The converging crises facing our world today shout out the fact that their roots are systemic. Tinkering around the edges won’t solve these problems, because they are embedded in the systems logic itself. The climate crisis is the signature of this. While definite progress has been made in deploying low-carbon energy technologies, overall carbon pollution has continued to increase because of the systemic economic and political assumptions under which dominant institutions operate.
The same is true of the general crisis of ecological overshoot in which climate is a major factor but by no means the whole picture. Scientists led by the Stockholm Resilience Center have been looking at ecological boundaries which mark out the safe space for human civilization and the Earth as a whole. Last September they announced the results of the first-ever evaluation of all 9 processes that preserve stability and resilience. Six boundaries have already been breached including the condition of climate, land, water and the biosphere, as well as overloading of phosphorus and nitrogen, and introduction of novel entities such as microplastics and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. This all suggests, scientists wrote, “that Earth is now well outside the safe operating space for humanity.”
These facts underscore the necessity for transformative change in economic and political systems. Massive resources must be devoted to transforming the basic elements of human society, including how we gain energy and materials to produce goods and services, how we grow our food, how we get around, how we build our buildings, how we deal with waste products. That entails redirection in how we invest capital.
Two significant indicators that our world is not getting it are the dramatic accumulation of wealth upwards and record military spending. Over the past 4 years billionaire wealth in the U.S. alone has shot up 88%, from $2.9 trillion in 2020 to $5.5 trillion today. The top 10, led by Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, account for $1.4 trillion of that. Globally, as a 2022, the richest 1% owned 46% of world wealth. No doubt that percentage has increased since. Would the planet be going into ecological overshoot if these people were investing in a way that created a resilient future? Obviously, they’re not. Sure, some are putting money into low-carbon technologies and environmental philanthropy, but the overwhelming preponderance of their investments and businesses still propels overshoot. Whatever they are doing does not address the systemic roots of the crisis.
Meanwhile, world militaries gobbled a record $2.2 trillion in 2023, up 9% over 2022, and another record is expected in 2024, the International Institute for Strategic Studies reported. That no doubt is a lowball, since real spending by the largest military power, the U.S., was estimated at $1.5 trillion in 2022, double the nominal budget. All the while wars rage on in Europe, the Mideast and Africa, and direct conflict between great powers is predicted. The frightful words World War III are increasingly on people’s lips.
All this indicates a world desperately in need of transformative change is moving in the diametrically opposite direction. It’s enough to crush hope and leave people who care for the future in despair. Where do you gain leverage to change such an interlocked global system? We need a way to take hold and begin to put a new system in place.
The first step is to understand the essence of the systemic transformation that is required. The common thread in our multiple global crises is the elevation of narrow interests over the common good. Certainly, the crisis of ecological overshoot reflects blindness towards our dependence on the planetary commons. For instance, making the atmosphere a dump for fossil fuel pollution while cutting down forests and tearing up soils are major drivers of climate disruption. Increasing global conflict and military expenditures reflect putting national interests over those of the world as a whole, despite the threat of nuclear extermination. The obscene and increasing concentration of the world’s wealth in so few hands screams out the prevalence of private interests over the common good.
Thus, the necessity is to restore the balance in society by rebuilding our sense of the common good, and the institutional frameworks that express it. That is the core of the transformation that is required. Self-interest is a powerful factor in human life, and will remain so. It is a part of human nature. But we also have a strongly cooperative and social side that must be emphasized if we are to navigate our convergent crises.
Over the past 4 or 5 decades, a philosophy known as neoliberalism has prevailed. It is built on a belief that if we each pursue our own self-interest, it will result in optimal results for society. The record has proved this wrong. The crises cited above, ecological overshoot, increased global conflict, and widening disparity of wealth, all testify to the need to restore a sense of the common good and common enterprise.
Neoliberalism has downgraded and denied these necessities and the institutions we have created to promote the public good. The general diminishment of the public sector, with the widespread evasion of just taxation by the wealthy classes, is central to this.
On my home turf of Washington state, we have a poster. We just lost a billionaire. That world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, just evaded around a quarter-billion dollars in payments under a newly enacted state capital gains tax by moving his legal residence to Florida. This is a man whose Amazon wealth depends on deliveries through public road and aviation infrastructure, and whose computer-based business is built on digital innovation publicly funded during World War II and the Cold War.
Capture of public institutions by private interests is the other aspect of the neoliberal era that makes them so ineffective at dealing with our crises. The fossil fuel industry and allies such as big agriculture and railroads have frustrated sufficient action on climate. The military-industrial complex promotes conflict and war. The wealthy fight just taxation. The list could go on.
The balance to this situation is people power democratically organized to advocate for the common good. That is why we need leverage points where people power can begin to make change, to reinforce existing institutional frameworks and build new ones that promote the common good. We need to build resilient economies that address the imperative to come back within planetary boundaries while meeting basic human needs.
Inherent in the idea of the common good is community. Restoring the common good and restoring community are one and the same. This directs us to the logical place to begin the process, the communities in which we live. This is where we can begin the work of transformation, of putting new systems in place. Our communities are where we develop the deepest connections and sense of commonality. Our surroundings, the social and natural environments in which we live, are where we can best envision and work for the conditions that promote the common good.
A key insight is that you can’t change everything at once. You have to build a new system within the shell of the old, using elements of the old system that nonetheless embody the changes you want to make. In the case of building the future in place, local and subnational state and provincial governments are vital.
Source: CounterPunch