Читать книгу Against All Odds - Jorma Ollila - Страница 24
ОглавлениеBY MARCH 1977 I HAD MADE MY DECISION. I had talked things through over with Liisa and we decided we would leave Finland.
The intellectual atmosphere in Finland made the decision easier. Kekkonen was still the country’s sovereign leader, who sniffed the way the winds were blowing and tailored his skillful rhetoric accordingly. He had recently, in front of television cameras, forced on the country an “emergency government” in which the Communists had a central role. They did not, however, want to accept that responsibility, so the government quickly disintegrated into a minority coalition. The economy was in chaos. For several years inflation galloped at around 15 percent. As a man with a mortgage I benefited from the melting away of my debt, but high inflation was a sign of an unsustainable economic policy. In April 1977 Finland was forced to devalue its currency again. At that time the future of the communist system seemed reasonably promising. Cultural life, the universities, and the intellectual atmosphere were largely in the grip of the Left. There were demonstrations in support of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the German Democratic Republic, and against capitalist plots, rapprochement with the West, and NATO. In spring 1977 alone over 750,000 wage-earners took part in strikes – about one worker in three.
In the seventies Finnish critics of the Soviet Union did not progress in their careers. At the same time Finnish firms did profitable business with the Soviet Union. Goods that could not be sold on western markets were good enough for the Soviet Union. Finnish products gained a formidable reputation for quality there. Finnish construction companies grew fat on exports over the eastern border, and the sales of Finnish textile and shoe factories were guaranteed. The company chiefs who depended on Soviet trade teamed up with politicians to form a dominant group that didn’t bother Soviet politicians with difficult questions – otherwise trade might have suffered.
I respected Kekkonen’s achievements and I supported his policy. Nevertheless I felt uneasy about the atmosphere in Finland at the end of the 1970s. I was bothered by the intellectual dishonesty, the rigid resistance to change, and the politicians’ ineffectuality. Like many other Finns I feared for my country’s future. I saw that Finland had to find a way of moving closer to western Europe: there was no alternative for the Finnish economy if it were ever to thrive. I believed that western democracy and capitalism were practically and morally superior to socialist economics and communist politics. But I wanted to know more about economics; I wanted to learn, so that my thinking would be more firmly grounded and more convincing.
And Helsinki was a dull, gray town. Dining out was grim, with no ethnic food apart from Chinese, or perhaps I should say “Chinese.” It was as hard to find a decent bottle of wine in Alko, which had a monopoly on the sale of alcohol, as to find an authentic sauna in Tuscany. The range of clothing in the department stores was very limited, and the fabrics and designs were old-fashioned. The best hotels would have rated perhaps three stars. There wasn’t a shred of optimism. And everything was regulated; it seemed as if the state or the local council made all your decisions for you.
In the autumn of 1976 I began to consider new options. At the start of 1977 I saw in a newspaper that the British Council was offering stipends for study in the United Kingdom. It was practically a rerun of the events that had taken me to Atlantic College exactly ten years earlier. Liisa and I sat at the kitchen table in our little flat and talked things through. Staying in Finland might not be the smart thing to do. We planned how Liisa might continue her own studies in London. I decided, after a few seconds’ careful consideration, that my new place of study should be The London School of Economics. It was a well-known and highly regarded university that trained economists, social scientists, and philosophers – and rock stars (Mick Jagger is also a graduate). I thought it might suit me well, too. I applied for a grant for postgraduate study at the LSE, and to undertake a doctorate. I was invited to interview and I got the grant. By April I had the funding for my new escape.
My decision caused astonishment, and even amusement. At that time many people abandoned their studies halfway through and became journalists, politicians, or activists. I had already graduated and yet I had decided to continue my studies, and many people found this absurd. Also it was unusual then to study abroad. Those who did went mostly to neighboring Sweden or to the United States. And many leftists wanted to reinforce their faith in the achievements of scientific communism by studying in Moscow, the German Democratic Republic, or even Warsaw.
I told my colleagues in the Centre Party office that I’d be leaving. I sat in a nearby café, where I was joined by two of my colleagues. We ordered pea soup for lunch. “Now, as we discussed earlier, this is a temporary job for me,” I began. “At the end of the summer I’ll be going to London to study. I’ve got a grant to complete a doctorate.” My colleagues’ soup remained untouched. One of them might have dropped a spoon. “So you’re really going for a long time? And giving up politics for good?” “Yes, I am. I’m really not sure what I’ll do in the long run, but for the moment I’m focusing on an academic career,” I replied.
