents young people with a monotonous path to adulthood.

Across the board, you shouldn’t feel sorry for young people growing up in Denmark, although many would like to paint such a picture.

It is central to a liberal society and at the root of liberal youth policy that we do not all know the same thing, do not have the same preferences, do not have to do the same thing, and therefore cannot expect the same results. And that’s okay.

Young people may have different lives, but they are rarely the result of the actions of others. Some young people choose to go to upper secondary school, and others take up vocational training while increasing numbers with a self-taught understanding of coding are writing their way into the future, line by line. For liberals, it’s fine whichever way you choose, as long as you 183 185

make a choice on your own and can support yourself. From there, it’s up to us liberals to create a society that doesn’t pass judgment on our choices, sets arbitrary expectations for young people, and sees youth only as a workable resource to be rushed onto the state hamster wheel. Instead, young people should be seen as free people, free to choose. Even when the choices are not “right”.

The only thing to feel sorry for the youth in Denmark is that they have been told that it is a pity for them if they are not like everyone else.

Across the board, you shouldn’t feel sorry for young people growing up in Denmark, although many would like to paint such a picture.

Maria Ladegaard Slot

Principle 4: It’s a right to make bad decisions Being young is the transition from child to adult, and you have to learn to stand on your own two feet. But just because parents are not as important as they were in the first year of life, the state should not step in and take over the role of guardian during the transition to adulthood.

You have to crawl before you can walk, and you often have to make some not so good decisions to learn how to make the good ones.

Liberal youth life is characterised by being a motorway with many lanes and by the possibility of stopping at a service station for a short break before driving on. Not by being a railway that transports everyone from A to B at the same pace.

Instead of treating all young people the same, we as a society must promise young people that we will pick them up if they stumble. Which leads me to the fifth and final principle:

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Principle 5: Politics is for the weak, not the strong No matter how many opportunities we offer and how well we guide, there will always be young people who end up outside the education system and the labour market. As a society, we cannot and should not control all the factors in young people’s upbringing, but we should be there to give them a hand if their lives are going off the rails and the opportunities we provide are not opportunities for them.

We need to stretch a fine-meshed safety net for the young people who need extra help. No one should fall through, but there is no one-size-fitsall model as I write the above. That is why we need to strengthen the offers we have as a society for those who don’t fit into the established boxes. We should not employ more caseworkers in the municipality but give more resources and more freedom to offers like the basic preparatory education and to housing offers and shelters targeted at young people who do not go straight through life. It is our responsibility.

Because some young people need an extra hand, so we need to give it to them, without limiting the system’s box-ticking.

Finally, I will briefly mention what every good bourgeois has probably noticed is not included in the principles: the economy. To that I must simply say: Money is used to fund actions that live up to principles - not the other way around. People before systems, and principles before budgets. Then the money will be appropriate.

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THE LIBERAL OLD AGE

By Jane Heitmann, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), spokesperson for Psychiatry, Elderly and Care, Chair of the Folketing Health Committee, Chair of the Committee regarding the Ethical Council, and former member of the municipal council of Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality, and Master of Arts

Ageing is a natural part of our life cycle but it often feels like you are sidetracked as life’s most vigorous years are replaced by life’s autumn. System thinking has found its way into elderly care, and the individual’s freedom is under pressure. We need to do something about that, and we need to bring dignity, empathy and care back to elderly care.

Live with the one you love all your life I recently visited two care homes in two neighbouring municipalities. The care homes are similar in terms of residents, and the surroundings in a small village are also strikingly similar. However, apart from the fact that one is a self-governing institution and the other a private care home, there was one striking difference: In one care home, spouses could move in together in a small, cosy one-bedroom apartment, while in the other care home there was no room for the spouse. That’s a crucial difference. It is heartbreaking that too many care homes do not offer spouses the opportunity to move in together when one becomes dependent. Imagine that people who may have been married for 60-70 years have to live the last part of their lives at separate addresses without their loved ones to kiss goodnight. As a welfare society, that can’t be right. We need many more care homes with small apartments where spouses can move in together in a safe environment.

The elderly of the future are in many ways very different from the elderly of yesterday. The elderly of the future are not just living longer, and they are also thriving mentally. They have deep pockets, are high spenders, eat out and travel the world.

In other words, our society needs to be prepared for the fact that older people will place greater demands on, for example, the quality of their homes, their opportunities for expression and their quality of life.

Local Government Denmark (KL) predicts that we will need another 13,000 care home places in the coming years, and we know that thousands of elderly people dream of moving into a retirement home, but the housing stock is far from sufficient.

From my perspective, the solution is for municipalities to “hook up” with private providers, speed up local planning and get the ball rolling. It can’t happen fast enough. There are pension funds that have signed up to build modern, contemporary homes where older people can live well in a secure environment. When I mention pension funds as an example,

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it is only because I think it is utterly unrealistic that municipalities themselves can build the number of homes needed to meet future demand.

Elderly, care and retirement homes must support the lives individuals want to live to a much greater extent. There must be opportunities to come together in strong communities but also opportunities to withdraw. But above all, housing must be flexible, both for the single older person and the married couple.

Today, older people move for care when the need arises. When one spouse moves away from the other into a care home, it is often a loss for both filled with “guilt and shame”. Especially when one spouse gives up - on looking after themselves - and follows their partner out of the house, leaving care to the welfare society - a difficult decision which does not have to be necessary.

As a society, we could choose to let care move into citizens’ homes. Not because a private home should be a “mini-hospital”, but because many will find that a dignified life with a high degree of self-determination is best lived in familiar surroundings, not in solitude, but as a couple.

Today, legislation in the field of housing is both square and rigid. We are simply standing in the way of ourselves and a dignified old age with a high degree of self-determination. The future is flexible housing where, for example, a retirement home can easily be converted into a care home because, for instance, it is built with hidden rails in the ceiling for the day when care is required, and the carer needs to move into their own room.

Building flexible housing where carers can easily move in when one spouse requires care is very much putting the citizen before the system and wholeheartedly thinking in terms of “as long as possible in your own home”.

Let us put the citizen first and with small multidisciplinary care teams caring for our elderly in their own homes. Their face must be known and the tasks solved in agreement with the citizen. Why visit to perform a service: vacuuming, cleaning or laundry? Why not just visit for care? Then the elderly can decide what is most needed. Perhaps a chat over coffee is needed more than washing the floor.

We must dare to let the liberal caring genes emerge more clearly and confront decades of “system-nursing”. Care workers are there for citizens, not the other way around.

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Freedom to choose Since 2001, Venstre has been the driving force behind the spread of free choice in several welfare services, such as personal care, practical help, diagnosis and treatment. Part of Venstre’s DNA is precisely to put the wishes and needs of the individual before those of the system. But we’re not there yet.

Over the years, we have talked a lot about the values that we hold dear in Venstre. For me, it is a clear value that you choose the life you want to live: Freedom. When people have lived a long life, which they have shaped and influenced, it is difficult to understand why freedom should be curtailed just because people are getting older.

There should be no constraints on who cleans your home, delivers your food, or changes your nappy. Life is not “one-size-fits-all”, and neither is one’s twilight years.

Today, older people can choose between the provider with which the municipality has an agreement, for example, when choosing a food service.

It’s totally wrong in a free Denmark that you can’t choose who cooks your food. We must set the citizen, the municipality and the system free by letting the citizen choose the provider that the citizen wants. If the butcher in town makes the best meatballs in the world, why not shop there?

The whole discussion about a free choice of supplier almost always comes down to money. Of course, it’s fair enough that we are also financially responsible, and the money must follow the citizen. And it is no more difficult than letting the municipality’s food price apply and then allowing the citizen to pay the difference if, for example, you want a more expensive food offer.

It is not that I personally prefer a choice between a private or a public offer.

But it is clearly essential that there is something to choose from. People are different and have different lifelong desires for how life should be lived.

Older people are as diverse as other age groups, and welfare services need to reflect this.

Genuine free choice with the elderly counsellor Choosing a final home is a big decision for most people, and too many older people today are unsure about the extent of optional services.

