{"id":16335,"date":"2018-11-25T10:56:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T14:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=16335"},"modified":"2018-11-25T10:56:48","modified_gmt":"2018-11-25T14:56:48","slug":"the-sequel-life-after-economic-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/the-sequel-life-after-economic-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sequel: life after economic growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found this essay by Shaun Chamberlin this morning in Tikkun<\/em> magazine, & reproduce it here without official permission but as an act of a sharing economy of mind. It is essential now to turn away from being medusa\u2019ed by what is front-lining in this country\u2019s $$$-beholden media & start actively thinking through & applying at any scale available the insights of the likes of a David Fleming or Shaun Chamberlin. I\u2019m presently also reading through a book I brought back from Europe last week & on which I\u2019ll report later here (as I\u2019ve done on earlier books by the same author), Raoul Vaneigem: Contribution \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9mergence de territoires lib\u00e9r\u00e9s de l\u2019emprise \u00e9tatique et marchande (R\u00e9flexions sur l\u2019autogestion de la vie quotidienne)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Freeways

Image courtesy of David Martin Jr<\/p><\/div>\n

Shaun Chamberlin: The Sequel: life after economic growth.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Simon Mont wrote in\u00a0Tikkun<\/em>\u2019s recent issue on the New Economy, \u201ccapitalism is collapsing under the weight of itself, and it\u2019s not pretty.\u201d[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

Our globalised world finds itself caught on the horns of a seemingly impossible dilemma \u2013 either cease growing, and so collapse the economy on which we all depend, or continue to grow until we overwhelm and destroy the ecosystems on which we all depend.<\/p>\n

As my late mentor, the historian and economist David Fleming, put it,<\/p>\n

It is certain that there are no\u00a0simple\u00a0<\/em>answers to this\u2014none that could be proposed without proposing at the same time a transformation in the whole of the way we think, work and order our lives.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

And yet, faced with this fundamental systemic conundrum, our leaders hold tight to their simple answer \u2013 growth.\u00a0\u00a0Having worked supporting people with drug addiction for several years, it is hard to escape the parallels to the more tragic cases.\u00a0 The dire consequences of our choices are piling ever higher around us, threatening the very continuation of our lives and those around us.\u00a0 And the response is to double down on the current path and turn a blind eye \u2013 to sink deeper into denial.\u00a0 It is just too difficult, too brave, to undergo that dark night of the soul \u2013 to admit the problem, to seek a new paradigm.<\/p>\n

So we hear it over and over \u2013 we must keep growth high, keep unemployment low.\u00a0 Donald Trump\u2019s recent Twitter boast that U.S. GDP growth (4.2%) was higher than unemployment (3.9%) for the first time in over a century was both inaccurate and bizarre, but it betrays his allegiance to these numbers.<\/p>\n

And of course, he is far from alone.\u00a0 All his peers are junkies too.\u00a0 Most people \u2013 even most economists \u2013 never question the desirability of these measures, as if mastery of them could somehow heal an economy so violently contrary to our human instincts and desires that it leaves epidemics of depression, loneliness and suicide everywhere it goes.\u00a0 That sparks not only economic and environmental devastation, but cultural and spiritual annihilation.<\/p>\n

