Utopia Governance & the Commons by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

Chapter 10, on place, has already spoken about how the dominance of the car has blighted towns and cities. Roads are not spaces to which we easily relate. The bigger and faster the road, the worse it gets. Ridding society of the tyranny of the private car would certainly change the feel of our cities, towns and countryside. I realise, as we’ve touched on earlier, this would be anathema for some folk. The car is where competing notions of pleasure really come to a head. Perhaps somehow, with some re-thinking, we could look to accommodate our vehicles without spoiling our public spaces.

 

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Pleasure and Compassion

From this chapter and the last, I hope it is clear that there is a very strong link between pleasure and compassion. Compassion is as much about sharing pleasure as it is about caring for those in need. Privatopia pushes us towards individualistic pleasure. More genuine pleasures though, tend to be shared experiences. Pleasure is a social construct. How different our relationships would be if the emphasis were on pleasure — if we could seek to be ‘empleasured’ rather than empowered. Compassion is the great leveller in society. When illness or bad times afflict those around us then power relations are dropped in favour of caring. Humour too is a sharing that I would include in compassion. We are all equal when we are laughing.

In the wider, and more formal, relations of compassion, there is pleasure (perhaps even the deepest of pleasures) in seeing other people happy. What, after all, are freedom, justice and equality, except means by which we try to bestow happiness on others? So part of the new story is to go where the love is in your life — to step towards your passion and your enthusiasm. Aristotle saw pleasure and goodness to be intimately linked. ‘The highest good is happiness’, he said,’ and that consists of the actualisation and perfect practice of goodness.’ So here is another way to look at that issue of grading pleasures that we touched on earlier. If happiness is pleasure and purpose extended over time, our beliefs, our compassion for others and care for the world are providing us with the ‘purpose’ side of the equation. A wider view of

 

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pleasure takes in what might be for our long-term good and to include what our culture would regard as worthwhile moral purposes. Thus, culture provides a ‘grading’ of pleasure beyond the individual. Higher purpose — beyond individual purpose — provides a measure, derived from compassion — that utilitarian views of pleasure and our economics don’t readily acknowledge. Giving some or all of our lives over to higher purposes may mean we enjoy less individual pleasure and happiness than we might otherwise, but nonetheless feel our lives are more worthwhile. Purpose is a social and cultural thing, beyond individual pleasure. What was said earlier about the pleasure of connection between people is closely related to this thought.

 

Pleasure and Work

A total commitment to what we are doing is the basis for pleasure — more focused, not less. Alexander Lowen explains:

‘The search for fun in adults undermines their capacity for pleasure. Pleasure demands a serious attitude towards life, a commitment to one’s existence and work… If a person has pleasure in his daily life, he will have no desire to escape.’

Alexander Lowen — Pleasure

So we can recognise pleasure as including such things as having a vocation rather than a career, seeking knowledge for its own sake, and serving others in business and in our communities, rather than trying to profit by them. All of this

 

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is just a matter of changing our descriptions of the way our lives and cultures are organised — changing our stories about the meaning of work.

James Hillman explores the deadening effects on a family from the current style of work and family life:

‘Father’s oscillations between rage and apathy, like his children’s allergies and behaviour disorders and his wife’s depression and bitter resentments,, of rm part of a pattern that we all share – not the “family system”, but the system of rip-off economics that prioritises their communal senselessness by substituting “more” for “beyond”.

‘And so his absences – physical, mental, spiritual – call him away from the cage of American delusions and crush the angel’s wings. Without inspiration, what’s left is bare, aimless ferocity. Without desire for an ideal, what’s left is lustful fantasy and the seduction of free-floating images that find no anchor in actual projects. Present in body and absent in spirit, he lies on the couch shamed by his own daimon for the potentials in his soul that will not be subdued.’

James Hillman — The Soul’s Code

‘The worker must be an artist, and the artist a worker’, said R. Page Arnot, but work, it has to be said, is not such a vocation for everyone. It can seem like a slap in the face to tell people they must have a vocation and not just a job, or that everyone is an artist, in their own way. Can we reclaim work from the drudgery that it is for so many people? Or, returning to the problem of grading pleasures discussed above, perhaps we should just acknowledge that some

 

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people may be happier with a straight-forward job and will seek their pleasures in their spare time. Talk of having a vocation then can be a bit elitist.

The dream of a future that involves total leisure has been there for many years. Mechanisation never quite delivered. There always seemed to be new things — new wants and needs — that meant that as jobs were lost through mechanisation, more were created to take their place. But now, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots developing at exponential speed, it really looks like the future of ‘leisure’ could be a reality. A future that is increasingly computerised might make it more likely that a lot of menial jobs will be replaced by AI and robots. This could be a severe problem, if people are not trained and ready to take up alternative models of employment. But if we are ready, then those new jobs are likely to be a lot more creative and interesting. They have to be, as they will be about all the things that AI cannot do. The drive towards increasing computerisation is not something that people are really choosing. AI and robots are, after all, products of Privatopia and Cornucopia. With a system of Parapolity and Parecon in place, we might make different choices — pushing towards more employment rather than less. The idea that we will ever be completely free of work may be just a fantasy. But we might choose to go with the technology and accept where it leads — including the reduction of drudgery — but with other impacts into the bargain. Also it is helpful to think of pleasure being transformed into passion. If we have passion for the things we do then it starts to become irrelevant whether

 

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we call this work, labour or leisure.