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Surveys show that 67% of care home residents and home help recipients do not know that they can choose where to live. In 55 out of 98 municipalities, there is only one type of care home: the municipal one. That’s not good enough. There should be at least one private care home in every municipality so that all citizens have a real choice regardless of geography.

There can be a social impact, so those with the most resources know most about the private and municipal offers to choose from. The same is true for people who have health problems.

They may have difficulty making decisions and acting on them.

Since 2001, Venstre has been the driving force behind the spread of free choice in several welfare services, such as personal care, practical help, diagnosis and treatment.

Jane Heitmann

My liberal caring gene is challenged when not everyone has the opportunity to be educated at the same level and has the same opportunities to act.

Venstre has proposed that impartial cross-municipal elderly counsellors should guide and advise older people so that they can make an informed choice of the welfare services that best suit the individual and their relatives. An elderly counsellor can therefore provide both insight and overview.

Today, the municipalities have the task, which is done very differently. We need to change this, to ensure that all older people and their relatives have the same good opportunities to choose.

Clear values and management with boards in all municipal care homes In the summer of 2020, many of us in Denmark watched TV2’s heartbreaking documentary “Care homes: behind the facade” and followed Else Marie Larsen’s sad daily life at “Kongsgården” care home in Aarhus. The images of Else Marie, hanging almost undressed in a lift above the bed to relieve herself while complaining loudly in pain to the staff, are still vivid in our minds.

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Is it reasonable that an elderly woman, who has contributed to Danish society and our common welfare throughout her life, should live out her days in an environment where dignity, empathy and care are absent? We in Venstre don’t think so.

The codeword is clear: strong leadership involves the people who know their loved ones best. We need to give municipal care homes a new management tool: local boards.

Management challenges are not solved by “send more money”. The lesson of TV2’s documentary is precisely that it is not a lack of staff but a lack of leadership and a raw culture that has crept into the working day that is the challenge.

When I read my e-mails, it is surprising how many are sent by unhappy relatives. They write because they have experienced neglect of their loved ones. Neglect can range from dehydration and wet nappies to showers being missed. The relatives have complained to the care home staff, the management and in some cases also to the municipal council. The last stop before contacting the press may be an e-mail to me. The lesson from my many conversations with relatives and staff is that there is a lack of dialogue space where expectations can be jointly agreed on both the level of care and the good solutions to everyday challenges, large and small.

We must listen to and involve relatives much more in caring for the elderly.

After a long life together, it is often the relatives who know the older person’s care needs best. Relatives must have a much greater say in each care home’s day-to-day life and values. We know private care homes have good experience with boards where relatives and passionate local people also have a place. We need to bring these experiences into municipal care homes so that management, staff and relatives can jointly set the direction for both values and care locally.

We also know the model of local boards from school boards.

School boards are good examples of how local people influence the values of the school and the choice of the school head. Regardless of who is appointed as manager, the manager will be the external face of the care home and will be the person who communicates the values of the care home to the outside world and ensures that the management culture and everyday life reflect the defined set of values. The work of defining the local set of values should be anchored in a broadly elected board where, 192

for example, management, staff, volunteers, volunteers, relatives and a representative from the municipal council can have a seat.

If a care home manager is to be more than an administrator, this requires space for management and dialogue. The lesson from, for example, private care homes is that care home boards are a democratic forum for dialogue, where management strategy and values can be agreed upon. And the lesson of the “Care homes: behind the facade” programme is that there is a democratic deficit of action and information. We must do away with that.

A dignified end to life Many of us dream of leaving this world in the comfort of our own home, with peace of mind and our loved ones around us. But the reality falls far short of this wish. Only 23% die in their own home, while the vast majority of us die in a hospital, care home or hospice.

A dignified end of life, where we as a society listen to and respect the individual's last wishes, should be as self-evident as when we listen to the pregnant woman’s wish to either give birth at home, at a maternity clinic or at an in-patient unit.

One of the reasons why relatively few people are allowed to die at home is that we lack trained doctors and other health professionals to provide what we call palliative, or pain-relieving, care at home. Secondly, there is a huge geographical variation in the interventions offered by municipalities. In other words, it’s a geographical postcode lottery as to what care you can expect to receive at the very end of your life.

Cancer patients are often offered a place in a hospice, providing a safe environment with specialised treatment and high-quality care. That’s really good. But there are many other diagnoses that are also serious, but where patients are not offered the same palliative care to the same extent. It’s an unfair inequality. Based on our common liberal caring gene, it should also be a priority for us that all patient groups are treated equally - even when facing the “last stop”. There is a vital need to train many more doctors to provide palliative care so that doctors in general practice and home care can also be better equipped to care for the many who wish to die in their own homes. That is where we fall short today. There are simply not the skills

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to provide palliative care for many patient groups in their own homes. If we maintain our premise that the system is there for the citizen, it must be a priority to ensure more and better training of health professionals with palliative skills so that we can now and in the future much better accommodate the last wish to die at home.

I am surprised that there has not been a greater political focus on a dignified end to life.

Venstre has now proposed that 100 doctors undergo further training to tackle the skills gap and that we introduce a new right: the right to three consultations with a healthcare professional who has special palliative skills.

We know from studies that quality of life increases when we meet a person with whom we can talk about the existential, social or psychological issues that often arise when death approaches.

Many express fears that serious illness will challenge the end of life and cause pain. I understand that concern. That is why it is crucial that seriously terminally ill people can say “no, thank you” to life-prolonging treatment in the very last stages of life and quietly pass away when they want to. This does not mean that we should have active euthanasia in Denmark. But we need to be able to balance between maintaining life at all costs when it seems hopeless and ending life after careful consideration for the individual. It can also be neighbourly love to let life come to an end when the spark of life dims, without allowing someone to choose life to please relatives whom one does not want to burden.

Similarly, it must also be up to the individual living in a care home whether they want to be resuscitated if they have a cardiac arrest.

Resuscitation can have major consequences. As a society, we should respect the individual’s choice in life and the individual’s right to choose to leave this world if one is tired of living. For me, this is dignity and a vital part of the liberal caring gene. We must protect the individual’s right to choose, both in youth and old age. We can’t choose how we come into life, but we can decide how life is lived, and of course, we should influence how we leave here with dignity.

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A LIBERAL FOREIGN POLICY STARTS WITH GRUNDTVIG

By Morten Dahlin, Member of the Danish Parliament (V) and citizenship spokesman

“To a people they all belong, who count themselves there, have for the mother tongue ear, have for the fatherland fire”.

So wrote the first chairman of the Danish Parliament’s Committee on Citizenship, N.F.S Grundtvig (1783-1872), in his poem, Folkeligheden (Folksiness), back in 1848.

Although Denmark and the world look markedly different from Grundtvig’s time, his text can still be used to explain how to conduct a sensible, liberal immigration policy.

On the one hand, we should be pleased that the Danish community is so attractive and strong that people from outside want to be part of it. On the other hand, we must take care of what makes our society unique.

Grundtvig strikes this schism and balance when he states that it is possible to become one of the Danish people and the Danish community. It is not a closed club that no one from outside can join. But Grundtvig also states that it is not a club for everyone, and it is a club where demands are made and where you have to make a special effort to join. And where you should not try to change the game’s basic rules.

In fact, this is the essence of Venstre’s policy on foreigners and integration: That we recognise that Denmark is a small country in a big world and that we know that we depend on people coming here to contribute. However, at the same time, we do not believe that Denmark can solve all the world’s problems, and we insist that integration is a personal responsibility that takes place on the premises on which we have built one of the world’s best societies.

People move - so we have to deal with that Humanity has always been on the move, and some have broken away from their homelands because of wars, natural disasters, ethnic cleansing, or because they were looking for better living conditions. In 2000, according to the UN Migration Report, 150 million people worldwide had left their home country to settle in a new one. By 2020, this figure had risen to 272 million people. 1 So, there is nothing to suggest that the debate on foreigners, refugees and migrants will stop. The fact that people move presents both opportunities and challenges for a society like Denmark. Therefore, a reasonable immigration 1 198

https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/wmr_2020.pdf

policy must seize the opportunities, but it must also minimise and manage the challenges.