As if there were not something deeper, something larger, going on here.<\/p>\n

~~~<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s step back for a minute.\u00a0 First, \u201ckeep unemployment low\u201d.\u00a0 The appeal is easy to see, but what\u2019s really going on here?<\/p>\n

Consider the great economist John Maynard Keynes\u2019 prediction, in 1930, that by the year 2000 the onward march of technology would lead to an average 15 hour working week in countries like the U.S. and U.K.\u00a0 Naturally he saw this as progress \u2013 not a doom-laden prophecy of mass unemployment \u2013 and this fact begins to expose the inherent contradiction in the aim of maximising employment.\u00a0 What economists see as wastefully underutilised \u2018spare labour\u2019 is what most of us might call spare time\u2014time enjoyed outside the formal economy\u2014a welcome part of a life well lived rather than a \u2018problem of unemployment.\u2019[iii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, modern life is not noted for the utopian, leisurely daily routines enjoyed by the bulk of the population.\u00a0 So why was Keynes wrong?\u00a0 Certainly not because the rate of technological advance over the past century failed to live up to his expectations.\u00a0 No, rather because our economic paradigm literally makes widely-shared leisure time impossible.<\/p>\n

To see why, Fleming invites us to take a further step back. \u00a0He notes the startlingly extensive holidays (five months of each year, in some places) achieved in medieval Europe.\u00a0 How were the good folk of the Middle Ages able to enjoy so much more leisure time than we are in our technologically-advanced society? \u00a0He explains,<\/p>\n

In a competitive market economy a large amount of roughly equally-shared leisure time \u2013 say, a three-day working week, or less \u2013 is hard to sustain, because any individuals who decide to instead work a full week can produce for a lower price (by working longer hours than the competition they can produce a greater quantity of goods and services, and thus earn the same wage by selling each one more cheaply). These more competitive people would then be fully employed, and would put the more leisurely out of business completely. This is what puts the grim into reality.[iv]<\/a><\/p>\n

So in an economy like ours, a technological advance that doubles the amount of useful work a person can do in a day becomes a problem rather than a benefit. It tends to put half the workers out of work, turning them into a potential drain on the state (or simply leaving them destitute).<\/p>\n

In theory all the workers could just work half-time and still produce all that is needed, as Keynes predicted, and as is promised all over again by today\u2019s latest wave of automation techno-utopians.[v]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0But in practice workers are often afraid of having their pay cut, or losing their jobs to a stranger who is willing to work longer hours.\u00a0 In the absence of a sense of community or mutual trust, and having been taught to seek their security in a wage, people instead compete against each other for the right to perform the pointless tasks that anthropologist David Graeber memorably characterised as \u201cbullshit jobs.\u201d[vi]<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, governments see that the only way to keep unemployment from rising to the point where the system breaks down is through endless economic growth, which thus becomes a non-negotiable obligation \u2013 a dogma. \u00a0Ah, here\u2019s our second simple imperative, \u201ckeep growth high\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

The problem here is elementary, brutal math.\u00a0 Economists tell us that 2-3% growth annually, give or take, is necessary to stop avoid recession or depression.\u00a0 Arithmetic tells us that if something grows at 2% a year, it will double in size in 35 years.\u00a0 At 3% a year it will double in 24 years.\u00a0 At Trump\u2019s claimed 4.2%?\u00a0 17 years.<\/p>\n

~~~<\/p>\n

Can we seriously imagine our world in just two or three decades with twice the economic activity \u2013 twice the oil extraction, twice the intensive agriculture, twice the manufacturing, twice the pollution?\u00a0 And then in two or three more decades doubling again, to four times the size of today\u2019s economy\u2026\u00a0 Even superabundance like that of the natural world cannot indefinitely support an exponentially growing parasite.[vii]<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a remarkably straightforward point; just arithmetic.\u00a0 And yet it remains respected mainstream opinion that we should just keep growing, quietly crossing our fingers that somehow Nature \u2013 the economy upon which all others depend \u2013 will defy both physics and math and continue to bail us out forever.\u00a0 As Fleming put it,<\/p>\n

Civilisations self-destruct anyway, but it is reasonable to ask whether they have done so before with such enthusiasm, in obedience to such an acutely absurd superstition, while claiming with such insistence that they were beyond being seduced by the irrational promises of religion.[viii]<\/a><\/p>\n

In this context, then, it\u2019s no surprise to be hearing increasingly shrill, desperate alarm from scientists around the world as they observe the natural world crumbling under the impossible, ever-growing pressure.\u00a0 As I write, the latest report announced that 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have been annihilated since 1970.\u00a0 Put starkly, most of the wild nature that was here fifty years ago is gone.\u00a0 And still we seek to grow the human economy, and cheer when that growth accelerates.[ix]<\/a><\/p>\n

Similarly, the inherently conservative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released their\u00a0Global Warming of 1.5\u00baC<\/em>\u00a0report, which makes it abundantly clear that the unfolding physical realities studied by climate science are dramatically outpacing the policies notionally intended to address them.\u00a0 They find that we must halve emissions in the next twelve years, and so feel forced to call for \u201crapid and far-reaching \u2026 unprecedented\u201d transformation in the economy.[x]<\/a><\/p>\n

Hence it has become impossible to be simultaneously realistic about both the political climate and the science of climate.\u00a0 The two stubbornly refuse to reconcile, so we are forced to decide which carries more weight, and then be profoundly unrealistic about the other.<\/p>\n

To take present policy seriously demands a total rejection of the science.\u00a0 To take the science seriously demands a total rejection of the policy on the table.\u00a0 And so grassroots movements like the Extinction Rebellion and Climate Mobilization are emerging \u2013 the realists of a larger reality.<\/p>\n

