Archive for August, 2020

The Neoliberal Conspiracy 02: Education

August 30, 2020

The Neoliberal conspiracy on education, as with all their projects, has fairly straightforward aims. It intends to increase the power of wealth and destroy people’s ability to be independent of the control of the wealthy or wealthy organisations.

Control of information, or the embedding of information in people is vital for the control of people and the possibilities of what they can imagine. Hence any dictatorship, or authoritarian structures, will aim at control of education. In particular Neoliberalism does not wish to allow any competition with ‘the market’ in terms of how people’s lives are regulated. They must be regulated by the market, and the sum of corporate desire.

Neoliberal Educational Theory

In neoliberal educational theory:

1) Education should be privatised and corporatised as much as possible. People should get the education they can afford, or risk being indebted for life. This helps make sure that wealthy people will have better educated children than those of poorer people. Education is a privilege not a right. Knowledge is power, and neoliberals don’t want the wrong people with knowledge.

  • 1a) Providing your own education for your children is fine. Your children do not come into contact with other classes of children for any sustained time, so they will think of themselves as an elite, or as isolated individuals. If you can afford good private teachers that is great – wealthy children deserve good education – if you wish to teach them your authority that is fine as well – it helps make the children uncritical and obedient.

2) If education for most people is wound down, then they are less likely to protest successfully, or understand writings critical of the establishment successfully, and they can more easily be led by propaganda to vote for the established powers and to fall for scapegoating. So this is a good thing.

3) Modern society seems to be requiring less labour, so it may be that there is no need to educate most people. They could be educated to produce their own enjoyment, food and art, but that is clearly a waste of money.

4) To help privatisation of education, taxpayers should increase support for wealthy private schools. Every extra discrimination helps – and the education of the privileged is clearly a good thing for everyone.

5) The best private schools will always be exclusionary, as their purpose is to confine good social contacts to the right class of people. No matter how subsidised they are, they will charge fees that keep most people out. The presence of a few charity students who know their place, just shows how good the system is, and does not invalidate the general proposition.

6) As students pay, students are customers and student satisfaction with courses and with not failing is paramount. Who cares if engineers cannot do mathematics? Or if students of politics cannot write or think coherently or clearly? Especially if the qualifications help them get a job? (Actually who they know will be of more use to getting a job than any qualifications, hence the importance of quality private schools keeping the scum out).

7) Defunding universities means that universities become more dependent on high paying students and thus devote more energy to getting them than on low paying students. This brings in money to the country from foreign students, which gets spent here and helps the economy, but is generally unpopular. It also means that universities are particularly vulnerable to tensions between countries and to pandemics. But no pandemic assistance will be received – indeed, as we know in Australia, regulations will be changed many times to make sure that university workers don’t get funded by accident – unless they work for private universities.

8) As students are customers, they get to evaluate teaching staff, to keep the staff in line. The idea that staff should be able to evaluate managers is given lip service, but it amounts to nothing if there is dissatisfaction.

9) As universities are now businesses, they get to be run by business figures who know, or care, nothing for education.

10) However, these business people do have a strong belief that high level managers of schools and universities should have massively increased salaries to match those in the private sector, even while salaries are cut back for most staff, especially in public education which has its public funding cut. This helps reinforce neoliberal policy. The income of high level managers depends on the acceptance of that policy.

11) The public education workforce is to be casualised in line with general neoliberal policies. This helps keep the educational staff overworked, exhausted and terrified of dismissal for controversy. Most of university teaching staff in Australia, is casualised.

12) Education should be oriented to provide what the corporate sector thinks it needs or wants. Non of this ‘education for life’ business, or pointless ‘critical thinking’.

13) Social sciences should be defunded as much as possible, because these people tend to disagree with neoliberal policies and also point out these policies do not deliver what is promised. These people have to be cancelled. Perhaps we should make these degrees so expensive that fewer people take them, that should help lower the importance and distribution of the teaching.

14) Star researchers should be privileged. The university only needs a few star researchers for publicity reasons…

15) Research is evaluated by the profit it brings, or is likely to bring.

16) Star researchers are those who attract money and good publicity.

17) Research should be sponsored by the corporate sector, and belong to that sector, so it is obviously of value to private enterprise and unchallenging to private enterprise

18) However, corporations prefer private think tanks in which they can pay their money and get the results (propaganda) they want. So university research outside the sciences will remain unfunded. Neoliberals tend to only want to hear information that reinforces their inclinations and biases (as, for example, the Australian governments on fossil fuels). This refusal to hear counter-evidence is one reason why the neoliberal system will collapse – but it will likely take everyone with it.

19) Universities could begin this think tank route to get income. It is probably the ideal solution for neoliberal research – research that gives the wealth and powerful the results they want.

20) Privately funded and controlled education centres or research centres, help give people the education the wealthy think they should have.

21) Sometimes, as the Australian government’s ideal Vocational Education and Training scheme saw, we have students weighed with debt and not learning much at all, despite the government money the suppliers took. This scheme helped weaken the long standing and publicly funded Technical and Further Education organisation. This destruction probably means the scheme counted as a success. The word ‘corrupt’ has been used in this context.

22) While privatised research centres funded by foreign governments are suspect, universities are after the money and potential profit, because they are underfunded, and the managers are business people. However, these centres may not give the neoliberal message, and so often have to be attacked.

23) In any case, neoliberalism appears to demand that research should produce private intellectual property which needs to be owned by the right people – who have the right to keep it secret, patented or suppressed.

24) Ultimately education and research are simply businesses, to be controlled by bigger business and provide the right thinking for continuation of the system, or they exist to extract money from students who do not have the right contacts.

In neoliberalism, nothing at all, is to exist outside of the market, or to resist market control.

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The Neoliberal Conspiracy 01

August 28, 2020

‘Conspiracy’ defined

Conspiracy can be defined as a collaboration of people working towards a goal that those conspired against would not welcome. Sometimes the conspiracy can be visible but is pretending to aim for something different to what it really intends. Sometimes the conspiracy can be effective enough at presenting this false front that people do, in fact, welcome it.

Conspiracies often eventuate because those participating do not think their real but ‘good’ aims are realisable because other people might forcibly object to them, if they knew what they were. Conspiracies do not have to be evilly intended; the people involved can think that they are working for the greater good.

“Conspiracy theory” is usually a dismissive term, but conspiracies do happen and do succeed. People, who are not that powerful or competent, such as Lenin and the Bolsheviks or Castro in Cuba, can succeed with conspiracies (although it helps their cause if the establishment is crumbling and incoherent), so why can’t conspiracies of the powerful exist and work equally well or even better?

Conspiracies of the already powerful

It is normal for people, who identify with each other, to “team up” to protect their interests, so it is not unreasonable to assume powerful people will team up for this purpose, in the same way that less powerful people do. Again they do not have to have evil intentions to be conspirators, they may well believe that the system, or people, they represent, are good for everyone – however, they still might feel deception is appropriate.

Powerful people also have advantages, so we can expect them to succeed in their conspiring more often than less powerful people.

For example, they may be friendly with those running the police or law enforcement, or they may be ‘above suspicion’. They know other powerful people, and get attention. Being wealthy they have the money to ‘bribe’ politicians, or reward them for cooperating, consequently they may have access to governmental agencies (even including intelligence and ‘dark ops’). They may get asked to write policy and legislation, while other more expert, or neutral, people are not. They have the money to set up ‘think tanks’ and can pay people to promote their aspirations and to spread ideas which appear beneficial to them. They can own, fund and control media. They can significantly determine the information present in society. They can even afford to buy their own mercenaries if needed.

These dominant groups can, by their position, already influence public discourse significantly without especially trying to do so. They have a massive advantage, even if they are not completely unified as a class.

