ABSTRACT
The crisis – an equation with many variables Europe is desperately struggling with crisis, trying with all its might to put out the fire first here, later there, and when success seems within reach, the flames flare up once again. There are many causes for this relative helplessness. Understandably, the European Union focuses mostly on the economic and political reasons which originally triggered the crisis and are responsible for its prolongation. This is what its mandate and its institutional system are destined for. These efforts have not been particularly successful to date. One reason for this might be that economics and politics are only part of the overall system of society and, consequently, mastering economic and political problems does not in itself eradicate the crisis. The crisis is multi-dimensional, both in Europe and elsewhere – an equation with many variables, where besides economic factors social, cultural, psychological, behavioural and even spiritual aspects play important roles. Formulas and equations consisting merely of economic and political variables will necessarily collapse and prove unsolvable. Fortunately, however, the situation is not as bad as it sounds, since modern economics does attempt to grasp economic phenomena in their full complexity. The fact that economic processes are deeply embedded in the tissue of social existence is something we have known through the works of Max Weber, Mihály Polányi, Amitai Etzioni and others. Over the past half a century, a whole line of new disciplines has unfolded in order to explore these connections. It is enough to think of recent achievements in fields such as theoretical and crisis economics, social economics, behavioural economics, cultural economics, welfare economics, identity economics, game theory, rational choice theory, quality of life studies, GNP-Gross National Happiness Index, or research into human capital. Today the conviction is growing ever stronger that we must go ‘beyond the GDP approach’ even in political circles. There is, however, a further factor which may play a crucial part in the analysis and interpretation of the crisis but receives relatively little attention in discussions today. This factor is history, more accurately, the possibility that our current crisis may not be a singular, one-off occurrence but a late stage in the
prolonged radical transformation of European/Western civilisation which has been underway for a longer period. It is this aspect of the crisis I will examine below.