Foreign labour is a gain for Denmark It is no secret that the Danish labour market is thirsty for labour, and we simply need people who are willing to get up in the morning and make an effort.

Especially in our service and construction industries, job vacancies are high, and companies have to say “no thanks” to orders.

Thus, Statistics Denmark reports that the shortage of labour in service occupations has not been greater since the start of the surveys in 2011 .2 In other words, we have a massive problem. Of course, part of the solution can be found here in Denmark. We still have a large group of Danes of working age who are outside the labour market. But getting them into the working community is no easy task, and many attempts by successive governments have failed. Therefore, we also need to look beyond Denmark’s borders to solve the problem.

Today, as many as 10% of full-time employees in Denmark are foreign workers.3 Many occupations and sectors would be in even greater difficulty if it were not possible to fill vacancies with foreign workers. In the future, we will have to go further down this road.

It must remain a fundamental liberal principle to support the influx of foreign workers to Denmark. Because the numbers speak for themselves: This is a massive gain for our society. People from the EU who have a residence permit for work and who therefore work here in Denmark each contribute no less than DKK 127,000 annually to public finances. 4

2 3 4

https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/nyt/NytHtml?cid=31700 https://www.da.dk/globalassets/besk%C3%A6ftigelse/01092020-udenlandskarbejdskraft- p%C3%A5-det-danske-arbejdsmarked-2020.pdf https://www.da.dk/politik-og-analyser/beskaeftigelse/2020/ny-analyse-viservaerdien-af- udenlandsk-arbejdskraft/

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People coming here on the so-called payment scheme from outside the EU contribute almost DKK 300,000 a year.5 Without this foreign labour, we would have a much harder time financing our welfare society, so we can’t move fast enough in adjusting various occupational schemes and benefit limits to achieve the necessary growth at home.

Non-Western immigration challenges us However, large migrations are not just an opportunity for Denmark - it’s also a challenge. Since we ourselves invited guest workers to Denmark in the 1970s, non-Western immigration has impacted Danish society. And unfortunately, in many areas, the impact is clearly negative.

The statistics are certainly clear: Immigrants and descendants from non-Western countries are popping up in all the wrong ways.

For example, crime rates are more than 50% higher among male immigrants and almost 140% higher among male descendants with nonWestern backgrounds than among the entire male population.6 Employment rates are also significantly lower, especially among women. For example, around seven in ten women from Syria, Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq are on public welfare. 7 In total, non-Western immigration costs the Danish treasury around DKK 33 billion a year.8 That’s quite a bill we pay year after year after year.

However, the bill is not only financial but also social and cultural because it challenges the fundamental cohesion of our society when so many people from entirely different cultural backgrounds take up residence in our country.

For example, almost four out of ten Danish Muslims believe that Danish law should be based in whole or in part on the Koran. At the same time, 42% of immigrants in Denmark either wholly or partly agree that criticism of religion should be banned. And that’s not even the scariest part because the numbers are getting worse for descendants.

5 6 7 8

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https://www.da.dk/politik-og-analyser/beskaeftigelse/2020/ny-analyse-viservaerdien-af- udenlandsk-arbejdskraft/ https://www.rockwoolfonden.dk/app/uploads/2016/02/Nyhedsbrev-Marts-2011.pdf https://integrationsinfo.dk/indvandrere-i-danmark-2020-saa-er-den-her/ https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/ikke-vestlige-indvandrere-og-efterkommere-koster-staten33- milliarder

Here, 48% either fully or partially support a ban on criticising religions. 9 It goes without saying that this causes some cultural clashes. That is why, year after year, Christiansborg, the seat of the Danish Parliament, introduces more and more far-reaching legislation to curb the parallel societies in which such views of life thrive.

For example, today, we have rules on where people can settle and rules that mean we can de facto force them to put their children in daycare. All legislation is down to Venstre and stems from the challenges posed by nonWestern immigration.

It is not an uplifting experience as a liberal to be behind such measures.

But unfortunately, it has been necessary. And here we get to the heart of why it has been right for Venstre since 2001 to fight to keep the asylum influx to Denmark as low as possible: Because unregulated immigration will lead to an over-regulated society.

And as freedom-loving liberals, we obviously don’t want that.

What does it mean to seek asylum?

It is morally wrong to believe that we can best help by inviting thousands of refugees to Denmark.

Denmark is a rich country with a long tradition of helping others. When wars sow destruction and devastation, we have a moral duty to help, but we also have a moral duty to help as many as possible. For example, it costs DKK 300,000 a year to have a rejected asylum seeker accommodated in an asylum centre in Denmark. 10 If you look at what you can get for that money in the biggest refugee camps in the world, it is obvious that by bringing them to Denmark, we are helping very few at the expense of many, especially when we know that it is the most resilient refugees who head for Europe, while the most vulnerable stay behind.

A basic liberal principle must be that the help given to the needy of this world must be able to help as many as possible. It remains a mystery why 9 10

https://www.berlingske.dk/danmark/hver-anden-efterkommer-vil-have-religionskritik-forbudt https://www.ft.dk/samling/20151/almdel/uui/spm/176/svar/1289797/1585465.pdf

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it is so important for the left to maintain an asylum system that primarily benefits a small group of wealthy refugees and economic migrants while the world’s most disadvantaged are left to their own devices.

That is why we must stick to the idea that asylum means seeking shelter.

While the storm rages, you need help. This is indisputable, and few help as many per capita as Denmark does. This is all too often forgotten by the most strident voices in the immigration debate. But in principle, you should not become an immigrant because you are a refugee. In principle, you are only here temporarily and will, of course, have to return to your home country when it is safe to return.

But in principle, you should not become an immigrant because you are a refugee.

In principle, you are only here temporarily and will, of course, have to return to your home country when it is safe to return.

Morten Dahlin Against this background, liberal immigration policy stands on two legs: Firstly, we must seize the opportunities offered by foreign workers who contribute to Denmark. Secondly, we must be cautious about whom we let in and focus our efforts on helping in the neighbourhoods.

A break with the integration model As liberals, we believe in the slogan “freedom under responsibility”. We celebrate personal responsibility and want everyone to take responsibility for their own lives.

This is also why we believe that we need to change how we think about integration here in Denmark. It is a common misconception that integration is a collective responsibility. However, we are doing a disservice to the people who come here by wrapping them in cotton wool and making no demands of them.

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When you don’t make demands on people, you are indirectly telling them that you don’t count for anything and that they can’t contribute. It’s a profound social democratic mindset that Mother State will take care of you and deal with your problems. But as with other social democratic ideas, they have gone astray.

The opposite integration effort is needed. We must make demands and have clear expectations. We must clarify that integration is a personal responsibility for those who come to Denmark, and that is the liberal approach.

However, it is no wonder that integration in Denmark has failed because the thinking has been wrong from the start. “Integration is a shared responsibility” - so begins the European Commission’s 2004 “Handbook on Integration for policy-makers and practitioners”. And the handbook, aimed directly at policymakers and practitioners, continues along the same lines. It says, "Integration is a continuous, two-way process which is based on mutual rights and corresponding obligations both of immigrants and of the host society.”

But the idea of a two-way process has too often been that the immigrant receives, and Danish society gives.

Unfortunately, this has characterised Danish integration efforts from the time the first foreigners set foot on Danish soil right up to the present day.

Unfortunately, the idea is persistent and has been a guiding principle in Danish integration policy for many years. If we are ever to succeed in integration, we must move away from the notion that integration is such a two-way process.

The meeting between people must, of course, always be reciprocal.

However, the integration process should not lead to a cultural compromise.

We must be open and understanding. But it’s not about building a bridge.

It’s about whoever comes here crossing the bridge to what’s already there.

And if you are not ready for that, integration can never succeed. If you do not want to cross the bridge that says the constitution is above the Koran, that cartoons do not lead to violence, and that women and men are equal, then Denmark should not be the place you make your home.