In the modern world, the main source of power is wealth and business. Not all business of course, but the large scale transnational corporate business which accumulates wealth massively. Hence corporate owners and bosses may well be the people most likely to be involved in casual conspiracy to protect their already dominant interests and their wealth and power.

As an example, it seems reasonably well documented that Exxon’s own scientists demonstrated the dangers of climate change, and yet the company continued to promoted denial and delay, so as to keep its profit up and avoid change [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. Promoters of ‘pro-corporate free-market’ ideology and neoliberal ‘individualism’, also were heavily involved in promoting denial of climate change, particularly in the early days before self publishing took off [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]. They were involved in this conspiracy to keep up both profits and established modes of action, while preventing any ‘interference’ with corporate power or corporate liberty to harm people and planet for profit, by either the people, or the State.

[I would suggest that it may be particularly worthwhile looking at the financial industry, the arms industry, mining and fossil fuels as being sectors which are prone to engage in conspiracy as they are so ingrained in contemporary society.]

What I call the Neoliberal Conspiracy, is a conspiracy of the corporate wealth elites, to convince ordinary people that they are working on their behalf, and to conceal what they actually do to cement and increase the power of the ultra-wealthy.

In a democracy this deceit helps maintain political power. ‘Both’ parties are neoliberal. In the US the Democrats are largely humanitarian neoliberals who think there may be survival limits on corporate power, while Republicans tend to be hard-line neoliberals who think there should be no limits on corporate power and privilege. Trumpism is hardline rather than humanitarian.

Conspiracy and Scapegoating

The truly powerful attempt to distract people by pretending that other, much more marginal groups, really have all the power and are to blame for society’s problems…. perhaps university professors, socialists, enemy spies, people of another ethnic group, heretics, witches, feminists, people protesting against police brutality (while making those who shoot or assault protestors, good natured heroes standing up for order), people protesting against capitalism or climate change, or even occasional business people who seem odd or who support a politics which might promote different ideas to what the powerful see as their class interests.

It seems to be a normal human procedure to attempt to gain group unity by passing on sins and failures to a scapegoat, and then trying to expel that scapegoat, or blacken their name further. So, if you are blaming one or two people (even hyper-wealthy people), or a group of people who probably don’t have that much overt influence, or who repeatedly fail to achieve their goals (for example university professors rarely get decent funding for their own work, never mind agreement with their theories, or influence in government, unless the government already agrees with what they are saying), then you are probably falling for a scapegoat strategy.

Neoliberal Conspiracy

The most established contemporary conspiracy, which is so overt it might not be called conspiracy, is the plan to promote and establish the ideology of neoliberalism to justify and extend corporate domination, or to promote a kind of corporate feudalism, in which everything exists in service to the corporate sector [See the works of Philip Mirowski to begin with, but there are plenty of others on the corporate funding and promotion of neoclassical and Austrian Economics].

Neoliberalism does not explain its actions in these terms of protecting corporate power, of course, as otherwise it would be hard for its supporters to get voted in [13]. This is why I am labeling it a conspiracy – it is inherently deceptive and is aimed at benefitting a particular group of people. President Trump (who is part of the wealth elite by inheritance) is connected to this movement, while also being slightly disruptive of it.

Let us be clear that Donald Trump by himself, or through his cabinet choices, does not explain the decline in the USA, or its fragmentation. President Trump should not be made a scapegoat to excuse, or bypass, the neoliberal movement as a whole. It is a far bigger group than just him that promotes neoliberalism, and some of the destruction we observe undoubtedly results from the unintended consequences of their acts. Trump is just a useful, if slightly chaotic, figurehead, or ‘symptom’, of what is happening. While he does help further destruction, profiteering and wealth transfer to established people, he is unstable enough to be something of a liability for everyone, which is probably why he is openly challenged to the extent he is. This open challenge does not have to mean he really is engaged in looking after ‘the people’, as is often said by those supporting him. That fact that some elites tell us he is corrupt and incompetent does not mean he is honest and incredibly competent. He is not a force for good whatever the other elites in the Republican party, and the really Righteous media tell us – he is part of the conspiracy.

But first it is necessary to understand what ‘neoliberalism’ promotes and why.

Neoliberal “Free Markets”

Neoliberalism is a movement which officially praises the free market, and promotes this idea as a source of liberty. However, the function of the doctrine of the free market, is to defend the corporate sector, from any control, regulation, or hindering, by public action. That is it. Not to prevent taxpayer subsidy of, or protection for, established industry, but to prevent people interfering with corporate privilege. Corporate privilege and liberty to make money by almost any means possible is, in practice, defined by them as the free market. Stopping corporations from, say, poisoning people, or exploiting them, is interference with that market and with the freedom of people to agree to be exploited or poisoned. Neoliberalism’s support for the corporate sector can be authoritarian, as it is corporate liberty, rather than the people’s liberty, which counts.

Neobliberalism promotes the ideology that the free market is the most important of all institutions. In neoliberalism the official synonym for the ‘free market’ is ‘individual liberty’. However, in practice, the term ‘free market’ is used to justify untrammeled corporate domination and the undermining of any liberty that could possibly oppose that power.

In neoliberalism any restriction on corporate power can be portrayed as a restriction on the market, and therefore it must be stopped. Possible restrictions include: consumer protection, environmental protection, care for the planet, taxation of wealthy people and organisations, and any support for the general population that lessens people’s dependency on, or subservience to, the corporate sector.

As the free market is the most important institution of all, then the State’s only reason for existence is to protect that market and those big players who make up the market. All big-enough and established corporations should be eligible for protection and taxpayer bailout, because of their virtues and the necessity of preserving them. Otherwise the market might collapse, or people might argue that the market does not work and needs ‘inhibiting’ regulations – which would be ‘bad’.

Because ‘the market’, as controlled for the benefit of the established corporate sector, is the ultimate good, then government should not do anything other than support and protect the market. This is why neoliberal governments cheerfully bail out wealthy corporations, while increasing the penalties for lack of success, or bad fortune, for ordinary people. This is the reality of the ‘free market’ in action.

In neoliberalism, no organisation, activity or relationship, is allowed to exist outside of the market. Consequently nothing is free of profit seeking, or corporate control. Corporate control and corporate ideologies start to look natural as they are applied everywhere, and hence the corporation becomes the dominant institution of the modern world, as neoliberals intend.

In neoliberalism, there can be no public good without corporate profit.

Neoliberal Virtue

Wealth, plus adherence to neoliberal talking points, demonstrates virtue. There are no other virtues of any consequence. Everybody who is wealthy and praises the market, has made it, because of their virtues and positivity. With the right thinking you can do anything.

The only aspirations to be praised are wealth or maximal consumption – anything that hinders the activities of the wealthy, or of consumption, is bad, anything that supports wealthy people and consumption is good. All social security should be slowly broken down, as poor, or unfortunate, people should not really be supported as they are clearly not virtuous, and they are not ‘positive’. They are, at best, slack as they are not wealthy. If ‘given’ support (even if they they have paid for it via taxes), they may not work and thus may not show proper submission to, and dependence on, an employer. Ordinary people, even those who support neoliberalism, are not worthy of support. Opportunity should only exist for the children of the wealthy, as they have demonstrated their virtue by being wealthy. General social mobility is of little importance, although a few people who have come up from nothing, may be used as exemplars showing that everyone could do it.

Wealthy people who do not support the wealth collective, and their neoliberal talking points are to be attacked, to show people that you cannot disagree with the ideology without being slurred and attacked – which helps keep the others, who might have doubts, in line.

These disagreeing wealthy people become scapegoats for the workings of capitalism in general, while other significantly wealthy people who have even more socially dangerous and deleterious effects are ignored.

Hence the anger directed at Bill Gates, George Soros, or Warren Buffet (until he learned to shut up), and the relative silence about Rupert Murdoch, Gautam Adani, or the Walton Family or many other nearly anonymous billionaires.

