Posts Tagged ‘politics’

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Authoritarianism and the Right wing

November 25, 2019

Any argument about authoritarian politics, can depend on how you define left and right wing.

Usually the Right are those people who defend the established power relations and hierarchies, and the Left are those that challenge them by supporting people who have been declared outsiders or unworthy. While Conservatives also tend to support established power relations, it can be useful to distinguish conservatism from contemporary neoliberalism, as Conservatives may be skeptical of the benefits of unconstrained capitalism, and the radical transformations it brings. However, this distinction is not really maintained in this piece, even though it is politically vital…. See: Conservatism as philosophy and the posts referred to there.

The usual story is that the terms came into use during the period around the French Revolution when, in the National Assembly, the supporters of the King and aristocracy sat on the President (or presiding officer’s), right and the anti-royalist anti-aristocratic supporters of the revolution sat on his left.

In keeping with this tradition, those called ‘The Left’ in the English speaking world, tend to fight for workers’s rights, women’s rights, gay rights, minority race rights, refugee rights and so on, and the Right tends to fight against such rights, to declare that outsiders are dangerous and to increase the rights of the current dominant groups of capitalists and wealthy people. By supporting established power relations, the Right can also claim to be conservative – but sometimes by over-intensifying the powers of the dominant elite, it can end up destroying what it is supposed to be conserving.

While it is a customary piece of blather that Hitler and Mussolini where left wing, they opposed the left and were heavily supported by the right and the established hierarchies (capitalists, militarists, and so on); they opposed workers democracy, even in principal, and subordinated everything to the nation state, and the established hierarchy. They started persecuting and killing those they defined as dangerous but inferior outsiders (Jews, gypsies, gays, communists, pacifists, disabled people, etc). Eventually they started to replace the established hierarchy with their own. They were not ever pretending to be libertarian capitalists, of course, but that does not mean they were socialists.

Even nowadays (after it is quite clear what Nazism actually stood for), the mainstream Right seems happier working with, or excusing, neo-nazis and white supremacists, than they do working with or excusing anti-fascists who are trying to defend people against violence. This may not just be because both support hierarchies, but because the Right know there is a large chance the neo-fascists and white supremacists will vote for them.

Anyway, the problem for the left is quite obvious. Leftists aim for an overthrow of established powers; however should they achieve this by revolution, they usually have to impose an order, because the old hierarchy does not give in, other states may support the old hierarchy, they might still need a police force or national guard and so on. The French Revolution faced the threat of firstly the King subverting its aims, then the aristocracy some of whom fled and tried to persuade neighbouring states to invade, and the Church which was trying to preserve its aristocratic allies and their property, by stirring up counter-revolution among the peasantry. Austria, Prussia, Holland, Spain and England all opposed the Revolutionaries, at least partly to stop the idea of anti-hierarchy from spreading, and some of them engaged in open warfare against France. Similarly, the Russians faced deniable invading armies after the revolution who allied with the so called White Russians (who naturally persecuted inferiors), which left them on a war footing even after leaving WWI (which given the country could not afford war was a severe problem).

In imposing their new order, the left tends to become ‘rightists’ supporters of their new hierarchy, oppressors of those that challenge them, and so on. This direction gets reinforced when opportunistic authoritarians succeed in taking over “because it is necessary”, as did Stalin in Russia.

So the left revolution is so busy defending itself that it usually fails to be revolutionary or liberatory. This is a problem, because the regime justifies itself in terms of delivering freedom for ordinary people, when it is probably not doing that at all. People eventually notice the failure, and the best they give the regime is resigned and unenthusiastic tolerance.

Rightist revolutions are usually less troublesome for the winners. Being at home with the existing hierarchies, the right can use them and then fade them out gradually if they so choose. They can support traditional modes of ordering, usually with the same personnel, while making them more intense or militarised. They can free up people, in their old ‘policing’ jobs, to be more aggressive in supporting the establishment and persecuting outsiders – which is usually not very difficult. Their main risk is trying to gain legitimacy by demonstrating their military superiority over inferior types. This can increase problems, if they eventually encounter a better armed less tired force, or supply lines get stretched beyond the capacity to support them. To some extent this happened with the Righteous who supported the second Iraq War in the name of the New American Century, or of maintaining US dominance and oil supplies. However, if they stay within National Borders and pacify and celebrate existing powers, like Franco did in Spain with the support of the Church and the old aristocracy, they can be stable for quite a long while. Mussolini could probably have survived a lot longer than he did, but he went against his original suspicions of Hitler and joined with him in a series of unnecessary, unpopular (with the Italian people) and weakening wars.

This implies support for authority, can become a form of corruption. The Church in Spain for example, might have thought that supporting Franco was support for Spanish values and Church authority, and would lead to salvation for most of Spain, but they learnt to ignore torture and maltreatment of victims, and quite a lot of other Christian values as part of that support. Similarly, people on the right who support free markets as a form of liberty, and who gain power, tend to end up supporting the capitalist elite (because they have money) and end up supporting crony capitalism, state capture, anti-union laws, anti-protest laws and so on, because opposition to these pro-capitalist moves promotes inhibition of the market. They deliver liberty for the capitalist elite, rather than for ordinary people. This arrangement can also be quite stable for a while, although it might be looking precarious at the moment.

There is an argument that neoliberalism (lots of talk of free markets with state support for Capitalist elites) was first tried out in the dictatorship in Chili, and promoted by Hayek and Friedman. It is a complex argument and a lot of neoliberals object to this characterisation, but it rarely seems they are particularly interested in a democracy that threatens capitalist domination, whatever the people might want.

In terms of the Toynbee cycle, both left and right revolutions are trying to solve perceived major challenges to the social order. The Rightist revolution in the contemporary English speaking world quite possibly originated in dealing with the “crisis of democracy“; the fact that the non-revolutionary left had succeeded to such an extent that the elites where threatened by:

  • minorities who now insisted they had a right to self governance, and to overturn the traditions (sexism, genderism, racism etc) which had held them down,
  • the steadily increasing wages of the lower class, and State based social support, which gave them prosperity, freedom to participate in government, lack of fear of unemployment and disobedience to bosses, and
  • the growing success of the environmental movement which threatened wealthy high polluters, environmental destruction for profit, nuclear power and the fossil fuel industry.

To the Right these collective factors promised chaos, and led to the campaign to make markets the supreme virtue and reinforce corporate dominance, while pretending to bring people a lack of governmental interference, or rather a lack of governmental support and an alienation from participation in their own self-government.

This movement has had the probably unintended consequence of accelerating and protecting environmental destruction, and the resultant destabilizing of world orders – which is likely to become a complete destructive crisis in the next ten to twenty years.

The Russian Left faced the problems of a decaying aristocratic government and a small comfortable middle class, both of whom could not see the growing unrest among the peasantry and workers who were seeing the country fall apart, with them being asked to take the burdens. There was also protest against a war that few really believed was in Russia’s interests, and Russia’s lack of an industrial base with which to produce modern armaments. While the Russians did solve the problem of Industrialisation in a very short time, it would be ignorant to deny this came at a great cost.

So, the answer to the question is complicated.

I’d say that by definition the vast majority of authoritarian states are right-wing, but they may not have started out that way, or intended to be so, they just become that way to defend themselves against the disorder that eventuated.

