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Elaborating eCOOLnomics
“Voluntary simplicity must be extolled for the ineffable quality of life it bestows, to the point where it becomes a viral meme that infects teenagers and sticks with them for life.“
Humorist historian SarahVowell, in her book on the rise and fall of Hawaii, UnfamiliarFishes, writes that “expectingcapitalists to refrain from gobbling up the Earth is like blaming PacMan forgulping down PacDots.” She hastily adds that the experience with implementing theMarxist vision at a continental scale didn’t work out all that well either.With presidential politics polarizing the US electorate between laissez faire libertariansand lean-to-the-point-of-mean social welfare conservatives, the issue over rawversus moderated capitalism would seem joined. Only capitalism goesunchallenged.
Naomi Klein, in a piece for TheNationand separatelyin an interview with New York Times’ AndrewRevkin last month in Durban, hung some inconvenient climate truths aroundthe neck of capitalists.
She urged the Left to embrace a reality identified by nutcase climateskeptics — that a meaningful response to global warming would be a fatal blowto free markets and capitalism. This is the trench line the United States hasplowed through the UN climate talks and is using to machine gun well-meaningEuropeans, small island states, developing world juggernauts and others whoseem to think that modest changes in shopping habits can decarbonize orde-crowd a planet on the verge of systemic disintegration and lead us to abright new green economy. Klein told Revkin:
“If you really do believe thatfreedom means governments getting out of the way of corporations and that anyregulation leads us down Hayek’s road to serfdom, then climate science is goingto be kryptonite to you. After all, the reality that humans are causing theclimate to warm, with potentially catastrophic results, really does demandradical government intervention in the market, as well as collective action onan unprecedented scale.”
Revkin challenged Klein’s hypothesis that the only strategythat can work is “radical government intervention,” saying that more modestapproaches like incentives and disincentives might tip the playing field. Kleinreplied that Revkin sounded just like the Big Environmental Groups and marginalizedNGOs at the Durban talks, taking whatever crumbs of reform fall from the capitalisttable. Light bulbs and hybrid cars won’t get us to 350, she argued. Liberalsneed to confront the reality that an 80 percent reduction — which is all thatstands between green Earth and the landscape of Mars — really is a deathblow tocapitalism. The stark choice is between aggressive regulation/refashioning of consumerculture or rushing straight over the cliff’s edge.
Are we as buffalo being stampeded by herd instinct — in thiscase our consumerist DNA? Or are we as monkeys with our paws caught in a trapfashioned by our reptilian brain, unwilling to let go of all the goodies wehave so recently latched onto? Or, do we have yet some freedom of movementhere? Can we, as Klein suggests, refashion the whole setup from somethingglaringly dysfunctional to something offering a scintilla of hope that survivalof mammalian bipeds with outsized cerebral cortices might yet have a place inthe greater scheme of things?
If we are getting back to those basic assumptions that needto be refashioned, we might start with one of the favorite keywords on Occupystreet placards — capitalism.
Capitalism is, like money, a relatively recent globalphenomenon. It arrived with the comfortable climate following the MedievalMaximum (which we now suspect to have been driven, at least in part, by themonumental city states of the Americas and their carbon-intensive land-use policies)and the trade empires that needed large dollops of up-front cash to back riskysea voyages. A few florins risked on a tall ship’s captain might be lost in thenearest local public house, or on an uncharted reef, or it might return ahundredfold in profits. The system paid off often enough to put an end tofeudalism.
Feudalism had its own variety of JudeoChristian/Moslem/Hindu/Buddhistsocialism; pledge allegiance to a hereditary lord’s flag and your basic needs(land, water, protection) can be met. No money need change hands. Amongst thebroad population of serfs, social strata was minimal, and life happened.Amongst the sparser noble born, there was always someone higher up who had it alittle better, but your life was reassuringly always better than the serfs, andso the game played on. Having gold coins, land or other hoardable forms ofwealth raised your stakes.
The feudal system had to assume a minimal level of socialwelfare for the serfs or there would be neither food on the manor table norsoldiers at the manor’s ramparts. A foolish libertarian nobleman who thoughtthat cutting away at the “waste” of benefits for the serfs to feather his bed couldfind himself soon starving.
At the edges and interstices of this system was theocracy,which set up hierarchies of priests, monks and acolytes that lived off whatevercould be squeezed from the wealth of the lords’ economy. Within the theocraticmatrix was yet another form of economic organization, after the style ofJesus’s twelve apostles — “All who believed were together and had everything incommon, sold property and possessions to give to each as they had need.” (Acts2:44-45).
Communism was the foundational economic system not just ofChristian monastics, but of the early Mormons under John Smith and BrighamYoung, the youthful sanghas circled around Gautama Buddha, and in the ashramsof India, China and Japan. Curiously, communism finds scant history in Islam.Why is that? Apparently, unlike Jesus and Buddha, Mohammed believed inseparation of church and purse. “Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel,”as they say.
