What comes next?
An exploration of the end of growth and capitalism
John Robinson
“May you live in interesting times” - ancient Chinese curse.
We live in extraordinary times. The world is overpopulated with much of nature destroyed and many other species threatened with extinction. The oil era is ending and the global economy tottering on the edge of collapse. Climate change is well advanced. Well-founded forecasts suggest a complete collapse in just twenty years. It does no good to live in denial and call for a continuation along the path that brought us here, or impossible sustainability. It does no good to hide among displacement activities and to talk vague greenwash. This challenge deserves to be met; this should be an exciting time of robust debate and action. Yet here in New Zealand environmental groups only voice a vague concern and refuse to look clearly at the extent of the crisis or allow an open debate.
There are a few key factors that must be dealt with before actions in many spheres become possible, and can be set in motion within a strong and positive policy base. The growth era must end. Our economy is however based on economic growth; capitalism demands that investments should reap ever-increasing profit. Capitalism has had its day. We must struggle against its many powerful champions while setting down a clear definition of the replacement system. That mighty power demands challenge from an even greater power. This cannot be done by calls for fragmentation of society into tribal groups or disassociated communities.
Here in this note I summarise the elements of the current and looming storm, and define needed policy decisions, along with my preferred options (in italics). If this deliberation is left to one side by fearful organisations, no genuine progress is possible. This is a challenge to set up robust, hard-hitting debate.
Some features of the early 21st century and policy responses.
A considerable amount of information is readily available; the science telling of global damage and expected problems is known.
The world economy is in great difficulty now. Oil supplies will decline within a few years, with a high and unstable price, as the world moves from the peak that commenced in 2004-5 to the post-oil period. The global economic collapse that commenced in 2008 will deepen.
Worrying forecasts dating back 40 years are coming to pass. The situation will be far worse around 2030 (just 20 years away now, with the foreshocks already evident) as the storm of interacting trends comes together – overpopulation, climate change, water and food shortages, starvation, disease, disruption and war. This is a horrifying picture, coming on top of present economic disruption and oil peak, but it is likely and must be faced.
As with climate change, the time to debate whether such problems are real is past. The facts are evident, and the science is clear. The time has come for action based on recognition of the physical reality. The challenge we face is to state robust solutions to these extraordinary, interacting events.
A first step is to open the debate and refuse denial. Wilful ignorance and efforts to control or prevent debate are unforgivable.
Scientific freedom has been crippled with controlled funding. Science must be returned to the control of scientists as in the former DSIR. This will once again allow initiative to explore difficult, and unpopular, questions. An immediate step must be to set up several independent groups to provide robust reports on the developing global storm. All Government departments must be asked to provide robust information, and their work must be open to question by the new think tanks.
The human population explosion is such that the world population is tripling within one lifetime, from 1 billion in 1800 to 3 billion in 1960, 6 billion in 2000, 9 billion in 2040 (unless there is a collapse around 2030). There are three major limits to human population, two of which have passed.
- A human population of perhaps 100 million might be able to live in balance with other species. That limit was passed thousands of years ago.
- A number of calculations suggest that perhaps 2 billion people could live at something like the current ‘developed’ material standard of living. That limit was passed around a century ago.
- Forecasts, some made in 1972 that have proved robust in the almost 40 years since, suggest that a human population of around 8-9 billion can not be fed, due to limits to water and food production, pollution and environmental damage. This is one basis for the expectation of global collapse around 2030, with struggle for resources, social disruption and war. Those trends, as well as climate change, economic instability and the end to the oil era, are evident today.
Mankind must move into balance with the natural world by limiting activities and withdrawing to leave space for other species. This includes adequate funding to Government environmental activities.
National parks must be protected, with no commercial activity such as mining permitted. Along with other commons that are key for environmental protection, including the foreshore and seabed, they must be kept firmly in national hands, owned by us all, with no element of control handed over to any separate group.
Overfishing is damaging environments and reducing fish populations. Bottom trawling must be banned and tighter controls of fish catches.
Stop factory farming and provide as natural an environment as possible to farmed animals.
The current way of life is not sustainable. Sustainability has been a buzzword, of multiple meaning, used to obscure the situation and to falsely label many activities as benign. The current challenge is to survive the storm, saving as much as possible so that coming generations (as well as other species and the environs) can thrive. This demands cutbacks and not efforts to sustain a system that is producing considerable damage.
The challenge to limit, then reduce, population is for every nation. A population reduction discussion should commence, backed by a research effort pointing out the necessity and the benefits of stable population (no longer needing to spread across the countryside, with new housing, businesses, roads and other infrastructure; inheritance to fewer dependents providing ready housing; shift from many young with schools etc. to care for useful older people, and so on).
Reduce immigration to returning residents, some Pacific island nations – not based on wealth.
Once New Zealand is taking action, Pacific island nations can be called upon to limit population.
The importance of population control must be raised at international forums, such as the United Nations Fund for Population Affairs that currently ignores the overpopulation issue.
Climate change is caused by human activity, principally by the burning of fossil fuels. Such change is well advanced, with events in Greenland and Antarctica raising the possibility of considerable sea-level rise within several decades rather than a century as earlier suggested. Such extensive use of these fuels, a finite resource formed over geological time, has taken the world into the oil peak plateau with around one-half of available oil gone. Price instability is evident, and reductions in supply can be confidently expected in the coming few years.
Greenhouse gas emissions should be presented clearly as net rather than gross emissions, and in the two major categories, being the natural world of plants and animals (with changes by human activities) and energy and industry emissions.