Because there are plenty of countries where you can be fully integrated without crossing that bridge, and Denmark is just not one of them. It’s as simple as that. The bridge exists today. We are a generous and open country that welcomes those who come here. So, it’s not on our side of the bridge that the problem lies. But the fact that too many choose not to cross the “bridge to Denmark” is obvious.

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Too many immigrants and descendants swear by Middle Eastern values.

And in reality, it shouldn’t be that hard to say: We believe that the values are worse than those we swear by here in Denmark.

Unconditionally worse. That is why the West is worth fleeing to. And therefore, that the Middle East is worth fleeing from.

But that does not mean that we should demand that everyone from outside lives exactly like the average Dane. We don’t all have to eat Danish meatballs and listen to Danish pop music. To put it another way: In Venstre, we don’t care if you eat falafel or roast pork on 24 December. But we do care if you respect the fundamental values that have made Denmark one of the best places in the world to live.

And then you can ask: But what about the well-integrated immigrants and refugees? And there are many of them, and it’s important to state.

But the fact that there are many well-integrated people should not prevent us from debating the serious integration problems.

As mentioned earlier, 42% of immigrants in Denmark believe that criticism of religion should be banned either in whole or in part. Unfortunately, this leads some Danes to suggest that we must restrict religious criticism - such as the Muhammad cartoons - here in Denmark. But that thinking is dangerous. Instead, we must set up a system that unambiguously explains and guides those who come here in how to behave here in Grundtvig’s homeland.

This is not a negotiation. Our democratic conversation is based on free speech. End of story! Women and men have equal value and should be treated equally and have equal opportunities. End of story! You decide what you want to believe and how, as long as you don’t restrict the freedom of others. End of story! Your sexuality is your own business. End of story! We live in a pluralist democracy where the constitution comes before all other laws. End of story! And none of this is negotiable or needs to be bent. End of story!

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EU - A PROJECT FOR LIBERALS

By Kim Valentin, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), former Mayor of Gribskov Municipality, partner and CEO of Finanshuset i Fredensborg A/S, and National Chairman of the Liberal Information Association (Liberalt Oplysningsforbund)

Europe is built on liberal ideas. Europe is not a country, and it is not meant to be a country. We are many countries and cultures living in peaceful coexistence, with great trade and freedom for each citizen, which applies to all countries in Europe now, and it must be the EU’s task to ensure this in the future.

Some EU countries have historically lived under communism - others under fascism - but what all 27 EU countries have in common is that they have democracy today and that their people want freedom and liberty. The EU can provide a powerful framework because we live together, collaborate and trade with each other, and not least because we help each other when we are in need.

We function in the EU under the wings of the Treaty because all respect the Treaty and because it is possible to sanction countries that do not behave properly. The EU’s institutions ensure this harmony through the interaction between the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the Council of Ministers. This power-sharing is unique and has proven effective. When necessary, the Council can make very rapid decisions enforced in the nation states through the governments. During the Covid crisis, this structure has proved at least as good as federalism or autocracies - in the United States or China, for example, and a lot more democratic than any other solution. The EU is unique, and even if not, everything is good, most things are good, which is the most important thing.

Europe must always strive to be better - not bigger or smaller - just better. This aspiration underlines that EU collaboration is the most important. The wishes of individuals are not important here, and systems are not important. The community and the goal of growth, free movement, freedom and peace in the world are important. It’s the most important thing now, and it’s the most important thing in the future of the EU ... the future of Europe.

One team - 27 different cultures There are 11 players on a football team who are different and have different abilities.

Some are good at scoring goals, and others are good at preventing goals from being scored. Some work hard all the time, while others briefly excel over others with brilliant ideas and solutions that can win games. The common goal is to win the matches.

The 27 countries of the EU are like a football team, and therefore everyone’s resources and abilities must be respected. This is not the same as saying that you have to look after yourself and that everyone makes their own luck - in fact, it’s quite the opposite. We will only be good as a team if we help each 208

FINLAND

S WE DEN

THE NORTH SEA DENMARK

IRELAND

THE NETHERLANDS

BELGIU M

PO LAN D

GERMANY

THE CZECH

FRANCE

A U S T RI A

SLOVAKIA

H U N G A RY

ROMANIA

PORTUGAL

BULGARIA

ITALY SPAIN

GREECE THE IONIAN SEA

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other and kindly but effectively guide, when individual members stray in a direction that does not serve the team and the goals.

Yes - you can, of course, choose to find another team to play on. The United Kingdom did, and it should be possible for others too. With Brexit, it has become clear that EU divisions do not come easily without losses on both sides, and this should therefore be avoided as far as possible. However, it is a strength of the EU that there is both an open front door and an open back door.

Countries like Poland and Hungary are violating the principles of constitutional state law at the moment, so it may be tempting to show them the door out of the EU, but it would be bad for everyone to do this before all other options have been explored. Ultimately, an exit will be possible if fundamental principles are broken over time.

We are all Europeans, even if we are also Danes. Calling yourself a European does not make you less of a Dane.

Kim Valentin

Enlargement (and exit) of the EU must also be possible in the future. It creates agility and strengthens cohesion in Europe. No countries have been admitted as members (Croatia) since 2013, and historically the admission of new countries has stalled. It’s probably natural. 27 is a lot of countries - a lot of countries that have to agree.

Countries like Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein and Switzerland are natural members if they want to, and they don’t want to do that right now, so the EEA is also a good solution. If countries like Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands want autonomy and membership, then we must be open to this and say “yes, please”.

Countries like Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, BosniaHerzegovina and Kosovo, as well as Moldova, are a lot further away because they are not constitutional states and freedoms are not enshrined in constitutions or suppressed by those in power. However, 214

we must never forget that those outside the EU must be close to us anyway.

Otherwise, they just move toward other countries like China and Russia, which do not share the same ideals of freedom and democracy as the EU. When countries are ready with EU-compliant principles of constitutional state law and their legal systems are well developed and tested, we should keep a door open and invite them to EU accession negotiations.

We see what Russia is doing to Ukraine, and it was probably a mistake that Ukraine did not enter the EU with Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. The European Union is clearly also a project for peace, and this must never be forgotten. In this way, enlargements can have other purposes than economic growth. The desire for peace and stability is the glue of the treaty. We should always keep this in mind when thinking about extensions. In contrast, countries like Belarus and Turkey are light years away from membership, where collaboration must be limited to trade relations.

The EU is and must remain a society based on the rule of law, where conflicts are best resolved through the courts - not by force. It requires patience, and sometimes slowness will be a virtue, and that is when it goes hand in hand with thoroughness and magnanimity.

The EU must be a standard-setter and a world leader. It will take long-term goals and short-term persistence to keep all countries engaged and at the negotiating table. The Green Deal, defence collaboration, pandemic control and prevention, migration solutions and the principles of constitutional state law, as well as joint acceptance of the taxation of tech giants, must be at the heart of these negotiations. These are negotiations that must build cohesion and growth, while compromises must be made and given by all. In this part, Denmark can show itself as a negotiator and mediator because we have a tradition of democratic solutions reached through conciliation.

DK is EU, and EU is DK The EU is never stronger than the people’s support for the project, which is true in Denmark and true in all other countries. That is why it’s essential to remove false narratives and reduce the distance between Brussels and the other 26 capitals.

The EU is in the daily lives of all Danes - all EU citizens.... Yes, in all Europeans.

The EU is the standard in Europe. Yes, in the world on many agendas. That’s good, and it’s important, and we need to be much better at talking about it when it happens and in the conversations about the future of Europe. It is NOT “down” in Brussels to ensure that it happens. It’s at home, on your computer, in your 215

sports club, workplace, and Parliament that the EU matters. In short, the EU is everywhere. The story of the EU must be clear to all Danes, and this must be done with facts, knowledge development and co-creation between experts, politicians and Danes/Europeans.

Contact between civil servants, politicians and citizens must be a priority in liberal Europe. We need to invite partnerships and listen politically rather than talk to those who come forward. We in Denmark can do more than many other countries on agendas such as climate, human rights, labour markets and trade. These are all tasks to be solved through the EU with us and liberal values in the driving seat, and in many cases, with the steering wheel in hand. We must never be afraid to take responsibility and lead. We must never let socialists, fascists, national conservatives, religious fundamentalists or anti-democrats take over.

