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Neoliberal Conspiracy 3: (dis)Information

September 7, 2020

This is part of a series:

The Neoliberal Conspiracy 01 discussed the nature of conspiracy and the value of being aware of the possibilities of conspiracies of the already powerful. In our societies, these already powerful people tend to belong to the hyper-wealthy corporate class. I put forward the idea of a neoliberal conspiracy which supports ideas of:

  • “free markets” which translates into the prevention of democratic attempts to reduce the power of corporations;
  • wealth as virtue;
  • the effectiveness of privatisation of common property and services with the aim of transferring wealth from ordinary people to the dominant classes;
  • the denial of any public good without corporate profit, and;
  • the radical destruction of tradition while pretending to be conservative.

I suggested that neoliberalism was a deliberate movement to counter to the elite crisis of “too much democracy” in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and a way of defusing the rapidly rising environmental movement, which threatened to prevent corporate exploitation of the material world.

In the second installment, The Neoliberal Conspiracy 02: Education, I described some of the ways that education was being bent in favour of wealthy people, and put under their control, with the consequence that people would be less able and knowledgeable to challenge them.

Education involves control of the information and quality of information given to various classes in society. Often the dominant groups are taught thinking and use of power and given useful connections, whereas the lower classes are taught the virtues of obedience and adapting to the desires and requirements of the powerful. Skills and knowledge are only relevant to the extent they allow students to fit in with the patterns of power. In Australia we subsidise already wealthy private schools (who put their fees up in response), and cutback funding to ordinary schools. This helps restrict access and cement the power and knowledge of the wealthy.

This blog now moves into questions of information provision and conveyance in more general terms. Information always forms part of power struggles, but in neoliberalism information is nearly all only part of a power and persuasion struggle; this pattern is intensified by the problems of information in a supposed information society.

Problems of information

One fundamental problem is that the world is a complex system, beyond the conscious understanding of any particular individual.

This seems magnified in so called ‘information society, in that there is so much information that we can always choose information which pleases us, and which states that those who disagree with us are simply wrong, or that their disagreement comes from intent or malice. People who disagree, are evil. This may help reassure us of our ability to navigate this complexity; even as it almost certainly leads to misunderstanding and folly.

Another problem seems to be that we always filter information by other information that we consider correct or probable. This information may be wrong to begin with; therefore inaccuracy runs the risk of accumulating, and making more recent “information acquisitions” even more precariously accurate.

The third problem is that neoliberalism, (or the support of corporate power and wealthy people through talk about free markets), cannot deliver what it promises; liberty and a functional high prosperity economy. It only delivers ongoing support for ecological destruction, suppression of dissent, destruction of government services, stagnant wages, economic crisis and plutocracy. The only techniques available to neoliberal governance is taxpayer support for big business (often through military spending), increasing the right of the wealthy to destroy ecologies, suppression of organised labour, government service cutbacks which largely affect the poor and lower middle classes, and taxcuts for the wealthy.

Therefore, in any kind of democracy, supporters of neoliberal corporate dominance and its lack of responsibility, have to have to stir up passions and misrepresent reality to gain support. There is no alternative.

Information and Behaviour

Information is important not just because it guides us through the world, but because it contributes to who we think we are. People with different theories of what it is to be a person, or category of person, or to be in the world, will likely have differing interpretations of events in the world, and hence different interactions with that world. A person who thinks that humans are competitive individualists, will behave differently and suffer differently to a person who thinks people are lovingly co-operative. They can both be wrong, but it changes behaviour and expectations.

By giving us modes of interpretation and setting problems, information is constitutive of our modes of being in the world, and our experience.

If you control, or heavily influence, a person’s information then you are likely to influence their understandings, behaviour and interactions. Most acts of communication exist to persuade other people to do things such as: collaborate with you, honour you, fear you, agree with you, help you, work for you, support you, fight against your enemies, behave in particular expected ways etc.

All of these attempts may have unintended consequences, partly because they are of limited accuracy and we live in complex systems, and people then have to deal with those consequences. That communication may not always have the intended effect is to be expected, but persuasion is still one of its primary aims. Rhetoric is fundamental, not incidental, to language.

In information society, information problems are intensified, because a great deal of self image and status (as a independent thinker, or not being a ‘sheeple’) appears to come from being ‘right’ or ‘correctly informed.’ This renders self correction even more difficult than usual. Many people engage in ‘virtue signalling’ about this: they are sane, righteous and calm thinkers while everyone else is unbalanced, or swayed by hysterical propaganda, or the orthodoxy. This does not lead to calm discussion. Despite the complexity, there seems little humility about our capacity to understand what is going on.

Distribution and distortion of information

Irrespective of the possibility of using information for deliberate control, whenever free production of information exists, then information tends to get widely distributed for the following reasons, non of which contribute to accuracy:

1) We select information because it confirms what we already think, and confirms or fits in with our existing biases or the information we have already accepted. This is a form of information filtering, that means we do not have to change our minds every time we encounter contrary ideas.

  • 1a) Much important information will be filtered out, by this process.
  • 1b) One of the first things we filter out, is this process, as it implies we are not good processors of information. We can see it in others, but less easily in ourselves.

2) Information is spread because of its propaganda function, which those distributing it think benefits them or their allies – or at the least confirms what they already think. In this set-up, accuracy is a minor concern because lies and misdirections which support the supposed ‘underlying truth’ are acceptable. This seems to be the default neoliberal position.

  • 2a) Propaganda is often designed to appeal to an audience’s existing biases, and shift that audience in the direction of the emitter. It is a form of crafted manipulation.
  • 2b) It has long been known that a convincing lie will travel much faster than the correcting truth, and with the internet the lie will hang around and be rediscovered, repeatedly. Climate deniers can reuse the same false facts repeatedly, despite the number of rebuttals. Rebuttals tend to get forgotten.
  • 2c) Propaganda can also use distractions. If people are worried about the wealthy, get them worried about wealthy people who don’t push the neoliberal line like George Soros, and Bill Gates. Then ignore the behaviour of all the other billionaires who may be more of a social threat, like Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, or Donald Trump. This also helps keep the wealthy in line, as they can fear what will happen to them if they transgress in what they say.
  • 2d) While most neoliberal propaganda is internal to the country and comes from deniable sources, there is also external propaganda from other countries which tries to undermine social functioning, as a form of non-violent warfare. Thus the Russians supported Trump to help destroy the US (although the tendencies of the pro-Trump audience to distribute anything that supported them, also led to the making of fake news to ‘attract eyeballs’ and get advertisement money). It is possible that some of the ‘covid is not serious in any way’ material is being distributed for the same reasons. Likewise US government and corporate propaganda to encourage capitalism is well documented. At the same time it is possible that relatively accurate information can be denounced as foreign propaganda.

3) Information is spread when it is issued by people we identify with, and therefore consider trustworthy. This seems to be one of the standard ways of filtering large amounts of information. The filter is quick and allows us to move on, or act.

  • 3a) We also tend to think, that information issued by those we don’t identify with, or identify as being opposed to us, is necessarily false. This easily becomes the basis of ‘polarisation’, or what I am calling ‘shadow politics,’ in which we project our own denied failings onto others and blame them for all our problems. This again is a standard neoliberal trope to build support, although it is not only used by neoliberals. Once it becomes established, it influences most communication.
  • 3b) Hence Trump attempts to threaten any media or reporter who dares to disagree with him, and accuses them of lying – even if the media organisation they are working for is 95% in favour of flattering him. In neoliberalism, loyalty to the underlying cause should be 100%. Any organisation which does try and be impartial and only report the truth is suspect – perhaps because neoliberalism cannot be supported by the truth.
  • 3c) This category-effect means that some people argue they must be right precisely because other disliked people disagree with them. Disagreement does not lead to discussion but to confirmation.

4) Information which is highly emotionally charged can appeal directly to our feeling self. Emotionality, often generates a sense of truth or reality (“If I am angry with that person, there must be a reason, and the anger must be justified”). It also functions to prevent reflective thinking, and to confirm people’s allegiance to the information source and increase their hostility to counter-sources. If a tightly controlled company or person uses this strategy (e.g. Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Fox News), then they may be getting an audience for the advertisement space they sell, ‘telling the truth’ according to their biases, and influencing people not to trust other sources and stay with them. The standards of evidence are lowered. Sometimes scathing humour can serve this function.

  • 4a) Confident certainty is also persuasive to people in the in-group, irrespective of whether it is deserved or no, and this helps shut down discussion, or reflection. It is another hallmark of neoliberal communication, along with condemnation.

5) Some information may spread because it makes life easier, and helps collaboration, builds friendships and so on. It may have deleterious effects as well, but these are not as clear and tend to be ignored.

