From Crisis Comes Hope
But only if a weary left can lead with new ideas. Here's a few to start.
It's not the size of the stimulus, but how you use it.
It is ironic that Homo sapiens, we big-brained and clever species, can trace almost every tragedy and failing to one generic cause: a failure of imagination. We seem to be an idiot savant species -- stunningly clever at so many things, capable of greatness, creativity and sacrifice for others, melding genius and love when we are at our best, and greed and hate at our worst. But whether it is the individual who fails to imagine the consequences of punching someone in a bar or a whole society which fails (like California) to imagine the consequences of starving itself of the revenue needed to function, observers from another world could easily conclude that we are terminally stupid. Or, as John Ralston Saul put, unconscious as a civilization.
Those individuals and organizations who have fought off the madness and ruin of neo-liberal policies for more than 20 years are now presented with the best possible time to present a vision of what is possible. Globalization is effectively dead: what characterized the world for the past 30 years, the suicidal policies of what was called the Washington Consensus, will never return, at least not in its old form. The climate crisis, the damage done to the real economies of the global North, the arrival of peak oil, the inevitable return of protectionism and state intervention mean that we have left that era behind.
Not only has financial capitalism and its corruption and ersatz wealth been exposed. The Chicago boys, the intellectual storm troopers in the free-market think-tanks and editorial writers of Asper media are facing an ideological crisis. The whole edifice stands exposed as a pack of lies and deceptions created for the sole purpose of enriching the already wealthy. "There is no alternative." Really? There bloody well better be or we are all doomed. "Government is the problem, not the solution." Really? The banks and the CEOs of the transnationals who revelled in this slogan would now disagree. And what about the cause of the evil deficits -- governments "...spending like drunken sailors"? Now Bay Street believes that government isn't nearly drunk enough. And the demand that we "...run government like a business"? Just which bankrupt, crooked, reckless business would that be?
The magnitude of the moral crisis of the political right is staggering. The greed, dishonesty, hubris and psychopathic disregard for the public good renders the whole business elite utterly unfit to pronounce on anything -- not even on the economy, but certainly not democracy or how we run our collective affairs.
All of this should add up to the biggest opportunity the left has had in more than a generation to take the lead, to frame the issues in terms of Canadians' stated values and aspirations, to bury the Washington Consensus ideology in the rubble of its own destructive legacy. This is our opportunity. These two crises have arrived just in time to wake us up, just in time for us to choose to save the planet and ourselves from a truly grim future. Not just rising oceans and the loss of coastal communities, but a nightmarish dystopia characterized by global social unrest, the rise of fascism, mass starvation and wars over energy and water.
But to date there is silence.
'Denial on a gargantuan scale'
Most middle-class people -- and this includes the majority of social and political activists -- are still acting as if this is just another recession. We'll just eat out less and take a two-week vacation instead of four until it blows over. The concession to the moral crisis of climate change is to buy a Prius and think we have made a difference. This is denial on a gargantuan scale. If every gas guzzler were replaced tomorrow by a Prius, we would still have 10 times too many private cars on the road.
In the U.S. there is a growing movement to cut taxes -- in a country starved for social programs, with an education system barely competing with Botswana's, and an almost unimaginable debt counted in the tens of trillions of dollars. The U.S. is headed for the most catastrophic collapse of empire in human history. Canada is not quite as delusional, but we are still a nation in denial, determined to maintain an insane consumer culture, and damn the consequences for ourselves and future generations.
The current situation is not a normal crisis -- it is a world-changing shift that could go in any of several directions. It cannot remain static, and without progressive leadership it is certain to go badly. But where is that leadership? It is not coming from the traditional sources. Organized labour is, understandably, preoccupied with saving threatened industries. (No talk there of forcing the Big Three to focus their massive infrastructure and technical know-how on mass transit. And no government commitment to expand it.) Social movement organizations are fighting the usual single-issue battles as if the context had not changed at all. The environmental movement still resists the fact that dealing with climate change without addressing social and economic democracy is impossible. And the political parties who should be providing a vision for a better future are mired in tactical politics. Jack Layton dismisses Michael Ignatieff's musing about the need for future tax increases as "old school" and suggests that the solution is to "grow the economy."
