tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/postcapitalism-19060/articlespostcapitalism – The Conversation2020-10-28T22:25:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1490272020-10-28T22:25:29Z2020-10-28T22:25:29ZCapitalism and the coronavirus crisis: the coming transformation(s)<p>The world economy is currently experiencing its severest contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unlike the Great Depression and the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008-2009, this crisis cannot be directly attributed to the dysfunctional workings of capitalism. But even if it is not a crisis <em>of</em> capitalism, it is a crisis <em>for</em> capitalism. Chronic ills of contemporary capitalism – notably rising levels of socio-economic inequality and debt of all kinds – are being exacerbated and intensify the danger of further political polarization and fresh financial instability.</p>
<p>Capitalism will nonetheless survive this crisis as it has done previous ones. The fundamental structures of capitalism typically don’t change fast. But they can change and they do, especially at critical historical junctures, such as in response to wars and economic crises – or, potentially, pandemics.</p>
<h2>State interventionism</h2>
<p>Compared with recent decades, in post-Covid-19 capitalism the state will emerge as a more dominant actor. Even more than in the years after the GFC, central banks have been resorting to increasingly unorthodox, expansionary monetary policies to stave off economic collapse. To the same end governments have begun and will continue to pursue expansionary fiscal policies and run up ever-higher budget deficits. Austerity policies have suddenly become unfashionable. Sectoral or “industrial” policies have regained favour, with governments everywhere intervening to assist firms in those sectors, such as air transport or tourism, which the crisis otherwise would destroy. Policies to “re-localize” production of critical goods in crises, such as medical equipment and supplies, are suddenly in vogue, whereas state aid policies aimed at preventing distortions of competition are not. The intellectual champions of the free market have fallen silent.</p>
<p>Regardless of how fast the world economy recovers from the crisis, longer-term factors – possible new pandemics and pressures to mitigate or adapt to climate change or, in the “old” advanced capitalist economies, to create a more level playing field against firms aided by the Chinese state – will keep the pressure on governments to maintain or strengthen existing levels of state intervention.</p>
<p>To say that the state will be a more dominant actor in post-Covid-19 capitalism is not to say, however, that previously divergent capitalisms are converging on a uniform “statist” model. State economic intervention can manifest highly divergent forms. Here the 1930s may offer some salient parallels. Higher levels of state intervention characterized countries that moved politically to the left as well as to the (far) right. Numerous countries, such as in Sweden and New Zealand, where Labour and Social Democratic parties came to power in this period, or the US under President Roosevelt, embarked on Keynesian deficit-spending policies that reduced mass unemployment, strengthened organized labour and expanded collective social welfare provision.</p>
<p>At the other end of the politico-ideological spectrum, fascist or Nazi regimes, such as Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, also engaged in large-scale deficit-spending, while destroying liberal democracy, smashing the labour movement, implementing protectionist economic policies, and mobilizing their societies for war.</p>
<h2>Growing polarization</h2>
<p>In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, the democratic-capitalist world may well undergo a process of political polarization comparable to what occurred in the 1930s. Depending on the shifting distribution of domestic political power, countries may tend toward one or the other of two scenarios. In one, which might be labelled “yellow capitalism” (combining the colours Social Democratic red and green), state intervention would aim to redistribute income and wealth on a greater scale than is the case in most capitalist democracies today and to take more sweeping measures to combat global warming.</p>
<p>‘Yellow capitalism" would be fundamentally internationalist, recognizing the fact that the most severe challenges facing humankind are global and can be managed effectively only through comprehensive international cooperation. But it would create scope for governments to protect their economies for specific purposes, such as to combat climate change, for example through carbon tariffs. In this scenario, private business would be much more tightly constrained by state regulation than at the peak of neo-liberal capitalism after the Cold War.</p>
<p>The core support for this incarnation of capitalism, which synthesizes the aspirations of the “old” labour movement and “new” social, especially environmental, movements, would be found in the (especially younger) professional middle classes in the big cities and towns and the unionized working class. Even centrist political parties could support this kind of political agenda.</p>
<p>The other scenario (combining the colour black for nationalism and brown for right-wing populism) might be termed “light-black capitalism”. Like “yellow capitalism”, it would also be highly interventionist, but would be fiscally regressive rather than redistributive, as has been the thrust of President Trump’s tax policy in the US. Climate change would be ignored in favour of maximizing (quantitative) economic growth. Domestic business would be increasingly protected from international competition, while comprehensive immigration controls would offer the (ethnically defined) “people” some protection from the competition of “foreign” workers. The core support for “light-black capitalism” would be in domestic-market-oriented business, among residents of small towns, villages and the countryside as well as in declining industrial regions, among “value conservatives” afraid that changes in dominant social values are destroying traditional norms and life-styles, and among “status anxious” workers hostile to immigration.</p>
<h2>Rising risks</h2>