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The PM on the Bushfires

November 24, 2019

Right wing politicians still condemn people for mentioning the possible connection between climate change and intense early bushfires. The condemnation seems to have been started by the National Party trying to make it look as though mentioning the connection was politically motivated and inappropriate, despite the connection coming from non-political sources, who were not blaming the government parties. The condemnation was, of course, supported by the Murdoch Empire.

After making the point several times himself, the PM made the following tweets:

Scott Morrison@ScottMorrisonMP·Nov 19

There are 70+ fires burning in Qld. I spoke to Premier Palaszczuk yesterday to offer any assistance they need. Our @DeptDefence continue to transport firefighters to where they’re needed and to undertake other tasks as requested by the States, like clearing overgrown firebreaks.

Scott Morrison@ScottMorrisonMP·Nov 20

I visited the @QldFES Centre today to get an update on the current and forecast bushfire conditions. Australia is facing some dangerous fire conditions all across the country in the coming days. Please keep updated on fires in your area. Stay alert. Stay informed. Stay safe.

and

Scott Morrison@ScottMorrisonMP·Nov 20

Going to be a great summer of cricket, and for our firefighters and fire-impacted communities, I’m sure our boys will give them something to cheer for. [1]

In other words, we don’t need any leadership on climate change, or attempts to prepare for a summer of fires; all the firefighters and people who’ve lost their homes need is success at cricket!!

On the other hand, a report released at the beginning of the year stated that millions of people in Australia’s East face natural disaster risk.

Across greater Sydney, there are 317,000 people in council areas facing high bushfire risks, with most of these in Richmond, Windsor and Blaxland.

Another 484,000 are in medium-risk areas, stretching from Hornsby in the north to the fast growing suburbs south of Camden….

There are 66,000 residents in the Hawkesbury catchment facing very high threats of flooding.

There are another 1.3 million people at high risk of flooding, including in Penrith, parts of Fairfield, Liverpool and Camden…

Outside greater Sydney, there are another 1.7 million people in NSW at risk of flooding….

133,000 people living around Port Macquarie and Taree face a high risk of storms. 

That is just in NSW.

More than 4.4 million people in NSW and Queensland live in local council areas with extreme or high risk of cyclones,

And so on. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to plan about. No fears things could get worse. Don’t be political….

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Only 1.3%

November 23, 2019

Australia and Climate Change

It is frequently argued that Australia’s CO2 emissions are tiny, and that there is no point in Australia’s federal government acting to cut them. The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, was making this argument the other day.

Faced with criticism over the recent bushfires, because it seems logical that increased drought and temperatures from climate change would increase bush fire danger and severity, he said

the suggestion that any way, shape or form with Australia accountable for 1.3 per cent of the world’s emissions, that the individual actions of Australia are impacting directly on specific fire events, whether it’s here or anywhere else in the world, that doesn’t bear up to credible scientific evidence either. Climate change is a global phenomenon, and we’re doing our bit as part of the response to climate change. We’re taking action on climate change. But I think to suggest that with just that 1.3 per cent of global emissions that Australia doing something differently, more or less, would have changed the fire outcome this season. I don’t think that stands up to any credible scientific evidence at all.

This lack of urgency for action, seems reinforced when the US, under President Trump, also pretends there is no problem. US emissions are huge, and we can have no obvious effect on those, and by comparison our general effect is small. We also cannot directly affect emissions in China and India, which are also significantly larger than our own.

However, there are significant problems with this issue. Australia does not have 1.3% of the world’s population. We have about 0.33%, so we are batting at just under four times our weight in emissions – which is impressive. We are also, as the Climate Council pointed out, when Mr. Morrison used the same argument at the UN, around the 17th largest emitter in the world, ahead of 175 other countries.

We also reputedly have amongst the highest per capita emissions in the developed world.

Climate Analytics stated in their 2019 fact sheet that:

Australians emit more than twice as much per person as the average of the ‘Group of Twenty’ (G20) in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. This includes burning fossil fuels and other processes in industry, agriculture and waste treatment.

Figures released in August of 2019, for March 2019, by the Australian government show emissions rose 0.6 per cent over the previous 12 months, largely because of gas. So our emissions are not heading in the right direction for long-term survival, and Mr Morrison could be said to be engaging in deception if he implies that any targets we are meeting, are useful, or that we really doing our bit to save everyone.

Furthermore, none of these figures about emissions, factor in the emissions from exports of coal, gas or oil which are burnt elsewhere. We are about the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world, so we are responsible for their availability. We are also apparently going to boost our coal production by 34% over a decade. That is probably a conservative estimate given the potential of Clive Palmer’s mines in Queensland. Given that our emissions are not declining, then the actual, and future, emissions which can be attributed to Australia or to the burning of Australian products is likely to be considerably more than 1.3% and increasing.

If Australia is acting on climate, it is to make climate change worse.

By not attempting to ameliorate climate change, and not attempting to prepare for climate change (not being ready for early and large bush fires or drought) Australia is showing that it does not care about climate change, it will not protect its people from climate change, and that it will not object that strongly to other bigger polluters continuing to pollute. It puts no pressure on local industries or other Countries to reduce and it does not set a good example. Our actions help to make Greenhouse gas production normal which produces more climate change.

By making these choices, and encouraging coal mining in Australia, Australian governments are allying with the commercial and political forces which produce climate change. Our governments (of all persuasions) are apparently demonstrating that they care more for the profit of some companies, than they care about preserving the land, water, people’s health or maintaining a climate balance. They care more about maintaining profits than they do about ordinary people’s lives. Choices made, such as the mining under Sydney’s water supply, or the Adani mine in the Great Artesian basin, compound the problems of climate, by affecting water supply, and demonstrating further lack of concern.

It is sometimes argued that if we do not sell fossil fuels, then countries will buy them from other suppliers, and Australians will lose jobs. This may be true, but it hardly makes those sales moral or sensible – virtue can be difficult – and there are not that many jobs in mining these days either.

If we did decide not to sell fossil fuels then (according to orthodox economics) this would lower supply and increase the price, thus adding more incentive for other countries to move out of fossil fuels.

Damage to our ecology, agriculture and cities by climate change through sea level rise, massive storms and droughts will also cost us money – only most of it will be from the taxpayers and not the companies who profit.

By not being worried that Australians have one of the highest Greenhouse gas emissions per head in the world, Australian governments are further implying that a prosperous life style depends upon destroying climate and ecological stability, and that everyone destroying that stability should be encouraged, so they can become prosperous. This one reason why Australian governments probably promote the developmental capacity of coal (apart from making money for miners).

By being half hearted or indifferent to climate change they provide an exemplar and an excuse for the behavior of other countries (‘If wealthy countries in the West can’t be bothered, then why should less developed countries?’).

There is also truth in what the Prime Minister says, if we currently made half the emissions we do now, and nothing else had changed, then it is probable that there would be little difference in the current bushfires. But the question is would nothing else have changed over the last 20 or so years, if we had acted? Would we be as equally unprepared for bush fires? Would we have sacked so many people with experience in fire preparation in cost cutting escapades? Would other countries have not been influenced by Australia’s example, and cut emissions? Would we have been a more effective force at the UN, rather than prevaricate and support fossil fuels? Would we have sold as many fossil fuels? Would we have helped other countries to move out of fossil fuels?

