The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: The Cancer Stage of Carbon-Fuelled Consumer CapitalismDr. John BarrySchool of Politics, International Studies and PhilosophyQueens University Belfastj.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 presentOf 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 UnsustainabilityThe 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 theoreticalenterprise from constructing a theory of justice...injusticetakes 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 UnsustainabilityThe 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 ones 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 unhealthyOrthodox economic growth - undifferentiated GDP growth as a permanent feature of the economy -as 'cancerous' (John McMurtry) 'uneconomic growth' (Herman Daly)

Central importance of thresholds

Orthodox, undifferentiated economic growth - GDPOrthodox GDP/GNP measurementsNeed 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 growthStates plan their expenditure assuming that the economy will keep growing. If it then didnt, 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 by a scientist not an economist?

Why be critical of growth? 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 isnt Working Between 1990 and 2001, for every $100 worth of growth in the worlds 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 Isnt 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 carbonIts 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 itName 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 economy

"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 indespite 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 Report

Capitalism and ConsumerismConsumerism - 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 citizenConsumerism a WMD weapon of mass distractionAnd..least we forget ...its debt-based consumerism we are talking about

Causes of consumerismMarketing, 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);Andits 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

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 sustainedNot so much as 'let them eat cake' but the promise of cake in the future

Challenge to the left, trades unionsWhich 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 unionsRepoliticisation 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 agendaAlso (tomorrow's lecture), the social and ecological case for collective consumption as well as democratised production

Yet.Popular Support for Capitalist Economic Growthunder capitalism workers dont 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 steady-state 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 childrens 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 (tomorrows 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 / developmentHas 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?..

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