I attended the launch of two books at Daunt Bookshop in Chelsea on Wednesday evening. David Fleming died in 2010, and now his friend Shaun Chamberlin has edited his magnum opus, Lean Logic, and Chelsea Green have published it. Magnum it certainly is, at over 600 pages (which apparently Fleming worked on for over 30 years), and unusually it’s presented in dictionary format. It’s a book that can be dipped into, or read from cover to cover if you don’t want to miss anything. Shaun has condensed a lot of Fleming’s ideas into the much-shorter Surviving the Future, which is meant to be read from cover to cover as with most books. This I have duly done – Shaun sent me uncorrected proofs of both books several weeks ago. He also sent me a little booklet by Fleming on nuclear energy – the importance of which I’ll go into below.
During his talk at the launch, Shaun said that Lean Logic could be considered a ‘toilet book’, which sounds a bit rude, but he meant that it can be dipped into when you have a some leisure time – i.e. in the bath or on the loo. It’s worth dipping into – I’ve got a sneaking suspicion it might become a classic, albeit one that it’s difficult to say is ‘about’ anything. It’s about everything. If you’re ever involved in discussions about anarchism, money, growth, genetic modification, ecology, defence, spirituality or usury, dip into it to see what David Fleming had to say on the subject – you’re bound to be enlightened.
It’s a book that feels like a website – there are lots of links to other entries in the book, but you can’t click on them (because it’s a book), which prevents the ‘curse of Wikipedia’ from delivering you to pages that don’t remind you at all of why you started clicking in the first place. But the dictionary format works – it doesn’t matter whether you dip in until you’ve read it all, or if you read it through from cover to cover – it’s about a new lean world. There is no beginning or end point, nowhere to obviously start or finish.
OK, it is about something – it’s about where we might end up if we (as in humans) continue on the path that we’re currently on, and what the alternative might be if we’re clever. He loves certain things that are only marginally connected to the main theme, however – like his guide to logical argument. In fact his guide is less about logical argument than how to use logical fallacies to cheat in an argument. There’s a whole section devoted to it, in fact, and it’s a theme that recurs throughout the book. Its aim is to help the reader recognise logical fallacies when s/he comes across them – and they’re hugely entertaining.
He outlines a couple of important themes in history too, in ways I’ve never thought of before – one via a scarcity of firewood, the other via a scarcity of water. The former explains how lack of firewood for small farmers led inexorably to the development of coal, steam engines, factories and oil that hugely increased everyone’s workload, and developed modern economies, with problems that could lead to the destruction of ecology, nuclear war and human extinction – much bigger problems than a shortage of firewood, the solution to which could just have been planting more trees and wearing more layers for a while. The latter is an explanation of why Europe came to dominate the world – because it has always had regular and plentiful rainfall, which means that central authority is dispensable, as it doesn’t need to control centralised, complicated irrigation systems to ensure everyone’s survival. This allowed freedoms that weren’t possible in ‘hydraulic’ societies, like China’s, including individualism, entrepreneurship and voyages of discovery (and conquest).
His basic premises
Society is descending inexorably towards collapse. In our everyday lives, this is difficult to see, but the huge loss of soil, the damage to ecosystems, the rapidly increasing human population in a world of diminishing resources, the growth in weaponry, the resistance of bugs to antibiotics and the rise of fundamentalism of different sorts points to a perfect storm that could be terminal. His solution is lean- or slack-ness.
Slack / lean economics is what we should be aiming for if we want to live sustainably. In fact, if we want to continue to live as a species, it has to (of course) be sustainably, by definition. For that to happen, the way we organise our economies has to be: based on trust; more leisurely; local; low-input and output; closed-loop; non-extractive and small-scale.
Not only do I endorse his vision for how society could be, I’d like to help make it happen. It’s what humans evolved to be like, and it’s the only way we’re going to stop damaging ecology. Classical economics represents a very young idea that opposes nature – including human nature. The latter is inconvenient, but the former is suicidal.