There is a sense in which neoliberalism presents a continuation of 19th Century Social Darwinism, in which it is assumed that in the struggle for existence the wealthy have demonstrated their superiority over the poor. In neoliberal theory, when compared to the poor, the rich are as superior and better fitted to survive, as humans are to baboons. They are not open about this point, but it does make sense of many of their policies. Inferior people should be left to die out, if not killed off. Climate change, for example, can be solved by population culls. This ‘hidden idea’ can easily be made to plug into racism, which gives neoliberals even more popular support.

Neoliberal Privatisation

This support for what neoliberals call the free market justifies all collective, public or common property and services being privatised. This is supposed to improve them, while ‘incidentally’ transferring public wealth and income to the private sector, usually increasing public debt – as services now have to be paid for at commercial rates to guarantee profit. This procedure has the following advantages for the established wealth which can buy the property or service being privatised.

  1. High level management incomes in the service will increase, because they are now competing with the private sector, and have to pay more to get talent.
  2. Costly operations which are beneficial to only a few ordinary, or inconvenient people, will be shut down as the operation has to make a profit.
  3. Service staff will be cut back, and workers’ wages lowered by casualisation, as the operation has to make a profit. If the system is no longer quite as useful, or resilient, that is no problem for the business as long as it makes a profit. If it fails, it can always declare bankruptcy, or be sold off while the managers move elsewhere.
  4. The service can asset strip, or sell parts of the business to other businesses, and this sell-off is usually arranged to boost the incomes of the high level executives.
  5. Many such public services were monopolies, thus the privatised service faces little competition and can put prices up to help profits.
  6. Even when the services are not monopolies then they are often services which many people have to receive at some time – like unemployment relief, aged care, water, sewage, etc. So quality is largely irrelevant. If you can reduce the costs of the service, say by reducing injury payouts, then you increase profits again. So the trend of privatisation is nearly always downhill.
  7. The government loses knowledge and skills relevant to the privatised sector, as well as losing power over the operation. The corporate sector gains more power and wealth.
  8. If the privatised operation was previously profitable, then the government loses income and has to weaken other services to make up the shortfall of income, which weakens people’s control over the services they have to receive.
  9. The government becomes less capable of being useful to ordinary people, and therefore there is more excuse to cut back the remaining services it provides, further boosting the power of wealth.

Neoliberal appropriation for high level managers

On a milder note, organisations influenced by neoliberalism, and perhaps by other ideologies, tend to make sure the people at the top receive most of the organisation’s income. Lower level workers are simply costs. So the incomes of lower level workers must be cut, even while spending on incomes at the top increases. There is no real ‘mutual obligation’ at all.

Huge wage discrepancies between upper and lower workers, result from political acts, power struggles, and decisions, but they can be usefully blamed on the market, not on conspiracy conducted by those receiving high incomes. The market provides an excuse for any kind of action which reinforces inequality.

Let me update this by a reference to something said by Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, to show that recognition of the basic fact is not necessarily a left/right division. [At the moment the broadcast does not seem to be on Fox’s Carlson transcript page] Carlson begins supporting President Trump’s tax evasion by saying it is normal. “What the president did was legal — in fact it’s all but universal among the affluent who earn their money from investments rather than from salaries… ” He refuses to state this behaviour is wrong, but asks:

Why does our tax code remain so obviously, so grotesquely unfair?…

Billionaires should not be paying a lower rate than you are paying, no matter who they are, no matter who the president is. The main problem with America right now is that a shrinking group of people controls a growing share of our nation’s wealth and power. America is lopsided, and it’s getting more lopsided every year. That makes our country unstable.

Lopsidedness…. is why young people seem so hopeless and nihilistic, why so many of them are not starting families. It’s why some of them are breaking things in the streets. It’s why your grandchildren will almost certainly earn less than you do. And by the way, it’s also why Donald Trump got elected four years ago. Americans could feel that something was profoundly wrong with the way our country was structured…. It seemed clear that the people in charge were in it for themselves.

Handover “Tucker Carlson got it right” Medium 1 October, 2020

Carlson then fell back into his role as a Fox News person, saying:

Four years later, some good things have happened, [really?] But the core drivers of the crisis that we faced, a dying middle class and the growing hegemony of billionaires, remain unresolved. This is not a small problem. If we don’t fix it soon, it’s a guaranteed disaster. No nation can live for long under the tyranny of selfish oligarchs.

If we don’t flatten our economy and make it possible once again, for normal people to live happy, productive lives, America will become a very radical place and quickly.

Richardson, “Tucker Carlson Highlights ‘NYT’ Tax Return Story to Warn About Power of Billionaires and ‘Tyranny of Selfish Oligarchs’ — But Never Criticizes Trump” MediaIte 28 September.

However, despite blaming the left for this reality, and the unspecified “good things” Carlson alludes to, President Trump, with support from neoliberal Republicans, seems to be continuing this war against fair income distribution, and against the people, through his massive corporate and upper income tax cuts. He has done nothing to help stop the middle, or working, classes from become more precarious, and nothing to halt the “growing hegemony of billionaires”.

Neoliberalism is not conservative

Neoliberalism conserves nothing, and reinforces plutocracy. It does not support traditional virtues if they conflict with profit. It happily disrupts traditional forms of organisation, replacing them with profit driven modes of elite appropriation (for example, the elite managers get more and more of the income). It does not recognise traditional modes of free collaboration. It does not care about preserving land. It does not recognise the traditional responsibility of the elites to ordinary people. It victimises poorer people.

50 years ago, these positions would have seemed crazy. People were able to recognise that wealth was not the equivalent of virtue, that selfishness did not automatically produce social harmony or functionality, that competing corporations did not always produce the best possible results, and that people had the both right to wages upon which they could live comfortably and the right to some control over the corporate sector. Taxation was seen as a way of providing services for people, that had never been provided satisfactorily by the market to most people. There was a sense in which society was thought to exist for the benefit of everyone. Nowadays, neoliberalism is what we are told is common sense. In Margaret Thatcher’s famous words “there is no alternative” – even in the face of the end of civilization as we know it.

Neoliberalism vs Ecology

Let us be really clear here. to neoliberals, the neoliberal corporately dominated economy is not only the most important social institution, it is more important than human life.

In neoliberalism, ordinary people and other creatures live to serve the economy, not the economy to serve the people or restore the ecology. If people have to die to maintain the neoliberal economy, then they will have to die. If the world must be destroyed to temporarily save the neoliberal economy, then it will be destroyed.

We can see this in the neoliberal solutions to Covid and climate change. For Covid, the neoliberal solution is that people must get back to work irrespective of the potential death figures and people must be convinced that Covid is innocuous. President Trump has no solutions for Covid other than being positive, bailing out favoured corporations with taxpayer money, demanding a return to normality, and rushing a vaccine through without proper safety testing. For climate change the solution is similar – protect the wealthy as much as possible, and convince ordinary people that being sacrificed to maintain the power and comfort of established wealth and profit, is true liberty.

One of the problems neoliberalism faces with ecology, is that ecology suggests that ecosystems are fundamental to everything. If you destroy ecosystems then you do not have any economy, or anywhere to live. Humans depend on ecologies and hence economies depend on ecologies, and have to be regulated so as not to destroy those ecologies.

Planetary boundaries and systems cannot be broken with impunity, and yet there is currently nothing to stop corporations from making a profit by destroying those planetary systems. Indeed it is obvious, that it can be profitable in the short term to destroy such systems, and in neoliberalism there is nothing wrong with this.

In order to survive, or to keep current civilisations going, people need to be able to interfere with corporate activities, and this is precisely the situation that neoliberalism attempts to combat and cannot allow to happen.

It is either ecology or neoliberalism; and neoliberalism would rather you die than be able to curtail corporate activity and power.