Matthew Fox (Original Blessing) tells us:

‘If we savored more, we would buy less. We would be less compulsive, less unsatisfied. We would also work less and play more, and thus open up work opportunities to the many unemployed and underemployed in our culture. If we savored more we would communicate more deeply, relate more fully, compete less regularly and celebrate more authentically.’

What might we do with our leisure, if we choose to go there? That leads right back into the questions of abundance and pleasure we discussed above, except not for the lucky few in richer nations, but for everyone.

If Universal Basic Income is introduced, this is a further factor that will allow for fewer to need to work or to be able to work just part-time. Many of us will find ‘work’ of a different kind in our lives — even if that work is not strictly necessary for gaining us a wage or something that is essential to society, that is, not ‘labour’. I am thinking here of the work that people put into gaining a new skill, music, writing, art, cooking and much more. There is an overlap between what is ‘necessary’ work and what is voluntary, in other words. This is illustrated in Chapter 4, where ‘labour’ belongs to the material economy, whilst ‘work’ belongs to the cultural economy. With a vocation, the boundaries between the two become even more blurred, until we may not even choose to go on using the terms work and labour.

As mentioned in Chapter 8, the industrial world

 

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— and now the robotic and computerised world — has separated us from our making — from the power-to; from the freedom-to; the freedom-to-make; the freedom to re-make. The way we approach work in the future may be to gain the freedom to build our own stories and to find pleasure in work through the joys of making.

 

Pleasure and Business

Bringing pleasure to the worker though is only half the story. The other side of this is about bringing joy to others through what our businesses make and the services they deliver. In the last chapter we looked at how important it is for businesses to think differently about their relationship to local communities. A business, and by implication, its workers as well as its owners, would be about bringing joy into people’s lives. And as we discussed earlier in this chapter, society’s relationship with things is a problem. Consumerism is not so much an issue about owning stuff as about the type of stuff we choose to own (or are forced into buying). There is a wonderful Youtube clip (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1-45FQM7Y) about a piano tuner who has an ambition to create a piano that is cheap enough for anyone to afford. He finds himself in a café one day, where there is only one other customer. He sits with the other customer and tells him about his ambition. The other customer happens to be an expert in business. He suggests that the cheap piano may be a bad idea. Other companies, he suggests, may then make their own cheap pianos, and there will be a race to the bottom, in creating cheaper and lower quality instruments. (A good explanation of how

 

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commerce works today.) The businessman suggests instead that the piano tuner creates the best piano in the world. That is the path the piano tuner took. His venture has been successful, and now we have creations of great beauty and value that might not have existed without the work, commitment and vision of this one man with an idea.

 

Carnival

Consumer capitalism, and what I’ve described as Privatopia, are always trying to bring things into a system, to control things and to monetise them. The system promises us individuality but actually wants to turn us into labouring and consuming drones. Could we instead see the world as always at the point of tipping over into silliness? Let’s let the fake culture go and just laugh at the craziness of it all! Pleasure is utopia’s backlash against society’s ideologies and its stifling institutions of government and its endless cost-benefit analysis that gives the impression of control. Pleasure embraces the chaos — celebrates the chaos.

Theodore Zeldin (Happiness) reminds us: ‘Without laughter, the precious pearl within many souls would not be revealed, the potential of Paradise would never be realised. The strongest bonds between humans are shared fantasies.’ Carnival seems to be an essential ingredient of human culture. It provides the laughter and shared fantasies of which Zeldin speaks. There is something about carnival that gives an outlet and a balance for the human soul — it helps us to remember that link between wild body, wild mind and wild soul that

 

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I have been referring to throughout this book.

Sometimes carnival is a reversal of social norms, with those in authority mocked and ridiculed and the usual moral restraints suspended or reversed. This might have been the mayor, the judges or the clergy in by-gone days. We have specifically modern restraints on us in society today leading to modern ways to reverse social norms. Perhaps our oppression comes from technology. Many festivals and carnivals seem to look to nature and to simpler lifestyles now for their inspiration. This is just an impression, but I’m hoping that it’s true.

Carnival is also about celebrating what might be called ‘otherness’. The world as we experience it is ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Within ourselves, some of us might recognise a sense of being like everyone else but also strangely different. It might feel a bit embarrassing, but carnival somehow manages to recognise and to celebrate that ‘radical otherness’ that we all share. It’s okay to be weird — everyone else is weird too! The same goes for sensuality and sexuality — over which we are so often of divided mind and divided behaviour. Carnival releases these ambiguities and allows us to be more comfortable with ourselves.

I could go on to list the many famous carnivals around the world. But instead, I want to suggest bringing carnival home. Why not add a bit of carnival to our own personal lives, first of all. And then, if we can, add carnival to our street and our neighbourhood, town or city.