People will again do things because of culture – everyone will be part of a local community in the way that we always have been, until recently. Rather than competing with other local people to make money, we will just fit into the local community and do something useful for it. We’ll trust other local people to do the same – trust that people want to be respected for being good at what they do. This will give us value, rather than numbers in a bank account. This may sound naïve, but it’s actually how people have lived for the vast majority of the time that humans have been on earth. This is what will ‘keep the peace’ (at the moment, it is consumption that keeps the peace – but current levels of consumption can’t be sustained).
The division between work and play will become blurred; there will be more spare time than now; and more carnivals. He puts a huge emphasis on carnival, in fact. The economy will be circular (again). All waste will be re-used – including human waste as compost. And small scale is essential for this. Small amounts of waste, sorted by lots of people for re-use in interesting work, rather than enormous quantities of waste that have to be transported to a centralised depot and sorted by just a few people who are doing pretty horrible work.
One of my favourite parts of the books is the ‘seven commandments of capitalism’, where he lists the seven dominant trade protocols underlying the modern economy, and how in fact, we should be doing the exact opposite of all of them. Highly entertaining, I’ll make this article shorter by saving this for a future one. But really, he’s just highlighting the insanity of an economy that is geared towards exports, rather than producing things for ourselves, and based on the impossible premise of perpetual growth.
Another favourite is where he trashes Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons – which is only a tragedy in an unlean economy. If commoners are communicating well at the local level, the commons won’t be exhausted by some individuals trying to pull a fast one.
Why Fleming was special
The lean economy is exactly what we need. I couldn’t be more certain of anything. We’re losing touch with each other, and being dominated by networks based on the accumulation of money. I advocate the lean economy instead – in fact, Lowimpact.org is one big advert for it. Fleming’s a bit of a guru in that respect, and here are a few reasons why.
At the beginning of the section on growth, he says that there are two relevant meanings of growth:
1. the natural development of an immature system or organism to maturity.
2. a pathology in which a mature system or organism continues to grow.
Now this is what I’ve been saying for years – in fact lots of things that he’s saying, I’ve been saying for years – just not in such a succinct and persuasive way. The current human economy is pathological. Of course it is – it’s cancerous. It’s the reason that we’re headed for collapse in the first place. There are no giant asteroids headed our way, or rogue black holes or alien invasions – it’s the human economy. Growth will stop, as he points out, either by accident or by design. I vote design. If nature sorts the problem out for us, she may inadvertently remove us along with the problem.
But he also points out that people are not ready to hear this – with good reason. Unless we have a lean economy in place, a transition to a non-growing economy would be a disaster for most people.
He slaughters sacred cows with ease, and shows me how I’ve thought and written things in the past that will lead up blind alleys without a tweak, or in some cases a complete re-think. He’s given me a few twinges of embarrassment so far, and I’m sure there will be more, the more I read.
He surprises: for example he (almost) praises hypocrisy – by saying that arguments should not be dismissed because of the deeds of the arguer. In fact he goes on to say that there’s no reason at all that people’s standards shouldn’t be much higher than their behaviour – it would be bizarre if they weren’t. He’d much rather the hypocrisy of the glutton (say), who advocates a restraint that he can’t achieve than the sincerity of the religious fundamentalist who follows through on her belief that people who think differently to her should be killed.
Neither left nor right
There are quotes in Lean Logic from right-wing commentators like Roger Scruton, and there’s plenty in the book to satisfy the right – like this quote from Adam Smith:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest.
But he also envisages a world free from the grip of corporate power – straight from the left (and actually, from those on the right with any sense). But Smith is right – love for our fellow citizens is always, ultimately, self-love, because in our hearts we all know that everyone needs a village.
Neither side is going to win the left vs right battle, that I believe is now obsolete. That’s what Fleming means with his criticism of the ‘us and them’ approach, which I recoiled against at first, with my desire to fight the Empire. But at a deeper, more spiritual level than mine (I operate mainly on the political level), he’s right.
