Another election looms for those that care. In the next two months, party activists and political journalists will try to enthuse everyone else about voting for local councilors and members of parliament. Everyone else will likely wonder what all the fuss is about.
I will follow the General Election in the way I follow the football World Cup or a drama series on television. I will invest my emotions in the arguments and take sides with those I feel some connection to or empathy with, but I know that ultimately it is insignificant. Insignificant although, like Hunter S Thompson, I have an addiction to political contests and I am the sort of amateur wonk that sits up waiting for European Parliament election results.
One thing the professional wonks will certainly debate will be the low voter turnout, which will mostly be attributed to apathy. Apathy in an election that is seen as a foregone conclusion, which will bring an uninspiring, insipid Tory to Number Ten, is only to be expected, but it misses a growing constituency of deliberate non-voters. My constituency.
I have given my reasons for not voting above the local level before, but there are some counter-arguments that also need to be identified as myths. Like myths of good English usage, once identified, they can be appreciated and then put aside.
Myth 1: people fought and died for universal suffrage, so not voting dishonours their struggle.
Obviously, the first part of this is true. Reformists and suffragettes devoted, and sometimes lost, their lives getting the vote for almost every adult citizen. And whatever the causes and motivations, the Second World War stopped the growth of fascism in Europe.
The question that remains is how to honour that legacy. It would be non-sensical to think that our form of democracy should neither be stagnant nor evolve without popular examination. It is a common fallacy among US conservatives that the founding fathers created and/or revealed true democracy, and that it has not and should not be altered again. The US Constitution was almost immediately amended by the Bill of Rights, and has been amended another seventeen times. Not every amendment was progressive or successful, but the rules for running the federation include rules for changing the rules.
If you believe that democracy can and should evolve beyond nations and federations, and that not voting is one suitable method of effecting that change, then you do more honour to past reformers by following your beliefs than by devaluing your suffrage by giving it to the least-worst candidate for Member of Parliament.
Myth 2: significant localisation can be achieved through election to a higher parliament.
Also covered in previous posts. Power is what drives change, so it is a rare politician that will give power away.
Myth 3: it is better to vote for something with somewhat positive intentions (e.g. Labour) than not vote and allow the election of something worse (e.g. the BNP).
It is easy to think that we have to use every resource to oppose extremism, and it is not obvious that voting in national elections is a negative act. But if our aim is to deligitimise national government then we will have demonstrably succeeded when an MP is elected by only 5% of the eligible voters, whether the winning candidate is Green, Labour or BNP.
It would, I admit, give me great pain if I could contribute to the election of a Green MP but did not. I never said it was easy to stick to your principles.
Myth 4: we are working towards a unified world with one government, which equates to world peace.
If positive political change is driven by utopian vision then it can also be driven by visions that are unhelpful. Utopia by definition is nowhere and therefore unachievable, but some are more unachievable than others.
In science fiction, one-world government is not unusual, possibly so that inter-planetary politics can act as a substitute for international politics, but also because many writers think societies will evolve towards global harmony. In Star Wars and The Fifth Element, advanced planetary civilisations are mostly ordered and peaceful, truly post-modern and technocratic.
This assumes a homogeneity that cannot be desirable, surely? Our cultures have more to distinguish and differentiate themselves than colourful languages, clothes and customs. And that is within a single species. Self-determination preserves the differences in value hierarchy, moral code and cultural history, and self-determination cannot be achieved under a one-world government.
More practically, bigger government simply means greater alienation of the electorate. Opinions are formed and elections won and lost by popular media. As the political race gets bigger, the differentiators between candidates are reduced to the soundbite, the smile and the wave.
Showing posts with label anarchism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anarchism. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Saturday, January 02, 2010
A kick in the teeth for optimism
There has been a recent smattering of blog posts and discussions out there about the need for optimism in the sustainability movement. The gist being that the only alternative is pessimism, and that is neither practicable nor appealing. Certainly, if we are pessimistic about our chances of success then we will be demotivated and will essentially be admitting that our project is not likely to succeed.
I might seem like a matter of semantics, but I think the only thing we can allow ourselves is hope. The difference between hope and optimism is the difference between a thoughtful human and an open-mouthed labrador. I know which one I would prefer to be.
Having said all this before, I succumbed to optimism recently. I thought that the dangers of climate change and the action necessary were so clear that our national leaders and negotiators would do the right thing. Just this once.
I'm not going to lay particular blame or analyse the Copenhagen process in detail: others have done that to death. But I do have to admit that I was wrong. The process of international negotiation is inherently unsustainable, which is what I had always said before: undemocratic, untransparent and subject to disproporionate vested interests. There is a possibility that an agreement with half-decent, binding targets will be made in Mexico this year, but we can't count on it. Besides which, time is running out.
