The reason Belgium can’t compete with China? Land and Politics.

Doel Lasagna (2020) — 70mm | 1/1600 | f/5.0 | ISO 800 — opposing.endears.fantasy | scrambled.paperwork.slowly | uncorks.effortless.recline

No matter how smart the solutions we come up with, we don’t have the land for it in Belgium. There is zero spare land available, so every m² is contested. And every desired change requiring it, becomes an ideological battleground.

With some of the most complex politics in the world, thanks to Belgium being a “fake thrown together buffer country” at birth, politics here are about as efficient as plans crafted on a playground by children. It’s the unnatural result of an institutional lasagna stacked high on top of our historical pillars (zuilen), designed to keep rival tribes segregated. Together, we effectively guaranteed our win of the world record for the longest stretch without a ruling government. In a Monarchy no less. And in Dutch, French, and German officially. Plus English, unofficially. #REDDEVILS

This ‘vetocracy’ we’ve built actually requires some ‘bully’ from time to time to break a gridlock. Or some ‘teacher’, in the form of Europe, to intervene when the rulebreaking gets out of hand.

So given we can’t produce more land, the only option for any hope for change is simply to skip Politics altogether. Seems impossible? It is indeed, as long as you keep viewing the world through the lens of nations with borders and governments. Tackling problems on a societal scale, built on and by Politics. There is, however, another scale entirely: Commons.

But the Commons can’t ever compete with China… that’s simply preposterous, right?

ps: for the next few weeks I’ll be rooting for Belgium again in this World Cup. You know, just another example of how a talent pool 100x the size doesn’t automatically equate dominance…