If we had reduced our consumption, then everything would not be the same.

If we act to cut emissions and support transition to renewables then we provide an exemplar of behaviour which also might influence both other governments and corporate behaviour – at the least we would not appear hypocritical – and indeed the world might be different. If we had begun the work in 1990, or even 2008, then, even without support from other countries, it is probable the world would be in a much better space.

If we keep doing nothing, we keep increasing the possibility that events can get much worse than they would otherwise.

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Clinton and Gabbard

November 17, 2019

Everybody knows that Clinton attacked Tulsi Gabbard, and this is causing a scandal.

I thought I would have a quick look at what this was all about. What I found was another example of (dis)information, or mess of information, at work, and it is of some interest to look at how this mess operates.

Firstly, Clinton gave an interview on the 17th of October 2019 in which she said some members of the Democrats were likely Russian Assets and aiming at splintering the Party like Jill Stein had done…

Her argument was pro-Trump forces would not necessarily only try to get people to vote for Trump, but to actively not vote for the Democratic opponent. She said they would say:

You don’t like me? Don’t vote for the other guy because the other guy is going to do X, Y and Z or the other guy did such terrible things and I’m going to show you in these, you know, flashing videos that appear and then disappear and they’re on the dark web, and nobody can find them, but you’re going to see them and you’re going to see that person doing these horrible things.

This might be a bit exaggerated, but it does seem to encapsulate a lot of what was happening during the last election. Clinton continued that the Republicans,

They’re also going to do third party again. And I’m not making any predictions but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far, and that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up. Which she might not, ’cause she’s also a Russian asset.

Many early media reports suggested that Clinton had said the Russians, rather than the Republicans, were “grooming” a candidate. In either case, no evidence seems to be presented by Clinton.

This was not wise set of statements, but Clinton probably lost the Presidency, and we got Donald Trump, because of people splitting the ‘left’, so it is not unreasonable she should have feelings on the matter, and warn that more intense versions of the same techniques are likely to be used again.

Apparently Tulsi Gabbard went on twitter claiming that Clinton and the Democrats were smearing her, and implying that the Democrats were corrupt. It is not clear what Gabbard’s source of the story was, possibly earlier mainstream media reports.

Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain,

it was always you, through your proxies and … powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.

It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.

We can see several standard approaches here.

  • Trying to make the tweeter look as though they are being suppressed
  • Trying to make the Tweeter look important – the others are frightened of the threat she poses, hence things they say are to be discounted.
  • Responding to a smear with a bigger smear taken as common sense, or what everybody knows.
  • Discrediting news which the tweeter finds objectionable by ‘dissing’ media in general; as if there were not more accurate and less accurate media organisations.
  • Accusing the other person of inherently taking a position which they may not have taken, and cannot deny without appearing to take that position.
  • There is also some soothing of any of the ‘Left’ who did not vote for Clinton and thus helped Trump to victory, by opening with the unsupported accusation that Clinton is the “Queen of warmongers” and “embodiment of corruption”. To reiterate, Clinton has been endlessly investigated by hostile inquiries, and they have never found an offence she can be charged with, or even thoroughly accused of. She is hardly the exemplar of evil – unless you take the absence of evidence and charges as showing how evil and cunning she is.

The Story was taken up by Fox News who broadcast Gabbard’s twitter statements and interviewed her. Gabbard clearly liked the segment as she tweeted it. It is probably not going too far to postulate that Fox saw a story which would cast the Democrats, and their favourite villain, Hillary Clinton, in a bad light and so were eager to participate in the issue, and stir it up for their own political aims.

On the 19th of October, CNN host Van Jones said that Clinton had come out against Gabbard, “a decorated war veteran” with “just a complete smear and no facts.” CNN seems to have heavily promoted the allegations and the conflict, although I have not checked thoroughly as to how heavily they promoted the line.

We can, therefore, note that at least two examples of the “corporate media” which Gabbard condemns, seem to have been fairly sympathetic to her position.

Someone asked a person, Nick Merril, who is associated with Clinton (I don’t know to what degree, although he likes portraying himself as close), if Clinton had meant Gabbard, and he replied something like:

Divisive language filled with vitriol and conspiracy theories? Can’t imagine a better proof point than this.

and

If the nesting doll fits

There is no evidence from his statements that he had any inside knowledge, but that he thought Gabbard’s response to Clinton made the general point.

Most mainstream news companies went with Gabbard’s version of the story as this was the only version being broadcast, until some of them checked the interview and found that Clinton had not named Gabbard. They then attempted to clear things up.

Other news companies then attacked the retractions. One I saw, argued that Clinton did attack Gabbard and was lying, and played the interview, concluding, to the effect that ‘there you are no question of it’. Unfortunately, in the clip they showed, Clinton did not mention Gabbard at all, despite their explicit claims to the contrary.

If that was the best they could do, then it is clear that Clinton did not attack Gabbard by name, and apparently not by implication either (unless you consider the use of ‘her’ as an implication).

A day or so later (20th October or thereabouts), the President saw this as an opportunity to use the story to defend Gabbard and himself, saying:

Hillary Clinton, I don’t know if you’ve heard of her, she’s the one accusing everybody of being a Russian agent. Anybody that is opposed to her is a Russian agent. That’s a scam that was pretty much put down.

I don’t know Tulsi, but she’s not a Russian agent, I don’t know Jill Stein. I know she likes environment. I don’t think she likes Russians. If she does like them, I know she’s not an asset.

These people are sick. There’s something wrong with them,

[Different media sources give different orders, and slightly different phrasings for Trump’s statements, probably because he made them several times, (probably at a Press Conference, and in a hyper-friendly interview on Fox) as he saw it as an opportunity to dismiss the Mueller inquiry’s findings, and the general evidence he both received Russian support and his campaign attempted to attract Russian support]

This acts to keep the story going, and to keep it phrased in a certain way.

However, what can we conclude about Gabbard’s quick response to Clinton?

  • a) At best, Gabbard is thin-skinned and likely to completely break up under pressure from the Republican media. If she can’t handle this she has no chance of survival in real heat.
  • b) She may have a guilty conscience and recognised herself in the comments.
  • c) She tried to smear Clinton and the Democrats, in order to persuade her followers not to support whoever is chosen to run for President if it wasn’t her (and her nomination is probably unlikely), and therefore keep Trump in power.

According to some reports, rather than just backing down and getting on with her campaign Gabbard is pressing Clinton to retract “her accusations”, through her lawyers. According to these stories (which may not be true of course), she demands that Clinton say:

“On October 17, 2019, I made certain statements about Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Among other things, I accused her of being a Russian asset and that Russia was grooming her to be a third-party candidate.

“I was wrong. I never should have made these remarks, and I apologize. I did not have any basis for making the statements. I acknowledge my grave mistake and error in judgment in this matter.” [there is more]

Clinton cannot retract what she did not do, but Gabbard appears to want to create as much chaos as possible, as you would expect if she was trying to splinter the Democratic Party and keep Trump in power. She may not be trying, but that is what she appears to be doing.

At the best, it means that the information so strongly fits with her filters (“Clinton is corrupt,” “The Democratic Party authorities are against me,” “people who support me agree Clinton named me”), that Gabbard cannot be bothered to check what she already knows, or that she does not want to loose face, media attention, or campaign momentum, by admitting the story is distorted.