However, I think some of his barbs against Marxism are unnecessary, and a little inconsistent. He called the dialectic a logical fallacy. That’s fighting talk – that’s criticising someone’s god. We’re not going to have their support if we do that. Why lose audience, or worse, create opponents? I’d appeal to Marxists to overlook these little jibes – there’s plenty for the right to overlook, after all. What David Fleming is saying is important, and his critique of corporate capitalism no less scathing than that of Marxists. Let’s let go of ideological purity, and talk about a practical route to a lean economy – which may ultimately be the only option we have, other than extinction.
I’d ask the right to stay on board too. Fleming can’t be bracketed as left or right himself – he’s not an enemy. He’s against ‘green authoritarianism’, and sees environmental hazards as the kind of threat that totalitarian regimes need. In this, Fleming reminds me of Roger Scruton. Plus he admits that the lean economy, by its very nature, won’t involve tax – which needs a central authority. Plenty for the right to be pleased about, in other words.
It’s essential for a movement to avoid branding itself (or to actually be) either left or right, because if it does, it will find half the world in opposition to it instantly. The left will never achieve egalitarianism as long as wealth is concentrated in the corporate sector, and the right will never achieve true liberty because of the concentration of power in the corporate-state alliance that that wealth brings. Liberté, egalité, fraternité nails it, and for Lean Logic, especially fraternité.
But…
I’d like to talk more about three aspects of lean thinking, and specifically, I have three questions:
- Can we prevent descent accelerating into collapse, and can we survive collapse?
- Can the current power structure be overcome or sidestepped to allow a lean economy?
- Was Fleming right that nuclear power can’t replace oil?
These are not rhetorical questions – I don’t have the answers. But here are some more thoughts about them.
Descent or collapse?
I think he’s right that the human economy needs to descend, rather than collapse – although we might not be able to avoid collapse, because of the problems, from soil erosion to population explosion, outlined above. The main problem for me is that nuclear power is back in fashion, and nuclear weapons, despite the nuclear proliferation treaty, are now possessed by countries such as Pakistan, Israel and, maybe soon, Saudi Arabia. Are they all going to be decommissioned safely as we descend / collapse? If not, then there has to be some uncertainty about our chances of survival; and if some people do survive, in a largely soil-less, radioactive world in which ecology doesn’t work properly any more, they might wish they hadn’t.
Even in descent, we’re going to have a lot of hungry people with guns. Then potentially, warlordism might prevent the development of lean communities. Fleming stresses the importance of ‘good manners’ in the lean transition – but warlords aren’t particularly famous for their good manners. Warlordism is simple – it doesn’t need you to understand complicated arguments or read large books. Scotland is strewn with 2000-year-old ‘brochs’ – little stone towers into which an entire village had to cram, and roll a large stone across the entrance, when bandits appeared over the horizon. The lean society may need to include brochs for a while, until we can (hopefully) neutralise the bandits.
Descent requires ordinary people to do things – and that’s problematic, because in my experience ordinary people aren’t very interested. You’re interested – but you’re not an ordinary person, are you?
The power structure
If we don’t take power away from the corporate-state alliance (and if nuclear doesn’t replace oil), we might slip back to feudalism rather than move forward to the lean economy. The corporate empire still controls (and manufactures) all the weaponry, which isn’t going to become useless overnight. They will still be able to reward mercenaries and they will still be able to spread propaganda – for a while at least, until they can consolidate their power within a new structure. They, and any other warlords who can manage it, will seize fiefdoms, and use the excuse of ‘protection’ as justification. Empires don’t just give up power. Capitalism could be a short historical excursion from feudalism, which we could well fall back to after the oil’s gone (assuming that nuclear can’t replace it and that we avoid extinction).
We need something to take power from them – which will require a strategy. I think that history also shows that violent, centralising revolutions don’t work, and parliamentary systems are controlled by the Empire and therefore can’t challenge it.
