Prediction of alternates is always difficult, but the short answer is “almost certainly”
Neoliberalism in practice
Neoliberalism is a word usually used to describe policies which support corporate dominance while pretending to support free markets and individual liberty.
Neoliberalism aims to protect corporations from political influence and regulation while increasing political control by corporations.
It implies that wealth has no power to control markets or to allow people to buy political power, so it effectively promotes the power of wealth elites at the expense of ordinary people.
Although it allows corporations to control government, it pretends that government is independent of those corporations and is to blame for everything that goes wrong. This enables them to further render government useless for people, and increase corporate power.
It posits all human relationships as primarily being individually oriented, competitive and economically oriented (thus accidentally harming families and communities). The primary aim of this claim is to allow them to deny that wealth elites will ever team up for their own advantage – which is otherwise observable fact. Strangely they do recognise that workers can team up for their own advantage, making unions, and they argue this is bad.
The only class war they recognise, is when people team up to take on the wealth elites in general (not just part of the wealth elites such as Soros or Gates). The wealth elites suppressing people is just normal business practice.
Neoliberalism tends to be opposed to government handouts to unemployed or unfortunate people, but usually remains silent when there are government hand outs to the wealthy. Hence wealth and power inequalities continually increase, and people get left out of their own governance.
There are people who argue that all this is in the tradition of classical liberalism, but I doubt that is the case entirely; few classical liberals would argue that capitalist economics is the only driving force in human psychology, and neoliberals tend to demand extensive authority to protect existing corporate privilege. This is why neoliberalism can easily tilt into fascism, or authoritarian hierarchy, polarisation, nationalism etc.
It can be suggested that nearly everything bad today has come about through neoliberalism.
Costs of neoliberalism and benefits of no neoliberalism
Wages have stagnated because neoliberals dislike costs to business, lowering the amount of income you receive is important to them. They call this market discipline, or worker competition and flexibility.
Without neoliberalism, unions would have retained their place and would not be pushed out. Workers would have a collective power to be able to increase their wages, improve conditions of labour, and lower working hours without loosing money – as was the case in the 50s or 60s.
Because neoliberalism involves government by the wealth elite, it has an interest in preventing people from participating in government. Without neoliberalism, it might be that their would be more community government, and real public participation in electoral processes – the democratising and civil rights moves of the sixties and seventies might well have continued. If so, then people would be less alienated from the process of government.
Neoliberal corporations control most of the media, hence they can use it to mislead people as to the cause of problems. They often say the problems can be blamed on a non-existent socialism which needs curbing by more neoliberalism and hence more power to the wealthy. They also try to build loyalty through compulsive abuse of ‘alternatives’ rather than encourage discussion, fact finding and building ties between people across groups. This means that many people live in a neoliberal fantasy world, rather than engage with reality. Hence the ease with which real problems are ignored, and people encouraged to vote against their interests. Without neoliberalism, we would have more, smaller, and competing media organisations. There would be more views represented, and better investigations of problems.
Under neoliberalism the problems of climate change and ecological destruction cannot be faced in time, because that might involve restrictions on profit or on corporate privilege to pollute with ease and freedom. Dealing with ecological crisis will possibly curtail some of their liberties, and if the people suffer as a result, neoliberals can live with that. Fifties and Sixties style capitalism might well have easily dealt with climate change and ecological destruction. Indeed some argue neoliberalism was promoted to stop public interest in solving these problems.
Without neoliberalism, people might be more prone to admit humans are co-operative as well as competitive and that everything exists because of everything else, and we depend upon each other and our ecology. With an ecological vision neoliberalism does not make sense.
Likewise neoliberals stop changes to the rules of markets which might protect smaller people, and promote changes to the rules which protect wealthy people and allow them to get more of the general wealth. Neoliberalism tends to imply that all non-economic transactions are zero-sum; that is you gain at the expense of other. If other people are helped this takes money and status from you. Zero sum economic transactions tend to be hidden. This is one reason why neoliberalism is often known as trickle down economics – it pretends that making sure the wealthy get wealthier benefits everyone all the time.
Without neoliberalism corporations would pay more of their share of tax, and there would be more money for public services and general needs.
Without neoliberalism there would be less privatisation of public business, and better and cheaper service with less corruption. There might still be publicly owned businesses which would allow real competition and hinder wealth cartels. All of these factors would have likely kept the continuing rise in living standards for people which was such a factor of post WWII capitalism.
Conclusion
A clear description of neoliberalism demonstrates one reason people do not want to be labeled as neoliberals – its very hard to openly, or awarely campaign for more corporate power and wealth and less power and wealth for everyone else.
Without neoliberalism, we would still have problems, but life would probably be better. It has been one of the great disasters of the last 50 years.
Probably most people remember the recent UK energy crisis, with extremely high energy prices, the collapse of at least 25 UK energy companies between September and December 2021, and increased numbers of people facing energy poverty. There was a lot of popular dispute about how bad the situation was, and what caused it [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] but problems occurred. Similar, if less intense, energy problems appeared in Europe, especially for countries dependent on Russian gas, which was likewise possibly constrained by domestic need and production factors. China boosted its coal supplies and consumption to help provide heating for winter [7], [8], [9]. The previous year power had crashed out in Texas because of massive sudden demand, and a failure to invest and protect the grid and gas pipes against cold weather [10], [11], [12]. Texas also appears to have suffered from profiteering by electrical generation companies [13]. These events, are not just local, but part of a world wide energy crisis, [14]. The Northern winter is not yet over, hopefully it will pass ok, but we cannot be sure.
I shall suggest that these crises arise out of at least five interacting factors.
A background of climate change and ecological destruction
Increase in demand over supply, producing volatile prices;
Lack of necessary investment in energy;
Disruption from and to renewable transition; and
Civlisational collapse.
These factors feed into each other. Climate change and ecological destruction is the background against which this all plays out (and is not discussed in any detail). The volatility of pricing, or attempts to keep profit high, disrupts energy investment. Lack of investment helps disrupt the renewable transition – the renewable transition is also affected by a lack of renewable energy to power the energy for transition. The lack of renewable transition feeds civilisational collapse through societies causing ecological and climate damage. Corporations and free markets will not save us; neither will the governments that they control. Collapse produces further uncertainty and defensiveness, which affects people’s ability to deal with the problems other than in the standard way of causing more problems by staying with what has worked, and refusing to change habits, organisation and world view.
Finally, it is suggested that models of psychological breakthrough hold some hope for system breakthrough, provided people are prepared to venture into the unknown. This essentially is yet another way of discussing the Toynbee cycle, of civilisations facing challenge and overcoming them through change of worldview and habits, or collapsing because they (or the dominant people) are incapable of abandoning a worldview that has previously brought success. To get around this may require individual and community level innovation, and the expansion of that innovation throughout the society.
The First Problem: Price and demand increase
The IMF recognised this crisis and blogged:
Spot prices for natural gas have more than quadrupled to record levels in Europe and Asia, and the persistence and global dimension of these price spikes are unprecedented…..
Brent crude oil prices, the global benchmark, recently reached a seven-year high above $85 per barrel, as more buyers sought alternatives for heating and power generation amid already tight supplies. Coal, the nearest substitute, is in high demand as power plants turn to it more. This has pushed prices to the highest level since 2001, driving a rise in European carbon emission permit costs.
The return to coal and its pollution, does not bode well for solving our major problems of ecological destruction and climate change. Lurion De Mellon of Macquarie University also wrote in October about the increase in prices apparently leading to increased emissions:
the world is entering a new energy crisis the like of which hasn’t been seen since the 1970s…. [see footnote below on the oil crisis]
European and Asian gas prices are at an all-time high, the oil price is at a three-year high, and the price of coal is soaring on the back of energy shortages across China, India and Germany…..
The crunch in the gas market is forcing countries to revert to coal for electricity generation and for industry.
the first big energy scare of the green era is unfolding before [the eyes of people preparing for COP 26]. Since May the price of a basket of oil, coal and gas has soared by 95%. Britain, the host of the summit, has turned its coal-fired power stations back on, American petrol prices have hit $3 a gallon, blackouts have engulfed China and India, and Vladimir Putin has just reminded Europe that its supply of fuel relies on Russian goodwill…..
The crisis is not confined to one area, and events in one country, or set of countries, have effects in others.
The Economist goes on to imply that the intermittent nature of contemporary renewables, may also destabilise the energy market and make it more vulnerable to shock. This could be especially so if the system has been geared towards continual supply, and if modern economies are dependent on non-disruptive weather for predictable trade and production, during a period in which climate change is kicking in.
Others imply this shortage happened because of the Covid reprieve of September to November of 2021, which led to a massive increase in production and demand. This may be being terminated by the Omicron chaos of December 2021, but it is too early to tell. The explosive demand is usually said to be higher than supplies of a great many products, which were wound down due to lack of demand during Covid.
However, Bridgewater states, in a somewhat self-contradictory report, that supply is not really the problem, but is the problem for, at least, energy and metals:
This is not, by and large, a pandemic-related supply problem: as we’ll show, supply of almost everything is at all-time highs. Rather, this is mostly [a policy] driven upward demand shock….
real goods production [in the US] is now higher than it was pre-COVID….
there’s not enough energy to power economic activity given the current levels of demand…
[Likewise] Metals prices have risen sharply since last year, as demand has far outstripped supply….
The gap between demand and supply is now large enough that high inflation is likely to be reasonably sustained, particularly because extremely easy policy is encouraging further demand rather than constricting it.
For whatever reason, demand for energy appears to be exceeding supply, and capitalist economics is possibly not experienced in deliberately trying to reduce consumption growth, which might be essential when we are dealing with an over-consumption and over-demand crisis. High prices may cut back demand, but they may not. Growth seems to be an inherent demand in the system. Politicians campaign for growth in GDP, and companies which do not grow in size and profit, are often thought to be in decline. That system demand seems to be present in people’s world views and habits.
On top of this temporary (?) lack of supply and ongoing demands for growth, it will eventually be the case that fossil fuels will reach a practical limit, when the energy needed to extract them becomes greater than the energy released through burning them, and there is little surplus energy other than that produced by non fossil fuel sources. That is, fossil fuels will reach depletion, or stagnation of production. Rather than simply pushing prices up to match demand, this may cause price volatility, as markets adjust spasmodically. Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Post Carbon Institute argues that shortages are already happening.
There has always been some volatility in fossil fuel markets. But as depletion continues, price spikes and troughs are likely to grow in amplitude, and to become more frequent. And that’s precisely what we are seeing….
Without depletion, there would still have been price variation—just as there would still be extreme weather events without climate change. But, like climate change, depletion is a slowly accumulating background condition that widens the envelope of day-to-day or year-to-year extremes….
Market volatility makes fossil fuel companies wary to expand operations, as new projects are often many years in development, and the comparatively few remaining prospective drilling sites are unlikely to yield profits absent stable, high prices.
In a volatile situation, investment is slow, as there is less certainty of profit, especially if there is a fear of stranded assets. It is may be easier to make money on money markets, than in production, and this will slow useful investment further.
Second Problem: Lack of investment in transition
The Economist continues:
The panic has also exposed deeper problems as the world shifts to a cleaner energy system, including inadequate investment in renewables and some transition fossil fuels, rising geopolitical risks and flimsy safety buffers in power markets. Without rapid reforms there will be more energy crises and, perhaps, a popular revolt against climate policies.