 

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Pleasure and Soul

We may feel embarrassed to put too much emphasis on superficial pleasure. We may feel equally embarrassed to consider pleasure as somehow spiritual. But I’d suggest pleasure is a kind of surrender — a kind of letting go — to the underlying silliness of the world. And letting go is a spiritual act of sorts. Modern science suggests that the body is all there is. Mind and consciousness are relegated to rather inferior positions and soul is laughed off as a rather quaint superstition. Meanwhile, people with a leaning toward spirituality might suggest that the body does not ‘contain’ the mind or the soul — the soul contains the body, so the spiritual is the wider context in which everything else resides. In terms of pleasure then, the key to pleasure is a happy soul. I’m not saying that caring for mind and body are not also worthwhile, but I hope that setting that within a wider, more spiritual context might help. We could draw even larger circles of human ‘economies’, which represent soul and the grace and beauty that come to us from the wider universe.

Paul Bloom (How Pleasure Works) makes an argument for pleasure derived from the essence of things, places and people. He holds back from suggesting that the ‘essence’ of a person is equivalent to soul (that would be academic suicide) yet I cannot help but feel these ideas align. Letting go, for the soul, is to surrender to the pleasure that is always brimming out there in the world. It is to let go of pretensions and false dignity and accept ourselves — strange and fallible, but nonetheless gloriously human.

 

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It is to relax in our own skins, to relax in nature and just spend time being, rather than burning out with all our frantic doing. The pleasure of the soul is about the celebration of being over doing.

 

Beauty, Slowness, Silence and

Peace

If I were to think about what pleasure means for me, then these four things would be high on the list — beauty, slowness, silence and peace. Beauty is found in nature, first and foremost, but also in the things we make — buildings, clothing, tools, and all the simple things that we use every day. The best enjoyments are the slow and settled things in life, slow food, slow drinks, long conversations late into the night. It need not mean, necessarily, that everything is literally slow. It might be better to describe this as everything having its own appropriate pace, and for humans to have the wisdom to find that pace. But yes, at the moment that often means slowing down. As the old proverb says, the human soul moves at the speed of a slowly walking camel. Take, for example, this quote from the Slow Food Manifesto:

‘[The 20th] century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilisation, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model. We are enslaved by speed and have succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat fast foods. To be worthy of the name, Homo sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a creature in

 

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danger of extinction.’ Elsewhere, the Slow Food Movement says: ‘a firm defence of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.’ It proposes instead, ‘many suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment.’

Silence can be the absolute silence of a night spent in the mountains or a desert, but it can also be the gentle rhythms of everyday life; the town square; the café; the beach front. Silence therefore should not be taken too literally. It is helpful to contrast ‘noise’ — that is, unwanted intrusion — with ‘sound’, which can be the welcome sounds of nature, music and conversation.

Peace is to be at peace within one’s own mind and to have peace in all our dealings with the world; family; friends; work; neighbourhood; government; nation; and between nations.

Put beauty, slowness, silence and peace together, and we often come to a modern concept of simplicity. As we’ve noted earlier, simplicity means more than just the absence of material things. The word has been adopted recently to mean a whole set of principles. Duane Elgin tells us more about the modern concept of simplicity. He is worth quoting here in full:

‘Simplicity keeps our eyes on the price of what matters most in our lives — the quality of our relationships with family, friends, community, nature and cosmos. Simplicity yields lasting satisfactions that more than compensate for the fleeting pleasures of consumerism.

 

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Simplicity leans towards a more relaxed relationship with life. Simplicity celebrates the beauty and intelligence of nature’s designs. Simplicity reveres the wisdom of silence that “speaks with unceasing eloquence”. Simplicity removes needless clutter and complexity and celebrates the beauty in life. Simplicity fosters the sanity of self-discovery and freedom from secondary distractions.

‘Simplicity is not sacrifice. Sacrifice is a consumer lifestyle that is overstressed, overbusy, and overworked. Sacrifice is investing long hours in work that is neither meaningful nor satisfying. Sacrifice is being away from family and community to earn a living. Sacrifice is the stress of commuting long-distances and sitting in traffic. Sacrifice is the loss of quiet and the subtle sounds of nature. Sacrifice is nature hidden behind a stream of billboard advertisements. Sacrifice is the smell of the city stronger than the smell of the Earth. Sacrifice is no longer seeing the heavens in the night sky because if light pollution. Sacrifice is carrying more than 200 toxic chemicals in our bodies, with consequences that will cascade for generations ahead. Sacrifice is a dramatically diminished and impoverished range of life, both “plants and animals”. Sacrifice is the loss of a relatively calm climate and the growth of extremes in droughts, heat waves and storms. Sacrifice is the loss of opportunity for soulful encounter with others. Sacrifice is feeling divided among the different parts of our lives and unsure how they work together in a coherent whole. ‘Consumer lifestyles offer lives of sacrifice where simplicity offers lives of opportunity. Simplicity creates the opportunity for more time with family and friends, cultivating ones “true gifts”, and contributing to the community. Simplicity also creates the opportunity for greater fulfilment in work, compassion for

 

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others, feelings of kinship with all life, and awe of living in a living universe. I find it ironic that a life-way of simplicity can take us into an opportunity-filled future and yet is often portrayed in the mass media as primitive or regressive and pulling back from opportunity.’

