ECONOMICS, ECOLOGY, AND ETHICS
Climate change threatens existence is the message, and people sleep. Climate change threatens the economy, and people wake up!
Climate change threatens everything, the whole basis of civilised life. Yet, elections come and elections go, and pinnacle of "political wisdom" remains "it's the economy, stupid!" Now that's an economic determ
inism of some power. We have lost our power of choice, initiative and control as a result of our structural dependence upon the mechanisms of accumulation and valorisation. Let's call it the primacy of profits. Either way, top to bottom, we have become mere personifications of economic relations, all subordinate to the expansionary logic of capital accumulation. Any perceived threat to the economy causes alarm, for the economy must be served and its processes facilitated. Securing the basis of life on earth may be a moral imperative, but the accumulation of capital is an overriding systemic economic imperative. I read climate change deniers refer to the 'new religion of climate alarmism'. No. Climate science is good sound science. For the 'new religion' we need to look at economics and the idols of the market, commodities, money, capital and profits.
We need some real economics. Addressing the crisis in the climate system is crucial to putting our material life-processes on some kind of secure foundation, but is perceived as a threat by those wedded to a particular economy that runs in their interests. They are the people who have succeeded in institutionalising their power. Hence they have the loudest voice. But not the greater numbers. We need to body-build our social, organisational and moral capacities so that we create the structural power to transform society, reclaim the economy and start some institution building of our own. It's about concentrating force, the force being our social power. At the moment, our cooperative instincts are being hijacked and diverted to private ends. We can take them back.
Here is a good book that shows how economics and ethics go together.
Tomas Sedlacek, Economics of Good and Evil, Oxford, 2011
'All of economics is, in the end, economics of good and evil. It is the telling of stories by people of people to people. Even the most sophisticated mathematical model is, de facto, a story, a parable, our effort to (rationally) grasp the world around us. I will try to show that to this day that story, told through economic mechanisms, is essentially about a "good life."'
This book examines the evolution of the rational as well as the emotional and non- or arational side of human beings. It shows how we have overemphasised a certain form of rationality and neglected our humanity - and our planet. Of course we, and systematically. We have built a world of instrumental rationality, things, people, planet treated as "resources" to be used and exploited to further private ends.
There are a lot of self-serving (and death-dealing) myths in the "science" of economics. From the time I studied it, I could see clearly the politics at work, the vested interests, the social struggles, the competing value claims. That's the world we live in. It wasn’t so much those realities that I objected to. What I really objected to was the concealed biases and prejudices as opposed to the open politics. It's dishonest.
Tomas Sedlacek is good on demonstrating the ethical positions essential to good economics. He's good on Adam Smith, for instance, showing how the supposed apostle of the free market emphasises that, to function efficiently, the economy needs to be set within strong social institutions and moral fabric.
"The issue of good and evil was dominant in classical debates, yet today it is almost heretical to even talk about it. I further argue that the popular reading of Adam Smith is a misunderstanding. I argue that his contribution to economics is much broader than just the concept of the invisible hand of the market and the birth of the egoistic, self-centered homo economicus, although Smith never used that term. I argue that his most influential contribution to economics was ethical."
Precisely. Economics can only work in the context of a social and moral matrix, as Smith knew well. The capital system is parasitic upon that social and moral capital and dissipates it whilst being incapable of replacing it.
We know our story, a story of social and environmental justice, and it's a good story. The good life is within our reach. We need to build bridges and networks, form ourselves into clusters of cooperators, and go on from there to build the institutions that check, constrain and finally exclude the free-riders - transforming social relations so that the free-riders lose from such exclusion. At the moment, the free riders are so powerful that they can act without fear of sanction.
Concerted institutional action above through effective governance plus (ecological) self-socialisation from below = the integral society, an eco-public which possesses active social content.
Economics, ethics and ecology go together. They have been rent asunder in an economic system that subordinates all things to the process of private accumulation.
The good life? We need it, we need to work for it, and work effectively. Because there is another story being told on the planet. We will never have a common good when the common ground is diminishing under our feet.
Wars Over Natural Resources
"Climate change could spike wars over natural resources in the not so distant future, as projected by many experts in the scientific community.