In this calculation, fossil Fuels provide a total of 83.1% of energy supply. The rest is made up of Hydro 6.9%, Nuclear 4.3%, Renewables 5.7% (although this category includes biofuels which are not always green-renewables), and presumably traditional sources of energy.
The preponderance of fossil fuels, the precariousness or failure of fossil fuel supply together with the failure to replace and phase out fossil fuels would seem to be make the energy crisis primarily a crisis of fossil fuels, not a renewable problem. However, the tiny amounts of renewables may add stress to a stressed system, as there is not enough of them to compensate, and unlikely to be enough of them, soon. Not enough constructive investment in energy is happening. The Economist claims that investment is running at half the level needed to reach net zero by 2050, and argues that energy transition:
will require capital spending on energy to more than double to $4trn-5trn a year. Yet from investors’ perspective, policy is baffling. Many countries have net-zero pledges but no plan of how to get there and have yet to square with the public that bills and taxes need to rise.
Resistance to necessary change, resistance to dealing with the new, or a desire not to risk relationships with powerful corporations, can be expressed as confusion, and policy confusion may not help people to organise to defeat problems. This essentially comes down to refusal to challenge existing worldviews, habits or organised power structures.
It should be easy to agree that:
The green era, for all the talk and promises, hasn’t yet begun. The world’s energy sources in 2021 are little changed from the late 20th century. We are still deeply dependent on fossil fuels.
The previous section argued that there is not enough investment in renewables, and that volatility, and lack of policy clarity, may not mean enough renewables are produced. As suggested earlier, it seems easier to default to coal. However, countries and companies cannot keep expanding fossil fuel use to solve this energy problem if they are concerned about the serious problems of pollution, ecological destruction, and climate change. The more fossil fuels they produce the greater the problems.
The IEA adds to concerns by remarking that:
For all the advances being made by renewables and electric mobility, 2021 is seeing a large rebound in coal and oil use. Largely for this reason, it is also seeing the second-largest annual increase in CO2 emissions in history. Public spending on sustainable energy in economic recovery packages has only mobilised around one-third of the investment required to jolt the energy system onto a new set of rails…
Getting the world on track for 1.5 °C requires a surge in annual investment in clean energy projects and infrastructure to nearly USD 4 trillion by 2030.
To make the point yet again, it seems emissions are increasing to fix energy supply problems (increasing emissions is a habitual default position) and governments and corporations are not generating enough renewable energy to avoid this problem.
It is difficult to expand renewables if there are powerful vested interests resisting their expansion, if the necessary levels of renewables cost more than companies and governments are prepared to pay, the policy settings are confusing or otherwise not helpful, and if there is not enough energy to build renewables.
It takes energy to make solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and all the rest of the technology that policy makers propose to replace current fuel-burning infrastructure. Most of the energy that will be required for transition purposes, at least in the early stages, will have to come from fossil fuels….
If fossil energy prices are going haywire during the transition, that makes an already arduous and perilous process even more so.
Rystad Energy also argue that price volatility in manufacturing, materials and shipping, is affecting renewable energy:
The surging cost of manufacturing materials and shipping could threaten 50 gigawatts (GW) – a staggering 56% – of the 90 GW of global utility PV developments planned for 2022, a Rystad Energy analysis shows. Commodity price inflation and supply chain bottlenecks could lead to the postponement or even cancelation of some of these projects, impacting demand and consumer pricing for solar-generated power.
So, apart from not being able to hook renewables up to the grid in some places [15], there is another problem of price increases in renewables resulting from the current economic turmoil and possibly profit decline as collapse increases.
It can also be suggested that increased energy efficiency may just add to demand for energy, and new energy technology may not lessen the demand for old energy technology. Renewables have so far been built on top of coal, oil and gas rather than replacing them. Some societies might not have enough energy at the moment, but they may still have more than they did and it does not satisfy demand.
To me these seem primarily problems of government and scale, magnified by corporate domination, corporate habits and corporate power.
One thing that seems to have been conclusively demonstrated is that free markets and sensible investment will not save the world, neither will governments that are embedded in promoting those markets. Contemporary market led civilisation has failed to deal with its primary set of challenges of climate change, ecological destruction and emissions reduction. Indeed it has if anything tried to suppress awareness of those challenges. This will lead to civiliational collapse, unless there is a massive ‘rebirth’ driven by people outside of government and the corporate sector – not people pretending to be outside, and aiming for fascism.
The Fourth Problem: Civilisational collapse
There are some who argue that Contemporary Western Civilisation was generated by fossil fuels and depends on cheap and plentiful fossil fuels, and on cheap pollution, for the continuing growth (of the new technologies, material goods, profits and military strength) that it requires. Real renewable energy, and ecological care, may not be able to substitute for this ease of growth. If so, then emissions targets, emissions prices, and energy transition could lead to collapse.
Even if this is correct, habitual expansion almost always requires increasing energy use, to maintain that expansion (against resistance), and to maintain the added complexity that expansion adds to the organisational form which is expanding. So the continued workings of the current system may generate not a stable replacement of ‘bad’ energy sources with better, but demand an ongoing increase of energy supply (and disruptive pollution), especially if ‘developing’ countries are to ‘catch up’. That ‘need’ for energy expansion is further destabilising of transition processes.
We are in a period in which the processes which generate this dominant form of ‘civilisation’ also appear to producing the hottest years in recorded history, massive and apparently unprecedented forest fires, the increasing sparsity of ocean life, massive deforestation, massive decline of insect populations which will undermine pollination and food chains, and the flooding of ecologies with new chemicals of which we cannot yet know the synergies and consequences. The maintenance of any society depends upon maintaining its ecologies, adapting to their change, or at least the cessation of excessive destruction.
Some hope that economic growth/expansion can be ‘decoupled’ (separated) from environmental destruction and climate change. According to the European Environmental Bureau there is no evidence that such a position is possible.
not only is there no empirical evidence supporting the existence of a decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures on anywhere near the scale needed to deal with environmental breakdown, but also, and perhaps more importantly, such decoupling appears unlikely to happen in the future.
On top of this, as mentioned earlier, societies may be facing problems of fossil fuel depletion soon, as fossil fuels get used up, and that will also cause problems. These civilisational effects are likely to add to price volatility, as supply chains and production sites get disrupted.
The result is that contemporary Western (and many other) Civilisations are in crisis with their ecology and with the energy available, and will therefore have to change or collapse. So this is a ‘wicked problem‘ with no easy solution, and probably no solution we can agree on in advance. It is a wicked problem, that is easier to deal with by pretending that everything will be ok, and that we can avoid challenges, or overcome them by magic.
However, the reality is that if people in large scale societies continue as they are continuing, then their civilisational collapse will continue, intensify and be even less capable of controlled change. We need change – perhaps more change than just a change in energy supply.
Continued in
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Footnote: The 1970s Oil Shock
It may need to be said that this energy shock is not that similar to the 1970s oil shock. That was motivated by politics and by a demand for a fair price for oil. The oil shock only affected one source of energy, and was survived by increasing coal, gas and nuclear, and seeking fuel closer to home (North Sea fields etc). This is now largely impossible, without risking further collapse. Nuclear still seems way too slow to solve our problems in time, and again suffers the problem that it could just add to energy rather than replace it.
This follows on from an earlier group of posts about Jared Diamond’s book Upheaval , which is basically about strengths which help avoiding collapse when in a crisis.
Point 8: Experience of of success in previous crises.
This gives a person or nation confidence they can solve, or survive, crises. However it can also give false confidence, especially if powerful people in a society apply a method which no longer works, or which generated the current crisis. For example, the political and labour crisis produced by neoliberalism, cannot be solved by more neoliberalism. So we still need to face up to personal and social power and conceptual issues (which can resemble ego issues). Confidence might be good, but over-confidence or rigid faith in a method, might not. It’s two edged.
Point 9: Patience [in uncertainty]
Diamond defines this interestingly as “ability to tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity or failure at initial attempts to change.” I’m not sure this is what people normally mean by patience, but the description is probably a good thing. Do not attempt to resolve ambiguity or paradox too early, as that will crush awareness of complexity. Deciding that the method you have will have to work, is probably going to lead to problems. “It may take several attempts testing different ways.”
Diamond also points out that national problems generally require negotiation between groups with different aims, understandings, values and identities, and this does take normal patience.
To some extent this idea of toleration of uncertainty etc, blends with the next stage of
Point 10: Flexibility
Flexibility is the ability to change, to cast aside rigidity. This is not simply a matter of choice. Later on Diamond wonders if this criteria is applicable to countries. It may not be, but I suspect it can be applied to power relations, and possibly work relations. Again (it would seem) the stronger the divisions of power, the greater the lack of ‘circulation of elites’, and the more reluctant hierarchy is to learn from others ‘further down’ (hence obstructing information flow), the less flexibility. If you cannot risk offending fossil fuel companies, or whatever, and if it is easy to shift costs and damages downwards, then the less likelihood a nation has of solving the problem.
Point 11: Core Values
Values can render a person inflexible and cruel, yet they can also make a person trustworthy, refuse to yield, and able to act. They can bring both clarity and fog. This is one of those things which might be useful and might not. If the values are destructive, then it might be useful to realise that and change them. Values usually evolve to help people do what they have to do (to survive), but sometimes this can be slow to change, and they may end up defending the causes of problems such as the freedom of companies to pollute and destroy, or compulsory group loyalty or individualism.
This is an aspect, I think is situational rather than general.
Point 12: Freedom from constraints or responsibilities
This is difficult, especially socially. It is hard to be a politician, activist, public servant, citizen, who is free from constraints. Everyone has constraints, systems have constraints, ecologies have constraints, economies have constraints – the question is how badly they affect you or restrict your action.
Quite likely, people have to some extent part of the machine which has become geared to producing the problems (individual and social). You are likely to have responsibilities to others. Separating out, and gaining perception of new constraints, may require group work and group discussion. Diamond points out that nations have geographical, ecological and relational constraints. Their landscape makes some behaviours harder than others – deserts have consequences, cold and heat have consequences. Sharing a border with a much greater power has consequences. Being an island has consequences. Human actions in those constraints have consequences. You can engage in deforestation and soil can be swept away. You can over-farm. You can fish out the seas and so on. Constraints may have to be acknowledged and worked within. It could be useful to find out which restraints come from power relations, and which come from the nature of reality.
Problems with analysis
The fundamental problem is that these categories, while apparently useful, are extremely hard to test as they involve interpretation of complex systems. Sometimes in the book, it is clear what applies, and other times it seems to me, that we could have used different data, or even the same data, to draw opposite conclusions.
However, despite this fundamental problem, I still think it is interesting to look at the differences and similarities between personal and social resilience, and think about the capacity to face challenges.
At the least we can ask, what kind of social structures boost some capacities, what boosts the capacities too much, and what kind of structures destroy the capacity of people to respond. It sometimes appears, that with climate change, individuals and some groups, can respond far better than those in power, or those with wealth in general. In which case people might find it useful to look at these kinds of personal crisis strengths and apply them to their lives and organisations.
Shapiro has written a book which is supposedly diagnosing the problems with US, while actually promoting those problems.