Somewhere between luck, the effects of campaigns like 10:10 (http://www.1010uk.org/) and movements like Transition Towns (http://transitiontowns.org/), we might get through this crisis. But there is no place for optimism. 10:10 might demonstrate that ordinary people are aware of what has to happen and are willing to make the changes needed, even if it involves expense or changes in lifestyle.
-------------------------------------------
Another dose of cold reality came from reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle). The book is seen as the predecessor of modern exposes of the food industry and working life at the bottom of the social ladder such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation) and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed). It would be wrong to leave it in the footnotes however.
Towards the end of The Jungle, Sinclair spells out the alternative vision he sees for America and the world. It is a hardcore socialist vision, where the proletariat takes control of all industries and runs them for the benefit of all people, sharing the profits and making safe and fulfilling workplaces. Interestingly, he also catalogues the counter-arguments given by working-class voters: that it is unreasonable to believe that power could be rested away from the barons of meat, steel and coal, that a free-market capitalist system is more efficient than any alternative, and that people's place in society is somehow predestined and immutible.
A century later and many of those arguments against the practicability of socialism, which are also directed against green anarchism, do hold some weight. Capitalism itself has evolved to entrench the interests of big business, with oil now the dominant force. Corporations have have also evolved so that there are no longer industry barons such as John D Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller) that can become permanent hate figures; for comparison, even if he had not gone to jail and died, Kenneth Lay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay) was an entirely removable figurehead at Enron. What's more, corporate activity has become globalised and global corporations have negotiated themselves into operating conditions that cannot be rationally justified.
State organisations have also managed to build a reputation for terrible inefficiency, usually bound to bureaucracy apparently for the sake of bureaucracy. Anyone who has suffered at the hands of one of the United States' Departments of Motor Vehicles might find it hard to believe that a state-owned industry could avoid a decline into nincompoopery.
Why should a green anarchist vision succeed where the rabble-rousing might of socialism has had few successes? The same vested interests and arguments of potential inefficiencies stand against it. Worse, capitalism has evolved to be more pernicious rather than less.
On behalf of socialism, I would point out that the same old inequities still remain to be opposed. This is a matter of principle rather than pragmatism. It is still wrong that wealth is accumulated at the expense of the most vulnerable. And that is also one of the principles of green anarchism. Ecology simply adds the evidence that wealth is finite and cannot sustain indefinite growth, which means that this is not simply a short-term limitation.
Further, anarchism may be spelled out as an ideology, or family of ideologies, but it does not have to be espoused in the way that state socialism does. A movement that wants to change state-level organisation has to build consensus amongst the population of each nation. A majority is needed in elections or enough revolutionaries are needed to overthrow the government. Anarchist ideas and initiatives can be taken up by any community group, whether they are labelled as such or not.
There are enough of these ideas and initiatives in action today to give me hope.
I might seem like a matter of semantics, but I think the only thing we can allow ourselves is hope. The difference between hope and optimism is the difference between a thoughtful human and an open-mouthed labrador. I know which one I would prefer to be.
Having said all this before, I succumbed to optimism recently. I thought that the dangers of climate change and the action necessary were so clear that our national leaders and negotiators would do the right thing. Just this once.
I'm not going to lay particular blame or analyse the Copenhagen process in detail: others have done that to death. But I do have to admit that I was wrong. The process of international negotiation is inherently unsustainable, which is what I had always said before: undemocratic, untransparent and subject to disproporionate vested interests. There is a possibility that an agreement with half-decent, binding targets will be made in Mexico this year, but we can't count on it. Besides which, time is running out.
Somewhere between luck, the effects of campaigns like 10:10 (http://www.1010uk.org/) and movements like Transition Towns (http://transitiontowns.org/), we might get through this crisis. But there is no place for optimism. 10:10 might demonstrate that ordinary people are aware of what has to happen and are willing to make the changes needed, even if it involves expense or changes in lifestyle.
-------------------------------------------
Another dose of cold reality came from reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle). The book is seen as the predecessor of modern exposes of the food industry and working life at the bottom of the social ladder such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation) and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed). It would be wrong to leave it in the footnotes however.
Towards the end of The Jungle, Sinclair spells out the alternative vision he sees for America and the world. It is a hardcore socialist vision, where the proletariat takes control of all industries and runs them for the benefit of all people, sharing the profits and making safe and fulfilling workplaces. Interestingly, he also catalogues the counter-arguments given by working-class voters: that it is unreasonable to believe that power could be rested away from the barons of meat, steel and coal, that a free-market capitalist system is more efficient than any alternative, and that people's place in society is somehow predestined and immutible.
