Which Way Forward?
A review essay by David Orton
Manifesto
For A New World Order, by George Monbiot, The New Press, New York, 2003,
274
pages, hardcover, ISBN: 1-56584-908-6 (hc).
Our task is surely not to overthrow globalization, but
to capture it,
and to use it as a vehicle for humanity’s first global
democratic
revolution. - G. Monbiot
Thanks to the pernicious impact of
the localization agenda, some
campaigners in the rich world have been perceived by
the citizens
of poor nations as their enemies. - G. Monbiot
We must live at a level that we seriously
can wish others to attain,
not at a level that requires the bulk of humanity not
to reach.
- Arne Naess
Introduction
The Manifesto
For A New World Order is an intelligently written and important book
with some new
ideas by a progressive journalist
of the British Left, although I do not agree with the overall thesis. The
thesis
urged on us is to take over and democratize
globalization. He wants a “free trade” world. (p. 219) The two
above quotes from George Monbiot
show the two main policy messages being sent out by this book. The
quote by Arne Naess shows an alternative
direction to that urged by Monbiot.
Monbiot has a
detailed knowledge of global institutions like the World Bank and the International
Monetary
Fund. He shows how the United States
government exercises its dominance over such institutions, seriously
undermining the work of the United
Nations — which, Monbiot urges, needs major change. There is an overall
economic literacy which can lead
even the attentive reader sometimes trailing in the dust. But there are
also
taken-for-granted assumptions: “Trade
is the only likely means of distributing wealth from rich nations to
poor ones.” (p. 188) Monbiot
accepts corporations and wants that “the market begins to work for the
poor.” (p. 227) There are erroneous
environmental views (see later), and a basic unchallenged human-
centeredness permeates the entire
book. There is a “know-it-all” and somewhat condescending tone in the
writing, especially about the alleged
failings of movement activists and towards the readers of the Manifesto.
There is a totally bizarre comment,
that radical North American or European activists have in their hearts,
“a residual fear of the Yellow
Peril, of the people of other lands, who do not share our world view,
becoming too powerful.” (p. 105)
But this book is important because there are some new provocative ideas
being put forward which demand our
attention and thoughtful consideration. If such ideas are not to be
embraced, then they need to be rebutted.
The book deserves to be read (even if the book’s binding breaks
easily).
What attitude
to take towards the rush everywhere to globalization, has to be on the deeper
green agenda.
Left biocentrists like myself, and
those generally influenced by deep ecology, “believe that bioregionalism,
not globalism, is necessary for sustainability.”
(See point 5 of the 1998 Left Biocentrism Primer.)
The
Manifesto For A New World Order
argues strongly against orienting to “localization,” and notes that
such orientations “have been adopted
as policy by several national green parties.” (p. 52) Greens in
North America have been sensitized
to the importance of place by aboriginals, who have always asserted
place as intrinsic to their collective
identities and to their nations’ Creation stories. Through the concept of
Self-realization — that is, expanding
personal consciousness so that it comes to encompass the Earth —
deep ecology-influenced greens have
seen the importance of localization or being grounded in a particular
place, both for personal and societal
consciousness and, most importantly, for the active defense of existing
Nature.
Andrew Dobson
the British Left deep ecologist, wrote in his book Green Political Thought,
first
published in 1990, that the economic
practices of dark green societies "would be built substantially
around protectionism." (third
edition, p. 90) This is also a position that I have advocated as an ecocentric
green. But localization or protectionism
has to be coupled with the redistribution of wealth. Left biocentrism,
has expressed this as follows in
point 4 of the Left Biocentrism Primer:
Left biocentrists are concerned with social justice and class issues,
but
within a context of ecology. To move to a deep ecology world,
the
human species must be mobilized, and a concern for social justice
is
a necessary part of this mobilization. Left biocentrism is for the
redistribution
of wealth, nationally and internationally.
We need to support
the general organizational principle that "nothing should be done at a higher
level than
can be done at a lower level," hence
being biased towards participation at the local level. Yet ecocentric
greens realize that negative ecological
and social issues often have national and international manifestations and
causes. Greens must, notwithstanding
their primary localization focus, be prepared to intervene at wider
ranging levels. This is an entirely
different position from what Monbiot is suggesting.
