open Democracy News Analysis - System-crisis to system-change, John Elkington Mark Lee - Comments

craig2012 on "Finance, politics, climate: three crises in one"

craig2012 — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:01:49 +0000

The central premise --that the system has failed-- is flawed. If the global bankers had not cooperated to inject liquidity into the financial system first, and the world's economies second, the authors could have made that statement. But that is not what has happened.

This, however, is not the '29 meltdown, it is just the next leg of the inflation/deflation cycle. The markets are rapidly adjusting and the system is showing reslience, at least for now.

Joel Sena on "Finance, politics, climate: three crises in one"

Joel Sena — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:35:11 +0100

I think that the problem here is that there isn't enough democracy evident in western society. The very thing that has caused mass environmental destruction, exploitation of indigenous and working people and useless wars is the centralisation of political and economic power. The influence of the petrol and mining lobbys are the biggest hurdle for those seeking invesment in green energy solutions. The lack of participatory democracy means that perhaps the real interests of the public are not met, especially in a nation like the United States, which only has two very similar choices, and voluntary voting. If power were localised and participatory, we would have much more ideas, much more expertise and more genuine motives to make the right decisions when managing our societies.

andrew.llanwarne on "Finance, politics, climate: three crises in one"

andrew.llanwarne — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:02:49 +0100

tom from 66 sums up the problem, but the history of civilisation shows how we can constrain human nature to achieve social order. Now we have to constrain it further to limit our consumption. Much of what we now regard as "human nature" is driven by political and economic interests anyway, channelled via the media. Increasing wealth and material possessions (beyond what is necessary to live a comfortable existence) doesn't seem to make us happier anyway. We just work harder to get more and resent the fact that others still have more than us, and we don't have the time to appreciate what we already have.

Blair and Cameron talked quite a bit about a shift towards promoting "happiness" rather than ever-increasing material prosperity, drawing on Richard Layard's work. Brown hasn't echoed this so far, but others have been speaking and writing recently about the opportunity created by this crisis to think hard about what life is all about. There are tools such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare which could displace our over-reliance on GDP as the primary measure of national achievement.

There need to be sufficient people who hold the reins of power to recognise that the current economic system is broken beyond repair, and that the climate crisis means in any case that we need recognise that continuing year-on-year increases in material consumption are no longer possible. And they need to find ways to communicate this with the electorate after decades of promoting the belief that continuing economic growth is the ultimate objective. If it can't be done during the current financial crisis, it will have to wait until the even bigger climatic crisis really starts to hit us hard, and then it will probably be too late.

tomfrom66 on "Finance, politics, climate: three crises in one"

tomfrom66 — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:53:55 +0100

tomfrom66

Steven Rogers hits the proverbial nail on the head: that a "steady state" society will have it's own problems, apart from the enormous line of travel to be taken to get from the current hedonistic 'culture' to one in which growth, and CO2 emissions have ended.

What is required is nothing less than a change in human nature, which could be a tad utopian.

The Bishop of Stafford incurred much wrath when he compared Josef Fritzl's crimes with climate denial.

Ms Ruth Kelly exhibited the problem when she told The Observer:

'What I reject is the notion that we have to choose whether we back aviation expansion or unilateral curbing of aviation in order to be green,' said Kelly. 'We can see aviation emissions growth, but [that will] be offset one-for-one elsewhere in Europe.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/oct/28/transport.immigrationpolicy

Sadly we must begin by admitting that to a greater or lesser degree too many of us would wish what she wished: that someone else would take on the burden of tackling carbon emissions in order that MY party can continue.

Not logged in on "Finance, politics, climate: three crises in one"

Not logged in — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:21:30 +0100

@ Clive George this isn't really relevant but I just wanted to point out that Socrates isn't shrugging his shoulders confident that Athen's could take on all comers and win, the current description of Athenian society was used as a critical starting point for Plato to discuss his version of the ideal society, which wouldn't pursue unlimited material possessions.

douglas-jones on "Finance, politics, climate: three crises in one"

douglas-jones — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:34:57 +0100

Surely the word sustainable implies the operation of some set of conditions which if exceeded will cause the system to change, that is become unsustainable.