We already have that problem, in a President who seems to primarily believe what Fox News tells him is the case, and who throws aside counter information, that does not fit with his bias and filters.

We can also see the story being used for political purposes, and in attempts to settle scores, and hostilities. This distracts from attempts to find out what is correct or even what is plausible. Some reports suggest that Gabbard’s fund raising was boosted by the ‘scandal’, which would provide another reason to keep going with the story, but I’m not accepting that as correct at the moment.

This now, seems to be becoming the normal response to news. Accept what fits with your existing bias, or political strategy, and don’t check to make sure its correct. If you are wrong, then let the news cycle move on, or create a new disturbance. Being wrong is irrelevant, and people will eventually forget you were wrong.

For me, this series of events as well as describing motivators of the information mess, opens the question of whether Gabbard is a suitable candidate for President? Let us compare her with someone who is not a presidential Candidate. AOC.

AOC is intelligent and competent, she handles pressure well, she deals with conflict wittily, she makes news, she does things, she works well with others, and she improves the standing of her Party.

Gabbard may have good policies, but clearly does not handle pressure or conflict well, and she does not seem to do much to improve the Party’s standing. I don’t know anything about how she works with other people, and so far I have seen no evidence that Gabbard has done anything, above the routine, with her four terms in Congress. However, she does appear to be trying hard to split the Party, and keep Trump in office. If she is not trying to do this, then it is hard to praise her intelligence.

Incidentally, it was reported in February that:

An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.

So the Russians may like her. She has supported their actions and propaganda in Syria [1],[2],[3] which makes that support plausible. [I’m not quite clear why realistic suspicion of US foreign policy, translates so often into the ideas that everyone the US supports must be bad and that Putin is the Good Guy. But it does]. The conspiratorial right and Fox has also apparently supported her, although I doubt this would translate into support for her in an election against Trump. If so, then this adds to the likelihood of the news being stirred and distorted, for the Right’s benefit.

Let us be clear, that despite the popularity of the “both sides are equally bad,” meme, there is no doubt that Trump is far worse than Clinton would have been, and if you are remotely Green, then that should be obvious. Trump will gladly destroy and poison people to boost corporate power. He joyfully supports destruction of the environment. Throughout the world, we have all had our probabilities of uncomfortable eco-death increased by the election of Trump. It is not smart to fall into the same trap again.

This means, of course that if Gabbard does win the primaries, then it is important to support her against Trump, and not get caught up in counter wars against her of the kind the Republicans will try to start up.

It is that vital to defeat Trump.

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Reflections on the ‘Deep State’

October 20, 2019

The idea behind the term “Deep State” is important, but the term, as is currently used, seems to function as a propaganda device to justify pro-corporate factions in their struggle against any curtailment of corporate power, or corporate ability to distribute costs to the public, often in the context of climate change. For the idea to regain its use, we might have to replace it with some other term such as the “factional State”

Definition and basic Propaganda Functions

Wikipedia gives the following, apparently unattributed, definition of the Deep State:

a hybrid association of government elements and parts of top-level industry and finance that is effectively able to govern the…. [Nation] without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.

While this definition gives the impression that the State is a monolithic unity (when it is not unified but full of conflict, as the term ‘factional state’ suggests), it is important to recognise that, in the US and much of the Western World, one of the main drivers of the ‘deep state’ is the commercial sector (“top-level industry and finance”), as the current propaganda use of the terms tends to ignore this part of the definition altogether.

This definition and the propaganda usage, both ignore the different types of power (including military power), and their different ways of operating. (Not to mention the relationship between power and incompetence). This again, serves an ideological function because it makes the State the only form of power, as well as the single and simple oppresive power which needs to be curtailed. In particular, usage ignores the power of wealth, and the way it can operate against freedom, and control most of the other sources of power. It also deletes the idea that ‘the people’ can use, and have used, the State to benefit themselves (even if this involves struggles with other factions).

The role of commerce in the State, and in power relations, is perhaps being ignored because the Right want to get rid of any regulation of corporations, or rules that help protect citizens from corporations. This certainly seems to be one of President Trumps most consistent aims – other than when he thinks he can curtail international trade, for America’s benefit.

In this context, it is also notable that the ‘Libertarian Right’ is always vitally keen on cutting government spending which benefits (or could benefit) ordinary citizens, but generally has little energy to agitate for cuts to military spending, perhaps because most of that spending is subsidy of large parts of the corporate sector.

The pro-corporate propagandists probably also do not want the commercial sector to be held responsible for any wars held to capture or defend oil, labour and markets for US business, which was pereviously quite a well known idea. It seems unlikely that the propagandists do not recognise that increased military spending, such as the massive increases boasted of by Trump, is likely a prelude to the actual use of the material in war or threat of war. However, they certainly behave as if they do not recognise this.

Some of the Possible Factions in the Factional State

The “factional State” idea suggests multiple forces are involved in the State, not only pro-corporate forces, or malicious hidden actors, are at work, and we don’t have to assume all corporations have exactly the same interests and are completely unified, either. Some forms of possible factions include bureaucrats in various departments, pro-science factions, foreign affairs, intelligence, military, economic and political party factions. Not all of which are intrinsically harmful.

The State depends for continuity on bureaucrats who try to maintain that continuity while protecting their place in the State. These bureaucrats may tend to try to protect the State and the nation from mad, or overly-idealistic, kings or emperors. This is why the Roman State survived so long after madness and incompetence seemed the hallmark of rulers. In an extreme form, this illustrates the ‘Yes Minster’ theory of the State, in which the civil service obstructs both politicians’ fantasy, and their good ideas.

As part of this State faction, there may be dedicated public servants who try and stop corporations from poisoning, or otherwise maltreating normal citizens, and are thus also identified as enemies of business, and who need to be removed. This faction might also represent what we might call, the “green State,” the “humanitarian State” or the “useful State.”

There are also other public servants who favour the pro-corporate line, and who welcome the possibility of making transition into much higher paid jobs in the private sector, while using contacts to influence State action. Again the point is that the State is factional, and a site of struggle between factions. The State is not unified or uniform.

At one time there might have been somsething we could call techno-scientific factions in the State. These were composed of the people who made sure there was money for State-useful research that was unlikely to be done by the private sector, or done properly by the private sector. They also advised on energy, water, satellites, disease control, and what we call ‘infrastructure’. They would also try and persuade the State to keep the infrastructure functional. Again, it is improbable there would be complete unity here. Medical experts, Physics experts and others would compete for finance, priority and influence.

There are also the diplomats and foreign affairs people who might try and keep relationships with other States concentionally ‘functional’ despite the rantings of local politicians who would happily insult other rulers or threaten war to raise local support. Again, it seems probable that some of these people would recommend support for different other States, different levels of support for other States, different levels of military threat (either way) and different forms of covert action. There would only rarely be unity.

Intelligence people would try and find out what other States where actually doing and sometimes undermine those efforts to keep things “smooth.” It is not hard to imagine them trying to undermine dissent in the State itself and support establishment politics, but that is an uncertain field. During the cold war, it seems to be well documented that in the West intelligence agencies kept a “strong eye” on left wing politicians and dissenters, and it seems doubtful they have changed.

