Have we reached a political tipping point?
Blog Post
Friday 17th October 2008, 2:08pm
by TimHollo in
On Monday, Waleed Aly had a superb opinion piece in the SMH which sadly went largely unnoticed. In the piece he argued persuasively that the biggest long-term impacts of major economic crises are the changes to the socio-political terrain that they tend to trigger.
The prime example, of course, is the dramatic shift towards fascism and other forms of xenophobic politics triggered by the Great Depression, not only in Europe but across the globe.
Aly's great fear is that the current economic crisis could well lead to a new xenophobic politics. This is a fear which rang a deep chord within me, as one whose political views were shaped significantly by a Holocaust survivor grandfather.
Aly sees people uniting at times of insecurity against a common enemy. His fearful view is that this enemy must be a fabricated scape-goat in the form of Jews, Muslims or other minority communities. Aly points to the fact that, as in the 1920s, there is already a strong undercurrent of the politics of hate rising around the world, across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
But there is another political undercurrent that has been rising now for some years which could foreshadow a hopeful future rather than a fearful one.
As part of the rise of Green politics across the globe, the last two years have seen an extraordinary momentum building in the grassroots movement to tackle climate change, inspired by Stern, Gore, Katrina and thousands of dedicated activists around the globe. This movement has been growing increasingly strident and appalled as the tipping points in our climate draw ever nearer and political action seems as far away as ever. Many of us have been pinning our hopes on the view that political tipping points can be reached as suddenly as climatic ones.
But will our hopes now be dashed? Will there be a new climate change scepticism that gather to it the hate and fear that arises in times of economic uncertainty?
Already one of the big questions people have been asking in the last fortnight is what we should do about the fact that the economic crisis has tipped climate change off the front page and, thus, onto the political backburner.
The optimist in me wonders if this is the wrong question to be asking. Perhaps this is the moment we have been waiting for. The rise of fascism also saw the brave leadership of many who were willing to do whatever it took for a better future - from Churchill's vow to fight them on the beaches, to the nameless thousands who fought in underground, to Oskar Schindler and the many other 'righteous gentiles' whose efforts saved thousands of Jews from the death camps.
If we act now with wisdom and care, if we show sensible, inspiring leadership at a time of great socio-political unrest, perhaps we can overcome those who seek to use the moment to spread fear and hatred. Perhaps we can help make this a political tipping point that sends us into a cooperative, positive, green world order.
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I never missed it Tim.
Tim,
I read that but most media outlets never ran with it and Aly makes some good points in the article. I feel however that the left for many years has been fractured and fragmented really. Dissalutioned and disenfranchised. As the powerful business lobby tightens the scews on the working class families with the threat of job insecurity people are fearful of taking time off or being away from their workplaces to help builda left wing grassroots movement to fight the conservative forces in Australian politics thats why Howard did so well over his 12 years. This is firmly my belief Tim. Now that howard has gone there has been a slight turn but not a lot. There has beena lot of hype in relation to a lot of issues but Australia doesnt see the huge masses that other countries like Thailand and Europe sees on the streets when they lose faith in their leaders. My personal tipping point was the Iraq war and marching with the thousands of people through the streets of Sydney. It was great. Then we had Mr Howard saying that it was just a "rabble" it was extremly demoralizing and I didnt bother getting involved with politics any further and still to this day I feel that protesting is largely a waste of peoples time. It doesnt fuel change in any form that I have seen that gets picked up by political leaders. As for Aly's article it was great and right on the money.
Fear Not
Yes we have reached a tipping point, but not the one you fear.
In three weeks time (barring a major stuff up or assassination) the world will have a black, moderate and literate President of the USA. This is a guy who will take advice and actually think deeply about the implications of his actions - wonders will never cease.
All world leaders are now calling for more intervention to curb the unbridled excesses of the free market capitalism (both candidates in the US are calling for market regulation and canning Wall Street). This shake up has several years to run, but the world economy will be better for it.
The UK has just announced that it has moved it's greenhouse 2050 target to 80% (well it's moving in the right direction). The UK along with the rest of the EU have reconfirmed their push for carbon emissions reduction, claiming now is the time for more action on climate change.
OK so I am an optimist, but I see a silver lining on this very dark economic cloud.
The future has been with us for a long time
Katrina spoke the truth but Stern and Gore have simply acted in the interests of the wealthy and priveleged global elite whose interests and structures are, and have been for a long time, the primary cause of totalitarianism, racism, genocide, war, poverty and pollution.
It is an illusion of the rich world that the political tipping point has not yet been reached. Fascism, genocide and xenophobia are not hypothetical future possibilities but, for many in the world, is the day to day reality. The fascist and racist attacks by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people is supported (financially if not politically) by the rich world who depend on Middle East oil, we tolerate this fascism as a necessary element of our affluence. We create and sponsor wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for the same reasons.