  • 5a) Sometimes information which makes life easier, like delaying action on climate crisis, may hinder people from seeing needed information, which could keep them alive.

6) Some information issued by companies is simply hype, to sell products, or confirm their power in the markets. Such hype is likely to be designed to be memorable, and spreadable, so it affects markets, profitability, actions and general knowledge. Rather than going with existing technology to solve a problem, people may postpone action for the supposedly better hyper-innovative technology that is “just about to be released”.

  • 6a) Markets, particularly financial markets, seem to be largely based on such hype, which is possibly one reason for financial bubbles, and people remaining loyal to businesses when they are near breaking, or hoping for the breakthrough that will keep markets stable and growing.

7) ‘Science’, or other modes of attempting to find accuracy, will be attacked when they disagree with neoliberalism. Scientists can recognise that while they have informed people according to the best of their knowledge, they can be wrong. Neoliberals are right before any evidence comes in, and are right whatever the evidence. Hence, science is automatically described as wrong whenever it disagrees with established bias, or interest.

  • 7a) There is no role for recognition of limited, or temporary, certainty, or ongoing uncertainty. We can keep producing greenhouse gases and we know it will be ok if we don’t cut back just yet.
  • 7b) Building real knowledge takes effort, time and correction. As said above, building or finding an appealing lie, can be much much quicker. The time and refinement process makes real knowledge look as if it is constantly changing, because it is responding to new data. People in this society think truth should be unchanging.

8) I suspect some people also enjoy producing confusion. Information confusion, means that we will be more likely to choose our information by its relationship to our existing biases, so it opens us further up to manipulation.

  • 8a) The point here is that the information which gets taken up by others and spread by others (in the Richard Dawkins sense ‘memes’), obviously has some pull, and emitting lots of conflicting information with the same general push, may help some version of the information be selected and promoted naturally by other people.

9) US culture, in particular, is sunk in optimism and positive thinking. Problems can and will be solved. Recognising the problems can be defined as negative thinking, and is thought to bring on the destruction being recognised. In this framing, problems are easily forgotten, especially if there are too many of them. Supporters of President Trump, for example, frequently seem to forget his checkered business and political history, and always assume the best. Memories are removed by media not building histories and contexts for what is happening.

  • 9a) Sometimes this optimism functions as denial – as, for instance, when the underground right (the real deep state) insists that Trump is fighting child abuse against evil Democrats, despite his dubious sexual past, and his apparent lack of interest in this pursuit (judging by his twitter feed). Trump also lowers environmental standards and tries to make climate change worse. This will abuse the lives of everyone’s children, but that cannot be dealt with, so we will assume Trump is doing something good to save us. Neoliberalism has to pretend to goodness at the mythical level, because it does seem harmful to most people, even if it does not intend to be.
  • 9b) For some discussion of positivity and the response to the corona virus go to part 6 of this chain.

10) In neoliberal ‘misinformation society’ information does not exist to promote discussion between opposing groups, or accuracy testing. It exists to cause fracture and dislocation, and leave the wealth establishment in charge.

Information and Organisation

This is not an important part of this argument, but it may be helpful to remind people that organisations mis-transmit information, because of their structures. ‘Punitive Hierarchies’ in which the higher-ups have the right to punish or dismiss lower-downs, tend to set up systems whereby the lower-downs tend to give the higher-ups the information they think those higher-ups want to hear, as it is not worth facing punishment. The higher-ups also refuse to let those below know what is going on, to avoid challenge or to look ignorant. Eventually the whole organisation comes to live in fantasy, with decisions made on inaccurate data, and the expectations of what those people are reporting to, want to hear.

Siloing, which is a kind of sideways hierarchy adds to these effects, as parallel groups consider themselves rivalrous, or cannot communicate.

Authoritarian organisational structures distort information. The more punitive those organisations, the more information distortion occurs.

Information and Ownership of Media

In neoliberal societies, the main sources of information about what is happening tend to be owned by wealthy people or corporations. These main sources tend to rely on other corporations for advertising revenue. This reinforces the tendency of these sources to primarily express the views of their owners and controllers, and the corporate class in general.

Inside recognisably strongly ideological media, such as the Murdoch Empire, people tend to give the news the spin they think the hierarchy requires – especially when the culture asserts that journalists get sacked for going against the wishes of the hierarchy. Even if a journalist writes the ‘truth’ this can be altered by a sub-editor who wants to please their boss. Given that people in the organisation tend to read the organisation’s news, this increases the news bubble they live within, and the ideological basis of that news.

Information corporations can also sponsor supposedly independent information sources, which reinforce their message, or make the message seem truer because it comes from many apparent sources. Sources are not independent or unbiased because they agree with you and are on youtube or in a podcast. Indeed podcasts should be suspect, because the people making them are rarely expected to give sources, and there is less time for listener reflection.

We can, in general, classify media as neoliberal or extreme neoliberal. Some neoliberal media organisations may appear to support human rights, minorities and so on (the so called ‘liberal media’), and others will be more or less open in their contempt for ‘difference’ (the so called ‘conservative media’). All of them will support some version of the corporate establishment, or some faction within that establishment.

Now there may be more principled sources of information than others, but even these are subject to the forces listed above, and there is little countervailing force in current distributions of information which leads to correction, and so news is likely to reinforce neoliberal dominance in general. Fox and the New York Times both support the corporate establishment in general, Fox probably even more so.

People informed by mainstream sources will be told that other sources which have different opinions and different news should be dismissed as biased, and people are unlikely to read or view it. Neoliberal media often campaigns fiercely against non-corporately controlled media, as for example when the Murdoch Empire and the Australian Government campaign against the publicly owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for daring not to always support neoliberal truth.

The more the media can inculcate a neoliberal bias the less likely we are to have any kind of democratic counter-revolution, and the more likely we are to have an authoritarian result – as there is no necessary connection between capitalism and liberty for most people.

Information ‘Markets’

We could consider information as existing in an information market. In this market people may well tend to choose what pleases them, or is useful to them, as they do for other items. We cannot know the value of information in market terms in advance – effort put into gathering accurate information, may not be appreciated, or valued, by the market. Amounts of labour applied to checking has little to do with ‘value’ on the market, in terms of sales or power.

Eventually the market, as an information processing device, will encounter reality and feedback effects will be generated; inaccurate, or even partially accurate, information will cause problems – perhaps even begin collapse, or start off the normal processes of ‘creative destruction’. Possibly this collapse can be delayed as when taxpayers bailout large companies due to the effects of what seems to be normal neoliberal crony capitalism, or when corrupt political systems get bailed out by increasing misinformation or militarisation of ‘law enforcement’, or by distraction techniques such as pretending the President is doing something constructive.

Conclusion

The conveyance of relatively accurate ‘conscious’ information seems a difficult problem. Part of the problem is the structure and patterning of information collection and distribution. For the reasons we have discussed, even if some organisations where not trying to manipulate us to support their power and dominance, then the distribution of relatively accurate information would still face problems.

There is no need of a deliberate conspiracy for media to attempt to support the dominant groups who own them, but some media probably is conspiring to support those groups, and to discredit any information which would suggest that information issued by people opposing them has any value.

Factoring in the likely presence of neoliberals needing to deceive the people in order to retain power, and the normal distortion effects of media transmission that we have discussed above, the chance of our societies surviving (or even admitting) any major challenge is greatly diminished, largely because we won’t be informed enough to make reasonable decisions, and information will simply become a political tool.

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The Neoliberal Conspiracy 02: Education

August 30, 2020

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

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

Neoliberal Educational Theory

In neoliberal educational theory:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Neoliberal Conspiracy 01

August 28, 2020

‘Conspiracy’ defined

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

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

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

Conspiracies of the already powerful

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conspiracy and Scapegoating

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

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

Neoliberal Conspiracy

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

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

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

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

Neoliberal “Free Markets”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neoliberal Virtue

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neoliberal Privatisation

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

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

Neoliberal appropriation for high level managers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neoliberalism is not conservative

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

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

Neoliberalism vs Ecology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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Pandemic Comparison 4

June 28, 2020

Time for the roughly monthly comparison between Australia and the US on the coronavirus pandemic….

The population of the US is about 13 times greater than that of Australia. So if all things are equal, US figures should be 13 times greater than Australian figures.

Today’s figures 27 June 2020:

  • Australia, confirmed cases: 7593
  • USA confirmed cases, 2.51m (despite official reluctance to test)

The pattern over time is as follows:

  • 10 April 77 times as many cases as Aus
  • 29 April 130 times as many cases as Aus
  • 29 May 246 times as many cases as Aus
  • 27 June 330 times as many cases as Aus

The confirmed cases are increasing more rapidly than in Australia.