Neoliberalism as a ‘solution’ to the ‘Crisis of (too much) Democracy’

Why suggest this change from a milder form of capitalism to neoliberalism is a conspiracy, or the result of a conspiracy? Partly because it seems that in the late 1960s and early 70s the political Right was worried about the so-called ‘Crisis of Democracy‘.

The Crisis of Democracy is the idea that too much democracy is a bad thing.

In the late 1960s, people from all walks of life were getting involved in political processes. Women were gaining rights, workers were gaining more rights, there was a huge anti-war movement wondering why so much money was going to the military and its corporate suppliers. There was the beginning of what looked like a massive environmental movement which suggested that that natural world should not be destroyed heedlessly, and that corporations should not be able to pollute or poison people without restriction. It has been estimated that on April 22, 1970, about 10% of the U.S. population came out onto the streets for the first Earth Day – a truly amazing figure. The ‘Club of Rome’ was persuasively arguing that a program of endless economic growth and consumption would lead to an ecological and economic disaster in the first half of the 21st Century. On top of this there was the economic effect of the oil shock, and the birth of post-colonial movements and growing independence in resource rich, but previously colonised, countries.

The prospects of all this extra democracy and chaos was scary for those who had been dominant, and who could see themselves as only just clinging to power.

In short, the capitalist wealth elites feared further loss of their power, and possible loss of their wealth, from public activism and popular political participation. Something had to be changed.

They took advantage of disillusionment with Richard Nixon in the USA to promote distrust in government and attack the value of people participating in formal self-governance, and they promoted the idea of a free market as the basis of all liberty. Liberty was defined as individual and ‘selfish’, not collective or collaborative. Unions were attacked as infringements on workers’ liberty and prosperity, while business associations were encouraged to attack people’s freedoms in the name of prosperity and the market. Political talk became more focused on the economy, and moved away from other aspects of life. Prosperity was more important than becoming ecologically conscious. People who wished to constrain corporate power, or prevent it damaging ecologies, where said to be interfering with the lives of ordinary people. Intellectuals were snobs unless they promoted free markets and so on. Hayek was ‘rediscovered’ and said to be more useful than Keynes, due to the problems of stagflation – which it was true that governments did not know how to deal with. We were told that free markets would solve everything, but after 40 years we can see they clearly have not. They have brought us to our current crisis.

During the Reagan years the Neoliberal Right discovered that they could build support by starting culture wars which would fragment opposition and build loyalties to them. They could start openly partisan and aggressively rude ‘news’ and current affairs services. They could also recruit authoritarian religious people to support Mammon, because those people were likewise frightened of the prospects of the sinful masses coming into power, or of secularists taking over.

Even nowadays we still have Republicans insisting that the US is not a democracy, whenever they worry the people may not support them – although if the Electoral College had served its designed function and ruled that Donald Trump did not have the character to be President and that Clinton should have won, we probably would have them screaming about the importance of the voting allocation.

Some Marxists predicted that the result of this ‘return’ to free markets (as defined above) would be destruction of the welfare state, higher unemployment, stagnation of wages, growing impoverishment, recurrent economic crises, the takeover of the state by the wealth elite and the alienation of people from each other, and from most kinds of real satisfaction. These predictions were certainly more accurate than the official neoliberal predictions of a free market paradise for all. No Marxist, that I’m aware of, was clever enough in the late 1970s or early 80s to predict that ‘free market’ capitalism would destroy the stability of the world’s ecology and climate, as they foolishly expected that intelligent capitalists would avoid such collapse, or that the workers would rebel against the prospects of disaster. They saw capitalism and science as intertwined. This was clearly over-optimistic.

Conclusion

Judging by its results, neoliberalism seems to be a conspiracy promoted by the already powerful to consolidate and extend their power and wealth, Unfortunately, it has unintended consequences which result, firstly, in social stagnation and decline for the vast majority of people, and secondly in a collection of extreme ecological crises which it cannot solve.

In summary: the Right are willing to sacrifice your lives for their power. They will promote fascism if they see it as helping them.

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Community Energy

August 14, 2020

Community energy may be the way to go, all over the country, or indeed all over the world.

In Australia, we clearly cannot wait for the State and Federal Governments to do anything, as they seem quite happy with increasing emissions either here or elsewhere in the world, or in confusing people so that they build solar farms and find they can’t connect to the grid.

Neither State nor business, will do it in time. We have to do it ourselves at the local level, and be willing to fight the obstacles that State and business will put in our way. But we can learn from each other, and every time some community has a victory, it needs to be widely advertised.

Perhaps we need a clearing site somewhere to put up these victories and how they were performed? I’d be happy to put up a web site if there was nothing happening.

Congrats to all those who have been involved in making the video below….

[as a footnote, I’m not sure why the sheep are not expected to graze on the solar farm under the panels, in the farm part of the story…..]

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Narrabri Gas Project

August 7, 2020

The New South Wales State and Federal governments are widely seen as promoting the company Santos’ coal seam gas project in the Narrabri area.

The project, to some extent, has become caught up in the Federal Government’s attempt to have a gas led economic recovery from the current pandemic; although at the start of the year, before Covid-19 was a threat, the Federal and State Government’s signed an agreement in which NSW agreed to promote gas flow in return for other money. The NSW Premier:

told reporters the Narrabri gas project – to drill 900 coal seam gas wells, including within the Pilliga state forest – “may very well be” the source of extra gas and “will meet” the requirement, although she noted the project is still subject to final approval.

She said NSW had three options, including Narrabri, and import terminals at Newcastle and Port Kembla to import more gas.

“Scott Morrison strikes $2bn deal with NSW to boost gas supply.” The Guardian, 31 Jan 2020

Gas promotion is obviously a big thing, despite the methane emissions from leaks in pipes and from the ground around the drill sites. It may also not be sensible in terms of providing an economic boost. The Australia institute is reported as saying:

despite Australia being the world’s largest LNG exporter, less than 0.2 per cent of the workforce was employed in the gas industry, and the companies pay little if any tax.

The main purpose of recovery funding is to create jobs to tackle expected double digit unemployment in the wake of the Covid 19 crisis… Spending recovery funds on an capital intensive, jobs poor industry completely defeats the purpose.

“Coronavirus: Australia’s post-COVID economic recovery plan ‘doesn’t make sense’” Herald Sun 23 May 2020

We can see this particular gas promotion in a more general world context, of saving fossil fuel companies:

The vast majority of the stimulus money so far announced by governments around the world is set to prop up the fossil fuel economy, according to analyst company Bloomberg New Energy Finance. More than half a trillion dollars worldwide – $509bn (£395bn) – is to be poured into high-carbon industries, with no conditions to ensure they reduce their carbon output.

“Covid-19 relief for fossil fuel industries risks green recovery plans.” The Guardian 6 June 2020

So, to some extent, this support is about killing you and your families; your children and grandchildren to prevent the hyper wealthy from losing a small amount of their fortunes – or from learning to adapt.

Anyway, to return to Narrabri. The project is now likely to be approved, whatever the consequences for the locals and for the globe.

Professor Bryce Kelley from the University of New South Wales, stated.

If you approve the Narrabri Gas Project, you will be approving one of the top 100 [direct] emitters of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia for the next 25 years, with a global impact that will actually extend to 35 years [because of the time methane remains in the Atmosphere],” 

“Narrabri gas project to be one of Australia’s top greenhouse emitters”. Sydney Morning Herald, 25 July 2020

The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment has recommended that the Narrabri gas project go ahead on three grounds

1. It will contribute to gas security in NSW
2. It is unlikely to affect water supplies, and
3. It will not affect people or the environment.

