Radically Democratic or Bureaucratic?

At last nights meeting of the Missoula International Organization for a Participatory Society (IOPS) there was a good discussion around the theoretical precepts of Parecon or Participatory Economy. There are various concerns that, especially on the scale of global society, proposed non-market mechanisms for determining production and allocation would turn into bureaucratic nightmares. It is difficult to imagine our fellow capitalist "citizens" actually participating in Council meetings and drawn out iterations over who gets what, over what is socially valued labor, or over what natural resources should be devoted to which sector of the economy, considering how little people participate in their own governance or politics. This "self-management" is described as utilizing "simple communicative and organizing principles" but as many of us who were involved in Occupy know, there is nothing simple about organizing or communicating. Another question arose around the "norm for decisions": "..methods of dispersing information and for arriving at and tallying preferences into decisions should convey to each party involved influence over said decisions to the degree he or she will be affected by them." It is true that a metric for measuring the degree to which you are affected needs considerable thought, especially when you enter the more subjective realm. Some could insist they are greatly affected by the flapping of a butterflies wings in Nepal. It could be argued that the success of capitalist markets rests at least in part on the way competition harnesses and directs Desire for the lost object, to put it in Lacanian terms. The struggle for identity and for commodities is left to The Invisible Hand, whereas in a council system, we would have to confront Our Community. So there are questions of scale (might work in the particular but not universally), questions of psychology and "human nature" and questions of design and each deserves consideration. But at the heart of this project is the over-arching question: What is democracy and are you a democrat? One instructive place that democracy works, as expressed in governance and law, is driving. Here, the General Will( Rossueau) is expressed as: We all want to get around safely at a certain speed. How to do this? We all have to agree to sacrifice some degree of sovereignty to the collective body in order to secure certain advantage. It's not hard to imagine the results of a Mad Max, competitive system, where those with the biggest tanks win. Instead we set up signs and laws and jails- and this is done all over the globe (to varying degrees). I think there is another, more elusive principle at work as well, and it is actually similar to The Invisible Hand. The Hand is a symbol for the Cosmic Force (Cosmos) which theoretically integrates and transforms the Desire (self-interest)of Each into a Pareto- efficient or optimal outcome for All. Unfortunately, markets depend on perfect information to function and can't account for externalities. They are fatally flawed in many other other ways addressed in familiar critiques. Basically, they don't pretend to address justice or equality. Radically Democratic Participation, on the other hand, has precisely those just outcomes, rather than efficient ones, as its goal. And just as natural ecosystems transform diversity into resilience, the sheer diversity of Desire expressed by the demos in a process where dignity is deemed essential will produce rational( just) outcomes for All in the aggregate. As the human brain/psyche becomes conditioned by ever greater individuation, diversity and plurality, the greater it's capacity towards integration, empathy and compromise. In this way society becomes more resilient, the economy becomes more just and "the full development of each becomes the condition for the full development of all." Voila.

Threading the Needle

Advocating for a new economic model in times such as these requires a phenomenal degree of adroitness. To avoid the charge of strident, dogmatic or extremist thinking (which seems never to apply to those who support the status quo), one must incorporate a litany of temperate, reasonable-sounding qualifiers and mea culpas into ones polemic. For instance, "of course this is not a blueprint...", "by 'revolution' I only mean ideas...", "I know every past attempt has ended in disaster but...", or "I can at least tell you what is wrong with the current system." This is how the salesman gets his foot in the door, so to speak. This now opens one up to all sorts of criticism from the left: "No, we have an excellent, well thought-out blueprint called a Participatory Society" and "People want a revolution but they don't want THE revolution", and "But there are lots of past and current examples of people building autonomy and new structures, institutions, etc" and "anti-capitalism isn't enough, we need a positive vision." So you climb onto the tightrope and try to figure out how to "walk and chew gum", integrate reforms into your agenda while maintaining a radical critique, not alienate or intimidate with "new" language and abstractions but not condescend either,clarify complex concepts but not over-simplify. Whew! My friend I were talking about the problems associated with the missionary tactic of "bringing them into the fold" -gently for awhile -then springing the trap: "by the way, we are against private productive property". It just seems so....missionary. Of course, any successful counter-insurgency/counter-vailing hegemonic project must "change hearts and minds" ,which often means being likeable and not sounding too intellectual. "Meeting people where they are" means a chameleon-like ability to move in and out of different socio-economic "cultures" and navigate all the differing, weird discourses folks self identify with. Being clued in to popular media and not rolling your eyes when they talk about getting elected. Sound exhausting? It is. It's infinitely simpler to just say : "I'm for the free market" or "free enterprise" and call it good.