Duane Elgin — Simplicity — A Cool Lifestyle for a Hot Planet. An essay in Gaian Economics — Living Well within Planetary Limits

So, those are my ‘different pleasures’. To me, their opposites would be — ugliness (accepting the destruction of nature and the compromise of our townscapes for the sake of expediency), frenzy, rush, multi-tasking, deadlines, noise, strife in personal relationships, arguments at work, confrontation in politics, trade wars, nuclear deterrents, terrorism. But if people choose to have a world of speed, noise, fast food and tabloid culture then that really does seem to be a problem that is very difficult to address without getting us back to the worries over elitism we met at the head of the chapter. And with the concerns over climate change suggested in Elgin’s quote above, and throughout this book, this is a major problem. I have to say I find this the most challenging issue to solve. Pleasure seems to cut deepest when we are looking at alternatives for society. I hope my thoughts on connection, compassion and different pleasures in this chapter have helped to show there are alternatives to just saying we cannot do anything other than just go with whatever people seem to be choosing. I can only leave it there, and let the reader draw their own conclusions.

 

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13. A Wider Commons

‘If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.’

Lao Tzu

‘The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.’

Rainer Maria Rilke

Up to this point I have restricted our discussion to more or less the way the world is now. I have given the name Privatopia to this world. We have touched on alternative utopias in the Introduction and in Chapter 2. There we looked at two main contenders for a future better world — Ecotopia and Cornucopia.

We’ve noted that people can be disengaged and

 

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cynical about the current state of politics. Our disengagement might indicate stagnation, but I’ve suggested that this does not mean that things will not change. Rather, it means that the current Privatopia will stumble blindly into a version of Cornucopia, that the advocates of a high-tech future and the benefactors of neo-liberalism have in mind. It might be Cornucopia for the few and crumbs for the rest. So if we do nothing, change will happen without us. If we want to stop this, then we need to get involved. There is a difference between stumbling into the future and living it more consciously. If society is to adopt a new vision for its future then it means all citizens — or at least, a good many — taking time out to think about what the options might mean, and what they have to offer us. So in this chapter, I want to ask in more detail, what it might be like to live in one of these future worlds.

 

Education

Let’s ask then, what it would take to change from the path we seem to be on? I can only comment briefly on education and only with reference to the UK. Two distinct trends seem to be prevalent. One trend, which may or may not be beneficial, is that young people are being taught to question. Social media, and the internet generally, has contributed to this trend. We can all search for answers now, but this has led to a certain amount of disrespect for experts and a tendency to question the truthfulness of a lot of what we see and hear. Questioning and searching for answers is to be encouraged, of course, but the attitude behind such enquiries is equally important. Character then, is needed —

 

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character enough to discern what is reasonable and acceptable from what is suspect.

The second trend in education is simply to prepare for working life. The commodification of learning and the insistence on league tables, progress and results, just sends out the message that education is a tick-box exercise. I cannot help but feel that this then continues into the workplace and adds to the stress and dullness of modern life. Whilst this might seem pragmatic, the issue here is that working life is just a continuation of whatever direction society is taking. And at the moment this suggests that employment is just a means of gaining money for a private life that may take little or no account of compassion for others, concern for local communities and care of nature. Preparing young people for employment then, implicitly reinforces the message that living this private life is what being an adult consists of, and that there are no reasonable alternatives.

We need closer links between education, industry and community. We need less focus on qualifications. We also need knowledge for its own sake and to encourage curiosity, imagination and creativity. It is character that is required to see the benefit of education for its own sake and for the wider application of knowledge in society; not just the narrow focus on a job and money. At the very least, we need to imagine the directions future work might take and focus on this. We need to encourage young people to seek vocations. Education may change to ‘the four C’s’ — Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration and Creativity. (This is offered as an alternative to the three

 

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R’s, of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. An alternative version of ‘to read, to reason, and to recite’ was given by Louis P. Bénézet. By recite, he apparently meant having a true grasp of language and not just repeating by rote what was offered by the tutor.)

 

Science and Technology

A lot of technology has its own momentum; that is part of the reason why Privatopia is changing. That is the downside of Privatopia; if no-one intervenes, then technology will just plot its own course. The very nature of Privatopia — as a world where no-one much bothers about their surroundings except as immediately affecting themselves — leaves society open to this slow but accelerating drift towards technologies that we may neither want or need. As has been said so often, just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. Technology seems to be leading the way instead of us choosing the way. This is especially true of the Cornucopian view of the future, discussed below. I do not especially blame scientists for creating this situation. Science, like every other branch of human endeavour, needs input from society at large; it needs to be set within a moral context; it needs to have a human face. Industry might however be a bit more culpable.

 

Why Privatopia will not Work

Privatopia, what I am considering as our current situation, certainly has some advantages. That sense of independence, privacy and individuality is very appealing, and sometimes anonymity is a

 

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great asset, especially with regard to freedom. We can think particularly of women from rural backgrounds moving to cities, and the independence that money can bring to us. Privatopia, and our developed societies generally, would be fine if the world were infinite, or there were only a few millions of us instead of several billion. Two main problems prevent Privatopia, and indeed all of our utopias, being equally valid options and these are climate change and the limits of our material resources — the limits to growth. The reality of climate change is not something that we still feel the need to dispute — it is a given. The questions that remain are really about how quickly changes will occur and how extensive they will be. Privatopia, as we have seen, more or less ignores the effects of climate change. We could say that any response is re-active rather than pro-active — trying to cure the problems after the events, rather than trying to prevent the problems in the first place. (Economics explicitly discounts the future, so our economic system itself encourages this attitude of only fixing things when they can no longer be ignored.) Sea level rise will be addressed by flood defences and/or moving settlements to higher ground. Disruption to agriculture will be met by applying more technology. Species extinction will perhaps only be addressed by saving DNA of endangered species in the hope of a future ‘resurrection’. I am not necessarily saying that therefore human civilisation is doomed. We may well survive under this scenario; capitalism may survive; ‘normal’ society may survive; but it will be a deeply impoverished world.

