ROW Episode 12

In this episode we explore the many lessons we can glean from the way the European Coal and Steel Community—the foundation of what we know as the European Union—was created, including its structure and processes in order to build both a new system of global governance fit to meet the needs of our time and a lasting peace. 

Transcript

Sovaida: 0:08

Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast dedicated to envisioning a better world and to infusing hope that we can make the principled choices to build that world. In this episode, we explore the many lessons we can glean from the way the European Coal and Steel Community, which is the foundation of what we know as the European Union, was created, including its structure and processes, in order to build both a new system of global governance fit to meet the needs of our time and a lasting peace. Let's dive into today's session. It builds to some extent on what we've been talking about in our previous sessions. What I want to talk about today specifically is the importance of modeling success or learning from models of success. In particular, I want us to dig a little deeper and I want to share with you some really interesting, compelling facts and information, so that you feel that you're equipped, and so you feel hopeful, and so you feel energized that the kind of world that we're trying to build, a peaceful and secure one, is actually within our reach. The model that I want to examine is the European Coal and Steel Community that we started talking about last week, and I'll get to that in a minute, but the main principle that I want us to focus on today is this principle that success leaves clues. This is a famous quote from the well known international coach and strategist Tony Robbins. I believe he got it from someone else, but still, success leaves clues. It's so true, right? We know when we see somebody who's been successful in a certain sphere of life. For example, in careers, whenever we're trying to chart a course, it's a no brainer for us to look at somebody else who has done what we are hoping and dreaming that we could do and has done it successfully. The best way to get it done, the most efficient way, is to go and consult with such people or to examine their lives, examine the choices they've made, look at what they've done. What was it about them and their qualities that led to their success. We do this automatically almost when it comes to our work lives. Interestingly, human beings aren't so good at doing this in their personal lives. We don't always, for instance, when deciding whether to marry someone, look to see what the ingredients of a successful marriage are, look at role models of people who have had and have happy, successful marriages. We do have blind spots. And the same is true in the area of administering the affairs of the world. We have a very short memory in terms of things that we've actually done in the past that have been successful. Now, the irony is that we are very good at telling ourselves all the things that cannot be done, and shooting down any ideas on the basis that"Oh, we tried that, it didn't work," or"Oh, there's no point in doing that. It will never work." We're jaded and cynical. And yet, we forget to look at those examples in our collective history where we, as societies, have done things that have actually redounded to our success, that have brought us the kind of world we want, that have brought peace to large segments of humanity. This is what I want to focus on today. And this is a tool, by the way, that we use and I use in my life. One of the hats I wear is as a coach. I help people, individuals and businesses achieve better performance in their lives and in their business. And there's a process we use that is called a three step process that helps people to shift their energy away from being unproductive, low in motivation, being in a circumstance where they feel very stressed out at work and paralyzed almost, not finding solutions to problems that they face and generally finding themselves in a negative environment. This process is especially helpful when a person says,"I can't do something." Getting them to shift to,"Yes, I can." What do we do? The three steps are, first of all, you ask yourself, or the business asks itself, what have I done in the past? Let me think of an instance where I was faced with a similarly difficult situation and I successfully overcame it. Then ask yourself, what was it about me or about what I did or about my qualities that helped me negotiate and overcome that challenge. And then the third question is How can I or how can we as a business or as a group apply these methods or processes or qualities, bring them to bear on the challenge at hand? This is a really effective methodology. And I want to apply it today with respect to the European Coal and Steel Community. Don't be frightened by the big term. It was just an institution that was created. If you want to learn more about it, go back to last week's episode. It was created in the aftermath of the Second World War to help Europe overcome two particularly large problems. It ended up giving the nations who participated in it, six member nations, equitable access to coal and steel, which were critical resources that were essential to rebuilding and reconstructing Europe, giving them equitable access at reasonable prices. If you want to wrap your brain around this, think today about all the nations getting equitable access to the vaccine at reasonable prices and on equal terms with other nations. We don't have a bunch of nations waiting in line, while the wealthiest nations get their hands on the vaccine. Similar kind of dilemma, right? Similar challenge. That was the first problem that this institution was able to overcome, which is huge. Imagine if we could apply it today to the pandemic, how big that would be. The second thing that it did was it ensured that Germany could not start a third world war because of its access to coal and because of its very strong steel industry. And the third success really that this institution brought about was lasting peace in Europe. Europe went from being a continent where there were constant wars back and forth to a period of peace since the end of the Second world war till today. Applying the three step process, let's go for it. What were the factors that made this institution so incredibly successful and have such a high impact in the lives of the European continent There were a couple of factors. Today I want to focus on one of them and then hopefully next session I plan to get to the other. The first one was the motivations and qualities of the leaders who had the vision, came up with the idea of creating this