The Sydney Environment Institute says on point 1:

“The conditions of approval make no mention whatsoever of Santos’ commitment to the domestic gas market or recommend a condition to legally compel Santos to reserve gas domestically”

“What’s at Stake in Approving the Narrabri Gas Project?“

Point 2

“the assessment does not provide critical evidence that the NGP will not result in significant risk to high-quality groundwater resources in a region and ecosystem highly dependent on them… new research demonstrates how methane contamination of groundwater occurs due to changes in pressures during water and gas extraction.”

“What’s at Stake in Approving the Narrabri Gas Project?“

Point 3

“DPIE’s assessment report relies almost exclusively on a review by Professor Deanna Kemp of Santos’ own Social Impact Assessment and takes the view that Professor Kemp’s review constitutes support of the project…. [However] Professor Kemp has stated that her advice in no way constitutes recommending an approval of the project. “

“What’s at Stake in Approving the Narrabri Gas Project?“

Does not sound good to me….

Others are concerned about local effects

“In a joint statement, farmers and the anti-coal-seam gas group Lock the Gate described the development as “destructive and polluting” and called on the independent commission to reject it. It said the government had backed it despite revelations that landholders affected by the gas industry may not be able to get public liability insurance.”

It said the department’s report suggested the project may involve the destruction of about 1,000 hectares of koala habitat, that the expected contaminated salt waste that would be produced had nearly doubled and that questions about the impact on underground water remained unanswered.”

Narrabri farmer Stuart Murray said the government had not implemented 14 of 16 recommendations to limit the risk of coal seam gas made nearly six years ago by the then NSW chief scientist, now Independent Planning Commission chair, Mary O’Kane. “Our government has betrayed us,” Murray said.”

“Santos $3.6bn Narrabri gas project formally backed by NSW government”, The Guardian 12 June 2020

Stuart Murray is here referring to the Legislative Council report The implementation of the recommendations contained in the NSW Chief Scientist’s Independent Review of Coal Seam Gas Activities in New South Wales of 27 February 2020, which states:

The evidence before this inquiry now establishes clearly that of the 16 recommendations only recommendations 14 and 15 have been (arguably) fully implemented by the NSW Government. Recommendations 1-3, 7, 10 and 13 have, also arguably, been partially implemented – although this assessment takes the evidence for the NSW Government at its highest and does not necessarily reflect the assessment of the committee. When examining those recommendations which have been part implemented, it is clear that – at best – only a minority of what was recommended by the Chief Scientist has been carried out….

Recommendations 4-6, 8-9, 11-12 and 16 have not been implemented at all and, on the evidence before the committee – including the evidence from the NSW Government and its witnesses – there is no indication that the NSW Government has any intention of implementing them.

Report, The implementation of the recommendations p.49-50

Georgina Woods, of Lock the Gate, said consideration of the project had been highly politicised. “Political slogans about gas prices are contradicted by the department’s own assessment report, which admits that if gas prices fall by 30% the project’s economic profile would be a net negative,”

“Santos $3.6bn Narrabri gas project formally backed by NSW government”, The Guardian 12 June 2020

In summary

The arguments are:

  • Fossil Fuel companies are good.
  • Gas is good.
  • Taxpayers should support gas.
  • Gas supply is essential, but the proposed conditions of approval do not guarantee that supply.
  • Gas creates very little employment, and little income for the country.
  • Gas may be better than coal in greenhouse gas emissions when it is burning, but it still creates a problem.
  • Recommendations to reduce the risk of gas fields, have not been implemented.
  • Gas, particularly coal seam gas can pollute underground water, in an area which has no rivers and low rainfall.
  • The process produces contaminated salt waste.
  • The project threatens endangered ‘iconic’ animals.
  • It is financially risky and may require taxpayer support.

Conclusion

My prime objection to the project is simple.

Santos asserts that it can stop the water from the coal seams below mixing with the water from the Artesian Basin above, and that it can stop water from the Artesian Basin sinking into the coal seams and becoming less available.

If Santos is correct, then I still think it is unlikely that anyone can guarantee that these barriers will survive for hundreds of years, or that the company will still be around and able to take responsibility for policing and repairing these barriers. Concrete decays, metals corrode.

Costs of repair will be left to taxpayers. Indeed the company has no real incentive to insure that they solve this problem forever, because they know they will not face a burden if the waters mix in a hundred years.

However, agriculture, food production and local towns have to think in terms of hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. If the Artesian waters are polluted or lost, then there is no other reliable water supply for Narrabri and its regions…. Farming will end. The town will end.

Furthermore the loss, or pollution, of the waters will likely be gradual, and only noticed when it is too late to do anything.

If we thought in ecological terms, and of the future of Australia, we would not engage in this kind of mining.

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More considerations on decarbonisation

August 3, 2020

What I’m trying to do, however badly, in the previous comments is to figure out what are some of the more important eco-social systems in play in decarbonisation, and the ways they interact. It is impossible to specify all such factors in advance, so these are limited, and could be discarded. The main point is to avoid reduction of reality to the two blocks of ‘society’ and ‘ecology’ although I’m limited in my ability to do this because of lack of ecological knowledge.

When I use the term ‘eco-social systems’ I’m deliberately placing ecologies first. Humans do not exist without ecologies, while ecologies can and have existed without humans.

The eco-social systems selected out here, are:

  • Energy,
  • Waste/pollution
  • Extraction
  • Information
  • Planetary boundaries, and the limits of ecological functioning or resilience.

Energy system

This is obviously based in eco-physical functioning. The ecosystem itself can be considered to be a system of energy release/generation and transformation.

I’m suggesting Labour is part of the directed energy system, but no longer should count as the major and only significant part of that system, as in Marxism or classical economics for example, due to the bulk of directed energy coming from other than human sources.

It is useful to explore the dynamics of the limits and stresses of the energy system, and its transformation. For example, we have the possibility that renewables could simply become an addition to the continued use of fossil fuels, unless we have a specific programme to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Waste/pollution system

I think it is useful to specify a conceptual difference between ‘waste’ and ‘pollution’ (waste is re-processable by the economy or eco-system, and pollution is not), because the ecological feedbacks, and eco-social consequences are different. It suggests how eco-social activity can overpower ecological resilience even through such apparently harmless action as the production of CO2 – the CO2 waste becomes pollution after it passes certain levels, and the more the ecology is destroyed the more waste becomes pollution.

I also hope naming this system reminds people that the manufacture and distribution of renewables may produce pollution. We need to cut this pollution down, but it seems that renewables are relatively non polluting after installation (before decommission), unlike fossil fuel energy, which only functions through continuing pollution. However, waste and pollution are not removed from the system.

If renewable energy, after the initial costs, is almost free, until the installation reaches the ‘waste/pollution’ stage, that has a large disruptive capacity in itself.

The Extraction System

The eco-social extraction system can damage itself, through ecological ‘revenge’ effects and feedback. There is obviously nothing unusual about asserting this, although it does not seem to be recognised in orthodox pro-capitalist economics.

The damage does not have to be gradual or linear. It can be abrupt and excessive as systems breakdown.

Extraction systems do not have to be harmful – they can pay attention to ecological information, and moderate themselves as needed. However, largely, unconstrained extraction/destruction, pollution, and expansion (or what is usually called ‘growth’) have historically been part of both capitalism and developmentalism, and are the main factors which seem to produce the current eco-crisis. Capitalism and Developmentalism also tend to suppress, downplay, or ignore information about ecology. We can also note that pro-corporate neoliberals tend to remove limits on extraction, pollution and expansion, as soon as they can.

Given this, we can raise the question of ‘how we can transform the energy system without continuing a damaging extraction system?’

If economic growth is linked to increasing extractive destruction, then either growth has to go, or we need to find new ways of extraction. This may cause ‘climate justice’ issues if growth remains our main solution for poverty.

The Information system

This is how humans generally recognise eco-feedback. However, the information system can be distorted by organisational, economic and political processes.

It seems useful to have some idea of how this distortion occurs, and where it is dangerous, and maybe how to diminish it .