The planet will not survive "growing the economy." In its current trajectory, our world is terminal with the cancer of rampant consumerism metastasizing to every living system we need to survive. 60 per cent of the world's ecosystems are currently degraded. The stupendous "growth" of the last 20 years has seen the rich get filthy rich and the poor get poorer, with 20 per cent of the global population subsisting on two per cent of the world's resources. Canadian families have wrung up unprecedented debt trying to maintain a middle-class consumer lifestyle that doesn't even make them happy.
The solution isn't at the mall
Buying a hybrid car isn't going to cut it. Indeed nothing short of a cultural revolution in the developed world has any chance of saving the planet and humanity. How will we know that the revolution is under way? When there is a movement not to cut taxes but to ban advertising. When there is a massive call for taxing wealth so that no individual can take more than, say, $100,000 a year out of our collective wealth. When mandatory Sunday closing returns and families spend time together outside the shopping mall. When there is no more talk of ending poverty and homelessness because it will have disappeared. When we willingly -- no, eagerly -- pay half our income in taxes so that we can have the things we actually say we want as a community.
We need, on the left, to once again become the source of Big Ideas. Our defensive politics of the last 25 years has dulled our imaginations to the point of stagnation. We are leading from behind. So-called ordinary Canadians are desperate for a vision of the future they can grasp on to and believe is possible. We have given them more of the same: the politics of despair, telling struggling working people that things are actually worse than they already think they are.
We are obsessed with "stimulating" the economy. Instead we need to have a national conversation about starving the beast. Capitalism must grow to survive and no matter how we tweak this perverse system, growth will ensure its continued social and environmental destruction. Growing the economy in the face of this crisis is madness: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Fortunately, there are people thinking about this under the umbrella notion of "prosperity without growth." Amazingly, the British government has put together a whole website full of ideas and debates about what this might look like. A project of the Sustainable Development Commission, it suggests that creating conditions for people to flourish, "Includes tackling systemic inequality and removing incentives for unproductive status competition; sharing available work and improving work-life balance, and reversing the culture of consumerism; Building a sustainable macro-economy which is no longer structurally reliant on increasing consumption."
In Canada there is the just-started, three year Climate Justice Project of the B.C. office of the CCPA. It promises to engage in ground-breaking research on climate change but through the lens of social justice.
There are others, as well. In Paris last year the Economic De-Growth For Ecological Sustainability And Social Equity Conference came up with a declaration about the world of the future. Among its many articles, two stand out as characterizing the kind of thinking that must start spreading. De-growth in the global North, says the declaration, "...is characterized by substantially reduced dependence on economic activity, and an increase in free time, unremunerated activity, conviviality, sense of community, and individual and collective health; [and the] encouragement of self-reflection, balance, creativity, flexibility, diversity, good citizenship, generosity, and non-materialism." Everyone put their Blackberrys down. Go to these sites. Send them to friends.
To be fair to ourselves, progressive organizations are exhausted and demoralized. Fighting trench warfare and rearguard actions against a powerful and ruthless adversary for 25 years will do that to individuals and organizations. But we will not find new energy and inspiration in the trenches -- and we won't inspire others from there either. Canadians' values are amazingly progressive but a generation of neo-liberal assaults has lowered their expectations of what is possible. Nevertheless, they are out there waiting for someone, anyone, to present them with reasons to be hopeful. What they want and what we need is what America's radical rabbi, Michael Lerner, calls the politics of meaning. More on that next time.