Monbiot directly
opposes localization, which he seemingly redefines to exclude the redistribution
of wealth.
The author goes so far as to equate
market fundamentalists with what he terms “localizers,” because both,
according to him, have imposed “a
single, coercive system upon everyone, or, more accurately, upon the
poor nations.” (p. 220) The book
must therefore be considered a direct challenge, and was obviously
intended this way, to what have been
considered “traditional” green protectionist ideas: localization,
bioregionalism, being grounded in
place, the importance of “place” for ecocentric consciousness, “small is
beautiful,” etc. But Monbiot sets
up a straw person to demolish, in saying that localization campaigners are
uncaring about social justice and
the world’s poor.
What is being advocated and
inconsistencies
Monbiot summarizes
the four principal projects to harness globalization for people, as opposed
to the
interests of Capital, as follows:
A
democratically elected world parliament; a democratised United
Nations
General Assembly, which captures the powers now vested
in
the Security Council; an International Clearing Union, which
automatically
discharges trade deficits and prevents the accumulation
of
debt; a Fair Trade Organization, which restrains the rich while
emancipating
the poor. (p. 4)
The arguments
in this book for the first two principal projects I found had a lot of merit
and were easy to
follow. Although, for example, it
is hard to see how voting in a democratic General Assembly at the United
Nations would not only reflect population
numbers but the “democratic legitimacy” a nation possessed.
(p. 133) The last two of the four
projects listed, seem to require some degree of economic sophistication on
the part of the reader to understand.
Two quotes from Monbiot are illustrative:
Corporations are slowly turned into our slaves. Instead of driving
down
standards, they are forced to raise them...only the nice guys
survive.
(p. 234)
If the aim of a Fair Trade Organization is to permit the poorer nations
to
catch up with the rich ones, then the poor nations must be
permitted
to sustain a trade surplus across several years. The rich
nations
would, between them, have to sustain a corresponding deficit.
(p.
237)
The Fair Trade
Organization, according to the author, would enforce standards as a licensing
body to
which corporations needing to trade
internationally would have to conform to.
Overall, this
book is human-centered and the needs of other life forms are not on the
agenda. Ecocentric
justice is not considered as a necessary,
crucial, and overall defining dimension within which social justice must
be situated. Monbiot furthermore
conveys a misleading optimism that the Earth’s bounty is sufficient for
the
human species, indefinitely into
the future. (He also seems to assume a high consumption lifestyle as the
model
for everyone’s aspiration.) The conventional
non-ecological Left viewpoint is advocated, that the basic
problem is one of distribution.
The world possesses sufficient resources, if carefully managed and
properly
distributed, to meet the needs of all its people, possibly for
as
long as the species persists. It is only because they are badly
managed
and poorly distributed that so many human beings are
deprived
of the means of survival. (p. 181)
What struck me
about this book is how bourgeois democracy (not called this by Monbiot) becomes
equated
with ‘democracy’: “all those who
live in democratic nations today...” (p. 82). This is quite shameful
for a
writer of the Left. We of the Left
are expected to articulate a view of democracy that includes adequate health,
education, housing, and employment
for all who seek it. It would also include the possibility for all citizens
to be
able to contribute to political,
cultural and economic decision making, as well as being able to periodically
turf out governments at elections
which are not corrupted by money or media bias. Ecocentric democracy,
which encompasses all species of
animal and plant life, and which does not privilege humankind, is not even
on
the discussion agenda in this book.
For this author, it seems that holding elections mean a country is democratic.
While flying the liberal democratic
flag, Monbiot sees no inconsistency with stating, “To be truly free...we
must
be prepared to contemplate revolution.”
(p. 253) Is this to let us know that, at heart, Monbiot is also a
revolutionary? The book takes for
granted the basic existing capitalist paradigm and does not challenge this
in its
overall argumentation:
As those nations which are poor today became rich, they would be
obliged
to start to liberalize their economies to the same degree as
the
countries with which they had caught up. (p. 218)
But near the end
of the book, the author then does an anti-capitalist about-face, to bail
out from this position
and declare a position that deeper
greens could easily embrace:
None of the measures proposed in this book are sufficient, however,
to
address a far bigger question, that of the curtailment of the world-
eating
and mathematically impossible system we call capitalism and
its
replacement with a benign and viable means of economic exchange...