institution. They believed in it and they put it into action. They implemented it. There were three individuals who were responsible, essentially the foreign minister of France, Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet, who was minister of planning in France, and the German chancellor, Chancellor Conrad Adenauer. First lesson we learn is that it's actually enough to start with a very small group of core leaders in order to build a system of institutions that have tremendous impact, disproportionate impact, really, on the lives of large numbers of people, in this instance, six European nations, assuring their well being, their peace, their success and their economic benefit as well. Sometimes we look at the world and the challenges we have and we stop ourselves by thinking,"Oh, how are we ever going to get 193 nations to agree or leaders to agree?" You don't start there. You start with a core group of people who have certain key qualities. You get them to come up with a brilliant plan, and then they take the plan to the rest of the leaders and get them to ratify it, which is exactly what happened here. with the European Coal and Steel community, which by the way was the foundational institution of what later evolved into the European Union. We know it today as the European Union. The second lesson is, to be effective such leaders have to possess certain qualities. Now we spent a session talking about the importance of the qualities of leaders and I'm not going to rehash that. What I want to do today is to demonstrate very concretely, how certain key qualities have tremendous impact on the lives of the people who are led by these leaders. The first here, that all three of these leaders possessed was courage. What does that mean, practically? They were willing to conceive of ideas that were not normal practice between states at the time. They came up with this idea of taking coal and steel that belonged to all these nations and pulling them in the hands of a supra national body, what they called the high authority, which sat above, if you like, nation states. Which meant that each of their nations had to be willing to cede a certain amount of sovereignty in a narrow area, the coal and steel industry, but still a critical area. Think oil and gas today. Getting the nations who sit on oil and gas to kind of cede sovereignty and put the oil and gas in the hands of a supranational institution. That's what these guys managed to do. What had been done until then, the normal practice was to have these coal and steel and the regulation of the production and distribution undertaken by cartels. Cartels are basically private agreements between industrialists that were facilitated by government officials who were eager to restore the balance of the steel industry, which had been destroyed after the First World War. What was the contrast between the way things were done using cartels and the way what this new vision that these three individuals had? Let's look at how dramatic a difference it was. Under cartels, you restrict output. Think restrict the amount of vaccines you produce. They were restricting the output of coal and allocating markets, deciding who gets what in order to increase profits. So you're driven by profit. By contrast, the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community would encourage productivity create more of this stuff because people need it. Again, think in terms of vaccines today. Encouraging productivity to get as much of this stuff out, so that as many of us in all the countries of the world can have access to it. As opposed to thinking,"Ooh, let's restrict it so that we can demand high prices for it and make profits." The second difference was that cartels struck secret deals. By contrast, the high authority would transparently publish both the demand, like who needs what, how much do we need, and supply information, and favor open agreements. This is a radically different approach. As we go through this, think about the courage it took for these three individuals to break out of that old system into the new. Thirdly, the cartels serve private interests of their industrialist members versus the High Authority which serve as the agent of the broader public in all of the six member countries. So working for the collective good versus the good of a small group of industrialists or in today's COVID world, in the interests of a small group of pharmaceutical companies, right? Not only did they have the courage to propose something so radically different, but they did it in circumstances that required their nations to trust long time and very recent enemies. You remember last time we talked about the historic enmity between France and Germany, that their literature talked about them drinking the hatred of each other with their mother's milk and that they would always be at war with each other. It took a lot, therefore, to say,"Hey, we're going to share all our coal and steel together and put it all together. And where each of our countries is going to give this up and put it in the hands of this supranational authority." The third thing that took courage, and this is actually a really fun story, was the willingness to bypass normal bureaucratic and diplomatic channels to ensure that this idea of pooling coal and steel would survive. And it wouldn't be blighted before it took root. Here's what happened. Jean Monnet was the guy who came up with this idea. It was his brainchild. And he was trying to figure out a way to get it into the hands of the foreign minister of his country without having all the mid level bureaucrats kill it, right? He had the presence of mind and the courage to give it to a gentleman by the name of Bernard Clapier, who was the head of Schuman's private office, who included it in papers that Schumann was going to work on in the country over the weekend. Schumann gets to his home, opens his suitcase or briefcase or whatever he has with his papers, and as soon as he reads this proposal, he realizes this is a brilliant idea, and it solves these two big problems that we are facing. Now, he was afraid, he knew that he needed to get Germany on board, but he was afraid that if he went through diplomatic channels, again, people on both sides, the French and the Germans, would scupper the negotiations or any chance of success. So he takes the courageous step, again, courage, of sending it to Chancellor Adenauer of Germany through an unofficial emissary, so private messenger, so to speak. As soon as Adenauer gets the proposal, he reads it and says,"Wow, this is the solution to Germany's problems as well." So he sends a private message back to Schumann, again, cutting out all the bureaucratic stuff. As soon as Schumann hears that