Related Tyee stories:
- BC Deficit Budget Cuts Spending, Offers Little Stimulus
Health and education safe but other ministries trimmed, including environment, housing, aboriginal affairs. - In Canada, a Push for Obama-style Green Stimulus
PM to get plan backed by 850,000 group members. - The Meltdown, Seen from Below
What union leaders, labour experts and anti-poverty activists say needs to be done.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
nechakogal
18-06-2009
We need a political party that walks the talk
"To be fair to ourselves, progressive organizations are exhausted and demoralized. Fighting trench warfare and rearguard actions against a powerful and ruthless adversary for 25 years will do that to individuals and organizations." Dobbin is right organizations are too busy piecing together fragments of support for vulnerable populations, those who have been abandoned during neoliberal assault on our communities, and it keeps them from doing the important work of citizenship building, and community enrichment. As I stated in another comment this week, we need governments, at the very least to restore core funding to community agencies and groups, stop downloading core services and get out of the way in communities to allow for citizens to create local solutions. I am not as pessimistic as Dobbin appears to be about the Greens. I see strong recognition for the social needs within our communities, fiscal responsibility, balanced with the focus on environment. There is also a commitment to thinking outside the box for solutions that will make our communities stronger. The fact that the party does not engage in the mainstream media sideshow that the other federal parties are always engaged within is also a plus. They are walking the talk, something the other two haven’t managed to do for over three decades. I wish more people would take their vote seriously and take time to review history, and read party policies. If they did they would recognize that the Greens are the fresh start we all need.
Van Isle
18-06-2009
Google the Venus Project.
Google the Venus Project.
seth
18-06-2009
Doin' it for ourselves.
If all progressives abandon the NDP and Green party's and join the Liberal party we can overwhelm the bastards, taking the party back before Campbell can do much more damage.
Send the Neocons over to Wilf at the BC Conservative party. Maybe he could use them.
Sandwichman
18-06-2009
Prosperity without Growth
The Work Less Party has been advocating 'prosperity without growth' for five years. Peter Victor of York University supplied the macroeconomic 'meat' to the Sustainable Development Commission report. He also wrote Managing without Growth. A key strategy in both is work time reduction. I could go on for several hours about WHY work time reduction is THE strategic key. But I'll save it for my book.
The short answer can be found in a 1930 satirical article by Kenneth Burke in The New Republic, "Waste -- the future of prosperity." As Burke told it (and as it came to pass) the only way to keep the economy growing incessantly is to instill wasteful consumption habits in the population. The choice is -- and always has been -- waste or shorter hours. Only now the waste is threatening to KILL us. So there really is no choice.
Cynic
19-06-2009
Good article. And as I will
Good article. And as I will never stop pointing out, the source of elite power over our lives is the banking system, and I have yet to see Murray ever mention it, nor has any article I've ever read at this progressive website. I ask you, what is the use of generating all those excellent ideas about how we can do things better when it all gets shot down with a comment like "how are you going to pay for it?" and we stare blinking at the numbers they show us, and we go "gee, look at all that debt"?
It's a con game, folks. Wake up. There is nothing more important for this planet than to expose money and banking for what it is. Then we'll really start getting somewhere. Until then, more of the same.
There are many many excellent websites that deal with the issue. I recommend these two for a start, indeed, they are required viewing for all progressives.
Money as Debt, by Paul Grignon.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544
Zeitgest: Addendum, by Peter Joseph.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
Skywalker
19-06-2009
Excellent piece Murray
The question is really how one can get the citizenry to think about issues in the complex format like this. Such a message would go over most heads during a campaign hence little changes. It might be the messengers. We need a few with ability to captivate audiences with more than the pablum that serves for political dialogue these days. There is so much at stake.
anarcho
19-06-2009
Not everyone is without ideas
The mainstream left, ie the NDP, the CLC, may be exhausted and devoid of new ideas as Murray states, but what about the smaller groups and parties to the left of the mainstream? Here you will find people with energy, people who do not believe that “growth solves all” and people with new ideas, including economic democracy, popular power, local economies etc. Many of these ideas are influenced by the successful struggles in Latin America.
Fiat lux
19-06-2009
Murray, Remember me from
Murray,
Remember me from your Reform Watch days?
There's no hope for any change until the garbage that's being taught in our universities as "economics" is questioned, examined and thrown out, for the terrible damage it has done to the world in the past 40 years.
As colonization and mass murder have been licenced by priesthoods in the past, they're now forced on the Earth by the pseudo priesthood of economists.
The purpose of globalization has always been the collectivization and kholkhozification of the world's economy under the rule of a small gang of the multinational corporate mafia.
The Soviet communists have done it with bayonets, now it is done with the perceived power of imaginary capital "created" from the air, enslaving and destroying the Earth in the name of "globally competitive free enterprise".
The leather coats of the GPU have been replaced by business suits, but the results are the same.
Ed Deak, Big Lake.