InIslam, good works towards needy neighbors are a duty of the faithful, but theidea of a shared purse extends only to a small tithe to the mosque or community.While compounding interest is forbidden by the Holy Koran — the foundersof arithmetic understood why — free enterprise is extolled and, as in all theother religions, the founding texts assume there will always be rich and poor.The question of whether who is rich and who is poor is to be decided by fate orby moxie is finessed. To followers of Ayn Rand, including all the currentRepublican contenders, its never about fate.
Timur Kuran observes:
“In a technologically primitive andstatic world, where family background determines one’s career, where one plantsand sells crops in the ways of one’s grandparents, where one has little tospend on nonsubsistence goods, and where markets offer little variety,economics may be vital to physical survival but economic decision making doesnot absorb much attention. By contrast, in a technologically advanced world,where job choices have to be made, where women pursue and interrupt careersoutside the home, where investment choices require monitoring, and wheremarkets offer abundant choice, economic decision making absorbs considerabletime.”
The Genesis of IslamicEconomics: A Chapter in the Politics of Muslim Identity, Social Research, Vol. 64, no. 2 (Summer 1997)
This tension between capitalism, socialism, and theocracy isbound to be heightened in the coming years, because fates — whetherclimate, energy resources, or ticking cultural time bombs — will nowconspire to reset the game to the start and at the same time absorb much moreattention. Great! At the start of the game all strategies are possible. So whatfuture economic strategy optimizes our prospects?
First and foremost, it needs to be something that bothmitigates and adapts to climate change. For many years we have been talkingabout carbon-negative ecovillage designs that heat and cool our buildings whilebuilding soil fertility and drought resistance. Our concept of eCOOLnomicsseeks to nurture an appropriate reward and punishment system to drive that.
Second, while showing mercy and giving opportunity to thepoor and dispossessed, it needs to cool down consumerist expectations,including power-hungry electronic varieties that are so greatly appreciatedtoday. Voluntary simplicity must be extolled for the ineffable quality of lifeit bestows, to the point where it becomes a viral meme that infects teenagersand sticks with them for life.
Thirdly, trade and commerce have to fall into step with thenew world order of decroissance. Sailpowered transport, bike-to-rail, and market relocalization are all ascendant.
Since we published our FinancialCollapse Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times (Amazon Kindle: 2007), a spate ofserious treatises have hit print and should be considered important resourcesfor eCOOLnomists. Here are some of our favorites.
PeakEverything: Waking Up to a Century of Declines and End of Growth by Richard Heinberg.We have loved everything Heinberg has written, and among a cacophony ofprophetic voices, his predictions stand the test of time. These books putplateau dates and decline curves to a host of natural resources — arableland, coal production, uranium, water withdrawals, grain production, fishcatch, and more — but are remarkable for (in keeping with our nagging themehere) also asking whether there might yet be somegood things that are not going to peak. He suggests community, personalautonomy, satisfaction from honest work well done, intergenerationalsolidarity, cooperation, leisure time, happiness, ingenuity, artistry, andbeauty of the built environment. Buy long and invest in all of that.
ZeroCarbonBritain 2030 by the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT). In1972 a group of young idealists colonized a derelict slate quarry on the edgeof Snowdonia National Park in Wales. Inspired by the notion of creating acommunity to test alternatives to mainstream technology, they aimed toresearch, develop and implement new approaches to sustainable technologies andlifestyles. Today, the Centre receives 70,000 visitors each year, has a worldclass research division and offers a master’s degree program. This book showshow the island of Great Britain could meet all its food, water, energy, housingand transportation needs on a completely renewable basis, with an affordable pricetag even in a Depression, by 2030.
The Long Descent and Wealth of Nature by John MichaelGreer. The Archdruid has become celebrated in collapsnik circles for describinga new shape to the civilizational decline curve — stair-step, or what he terms,“catabolic collapse.” Rather than the sudden plunge that Heinberg, Lundberg andothers have been intimating, Greer sees built-in feedback loops in the globaleconomy that will dampen and extend the crash so that it evolves over decadesor centuries, although still be impossible to reverse. Greer is another writer who is hard to putdown once he has you in his fold. Even if you disagree with some of hisconclusions, his logic is impeccable and his grasp of the human historic sweepenthralling.
