geography 442 – a student-directed seminar

Herman Daly’s work, specifically the article “From a Failed Growth Economy to a Steady State Economy” is both a brief critique of the issues that generate faith in “unlimited growth” but also a counter proposal for an economy that does not require growth. In this work Herman Daly has given us a road map, or at least a guide on how to change the way market economies  and multi-level politics operate. He calls them policy candles. Ten in total, each distinct ideas on how to change the system. When examining the ten ideas we can compare them to initiatives that re already taking place. Where there is ambiguity we can deconstruct them, in an effort to understand them better. From this exercise we can then consider if Daly’s vision is a possibility.

1. Cap – Auction – Trade Systems for Basic Resources

Norway is an example of how a country can take control of resource like crude oil. The large sovereign wealth funds accrued from taxation and royalties provide the Norwegian people with amenities and huge advancements in social and human capital. This also benefits Norway by preventing “dutch disease”. A condition which according to Daly’s 6th idea, would be subject to international tariffs.

2. Ecological Tax Reform

This would move the burden of taxation to the extracted resource. With the exception of stumpage fees and other royalties only the economic activity that surrounds a resource and its refinement is taxed. Daly argues that this is the wrong approach. In a steady-state-economy producing the most output with the least inputs is the ultimate goal. By taxing inputs, the resource would become the point of efficiency, as opposed to the process. However, taxing the source of the value a resource may possess is a complex task. The relativistic approach to the utility of nature and natural resources is rife with conflict. Assigning values to natural resources in an arbitrary manner could not be done by a single “resource tax”. What is the value of one sablefish compared to one kilogram of iron ore? It also has interesting repercussions in how a company would try to find economic efficiency. If a firm sees the only way of reducing costs is to use less of a resource, they will seek to do so, provided the value added by the new process does not incur them greater costs than the current means of production.

3. Limit the Range of Inequality in Income Distribution

The metric commonly associated with income distribution is called the Gini coefficient. As Daly reported most industrialized countries already have equitable distributions of wealth. The Gini coefficient reflects this statement. Daly goes on to discuss how people who have reached their maximum could “work for nothing at that margin…or devote extra time to hobbies or public service”. This aligns well with behavioral economics. Behavioral economics has shown that when presented with a physical task, increased financial incentives encourage faster more productive labour. However when we are given tasks that require higher cognitive abilities or creativity, adding financial incentive severely reduces our performance. Our society could become more productive as those who have reached their maximum incomes redirect their energies towards other goals.

4. Free Up the Length of the Working Day, Week, and Year

This idea is closely tied to candles two and three. If firms simultaneously have their taxes reduced in relation to their “value added” processes while limiting the incomes individuals can receive then there is greater opportunity for increased labour force participation rates. France is most noted for it’s reduced work week and very generous vacation time. While many have criticized this calling it inefficient, or worse, socialist, before the 2009-2008 recession France boasted the highest levels of Productivity in the European Union.

5. Re-regulate International Commerce

Balance of Trade between the global north and south has been placed badly out of alignment. Daly very briefly reminds us that free trade is not equality in trade. Free trade is possible perhaps even preferable for countries that are on equal footing to one another. The industrialized developed nations of the global north can be free to trade among one another as they are relatively equal. When a large imbalance exists between two countries in terms of political and economic powers that is where Daly’s proposal would have the largest effects. This also relates to point three, by limiting the flow of international capital, the global south would be protected from foreign investments affecting their income equality.

6. Downgrade the IMF-WB-WTO

Daly makes a strong case against the current structure of these institutions he even says “The closest thing we have to a global government has shown no interest in regulating transnational capital for the common good”. This is even more disturbing when considering that this “government” is appointed and is not elected by any demographic.

7. Move Away From Fractional Reserve Banking Towards a System of 100% Reserve Requirements

It is at this point where Daly’s logic seems to falter. Daly states “…regulated as commercial banks subject to 100% reserve requirements. Banks would earn their profit by financial inter mediation only, lending savers’ money for them…”. Reserve requirements is the amount of cash deposits that a bank is required to have on hand for withdrawal. If the requirement is 100% then the bank cannot loan out any money, because as soon as it had done so it would no longer be at 100% reserves. The alternate way of interpreting this is that the money need to have been previously been saved by an individual before it may be lent out again. With this arrangement there is then nothing stopping banks from loaning out large amounts of money keeping only what the average account requires for regular access. This banking system is very close to what is currently used across the globe.

8. Stop Treating Scarce as if it Were Non-Scarce

While scarcity is addressed in Point, 1 Daly discusses the free flow of knowledge. I believe this is somewhat misleading. What I believe Daly to be actually saying is that the barriers to knowledge should be lowered. Teachers will still need draw a salary, paper and pencils will still need to be bought, schools will still need to be built. This would not affect most of the industrialized nations as they already provide free or subsidized tuition to their population These cost can be, and are absorbed by the government, who in turn tax the people. It is the assertion the intellectual property laws need to be revised. This is a powerful statement. Knowledge by it’s nature should belong to the commons, but to encourage firms to produce new knowledge or products we allow them to monopolize the “invention”. The monopoly is to allow a firm to be the exclusive holder of the idea, and the only one legally allowed to make a profit off of its sale. Many drugs have been made exempt from copyright laws and royalties because of their need in underdeveloped regions, often to the objection of the patent holding pharmaceuticals.

9. Stabilize Population

This will have the largest effects on the global south. For the global north population growth has slowed to a crawl in most countries, while many countries of the global south still see massive population increases. In the 2009 report on Human development by the United Nations clearly pointed out, the single greatest contribution to Greenhouse gas reductions would be to encourage social and reproductive rights for women in the global south. Currently there are many aid programs that try to encourage women to take voluntary birth control measures. There are large obstacles to implementing these measures, mostly they are socio-cultural, as religion often plays an interfering role within these endeavors.