They recognise that the dominant politico-economic paradigm leads to nothing but a literal dead end.\u00a0 We are on the cusp of a fundamental shift, for better or worse \u2013 either we change direction or we end up where we are headed.<\/p>\n

~~~<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting then that a change of direction is exactly what electorates have been voting for, or at least trying to.\u00a0 Globalisation and neoliberalism are not only destroying our collective future, but have also all-but-destroyed the present for many, as the neofeudalism termed \u2018austerity\u2019 continues to bite. The common factor behind unexpected election results like Trump in the US, Brexit and Corbyn in the UK and Bolsonaro in Brazil appears to be desperate rejection of the establishment and the\u00a0status quo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, in such times, when more and more people are struggling to support their families, and losing faith in the dominant stories of what is important, the far right has a track record of providing simple answers.\u00a0 It is important to remember that fascists like Mussolini and Hitler didn\u2019t only consolidate power on the basis of lies and fear\u2014they also raised wages, addressed unemployment and improved working conditions.<\/p>\n

To effectively challenge the drift into fascism, then, we need to present an alternative politico-economic vision that can restore identity, pride and economic well-being. We need to tell a\u00a0beautiful<\/em>\u00a0story of how we will make the future better for the desperate, rather than a fearful one.\u00a0 To provide a grounded, compelling alternative to a future I have no desire to live through.<\/p>\n

This is what Fleming devoted his life to developing.\u00a0 Fifty years ago he saw the central dilemma of our times approaching, and devoted his life to facing the inevitable question \u2013 what might a life-sustaining, nourishing economy look like, after the impending end of economic growth?<\/p>\n

This culminated in his posthumous 2016 book\u00a0Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy<\/em>.\u00a0 Therein, he reminds us of just how unusual today\u2019s \u2018ordinary\u2019 is, and how profoundly unrealistic it is to pin our hopes on market capitalism \u2013 an economic system that has existed for less than 1% of recorded history and is already not only destroying its own foundations, but those of life on Earth.\u00a0 In his words,<\/p>\n

The Great Transformation has already happened. It was the revolution in politics, economics and society that came with the market economy, and which hit its stride in Britain in the late eighteenth century.<\/p>\n

Most of human history had been bred, fed and watered by another sort of economy, but the market has replaced, as far as possible, the social capital of reciprocal obligation, loyalties, authority structures, culture and traditions with exchange, price and the impersonal principles of economics.[xi]<\/a><\/p>\n

This historical context is critical.\u00a0 The New Economy that we need is, in many ways, the Old Economy.\u00a0 It is time to rediscover the ways human beings related to each other for hundreds of thousands of years before we were ripped into isolation by the brief historical anomaly of market capitalism, into which all of us alive today happened to be born.\u00a0 As Mont put it:<\/p>\n

[The New Economy] is a groundswell to relying on a memory harbored in our hearts to make real a vision of humans returning to deep relationships with earth, spirit, and each other, that is constantly evolving and changing, while staying acutely cognizant of the fact that we\u00a0must<\/em>\u00a0relearn how to keep ourselves alive without capitalism and extraction.[xii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Fleming took that dear memory harbored in our hearts and wrote it large across the page.\u00a0 \u201cWe know what we need to do,\u201d he writes, \u201cWe need to build the sequel, to draw on inspiration which has lain dormant, like the seed beneath the snow.\u201d<\/p>\n

~~~<\/p>\n

His sparkling, tantalising writing has become a touch-stone for thousands of communities around the world who are putting it into practice, with his startling seven-point protocol for an economics based in trust, loyalty and local diversity one of the key factors in the birth of the now-global Transition Towns movement.<\/p>\n

Drawing on the work of the likes of Edgar Cahn, Fleming provides the radical but historically-proven sequel to today\u2019s capitalism: focusing\u00a0neither<\/em>\u00a0on the growth\u00a0nor<\/em>\u00a0de-growth of the market economy, but on huge expansion of the \u2018informal\u2019 or non-monetary economy\u2014the \u2018core economy\u2019 that keeps our society alive, even today.\u00a0 This is the economy of what we love: of the things we naturally do when not otherwise compelled, of music, play, family, volunteering, activism, friendship and home.<\/p>\n

Refreshingly \u2013 uniquely perhaps, among modern economists \u2013 he argues that the key to sustaining a post-growth economy is\u00a0culture<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0community<\/em>.\u00a0 Those extensive holidays of former times were far from a product of laziness. \u00a0Rather they were, in an important sense, what men and women lived for. \u00a0\u2018Spare time\u2019 spent in feasting, performing, collaborating and merrymaking together formed the basis of communal bonding, membership and trust.\u00a0 As one of his readers put it \u2013 when productivity improves, \u201cin our system you have a problem; in Fleming\u2019s system you have a party.\u201d<\/p>\n