<p>Which of these two incarnations of a state-interventionist capitalism – “yellow” or “light-black” – becomes the predominant form in the post-coronavirus era will be determined by the outcomes of political struggle and conflict in mostly national political arenas. The only thing that is certain is that, for the time being at least, market-friendly incarnations of capitalism will wither.</p>
<p>So far, in the coronavirus crisis, citizens in most countries have rallied to their governments in a spirit of national unity akin to what has occasionally happened historically at the outbreak of wars. However, we are currently still passing through the first stage – the <em>public-health</em> phase – of the coronavirus crisis. Expansionary monetary and fiscal policies and the subsidization – on a massive scale – of short-time work have enabled most governments to postpone the arrival of the second, the <em>economic and financial</em>, phase of the crisis. But unless the recovery of the world economy is very rapid, this next phase will materialize. It will be all the more destructive now that a second wave of the coronavirus is upon is, requiring new lockdown measures that will exacerbate the economic problems caused by those taken earlier this year.</p>
<p>This phase of the crisis will likely witness greater, perhaps much greater, social and political upheaval than the first. Regardless of how well or badly some national-populist governments have hitherto managed the crisis so far, the growing socio-economic dislocation and insecurity that will increasingly characterize this second phase of the crisis could give movements based on this kind of ideology a powerful new impetus.</p>
<p>An upsurge of “light-black capitalism” would likely plunge the world economy into an even deeper recession. Even more ominously, it would also increase the probability of large-scale military conflict. As the American economist Otto Mallery wrote during the Second World War: “When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will”. In this regard too, the events and trends of the 1930s still provide us today with lessons that we ignore at our peril.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas Webber ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The global economy is currently experiencing its severest contraction since the 1930s. While capitalism will survive, its fundamental structure can change at critical historical junctures.Douglas Webber, Professor of Political Science, INSEADLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1471212020-10-01T11:45:48Z2020-10-01T11:45:48ZAnticapitalism wasn’t banned in English classrooms during the cold war – why is it now?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360880/original/file-20200930-14-1gzfnyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Materials produced by groups with “extreme political stances” have been barred from English classrooms by the UK government under <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum#choosing-resources">new guidance</a> for the relationships, sex, and health curriculum. Most of these extreme principles – racism, antisemitism and authoritarianism – are uncontroversial. But the list also includes opposition to capitalism: the “desire to overthrow democracy, capitalism, or the end to free and fair elections”. </p>
<p>Times columnist Daniel Finkelstein approves, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/enemies-of-capitalism-have-no-place-in-school-tdr7wt6xs">writing</a> that “enemies of capitalism have no place in school”. Critics, including former shadow chancellor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/27/uk-schools-told-not-to-use-anti-capitalist-material-in-teaching">John McDonnell</a>, have branded the new rules McCarthyist. </p>
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<p>Debates about whether to bar anticapitalist views from the classroom are not new. British lawmakers have considered similar bans on numerous occasions since the 1917 Russian revolution. But previous British governments refused to forbid materials from radical groups – including communists – from British classrooms, even at the height of the cold war. </p>
<p>This was due to an ethos of British liberalism that devolved <a href="http://www.schoolshistoryproject.co.uk/ResourceBase/downloads/MandlerKeynote2013.pdf">most curricular decisions</a> to teachers and local authorities before the 1980s. As a Times <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1944-07-08/5/4.html">editorial</a> put it in 1944, government should respect “the traditional British freedom accorded” to let teachers “teach, within broad limits, what seems best to him”. In that context, the current government’s move seems particularly stark.</p>
<h2>Policing content</h2>
<p>In 1927, parliament <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1927/mar/11/seditious-and-blasphemous-teaching-to">considered banning</a> “seditious teaching” of the “recognised Communist type which aims at destroying the existing Constitution and the order of things”. The bill targeted both school classrooms and “Proletarian Sunday Schools”, and criminalised the distribution of literature in which “private property is anthematised as robbery”. </p>
<p>Its sponsor, Conservative MP Herbert Holt, highlighted materials such as the “Worker’s Child”, produced by the Young Communists’ International. “Freedom of speech in this country has always been highly valued,” he argued, but “the line must be drawn somewhere”. Despite worsening Anglo-Soviet relations and widespread domestic antiradicalism in the wake of the 1926 general strike, parliament had little appetite to draw such a line, and the bill died quietly in the report stage. </p>
<p>In 1950, parliament <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1950-11-08/debates/5d8318fe-e8e4-4408-aea9-ad7af68f0b7a/TeachingProfession(CommunistActivities">again debated</a> the influence of communist organisations on public schools. Conservative MP Tufton Beamish complained that schoolteachers were “pouring revolutionary, seditious and atheistic propaganda into British children’s ears”. Left-wing groups such as the British-Soviet Friendship Society were circulating materials for use in British classrooms.</p>