10. Reform National Accounts

Similar to the second point, this requires highly subjective and relative thinking. Assigning costs to the flood mitigation of swampland versus the tax revenue a new mall will generate are very politically charged issues. They require complex models to describe and assign the value of each. And ultimately, based off the current arguments each side views certain basic precepts of the other as invalid. Secondly, Daly suggests we begin to measure happiness. What other outlets do we have for happiness and the metric we would add to it. How do we measure something so subjective. The Kingdom of Bhutan currently measures Gross National Happiness. France has begun to record measures of happiness in its own population and groups like the pembina institute are calculating other socio economic metrics like GPI, or the Genuine Progress Indicator.

Daly writes from a standpoint of generic observation, often calling upon the America perspective. This is unsurprising as he is an American ecological economist. When we examine his suggestions we can find examples of his ideas across the globe and across disciplines. Others of his ideas need to be greatly expanded or are obscured by relativistic arguments and need clarity and focus to be better understood. Altogether though there is credibility to many of his proposals. Many of them have been implemented in one way or another. While each point is its own reform, they interlink with each other forming a cohesive strategy. It is difficult to say if the strategy will be effective on a global scale, or if it will even be embraced internationally. Daly is correct in saying that it will only be possible if it happens gradually.

I have noticed a recurrent theme throughout all of our discussions thus far; communication is central. How do we effectively communicate the values and ideas inseparable from our visions for a hopeful future beyond the triumphant, end-of-history discourse of the neoliberal growth machine?  As Saul Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals, no progressive movement can succeed without the broad-based support of the middle-classes, the dominant constituent of the North American population. And indeed, many of our discussions seem to be derailed as soon as one of us asks “how realistic is to expect the [insert stereotype of SUV driving, overweight North American here] … to understand and change their lifestyle?” Alinsky noted that the middle-classes are a difficult bunch to organize with mass change in mind, for they have just enough economic security to stave off the desperation which usually coincides with unrelenting and passionate movements for change in a capitalist system dominated by short-term economic interest. In this response I would like to outline some of the defining communication issues that pervade the interconnected debates around energy and climate change, specifically in the US political landscape.

In considering the very important question of how to effectively communicate the possibilities for alternative systems (steady-state economies being one), I would rather spotlight some of recent, alarming tactics used by those out to convince the public that there is in fact no reason to seek out, debate, and initiate alternatives. This is evident in the strategies to delegitimize the international consensus on climate-science and undermine the transition to renewable energy used by the shared forces of free-market capitalists, oil barons, and right-wing ideologues.

The first tactic, used primarily by right-wing political strategists, has been to co-opt a wide range of theories associated with the “post-positivist left” about scientific uncertainty (Wyly, 315). Frank Lutz, a well known Republican strategist, advised Bush and others to deploy the “lack of scientific certainty” as the primary issue when deflecting calls to adopt GHG-emission targets (Wyly, 311). Bruno Latour, a pioneer in the philosophy of science, reacted to this strategy in the following way,

“Entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that good American kids are learning the hard way that facts are made up, that there is no such thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth, that we always speak from a particular standpoint, and so on, while dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives” (Wyly, 312).

What was born as a radical critique of the power structures embedded in industrialized practices of science, popularized by thinkers  such as Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway, has now become the ammunition with which power strengthens its will to ignorance.

The second tactic has been the appropriation of organizing strategies emanating from Alinksy and other 1960s era radicals. Rules for Radicals has even been assigned as bed time reading for the Tea-Partiers across the US. Alinsky’s manifesto was born out of his experiences organizing marginalized populations across the US to take back power from elites. However, the Tea-partiers are not simply a grassroots collection of ‘have-nots’ seeking power from the ‘haves’; the movement has little to say about marginalization, exclusion, or inequality. Rather, many linkages have been drawn financial and organizational support coming from, among others, oil companies.

This brings me to the third tactic, astroturfing; the attempt to artificially produce what on the surface looks like a grass-roots movement.

This New York Times article, among others, links the finances of the Koch Industries (today’s equivalent of Standard Oil) to Americans for Prosperity, a key organizing force of the Tea Party Movement.

Not only does the movement stand for further neoliberalization, tea partiers also have an agenda to halt progress on federal legislation regarding climate-change mitigation. It should come as no surprise that Koch Industries has significant economic stakes in seeing no slow-down of the Alberta’s tar sands given their ownership of pipeline and refinery facilities across America. The Koch Industries’ astro-turfing is not limited to the protection of the oil-industry’s profits. The Koch Family is noted for providing the start-up funds for the Cato Institute in 1977 which “consistently pushed for corporate tax cuts, reductions in social services, and laissez-faire environmental policies”, and continue to donate to “nonprofit groups that criticize environmental regulation and support lower taxes for industry”. The NY Times article reads,

“When President Obama, in a 2008 speech, described the science on global warming as “beyond dispute,” the Cato Institute took out a full-page ad in the Times to contradict him. Cato’s resident scholars have relentlessly criticized political attempts to stop global warming as expensive, ineffective, and unnecessary. Ed Crane, the Cato Institute’s founder and president, told me that “global-warming theories give the government more control of the economy.””

If our group is to critically interrogate the collective imagination of energy, we must speak truth to power, and recognize there is nothing natural about our relationship with energy and the practices which reproduce the conditions for “crisis”. Rather, our practices are highly political, and the tactics outlined above attest to the traditional energy sectors influence on not only our present political agendas, but also on the vocabulary with which to imagine future alternatives.