These shared cultural ties then bind people together in cooperation, support and solidarity, the essential foundations for the communities which have thrived throughout history in the absence of economic growth or full-time employment.\u00a0 As Fleming writes,<\/p>\n

The [future] economy will depend for its existence on a deep foundation in culture.\u00a0 It is possible to live without it, but only for a time, like holding your breath under water.[xiii]<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a key lesson for our organising and our community work.\u00a0 With its rare blend of charm and rigour, Fleming\u2019s writing reminds us that nurturing the core economy back to health \u2013 getting to know people, enjoying time together and helping to provide for each other\u2019s basic needs \u2013 is not merely some quaint and obsolete sharing longing, but an absolute practical priority.<\/p>\n

Over the past couple of centuries, this core economy has been much weakened, as the ever-growing stresses of precarious employment and rising prices have left people with less time and energy for friends, family and fun.\u00a0 But as we in communities around the world spend our days relearning how to seek our security in each other rather than in money, we notice that the unfolding collapse of the omnicidal growth economy becomes less something to fear, and more something to celebrate.<\/p>\n

We think less about what we might stand to lose and far more about the joys we had already lost and are slowly learning to regain, together.\u00a0 At long last we are remembering how to build a world in which, as David put it, \u201cthere will be time for music.\u201d<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

Shaun Chamberlin\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0authored the Transition movement\u2019s second book,<\/em>\u00a0The Transition Timeline<\/a>,\u00a0and has served as both chair of the\u00a0<\/em>Ecological Land Co-operative<\/a>\u00a0and a director of\u00a0Global Justice Now<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 He is the executive producer of 2019 film\u00a0<\/em>The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?<\/a>\u00a0and editor of several books, including David Fleming\u2019s posthumous\u00a0<\/em>Lean Logic<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Surviving the Future<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0His website is\u00a0<\/em>www.darkoptimism.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

[i]<\/a>\u00a0Mont, S. (2018). Introduction to the next economy.\u00a0Tikkun<\/em>, Volume 33, Number 3:16-17.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[ii]<\/a>\u00a0Fleming, D. (2016).\u00a0Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy<\/em>\u00a0(p. 129). White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[iii]<\/a>\u00a0Keynes, J. M. (1930). Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.\u00a0 Available at: http:\/\/www.econ.yale.edu\/smith\/econ116a\/keynes1.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[iv]<\/a>\u00a0Fleming, D. (2016).\u00a0Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy<\/em>\u00a0(p. 75). White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[v]<\/a>\u00a0These claims have a long history.\u00a0 The\u00a0Democratic Review<\/em>, impressed by the new technologies, predicted in 1853 that by 1900, \u201cmen and women will then have no harassing cares or laborious duties to fulfil.\u00a0 Machinery will perform all work \u2013 automata will direct them.\u00a0 The only task of the human race will be to make love, study and be happy\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[vi]<\/a>\u00a0Graeber, D. (2013). On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant.\u00a0STRIKE!<\/em>, Issue 3.\u00a0 Available at: http:\/\/strikemag.org\/bullshit-jobs<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[vii]<\/a>\u00a0In the words of Prof. Albert Bartlett, \u201cThe greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.\u201d\u00a0 His legendary \u2018Arithmetic, Population and Energy\u2019 lecture is one of the most important ever recorded and widely available online, e.g. at: https:\/\/www.albartlett.org\/presentations\/arithmetic_population_energy.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[viii]<\/a>\u00a0Fleming, D. (2016).\u00a0Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy<\/em>\u00a0(p. 180). White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[ix]<\/a>\u00a0WWF (2018).\u00a0Living Planet Report \u2013 2018: Aiming Higher<\/em>. Grooten, M. and Almond, R.E.A. (Eds). Gland, Switzerland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[x]<\/a>\u00a0IPCC (2018).\u00a0Global Warming of 1.5\u00baC, Summary for Policymakers<\/em>\u00a0(p.21).\u00a0 Available at: http:\/\/report.ipcc.ch\/sr15\/pdf\/sr15_spm_final.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[xi]<\/a>\u00a0Fleming, D. (2016).\u00a0Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy<\/em>\u00a0(p. 179). White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[xii]<\/a>\u00a0Mont, S. (2018). Introduction to the next economy.\u00a0Tikkun<\/em>, Volume 33, Number 3:16-17.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[xiii]<\/a>\u00a0Fleming, D. (2016).\u00a0Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy<\/em>\u00a0(p. 40). White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2017 Network of Spiritual Progressives and Tikkun Magazine\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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