 

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In addition to climate change, the limits to growth is the other issue affecting our shared future. A report, going by the name, The Limits to Growth was published in 1972. Around 50 years later, and whilst its predictions over the growth of population have proved accurate, almost none of the concerns raised about shortages have so far turned out to be true. Likewise, concerns over running out of oil — so called ‘Peak Oil’, where the rate of new discoveries is overtaken by demand — have been eclipsed by oil and gas obtained by non-conventional means. Economists point out that a scarcity of any particular material (or a particular source of a material) will inevitably lead to an increase in price. The price increase will, in turn, lead to the market seeking alternatives to whatever resource is proving scarce and expensive. By this reasoning, renewable energy will eventually replace fossil fuels, simply as a result of the increasing expense and scarcity of the latter. At the time of writing, there is particular concern over Cobalt, a key ingredient of lithium-Ion batteries. These are the batteries that power a vast range of devices, from mobile phones, cameras and laptops to electric cars. Cobalt itself is mined mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, often under appalling conditions, and often by children. (Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries — no Cobalt — are a possible successor to Lithium-Ion batteries.) There is also concern over the supply of Indium, the element used in Indium Tin Oxide, that allows touchscreen panels to function. Aside from Cobalt and Indium though, it may well be that the economists are correct, and there will always be sources of materials, or alternative materials that allow for growth — in

 

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economic terms, at least — to continue unabated. Indeed, bizarrely, even tackling climate change itself can be a source of economic growth. In Privatopia, we simply turn a blind eye to all this, much like a former age of Europeans, who ignored the source of products reaching them as a result of the slave trade.

A vast source of new raw materials, of course, lies within our grasp. Whilst it has taken many decades, it is starting to look like space exploration is beginning to get seriously underway. Capitalism, as we have said, progresses by converting commons into commodity. A massive new source of commons awaits, such that there have already been calls for the solar system to have some kind of legal protection — even to be declared a commons. Who knows, in 300 years time, we may be facing another ‘limits to growth’ and start to look at other solar systems. I am positive about exploration, but still, these next few decades back on Earth are critical.

I mention this with some hesitation. I am hesitant because many caring people look with horror at the moves to colonise the moon and Mars, and to launch ever more satellites into space. Their concern is that we neglect our Earth-bound problems of ecological collapse, climate change, pollution, poverty, and so on, by looking to space. But whilst I have some sympathy with this view, still, I disagree. In the long-term, we need to explore space.

Optimists — including the Cornucopians, as we will see — regard developments in space as part of the ‘solution’ to the limits to growth. But

 

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remember that almost all of this new material will be used back here on Earth. As such, ‘solving’ our problems with regard to energy and/or resources, inevitably puts even greater pressure on the biosphere. Our future expansion into the solar system will be a continuation of capitalism and if we are to manage it correctly we need to avoid it becoming another Tragedy of the Commons on an even grander scale. Climate change, and all the problems associated with it, will not be solved in the next few decades by developments in space. In the longer term though, space exploration may change societies and humanity immensely. There are only a few clear voices in these matters, who embrace change and technology, but keep a clear eye on what we’re doing with our environment. I mention here, Bill Nye (Unstoppable) and Bob McDonald (Measuring Earth with a Stick).

 

Can the Future be a Cornucopia?

What then, of those who give a much more positive narrative of the future? What about a story where, not only do we not have to give up any of the enormous benefits that we have from living in a modern technologically-advanced society, but things will keep on getting better? It’s a very appealing story, and as I’ve said elsewhere, it is almost the default story of our culture — the natural extension of Privatopia; the underlying promise of capitalism. People who promote such a view are called Cornucopians.

Cornucopians love to show graphs of how all aspects of human life have been steadily

 

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improving, and they suggest that there is no reason why these improvements will not continue indefinitely. The matter of limits, which could bring progress crashing to a halt, is either not considered or otherwise just seen as solvable via technology. Those other graphs — the ones that show the rise in greenhouse gases, the rise in sea levels, the increasing speed of melting glaciers and ice caps, the loss of species, the loss of natural habitats — these graphs are seen as reversible, again, usually by means of technology.

The Cornucopians have ‘facts’ to back up their proposals. There is plenty of ‘evidence’, as we have seen, to say that growth and improvements to human well-being are on an upward trajectory, and this leads to an apparently logical, but erroneous, conclusion, that this trend will continue. There is plenty of evidence that technical fixes would work, provided that consequences aren’t scrutinised too closely.

