02. 12. 2011
Occupying Our Minds
It’s stark, but dividing the world up into the 1% (the self-perpetuating elite currently laying claim to the lion’s share of the world’s wealth) and the 99% (everybody else) is certainly focussing people’s minds.
It tells us instantly that Capitalism 1.0 (or Capitalism 1%) has proved itself to be a monumental failure. The implicit deal on which it was based – that it was OK for the rich to get richer if everyone else shared in the process, if jobs were created, public services protected, infrastructure maintained, the environment looked after, and our children’s interests given due regard – has been so comprehensively betrayed as to leave the lucky 1% with no place to hide.
It tells us instantly that the fantastical illusion that took possession of our minds and our dreams – that year-on-year increases in production and consumption on a finite planet, indefinitely into the future, was a feasible proposition – must now be exorcised once and for all.
It tells us instantly how poorly served we have been by global media elites whose only interest lay in protecting the interests of the 1%, whilst keeping the 99% regaled with latter-day equivalents of bread and circuses.
And it tells us instantly that there is no going back to Capitalism 1.0 now that the 99% have seen it – for many, apparently, for the first time – for what it really is.
Before going any further, it has to be acknowledged that this is a predominantly rich world, Western perspective. It looks and feels very different in countries like China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, where variants Capitalism 1.0 still exercise a powerful hold – even as they head towards the same inevitable 99%/1% destination.
Back here in the Developed World, we have a real opportunity to rethink things fundamentally.
First, lets acknowledge that it serves little purpose demonising the 1%. Not least because it’s probably little more than 1% of that 1% that are knowingly intent, even now, on sustaining that privileged position at the expense of everybody else. So the key question is this: how might we best address the 99% of the 1% who must surely be experiencing the same kind of anger and fear that the rest of us are?
The anger runs deep and durable. How can it be that the 1% of the 1% who crashed the system in their own narrow interests have shown no contrition? Have continued to further enrich themselves even as everyone else takes the pain? And have somehow ensured that the unaccountable capital markets (of which they are the principal guardians and beneficiaries) are still allowed to override basic democratic entitlements?
Jonathan Freedland captured this very eloquently in a recent Guardian article:
“Democracy’s humbling has been most dramatically visible in Greece and Italy, where elected leaders have been pushed aside in favour of technocrats and fixers, elevated without so much as shaking a single voter’s hand. Their mission will include the surrender of much economic sovereignty, putting those decisions further out of reach of their own citizens. What Greeks and Italians endure today, other Eurozone nations might well face tomorrow as they are told to make similar sacrifices of autonomy to save their economic skin.”
So much for the anger. The fear is increasingly present. For all its inherent contradictions, Capitalism 1.0 delivered a lot, if measured in terms of improved living standards and astonishing technology breakthroughs for hundreds of millions of people – let alone in terms of the relative absence of war that we’ve enjoyed during that time.
And that’s why it’s been so resilient.
But having it demonstrated to us so definitively that this particular Emperor has no clothes brings no particular joy – it’s the only Emperor we’ve known, after all. As Paul Gilding said in a recent blog:
“Occupy Wall Street is simply the kid in the fairy tale, saying what everyone knows but has, until now, been afraid to say – the Emperor has no clothes – we have system failure. They’ve given focus to what people were already seeing and feeling; that our problem is not just debt, or inequality, or recession, or corporate influence, or ecological damage. It’s the whole package. The system is profoundly broken and beyond incremental reform.”
With fear and anger now pervasive, it’s hardly surprising that the majority of people in countries where “Occupy” protests have sprung up continue to support those protestors. Though they themselves make no particular claim to this, the Occupy protestors somehow embody that anger, and provide some limited reassurance against the fear. They have succeeded in getting politicians to start talking seriously about fairness, about equity, about justice – about all those fundamental political issues that have been so successfully kept off the agenda by the 1% of the 1%.
So where will all that unleashed energy take us? The resulting debate is certainly invigorating – but hardly very helpful from a more radical sustainability perspective. There’s still so much missing. Even the more progressive voices would appear to be very reluctant to acknowledge the double jeopardy in which we now find ourselves.