It is not a given that freedoms will be preserved forever, and EU freedoms are under pressure in many countries. Here we must be persistent in the struggle to uphold all the principles of constitutional state law and the individual’s freedom - whatever observance the individual has politically, religiously, sexually, etc., so long, of course, as the law is observed.

Justice means that everyone is equal before the law and that the individual does not lose out to the many just because the others are many.

We are all Europeans, even if we are also Danes. Most Danes will nod in agreement - even if they are opposed to the EU. Calling yourself a European does not make you less of a Dane. In fact, we will be stronger as a nation by recognising ourselves as a proud European nation. We are not ‘Denmark First’. We have an outlook - an international outlook that is inclusive and open. We will talk and interact where possible because talking and interacting is the first step towards better understanding each other. And a better understanding of each other is the first step toward tolerance and coexistence.

Tolerance and coexistence are part of an international outlook, but they are not the same as accepting others’ views on freedom. For example, we can trade with China, but we will always protest when we see human rights abused. Therefore, the EU must also have foreign policy muscle.

Foreign policy is a critical step in demonstrating the EU’s demographic strength, and a strong external EU will also be stronger internally.

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The EU must be able to act quickly and coherently in the face of crises outside the EU. Sanctions against rogue states such as Iran, North Korea and Belarus must be able to be applied with similar speed and effectiveness. It’s the only way to secure respect from Russia, China and the United States, for example. Europe is the responsibility of Europeans - not of the United States and certainly not of Russia or China.

It will cost money and take time, but we will make it a priority. Peace in the world does not come from sitting and watching what happens, and it requires resources and joint organisation from the EU to get involved.

Afghanistan is an excellent example of how Europe should never again NOT take responsibility. Therefore, Denmark must step back from defence and legal reservations. In the long run, we must also join the Euro collaboration because it is the right thing to do and because it costs Denmark and the Danes a lot of money and lost influence on what should happen in the EU and Europe.

Small countries like Denmark benefit significantly from the structure of the EU. The EU Commission is more democratic than small countries might expect and less majority-dominated than large countries might demand. It creates cohesion that everyone is listened to, and that small countries are heard and have the opportunity to create their own agendas when the Presidency goes on tour and when Commissioners set targets and actions on the development of a competitive digital and green Europe.

The individual liberal EU agendas Trade between EU countries is and will be the agenda that will matter most to Denmark and Danes in the future partly because the climate agenda is an integral part of this. The most critical part, demonstrated by the “Just transition” efforts, is the fight against monopolies/tech giants’ use of power and the measures against tax evasion. But also because trade is about growth and improving the private economy for every citizen in the EU - not least in Denmark.

We need to do a better job of explaining this context and showing what it means for Denmark to be in the EU. We need to be better at taking the lead on this agenda in the EU. This requires that we get more Danes into the EU official apparatus, more Danish companies in Europe, more strategic partnerships with EU countries, more relations between parliaments and a willingness to talk about the importance of developing the EU. 215

Of course, the removal of reservations is fundamental if we are to participate in this development with dignity and assume this responsibility everywhere. The movement of goods and services should not face borders within the EU. Workers must be able to move freely, and students must be free to study. Capital must flow freely for the benefit of companies, citizens and states.

These fundamental issues must be protected as the world around the EU evolves.

There must also be room for nation states to have their own service levels.

Welfare belongs to nation states, and it must therefore be nation states that compose the relationship between tax levels, welfare and citizens’ own contributions. Herein lies the difference between the EU as a federal welfare state and the EU as a community with respect for the history and priorities of individual countries. EU rules must not destroy the ability of nation states to make welfare choices that suit the citizens of each country.

If the EU unifies agendas without regard for nation states, distinctive characteristics and the freedom of the individual, then the EU will restrict freedom, take away rights and undermine the right to be master of one’s own life for every citizen of the EU. It must never happen, and this must be taken into account in the individual agendas.

Examples of this in Denmark are “the Danish model”, the “mortgage model”, and problems with the Danish welfare model being exploited by other countries’ citizens in the EU. The liberal agenda is beset by excessive regulation because it is fundamentally not good for the individual citizen that the state takes responsibility for and from the individual citizen. This is also true at a European level. Citizens have fundamental responsibility for themselves, and the state’s task is to put citizens in a position where they can do so.

Anything else is the institutionalisation of citizens.

Migration is a double-edges sword. The new citizens who can and will work are a gain for the EU. But those who don’t want to are really bad to receive because they put pressure on the internal cohesion of the EU. Refugees from the third world are an EU problem, which must be solved jointly in the EU. Therefore, we need to have more agreement with EU 214

neighbours on this part. The agreements must contain both requirements and obligations and ensure that a refugee migration through Europe as in 2015 does not happen again.

Secure external borders are essential for open internal borders. Frontex must be given priority, and humanitarian aid in countries that help the EU in this area must be given priority. European values such as empathy, respect, tolerance and humanism must not be lost on this agenda.

Pandemics are not exclusively a national issue, and therefore the EU must be able to act on this agenda in the future. Joint vaccine production and joint vaccine distribution will provide the basis for a rapid response. It must be the market, not the state, that drives this development. It is a crucial agenda for Europe’s liberal forces that it is not the states that own and develop but the market that governs. The development of the Covid vaccine has happened very quickly because many companies and many scientists were developing in competition with each other.

On the pandemic agenda, the EU must not be given federal powers that take away the freedoms of citizens in individual countries. The constitutions of each country must be respected here, as well as on all other agendas, which also applies when joint EU defence collaboration is discussed and possibly established in the future. NATO will be the starting point for defence collaboration in Western countries, but NATO has proved inadequate in some conflicts, particularly when the United States has chosen to go it alone out of or into conflicts. In Europe, the EU must be the basis for future defence when the United States wants no more and NATO is paralysed.

The EU’s external borders must be strengthened and there must be no doubt that the EU is ready with sanctions and action when challenged by rogue states and border countries with activist agendas, for example, Turkey, Belarus, Russia and China. This strengthening is best achieved by establishing a joint defence effort, which requires increased Danish defence budgets.

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LIBERAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY

By Karen Ellemann, Member of the Danish Parliament (V) and former Minister Bo Manderup-Jensen, Director, EU Consult International, former President of UNESCO Denmark, Secretary General, Head of Cabinet and Director of the European Parliament and the European Commission, MSc in Economics and Management

For liberals, development policy is about turning the nations of this world into well-functioning societies. To promote human rights and market economy, freedom and governance on a global scale.

By providing targeted economic aid, developed countries like Denmark are trying to help people in developing countries enjoy a higher standard of living and more freedoms. Therefore, as the word suggests, development policy is characterised by a desire for economic prosperity. However, the development of prosperity should be done with an eye to the individual, their well-being and freedom.

Thus, in liberal development policy, the means to prosperity are the market economy and democratic norms, while the goal is the individual and the right to live freely and develop.

Since the mid-1970s, Denmark has been an active participant in international development policy. Over time, there have been many considerations, views and reflections behind the Danish development effort.

By extension, one might ask why Denmark cares at all about how people far from our latitudes are doing, just as one could ask why one should be interested in how other countries develop in the first place.

There are probably no clear-cut answers to these questions. But as in other policy issues - whether active euthanasia, the right to abortion or some other - it is clear that liberals have a particular orientation, a particular ideological guideline.

For liberals, the guiding principle is the sanctity and rights of the individual.

This is the main reason why liberals engage in the world and want an active development policy.

Why development policy?

As suggested, development policy rhymes with democracy, but democracy is not a univocal concept. As we know from the Western world, democracies and democratic processes come in different varieties.

Fortunately. That is why the aim of development policy is not primarily a particular form of democracy.

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Each nation can and must build a specific social order based on its own historical and cultural conditions. But this should be done with respect for individual rights - such as personal freedom, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. These rights presuppose that power is shared between a legislative, judicial and executive authority and that the society in question has solid institutions, such as a well-functioning and corruptionfree public administration, which guarantee the rights.