All around the world, shortages of food and water are devastating communities and the situation is just getting worse over the years."
http://www.climate-change-guide.com/wars-over-natural-resources.html
Oh, and I'm afraid there is this.
Survivable IPCC projections based on science fiction - reality is far worse.
In the latest ‘Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report’ (IPCC AR5), there have been published a selection of ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ (RCP’s).
Dr Matt Watson, from the school of earth Sciences at the University of Bristol (UK), made this point strongly at a recent meeting at the Royal Society in London:
“Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this research? This is why, this is the latest projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the alarming thing is that these two scenarios [RCP 2.6 and RCP 4.5] both include negative emissions technology. So, there is geoengineering, of the flavour of carbon dioxide removal, in the best case scenarios.
The very, very alarming thing for us is that we are on this path here, that is RCP 8.5. We are slap bang on this trajectory and this puts us in a very different place in our children's lifetime.”
"We are basing our collective future safety on this planet on pure science fiction."
The truth is that we are embedding geoengineering into our scenarios because we are politically and institutionally inept.
Some think that we are in a non-survivable position.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8akSfOIsU2Y&t=149
The Ecologist Article Can be seen here:
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2772427/survivable_ipcc_projections_are_based_on_science_fiction_the_reality_is_much_worse.html
The IPCC's 'Representative Concentration Pathways' are based on fantasy technology that must draw massive volumes of CO2 out of the atmosphere late this century, writes Nick Breeze - an unjustified hope that conceals a very bleak future for Earth, and humanity.
Anyway, if you think that we may have a future, and if you have time to spare, try to read Sedlacek. This is where we are at - we need to take the time to enrich our visions and solutions, but time is the very last thing we have. But it’s a good book and will inform, entertain and enrich your understanding of economics.
"I therefore came to the book expecting something different from the run-of-mill economic text. In this Sedlacek does not disappoint. A look at the index and bibliography immediately suggests a very different kind of economist. He is as likely to quote Mircia Eliade as Milton Friedman. There are names like Clarissa Pincola Estes, Erich Fromm and Joseph Campbell, references to Tolkien, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, English poetry (how many Czech poets do most English readers know?) as well as films such as The Matrix. Yet this intellectual breadth is combined with a lightness of touch that shows through in flashes of wry humour—in my experience, a typical Czech characteristic.
The book itself is an exercise in meta-economics rather than an attempt to solve the current economic crisis. The essential thesis is that economics is about how we decide what is good and evil, and hence a moral subject. Early in the book it is suggested that Adam Smith, generally regarded as the father of economics, was in fact reframing and summing up various forms of wisdom that were previously available in other ways. These he explores in depth."
http://integralleadershipreview.com/7476-depth-economics-a-review-of-tomas-sedlacek-economics-of-good-and-evil-the-quest-for-economic-meaning-from-gilgamesh-to-wall-street/
Why do we value ‘the economy’ much more than the ecological life-support networks upon which all civilised existence depends? It’s all about the social relations within which we are located. And it’s all about how we change and shape perceptions of reality. Here is a quote from my old history tutor, Ron Noon: “The ability to persuade people that your representation is the right one is an important source of influence and power.” That can lead to a quite manipulative politics. Those who own/control the means of production also own/control the means of communication, so the dominant ideas of any epoch tend to be those of the owners/controllers. But there are ways of challenging those ideas. We become more persuasive in the way we represent reality if we ground those representations in realities that people actually know, live and experience, we need a politics rooted in our material life processes. This is possible. The wealth creators possess the epistemological and structural capacity to see through and break through the relations which constrain them.
We can make politics personal as we see the power that oppresses us as our own social power in alien form. We can make politics experiential, so that social transformation is also a self-transformation, so that ideals and values are attached to practices that embed and embody them. We have no shortage of alternate models, knowledge and technologies. What we are lacking are transitions that draw increasing numbers in. This is key, self-socialisation, building bridges and networks, and, yes, an institutional framework that enables us to take concerted action. So many people the world over demanding change, demonstrating, getting involved in the climate mobilisation. All this protest and activity demonstrate numbers capable of building an alternative social republic within the hollow shell of the current system. We reclaim our social power and organise it as such, devising systems and mechanisms that guard against its re-alienation. Rather than endlessly protesting "against" something, against already constituted power, we organise "for" something, thereby constituting our own power. And this means paying serious attention to linkages, consensus building, putting aside the many differences we may have in terms of value positions, for instance, and uniting in making the social alternative work. We form its content.