The US had 127,000 deaths and Australia 104.

The pattern is as follows

  • 10 April 309 times as many deaths as Aus
  • 29 April 673 times as many deaths as Aus
  • 29 May 1000 times as many deaths as Aus
  • 27 June 1221 times as many deaths as in Aus

The Death rate is continuing to increase more rapidly than in Aus – although the rate of increase is perhaps slowing down.

There are no figures for those left incapacitated by the virus….

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Pandemic Comparison 3

May 29, 2020

The third comparison between the US and Australia. This is being made at random intervals…

It is a response to those who think that Australia should be more like the US economically and politically.

The first case of coronavirus in the US was announced on the 20th Jan.
The first case in Australia was announced on the 25th Jan. This is pretty comparable.

The US population is about 334,000,000 and the Australian population is about 26,000,000. So the population of the US is about 13 times greater than that of Australia. So if all things are equal, US figures should be 13 times greater than Australian figures.

Current confirmed cases in US: 1,760,000 (precise figures not available to me)
Current confirmed cases in Australia: 7,155

The US has 246 times as many confirmed cases as Australia. This is up from 130 times as many on 29 April 2020, which is up from 77 times as many on 10 April 2020.

Current deaths in the US: 103,000 (exact figures not available to me).
Current deaths in Australia: 103.

The US now has 1,000 times as many deaths as Australia. This is up from 673 times as many deaths on 29 April 2020, which is up from 309 times as many on 10 April 2020.

The trend is clear: the US is getting significantly worse than Australia.

I think the Trump example is probably not one we need to follow.

Yet there are signs the Australian government does not want to be thought of badly by the US and it might become a bare chest grunting match, rather than a considered phase out, as they start returning to the hard-line neoliberalism they are renown for….

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Pandemic comparison 2

April 29, 2020

Previously I made a comparison between US and Australian figures for coronavirus. This is the second such comparison. The US is not improving.

This is perhaps a response to those who think that Australia should be more like the US economically and politically (ie Coalition politicians).

First case of coronavirus in the US announced 20th Jan.
First case in Australia 25th Jan. This is pretty comparable.

The US population is about 334,000,000 and the Australian population is about 26,000,000. So the population of the US is about 13 times greater than that of Australia.

Current confirmed cases in US: 1,008,571
Current confirmed cases in Aus: 6,725

The US has 150 times as many confirmed cases as Australia.

Current deaths in the US: 56,521
Current deaths in Australia: 84

The US has 673 times as many deaths as Australia.

Again, not all neoliberalisms or market fundamentalisms are equally destructive….

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Baroness Thatcher and the Moment of Climate Retreat

February 28, 2020

All Baroness Thatcher’s realism had gone by the publication of the 2002 book Statescraft, which she reportedly recognised was her last book. She was, sadly, becoming increasingly fragile and unwell. However, there is little mark of this fragility on the writing style or the forcefulness of her arguments.

This section of my exposition, includes more comment on the Baroness’ arguments than previously. This is because they need to be challenged, and because they seem incompatible with the positions she took while PM.

The section, “Hot Air and Global Warming” comes in a chapter defending capitalism from its critics.

Her main focus in the surrounding section is on refuting prophecies of doom:

the better things are and the greater the reason for optimism, the louder the voices prophesying doom seem to become… taking the longer perspective, global gloom is out of place… Was there ever an age when children had better prospects, all things considered, than those born into the world today?

p.444

She argues capitalism and liberty are responsible for this success. We might wonder if capitalism and liberty are always, and indelibly, joined even by pointing at British History (certainly the path is not straightforward, and has a lot to do with the militancy of the working and middle classes, and their suspicion of capitalism), but she argues:

We should be very wary indeed of turning aside from the path that has made us rich and free, simply because some group of experts or a collection of NGOs advise it

p.445

She argues Malthus, who suggested that the direction of humanity was towards mass death because population always increased faster than food supply, was simply wrong. This is despite her earlier warnings about population increase as being a problem, and the obvious fact that certain levels of human population (200 billion??) may be unsupportable by the planet in nearly all circumstances. Indeed population increase in non-western countries seems to have become one method the contemporary right has developed to blame climate change on other people.

Thatcher argues that people like Malthus, underrate “mankind’s ability, given the right framework to invent and adapt” (p.447) Indeed, but it is still theoretically possible that there may be times in which the speed of the problem-increase overwhelms people’s invention and adaptation. TThere is no guarantee we have not reached, or will never reach, that point. We may not have, but that is a hope not a certainty. In her words the “right framework” may not be present or even possible.

She generalises her response to Malthus to the problem seers of today:

Today’s doomsters have broadened their attack. It is not just population growth by economic growth… that they dislike…. Many of the gloomiest warning were associated with a group of international experts calling themselves the Club of Rome

p.447

This pessimism was supposedly a dominant force in the years leading up to the 1980s. This may be something of an exaggeration: if it was dominant, surely people would have done more to face the problems?

Only when Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office did we hear an alternative, optimistic message – that our free-enterprise democratic system had the moral, intellectual and practical resources to overcome any challenge.

p.448

Again this is a hope, not a certainty. It is not proven for ever, and cannot be proven in advance. And why should our “moral, intellectual and practical resources” not include Government policy and direction? After all, neoliberals seem to recognise the rights of governments to direct people to keep the neoliberal system going, all the time.

She rightly emphasises that cutbacks, through policy, are not the only methods:

we are constantly assailed by warnings that we cannot go on consuming. But we hardly seem to reflect upon the extraordinary way in which we get more and more out of less and less…. Less farmland is producing more food. There has been a dramatic fall in the number of famines.

p.448

there are, of course, still natural disasters. But it is by scientific and technological advance that we predict them, plan for them and cope with them. That advance occurs in free-enterprise capitalist societies, not in sclerotic socialist ones

p.448

So government planning for disaster is not impossible, and we can use science to predict such possibilities.

Before opening her section on global warming she remarks:

We should, therefore:
Recall how wrong the doomsters have been and take comfort from the fact.
Learn the lesson that as long as a free political system, a free society and a free economy are maintained, the ingenuity of mankind is boundless

p.449

That human ingenuity has been very great, does not mean that it is “boundless”, can solve all problems through uncoordinated profit driven action, that such profit driven actions can solve the problems in the time available to avoid mass suffering, or that these actions will not have unintended consequences, which require more action to remedy.

The section on global warming opens with a long footnote refering to various books and articles which she has read on the matter and which have persuaded her. Non of these writings are by climate scientists, or from scientific publishers, or scientific journals. They are all from corporately sponsored neoliberal think tanks, such as the Reason Public Policy Institute, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Centre for the New Europe, and the Institute of Economic Affairs.

These are ‘research’ establishments, who’s results and opinions can be predicted in advance. They largely appear to say what their sponsors require. It could be suggested that these documents serve primarily propaganda purposes, and aim to oppose ‘action on climate change’ to ‘capitalism’, and suggest any planned climate action must represent dictatorial socialism. They do this to defend the established corporate profit of their sponsors. It is, perhaps surprising, that the Baroness decided to listen to them, rather than to scientists in the field. But, these neoliberal thinkers are her primary in-group, and if it was possible to stop her identifying with scientists and get her to completely identify with neoliberalism then that would make science less persuasive to her.

“The doomsters’ favourite subject today is climate change. This has a number of attractions for them. First, the science is extremely obscure so they cannot easily be proved wrong. Second, we all have ideas about the weather: traditionally, the English on first acquaintance talk of little else. Third, since clearly no plan to alter climate could be considered on anything but a global scale, it provides a marvelous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.

p.449

There is no reason to assume that while global action might provide a “marvelous excuse” for socialism, it could not also provide an equally marvelous excuse for encouraging transnational capitalism to work its supposed magic – unless one of the prime directives of neoliberalism is liberty for the transnational corporation from any form of responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

She gives some examples of exaggeration.

President Clinton on a visit to China, which poses a serious strategic challenge to the US, confided to his host, President Jiang Zemin, that his greatest concern was the prospect that ‘your people may get rich like our people, and instead of riding bicycles, they will drive automobiles, and the increase in greenhouse gases will make the planet more dangerous for all.

p.450

While all Chinese driving petrol fueled cars does present a real problem, the actual remark seems unlikely and her source is an article in the American Spectator rather than any government record. But rather than dismiss recognition of the problem as foolish, we should wonder what the solution might be, or at least wonder how we might avoid the problem. Previous versions of Thatcher might have recognised this as a problem requiring governmental help to overcome.