Having read this book, I feel inspired to write another one – perhaps with the same title. It would be about the struggle between “unionists” and “woke” and would be just as unbiased and scholarly.
It would make points like:
Unionists believe that all real Americans are like them and agree with them; the rest are scum, not to be listened to, and possibly to be locked up, or shot in self-defense.
Woke believe there are lots of different groups in the US, that diversity is part of what makes people Americans.
Unionists believe that there is only one American history and everyone has experienced it the same way. There are no contemporary problems which arise from that history. History is a harmonious narrative of triumph over obstacles and in which slave owners cooperated with slaves and enobled them, and in which Native Americans knowingly surrendered to a superior culture.
Woke believe that history has been a different experience for different groups. Bosses and workers have not experienced history in the same way, white people not experienced it in the same way as black people, as Latino people, as native Americans and so on. This is normal. Histories of oppression still have effects on people, on where they live, on their general opportunities, on the way social institutions behave towards them and so on. Disharmonious history still has effects.
Unionists believe that talking about oppression, either recent or historic, just encourages fragmentation, and it should not be done. “I’m not racist therefore there is no racism”.
Woke people believe that not talking about oppression, either recent or historic, encourages and naturalises that oppression, and leads to fragmentation.
Unionists believe that the US “founding fathers” were men of extreme religious virtue, who followed a modern day protestant truth.
Woke people believe the US “founding fathers” had faults; many of them were slave owners, for example. These people were not modern day protestants, a lot of them were theists, deists and freemasons. They saw religions as potential sources of oppression of other religions, and were not keen on religious ‘irrationality’.
Unionists believe their religion is good and true and everyone should follow it. If they don’t they are probably satanic or communist.
Woke believe there are lots of different religions. Religions change and respond to similar and different challenges. Religions which encourage their followers to think they have the right to impose their virtues on others are dangerous to everyone.
Unionists believe religions should be able to discriminate against anyone they like, as long as it is not a fellow unionist.
Woke people are wary of giving people special permission to discriminate because those people say that is what God wants.
Unionists believe that the market always delivers the best results and governments always deliver the worst results – especially when governments try to curtail corporate power. In general, power based on wealth is not something they get concerned about at all – particularly if those wealthy people support or sponsor them.
Woke people believe the market does not always deliver the best result, and that people who are successful in the market tend to buy political power, so the country is ruled by the wealth elites for their own interest. On the other hand, the only thing which is remotely as powerful as the corporate sector is the government, so people should work to take back the government, and try to balance things out.
Unionists believe wealthy people deserve to pay less proportionate tax than poorer people.
Woke tend to believe that wealthy people can afford to pay more to benefit the society they use and benefit from.
Unionists believe that the only corporations and wealth elites who can be bad are recent: IT for example.
Woke people believe all corporations and wealth elites can be bad, some can be ok, and some can be mixed, but none of them should hold vast amounts more of power than anyone else.
Unionists claim the crimes of business leading to wealth stratification never happened or happened too long ago to matter.
Woke claim that crime matters whenever it happened, even if it did lead to current hierarchies.
Unionists seem to believe that any science which suggests some established corporate behaviour is harmful – such as the science of pollution, ecological destruction, climate change etc – must always be wrong.
Woke think the science is more likely to be right than assertions it can’t be correct because it would hurt the economy.
Unionists claim that any criticism of capitalism as it is, leads to tyrrany.
Woke believe that not criticising capitalism as it is, leads to tyrrany.
Unionists believe that America is a rights based society and that wealthy people on their side have more rights, because they are more talented and virtuous, and can afford to do things.
Woke people believe that America is a rights based society, but many people do not have equal rights, and we should aim to produce equal rights as best we can, even if that means that our own rights to discriminate against the currently less powerful are impaired.
Unionists say they want everyone to be able to succeed through hard work, while trying to make this impossible through reinforcing the wealth hierarchy.
Woke people want everyone to be able to suceed through hard work, and try to make this possible for everyone.
Unionists like authority. They want everyone to agree. They will lie to attain this. These are noble lies that keep everyone together. They don’t critisise the obvious lies on their own side, because those lies are useful to their power.
Woke people think diversity is normal and creative. Different views are likely to help problem solving. Getting as close to the truth as possible is the best aim, as policy is more likely to work.
Unionists will try to steal elections as a matter of course, because they are right and it is impossible that anyone could disagree with them without some kind of conspiratorial, or traitorous, bent. They claim the US is a republic (ie an ‘oligarchy’) and aim to use people to make this even more the case.
Woke people believe elections should be open and free, and that losing is part of democracy. They claim the US is an imperfect democracy and could be improved.
Unionists believe that union comes through everyone being the same, or having the same opinions.
Woke believe that union comes through learning to live with real diversity.
We are faced with the fact Unionists have an obligation to understand American history, rather than impose idology on it. They have an obligation to understand economics and social theory without imposing ideology on it. They have an obligation to understand American cultures. Finally, they have an obligation to learn to live with Americans who are not the same as them.
Given Shapiro’s book, this is not going to happen soon.
Cipolla’s “Laws of Stupidity” (The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity) are an interesting ‘useful joke’ for anyone who is concerned with information distortion, or the production of disorder. However, I think they can be easily be made more realistic, expanded and personal solutions proposed.
The axes
Cipolla first sets up two graph axes. The first axis ‘measures’ whether an action is harmful or beneficial to the person performing the action. The other axis ‘measures’ whether the action is harmful or beneficial for others. He then puts forward the suggestion that there are four ideal types of behaviour
If a person performs an act which is beneficial to themselves but harmful to others, he defines them as a ‘brigand’. I will use the word ‘criminal’ because of problems with English, which I hope will become clear as we progress.
If a person performs an act which benefits themselves and others, then they are defined as ‘intelligent’.
If a person performs an act that harms themselves and benefits others, he defines them as acting ‘helplessly’.
If a person performs an act that harms themselves and others then they are ‘stupid’.
The Problem with Nouns
The problem with nouns is that they tend to imply stability, and suggest a person can be classified in one of these categories forever in everything. Rather strangely he does use the idea that people can behave helplessly. So let us consider a slightly more realistic set of definitions.
If, in particular circumstances, a person performs an act which is beneficial to themselves but harmful to others, then they are behaving criminally.
If, in particular circumstances, a person performs an act which is beneficial to themselves and others they are acting intelligently.
If, in particular circumstances, a person performs an act which harms themselves and benefits others, they are acting helplessly
If, in particular circumstances, a person performs an act which harms themselves and others they are acting stupidly.
This makes it clear that otherwise intelligent people can in certain circumstances act stupidly. Which is something we can agree with and is also is part of Cipolla’s second law. The question now becomes in what kind of circumstances will people act in particular ways, psychologically and socially? We may never find a complete answer to that question, but at least we have the capacity to shift from either praise or condemnation, into something which might prove useful to ourselves.
“When do we behave stupidly” not “Damn, you are so stupid”.
The ‘laws of stupidity’ may change a bit as a result, and we may get a few more such ‘laws’ which add to our understanding.
Law 1
Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The amount of stupid behaviour is huge.
We can change this to: “In any given circumstances the number of people who will behave stupidly is larger than we think.”
This implies the people who behave stupidly in different situations may be different people – those people may behave intelligently, helplessly or criminally in other situations. We cannot assume that stupid people remain consistently stupid – indeed if they behaved in a stupid manner all the time, they might be more noticeable and less dangerous.
Law 2
The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
We can change this to: People who behave stupidly in one set of circumstances may behave in many other ways in different circumstances. “There is no observable behaviour which eliminates the possibility of a person behaving stupidly in some circumstance or other.”
Law 3
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
This is a definition not a law. But it is possibly wrong in implying that people are coherently stupid. Let us replace it with another definition.
Definition: “A person is behaving stupidly when they cause losses to another person orgroup of persons, while themselves deriving no gain or even incurring losses.“
Law4
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
Let us rephrase this as well: “People always underestimate the damaging power of people behaving stupidly. Dealing with a person who consistently behaves stupidly, or who behaves stupidly in the particular circumstances you are operating under, always turns out to be a costly mistake.“
This again helps to remind you that many people are not always stupid, and that a person who does not behave stupidly in most set of circumstances, can behave stupidly in another. It takes art to find out who is stupid, when.
Law 5
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
This is partially a rephrasing of the last ‘law’.
“People who often behave stupidly, or who behave stupidly in the circumstances you are in, are dangerous.”
Extra Laws
Given this approach we can also add some extra laws.
Law 6
“Even the wisest person is capable of behaving stupidly in the right circumstances.“
Non of us are, at all times, immune to behaving stupidly. This could be thought of as a basic ‘psychoanalytic’ statement, pointing towards the unconscious reality: stupidity is not just other people.
Law 7
“The more immune we think we are to behaving stupidly, the less chance we have of perceiving our stupid behaviour, or changing it.“
This seems almost obviously correct. I have never met a person who I thought was behaving stupidly (as defined by Cipolla), who could see they were behaving stupidly at the time. They tend to be vituperative in their defense, and condemn everyone else for stupidity (or malevolence) rather than themselves. They can usually point to areas of life in which they are not stupid, as evidence they cannot be behaving stupidly now.
‘Causes’
The Causes of people behaving stupidly could be both psychological and sociological. It could be a feedback situation, the more people who behave stupidly the more others are under pressure, and the more likely they are to behave stupidly as well.
It seems probable that people are more likely to behave stupidly, criminally, or helplessly, when they are exhausted, overworked, feel that superiors in the hierarchy are pressing them or not listening to them (bosses, politicians or other rulers), when they have little hope for the future, when they are flustered, neurotic, in fear and so on. Some of these kinds of circumstances will arise because of the interaction of individual response and social factors; we cannot expect everyone to behave the same, simply that more people are likely to behave non-intelligently under pressure.
It is, for example, likely that people, in the Western World, and elsewhere, are feeling exhausted and pressured by work or by the lack of work, they are likely (under neoliberalism) to feel that bosses and politicians are not listening to them but to ‘elites’ (however they define that), they may have little hope for the future due to economic decline, personal debt, job insecurity, or climate change, they may feel the world never leaves them alone, or they may build up anger by participating in polarising information groups online. All of which is likely to narrow their focus, and influence them to behave non-intelligently in some areas of their lives. They also may lack models of intelligent behaviour to emulate.
Solutions
Recognise the possibility that you may be behaving non-intelligently in some circumstances.
While this may be influenced by others, change starts with yourself.
Few ‘normal’ people want to behave stupidly, criminally or helplessly. They want to help and build for themselves and others. They want less pressure.
Pause and break the cycle – regularly.
Five minutes in every hour, take a break – with no stimulation (No reading, no watching tv or youtube, no gaming, no chatting, no brooding, no problem solving, no web browsing, etc. ).
Listen. Accept what is. What you are feeling. Accept your body. Pressing discomfort down can be useful in emergencies. It is not useful all the time. Listen. Look around. ‘Listen’ again. Let ‘images’ arise if they arise.
Be honest and kind to yourself. Self compassion is nearly always useful.
Relaxing demands, accepting feelings, can lead to solutions arising.
This is close to what has been called Dadiri – being open to the world and its patterns.
