Hey Adam. It's a bit short and stuffed with people who don't know or don't know they don't know but it's important to know the other side ;)
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
I thought it was quite good. I mean, such debates are ten-a-penny, but cumulatively you can learn a quite a bit.
There was a really good one with Arianna Huffington and the editor of The Evening Standard (I forget her name) a while back discussing the #iranelection twitterstorm.
I like to hear the journalists' concerns from the point of view of quality news gathering and communicating the wider context. I think it's an extremely valid concern, because — as you know — I abhor groupthink set adrift from an anchoring context.
I don't much go in for the twitter fundmentalist strain of technoutopianism. I just don't see these as things taking sides either in the actual debate or how it's being reported (sorry to read into your comment more than is there.) But remember, I don't 'hang out' on twitter much, so I miss all the initial excitement and don't really understand all of the nuances of twitterstorms as they develop.
I've summarised the interesting bits from the discussion in my delicious.
I'll paste it here:
The perception IS the reality. That's the inherent danger of the immediate consenus-making ability of twitter and other realtime platforms. -- Brendan O'Neill: "Illiberal liberalism" "Emotional incontinence" Righteous indignation/enthusiasm. That's the inherent danger of immediate action/reaction/gratification as opposed to taking the time to think things through – "Boring, hard work," as Nick Cohen puts it. (As a #moralmaze tweeter said, links to in-depth resources provide the best alibi for "shallow" twitterhappy tweetstormers.) Nick Cohen: "There's a lot of utopianism. It's very shallow and very transient. A lot of it is apathetic. It's people affirming themselves." -- RE #moralmaze. It's not surprising to see tweeters so overly keen to defend any and every perceived threat to twitter, though it's not like its going away—calm down. Defending both their newly-felt right to be heard and the social/cultural capital they've built up over the years... TWITTER IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.
charlesfrith
· 1 month ago
Great comment. Perhaps we should slug out our Green issues here too :) In any case I do feel some natural responses. I think we're heading into a golden age. It's not techno utopianism but the benefits of the information so out weigh the drawbacks that I'm hopeful for what I see as a diminished group think ordained by MSM. I revisted manufacturing consent by Noam Chomsky and really it's not hard to see how easy it is to scare whole countries into knee jerk reactions. i mean, if it were down to the Twitterati we wouldn't be in Iraq or Afghanistan. Frankly Twitter does a better job than MI6 when assessing intelligence through collective intelligence. Going back to the secret services it's an insult to the intelligence isn't it? I ripped that off a memorable Punch cover and I love it a lot. Erm..what else. OK of course there's going to be mistakes. There will be examples of mob rule group think where we'll hang some Gary Glitter figure only to find out at a later stage that the person is innocent. But, and this is a dangerous statement. It's all for the good. Humans are fallible and we learn from our mistakes. Maybe slowly, but in the big picture of things I'm hopeful. Just be ready for injustices on twitter because we'll regret them. But the track record so far isn't too bad no?
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
I'd previously resisted watching any Noam Chomksy documentaries despite knowing about the general theme of his work. But when you linked to it last week, I watched it.
I wasn't very impressed. I might have been had I watched it years ago before being exposed to other things. Actually, it would have been a big shot into the mainline rather than the slow drip I'd taken from other sources. Still, I dislike the way Chomsky flip-flops between ideologies and causes, though to be sure, that's more about him being a mascot for the people who want him to endorse their campaigns. Ultimately he's seeking clear thought and unbiased thinking, and I'm all for that.
I have great faith in collective intelligence and unleashed cognitive surplus. However, people (being as they are) aren't always able to think outside of themselves to the next larger context. Of course, the global village is still young, but to pretend that a philosophic culture of enlightenment will emerge just because the tools are there to encourage it is dangerous utopian thinking. There are people who stand much to gain from explaining mob rule as legitimate 'democracy' precisely because it shifts attention away from access to real democracy. It lets them off the hook.
We still live in a very status-obsessed, snark-ridden culture where people are determined never to have to backdown from a held position, where admitting failure is a sin rather than a the means to wisdom, where people will avoid shame at any cost - even a larger shame, and where people can't easily admit they're wrong despite all evidence to the contrary. And this is what worries me about any groupthink behaviour. People quickly become invested in the identity given to them by the consenual group, rather than the issue at hand, or indeed their own intellectual integrity. Twitter just condenses and speeds up the groupthink process and all with a smug 'safety in numbers' effect you see in any flocking behaviour. And since what moves most vigorously captures our attention, twitter has a sort of buzz bias that forces to the background more considered careful debate.
But anyway, I'm not anti- twitter or anti- anything, really. I'm simply pro- common sense.
To me, MSM has the advantage that it's predictable groupthink. For example, I use the BBC News (though mostly Newsnight now) to get the dumbed down version of reality, the consensus reality. And consenus is all very valuable since it gives us a baseline on which to build though some take it as the end, more out of laziness than harmful intent.
Of course some events happen faster than a consensus can be agreed upon and that's the most valuable time to be mainlined information from twitter and the realtime web. But once that consensus congeals we're no longer dealing with an objective issue but a set of beliefs and prejudices.
Which probably leads us on to the climate change debate.
charlesfrith
· 1 month ago
Yes lets do climate change. Although I will say that the Chomsky movie you watched is a bit of a pop culture one designed to get the kids involved and it's a little primary for your needs. Chomsky is most compelling in big long series of paragraphs during speeches. His magic works in that way and the movie is little more then a vignette of soundbites despite railing against that very topic. I also feel you didn't really acknowledge the points I made about the social utility of Twitter but then I don't feel we're on opposite sides of the pitch but probably quibbling about the rules of the game.
Unlike Climate Change :)
I know your position. Or rather I know enough of your position to disagree though even that has changed somewhat today. I'll explain. We've never discussed the issue though we've discussed other issues in the past but I read pretty much most of what you do or at least have a quick scan through disruptive stuff. I'm not so much into the economic porn nowadays as everything that needs to be said has been said. Though some of the bloggers I respect are getting increasingly punchy about the greed by Goldman et al. Which would have been heresy a couple of years ago.
Anyway, I guess I should say that I'm going through a waterfall of recontextualising a lot of what I think. Somebody sent me The New Noah e book which I speed read just now and it's a bit more brutal in conclusion than I have been to date. But lets wind back because I'm sure you might misunderstand me too. I'm not sure about climate change either. I'm pretty sure about a dirty world. It's a fact that the Eastern coast of China is swathed in rotten pollution and that the oceans are housing continental sized pools of tiny floating plastic debris. I don't like that. I think it's not important to prove climate change I think its important to live an examined life which would mean having a position on excessive waste, finite resources and yes carbon output. Whether its provable or not long ago failed to motivate me.
I guess I'm seeing some exploitation of the carbon footprint/trading issue by the usual money obsessed through your bookmarks and feeds and assuming you're getting irate over an issue which to me feels irrelevant. It doesn't take a Copernicus to observe that we have finite resources and we're treating them as if they're infinite. I don't see what's wrong with having a frugal and considered approach to consumption. I also think there's lots of ways to make it a profitable model for all involved although not profitable in the sense that we were raised. We can easily shift value from fiat currency to other attractive ideas and I always think advertising is useful in that context. Let's face it. Brainwashing got us into this mess and brainwashing can get us out of it?
Or have I completely misunderstood you? Either way. I prefer having this discussion in a public forum as you never know. Maybe someone else will fall off the tree of lurking and join in :) Unlikely though. I do have a delicious Goldman Hong Kong story for you that I'll need some discretion over how I share it with you but it should chime with you given your understanding of psychopathy....Come the revolution Adam. Brace yourself ;)
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
As you know, my delicious feed is not really a synthesis of any one particular view or philosophy, it's just me selecting parts of various discussions and occasionally commenting on salient bits. Most of all I am reacting to the irrationalism that I perceive and as much as I enjoy it as form of entertainment, it is not my personal preference for debate at all.
You said: "I think it's not important to prove climate change I think its important to live an examined life which would mean having a position on excessive waste, finite resources and yes carbon output. Whether its provable or not long ago failed to motivate me."
This comment concerns me. If evidence or lack of it won't motivate you — what will? And why should your particular motivation motivate others? What's the standard for action??
Apathy due to uncertainty and conflicting views further reveals the vital need for a standard of enquiry that has served humanity very well: science.
Climate Change is such a big issue that it's hard to be brief. I'll first summarize my position answering your points, then — if you don't mind — I'll paste a few comments made on a blog elsewhere for additional thoughts and references.
CLIMATE CHANGE Climate 'change' is a fact. The climate is always changing. There is nothing special about the term 'climate change'. We all agree on the observation that the climate changes. We humans have the idea that we might be able to mitigate against the perceived bad changes, whether our collective or individual actions are contributory causes or not. This is an entirely sensible endeavor, but there are no guarantees that we either contribute to change in any significant way or that we can change the course of those changes. But, being humans, we will always strive to know and I am all for the effort so long as it is an honest effort that includes everybody equally.
CO2 The popular(?) consensus(?) is that climate change is CO2-driven. Thus immediate efforts are being directed at reducing industrial output of C02. The problem is there is no actual evidence to support that assertion. There are only models that support that assertion and models are not evidence. New actual evidence is coming in and shows that CO2 is not the driving factor. If CO2 is not the driving factor than we must direct our efforts towards identifying what is — using evidence. We must focus on real evidence if we want to have the honest debate and take collective action given the perceived risks. We all deserve nothing less.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES There are many, and because this 'debate' has been needlessly politicized, they are justified. The biggest 'conspiracy' is that those who adhere to the scientific method (evidence-based observation and testing) are being labelled as "skeptics" — when is science anything other than continual skepticism?? — and "deniers" — deniers of what?? nothing has been proved with evidence, so there's nothing to deny! There is certain religious-style cult that has arisen around this 'debate' (which isn't properly debated) and it is oppressive to the work of the actual scientists we are all relying on to gather real evidence in order to tell us what's really going on. I would call this a conspiracy against science and it is extremely dangerous.
CARBON-TRADING What use is carbon trading if CO2 is not the driving factor in climate change? Why is there a rush to implement global carbon-trading schemes when the evidence for CO2-driven climate change is not in any way conclusive? Carbon-trading/rationing is a tax on production across the entire economy. It is rent-seeking, pure and simple. People used to joke about politicians taxing the air. Carbon-trading is just that. The problem here is simply that the western world needs to start producing actual things again. We don't need the hindrance of a tax that hits small businesses harder than large ones (some of which have special access to the global carbon-cartel and can always leverage labour arbitrage to find the most desirable location for carbon-cheap production). Again, given that CO2-driven climate has not been proved with actual evidence, why should we so easily allow yet another global economic superstructure to be put in place? Could we just as easily remove this superstructure if science provided conclusive evidence that either CO2 is not a driving factor or that something else is? Economic history favours an extremely 'skeptical' attitude. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking
POST-NORMAL SCIENCE The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) 'theory' of CO2-driven is not evidence-based therefore not science. We cannot make rational decisions without evidence of observed causes and effects. Faith or belief is no basis with which to plan for our collective future. If the actual evidence comes in that CO2 is the driving factor and it is agreed by scientific observation/evidence — then great, we have a clear target combined with an obvious means of action. Otherwise, we are being guided by hunches and belief alone — and if allowed to become our only guiding light — as time passes it becomes even harder to use evidence to direct our efforts towards solving this and other problems. Science must be the standard — always. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science
GREEN ECONOMY Everyone wants the world to run on renewable/sustainable energy sources. To be a CO2 skeptic (adhere to scientific method) does not mean you are any less keen for renewable/sustainable energy sources. The inconvenient truth is that we still need our current sources of energy to make new forms of energy production on a mass scale. Taxing oil and gas doesn't lead to significant reductions in consumption precisely because there are no viable alternatives to switch to! This is an elementary point that is too often forgotten. We simply cannot afford to be anti-fossil fuels right now. Even reenigineering our economies, capital goods, and consumables to work with renewables/sustainables takes additional energy. I am all for every sensible scheme that directs our efforts towards developing new sustainable energy supplies (I can't imagine anyone is against this) but I am under no illusions that it won't require a redirected use of ALL of our currently available energy sources — so long as they are actually available, of course.