A century later and many of those arguments against the practicability of socialism, which are also directed against green anarchism, do hold some weight. Capitalism itself has evolved to entrench the interests of big business, with oil now the dominant force. Corporations have have also evolved so that there are no longer industry barons such as John D Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller) that can become permanent hate figures; for comparison, even if he had not gone to jail and died, Kenneth Lay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay) was an entirely removable figurehead at Enron. What's more, corporate activity has become globalised and global corporations have negotiated themselves into operating conditions that cannot be rationally justified.
State organisations have also managed to build a reputation for terrible inefficiency, usually bound to bureaucracy apparently for the sake of bureaucracy. Anyone who has suffered at the hands of one of the United States' Departments of Motor Vehicles might find it hard to believe that a state-owned industry could avoid a decline into nincompoopery.
Why should a green anarchist vision succeed where the rabble-rousing might of socialism has had few successes? The same vested interests and arguments of potential inefficiencies stand against it. Worse, capitalism has evolved to be more pernicious rather than less.
On behalf of socialism, I would point out that the same old inequities still remain to be opposed. This is a matter of principle rather than pragmatism. It is still wrong that wealth is accumulated at the expense of the most vulnerable. And that is also one of the principles of green anarchism. Ecology simply adds the evidence that wealth is finite and cannot sustain indefinite growth, which means that this is not simply a short-term limitation.
Further, anarchism may be spelled out as an ideology, or family of ideologies, but it does not have to be espoused in the way that state socialism does. A movement that wants to change state-level organisation has to build consensus amongst the population of each nation. A majority is needed in elections or enough revolutionaries are needed to overthrow the government. Anarchist ideas and initiatives can be taken up by any community group, whether they are labelled as such or not.
There are enough of these ideas and initiatives in action today to give me hope.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Maybe “communitarian” would be more accurate
In the last post, I implied that we will reach global sustainability more effectively from the bottom up than from the top down. The more I think about it, the more I believe that’s absolutely true.
All the problems commonly identified in our current systems of governance are piled up against our attempts to achieve sustainability. In other words, the perfect worked example of why we need systemic change, which is worth spelling out.
1. Vested interests. The business sectors creating the most waste, pollution and greenhouse gases while consuming vast quantities of non-renewable resources are also among the most profitable and/or high turnover businesses. In a system that, by its very definition, runs on the accumulation of capital, i.e. where money is power, these vested interests are also the most influencial.
2. Disconnect. The prevalent view is that since climate change (seen as the most urgent sustainability issue) is a global issue so it as to be tackled at the global level. At the same time, the pre-eminent global governance body, the United Nations, is perpetually being criticised as being undemocratic and ineffectual. Proposals have been around for some time to improve the UN (streamline it, make it directly elected, make involvement dependent on human rights record, whatever) but the irreconcilable truth is that global governance is neither feasible nor desirable except where global consensus exists. Which is not much.
3. The prisoner’s dilemma. Western governments (well, the US anyway) have been quick to point out that they have every intention of addressing climate change but they will not do so if it disadvantages their industry and economy. This may be completely untrue, since investment in sustainable technology will give a nation an economic advantage, but they won’t be convinced. Or maybe they are simply lying to excuse bowing to vested interests. The grain of truth in this assertion is a form of the prisoner’s dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma) and the world’s greatest powers will not move towards sustainability fast enough unless they can recognise the dilemma and trust each other to do their share. The dynamics of global politics do not engender trust.
4. Disconnect II. Where we do elect representatives to positions of power and influence, the power seems paltry and voting feels pointless. Voter turnouts and party-political activism are in seemingly terminal decline. Few people know who their Member of Parliament is, and fewer still know who their local councillor(s) is/are. Local government, with over 80% of its expenditure decreed by central government, is ineffectual because it has been made impotent. Members of Parliament represent an average of 74,000 voters in a population of nearly 100,000. If your only political activity is voting in a winner-takes-all election, it’s no surprise that it feels like pissing in the sea and expecting anything more than a moment’s warmth.
The antithesis of a flawed theory is not necessarily a correct one, but in this case—the struggle for sustainability—the flawed theory is that global governance will make us sustainable, when the evidence is that it cannot and will not, while leading from below is certainly more practical, easier for people to understand, and a damn sight more empowering.
Empowering, that is, for local communities. Which is why it might be less confusing to call my ideology “communitarian” rather than anarchist.
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