Since the 1960s, Shell has practiced what is called scenario planning, or the act of telling stories about possible future events in order to strategize effectively. The acronym “TINA” (There is No Alternative) has come to organize all of their scenarios since the 1990s and represents to them the triumph of globalization and liberalization. The massive capital already invested by Shell and other companies in existing infrastructure makes it near impossible for them to envision their own proactive role in a future beyond oil, even if they may be cognizant of peak-oil and climate change. Rather than aid the transition, members of the traditional energy sector wield their political influence to distort the public discourse on climate change.

Although the tactics described above are at the extreme end of the spectrum and most prevalent in the US, they nonetheless give insight into the ways in which discourses are shot through with power. How the middle classes are communicated to and how they vote will play a central role in an energy-mode shift. What we should realize is that these dirtiest of tactics are having real  consequences, with the overwhelming majority of congressional republicans who ran in the midterm elections all sharing a denial of climate change.

While this response does not give a positive answer to the question of ‘how realistic it is to ask people to change’, it details some of the mechanisms used to foreclose the possibility that these questions may even be seriously considered. Knowing is have the battle right?

Works Cited:

Alinsky, Saul Rules for Radicals: A practical primer for realistic radicals, New York, Random House 1971

Wyly, Elvin “Strategic Positivism” in The Professional Geographer, 61(3) 2009

In response to the While et al. article on eco-state restructuring and the rhythmic wave-like trend of climate change mitigation strategies, I would like to propose an alternative view of the overall process. In this paper I will summarize the concept of waves of eco-state restructuring as it is presented by While et al., then develop the concept as I see it to be which focuses on the cause behind the “waves”, and finally I will propose two possible outcomes based on this rationale.

According to While et al, “waves of eco-state restructuring” refers to the succession of movements that aim to organize the economic and environmental relations within capitalist states (eco-state restructuring). Some practises dominate a time period, but eventually a new system of governance is created and, without replacing the former, it is layered on top of its predecessors. There have been three major waves of restructuring, beginning in the late 1960’s through to the present. The first wave of governance can be traced back to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, an era dominated by “prevention and control” measures aimed at internalizing the externalities of large scale industrialism. The next wave occurred during the mid-1980’s through to the mid-2000’s which focused on “sustainable development”. This form of governance was encouraged through developments like the Brundtland report of 1972, and the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. From the late 1990’s to present there has been a third wave of eco-state restructuring, dominated by market-based approaches to neoliberal environmental management, which emphasizes carbon control. This wave has gained momentum through the development and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, and the Stern Review of 2006 (While et al. 2009).

In my opinion, these waves of eco-state restructuring are a product of the global expansion of neoliberalism, and the wake of externalities that follow behind it. The waves of environmental governance (eco-state restructuring), are therefore in response to the waves of externalities generated by neoliberal capitalism. This succession of strategies works to modify neoliberalism to reduce the affect of the system on the environment, but in so doing, the original problem is not adequately addressed.

My view of the overall process is best visualised through the analogy of a tanker-ship making its way around the world. Her name is Neoliberalism, and as she pushes on through the water (powered by fossil-fuels), she creates her own large wake that affects much more area than that immediately beneath the hull. The waves produced from this wake can be thought of as the negative externalities of production, and as these waves ripple out the distance between them increases. As each successive wave crashes onto the shore a new urgency is realized, and beginning in the late 60’s the people standing on the shore began considering ways to combat and eliminate the effects of the waves created by the wake of Neoliberalism. They tried to rework the shape of the vessel to streamline it and reduce the wake it generates, but each successive attempt to re-engineer the ship has been time-intensive and (so far), ineffective.

The first few waves that hit shore during the 1970’s generated concern and spawned the “prevention and control” era. But as the externalities of neoliberalism continued to roll onto shore (and with increasing magnitude), it was clear that the current mitigation strategies were not enough. The waves that hit shore during the 80’s and 90’s were larger and became more global in scope, so the urgency and effort to combat these effects was expanded and new movements were created to coordinate the restructuring process. But the ship continued on. In recent times the externalities of neoliberal production continue to reach our shores, and again we have developed new methods to streamline the ship. This time we have opted to drastically reconfigure the nature of the vessel to incorporate the wake into its production function, relying heavily on the development of technology and market-based policy tools.

This rationale allows for a cause and effect to be calculated, and helps display the root of the problem. It seems that the reason these waves of environmental governance continually fail is not that the concepts themselves won’t work, but that they can’t work because they are in opposition to capitalism. Going back to my analogy, it’s like trying to build a boat that creates no wake, and as I see it there are only two ways of doing this.

The first way is to completely redesign the vessel so it leaves the surface undisturbed, for example we could ride above the surface on a hovercraft or even an airplane. This, however, means throwing out capitalism and starting fresh, it would require a complete overhaul of the economic and social system as we know it and to my knowledge there is no such approach that exists today that could offer any of the required economic, social or environmental objectives. The second way to modify a ship to eliminate the wake is to simply throw out an anchor and kill the engines, otherwise known as a steady-state economy. Tim Jackson defines a steady-state economy as a system in which “stability no longer relies on ever-increasing consumption growth… One in which our capabilities to flourish – within ecological limits – become the guiding principle for design and the key criterion for success” (Jackson 2009: 43). The concept of a steady-state economy rests on the assumption that consumerism/ consumption can be reduced and conservation instilled within both individuals and nations globally (Daly 2009; Jackson 2009). It may be a stretch of the imagination to assume we can learn restraint and cooperation, but right now it may be the best strategy we have given the nature of our situation, and our long history of ineffective management.

Literature Cited:

Daly, Herman. “From a Failed Growth Economy to a Steady-State Economy”. American University, Washington D.C. June 1, 2009.