Let me quote John Michael Greer on this issue:
"...it’s easy to insist, if you ignore the economic dimension, that a society facing this sort of crisis can save itself by launching a massive program to build nuclear reactors, solar thermal power plants, algal biodiesel, or what have you, and of course this sort of claim has seen endless rehashing over the last couple of decades. The problem is that massive programs of this sort pile additional demands on an already faltering economy. Any such program has to be paid for, after all, and by this I don’t mean that money has to be found for it; in today’s mostly hallucinatory economic climate, conjuring money out of thin air is easy enough. No, it has to be paid out of current economic output, which is much less flexible, and already has to cover the rising costs of resource depletion and pollution. This is the trap hidden in the limits to growth; once those limits begin to bite, the spare economic capacity that would be needed to build one’s way out of trouble no longer exists."
It bears saying, none of the above justifies current levels of consumption or a lack of concern over CO2. It simply means that ruling in or out CO2 is the most pressing concern for understanding climate change both to act against it — if possible — and also to plan for our energy futures without fossil fuels. Action already taken for the scenario of CO2-driven climate change is not evidence of CO2-driven climate change. It is simply action, and it may be wrong-headed action given the lack of evidence.
WAR In principle I'm against these perpetual wars for energy resources, but they are inevitable given our current economic, political, and social structures. If people genuinely wanted to change any of this, they'd have to first face up to a terrible truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P772Eb63qIY
POLLUTION I'm against it. But it is inevitable given current means of production and what that productive capacity is put to. I look at the pollution in China as extremely unfortunate, but entirely inevitable. We in the developed world did exactly the same thing, just not quite so fast! Apart from contributing to the 'debate' on climate change, China is a sovereign nation and it is up to them how they use their resources.
ADVERTISING/CULTURE I agree with any efforts that help people question their habits of consumption and help them make better choices. And perhaps it's worth me being more specific on those 'better' choices: choices that allow people to achieve greater economies of scale and scope; choices that enable people to take responsibility for their actions and enjoy public acknowledgement of their virtue; choices that are meaningful and that enable the unrestricted sharing and building of know-how with others; choices that reveal to people flows of participation in the means of production such that they better understand their unique role in society.
Increasingly, we are going to turn to our own locales to service our needs: food, energy, trade, politics, community, culture, etc. I see this as the reverse of brainwashing. It's about acknowledging and working with your immediate reality rather than striving to interface with a 'better' one 'out there' somewhere. Aggressive localization will also have the benefit of extricating people from the criminal global rackets: fiat currencies, carbon credits, malacious vaccines - thus empowering people to better protect their lives, resources and communities.
ECONOMIC PORN Now we just have to suffer the endless embarrassments of politicians continually covering up for their previous mistake. I still don't hear enough concern about all this, just misdirected anger at straw men and patsies, and all with blind faith in politicians' pseudo-science economic policies. It's dangerous because when people begin to feel the real effects resulting from what's going on, if they haven't been following events it's more likely they'll react with rage not reason. And if that happens persistently on a mass scale... lockdown.
HUMILITY To my mind, this is the essence of many problems. Humility is the foundation of ethics. In a genuinely open debate, we would applaud people for pointing out the fallacies in our arguments and for challenging us to reach higher levels of certainty in the face of reasonable doubt. As I've said before, people have always found it hard to admit when they're wrong, and this is getting worse because the visibility of their arguments and positions via social media makes the climb down from error all the more difficult given the levels of social and cultural capital already invested in holding any particular view. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_fallacy#...)
This is why I'm so suspicious of groupthink generally and why I think the optimism that it can be so easily mitigated by tools alone is dangerous. People are still too wedded to their social/cultural status and fear any loss to that status which is a globally-viewable personal indicator now. In order from us all to profit from this open/social connected culture we must all get better at admitting and taking pride in being wrong.
“The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us. Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs. We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilize them in support of our projects. These myths transcend the scientific categories of ‘true’ and ‘false’”
The whole trouble with the climate change debate is the sunk costs people have invested in a campaign that seemed to give their lives a collective purpose and higher meaning – all egged on by politicians, of course who’s very existence depends on being seen to be ‘doing something’. This need to be DO something is so widely felt in the middle classes because they still feel a kind of guilt for not really being about anything other than acting as some kind of buffer to the genuine hardships of the lower classes. Of course, the middle class can’t lower their status and fight for any real social justice, thus their guilt and lack of purpose will continually conspire to convince that they must just stay in place.
Of course we can all point out the carbon rent-seeking scams in attempt to reveal the middle class as the intended victims, but that just doesn’t help the believers to climb down off their moralistic perch in a way that saves them face. Pointing out a conspiracy just further undermines their sense of intelligence, and as I’ve said so often, people just can’t admit they’re wrong.
You simply have to appeal to their higher reason and point them to the science – the latest science, not climate models – we have actual observed data now:
Then, you join in the optimism on green technologies, not because of the alleged CO2 reduction, but because of the benefits of state energy independence and the shift to personal responsibility.
People just want to feel like they can DO something whilst the world spins out of control. It’s just unfortunate that some can’t think a little further ahead to see how their current actions and affiliations will circumscribe the future actions they might want to take.
--- #2.
Trying to shame each other into the ‘correct position’ won’t help and won’t work.
I can see the opinions get even more entrenched, but I don’t see anyone using actual science to defend their position.
Evidence. Science. These are the foundations of productive debate. This is the way we’ll save ourselves from ourselves.
The supreme virtue (IMHO) is to admit when you’re wrong and save yourself the anguish over problems already solved, evidence already gathered.
I’ll even quote a most virtuous man (!)
“Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.” — George Soros
Let’s first agree on the way to do science: continual skepticism over our imperfect models with an eagerness to improve our understanding by incorporating the latest evidence.
These are the questions still unanswered by those who ‘believe’ in man-made/CO2-driven climate change:
The observed data (links provided in previous comment, though the actual research paper hasn’t been published or peer-reviewed yet) is showing that CO2 doesn’t play as large a factor in climate change as the models predicted. I’m not a scientist but I can read a graph and I trust that swarms of scientists will interrogate the research and review the findings honestly.
'Mr Nicholson: “Belief in man-made climate change is not a new religion, it is a philosophical belief that reflects my moral and ethical values and is underlined by the overwhelming scientific evidence.”
The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.'
Snitching culture achieved. Make your enemies fight each other.
charlesfrith
· 1 month ago
Comprehensive but still at odds with my main assertion Adam. Here's why. I'm debating my political position from logic and not evidence. I don't have the evidence (but (I do have the resources) to rebuff any assertion that climate change is taking place. But I do have logic. Do I know Climate change is taking place? Well it's irrelevant. Climate change has always taken place and to conclusively prove that our behaviour is impacting the earths environment is futile. But its a reasonably hermetically sealed proposition to say that infinite consumption (and economic growth model) points towards our own demise as a species. Unless say nano bio technology enables us to diminish our own size and consumption of finite non durables. That's a far out idea but its one of my best.
“Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.” — George Soros
So what is the correction of our mistakes Adam? Just some sort of scientific conclusion that points towards volcanic activity as the source of climate change without leaving a solution for the poisoning and consumption of the planet's finite resources? That would be the definitive example cutting of our noses to spite our face.
I do agree that its likely our fate is inescapable (war is probably the most likely outcome in the fight for resources) but to blithely continue as we are, is simply not motivating for me as a lifestyle. Neither is contesting what you highlight as often bogus scientific practices to elevate the climate change bogeyman. I'll say it one last time. I see a logic problem. Not an evidenced based discussion. The final evidence is in the final analysis. It's too late then. That's why I walk the earth like Kung Fu and a morally superior swagger ;)
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
So you're not actually concerned with climate change; you're concerned with an infinite growth model and you're willing to legitimize a carbon-trading rent-seeking scam as a means to enforce a kind of collective punishment for 'wasteful' economic production all paid for by mindless energy consumption and rapacious environmental abuse?
The trouble with that position is that it plays right into the hands of the rent-seekers who have totally warped our understanding of real economics to trap us into their matrix.
You ask what's the correction? Nature's natural market is the correction. We've long past peak oil and soon we might actually face up to it:
Investment in any sort of energy production is slowing because it's becoming increasingly expensive to employ available energy in pursuit of more. Because this trap hasn't been mitigated against, there's no way out of using fossil fuels now. Energy wars will be constant. For anybody in the West lusting after a green/renewable/sustainable/utopian future, they'll have to use war to achieve it and then hope they're all virtuous enough to use that captured energy to invest towards making a renewable switch rather than allowing it to fund empires and political careers. History is not on our side.
So what caused the infinite growth model? The simple and complicated answer is debt.
The world works by the stick of debt and the carrot of economic rents.
It was servicing the compounding interest on rentier-loaned debt money that caused governments, companies and individuals to willfully ignore the full economic costs of production (resource depletion, pollution, energy wars) and seek the cheapest labour (globalization) whilst gambling with complex financial products for balance sheet gains rather than investing in capital goods (innovation).
It was the middle classes' foolish rent-seeking "property" speculation that allowed rentier-owned politicians to force the tax burden entirely onto the productive part of our economy (labour and business) and thus self-servingly reinforce the populist delusion that given such a tax regime massive "investment" in public social welfare services could be paid for with anything other than borrowing and inflation (tax on money) that hits the poor and lower-middle classes the hardest thus widening the poverty gap. It bears mentioning that massive government borrowing crowds out the capital markets thus denying small business the access to credit they need to create jobs and help the poor out of poverty sustainably — not with government handouts that just perpetuate the current tax regime and dig a deeper hole. These middle class left-right-labour-liberal-conservative voting useful idiots are not interested in social justice and only when they wake up from their false consciousness will they realise the full extent of the horrors they have wrought on society through their self-inflicted debt peonage via mortgages. For so-called 'socially conscious educated people' their ignorance and hypocrisy is profoundly profound.
If we want an equitable and prosperous society, we must first legitimize government by shifting taxes off labour and business, and back onto land:
Hopefully if we can attain and retain a true understanding of economics through the study of this 'greatest depression' then we might be able to rebuild something sensible on the other side of it.
And on that point I should direct you towards Dr Michael Hudson, one of the few economists who 'gets it' and has a firm grasp of ethics:
"The finance, real estate and insurance sectors are not part of the real economy of production and consumption. They are parasites. The financial sector extracts interest from the economy; the property sector extracts economic rent, as do monopolies. The key thing about parasites is that it's not simply that they extract nourishment from the host, the parasite takes over the hosts brain to make it think that its part of the economy, to make it think that it's part of the host's own body, and it's almost like a child of the host to be protected. You can't serve both the parasite and the host."
I don't think I'm serving the parasite or the host by urging that we take control of our own actions with regard to fossil fuel consumption. There's a lot of crossover links there into the economic mess we're in and I think you know there's very little between us with regards to who is screwing who.
You may be right and I've pointed at it already that the likely conclusion for fossil fuel resources will be a war but that doesn't mean we can't live our lives in a manner that is noble and equally that we can't urge our fellow humans to consider the implications of all this.
I do grasp as do you, how the economic model is structured so that debt is seen as honourable. Its for that reason that most cash is sneered at while credit (debt) cards have the marketing machine behind them. (Fascinating story about the origin of credit cards in the US)
There was a reason why the merchant class became a threat to the "nobility" (funny how they still get the cool name) and how once the wealth shifted to them around the 13th 14th it set off a lot of events including the emancipation of land slavery but in any case I've been listening to some of Doug Rushkoff's fascinating interview subjects this afternoon with some more understanding as to why the commons were places for collecting firewood and picking berries and not much removed from the creative commons we now find quite useful to get around copyright laws that are themselves an enslavement of sorts.
So the real issue between us now is types of methodologies to live a morally defendable life against indiscriminate fossil fuel usage?
If that's the case then let me have a think about it because there's lots and I don't doubt that the vampires are quite happy to develop another rentier class for exploitation.
But I do need to know if that's where we differ because otherwise I'll get a load of links that I generally don't disagree with though this slow connection means I can't view all immediately. But yes..of course money is debt. It's genius as a system of enslavement. Though its a different issue from climate change as whip to sustainable living carrot discussions.