Wilfred Laurier
19-06-2009
Congratulations!
When I read this, I was ready to sing the Internationale and had visions of Rosa Luxemburg.
Fiat lux
19-06-2009
If you know the
If you know the Internationale, you must be one of them.
As a dedicated private enterpriser, I've spent 45 years of my life fighting communism , and intend to the spend the rest fighting the same gang, now operating under the banner of capitalist collectivization.
Ed Deak.
Jeffrey J.
19-06-2009
Non-violent civil disobediance
Change is possible. It lies within us, the demos. It takes hard work, tenacity and organization. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Tommy Douglas, Bertrand Russell, Clarence Darrow. All worked tirelessly and were joined by citizens from all over. They all followed one strategy: non-violent, civil disobedience.
To think, Gandhi took on the British Empire, without cell phones! During his time the British Empire in India owned all the guns, the army, the railroads, the elite. Anyone trying to stand up to this very successful regime would have been laughed at. But with support from millions of people, Gandhi prevailed.
During the 1930's, workers who discussed their working conditions were committing a crime of conspiracy. They were charged, beaten, jailed and the mainstream press stood by and did nothing. Yet they prevailed, with support from people like Clarence Darrow.
First step: turn off your cable TV. It is even worse than the banks. It is the opiate of the masses and drains the ability to think or act.
Second step; get directly involved in your community where people are being treated unjustly.
Injustice is a universally recognized human experience. Unlike "money", it is not a "construct" but a visceral, readily identifiable mistreatment of others. Injustice will always be recognized and never embraced by its victims. Where there is injustice, there is a need for organizing by others. And where there is organizing, there is strength, which ultimately can challenge the tenuous hold the elites have on the rest of society.
Great article Mr. Dobbin as always.
mikev
19-06-2009
capitalism
Mr. Deak, good to see you back!
"Capitalism is Man Exploiting Man; Communism is just the opposite."
Or how about this one:
It is as ridiculous for a nation to say to its citizens, "You must consume less because we are short of money," as it would be for an Airline to say "Our planes are flying, but we can't take you because we are short of tickets."
-Sheldon Emry
alive
19-06-2009
quit harping on cars!
I am so tired of hearing that we have too many private cars!
We have too many commercial trucks carrying goods that could be grown or manufactured closer to home.
Longer distance transport should be by railway.
We have too many military vehicles, tanks, planes and ships burning up fuel for no good reason!
We have too many manufactures wasting fuel creating useless gadgets in the hope of making a profit.
Fiat lux
19-06-2009
We have USAF B52s over our
We have USAF B52s over our heads every day.
Years ago I calculated that in the time while I can see those stupid mass murdering monsters, they waste the same amount of fuel I use for my truck, tractors, pumps, etc. for 5 years.
Can't even imagine the amount of fuel they're burning and polluting the world with, during a single mission.
On the other side the Russians must be doing the same insanity, not to mention all the other countries with smaller planes.
What in hell are those idiot planes doing over Canada anyway?
Ed Deak.
endofcapitalism
19-06-2009
the end of capitalism and the politics of joy
"We need, on the left, to once again become the source of Big Ideas. Our defensive politics of the last 25 years has dulled our imaginations to the point of stagnation."
i couldnt agree more! let's be bold and imaginative! and let's be joyous that global capitalism is crumbling before us. this source of so much destruction is showing itself to be an enfeebled and broken system.
this does not guarantee a progressive, sustainable future, not at all. it's just as likely that we could have fascism.
but the end of capitalism does present an enormous opportunity for a better future based on grassroots organizing. we need a holistic approach to social change that recognizes the infinite ways that people can improve their communities and involve themselves in a movement for democratic sustainability.
let's embrace a positive vision for a future society based on democracy, justice, freedom, sustainability and love. our voices are needed most of all during this time of crisis. people are desperately looking for solutions.
time to step up.
my website (http://endofcapitalism.com) and impending book, The End of Capitalism, deal with these topics in more depth. i'd love feedback and collaboration from folks with similar views!
thanks
alex knight
http://endofcapitalism.com
philadelphia students for a democratic society
Booker
19-06-2009
Crisis
Not to put a damper on things, but capitalism survived the Great Depression and it will survive this lesser depression too. Not that that's a good thing. We cannot keep on living unsustainably and now is the time for government to step in and require changes. Yes, grass roots organizations need to build support, but without enforcement and the participation of governments we will not be able to get the job done. Unfortunately, Canada is now at the back of the pack. We need new political leadership, but if the last provincial election was an indication, we aren't getting it anytime soon.