Planetary Boundaries and the limits of eco-social resilience.

This is pretty crude but, that is because of a lack of ecological knowledge. However, it does place constraints within the model.

Firstly we need to consider the physical layout, geography, climate, and spatial configuration of a place. This can effect the possibilities of the renewable energy being used, and the way it is deployed. Changing the environment can produce the experience of people being ‘unhomed’. Land not only shapes human activities but is shaped by them. Possible uses of land depend on political struggle and sometimes violent displacement of those originally occupying the land.

As well as this the world’s systems are effected by what people call planetary boundaries, which are themselves systems. The formal planetary boundaries and the eco-social systems which encapsulate them are:

  • Climate stability,
  • Biospheric integrity (balance between species, rates of extinction etc),
  • Water cycles,
  • Biochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles etc),
  • Ocean ph (acidity or alkalinity),
  • Particulate levels,
  • Ozone depletion, and
  • Novel entities (new chemicals, microplastics etc.).

We can think of these as essential planetary geo-bio cycles – they are necessary to human functioning, and to the functioning of the planet. They can be broken, and appear to be being broken at this moment. Adjustment will eventually happen, but there is no reason to think that this adjustment will automatically be friendly to current human societies, or even to humans themselves.

It seems that capitalism and developmentalism, both seek to avoid limits, and claim they can transcend those limits, usually though innovation and new technology. But this is likely to be a fantasy. Going by the evidence so far, it is a fantasy – however consoling it might be.

Even if we have massive unexpected technical innovation in the next twenty years (say, fusion power), then it still may be too late, and we still have to stop pollution and ecological damage from other sources.

It almost certainly will not hurt more to stop breaking the geo-bio cycles, than it will hurt to continue breaking them.

Further comments

All of the above systems are obviously interconnected, but specifying them out, might help us factor them all in to our analysis, all the time.

I didn’t particularly bother about the class system and its political dynamics (plutocracy) at this time, because I figure I’m unlikely to forget that, but it affects all of the above. Likewise the political system and its patterns affect all of the above.

Politics can affect the energy system. People can encourage and hinder certain forms of energy. They can forcibly ignore the consequences of energy production and so on.

Politics can affect the waste/pollution system such as the kinds of pollutions accepted or banned. Who is allowed to pollute. Where the pollution is dumped. What kind of penalties apply, and so on.

Politics affects extraction. Who can do the extraction. What kind of royalties are paid. What kind of property is made. What kind of limits to extraction exist. What local benefits arise.

Politics affects what kinds information are promulgated. The kinds of truth standards to are applied. The modes of distribution of information. The suppression of information and so on. What kinds of people who are ‘trusted’ with respect to information. The kind of information is accepted by different groups?

In later blogs I’m planning to try and incorporate the property/accumulation system, and the class/plutocracy/group-categorisation systems into the analysis.

Decarbonisation

Decarbonisation seems obviously affected by all of these factors:

How do we generate the energy to decarbonise, without disrupting ecologies, through waste/pollution and extraction processes? How do we decarbonise without harmful growth?

How do the information systems work to recognise, or not recognise, what is happening? how do they play out through the political and economic processes? Is it possible to improve them?

How do ecological limits affect decarbonisation pathways when they are not in good shape. We face doing decarbonisation in an era of compounding eco-social crises, which increases energy expenditure as people attempt to control them. This adds to the difficulties of decarbonisation.

To reiterate: we cannot successfully decarbonise, without generating enough energy to decarbonise. It also seems we must generate this energy at the same time as cutting pollution, ending extractive destruction, ending growth, refining information, and protecting ecological resilience, etc.

Conclusion

If there are any points that I would really like people to take from any of this it is that:

  • It takes energy to ‘release’ energy – and usually leads to waste or pollution somewhere in the cycle. Pollution must be minimised to keep geo-bio cycles functional.
  • In this sense, no energy is completely free.
  • If it takes more energy for humans to make energy than energy is released then, over the long term, the human system will collapse.
  • Human action is limited by available energy. It is also limited by the amount of destruction, and damage to the geo-bio cycles produced by the energy system.
  • The Information System and its confusions, is not an addenda to the other systems, it is vital to any analysis.
  • Human energy, extraction, waste/pollution, information and other systems, interact with planetary geo-bio-cycles or planetary boundaries, and if the human systems disrupt those geo-bio cycles, they will be limited and disrupted in turn – probably violently.

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Considerations on decarbonisation processes

August 2, 2020

Basics

Social life only exists because of ecological processes, and is shaped by those processes.

All economies (modes of production, distribution and consumption) involve systems of energy, waste, extraction, information and ecological limits. [They almost certainly involve systems of accumulation/property, class/plutocracy and regulation/politics, but I’ll leave those out for another blog]

  • These other systems are not necessarily subsumed or determined by economies.
  • If an economic theory ignores the interactions between energy, ecology, waste, information, social organisation and conflict, it is more or less pointless.

It can be helpful to think of eco-social relations in terms of flow or flux, of patterns rather than structures, or of disruption rather than stability, or as guidable but not controllable .

Ecologies and eco-social relations are inevitably what we call ‘complex systems’. Their trajectory cannot be predicted with complete accuracy. If we are working with them, we should be on the look out for unintended consequences and surprise – as these are sources of information.

Every being in the system is interdependent with others, and responding to others. It has the characteristics it has, because of those interactions and their histories.

Energy

All ecologies and economies involve transformation of energy, from the transformation of sunlight by plants, to atomic power.

Transformation of energy, plus effective ecological functioning, is necessary for any human actions to happen. The less effective, or functional, the energy or the ecology, the more restrictions and difficulties.

Labour power is just one form of humanly applied and directed energy. Labour, itself requires energy from the organic transformation, and breakdown, of food into waste.

  • Humans have appropriated animal labour, the flow of water, wind and tides, the burning of biological material, the burning of fossil fuels, the energies inside atoms, and so on. These processes magnify, and transcend, human labour.
  • Once you develop large scale directed energy generation and application, then labour, and the organisation of labour, becomes secondary to the organisation of energy production and transmission in general. This is why energy is so fundamentally important to social capacity and organisation – and why changes of modes of energy generation are so threatening and unsettling to that established order.

Human producing, or using, of energy takes energy. Understanding this is vital.

The more energy is produced by the energy used to produce it, the greater the energy availability and the greater the activity possible. This is what we can call the “Energy Return on Energy Input” or EREI.

  • Fossil fuels have had a very high EREI. It look as though the EREI of renewable energy is much less. However, for most renewables after they are installed, the EREI changes, as very little labour, or energy expenditure, is required to gain an energy output – it is more or less free – whereas fossil fuel energy generation requires continual energy use to find and process new fossil fuels, and continual pollution from burning.
  • It looks as though the EREI of fossil fuels is decaying. Gas and oil sources are diminishing, requiring uneconomic and ecologically dangerous practices like fracking, or they are having to be found in places with increasingly difficult extraction practices – such as being under deep and stormy waters. Extraction of fossil fuels seems to be doing more ecological damage and requiring more energy to obtain. The ‘low hanging fruit’ has been taken and it cannot grow back, as once used it is consumed forever.
    • Coal could be an exception to the decline in EREI, but this may be because contemporary open cut coal extraction processes are much more ecologically destructive than previously, and the energy costs of transport are being ignored.
  • The decline in the EREI of fossil fuels, with the possible exception of coal, means that the energy expense of finding new fossil fuels to provide the energy for fossil fuel power stations is probably increasing in general.
  • It also means that there is less available energy around.

Waste/Pollution

Transformation of materials through energy, or in energy production, produces ‘waste’. The simplest human society imaginable, turns edible material into energy and human excreta (this is an overt simplification).