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
I've been peppering my comments with links just in case anyone else was following the discussion and wanted references.
Full reply tomorrow.
charlesfrith
· 1 month ago
Ah. Good. That's what I hoped so feel free to support any points you feel. I look forward to tomorrow. Thanks Adam.
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
I take issue with an overtly moralistic approach.
Moral indignation is not by itself a solution. Morally motivated action is not necessarily the right action to take — right now. Morals can help us define where we want to end up, but they can't tell us how to get there.
Max Keiser made another good comment about this:
"Environmentalists should be buying gold because only by supporting gold are you going to take away the means by which these companies that you're fighting against have to leverage the economy and cause more ecological destruction."
He's said the same many times before when talking about http://www.karmabanque.com (boycotting a company's product whilst simultaneously short-selling their stock) and how regular activists can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept — probably because they feel more comfortable with the moral/emotional pleasures of a debate rather the responsible/practical means to win it
This addiction to the pleasures of moralising *is* the danger. I don't want to be 'right' for the sake of some moral principle. I don’t want to make a show of my moral virtue. I simply want to see a changed environment for the better whether that pleases a moral viewpoint or not.
I'm an idealist. I would prefer to attack an issue at its root. The motivation for me is to help people see the bigger picture so they can understand their own behavior within increasingly larger contexts.
Money as debt is the missing factor in many moralistic/simplistic environmental awareness campaigns. Example: http://www.storyofstuff.com
The presenter points to the $ but doesn't explain the compounding obligations behind it that force along the chain of action she's explaining. The moralistic/simplistic idea being promoted here is that people are greedy consumers who aren't aware of the effects of their mindless consumption. This just isn't true. Everybody knows to some degree that they're participating in a fiction, they just can't see another reality to escape to. As much as I share her ideals, I say because of her moralistic/simplistic storytelling, she is part of the problem of spreading a limiting false consciousness because she doesn't apprehend that there are drivers to human behaviour beyond morals.
It would be very easy for me to slip into a moralistic tone (as I came very close to in my previous comment) and rant about how these idiot middle class wannabe rent-seekers get themselves into any level of debt just to keep up appearances and escape the horrors of working class life, but the truth is these people have been pushed into debt because of someone else's debt and in turn that person's obligation to another's debt and so on. All of this debt backed by a government guarantee (i.e. debt owed by everyone).
Kill the debt, kill the debt-creating central bank cartel, back the money by a resource or with government integrity and you end all of this nonsense: the over-consumption, the over-production, the environmental exploitation, the wars, the poverty — all of it.
Even if people only understood that argument but couldn't act upon it, we'd still be a lot further along in the debate than bashing people over the head with yet more moralistic tirades about 'consuming less stuff'. People are already consuming less stuff whether by choice or necessity. Their ecological understanding of debt, on the other hand, is less certain and crucial if we are to build a real and sustainable economy after the collapse of this fake one.
"The long economic expansion of the industrial age has fostered the massive growth of what old-fashioned Marxists used to call a rentier class – a class whose money makes money for them. Even among people who work for a living, the idea of joining the rentier class on retirement, and living comfortably off investments, has become very popular in recent years. The problem, of course, is that the age of industrial expansion is over; it was made possible in the first place only by exponentially increasing the use of fossil fuels and other natural resources; like all exponential growth curves, it faced an inevitable collision with the limits of its environment – and that collision is happening around us right now. We are thus entering a period of prolonged economic contraction — not a recession, or even a depression, but a change in the fundamental dynamic of the economy." http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/02/...
If we differ *maybe* it's only because I refuse to be drawn into any kind of emotionalism that surrounds the debate of an issue:
I refuse to allow governments to appeal to my FEAR so that they may recruit me into supporting wars and giving up my freedoms.
I refuse to allow politicians to appeal to my GREED so that they may bribe me into voting for a handout the country cannot afford.
I refuse to allow carbon rent-seekers to appeal to my VANITY so that they may try to convince me that my actions could somehow 'save the world'.
I refuse to allow any leader to appeal to my need to BELONG so that they may manipulate me into joining a group that only furthers the power of the leader rather than that of the community as a whole.
-- Now I'm not sure where we're at in our debate. It's not like there's something to be won, yet you seem to continue to hedge your bet with tacit support of the need to DO something via carbon trading because it makes people feel more responsible — as if 'feeling' something is all that matters regardless of whether it actually helps to solve a solvable 'problem'. Correct me if I'm wrong.
This is quite remarkable. I'm on a slow connection so it's only now that I've had a chance to start looking at the links I'm not aware of and while I still want to come back to your comment the Karmabanque is pretty much one of my early internet ideas. It occurred to me that the potential for people to hold the errant corporation over a barrel by boycotting (even for just a day or two) is huge. What struck me, a long time ago is that were the collective, the hive so to speak, choose to rally round just one issue a month. And remove their purchasing power. That they could bring capitalism to its knees. So while I will return to the moral debate (which isn't that far removed from the action debate for they are linked) I can assure you that when I tweeted this only a few hours ago I had no idea that the Karmabanque existed or the content of your comment as I've just read it in full. Thus we are extremely close in position
I don't want to jump in and potentially ruin your flow, but I just wanted to mention that the Karmabanque methodology is now being used at the government level with people boycotting paper currencies and effectively shorting them by buying gold and other commodities.
"...bring capitalism to its knees." -- I've got to flag this.
Karmabanque is more about being pro-capitalism and against those corporations that use their monopoly/oligopoly positions to restrict healthy competition in their marketplace by bullying governments for favourable policies.
The currency play is much the same. It's about bringing competition back into the global market for money, investment and trade.
You need to get your story straight regarding wanting a global (fiat?) currency and global government.
Karmabanque-style boycotts only work when you can play entities against each other and when people have alternatives to go to in a free market(s).
Global currency/government (the one depends on the other) is pretty much the end of capitalism proper since government will be constantly fixing contracts and prices to meet its 'goals' — much like the UK Gov is trying to do in the City right now with fixing banker wages (price of labour) or the carbon-rentiers want to do with general production and consumption.
Reading through your comments and tweets, I get quite confused on how you fit all of your ideas and enthusiasms together. I trust there's a higher wisdom at work ;^)
charlesfrith
· 1 month ago
Gutted. I just wrote a long reconciling comment response that borked even though I managed to tweet it
I'll come back to this and hopefully its worked its way back into disqus. Though I love the Decadent Action Manifesto :)
charlesfrith
· 1 month ago
I'll have another go at this Adam. Though I'm sure you would have appreciate the more extensive last comment which addressed your confusion.
Firstly it's corporate capitalism I'm most disaffected with. Surely I don't need to lay out comprehensively the nomenclature of my political economic position. We both read Naked Capitalism and Zero Hedge so I don't understand what part of libertarian socialist confuses you? ;>)
So for the record I'm in favour of wealth creation though that could easily sound incoherent to a person who might not understand grasp that I see the application for socialist intervention when appropriate. I'm not even sure of your position on this. Because the free market is neither free nor a market. But the critical point is I'm context dependent on my political economic position. I can see a case for monetary incentives or inducing frugality depending on the circumstances. Right now the latter is pressing which is why I take issue with your outrage with climate change. The bigger picture is us not them surely?
But this is irrelevant. The main point is to understand why you don't see traditional wealth creation tied into the current economic model as harmful to the planet?
I don't mind subterfuge under a climate change rubrik to facilitate behavioural change. Yes it's dishonourable but then I'm pro guillotine too in the right circumstances. Though what part of the Maldives magically submerging under the sea in a coincidence of epic proportions during the exact moment when you apparently wish to pursue a libertarian stance is baffling to me. Over to you Crowe :P
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
My previous comments have made it perfectly clear that I perceive debt as the driving factor of over-production and over-consumption: your chief complaint. Money as debt is the 'traditional' wealth *destruction* mechanism. Compounding debt isn't creation, it's obligation, paid for by planetary and human abuse. I'm at a loss at to why you'd be asking me to clarify my understanding here.
Harmful to the planet?? Pollution? See above. Resource depletion? See above. Malinvestments? See above. Perverse incentives? See above. Poverty and declining social mobility? See above. Wrong-headed populist causes? See above.
You still seem to be trying to hold me to some kind of moral standard as a prerequisite of debate. My morals are deep and not easily seduced by rhetorical argument or populist campaigning.
You ask where I stand on redistribution of wealth by force (socialism). I'm against it, particularly at a centralised level. In principle, less so at a local government level where the benefit of applied force is both more likely to be used on things the people intended and where the people themselves are responsible for the collective force they have chosen to exercise upon one another. In practice, socialism is a nonsense at any level. As you know, I advocate the tax burden to be taken off labour and applied to land. This can only work at the local level: it is the ultimate form of localism. 'The land' is a naturally socialised good - but the benefits accruing to its successful use have been privatised. This is a legal hack and should be changed – immediately. If properly applied, the benefits from a land tax can easily fund all of the local and state services desired, but this is by no means a socialist policy or economy because it doesn't rely on prior centralised collection before redistribution by an elite.
There's a distinction between socialism and good regulation through the legal system. Both are an application of force, but only one depends on forcibly taking resources and redistributing them as an elite 'government' sees fit. Any time this type of redistribution happens it undermines the 'free market' as defined by voluntary contracts of exchange made between individuals based on sound property rights.
I don't see how it possible to wish for free markets on the one hand but then advocate they be corrupted "depending on the circumstances" on the other. You either want markets to be free of force or not. You either hold a principle or not. If you want a mixed economy where some services are provided exclusively by the state, then that is your choice. There's no associated requirement to meddle in free markets beyond those 'socialist' state-run monopolies.
I just don't go in for all these -isms to define economics and society. It's far easier and more accurate IMHO to assess where actions fit on following sliding scales: FREEDOM <--> TYRANNY, PRICE-DISCOVERY <--> PRICE-FIXING, TAX ON LAND <--> TAX ON LABOUR
The reason I wonder is because you still seem to be convinced that CO2 is the driving factor behind climate change and I'm certain that if you'd been thinking rationally, you wouldn't have made the mistake of trying to use a computer-modeled estimate that the Maldives may be completely submerged by 2080 as evidence for CO2-driven climate change. Please read the handbooks. They're only hostile towards you if you're hostile towards science.
Change in consumption habits. You still seem to be stuck in a thought loop that finds a correlation between a carbon-rationing scheme (that most economists say can't work as a rationing scheme regardless of what it seeks to ration) and a change in both the climate — for the positive, and consumption habits — for the positive. Why do you so easily believe that this collected tax (if it's actually collectable) will 1. Holt fossil fuel consumption when there are few alternatives? (Plus when CO2-driven climate change has no evidence, why should the earth cool down as measured by the manipulated warmings of computer models??) and 2. Reallocate prior and future fossil fuel productive resources towards investment in renewables/sustainables?
Do you see the leap of faith you're making?? Why shouldn't the computer models just report higher warming to raise alarm for even greater taxes? What's to stop them from doing so when honest science isn't 'allowed/accepted' to prove otherwise? Why shouldn't the carbon-rentiers and facilitating bureaucrats spend their money on fine wines and alpine houses? Why would they "invest" their ill-gotten gains in renewables/sustainables if such investments didn't offer a greater return than their carbon-derivative "investments"?
'Producing energy takes energy. The process by which money produces more money consumes next to no energy, by contrast, and so financial investments don't lose ground due to rising energy costs. ...a perpetually expanding money supply driven by mass borrowing at interest has become an anachronism unsuited to the new economic reality of energy contraction. It also guarantees that any attempt to limit the financial sphere of the economy will face mass opposition, not only from financiers, but from millions of ordinary citizens whose dream of a comfortable retirement depends on the hope that financial investments will outperform the faltering economy of goods and services. Meanwhile, just as the economy most needs massive reinvestment in productive capacity to retool itself for the very different world defined by contracting energy supplies, investment money seeking higher returns flees the productive economy for the realm of abstract paper wealth.'
Why, after all of human history, would you believe that elites have your best interests at heart — this time — when every single measure of human progress and prosperity has happened despite these elites and in freedom from them? Why??