This may well not solve all your problems (we may need a change of system, which starts with you and your interaction with others), but it will almost certainly help you to behave intelligently in more circumstances – and that might help change the world, so that people are more likely to behave intelligently more often.
‘The science’ is fairly clear. Some, but not all, humans are causing massive environmental damage. One result is climate change, but there are many other harmful effects which are exceedingly likely to have very bad consequences for humans and others.
Part of the reason some humans are causing massive environmental damage is the way they dig for minerals, grow wood, grow food, pollute, catch fish, consume fossil fuels and energy, engage in transport, use concrete, and so on. The way modern industrial society interacts with ‘nature,’ or ecological systems, is harmful to nature and ecological systems and eventually harmful to humans, as humans are part of nature and most depend on nature for food and water.
There is a feedback loop here. Some gases that would be easily ‘recycled,’ such as CO2 by vegetation, get less recycled as forests are cut down and ocean plankton poisoned, so those gasses become more of a problem as we go along, trapping in heat which will desertify much land, produce droughts and storms, and kill large numbers of plants. Other plants may grow more, but probably not enough to make up for the destruction – its complicated.
Society, power and wealth
This harmful interaction of pollution, destruction and climate occurs because of social factors involving cheapness and power. Cheap extraction make higher profits for some people in the short term, it also makes material ‘development’ easier. Modern society, and its hierarchies, were built on fossil fuels. It is contentious as to whether such a society can exist as easily without such cheap and easy sources of energy. However, oil is getting harder to find, and requires more and more energy to extract – tar sands consume lots of energy to process, leaving little left over. Changing fuels will likely change society in unpredictable ways, and thus disturbs those people who benefit from that society and those ‘some people’ who benefit from the destruction.
Another more contentious reason, might be that high status people can indicate their status by their production of pollution (more air travel, bigger energy hungry cars, bigger homes, luxury yachts, more stuff bought from overseas, etc.), and often the pollution and destruction is channeled onto far less wealthy and powerful people, who have little chance of objecting.
Cheap extraction and pollution comes about because laws allow it. The people who benefit from the pollution and destruction, and who become wealthy or otherwise powerful, control the laws to make pollution allowable, or make the penalties trivial in terms of profits. Some of them may even argue that harmful pollution is good for you.
Some ‘do nothingness’ arises because some States are trying to gain parity with the West (economically and militarily) and cheap fossil fuel energy is one known way to do that. They may also feel that the West had over a hundred years of pollution for free, and should allow them to ‘catch up.’
Agitation against fossil fuels arises, because there is no evidence that it has been diminishing naturally over the last 30 years, and so people who worry about climate change also feel they have to use political solutions.
So ecological destructiveness arises through politics and power, and attempts to curtail it through science also requires politics (and probably technological development which cannot be guaranteed).
That science has become political is because of resistance to change from the established wealth polluter elites.
Factionalisation/Polarisation as Politics
However, even if everyone benefitted immediately from lowering destruction and recognized this, people would still have different ideas about how to deal with the problems, just as they have different politics and approaches to life in general. This situation is made worse by political polarisation, so that one side will not listen to anything proposed by the other side, and dismisses it automatically as ‘political’.
Some groups seem to be trying to increase polarisation to prevent discussion about what we should do to solve the problems, to prevent action that might reduce the problems, and sometimes to encourage what look to be fantasy solutions like carbon capture and storage. Some of those groups seem to be funded by people who might think they would loose on profit if the problems were corrected. For example, if we stop burning fossil fuels, that is likely to have an effect on the viability of fossil fuel companies, and their continuing resistance to climate action seems pretty well documented.
Complexity
Another significant cause of problems is that economic, social and ecological systems are all complex systems, and hence difficult to predict in specific, hard to separate from other systems, and have so many interactions that we cannot observe them all, or understand them completely. It can be hard to formulate a policy which is not experimental (i.e. we learn how effective it is by implementing it). If you require simple and dogmatic solutions you may not find them, you certainly will not get agreement on them because of already established differences in beliefs, and the chance of getting agreement is lowered still further by cultivated polarisation.
Conclusion
So there are three main causes of politics about science even when the science is well agreed:
a) natural differences of opinion, probably based on political inclinations, about what to do;
b) the difficulty of completely understanding the systems we are trying to ‘heal’, and of knowing the exact results of actions in advance, and;
c) wealthy and powerful vested interests that don’t want to do anything to threaten their habits and wealth.
I’m pretty old and I’ve seen a massive shift to the right over the last 40 years, so what might seem leftist to others seems rightist to me. So most people might call The Guardian ‘hard left’ but that is only the case because of the shift. Likewise the Right media have been engaged in screaming, shouting and name calling for over 40 years and people have become habituated to it and obviously don’t even notice it any more. The Guardian can occasionally engage in similar abuse and it seems to be a terrible shock to people who have been reveling in it the other way around.
Let me try to express the current spectrum relating it to the realities of 50 years ago
FAR RIGHT:
Support for established hierarchy, power and wealth, until the far right take over, in which case the hierarchy is The Party. They deliberately use, or encourage, violence to persecute relatively powerless people who disagree with them, or who they think inferior such as gays, people of the wrong religion, people of the wrong race. Women are baby making machines no more. The far right are nationalist, sexist, racist and militaristic; raising hatred and anger against particular social groups is fundamental to their strategy – discussion between groups has to be hindered or stopped. Seeking enemies is what they need to generate loyalty. The party aims to become a militia and violence is naturalised, but blamed on others. Any election which does not deliver the “right” result is clearly faked up by the evil left. Eventually elections must either give the “right” result or be abandoned. Science is abandoned. ‘Truth’ is whatever helps the party to gain support. The death of people to support the comfort of the hierarchy is something they can easily live with.
When I was young, the far right was anathema to both mainstream right and left. We remembered the Nazis and the violence of Fascism in Italy and Spain – indeed Spain was still fascist. Nowadays this dislike, and the reasons for it, has been forgotten and the Republicans are moving into the far right with significant success, and some people in Australia clearly want to follow them.
RIGHT:
The right supports the established hierarchy. In modern terms they support the corporate hierarchy, whatever they might say to the contrary. People exist to serve the market and their employers, and the workers should be persecuted and the wealthy nannied. Education exists to provide jobs. Universities should become profit centres, not centres for investigation. Any thought which differs from this should shut up.
Current examples:
Robodebt which penalises unemployed people who took temporary work (which you would have thought might be praised), and nanny big businesses who were paid Jobkeeper and did not need it but kept it.
If there is a country and farmers party then farmers are always sacrificed to mining, or other corporate, interests.
Freeloading pollution by business is good. Environmental protection that actually does anything, bad.
Any science (or thinking ) that might hamper corporate profits must be wrong, exaggerated, or biased by leftism.
Try to shield business from public anger; such as avoid Royal Commissions into banking for as long as possible, and then ignore most of the recommendations when it is found corruption is normal. Corruption is just the free market in action.
Talk about liberty, but always mean the liberty of the wealthy, everyone else has to suck it.
Be prepared to embrace a far right attack on a minority if it looks like it will be electorally pleasing and take votes away from the far-right and give those votes to the Right.
Currently moving into far right territory. This is the current position of the Coalition and Murdoch Empire, although Murdoch gives lots of space to the far right as well.
RIGHT LEANING:
Think of providing bandages and medicines for those who fail in the capitalist system, or to repair the damage done by capitalism, but otherwise leave the system alone. Try to be relatively humane, and occasionally mention social mobility as a good thing, and help it happen. Think you can control climate change AND sell coal and gas, because it might be inconvenient to do otherwise.
Current Position of the ALP. Old position of the Coalition. Sydney Morning Herald in the past, although steadily moving rightwards
CENTERIST:
Take positions from Right Leaning and Left Leaning
LEFT LEANING
Admit capitalism and The Market do not always work. Provide bandages for capitalist damage. Increase the power and security of workers, so they have decent jobs, conditions and income. Aim for a functioning social security system. Encourage education to be about learning for life, with free and open thinking untacked by the government, and aware that sometimes academics are a bit batty, but that is kind of interesting. Social mobility is recognised as vital to getting new ideas and approaches and avoiding stultification. Prosecute corporate corruption, and social damage generated by corporate behaviour. Worry about ecological destruction and climate change. Encourage green consumerism, and environmental protection that goes a little beyond “isn’t it sad that iconic animals are dying out”. Recognise you cannot solve the climate problem by selling fossil fuels no matter how profitable. Hope renewable energy will solve the problems with a little just transitions theory. Think science is the best guide we have to reality.
The Guardian, in general, with the exception of one or two writers who would never be published in the mainstream media. Most Greens.
LEFT:
The Capitalist system might be the best we have, but it is inherently destructive and raddled with contradictions. The Left is actively critical of the way the system works. Left to itself capitalism will destroy society completely. Everyone should have equal power and representation. Workers should have input into the businesses they work for, rather than be treated as obedient machines. Workers know what they are doing, often better than management does. Government only exists to protect all the people, and to open the hierarchies. It may be necessary to nationalise industries in the public good, especially if they form “natural monopolies” (such as energy or water) or if they are needed for life, as competition can run down natural resources: It may be necessary to set up State run businesses as public services to compete with commercial businesses to guarantee competition and end normal crony capitalism. In the past this included things like the Commonwealth Bank, Telecom, ABC, etc. This will not be popular with business, because they don’t like real competition and non-corruption as it lowers profits. The left believes that we should severely prosecute corporate corruption and non-competitive behaviour, as we are relying on its absence for the system to work. They may also try to avoid situations in which incompetent or corrupt corporate heads get payouts on dismissal which could keep many workers in jobs for years. The aim is to mitigate and reform capitalism to such an extent it becomes a democratic system responsible to the will of the people, and not intrinsically destructive. Aim to change the delivery of harms into the delivery of goods. This was the post-war ALP until somewhere in the Hawke and Keating reign, and parts of the doctrine used to be received favourably by the mainstream right – partly because of the real fear of worker based revolution.
Nowadays, some Greens, some old people, and very small parties run out of bedrooms 🙂
FAR LEFT
Capitalism is inherently corrupt and destructive. It must be overthrown, and its supporters given the choice of re-education and taking real work, or being put against the wall and shot. Given capitalism is inherently violent against workers and steals the products of their labour and ingenuity, violence is justified in its overthrow. Because the new state will be threatened by overseas capital (which is always the case) then the State will temporarily be a dictatorship of the proletariat, until it is established, and strong enough to resist these external threats. The aim is complete liberty for all, not just for capitalist elites, but this always fails because of the chaos produced by revolution coupled with attacks from outside.
Most people used to think the Extreme left was well intentioned, but unable to perceive the effects of their actions. There is hardly any of this movement remaining.
*********
My personal politics is more or less old fashioned left conservatism; we should not abandon the checks and balances which grew to moderate capitalism and protect ordinary people, together with an appreciation of the dangers of inherited hierarchy and well intentioned radical disruption.
Charles Hampden-Turner, Linda O’Riordan and Fons Trompenaars have recently released a two volume work Capitalism in Crisis. This deserves some attention as they are all established business writers, who want to recognise problems with capitalism, and fix them. This is not radical left stuff, it is also fairly simple.
Here I will simply summarise the opening salvo, because its not available online as far as I can see, and I think it deserves some publicity. If this felt to contravene copyright by either authors or publishers please contact me via the comments. I clearly do not make money from this action.