I go back to Rudolf Bahro's view that it is a time for reformation, not just reform. The question is always how do we bring that vision into focus when our own consciousness, our beliefs and plans, the way we live and work, are themselves shaped by institutions of authority which are so much a part of us we that we cannot even see their constraints. The problem is one of transitions, getting people to move to a future social order when so many are involved in and dependent upon the prevailing order. It's the paradox of being both ‘in’ and ‘against’ the system. But that is always the challenge that is set before those who would change the world for the better. I do know that we need to ensure that our visions are practicable and that our ideals do not become detached from the means and agencies of their realisation. What matters is the structural capacity to act. If we can develop our intellectual, moral, organisational and political capacities in order to engage in effective action, then we can find within ourselves, and in our connections to others, the hope and courage to work toward that vision. And that's the key point - we can see through and break through the institutions and structures that contain and constrain us, because they are the embodiments of our own social power in alien form. Consciousness itself has structure, and that structure is objectified in the forms of the physical world. Our own power is manifested everywhere around us. The problem is that, in specific social relations, we do not see it as such. Changing perceptions and changing social reality go hand in hand. We are able to see our power as we come to recognize that it is embodied in the forms and structures we create.
This article by Martin Kirk takes us into difficult questions of how we can change perceptions and behaviours and thus develop a climate politics in which human and planetary flourishing go hand in hand. It makes many pertinent points as we attempt to initiate and sustain transitions toward sustainable living in the future. Key stuff in the field of practical reason.
"Agree or disagree with the thinking all you like (I certainly find it cut-through with inconsistencies and logical holes), but consider for a moment how smart it is. For a start, it’s wrapped in a more sophisticated analysis not just of facts and figures, but social and political psychology, than anything the left has managed. We’re still only now, and slowly, learning that doomsday scenarios are not a reliable motivator. It also works with the values and machinery of the economic system they subscribe to: materialism, market forces, and technological innovation. And finally, it is actually a rather elegant and complete long-term strategy. Again, something the left has yet to get together on. We’re essentially still relying on brute rationalism to win the day. And we’re losing. Or, at best and on a hopeful day, not winning anywhere close to fast enough.
If this is the strategy – which is a big if, but assuming it is roughly in the right area – then it isn’t the “give us everything and damn the rest of you” horror show of the caricatures. And that means there is space in there for common ground, if only, to begin with, on the most basic idea that we must find the best way to protect this planet and the life on it."
I'd just make this point. If we do an institutional analysis, we will see that in the prevailing economic system, we have a dominant class of exploiters, emitters and polluters, and they have a vested interest in the continuation of current practices. They will happily continue to keep hitting the till until society and planet implode, and are impervious to reason. These are 'the deniers'. Then there are layers of dependency upon this economic system, people who want and need 'jobs, growth and investment'. These, two, will be hard to sway by appeals to reason and arguments in favour of an alternative economic model which, however ecologically sound and socially just, does not as yet exist. This a conflict model. We also need to work towards consensus, we need to get more and more individuals and groups joining together in clusters of cooperation. That implies the structural transformation of the conflict economy. Transitions will be key, both practical measures and movements which can show tangible results and benefits, and cultural, entailing changes in worldviews. We need to change mentalities and modalities together. Working for the common good on common ground means precisely that - it means getting out of our trenches and working for creative, consensual solutions with people whose views are different from our own. Can it be done? Those who adhere to a conflict model of necessary class struggle will doubt it, and I've written enough myself on the structurally embedded nature of exploitation and injustice in the capital system to be sceptical. But we can't achieve progress on the basis of trench warfare. We need a war of movement, we need to embed all a genuine universality in an inclusive public, overcoming the divisions between groups and classes and forging society as a complete whole that has overcome splits between core and periphery. Beyond class divisions there are unitary interests, in the most basic of senses – the dependence of each and all of us on the continued health of our planetary home. In light of this, the social division of our civilisation between materially distinctive classes is a grotesque absurdity. And failure to get beyond that division may well be our ruination. Class struggle or consensus building? Answering this question is key to our creation of a public life that succeeds in embodying and expressing the general interest, the good of the whole society.