We know that any species can by numbers and amount each consumes exceed the capacity of the system to supply what is needed. Species other than humans simply die restoring to some extent a balance and the process can start again. Humans have so made the world their own that death well excepting others is not accepted and every effort is made to expand the ability of the system. So medicine has in many places extended life negating the force operating to control population. So to food ,energy and more such that to date humans have by technological fixes allowed a higher population. It now might seem contrary to economics that a switch to an alternative may not be possible at least in the required time to prevent a greater or lesser degree of collapse. Ability of thew atmosphere to accept our pollution or of the world to provide the water for us and our crops or even the land area needed to sustin us at our current level, even though that varies from opulence of the West to destitution of Africa.

Granted this problem is not dissimilar to democracy, but where those of power could skew the system their way, this may not be possible, though perhaps not for the imposition of some shortage but because society revolts in panic.

So imposition of control must be made somehow some where--similar to who votes and whose vote has value?

Clive George on "Finance, politics, climate: three crises in one"

Clive George — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:11:08 +0100

Steven Rogers makes a good point, but fails to offer his own suggestions for how the reality of human material aspiration might be accommodated. In the view of Plato, ascribed to Socrates in The Republic, “the pursuit of unlimited material possessions” in a world of separate states leads inevitably to war. Socrates shrugged his shoulders and accepted that, confident in the ability of ancient Athens to take on all comers and win. Now that the resources on which we depend are global and the technologies of war are global, how confident is Steven Rogers?

Steven Rogers on "Finance, politics, climate: three crises in one"

Steven Rogers — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:03:18 +0100

It's interesting to note that while the words "sustainable" and "sustainability" appear repeatedly here, there is no attempt to define them. It matters: there are a number of competing definitions in circulation, and they reveal a great deal about the ideological preconceptions of those using them.

One of the core issues in this debate, which the author hints at but does not directly address, is that a sustainable definifion of "sustainability" must acknowledge and accommodate the reality of human material aspiration. Unless, of course, we want to move to an eco-fascist state, in which an environmental priesthood determines what people are allowed to have and want. That might appeal to some on the more extreme fringe of the movement, but it would hardly be sustainable, or even achievable in any world in which democracy survives.

System-crisis to system-change, John Elkington Mark Lee

david hayes — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:05:47 +0100

Many observers describe the turmoil in financial markets in 2007-08 in terms of a "domino effect"; others find metaphors drawn from "chaos theory" more appropriate. The chain-reaction element of the first and the patterned disorder of the second offer some grounds for making sense of these extraordinary and still-unfolding events. They are also useful in suggesting that since what is happening goes far wider than the financial sphere, so must the "imaginative" ways of capturing it.

John Elkington is co-founder of SustainAbility and Volans

Mark Lee is CEO of SustainAbility

Among John Elkington's articles in openDemocracy:

"Brundtland and sustainability: history's balance-sheet" (12 April 2007)

"India's third liberation" (21 August 2007)

"Anita Roddick: outsider rules" (24 September 2007)

"Davos 2008: ends and beginnings" (31 January 2008)

"Can democracy save the planet?" (21 April 2008) - with John LotheringtonIndeed, a crisis that is so important and wide-ranging - even systemic - is every citizen's concern, and efforts to think through (far less to solve) it cannot be left to the bankers, traders and politicians who did so much to create it. If this is so, a good way to imagine the current near-collapse must also relate the financial hurricane of 2007-08 to other, concurrent troubles: in democracy and sustainability, for example. This brief article considers this theme by employing another metaphor: the "suit of cards".

