I was listening to some Bob Dylan on Friday. “Ballad of a Thin Man” (which I am not). The repeated bit of the lyric that stuck in my mind was:
“Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is/Do you Mister Jones?”.
It resonated with a statement from Resources Minister Shane Jones the same day that “economic resilience and economic productivity should trump almost everything else” in referring to fast track infrastructure consents.
Not only do I not agree with that view, I am concerned that it is an increasingly widely held view and that it reflects a misunderstanding of the term “economic”.
The line of thought is most obvious regarding environmental and climate crisis issues, but it is also apparent on social issues such as poverty and inequity. It is not purely semantic because its adoption gives rise to decisions which have significant negative impacts on people in favour of a narrow view of “economics”.
Sometimes we seem to make some progress where “economics” in this narrow sense is “trumped” by the other issues but then we are in reverse, as happened this same week when the biggest bank and the biggest asset manager in the world (Chase and Blackrock respectively) both pulled out of a global “decarbonising alliance” and not because it was going too far and fast.
By the way yes, that is the same Blackrock which the previous Government lauded for being about to invest $2billion here in “climate infrastructure and clean technology”. We shall see.
As senior Republican Jim Jordan said in appreciation of their moves, this was a “big win” for “freedom and the American economy…and we hope more financial institutions follow suit in abandoning collusive ESG actions”.
But Jordan and Jones are mistaken about what an “economy” is. Something is happening as most people become awake if not woke to the idea that we are the economy and vice versa.
What these “economy must win” views share is a narrow version of “economy” and “economics” which is to be contrasted with the interests of people and our environment.
But any level of reflection will reveal such a separation is meaningless.
Ironically enough, you might find a hard-line Marxist arguing that the interests of capital and people were utterly incompatible alongside these advocates of “economy trumps all” (small “t” “trump” for the moment). They might just differ over who wins.
Those adopting this narrow view of “economic” really mean “commercial”. Commercial interests in this view trump everything else. Something may make their “economy” bigger but bigger and better are not the same thing. We have proven that time after time. Commercial interests may or may not be in the wider economic interest.
The reality is it is people who are on all sides of the equation, both those with and those without financial capital.
For all but a very few of us, the capital that matters is the social capital we share. We share no interest in putting the interests of financial capital or someone’s commercial interests ahead of our own interests as people or indeed that of the natural world of which we form part.
There is no economy without people and what we call economics is simply how people interact with one another and the other parts of the world to live. It is about how we best live, not about how some people make more money.
This “economy” which takes precedence over people is simply an abstraction. It is a cartoon version of human activity, simply a model which is engineered to reflect a world in which financial capital and its commercial investment is dominant.
Such a world generates apparent outcomes which favour capital. How could it do otherwise? It has valuable analytical insights and applications within limits, which should be obvious. I find it fascinating and often use it. But there is no reason to revere it beyond that, or to accord it primacy. That is like suggesting The Simpsons is the real world, or that a bicycle can fly.
If you take it too far you end up calling people “human capital” or a river “natural capital”. So yes, we have taken it too far. Far too far. We end up with people seriously arguing that we should organise ourselves to be more like that model, that cartoon.
They no longer know what is happening here, no longer know what it is, they just hear the faint echoes of “something”.
That something is the earth and it’s surrounds rebelling. It is people from cultures less fully indoctrinated into the “commercial” primacy model rebelling too. They are and will be joined by those who look and listen carefully and openly to “what is happening here” and don’t try to deny it or suppress it or declare it “trumped”.
The “Thin Man” may not be physically thin but he is intellectually and emotionally skinny.
Absolutely ‘the economy’ is part of our human society which is part (an over-dominant part) of our planet. The institutional makeup of ‘the economy’ – what is commons, what is public provision, what is market provision – is a human construct.
The blind over-emphasis on the power of the market/commercialism has resulted in six of nine crucial planetary boundaries being breached – https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html
Simply, the exponential drive for more exploitation of our planetary resources is unsustainable, a doomed path.
I have just reviewed (again) Jane Gleeson-White’s book ‘SIX CAPITALS:
The Revolution Capitalism has to have – or, Can Accountants Save The Planet?’
For full review see the issue #80 of TE AWA….The Green Party’s regular Magazine.
Thank you Rob Campbell for the insights you share, and for the intestinal fortitude it takes to show the way out of our limited accounting of the world we live in. Cheers!
Well said, Mr Campbell. It seems to me that the media have a key role here: to make it clear to all citizens that a thriving ‘economy’ is nothing more than a subset of a healthy biosphere and a society that values the welfare of every human.
This is a responsibility the media are largely ducking at the moment, especially the commercial radio stations whose shock-jocks mostly appear to be paid salespersons for short term corporate self-interest. Globally, media outfits like the Murdoch empire have the power to swing public opinion; alas, they still worship wealth, and sneer at those who campaign for social justice and the environment.
Focussing for a moment just on climate change: our current trajectory will deliver a climate similar to that of the Miocene, about 10 million years ago. Unless we change course, that will render large parts of Southern Asia, the Middle East and Northern Africa unfit for human habitation.
This is a battle-royal for our future. Currently selfishness, stupidity, ignorance and greed appear to be winning.
Inspirational reading, Rob! Like a breath of fresh air – thank you!!
Beautifully made point by the not thin, Mr Campbell. Mr Jones has a hubris that knows no bounds. It’s a dangerous thing in anyone, let alone a Minister of the Crown.
Rob, thanks for ‘translating’ the cliches of Luxon and the desperate arrogance of Jones. David Slack on his blog ‘More Than a Feilding’ has been doing a lot of that recently.
One of the challenges in our political economy is that people generally do have more than a sense of ‘something’. This is The Post Truth Era where denial has become mainstream. The threats to our consumer-ist world are becoming more consciously palpable and that is terrifying to our consumer-ist ‘who we are’. Hence, the election of the empty-headed desperado government we have today. Following is a paragraph which I put on a ‘comment’ on the Newsroom article by Marc Daalder which implies that we should take a close look at the public reaction to Jones’ comments:
PM Luxon has been trying to say his government no longer calls climate change a hoax, unlike the old days when National did (and Rodney Hyde for ACT). But Jones’ comments are tantamount to denial. And after all, we are living in The Post Truth Era where denial has become mainstream. Much of the silent (unexplained) electoral support for this new government reflected that denial. Given the government’s “rip, sh*t and bust” (as described by usually reserved Rod Oram on Newsroom) approach to our ecosystems it will be interesting what excuses Luxon has for Jones’ comments here. They contradict National’s rhetoric, but do support National’s actions toward climate change.