  • ‘Waste’ is here defined as excess, or unwanted matter which can be used, or ‘recycled’ by the economic or ecological system within an arbitrary, but functional, ‘reasonable’ time.
  • ‘Pollution’ is defined as waste which cannot be so processed in a ‘reasonable’ time.
  • Perfectly harmless waste can become pollution if there is so much of it that the economic or ecological systems cannot process it, and it accumulates and disrupts, or poisons, functioning ecologies.
  • Contemporary Greenhouse gas emissions are wastes which have become pollution because of the volume in which they are emitted.

The more that pollution damages the system, the less waste can be processed by it.

Extraction and ecology

Economies can also extract materials, and life forms, from the ecology in ways that destroy the ability of the ecology to regenerate and, as a consequence, produce eco-social change, minor or large depending on industry wide levels of destruction.

  • Ecologies are not passive, and respond to human or other actions in ways which are often unpredictable in specific.
  • It is possible to imagine an economy in which destruction of ecologies was not standard practice.
  • Indeed the impact of humans on ecologies was, until relatively recently, mostly fairly gentle. Although some human systems appear to have been unintentionally destructive of their ecologies, before the large scale use of fossil fuels, and carried out the destruction fairly quickly.
  • Increasing economic growth, which seems essential in capitalism and developmentalism, nearly always seems to involve increases of ecological damage. Such growth has often come out of destruction.

For decarbonisation, the fundamental question is “how we can transform the energy system without continuing a damaging extraction system?”

It can be postulated that the economic system is not the only cause of ecological destruction. Religious systems can demand the cutting down of trees, the use of plaster which blocks water supplies, as apparently the case for the Maya, and so on. That is another reason why we talk of eco-social relations, and indicates the importance of worldview and information.

Information

Economies require information distribution and restriction. At the minimum, people need to know what to extract, how to transform it, how to consume it, and how to keep the system going. This knowledge may be restricted so that only some people know how to do some tasks properly (through gender, age, class, education, etc.), and the information may be limited, incorrect, or influenced by its role in politics.

The information system is how humans generally recognise eco-feedback.

Any information about complex systems, such as societies or ecologies, is almost always limited and inadequate, because it is inherently impossible to map all the relevant links and exchanges in real time. Any representation, however useful, is a distortion.

  • Not all information is literal, some can be ‘symbolic.’ There is the possibility that symbolic information may be useful in dealing with systems that ‘resist’ ordinary language.

Information distortion is not just a product of the limits of human conception. The information system can be distorted by organisational, economic and political processes.

  • For example, information distortion can result as a normal function of capitalist accumulation. There is the production of opaqueness of pricing to hinder customers finding out the best price (competition through obscurity), the use of rhetorical, or overly hopeful, information as part of market strategy to capture markets and discourage competition, and the use of information to capture, or influence, states.
  • The information needed to know that aspects of the economy, are destroying the ecologies they depend upon, can be ignored or suppressed as part of the functioning (and protection) of that economy.
  • Politics also damages accurate information, through using information as a mode of persuasion, through concealment of information, and through the inability to co-ordinate coherent information in a zone of information excess, such as an information society, when information justifying almost anything can be found.
  • Organisational forms, such as punitive hierarchy, can also distort information transmission. In such a circumstance, people try to give those higher up in the hierarchy than them the information they think those above them require, and hide mistakes to avoid punishment or gain reward. Likewise, those above have incentives not to reveal exactly what is going on to those below them, or to ever admit ignorance, as that implies vulnerability. This situation can be reinforced if the organisation is justified by adherence to a correct dogma which has to be kept safe from challenge.
  • Information has value, and its value to a group may depend on how restricted or how available it can be made, in different situations.

Ecological systems 1: Human Geographies

Before considering planetary boundaries as features of eco-systems, lets first briefly consider geography, climate and landscape.

Obviously, mountain ranges, forests, plains etc may affect the layout of Renewable Energy, or the RE may affect the land, if trees are felled, fields converted etc. Wind may be more geographically more prevalent than sunlight, or vice versa. Wind may be severe, putting a limit on size of turbines, or the angles of solar panels. Winter darkness, or heavy seasonal rain can affect the possibilities of solar power. Weather features such as presence of wind and sunlight, and the presence of water for hydro-electric generation, can be affected by climate change. Distances between centres of population and the areas in which renewables can be deployed, are all important, although cities may need to become renewable centres (there are plenty of wind canyons, and high roofs ). All this means that simple geography, spatial layout and its effects, cannot be ignored.

Landscape and vegetation is also something that people related to, and end up in relationship with. Disruption, or change, of landscape can disrupt and unsettle people and their activities, and often their livelihood, to the extent of them feeling ‘unhomed’.

Unhoming is a common feature of development, which is usually ignored by the established powers and thrust upon people living in that landscape. For some reason it is far more significant when the unhoming comes from renewables.

Ecological Systems 2: Planetary boundaries

All planetary eco-social systems are currently bounded. Exceeding the boundaries leads to the rundown, or breakdown, of ecological functioning, and this breakdown then adds difficulties to maintaining other systems in their previous flourishing.

  • As ecological systems breakdown, they cease performing all of their ‘essential services’ at previous levels.
  • If these levels are to be maintained ‘artificially’ then this requires extra energy expenditure, in addition to normal energy expenditure.
  • It appears that growth, in the contemporary world, is likely to eventually lead to the breaking of planetary boundaries

Capitalism and developmentalism tend to recognise boundaries only to ignore them, and claim that ingenuity and willpower, will overcome those boundaries forever without limit. However, just because a technology is needed and would be profitable, does not mean it will be developed in time to save the system.

Capitalism downplays any limit to growth, and any fundamental role to the world ecology. This is one reason it is currently so destructive.

The main planetary eco-social systems which form these boundaries are:

  • Climate stability,
  • Biospheric integrity (distribution and interaction of organic life forms),
  • Land layout (geography),
  • Water flows and cycles,
  • Biochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles. The possibility of ‘Metabolic Rift’),
  • Ocean acidity or alkalinity,
  • Particulates,
  • Ozone levels,
  • Novel entities such as new chemicals, plastics and microplastics.

All of these factors should at least be glanced at.

To emphasise again: humanly propelled destructive extraction and pollution are the main current disruptors of these boundary systems.

Capitalism and developmentalism

Capitalism and developmentalism have been incredibly successful at increasing standards of material life for many people. This success means that changes to their processes are likely to be resisted, at many different points in society.

So far, this success has involved refusals to live within ecological (or planetary) boundaries and processes. The eco-social relations of these systems seem doomed.

Capitalism and developmentalism, run a several pronged attack on ecologies. They a) emit pollution, b) destroy ecologies through over-extraction, and c) attempt to grow themselves to increase their ‘benefits’ (such as profits, development, spread, production, consumption and extraction). They attack planetary limits, and produce compounding destruction.

  • Dumping pollution and poisoning without cost is defined by these systems, as an ‘externality’, and helps to increase business profit. This means that pollution escapes being ‘accounted’ for (or noticed) by members of the emitting organisation.

There are no ‘externalities’ once we accept society and ecology always intermesh, and that there are boundaries to the planet and its functionality.

  • To reiterate: organisational structure can limit the observation, and conscious processing, of feedback and useful information. It is involved in creating patterns of ignorance or unaccountability. It is likely these patterns of ignorance also hide other information vital to the general survival of the organisation.

Capitalism leads to the classic tragedy of the commons, in which individuals and organisations acting independently, in their apparent self-interest, over-exploit and over-pollute a resource destroying the common good.

By diminishing ecological functioning as part of their own functioning, capitalism and developmentalism, suffer from what Engels called the ‘revenge effects of nature’.

Climate Change

One of these ‘revenge effects’ is climate change. Climate change is a subset of the consequences of the ecological damage produced by capitalism and developmentalism, as should be clear through looking at the list of planetary boundary systems. We probably should not ignore the other ecological problems we are facing at the same time.