Shareholder dominance = Shareholder extraction
Firstly they point out that wealth is created by all the people in the production/distribution/sales process working together. They call these people ‘stakeholders’. I personally strongly dislike this term but, despite being business writers, they Do NOT limit the term to people within or invested in the business, as is usual, and include people such as:
employees, suppliers, customers the community, the government, the environment and the shareholders.
They emphasise that while shareholders are important, they should be the last to benefit.
they can only collect what the other stakeholders have created between them.
Without the work of others there is nothing for shareholders. However, the system has now been [politically] structured so that shareholders get priority, and they tend to increase their percentage of their wealth generated at the expense of other stakeholders, therefore reducing the percentages that go elsewhere. [This priority is often explicit in business talk: “we must look after our shareholders” “Our sole responsibility is to our shareholders” and so on. ]
The authors allege that this set-up decreases productivity and innovation, probably as there are fewer rewards within the business itself, and less constructive connection with communities outside.
As we have seen repeatedly, companies engage in share buy backs, pushing the share prices up, and allowing managers who have been rewarded with shares to sell back to the companies on a rising market. It helps actions which temporarily drive up the share price, but weaken the company in the long run – such as sacking experienced staff. Going by the share price, and for maximum leanness or profit now, does little for company robustness or resilience.
Another problem is that those companies who spend money on improving themselves and their staff, in researching problems, and improving products, don’t give as good shareholder returns, and the share price often becomes cheap (not a good investment) and raiders can buy them up, and strip the spending away, funneling it back to the shareholders which now includes themselves. [Or they can engage in asset stripping, as was big in the Reagan years, in which components of the firms are sold off for more than the company is valued on the share market. The killing is made, and the often productive company destroyed.]
Money
Is the purpose of industry to make money? Or is the purpose of money to make industry?
“Industry” by which the authors seem to mean collaborative building or making, is what generates wealth. It needs money, but once its purpose becomes to make money then it can be hampered, as people focus on the money rather than on problems or the building – [the easiest route to personal benefit becomes selected, rather than company benefit]. Innovation is hampered because little monetary reward is given to innovations which are not directed or anticipated by superiors. Money can support innovation but not create it out of nothing.
Money by itself is sterile. No two coins ever created a third coin or ever will.
Money gives a single focus on getting more of it, or more ‘goods’. Past financial results govern predications of what will happen, and the push towards future performance, rather than paying attention to what is happening in the world – and this includes exploitation and destruction of our environment. Yet:
the unit of survival includes our environment and we will sink together.
Finally people try to control finance, which is impossible [it is a complex system], and company efforts to rigorously control its finance or the finance of the world further disorganises the company and the world financial system. [Although it is not discussed here, this can generate the problem of “debt capitalism” [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] (please note that many analysts reduce the total debt to GDP ratio by not including private debt which is important and nowadays seems to compare with government debt). Debt gives corporations ‘energy’ and financial stability, but eventually the debt grows to such an extent that it overwhelms the productive economy: growth comes from increasing debt rather than from production of useful items; property prices inflate and so on. Eventually, the system, or the currencies of the world, will probably have to collapse, and billions of middle class people will probably lose their savings and their homes.]
[This does not mean that companies should not look after their finances, but that over-control, or over-borrowing, can be disastrous. Finding the mean may not be easy]
The Wealth Cycle vs The Wealth-destruction cycle
In a wealth creating cycle, the focus is not just on profit to shareholders. Investors support the other stakeholders and then take a fair share of the wealth created between them all.
[Illth should also be minimalised, but this is hard in a primarily profit seeking environment, as harms are considered an externality or a bonus.]
In other words, wealth is encouraged by looking after the producers or increasing job satisfaction, rather than by treating producers as disposable servants or slaves. Good relationships are often important to human functioning, creativity and production.
In a wealth destruction cycle, relationships and good conditions are severed or destroyed by monetary concerns. The priority given to shareholders, means that they extract money from the other “stakeholders.” Wages are held down. Workers are threatened by redundancies. Workers are substituted for by machines, or by export of production overseas, and sacked. [A high unemployment rate, and low hyper-strictly monitored unemployment benefits, helps keep workers nervous and exhausted. Trainings become threatenings, consultation processes become enforcements.] R&D is cut as it often fails and is an expense. Supplier payments get delayed, and reliable, high-quality suppliers can be threatened if they do not cut prices. The tax payments which support the societies the companies use for earnings and production are minimised or avoided, often by complicated networks of ownership, overseas debt, transfer pricing and so on. Local environments, and living conditions, are destroyed, as few shareholders live in those environments, and its nearly always cheaper in the short-term to destroy.
The money is transferred away from workers upwards to shareholders, by the way the system is organised.
Shareholder focused management has conquered labour of all types, lowering wages (or increase in wages) for most people, and this means there is less money in circulation for basic products, which probably puts prices up to keep shareholders happy, which causes more poverty or precarity.
No wonder employees become disengaged, growth slows and world market-shares shrink. Wages in the US have flat-lined for a generation or more. There is growing resentment among people.
And the system that sets this problem up, then sets about blaming people [who have little power or responsibility, but who seem different]: migrants, refugees, [racial minorities, university professors, radical communists, feminists, scientists and so on, anything other than the managerial and shareholding elites.] This sets up a further hampering of the system, as real problems are not faced up to, especially if they cause corporate, or group based, unease.
Our means of controlling the anxiety generated by the system in which we live typically makes things worse – we become more alarmed by the scapegoats and suffer more from the real problems we ignore. This in turn leads to more escapism and less focus on real problems. For many the escapism comes through drugs, alcohol or consumption, which further hamper people’s ability to deal with reality and adds to their problems.
Mind-set, Re-set
The usual solution is to change world view, and indeed that is important. [We can see the effects of the change in which a billionaire becomes the hero of displaced Americans and then tries to steal an election. Whether this change in world view will generate any long term change or not, it has certainly altered things.]
So the ideology of the Industrial Age is giving way to an ideology for the Age of Nature, which is a possibility, [but it is being hard fought against, and on many fronts. Not only by corporations by by Religions, who insist that we are not part of the World, we are part of Spirit or Soul, or our residence is in heaven above. ] However, the Age of Nature implies that ‘we’:
must learn to sustain what sustains us.
rather than believing in The Market or a kind of deity that rewards prudence and punishes sloth.
[An ideology of the Age of Nature, involves what I have called thinking ecologically. That is thinking in terms of systems and interactions, and the ways systems change with changes elsewhere, they way that changes circle on themselves. To go back to the beginning point, shifting the economy so that it benefits shareholders and shareholder companies, changes the whole focus of the way the economy works. People near the bottom, are of little consequence, as they get little money, and are not deemed worthy of money. There is no sense, as there was in the 1950s, 60s and 70s that the economy was about improving life for all, or that if lower profits helped worker integration, power and enjoyment then that was worthwhile. see footnote below]
The economy is more like a tree or living system. Nature is circular, systemic, paradoxical and fractal…. the whole is inevitably more than its parts.
We cannot command other creatures without consequences. Process works in multiple loops: self-interest spurs our willingness to serve others and serving others is in our own self-interests.
The question is whether we can make that change to viewing things from an ecological perspective, rather than a “dominance of shareholder wealth perspective”? It will be difficult as so much benefit is geared to wealth. This is the ultimate problem of climate change,
The reason I quite like this approach is that it’s focus on how shareholders and some managers have levered the system to benefit themselves and destroy our ability to perceive the world reasonably accurately, reminds us that the solution to destructive capitalism can be political. Neoliberal ideology helped support the takeover of the old system of capitalism, which worked reasonably well, and helped support ordinary people. So a new political development may be able to restore a modified version of this older ‘state of the world.’ Otherwise we are faced with the unstable prospect of either crashing, or overthrowing capitalism and that leads to its own dangers…
*
Footnote
From the Parliamentary library. Australian Conservative hero and deceased Prime Minister, Robert Menzies on social justice. In other words it is not necessary to live as we do:
“The country has great and imperative obligations to the weak, the sick, the unfortunate. It must give to them all the sustenance and support it can. We look forward to social and unemployment insurances, to improved health services, to a wiser control of our economy to avert if possible all booms and slumps which tend to convert labour into a commodity, to a better distribution of wealth, to a keener sense of social justice and social responsibility. We not only look forward to these things; we shall demand and obtain them. To every good citizen the State owes not only a chance in life but a self-respecting life.”
Menzies saw social justice as an issue of rights rather than charity.
“The purpose of all measures of social security…. is not only to provide citizens with some reasonable protection against misfortune but also to reconcile that provision with their proud independence and dignity as democratic citizens. The time has gone when social justice should even appear to take the form of social charity.”
Charity is a benevolence to be given or withheld to supplicants at will. Social justice is a defined right of respected citizens to social security in times of need.
Menzies, who had seen the excesses of laissez faire and the effects of boom and depression, rejected the view of government as merely “ holding the ring, while private enterprise fought and won on the basis of the fight going to the strongest and the devil take the hindmost ”.
Liberalism was not to be the servant of private enterprise. Again and again, using remarkably similar words, Menzies rejected this notion.
“We stand for the dynamic community force of private enterprise; we are its protectors and encouragers but we are not its servants. We prefer the live hand of the private entrepreneur to the dead hand of socialism; but if the individual is to have social and industrial justice and to be guarded against what might become the tyranny of the strong, private enterprise must accept its duties or even its burdens.”
the community has a definite responsibility to provide adequate security for individuals against the results of economic disaster. None of us accept any philosophy which says that those who fall by the wayside are to be left to fend for themselves.
The first answer to this foul doctrine of the ‘class war’ is to do all we can in a positive way to show both employers and employees that they work in a common enterprise, in which neither can succeed without the other, in which each should share in prosperity, in which the employer’s greatest asset is a body of contented employees who feel that they are understood and fairly treated, and the employee’s greatest asset is a successful business which can guarantee to him steady employment and expanding opportunities. We say to the employers of Australia that they have a great responsibility on this matter. One of the tragedies of modern large-scale industry is that the relations between employers and employees tend first to become remote, and then estranged and then embittered. The wage-earner in an industry is a human being whose welfare should be the care of the industry in which he co-operates. Legal duties and legal wages are not all. We have fallen behind advanced industrialised nations in our realisation that the personal factor in industry requires constant attention and a warm and sympathetic understanding. The best employers know this; but there are still too many who have failed to appreciate that an automatic resistance to all claims, and a belief that the only obligation to employees is to be found in minimum wages and conditions, are just as much an encouragement to the ‘class war’ as the subversive activities of mischievous agitators.
This blog note is an unfinished attempt to say something about the basis of ethics, legitimation, delegitimation and the struggles around them in the NSW country town of Narrabri, and the surrounding Narrabri Shire. While this is all highly provisional, it can be stated that the main struggle appears to occur within the context of ‘resources curse’.
Public Domain map of NSW from Ian.Macky.net [Unintended distortion by the blog software?]
Introducing Narrabri
The Narrabri region, as referred to here, is an area in the Northwest of NSW, often (but not always) called ‘the Northwest’, not just Narrabri town, or shire. It is cursed with plenty and lack of resources, both of which are issues because of climate change. Most of the time I will call the area the Northwest.