Obama Care Meltdown/Coal Train

Boy ob boy, the media sharks are in a frenzy, popularity polls are plummeting, web sites are crashing... a Real Leader would start a little war somewhere or kill some famous terrorist to break the news cycle. But Obama is the hopeless apologist and appeaser, thinking he could make everybody happy. Telling wary citizens "you can keep your crap policy!", telling Insurance Companies "I will bring you millions of young, healthy new customers", telling Progressives "we are charting a bold, new path!", telling everybody what they wanted to hear and going down in Hillaryesque flames. Who could have possibly guessed it would be such a complicated fiasco? Luckily the price of gas is down and the stock market is hitting record highs. America has it's own "happiness index", or what we Yanks call consumer confidence. None of this would surprise economist Eugene Fama who is sharing the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Known as the father of efficient markets theory, "Fama believes markets are basically rational. At any given moment, he says, prices reflect the collective wisdom of everyone in the market." This wondrous energy force, what the Greeks called The Cosmos, can somehow distill and synthesize and harness all our wisdom! Nietzsche was wrong, God is alive and well- to paraphrase Frank Zappa- he just smells bad. In this sense, the price of coal reflects not just my vast wisdom (I'm trying to keep the thermostat at 60) but the wisdom of the Universe. Pakistan saw the light last summer and announced it would convert it's oil fired electric plants to coal, investing billions (mostly China and Quatar money)in infrastructure, import and development of its own reserves.(Thar coalfields have 3.5 billion tons. Sino-Sindh Resources Lmtd, Global Mining China Lmtd, Asiapak Investments Lmtd.) Of course China heard the Wise Oracle long ago and will build 343 to 450 Gigawatta of new coal generation over the next fifteen years. Because the Price is Right! The IEA reports that coal will replace natural gas in the 10 Ass. of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEN)so that 90% of their new power generation will be coal based over the next two decades. This is where Montana, my home state, wants to share its own "collective wisdom" by shipping our coal to the West Coast and overseas. And believe me when I say there is no wisdom like Montana wisdom when it comes to natural resources!

Crash of 2016

Thom Hartman's new book postulates yet another severe global economic downturn by the next US election year (if not sooner). He uses historical data to show how oligarchs take wealth and power (what he calls a "Royalist conspiracy")until inequality boils over into popular rage. He cites the economic crises of 1750-60, 1850, 1930, 2008, and soon to be 2016. Thom has written two dozen books on this same theme and he inevitably refers to the same prescription of "structural" changes that must take place to close this gap and avert disaster. What I find fascinating is the fact that while he highlights the repetitive nature of the conditions that lead to these crashes he seems unconcerned with the repetitive nature of the solutions society has imposed, so that he seems fine with riding this merry-go-round over and over and over again. For instance, Roosevelt fought the big monopolies, we should break up the big monopolies (Sherman act), Roosevelt passed Glass -Steagle to separate banking, we should reinstate the Act. Speculation ran wild after Commodities Modernization Futures Act, we should repeal same. Let's just do the same thing, then the Royalists can do their thing ( circumvent or gut the legislation) then we can do the same thing and on and on.. We can just keep watching this same movie... because it is The End of History! Groundhog Day! I tried in vain to explain this to my esteemed opponents in Occupy who insisted on Justice re-instated! Bring Back the Unions and the Middle Class! Bring back the Mom and Pop Corner Store! Bring back the good stuff, yeah, but leave Nixon and disco in the trash heap of history. My friend Stuart Hartger wants to strengthen popular democracy through a new system of representation he calls The Organized Electorate. I don't wish to imply this is another case of repetition but my critique here is that he doesn't propose extending democracy into the productive, economic sphere. I fear that without this radical extension, unempowered consumers of politics will always take the place of true citizens.

More Climate

While we are on the subject, I ran into a video of some young ethicists discussing the ethics of Pakistan's recent decision to invest billions in infrastructure so they can convert from oil to coal fired electricity. I had no idea Pakistan had done so and I really pay attention to climate news! So the speakers talked about justice and utility and climate budgets and such, how we can't expect the developing world to voluntarily reduce needed energy use and emissions etc.etc. I was thinking of Ecuador's failed proposal to have a United Nations fund reimburse the country for leaving oil in the ground and NOT drilling in the Amazon. Then I thought of the 350.org campaign to get universities to divest their holdings in fossil fuel stocks, the time and energy which has gone into it and how the meager results, (a few hundred thousand divested? I don't know how to find an exact figure) compared to Pakistan's investment. Here in Montana there is a huge tract of State land called Otter Creek which has been opened up for coal mining. The high-bidder is Arch Coal. The project involves a new railway so the coal can be shipped to west coast ports, such as one proposed in Longview WA, where it will be loaded onto barges and sent to...Pakistan!..or India or China. You think Arch needs a few lousy university endowment funds? There is an organizational meeting in Helena Mt where the various groups hoping to stop coal exports will do some strategizing and come up with "campaigns". They will consist of letter writing, petition signing, rallys, maybe some non-violent civil disobedience ( which I took part in last summer and summer before last). Same old same old. I clicked on a petition to the Army Corps of Engineers put out by Earthjustice just today. It has a snowball's chance in hell of persuading anyone. Billions in investment is what persuades. Time to get real, Mr. Mc Kibben.