It seems highly probable that the English-speaking State’s economic experts have been largely captured by pro-corporate, pro-free market, pro-development, pro-growth forces. This is a rare moment of unity. These theories seem more or less unchallengable, although there is some dispute between more humanitarian factions and more stringent ‘sacrifice the poor and workers’ factions. This also seems to have been well documented. Such economism may be resisted outside the State, but it seems usually to be popular with establishment politicians as it provides justification for the increase of corporate wealth and power.

Politicians are another faction in the State. Long standing politicians, in particular, will have built up alliances with other long standing actors in the State (including other politicians), they may even have selected them. Politicians are likely to have relationships with those who finance them, and will fight to support the interest of these financers and the interests of commercial power in general. This is one of the powers of wealth; representatives can be bought. Politicians can also be run by ideology, and may have little experience in the day to say running of the State, so the Nation and the State may be harmed by their actions. Ultimately, politicians can seem to be able to force the State to behave as they wish. The Government, or even the President, can declare war against the advice of foreign affairs, intelligence, military and treasury. The government can change relatively successful economic policies against advice. The government can ignore scientific advice to favour their backers as with climate change. And the government can direct offices to find information which matches with political ideology, but does not match with reality, and the departments be left to sort out the mess.

The existence of different factions does not mean there cannot be alliances between them which work against one side of the political faction, but these are likely to be opposed by other alliances. And it is rare for any political party to hold the support of much more than 55% of the population, and thus even those who claim an overwhelming mandate should accept the presence of opposition and be willing to try and justify their position by ‘facts,’ persuasion, and acceptance of advice from others, rather than aim for total victory and destruction of opposition (which could be considered tyranny).

Destruction of Continuity by Ideology: More use of the ‘Deep State’ idea

It seems to be becoming more and more common for Politicians and governments to deploy a version of the American system whereby the heads of departments and high level advisors are political appointees with prime loyalty to the incoming President or government (ie one group of politicians), rather than loyalty to the State or nation iself. These appointments break continuity, break knowledge, break experience, break up convention, break up resistance to stupidity and ideology, and establish the relative dominance of the political factions for the time they are in power.

The Trump transition was apparently remarkable for its lack of interest in what the State actually did for the US and non-corporate citizens (See Michael Lewis). This seems to have been part of an ideological drive to demolish the ‘useful’ State while keeping the oppressive state. President Trump, while erratic, is fairly coherent on his project of support for parts of the corporate sector, via tax cuts, increased military spending, and reduction of red tape and restrictions on corporate victimisation of ordinary people. He especially seems to desire to cut back controls on pollution and environmental despoliation, and I have frequently seen this portrayed as part of Trump’s fight against the Deep State, who are supposedly against business (another reason why the propagandists want commercial input into the state not to be mentioned). This is probably why he gets such huge support from the Republican Party despite his levels of random incompetence. Indeed a competent, well connected and popular President might be the pro-corporate state’s nightmare.

It is useful to the Right to suggest that people are hostile to Trump, not because of his incompetence or tyrannical moves, but because of Deep State plotting. By a careful use of the term “deep state”, it can be implied that attempts to hold Trump responsible to the consitution and for his acts, are profoundly undemocratic. They can also imply that the reason Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted, was not because Republicans could find no coherent evidence against her despite years of trying, but because she was protected by secret elites. The State must be made evil to justify its cutback and promotion of unregulated corporate abuse.

Secondly, the term reinforces the attempt to ignore experts who give scientific reports that disagree with Politicians’ ideology; the reports can be dismissed as just the deep state working against people.

Another part of the propagandist use is to suggest that wars are brought about the intelligence agencies, controlling the President through misleading information – hence it does not have to be a concern that it is widely reported that President Trump ignores this information. However, it is also clear that Intelligence agencies may not always want war. This was demonstrated during the build up to Bush Jr’s Iraq war. It perhaps depended on the media you read at the time, but it was pretty obvious the US and British Agencies were leaking profusely, trying to give people the information they needed to see through the Republican media lie machine and its reports of “weapons of mass destruction”. The Agencies were warning about the likely spread of war to other countries and its destabilising consequences. All of which happened as predicted. They appeared not to want to be blamed for the disaster they thought the war would be. However, they were completely unable to control the President or his ‘war machine’.

[I also remember reading but cannot remember were, so this might be rubbish, that Bush Jr and friends also ignored the advice of the military not to go into Iraq.] They definitely, and completely, ignored the military’s contingency plans for what they should do after victory. In fact they seemed not to have any plans for what to do after victory.

Later the Republicans somehow seem to have managed to lay the blame for the war on the Intelligence agencies rather than on themselves, perhaps because the media naturally tends towards that party or because intelligence agencies make for easy villains. The idea of the Deep State was part of their avoidance of responsibility. They used the term to try and convince people that the Right was not a party of war, or at least not worse than the other side, so they could be tolerated despite the mess they got the world into.

Interestingly, during the time that the Arab Spring looked successful, many Republicans seemed to be claiming that the war in Iraq had worked and their decision was justified. The point is that it seems far more likely that Republican politicians won the struggle within the Factional State, and were mistaken in their anticipation of the results and course of the war, rather than they were taken in by secretive actors within the State.

Summary

The State is not unified, it is a site of struggle between different factions, and that often includes struggles with the ruling politicians and their supporters (particularly financing supporters) – who find this resistance annoying. Supressing the conflicts and distinctions between factions, amounts (in the current day) to supporting the corporate-military State at the expense of everyone else.

Comparison between Deep State theory (DS) and Factional State theory (FS):

1: DS) The state is monolithic and unified

Vs

FS) The State is a site of struggle involving many factions

*

2: DS) The State is bad (unless it supports the Corporate sector)

Vs

FS) Whether the State is useful or not, depends on the results of struggle between factions.

*

3: DS) There is only one source of oppressive power; the State.

Vs.

FS) There are many forms of power. Whether they are oppressive or not depends on how the power is wielded, and often who by. The State is not the only oppressive force.

*

4: DS) The state is only responsible to itself

Vs.

FS) The State is potentially responsible to many factions, including the political faction

*

5: DS) The State always ignores the views of the people

Vs.

FS) The State can ignore the views of the people, but it does not have to. It is likely to respond more speedily to the views of the ruling class (in the US this is the Corporate class), but it can be used to curtail the acts of the rulers – this may lead to it being attacked by the rulers and their representatives, and those they manage to persuade.

*

6: DS) The Deep State is to blame when ‘our’ policies do not work, or our view of reality seems not to deliver the results we would like.

Vs

FS) The States is a complex system, within other complex systems. It is natural for results of policies and actions to be partly unexpected. This does not have to be explained by resistance alone. Neither will eliminating the State mean that a political party’s vision of reality is correct, and only good things will result.

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Political Rhetoric

October 17, 2019

Rhetorical tropes which are used to support, or which end up supporting, the Right in the USA

1) Both Sides are equally bad. [Therefore the Republicans are not that bad.]