The Northwest has plentiful supplies of coal and gas, and a marked lack of water, through prolonged drought and possibly declining water tables. The Northwest used to be primarily a farming area, but farms are now hard pressed, and threated by recent mining, with coal dust and threatened damage to the water table through gas mining. There are also large cotton farms which may provoke more water shortages for smaller farms.
As shall be covered in more detail later on both the Federal and State governments seem keen to have more fossil fuel mines and have supported the mining companies in this area. These kind of events may foreshadow the outcome of the 2021 COP – we can also think of a massive expansion of Chinese coal mining [1], [2], and a UN report which apparently claims the world is going to increase fossil fuel emissions until at least 2040, almost three times higher than what’s needed to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.
We may be seeing the Green Paradox ramp up [3], [4] – the idea that as it becomes likely coal, and even gas, will be phased out, there is an commercial and ethical imperative to sell or use as much as possible. This is a position encouraged by a massive price increase for coal, going from $US60.00 per ton October last year to $US230.00 per ton this month.
If we are going to try and specify groups, we can specify: farmers, business people in town, mining workers, residents close to mines (usually farmers), residents distant from mines (townsfolk) and Gomoroi people.
Legitimacy struggles
The situation in the Northwest involves an ethical struggle over the legitimacy of fossil fuel mining. Because there is no agreed on basis for ethics, it is hard to resolve this situation totally through the application of ethics alone; it seems probable there are large irresolvable differences between the positions of various social groups/categories. As suggested earlier, ethics is a matter of relative social power between different social group or categories, group identities, relative ‘structural’ positions between groups, changing or maintaining cosmologies, changing or maintaining customs and habits and changing contexts or framings, and arguments over those contexts and framings. It can in the final case depend on threat, violence and exclusion.
It seems to me that the legitimacy argument in the Northwest has several interactive strands, based on the factors just discussed. As also previously suggested legitimacy is not distributed equally between all sections of the population and involves struggle just like ethics. Legitimacy may also be risked any time it is asserted.
Maintaining and changing customs and habits
Fossil fuels are established and familiar, they involve established customs and habits, and modes of organisation. The way forward is relatively clear. This lends legitimacy and ethical potency. Renewable Energy may require new customs, new habits and new modes of organisation, as well as generate new forms of instability while becoming established, and so looks precarious and illegitimate.
There is a sense that the company itself claims to support local customs and improve them for example:
The Santos Festival of Rugby was a momentous success for Narrabri Shire and Santos, bringing the community together after prolonged drought and the COVID-19 pandemic for three days of rugby action in February…. The exciting pre-season game saw the Waratahs claim victory over the Reds, taking home a $25,000 reward and the prestigious Santos Cup.
In preparation for the festival, Santos upgraded Dangar Park with broadcast quality stadium lighting and installed wi-fi connectivity into the clubrooms, which will potentially attract more large-scale events in the future. The economic benefits to the community have been warmly welcomed. The event injected approximately $700,000 into the community through Santos’ direct spend with local suppliers, as well as indirect spend on hospitality and accommodation from visitors.
Other stories in the ‘Community News’, point out the company is going to be net-zero emissions by 2040, which seems improbable, that it is “supporting local business,” “part of the community” and so on. Trying to establish it is one of ‘us’, and generous.
Other people are also mining fossil fuels and selling them, why shouldn’t we?
Cosmology: Prosperity and development
This might be called a society wide pragmatic frame, but it also involves cosmology – in the sense that accepted wisdom implies this is the way the world works, and is the way the world works for the best – the assumption is that abandoning this frame is the first step to chaos.
Fossil fuels have brought what is defined as prosperity and development, where development is defined as the process of increasing material prosperity, increasing technical sophistication and boosting military security. Prosperity and development are defined as good, and as a purpose of life which should be spread throughout the planet – the undeveloped world tends to be seen by the developed world as ‘backward’: poverty ridden and intellectually inadequate whether this is true or not. Fossil fuels are the basis of modernity and benefit many people who use electricity and automobiles, as well as those who profit from them. Prosperity and Modernity are cosmologies which provide contexts and frames for fossil fuel production and use. Maintaining those fossil fuels is therefore the basis of that good, and a potential way of spreading that good. Without fossil fuels life will decline. It is certainly true that fossil fuels have provided plentiful energy (although it is getting harder to obtain), and it is doubtful that renewables can supply similar amounts of energy in the short term.
Many folk in the town (it seems especially influential business people) also support mining because they see the mines as a potential source of prosperity and jobs in the town, which will save the town. There is also a reasonably sized body of activists who see the mining as purely destructive – some of whom are trying to encourage renewable development. Mostly the mining’s obvious deleterious affects occur in the country, and affect farmers, but the ties between farmers and town seems weaker than it once was. There are larger corporate farms rather than family owned farms. Not having the same money farmers are said to not spend as much in town, and they don’t hire as much labour from the town – possibly because of technical ‘advancement’ and the increase in scale.
[Once it was] plausible to support a large family on 250 acres with crops, … [however] today a farmer would need 2000 acres and capital to invest in machinery and equipment.
Brooks et al. 2001. Narrabri: A Century Remembered 1901-2001: p.15
Given the apparent lessened ability to depend on farming, the Mayor of Narrabri at the time, Cathy Redding, argued that the mines should go ahead because:
Population retention would be one advantage for Narrabri, in that jobs would be created, new manufacturing businesses would develop and the multiplier effects of these developments would ensure regional growt
In reality, local prosperity is a matter of how the mining is organised, where the profits go, where the ongoing operational payments go and so on. It is a legitimising frame, which may have little local truth. Indeed the argument that gas mine workers come from outside, that profits are largely transferred elsewhere, while costs remain (such has increased rental housing prices, damage to ecology and water) seems to be one of the most common arguments against the mining. In general the response is largely to assert that prosperity will result, and that Narrabri Shire will avoid the costs. A number of local businesses do stand to benefit from the mines, from increased economic traffic in town and from contracting work with the mines, which legitimates the mine through prosperity contexts. However, results from the 2016 census imply that mining has a relatively low effect; it currently provides 5.4% of jobs, comparing with 11.6% in health and social assistance, 10.5% in retail, 7.7% in Education and 7% in Agriculture forestry and fishing.
Sustainability of the local area, becomes sustainability by new jobs in one field. This acts to promote the gas and distract from environmental damage. There are people who are enthusiastic about this form of sustainability, people who reject it, and people who accept it will happen. It is not really clear from the figures that the Narrabri region is in radical population decline, but we need to wait for the current census results.
I’d suggest that the people who accept it will happen and those who are enthusiastic are that way, because there is almost nothing else officially on offer to generate prosperity, although a brief survey our students did of people in the street, suggested that the idea of Narrabri as a tourist food town was very popular. Many people were clearly fed up of being questioned, which suggests they accept it will happen, rather than working towards rejection.
Renewables are personally popular, but seem to have little social consequence. There was at least some acceptance of the delegitimating arguments against renewables by lack of consistency, and lack of intensity – which is primarily about habit and custom – see below (#). There is little struggle against renewables, probably because renewables are not a threat. They can be almost ignored – which offers a degree of freedom.
Prosperity framings are reinforced by corporate and State practice, and by the widespread neoliberal ideology which acts to put business first, suggests local prosperity flows from encouraging or subsidising corporate prosperity, and attacks any kind of inhibition on business liberty – an ideology which is so persuasive that it is adopted by all the major parties. The supposed farmers party (the Nationals) always seems to put corporate interests ahead of farming interests, as when they protect mines instead of farms, or continue to agitate for lack of climate action, when farmers are pressured by climate change and water problems. Matt Canavan of the National Party has remarked:
About five per cent of our voters are farmers, it’s about two per cent of the overall population. So 95 per cent of our voters don’t farm, aren’t farmers or don’t own farmland.
Furthermore, with the gradual erosion of the welfare state and attacks on unemployed people, like robodebt, there is little other way for ‘ordinary people’ to survive unless it be hanging on to corporate ‘prosperity’.
Changes in Cosmology?
However, the context of this cosmology may be shifting, as argued in a previous blog, the Business Council of Australia, after a long period of complete climate-action denial, has moved into issuing plans for emissions targets and reductions in emissions. The plan is a little ambiguous about coal and gas exports, and it seems significantly motivated by fear of others acting on climate and lessening trade with Australia as a result, but it could change the context significantly and suggest that fossil fuels are not the only, or necessary, way to go.
Protestors can also use the ‘economic reality’ argument:
“Financial institutions around the world are increasingly unwilling to back polluting fossil fuel projects like what Santos proposes at Narrabri.”
Coal seam gas drilling has bought a harsh boom bust cycle to other towns, especially in Queensland, leaving the towns with little but damage and rusting well sites. This surprisingly, has little effect on the prosperity framing for many. It appears local business knows the risks, thinks it is smart enough not to be caught out by the damage that has happened in other towns, and that this intelligence helps support the legitimacy of the operation. They want it to succeed, or need it to succeed, without cost, so it must. To some extent this is doing what other people have done with the hope it has different consequences. However, the realisation of damage elsewhere is a challenge to cosmologies of prosperity.
Another challenge to prosperity through fossil fuels is the idea of prosperity through renewables. An ISF report suggested as one option the rather unlikely figures of “2,840 [local] ongoing maintenance and operation jobs by 2030” if Narrabri started going (corporate) renewable, whereas Santos only promises “up to 200 ongoing positions” [5], [6]. The problem seems to be that the ISF figures seem exceptionally high for solar, and so unpersuasive. People have another experience with solar farms in NSW – they require very little maintenance – mainly cleaning (with the expectation of water use).
Finally while the Gas mining has been justified by NSW need for local gas, a report conducted for the Climate Council suggests that NSW is likely to:
reduce its annual gas demand by the same amount that the Narrabri Gas Project is forecast to produce, as soon as 2030.
This report effectively renders the Narrabri Gas Project redundant. We already know that this project will drive up greenhouse gas emissions, worsen climate change and do nothing to reduce power prices. Now we also know the project is completely unnecessary when it comes to meeting the state’s energy needs,
Power relations – Fossil fuel companies and the State
In corporate capitalism, in general, corporations have more bases for power than community groups. The have wealth, contacts, prestige, ability to put out information, buy politicians and think tanks, even gain violence from police or from outsiders (there is no suggestion that companies in the region have done this, but it is certainly possible in general) etc. The power relations are not equal, and many people may think siding with the corporations could grant them benefits, while opposing them could make their situation worse.
Fossil fuels and fossil fuel companies, have State support which can override any local objection that does not command the allegiance of a vast majority of local people, and this potential for power when allied with at least some at the local level, not only gives fossil fuels support or indifference, but makes them easier and cheaper to mine. For example it has been alleged that the State government neglected to implement most of its Chief Scientists recommendations to make gas drilling safe [7], [8] [9].
One person in Narrabri insisted that
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.