Adenauer has agreed to this idea, he's in the middle of a radio broadcast on May 9th, 1950, when he gets this message. He interrupts the radio broadcast to announce to France and to the world that,"Hey, these erstwhile enemies, France and Germany, have agreed to become partners in pooling their coal and steel resources." It's a fait accompli, right? A deal done, because he's now announced it. So nobody can interfere. Really amazing evidence of courage on the part of all three and amazing evidence of creativity and of wisdom. A whole bunch of qualities really come to bear here. The last thing that really demonstrates their courage that I wanted to share with you was their willingness to proceed, even though Britain, which was considered a very important ally and a very important force for good in the world, refused to participate. For them to go it alone without Britain was a really big deal and took courage. Okay, we've looked at courage. What about wisdom? Now Jean Monnet, who conceived of this plan, understood that calls by European federalists over the years since the end of the First World War to create a United States of Europe, similar to the United States of America, had failed. He would have liked nothing more than to have a federation in Europe. He had lived and worked in the U. S. He thought the U. S. model of federal government was just amazing, that it had led to the tremendous success and might of America in all areas, military and economic and so on. And he saw tremendous benefits for his continent, but he recognized that the European people weren't ready to make that leap. So he came up with this idea that would involve an incremental process building chains of progressive integration within these six countries, leading, he hoped, eventually, to a European federation. I think we're on our way there still. We've been doing this in fits and starts, but I am optimistic that we'll get there. And he also was very wise, because he realized that even building this first step required patience and required putting in confidence building measures that they needed to make incremental progress in order to build a culture of trust, cooperation, and unity among formerly warring nations. Again, think of our world. This is exactly what we want. We want that we embark on a process that leads to incremental growth in trust and patience and cooperation and unity between nations that have been suspicious of each other or have been overtly enemies or just don't like each other. The decision was to create a supranational decision making mechanism that was limited in its sphere of operation. Yet, what's interesting, and this is where, again, wisdom kicked in, Shuman insisted that before they even start negotiating on a treaty to implement this pooling of coal and steel, that all the nations who wanted to participate, and it was open, that they all accept this one concept that a single supranational high authority be established. That was the one non negotiable, if you like, first principle. This goes back to something that we talked about before. It's really important to identify foundational principles that nations agree on, that are non negotiable, and then build out from there. Okay, the next quality was perseverance and resoluteness. The founding figures, these three individuals, were very determined to carry through their decisions and they were willing to sidestep or overcome obstacles. For example, in three of the countries, particularly Belgium, France, and Germany, the industrialists, who had all these powers under the cartels, really opposed this plan. There's an interesting quote from a gentleman who was the French High Commissioner for Germany, Mr. André François Poncet, who was reacting to a report by Chancellor Adenauer, in which the Chancellor was saying,"Oh my gosh, these German industrialists are coming and expressing their concern to me about the Schumann plan and what am I to do?" This gentleman responds and says, amongst other things,"Oh, that proves only that the industrialists, he says, they're like children. First of all they have little imagination and they have great difficulty understanding a system which deviates from what they have been accustomed to since childhood." Now, we've talked a lot about mindsets in this program and this concept of being shackled by old ways of thinking, old assumptions, and old limiting beliefs. This is exactly what he's talking to. If we've done something a certain way for decades and centuries, now it's going to be very hard to make the shift to change it, because we don't even have the framework of conceiving something different. Which brings us again to the quotation from Albert Einstein in which he warns us about this limitation in our thinking by saying we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. A fourth quality that these individuals had was strategic planning, combined with creativity and vision. So they recognized that governments essentially would only want to create new institutional structures in post war Europe if they would be perceived by their people as helping to solve very practical difficulties that affected specific national economic interests. They realized, therefore, that their pooling proposal would actually solve the immediate practical problem of how each nation could access sufficient coal and steel to rebuild their countries and come back from the war, like we're trying to come back from the pandemic, while also ensuring that Germany couldn't rearm herself and cause another war. These principles apply today as well. We need to be smart and convince people we talk to about the dire need for these institutions because they will help us and guarantee that we can solve our immediate existential challenges such as climate change and the pandemic. The next quality is patience. We talked about this a little bit, so I won't dwell on it, but they recognized that each of the participating nations was starting from a different starting point because their conditions were different. Just as in today's world, some nations are poorer, some have more access to wealth and vaccines, and others don't. Some are more susceptible to climate change, but their countries are literally sinking underwater. Others have more time and leeway to adapt. So they recognized this and therefore they allowed a transitional period in which they would put in plans and measures to harmonize their disparate conditions. This required patience and farsightedness. The next quality that was really important was willingness to learn from past mistakes. Over the years, especially since the end of the First World War, these European countries had tried to put systems in place to ensure that countries in Europe devastated