Return of the Trout

Well, well, look who's back? I probably lost my one follower ( Ducky are you out there?) but I am used to writing for no one. Sort of a hobby. I have been spending time writing at a couple of other venues, the main one being IOPS, or organization for a participatory society. There is a "project" forum there and some great discussion at Project E.A.R.T.H., a kind of eco-philosophy blog. I have also been writing pieces for my local discussion/activist group the Zoozaps and writing speeches for the anti-coal export work I am involved in and writing a few short stories and still working on the second novel. Not a dull moment! My study of theory has really taken off in some interesting directions (still radical left however) with a big emphasis on identity, ideology and now culture. But enough about me- let's talk climate. One feels the inexorable ticking of a silent, deadly clock behind all the articles and IPPC reports and pieces on NPR or Frontline. Because despite all the talk, NOTHING IS BEING DONE. I suspect most people have experienced a particular nightmare where they realize that they must move rapidly in order to escape something or someone and yet frighteningly, they find that they are somehow frozen, that their legs will not respond or seem stuck in molasses. This terrifying dream-work is a good metaphor for the current reaction of our species to the threat of catastrophic climate change. There is to my mind a collective, pathological inability to overcome stasis or inertia which can at least partially be explained by a fatal flaw in the discourse of resistance: there is no moral or emotional equivalency between the perceived crisis and the imagined responses. Take as one example the campaign for divestment now underway on college and university campuses. Here, an acknowledged existential crisis such as the increasing rate of greenhouse gas emissions is met with procedural, administrative “action” ie to have an endowment relinquish its fossil fuel stocks. This is equivalent to politely asking an arsonist to use less gasoline when burning down your house. It is a moderate, calm, incremental response which convinces the general public that the rhetoric of “crisis” is overblown and irrational. The woman who comes up to you and asks if she can bum a smoke because her child has just been kidnapped is not to be taken seriously. The tenor of her response is too far removed from the severity of her problem. Al Gore goes about the country telling business leaders to shift their investments in order to avoid a dangerous “carbon bubble”. Now there is a rallying cry to awaken a dormant public: Protect Your Profit! Besides, investors know the most profitable strategy is to ride a bubble to the very last second to maximize return. Mainstream economists like William Nordhaus write books like Climate Casino about fifteen years too late and say we need cap and trade. In a similar fashion, those working to stop coal export (Powder River to Asian Markets via West Coast terminals) point to the hazards of increased traffic, coal dust and diesel fumes. They direct these minor, procedural complaints to the same politicians, bureaucrats and regulators to whom you would turn to with a problem of invasive weeds and then can’t understand why the public is not more alarmed! Just as damaging, those who use the language of immanent crisis, ecocide and system change are automatically de-legitimized and made to sound unreasonable or “alarmist”. The “good students” go to Powershift conferences and network and politely ask administrators for incremental change, just as they have been taught by those involved in past movements for “social change” ie apartheid, civil rights, gender equality, etc.. Those risking their own safety, comfort, freedom and bodies are made to look “militant” and “extreme” by comparison. But the uncomfortable truth is that this crisis is fundamentally different, both in terms of its order of magnitude and in its temporal dimension than those historical examples. The clock that is ticking is unlike any clock mankind has ever experienced because this is only a lineal, gradual process till the moment you reach the precipice. The very concepts of “tipping points”, or cliffs or positive feedback loops are so fraught and traumatic that our collective emotional response is by definition pathologized, repressed and not surprisingly, totally inadequate. The true, rational, healthy outrage which the situation calls for, in fact demands, must be reflected in our collective calls for action. There must be an equivalency between the threat and the response in our discourse, in terms of both language and practices. In terms of strategy going forward, I believe there exists another crucial “tipping point”, the point at which absent a serious shift in momentum, not just the “climate movement” but the Social Justice Left more generally, will become totally and tragically defeated and irrelevant. To avoid this calamity, I believe we need a concerted and concentrated push towards a defining win. And there is no better issue, more symbolically potent to rally around than the last leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. A recent piece by someone with Rising Tide argued the opposite, that the movement was putting too many eggs in one basket. I could not disagree more. The moment is now. All the eggs. Stop Keystone with mass civil disobedience, on a scale not seen in any social movement, ever.