The Federal minister apparently approved the gas wells before the company explained which parts of the Pilliga forest would be cleared, it finished investigating effects on local groundwater, or developed a biodiversity plan, important given local koala habitats and declines in koala populations not to mention other endangered animals. Later on the project was boosted by the Federal Government’s ‘gas-led recovery‘ (“Cheaper, more abundant gas is the second pillar of our energy plan for COVID recovery. We’ve got to get the gas.” “this [Narrabri project] is 1,300 jobs, $12 billion worth of investment and it is absolutely critical“) and that government’s agreement with the NSW state Government to fund gas [10], [11], [12], [13]. One comment was:
The state government has committed to injecting an additional 70 petajoules (PJ) of gas per annum into the east coast market in return for $3 billion from the Commonwealth government.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian flagged two possibilities to supply the gas; import it or source it from the yet-to-be-approved Santos Narrabri Gas Project, which will create 70 PJ a year….
[The local MP said:] “They have absolutely corroded the independent process,…
“Regardless of the good intentions and the upstanding integrity of the Independent Planning Commission, if the project is approved, the perception will always be they dangled $3 billion in front of them to get the approval.”
It seems that in July 2020 the NSW Government was worried that Federal support for the Narrabri project was too overt and that:
any impression that the outcome of the IPC [the NSW Independent Planning Commission] process is pre-determined could undermine public trust in the process.
They apparently realised that enforcing the case could undermine legitimacy. However, the project was listed as one of 15 major projects to gain a reduction in their “assessment and decision timeframes.” This received remarkably little publicity at the time. There are frequent references to a PM’s announcement, but the announcements I’ve found did not include all the projects, or mention the Narrabri project.
Fighting against large fossil fuel companies is also a difficult process in Australia, as if you win, it seems possible the State will change (or appeal) the law so you lose, or the Company will try again in a marginally different manner, or that they will successfully claim a new mine is an expansion of an old mine. For example, after the Rocky Hill coal mine was refused on the grounds of the emissions production overseas when the coal was burnt, the NSW government legislated to to prevent “the regulation of overseas, or scope-three, greenhouse gas emissions” in mining approvals to give certainty to miners [14] [15].
Fighting against fossil fuels is fighting against both the State and Fossil Fuel companies and unlikely to succeed in terms of power relations and money.
The State is not supporting development of any LOCAL processes in the Narrabri region (that have been mentioned to me) which could provide prosperity or increase survival opportunities, which do not depend on fossil fuels. This makes it harder to challenge fossil fuel legitimacy. However, the NSW state government, has recently managed to gain emissions targets for 2030, and it does support corporate renewables elsewhere, through Renewable Energy Zones, which seem to be geared to supplying the big city and industrial areas on the Coast. But it is not clear that the state or federal governments do much to support local energy supplies via renewables or community renewables, or will oppose fossil fuels directly. Both Parties in Australia have made it clear they are in favour of mining fossil fuels, establishing new fossil fuel mines, and selling the products overseas.
Opposition resources spokeswoman Madeleine King has said Labor will not stand in the way of new mines and believes Australia will export coal beyond 2050…
For so long as international markets want to buy Australian coal, which is high quality, then they will be able to.” Ms King said Labor was “absolutely not supportive one bit” of a push by Malcolm Turnbull for a moratorium on new coalmines
One framing which allows them to claim this is compatible with climate action is the convention that emissions only occur in record of the country burning the fuel, and likewise should not apply to the company profiting from the emissions (as they are outside its control). If the measures were changed this claim of legitimacy might fall.
In a somewhat contradictory policy regime the NSW Government made declared the only active petroleum/gas exploration licences to remain in action were to be those supporting Santos’s Narrabri coal seam gas project, due to concerns from other regional communities [20].
So again we have the power differential and the assumption that fossil fuel profits are good, but changing the law like this also draws attention to the way the law is a political tool used to benefit particular groups.
Context/Framing: Regulation
Current regulation which is based on previous habits, limits connecting energy sources, and energy sources with users, without using the grid, especially if they cross property boundaries. These regulations are largely a matter of custom, and do not reflect the new situation, but there is inertia, because the new situation is easy to ignore, if we keep established power relations going.
Connecting these household sources might provide some kind of new paradigm or framing once it is established, or perhaps during the establishing.
Recent proposals for a feed in tariff suggests that household players could end up paying for export, further discouraging action.
These regulations shape the economy to favour existing players, deliberately or not.
Enforcement?
Apparently, in 2016 the State government increased penalty terms for protesting on land and disrupting mining equipment [21], [22], [23]
There is little sign that the Australian State will change its pro-fossil fuel status, so while it may be useful to try and take back the State, it is also useful to move outside the State, perhaps through local level activity, to try and overwhelm the legitimacy of fossil fuels in general – but the question is whether working outside the State removes legitimacy.
Local Power relations and desires
Local action rarely has state backing when in opposition to mining.
Surveys and polls
There is repeated self selecting survey and other evidence to suggest that most to a large percentage of people in the region do not support the gas fields. For example 64 per cent of the local submissions to the Environmental Impact Statement Inquiry in 2018, were opposed – non local submissions were even greater in their opposition. A Lock the Gate survey of 840 people found 97% of people were in favour of renewables to provide long-term jobs, 52%, of people surveyed were opposed to the gasfield, 28% of people said they were in favour of the gas, and and 20% were unsure. “55% of the people surveyed said they were very or somewhat concerned about the gasfield and only 24% said they were not concerned”. Never the less, the implication is that a reasonable number of people could accept both gas and renewables. A Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance (a collaborative research institute with members such as Australia Pacific LNG, QGC, Santos, Origin Energy and CSIRO) survey found that that 30.5% of residents ‘reject’ the gas, 41.7% of residents would ‘tolerate’ (27%) or be ‘ok with it’ (15%) (which suggests at least some of these would be accepting or indifferent), while 27.8% of residents would ‘approve’ (13%) or ‘embrace’ (15%) CSG development (pp.5, 22). It again seems clear that lack of enthusiasm, overwhelms support – but suggests that perhaps it would be difficult to organise opposition against corporation, state and law.
As implied earlier was the case, it appears to the GISERA survey that “Residents who lived out of town held significantly more negative views towards CSG development than those who lived in town”, and that:
Potential impacts on water quality and quantity were the top two concerns (M = 3.75 and M = 3.74 respectively), followed by community division over CSG development (M = 3.63) and the disposal of salts and brine (M = 3.63)
(ibid: 24)
An Informal survey conducted by UTS students in the streets of Narrabri town, presents some further clues as to what might be happening. Out of “four priorities” for the town 59% selected ‘more employment’ again showing possible survival anxiety dominates, 29 per cent selected ‘improved government services’, 9 per cent ‘stronger community life’, and only 7 per cent selected ‘more sustainable environment’ as their highest priority. Asked to identify the biggest threat to the Region out of five choices, 31% chose drought and climate change, 29% chose loss of local businesses, 20% chose drift of population to larger towns or cities. Asked to choose multiple options for the future, 69% chose local farming and food culture, 43% chose community-owned renewable energy, 31% chose large scale renewable energy, and 29% chose large scale coal and gas. Again the suggestion from this multiple factored informal survey is that mining has fairly low committed support, on par with community renewables, and possibly flows from anxiety about survival.
A click through survey on the Land website, when checked on 23/10/21, gave the results to the question ‘Do you want CSG production at Narrabri?’ as 76% No and 24% yes, but I see no mechanism to stop people voting more than once.
Lack of State support for alternative development in the area, reinforces the apparent ‘need’ for gas and the prosperity/survival it promises but may not deliver locally. This can be seen as part of the connection between State and Fossil fuels. However, local contracting and other businesses which can possibly benefit from mining, take these power relations into the local area, not only through individual businesses, but sometimes through the Local Council (which has to look after local business as it is a major source of local income for people) and through the Chamber of Commerce.
Local Power relations and fragmentation
In the debate about the gas, hostility has been marked, and become pretty polarised. Anecdotes of painful events were common, such as stories of break up of long standing friendships and groups over the gas issue, stories about public rudeness, public ridicule, unfair division of time or access to Council, and so on. People seemed extremely wary of anything that might start an argument.
Both sides, to some extent, blame external forces for the fraction. Many of those we spoke to who were in favour of gas, claimed that people from Lock the Gate were not locals, but city folk – trying to imply the protestors were not from the area, and thus delegitimate them through social categorisation.
These lot just rock into town and tell us what we should be doing with our land. I mean we’ve been here our whole lives.
Interestingly no mention that the mining companies are also from out of town, which indicates the effectiveness of the “we are one of you” categorisation game played by the mining company. However, the objection to protestors goes through conservative politics and there are still ongoing attempts by pro-fossil fuel groups to strip LTG of its charitable status, and reduce its funding.
This indicates a legitimacy struggle over fossil fuels, but it also shows the local cost in a relatively small community.
Framings and power
These framings interact and appear to magnify each other in terms of granting legitimacy (support and acceptance) for fossil fuel mining. Social order, customs and habits is largely built on fossil fuels, and survival is reduced to what is good for business, which is reinforced by alliances between miners and the State, and regulations which are based on the needs of established industry and which inhibit competition. Laws reinforce the survival threats against protestors, which have the probable intention of making delegitimation reluctance or rejection visible. Even the divisions in town seem to be based on external forces, and the hopes or despair begin cultivated, and it implies that there is some way in which people are being treated as extreme or the differences cannot be ignored. It could easily be alleged that local resistance is overwhelmed by outside input, and local fears about survival.
These are largely external contexts which are provided to the region and which shape possible action in the region. The main sign of what is happening locally is the social fragmentation, which seems to be encouraged by these external factors as much as by internal factors.
However, there are some signs that these contexts could be changing (the NSW targets, the BCA, the visibility of ‘cheating’ in the courts), and there is the possibility that changes in complex systems can accelerate quickly. Further signs shall be discussed below.
Delegitimating Fossil Fuels
Reframing 1: fossil fuel damage
The proposal for the gas suggests there will be around 850 gas wells over 425 well-pad sites, so the project will have significant impacts on local appearance. People are assured that no serious ecological damage, or damage to the town economy, will arise from fossil fuel mining, which is perhaps contradicted by this number of wells. This reassurance is impossible to guarantee, but neoliberalism seems happy to ignore damage that helps profits of large companies. However, this complacency is a possible breaker of legitimacy, as admitting that a process could damage the ecology, town and farming seriously, could reframe that process. Not admitting the possibility of damage (when it is reasonably well documented elsewhere) also adds to the perception that those who won’t admit the possibility are lying – the new frame is in play. So we have prosperity and damage framings being brought in.
The possibility of water damage has to be defended against, or else they cannot proceed. The company denies possible serious damage to the water table (the famous Great Artesian basin), which is above the gas tables. The gas comes through the water. Even if they seal the drill holes well enough to not have produce damage immediately, they probably cannot guarantee these seals will not fail in hundreds of years, and when you are dealing with ecology you are dealing in thousands of years at least… There is also water in the gas tables, and that is toxic, and there are signs that leakage has already occurred.
Bringing in the question of environmental damage, and possible poisoning of basic necessities such as air and water, challenges the prosperity frame’s coherence.
There have been protests against gas mining in the region, since it was first proposed, with national community activist organisations such as Lock the Gateand People for the Plains, having a large presence in the area. For example on its current website Lock the Gate attempt to reframe gas in terms of damage, ecological and economic.
