First World Problems

For the next time you're stuck with a First World Problem. H/T Matheson.

Defending our Christian heritage in parliament

A conservative MP stands up in NZ Parliament to defend the Judaeo-Christian tradition as the basis of western society, politics and culture. It's not often you hear a parliamentarian retell the gospel narrative in order to ground an ethic of universal love which is then applied to social policy and sharing, economics and ecology. It's a stirring speech outlining the priority of justice over growth and the unconditionality of compassion.

Who is this conservative defender of the faith? Atheist and Green Party co-leader Russel Norman.
H/t Viv Benjamin.

Rupert's pollution: What does UK phone hacking have to do with Australia's carbon debate?

Two apparently very different stories have been dominating the news in the land of my birth and where I currently live.

In the UK, the News of the World phone hacking saga continues to snowball, with more revelations promised. There are now over 4,000 targets identified (including royalty, celebrities, politicians (even Prime Minister Brown), police, as well as bereaved relatives of soldiers, homocides and terrorism victim), but the story has grown much larger as it becomes clear that the real issue is the cover up. The phone hacking itself was illegal and shockingly callous, representing an abuse of society's willingness to grant journalistic freedom in the pursuit of truth (compare the Wikileaks saga, where the revelations are of much greater social significance and the methods used by the media apparently legal). But knowing that the practice was indefensible, it is becoming clear that News of the World apparently went to great lengths to prevent the full extent of the abuse from becoming public: making payments to police, seeking to pay for silence from early victims in a way that would remove evidence from police investigations, obstructing those investigations by foot dragging, destroying evidence, making misleading statements under oath and contributing substantially to a culture of fearful self-protection amongst politicians who might speak out about the problem. It is not yet clear how far up the chain of authority blame lies, but it seems fair to say that if some of the people currently denying knowledge of what was going on are speaking the truth, then they have become immensely successful while simultaneously being willfully neglectful and culpably negligent. The relative portions of blame to be assigned to journalists, editors, owners, police, politicians and the reading public are still unclear, but the problems are systemic.

It is, however, hard to deny that a hefty portion of the culture in which such abuses can occur can be traced to a situation in which a single man owns such a large chunk of the media that he can threaten political careers and so create the complicit silence in which police corruption can flourish and his underlings feel untouchable. Numerous politicians, including Cameron himself, have been emboldened by the events of the last week to admit their fear of Murdoch had lead them to silence or a soft tread.

So my hunch is that such systemic wickedness arises not so much due to the press being under-regulated, as from its being too concentrated. The crimes and wrongdoings that occurred at News of the World (and likely at other major papers) occurred not simply through lack of oversight, but because editors felt that they were in certain senses above the law, that public figures who openly questioned their modus operandi could be crushed in the court of public opinion through the very media they would be trying to shine a light upon.

Removing that dangerous sense of invincibility includes diluting the power of any one individual through diversifying media ownership. And this, of course, is where the BSkyB deal is intimately related to the whole scandal. Not only ought it be thrown out in light of the revelations of widespread illegality and contempt of the rule of law operating within News Corp, but the appropriate response ought to include the break-up of Murdoch's existing empire into smaller pieces to prevent the kinds of concentration of power that help to generate such pervasive corruption.
And to make Murdoch and News Corp pay their taxes. They are amongst the worst offenders for tax dodging. Murdoch has personally dodged hundreds of millions of pounds of taxes, possibly billions. Of course, this doesn't stop his papers offering lectures on the need for austerity measures to balance the budget.

What does this have to do with the carbon debate in Australia? While phone hacking is getting some coverage, the antipodean front pages are filled with claim and counterclaim about atmospheric chemistry and tax reform. The link is Rupert.

Murdoch's media empire spans four continents and is, by some margin, the largest news media conglomerate in the world. And from Fox News to the Australian, from The Wall Street Journal to The Daily Telegraph (the Sydney tabloid, not the UK broadsheet), Murdoch publishes a huge share of the denial, false balance and misinformation about climate change to be found in the mainstream media (as documented here, here, here and many other places). This is not to say that he only publishes denial, but many of his organisations are the worst offenders at giving equal weight to the claims of highly reputable scientific institutions and ideological think-tanks with significant funding from major fossil fuel companies. It is clear that this is often deliberate policy in order to sow confusion and thus delay and dilute effective collective action.
Murdoch is not, of course, the only wealthy individual deliberately throwing (bull)dust into the air.

This is part of the insidious effect of hyper-capitalism upon democracy. Rather than generating competition and diversity, the concentration of extreme financial wealth in the hands of the few that defines hyper-capitalism risks enabling the further conformity of politics to the interests of the ultra-wealthy. Media plurality is a necessary condition of a free society. So is the avoidance of extreme inequality.