<p>Yet a Ministry of Education official scoffed at his implication: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is no evidence that, because teachers may read from Liberal pamphlets, pamphlets from the Tory Central Office or Transport House, or pamphlets about Russia written by Communists, they have allowed the information they have taken from them to influence their work. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As one MP remarked: “We have got to rely upon the commonsense and the judgement of the teachers.” Parliament agreed, again choosing to leave curricular decisions to educators. The matter was largely settled for decades.</p>
<p>Meanwhile in the US, legislation barring the teaching of “subversive” doctrines <a href="https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-6?rskey=pyhwz2">proliferated</a>. States and towns demanded loyalty oaths from teachers and required that schools teach the “American way” of “free enterprise”. By the early 1950s, school curricula had become a central focus of anticommunist crusaders such as Senator Joseph McCarthy. Seemingly anodyne elementary-school stories such as Robin Hood were held up as dangerous “communist” indoctrination in “robbing the rich to give to the poor”. </p>
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<p>To be sure, British governments — both Conservative and Labour — indulged in their own anticommunist propaganda via secretive organisations such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-governments-new-anti-fake-news-unit-has-been-tried-before-and-it-got-out-of-hand-90650">Information Research Department</a>. British citizens, including teachers, were caught up in MI5’s <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/122/3/727/3862792/Covert-and-Overt-Operations-Interwar-Political?guestAccessKey=dd29ef1c-2fb7-412f-851a-b9f8a56a60ee">very large programme</a> of clandestine surveillance and policing of suspected subversives. Nevertheless, Britain’s schools emerged from the cold war without the deep politicisation that McCarthyism inflicted on American education.</p>
<h2>A new era?</h2>
<p>This means that the Department of Education’s new policy goes much further than any British government during the cold war, when communist movements around the world had successfully overthrown capitalist regimes. </p>
<p>It also goes further than Prevent, the 2011 antiradicalisation programme which gave the state new authority to review curricula. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-duty-guidance/revised-prevent-duty-guidance-for-england-and-wales">Prevent guidance</a> calls for students to “understand and discuss sensitive topics, including terrorism and the extremist ideas that are part of terrorist ideology”. Prevent defines “extremism as "vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”. Capitalism is not named as a British value, nor is anticapitalism defined as an “extreme view”.</p>
<p>So why target anticapitalism? The curricular guidance applies only to the “relationships, health, and sex curriculum”. Feminists have long <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/why-women-had-better-sex-under-socialism.html">insisted</a> that sex and relationships have everything to do with capitalism and democracy, but it’s hard to imagine that fears of feminist propaganda motivated the change. </p>
<p>On the other hand, movements such as Occupy and Extinction Rebellion have attracted mass followings with their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/04/evolution-of-extinction-rebellion-climate-emergency-protest-coronavirus-pandemic">systematic critiques</a> of capitalism, inequality and environmental crisis. The appeal of such movements to young people may have motivated the government to act.</p>
<p>Perhaps the government is trailing a broader approach to curricular oversight, one that mirrors President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/19/trump-1776-commission-proof-america-spiraling-toward-facism">1776 Commission</a>” to promote “patriotic education” in the US, or Victor Orban’s February <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-hungary-politics-teachers-protests/hungarian-teachers-say-new-school-curriculum-pushes-nationalist-ideology-idUSKBN1ZY28Y">announcement</a> of a national school curriculum reflecting “Hungarian values”. School curricula have become flashpoints for populist regimes around the world. Is the UK government following this trend?</p>
<p>During the cold war, British officials and intellectuals were proud of Britain’s reputation for political toleration, especially in comparison to the abuses of American McCarthyism. In 1954, Hartley Shawcross, British prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1119716">praised</a> British “doctrines of toleration and liberty” that gave citizens “the right even to attack our whole system of government”. “We have refused to allow ourselves to be stampeded by fear,” he said. </p>
<p>Britain’s new bar on “extremism” in school curricula would likely strike him as extreme indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Luff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UK government has published new guidance barring materials produced by groups opposed to capitalism from schools.Jennifer Luff, Associate Professor in History, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106462019-02-05T15:33:40Z2019-02-05T15:33:40ZEnvisioning real utopias from within the capitalist present – Erik Olin Wright remembered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257081/original/file-20190204-193217-pq2xip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Erik Olin Wright, 1947-2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosalux/6943851642/in/photolist-bzB4b3-bzB4jw-bNvGSe">Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is not uncommon for advocates of a socialist alternative to capitalism to hear others say “it’s a nice idea but it does not work in practice”, or that the Soviet experience proved, once and for all, that capitalism is the best socio-economic model we can get. </p>
<p>Erik Olin Wright, who <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/erik-olin-wright-inspired-the-left-to-embrace-real-utopianism/">died</a> on January 23 2019, begged to differ. Wright devoted his career as a sociology professor at the <a href="https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/faculty/show-person.php?person_id=54">University of Wisconsin-Madison</a> to breathing new life into the study of alternatives to capitalism. He did so with a consistent concern, namely to harness social scientific reasoning to construct a better socio-economic system.</p>