One idea, for instance — one of a number of solutions known as ‘geo-engineering’ — is to seed the stratosphere with chemicals, in order to reflect more sunlight back into space and thus cool the planet. The problem with such ideas is that they layer more and more technical fixes on top of each other, until we become entirely dependent on artificial means of sustaining ourselves. So, there are technical fixes to address the consequences of geo-engineering (acidity of the oceans is one consequence) and then more fixes to address more consequences, and so on. A similar pattern is repeated for other areas of concern, such as agriculture,

 

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health care and species depletion.

Cornucopia does not really have a need for a supporting narrative, because it is already the dominant narrative of modern Western culture (and increasingly of world culture). We believe implicitly in progress and growth. Cornucopia, likewise, has no need for political change. The current systems admirably serve Cornucopia’s aims. We are however, despite our affluence, on something of a treadmill. The culture wants us hooked up to our mobiles, laptops and PC’s, either working or buying. It is a world of increasing stress, with endless things trying to grab our attention, so that we keep viewing, liking, clicking, reviewing and most of all, spending. It is a bubble world, abstracted from its ultimate reliance on the natural commons, on which it nevertheless must rely. The financial economy and Artificial Intelligence are prime examples of modern culture completely un-tethered from the real world.

We might well ask if AI and robots will seek to replace the social commons that I have tried to shed light on in this book. At the time of writing, it does not look too promising (or, threatening, depending on your perspective here). If the reader has ever tried to have a conversation with a ‘chatbot’ then they will know it can be somewhat uninspiring. (I usually start by asking them to explain Kant’s categorical imperative, and the discussion does not go well. Then again, this conversation-starter doesn’t work too well with humans either.) We would perhaps be needing consciousness before any kind of relationship with AI becomes meaningful. And could we ever tell if consciousness has

 

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really been reached, or is just being faked?

Another symptom of Cornucopia’s troubles is the paradox of individualism being valorised, but also seen as deeply threatening. Darren Anderson warns:

‘In the future, of which we are already a part, to be private, amongst many other things, may be deemed an anti-social, radical act. Solitude may become a vice. Privacy may be monetised into being a preserve of the rich and well-connected. We will realise the precious nobility of anonymity when it is gone… To maintain a position of sovereign free-thinking individual, and further, to connect with others, will be an active threat. This is at the heart of the dystopias.’

This is the strange paradox of modern life. Community, sharing and solidarity seem to be promoted, but the way these things are manifested is an odd cult of individuals. We are not really shaping community at all, we are just enduring a fantasy of connection whilst living increasingly isolated lives. Meanwhile, any genuine community is difficult to achieve — Western culture has just not raised children who can cope with its demands. Community is an artform that we have largely forgotten.

Cornucopia is a world that is already happening. The ‘lucky’ ones will be safe, but I cannot help but feel there will be a massive underclass who will not be so lucky. As Anderson suggests, Cornucopia, if it were to succeed, will be a utopia for the few and a dystopia for the many. That dystopia could leave us to be neo-liberal drones — institutionalised, separated from our

 

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making, our doing, and our wild selves, plugged in, by default, to a society that keeps us slaving for things we do not need and cannot afford, and watched over by an increasingly paranoid and over-bearing state.

It need not be so bad for Cornucopia though. One thing they have in abundance is hope. As I write this in 2020, there remains perhaps a window of a few years when we may solve our climate problems without having to resort to high-tech solutions. As mentioned in Chapter 9, on nature, such things as regenerative agriculture and permaculture (including ocean permaculture) along with re-forestation and re-wilding, could well be enough to bring the Earth back into balance. Such ideas take up the positivity of the Cornucopians, and combine them with the respect of nature and care for the planet of the Ecotopians.

 

Is Ecotopia Enough?

Solving the ecological crisis and addressing issues of sustainability by Earth-bound means, is the province of another of our utopias — Ecotopia. As we’ve seen throughout this book, climate change and ecological sustainability are the major challenges facing the world today. So the Ecotopians are addressing issues of critical importance. There are some signs of hope, as of this writing. There is a general acceptance that climate change is really happening. The use of renewable energy is growing rapidly. There are moves towards more vegetarian and vegan diets, and reductions in the use of plastics. But there is a lot still to do. The general trend in our problems is that things are getting worse.

 

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Ecotopia, as we have touched on elsewhere, covers a broad range of ideas. Here we are looking especially at what kind of future Ecotopia envisages.

Some see the collapse of capitalism, or its deliberate destruction, as a necessary first step towards a sustainable future. Others see a dramatic change in climate — a tipping point being crossed — as the key factor. In response to those suggestions, I simply repeat my earlier message — be careful what you wish for. Both of these scenarios are risks that we face, not events that we should be welcoming. Both would bring chaos and a considerable level of suffering. What we need to focus on instead is the gradual transformation of capitalism to an economy that has kindness and compassion at its heart. In a similar vein, provided climate change is gradual, then we can adapt as necessary, and find ways to bring things back into equilibrium.