The shock to the system from the near-collapse of our global banking industry has been traumatic – and we’re by no means at the end of that sorry process as yet. Even so, that is nothing compared to the near-imminent collapse of the ecological systems on which we depend – particularly a stable climate. And the two are intimately connected.
However, it has become received wisdom that environmental issues should now “be put on the back burner”, given the ferocity of the economic recession. That’s what George Osborne goes out of his way to emphasise in every keynote speech he does. Even dealing with climate change, which is widely acknowledged by scientists as the singlemost important challenge facing humankind today is now seen by many politicians as “an unaffordable luxury” – as can be seen in every twist and turn of the Conference of the Parties in Durban.
Hence we find ourselves in some terminal zero-sum game: we either combat the grim consequences of global recession, or we get to grips with climate change and a host of other sustainability issues. But not, apparently, both at the same time.
Put at its simplest, it’s like this: no variation of capitalism will have anything to offer of any lasting value at this stage if it continues to ignore these non-negotiable physical limits within which we must learn to operate without further delay. Yet nearly 40 years on from the publication of “Limits to Growth”, it’s remarkable just how many otherwise intelligent, caring, progressive commentators are still entirely blind to this all-important dimension of sustainable wealth creation.
In that regard, they’re just not listening to the more authentic voices of the Occupy Movement. Whilst it may be true that no coherent prescription for the future of capitalism has yet to emerge from any of the Occupy protests, their analysis has been permeated with a deep environmental sensibility right from the start. My good friend Barbara Panvel forwarded to me this representative quote from an Occupy Wall Street blogger:
“Ultimately, we are protesting not only on behalf of the 99% left behind, but on behalf of the 1%. No one deserves to live in a world built upon the degradation of human beings, forests, waters and the rest of our living planet.
The truth is that dwindling rainforests, spreading deserts, mass tree die-offs on every continent, looted pensions, groaning burdens of student debt, working two or three dead end jobs, children eating dirt in Haiti, elders having to choose between food and medicine – the list is endless, and we will make it no longer possible to hold it in disconnection from the money system. That is why we converge on Wall Street.”
Capitalism 1.0 has clearly failed. Capitalism 2.0 (an equitable and genuinely sustainable variant of capitalism) could still deliver what most people want: access to a good education and good work; high-quality public services; infrastructure renewed; the environment properly looked after and recognised as the foundation for all wealth creation; and the interests of future generations factored into every decision we take in our own interests today.
For those in the 1% who remain uncertain or even apprehensive, ask yourself what the alternative is. It’s either that – our last, best chance of enabling capitalism to provide for the needs of all people alive today and those still to be born – or capitalism will implode.
Why people don’t see this as a proverbial “no-brainer” remains something of a mystery.
Comments
Re: Adam and Marxism on capitalism.I am not a mathematician and essentially failed algebra,but apart from that,I doubt one could capture the real world in crude theories.I say crude,because no matter how sophisticated,these figures and formulae do not represent all the relevant input.For one,the people advancing certain theory and interpretation are almost invariably a piper paid by certain interests with an agenda,part of which is bound to be not known by the public.Another angle;psychological,social and other indefinables cannot be sensibly translated into formulae-Thankfully.God/Good may be a mathematician,but if it all could be described and calculated to the last left-spin higgs boson,humanity would have died of boredom soon after it came down out of their trees.Marx was a philosopher.I think.He had many valid observations,I think,though I've never had the slightest inclination to study him or anything remotely towards the Left,in detail.Few new paradigmers,if I may call us that,have gained an insight into the workings of humanity in the world that is not largely based on old paradigm,mostly Patriarchal,'values'.These values are selected interpretations based on the inherent bias of 'the system'.They are not therefor all wrong.So not all of the old ideas must be rejected.Socialism/communism were/are ,apart from what they may be elsewhere or otherwise,adjuncts to the 'capitalist' system that we have had since the year dot.Capitalism actually mimics nature.It is natural law moderated by religion,society,politics,etc.Socialism/communism are idealisms turned into ideological constructs-Religions,in other words.For religions are ideological constructs.The psychological,and therefor socio-political,problems flowing from ideology are well-known.The aetiology of idealism is not.The religious impulse derives from the knowledge of our eventual return to the source.It is naturally