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<p>And yet, by the end of his life, Wright had reached a level of international acclaim that few Marxist theorists ever achieve. With the global financial crisis prompting a widespread search for alternatives to capitalism, and ideas he championed such as the <a href="https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/%7Ewright/Basic%20Income%20as%20a%20Socialist%20Project.pdf">universal basic income</a> moving into the mainstream, Wright was a key figure behind <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/01/what-we-can-learn-erik-olin-wright-godfather-universal-basic-income">the resurgent left</a> on both sides of the Atlantic. His ideas are more relevant now than ever.</p>
<p>In 2010, Wright poured his <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/remembering-erik-olin-wright?fbclid=IwAR2r2BGUgQr6MApLsRi8oqIJdlP5Ge7lybL0pQVD9HbqkU9ydcMMhQ3Z_dk">decades of research</a> into one of his major works entitled <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/463-envisioning-real-utopias">Envisioning Real Utopias</a>. In this immensely lucid, accessible and important book, Wright made his most comprehensive attempt at formulating a set of ideas and strategies that could liberate humanity from its current social, economic and political restrictions – what we might term an “emancipatory” social science. He constructed it around three main axes: a diagnosis of capitalism, a look at some alternatives to capitalism and a theory of transformation. Here, Wright wished to show the reader why a socialist alternative is not only desirable but also something achievable. </p>
<p>While there are different possible pathways towards the socialist transformation of society, Wright told us, we are best off conceptualising alternatives to the status quo on the basis of the “anti-capitalist potential” of things that actually exist. These “real utopias”, as he called them, include such organisations as workers’ cooperatives and even Wikipedia. They are “real” simply by virtue of existing. And they are “utopian” because the values upon which they rest, along with the practices they uphold, provide insights into an emancipatory alternative that has the potential to be brought into existence.</p>
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<span class="caption">Wright: Wikipedia ‘a profoundly egalitarian, anti-capitalist way of producing and sharing knowledge’.</span>
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<p>But Envisioning Real Utopias is more than a book. It is, as I see it, akin to a manual for thinking about the practice of socialism. For Wright did not limit himself to demonstrating why capitalism ought to, and indeed can be, superseded by something better. He also highlighted how three core socialist values – equality, cooperation and freedom – can co-exist in practice. As such, he provided the reader with a guide for not merely thinking about emancipation but, also and crucially, for realising it. </p>
<p>Its realisation, Wright thought, would depend on the formation of institutions that can guarantee “social empowerment” or, to put it differently, individuals’ capacity to exert control, collectively, over the ownership and use of economic resources and activities. In a workers’ cooperative, for example, workers are effectively empowered by owning an equal share of the organisation and having an equal voice in decision making. </p>
<p>In the case of Wikipedia, one finds highly collaborative practices between a core of paid employees and volunteers. Decisions, such as what to include in different encyclopedic entries, are the result of a deliberative process between editors (which any member of the public can choose to become), without the need for a body specifically devoted to editorial control. </p>
<p>Wright acknowledged the fact that “social empowerment” could take several forms but insisted that, the higher its degree, the more an economy and society would be regarded as socialist. </p>
<p>His analytical framework can therefore be used to assess the degree of social empowerment that particular organisations have the potential to realise. This is in fact what Wright set out to do with worker cooperatives and Wikipedia. Despite their currently limited capacity to radically change things within a capitalist economy, both provide insights into the kind of institutions capable of guiding society towards greater empowerment. </p>
<p>It is worth remembering here that capitalism began its journey within the margins of the feudal economy – and what Wright provided us with are the analytical resources to understand how socialism could potentially emerge from within the margins of the capitalist economy.</p>
<p>Those reading the book will also be in a position to appreciate something that characterised many of Wright’s works, namely the capacity to combine a passionate stance with intellectual rigour. He was indeed critical of capitalism and passionate about emancipation, but also firmly devoted to the task of formulating a robust critical social science. Whether Wright studied <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2654939#metadata_info_tab_contents">inequality</a>, the basic income, or alternatives to capitalism, he would do so with admirable assiduity, clarity and precision.</p>
<p>The greatest achievement of Envisioning Real Utopias is, as I understand it, its invaluable role in demonstrating that despite the reigning cynicism about the possibility for change, one need not seek refuge in a utopia in the clouds. Wright’s book is a stark reminder that elements of a vision for the future are often, if not always, found in the present. In his poignant and inspiring <a href="https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/erikolinwright/journal">blog</a> documenting the days before his death, Wright told us he did not fear death. He has now left us, but his work lives on – a work that inspires us not to fear capitalism’s death and to remain hopeful about socialism’s existence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Masquelier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The late sociologist looked at existing ‘utopias’ that could herald a world after capitalism.Charles Masquelier, Lecturer in Sociology, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/832912017-09-04T13:29:10Z2017-09-04T13:29:10ZCapitalism isn’t broken – but it does need a rewrite<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184501/original/file-20170904-31122-4zvtct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">graja/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 1990s, economists indulged heady hopes that globalisation would raise all boats via unfettered free market activity. Now, but a generation later, many are having second thoughts. That’s because global free markets, while indeed maximising GDP for all concerned, have also ushered in staggering rates of inequality together with a looming threat of irreversible climate change from increased greenhouse gas emissions. </p>