When every fracked gas well needs 30 million litres of fresh water and 18 tonnes of chemicals, and when gas already contributes 19% to our greenhouse emissions, it’s actually a recipe for disaster…
For every 10 jobs created in coal seam gas (CSG), 18 jobs are lost in agriculture Over 120 farm water bores in Queensland have already run dry because of coal seam gas Direct loss of farmland for CSG results in farmers losing up to 10% in economic returns More than $2 billion in public funds have been allocated to the gas industry in the last financial year
The threat of environmental damage is now so ‘obvious,’ that it can be used to draw the ire of neighbouring farmers, as when Lock the Gate suggested it was likely that the Gas Company would extend its mining operations into neighbouring areas of the Northwest such as Namoi Valley and Liverpool Plains, as such creeping expansion has happened elsewhere and the State Government’s moratorium on further gas exploration did not cover that area. The local MP stated:
I think it is highly hypocritical to suggest that one electorate in regional NSW should have these things and another shouldn’t…
I would like to see all of these PELs [Petrol Exploration Licences – which include gas] totally extinguished because most coal seam gas (CSG) and gas reserves that are based in the coal bed interact with water aquifers and to get to the seams you have to punch holes through the aquifers.
We have just been through the worst drought in living memory which showed us just how important groundwater is and our regional communities know how important groundwater is.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in the Tamworth, Barwon or Northern Tablelands electorates, it’s important in each and every one of them.”
Emily Simpson, NSW Farmers Association Policy Advisor had previously also pointed out that while farmers did not oppose gas in principle,
the location of the Narrabri Gas Project creates an unacceptable risk to the precious water resources of northern NSW.
The many conditions attached to the project are designed to minimise this risk, however do not recognise a simple reality: water sources that are damaged cannot be replenished or replaced. The possible harm to water resources has been confirmed by the NSW Government’s own Independent Water Expert Panel.
Bringing climate change in as a frame, suggests that while fossil fuels can bring prosperity and order they are gradually bringing in chaos and disorder which may be so great as to undermine the existence of the shire itself. It is not clear how effective this framing is in Narrabri itself yet, although it is clear from reading the Federal court judgement in the duty of care case, referred to above, that evidence about climate change was extremely significant to the judge – and people did talk about drought and climate change.
The International Energy Agency has argued that there can be no new gas, coal or oil projects if people wish to avoid catastrophic climate change. The IPCC agrees in its latest report. Thus support of new coal could be seen as completely destructive, a position perhaps harder to take as climate change becomes more obvious…
The gas company makes a few half hearted suggestions that it is green. After taking over another gas company, the managing director said:
the combined group would be better-equipped to seize opportunities to expand into clean-energy technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and zero-emissions hydrogen. “Size and scale have never been more important as we look to fund the energy transition to net-zero emissions,”
This implies that rather than cease emissions they hope to remove them, which is not a successful technology at the scale required.
As a number of my colleagues have suggested, there is some evidence to suggest that knowledge of climate change, has made external organisations more interested in offering support to local people opposed to the mines, perhaps providing support, or perhaps increasing the local friction.
Climate change itself is also starting to increase destabilisers of legitimacy, through increased droughts, fires and storms. Through observing the consequences, farmers are starting to ally with environmentalists, and possibly indigenous people, to protect their land from ill effects of ‘development.’ Recently in Australia the National Farmers Federation has cautiously announced support for an emissions target in discussions with the National Party who reject the idea:
Far from creating uncertainty, a target actually creates certainty in an industry where much is uncertain…. the one thing that is certain is that if we set targets we can work towards those targets
This again is a small change but it fits in with other changes, in moving the legitimacy of emissions.
Reframing 3: Cheap energy with local benefits
Renewable energy, especially solar is cheap and modular. It can be built up, part at a time, in small clusters. It does not require the large amounts of capital that fossil fuel energy requires to generate community level low polluting power. It may not be as profitable as fossil fuels but while that is important for corporations, that may not always matter that much for community groups. But it sets up possibilities.
Over 60% of dwellings in the 2390 postcode which includes Narrabri have rooftop solar, so solar is popular, but rooftop is not communal – its about individual virtue, concern or money saving. It is possible to have solar panels and still support fossil fuels.
There is a relatively new organisation called Geni Energy which is exploring the possibility of community renewables being used to generate cheap energy for activities which could lead to prosperity in the region (‘the Northwest’) beyond coal and gas. The idea is to bring plentiful energy into the region, which keeps money in the region, as opposed to the profit centres being outside the region (as with the coal and gas). As previously explained regulations make this project difficult, but not impossible. However, the issue is how quickly the community projects can get up, and how much support they can gain in terms of the framings contexts of customs and becoming habitual, prosperity, external power relations, regulation, and enforcement. That requires several breakthroughs, their ability to build community and extra-community networks – which they are trying to do – and their ability to shift people into enthusiastic support and acceptance.
Reframing 4: Corporate Solar
The company currently establishing a commercial solar farm [24], [25] does not seem well connected to the community, does not seem to provide many continuing jobs, and the connections to take power out of the region are not particularly good, and there is no sign the State government, or anyone else, will improve this. Commercial renewables will be unlikely to supplant fossil fuels, or bring similar prosperity to the Region, (few jobs after construction and money leaves the town) and if they do, that does not remove the link between fossil fuels and prosperity in made in Narrabri.
There are some other corporate solar farms in the air, but some people have said these are ambit claims primarily to lock others out. In any case they have no significant involvement in the region, or apparent connection with people. They are all pretty vague.
Corporate solar is not necessarily helpful in raising support for renewables or delegitimating fossil fuels.
Other Tools
Court cases and appeals against Environmental approvals have been the most effective. While they have not stopped the mining, they have delayed its onset, which (if the State could be persuaded to take export and other emissions seriously) would possibly eventually stop the permissions give to mine.
Conclusion
The contexts and framings for legitimating renewables and the delegitimating fossil fuels do not appear (at this moment) to provide the level of mutual reinforcement that the pro-fossil fuel contexts provide.
The prosperity / devlopment /growth format more or less engenders the State fossil fuel company alliance, and the commonsense that life requires fossil fuels. Habits and customs mean that people in the developed world use (actively or passively) for transport, food transport, computing, delivery, exports, imports, plastics and other components all the time. Without fossil fuels these habits would have to change, and that produces a degree of fear. New habits, and other cosmologies have not yet developed, although they are developing.
Professing support for fossil fuels does not have to involve an active campaign against renewables, they can rely on habit, regulation, power that is external to site, and hardening social categories to get the support to get them through. While the State government is changing, it does not seem to be wanting to stop fossil fuels, or lower them that much. The gas company is in the position where it is likely it has a time limit and would like to get the gas out as soon as possible.
There is no reason to assume that maps of legitimacy for fossil fuels and renewables would overlap in terms of the positions of various groups on the grid – while I can make good guesses as to where groups might appear, there is as yet no hard data which would allow the plotting.
However groups in Narrabri seem to be fractured and histories of past pain possibly leads to low levels of discussion and difficulties in developing cross group policies or actions. The history benefits those who would stay with gas and coal mining. There is also no way to enforce renewables, but the law enforces fossil fuels and restricts protests.
However, it seems possible that the legitimacy of fossil fuels is largely supported by indifference, acceptance, or the sense of there being no alternative. This could change, if there was an alternative, or there was more reach out by activists (which may be hard given an audience avoiding pain).
The main hope is that the context framing of the legitimacy systems for fossil fuels are starting to show cracks, becoming precarious and coming to their end, and that like the electoral legitimacy of the US government, they will collapse rapidly, and in this case in time for action to have some mitigating effect.
There is the possibility of trying to avoid the state and function outside it, circumventing regulation rather than following regulation. This requires the formation of a local movement, perhaps in community energy, through social enterprises like Geni. In Western Australia there seems to be a formal movement to do something like this with proposals to help towns get off the grid, and be put in charge of their own energy through disconnected microgrids.
That solar energy, is cheap and modular, means that community groups can build their own energy supplies over time, buying (or gifting) panels as they can afford to, and if the regulations change, connecting them up.. They don’t have to have huge building projects, projects can be manageable and use local labour.
Courts seem incapable of enforcing strictures against Fossil Fuels, but they make the artificial and political nature of the current set-up clearer. If the laws are changed or ignored, then the laws supporting the fossil fuel system seem more arbitrary and less legitimate – it also engenders delay which, if the context, changed, might make a significant difference.
Complexity suggests that small regular changes can make large differences to the whole system; the question becomes what are those changes?
So there is hope, amidst the difficulties, but it will not be easy.
All I can do is suggest that legitimacy is complicated and that the data indicate that is so. Part of what research can sometimes indicate is the inadequacy of data, and stimulate new questions.
The science is fairly clear. Some humans are causing massive environmental damage. One result is climate change, but there are many other harmful results which are exceedingly likely to be very bad for humans and others.
Part of the reason some humans are causing massive environmental damage is the way they dig for minerals, grow wood, grow food, pollute, fish, consume fossil fuels and energy, and so on. The way modern industrial society interacts with ‘nature’ is harmful to nature and eventually harmful to humans, as humans are part of nature and most depend on nature for food and water.
There is a feedback loop here. Some things that would be easily ‘recycled’ such as CO2 by vegetation, get less recycled as forests are cut down and ocean plankton poisoned, so they become more of a problem as we go along. CO2, for example, will trap heat which will desertify much land, produce droughts, and kill large numbers of plants. Other plants may grow more, but probably not enough to make up for the destruction – its complicated.
This harmful interaction of pollution and destruction occurs because of cheapness and power. Cheap extraction make higher profits in the short term, it also makes material ‘development’ easier.
Another more contentious reason, might be that high status people can indicate or producetheir status by their production of pollution (more air travel, bigger energy hungry cars, bigger homes, luxury yachts, more stuff bought from overseas, etc.), and often the pollution and destruction is channeled onto far less wealthy and powerful people, who have little chance of objecting.
Cheap extraction and pollution comes about because laws allow it. The people who benefit from the pollution and destruction, and who become wealthy or otherwise powerful, control the laws to make that the case, or make the penalties trivial in terms of profits. Some of them even argue that harmful pollution is good for you.
So destructiveness arises through politics and power, and attempts to curtail it also arise through politics (or occasionally through technological development).
Then there are the questions about what should be done to lower the destruction. Even if everyone benefitted immediately from lowering destruction and recognized this, people would still have different ideas about how to deal with the problems.
Another cause of problems is that economic, social and ecological systems are all complex systems, and hence difficult to predict in specific, hard to separate from other systems, and have so many interactions that we cannot observe them all, or understand them completely. It can be hard to formulate a policy which is not experimental (i.e. we learn how effective it is by implementing it).
However, the main problem seems to be that some groups seem to be trying to prevent discussion about what we should do to solve the problems, to prevent action that might reduce the problems, and sometimes to encourage what look to be fantasy solutions like carbon capture and storage. Some of those groups seem to be funded by people who might think they would loose on profit if the problems were corrected. For example, if we stop burning fossil fuels, that will have an effect on fossil fuel companies, and their continuing resistance to action seems pretty well documented.
So there are three main causes of politics around environmental problems, even when the science is well agreed:
Natural differences of opinion, probably based on political inclinations, about what to do;
the difficulty of completely understanding the systems we are trying to ‘heal’, and of knowing the exact results of actions in advance, and;
wealthy and powerful vested interests that don’t want to do anything to threaten their habits and wealth.
Climate, technology and chaos Blog 