Waleed Aly is wrong in his suggestion......"Latin America, which was hit particularly savagely because of its significant trade links with the US, retreated into a shrill form of nationalism. The result was the rise of fascism across the continent."......... This locates the cause of fascism in the oppressed people themselves which is rubbish. The fascism of Latin America was necessary to provide a secure investment platform for the trade links with the U.S. - it was imposed on an unwilling population. Fascism did not grow from their despair, revolutionary communism did. Right wing nationalism, like in NAZI Germany or Howard's Australia is a construction of government propaganda to maintain the oppressive status-quo.
In this country we see brutal authoritarian attacks on Aboriginal people, the recent gun raid in the N.T., the highly publicised killing of Mulrunji and the regular unpublicised Aboriginal deaths in custody. The shock and awe S.A.S. invasion of Palm Island , the suspension of the racial discrimination act firstly in the nuclear waste dump laws and then the the N.T. intervention. All of this in the context of mass Aboriginal internment during most of the 20th century and bloody colonial war in the 19th century.
Xenophobia is one of the distinguishing features of the Howard government - during the "good times". The anti terrorist laws and refugee detention system is clearly fascist and racially targeted, yet they have existed amongst our freedom and prosperity.
Fascism is not on the horizon, it is well entrenched today, although the affluent have been insulated from its violence and are able to pretend that it does not exist. The fact that comfortably numb Australians can now hear the jackboots marching does not mean that the march has just started.
However, I agree with Tim and Waleed that the present economic and ecological crises will trigger significant psychological and ideological changes - for good or for bad.
Humphry McQueen has some interesting comments on the matter...
"At the micro-economic level, even a serious recession will shatter generations X and Y, who have never known more deprivation than retail envy.
Their harrowing will be much harsher than poverty was on the 1930s victims who had been weaned on frugal comforts, not expecting super-affluence. Far fewer will know how to feed themselves once they are no longer compelled to eat out because of their excessive hours at work.
This material deprivation will provoke identity crises.
Bourgeois individualism has shrunk from being defined in the Renaissance by what one creates, to what one makes, to what one owns, and now to whatever gadget one has most recently bought. Self-esteem is reduced to the exchange of credit for a commodity which loses its prime use value by being purchased. What happens to the sense of self when the buying has to stop?"
http://bushtelegraph.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/exploitation-leads-to-over...
tipping point
It seems to me to be rather optimistic to say that "tipping points in our climate draw ever nearer". Is it not the case that we have already reached two tipping poins: (1) less ice means less heat reflected back into space and (2) methane is already being released from methane hydrates in permafrost and on the sea bed?
not yet 'tipping'
Thanks for the comment, George. Of course we have started to see signs of feedback loops appearing and this is deeply distressing and cause for action with great urgency.
However, I'd just point out that the appearance of feed-back loops is not the same as reaching a tipping point. A tipping point will be reached in the climate when the self-reinforcement of particular phenomena will continue regardless of other external forcings. In other words, if we acted now to reduce emissions drastically, would the Artic Ice continue melting as fast as it is? Would the methane continue to bubble forth without us driving greater warming?
The view of the scientific papers that I have seen suggests that we have not yet reached that point. We may be perilously close. We may, indeed, be too late. But the weight of scientific opinion suggests that we have not yet 'tipped'.
Let us maintain hope and keep working in view of that hope!
Concentration of power
Waaaaaay back, the Romans seem to have had it right. There was a distribution of executive power across a large number of people; no one person could control everything. This lead to the longest period of cultural stability known yet. Then they became an Empire and a few centuries later......
The reasons for such instability are caused by and exacerbated by concentration of power. Rules for market participation are determined by a few and affect many (sub-prime mortgages). Many free trade agreements have encouraged consumption rather than investment and hence many nations are developing larger and larger foreign deficits and hence are exposed to the largest empires (such as the USA).
Fact is that the majority of people don't understand economic metrics and the collective human behaviour which drive the particular numerical values they take (John Howard was representative of this).
So when people see prices doing weird things, or volumes changes quickly, they become protectionist and try and keep their bag of marbles to themselves. This seems to also be correlated with other inward looking behaviour.
I hold little hope that our current "democratic" structures will be able to construct a system which avoids these problems in the future. Mainly because any time people see a possibility to gain by concentrating power, it is seen as a current "unrealised gain" and "wasteful" and must be acted upon. So in the good times, power is concentrated. When things turn quickly, semi-rational people who have concentrated the power get booted out and replaced by irrational people who then also have all the power and instability reigns.
Our structures currently encourage this kind of instability and they seem to be very strongly held to. Hence the stickers on back of cars saying "Australia. Like it or leave." (similar ones in the USA I seems to remember). Reform to a stable system which solves problems in our community seems to be a pipe dream to me at the moment (with a very long pipe).
Green banks, a tipping point?
Green banks are raking in new customers due to the financial crisis, which has a long way to run. The evidence is sketchy at this stage and mostly anecdotal, but encouraging nonetheless.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/21/2425835.htm
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