Preparation for the lean economy needs to be happening now, in the kinds of places that most people live in – Dudley, Dagenham, Doncaster and thousands of other towns with boarded-up High Streets. And it’s not – these are the places the Transition movement doesn’t reach. We sometimes think that the world in which people are thinking seriously about the future is less marginal than it actually is. The lean transition will require wealth and power to be spread more thinly, and for technology to be geared towards community and individual control – what Ivan Illich called ‘conviviality’. But genetic modification, nuclear power and nanotechnology are far from convivial – they are technologies that can only be controlled by the corporate sector. We have a lot of work to do to prepare for a lean world, and we’re only scratching the surface so far.
Can nuclear replace oil?
Fleming believed that nuclear is not a viable technology long-term, and that it won’t be able to replace oil, so that the corporate-controlled, growth-oriented economy won’t be able to be maintained. It will die of natural causes. But what if he’s wrong? His background is not in nuclear technology – in fact it’s not in science at all. There are extremely geeky people saying that although uranium may not last very long, thorium will take its place – and it can be produced more easily than Fleming thinks it can, from sea water. See http://energyfromthorium.com/2008/03/18/david-fleming-on-thorium/.
However, let’s imagine the nuclear ‘optimists’ are right – do they really have anything to be optimistic about? If nuclear can replace oil, it means that the growth economy will continue, the corporate sector will retain power, and the juggernaut will continue to trundle towards the edge of the cliff. The lean economy will be a fantasy. What I’m saying is that nuclear cannot save us, whether it is a viable technology or not. We need to hope that nuclear can’t replace oil, and that nuclear fusion is never developed, because those things will allow us to continue our destruction of ecology, which will sicken and eventually finish us.
I don’t have the expertise to know whether nuclear can continue to power the growth economy as the oil runs out – maybe nobody does. I’m going to research it some more, and I’m going to approach it with an open mind. Some, like Fleming, say it can’t, some say it can – but I’m saying that we shouldn’t – we should be wise enough to move towards a lean economy anyway. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening as long as money men are in control.
You can buy Lean Logic and Surviving the Future here.
21 Comments
fascinating read, that is also frightening and balanced, as there is a modicum of optimism! I need to hang on to that…for my sanity in the mad, bad, crazy world!! The book(s) will be on my xxxxxxx list (sorry couldn’t bring myself to type the name of the capitalist extravaganza that happens each December) and it was a lie, i am sure i will be buying it for myself!! (I am actually organising an event on Tuesday 27th Sept., ‘Sustainability – Co-operative Solutions’….can i use some of your article within my presentation?)
You’re very welcome to use whatever you like, yes. What / where is the event?
As editor of the book this is the best review of ‘Lean Logic’ I’ve yet seen, thanks Dave. You’ve really captured its essence beautifully, and I think this sits well alongside Charlotte Du Cann’s review of the paperback ‘Surviving the Future’:
http://dark-mountain.net/blog/flight-path-on-reading-david-flemings-surviving-the-future/
You made me chuckle too, which is always a bonus, and I think your three questions are good ones. I look forward to hearing what the community thinks to them, and would maybe add one of my own:
4. Fleming wrote beautifully on climate change and responses to it, but he died in 2010. The ‘suicide as usual’ paradigm has remained influential over the six years since and I find it hard not to predict that we’re heading into a scenario of runaway climate destabilisation. Does that scenario change what’s viable/desirable to strive for in our work and our communities? Or is the Lean Economy still the right aim, regardless of the context/remaining ecological assets it has to work with?
Thank you Shaun. I think the lean economy is not just the right aim – it may be the only aim, if we want to survive. The question is how to get there, by avoiding warlordism, corporate connivance, ecological collapse, soil depletion, disease and nuclear attacks / leaks / explosions. Sounds like it would make a great computer game, but unfortunately I think it’s a reality that’s on the way. Organise, organise, organise would be my mantra; but first we need to educate, educate, educate – and for that, Fleming is the man. He could rub different groups up the wrong way, but stay with him – he makes sense.