Jackson, Tim. “Prosperity without Growth? Economics for a Finite Planet”. Earthscan Publishing. (2009) Sterling, VA, USA. Print.

While, Aiden;  Andrew Jonas; David Gibbs. From sustainable development to carbon control: eco-state restructuring and the politics of urban and regional development. (2009) Department of Geography, University of Hull, Hull, UK. Print.

Numerous unrealistic and socially unjust techno-fixes, including geoengineering, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage, have been promoted by large corporations and governments as solutions to the twin climate change and energy crises.[1] In her article, Claire Fauset explains why these so-called solutions are simply not viable and will actually exacerbate the situation by further damaging the environment. Ironically, those who find techno-fixes most appealing – persons and corporations with an established hold on power and thus desire to maintain the status quo – are the ones in the best positions to investigate the science behind such solutions, expose critical flaws, and shift investment into more viable options. Fauset gives a number of reasons why techno-fixes can never be part of the solution, but in this response I will focus on the one I believe to be the fundamental concern: the failure of such technological solutions to ask the right questions.

Techno-fixes can certainly be seen as solutions when asking limited questions such as, “how can people run their cars without oil,”?[2] The problem with this question is it does not address climate change or the energy crisis; instead, it simply proposes a potentially equally or even more problematic alternative to oil.  A more multifaceted approach that both explicitly and implicitly addresses the underlying problem is needed when looking for, and ultimately investing valuable time and significant capital in, possible solutions. Fauset suggests instead asking, “how can people get where they need to go without contributing to climate change,”; this approach might prove more effective in evoking better alternatives (not just substitutes) that are equitable, socially just, sustainable, and accessible.[3]

The geo-engineered techno-fixes Fauset mentions in her article are shocking, but accurately represent the lengths corporations and governments are willing to impede or at least slow the world’s transition to a sustainable global economy; one not focused so greatly upon perpetual growth and its seemingly inescapable consumption of natural resources and society’s associated materialism. Some of the more radical notions Fauset discredits include blasting the stratosphere with sulfates to produce a cooling effect, mirrors in space to reflect solar radiation, covering deserts in reflective plastics, and dumping iron fertilizer into the oceans to reduce carbon dioxide.[4] These can be interpreted as efforts by private firms to avoid governmental regulation and thereby prevent stricter forms of action on climate change.[5] Carbon offsets, to a lesser extent, can also be seen as a mechanism to maintain corporate profit and growth, by paying for the shift of environmental responsibility onto others, often in the Global South. Is this just another form of western hegemony and xenocentrism? Efforts to reduce carbon emissions should be made by changing policies and behaviors aimed at reducing consumption, and through technical changes that invest in and shift towards lower carbon technologies- not by bribing others to offset emissions in the short term- a diversion of valuable investment.[6] This will only take place if society demands answers to the right questions. Why do we assume us humans are the masters of nature, and “why is economic growth seen as more important than survival,”?[7] The answer lies in the inherent greed and power-driven nature of capitalism itself; can we break the corporate cabal’s grip on environmental policies and solutions, change entire societies’ patterns of consumption and lifestyle, and thereby bring about meaningful and effective changes for a sustainable future?

One approach, and the one I find most meaningful and sustainable, is through social change. “Co-operation, lifestyle change, and appropriate technology,” are critical in this process that will be small-scale, localized, and carried out on a community basis.[8] Corporations as entities will always be run with making a profit as their basic function and this is not going to change; what will cause changes in the corporate world is a massive shift in collective demand by consumers, which will force corporations to adapt in order to remain profitable. The channeling of investment into viable technologies that are proven to be effective, less expensive, and socially equitable, also must factor into any transition towards sustainability. By first initiating a collective force from below, society can bring about changes to economic and political ideologies that bring about thoughtful investment in long term solutions to climate change and the energy crisis.

Learning what questions we should be asking ourselves will promote long-term lifestyle and behavioral changes that are absolutely essential if the unevenly large ecological footprints of developed societies are to be sustainably reduced. Without changes to our current capitalistic mode of thinking, technological solutions alone cannot be relied upon as viable in the long term. Demand will only continue to grow, inevitably requiring greater amounts of energy and likely exacerbating the current rate of climate change; technology alone cannot provide meaningful relief for the inexorable forces of such global demand. The central underlying issue is the materialistic nature of most developed countries and their consumption-based societies, and the simple fact that the vast majority of the world’s corporations are primarily focused on profit; in other words: capitalism.[9] We must ask how and what we, as society’s component individuals, can do to reduce our personal consumption, carbon footprints and energy use, and in turn create a societal movement imposing corporate change, in order to ameliorate climate change and soften the imminent energy crisis.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 301-302.

[4] Ibid., 307-308.

[5] P. Newell and M. Paterson, “The Politics of the Carbon Economy,” in The Politics of Climate Change: A survey, ed. M. Boycoff, 91 (London: Routledge, 2009).

[6] A. G. Bumpus and D. M. Liverman, “Accumulation by Decarbonization and the Governance of Carbon Offsets,” Economic Geography 84, no. 2 (2008): 148.

[7] Fauset, 308-309.

[8] Ibid., 310.

[9] Ibid., 303.

Critical Response No. 2

By Alison Smith

The second proposal for a transition towards a Steady-State Economy, declared by Herman Daly, is ‘Ecological Tax Reform.’ Daly defines this type of reforms as “shift(ing the) tax base from value added (labour and capital) on to ‘that to which value is added’, namely the entropic throughput of resources extracted from nature (depletion), and returned to nature (pollution). (Daly)” My goal in this response is to explore, more deeply, the implications of Daly’s account for ecological tax reform. And do so, by assessing these implications within a current time frame and in correlation with additional ecological economists viewpoints.