And a postscript: stories like this give me hope. A young TV reporter with a dream career ahead of him makes an important realisation.
H/T Rod Benson.

Are Australians rich?

On average, yes, almost twice as wealthy as a decade ago. It would be interesting to see these stats broken down into bands in order to make inequality visible.

Inequality and the promise of growth

Economic growth promotes social stability by keeping the lid on revolution through the promise of wealth: one day, if only you keep working hard, you too can be rich.

Growth as the price of stability has enabled the pressing question of justice and equity to be deferred, since even if the rich are getting obscenely rich, at least all have the promise of betterment in a rising economy. But take away the expectation of growth, and the disparities of wealth become more pressingly obvious.

The same effect is realised when growth is confined to the rich. When Hosni Mubarak become Egyptian president in 1981, about twenty percent of the population lived on less than US$2 per day. After three decades during which Egypt experienced annual economic growth rates of seven per cent or more, at the time of the revolution, about forty percent lived on less than US$2 per day. There had been extraordinary growth, but the benefits went to the elite without "trickling down".

During those same three decades, the income of the bottom 90% of US workers has remained flat while that of the top 10% has skyrocketed. At the same time, the rich have successfully shifted the tax burden onto the rest. Again, the benefits of growth have not been a larger pie to be shared amongst all, but have increasingly lined the pockets of the most powerful, multiplying their power.

But not everywhere has the same story. China's boom has seen hundreds of millions move out of absolute poverty. Indeed, never before have so many escaped the burdens of grinding need in such a short space of time. Nonetheless, it has again been the richest who have benefitted the most and inequality in China is higher than anytime since the revolution. And political stability may well require this growth to continue.

If the prospect of growth becomes dim (as I think it is over the next few decades), then the question of justice must come to the fore. Whether this occurs through violent and unpredictable revolution or through reform is largely the choice of each society. Few seem to be choosing the latter, however. Indeed, globally, the rich are getting richer and only seem more intent than ever to remain in control of the reins of power. That is the path of violence, not that I am advocating or condoning it.

Of course, the absolutely poor deserve the right to develop their basic economy to a level required for the possibility of living a humane life. This is nowhere near present levels of western consumption, and nations that are well above this level have a moral duty to pursue justice through planned de-growth, or rather, pursuing things that are better than growth. It is quite possible to live a more human life while (indeed often through) embracing less. A simpler lifestyle is a gift to oneself as well as one's global neighbour.

Finally, it bears repetition: the pursuit of endless growth is increasingly terrible for ecology, which after all, owns the global economy. Growth as we currently know it likely cannot continue for more than a few more decades (at best) without so severely undermining the ecological health of the planet that the economic costs of ecological degradation overwhelm any further growth. If we want to live in a stable society, let us throw off the love of money, that poisonous stimulant slowly killing us all.

Democracy and plutocracy

"Plutocracy and democracy don't mix. Plutocracy too long tolerated leaves democracy on the auction block, subject to the highest bidder. Socrates said to understand a thing, you must first name it. The name for what's happening to our political system is corruption - a deep, systemic corruption."

- Bill Moyers, "Shades of Howard Zinn: It's Okay If It's Impossible".

This lecture, delivered late last year at Boston University by journalist Bill Moyers, is worth reading in full if you are interested in how hypercapitalism is corrupting democracy. If you haven't watched the video I posted a few days ago, go and do that first, then read the lecture. Here's another taste:

"I must invoke some statistics here, knowing that statistics can glaze the eyes; but if indeed it's the mark of a truly educated person to be deeply moved by statistics, as I once read, surely this truly educated audience will be moved by the recent analysis of tax data by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. They found that from 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to everyone but the rich increased from 64 percent to 65 percent. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, the average income for 9 out of 10 Americans was growing, too - from $17,719 to $30,941. That's a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

"But then it stopped. Since 1980 the economy has also continued to grow handsomely, but only a fraction at the top have benefited. The line flattens for the bottom 90% of Americans. Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years. That's wage repression."

I am increasingly convinced that ecological problems cannot be separated from economic, political and spiritual ones. Unless we face the reality of the hyper-rich largely running a political system that oversees an economic model designed to extract maximum profits at whatever price in which the majority willingly participate through hope of sharing in a life of more stuff, then no amount of technological fixes will paper over the cracks we are causing in creation.

And so the corrupting influence of corporate money (both directly through campaign contributions and indirectly through the perceived necessity of bowing down to "the economy") on mainstream western media and (generally) both sides of politics in various countries means that our ecological woes are largely suppressed (unless they can be quantified in reduced profits).

I do apologise for posting repeatedly on the USA. It is not that there are no local expressions of the same phenomena in nations where I live or hold citizenship (nor significant differences), simply that the USA is a picture of the global predicament.
Image by CAC.