2) The Republican president is vulnerable to the Deep State. [Therefore any attempt to impeach the current President for corruption is anti-democratic, and a deep state conspiracy. ]

3) America has done bad things in the past. [Therefore, what we, or the President, are doing now is not that bad really. Certainly we should be even handed about this, and excuse ourselves from any particular responsibility (see 1)]

4) Always talk about foreign policy and wars, because the parties are quite similar here. Never talk about domestic issues (other than guns), such as: wages, work security, work safety, distribution of income, or health. That way, point 1 is reinforced again

5) The left is to blame for whatever goes wrong. Everything is ok, when the Right governs, even while it is collapsing.
Eg: By questioning us the Democrats are responsible for everything bad that happens while they are questioning us, because they break morale. [Therefore they are the bad people. Everyone should just be quiet – unless they are criticising democrats]

6) Science is a left-wing political conspiracy, [unless it is sponsored by the corporate sector, and boosts profit, and even then its risky.]

7) Global warming is an example of science in action. Scientists just say there is global warming because they get grants for saying that.

8) Disagreeing with a scientific consensus shows true independent thinking. Disagreeing with the free market ‘consensus’ [which does not exist in economics] shows lunacy.

9) The Constitution allows the Right to do whatever they like, because they are Right….

10) The Left want to warp the consitution and take away your rights.

11) The left are politically correct, latte drinking, socialist, feminazi, whimps who would boldly take your guns and freedom away.

12) The Left would persecute Religious people [by objecting to religious people discriminating against others.]

13) Listening to women talk about sexual assault, leads to innocent men being persecuted and so women should be ignored [they are viscious irrational harridans to begin with].

14) People who identify as Lefist should be shot – Oh we are not being serious, the left just can’t take a joke.

15) To keep you safe we have to prevent leftists from propagating socialist propaganda like global warming. They are unAmerican at best.

16) We must reluctantly support Nazis and white-supremacist rights to free speech. Because free speech is sacred.

17) The lack of support you hear from ordinary non-shouty people, indicates they support us.

18) Helping poor people is interfering government at its worse. Helping rich people makes everyone prosperous.

19) Private charity is good. [It keeps the poor acknowledging their place and dependency.]

20) No Good, Christian, Conservative, free market loving, Anglo, gender secure, hetrosexual person would ever stoop to using identity politics. That is a leftist trick to divide us.

21) Hilary Clinton is a criminal. [All round, general purpose response to anything – despite Clinton being investigated by hostile Republicans almost continually, and never being successfully prosecuted for anything.]

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Naturalising Politics II

October 13, 2019

Living with Catastrophe made a series of interesting objections and comments to the last post, so let me see if i can respond

First let me state as clearly as I can, what I understand to be Living with Catastrophe‘s main objections. This makes it clear if I’m reading wrong.

  1. Real Politics is ruthless, and people know this. That is why they do not participate in it.
  2. Politics is to be avoided because it cannnot achieve the things people hope to get from it.
  3. Marshall’s definition is too broad. If we accept it, the dead do politics, and people cannot be out of politics.
  4. Aristotle is an unreliable ally for promoting a liberatory or environmental politics.
  5. Politics is about achieving goals, particulary adminstrative goals.
  6. Politics usually flouders in its attempts to achieve other kinds of goals.
  7. Skepticism about the source of values for politics. People can often gain consensus over what they don’t want, but split over what they do want.
  8. Politics suppresses living with moral uncertainty, and we should conscientiously object to it.

Second let me restate my position.

In everyday life humans are constantly trying to work with others, organise work and celebration with others, organise conflict with others, trying to get the better of others, trying to persuade others, trying to threaten others, trying to flatter others, trying to help others, trying to discover the truth of a situation, trying to hide the truth, trying to frame the truth in a way which suits us, or trying to make the good life with others.

These processes go on in the family, in the village, in the city, in the company, in the University, in the State, and in World wide organisations. Not everyone is allowed or encouraged to participate at every level (that exclusion, or inclusion, is part of the politics involved).

While the politics of the State may look different, have different modes of enforcement, and have different effects from the politics of the home or the workplace, they all use similar kinds of processes. Just as the poetry of Shakespeare and my own prose are both language, and can be analysed as langauge, thought, communication, story-telling etc, however different they are.

The classic Western family was often seen as being ruled by a ‘prince’ with absolute legal authority over its members. In reality he may have been advised by his wife or eldest son, or his wife, or mother, may have really ruled, but it was often seen as a State in miniture, and this point was frequently made by monarchists.

1) Rather than ruthlessness being the mark of State politics alone, it may be that the most successful players in any kind of politics are the most ruthless. However, this is not always the case, and even if it was, does not mean that politics has to invoke ruthlessness.

I do, paranoically, suggest that the separation of politics from daily life is a political technique, perhaps ruthlessly, encouraged by neoliberalism, which aims to make ‘the market’ (or really corporate power) the dominant and non challengable part of human life and politics – and supposedly better than other parts of human life, because it is described as ‘non-political’. Hayek even proposes that the democratic state be prohibted from dealing with commerce in any way restrictively.

In the libertarian forms of neoliberalism, every human action and production becomes reduced to trade, and mutual decision making becomes an impingment on liberty, especially when it interferes with trade. For them the ideal forms of evil organisation are the State or the Trade Union (and people must be encouraged to have no hope in the State or unions), and the truly good form is the company – where you get told what to do unless you own and control it. The obvious idea here is that ordinary people are all individuals, and should never act together. Libertarians rarely seem to have the same strength of objection to the wealthy or business people acting together – perhaps because they realise this would affect the political effectiveness of these people, and the force of capitalism.

Neoliberals don’t want to remind us, or they want to keep us ignorant, of the scale and success of peaceful popular movements against corporate power. For example, the environmental movement in the 60s and 70s. I read yesterday, that 20 million Americans joined protests for the first Earth Day. Who knows that nowadays? Who nowadays is allowed to think anything other than that environmentalism is a minor, non-mainstream, interest? How did people in the US raise up against flaming poisonous rivers, and deadly work conditions, and temporarily succeed? Partly because they knew that politics was part of daily life. “The personal is political.” Any ethical decision making that involves others, involves politics.

The Right realised this was a problem in the early 1970s, what they called the “Crisis of Democracy.” Hell Workers! Women!, non-Anglos!, Prisoners! where would it end? The dominant elites might have to share power, if this went on. Power would be diffuse. Depoliticising daily life was one of the solutions to their problem. Ironically, Nixon helped this anti-political rhetoric, through Watergate, and through violating people’s political norms of behaviour. You can’t trust government. Even if it might be nice to have someone of Nixon’s principles in office nowadays….

Over and over again I’ve heard people say things like all politicians are corrupt, they only in it for themselves, you wouldn’t want to be in politics etc… I’ve heard people say politicians all lie or are all the same as an excuse for staying with those who seem to be lying more. It is now pretty much orthodoxy to leave the State to the wealthy, and assume nothing can be done to make things better. So yes I think the absence of politics from daily life is an important trope, and a trope which affects our ability to control our lives, or make the good life.

2) The fact that politics does not always work, in the family, in the village, in the state etc, seems to me, to be largely irrelevant to the argument about it originating in daily life or being more widespread than is usually thought. I’m not sure that many human activities achieve what people hope to get from them. I don’t really transform the world by thinking about it. Most art is crap and will be forgotten or thrown out. Doctors do not heal everyone, and in some cases likley damage people even more. Many families will be unhappy despite the best efforts of those involved. Failure and unintended consequences are normal, and we should recognise this, if we want to engage with life.

I would suggest, that the more self-destructive the culture, the more deletarious unintended consequences are likely to be the case. Climate change is a great example of what seems to be an unintended consequences of particular modes of social organisation and their politics.