The purpose of this tax shift is to incorporate the environmental costs of products and services into the market price to assist the market in telling the environmental truth. Effectively rewarding environmentally responsible actions, such as reducing energy requirements. As Daly states, these taxes will “internalize external costs” (Daly) and encourage or induce more stringent allocation of natural resources. Daly also notes in his first proposal that pollution is much harder to monitor for taxation than extraction and therefore the onus would be largely placed on extraction industries. Although the industries affected by the tax could simply include the new expenses in their final price, effectively projecting the cost upstream, limits are established and pollution emissions are reduced.

The pressures of increased prices on primary resources tend to encourage investment in sustainable development of infrastructure and or an alteration in consumer habits. Lester Brown, an environmentalist author, writes extensively on global environmental issues and provides relevant examples of Daly’s ecological tax reform in practice. However a clear distinction is apparent between Brown and Daly’s classification of the tax. Daly preaches taxation on “that to which value is added” (Daly) where as Brown, expands this classification to include all “those who contribute to the throughput” (Brown). Browns definition still directs taxation onto reckless primary industries, but also taxes individuals for reckless behaviors. An example of ecological tax reform contributing to sustainable innovation, assessed by Brown, is the London congestion tax. In 2005 an equivalent to $14 was imposed on car entrance into the city centre. The revenue was used to enhance public transport energy consumption and geographic reach. The mission of this congestion tax was to increase public mobility, decrease congestion, air pollution and carbon emissions. Another example is the unprecedented steep tax on newly produced energy-inefficient cars in Denmark. This specific tax “doubles the price of the car” (Brown) and has lead to a virtual extinction of energy-inefficient cars in the region.  Brown does examine cases when taxation is systematically shifted from labor to energy production instead of focusing on individual consumerists. He sites in 1999 Germany adopted a four-year plan to simultaneously reduce individual income tax while implementing a new tax on energy producers. This resulted in a decrease of fuel use by five percent, a commendable reduction, but more impressively the plan “accelerated growth in the renewable energy sector, creating some 45,400 jobs in the wind industry alone” (Brown). Taxation shifts towards resource extraction and deposition, along side taxation towards individuals who contribute to the overall throughput undoubtedly strains the validity of economic reason. In other words, it bluntly asks, does the current process still make economic sense with this ilk of the unfamiliar taxes?

Tim Jackson explores the notion of absolute decoupling, which is the base of “breaking the link between ‘environmental bads’ and ‘economic goods’” (OECD). Jackson states that absolute decoupling “is essential if economic activity is to remain (logical) within ecological limits” (Jackson). The parameters of absolute decoupling relate more to Daly’s industry based taxation. But before I investigate further it is important to clearly define this notion. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development identifies absolute decoupling when “the environmentally relevant variable is stable or decreasing while the economic driving force is growing” (OECD). The motivation of a corporation to continually profit, for example in oil extraction, regardless of these taxes will force greater investment in energy efficient technology and pollution reduction methods, which increase absolute decoupling. Iron ore extraction is an industry where absolute decoupling is not only non-existent but is in a negative value. That is to say, the environmental throughput is greater than the economic driving force. An ecological tax of this particular industry might be the driving momentum for innovation in extraction that could significantly contribute to better resource allocation.

Ecological taxes generate a number of environmentally beneficial results. This brand of taxation exposes the costs of throughput and concentrates these costs to both primary industries and individual contributors. The short-term effect is investment in sustainable development and the long-term effect is the growth of absolute decoupling.

I’ve recently run into this analysis of capitalism called “The Cream Separator”. It’s a story by Tommy Douglas; a Canadian social democratic politician, 7th Premier of Saskatchewan, and creator of public funded healthcare.

I think it’s a great analogy to the current state of capitalism and ties in well with many of the articles we’ve looked at.

Here it is….

THE CREAM SEPARATOR

I used to visit in farm homes, particularly around meal time, and if I got in around dinner time of course, everybody in the family was busy. They were unhitching the horses. They were pumping the water. They were milking the cows. They were pitching down the hay and the oat sheaves. Somebody else was out gathering the eggs.

Somebody else was feeding the pigs and the chickens. Everybody had something to do. Even the youngsters were given a job doing something, for instance gathering the eggs or feeding the chickens.

And here I was, right off the city streets. I didn’t know what to do, and I said “give me something to do.” Well, nobody was going to trust this city boy with milking a good cow. They gave me the one job that anybody could do. They gave me the job of turning the handle of the cream separator.

Any of you ever turned the handle on the cream separator? Well it’s quite an experience. I got to be quite good at it. I got to the place where I could tell you how many verses of “Onward Christian Soldiers” it takes to put a pan of milk through this thing. And as I was turning the handle and they were pouring in the milk, and I could see the cream come out the one spout and the skim milk coming out of the other spout, one day it finally penetrated my thick Scotch head that this cream separator is exactly like our economic system.

Here are the primary producers, the farmers and the fishermen and the loggers. They are pouring in the milk. And here are the workers, whether they work on the railroad or go down to the mines or sail ships or work in a store or a bank, or teach school, clerk in the store, work in a hospital. They are the people whose services make the economy go round, and they’re turning the handle. So here you have it: primary producer puts in the milk; people who work with hand and brain turn the handle. And then I thought, but there’s another fellow here somewhere. There’s a fellow who owns this cream separator. And he’s sitting on a stool with the cream spout in his mouth. And the primary producer and the worker take turns on the skim milk spout. And they don’t like skim milk. Nobody likes skim milk. And they blame it on each other And the worker says, “If those farmers and fishermen, you know, would work a little harder, well I wouldn’t be drinking this skim milk.” And the fishermen and the farmers say, “If those workers didn’t demand a forty hour week, didn’t want such high wages, I wouldn’t have to live on this blue milk.” But you know they’re both wrong.

