On the role of Government

What is the role of Government in improving the wellbeing of citizens and in protecting the wellbeing of the natural environment? 

Firing discussions this week were Roger Scruton's Green Philosophy talk at the RSA and the Institute of Economics Affairs '.... and the Pursuit of Happiness' report on wellbeing. Both Scruton and the IEA argue that Governments, by interfering, actually have counterproductive impacts on the human and environmental wellbeing they are trying to increase. Environmentalists, typically left leaning, are naturally skeptical, but Scruton and the IEA offer quite persuasive arguments. [For more, see the Action for Happiness response to the IEA and Jonathon Ree's review of Green Philosophy.]

I'm left uncertain. What is the role of Government? There is a great paragraph by Henry D Thoreau written in 1849, which I dig out every time I'm considering this question. These are the opening lines on his essay 'On the duty of Civil Disobedience' I share his standpoint and am grateful that he expressed it better than I ever could:

I HEARTILY accept the motto,—“That government is best which

governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly

and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which

also I believe,—“That government is best which governs not at

all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of

government which they will have.

The key line for me is 'when men are prepared for it'. [By men, I'm doubtless he means men and women - give him a break it was 1849!]. And the fact that it was 1849 is interesting, 163 years later are we prepared for a government which 'governs not at all' or 'governs least'? Scruton, the IEA and others on the right seem to think so.

The rise and rise of Neo-liberalism is driving us towards these 'governs not at all' government's. But, are we ready, are we educated and mature enough to co-exist peacefully with each other and in harmony with the natural environment? Would we, if further freed from the restrictions of Government law and regulation, live lives that have a more benign impact on the natural environment and on our fellow citizens at home, abroad and in the future? I'm far from convinced that we would. Would Thoreau, in 1849, have expected us to be prepared by now? Would he be surprised if someone told him back then that in 2012 we are still not prepared? I won't delve into why we are not prepared here, I want to return to the question. If we are not prepared, what should the role of Government be?

Maybe we rapidly remove government interference. Maybe we endure the harsh short term pain of inequality and environmental degradation as relaxed laws are exploited by those acting in narrow rather than enlightened self-interest. Maybe we do this and hope that the shock therapy is enough to jerk citizens into behaving more mindfully longer term. Under Neo-liberalism that seems to be the current risky experiment. Or, do we remove government interference more slowly and in time with increasing ecological intelligence (the ability to think systemically and act mindfully from a position of sustainability literacy)? The theory being that as ecological intelligence goes up, so too does our ability and motivation to live in harmony with each other and the planet. With increased ecological intelligence throughout society, governments could step back in the confidence that we are prepared to take on more personal responsibility for the wellbeing of ourselves, our fellow citizens and the living species of the natural environment.

However, we are far from being an ecologically intelligent population that is prepared for this week's other buzz idea 'responsible [free market] capitalism'. To prepare us, our formal and informal education needs transformation and investment. All education should be education for sustainability - with the aim of increasing our ecological intelligence (not to mention our emotional intelligence). The Government must invest in it today, so that they can govern us less in the future - when we are prepared for it. Lets hope it doesn't take another 163 years. If, in their impatience, they step back too quickly now, it might.

Paul Gilding at The RSA - Where are 'we' in The Great Disruption?

Paul Gilding is talking tonight at The Hub Kings Cross on his new book The Great Disruption. Its free, but you need to sign up and is chaired by Ed Gillespie from Futerra. My wife and I went to his RSA talk last night; he's great to listen to!

I agree with a lot of Gilding's analysis, we are coming towards the end of global economic growth, it is a scientific fact. The world's capability to produce enough for the 7 billion of us currently on Earth is diminishing rapidly, I'm in total agreement. The world's economy is going to contract, it is going to be disrupting! I've not read the book yet, but the most interesting thing to me at last night's event was the use of the word 'we' by Gilding and the chair, Martin Wright. They seemed to be talking about the global 'we'; 'we' as a species, and argued that this 'we' will eventually, collectively, act to cope with the great disruption. I admire the optimism.

At the end of the Q&A, Wright asked the audience to put their hand up if they agreed with the following statement: 'We're going to go through a serious shit storm and then we'll eventually emerge, slightly weather beaten, but basically in tact in about 70 years time.' (I'm paraphrasing!) I didn't put my hand up, because I assumed he was talking about the global 'we'. My hand would have (regretfully) shot up if he'd been referring to 'we' the rich 1 billion.

Why? Well I was left wondering if anyone really cares about GLOBAL economic growth; I mean is there anyone out there activitely on a mission to sustain global economic growth? Or, is it just the cumulative result of lots of people autonomously caring about personal, national and corporate economic growth? Surely it is and always will be. The upshot of this is that as the global economy retracts people/politicians/CEOs will do everything they can to delay the death of their most immediate economies, in fact they already do this daily. As these more immediate economies are under threat from increasing oil prices, impacts of Climate Change, new regulations, redundancy or whatever other crisis they face (which many already are) the instinct is to act selfishly to cope with or diminish the emerging threats. There is little incentive to care about the detriment your actions will have on others(1). The rich 1 billion, in its various overlapping guises as nations, corporations and wealthy individuals, has been doing this for decades, most noticeably for us, here in the UK, through the government's ongoing foreign policies. The result of all this is the growth of between country and within country inequality. More threat (and more perception of threat) intensifies this process; fear breeds protectionism, resource grabbing and self preservation. This is one of my concerns about creating a 'fear' of climate change.

