The Politics of Actually Existing
Unsustainability: The Cancer Stage
of Carbon-Fuelled Consumer
Capitalism
Dr. John Barry
School of Politics, International Studies and
Philosophy
Queens University Belfast
j.barry@qub.ac.uk
Background
Context
Setting out: Actually Existing
Unsustainability
Just as it is injustice not justice that characterises the modern
world, likewise it is unsustainability not sustainability that we
find
Yet, vast majority of thinking scholarship and sometimes
activism is around 'sustainability', 'sustainable development'
Sustainability beckons to the future, while unsustainability
focuses on the present
Of course the two are or can be related but key issue is that
one does not have to have a fully developed theory of
justice/sustainability to condemn, recognise and struggle to
eradicate injustice and unsustainability
The 'perfect' should not become the enemy of the 'good'
Injustice and Unsustainability
The fight against injustices is not necessarily the same as a
struggle for some positive conception of justice.
‘injustice has a different phenomenology from justice.
Understanding injustice constitutes a separate theoretical
enterprise from constructing a theory of justice...injustice
takes priority over justice’ (Simon, 1995: xvii).
Green political theory/economy should be a politics of actually
existing unsustainability rather than a politics for (future)
sustainability.
The analysis of actually existing unsustainability should take
priority over the analysis of sustainability.
The Critique of Unsustainability
The critique of the current unsustainable economic system does not and
should not depend for its validity on the specification of some positive
sustainable alternative.
While from a political/strategic point of view of persuading people of one’s
position, one might wish to develop a worked-out alternative, this should not
be a requirement for the critique to be politically considered and taken
seriously in public policy debate.
‘the negative recommendation stands on its own, without the inclusion of a
positive alternative . . . Requiring that negative recommendations depend
upon positive alternatives has the effect of undermining the negative
recommendations. We need to listen to the negative recommendations,
irrespective of whether the negative criticisms also contain positive
proposals’ (Simon, 1995: 14).
Turn the tables/precautionary principle– disprove unsustainability, as
opposed to green objectors having to prove unsustainability (usually
based on some notion of sustainability).
The cancer stage of capitalism unsustainable and uneconomic growth
Cancer - healthy cells that grow
beyond a threshold to become
unhealthy
Orthodox economic growth undifferentiated GDP growth
as a permanent feature of the
economy -as 'cancerous' (John
McMurtry) 'uneconomic growth'
(Herman Daly)
Central importance of
Orthodox, undifferentiated economic growth
- GDP
Orthodox GDP/GNP measurements
Need to differentiate– some growth is, ceteris paribus,
positive , contributes to meeting human needs and
enhances quality of life and human flourishing
‘Defensive consumption’/production – hiring security guards
because of declines in social trust, increase in crime;
buying water/air filters due to environmental pollution;
purchasing children's’ toys/home entertainment due to
parents having no time (work pressure) or there being no
appropriate/local open spaces/parks; bottled water due
to poor quality of tap water.
Because what ‘gets measured gets done’ we need better
measurements than GDP (even most neoclassical
economists accept this)
Why the capitalist economy is ‘locked
into’ economic growth
State’s plan their expenditure assuming that the economy will
keep growing. If it then didn’t, there would be shortfalls in
government income with repercussions for public expenditure
and investment.
Companies are legally obliged to maximise returns to
shareholders, and investors generally take their money
wherever the highest rates of return and growth are found.
‘Fudiciary duty’ of corporate officers – logic of profit and
accumulation.
Almost all money is lent into existence bearing interest. For every
dollar lent, more must be repaid, demanding growth.
Capitalist economy has two modes – go and grow (3% p.a.
minimum) or collapse (recession/depression)
Like a bicycle
Question: what would an economic system look liked designed
Why be critical of growth?
1.
2.
3.
Sustainability reasons – climate change,
energy, resources and pollution;
Equality reasons – capitalist economic growth
manages and reproduces inequality it does
not eradicate it;
Human flourishing reasons – beyond a
threshold, economic growth does not add to
and can reduce human flourishing.
Developed more in tomorrow's lecture
Growth isn’t Working
“Between 1990 and 2001, for every $100 worth of growth in the
world’s income per person, just $0.60 found its target and
contributed to reducing poverty below the $1-a-day line. To
achieve every single $1 of poverty reduction therefore
requires $166 of additional global production and
consumption, with all its associated environmental impacts.”
new economics foundation (2006), Growth Isn’t Working
Highly improbable to reconcile the objectives of poverty
reduction and environmental sustainability if global growth
remains the principal economic strategy. The scale of growth
this model demands would generate unsupportable
environmental costs; and the costs would fall
disproportionately, and counter-productively, on the poorest –
the very people the growth is meant to benefit.
Need to de-link poverty reduction from orthodox economic
growth and focus on increasing the share of income that
goes to those in poverty i.e. redistribution (which
decreases inequalities) and economic security, not
economic growth (which reproduces inequalities).
We need to talk about carbon…
It’s nonrenewable and the main cause of global climate
change (carbon dioxide)
Modern industrial civilisation under capitalism and its
development model /orthodox economic growth, is
utterly dependent upon it
Name one thing in this room not made or
transported without the use of oil or gas?
Also cause (potential or actual) of geopolitical
instability – resource wars
And creation of local ‘sacrifice zones’
Carbon lock in to unsustainable development trajectory
Cubic Mile of Oil/Year
Oil addiction....
Political Implications: the downsides of oil
addiction - resource wars
Frying the planet....