The farmers and the fishermen have produced so much we don’t know what to do with it; we’ve got surpluses of foodstuffs. And the workers, they’ve produced so well that today nearly a million of them are unemployed. The fault is not with the worker. It is not with the primary producer. The fault is with this machine. This machine was built to give skim milk to the worker and the primary producer, and to give cream to the corporate elite.

As a matter of fact, it doesn’t always do that because every once in a while this little fellow sitting on the stool with the cream spout in his mouth gets indigestion. And he says, “Boys, stop this machine. We got a recession!” He says to the worker, “You’re laid off; you can go on unemployment insurance, and after that on welfare.” And he says to the farmers and the fishermen, “You know, we don’t need your stuff. Take it back home.” And then he sits for a while, indigestion gets better, burps a couple of times, says, “Alright, boys, start the machine. Happy days are here again. Cream for me and skim milk for both of you.”

Now what the, what the democratic socialist party has been saying to Canadians for a long time is that the time has come in this land of ours for the worker and the primary producer to get their hands on the regulator of the machine so that it begins to produce homogenized milk in which everybody’ll get a little cream.

–          Tommy Douglas, 1944.

One of my professors told our class about this. Thought this might be useful for final projects, or just for general interest. Particularly, the talk on Greenwashing and the last talk by the Plenary panel. This will make a lot more sense if you click the link to see the schedule! 🙂

Here is what my prof emailed:

About Media Democracy Day Vancouver 2010
November 6th 2010, 12- 5pm, Vancouver Public Library, Central Library

    Media Democracy Day is an annual event that engages activists, media producers, scholars and citizens in dialogue that is centred on creating a more participatory and democratic media system. Entering its ninth year, MDD provides a day of interactive discussion panels that address key issues concerning the politics and biases linked to our increasingly corporate and concentrated media system.

    Tony Burman of Al Jazeera English will open the day with a keynote address. Panel discussions include assessing the role of alternative media in environmental communication in an age of corporate greenwash; the rise of “Fox News North” and what it means for Canadian broadcasting; the portrayal of protest and negotiation at global marquee events like the G20 summit; representations of sexual and gendered violence in media; and a close look at the shifting landscape of Canadian copyright.
   
    The Media Democracy Fair will also be open throughout the day to provide a trade-show style exhibition of the local media community. And The Pacific Cinematheque will be hosting a small film production workshop in the spirit of documentary and journalistic cinema.

            FOR THE FULL PROGRAM: http://www.scribd.com/full/39771205?access_key=key-1fdhoklsvohr6z8w6jzk

For more info: http://www.mediademocracyday.org/Vancouver
Cost: Free & all welcome but seating is limited. To pre-register your attendance, visit http://mddvancouver.eventbrite.com/

Media Democracy Day Vancouver 2010 is presented by The School of Communication at SFU, OpenMedia.ca and The Vancouver Public Library in collaboration with Media Literacy Week 2010.

MDD on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/MDDVancouver?ref=ts
MDD on Twitter http://twitter.com/MediaDemocDay

Also afterwards it looks like there is a local media fair….just keep scrolling once you click the link!

Cheers

Herman Daly’s article on ecological economics examines a transformation to a steady-state economy. He submits that our current growth economy is failing in two primary ways:  the uneconomic effects of continuous positive growth, and those of negative growth, resulting from the self-destructing nature of financial bubbles.[1] He questions whether we are still becoming more affluent from such growth, or whether such growth is actually depleting our riches.[2] His suggestion is a gradual transition to a steady-state economy, with neither positive nor negative growth, and he puts forth a series of ten somewhat radical steps to foment such an economy. However, Daly explains, these steps are “not as insanely unrealistic,” when compared to the rationale upon which many rely for validating continuous growth.[3] In this response I will discuss Daly’s third suggested policy for moving towards a steady-state economy: limiting the range of inequality in income distribution. I will also touch on Tim Jackson’s two complimentary articles about both the implications of and the avenues towards a sustainable economy as they relate to reducing inequality. Ultimately, any agreement on the establishment of income ranges will only be reached once developed societies decrease the glorification and focus currently associated with the acquisition of status goods and material wealth, and when their individuals’ identities are no longer primarily derived from their employment and socio-economic status.

Daly posits that the establishment of a minimum and a maximum income will bring an end to unlimited inequality. One obvious obstacle is that inequality has been ingrained in most of the basic elements of our very social framework; a complete transformation of societal values and capitalism’s core principles and practices would be required – something extremely unlikely to take place in the relatively near future of 40 or 50 years. Ergo, the notion that those at the top, who are typically the greatest beneficiaries of inequality, could be somehow persuaded to stop amassing wealth once they had attained some level, is highly implausible.  Daly advocates the first step in this process is reducing the range of inequality to a factor of 100, (Corporate America has a range of over 500, while many industrial nations are below 25) “and see how it works”.[4] On a localized scale, certain adaptive policies could be successfully implemented over the short term if developed collaboratively with individual businesses in mind, as opposed to the arbitrary imposition of some common fixed factor for the maximum range of inequality. The biggest hurdle would most likely be overcoming people’s initial strong opposition to such range limits; however, as Daly implies, the sense of community necessary for democracy would be much easier to maintain if income gaps are narrowed.   Jackson’s articles supplies us with such aids useful for gaining mass acceptance of income ranges, by emphasizing ‘alternative hedonism’.