She then refers to Al Gore saying:

‘I believe that our civilisation is, in effect, addicted to the consumption of the earth itself.’ And he warns: ‘Unless we find a way to dramatically change our civilisation and our way of thinking about the relationship between humankind and the earth, our children will inherit a wasteland.’

p.450

This is possibly true. It looks more likely to be true now, than might have done then, but the statements are not that incompatible with statements in Thatcher’s own speeches. She was, at one stage, able to wonder if all economic activity was compatible with survival.

The fact that seasoned politicians can say such ridiculous things – and get away with it – illustrates the degree to which the new dogma about climate change has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes.

p.450

These comments do not seem that ridiculous, or to be dismissed on the word of some pro-corporate think tank, without further evidence.

She remarks she was active in the anti-chloroflurocarbons debate, and successful. But the greenhouse gas effect “was a more difficult issue, because the science was much less certain.” As we have seen, she had always recognised this uncertainty worked both ways. By 2000 the climate science was far more certain, but perhaps she had not read it, becoming more interested in defending neoliberal capitalism than in the science?

I was more sceptical of the arguments about global warming, though I considered that they should be taken very seriously…. there was, in fact, rather little scientific advice available to political leaders from those experts who were doubtful of the global warming thesis…. By the end of my time as Prime Minister I was also becoming seriously concerned about the anti-capitalist arguments which the campaigners against global warming were deploying…

p.451-2

That some “other side” is facing a problem by advancing their own arguments in their normal fashion does not seem an excuse to argue the problem is not real. It should give people an opportunity to present better policies, and to defeat that other side yet again.

the choice might appear to be between preservation of the climate and preservation of prosperity. This is, of course, how left-of-centre opinion wished and still wishes to portray it

p.451

“Might appear” is not the same as “must appear.” Does she have to accept this supposed left-of-centre opinion as the only possible approach? Again why not recognise the problem and present better arguments?

Personally, I’m inclined to wonder if the issue was not politicised by the neoliberal think tanks, who wanted it to seem like the political action of defending capitalism and capitalist ‘liberty’ was incompatible with the political action of dealing with climate change. If so, then they succeeded, but there may be no necessary incompatibility; that would have been a possible approach, if you were not primarily interested in preserving fossil fuel corporation profits.

She moves on to illustrate the bias of anti-global warming arguments and their anti-capitalism.

When President Bush anounced the US would not sign the Kyoto Protocol.

“The French Environment Minister said, ‘Mr Bush’s unilateral attitude is entirely provocative and irresponsible’.
[While the EU Environment commissioner] issued dark if unspecified threats against US business [and] Britain’s own Environment Minister.. described the American decision as ‘exceptionally serious’ [but ruled out sanctions].

p.452

Whether you believe in the perfections of capitalism, or not, these comments seem pretty mild. They didn’t involve much more than an expression of disappointment that the President of the world’s biggest economy was going to put the possible future of the world on hold and thereby disrupt the pretty minor global action and promises required by the Kyoto Protocol. There is nothing necessarily anti-capitalist, or unreasonable, about objecting to this.

Kyoto was an anti-growth, anti-capitalist, anti-American project

p.453

This is an assertion and no evidence is presented. The US was then the world’s biggest economy and, both at that moment and historically, was the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Given this, it does have more responsibility than other relatively low emitters, and this means, that it has more actions to take and more wealth to take those actions. Kyoto is only anti-capitalist to the extent that neoliberalism supports capitalism without responsibility or honour.

in matters of public policy it is as important to recognise what we don’t know as what we do… The golden rule is: all government interventions are problematic, so intervene only when the case is fully proven

p.453

We do not know for sure, it is not fully proven, that Capitalism can solve this problem. The passage of events since Statescraft was published implies it cannot, yet we still do not act. Previously Thatcher recognised that the results of global warming could be worse than predicted; we are by its very nature, going into uncharted territory and do not know exactly what is going to happen.

She argues, referring to “some experts,” that the long term trend of warming is “not relevant to current concerns” (P.453). Presumably these are experts from the think tanks, not climate scientists. Again this case is not proven. However what Thatcher did not say is also significant, in terms of contemporary denial. She did not say that scientists were part of a conspiracy, that the science was being faked, or that the science itself was biased by leftist politics.

Secondly, CO2 is not the only greenhouse gase “so exclusive concentration on CO2… is bound to mislead.” (p.454)

This position is probably true. However, it means we should deal with all greenhouse gases, not just CO2. We should in fact return to Thatcher’s earlier position that there is a general systemic issue with ecological destruction and change. Climate change is not the only problem.

Third

There is now, as always, nothing that the liberal intelligentsia likes to believe more than that ‘we are all guilty’ But are we? The facts are unclear.

p.455

So what if this is true? And it is not proven. This does not change the problem. That the problem may harmonise with biases in some intelligensia (clearly she is not talking about the neoliberal think-tank intelligensia here) does not mean it is necessarily untrue. It does not mean we should stop research, stop looking at the latest research or try to mock research by real scientists, that you disagree with.

She remarks that the IPCC report “is a great deal more tentative than some alarmist assertions” (p.455). Previously she could admit that getting scientists to agree on a general proposition was difficult. The reports are likely to be tentative, by their nature.

Carbon dioxide levels have increase as a component of the atmosphere by nearly 30 per cent since the late eighteenth century, probably because of past deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels. But in any one year most CO2 production is not related to human beings

p.455

The question is whether this issue of the smallness of yearly human production of CO2 is relevant. Essentially, she mentions the importance of the cumulative effect of emissions since the late eighteenth century to dismiss it.

In fact, less than 5 per cent of the carbon moving through the atmosphere stems directly from human sources – again mainly: burning fossil fuels and deforestation….

p.455-6

She previously understood that small persistant changes can have complex consequences. Now she apparently does not. Things become simple and linear.

“The more closely one examines specific proposals to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by emission controls alone, the more costly and economically damaging they become.

P.456

In that case, the sensible thing to do is to suggest better procedures. She has been prepared to engage in economic distortion and taxpayer subsidy when she considered it useful in the past, so why not now? Cost is never an excuse to do nothing. Surely we can rely on the ingenuity of capitalists to deal with the costs? Perhaps it will spur them into action?

The problem of acceptable costs, is acceptable to whom? Is people being driven from their homes by rising sea levels, drought or unbearable temperatures an acceptable cost of keeping profits high?

it will be be necessary to resolve many remaining uncertainties before risking action that makes the world poorer than it would otherwise be by restraining economic growth…

p.457

Apparently, for her, there is no imaginable paradigm in which capitalism could flourish without growth, and so we must be completely certain before acting against something which would likely cost economic growth. What would allow such certainty is not described.

Climate change doe not “mean the end of the world: and it must not either mean the end of free-enterprise capitalism”

There is no reason it should – if pro-capitalists are prepared to engage with the problem, or with other people.

Once her allies suggested to her that her beloved free-enterprise capitalism was being challenged by ‘socialists’ because of the problem of climate change, the Baroness appears to have suffered a major failing of confidence. She was previously famed for not backing down when she thought she was right. Here she did.

Her back down was so complete that she did not advance the case that free-enterprise should be encouraged to face up to the problem, and she did not propose non-socialist measures to deal with the problem. When faced with socialist opposition to many of her actions as PM, she continued; she did not say, “oh well we can’t do anything”.

However, faced with the apparent choice proposed by the think tanks of either pro-capitalism or action on climate change, she collapsed and allied with her mentors and supporters.

Therefore her path brings up the issue of whether it is possible for neoliberalism to actually deal with climate change or other problems, at all. At one stage she could, but the more she listened to neoliberal think-tanks the more this became impossible.

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Baroness Thatcher and Climate Change: The Beginning of Problems

February 26, 2020

I have shown that, for at least three years, Baroness Thatcher had a consistently pro-active, public approach to climate change. This needs more elaboration by reportage of her behaviour in Parliament, and through the legislation she supported, but it could be possible to argue that her position got stronger as she went along. Despite uncertainties in our knowledge, she stated that: it was better to be precautionary; it was wise to listen to scientists; governments had to act and make policy; economic action should not destroy the environment and the future prosperity of our grandchildren; economic growth could help fund the changes; we all had to act together, and; prosperous countries had to help less prosperous countries avoid the mistakes ‘we’ had made.

However by her 2002 book Statescraft she had retreated from all these positions. The problem is to explain the path she followed.

This post will start to study the transition by briefly mentioning a few speeches from the period after her Prime Ministership, and then look at her 1993 autobiography The Downing Street Years. Another post will consider Statescraft, as this post is long enough, already.