<p>Some scholars are going so far as to blame capitalism itself. James Hickel <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40439316/are-you-ready-to-consider-that-capitalism-is-the-real-problem">argues</a> that “there’s something fundamentally flawed about a system that has a prime directive to churn nature and humans into capital, and do it more and more each year, regardless of the costs to human well-being and to the environment we depend on”. But what should come in its place is anyone’s guess. Capitalism is the culprit and there’s an angry band of revolutionaries ready to ditch the idea in favour of something entirely new — starting with granting inalienable rights to nature itself, as Hickel himself suggests.</p>
<p>While certain reforms may sound refreshing, we might not want to reach for such desperate measures as dismantling an economic system that has managed to bring us unprecedented access to cutting-edge technology, information, and medicine at eminently affordable prices. Besides, capitalism at its root isn’t so much about greed as basic self-interest. And each of us is self-interested to some degree. This is a fact of biology we ignore at our peril. </p>
<p>The problem perhaps then isn’t so much with self-interest as how it is conceived. It has become a default assumption now, especially in the US and UK, that the only way to get someone to do something – anything – is to pay them to do it. The what’s-in-it-for-me attitude is being pandered to like never before. Harvard Philosopher Michael Sandel, for example, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/What-Money-Cant-Buy-Markets/dp/0374533652">found</a> that the word “incentivise” scarcely appeared until the 90s and since then has soared in use by more than 1,400%. School districts are even <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/should-we-pay-kids-to-read/263677/">paying children to read</a> — often with positive results. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184503/original/file-20170904-11953-1p171ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184503/original/file-20170904-11953-1p171ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184503/original/file-20170904-11953-1p171ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184503/original/file-20170904-11953-1p171ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184503/original/file-20170904-11953-1p171ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184503/original/file-20170904-11953-1p171ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184503/original/file-20170904-11953-1p171ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Incentivising children to read.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Liderina/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The problem is that empirical research <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-moral-economy/201607/crowding-out-virtue">indicates</a> that financial incentives also tend to weaken altruistic motivations. This is mainly for two reasons: the first is that the more we become immersed in an atmosphere of financial incentives, the more our social instincts atrophy from disuse. The second is that we come to expect the option to buy our way out of having to actually be virtuous. We can simply buy pollution offsets for instance, and need not restrain our appetites to continue thinking of ourselves as good people.</p>
<p>This aspect does appear to be becoming a serious problem with capitalism. It tends to inure us to the needs of others and can even deaden our interest in becoming more virtuous, personally and collectively. But it need not remain this way going forward. </p>
<p>I certainly hope capitalism can survive, considering that history has well demonstrated that societies that balance social equality with economic freedom tend to thrive over the long term. But if that is to continue, we may need to fashion a new conception of what capitalism means. The great political economist Adam Smith made us come to grips with the fact that we are naturally profit-seeking creatures. But this is not necessarily a sin — it is taking the attitude to excess that starts to blind us to other humanistic concerns.</p>
<h2>A new form of capitalism</h2>
<p>The challenge then for us at this time in history is to apply a more integrated and aspirational conception of self-interest to the notion of capitalism — one that can nudge toward and not simply away from virtue. For while we are profit-seeking, we are also social beings, as Aristotle pointed out long ago. It’s <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/03/05/kin-kind">in our DNA</a> and the reason we are able to think and communicate linguistically to begin with, as Wittgenstein poignantly demonstrated. </p>
<p>The path I point to in <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-017-3494-6">my own work</a>
is to uncover ways that virtue may be rekindled through civic and economic activities – there is vast evidence that financial incentives are not always the most powerful motivators. It is often actually more effective to appeal to the better angels of our nature — specifically, the moral image we would like to maintain of ourselves. This is why appeals to civic pride still remain more effective than financial incentives in jury duty, voting, nuclear waste disposal, and even income tax filing. People will also only cheat to the extent that they can continue to maintain an image of themselves <a href="https://theeconreview.com/2016/08/17/why-do-we-cheat/">as non-cheaters</a>.</p>
