ABSTRACT
My core thesis is simple. Internationalized modern economies pose a social and political dilemma. In free societies, the search for competitiveness seems to damage social cohesion. If, on the other hand, such free societies choose to give social cohesion a higher priority, their competitiveness, and with it their prosperity, are at risk. Some countries, or at least their leaders, insist on competitiveness but do not want to sacrifice social cohesion, and seem to achieve this by restricting political freedom. More and more people think that you can have two but not all three: prosperity and cohesion without freedom, prosperity and freedom without civility, civility and freedom without prosperity. What would need to be done to square the circle?