accompanied by the thirst for completion/perfection in those who are in tune with the inexorability of evolutionary development,even if but subconsciously.Hence,the opposite part in this duality of nature/the struggle for survival is the cooperative mien which is hardwired in all of natural manifestation,but more obvious in primates.To make a long story shortish.The social/cooperative ideal is set against the basic operating mode of material manifestation,i.e.,survival of the fittest(See my blurb on religion at bhanupadmo.com).Socio-political affairs are a two way street,but essentially the majority rules,by default or otherwise.The current malaise in the West is part of a natural historical progression,determined by democratic choice,passive or otherwise.Back to Adam and his algebra.It is inconceivable that we could have a society,nation-state or else,in organised units so perfectly calibrated we would have no need of surplus production to function while maintaining solvency,sustainability and survivability(as a socio-politically cohesive unit).Trying to keep it together,as we are wanting to,us new paradigmers,is actually against the order of nature.Empires come and go,so do nations,peoples and nation-states.Ideologies,whether overtly religious or so-called secular/atheist,lead to stasis/decay/entropy,usually after a period of enforced straightjacketing by a dictatorship of sorts.It never works indefinitely,though the Roman Catholic Church had a good run.-If only because it combined esoteric psychological methods of mind control as well as worldly overt and covert Machiavellian socio-political methods.The Left have rarely been a good opposition or addendum in European/Western political affairs.Apart from the shysters,opportunists,manipulators and traitors,the Left has been the repository of idealists and resentists who did not and do not understand how it works.Most socio-democratic programs and improvements implemented in the old West have been enabled,if not simply also initiated,by the Centre-Right.So,don't be fooled by economic analyses and partisan theories.Capitalism is a natural system.It is being taken advantage of by clever,wide-awake operators with at least 2500 years of experience in finance,economics and esoteric mind control.The people,in the old West,after having been lulled into consumptive complacency during a period of benign paternalism,are now in a stage where they have to wake up before it is too late to choose between sinking or swimming.
BrYI no longer trust capitalism.if i could i would stop all unemployment benefits .Every one unemployed couldjoin a"National Service" which would include a land armyto produce all our food ;builders providing council eco-houses,(all new houses should have to be eco homes, to cut energy consumpyion)and all nurse/carers shoud be properly trained. The cost of thiswould be offset by all the previusly unemployednow paying taxes .I would also look at an alternative money supply(e.g.Berkshares started inBerkshire Massetuchets in2006) whichis used locally alongside normal money. there is alsoa local bankgiving cheap loans to local farmers and biuisnesses ,as a result of these experimental initiatives this is one of only two areas in america that is not in debt .
these measurers would stop the private employers from paying such poor wages and only offering parttime jobs because there would not be a desperate pool of unemployed people to be victimised
"National Service" need not last forever, but it could be used in this way to kick start a more sustainable way forewood.
We should not tarry for the slow and reluctant,much less humour and indulge those who will continue to fight a rear-guard action of obstruction and fear-mongering.Neither ought we to hurry along without discerning the movement of the evolutionary in exorables.Events will dictate the pace.
Raising more consciousness will be done admirably by developments;the which will have a dynamic quite independent of what political movements or economic initiatives may seek to wrench from those who will by dint of evolutionary necessity play the role of the backsliders and degenerates.
All may be saved,eventually,at the end of time.For the moment,and centuries to come,it is inconceivable that a large number of the old paradigm diehards will not pass on without awakening to the new dawn.
Protesting and political activism has reached its use-by date in the West.It gives power and ligitimacy to those in 'authority' who have lost the plot,or more likely,have a scorched earth policy in mind for the old West.
A period of quietude and keen observation is in order.Whipping up more blind fervour and clueless passion leads motivated and essentially well-meaning psycho-political human automata to re-enforce blind radicalism and politically mindless reactionism.The innocent female feminists and naive environmentalists have allowed themselves to be taken for suckers quite long enough.
I would be really interested to hear Jonathon's response to the Marxist argument of why capitalism cannot exist without growth:
Capitalism is based on workers exploitation- the key to this is that workers sell their ability to work not the products of their work. The value of their labour power is worth less than the surplus value created through their work, this is the profit that allows a capitalist to go into production in the first place.