Whilst I share your motivation to redirect resources towards a green economy, I'm not putting my trust in a grotesquely convoluted derivative market that requires a global government — guns — to enforce it all. You clearly must not comprehend the full lunacy of what you're advocating.
And for what? What is it that you want? To play along? To open your wallet and thus renounce any actual personal responsibility? To be part of a popular movement for the sake of "change" regardless of the change? Didn't a whole bunch of people just vote for "change"? Didn't they just get sold out to 'crony capitalist' interests? Have you not learned from their mistake? What is it you want, Charles? When are you going to use this discussion to clearly articulate what change will achieve your ends in your own words and apart from the cloaking of your critical faculties in a consensus that I'm patiently helping you to debunk?
You have said you are for the application of force when *you* see fit but at the same time say that you're libertarian-minded. That's a very tricky balance so you'd certainly be weary of taking any forceful action on the basis of anything other than a sure footing. And then there's a third factor which is your heart-felt moral imperative that could so easily cloud your judgement and that you are obligated to correct for, which makes it even more important to deal with matters of judgement head on as a priority. So again...
Where is the evidence for CO2-driven climate change? Where is it? If it doesn't exist, climate change is still going to happen for the good, for the bad, and for the neutral. Regardless of -/+ 'change', we have scientists working on understanding the full complexities of climate science and they aren't working to an agenda other than understanding, they aren't falsifying data to create 'warming', they aren't omitting data to create 'warming', they aren't manipulating the peer review process to prevent science, and they aren't avoiding reasoned argument in favor of authority based on dubious scientific evidence that is being hidden behind commercial agreements to protect disclosure of just how dubious it really is. And to be clear, this is the raw ground temperature data we're all being denied. The admitted to manipulated data is the sole basis for yet more computer-modeled projections for warming alarmism that pushes people's fear buttons so well.
Aren't people tired of living in a simulacrum?? Isn't the inevitable crashing of debt money matrix 'evidence' enough that we need to return to a real/scientific/objective/rational/sustainable world??
You think — given the stakes — that so-called "skeptics" are arguing so vehemently for the satisfaction of being 'right'?? Such an accusation would say far more about the accuser than the accused.
If you want to locate my outrage about climate change, it is at the corruption of science. Given your pressing concerns, why are you not similarly outraged? Aren't you for a fair debate; a fair fight based on evidence? You're outraged at the central banking warfare model because you understand it logically and empirically. Were those understandings not based on evidence? Does your outrage about climate change not deserve the same level of prior rational thinking?
Over to you Frith. And your reply had better be a robust one ;^)
charlesfrith
· 1 month ago
I thought like Seth Godin, I'd just turn up and smile for this one :)
OK, you've got a lot of good points in there which I need to digest and integrate with my existing thinking. I admit I was aware in a skimming sense of the idea property not labour tax but I haven't given it the credit I think is due. There are a lot immediate questions such as those from poll tax experiences through to corporate and individual taxation of property which may well be negligible or could be obstructive. I hope you realise the seriousness I'm giving towards this and instead of knee jerk reaction which is not the purpose of this dialogue. Let me go through the links on a dial up connection and work the information. But it is appealing.
However. You should also be aware of my 'everything is contextual' position. It applies in an advertising and marketing communication literacy through to philosophical spectrum and so allow me to elaborate on contextually based decision making.
You write:
I don't see how it possible to wish for free markets on the one hand but then advocate they be corrupted "depending on the circumstances" on the other. You either want markets to be free of force or not. You either hold a principle or not. If you want a mixed economy where some services are provided exclusively by the state, then that is your choice. There's no associated requirement to meddle in free markets beyond those 'socialist' state-run monopolies
I think principles can be both admirable and a rod up our backs. I'd say principles are the single most dynamic factor in tandem with that fluffy ism of ideology for the schism between left and right. The legacy thinking that has produced a binary society of either black or white. Socialist or Capitalist. Roman Catholic or Lutheran ( you might enjoy looking up the plenary dispensations that led to that split but then maybe not).
Right: Taking a position is a good thing. But that position is always contextually placed. Wash the car when it's dirty. But only in Summer. The weather context is important because there's no point washing the car when it's raining every day.
Here's what 20th century thinking rigidly imposes on so many people. Two outcomes scenario. Which I suspect may then elevate peoples assertions to principles. Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself. So it seems perfectly senseless to me given the qualified failure (thus far) of Marxism and Capitalism to be successful. One lead to starvation, and the other has led to gluttony. Physically fat, spiritually impoverished. That Adam is undeniable and demands we should all be a little humble with our ideological or principled beliefs.
Thus I'm not saying I'm right but I'm saying I'm less wrong. A car has three primary dynamics. Acceleration & Brakes. I'll come to the third in a moment.
To suggest a car should have no brakes or no accelerator is nonsensical and yet we still pursue a binary position on economics. Growth versus wealth distribution. I think there's room for a whole lot more including both of those two primary dynamic operators. Let's call brakes socialism, and the accelerator capitalism. It's a binary division that in my view is applicable depending on the circumstances. Back breaking socialism would have led to more time to assess the damage we are imposing on this planet and who could argue the benefits of capitalism in fostering peace between nations that would otherwise be at war. Money and specifically trade has had a fundamental role to play in what has been by contrast a peaceful second half of the 20th century. I'd much rather go down in a climatic apocalypse than in the trenches of the Somme. Brutal.
But let me introduce the third metaphor of the steering wheel. I know you get it I just want to know if you can entertain the notion of pluralism in your economic and climactic diagnosis because I'll be going back to land tax and integrating that into my contextually based thinking on economics. My only fear is you've opened up a can of worms as for some time I adhered more to the Anarchist school of thought on land ownership which is probably something we should park in the corner until I've digest more of the links. You provide.
I hope you appreciate that I've deliberately chosen to use an analogy because by my reckoning Seth Godin uses an analogy to explain an analogy which is an irony of the highest order because not only does he not engage in dialogue but I don't know if there's any evidence for any of his assertions. And that's all they are assertions. Not facts.
I'll be back with some more considered thinking. Good work on that last one.
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
Many thanks, Charles. I'll reply in full in another comment. Meanwhile...
Land and Land Value Tax related links:
The Renegade Economist — The Global Financial Crisis http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A0B6837... 5 part video explaining how land speculation led to the inevitable 18 year cyclical bust. Pay particular attention in Part 4: 'Betrayal of the Lords' to the declining land tax graph at 1:02. This is our real economic and social history.
Fred Harrison -- The Celtic Tiger Savaged the Irish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPBWTJsc5Og Watch out for the land value graph at: 4:02/4:22 and rent-seeking diagram at 6:25
The Chaos Makers: The Dreamers & The Deceived by Fred Harrison (1997) SENT TO GORDON BROWN http://renegadeeconomist.com/wp-content/uploads... 'Insufficient attention has been paid to the ways in which the chaos makers in the land market shape our destinies. Land supply is in fixed supply in those places where people need to live, close to the opportunities for employment. ...speculation in land pushes its price beyond affordable limits ...instability manifests itself in myriad forms of conflict that torture the industrial economy (labour relations, unemployment, etc). -- The treatment of rent as a public revenue would eliminate the acquisitive force behind the booms and busts. The fiscal reform proposed here would ensure that the short-term private interests of the individual would converge with the long-term interests of the community. This would enable people to plan the accumulation of savings over their earning lifecycle to the point where the price of capital would drop to very low levels: it would be at this point that poverty and unemployment would be permanently eliminated within a system of sustainable development.'
********* Repeated: "This would enable people to plan the accumulation of savings over their earning lifecycle to the point where the price of capital would drop to very low levels."
It is vital to understand that savings is real capital as opposed to credit/debt which are claims on, and therefore obligations to, the creation of future 'wealth'. Factor in the compounding obligations to 'pay back' the compounding interest on all that credit/debt and you'll understand why the planet and its inhabitants are so raped and ravaged. ********
Guardian -- Fred Harrison: Want to get rid of boom and bust? Tax land, not income http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/apr/11/... 'We should untax people's wages and savings: conventional taxes inflict deadweight losses on incomes. Instead, public services could be funded out of rents that people were willing to pay for the benefits they enjoy at a particular location. That is efficient. Productivity would rise and speculation in gains from land would fall. It is also fair. It is the voluntary, self-assessment approach in which payments are direct and proportionate to the public services people want to use. -- Politicians of all parties should champion a simple ad valorem charge on the location value of all land - excluding improvements such as buildings. A high enough rate would end boom and bust cycles and establish a new relationship between citizen and the state. The interface between the public and private sectors would be redefined, and many of the disputes that divide our communities would be resolved.'
Amazon -- Ricardo's Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam by Fred Harrison 'The welfare state rests on the belief that progressive taxation can relieve poverty, taking from each according to their means and giving to each according to their needs. This sounds fair: the rich pay more tax to help the poor. However, Harrison points out, the opposite is the result: taxation favours the rich at the expense of the poor because: #1. Public spending on roads, railways, schools, hospitals etc makes a major contribution to rising land values; #2. Rising land values benefit house-owners and other property-owners, rich ones more than poor ones, in rich locations and rich parts of the country more than poor ones; but they hurt people who rent their properties and have to pay rising rents; #3. Taxpayers' money, which finances public spending, is thus channelled behind the scenes from poor to rich people and from poor to rich parts of the country.'
Land Value Taxation Campaign -- What is LVT? http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/ 'Land Value Taxation is a method of raising public revenue by means of an annual tax on the rental value of land. It would replace, not add to, existing taxes. Properly applied, Land Value Tax would support a whole range of social and economic initiatives, including housing, transport and other infrastructural investments. It is an elementary fiscal measure that would go far towards correcting fundamental economic and social ills.'
Great list of advantages. A veritable progressive's buffet.
Land Value Taxation Campaign -- How should we be campaigning? by Fred Harrison http://www.landvaluetax.org/the-campaign/how-sh... 'The conventional language employed to promote the re-socialisation of rent (and the re-privatisation of wages) will continue to obstruct fiscal reform. The entrenched interests will not allow a "tax on land values". After all, it's "their land", anyway, isn't it? -- ...it's NOT a tax. It's inviting middle-class home-owners (today's aristocracy, in political power terms) to honour their value system - pay for what you get, and get rid of taxes on the incomes you earn. This is the language of a political/moral prospectus that the voting majority - middle-class home-owners - would not be able to oppose, publicly. That's why the vested interests would have to try to shift the debate back onto the territory of the landowners' choosing: "this is a tax, really". That ploy would need to be resisted. -- People need to be reminded: stop whinging about what's wrong with this world, stop talking about your entitlements, accept personal responsibility and claim what is yours by right.'
charlesfrith
· 1 month ago
One thought I've had from one of your shared links is the wealth - grow it, mine it, build it - line. I like that. Does that mean with property tax the people who extract resources from the ground would pay a greater share of responsibility because of their property exposure? Mining etc? That seems to make a lot of sense to me.
Still working through your links but on a slooow connection so it's taking time.
Adam Crowe
· 1 month ago
That wealth comment is indeed really useful because it reminds us that the creation of real wealth is entirely dependent on the productive/value-added use of land: mining it, growing on it, building things on it.
The Land Value Tax in short: people will compete to pay for the best use of a plot of land rather than for speculative gains in the land value itself. So they pay the full land price, get taxed on up to 100% of the improving land value ('economic rent'), but profit at up to 100% from their own real economic activity using that land. Thus non-productive land speculation disappears and with it the boom and bust cycle in the 'property' market.
Because the terms 'land' and 'property' are used interchangeably, I think it's important to make a clear distinction between them. Property (as in houses and bicycles) are things that are placed on the land. Contrary to popular opinion (at least in the Anglo-Saxon world) there's nothing particularly special about a house. It's just a thing to live in. When houses/"property" rise in value it's not usually because the house itself has improved (you can only redo the kitchen so many times), but because the underlying land has risen in value. Houses, like bicycles, naturally depreciate over time.