The general argument is that she was becoming concerned that environmentalism and climate action was socialist in orientation, and that rather than propose a neoliberal and non-socialist solution, she began to retreat away from plans for action, into a hope that largely unregulated markets would solve the problem. There was to be no inhibition to economic growth or corporate liberty. This was not the only response she could have taken.

In the long run, it appears that neoliberalism cannot deal with environmental catastrophe, without losing its prioritising of corporate liberty and support for established corporations. The theory is so restrictive that it does not have enough ‘solution generating’ capacity for the neoliberal world to survive.

Some Post PM Speeches

A speech the ex-prime minister gave to the South African Institute of International Affairs, is short, but clearly presents one problem for the later Thatcher’s relationship to environmental policy, namely the issue of economic growth. She begins by acknowledging the importance of international action and the reality of climate change. She is not yet dismissive of this. But there is another more important reality to be acknowledged.

There is much to be done to tackle the causes of climatic change and to curb pollution. And it requires action at the international level. At least as important, though, is for individual countries and communities to take pride in and conserve their own particular environmental legacies and treasures.

Perhaps the most important truth we should bear in mind, however, is that conservation of whatever kind is costly: and so wealth must be created to pay for it. It is, therefore, a romantic myth—and indeed a dangerous falsehood—to claim that economic progress must result in environmental destruction. 

22 May 1991

It is perhaps surprising, then, not to hear claims that representative governments must regulate to ensure that ‘economic progress’ and wealth creation is not destructive to the environment we need to survive, or is compatible with such environmental survival. Such a point seems to have been more amenable to her in the past. But if her neoliberalism is biased towards maintaining corporate liberty to do whatever they like at any cost to others then perhaps it is not.

A post-autobiography speech in San Paulo, Brazil, makes a similar argument, even diminishing Brazils efforts to conserve what have been called the ‘lungs of the world’:

It is our task to help people out of poverty to a more rewarding and fuller life. And impressed as I am by the efforts that Brazil is making to conserve its ecological heritage and indeed the world’s environment through effective management of the rain forest, I am not one of those who thinks that we have to give up on growth and dash the hopes of those who depend on it for a better future.

16 Mar 1994

The speech goes on to attack wealth redistribution which

involves high taxation and sometimes confiscation, both of which penalise the very effort and talent that we need to build up more business, thereby providing more jobs and creating more wealth.

16 Mar 1994

In a speech to people at Leningrad State University, while stating the importance of international action, comes down to blaming socialism for the problems.

all the nations of the world have a duty to to tackle the threats to our environment. There is much to be done to deal with the causes of climatic change and to curb pollution. And it requires action at an international level. But we also must observe that it is the socialist countries which geared their industries to meeting production targets rather than to satisfying customers, unfree systems which neither respected human rights nor nature itself, which are the principle culprits. And it will be the advanced technology and the new wealth generated by free enterprise which will provide the means of restoring the world’s environment.

29 May 1991

A talk to Japanese youth, shortly after the speech in South Africa, makes similar points.

It is only in recent years that we have begun to understand how seriously we have together upset the balance of nature. Acid rain, the threat to the ozone layer, global warming—these are problems which have to be overcome by international cooperation. And never has the international community worked together more closely than in meeting the threat to our global environment.

But the point I would most like to make to you today is that sound science, not sentimentality, must be the basis of our approach. And the system best able to develop that science, most willing to apply it and best able to generate the wealth required to pay for it is free enterprise. Green socialism is no more an answer to the world’s environmental needs than was the smoke-stack socialism of Eastern Europe which poisoned our rivers, disfigured our buildings and rotted our forests.

5 Sep 1991

It appears that she is starting to consider that maintaining the neoliberal economic system is more important that maintaining the ecological system, and that the system as a whole will ideally solve its own problems through wealth generation. Science should not clash with neoliberal priorities. This ‘invisible hand’ of God fantasy, is something we have learnt is idealism at best, delusion at worst. Baroness Thatcher appears to be polarising the environmental debate, for her own rhetorical and thinking purposes, so that a complex discussion is reduced to a dispute between: a) total ‘green’ control, and stifling of prosperity (‘smokestack socialism’), and b) leaving the environment to unregulated markets. This is not a logical, practical, or inevitable division. It is certainly not the only position which could be taken. While it apparently makes clarity, it seems to be an unrealistic, or unreal, clarity that obscures reality.

The Autobiography: The Downing Street Years (1993)

Her Autobiography must have been being written in the late years of the her rule and more or less immediately immediately after her loss of the leadership of the Conservatives on the 28th November 1990. It usually takes quite a while to prepare a book this thick, with possible legal consequences, for publication. Consequently, the contents may be earlier than some of the speeches quoted above, and could be more moderate. The Conservatives continued in government under John Major, until Labor gained government in 1997 under Tony Blair. So it was addressed to a still Tory UK.

The relevant section of the book is entitled ‘Science and the Environment.’ It is only a few pages long.

It begins:

“In 1988 and 1989 there was a great burst of public interest in the environment. Unfortunately, under the green environmental umbrella sheltered a number of only slightly connected issues”

p.638.

She separates these issues into four:

1) “concern for the local environment… essentially and necessarily a matter for the local community”

2) “overdevelopment of the countryside” [but this is simple] “If people were to be able to afford houses there must be sufficient amounts of building land available…”

p.638

There is a slight contradiction here, as point 2 does not imply a particular respect for local environments, or for allowing the community to make descisions which conflict with the interests of developers, but it is a difficult position. If you support, what others call over-development, then you cannot support local control. The Baroness sides with developers, does not push the issue, and possibly is unaware of the problem.

3) “standard of Britains’s drinking water, rivers and sea.” [This is actively being remedied as can be seen by the] “return of healthy and abundant fish to the Thames, Tyne, Wear and Tees” and

4) [Atmospheric pollution]

p.638-9

She feels it necessary to separate issue 4 from the others as follows:

“I always drew a clear distinction bewteen these ‘environmental’ concerns and the quite separate question of atmospheric pollution. For me the proper starting point in formulating policy… was science. There had always to be a sound scientific base on which to build – and of course a clear estimation of the cost in terms of public expenditure and economic growth foregone.”

p.639

In this book the Baroness appears to consider the possibility of foregoing economic growth to solve a problem, or cost to the taxpayer – not perhaps as desirable, but as possible. It seems the cost should be known in advance for planning purposes, and to help judge actions, and not because some any cost will be considered too great for action. She is indicating politics is about practicable balance.

She then talks about science in general. There are two problems with science funding in the UK:

1) [Too much funding is directed at defence] and
2) “too much emphasis was being give to the development of produces for the market rather than to pure science… As someone with a scientific background, I knew that the greatest economic benefits of scientific research had always resulted from advances in fundamental knowledge”

p.639

In this passage she appears to be identifying with ‘pure’ scientists, and her past career/education. The example she gives is also illuminating, and indicates her sense of participation in the scientific process.

“It was, for example, the British Antarctic Survey which discovered a large hole in the ozone layer… I took the closest personal interest as the scientific evidence was amassed and analysed.”

p.640

This progresses to the problem of climate change, and the whole passage should be quoted at length.

“‘Global Warming’ was another atmospheric threat which required the application of hard-headed scientific principles. The relationship between the industrial emission of carbon dioxide… and climate change was a good deal less certain than the relationship between CFCs and ozone depletion. Nuclear power production did not produce carbon dioxide – nor did it produce the gases which led to acid rain.. However, this did not attract the environmental lobby towards it: instead they used the concern about global warming to attack capitalism, growth and industry.”

p.640

We here see the beginning of a problem… The science was not absolutely certain as to the intensity of the effect, something she admitted earlier, but then she also admitted the effects could be worse than predicted. However, the environmental lobby was apparently attacking the basis of neoliberalism.

She does not give any examples of these attacks on “capitalism, growth and industry”. The Soviet Union had collapsed so they were not promoting any effective position at all. China would not release its first “National Climate Change Assessment Report” until 2007, and while this needs more research from me, was not interested in the early 1990s – certainly it seems unlikely China would have been interested in attacks on growth and industry. As far as I can tell the attacks are also not coming from Labor in Australia, Bill Clinton and the Democrats in the US, or Labour under Neil Kinnock or John Smith. The so-called ‘Climate Justice Movement’ is usually said not to arise until 1999 or later. Nuclear energy has been a subject of dispute since the 1950s: it is not loved by everyone other than environmentalists. So these attacks, other than anti-nuclear movement (which was usually not an attack on capitalism, but on the use of radio-activity), were not mainstream and they were unlikely to affect policy.

Later in the book she writes about nuclear power and the need for it, and the cost to the taxpayer and electricity customer, with little sign of hesitation.