Withdraw from carbon trading, which confuses the issue suggesting that activities may be ‘carbon neutral’ by buying in this new currency instead of taking definite action. This massive new financial market with form another element in the global bubble economy, and waste further years of inactivity (New Zealand energy emissions have increased around 70% since 1990 while the focus has been on agriculture.
Introduce heavy taxes on larger cars, and on air travel. Put an end to efforts to increase tourism. Ask people to watch the Rugby World Cup on television and not to travel across the world, adding so significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and the usage of valuable oil resources.
End coal mining.
Human society is overstretched on a finite planet. There must be an end to growth and a steady, substantive cutback. This issue is dodged by environmental groups and the debate is characterised by displacement activities. The root cause of the modern predicament is the economic system that demands an impossible never-ending growth. This is capitalism. It must be replaced. To do so demands the prescription of an alternative system.
Stop the creation of artificial want.
Reduce, and in most cases remove, advertising that conditions people for inessential consumption. We live in the most brainwashed society ever, and big business wields a power of control beyond the wildest dreams of past dictators. Great media including television and newspapers must be in public hands and funded suitably to assure freedom – which does not currently exist.
One basic question concerning the economic system is the degree of central planning. It must here be recognised that the free market is inherently unstable (the ‘hidden hand’ is nonsense, spin) and that the western economy has been centrally controlled for the last 60 years by the military-industrial complex and the extensive central financial institutions of Treasury, central bank etc. in nations and the World Bank and IMF internationally. Thus the suggestion here that there should be a mixed economy with a dominant central core is not as revolutionary as one might think. The step is to take central planning into public hands, so that spending can be channelled into welfare and jobs rather than into armaments and profits – and the rape of the planet. This step has then considerable implications for peace or war.
The issue here is in brief:
- Capitalism must go as it demands impossible growth.
- This is a man-made system, and man can change to suit the very different times. As Roosevelt said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”. There are no external limits, and general well-being is possible.
- What to put in place of this dominant free-market (so-called) capitalism? The first stage is to get ideas clear, and alternatives spelt out. That demands robust debate and an end to greenwash and displacement activities. If we are serious, we must face these hard questions, with open debate and challenges to half-formed ideas.
The market economy, as it is now with the hegemony of the military-industrial complex, demands growth and is inappropriate for both economic and ecological reasons. Private enterprise may continue (providing a balance of forces and preventing the public sphere from becoming as dominant as it is now) but can no longer assume never-ending growth. The challenge is to change the driving force of current civilisation, which is fixed in a dominant ideology, of growth, and to set down a path to a reducing economy.
Move away from Capitalism. Make it clear that capital may no longer be invested to reap further profit; that time is past. Push for a stable economy, with reductions in many areas.
Put and end to the hypocrisy that combines pretended concern for climate change with support for roading, flying, tourism, and other activities requiring the production of greenhouse gases for non-essential activities. Raise awareness by a focus on the “Rugby World Cup, don’t come” campaign that forces people to face this question head on.
Move to a mixed economy with nationalisation of activities that were in public hands before 1984. Increase collective enterprise, and channel effort into health, welfare and environmental actions.
Increase taxation with high taxes on the better off, starting with pre-1984 levels. Act to reduce inequality.
There are always strugglers in any society, those with limited capability or just plain bad luck. They should no longer be thrown aside. Decent jobs should be provided by Government for everyone,
Aim for self-reliance, away from free trade. Regain the control that was so successful in building the country during the post-war decades.
There should be no imported capital investing in, and buying up, our economy. The major current economic problem is the damage done by that excess capital, as global funds require recirculation, forcing up home and business prices and taking enterprise into foreign ownership and control.
The financial sector has done largely what it was asked to do, including recycling excess capital and producing bubbles to generate profit without real activity. The banking sector should stick to banking, not investment or gambling, and be under tight control.
Such considerable changes will threaten the fabric of society. Progress will only be possible within a spirit of equality and belonging. Yet while others move steadily over the years towards equality before the law (as the USA from a statement of equality, to an end of slavery, through further struggle to racial equality in reality), New Zealand is dividing into prime and second-class citizens on the basis of race and inheritance.
There must be real equality, with no differences in law based on ethnicity or inheritance.
All this is a tall order. Many feel that it is just too much, which explains the incomplete and ignorant analyses and descriptions of the current situation, the failure to face the extent of change around us such as climate change and the end of the oil era, and the pathetic pretence of action in greenwash and displacement activities.
OK, it really is dire. It is difficult. So it was when the USA was killing in Vietnam and the idea of teach-ins took root. By holding many, many public meetings where the truth was told, the situation was eventually created that many Americans knew the facts, knew that they were on the wrong side. We need many teach-ins now with New Zealand speakers who know the reality here – not the usual overseas experts – and with free and open, robust and argumentative debate. Stop these controlled sessions where we all listen to a line-up of PC speakers with only a brief opportunity of a question or two at the end.
Who has the guts to organise forceful teach-ins?
Conclusions
The situation is dire; the challenge is enormous.
Some policies, while robust, can be acted upon within the existing economic system. Some examples include:
- a Rugby World Cup, don’t come campaign,
- a move away from free trade to protectionisms,
- taking firm action to considerably reduce energy use, and
- freeing science from the straightjacket of central control.
Some big questions need to be faced. The debate must consider the past story and many concepts in order to inform the options for the future. These are:
- how to move away from growth capitalism and
- destruction of the conditioning system of advertising and sectoral ownership of mass media.
May a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend. (Mao Tse Tung)
Let the sun shine in (Hair)