Charles Eisenstein (Sacred Economics) thinks that consumer capitalism has more or less run its course. As physical resources dwindle, our economic system will be forced to change and a ‘gift economy’ will re-emerge. In the meantime, any efforts that we might make to thwart capitalism — sharing our work and gifts outwith the moneyed economy — Eisenstein sees as worthwhile preparation for the future. Eco-village and co-housing projects, which often try to recreate the type of reliant communities Eisenstein favours, he sees as ‘ritual’. They are an outworking, in micro form, of the transformation that all of society must one day make. Whilst I admire Eisenstein’s vision, I

 

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don’t think we should be waiting around for the future to happen to us. As I’ve said above, premising these changes on the collapse of capitalism is not a very helpful message, even although Eisenstein makes his case in otherwise largely positive language. I’m not so sure there will be such a crash of capitalism, as Eisenstein suggests, and if it were to happen, I am sceptical that a gift economy would naturally emerge. It seems more likely that the capitalist world would simply be rebuilt — perhaps in an improved form, but not necessarily that much different. If that fails to happen, the alternative is likely to be chaos.

Like Eisenstein, Ecotopians generally do their best to paint an encouraging picture about the changes we need to make. On the political front though, there is a focus on the small-scale, or politics is simply not mentioned at all. The changes we require to make however, are difficult and painful. Sacrifice is required now, and most of us will not live long enough to see the benefits of these sacrifices take effect — it is for our children and grandchildren. Also, the Ecotopians are up against the problem that everyone asking for changes in society faces — people are not convinced by facts and do not even really listen. This is especially true when it comes to climate change. The natural tendency of all of us is to deny information that challenges our current way of life (especially if that way of life is comfortable).

Having said that, ‘sacrifice’ is a relative term, as we touched on in the last chapter. Perhaps it is wrong to see the sacrifice being about giving up material things or a particular lifestyle. If we

 

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find different pleasures, then it might be that ‘sacrifice’ need hardly be sacrifice at all. Gandhi spoke about sacrifice in relation to worship. If we become worshippers of something different, then our sacrifice will likewise mean something different. Imagine if we became worshippers of beauty, pleasure, silence, slowness and peace (as many of us secretly are). Our sacrifices may indeed sometimes be material or financial, but that will not be their main focus. Perhaps I am stretching Gandhi’s meaning a bit here, but if beauty, pleasure, silence, slowness and peace are our worship, then our sacrifices would be in order to achieve these things in our lives and in society at large. This interpretation shifts the focus away from ‘giving things up’ and towards investing in what we really treasure in life.

Addressing climate change has taken two distinct forms — mitigation and adaptation. Until very recently, mitigation measures have been along the lines of saving energy and changing to renewable sources of energy generation. Recently though, we have been starting to see non-conventional ideas such as geo-engineering and direct carbon capture. In the previous section, we saw some suggestions along the lines of changing our agricultural practices and restoring and protecting wilderness. Such things are the bridge between mitigation and adaptation. They could balance the climate and they could fortify Earth’s eco-systems — giving them, and us, resilience into the long-term future. This seems to be a message that does not look for catastrophe to give us a new start and is not asking people to face severe austerity in order to save the planet. Those already practising regenerative

 

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agriculture, for instance, are seeing higher yields and therefore higher profits than their ‘conventional’ farming competitors with their pesticides and fertilisers. I’m not saying it will be that easy, but I’m saying that, whilst there are difficulties, there are always reasons for hope.

Society will need to weather storms to be in balance and that balance will be an ongoing struggle to maintain. But, in the spirit of this book, the alternative story can also be a story about pleasure. The alternative story could be about beauty, silence, slowness and peace. It could be about grace, kindness, conversation and humour. It could be about art, celebration and carnival. It could be about radical otherness and generosity of soul. We could combine the optimism of the Cornucopians and the care of the Ecotopians to forge a new story. In essence this, along with a new respect for the commons and a new approach to polity, is the root of our new story.

 

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14. What We Might Decide, If We

Could Decide

‘There is one thing stronger than all the armies of the world; and that is an idea whose time has come.’

Flyer for ‘Nation’ 15th April 1943 (from Victor

Hugo)

‘Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.’

William Shakespeare — Measure for Measure

My purpose here is to give a brief summary of ideas that have been raised in earlier chapters. Where we find ourselves, in most nations, is having very little say over anything, except via a vote every few years for a political party that

 

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might or might not reflect our views. If a system of participatory politics — Parapolity — were adopted, in whole or in part, then we would undoubtedly have a lot more say. Likewise, if a People’s Parliament were established as an additional house in our governance system (or a replacement for the House of Commons/ House of Lords/ Senate/ House of Representatives) then again we would be given a stronger voice. What happens then would be up to us, and to an extent we would get the kind of government that our participation, or lack of participation, deserves.

So, this chapter contains only suggestions, especially for the four areas that I have been concerned with in Chapters 9 to 12 — nature, place, compassion and pleasure. In considering these issues in this summary chapter, we will return again to five of our six key questions: Who decides? What do we own? What should we share? What should we make? How should we trade? We will touch a little on the sixth question — How should we live? — but that question will mainly be the subject of the next chapter.

 

Who Decides?

A simple approach to politics might be to seek to learn what people really want. But, what if the things people say they want are things that will cause harm to others or to the planet? Who decides? The main proposal of this book is that we need to broaden the base of decision-making and allow everyone, so far as possible, to have a voice in governance. I referred to this as radical devolution in Chapter 5, and I believe that

 

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existing political structures in most countries could accommodate such a process without any sweeping changes being required.