after the First World War received adequate supplies of raw materials. But each of these experiments had failed, starting with the Supreme Economic Council that was established in 1919. The reason all of them had failed was that these intergovernmental organizations, so Nations acting together as opposed to having a supranational organization to which they all gave up some of their sovereignty. This was trying to maintain an equilibrium and they were all negotiating and each really looking out for the interest of their own nation primarily. These intergovernmental organizations failed all every single time, because they were not given adequate authority to regulate pass binding laws, and they were not given the power to enforce the policies that they were able to agree on. These critical elements, therefore, were always left in the hands of nations that had competing interests. So when the depression kicked in in the 1930s, nations just reverted to their old habits of protectionism and economic nationalism. This is exactly what we see in the world today with climate change. When you have a Paris Climate Accord, where countries just voluntarily make pledges. It's an intergovernmental treaty. It's a contract. You can't lock them in. There is no binding legislation. They don't have to follow through on their pledges. They don't have to meet certain goals. They get to volunteer what pledges they want to offer. And it just doesn't work as our house, our globe is burning, literally flooding, burning, and being destroyed by climate change. So we today, like they in the aftermath of the Second World War, need to have a global parliament as we talked about, a global legislature that has the authority to pass binding international legislation on countries. This was a key lesson that these three individuals learned and put into effect, that an international agreement to pool coal and steel was going to be useless, unless it also was accompanied with the power to bind with rules and regulations. We'll discuss next time the principles that they applied to make the system work, and, they also realized, had to be accompanied by robust and permanent enforcement mechanism. The next quality is they had to be willing to forego excessive nationalism and to work for the collective advantage. This was the linchpin of their success. They had to put aside the good of their own country and think of the good of all the nations who participated, viewing them as a single unit, which is what we've been talking about, that we are now at this stage in our collective maturity where we have to view humanity as a single organism. Also, their goal was not that to advance themselves as individuals. They weren't interested in personal ambitions, but advancing the good of their countries and putting each other's countries on an equal footing with their own, rather than pushing for the good of their own country. This was unique. As I say, all you need is a small handful of core leaders who have these qualities in order to come up with a plan that others will then sign on to because they recognize that these leaders are trustworthy, that they're not looking out for the interests of their own nations. And the last quality that I want to talk about briefly is that they had high minded motivations. The chief motivation of each of these three individuals was the attainment of lasting peace and unity in Europe. They weren't interested in horse trading, saying you do this for me, we'll do that for you. That was not what this idea was about. Schumann and Adenauer, French and German, had grown up in areas of France and Germany that had been fought over time and again over centuries. And they each had a deep desire to see those areas live in peace. Jean Monnet was similarly motivated and in fact had served as the Deputy Secretary General of the League of Nations. That's how interested he was in forging an international community in a world of peace. The other interesting element is the role that religion played and seems likely to have played in creating this strong desire for peace. All three of these individuals had grown up in families where there was a strong Catholic influence. Schumann and Adenauer were both staunch Catholics. Monnet, it's not clear, the literature isn't clear on this, but he's very likely to have been inspired by his mother and sister, who were both ardent Catholics and very active, especially his sister, at very high levels in the Catholic church working with the Pope. And at the end of his life, we know that he did ask for and received extreme unction. So that demonstrates the positive beneficial role that faith and religion can play in the lives of individuals who then parlay that into the peace, wellbeing, and upliftment of humanity. Okay. Those are my thoughts and reflections for today. I hope you found it interesting. I find this topic absolutely riveting and it represents an amazing model for success that we don't talk about and think about enough. So please share these thoughts and ideas with your friends, because once we realize it's possible to do this, then we'll set about building the kinds of international institutions, supranational institutions, and new system of global governance we need in order to effectively tackle the global challenges of today. If you're interested in reading more about this, I wrote a whole book on it called Bridge to Global Governance. You can find it on Amazon, wherever in the world you are. Okay, I will go to the comments here and see what I can pick up. Yes. Catchphrase of integrity. Yes. Any individual, wherever they find themselves, and we don't even have to be operating at a high level with access to high government officials or ability to dismantle biological weapons programs. Each of us in our individual lives, if we live a life of integrity, we will then create a culture at the grassroots that is accustomed to integrity and is accustomed to a display of these qualities we've talked about. Once that becomes the culture, we start demanding that our leaders have those qualities, and we're not willing to put up with leaders who are dishonest and cheat and aren't courageous and don't have high minded motivations and are not wise, right? So we do this at whatever level we happen to find ourselves. We can hone these qualities and hone them in our children. Okay I'm not seeing any other comments. Goodbye for now. That's all for this episode of Reimagining Our World. I'll see you back here next month. If you liked this episode, please help us to get the word out by rating us and subscribing to the program on your favorite podcast platform. This series is also available in video on the YouTube channel of the Center for Peace and Global Governance, CPGG.