07/07/2011
Mauricio Rojas: “There is no real individual freedom without civil society, for that reason, the classical-liberal project must address the strengthening of civil society”.
“Classical liberalism must reject the dichotomy between State and market. There’s no contradiction, but rather the possibility of an advantageous collaboration”.
“What Sweden has done in the last twenty years is an interesting example of a Welfare State reform. Without dismantling it but with the idea of rebuilding it with a new direction, they sought to restructure public services with a pluralism based on introducing businesses, cooperatives, foundations and NGOs and giving the citizen the final word, in other words, granting directly to the citizen the power of demanding services”.
Julio Iglesias de Ussel: “The family is much more important, determining and transcendental today than it was in the past”.
“Many working values, which are even indispensable to succeed in careers, are acquired in the family. Amongst them are flexibility, affection and capability for teamwork. Therefore, the family is a basic tool to generate social capital, considered as the connexion between individuals”.
“The family is the last redoubt of permanence in a constantly changing world”.
“Historically, the family has exerted an assistance role and of social coverage in times of crisis. In Spain, the family helped cushion the social crisis generated by the unemployment cycles during the governments of Felipe González and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero”.
Rafael Catalá: “The crisis is an appropriate time to address what the Welfare State must be in the 21st century. We must not accept a debate that revolves around the idea of reducing the level of the public services provided by the Welfare State, but rather the idea should be redefining what type of Welfare State we can afford.
”We must work on the field of demand, promoting users’ freedom to chose and including tools that enable users to choose the services provision model they deem more appropriate. Because including a competitiveness element in the services offered by the public sector will be great news precisely to strengthen and to legitimise it".
“We must promote the creation of measurable service management units. We must know what is being done, measure what’s being done, and thus assess the impact of policies. Therefore, we must advance in the search for management models that are close to results, that can be measured and identified, versus the uniformed and globalised models typical of past years management”.