All the systems I have been discussing, are bound into a shared set of eco-social processes, and as they are all active (although not coherently or harmoniously), any change in the relationships, or interactions, produces further changes in eco-social relations.

  • Ecological damage probably always portends some change in eco-social relations. The greater the damage the more likely the greater the change.
  • This is summarised in the concept of the Anthropocene, in which it is recognised that human activity can influence planetary activity, and vice versa.

Climate change disrupts the possibility of a smooth continuance of the established eco-social relations. This means change, whether voluntary and planned, or otherwise. There is no necessity the change should be beneficial.

Accelerating social breakdown produced by climate change may render all forms of transition more difficult.

Energy Systems and Transformations

Through the introduction of new energy systems and a simultaneous ongoing reduction of pollutions and destructions, the global greenhouse effect could be diminished and climate disruption ameliorated.

  • It needs to be emphasised that an increase in renewables without a cut back in pollution (especially from burning fossil fuels) and a slowdown in destructive extraction (which will probably need to be connected to a slowdown in growth etc.), will not generate stability and the eco-climate crisis will continue.

If establishing a new relatively stable set of eco-social-energic relations is successful, then social relations will have changed – and probably unpredictably.

As energy systems influence the capacity of a society’s ability to act (to produce, consume, struggle, invent, extend itself, produce information, or promote dominance of various groups and nations,), a change of energy system will cause political eruptions, and unpredictable change, which potentially threatens losses for powerful sections of society, not just fossil fuel companies.

  • For example:
    • cheaper energy might threaten the capital accumulation of energy companies of all kinds; it may even threaten capital accumulation itself.
    • Cheaper energy might increase eco-destruction, as more damage can be done at low cost.
    • More jobs may threaten economic platforms which depend on maintaining a “reserve army” of unemployed labour.
    • With localised energy production, nations may be able to break up with greater ease.
  • Our solutions to poverty have so far depended on increasing energy supply, emitting cheap pollution, destroying ecologies and economic growth. If we stop these practices to save the world, do we know how to reduce poverty in the short term? I suspect not. If those in favour of transformation are in favour of what is loosely called ‘climate justice’, then this is a problem they have to face.
  • Unintended consequences are possible everywhere and should be expected.

Any energy transformation depends on the production of energy to power and build that transformation.

It may not be possible to provide all this energy immediately from other renewables, or non-greenhouse-gas emitting sources. Without care, the organisation of transformation could lead to a catastrophic increase in the use of fossil fuels to ‘temporarily’ provide the energy for the transformation, which would then appear to ‘lock-in’ the use of those fossil fuels for some time.

  • As stated earlier, the EREI of fossil fuels seems to be declining, which could mean there is both less energy available from them and the harm of using them increases.

A program of transformation may also generate heavy pollution from the manufacturing, and installation, of the new energy system.

If the old forms of social organisation remain, then renewables may be used to allow increasing energy supply on top of fossil fuels, rather than replacing energy supply from fossil fuels.

  • This would be a so called ‘Jevons effect’ in action.

The energy costs of transformation, when added to the power of established fossil fuel industries, may lead to state and business encouragement for locking in fossil fuels.

  • Potential conflict between the state and capitalist accumulation, may lead to the state abdicating its role in the transformation, to the extent that its governors depend on corporate subsidy for their campaigns or for other forms of income.
  • The energy transition is largely occurring because of recognition of climate change, not through normal socio-political reasons such as increase of profit for already powerful people, or increase of state power, or the dangerous increase in the EREI of fossil fuels. Fossil fuel energy production is still relatively cheap, efficient (for certain values of efficiency) and is an established and understood technology. Transformation can be seen as an unnecessary cost, with little benefit for the already successful.
  • Accepted behaviour that previously generated wealth and power, now generates (disputable) harm – in the sense that any information can be disputed. Recognition of this problem, could produce an existential crisis, which may well lead to people lowering their anxiety by enforcing familiar ways of problem solving.

Cost, lack of co-ordination among, and between, capitalists and states, and presence of competition between business and states, is likely to increase problems of freeloading and non-cooperation.

  • It may seem beneficial for an organisation to allow other organisations to bear the cost of transformation, or catch up later assuming that costs will have decreased.

Every country has possible excuses for why it should be exempted from action and allow other countries to have the primary expense of conversion.

  • In Australia it tends to be argued that we are an exporting nation, contribute relatively little in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, or that we are large country which needs to burn fuel for transport etc.
  • It also tends to be argued that we should only change after others have done so, so we do not lose out through: a) the higher competitiveness of nations which retain or boost fossil fuels; b) loss of coal sales; or c) through the greater cost of early transformation.
  • We also tend not to be informed of the steps to transformation that are happening elsewhere. Even the success of Conservative British Governments in reducing greenhouse gases tends not to be reported here, or skated over. That India has a carbon price is almost completely unknown.
  • Information is hidden or lost, probably by ‘interested parties’ to reinforce inertia.
    • Australians also have to deal with an extremely confusing, and hidden set of energy regulations, which vary from state to state. There is no apparent co-ordination of energy legislation or regulation.

“How do we overcome organisational inertia and freeloading within a state and capitalist framework that puts local profit first?”

Renewable Energy

Renewable energies can be presented as:

  1. a simple technical fix,
  2. a retro-fit of the existing system,
  3. an ‘energy transition’,
  4. a wide-scale ‘energy transformation’
  5. a wide-scale social and energy transformation, which makes either radical break with the present or for continuing change,
  6. the inevitable process of societal decarbonisation under climate change,
  7. a co-ordinated socialist plot to increase government control over daily lives,
  8. a false hope – too little too late. Or even,
  9. the end of civilisation and a reversion to barbarism with a return to “living in caves”.

The information presented about renewable energy is not always entirely positive, and analysts should not pretend otherwise, or claim that a transformation will inevitably occur. Transformation to renewable energy involves social struggle, partly because we do not know the consequences of the transformation, and imaginations of the transformation involve, and produce, politicised information geared at social persuasion.

Transformation also involves technical and organisational difficulties.

  • According to some estimates, the amount of fossil fuel energy we need to replace is truly massive. Real renewables (not biofuel, not hydro) currently compose less than 3% of the world’s total energy requirements, according to the IEA. Other estimate seem more optimistic, but we are still, once biofuels are removed, talking about 5-7% of the world’s total energy usage.

To make incursions on the non-electrical energy system we have to electrify these other uses of energy (diesel in Australia). This requires even more energy use to build.

The technical difficulties of achieving this replacement, without producing further ecological destruction or pollution, is huge, especially given that energy needs to be highly available to make the transition. It is a problem which has to be faced.

Transition to renewables also faces powerful political opposition. This renders the imposition of renewables upon people through standardised neoliberal non-consultative planning processes, which do not benefit local populations, even more harmful than usual. Renewables may face difficulties not faced by more established industries.

We also appear to have significant time constraints. If we keep delaying the transformation, climate change and eco-social destruction will become more severe and make the transformations far more difficult.

  • As the ecological crises get worse, we may well require more energy use to keep eco-social relations stable, or repaired, after more frequent, and compounding, disasters
    • (such as covid and intense storms, which spread the virus because people cannot keep clear of each other, which lessens the energy available to deal with the problem).
  • The crises may possibly take energy away from transition, or require still more energy generation.
  • Organisational breakdown resulting from climate turmoil will also impede the transitions and add to the energy expenditure.

Conclusion

We cannot successfully decarbonise, without generating enough energy to decarbonise. It also seems we must generate this energy at the same time as cutting pollution, ending extractive destruction, ending growth, refining information, protecting ecological resilience, dealing with compounding problems, and fighting political wars etc.

Energy transformation is not easy, and is being rendered more difficult, by the current forms and dynamics of eco-social relations, and our ways of problem solving.

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