<p>Imagine how different capitalism would be if business leaders, investors, workers, and consumers started assessing business performance not simply in terms of personal gain but of moral self-image? Joint appeals to pride and shame can function as powerful motivators for engaging virtuous social behaviour while avoiding the potential psychological damage that shaming alone can bring.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184514/original/file-20170904-17899-129fzr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184514/original/file-20170904-17899-129fzr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184514/original/file-20170904-17899-129fzr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184514/original/file-20170904-17899-129fzr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184514/original/file-20170904-17899-129fzr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184514/original/file-20170904-17899-129fzr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184514/original/file-20170904-17899-129fzr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People buy fairtrade goods due to moral, rather than financial, incentives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">By chrisdorney/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are already seeing trends in this direction in many sectors and stakeholder levels. Consumers increasingly avoid purchases they perceive as enabling exploitation, discrimination, or depletion of natural resources. Firms are responding by articulating clear corporate social missions backed up by third-party social responsibility reporting. Many travellers <a href="http://quillette.com/2017/08/29/market-virtue-companies-like-qantas-campaigning-marriage-equality/">are prepared to shun airlines</a> that have a poor record on diversity issues. Imagine how many more of us might change our habits if more marketers invited us to consider what our purchases say about our values?</p>
<p>The same goes for workers, who are coming to realise that they do not live on bread alone and can be motivated to work better if they have good reason to believe in the overarching moral vision of their organisations. Numerous admired firms are responding by giving workers more say in management and improving <a href="http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20130307/local-employer-offers-staff-unusual-perk-free-beer">quality of work life</a>.</p>
<p>The all-important shareholders have unfortunately been the slowest group to respond to this shift, so we should start nudging them — and our own shareholding selves — to consider what our investment choices say about our values. Do we go out of our way to invest in socially responsible firms or do we just look at the return on investment? If only the return, then how can we reasonably continue thinking of ourselves as basically good people?</p>
<p>Given capitalism’s immense influence over nearly every aspect of many people’s lives, it would serve well to remind ourselves more often of what our economic choices reveal about the values we uphold as individuals. If Adam Smith was correct in his assessment that self-interest is not in itself a sin, then proving it could well be the greatest challenge of our age.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83291/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Friedland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We need to work out how to save capitalism from itself.Julian Friedland, Assistant Professor of Business Ethics, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/796502017-07-25T20:08:37Z2017-07-25T20:08:37ZNot jobs and growth but post-capitalism – and creative industries show the way<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175132/original/file-20170622-3053-1m2990k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The creative economy is failing to live up to the fast-growing, young entrepreneurial image it promotes. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/14959708488/">Ars Electronica/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The term “creative industries” was <a href="https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/42872_Flew.pdf">first applied</a> to the cultural sector by UK New Labour in 1998, and rapidly gained global traction.</p>
<p>It was a kind of Faustian bargain for the cultural sector, which gave up its traditional suspicion of commercial imperatives in return for a seat at the grown-ups’ table where the governmental big bucks were allocated. </p>
<p>Perhaps it was not so Faustian after all. It seemed the “new” economy was all about ideas and experiences, creativity and left-of-field innovation. That’s less a sell-out and more a win-win. As cities shed their dirty industries, the creative sector would provide new, more fulfilling employment, rewriting the rules of the old economy as it did so.</p>
<p>The problems with this narrative are <a href="https://currencyhouse.org.au/node/174">well aired</a>. Software (which had been included precisely to bump up the numbers) and advertising and marketing accounted for most of the <a href="https://www.acola.org.au/PDF/SAF01/6.%20Culture%20creativity%20cultural%20economy.pdf">employment growth</a>. </p>
<p>Outside these sectors (and often within) <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504630.2015.1128800?src=recsys&journalCode=csid20">studies</a> showed persistent low wages, high debt, self-exploitation, precarious employment (the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/26/will-we-get-by-gig-economy">gig economy</a>”), multiple job-holding (“don’t give up your night job”) and a nepotism that comes with excessive reliance on networking. </p>
<p>The divergence between the shiny narrative and the mundane reality is now blindingly obvious (at least outside the consultancy reports). Few in the cultural sector do more than lip-sync to its hymns. </p>
<p>But is this simply a story of deflation, of promises reneged? Might there be another narrative?</p>
<h2>A new narrative emerges</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178549/original/file-20170718-21774-10k3q7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178549/original/file-20170718-21774-10k3q7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178549/original/file-20170718-21774-10k3q7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178549/original/file-20170718-21774-10k3q7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178549/original/file-20170718-21774-10k3q7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178549/original/file-20170718-21774-10k3q7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178549/original/file-20170718-21774-10k3q7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178549/original/file-20170718-21774-10k3q7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future, by Paul Mason (Allen Lane, 2015)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostCapitalism:_A_Guide_to_our_Future">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In recent years the notion of “post-capitalism” has become more widespread. <a href="http://affirmpress.com.au/publishing/a-revolution-in-the-making/">Guy Rundle</a> has been talking about this in Australia, and <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Postcapitalism-Paul-Mason/9780141975290?redirected=true&utm_medium=Google&utm_campaign=Base1&utm_source=AU&utm_content=Postcapitalism&selectCurrency=AUD&w=AF45AU99ZZC1SZA80C5LAF4S&pdg=kwd-309568335522:cmp-680104063:adg-37898644947:crv-151944074570:pid-9780141975290:dev-c&gclid=CO3Vos2ky9QCFYuUvQodBOUJAg">Paul Mason</a> in the UK. </p>