Due to current UK tax policy, it's also important to distinguish between a land tax and a property tax, especially because not all land is used for houses/"property"; so a property tax wouldn't have the scope to tax land used for mining or farming despite the fact that adjacent plots of land used for housing or business are raising the value of mined and farmed land. (Some property taxes in other countries include land value, land improvements and building improvements. The proportion varies.)
Of course, in some cases, a neighbouring mine or farm may lower the value of adjacent land (noise, pollution, etc). But because of employment and associated business opportunities provided to the local community due to the productive use of that mined/farmed land, any lowering is soon netted out by positive gains elsewhere — and besides, no area needs to be equal in any measure to another.
So then there's the opportunity costs associated with land: is it better to own the mine/farm, the commercial property, or the local housing stock? All uses need to be there to make the other options sustainably valuable, but as an investor subject to a land tax, your only real concern is going to be a calculation of how much value you can ADD to the land in that community (as it is currently configured) via economic production, rather than as at present, how much value you can EXTRACT purely from the ownership of land by a calculated speculation on potential economic rents — free of tax.
On that 'free of tax' comment: that's not entirely true since any land owned has to be used for something even if only idling for capital gain. There are property taxes applied to residential and commercial uses of land but these are usually defeated by inflated depreciation write-offs and low capital gains taxes generally, thus a land speculator can still get access to almost pure economic rent.
See this PDF for more explanation as well as a detailing of my favourite topic: the self-debt-enslavement of the rent-seeking middle class.
All Comments
There was a really good one with Arianna Huffington and the editor of The Evening Standard (I forget her name) a while back discussing the #iranelection twitterstorm.
I like to hear the journalists' concerns from the point of view of quality news gathering and communicating the wider context. I think it's an extremely valid concern, because — as you know — I abhor groupthink set adrift from an anchoring context.
I don't much go in for the twitter fundmentalist strain of technoutopianism. I just don't see these as things taking sides either in the actual debate or how it's being reported (sorry to read into your comment more than is there.) But remember, I don't 'hang out' on twitter much, so I miss all the initial excitement and don't really understand all of the nuances of twitterstorms as they develop.
I've summarised the interesting bits from the discussion in my delicious.
I'll paste it here:
The perception IS the reality. That's the inherent danger of the immediate consenus-making ability of twitter and other realtime platforms. -- Brendan O'Neill: "Illiberal liberalism" "Emotional incontinence" Righteous indignation/enthusiasm. That's the inherent danger of immediate action/reaction/gratification as opposed to taking the time to think things through – "Boring, hard work," as Nick Cohen puts it. (As a #moralmaze tweeter said, links to in-depth resources provide the best alibi for "shallow" twitterhappy tweetstormers.) Nick Cohen: "There's a lot of utopianism. It's very shallow and very transient. A lot of it is apathetic. It's people affirming themselves." -- RE #moralmaze. It's not surprising to see tweeters so overly keen to defend any and every perceived threat to twitter, though it's not like its going away—calm down. Defending both their newly-felt right to be heard and the social/cultural capital they've built up over the years... TWITTER IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.
I wasn't very impressed. I might have been had I watched it years ago before being exposed to other things. Actually, it would have been a big shot into the mainline rather than the slow drip I'd taken from other sources. Still, I dislike the way Chomsky flip-flops between ideologies and causes, though to be sure, that's more about him being a mascot for the people who want him to endorse their campaigns. Ultimately he's seeking clear thought and unbiased thinking, and I'm all for that.
I have great faith in collective intelligence and unleashed cognitive surplus. However, people (being as they are) aren't always able to think outside of themselves to the next larger context. Of course, the global village is still young, but to pretend that a philosophic culture of enlightenment will emerge just because the tools are there to encourage it is dangerous utopian thinking. There are people who stand much to gain from explaining mob rule as legitimate 'democracy' precisely because it shifts attention away from access to real democracy. It lets them off the hook.
We still live in a very status-obsessed, snark-ridden culture where people are determined never to have to backdown from a held position, where admitting failure is a sin rather than a the means to wisdom, where people will avoid shame at any cost - even a larger shame, and where people can't easily admit they're wrong despite all evidence to the contrary. And this is what worries me about any groupthink behaviour. People quickly become invested in the identity given to them by the consenual group, rather than the issue at hand, or indeed their own intellectual integrity. Twitter just condenses and speeds up the groupthink process and all with a smug 'safety in numbers' effect you see in any flocking behaviour. And since what moves most vigorously captures our attention, twitter has a sort of buzz bias that forces to the background more considered careful debate.
But anyway, I'm not anti- twitter or anti- anything, really. I'm simply pro- common sense.
To me, MSM has the advantage that it's predictable groupthink. For example, I use the BBC News (though mostly Newsnight now) to get the dumbed down version of reality, the consensus reality. And consenus is all very valuable since it gives us a baseline on which to build though some take it as the end, more out of laziness than harmful intent.
Of course some events happen faster than a consensus can be agreed upon and that's the most valuable time to be mainlined information from twitter and the realtime web. But once that consensus congeals we're no longer dealing with an objective issue but a set of beliefs and prejudices.
Which probably leads us on to the climate change debate.
Unlike Climate Change :)
I know your position. Or rather I know enough of your position to disagree though even that has changed somewhat today. I'll explain. We've never discussed the issue though we've discussed other issues in the past but I read pretty much most of what you do or at least have a quick scan through disruptive stuff. I'm not so much into the economic porn nowadays as everything that needs to be said has been said. Though some of the bloggers I respect are getting increasingly punchy about the greed by Goldman et al. Which would have been heresy a couple of years ago.
Anyway, I guess I should say that I'm going through a waterfall of recontextualising a lot of what I think. Somebody sent me The New Noah e book which I speed read just now and it's a bit more brutal in conclusion than I have been to date. But lets wind back because I'm sure you might misunderstand me too. I'm not sure about climate change either. I'm pretty sure about a dirty world. It's a fact that the Eastern coast of China is swathed in rotten pollution and that the oceans are housing continental sized pools of tiny floating plastic debris. I don't like that. I think it's not important to prove climate change I think its important to live an examined life which would mean having a position on excessive waste, finite resources and yes carbon output. Whether its provable or not long ago failed to motivate me.
I guess I'm seeing some exploitation of the carbon footprint/trading issue by the usual money obsessed through your bookmarks and feeds and assuming you're getting irate over an issue which to me feels irrelevant. It doesn't take a Copernicus to observe that we have finite resources and we're treating them as if they're infinite. I don't see what's wrong with having a frugal and considered approach to consumption. I also think there's lots of ways to make it a profitable model for all involved although not profitable in the sense that we were raised. We can easily shift value from fiat currency to other attractive ideas and I always think advertising is useful in that context. Let's face it. Brainwashing got us into this mess and brainwashing can get us out of it?
Or have I completely misunderstood you? Either way. I prefer having this discussion in a public forum as you never know. Maybe someone else will fall off the tree of lurking and join in :) Unlikely though. I do have a delicious Goldman Hong Kong story for you that I'll need some discretion over how I share it with you but it should chime with you given your understanding of psychopathy....Come the revolution Adam. Brace yourself ;)
You said:
"I think it's not important to prove climate change I think its important to live an examined life which would mean having a position on excessive waste, finite resources and yes carbon output. Whether its provable or not long ago failed to motivate me."
This comment concerns me. If evidence or lack of it won't motivate you — what will? And why should your particular motivation motivate others? What's the standard for action??
Apathy due to uncertainty and conflicting views further reveals the vital need for a standard of enquiry that has served humanity very well: science.
Climate Change is such a big issue that it's hard to be brief. I'll first summarize my position answering your points, then — if you don't mind — I'll paste a few comments made on a blog elsewhere for additional thoughts and references.
OVERALL
Focus on the evidence. I'd prefer you read this document rather than my ramblings: The Skeptics Handbook http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming
CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate 'change' is a fact. The climate is always changing. There is nothing special about the term 'climate change'. We all agree on the observation that the climate changes. We humans have the idea that we might be able to mitigate against the perceived bad changes, whether our collective or individual actions are contributory causes or not. This is an entirely sensible endeavor, but there are no guarantees that we either contribute to change in any significant way or that we can change the course of those changes. But, being humans, we will always strive to know and I am all for the effort so long as it is an honest effort that includes everybody equally.
CO2
The popular(?) consensus(?) is that climate change is CO2-driven. Thus immediate efforts are being directed at reducing industrial output of C02. The problem is there is no actual evidence to support that assertion. There are only models that support that assertion and models are not evidence. New actual evidence is coming in and shows that CO2 is not the driving factor. If CO2 is not the driving factor than we must direct our efforts towards identifying what is — using evidence. We must focus on real evidence if we want to have the honest debate and take collective action given the perceived risks. We all deserve nothing less.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
There are many, and because this 'debate' has been needlessly politicized, they are justified. The biggest 'conspiracy' is that those who adhere to the scientific method (evidence-based observation and testing) are being labelled as "skeptics" — when is science anything other than continual skepticism?? — and "deniers" — deniers of what?? nothing has been proved with evidence, so there's nothing to deny! There is certain religious-style cult that has arisen around this 'debate' (which isn't properly debated) and it is oppressive to the work of the actual scientists we are all relying on to gather real evidence in order to tell us what's really going on. I would call this a conspiracy against science and it is extremely dangerous.
CARBON-TRADING
What use is carbon trading if CO2 is not the driving factor in climate change? Why is there a rush to implement global carbon-trading schemes when the evidence for CO2-driven climate change is not in any way conclusive? Carbon-trading/rationing is a tax on production across the entire economy. It is rent-seeking, pure and simple. People used to joke about politicians taxing the air. Carbon-trading is just that. The problem here is simply that the western world needs to start producing actual things again. We don't need the hindrance of a tax that hits small businesses harder than large ones (some of which have special access to the global carbon-cartel and can always leverage labour arbitrage to find the most desirable location for carbon-cheap production). Again, given that CO2-driven climate has not been proved with actual evidence, why should we so easily allow yet another global economic superstructure to be put in place? Could we just as easily remove this superstructure if science provided conclusive evidence that either CO2 is not a driving factor or that something else is? Economic history favours an extremely 'skeptical' attitude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking
POST-NORMAL SCIENCE
The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) 'theory' of CO2-driven is not evidence-based therefore not science. We cannot make rational decisions without evidence of observed causes and effects. Faith or belief is no basis with which to plan for our collective future. If the actual evidence comes in that CO2 is the driving factor and it is agreed by scientific observation/evidence — then great, we have a clear target combined with an obvious means of action. Otherwise, we are being guided by hunches and belief alone — and if allowed to become our only guiding light — as time passes it becomes even harder to use evidence to direct our efforts towards solving this and other problems. Science must be the standard — always.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science
GREEN ECONOMY
Everyone wants the world to run on renewable/sustainable energy sources. To be a CO2 skeptic (adhere to scientific method) does not mean you are any less keen for renewable/sustainable energy sources. The inconvenient truth is that we still need our current sources of energy to make new forms of energy production on a mass scale. Taxing oil and gas doesn't lead to significant reductions in consumption precisely because there are no viable alternatives to switch to! This is an elementary point that is too often forgotten. We simply cannot afford to be anti-fossil fuels right now. Even reenigineering our economies, capital goods, and consumables to work with renewables/sustainables takes additional energy. I am all for every sensible scheme that directs our efforts towards developing new sustainable energy supplies (I can't imagine anyone is against this) but I am under no illusions that it won't require a redirected use of ALL of our currently available energy sources — so long as they are actually available, of course.
Let me quote John Michael Greer on this issue:
"...it’s easy to insist, if you ignore the economic dimension, that a society facing this sort of crisis can save itself by launching a massive program to build nuclear reactors, solar thermal power plants, algal biodiesel, or what have you, and of course this sort of claim has seen endless rehashing over the last couple of decades. The problem is that massive programs of this sort pile additional demands on an already faltering economy. Any such program has to be paid for, after all, and by this I don’t mean that money has to be found for it; in today’s mostly hallucinatory economic climate, conjuring money out of thin air is easy enough. No, it has to be paid out of current economic output, which is much less flexible, and already has to cover the rising costs of resource depletion and pollution. This is the trap hidden in the limits to growth; once those limits begin to bite, the spare economic capacity that would be needed to build one’s way out of trouble no longer exists."