Against this background, development efforts should focus on actions and projects that support the individual’s rights and thus the possibilities to create a free and prosperous life. In concrete terms, this means creating the framework for better economic, health and educational development.

A better health system, quite simply, ensures the maintenance of life.

Better education creates opportunities for individuals. And better infrastructure ensures access to markets and provides the basis for a free economy and thus economic development - this is the case for transport and communication systems, for example. Finally, the development of institutions that protect property rights can create opportunities and incentives for the establishment of businesses, which contributes to economic development.

Stripped down to its essence, liberal development policy is about striving for the best possible conditions for the individual - just as is the case for liberal policy in a domestic context.

Major Danish contributions Historically, Denmark has been among the largest donors of development aid as a share of gross national income (GNI). Since the mid-1970s, Denmark has been one of the few countries to meet the UN target for socalled rich countries of providing at least 0.7% of GNI in development assistance. For a short period in the 1990s, Denmark actually provided more than 1%, and in 2021, this amounted to approximately DKK 17 billion.

A large part of Danish development aid has been aimed at improving conditions for the weakest groups and has primarily been given to the world’s poorest developing countries. The assistance is implemented and managed by a multitude of different players: Through government agencies, private companies and volunteers, as well as major international organisations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN children’s agency UNICEF. The key is to promote Denmark’s 219

development objectives with the resources that have been politically chosen for this purpose.

In this context, a sense of responsibility for the world’s poor obviously plays a major role, and it has been a defining feature of the traditionally high Danish level of support. That’s good, and that’s how it should stay.

However, development assistance must also be seen as part of Denmark’s overall foreign policy. From this perspective, development policy should be integrated into multilateral cooperation in the EU and the UN and used to promote Danish interests and key issues such as social development, gender equality, climate and the environment on the international agenda.

Thus, Danish development policy is driven by more than just a sense of responsibility and ideals. Danish development policy - including liberal development policy - should, in fact be understood as complementary to Denmark’s foreign and security policy strategy and the country’s interests in general.

Ideally, development policy should contribute to establishing robust political systems, effective public services and a strict rule of law societies at the global level. And this policy should ideally go hand in hand with direct investment in value creation, more trade and further education and equality. Partly because this type of development is an end in itself, and partly because a world of well-functioning societies is a safer and more affluent world, and thus a safer world for Denmark and the Danes.

Robust political systems and efficient public services Respect for human and civil rights is the basis for the long-term sustainable development of poor and conflict-affected nations. Therefore, it is only natural that Denmark should support the establishment and maintenance of institutions that protect private property rights and contribute to the existence of independent courts with independent judges.

In terms of development policy, Denmark must offer our experience and money to ensure the spread of effective public institutions that can guarantee equal treatment for citizens and the fight against corruption.

Experience shows that the proper functioning of the political and institutional system is crucial for a country’s development prospects. For liberals, economic development makes no sense unless property rights are 220

protected. There is not much stability and long-term possibilities in starting a business or building a farm if a dictator can arbitrarily seize the fruits of one’s labour.

Therefore, support for the development of land registration systems - and courts to support these systems - is often a prerequisite for development.

This is a construction project that requires a determined effort and years of collaboration with local authorities in developing countries.

We have excellent experience building robust, democratic institutions and well-functioning public authorities and judicial systems in Denmark. We need to capitalise on that experience. Thus, a significant part of our development budget must go to finance the building and maintenance of democratic institutions and parties. At the same time, we must support the development of effective public sectors globally, including an independent judiciary to protect human rights and build genuine rule of law societies.

Unfortunately, many countries suffer from years of internal conflict conflict that often stems from different ethnic and religious affiliations, as well as social inequality. In many places, these conflicts are exacerbated by climate change, for example, because it becomes impossible to cultivate the land, which in turn breeds civil wars, terror and destruction.

Stripped to its core, liberal development policy is about striving for the best possible conditions for the individual - just as is the case for liberal policy in a domestic context.

Karen Ellemann and Bo Manderup-Jensen

It is difficult to manage conflict when there is an absence of wellfunctioning institutions that can provide a framework for peaceful negotiations between a country’s diverse factions. Danish development policy must therefore contribute to creating platforms for dialogue between the conflicting parties and political parties, including - and in particular those currently in opposition. The establishment of a common understanding that one can be in government and in opposition in turn is a crucial precondition for the peaceful development of democracy.

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There are excellent examples, for instance, in Kenya, where the government and opposition have found each other in a kind of ‘equilibrium’ where common interests seem to outweigh the alternative: unrest and instability.

Direct investment in jobs and value creation However, it is not only well-functioning public institutions that are crucial for the development of a society. Direct external investment is at least as important. The inflow of investment and private capital is indeed a key driver of development - provided, however, that the investments are commercially sustainable.

Indeed, commercial sustainability ensures that companies deliver profits, which means new investment and thus further development. If a company is not sustainable, it cannot operate continuously, develop production, create lasting jobs and pay taxes to the society of which it is a part.

Commercial sustainability is, therefore, a keyword.

Furthermore, direct investment provides increased income for workers, knowledge transfer, company-financed employee training, interaction with local companies and financing for the public sector in the country of investment, which can thus increase investment in and improve the operation of, for instance, education and the healthcare service, and ensure infrastructure.

If young people worldwide are to have prospects in their home countries, direct investment in the green transition is essential. These include creating more and better jobs and the production of goods and services that can add value and trade with developing economies on a sustainable basis.

It is essential that private property rights and direct investments are protected for the same reason. And so, we are back to building strong rule of law societies and well-functioning public systems.

Trade and aid through the EU and the UN As indicated above, it is not only Denmark responsible for Danish development policy, but it is also pursued in international forums such as the EU and the UN. It is based on the simple recognition that more can be done together.

That is why collaboration in the EU and the UN is also of great importance for our development assistance. Here, development policy focusing on combating climate change serves as an example. In the 222

climate and environment field, the EU and the UN act as a kind of amplifier, multiplying Danish know-how in the green area and giving it greater impact.

By using the EU, the world’s largest development player, Denmark can also contribute in countries and areas where we do not have the resources or capacity to be present. At the same time, Denmark can work through the EU on good framework agreements for trade and investment, among other things, that benefit developing countries.

The EU has a long tradition of agreements with developing countries.

They have been mainly about investment and trade, but we expect the EU to use its strength to meet the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals as well.

Indeed, the SDGs, long in the making, have created a common language that, for the first time ever, unites the world’s nations around a common direction - one of freedom, justice and development.

As a Member State, Denmark must therefore help to pull the EU in the right direction. As Liberals, we want the EU to take the lead in promoting freedom, peace and development and to lead the way in achieving the international goals of more and better development aid. And here, the 17 SDGs are quite central.

Regarding the UN, Denmark must continue to support the UN’s development work. Overall, just over half of Denmark’s aid is provided through multilateral organisations, and Denmark is one of the UN’s largest donors.

The UN is often better placed to work in countries and regions that have been and are affected by conflict, and we must therefore continue to demand and support the UN’s strategic and political work on conflict resolution, the implementation of conventions and the protection of human rights.

Education and gender equality However, well-functioning institutions, protection of property rights and economic development are not worth much without education and equality.

Education gives people the opportunity to develop and live a meaningful life, which is why a focus on education should be at the heart of all development policies.

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In this context, it is gratifying to note that the number of children attending school at a world level is increasing. Sadly, there are still 250 million children worldwide who cannot read, write or do maths. Therefore, it is not enough to ensure that children in developing countries go to school. They also need to learn something so that they have better opportunities later in life.

For girls, in particular, education has a significant impact, for example, on when they have children, which can be a fateful event when living in a developing country. A girl who has had the opportunity to go to school will marry later, have fewer and healthier children, and have a better job. All because she has learned to read, write and count. However, one of the preconditions for more girls to attend school is something as impractical as building separate toilets for both sexes.

Today, women make up more than two-thirds of the world’s 750 million adults who lack basic education skills. Conversely, women represent less than 30% of the world’s researchers, and women are generally far more exposed to violence and threats than men. Therefore, there is every reason to support initiatives that protect women’s rights, which is all because gender equality and women’s economic and political participation contribute to increased growth and more equal, free and democratic societies.