<p>In part it continues the optimism about the transformative potential of new technologies that formed around the internet in the 1990s, and which gave the early “creative industries” agenda such a powerful charge. </p>
<p>But since 2008 many have felt that capitalism is no longer capable of delivering on that potential. It has been locking it up in monopoly platforms and extracting “rent” from what is essentially free.</p>
<p>Indeed, capitalism is intent on maximising short-term profit from these technologies while allowing the ecological catastrophe of climate change to let rip. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178550/original/file-20170718-21790-vg3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178550/original/file-20170718-21790-vg3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178550/original/file-20170718-21790-vg3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178550/original/file-20170718-21790-vg3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178550/original/file-20170718-21790-vg3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178550/original/file-20170718-21790-vg3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178550/original/file-20170718-21790-vg3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178550/original/file-20170718-21790-vg3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Revolution In The Making: 3D Printing, Robots and the Future, by Guy Rundle (Affirm Press, 2014)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://affirmpress.com.au/publishing/a-revolution-in-the-making/">Affirm Press</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rundle and Mason evoke the enormous potential of technological innovation, not just in communications but in medicine, materials science, agriculture, transport and the rest, but this potential is stuck in the old relations of capitalism. </p>
<p>Post-capitalism evokes not just the technology but the new kinds of social relations required for it to live up to its full human potential. They argue that these new technologies – distributed, networked, ideas-rich, decreasingly expensive – are giving rise to enclaves within contemporary society that provide a glimpse into a more human future. </p>
<p>Peer-to-peer networks, sharing and gift economies (for real, not Uber), open-source movements, non-monetary labour exchanges – all of these grow out of the essentially public and democratic nature of knowledge-based production and distribution. Capitalism squats on these new democratic forces, wringing profit from a knowledge it does not produce but seeks to own. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178551/original/file-20170718-21752-1e7hfus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178551/original/file-20170718-21752-1e7hfus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178551/original/file-20170718-21752-1e7hfus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178551/original/file-20170718-21752-1e7hfus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178551/original/file-20170718-21752-1e7hfus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178551/original/file-20170718-21752-1e7hfus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178551/original/file-20170718-21752-1e7hfus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178551/original/file-20170718-21752-1e7hfus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Postcapitalist Politics, by J.K. Gibson-Graham (University of Minnesota Press, 2006)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/a-postcapitalist-politics">University of Minnesota Press</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rundle is the more naive politically, while Mason, re-inventing a Marxist political economy long thought dead and buried, recognises that systems are not given up without a fight. </p>
<p>What stands out, however, is a sense that things are already changing. We need not wait for the big collapse, but can work in the here and now to effect real social transformation. </p>
<p>This connects with <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/a-postcapitalist-politics">the work</a> of <a href="http://www.communityeconomies.org/people/jk-gibson-graham">J.K. Gibson-Graham</a> and others, who see older forms of social activism as working towards a different kind of post-capitalist future right here, right now.</p>
<h2>Creating a more human future</h2>
<p>There are, and will be, many objections to the coherence of the term post-capitalism and the agenda it announces. But perhaps it can help us rethink the creative industries. </p>
<p>Rather than the narrative of the fast-growing, entrepreneurial, start-up economy moving us into the next stage of knowledge capitalism, post-capitalism gives us a different story. </p>
<p>The low-waged, under-employed, precarious creative sector embarrasses the policymakers by not being really serious about growth (“lifestyle”) and failing to live up to the entrepreneurial image promoted at all those glitzy creative industry events. But these low-growth, socially embedded and ethically driven creatives may represent a future far more convincingly than those MBAs in hip clothing setting out to be the next “unicorn”.</p>
<p>The job of the creative sector is not to produce “jobs and growth” but cultural value. Those long hours on low wages and short-term contracts are accepted (mostly) as the price to create something of cultural value, to alter the world a little bit, to make us see it in a different way, to critique and to celebrate ourselves, and to bind us together. </p>