The Archdruid Report -- Survival Isn't Cost-Effective
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/06/...
It bears saying, none of the above justifies current levels of consumption or a lack of concern over CO2. It simply means that ruling in or out CO2 is the most pressing concern for understanding climate change both to act against it — if possible — and also to plan for our energy futures without fossil fuels. Action already taken for the scenario of CO2-driven climate change is not evidence of CO2-driven climate change. It is simply action, and it may be wrong-headed action given the lack of evidence.
WAR
In principle I'm against these perpetual wars for energy resources, but they are inevitable given our current economic, political, and social structures. If people genuinely wanted to change any of this, they'd have to first face up to a terrible truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P772Eb63qIY
POLLUTION
I'm against it. But it is inevitable given current means of production and what that productive capacity is put to. I look at the pollution in China as extremely unfortunate, but entirely inevitable. We in the developed world did exactly the same thing, just not quite so fast! Apart from contributing to the 'debate' on climate change, China is a sovereign nation and it is up to them how they use their resources.
ADVERTISING/CULTURE
I agree with any efforts that help people question their habits of consumption and help them make better choices. And perhaps it's worth me being more specific on those 'better' choices: choices that allow people to achieve greater economies of scale and scope; choices that enable people to take responsibility for their actions and enjoy public acknowledgement of their virtue; choices that are meaningful and that enable the unrestricted sharing and building of know-how with others; choices that reveal to people flows of participation in the means of production such that they better understand their unique role in society.
Increasingly, we are going to turn to our own locales to service our needs: food, energy, trade, politics, community, culture, etc. I see this as the reverse of brainwashing. It's about acknowledging and working with your immediate reality rather than striving to interface with a 'better' one 'out there' somewhere. Aggressive localization will also have the benefit of extricating people from the criminal global rackets: fiat currencies, carbon credits, malacious vaccines - thus empowering people to better protect their lives, resources and communities.
ECONOMIC PORN
Now we just have to suffer the endless embarrassments of politicians continually covering up for their previous mistake. I still don't hear enough concern about all this, just misdirected anger at straw men and patsies, and all with blind faith in politicians' pseudo-science economic policies. It's dangerous because when people begin to feel the real effects resulting from what's going on, if they haven't been following events it's more likely they'll react with rage not reason. And if that happens persistently on a mass scale... lockdown.
HUMILITY
To my mind, this is the essence of many problems. Humility is the foundation of ethics. In a genuinely open debate, we would applaud people for pointing out the fallacies in our arguments and for challenging us to reach higher levels of certainty in the face of reasonable doubt. As I've said before, people have always found it hard to admit when they're wrong, and this is getting worse because the visibility of their arguments and positions via social media makes the climb down from error all the more difficult given the levels of social and cultural capital already invested in holding any particular view.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost_fallacy#...)
This is why I'm so suspicious of groupthink generally and why I think the optimism that it can be so easily mitigated by tools alone is dangerous. People are still too wedded to their social/cultural status and fear any loss to that status which is a globally-viewable personal indicator now. In order from us all to profit from this open/social connected culture we must all get better at admitting and taking pride in being wrong.
The Joy of Humility
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKXcVV06dKA
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Blog comments:
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#1.
“The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us. Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs. We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilize them in support of our projects. These myths transcend the scientific categories of ‘true’ and ‘false’”
From Mike Hume’s Book, 'Why We Disagree About Climate Change Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity'
http://www.amazon.com/Disagree-About-Climate-Ch...
The whole trouble with the climate change debate is the sunk costs people have invested in a campaign that seemed to give their lives a collective purpose and higher meaning – all egged on by politicians, of course who’s very existence depends on being seen to be ‘doing something’. This need to be DO something is so widely felt in the middle classes because they still feel a kind of guilt for not really being about anything other than acting as some kind of buffer to the genuine hardships of the lower classes. Of course, the middle class can’t lower their status and fight for any real social justice, thus their guilt and lack of purpose will continually conspire to convince that they must just stay in place.
Of course we can all point out the carbon rent-seeking scams in attempt to reveal the middle class as the intended victims, but that just doesn’t help the believers to climb down off their moralistic perch in a way that saves them face. Pointing out a conspiracy just further undermines their sense of intelligence, and as I’ve said so often, people just can’t admit they’re wrong.
You simply have to appeal to their higher reason and point them to the science – the latest science, not climate models – we have actual observed data now:
MUST READ: LINDZEN DEFENDING HONEST DEBATE WITH EVIDENCE
http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads...
Commentary to the above
http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-R...
Commentary to the above
http://masterresource.org/?p=4307
Then, you join in the optimism on green technologies, not because of the alleged CO2 reduction, but because of the benefits of state energy independence and the shift to personal responsibility.
People just want to feel like they can DO something whilst the world spins out of control. It’s just unfortunate that some can’t think a little further ahead to see how their current actions and affiliations will circumscribe the future actions they might want to take.
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#2.
Trying to shame each other into the ‘correct position’ won’t help and won’t work.
I can see the opinions get even more entrenched, but I don’t see anyone using actual science to defend their position.
Evidence. Science. These are the foundations of productive debate. This is the way we’ll save ourselves from ourselves.
The supreme virtue (IMHO) is to admit when you’re wrong and save yourself the anguish over problems already solved, evidence already gathered.
I’ll even quote a most virtuous man (!)
“Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.” — George Soros
Let’s first agree on the way to do science: continual skepticism over our imperfect models with an eagerness to improve our understanding by incorporating the latest evidence.
These are the questions still unanswered by those who ‘believe’ in man-made/CO2-driven climate change:
The Skeptics Handbook
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming
The observed data (links provided in previous comment, though the actual research paper hasn’t been published or peer-reviewed yet) is showing that CO2 doesn’t play as large a factor in climate change as the models predicted. I’m not a scientist but I can read a graph and I trust that swarms of scientists will interrogate the research and review the findings honestly.
Here’s a video.
Cooler Heads Event with Dr. Richard Lindzen on Cap and Trade
http://www.blip.tv/file/2784851
Focus not on the man (appeals to authority), focus on the data, the evidence.
We all manage to stay focused on evidence perfectly well when taking about currencies and stock prices. Why’s the climate debate any different??
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#3
Climate change belief given same legal status as religion
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6494...
'Mr Nicholson: “Belief in man-made climate change is not a new religion, it is a philosophical belief that reflects my moral and ethical values and is underlined by the overwhelming scientific evidence.”
The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.'
Snitching culture achieved. Make your enemies fight each other.
“Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.” — George Soros
So what is the correction of our mistakes Adam? Just some sort of scientific conclusion that points towards volcanic activity as the source of climate change without leaving a solution for the poisoning and consumption of the planet's finite resources? That would be the definitive example cutting of our noses to spite our face.
I do agree that its likely our fate is inescapable (war is probably the most likely outcome in the fight for resources) but to blithely continue as we are, is simply not motivating for me as a lifestyle. Neither is contesting what you highlight as often bogus scientific practices to elevate the climate change bogeyman. I'll say it one last time. I see a logic problem. Not an evidenced based discussion. The final evidence is in the final analysis. It's too late then. That's why I walk the earth like Kung Fu and a morally superior swagger ;)
The trouble with that position is that it plays right into the hands of the rent-seekers who have totally warped our understanding of real economics to trap us into their matrix.
You ask what's the correction? Nature's natural market is the correction. We've long past peak oil and soon we might actually face up to it:
Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/...
COLLAPSE Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAyHIOg5aHk
Investment in any sort of energy production is slowing because it's becoming increasingly expensive to employ available energy in pursuit of more. Because this trap hasn't been mitigated against, there's no way out of using fossil fuels now. Energy wars will be constant. For anybody in the West lusting after a green/renewable/sustainable/utopian future, they'll have to use war to achieve it and then hope they're all virtuous enough to use that captured energy to invest towards making a renewable switch rather than allowing it to fund empires and political careers. History is not on our side.
So what caused the infinite growth model? The simple and complicated answer is debt.
The world works by the stick of debt and the carrot of economic rents.
It was servicing the compounding interest on rentier-loaned debt money that caused governments, companies and individuals to willfully ignore the full economic costs of production (resource depletion, pollution, energy wars) and seek the cheapest labour (globalization) whilst gambling with complex financial products for balance sheet gains rather than investing in capital goods (innovation).
It was the middle classes' foolish rent-seeking "property" speculation that allowed rentier-owned politicians to force the tax burden entirely onto the productive part of our economy (labour and business) and thus self-servingly reinforce the populist delusion that given such a tax regime massive "investment" in public social welfare services could be paid for with anything other than borrowing and inflation (tax on money) that hits the poor and lower-middle classes the hardest thus widening the poverty gap. It bears mentioning that massive government borrowing crowds out the capital markets thus denying small business the access to credit they need to create jobs and help the poor out of poverty sustainably — not with government handouts that just perpetuate the current tax regime and dig a deeper hole. These middle class left-right-labour-liberal-conservative voting useful idiots are not interested in social justice and only when they wake up from their false consciousness will they realise the full extent of the horrors they have wrought on society through their self-inflicted debt peonage via mortgages. For so-called 'socially conscious educated people' their ignorance and hypocrisy is profoundly profound.
If we want an equitable and prosperous society, we must first legitimize government by shifting taxes off labour and business, and back onto land:
Fred Harrison on predicting the economic crisis in 1997 (Playlist) *MUST WATCH*
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A0B6837...
What is Land Value Tax?
http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/
Hopefully if we can attain and retain a true understanding of economics through the study of this 'greatest depression' then we might be able to rebuild something sensible on the other side of it.
And on that point I should direct you towards Dr Michael Hudson, one of the few economists who 'gets it' and has a firm grasp of ethics:
Six Minutes with the Renegade Economist: Michael Hudson Special
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pwAFohWBL4
"The finance, real estate and insurance sectors are not part of the real economy of production and consumption. They are parasites. The financial sector extracts interest from the economy; the property sector extracts economic rent, as do monopolies. The key thing about parasites is that it's not simply that they extract nourishment from the host, the parasite takes over the hosts brain to make it think that its part of the economy, to make it think that it's part of the host's own body, and it's almost like a child of the host to be protected. You can't serve both the parasite and the host."
Michael Hudson Part 4: Economic Rent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elg6i3NxvdE
Renegade Economist US Special with Dr. Michael Hudson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYcIQvSAHZ8
Michael Hudson Iceland Under Attack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-5tT5iLtV0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEu9inj7ZTc
Michael Hudson: Forever Blowing Bubbles *MUST WATCH*
http://vodpod.com/watch/2469495-forever-blowing...
You may be right and I've pointed at it already that the likely conclusion for fossil fuel resources will be a war but that doesn't mean we can't live our lives in a manner that is noble and equally that we can't urge our fellow humans to consider the implications of all this.
I do grasp as do you, how the economic model is structured so that debt is seen as honourable. Its for that reason that most cash is sneered at while credit (debt) cards have the marketing machine behind them. (Fascinating story about the origin of credit cards in the US)
There was a reason why the merchant class became a threat to the "nobility" (funny how they still get the cool name) and how once the wealth shifted to them around the 13th 14th it set off a lot of events including the emancipation of land slavery but in any case I've been listening to some of Doug Rushkoff's fascinating interview subjects this afternoon with some more understanding as to why the commons were places for collecting firewood and picking berries and not much removed from the creative commons we now find quite useful to get around copyright laws that are themselves an enslavement of sorts.
So the real issue between us now is types of methodologies to live a morally defendable life against indiscriminate fossil fuel usage?
If that's the case then let me have a think about it because there's lots and I don't doubt that the vampires are quite happy to develop another rentier class for exploitation.
But I do need to know if that's where we differ because otherwise I'll get a load of links that I generally don't disagree with though this slow connection means I can't view all immediately. But yes..of course money is debt. It's genius as a system of enslavement. Though its a different issue from climate change as whip to sustainable living carrot discussions.
Full reply tomorrow.
Moral indignation is not by itself a solution. Morally motivated action is not necessarily the right action to take — right now. Morals can help us define where we want to end up, but they can't tell us how to get there.