Because
capitalism is built upon the lending of money at interest,
capitalist
economies are driven by the need to repay debt, which is why
survival
within this system is contingent upon endless growth. Endless
growth
is physically impossible. (pp. 238-239)
Another inconsistency
is Monbiot’s thrust is to embrace and encourage global trade, while trying
to direct it
towards the poor and dispossessed.
Yet he can also profess to be concerned about global warming and the
enormous contribution of transportation
to this:
Perhaps the gravest problem the world now confronts is climate change,
and
the sector whose contribution to climate change is growing most
rapidly
is transport. The movement of goods around the world is
extraordinarily
wasteful and inefficient... (p. 210)
Shallow (and erroneous) environmental
views
I have already
noted the basic anthropocentrism of this book. It is the well-being of the
human species which
is on Monbiot’s global agenda. To
bring globalization to heel, argues the author, the people must take control
and displace the existing global
elite and their institutions, through which the elite’s dominance is enforced.
Along
the way support is given for so-called
intellectual property rights — although they can be overridden in particular
circumstances (pp. 208-209, 218);
non-banned pesticides (p. 228); the assumption that consumption is more
important than population growth
(p. 19); and carbon emissions trading (pp. 102, 105, 232-233, 237). I would
also argue that in practice, reservations
not withstanding, support is manifest for unlimited economic growth and
its corollary increasing greenhouse
gas emissions and climate change, because of the capitalist economic global
trading model that he embraces and
works with.
The extensive
support for carbon emissions trading by Monbiot, plus his attack on Green
localization and his
taken-for-granted human-centeredness,
show that this book is seriously environmentally flawed. Yet it only fair
to
note that other Left leaning writers
and green parties like the federal Green Party in Canada in its 2004 election
platform, have expressed support
for carbon trading schemes. Perhaps not thinking through a position on
emissions trading is being overridden
by the sentiment that at least this is a small step in the right direction.
But is
it — where it seems that the Earth
enemy today must don the cloak of decency to continue the old destructive
industrial capitalist ways?
What is the problem with
Carbon Emissions Trading?
Emissions trading
is put forward by its proponents as a serious attempt to put some curbs
on greenhouse gas
emissions. Governments, by accepting
this concept, have given themselves the right, within a “market”
framework, i.e. buying and trading
for a price, to pollute in order to come into compliance with the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol to the UN Framework on Climate
Change. (Those countries which have signed onto the Protocol,
which is now in effect, if they are
“industrialized” must reduce their output of greenhouse gas emissions to
below
1990 levels by 2008-2012. For “developing
countries” like China — which is second behind the US, the top
emissions producer in the world —
and India, the commitment is voluntary to develop ways in which the growth
of emissions can be limited.) The
accord states that “emission permits” are granted to utilities and companies
that are pouring out polluting greenhouse
gases. Each country has been allocated a fixed number of credits. The
permits are then subject to trading
in an open market. It means that plants which fall below the output ceiling
of
their polluting greenhouse gases
can sell their “credits” to plants which have exceeded their emission permits.
The market for these emission permits
is potentially world-wide. For example, industrialized countries which
proportionately have released far
more carbon into the atmosphere than so-called Third World countries, can
now further oppress such countries
by utilizing them for carbon credits by such schemes as creating “carbon-sink”
forest plantations. This is basic
social injustice, whereby the powerful industrialized nations can continue,
in the
short term, their Earth-eating high
consumption lifestyles. Is not this also an example of the acceptance of
a
“market fundamentalism” which Monbiot
rightly rails against?
We need to see
the atmosphere as part of the global commons. Emissions trading is just a
continuation of the
ongoing enclosure movement, the attempt
to assert “private property rights” over the commons by the rich and
the powerful. We also know that the
UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that greenhouse
gases must be cut by 60-80%, so the
Kyoto Protocol is tokenism and essentially a scam in terms of what really
needs to be done. There is no new
path forward here out of the ecological crisis.
Canada no longer
has an independent energy policy but, through NAFTA, is integrated into
the US (which has
not signed the Kyoto Protocol) energy
market. Currently about 60 percent of Canada’s oil and gas is contracted
through this treaty to the States.