When the working week is shortened, unemployment and poverty have been shown to significantly decline.[5] This is a good way to maintain full employment without growth, and to also encourage ‘alternative hedonism’, which will in turn promote a more equitable and less competitive society.[6] In Tim Jackson’s article, “Recovery without growth”, he alludes to Daly’s fourth point: shortening of the working day, week, and year, to allow for part-time or personal work.[7] Daly claims that full-time employment is synonymous with constant and unsustainable growth and Jackson offers a viable idea which addresses this issue:  to share the available work more evenly across the population- essentially reducing working hours and increasing free time, and without causing widespread unemployment.[8] In Jackson’s subsequent article, “Prosperity without growth?”, he further explains how an improved work-life balance will help to lower the emphasis placed by many people on status and consumerism, leading greater social equality.[9]

Allowing people to devote more time to “sources of identity, creativity, and meaning that lie outside the realm of the market,” and the workplace, will help to lower materialistic consumerism and promote greater social equality.[10] Some may wonder if people will use their ‘freed up’ time in productive and sustainable ways. Of course, there will always be a minority who do not choose to use a shortened work week in thoughtful and beneficial ways, but society overall will derive greater social benefits from the majority who do than it will from the alternative – an overworked and materialistic society.

In conclusion, the premise that current and constant growth rates are unsustainable and eventually need to slow and ideally approach zero is fundamental to Daly’s article. One of his ideas towards achieving this end is to reduce income disparities; however, it is clear that such reductions, in a world dominated by neo-liberal capitalism and materialistic individuals, are both unlikely to occur any time soon, and pose many obstacles.  However, insofar as reducing income disparities, both Jackson and Daly have touched on an idea that could have success in this regard:  reducing the number of hours in a work week and eventually shifting towards equitably shared part-time employment.  This idea is the most viable and the most likely to gain widespread acceptance among individuals because it provides valuable free time which will in turn stimulate greater focus on external sources of satisfaction and meaning outside of the workplace.  In this way, the importance society seems to place on material wealth will be diminished, and social inequality should also be reduced. The further society transitions to a less materialistic value system and its citizens become more focused on ‘experiencing’ and less so on ‘having’, the more likely large-scale agreement to the establishment of income ranges will become; even the wealthiest segments of society, who seem to have the most to lose, could find themselves reaping non-material benefits and rewards in such a transition.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Jackson, “Recovery without growth?” Renewal 17, No. 3(2009): 50.

[6] Jackson, “Prosperity without growth? The transition to a sustainable economy,” Sustainable Development Comission (2009), http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf, 10.

[7] Jackson, “Recovery without growth?” 49.

[8] Ibid.

[9] T. Jackson, “Prosperity without growth?” 10-11.

[10] Ibid.

The world is largely dependent on finite resources to meet current energy demands. In North America and across the globe, petroleum accounts for a large percentage of total energy consumption. And to a large extent, this is due to the personal automobile. In the context of transportation, suburbanization has made oil dependency a reality, especially in North America. In this response, I will reinforce major points raised by UBC Geography Ph.D. Candidate Andrew Jackson from his presentation, “The End of Oil,” and I will explore the necessity to return to the streetcar city in preparation for a post-carbon future.

An increasing number of people are familiar with peak oil. M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil Company geologist, formulated the concept in the late 1950s. He estimated world production would peak in 2000. This prediction was nearly accurate, as “regular[,] [global] oil production peaked in 2005” (Murphy 5). This means the most easily accessibly oil, with the highest energy return on investment (EROI), has been extracted, leaving oil to be extracted through processes that are expensive and yield a lower EROI. Many argue that the tar sands is a compelling example of this and speaks to the reality of peak oil. Oh, and by the way, climate change and the melting of the Arctic will not solve our growing oil needs. The United States Geological Survey’s liberal estimate puts undiscovered, recoverable oil in the Arctic at 90 billion barrels. Currently, the world consumes around 30 billion barrels per year. (Nelder)

Peak oil poses serious implications – it fundamentally puts most aspects of the modern capitalist economic structure into question. In BC, refined petroleum accounts for 44% of the market share of energy consumption (Statistics Canada). Although efforts have been made to reduce our dependency, most people live in oil-dependent cities, suburbs, and regions. Oil shocks are inevitable. We must invest in streetcar systems, rail networks, and adapt our cities and suburbs with this reality in mind. The era of cheap oil and the personal automobile is coming to an end.

Patrick Condon, UBC Professor of Landscape Architecture, outlines the steps that must be taken immediately to prepare for a post-carbon future. As it is beyond the scope of this response to write in detail on all seven of Condon’s rules, I will focus on his central argument: restore the streetcar city. Vancouver was once a streetcar city with an extensive network, and at its peak, connected the city of Vancouver to towns in the Fraser Valley. Streetcars are already commonplace in many European cities – and these cities and countries have much lower per capita energy consumption. Streetcars encourage density (if it does not already exist), mixed-used developments, and walking districts. Streetcars also discourage driving. Andrew Jackson and other planners note the importance of reducing space dedicated to the personal automobile. Disincentives must exist for people to change behaviours. Less space for cars means fewer cars on the road.

Portland has demonstrated great potential for the modern streetcar city in North America. The streetcar network connects downtown with several neighbourhoods, and there are plans to extend service throughout the city and even to the nearby suburb of Lake Oswego. The streetcar system has encouraged density and smarter development with the creation of 10,000 residential units and over $3.5 billion in property investments within two blocks of the line (Driehaus). The Portland Streetcar connects to the main downtown transit mall, providing bus and suburban light rail connections. Portland’s suburbs resemble many other North American suburbs, but they stand apart in transit accessibility. The light rail network connects many suburbs to Portland and has encouraged higher density suburban development along the line. This does not mean suburban development should continue, but we must quickly find ways to remake suburban landscapes for a post-carbon future. Suburbs must be connected to cities – and light rail and streetcar systems are necessary.