Skywalker
19-06-2009
"it will survive this lesser depression too."
Yup it will, but it will be because of a little socialism for the people who vilify its notions when the profits are present. Back in the thirties one could excuse the population because they were less educated. Now the excuse for being dumb is...well, inexcusable.
Bailey
19-06-2009
truth and consequences
Every once in a while this place just makes me smile. We seem as a culture to be more committed to swallowing lies than at any time since the thirties.
I really think that the only thing that can work to bring about the change the world must have to survive is for enough people to start crying bullshit when they see it, and crying it as loud as they can.
Here's the thing: liars lie.
Mr Deak points out the lies he sees with sharp observation and stubborn insistence and good reasoned logic. Mr Dobbin is pointing out the structural lies with high quality details and persuasive argument. Others cite history to remind us where the lies must inevitably lead us.
It gives one hope to hear such voices. Most of what we can hear is bought and paid for by the liars themselves.
The details of what system of economics or government emerge to replace this empire of lies are not nearly as important as that we all demand truth and stick to it like our lives depend on it.
Because they do. Our children's lives as well, and theirs.
We all have our favourite ideas about how to proceed into the future, but it's hard to start while so very many of us still buy into the bullshit.
Our only hope is for all the lies to be exposed for what they are. Convincingly, loudly, over and over and over until everybody gets to see, and only the liars themselves are left, exposed along with them.
Only then will we be able to begin to build a future that will have a hope of working, based on at least the intention to live our lives based in truth.
peasant43
19-06-2009
Dark Age Ahead
Our civilization is in a profound malaise. We are incapable of even imagining something different or new. We try endlessly to find some answer from the past, hence 30 years of neo-this and neo-that.
Mr. Dobbin thinks that people are out there waiting to be led to some brighter future. A frightening prospect indeed.
Jane Jacobs' prognosis seems far more plausible.
buccaneer bay
19-06-2009
Mr Dobbin........
I couldn`t have said it better.......
But unfotunately it is too late,everyone has bitten the apple,if you think we all can hold hands and come together in the community garden,well,ain`t gonna happen....
The nukes aren`t being disassembled,there isn`t one form of goverment that works,cults,sects,religion,we are destined to crash and burn.
Eveything is still here,every oil molecule,we have only transformed it`s properties,enjoy the ride before it blows up........
Mr. Dobbin,you are correct,this recession is diffrent,there will be no recovery,the earth can only support maybe a billion people,what would you like to do with the rest of them?
Yea,something is wrong allright,30 million for an actor to play a part,Mark Texeira of the New York yankees recently signed a 285 million dollar contract to play basaball......
A person can`t even opt out and set up a home and self reliance in the middle of nowhere,eminent domain will take it away........
Pleasent dreams people
OilbertaRedTory
19-06-2009
Limitless growth ...
... is better known as 'tumour'
Real conservatives - conserve.
(btw : 'eminent domain' is US legalese for 'expropriation')
buccaneer bay
20-06-2009
Oilbertaredtory.....
Duh! Really.........Don`t think eminent domain is not in Canada,because it is.
KWD
20-06-2009
imagination no failure
“A failure of imagination” is not genetic. Imagination requires thinking, and therein lies the failure: we think the way society expects, and the way we are trained as children.
Whether it be the judgments we use about health, wealth, social status, skin color or the health of the environment, we live our lives according to the stories society tells us are reality. Judgment becomes our reality.
If our perception of reality varies too far from the “norm” we are concidered deviant. Too much deviance or variation from societal norms can have a cost: extinction. In genetics, deviation and variation are the roots of evolution.
Skywalker is partly correct. Unfortunately, in order to react (to the world we have created) in ways that will enhance our chances of survival, and allow us to evolve, we must do more than “think about issues in the complex format”. The way we think needs to evolve. We need to understand why we think the way we do. We need to reexamine the way we link judgment to reality.