3) I don’t think that I am making too broad a definition of politics at all, that’s partly why I went back to Aristotle, because it seems to me, that he didn’t think it too broad either. The same kind of skills are deployed in the family as are needed to be employed in the village, in the township and so on, to make decisions, to organise people, to work and celebrate or whatever. If the idea is to make self-government unnatural, then you have to make this kind of thing either seem minor, or disconnected from the State.

Dead people are important for politics. They may not participate, but they are used politically, and set traditions. The supposedly positive legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher is constantly reaserted in order to justify what the right is doing now, and to make it part of general common sense. These legacies may be used in quite contradictory ways. For example, Boris Johnson may use Thatcher’s opposition to climate change to attempt to ‘prove’ that Extinction Rebellion is irrelevant to modern politics.Other people may point to Thatcher’s later recantations of climate change activism, on the grounds that solutions being proposed are non-capitalist, and thus that nothing political should be done. Likewise the activities of a dead parent, grandparent or whatever, may be used to set the tone for the life of members of a family, and encourage them to maintain or increase their status with respect to others.

So while everything is politics, we are being kept out of the central forms of politics, by the denial that everything is political. Nowadays, we don’t influence what counts as justice, or what is ethics… While we are alive, most of us are engaged in politics – to requote Aristotle, we are zoon politicon.

5) All human action and interaction can be reduced to the achieving of goals if we want to. Consequently, if that is our definition of politics then, indeed, everything is politics.

6) Again, that people do not succeed in politics all the time, is not an argument against humans engaging in politics most of the time. Success is never a measure of something occuring, and of course we live with moral uncertainty, and all other kinds of uncertainty, that still does not mean we don’t engage in politics with each other whether we object to those politics or not. Indeed, I would suggest that certainty of action and solution, is probably the hallmark of a politics which will fail to produce beneficial results for most people.

7) The origins of the values which shape political goals, can be many… but nevertheless parts of those values will be shaped by the political process, by interaction and our capacity to persuade people of the virtue of those values and the actions associated with them. We may also use the statement of values to separate us off from other groups, and to creat conflict, in which we are the virtuous, and they are evil. Separation may well be as important to humans as co-opertation, and may indeed work together with co-operation, in that we often seem to co-operate better when we co-operate against some other group.

8) i don’t think there is any particular reason why politics should suppress uncertainty, and moral uncertainty. I think it would be a better politics. But I also think that is true of daily life. People in families often seem sacrifice other members of the family on the altars of moral certainty – but that can probably happen more easily, with a certain type of righteous politics within the family.

4) I’ll talk about Aristotle later… but let me start by saying I don’t have to accept all of Aristotle to accept that some of what he wrote seems insightful.

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Naturalising Politics

October 10, 2019

The Forbes article which attempts to flatter and dismiss Thunberg, and which I have discussed here and here, relies for its effect, on the asumption that politics has a bad reputation.

In my more paranoid moments, I suspect that some of this reputation is deliberately manufactured and aims to weaken people’s desire to participate in formal politics by persuading them that politics is only about power, enforcement, deception and dishonesty. Who would want to be political in that case?

Such a cultivated attitude reinforces the power of those who do participate, and particularly those who participate shamelessly.

However, such a vision of politics seems limited and inacurate.

For me, politics is what humans engage in when they attempt to decide upon, or achieve, an aim which involves or effects other people.

Politics necessarily happens all the time because we live with other people, and people acting together can be much more effective than individuals acting alone (most of the time). Indeed to live harmoniously with others, we have to learn how to negotiate and compromise and get them onside as best we can.

This is a view with considerable antiquity. As is well known Aristotle wrote that

“animals that live politically are those that have any kind of activity in common, which is not true of all gregarious animals,”

and

“humans are by nature political animals [or political life forms, Zoon politikon]. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a Polity, is either above humanity, or below it.”

Aristotle appears to argue, that people cannot perform their natural functions apart from the polity, since they are not self-sufficient. Thus, the Polity (my way of translating polis, usually translated as ‘state’ or ‘city state’ or even ‘social organisation’) comes into existence to enable human life. He takes a more or less anthropological position that:

The polity is prior in nature to the household and to each of us individually.

This is because we build our function, abilities and capacities through our relationships to others. Households and individuals do not exist by themselves.

For the whole must necessarily be prior to the part… [as] all things are defined by their function and capacity, so that when they are no longer able to perform their function [within the whole] they must not be said to be the same things

In other words, humans develop their capacities and virtues in relationship to other humans within already existing modes of organisation. We come into being amidst creative others (this is I think important to Aristotle’s idea of humanity, and is in any case always important to recognise). The polity is, therefore, the way humans can come to craft a good and human life the best way they can. The Polity is necessary to make a better polity.

We can also hope that those capacities and virtues crafted within the crafting of the Polity, can perhaps extend outwards to the land, and other life forms. Again, because environments change and relationships between different groups or different polities change, the work of making the good polity is never ending. It never reaches permanent stability or perfection. The polity is likely to face new challenges and new problems, which it has to face creatively.

Taking this idea of politics seriously, politics can be seen to involve idea generation, persuasion, co-operation, competition, decision making, allocating responsibility, allocating authority, overcoming entrenched and no longer useful authority, gaining ability, gaining virtue, rewarding virtue, rewarding beneficial aspiration, and so on.

Politics is essential for joint-human activity, but it need not mean “power over,” or constant dishonesty – an anarchist, communitarian, politics is possible, even if it is precarious. Indeed we might well define a politics which only requires power over and dishonesty as defining a bad polity, which is headed for disaster and requires reformation.

Despite the Forbes article, Thunberg, for example, is almost certainly not playing power and dominance games but is involved in trying reform the current polity, craft the best possible polity, and to continue survival. However, because of this, she is involved in politics, and being made part of power and dominance struggles, by those who are engaged in such struggles and attempting to preserve a disastrous polity. That is probably why she is being so roundly abused. This is supposed to make her less effective, but because of her response to the abuse, it only makes her more effective, and acts as an exemplar for how to behave (virtue) for those who support her.

Some of those engaged in this kind of established abuse politics, are pretending that they are not political, because, in their politics, doing nothing to challenge the processes of destruction is supposed to seem normal.

Please note that I’m not defining politics so that it has to be successful, or result in any firm control over the world (I’m not sure about Aristotles’ opinion on this). The best we can hope for is influence, or effect on the world – working with the world, perhaps – and then check events as they occur to see if we are getting the results we anticipated. This is the nature of the world.

However, uncertainty does not mean you can escape living with politics, or entirely escape having a diffuse effect on the world. Politics is part of human, and humane, life.

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Forbes on Thunberg again

October 10, 2019

I’m still reacting to the Forbes article on Greta Thunberg. In its view the Australian and US Right is completely innocent and rational. They would help fight climate change if the Left could avoid making Ecological Destruction a political matter.

I think this is basically wrong headed. It is also a political justifcation for inaction. It does not diminish the politics of the situation.

The reality is that a solution to the problem will be political. This cannot be avoided. It certainly cannot be avoided by politicising the recognition of a problem. In the UK, the various sides of politics have managed to find a politicaly acceptable solution to energy emissions. It may not be perfect, and more is needed, but it exists. People on the right in the UK are not all pretending that recognition of ongoing ecological destruction is a socialist plot to destroy capitalism, or whatever.