I’m with Fleming on the chances for nuclear power. Radical change needs to happen as soon as possible to reduce CO2 emissions, but tech like Thorium is at least 30 years away (10 years political maneuvering, 10 years design, 10+ years rollout), if it can even be made to work at all. As far as I can tell, there has only ever been no thorium-specific reactors built, though some Thorium has been used in conventional reactors, and nothing in the way of extracting Thorium from sea water has even been tested.
Without Thorium, you hit peak Uranium in about 40 years or so at current levels of use. Unless you’re rolling out breeder reactors, in which case everyone has plutonium and nukes.
And that’s all without touching issues of safety, cost (qv. Olkiluoto) or waste disposal, all of which plague the current reactor designs.
It’d be much more effective to spend the nuclear money on solar plants, which are ready *now*. So yeah, I lump the thorium and nuclear crowd in with the climate deniers these days.
Yes, that’s pretty much where I’m at at the moment too. The problem is that we live in a time of specialisms, and no-one has the time or capability to understand everything. We have to rely on specialists – but then you have to problem of which specialists to listen to. In the end, peer review is the best we’ve got I think. As with climate change, if 97% of climate scientists are saying that anthropogenic gw is happening, it would be bizarre to listen to the Daily Mail or the bloke in the pub (although plenty of people did).
Hi. Does Lean Logic refer to social credit (C.H Douglas) at all.
I just looked and social credit isn’t an entry and Douglas isn’t in the (huge) bibliography, so it doesn’t look like he was influenced by him.
But really coincidentally, I just read ‘the Politics of Money’ by three academics (you can get it from this page, for 79p – http://lowimpactorg.wpengine.com/books/books_money/ – 5th line – you’d like it).
They were very keen on Douglas, and I was really impressed with him. This is what I got from them.
1. Political democracy is impossible without economic democracy (I think this is really important, but not many people get it – they think we can have meaningful democracy when wealth is concentrated to the extent that it is now, but I don’t think we can).
2. He wasn’t a fan of chasing perpetual economic growth either – again, I’m with him.
3. He saw the wealth of society as a common cultural heritage, and so was against intellectual property rights – again, with him.
4. Universal basic income – ditto
5. This is a big one that he got me to understand something important. Money comes into existence as debt, issued by private banks, with compound interest – which I understood already, but he highlighted that private finance gets to decide who gets the loans. So in effect, they decide what the economy is going to look like. It’s a really interesting insight – well, it was for me. And obviously, we need to take that power from them somehow.
6. So finance is not a neutral facilitator of exchange – it moulds the entire economy – so we get plenty of assault weapons but no affordable housing – and so on. It needs to be socially owned.
7. Money should not be created as debt by private financial institutions – it should be issued as social credit for useful work done.
8. But none of this is possible within the current economic system, so it has to go. As you know, I definitely agree with this. But he didn’t provide a plan for how to get there, and therefore his ideas weren’t implemented.
So we’re stuck, as long as we have this power system. That’s the sticking point, and what academics and activists need to be discussing (imho).
What did you get from Douglas? I know about the Draft Mining Scheme, but didn’t look into it enough to know how it worked (or didn’t).
I just looked mainly at the wikipedia entry, a blog from Frances Hutchinson (appealing to the GP to look at Social Credit since they reject it for anti-Semitism) and this
http://www.socred.org/index.php/blogs/view/social-credit-explained-in-7-points.
I think it is quite extraordinary that such a detailed alternative is already out there and certainly chimes with my perspective. I really like the communal association (interdependence) perspective he has and the cultural tradition aspect. Frances co-authored a book
The Political Economy of Social Credit an. Guild Socialism (very expensive on albris) after 15 years of research.
From what I can gather Douglas did layout a pretty straightforward pathway since it is largely an add-on to capitalism but requires a statistical analysis of aggregate income and aggregate prices to work out his A-B theorem. Once the calculations are made then National Dividend payments can be made. The wikipedia entry goes into alot of detail about his wider philosophy. Surprising how similar it is to resource-based economics (zeitgeist/venus project) but no references to him either from their latest book.
