The Tipping Point
“Prosperity for the few founded on ecological destruction and persistent social injustice is no foundation for a civilised society” – Tim Jackson, Economics Commissioner ‘Prosperity without Growth’.
We stand at the tipping point of what should and will be a promising new era. 2020 if nothing else has given us evidence, after evidence that the system in which we operate is one that cannot and will not last into the future. The system I am talking about is industrial capitalism. From bushfires that reminded us that we live in a resource finite world, to a global pandemic that re-awakened the welfare state (and a reminder of how none of us enjoy working ridiculous hours) and finally to a stark reminder of the inherent racism and oppression that our system runs on. The veils of ignorance are being lifted just check out the reaction to Scott Morrison’s commentary last week when he shockingly (and embarrassingly – for Australians) stated ‘there was no slavery in Australia’.
2020 has been a much needed eye-opener.
Who am I to talk about what’s happening in the world? I am a white woman that has benefited from the current system, and yet over the last week I have been confronted with the actual reality – that I have chosen not to question until now– upon which my livelihood is built. One that is not just, fair or sane. In March this year I was struck by the thought that we are at a crossroads in our society. One where we are finally questioning the myth upon which it is based…for every society is based on a common story and ours is the myth of economic growth.
This is something we all willingly and unwillingly believe in. In fact to question economic growth is to be a heretic in the 21st century. To quote famed economist Tim Jackson ‘For the last 5 decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world’. Making it not just something that businesses strive for but turned governments into corporations. One could argue that Vladimir Putin is the CEO of Russia, or Trump is head of USA Inc. To quote the author Jaques Peretti ‘Under Cameron and Blair (in the UK) you had the first intimations of this when…they’d start to say ‘what if Britain was run like John Lewis’. Shockingly and yet also obviously the corporation has become the dominant model not just of the private section, but it turns out the public also.
The fundamental issue with the corporation and the capitalist system it operates within is its cost. At its heart, economic growth is only possible with infinite resources – as the growth we desire is infinite. Last time I checked we live in a finite world. There are only 24 hours in a day, reincarnation aside, there is one a limited life span and there is only one planet. In fact at a deeper level the only long-term outcome from obsession with economic growth is our own demise. Ironic, I know. The only thing that we really destroy through the process of searching for unlimited growth in a finite world is ourselves. As the astrophysics Carl Sagan once said ‘survival is the exception not the rule’. For me this is the issue with the framing of ‘Climate Change’, mother earth will outlast us, rather it is us we are destroying in the process of economic growth.
We are at a point in history where this cost is adding up – and we’re being exposed directly to it – thanks to the advent of social media.
If we break it down the cost of this so called economic growth has been – the 3 billion people (yes half the worlds population) that live on less than $2.50 a day (this is considered poverty) – the biggest percentage of which are living in Sub-Saharan Africa; the 28 million hectares of forest for cut down globally each year (FYI we’ve managed to destroy half the world’s forests in just 100 years); and 43.1B tons of CO2 we emitted into the atmosphere to power this growth. Oh and then there’s the mental cost, according to a study published in Ecological Economical in 2013 which examined 17 countries (of which Australia was one of these). from 1950 – 2003 and found that although these countries increased their GPD by 3 times on average; the overall social wellbeing of these countries decreased over the period.
If we go even deeper, to the basic truth of the system we live in (that enables this economic growth)- Industrial Capitalism relies on inequity in order to work. It is not based on win-win, it’s based on wealth accumulation, where cheap labour and resource is required to create profit – this means that someone must loose (even the environment) in order to win. Just take for example that 1% of the population controls 44% of the world’s wealth. That is capitalism at it’s finest.
Added to that we’re frequently fed the myth that things are getting better.Yes in some important ways they are, according to Steven Pinker in ‘The Better Angels of our Nature’ capitalism has increased literacy, communication and ultimately reduced worldwide violence. However when we look at wealth equality the gap continues to grow. In 2009 the 380 richest people held the same wealth as the bottom 50% of the planet; in 2019 that number changed dramatically to be just the 26 richest people holding the same wealth as the bottom 50% of the planet.
So the story of equitable capitalism turns out to be …a lie. We are all sold the story that there’s greater distribution of wealth. I mean yes this is true…if you compare now to feudal times, when people like the Chinese Emperor Shenzon controlled an estimated 30% of the global GDP. To quote Jackson ‘Capitalism delivers it’s benefits at best unequally… inequality is higher in the OECD nations than it was 20 years ago. And while the rich got richer, middle-class incomes in Western Countries were stagnant in real terms. Far from raising the living standard for those who most needed it, growth let much of the world’s population down.’
Theory aside, what we are experiencing this year has been the rumblings that have been stirring since the advent of industrial capitalism in the mid 18th Century.
So where to next?
We don’t know what the future holds, but it’s evident we are in a time of massive change. Change that requires businesses and individuals to take off their blinkers and see what is truly happening around them. That said, many theorists believe it will not be the current businesses and people benefiting from capitalism that will be the ones to change it. Mainly because we all have too much material benefit from the current system.
However, deep down we know that the current system can’t continue for environmental and humanitarian reasons. To quote Yuval Noah Harari in his book ‘Sapians’: ‘How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.’ We are in a time where the imagined construct of capitalism is being questioned. Hence the instability and feelings of revolution that surround us at the moment. Added to this history shows us that every 250-300 years the economic system changes…and it’s been 260 years since industrial capitalism become the dominant system of thinking.
Here’s what my intuition tells me, the future is not more industrial capitalism but neither is it socialism. Rather the future will be decided by those that have no say within the current system. I’ll finish with this…