Besides which, many people who object to ecological destruction are not trying to pull down capitalism, and not trying to challenge real conservative values, whatever they are.

I, for one, don’t see the possibility of capitalism, and its sidekick of developmentalism, being wound down, in any kind of deliberative non-dangerous way, in the time frames available. This is just not feasible, however desirable it might be. I do expect that capitalism and developmentalism will collapse, along with almost everything else after it has achieved a certain point of destructiveness. This point may already be passed. In which case we will have to learn to flourish amidst the ruins of capitalism.

The point is that I, and many others, are more than happy for some form of capitalism to be preserved, if it can preserve the rest of us, but I don’t see any plan for this happening – at least partly because of the Right’s refusal to engage.

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Wishful Thinking about Energy

October 10, 2019

Nearly all of our thinking about energy is “wishful” and geared towards the destruction of notions of limits on action, travel and possessions. However, energy is, by its nature, bound up with entropy and limits. The first step towards ‘realism’, is realising these limits.

For example, you cannot expend more energy than you have, and it is only in rare circumstances that energy production is near free – that is that the amount of energy expended (over the production and distribution cycle) to make energy is much less than the energy produced.

It always takes energy to make energy available. Even human food gathering, takes humanly expended energy.

Making or capturing energy also usually creates mess and danger. For example, mass slavery destroys the societies the slaves come from as well as posing problems for the societies using the slaves. Fossil fuel production and burning creates poisons and ecological destruction.

We are now moving out of a rare period of really cheap energy into an era of either both expensive or dangerous energy.

Fossil fuels are getting expensive and dangerous. Coal mines are getting even more ecologically fraught and people are more likely to resist being poisoned for the ‘greater good,’ even if governments, like Trump’s, are trying to make it easier not to have to contain dangerous materials. Oil appears to have already hit its peak, taking more and more energy to extract, and gas via fracking is largely uneconomic and destructive. Gas is dangerous in general because of leakage at wells or in old, expensive to replace, pipes in cities.

However, moving to renewables will not completely solve the energy problem. The level of renewable energy sources we need to fully replace fossil fuels will take massive amounts of energy to build; some figures suggest that we have to increase the amount of renewables by a factor of fifty to seventy, in about 10 years, to fully replace fossil fuels before it is too late. Renewables, generally occupy large amounts of land (even if they don’t have destroy that land forever, they sometimes may), and require large amounts of mining for materials, and this mining probably will destroy land. Renewables also wear out eventually, and have to be replaced, although this is also true of fossil fuel power stations; it is not entirely certain we can recycle all components, and even if we can this will take energy.

If we want to survive, then we need to recognise that the era of cheap energy has gone. There is, of course, the vague possibility of massive technological innovation which will replace the cheap energy of yore with new sources, but the problem with being saved by wished for tech, is that sometimes the tech just cannot be made in time, with the energy available, or within the costs people are prepared for. That we need a new working technology does not mean it will arise, or arise in time.

We need to work with what we have, while trying to make it better, rather than distract ourselves with wishful fantasy. Fantasy that leads to more constructive action than just indulging in hope is a different matter.

There is no question that fusion could solve our problems. But despite research since the 1940s, we are nowhere near having a commercially viable fusion generator. All fusion energy, so far, seems to require more energy consumption to make than is emitted. It is not something we can depend upon solving our problems.

Clean coal, or carbon capture, is theoretically possible (if you ignore a few problems of policing the results) and relatively easy, yet it has not come into being, despite lots of public money being made available for companies to develop it in their own self-interest.

Thorium reactors have been tried and failed in Germany for commercial and technical reasons. It is possible that we could revitalise thorium research, but it is not happening at the moment, and development, testing and (finally) building new thorium based energy sources will probably take twenty to forty years, going by normal time cycles, with plenty of government investment. Again this is not happening, so thorium is unlikely to save us, even if it can be made to work. Normal nuclear reactors are not being built because of the cost, time to build, impossibility of gaining disaster insurance, resistance by local populations, and so on. So they are not going to save us either.

If we are going to be saved by tech we don’t have, then the chances of being saved are low – in my opinion of course.

A further problem is that wishful thinking plagues discussion. Pro-fossil fuel people tend to blame renewables for society’s energy problems and renewable people tend to blame fossil fuels, when they are mutually implicated. However, it serves as a distraction from those problems with the sources they are promoting.

I’m reading Michael Mills report on renewables (thanks Mark) which is realistic about the costs and inefficiencies of renewables, but completely blasé about the costs of fossil fuels, which he insists must remain the main energy source for the world. Likewise the Australian government has decided the country’s potential energy problems arise solely because we have too many renewables.

Both cases are wishfully ignoring problems with fossil fuels in order to support established industries and established cheap energy, which is no longer cheap due to its consequences.

This wishfulness probably arises because so much of our culture is bound into cheap safe energy. Without it we face an existential crisis. The future appears uncertain, and unpleasant. It is very hard to decide what to do about the problems in a way which maintains life as it ‘should be’ and which will gain the necessary support. It is much easier to be wishful.

Consequently, the most likely trajectory is that we will just crash and burn. Another reason for ‘us’ ‘choosing’ to crash and burn, is because so much privilege and security is bound up with continuing along as we have done. It is not uncommon for ruling classes to be more interested in preserving their power and privilege than in seeing the problems, dealing with them and surviving – and that is what seems to be happening.

We might need to explore and understand the conditions in which societies do not pursue wishfulness fantasies, or the preservation of ruling class power, and actually face their existential problems. I would suspect that circulation amongst the elites, in which established members of the elite can slide down, and people in the non elites can slide up without depending on a single dictator like figure, might be one common circumstance in survival, but I’m not sure this is still present in most of our societies.

Whatever, the case, wishful business as usual, does not appear to be delivering civilisational survival. Such survival is almost certainly going to demand a completely new way of organising socially, and of ‘lowering expectations’ of what can be done. This will generate more resistance from the ruling classes, and from most people who see the current mode of being as being the only one worth having.

If we keep the same social dynamics, then it is probable that any new technology will be engineered and expected to fit in with the established social dynamics of ecological destruction or exploitation, and will not work to help save society in the long term.

Others may object that its hard to change society, even if the rulers co-operate. However, it is not harder to change society than to change the working of the global ecological system to preserve social relations of power and wealth.

We have changed societies and the ways they operate quite quickly in the past. It took less than 30 years for neoliberalism to become the norm in Australia and the US. It is true that that particular change was helped by it benefiting the rulers considerably, but the working classes made heaps of sacrifices for it to come about. That is probably one reason why they won’t like making more sacrifices for new forms of social organisation – but I suspect that people could still make sacrifices, if they could see that sacrifices were equitable, and the new life was being delivered equitably, and they could participate.

People will do heroic things for their kids and grandkids (not everyone obviously, but most people)

But, at the moment, people are going to think wishfully that it is someonelse’s problem or wonder what’s in it for them. Overcoming those problems is not something neoliberalism helps, as it is based on lack of responsibility and proft, so that has probably got to go.

The point is that transition is more difficult than most people want to see, even if they do see it as inevitable. It requires transformations at all kinds of levels and all kinds of places. I’m not sure its impossible, but we almost certainly need to change social organisation as much as we need new technology, and as much as we need to guard against wishfulness…

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