I felt it was essential to keep up the development of nuclear power. The real cost of nuclear energy compared with other energy sources is often overrated. Coal-fired power stations pour out carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and no one has yet put a credible figure on what it will ultimately cost to deal with the resulting problem of global warming.

p.684

Here she can admit a cost for not dealing with climate change. She remarks that using nuclear energy would lead to higher charges for customers, but “This was tolerable if not popular.” The costs of decommissioning nuclear power meant they had to be “removed from the privatization” of electricity, and the costs of the decommissioning born by the taxpayers (p.685).

This shows that Mrs. Thatcher’s neoliberalism can run to interference in the economy and added prices to consumers, if it seems necessary for the nation or, if one is less kind, it is necessary to support an established industry, or the selling off of public goods to the private sector. The point is, that whatever the interpretation, Thatcher did sometimes believe the government (and consumers) can absorb costs if necessary for a project’s success.

Despite these reservations about the possible actions of unnamed environmentalists, she worked on her Royal Society speech for two weekends, and expected significant coverage as it was important. So we can assume that speech reflected her considered views and was meant to be widely heard and discussed.

In her autobiography, she quotes one abridged passage from that speech:

For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world’s systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself…..

In studying the system of the earth and its atmosphere we have no laboratory in which to carry out controlled experiments. We have to rely on observations of natural systems. We need to identify particular areas of research which will help to establish cause and effect. We need to consider in more detail the likely effects of change within precise timescales. And to consider the wider implications for policy—for energy production, for fuel efficiency, for reforestation…. We must ensure that what we do is founded on good science to establish cause and effect.

p. 640-41.

She removes references to greenhouse gases “creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability,” possible sea rises, high temperatures in the 1980s (now exceeded), the report of the British Anartic Survey, action taken against Acid rains, and “half the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution remains in the atmosphere”. But the general message remains.

In the prepared speech, there is a line about the brightness of the TV lights stopping her from seeing her audience. But as she said in her book:

“it is an extraordinary commentary on the lack of media interest in the subject that, contrary to my expectations, the television did not even bother to send film crews to cover the occasion”

p.640

Given that the BBC was a supposedly leftwing black beast; if they did not come, it hardly leads us to think that Climate change was a source of much interest to the left, or the subject of much leftist agitation at the time. This suggests that Thatcher was, to some extent, reacting to a phantom – but this requires more research. What groups had annoyed her or who had warned her of the problem?

Going back to her earlier discussion on science and environmentalism, she concludes that her policy on the global environment:

“went to the heart of what differentiated my approach from the of the socialists… economic progress, scientific advance… themselves offered the means to overcome threats to individual and collective well being. For the socialist each new discovery revealed a ‘problem’ for which the repression of human activity by the state was the only ‘solution’.. The scared landscape dying forests, poisoned rivers and sick children of the former communist states bear tragic testimony to which system worked better, both for people and the environment”

p.641

So without her presenting any evidence of the reality, or social power, of the dire connection of socialism and environmentalism, she was possibly becoming aware that climate change policy could be used to attack neoliberalism and her record. One possible explanation is that she was becoming aware that her record was not showing the success she had imagined, and its attraction was wearing thin, but that is purely speculative.

However, this imagined (?) anti-neoliberal movement presumably could provide neoliberals with an incentive to show how a reliance on capitalist ingenuity and adaptability, could deal with the problem. There was no need for complete retreat. Economies have rules, and realities that businesses have to deal with so we would expect capitalist to adapt to new rules, which might prevent ecological destruction and maintain economic growth. Thatcher’s Neoliberalism still has a way forward to climate action. Why, indeed, should she let these unnamed ‘socialists’ take the high ground, especially if she supported the better system?

She has not yet retreated from recognition of the problem, or the need for a solution, but a pathway of retreat is possibly being indicated, and it comes directly from her assertion of neoliberalism.

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Margaret Thatcher’s Environmental Themes as PM

February 25, 2020

As we shall see in the fourth of these posts, after some period of retirement, Margaret Thatcher argued that she was not that into climate change action. But there are recurrent, and obvious themes in her talks as Prime Minister. These speeches, and one TV interview, cannot be dismissed as a mere phase as they stretch from September 1988 to November 1990. I am making little commentary here, mainly just quoting her. More examples could be found in these speeches, and more in other speeches; this is not an attempt to be definitive. Apologies to everyone not that interested in a frustrating history.

From the brief analysis of the previous speech we can take several Thatcherian themes

  • We have to live with nature (life is fragile)
  • Humans are degrading the environment and that can destroy civilisation
  • Take science seriously
    • IPCC is great
  • Recognition of complexity, non linerality, uncertainty
  • Economic growth important but must be bounded.
  • Action is difficult but must be taken
    • Government spending
    • recycle waste
    • control emissions
    • conserve country
    • replant forest
    • research
    • Foreign Aid

So let us see how these work in other speeches by her.

We have to live with nature (life is fragile)

the health of the economy and the health of our environment are totally dependent upon each other.

27 Sep 1988

Protecting this balance of nature is therefore one of the great challenges of the late Twentieth Century

27 Sep 1988

We, who have inherited so much, must hand on a safe, secure future to our children and to their children; to all who come after us. As I said earlier this year: “No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.”

8 Dec 1988

we realise that once you start to fiddle about with the Earth’s balance, you are in danger. 

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

We must hand on the title deeds of life to our grandchildren and beyond. That is our obligation. We here resolve to make it our duty.

7 Mar 1989

Humans are degrading the environment and that can destroy civilisation

For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world’s systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself.

27 Sep 1988

the assumption we have made that the atmosphere somehow would not change and what Man could do was very small compared with it—it is not very small any more! It is having an effect upon it and we have a duty to future generations and therefore, we must look very carefully because it can have two enormous consequences: climatic change—we do not know what consequence—and if it gets warmer parts of the ice cap could melt and the waters could come right in and cover certain parts of the land.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

We rightly set out to improve the standard of life of the world’s peoples but we have now realised that we could be undermining the very systems needed to maintain life on our planet.

7 Mar 1989

carbon which was fixed in the ground as coal, oil and gas and was there over millions of years is being released back into the atmosphere over a matter of decades. We are changing our planet’s environment in new and dangerous ways.

6 Dec 1989

We have cared too little for our seas, our forests and our land. We have treated the air and the oceans like a dustbin. We have come to realise that man’s activities and numbers threaten to upset the biological balance which we have taken for granted and on which human life depends.

6 Nov 1990

It appears from the above that, as PM, recognised the general problem of ecological destruction, through the unintended consequences of economic (and other) action.

Take science seriously

the increase in the greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons—which has led some to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability. We are told that a warming effect of 1°C per decade [this is probably a misprint] would greatly exceed the capacity of our natural habitat to cope.

27 Sep 1988

Scarcely a week goes by without reading or hearing of some new discovery. We learn more about the linkages between different aspects of atmospheric chemistry, between the chlorofluorocarbons and the greenhouse effect.

7 Mar 1989

science holds the key to the solution of the problem, as well as to its definition.

7 Mar 1989

On the broader front of global warming, we have had the scientific report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change.
This brought together the wisdom and scientific expertise of several hundred of the world’s best scientists. They gave us an authoritative view of the implications for the world’s climate of the enormous increases in carbon dioxide which are reaching the atmosphere year by year:
From our cars,
From our factories and our power stations,
Figures we cannot ignore.

27 Jun 1990

We know, too, that our industries and way of life have done severe damage to the ozone layer. And we know that within the lifetime of our grandchildren, the surface temperature of the earth will be higher than at any time for 150,000 years; the rate of change of temperature will be higher than in the last 10,000 years; and the sea level will rise six times faster than has been seen in the last century.

4 August 1990

The IPCC report is a remarkable achievement. It is almost as difficult to get a large number of distinguished scientists to agree, as it is to get agreement from a group of politicians. As a scientist who became a politician, I am perhaps particularly qualified to make that observation! I know both worlds.

6 Nov 1990

This last comment indicates her identification with scientists as well as politicians. This does not seem a casual idea for her.

Complexity, non linerality, uncertainty, unintended consequences

The fact that half the carbon dioxide generated by the industrial revolution is still in the atmosphere gives some idea of the size of the problem. And we’re still adding three billion tonnes a year. To ignore this could expose us to climatic change whose dimension and effects are unpredictable. So energy efficiency is crucial. 

8 Dec 1988

There are still many uncertainties about it. For example, we have a lot more to learn about the mechanisms of ozone creation and destruction and about the effects of increased ultraviolet radiation on living organisms.