To sum up: Liberal development policy is based on internationally committed communities with democratic values and human rights, thereby providing the framework for a stable and just world society with future opportunities for the individual.

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A LIBERAL WORLD ORDER

By Jens-Kristian Lütken, Vice-Chairman of the European Movement, Group Chairman of Venstre in Copenhagen, and Msc in Political Science

Strong international institutions must ensure more freedom and globalisation with a human face The liberal international order that emerged in the wake of World War II raised hopes of flourishing democracies with economic growth and increasing social equality. A hope that did not remain just a dream but became a concrete reality, creating a historic boost to the prosperity of millions of people and sparing large parts of the world from armed conflict.

With the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, this consensus and the importance of international cooperation and responsibility were put to the test. At the same time, an increasingly powerful China has questioned what we perceived as obvious basic tenets of a liberal worldview.

The self-evident was challenged, and liberal forces have so far neglected to focus on what Western values and cooperation actually are and how best to sustain them.

A new international order emerges after the Second World War The liberal international order was initially based on free trade, but just as importantly, the individual was set free from the unfettered power of states. The individual was given more and more rights in the world, independent of the state. The idea of individual rights was not new, but the crucial novelty was that these rights are universal. It was a radical departure from how state systems have operated for centuries.

The new order that emerged after the war thus ideally put an end to states being able to sacrifice millions of people in war or captivity, as happened in the trenches of the First World War, in the Nazi concentration camps and the Communist Gulag camps. Future losses of life would no longer be mere statistics but about individuals, each of whom had welldefined rights.

For recent generations who have grown up under this paradigm, the new order has become self-evident and something we could take for granted.

The very foundation is that we have common rules and values on which relations between states are based. We have a basic global understanding of what the UN and its conventions and global organisations are built.

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The world is changing, and the unipolar world with the United States as the leader of the free world and policeman of the rest of the world is severely challenged. It shakes up the familiar framework and creates the opportunity to think in new ways. As liberals, we must seize this opportunity.

What are the challenges facing the liberal international world order, and how should we address them as liberals and in Denmark?

Not everyone plays by the same rules Free trade is the absolute crown jewel of liberal thought, and we should therefore be in favour of any liberalisation of world trade - provided that the other side plays by the same rules as we do. Here, the elephant in the room is, of course, China.

In China, we face a social system and a state apparatus that uses its enormous economic power and investment in strategic sectors to pursue political goals that are not necessarily in our interests and in line with liberal values.

In concrete terms, buying telecom infrastructure from Chinese manufacturers may be economically rational, but is it wise in the long run? Barely. The same applies to the cheap and stable supply of Russian gas. It may make economic sense in the short term, but the long-term deposit of energy policy in the Kremlin is not exactly reassuring.

Therefore, it is not enough to look at free trade from a narrow economic perspective, and thus we as modern liberals must take a step away from the classical liberal understanding of free trade.

When it comes to countries like Japan, South Korea, the United States or liberal-oriented developing countries, it’s just a case of letting free trade go. But in countries with a markedly different political system from Western liberal democracy, there is good reason to be wary of becoming dependent on cheap goods or selling off strategically important sectors.

The problem with China and Russia is, among other things, that the state power has secured the opportunity to use international trade for political power. Chinese companies are far from always operating to deliver the best and cheapest solutions to the world’s consumers, and often it is about supporting China’s military and enormous political power.

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Similarly, the unprecedented freedom of Chinese society means that production can take place under entirely unfair competitive conditions. In reality, the Chinese rulers forced hundreds of millions of Chinese people to work under unfair conditions. Among them, it is quite systematically ethnic minorities that are affected. China has created a state-sanctioned economic model with artificially low wages that can only be sustained in a society of repression and state violence. In the liberal world order built up after the Second World War, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was supposed to guarantee the right to form free trade unions with free wage negotiations. Of course, this does not happen in China, and any attempt to do so is seen as an attack on the state.

International conventions must keep up with the times The international liberal order has evolved from a system based on free trade and interdependence to a system based on international law.

Gradually, GATT evolved from loose agreements with little real means of enforcement into the World Trade Organisation. Similar developments have occurred in some other policy areas.

Gradually, international laws and regulations have been developed and have become part of national legislation. However, this is where problems begin to emerge, as has become clear in recent years, fuelling forces that want a fundamental break with international laws and rules.

This has been most evident in the context of the Refugee Convention. As liberals, we have our dilemmas here, for it must not, of course, be the case that an international convention gives the whole world access to our taxfunded welfare benefits. This is, of course, a distorted picture, but there are relevant points hidden in the exaggeration.

Because if we do not maintain international agreements and conventions and adapt them to the reality in which we live, the conventions lose their legitimacy.

Fundamentally, as a small country, we have a clear interest in having enforced international laws and rules. Even distant conflicts can easily become our own problem as thousands of migrants wander the Danish motorways. We can only deal with such situations if we have up-to-date international laws and rules that provide for overall regulation and common principles on how states should respond to refugee flows.

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The appeasing idea of simply opting out of international conventions and then expecting the world’s problems to bypass our little spot on the globe is both naive and foolhardy. Nevertheless, it has a wide following, which is precisely why we as liberals have a responsibility to emphasise the significant benefits of not standing alone but being committed to solving common problems alongside other countries of the world.

Globalisation with a human face Globalisation is often referred to as “unbridled globalisation”. I don’t really think there are significant liberal thinkers who have argued for simply letting go of social dumping or that culture and religion don’t have a bearing on how people live together. However, there is no doubt that liberals have left that agenda to conservatives and not least extreme national conservatives.

They have almost taken the exclusive right to point out the obvious challenges that open borders and immigration can bring.

Fundamentally, as a small country, we have a clear interest in having enforced international laws and rules.

Jens-Kristian Lütken Liberals have taken the blows without coming up with answers to the questions that the people are rightly asking.

First, we must recognise that nation states matter and play a role, no matter how economically interconnected we are. It is first and foremost within the nation state framework that we have a common creation and feel a responsibility for each other. It is within the nation state that we find our neighbour.

Secondly, culture and religion play a role that cannot simply be set aside by universal values of freedom, democracy and human rights. This role certainly does not have to be negative, and it is naïve to imagine that cultural and religious traditions can simply be pushed aside. That kind of naivety is leading the West into problems that have been seen in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Arab Spring. A greater understanding of culture and religion would have helped the Western world, but instead, we compromised the very ideas and values we stand for. Conversely, national conservative opinion-makers are wrong to claim that Islam and democracy 233

are incompatible, and this is due to a simplistic and exaggerated focus on religion. The golden mean must be to realise that the vast majority of people in the world want to live in freedom and with a real opportunity to seek happiness, prosperity and security for themselves and their families.

The liberal market economy offers people the best conditions for this, but few are willing to sacrifice or feel that they are sacrificing their own culture, tradition and religion to achieve a free market economy.

This is an important lesson to be learned from the activist foreign policy of the 1990s, which was regrettably based on a relatively thin analysis, particularly from neo-conservative American think tanks.

Third, there is also a social consideration that overly theoretical and economically based globalisation thinking misses. Underpaid migrant workers and lorry drivers on Europe’s motorways are a shadow side of globalisation that has not been addressed adequately. It will not work if we can look at ourselves in the mirror and convince people that free competition and open borders are a good idea. So, the framework needs to be more explicit about what we accept on Danish and European soil.

Finally, there is the whole issue of open borders. It is a value of a globalised world with open borders where people and goods can move freely across borders. With cheap airfares in most parts of the world, the whole world has become smaller. Therefore, moving from Afghanistan, the Middle East or Africa to Europe is no longer a daunting task. In many cases, this can be done relatively cheaply and simply. However, the problem for Europe is simply that it has become too easy for many unwelcome people to enter Europe.