Max Keiser made another good comment about this:
"Environmentalists should be buying gold because only by supporting gold are you going to take away the means by which these companies that you're fighting against have to leverage the economy and cause more ecological destruction."
He's said the same many times before when talking about http://www.karmabanque.com (boycotting a company's product whilst simultaneously short-selling their stock) and how regular activists can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept — probably because they feel more comfortable with the moral/emotional pleasures of a debate rather the responsible/practical means to win it
This addiction to the pleasures of moralising *is* the danger. I don't want to be 'right' for the sake of some moral principle. I don’t want to make a show of my moral virtue. I simply want to see a changed environment for the better whether that pleases a moral viewpoint or not.
I'm an idealist. I would prefer to attack an issue at its root. The motivation for me is to help people see the bigger picture so they can understand their own behavior within increasingly larger contexts.
Money as debt is the missing factor in many moralistic/simplistic environmental awareness campaigns. Example: http://www.storyofstuff.com
The presenter points to the $ but doesn't explain the compounding obligations behind it that force along the chain of action she's explaining. The moralistic/simplistic idea being promoted here is that people are greedy consumers who aren't aware of the effects of their mindless consumption. This just isn't true. Everybody knows to some degree that they're participating in a fiction, they just can't see another reality to escape to. As much as I share her ideals, I say because of her moralistic/simplistic storytelling, she is part of the problem of spreading a limiting false consciousness because she doesn't apprehend that there are drivers to human behaviour beyond morals.
Tyler Cowen does a good job of describing how simplistic stories can fool us into believing we have the complete picture: http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#TylerCowen
It would be very easy for me to slip into a moralistic tone (as I came very close to in my previous comment) and rant about how these idiot middle class wannabe rent-seekers get themselves into any level of debt just to keep up appearances and escape the horrors of working class life, but the truth is these people have been pushed into debt because of someone else's debt and in turn that person's obligation to another's debt and so on. All of this debt backed by a government guarantee (i.e. debt owed by everyone).
Elizabeth Warren - The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class *MUST WATCH*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
Kill the debt, kill the debt-creating central bank cartel, back the money by a resource or with government integrity and you end all of this nonsense: the over-consumption, the over-production, the environmental exploitation, the wars, the poverty — all of it.
If there's a short sharp recommendation to be made it is this: abandon the imploding debt economy and buy gold. http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcrowe/39530078...
Even if people only understood that argument but couldn't act upon it, we'd still be a lot further along in the debate than bashing people over the head with yet more moralistic tirades about 'consuming less stuff'. People are already consuming less stuff whether by choice or necessity. Their ecological understanding of debt, on the other hand, is less certain and crucial if we are to build a real and sustainable economy after the collapse of this fake one.
"The long economic expansion of the industrial age has fostered the massive growth of what old-fashioned Marxists used to call a rentier class – a class whose money makes money for them. Even among people who work for a living, the idea of joining the rentier class on retirement, and living comfortably off investments, has become very popular in recent years. The problem, of course, is that the age of industrial expansion is over; it was made possible in the first place only by exponentially increasing the use of fossil fuels and other natural resources; like all exponential growth curves, it faced an inevitable collision with the limits of its environment – and that collision is happening around us right now. We are thus entering a period of prolonged economic contraction — not a recession, or even a depression, but a change in the fundamental dynamic of the economy." http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/02/...
If we differ *maybe* it's only because I refuse to be drawn into any kind of emotionalism that surrounds the debate of an issue:
I refuse to allow governments to appeal to my FEAR so that they may recruit me into supporting wars and giving up my freedoms.
I refuse to allow politicians to appeal to my GREED so that they may bribe me into voting for a handout the country cannot afford.
I refuse to allow carbon rent-seekers to appeal to my VANITY so that they may try to convince me that my actions could somehow 'save the world'.
I refuse to allow any leader to appeal to my need to BELONG so that they may manipulate me into joining a group that only furthers the power of the leader rather than that of the community as a whole.
--
Now I'm not sure where we're at in our debate. It's not like there's something to be won, yet you seem to continue to hedge your bet with tacit support of the need to DO something via carbon trading because it makes people feel more responsible — as if 'feeling' something is all that matters regardless of whether it actually helps to solve a solvable 'problem'. Correct me if I'm wrong.
What do you think of this?
Everyone in Britain could be given a personal 'carbon allowance'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/ca...
Carrot? Stick?
http://twitter.com/charlesfrith/status/5733564815 - I'll return shortly.
Check out the Decadent Action manifesto for a similar idea on how to destroy the global economy with credit cards: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcrowe/4055245661/
I don't want to jump in and potentially ruin your flow, but I just wanted to mention that the Karmabanque methodology is now being used at the government level with people boycotting paper currencies and effectively shorting them by buying gold and other commodities.
"...bring capitalism to its knees." -- I've got to flag this.
Karmabanque is more about being pro-capitalism and against those corporations that use their monopoly/oligopoly positions to restrict healthy competition in their marketplace by bullying governments for favourable policies.
The currency play is much the same. It's about bringing competition back into the global market for money, investment and trade.
You need to get your story straight regarding wanting a global (fiat?) currency and global government.
Karmabanque-style boycotts only work when you can play entities against each other and when people have alternatives to go to in a free market(s).
Global currency/government (the one depends on the other) is pretty much the end of capitalism proper since government will be constantly fixing contracts and prices to meet its 'goals' — much like the UK Gov is trying to do in the City right now with fixing banker wages (price of labour) or the carbon-rentiers want to do with general production and consumption.
Reading through your comments and tweets, I get quite confused on how you fit all of your ideas and enthusiasms together. I trust there's a higher wisdom at work ;^)
http://twitter.com/charlesfrith/statuses/574926...
I'll come back to this and hopefully its worked its way back into disqus. Though I love the Decadent Action Manifesto :)
Firstly it's corporate capitalism I'm most disaffected with. Surely I don't need to lay out comprehensively the nomenclature of my political economic position. We both read Naked Capitalism and Zero Hedge so I don't understand what part of libertarian socialist confuses you? ;>)
So for the record I'm in favour of wealth creation though that could easily sound incoherent to a person who might not understand grasp that I see the application for socialist intervention when appropriate. I'm not even sure of your position on this. Because the free market is neither free nor a market. But the critical point is I'm context dependent on my political economic position. I can see a case for monetary incentives or inducing frugality depending on the circumstances. Right now the latter is pressing which is why I take issue with your outrage with climate change. The bigger picture is us not them surely?
But this is irrelevant. The main point is to understand why you don't see traditional wealth creation tied into the current economic model as harmful to the planet?
I don't mind subterfuge under a climate change rubrik to facilitate behavioural change. Yes it's dishonourable but then I'm pro guillotine too in the right circumstances. Though what part of the Maldives magically submerging under the sea in a coincidence of epic proportions during the exact moment when you apparently wish to pursue a libertarian stance is baffling to me. Over to you Crowe :P
Harmful to the planet?? Pollution? See above. Resource depletion? See above. Malinvestments? See above. Perverse incentives? See above. Poverty and declining social mobility? See above. Wrong-headed populist causes? See above.
You still seem to be trying to hold me to some kind of moral standard as a prerequisite of debate. My morals are deep and not easily seduced by rhetorical argument or populist campaigning.
You ask where I stand on redistribution of wealth by force (socialism). I'm against it, particularly at a centralised level. In principle, less so at a local government level where the benefit of applied force is both more likely to be used on things the people intended and where the people themselves are responsible for the collective force they have chosen to exercise upon one another. In practice, socialism is a nonsense at any level. As you know, I advocate the tax burden to be taken off labour and applied to land. This can only work at the local level: it is the ultimate form of localism. 'The land' is a naturally socialised good - but the benefits accruing to its successful use have been privatised. This is a legal hack and should be changed – immediately. If properly applied, the benefits from a land tax can easily fund all of the local and state services desired, but this is by no means a socialist policy or economy because it doesn't rely on prior centralised collection before redistribution by an elite.
There's a distinction between socialism and good regulation through the legal system. Both are an application of force, but only one depends on forcibly taking resources and redistributing them as an elite 'government' sees fit. Any time this type of redistribution happens it undermines the 'free market' as defined by voluntary contracts of exchange made between individuals based on sound property rights.
I don't see how it possible to wish for free markets on the one hand but then advocate they be corrupted "depending on the circumstances" on the other. You either want markets to be free of force or not. You either hold a principle or not. If you want a mixed economy where some services are provided exclusively by the state, then that is your choice. There's no associated requirement to meddle in free markets beyond those 'socialist' state-run monopolies.
I just don't go in for all these -isms to define economics and society. It's far easier and more accurate IMHO to assess where actions fit on following sliding scales:
FREEDOM <--> TYRANNY, PRICE-DISCOVERY <--> PRICE-FIXING, TAX ON LAND <--> TAX ON LABOUR
Climate Change.
I'm wondering if you've done me the courtesy of reading the first Skeptics Handbook. There also now a second, which I'd like you to read:
1: http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming
2: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handb...
The reason I wonder is because you still seem to be convinced that CO2 is the driving factor behind climate change and I'm certain that if you'd been thinking rationally, you wouldn't have made the mistake of trying to use a computer-modeled estimate that the Maldives may be completely submerged by 2080 as evidence for CO2-driven climate change. Please read the handbooks. They're only hostile towards you if you're hostile towards science.
Change in consumption habits.
You still seem to be stuck in a thought loop that finds a correlation between a carbon-rationing scheme (that most economists say can't work as a rationing scheme regardless of what it seeks to ration) and a change in both the climate — for the positive, and consumption habits — for the positive. Why do you so easily believe that this collected tax (if it's actually collectable) will 1. Holt fossil fuel consumption when there are few alternatives? (Plus when CO2-driven climate change has no evidence, why should the earth cool down as measured by the manipulated warmings of computer models??) and 2. Reallocate prior and future fossil fuel productive resources towards investment in renewables/sustainables?
Do you see the leap of faith you're making?? Why shouldn't the computer models just report higher warming to raise alarm for even greater taxes? What's to stop them from doing so when honest science isn't 'allowed/accepted' to prove otherwise? Why shouldn't the carbon-rentiers and facilitating bureaucrats spend their money on fine wines and alpine houses? Why would they "invest" their ill-gotten gains in renewables/sustainables if such investments didn't offer a greater return than their carbon-derivative "investments"?
'Producing energy takes energy. The process by which money produces more money consumes next to no energy, by contrast, and so financial investments don't lose ground due to rising energy costs. ...a perpetually expanding money supply driven by mass borrowing at interest has become an anachronism unsuited to the new economic reality of energy contraction. It also guarantees that any attempt to limit the financial sphere of the economy will face mass opposition, not only from financiers, but from millions of ordinary citizens whose dream of a comfortable retirement depends on the hope that financial investments will outperform the faltering economy of goods and services. Meanwhile, just as the economy most needs massive reinvestment in productive capacity to retool itself for the very different world defined by contracting energy supplies, investment money seeking higher returns flees the productive economy for the realm of abstract paper wealth.'
The Archdruid Report -- A Gesture from the Invisible Hand
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/11/...
Why, after all of human history, would you believe that elites have your best interests at heart — this time — when every single measure of human progress and prosperity has happened despite these elites and in freedom from them? Why??
Whilst I share your motivation to redirect resources towards a green economy, I'm not putting my trust in a grotesquely convoluted derivative market that requires a global government — guns — to enforce it all. You clearly must not comprehend the full lunacy of what you're advocating.
And for what? What is it that you want? To play along? To open your wallet and thus renounce any actual personal responsibility? To be part of a popular movement for the sake of "change" regardless of the change? Didn't a whole bunch of people just vote for "change"? Didn't they just get sold out to 'crony capitalist' interests? Have you not learned from their mistake? What is it you want, Charles? When are you going to use this discussion to clearly articulate what change will achieve your ends in your own words and apart from the cloaking of your critical faculties in a consensus that I'm patiently helping you to debunk?