Equality or liberty?

One of the classes in undergraduate philosophy I took many years ago was on distributive justice, the question of what a just distribution of social goods looks like and how to pursue it. One of the key questions in the course concerned the relative roles of notions of equality and freedom.

At one end of the scale is strict egalitarianism, in which all resources are to be redistributed so that all have the same amount of everything. But this immediately runs into trouble the moment anyone tries to use of these resources. Imagine that a nation tries this approach, and tallies up all the goods held by its members and decides to spread them evenly amongst its citizens. If, during this redistribution, I lose most of my books (since I assume I probably have many more than average) and gain a few shoes (since I don't seem to have nearly as many of these as some people), then it seem that I've actually moved to a less desirable state. I've lost something I value highly and gained something I care little about (beyond having one decent pair). And if, as a result, I decide to swap some of my excess shoes with a neighbour to regain a few books, then we have introduced inequality into the system.

At the other end of the scale was strict libertarianism, in which the exploitation and exchange of resources is determined only by the market. Everything is for sale to the highest bidder as long as any contracts for sale are entered into freely, then the results can fall where they may. Those with the ability to gain more for themselves can do so unimpeded by any obligation to those who can't or won't (unless they voluntarily choose to give out of charity).

Egalitarianism identifies justice with a particular outcome (equality in the distribution of the relevant social goods), libertarianism with a particular procedure (agreements to which both parties consent). Of course, most people fall somewhere in the middle in an attempt to gain elements of both.

What I remember about the course was a very simplified illustration where we were asked to choose between various possible political and economic arrangements which were assumed to give various distributions of wealth and other social goods. The numbers represent some arbitrary unit of material wealth. Which of these systems would you prefer if you knew the outcome was going to be the following for one fifth of the population?

A. 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5
B. 9 - 7 - 5 - 4 - 4
C. 20 - 10 - 5 - 3 - 2

Notice that option A is strictly egalitarian; all segments of society share its wealth equally. Options B and C are mild and more extreme versions of inequality, though with larger total wealth. In trying to evaluate these admittedly fairly abstract examples, one of the things that came up in the class was the moral relevance of knowing where the poverty line was. If on "5" you could still feed, clothe and house a family with decent medical care and the opportunity to perform meaningful tasks in a community, but on "4" you couldn't, then the first option is looking pretty good. If you could do it on "4" but no lower, then the middle option might be preferred. However, if it only takes "2" to do so, then the last option might also be morally permissible and have the advantage of being a bigger pie overall, if that is something that is important for some reason.

There are many shortcomings to this simple exercise, two of which are the respective ecological costs of the various options (is the third pie the largest because it is degrading the ecological health of the planet faster than the other two?) and the social cost of inequality (would the middle group in option C actually be less happy than those with "5" in option B or A because they would be comparing themselves unfavourably to those with "20"?). Nonetheless, it focuses our attention on a question of justice. Is there something wrong with some having much while others have little or is it only when some are in absolute need of some basic good that there is a problem? That is, grinding poverty may be agreed to be a social evil, but is inequality per se?

An interesting recent US survey into perceptions of equality was conducted by professors at Harvard and Duke. The image below summarising their results is striking in demonstrating not only that a random sample of 5,000 respondents would prefer a more egalitarian society than they currently perceive to be the case, but also that their perception significantly underestimates just how deep the divide between rich and poor in their own nation actually is.

Indeed, inequality in America requires more than a single graph to grasp. Here are a whole string of them. How similar or different are other countries? I don't have comparable statistics to hand, though my impression is that the current phase of capitalism over the last few decades is increasing inequality around the world.

Why is this a problem? The social effects of inequality are explored in this book, but the larger problem is that our current economic model is thoroughly unsustainable and the present levels of inequality will only lead to more pain down the road once the promise of forever growing material wealth for all fades from view. More on that anon.

What is an ecosystem worth? Is capitalism King Midas?

After mentioning the "successful" negotiations at Nagoya a couple of days ago, it is worth reading this piece by George Monbiot to keep things in perspective.

"It suits governments to let us trash the planet. It's not just that big business gains more than it loses from converting natural wealth into money. A continued expansion into the biosphere permits states to avoid addressing issues of distribution and social justice: the promise of perpetual growth dulls our anger about widening inequality. By trampling over nature we avoid treading on the toes of the powerful.
[...]
"As soon as something is measurable it becomes negotiable. Subject the natural world to cost-benefit analysis and accountants and statisticians will decide which parts of it we can do without. All that now needs to be done to demonstrate that an ecosystem can be junked is to show that the money to be made from trashing it exceeds the money to be made from preserving it. That, in the weird world of environmental economics, isn't hard: ask the right statistician and he'll give you any number you want.