That’s why “Fortress Europe” should no longer be just a swearword because sometimes it’s necessary to protect oneself behind walls and fences. There is nothing at all liberal about leaving our external borders unguarded and virtually inviting people traffickers to profit from other people’s misery. It is obvious that our external borders must be protected. For Denmark, this should first and foremost be done through collaboration in the EU. The reality of the security policy With the end of the Cold War, the bipolar security order disappeared, with the democracies of the West on one side and the Soviet Union with its oppressed allies on the other. The world became unipolar, with the United States as the only remaining superpower. It went so far that people talked about that the story was over. With China’s massive rise from a developing 232

country to the status of the world’s largest economy within reach and Russia’s re-emergence on the international scene, the world is moving towards a multipolar state. This is where our values are seriously challenged, and, as a small country, we once again rely on strong alliances with like-minded countries.

Like our EU peers, we must choose a place in the world that best safeguards our social order and prosperity. In this light, we in the EU are pressed to choose whether we will and can act together or whether the countries of Europe should plunge into the global arms race as a swarm of lesser states that must simply adapt to the realities set by the United States, China, Russia and others. The latter option is not a recommended path. Just look at the difficulties that a relatively large country like the UK is experiencing in the wake of Brexit.

There is little doubt that Denmark must rely on transatlantic collaboration in NATO in the shorter term. But we should develop European collaboration as far as possible within the NATO community. And much can be done at an EU level: military procurement and technological development, for example. We must also be ready to act in the European area with less support from the United States, which is forced to turn its attention to Asia and relations with China, or which is simply concentrating more on itself.

Denmark and the EU should seek to act jointly concerning Russia, the Middle East and Africa, which may involve complex considerations about relations with states that are illiberal, to say the least. But as a globally smaller Europe, we act not only based on strength but based on the desire to ensure our development and independence.

The futile nationalism and the happy liberalism The liberal world order, with its fundamental values of freedom and respect for the individual, remains the most successful way for as many people as possible to live in prosperity and security. However, it is essential that we, as liberals, dare to maintain the project that was launched after the Second World War. If we do not invest politically and intellectually in the international institutions and frameworks we have built, we risk that everything will just fall apart.

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In short, strong institutions are needed if we want to preserve the set of values that built the free world over the past generations, which requires us to trust international institutions and be ready to invest political capital - even when it is easier not to. And it requires political leaders to take the lead, starting with the United States.

For liberals, international politics is not just about states surviving and each state having to fight for the planet’s limited resources. As liberals, we approach the world with a brighter and more optimistic outlook, though we are not naive. For us, the most important thing is the individual and their ability to pursue their own potential. For liberals, international politics is not a zero-sum game but an opportunity we must seize to make the pie bigger through free trade and collaboration. If we lapse into a narrow strategy of pursuing our own narrow interests, we will inevitably lose as a small country. On the other hand, we can benefit from an international system characterised by binding collaboration, laws and rules. It is the small state’s main lifeline when the wind whips up a storm.

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THE LIBERAL KINGDOM OF DENMARK Aqqalu C. Jerimiassen, Leader of Atassut (the liberal and unionist political party in Greenland), Bárður á Steig Nielsen, Leader of Sambandsflokkurin (The Faroese Union Party) and Bertel Haarder, Member of the Danish Parliament (V), and former Minister

Atassut, Sambandsflokkurin and Venstre share a liberal political approach.

We are also united in our desire for Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark to be together in the Kingdom of Denmark.

Our three countries share a long history of developing and exchanging cultural, economic and social values, ties and experiences. Despite the great distances between our countries, we believe that there is more that unites us than divides us. Together we are strong - a major player separately, we are small nations.

Unification in the Kingdom is voluntary, and each of the three countries can secede from the Kingdom if it so wishes - with the obligations that come with independence, of course.

Our three liberal parties in the Kingdom believe that we belong together and must continue to be together. There are so many inner affiliations in the Kingdom that we don’t want to say goodbye to.

The Kingdom is a common bulwark against threats in relation to the outside world, and it is a common entity that makes good sense to have as a common ground.

Freedom as a keyword All three parties are based on the desire to give individuals the greatest possible freedom to shape their own lives in conditions where voluntary communities between people, together with the services provided by a modern welfare society, give individuals a secure existence.

We also want individuals and families to take responsibility for their own lives as much as possible. Public support should be used first and foremost to strengthen an individual’s ability to take care of oneself and one’s family.

We are also united in the desire that our countries should develop a free business community that can provide the basis for economic prosperity and social security. At the same time, both the tax burden and the public sector should be limited to what is necessary.

It is also a common desire that our countries all move towards environmental sustainability.

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Joint authorities and tasks We respect the differences between the countries of the Kingdom of Denmark, and we support tasks being carried out in individual countries as far as possible. And the right to take over tasks is an essential element of the agreed basis between the countries of the Kingdom.

Greenland and the Faroe Islands have the possibility, under existing agreements, to carry out the tasks that they wish to take over and for which they will assume financial, legal and social responsibility.

For the time being, however, Greenland and the Faroe Islands wish to maintain common institutions within the Kingdom in some areas. This applies, for example, to the judiciary, including the police and courts, but also to specialised health care providers.

As a consequence of wanting to preserve the Kingdom, all three parties want to maintain Greenland’s and the Faroe Islands’ representation in the Danish Parliament.

The international world order The Kingdom is a single entity in relation to the outside world. The common foreign, security and defence policy is conducted jointly within the Kingdom, and this is what our three parties want to maintain.

Our three liberal parties in the Kingdom believe that we belong together and must continue to be together.

Aqqalu C. Jerimiassen, Bárður á Steig Nielsen and Bertel Haarder

It is partly a simple desire to belong together in a united Danish kingdom and partly a pragmatic reflection on global realities, particularly those in the North Atlantic and the Arctic. It is advantageous for all parts of the Kingdom to belong together in this context.

The Kingdom is a changing entity - history has shown us this. During the Second World War, the Faroe Islands and Greenland were more or less 239

isolated from Denmark, and the countries were occupied by Great Britain and the United States, respectively. By the end of the war, there had been major developments in the Faroe Islands and Greenland, which led to the Faroe Islands being given home rule a few years after the end of the war, and Greenland’s status as a Danish colony came to an end when Greenland became a Danish county in 1953.

Since then, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, and the Kingdom has constantly been evolving, which is very positive as our three parties are convinced that a developing kingdom is a strong, sustainable and future-proof Kingdom.

All three parties want that the united Danish kingdom and its individual parts achieve international security a North Atlantic cooperation.

At the same time, our three parties want the interests of the Kingdom to be safeguarded jointly in relation to the United States and other Western countries. This applies to foreign policy in general and to the Arctic Council.

The Kingdom acts jointly with one voice in these situations, which is why binding coordination between the countries of the Kingdom is necessary.

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About the book’s editor Henrik Bach Mortensen is Vice President of ALDE, The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, since 2016.

• MMSc in Economics from the University of Copenhagen and MPhil in Economics, Cambridge.

• Member of the National Board of Venstre Youth 1979-1981 and the National Board of Venstre 1998-2012.

• Head of Venstre’s Parliamentary Group’s Political-Economic Secretariat 1986-1994.

• Member of Gladsaxe City Council for Venstre 2018-2020.

•C hairman of the Board of DIPD (Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy), established by the Danish Parliament 2010-2018.

• Former director of, among others, the Danish Confederation of Employers’ Associations in Agriculture, the Confederation of Danish Employers and the Danish Association of Managers and Executives.

• Has participated in international activities in the EU, OECD and UN.

LIBERAL DREAMS AND DELIBERATIONS

- past, present and future The purpose of this book is to discuss modern views of liberalism. In the book you can, among other things, rewind to the thinker Adam Smith (1723-1790) and take a firm fast forward to the world of today and tomorrow.

To be liberal is to have “dreams”. Not that in a few years the world will look a certain way but dreams of unleashing human freedom, creativity, ambition and love of life because then we, as liberals, believe that the world will be the best possible version of itself.

Precisely because we want the future to be created by the free choices of millions of people, not by an ideological model of life and society.

That is the starting point for this book. It contains 24 contributions, each of which updates the liberal political starting point for the 21st century. Be inspired or provoked. And let’s discuss until we get to the core of the matter.

Henrik Bach Mortensen

Vice President of ALDE