He was pretty much attacked on his ideas that jewish financiers were governing global economics (as you point out) and so was rejected as being anti-Semitic. Similarly Keynes et al rejected the idea that prices were always higher than incomes and therefore the notion that growth requires debt. Obviously their rejection cannot hold up in modern times considering the extent to which classic economies require debt/bank issued credit.
This event came up when I searched for Frances on facebook. Mary Mellor is one of the speakers
https://www.facebook.com/events/1535396340024508/?ti=cl
Im attending quite alot of fringe events at the Tory conference. See what they got to say and see if any interesting debates are to be had.
Thanks for looking in Lean Logic.
I ordered the Politics of Money ☺
79p well spent.
I just posted a long response but I think it disappeared.
So in short yes I really liked his ideas. Wikipedia Social Credit has loads to say. It seemed to me that the pathway was quite straightforward.
Frances Hutchinson also wrote The Political Economy of Social Credit and Guild Socialism.
This event came up with Anne Mellor as a speaker
https://www.facebook.com/events/1535396340024508/?ti=cl
I like this short summary
http://www.socred.org/index.php/blogs/view/social-credit-explained-in-7-points
Thanks for looking in Lean Logic.
Douglas’s philosophy seems like it has been taken up by Zeitgeist resource-based economics but no references to him in their latest book.
Im going to Tory conference fringe events to see what they’ve got to say.
Two of your posts went into ‘pending approval’, but the others were fine. WordPress, eh?
That link is good, and wikipedia was good too (clearer than anything else I’ve read, which is unusual for wikipedia, which I find usually assumes a certain level of understanding – often quite high) – 1. ‘the economic system is a disguised government’ is superb; and 2. ‘In this view, the term economic democracy does not mean worker control of industry, but democratic control of credit.[6]:4–9 Removing the policy of production from banking institutions’ – yes, but I wouldn’t sniff at worker control of industry either.
Yes, social credit was part of the wider ‘distributist’ movement. G K Chesterton and his gang. I came across the text of a debate between Chesterton and G B Shaw, and Chesterton wiped the floor with him. To be fair to Shaw, I don’t think the shit Stalin was up to was clear to the West at the time, but Chesterton was telling him that concentrating power in a centralised elite that doesn’t stand for election (what does that remind you of?) can only lead to bad things.
Shame that distributism got tainted by anti-semitism (because it grew from Catholicism? Was that the source of the anti-semitism?), because it was a good idea. And yes, Jews are over-represented at the top of global financial institutions, but it’s not a Jewish conspiracy, or any kind of Jewish ‘thing’ at all – it’s just that traditionally, usury was forbidden to Christians, and is still supposed to be to Muslims.
But I missed out a crucial word when I talked about ‘no plan’ – the word was ‘implementable’. It was unimplementable because it required a number of people to do it that wasn’t reached, or support amongst the political class that wasn’t achieved. System change needs a plan that requires very few people to kick-start it, I think. More people need to be able join in, but Marx’s idea was implementable because it only needed a tiny vanguard to start the snowball rolling.
Where I disagree with him is in his support of pure democracy – elected officials just carrying out the will of the majority. I’d prefer to see a system that put our best people (in terms of intelligence, compassion and integrity) into decision-making positions, due to the general lack of public understanding of complicated issues like conflict, technology, law and finance.
Yes I think cooperatives are a way forward too but like most things requires groups of individuals to set them up and in many ways to be successful need to be responding to a consumer demand. I think this is where Douglas was largely coming from in that party politics would become obsolete if consumer demand was always being fulfilled via dividend payments. In this context democracy just becomes signals to the technocracy that would be managing dividend payments. This is where it becomes a resource-based economy as per Zeitgeist.