You have said you are for the application of force when *you* see fit but at the same time say that you're libertarian-minded. That's a very tricky balance so you'd certainly be weary of taking any forceful action on the basis of anything other than a sure footing. And then there's a third factor which is your heart-felt moral imperative that could so easily cloud your judgement and that you are obligated to correct for, which makes it even more important to deal with matters of judgement head on as a priority. So again...
Where is the evidence for CO2-driven climate change?
Where is it? If it doesn't exist, climate change is still going to happen for the good, for the bad, and for the neutral. Regardless of -/+ 'change', we have scientists working on understanding the full complexities of climate science and they aren't working to an agenda other than understanding, they aren't falsifying data to create 'warming', they aren't omitting data to create 'warming', they aren't manipulating the peer review process to prevent science, and they aren't avoiding reasoned argument in favor of authority based on dubious scientific evidence that is being hidden behind commercial agreements to protect disclosure of just how dubious it really is. And to be clear, this is the raw ground temperature data we're all being denied. The admitted to manipulated data is the sole basis for yet more computer-modeled projections for warming alarmism that pushes people's fear buttons so well.
Aren't people tired of living in a simulacrum?? Isn't the inevitable crashing of debt money matrix 'evidence' enough that we need to return to a real/scientific/objective/rational/sustainable world??
You think — given the stakes — that so-called "skeptics" are arguing so vehemently for the satisfaction of being 'right'?? Such an accusation would say far more about the accuser than the accused.
If you want to locate my outrage about climate change, it is at the corruption of science. Given your pressing concerns, why are you not similarly outraged? Aren't you for a fair debate; a fair fight based on evidence? You're outraged at the central banking warfare model because you understand it logically and empirically. Were those understandings not based on evidence? Does your outrage about climate change not deserve the same level of prior rational thinking?
Over to you Frith. And your reply had better be a robust one ;^)
OK, you've got a lot of good points in there which I need to digest and integrate with my existing thinking. I admit I was aware in a skimming sense of the idea property not labour tax but I haven't given it the credit I think is due. There are a lot immediate questions such as those from poll tax experiences through to corporate and individual taxation of property which may well be negligible or could be obstructive. I hope you realise the seriousness I'm giving towards this and instead of knee jerk reaction which is not the purpose of this dialogue. Let me go through the links on a dial up connection and work the information. But it is appealing.
However. You should also be aware of my 'everything is contextual' position. It applies in an advertising and marketing communication literacy through to philosophical spectrum and so allow me to elaborate on contextually based decision making.
You write:
I don't see how it possible to wish for free markets on the one hand but then advocate they be corrupted "depending on the circumstances" on the other. You either want markets to be free of force or not. You either hold a principle or not. If you want a mixed economy where some services are provided exclusively by the state, then that is your choice. There's no associated requirement to meddle in free markets beyond those 'socialist' state-run monopolies
I think principles can be both admirable and a rod up our backs. I'd say principles are the single most dynamic factor in tandem with that fluffy ism of ideology for the schism between left and right. The legacy thinking that has produced a binary society of either black or white. Socialist or Capitalist. Roman Catholic or Lutheran ( you might enjoy looking up the plenary dispensations that led to that split but then maybe not).
Right: Taking a position is a good thing. But that position is always contextually placed. Wash the car when it's dirty. But only in Summer. The weather context is important because there's no point washing the car when it's raining every day.
Here's what 20th century thinking rigidly imposes on so many people. Two outcomes scenario. Which I suspect may then elevate peoples assertions to principles. Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself. So it seems perfectly senseless to me given the qualified failure (thus far) of Marxism and Capitalism to be successful. One lead to starvation, and the other has led to gluttony. Physically fat, spiritually impoverished. That Adam is undeniable and demands we should all be a little humble with our ideological or principled beliefs.
Thus I'm not saying I'm right but I'm saying I'm less wrong. A car has three primary dynamics. Acceleration & Brakes. I'll come to the third in a moment.
To suggest a car should have no brakes or no accelerator is nonsensical and yet we still pursue a binary position on economics. Growth versus wealth distribution. I think there's room for a whole lot more including both of those two primary dynamic operators. Let's call brakes socialism, and the accelerator capitalism. It's a binary division that in my view is applicable depending on the circumstances. Back breaking socialism would have led to more time to assess the damage we are imposing on this planet and who could argue the benefits of capitalism in fostering peace between nations that would otherwise be at war. Money and specifically trade has had a fundamental role to play in what has been by contrast a peaceful second half of the 20th century. I'd much rather go down in a climatic apocalypse than in the trenches of the Somme. Brutal.
But let me introduce the third metaphor of the steering wheel. I know you get it I just want to know if you can entertain the notion of pluralism in your economic and climactic diagnosis because I'll be going back to land tax and integrating that into my contextually based thinking on economics. My only fear is you've opened up a can of worms as for some time I adhered more to the Anarchist school of thought on land ownership which is probably something we should park in the corner until I've digest more of the links. You provide.
I hope you appreciate that I've deliberately chosen to use an analogy because by my reckoning Seth Godin uses an analogy to explain an analogy which is an irony of the highest order because not only does he not engage in dialogue but I don't know if there's any evidence for any of his assertions. And that's all they are assertions. Not facts.
http://bit.ly/6xOcEy
I'll be back with some more considered thinking. Good work on that last one.
Land and Land Value Tax related links:
The Renegade Economist — The Global Financial Crisis
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A0B6837...
5 part video explaining how land speculation led to the inevitable 18 year cyclical bust. Pay particular attention in Part 4: 'Betrayal of the Lords' to the declining land tax graph at 1:02. This is our real economic and social history.
Fred Harrison -- The Celtic Tiger Savaged the Irish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPBWTJsc5Og
Watch out for the land value graph at: 4:02/4:22 and rent-seeking diagram at 6:25
The Chaos Makers: The Dreamers & The Deceived by Fred Harrison (1997) SENT TO GORDON BROWN
http://renegadeeconomist.com/wp-content/uploads...
'Insufficient attention has been paid to the ways in which the chaos makers in the land market shape our destinies. Land supply is in fixed supply in those places where people need to live, close to the opportunities for employment. ...speculation in land pushes its price beyond affordable limits ...instability manifests itself in myriad forms of conflict that torture the industrial economy (labour relations, unemployment, etc). -- The treatment of rent as a public revenue would eliminate the acquisitive force behind the booms and busts. The fiscal reform proposed here would ensure that the short-term private interests of the individual would converge with the long-term interests of the community. This would enable people to plan the accumulation of savings over their earning lifecycle to the point where the price of capital would drop to very low levels: it would be at this point that poverty and unemployment would be permanently eliminated within a system of sustainable development.'
*********
Repeated: "This would enable people to plan the accumulation of savings over their earning lifecycle to the point where the price of capital would drop to very low levels."
It is vital to understand that savings is real capital as opposed to credit/debt which are claims on, and therefore obligations to, the creation of future 'wealth'. Factor in the compounding obligations to 'pay back' the compounding interest on all that credit/debt and you'll understand why the planet and its inhabitants are so raped and ravaged.
********
Guardian -- Fred Harrison: Want to get rid of boom and bust? Tax land, not income
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/apr/11/...
'We should untax people's wages and savings: conventional taxes inflict deadweight losses on incomes. Instead, public services could be funded out of rents that people were willing to pay for the benefits they enjoy at a particular location. That is efficient. Productivity would rise and speculation in gains from land would fall. It is also fair. It is the voluntary, self-assessment approach in which payments are direct and proportionate to the public services people want to use. -- Politicians of all parties should champion a simple ad valorem charge on the location value of all land - excluding improvements such as buildings. A high enough rate would end boom and bust cycles and establish a new relationship between citizen and the state. The interface between the public and private sectors would be redefined, and many of the disputes that divide our communities would be resolved.'
Amazon -- Ricardo's Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam by Fred Harrison
'The welfare state rests on the belief that progressive taxation can relieve poverty, taking from each according to their means and giving to each according to their needs. This sounds fair: the rich pay more tax to help the poor. However, Harrison points out, the opposite is the result: taxation favours the rich at the expense of the poor because: #1. Public spending on roads, railways, schools, hospitals etc makes a major contribution to rising land values; #2. Rising land values benefit house-owners and other property-owners, rich ones more than poor ones, in rich locations and rich parts of the country more than poor ones; but they hurt people who rent their properties and have to pay rising rents; #3. Taxpayers' money, which finances public spending, is thus channelled behind the scenes from poor to rich people and from poor to rich parts of the country.'
Land Value Taxation Campaign -- What is LVT?
http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/
'Land Value Taxation is a method of raising public revenue by means of an annual tax on the rental value of land. It would replace, not add to, existing taxes. Properly applied, Land Value Tax would support a whole range of social and economic initiatives, including housing, transport and other infrastructural investments. It is an elementary fiscal measure that would go far towards correcting fundamental economic and social ills.'
Great list of advantages. A veritable progressive's buffet.
Land Value Taxation Campaign -- How should we be campaigning? by Fred Harrison
http://www.landvaluetax.org/the-campaign/how-sh...
'The conventional language employed to promote the re-socialisation of rent (and the re-privatisation of wages) will continue to obstruct fiscal reform. The entrenched interests will not allow a "tax on land values". After all, it's "their land", anyway, isn't it? -- ...it's NOT a tax. It's inviting middle-class home-owners (today's aristocracy, in political power terms) to honour their value system - pay for what you get, and get rid of taxes on the incomes you earn. This is the language of a political/moral prospectus that the voting majority - middle-class home-owners - would not be able to oppose, publicly. That's why the vested interests would have to try to shift the debate back onto the territory of the landowners' choosing: "this is a tax, really". That ploy would need to be resisted. -- People need to be reminded: stop whinging about what's wrong with this world, stop talking about your entitlements, accept personal responsibility and claim what is yours by right.'
Still working through your links but on a slooow connection so it's taking time.
The Land Value Tax in short: people will compete to pay for the best use of a plot of land rather than for speculative gains in the land value itself. So they pay the full land price, get taxed on up to 100% of the improving land value ('economic rent'), but profit at up to 100% from their own real economic activity using that land. Thus non-productive land speculation disappears and with it the boom and bust cycle in the 'property' market.
Because the terms 'land' and 'property' are used interchangeably, I think it's important to make a clear distinction between them. Property (as in houses and bicycles) are things that are placed on the land. Contrary to popular opinion (at least in the Anglo-Saxon world) there's nothing particularly special about a house. It's just a thing to live in. When houses/"property" rise in value it's not usually because the house itself has improved (you can only redo the kitchen so many times), but because the underlying land has risen in value. Houses, like bicycles, naturally depreciate over time.
Due to current UK tax policy, it's also important to distinguish between a land tax and a property tax, especially because not all land is used for houses/"property"; so a property tax wouldn't have the scope to tax land used for mining or farming despite the fact that adjacent plots of land used for housing or business are raising the value of mined and farmed land. (Some property taxes in other countries include land value, land improvements and building improvements. The proportion varies.)
Of course, in some cases, a neighbouring mine or farm may lower the value of adjacent land (noise, pollution, etc). But because of employment and associated business opportunities provided to the local community due to the productive use of that mined/farmed land, any lowering is soon netted out by positive gains elsewhere — and besides, no area needs to be equal in any measure to another.
So then there's the opportunity costs associated with land: is it better to own the mine/farm, the commercial property, or the local housing stock? All uses need to be there to make the other options sustainably valuable, but as an investor subject to a land tax, your only real concern is going to be a calculation of how much value you can ADD to the land in that community (as it is currently configured) via economic production, rather than as at present, how much value you can EXTRACT purely from the ownership of land by a calculated speculation on potential economic rents — free of tax.
On that 'free of tax' comment: that's not entirely true since any land owned has to be used for something even if only idling for capital gain. There are property taxes applied to residential and commercial uses of land but these are usually defeated by inflated depreciation write-offs and low capital gains taxes generally, thus a land speculator can still get access to almost pure economic rent.
See this PDF for more explanation as well as a detailing of my favourite topic: the self-debt-enslavement of the rent-seeking middle class.
Dr. Michael Hudson -- The New Road to Serfdom: An Illustrated Guide to the Coming Real Estate Collapse (PDF)
http://michael-hudson.com/articles/debt/Hudson,...