7 Mar 1989

Now, the damage to the environment comes from the actions of millions of people conducting peaceful activities which contribute to their health, their well-being and their work in agriculture or industry, activities in other words which are perceived as beneficial.

7 Mar 1989

The real dangers arise because climate change is combined with other problems of our age: for instance the population explosion; — the deterioration of soil fertility; — increasing pollution of the sea; — intensive use of fossil fuel; — and destruction of the world’s forests, particularly those in the tropics.

6 Nov 1990

Climate change may be less than predicted. But equally it may occur more quickly than the present computer models suggest.

6 Nov 1990

Conservatism and the environment

Conservatives are not only friends of the earth, we are its trustees. But concern for the environment is not, and never has been, a first priority for Socialist governments. As we peel back the moral squalor of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, we discover the natural and physical squalor underneath. They exploited nature every bit as ruthlessly as they exploited the people. In their departure, they have left her chocking amidst effluent, acid rain and industrial waste. …

31 March 1990

Capitalism is not the enemy of the environment, but its friend and guardian. As more people own property, so more people have an incentive to protect it from pollution.

This we have learned from experience and no more so than in the last ten years in Britain. So much of the wealth created by a flourishing economy has been ploughed back directly into measures to protect and enhance our environment. 

In the last five years, we have cut the level of lead in our air by half…. from October this year, all new cars will have to be able to run on unleaded fuel.

This is not the record of a Government with no time for the environment. We stand for clean streets, clean rivers clear seas, fresh air, green acres.

31 March 1990

Economic growth important but must be bounded.

The future of the community demands that business does not try to prosper at the expense of the environment…. That means that the chemicals and other materials we use must be disposed of in a way that safeguards the environment. It also means we must heed the dangers posed by the greenhouse effect.

8 Dec 1988

who has yet looked at the true costs of coal and oil if we must ultimately separate the greenhouse gases they produce and prevent them from going into the atmosphere

6 Dec 1989

There are no simple economic mechanisms to govern countries’ behaviour in this field. The action we must take must harness the market and run with the grain of human nature. It was not regulation but the decisions of millions of individual consumers and the response of industry’s research and commercial initiative which has led to the development of ozone-friendly products, bio-degradable plastics and phosphate-free detergents

6 Dec 1989

Like the Garden of Eden to Adam and Even, anything which is given free is rarely valued. This is especially true of the global environment which mankind has used as a dustbin for decades.

6 Dec 1989

Action is difficult but must be taken

In the past when we have identified forms of pollution, we have shown our capacity to act effectively. The great London Smogs are now only a nightmare of the past. We have cut airborne lead by 50 per cent.

27 Sep 1988

Mr President, the evidence is there. The damage is being done. What do we, the International Community, do about it?

8 Nov 1989

we already have a £2 billion programme of improvements to reduce acid rain emissions from our power stations. We shall be looking more closely at the role of non-fossil fuel sources, including nuclear, in generating energy. And our latest legislation requires companies which supply electricity positively to promote energy efficiency.

8 Nov 1989

Our task as governments is this—
It is to follow the best advice available, To decide where the balance of evidence lies, And to take prudent action.

27 Jun 1990

Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community.

4 August 1990

The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.

6 Nov 1990

Many of the precautionary actions that we need to take would be sensible in any event. It is sensible to improve energy efficiency and use energy prudently; it’s sensible to develop alternative and sustainable and sensible … it’s sensible to improve energy efficiency and to develop alternative and sustainable sources of supply; it’s sensible to replant the forests which we consume; it’s sensible to re-examine industrial processes; it’s sensible to tackle the problem of waste.

6 Nov 1990

Promises are easy. Action is more difficult. For our part, we have worked out a strategy which sets us on the road to achieving the target…. We now require, by law, that a substantial proportion of our electricity comes from sources which emit little or no carbon dioxide, and that includes a continuing important contribution from nuclear energy

6 Nov 1990

I see the adoption of these policies as a sort of premium on insurance against fire, flood or other disaster. It may be cheaper or more cost-effective to take action now than to wait and find we have to pay much more later

6 Nov 1990

We must work together

The thing that emerges from this is that none of us can do it alone. What we could do alone would have some effect, but a small effect, and the world is getting together. There is a United Nations Environmental Protection Group which is very good and this is something that has to be pursued through that.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

The problems will only be solved by common action and every country must play its full part and every citizen can help

7 Mar 1989

It was Immanuel Kant who said that it is often necessary to make a decision on the basis of knowledge sufficient for action but insufficient to satisfy the intellect. Let us therefore do what makes sense in any event, such as conserving tropical forests and improving energy[fo 11] efficiency. In parallel, we must intensify our scientific efforts to model and predict climate change. A new centre to do just this is being established in this country.

6 Dec 1989

Costs are inevitable

we have to do the things on environment because we have a duty to do so and most of us wish to improve the environment in any event. It cannot be done without a cost. We have to take the nitrates out of water—that will be an extra process which will cost money, but we must have the safe water—and we have to do more on the coasts and that will cost money. We have to take the sulphur out of coal—that will cost money. The answer to the greenhouse effect is, of course, to have more nuclear and if we have more nuclear, all the technology is known to look after the residual nuclear waste, that too costs money but you do not get the greenhouse effect from that. 

So you cannot talk about improving the environment without being prepared to pay for the purer water and the better electricity without damaging the environment.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

the costs of doing nothing, of a policy of wait and see, would be much higher than those of taking preventive action now to stop the damage getting worse. And the damage will be counted not only in dollars, but in human misery as well. Spending on the environment is like spending on defence—if you do not do it in time, it may be too late.

4 August 1990

Research

Britain will continue to play a leading role in trying to answer the remaining questions, and to advance our state of knowledge of climate change. This year, we have established in Britain the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research for this purpose.

6 Nov 1990

But the need for more research should not be an excuse for delaying much needed action now. There is already a clear case for precautionary action at an international level. The IPCC tells us that we can’t repair the effects of past behaviour on our atmosphere as quickly and as easily as we might cleanse a stream or river.

6 Nov 1990

Foreign Aid

So yes, we have a duty. We have to make progress. The Third World wants to make as much progress as we have, but we now have to look at how we are going to maintain that particular atmosphere which supports life, which supports the chain of animal life as well. Absolutely vital. That is why I came out with your quote.

We do not have a freehold. We have a lease of life and at the end of that lease we pass it on to the next generation.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

[We give] £40 million a year to Bangladesh. I said: “Look! It is no earthly good going on relief because they have got floods. We have to get together with all of the countries in the area to try to get the soil back up there, the trees back up there, the silt from the rivers!”

You have to be careful how you do this because those countries are sensitive and you have to say: “Look, there is a problem! Please can we help!” Not: “You have got to do this, that and the other!” but “Please! Can we help? If you need help to do these things, we will put our aid to do those things!”

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

if you do not keep the trees and the forests, you do not get the rain; and also, you do not get the carbon dioxide used up, so immediately we have been talking about this on a much bigger scale and we and our Overseas Development Association are giving some of our aid to those countries who are prepared to keep their tropical rain forests.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

the new technologies and substances which are becoming available should help others to avoid the mistakes which we in the highly industrialised countries have made

7 Mar 1989

it is the duty of the industrialized countries to help them obtain and adopt the substitute technologies which will enable them to avoid our mistakes. And an important part of that will be to help them financially, so they can meet the extra costs involved.

27 Jun 1990

A Colleague’s Comment

Recently, another now ex-leader of the Conservatives had this to say about Thatcher:

[She was] better qualified than any other politician to understand climate science and to foresee the likely course of climate change if left unchecked…. [Her] concerns led to her becoming the first leader of any major nation to call for a landmark United Nations treaty on the issue…

Four years later, as Environment Secretary, I played a small role in ushering that UN treaty into existence at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Its resolutions did not require countries to commit themselves to specific reductions in emissions, but it was significant because it was the first step….

It is important to stress that it has never been a Conservative value to be ‘anti-science’. When climate scientists speak, we should listen.

Putting one’s fingers in one’s ears and denying the problem is not a rational response. The only pragmatic approach is to listen, evaluate and act.

The fact is that we have time to avoid the worst excesses of climate change, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to levels that will keep impacts at manageable levels.

The good news is that in Britain, we are cutting our emissions effectively and doing so is certainly not harming our economy….

This summer has shown that Margaret Thatcher was correct. We are conducting an experiment with the atmosphere and it is a dangerous one.

Thirty years ago Margaret Thatcher warned of man-made global warming. Daily Mail 16 August 2018.