OccupyWorld Street by Ross Jackson.Jackson provides a much needed nuts and bolts approach to all of these issuesthrough an insider’s knowledge of the government and corporate power circles inEurope and North America. Dennis Meadows, who wrote the computer programs forthe Club of Rome that produced the seminal Limits to Growth study, callsJackson’s strategy “the first plausible,constructive scenario I have seen; an excellent text, even amazing.” We don’tfind it all that amazing, but then we have been in active partnership with theauthor for the past two decades. Any formula will have to involve some kind ofcollaboration between communities and governments with the goal of promotingdiversity, localism, and sustainable development. The questions are, what isthe vehicle for that collaboration and how does it come into being. Jacksonproposes a Gaian Resource Board, sort of like the Texas Railroad Commission forthe world’s non-renewable resources. In progressive countries like Denmark,where Canadian-born Jackson lives, government structures like this arewholesome and clever. Whole islands are now off-grid and thriving on their ownmicroeconomies. Can the same kind of transformation come to the Russiankleptocracy or Sarah Palen’s back yard? One wonders. Still, it is nice to havea map when you are lost and trying to get some bearings.
The End of Money and the Future ofCivilization by Thomas H.Greco. Seeing a revolution at the horizon, Greco puts our choices at thiscritical moment in direct terms. We have to shift from elite, national “commandand control” hierarchies backed by military brute force to something far moredecentralized and local. This will happen on its own, driven by Hubbert’sCurve, but the devil is in the details. In a succession of books over the pastdecade, Greco has moved from incremental changes through policy steps to a radical(meaning “back to the root”) reversal of global power; top down to bottom up. The End of Money urges bottomdwellers to“reclaim the credit commons,” by simply withdrawing from national andcontinental currencies and changing the ways their transactions are mediated. Tous, this seems to have a better shot in the current street scene than Jackson’snew world regulatory authorities. The problem is interest-glomming Big Money, whichis an impossibly unsustainable Ponzi scheme when one considers we live on a finiteplanet. Greco’s proposal is for local credit clearing unions and, if those areshut down, then local voucher systems, which could be entirely digital andpersonally encrypted, to rapidly suck the air out of Big Money. If we can steeraway from our past pattern of corrupting every successful revolution, what liesbeyond the Great Change is more inclusive, participatory, just, harmonious and ecologicallysustainable.
The Web of Debt by EllenHodgson Brown. Ellen Brown is a fine speaker and storyteller and her book takesyou through a history of “money for dummies” using the Wizard of Oz as arecurrent theme. Describing Benjamin Franklin’s handiwork in creating thecolonial dollar, she noted that Franklin’s press took away the power of theBritish bankers’ gold, which could be hoarded, manipulated and lent only atusurious interest rates. It gave the colonial government the power to financeessential services and functions without taxing anyone. Indeed, the wholerationale for taxation, once governments began printing paper money, is awealth-leveling one. That seems not to have escaped the notice of Republicans,who would get rid of government (along with the essential services andfunctions) for that very reason. The best quote in the book, however, goes toHjalmar Schacht, head of the German central bank in the early 1930s. Told by aWall Street banker “Dr. Schacht, you should come to America. We’ve lots ofmoney and that’s real banking,” Schacht replied, “You should come to Berlin. Wedon’t have money. That’s realbanking.”
Songs of Petroleum by Jan Lundberg. This very personal narrativetakes you along in the life story of Culture Change founder and activist JanLundberg as he leaves behind his petrochemical industrial insider status andfortune to pursue a vision of what the world can still be if we can be of likemind. Thomas Hardy said, “If a path to the better there be, it begins with a fulllook at the worst.” Lundberg is unflinching. But then he delivers a path to thebetter, and it starts with permaculture, holistic health care, sail power,local economy, and unstinting hope.
3 Comments on "Elaborating eCOOLnomics"
Mike on Mon, 23rd Jan 2012 9:17 am
Correct me if I’m wrong but “voluntary simplicity” is inherently involuntary when “driven” by a system of “appropriate reward and punishment.” “Decroissance” is a social movement, if not a sub-culture, and as such does not have and will never have universal appeal. (Take something away from people and see how they quickly react like the Greeks to austerity.) This means it will not be accepted and will not work. History is not exactly filled with willing and orderly transitions to poverty and hunger.
“So whatfuture economic strategy optimizes our prospects?” Whose prospects? What prospect, for crying out loud? Oh! Your definition of…”better”, “hope”, “our concept”, “opportunity”, “quality of life” to name just a few culled from the largely unintelligible piece.
BillT on Mon, 23rd Jan 2012 2:23 pm
Steps up the ladder of wealth are easy and everyone hurries to get to the next step up with ‘more. We have reached the time when those at the top have mined the steps below them so that no-one can get to their position. Not only that, but they are cutting the steps out from under those who are in the middle. They want the feudal serf/lord system back after temporarily being forced by unions to give it up for the last 100 or so years.
Peaksurfer on Mon, 23rd Jan 2012 10:57 pm
The obvious thing to do with a ladder that useless is to saw it off right above the last rung accessible from below.