We in Canada cannot reduce the amount of energy we send to the States,
without also reducing our own consumption.
Under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Canada has agreed to
reduce its greenhouse gases by 2012
to 6 percent below 1990 levels. According to newspaper reports (Globe
and Mail, March 26, 2005), Canada
has agreed, as part of signing onto Kyoto, to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 270 million tonnes a
year by 2012. Each country is free to meet their assigned targets anyway
they
think is necessary. It is clear that
Canada, under this protocol, could vastly increase the actual greenhouse
gas
emissions being discharged into the
atmosphere. This is the actual situation, as emissions are far above the
threshold of 1990: some reports say
approximately 20 percent above 1990 levels. By the purchase of carbon
credits, which are for sale in other
countries, Canada can still theoretically come into compliance with what
it has
agreed to, under the terms of the
Kyoto Protocol. The federal government in Canada has fixed a Ca$15.0-a-tonne
cap on the payment by business for
the purchase of carbon credits. We have also seen in Canada, within an
acceptance of the carbon emissions
trading scheme, that there is a basic unwillingness to take the necessary
real steps to meet the 6 percent
reduction. Instead, we have government ministers and industry spokespersons
promoting increasing fossil fuel
extraction, e.g. Alberta Tar Sands, East Coast and Northern oil and natural
gas
extraction, plus a number of liquefied
natural gas (LNG) projects, all with ‘normal’ state subsidies of one kind
or another. At the same time these
spokespersons are asking for bookkeeping credits, so as not to have to
meet the 6 percent reduction in carbon
emissions — by counting in forest “carbon sinks”, credits for selling
“clean” nuclear CANDU reactors, or
credits for so-called clean renewable energy from hydro plants,
biomass and windmills. Carbon emissions
trading is a harmful diversion which stops the needed societal
mobilization and cannot be supported
by those who have an ecocentric consciousness. It is fraudulent as a
means to basically change global
warming. It is the fossil fuel based, human-centered industrial capitalist
society itself, which global warming
should be calling into question. This is the message which global warming,
which is well underway, conveys.
Yet Monbiot’s support for carbon emissions trading covers all this over.
Conclusion
Manifesto For
A New World Order is a very interesting book. I agree with George Monbiot
that for social
peace, we need a “global economic
levelling.” The author see this being brought about by what might be called
a people’s capitalism, that is, by
capturing and transforming existing global institutions and creating new
ones
where necessary, as some kind of
transitional program to a better world, with a hint of an eventual anti-capitalist
agenda. I see this vision as a classic
social democratic/Realo position which, in the past, has led to absorption
to the industrial capitalist status
quo. The example of the acceptance of carbon emissions trading is illustrative
in
this regard. Monbiot’s basic assumption
regarding globalization is, ‘this is the way it is, therefore this is the
way
it has to be.’ I totally disagree
with this. Industrial capitalism cannot be harnessed and tamed, and then put
to
ecological and social justice ends.
This book ignores essentially the ecological question which is primary.
Also,
as has been said before, there are
no jobs on a dead planet.
Tim Flannery points
out in his wonderful 2001 book, The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History
of
North America and Its Peoples,
that “without increasing consumption, capital can have no increasing
value.” (p. 353) Capital does
not recognize ecological limits. There are no new ‘frontiers’ left in the
21st
century. The globalized trade model
pursued by Monbiot must promote an expanded global consumption
of the Earth, which is in the intrinsic
interest of capital itself. It is not the interest of the Earth itself,
or in the long
term, of its peoples.
The harmful thrust
of this book is that it sets itself against the green movement’s emphasis
on the importance
of “place” for changing consciousness
in a more ecological direction, (and of living much more simply in place),
so we come more into harmony with
the natural world. This is characterized as “pernicious” localization, e.g.
bioregionalism, and falsely said
to be directed against the world’s poor. Yet a sense of place must be coupled
with social equity, or wealth redistribution.
The promise of communism regarding redistribution of wealth must
be part of a contemporary ecocentrism,
along with population reduction, so other species also have the space
to unfold their potentials, as do
humans. Like Naess says, in one of the quotations which introduces this review,
we in the present affluent countries
must live a lifestyle that others in this one world can also attain. We
must
reject the industrial globalization
model, not embrace it and try to tame it, as this book urges.
April 2005
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