Even this short collection of remarks shows a degree of dedication and realism towards the climate problem, and possibly bode well for the future – indeed had Thatcher not been deposed, and had she continued in this way, we might be considerably better off than we are now – but after her loss of office, her position ground to fixity and refusal, although it has to be recognised that the UK has a much better position on recognising the consequences of climate change and ecological destruction than Australia, Canada, or the US.

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Margaret Thatcher on Climate Action

February 25, 2020

After excoriating Neoliberalism in the last post. It is only fair to mention the comments of one of the founders of neoliberalism, British PM Margaret Thatcher, to show that in the 1980s things were not this far gone.

After this post, which basically just reports on one of Mrs Thatcher’s speeches, I give another post with a series of excerpts from speeches, which show her recurrent themes. She seems more radical and aware than any mainstream politician in Australia today. In the third post I move into consideration of her early post PM period and her growing turn away from environmentalism. The fourth post describes her largely incoherent but strongly neoliberal position in her final book Statescraft (2002), which basically turns away from the problem altogether. If get around to it, a fifth post will describe what she actually did in office.

To make this introductory post simple I am just quoting from one speech to the UN given on the 8th November 1989, almost exactly a year from her forced resignation. It does not completely cover her ideas, but its clear and to the point. It may need to be emphasised that she made this speech thirty years ago…..

From the end of the speech, because it is surprising:

Reason is humanity’s special gift. It allows us to understand the structure of the nucleus. It enables us to explore the heavens. It helps us to conquer disease. Now we must use our reason to find a way in which we can live with nature, and not dominate nature.

Italics added.

A neoliberal who could admit the aim of policy and reason is not to dominate or destroy nature? This is extraordinary in itself

In this speech, Thatcher claims to have been influenced, in her views, by the photos of Earth taken from space, from which came a powerful realisation.

That powerful idea is the recognition of our shared inheritance on this planet. We know more clearly than everbefore that we carry common burdens, face common problems, and must respond with common action….

[A]s we travel through space, as we pass one dead planet after another, we look back on our earth, a speck of life in an infinite void. It is life itself, incomparably precious, that distinguishes us from the other planets.

Life is precarious. This might be the only place in the universe, at this moment, with intelligent life. Certainly it is the only place we know of. That implies we have a duty to preserve it, and to recognise the fragility of the possibility of life. All present and near future human activity depends upon us preserving this planet, more or less as it is, as best we can. Mrs Thatcher presents no fantasy the elites could leave, or that the world is secondary to economics.

She gets rid of the ‘climate is always changing’ motif quite early on:

Of course major changes in the earth’s climate and the environment have taken place in earlier centuries when the world’s population was a fraction of its present size.

The causes are to be found in nature itself—changes in the earth’s orbit: changes in the amount of radiation given off by the sun: the consequential effects on the plankton in the ocean: and in volcanic processes.

All these we can observe and some we may be able to predict. But we do not have the power to prevent or control them.

However,

What we are now doing to the world, by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate—all this is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.

In this statement she essentially recognises that ongoing ecological destruction is a major problem; our problems are not limited to climate. She mentions previous civilisations that have changed their environments and brought about their downfall, but our current action is undoing the planet not just one civilisation.

We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. The annual increase is three billion tonnes: and half the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution still remains in the atmosphere.

At the same time as this is happening, we are seeing the destruction on a vast scale of tropical forests which are uniquely able to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

This clearance is massive; apparently an area the size of the UK was being lost every year. This clearly lowered the possibility of what we would nowadays call ‘carbon drawdown’; it forms a positive reinforcer of the problem. She recognises the problem is systemic, ‘things’ interact with each other.

She takes the science seriously and obviously talks to scientists:

Let me quote from a letter I received only two weeks ago, from a British scientist on board a ship in the Antarctic Ocean: he… also reports on a significant thinning of the sea ice, and he writes that, in the Antarctic, “Our data confirm that the first-year ice, which forms the bulk of sea ice cover, is remarkably thin and so is probably unable to sustain significant atmospheric warming without melting. Sea ice, separates the ocean from the atmosphere over an area of more than 30 million square kilometres. It reflects most of the solar radiation falling on it, helping to cool the earth’s surface. If this area were reduced, the warming of earth would be accelerated due to the extra absorption of radiation by the ocean.”

“The lesson of these Polar processes,” he goes on, “is that an environmental or climatic change produced by man may take on a self-sustaining or ‘runaway’ quality … and may be irreversible.”

She knows the situation is not linear. That talk asking how could a small increase in temperature, or CO2 concentrations, possibly have a large effect is rubbish talk.

She also knows that no one on the planet is safe from global warming

the problem of global climate change is one that affects us all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the international level.

As we might expect economic growth is important to her, but this growth has to be bounded and sensible. Not just random proliferation.

we must have continued economic growth in order to generate the wealth required to pay for the protection of the environment. But it must be growth which does not plunder the planet today and leave our children to deal with the consequences tomorrow.

Italics added

In case this is not clear, she continues

We should always remember that free markets are a means to an end. They would defeat their object if by their output they did more damage to the quality of life through pollution than the well-being they achieve by the production of goods and services.

This is not modern neoliberalism, as should be clear. It is also not her later version of neoliberalism

So what action does she recommend. Again it is not trivial

I believe we should aim to have a convention on global climate change ready by the time the World Conference on Environment and Development meets in 1992.

There are obvious difficulties:

no issue will be more contentious than the need to control emissions of carbon dioxide, the major contributor—apart from water vapour—to the greenhouse effect….

the measures we take must be based on sound scientific analysis of the effect of the different gases and the ways in which these can be reduced. In the past there has been a tendency to solve one problem at the expense of making others worse…

we prolong the role of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change after it submits its report next year, so that it can provide an authoritative scientific base for the negotiation of this and other protocols….

We can then agree to targets to reduce the greenhouse gases, and how much individual countries should contribute to their achievement. We think it important that this should be done in a way which enables all our economies to continue to grow and develop…..

we must not allow ourselves to be diverted into fruitless and divisive argument. Time is too short for that.

The point is clear. In Thatcher’s mind we must act urgently (early 1990s at the latest). If acting means that we ignore fruitless and politically divisive argument then that is what we must do

But it is not just international talk that she wants. The UK has to set an example on its own, not wait for others to do things first. The UK, being successful, has a responsibility. These are the outlines of some of her projected policies.

First, we shall be introducing over the coming months a comprehensive system of pollution control to deal with all kinds of industrial pollution whether to air, water or land…

We are encouraging British industry to develop new technologies to clean up the environment and minimise the amount of waste it produces—and we aim to recycle 50 per cent of our household waste by the end of the century [1999-2000].

Secondly, we will be drawing up over the coming year our own environmental agenda for the decade ahead. That will cover energy, transport, agriculture, industry—everything which affects the environment….

we already have a £2 billion programme of improvements to reduce acid rain emissions from our power stations. We shall be looking more closely at the role of non-fossil fuel sources, including nuclear, in generating energy. And our latest legislation requires companies which supply electricity positively to promote energy efficiency.

we shall look for ways to strengthen controls over vehicle emissions and to develop the lean-burn engine, which offers a far better long-term solution than the three-way catalyst, in terms of carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect….

With regard to agriculture, we recognise that farmers not only produce food—which they do with great efficiency—they need to conserve the beauty of the priceless heritage of our countryside. So we are therefore encouraging them to reduce the intensity of their methods and to conserve wild-life habitats…

We are planting new woods and forests—indeed there has been a 50 per cent increase in tree planting in Britain in the last ten years…

Third, we are increasing our investment in research into global environmental problems….

Fourth, we help poorer countries to cope with their environmental problems through our Aid Programme…

We shall give special help to manage and preserve the tropical forests.

I can announce today that we aim to commit a further £100 million bilaterally to tropical forestry activities over the next three years, mostly within the framework of the Tropical Forestry Action Plan.

While energy is missing from this speech, she has discussed it in earlier speeches. Perhaps she thought there would be resistance at the UN to talk of cutting down fossil fuel use. Elsewhere she shows her keenness for nuclear energy as it does not emit CO2. However she did not succeed in getting a set of nuclear reactors going in the UK, possibly because they were so expensive to build, the cost of their electricity was much greater than that of fossil fuels, and the cost of proper decommissioning was so great no private company would take it on. She also did not have a feasible or working renewables industry to discuss, or draw to people’s attention. What she might have said if she had, is possible to imagine.

No contemporary neoliberal has this vision, program for action, or grasp of the problems. So neoliberalism has become a lot worse as it has gained in power and as it celebrates its triumphalism.

The point is that for Mrs. Thatcher, at this stage in her life, it is possible to support both capitalism and climate action, whatever modern neoliberals suppose.

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