But, will individual economies/nations/people/businesses acting in their own self interest between now and 2050 add up to a global collective movement capable of navigating the great disruption with all the estimated 9 billion people in tact? It seems to be a hope some are clinging to right now. But, the consumer culture fuelled demise of our ecosystem services and natural resources suggests it won't. What will probably happen is that the current weakest economies will collapse and the stronger more powerful economies will swoop down to mop up their scraps to keep their economies going as long as possible. It is a frankly terrifying future prospect and one that makes me feel quite ill.

Is there any hope? Yes, I strongly believe, like Gilding that the Earth has the carrying capacity to feed and shelter 9 billion people, in a more equal, less consumerist, world it would be possible. We might even be able to still enjoy some of Robert Tressell's 'benefits of civilisation' too. Part way through his talk last night Gilding said that for this to be possible 'we simply need to change the way we think'. He was of course talking about the need for us all to appreciate that the true ways to wellbeing are found not through shopping, hedonism, celebrity and power, but through giving, caring, connecting and playing. The 'simply' part was an enormous understatement, but I totally agree and it's why I passionately work to do this everyday with Global Footsteps, Becoming Green and most recently Common Cause. It is a far from 'simple' task, but its not impossible and Gilding cites some precedents for this happening. If the global 'we' is successful in doing this I'll be a delighted 80-year-old come 2050, if not I will be able to sleep at night knowing I was one of the those who was trying to make it happen. Paul Gilding, Martin Wright and Ed Gillespie are three others amongst a growing crowd who will also be able to look themselves in the mirror and say 'I tried'.

Notes

1. Other than pissing them off so much that they rise up against you and even then you can avert that threat by owning weapons of mass destruction

Documentary: The Shock Doctrine: RSA Screening

Last night we went to watch The Shock Doctrine at the RSA....

After a 2009 packed with high impact environmental films: The Age of Stupid, End of the Line, Pig Business, The Vanishing Bees... 2010 looks set to kick off with some films that don't leave you feeling depressed and saddened and helplessly thinking 'oh dear'. The Shock Doctrine, directed by Michael Winterbottom and 'starring' Naomi Klein takes us to the next step; it makes you angry, motivated and ready to take to the streets. The next step after that, something that was brought up during the Q&A is that we need an alternative ideology to follow, economically and politically; we also need a leader, where is the next Che Guevara (without the violence, or maybe with it?)? Neither are currently obvious.

The Shock Doctrine is a film you have to lean forward, listen intently and concentrate on right the way through, it is like an Adam Curtis doc, but not quite as good. The basic premise is the same as Klein's book. Klein argues that wars as well as economic, environmental and terrorist shocks have been used systematically by neo-liberal governments to hurry through public sector reforms in the shape of mass privatisations of just about everything. The end result is inequality of the kind so well described in the book: 'The Spirit Level'. We live in society in which the rich are very rich and the rest of us are sleepwalking in a bubble of escapism, idly letting our public services slip away as everything is privatised and run for profit. The villian according to Klein is Milton Freidmann, whose extreme free market economics was ushered in by Reagan and Thatcher via Augustus Pinochet and Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo and has since guided the policies of nearly all the rest of the worlds governments.

Where does this film leave us? It leaves me wondering whether the UK and US population at large will wake up to the domestic and global inequality that results from extreme neo-liberalism.. I am left wondering whether a digital technology inspired documentary led revolution will give rise to a mass movement of individuals rebelling against free market economics. What we have at the moment is a society in which being financially rich is the main game, everyone wants money and fame. While this mindset persists, which it does so thanks to the mass media, a grassroots movement is unlikely, it is akin to asking people to fight against what they are striving to achieve for themselves... people still believe that they can be super rich, when it is painfully obvious that only a lucky, small elite can ever be. But while individuals harbour this belief and cling to it, their expectations remain high and they go on living as Selfish Capitalists.

Sustainability 2.0 @ The RSA

Emma and I attended this EarthScan sponsored event at the Royal Society of arts on Tuesday night. Earthscan publishers are celebrating 20 years of publishing and put this event on to instigate a debate into what we think sustainability is now.

Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party chaired the debate and started off the discussion with a nice loose, possibly street, definition of sustainability which she and her fellow panellists had come up with in the Green room (nice pun that)! She suggested that sustainability was just about ‘sharing it around and not buggering it up.’ That is a fair summation I suppose, to throw my opinion on it I would say that sustainability is about enjoying one’s own life without compromising the enjoyment of others.

The panel were: Bill Adams, Tim Lang, Brenda Boardman, Nick Robbins and Paul Elkins. All except Robbins (Head of the climate change centre of excellence, HSBC) are prominent academic from the universities of Cambridge, City, Oxford and Kings College respectively.

The plus points of the evening for me was that there was some recognition of the need to move beyond the consumer led economy. Tim Lang, a leading professor food policy, for instance stated ‘consumerism can’t go on.’ Bill Adams posed the question of what the alternative is to our crumbling neo-liberal capitalism and Paul Elkins, at the end of his speech asked is Environmental sustainability consistent with conspicuous consumption?’

On the negative side, Brenda Boardman spent much of her talk optimistically painting a picture of a utopian sustainable society in the year 2050. She did not really offer any great strategy on how we are going to get there, apart from her championing of carbon credit cards (much to the delight of Mayer Hillman in the audience). She opened with the statement ‘because we caused it we can solve it.’ I admire her optimism but remain a bit sceptical. I am not going to talk here about my feelings on carbon credit cards, I’ll just say this – they will be made of plastic (which comes from Oil) and we will need about 60 million of them.

I waited patiently until the last round of questions (I was one of about 7 in this final round) to ask: If as Tim Lang stated ‘consumerism can’t go on’ how are we going to get the population of the world to let go of the consumerist mindset? I was pleased that 4 out of the 6 responded to this question, unfortunately they could only agree that it would be beneficial if this happened, they could not offer any ideas about how to make this happen. I continue to search for an answer to this question!