Marx put this in an algebraic way as follows:
C + V →C + V + S
Where:
C is the constant capital namely machines, buildings, raw materials and so on. This value is passed on to the product by the work of the worker. (e.g. in a foundry, the value of iron ore, sandstone, coke, electricity, part of the furnace and other equipment used up, is passed on to the steel slabs.)
V is the value of the workers’ wages which is also reproduced in the product. (E.g. steel slabs)
S is the surplus which the workers have produced over and above the value of their wages. (E.g. also contained in the steel slabs)
The question is what happens to S the surplus. Obviously some of this will be consumed by the capitalist class. Theoretically it could all be consumed by the capitalist class, in which case you would have what Marx called simple reproduction. This, in fact, appears to be what Jonathon is supporting in the form of a no growth economy. However, since capitalism is a system based on competition simple reproduction remains a theoretical possibility only.
Any capitalist undertaking which consumed the surplus would rapidly be driven to bankruptcy by its competitors. Instead part of the surplus needs to be accumulated as fresh capital and fresh labour. This is called expanded reproduction. When the surplus is reinvested the system expands and there is general prosperity.
Since the 1970s the rate of profit has been decreasing due to increased capital accumulation which changes the following ration:
S/(C+V) (i.e. the surplus divided by the initial capital)
As capital accumulates C tends to increase more rapidly than V, and as S is only produced by V, the denominator increases faster than the numerator. Surplus over the last few decades therefore has been moved from production onto speculation and financial pyramid schemes that produce asset bubbles like the dot-com and housing bubbles.
This explains where we are today and why from a Marxist perspective at least, a zero growth economy is still an unworkable theory…
Any responses?
Dear Jonathon, thank you for another engaging and thought provoking piece. I very much like your measured approach on this one, as you build your argument to deliver the main point – that it really is a ‘no brainer’, and why wouldn’t anyone wish to live in a sustainable way?
Sadly, we see the insidious influence of vested interests all around, intent on keeping us in an outmoded and dysfunctional economic model, for their own short-term benefits. Each week I shudder at the impact that big energy and big finance have in blocking real progress to a sustainable future. And I worry at the efficacy of our so-called democracy in enabling the right things to happen, especially at this time of huge challenge.
But then again, perhaps we should not be too surprised; the Tories are (within the bounds of the coalition), after all, doing what it says on the tin, looking after the narrow interests of capital, perhaps under the misguided apprehension that all good things will flow from this (the trickle down effect being just that, quite literally a trickle). Wealth concentration is what they do best. Sadly, they do not seem able to appreciate the vital points that you raise so eloquently, concerning limits to growth, climate change, resource scarcity, degradation of biodiversity, or that the system is just not working for the benefit of the greater good; all key factors that undermine the long-term success of any economy. We really do need capitalism 2.0, before the whole thing collapses.
It does indeed beggar belief that intelligent leaders cannot see past the false dichotomy of environment versus economy. Osborne’s message to the world is hugely irresponsible in this respect. The Government really does need a new lens in order to see, as you point out, that these outcomes are not only inextricably linked, they are essential to our future survival and prosperity. But more than this, the Government needs to be brave and show real leadership, and not be fearful of reprise from dropping the vested interests that no longer serve us well, or are unable or unwilling to support the transition to a genuinely sustainable and low carbon economy.
Such a move would surely test their popularity in the short-term (yes, real tough decisions, as opposed to the more disingenuous ones involving austerity cuts and all being in this together); but the longer-term rewards are there – it surely has to be a winner for any political party to be seen as the one having a real vision and commitment to building a sustainable economy based on 21st century needs and aspirations. For their own sustained integrity, it must surely be better to take the short-term pain for the greater good, than take transient short-term popularity at the expense of long-term suffering for all? Furthermore, taking the wrong political path at this stage would surely see them becoming trivial, outmoded and possibly even extinct.
We too, as citizens, have to decide on whether we want to vote for a future or oblivion. The choice really is as stark and simple as that. It really is the eleventh hour, and time to act: a referendum on a sustainable economy, perhaps?
Michael Townsend,
Founder & CEO Earthshine Solutions.
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