Local Pipeline struggles
Energy and economic growth
“[Economic] growth does not drive increased exergy /
useful work consumption, rather output growth is
‘driven’ by increased availability of energy and
increased delivery of useful work to the
economy.”(Ayres and Warr, 2009: 1692 emphasis
added).
Thus declining energy inputs (either due to declining
supply or rising prices) will have a significant impact on
orthodox economic growth.
“The data show that recessions occur when petroleum
expenditures as a percent of GDP climb above a
threshold of roughly 5.5%” (Murphy and Hall, 2011: 70)
Energy as literally the driving fuel of the capitalist
"We need to leave oil...before oil leaves us",
Fatih Biriol, Chief Economist,
International Energy Agency
However... if we look at the capitalization in
the energy sector, we find that investors
are betting on our continuing carbon lock
in, continuing our carbon addiction and
frying the planet through runaway climate
change.
Oil and gas and renewable energy capitalisation
(DiMuzio, 2012), the political economy of ‘Carbon
lock in’
Political economy of carbon lock in
“despite concerns over global warming and
peak oil and questions about the overall
sustainability of our current civilization order,
investors continue to see a future shaped by
the owners and directors of hydrocarbon
energy” (DiMuzio, 2012: 379)
Fossil fuel corporations have 5 times more oil
and coal and gas in known reserves than
climate scientists think is safe to burn.
We have to keep 80% of their fossil fuels
underground to avoid a 2% increase in global
temperature and runaway climate change.
See IPCC September 2013 Fifth Assessment
Capitalism and Consumerism
Consumerism - threshold beyond which the
consumption, accumulation of material goods and
services undermines sustainability, human
flourishing or increases socio-economic inequality
Consumerism - buying stuff you don't need to
impress people you don't care about?
Psychologically infantilising and depoliticising
consequences - passivity of the consumer
(individualism) versus activism of the citizen
Consumerism – a WMD – weapon of mass
distraction
And..least we forget ...its debt-based consumerism
we are talking about
Causes of consumerism
Marketing, advertising, normalisation of private
accumulation of goods and services;
Economic insecurity;
Socio-economic inequality (Wilkinson and Pickett,
2008);
Status competition - self-esteem (buying second
hand goods means you're a 'second rate'
member of society);
And…its enjoyable, socially acceptable/required
and addictive....
Debt-based consumerism as the great engine of
modern economic growth under neoliberal
capitalism
Wilkinson and Pickett (2008)
Socio-economic inequality as
driver of consumerism via
status competition;
Psychological and political
economic significance of
shame and status;
Because inequality increases
status competition, it also
increases consumerism.
People in more unequal
societies work longer
hours because money
seems even more
important.
Inequality, status
competition and
consumerism
More
inequality
• More superiority and inferiority
• More status competition and consumerism
• More status insecurity
• More worry about
how we are seen and judged
• More “social evaluation anxiety”
(threats to self-esteem & social
status, fear of negative
judgements
The necessity of scarcity and insecurity under
neoliberal capitalism
The mythic or cultural-psychological ‘fact’ of scarcity, and
associated notions of insecurity (job, body image,
status) and ‘status anxiety’ (amongst others), are
necessary features for the modern growth economy.
There is never ‘enough’, only constant gratification
without satiation
‘Perpetual scarcity’ in the midst of affluence and plenty
Scarcity as a master concept for neo-liberal capitalism–
how to organise human life between infinite wants and
scarce means.
Rather than democratically/politically regulating/limiting
(some) wants below a threshold in the interests of other
wants and needs
Economic growth as our modern myth to live by and
through which social order is sustained
Not so much as 'let them eat cake' but the promise of
Challenge to the left, trades unions
Which should have political priority - increasing
wages or increasing worker control ?
Of course both....but which is more strategically
as well as normatively important?
Challenging consumerism and orthodox
economic growth (=employment) - major
paradigm shift for trades unions
Repoliticisation of the labour movement - putting
demands for why democracy should end at
the factor gate or office door, or classroom
door back at the centre of the political agenda
Also (tomorrow's lecture), the social and
ecological case for collective consumption
Yet….Popular Support for Capitalist
Economic Growth
“under capitalism workers don’t have job security like tenured
professors. This fact may partially explain why it is that,
despite all the anti-growth books published since the 1970s,
there is no public support out there for a capitalist steadystate economy. …Poll after poll shows that ordinary citizens
want to see the environment cleaned up, want to see a stop
to the pillage of the planet, the threat of destruction of their
children’s future. But as workers in a capitalist economy, “no
growth” just means no jobs.” (Smith, 2010: 35; emphasis
added).
Hence its entirely rational (within capitalism) to support
economic growth – even though it causes ecological
destruction, increases inequalities, erodes security and locks
in a carbon-based energy system
Part of the issue here (tomorrow’s lecture) is to shift focus
from formally paid ‘employment’ to ‘work’ and a much larger
conception of the economy and economics beyond the public
and private sectors
Conclusions: Actually existing Unsustainability
Capitalist economic growth has locked us into a
carbon based energy economy that is socially,
economically and ecologically irrational,
unsustainable and ecocidal;
Economic growth has passed the threshold beyond
which it adds to human flourishing / development
Has locked us into debt-based consumerism;
Economic growth as permanent feature of the
economy that serves the interests of a minority not
the majority;
Its cooking the planet, creating geopolitical instability,
increasing inequality and undermining human
flourishing now and for future generations
We need system change not climate change....
tomorrow's lecture
Choices ahead....discussion tomorrow
What is to be done?
…..