It is always a good point regarding implementable and whether there is a vanguard of some kind that is ready and willing to promote a distributist/social credit system. Conservative thought is interesting in this respect as it looks at both continuity and (prudent) change. One article I read recognised how early adopters are often a new generation of elites (i.e landed gentry to industrialists). So it certainly stretches the imagination as to how social justice would be a prime motivator for a new generation of elites as opposed to wealth accumulation especially if this is occur outside formal political (democratic) processes. I know you argue that it can be partly achieved through bottom-up networks and/or movements but for me there isnt a heightened sense of crisis or a heightened sense of an acute deficit to mobilise and policize enough people to rebel/revolt/reform towards a clearly defined common objective as was the case with nationalist insurrections against the British Empire for example.
A Tory fringe meeting that I attended today was about creating an integrated society and whilst the usual civic associationism and community-building was mentioned there still wasnt a sense of a strong collective will towards helping one another, looking out for one another and sharing resources with one another which for are the three main ethics that would achieve integration. In a sense they (Bright Blues) had the same problem of implementation. Any serious ideas of theirs such as enforcing the learning of English was to be achieved by the stick rather than the carrot. Isn’t this how all significant social change has occurred, through abrubt discontinuities whether technological as per the Industrial Revolution or the enforcement of Liberalism as per the French Revolution or struggles for Independence. As such I can only imagine a peaceful revolution occuring via the ballot box which means forming a political party (vanguard) and having a coherent distributist/mutualist plan which embodies good leadership and good economic management – supposedly the qualities that are most pronounced in centrist politics these days and where the greatest proportion of the electorate look to for their economic and political security. By far it is the centre right that is most appealing to many people these days especially as T May shifts her economic leanings towards the left and her cultural leanings towards the right in a right-communitarian sort of way.
Perhaps workers on boards and more corporate social responsibility, a greater sense of community solidarity and more equal opportunities is the beginnings of a slow shift towards a more distributive state. It is a shame the Conservatives werent all simply conservatives rather than a fusion of conservatives, high tories, libertarians, free marketeers and neocons.
Have you seen The Populist Party on facebook. A guy called Russel White. His manifesto/policies are almost identical to your own. However he has no perspective on geopolitics which he either hasnt thought through yet or simply rejects. He is abit of a one man band so not sure about how horizontal he is prepared to be.
From what I can tell regarding 20th century history, I get the impression that a Jewish cabal of financiers were very influential pre and post ww1 and so the claim of anti-Semitism was often stuck on people who were often radical in their ideas since in large part their ideas opposed the financial control of this Jewish cabal who were often financing America’s rise towards a global superpower before the formation of the World Bank and the IMF/Reconstruction Fund. It was interesting how the Labour Party also rejected distributist ideas signifying that self-intetested elites had already infiltrated the party. These days the equivalent is being branded fascist, racist, bigoted simply for wanting to leave the EU cabal.
So you are right, the corporate empire as it has evolved including jewish financiers controls governments, information, economies and to oppose it even with radical ideas will result in being branded in some way unless a new generation of elites see an opportunity for themselves. It was interesting experiencing the potential elitism of millennials today who for all intent and purposes can see that the world is changing towards ecological and social limits. Whether they can reinvent liberalism in the same way conservatism is presently doing remains to be seen. I think the liberals would need to re-embrace humanism or at least modify it so that they can be humanely prospering from poverty in some way. Perhaps corporations will become huge charities or something.
The debate about philospher/compassionate politicians and democratic technocracy is an interesting one especially within the context of RBE. How do you stop the will of the people being subverted by a technocracy and how do you get caring, wise politicians into power.
‘there isnt a heightened sense of crisis’ – I agree – most people in the West are comfortable, and resistant to the idea that ecological degradation means that their lifestyle can’t continue. Most people judge that it can continue until they die, then it’s the next generation’s problem. They’re probably right, but it doesn’t bode well for the future.