Peak oil is very real. Until we start having frank discussions about the implications of peak oil, we will not be prepared to tackle the many challenges ahead of us. We are facing unprecedented challenges, but also incredible opportunities. In this space of great possibility, we have the choice to recreate our urban and suburban landscapes and re-imagine our cities for people and community. Right now we have the choice to make these transitions, but if we fail to act soon, we will have much less control. The possibility for radical transformation is in front of us, but we need to get moving. Will you join me?

Works Cited

Condon, Patrick. “Why A Streetcar Is Something To Be Desired.” The Tyee 16 Sep. 2010. 31 Oct. 2010. .

Driehaus, Bob. “Downtowns Across the U.S. See Streetcars in Their Future.” The New York Times 13 Aug. 2008. 31 Oct. 2010 .

Ménard, Marinka. Statistics Canada. “Canada, A Big Energy Consumer: A Regional Perspective.” Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2005. .

Murphy, Pat. “Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change.” Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2008.

Nelder, Chris. “How Much Oil Is In the Arctic?” Business Insider 13 June 2009. 31 Oct. 2010 .

Zizek writes that “Power generates its own excess which it then has to annihilate in an operation that imitates what it fights” (27). I think this paradoxical logic offers an interesting point of departure in a discursive discussion of the economic concept of “scarcity.” In “The Second Contradiction of Capitalism,” James O’Connor constructs a poignant critique around the central notion that capital “is its own barrier because of its self-destructive forms of…power… appropriation [and the] capitalization of external nature…” (159). O’Connor advances this notion by suggesting that so-called “natural barriers” are in fact capitalistically produced. In a capitalistic context, the notion of “scarcity” is conveniently translated into economic jargon, where ‘Limits to Growth’ are cast as a necessary evil, over which capital/ism must exercise brute force and declare its anthems of ‘progress,’ ‘efficiency’ and ‘expansion.’

The capitalist obsession with identifying “limits” and “barriers” to growth is, I think, an internal function of capitalism, where “barriers assume the form of economic crisis” – a mess in need of cleaning up. Seen in this way, it is tempting to suggest that the so-called “barriers” of capitalism are in fact that which structures capitalist excess. Put another way, “scarcity” is the phantom-limb of excess, which capital/power/excess is compelled to see as the Other of itself, something which must necessarily be annihilated.

What becomes dangerously problematic here is the failure to recognize “scarcity” as that which resists our immersion in daily reality. More simply stated, we fail to identify ourselves, our excesses, and our greed with the production of “scarcity.” From this perspective, it is not difficult to recognize the extent to which capitalism – as something caught up in this schizoid, annihilative pattern – is inherently crisis-ridden and crisis-dependent. What I find troubling is the potential for a supposed ‘crisis of scarcity’ to be expounded as a scientific absolute, an assertion which effectively disarms the capacity for open discussion and prevents important questions from being asked about destructive patterns of consumption.

Here, I think it is useful and compelling to reference Ivan Illich’s “The Social Construction of Energy,” where he casts the concept of scarcity into the dynamic folds of technologic and discursive history. Illich is interested in the role of words as “verbal symbols,” and focuses largely on the co-dependence and interconnected effects (and affect) of these “verbal symbols” to construct social reality. The significance of historical context in Illich’s argument is essential. The reason for this, Illich contends, is largely because he “discover[ed] in the emergence of this verbal symbol (“energy”) the means by which nature has been interpreted as a domain governed by the assumption of scarcity… Once the universe itself is placed under the regime of scarcity,” Illich continues, “homo is no longer born under the stars but under the axioms of economics” (13). By making a pointed reference to the mid-1800’s “message of spiritual awakening to a cosmos defined by the assumptions of scarcity” (16), I think Illich makes a strong case for recognizing scarcity as inherently economistic and capitalistically constructed. (It is no small coincidence that this “spiritual awakening” coincided with groundbreaking technological advances in the industrial revolution, including the steam engine, the dynamo and and the electric motor, each of which had profound effects on the division of labour and the conceptualization of “energy.”)

For O’Connor, the importance of understanding scarcity as both a political and economic conceptual instrument is advanced in the question: “where does the extra commodity demand that is required to buy the product of surplus labour originate?” Here, O’Connor cleverly and intentionally complicates the notion of “scarcity.” By reversing the base status-quo relationship between supply and demand – where human consumers are defined as “nature’s ever needy clients” (Illich 13) – O’Connor subtly undermines the faulty justifications for capitalistic excess. Simply by asking – where does surplus need come from – O’Connor makes a rhetorical jab at the entire normalized architecture of capitalistic greed and patterns of consumption. Within these patterns of greed and consumption, real needs are supplanted by desire, and the Nature of economics (see Jane Jacobs) as replaced by a libidinally driven economy.

What I have attempted to do in this brief reflection is offer a critical, alternative conceptualization of “scarcity” as the dispossessed product/ion of capitalistic excess. Though there are many important voices and implications missing from this discussion, I think it is important to exercise situating the assumed threat of the ‘crisis of scarcity’ within a larger philosophical and moral framework. In so doing, I aim to open a space in which important interrogations of capitalist consumer excess can be made.

References:

Jacobs, Jane. “The Nature of Economics.” Vintage Canada, 2001.

Illich, Ivan. “The Social Construction of Energy. ” New Geographies (vol 2).

O’Connor, James. “The Second Contradiction of Capitalism.” Natural Causes, New York and London: Guilford Press, 1998.

Zizek, Slavoj. “Welcome to the Desert of the Real.” New York: Verso, 2002.