"This approach reduces the biosphere to a subsidiary of the economy. In reality it's the other way round. The economy, like all other human affairs, hangs from the world's living systems. You can see this diminution in the language TEEB reports use: they talk of 'natural capital stock', of 'underperforming natural assets' and 'ecosystem services'. Nature is turned into a business plan, and we are reduced to its customers. The market now owns the world."

- George Monbiot, "We've been conned. The deal to save the natural world never happened".

At stake in this discussion is a very important question that divides responses to ecological crises: can the logic of capitalism be a force for ecological good? Or does expanding the logic of the market into every sphere of life ultimately end up destroying everything? Is capitalism King Midas?

Living in apocalyptic times: interview with Robert Jensen

Not Robert Jenson the theologian, but Robert Jensen the professor of Journalism, who is also a Christian. This whole interview is worth reading, but here are some highlights:

"Take a look at any measure of the fundamental health of the planetary ecosystem on which we are dependent: topsoil loss, chemical contamination of soil and water, species extinction and reduction in biodiversity, the state of the world’s oceans, unmanageable toxic waste problems, and climate change. Take a look at the data, and the news is bad on every front.

"And all of this is in the context of the dramatic decline coming in the highly concentrated energy available from oil and natural gas, and the increased climate disruption that will come if we keep burning the still-abundant coal reserves. There are no replacement fuels on the horizon that will allow a smooth transition. These ecological realities will play out in a world structured by a system of nation-states rooted in the grotesque inequality resulting from imperialism and capitalism, all of which is eroding what is left of our collective humanity. “Collapsing” seems like a reasonable description of the world.

"That doesn’t mean there’s a cataclysmic end point coming soon, but this is an apocalyptic moment. The word “apocalypse” does not mean “end.” It comes from a Greek word that means “uncovering” or “lifting the veil.” This is an apocalyptic moment because we need to lift the veil and have the courage to look at the world honestly. [...]

"Maybe it’s natural for people to want to believe that they have hit on the solution to a problem, but I believe that the problems are complex beyond our understanding, and it’s not only unlikely that there’s a single solution but there may be no solutions at all—if by “solution” we mean a way to continue human existence on the planet at its current level. We need experiments on every front that help us imagine new ways of being. [...]

"To borrow a phrase from a friend, I wake up every morning in a state of profound grief. We humans have been given a privileged place in a world that is beautiful beyond description, and we are destroying it and destroying each other. I cope with that by building temporary psychological damns and dikes to hold back that grief. But the emotion comes so powerfully from so many different directions that life feels like a process of constantly patching and moving and rebuilding those damns and dikes. Some of this is intensely personal, but for me the political work is a crucial part of that coping process. If I weren’t politically active, I would lose my mind. The only way I know how to cope is to use some of my energy in collective efforts to try to build something positive.

"At this point, there is no rational approach to the ecological crises that doesn’t start with this recognition: We are going to live in a low-energy world that is powered primarily by contemporary sunlight, not the ancient energy of fossil fuels. As a society we are not prepared, in terms of either physical infrastructure or cultural awareness, to deal with that. Anything that further delays coming to terms with this reality is a threat to life on the planet, not a solution. [...]

"Capitalism is the most wildly productive economic system in history, but the one thing it cannot produce is meaning. Even more troubling is the way, through its promotion of narcissism and mindless consumption, that capitalism undermines the larger culture’s ability to create real meaning. Virtually all of what is good in society—solidarity, compassion, creativity, ethics, joy—comes from outside capitalism, giving the illusion that capitalism is a civilized system. It’s a cliché, but important enough that we sing it over and over: Money can’t buy you love. Capitalism cannot create a healthy human community, and it undermines the aspect of human nature rooted in solidarity and love.

"The other obvious failure of capitalism is its contribution to the erosion of the health of the ecosystem. Humans have been drawing down the ecological capital of the planet since the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, but that process has intensified dramatically in the capitalist/imperialist/industrial era. Our culture is filled with talk about the success of capitalism even though that system degrades our relationships and threatens our existence. That’s an odd definition of success."

- Robert Jensen, interview with Alex Doherty at the Oil Drum.

I know I've been posting some seriously dark material recently. I make no apologies for that. Unless we remove our heads from the sand and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed now, we will be overwhelmed soon enough when faced with critical decisions on short timeframes. An initial feeling of shock can be healthy, as are certain kinds of fear and anger, and the godly sorrow that leads to repentance.

Followers of Jesus Christ are to keep our eyes fixed on two things: our neighbour in peril and the crucified and risen Lord. Looking at one without the other means we simply are not paying attention. And looking at one will lead us to the other.