But – I think most people can be persuaded that we need better people (in terms of intelligence, compassion and integrity) in decision-making positions. At the moment wealth concentration produces those decision-makers, and wealth is becoming more concentrated every year. Most people I talk to, of any political flavour, get this, and a peaceful revolution that delivers better leaders / decision-makers, who can be replaced easily, is possible I think (via an implementable plan) – but I can’t see how it can come through the parliamentary system, because international investors will bankrupt any country that starts to move in that direction, and force a change in direction. That’s quite apart from the fact that the corrupt and expensive nature of politics in the world’s strongest country mean that only corporate candidates have the slightest chance of getting anywhere near high office.
Having said that, I’d support a mutualist/distributist party (as long as the distributism doesn’t have any hint of anti-semitism) – at least it can raise awareness. But like you, I’m not ruling out the contribution of the right. The left seem to be shooting themselves in the foot via identity politics and authoritarian political correctness, but are happy to shop at Amazon and Tesco. They’re losing the plot.
(But ‘corporate social responsibility’ = greenwash imho; they’re only interested in it as a money-making exercise).
‘how do you get caring, wise politicians into power’ – I’m working on that one – book out next year with a bit of luck. Very loosely based on this – http://lowimpactorg.wpengine.com/how-julius-nyereres-ujamaa-idea-could-form-the-basis-of-a-new-global-political-system/
Interesting. Id describe it as communal sociocracy.
Communalism seemed to be an integral aspect of ujamna as was sociocracy.
In a fringe event today led by Localis on the subject of whether Conservatives still promote localism there was an obvious problematic of trust between central govt and local authorities and between local authorities and local communities that needs to be resolved. This problematic was highlighted by virtually every question and comment made.
It seems to go back to the point that if a new generation of elites cannot capture it, it will be denounced in some way or other. How to make it appealing to aspiring elites.
Actually, elites did capture the Ujamaa system, although I didn’t know at the time, until Ralph Ibbott’s book was published, after being found in a drawer 40 years after it was written – http://lowimpactorg.wpengine.com/review-ralph-ibbotts-book-ujamaa-hidden-story-tanzanias-socialist-villages-lied-tanzania/. It’s an incredible story. The secret weapon this time is the internet. Real Ujamaa only existed in a small pocket of TZ, but this time, anything new has to be embedded in communities and involve all political flavours, religions and the police (why not?). Only that can stop it being smashed by elites (I think making something that is going to take their power away appealing to them is asking a bit much).
This popped up which I thought was interesting. Not that I agreed with his liberal conclusions as per my reply below. And nor do I agree with his rejection of post-liberalism. He wrote another blog about needing good politicians.
http://radix.org.uk/in-defence-of-populism/
Aristocratic tory elites changed to industrial whig elites which in turn splintered into liberal elites and conservative elites. Each new generation of elites capturing an ideology for their own elitist aims. Populism in my view is the resurgence within the interregum of post-liberalism now that the goods of liberalism are outweighed by its bads of political correctness, relentless social change, loss of tradition and respect and rudderless consumerist nihilism resulting in eco-cide on a mass level. The conclusion being that liberty is not an end in itself but should be used wisely and compassionately for the common good of all including non-humans. Populism demands managed ecological, technological and human resources flows to protect and nurture the diverse inhabitants of a defined territory. If this cant be done at a global level which liberalism is unable to deliver then a more communitarian approach is required. So who will be the new populist elites or the new communitarian elites to replace the failure of liberalism that allows everyone to do as they please with no sense of a common good. Liberalism makes a god of liberty and consequently we have no common purpose, no common ground and no collective appreciation of human impacts. Liberalism was required to release us from the bondage of fuedalism but as a social change policy it has now created too much fragmentation and too much irresponsiblility. Consciously liberalism as a social change policy needs to be balanced with a social continuity policy. Hence post-liberalism.
☺ Reminds me of a Safety Advisory Group
http://www.hse.gov.uk/event-safety/safety-advisory-groups.htm
I need to ask our web guy for a ‘like’ button.
A week-long Schumacher College course on Fleming’s work will run 6th-10th Feb 2017, led by Shaun Chamberlin, Rob Hopkins, Mark Boyle and Stephan Harding. Details here:
https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses/community-place-and-play