By August 1977 we were back in London. The choice of London was partly a matter of chance and partly a matter of careful deliberation. As a former pupil at Atlantic College I loved British culture, the way of thinking and living. I had gotten to know how British schools worked, and I knew I would adapt well to a British university. The other option would have been the United States, because English was the only language I really knew apart from Finnish. But that would have been much more expensive. It also seemed to me that the LSE was better suited to my perfectionist streak. I wanted to go to a university where expectations were high. And, last but not least, London suited our family life down to the ground. I liked the thought that our son Jaakko, now a year old, would soon become a little Londoner.
In London I would again follow global politics and economics from a splendid vantage point. We socialized with diplomats and dons. Our little boy spent his days at the LSE kindergarten, while Liisa studied Health and Social Policy and Administration. A few years later she would become the first Finnish woman to take a degree at the LSE graduate school. I supported Liisa’s studies and believed they would open new doors for her on our return to Finland. Or perhaps we would not return, but would stay and build international academic careers.
London was not at its best in 1977, but it was much livelier and more vibrant and dynamic than Helsinki. The economy was in a mess, and the Labor government found it hard to control the demands of the trade unions. While I spent my time studying the theoretical differences between Keynes and Friedman, Britain was on a crash course in reality. Margaret Thatcher would be elected prime minister in May 1979, against a background of skepticism and hostility. Soon she would become the pre-eminent politician of the western world, so well-known that British psychiatrists had to abandon the question they traditionally used to check if their patients had any grasp of reality at all: “Can you name the prime minister?” Everyone knew who she was.
The LSE really was a return to the classroom. I left home at eight and I was in the university until no later than nine in the evening. I sat in lectures hour after hour. In between we spent time in small groups doing calculation exercises. And of course I did some independent study in the library. The teaching was a preparation for continuing academic study. It was very high-level and intellectually challenging. I was finishing off my M.Sc.; if my studies went well, I would continue to a doctorate. For my specialist field I had chosen the theory of the international monetary economy.
There was strong support in academic circles for ideas that would be implemented in Finland in the 1980s, such as the liberalization of currency markets and the introduction of floating exchange rates. Even in 1977 I had had to fill in a form and send it to the Bank of Finland so I could exchange Finnish markka into pounds before we left for London.
London was also the most important foreign outpost of the Chicago school of neoclassical economics, whose most famous representative was Milton Friedman. He was a stern critic of the prevailing Keynesianism. Friedman and his followers believed that growth in the money supply would revive the economy in the short term, but in the longer term would make itself felt as galloping inflation.
Fiscal policy – that is, demand created by public authorities – was irrelevant to long-term economic success. The role of government in economic policy should be strictly limited. Conversely, central banks had a crucial role regarding the money supply. These views were the opposite of the prevailing wisdom in Finland. I was interested in the Chicago School’s research findings, though chiefly as a vehicle for academic reflection. In my mind it had surprisingly little connection with practical economic policy.
Life in London was international, inspiring, and intellectually interesting. We lived in Akehurst Street in southwest London, where we rented a furnished flat on the upper floor of a detached house. We had brought with us from Finland only our stipends and our housing loan. We didn’t have the money for any luxuries, and usually we ate our lunch in the student canteen. Sometimes we met up with my friends from Atlantic College from ten years back.
When I had gone to school in the United Kingdom in the sixties, the Beatles had been the big thing, not least for me. Now in the seventies it was the era of heavy rock, such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, whose music wasn’t for me at all. Liisa and I started to attend classical concerts instead, for which London offered an inspiring atmosphere.
I studied diligently and with burning ambition. I submitted my final thesis within a year. In August 1978 I received a letter from the university that told me my thesis was good enough for me to move to the doctoral program, which I might complete in two years. My dream of an academic career was coming true. I began to see myself as a professor at Helsinki University or in some respected international institute, as some of my friends from Atlantic College already were. However I still lacked a doctoral dissertation, and the London School of Economics offered a unique opportunity to make that dream a reality.