The metaphor started life in a set of scenarios for the future of the planet in SustainAbility's report Raising Our Game (2007). The first three depict outcomes in which society and the environment either win or lose:

▪ diamonds, which we describe as "a domino-effect world, in which, instead of Adam Smith's invisible hand, our invisible elbows knock over a series of economic, social and environmental dominoes"

▪ clubs, where we foresee "a world [where] elites learn how to use environmental sustainability as an excuse for denying the poor access to their fair share of natural resources"

▪ spades, where "(democratic) societies open out higher living standards to growing populations" but where "ecosystems are progressively undermined, with most governments unwilling to take the political risks of asking voters to make sacrifices in favour of the common good"

▪ hearts, a world in which "demography, politics, economics and sustainability gel. It is the future that the Brundtland commission pointed us towards way back in 1987".

The systemic signs

This framework leads us to ask questions of democracy itself:

▪ can it drive the transition towards more sustainable patterns of production and consumption?

▪ are growing democracy vs sustainability tensions in prospect?

▪ can the peoples of the world (soon to be 9-10 billion) vote their way to a sustainable future?

▪ are the time-scales of democratically elected governments appropriate for delivering sustainable development?

The political world is full of evidence that can be used to argue both for and against the notion that democracy is necessary (or better than other systems) for sustainable development. The lengthy and lively United States presidential competition, for example, has offered the unprecedented and hopeful spectacle of the three main candidates for the presidency (Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama) left in the race engaging an unusually high proportion of citizens in debate on some of the great issues of the day - and in acknowledging the vital importance of global climate change.

At the same time, much of the overall campaign has been conducted via point-scoring, attack ads, media and campaign concentration on stray remarks and surface details - reflecting how modern democratic conduct can sideline environmental issues at the very moment when they should be central to the debate (see David Shearman, "Democracy and climate change: a story of failure", 7 November 2007).

In such contradictions, democracy - as it currently works - and the financial turmoil of 2007-08 share more in common than it might first appear; in particular, the underlying problem of what might be called connecting system-crisis to system-change.

The credit-crunch and the broader financial seizure the world is living through have parallels with the constriction of democracy. There were almost too many early-warning signs to count - from past experience of asset-bubbles and the sudden collapse of once-venerable institutions to the sheer opacity of new instruments of "casino capitalism" and the vast sums of debt they involve.

The record of democracy's surface messiness and superficiality, and of the financial world's poor credit-ratings and oversight reveals the difficulty society has at addressing large-scale, serious, systemic problems that operate often in an imperceptible and gradual way (see John Elkington & John Lotherington, "Can democracy save the planet?", 21 April 2008). This is equally relevant to what might be happening in relation to climate change and to the cascade of environmental, economic and social impacts likely to follow in its wake.

It could be that climate change will present the ultimate test in this respect. Will the response to this emergency replicate the pattern of delayed and incoherent response to political and economic difficulties?

There have been many early-warnings: the international scientific community is almost unanimous in its assessment of the risks of accumulated greenhouse-gas emissions in the atmosphere and humankind's role in putting them there. The conclusion - that it is vital to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius increase in global mean temperatures, for the developed world to move towards a zero-carbon economy, and to make big cuts in CO₂e emissions beginning no later than 2015 - is settled and inexorable. The signs of movement towards these goals are, at best, mixed; in the sustainability arena as much as in the political and financial, awareness of system-crisis does not translate easily into a momentum for system-change.

Three in one

The fourth scenario in SustainAbility's Raising Our Game report - one where politics, economics and sustainability and demography come together in the most viable and equitable way possible - seems in its system-wide elements the only coherent foundation for moving towards this urgently needed breakthrough.

The process, as we envisage it, will be rough and difficult, especially in its early stages. It will need the rich world to develop a much greater sense of accountability and urgency than it has displayed to date - and that includes finding greener ways to help emerging markets increase the health and economic security offered their citizens, or leave them to trade short-term development needs against long-term planetary health.

The dilemmas of environmental sustainability, as of political democracy, will remain whatever solutions are reached to the current financial breakdown. The world's leaders even at this stage do not yet see the economic troubles as so deep a crisis as to force them to reach for a new framework, to do the completely unexpected. The way forward is to seek creative and intelligent ways to ameliorate current problems; see this crisis in relation to concurrent democratic and climate-change ones; invest in the future as if every global citizen depended on it; and formulate a strategy to reshape economic life in the direction of political and environmental sustainability.

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