Political+&+Social+Systems

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Interview with Conservative MP Rob Anders


 * During the Italian Renaissance we saw that power was everything and that wealth was key to obtain this power. An obvious case of this happening was with the Medici family. They got rich from the banking business and bought the pope. With that, they bought themselves control of the city-state Florence.

Do you see some of the same conditions/developments in Calgary today?**

Specifically, do you see parties or individuals trying to buy their way into the government by controlling the voting decision making process? Yes and no...Belinda Stronach family was worth 800 million and she used money to secure some of the best organizers which almost allowed her to unseat Stephen Harper as the leader of the conservatives. Paul Martin also used his money to become leader of the Liberals. However, there are many wealthy people in government who don't use money to advantage. An example of a person is Warren Buffet.


 * During the Renaissance, we saw a variety of trade routes that helped Florence bring in wealth. Does the geography of Calgary help or hurt the amount of money that the city is able to bring in?**

Yes... The rivers connecting (Bow and Elbow) led to forts being built in the old days for whisky trading and also fur trading was obviously a big profitable business back then. These were what led to the start of the city we call Calgary. Also being close to the stats really helps. This is because about 50,000 americans are in the oil patch at a given time. Calgary's geography leads to them being chosen ,when oil needs to be bought, over a city like Edmonton. Mount Royal used to be called american hill because thats where the oil people from Oklahoma and Texas settled when they were developing the oil patch.


 * Are Calgarians patrons to the developments of art in Calgary the same way that the merchant class were during the Renaissance?**

I think they are to some extent. Florence in the Renaissance was a particularly unique period of time, one, because of the money and also what was flourishing in the arts at the time. For example, in Calgary, let's say you had a billion dollars that you would like to into art. I would argue that the art today would not have the permenance and the lasting value that we saw come out of Florence during the Renaissance. The reasoning for that was that there was this reawakening of Greek and Roman concepts: the use of light, the golden mean, and the mathematical relation of the rectangle that keeps folding into itself. The things that helped the designings of temples, columns and arches. They make for classic art in a way that isn't really appreciated to the same extent today. You're going to have things that stand the test of time. And today we have the kind of modern art with it's surrealist, abstract aspects that doesn't lend to that. It's fashionable but it won't stand the "test of time". I think that we do have people putting money into art here but art has changed and sometimes not for the better. And I think that there is a concentration of money in the cith that wasn't quite matched to Florence.


 * During the late Renaissance the Medici empire began to fall because the Merchant family was spending all their wealth on the arts instead of the banking enterprise.

Are the wealthy in Calgary spending all their money in luxury items instead of investing in business enterprises?**

There's a saying, "Green sleeves to green sleeves in three generations." Families that acquire money and hold on to it generation after generation are rare. Part of the reason for that is, as you get further removed from the hard work that was required to create the money, they sometimes get frivolous, and they lose track and that's true in any age. I would imagine in the time of the Medicis you probably had people inherited the money that didn't have an appreciation of the hard work that the early Medicis did, with regard to requiring it, and that's the case today, I'm seeing examples of that. So it's hard to keep those values of hard work present in a family that's very wealthy because they take it for granted. For example, the Eaton family, who are big patrons of a lot of Conservative causes, and I've met Fred Eaton. When you think of the great grandfather that created the Eaton's department store, he was a man who really ran a five and dime nickel operation where they sold household goods and really cared about what his customers wanted. The first time I met Mr. Fred Eaton, it was obvious that he spent a lot of money on clothes and didn't shop at his own store. All the materials of his clothing were very expensive and beautifully crafted. I gave him his packet at the conference and I thought to myself, "He doesn't shop at his own store because there's no way that what he's wearing could be bought at an Eaton's." So it's hard I think when people have that type of wealth multiple generations down, to understand their customer or to have that same kind of work ethic or attitude that the person who built the company did.

SESC Paragraph
In response to the whether Calgary has patrons to the developments of art to make it a Renaissance city, Conservative west MP Rob Anders believes that to some extent Calgary has patrons that support the art. In this sense, he believes that there are people that donate to the arts, however the arts in general don’t have the same lasting effect as they did in the Renaissance. He states, “ let's say you had a billion dollars that you would like to into art. I would argue that the art today would not have the permanence and the lasting value that we saw come out of Florence during the Renaissance.” By this he means that back in the Renaissance the care for the art was much greater than we have now. Also the amount of money that was put towards the arts in value was much greater. In the Renaissance all the art had meaning where as today some of the art is very abstract and no meaning. In conclusion to whether Calgary has patrons to the developments of art to make it a Renaissance city, Conservative west MP Rob Anders was more optimistic. He felt that today we do see some philanthropists or patrons that support the arts, however we don’t see the same amount of passion put into the donating or the art.

Brody

In response to whether the geography of Calgary is positioned to benefit them economically to make it a Renaissance city, MP Calgary West Rob Anders believes that yes, Calgary's geography does benefit them economically. Specially, he believes that Calgary would be a much better business choice for the U.S.A compared to a city up north, for example, Edmonton. This is because Calgary is positioned fairly close to the U.S. and face to face to interaction are better when it comes to business. Even in the past, Calgary served as a oil post that the Americans would use as a way to interact with the Canadian business. He states, “ Also being close to the states really helps. This is because about 50,000 Americans are in the oil patch at a given time. Calgary's geography leads to them being chosen when oil needs to be bought, over a city like Edmonton. Mount Royal used to be called American Hill because thats where the oil workers from Oklahoma and Texas settled when they were developing the oil patch.” By this he means that Calgary has always been a city that interacted with the States when it came to the oil industry. Similar to the benefits that Florence during the Renaissance had because they were amidst several intersecting trade routes. Overall, yes, Calgary's geography does give it advantages when it comes to business interaction with the U.S.

Lilly