Closely related to radical devolution is the principle of subsidiarity (and the similar idea of ‘municipality’). Subsidiarity is a tricky word with a simple meaning. It means that decisions relevant to a particular location are made in that location, whilst decisions that have national or international relevance are made by the wider circles of government. Again, this does not seem like too big a stretch for existing government structures.

Sociocracy is a governance system that aims to allow everyone an equal say in decision-making. Chapter 6, Community on a Small Scale, provides more detail. Whilst acknowledging our human tendency towards hierarchy and power relations, Sociocracy, so far as possible, tries to balance things out and make sure that even the most humble person involved will be able to speak their mind and know that their opinions will be heard and responded to. The easiest way to describe Sociocracy is as a series of linked circles, with the wider circles having more responsibility for tasks that have the broadest impact. There will always be a reciprocal accountability between the broader circles and the smaller groups that have the more small-scale functions. It is important in Sociocracy, as in any kind of governance system, to be mindful of the vision for whatever the particular organisation is engaged with, and this will, in turn, lead to clear aims that the organisation wishes to accomplish. Being able to take a broad view, recognising vision and acting

 

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responsibly towards its fulfilment, is part of each person’s progress as an individual, as well as helping the organisation to track its course and adjust its aims, as required through changing circumstances. Sociocracy is in use for businesses, charities, co-housing and voluntary groups, but not as yet, so far as I am aware, in use for any political organisations. However, its structure and methods seem entirely appropriate for small-scale governance and it is easily scaleable for application to all levels of government. I have a sociocratic structure in mind when discussing deliberative democracy below. To the question, who decides, Sociocracy answers, everyone.

In Chapter 7, Community on a Large Scale, we looked at a form of participatory politics, or Parapolity, that consists of a series of nested circles from the smallest community up to the largest national or international government. The structure is very much on the lines of Sociocracy, and with the same accountability between the smaller and the broader circles of governance. In many countries, the smaller levels already exist (such as community councils in the UK) although unfortunately these currently have very little influence. Wider circles — counties, regions, nations — are represented at the moment by people elected from political parties. The smaller circles do not have the ability to decide these posts. Chapter 7 suggested that this ‘representative democracy’ has the problem that those elected officials often make decisions without referring back to their electorate. They become, in effect, an oligarchy.

 

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The type of Parapolity envisaged would allow for the broader circles to be chosen from the smaller circles of local government, and could wholly or partially replace the current system of elected officials. I am suggesting then that something such as a People’s Parliament could sit alongside elected officials as an intermediate step to Parapolity being fully implemented. Parapolity then, is not an all-or-nothing suggestion. If many or most people choose not to be involved then representative government would continue much as it is today in most nations. If, however, folk find a benefit from participating in local politics then the scale-up to a People’s Parliament is entirely possible.

A further idea discussed in Chapter 7 is to form Citizens’ Assemblies, with representatives chosen randomly from the whole community. The Citizens’ Assemblies may be temporary measures, for specific issues, but may also become a further and more permanent estate of government and possibly replacing one of the existing houses — to make another form of People’s Parliament. This would be a house where the delegates are chosen by lot — a process known as ‘sortition’ — and take up a role in governance for an extended period — perhaps two or three years. Citizens’

Assemblies and People’s Parliaments are both forms of deliberative democracy. They take power away from political parties and protect against the kinds of vested interests, dodgy deals and favouritism that can be the bane of party politics. We would get the kind of government we deserve. To the question of: Who Decides? Parapolity, a People’s Parliament and Citizens’ Assemblies answer: Everyone

 

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decides — if they want to.

 

What do we Own? What should

we Share?

The questions of what we own and what we should share were discussed mainly in relation to the commons. Critical to an understanding of the commons and the use of land is the shift from taxing earnings to relating taxation to our shared use of land and other aspects of the natural commons. Chapters 4 and 8 looked at a Land Value Tax (otherwise called a Community Land Contribution) as a possible replacement for local taxes and even for income tax. There may be incentives for uses of land that the local community considers beneficial. Where a land use seems necessary but potentially detrimental to local residents then some of the Land Value Tax may go directly to those neighbouring households. All such matters rely on the efficient working of Parapolity, especially at the smaller levels, so then the ‘owners’ of land and property recognise themselves as custodians with a responsibility to local people and local nature.

Sometimes what I’m suggesting is described as taxing capital rather than income, but this is a rather ambiguous phrase. I therefore distinguish income from three sources. The three sources are the ‘economic rent’ already described in Chapter 3 — money from land, money from the labour of others and money from money itself. Perhaps the most obvious solution is simply the re-distribution of land. (The most famous example is the Biblical year of

 

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jubilee, when every 50th year all debts were cancelled and land and property returned to its original owners. Probably this was never actually practised — when the Jews were exiled to Babylon, their land was granted the ‘rest’ that it had failed to receive from the previous several hundred years.) But to physically re-distribute property in this way would be horrendously difficult. The interim solution is to recognise property rights and therefore ‘ownership’ in terms of being custodians of land. Security of tenure has enormous benefits, but along with the rights derived from tenure there are also responsibilities. So taxes on land, on ‘profit’ (that is, money derived from the labour of others — arguably this genuinely is ‘capital gains’) and taxes on financial transactions seem like good means of achieving fair re-distribution, as they directly draw on the process of ‘economic rent’.