<p>This ecosystem of micro-businesses, freelancers and serial project workers represents the vast majority of <a href="https://ccskills.org.uk/supporters/blog/freelancing-and-the-future-of-creative-jobs">cultural sector employment</a>. They have been systemically sidelined from the grand creative industries narrative, but are, in fact, its main business.</p>
<p>Arguments for culture dressed up as economics no longer convince anyone. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-brandis-plans-to-insulate-the-arts-sector-from-the-artists-42305">George Brandis</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/reagan-called-america-a-city-on-a-hill-because-taxpayers-funded-the-humanities-74721">Donald Trump</a> and 100 right-wing authoritarian cultural budget cuts across the globe testify to this. </p>
<p>It is time to give up on the fiction of the creative industries delivering post-industrial capitalism. Instead, we should acknowledge the new ways of making and sharing, the commitments to community and place, the social labour involved in creative work as a powerful resource for wider transformation of our common culture.</p>
<p>And, at the moment, the future of that common culture points us toward some kind of post-capitalism – rather than simply more of the same.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79650/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin O'Connor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The notion of the creative sector driving fulfilling work as cities shed old industries has worn thin. But those creatives might be delivering value of a different kind, offering a more human future.Justin O'Connor, Professor of Communications and Cultural Economy, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/663862016-10-16T19:05:54Z2016-10-16T19:05:54ZDystopian Donald: the horror and the hope in Trump’s presidential campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140110/original/image-20161003-20196-77mm5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">To date, Donald Trump's campaign has offered us a powerful blend of hope and horror. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnysilvercloud/25318458044/in/photolist-EziHuG-83R9Af-JiNyVv-EzjcaG">Johnny Silvercloud/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>When Thomas More wrote his genre-defining book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)">Utopia</a> in 1515, he tapped into a stream of thought that ran from the world of Plato. The strong current of utopian thinking that influenced the politics, religion and art of the modern world continues to flow today, in both its hopeful and dismal tributaries.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140100/original/image-20161003-20196-1gvva6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140100/original/image-20161003-20196-1gvva6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140100/original/image-20161003-20196-1gvva6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140100/original/image-20161003-20196-1gvva6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140100/original/image-20161003-20196-1gvva6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140100/original/image-20161003-20196-1gvva6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140100/original/image-20161003-20196-1gvva6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Can Thomas More’s Utopia – a cohesive and contented society – be enacted today?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliotheca Augustana</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More’s version of the popular traveller’s tale captures the ambivalence that accompanies ideas of utopia: is it a fantasy to be dismissed or a hope to be enacted? </p>
<p>The text is slippery, moving between satire and sincerity in ways that are difficult to distinguish. The name of More’s main “informant”, Raphael Hythloday, for example, can be translated from the Greek, as “knowing in trifles” or “nonsense”. And, of course, “Utopia” itself means “no place”.</p>
<p>But within the playful tone of Utopia is a detailed account of a cohesive and contented society that contemporary Europeans would have recognised as a direct inversion of their own precarious real world. </p>
<p>16th-century Europe can be seen, in contrast, as the other side of the Utopian coin; what we would call dystopia.</p>
<h2>Doomsday discourse</h2>
<p>The world is witnessing another iteration of this well-established twinned trope in Donald Trump’s campaign to be America’s next president. </p>
<p>Both the utopian and the dystopian are deployed in Trump’s speeches. His acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention lacked More’s subtle irony, instead offering a <a href="https://theconversation.com/youre-fired-donald-trump-shows-rivals-how-its-done-in-entertainment-politics-54323">powerful</a> blend of hope and horror. </p>
<p>Trump’s convention speech has been described as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/full-text-donald-trumps-prepared-remarks-accepting-the-republican-nomination/">dark</a> and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trumps-dark-dark-convention-speech">apocalyptic</a>. He talked of a “crisis” framed as an existential threat to “our way of life”.</p>
<p>Since then, at an August rally in Willmington, North Carolina (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0">infamous</a> for the suggestion that the “second-amendment people” could do something about Hillary Clinton choosing liberal-minded judges), Trump warned that a Clinton presidency would “destroy the country”. </p>
<p>He repeated this imagery of violent domestic chaos in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gitYtuF61iI">first</a> of the presidential debates with Clinton, lamenting with the African-American demographic <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/donald-trump-black-voters-2016-8?r=US&IR=T">his perception of their reality</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You walk down the street, you get shot. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump extended this vision to the international scene in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfq0Yw2sMq0">second debate</a>, mentioning:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… carnage all over the world. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Trump invokes the language of salvation</h2>
<p>This current and anticipated cataclysm, however, is framed by the sloganised promise that, as president, Trump would “Make America Great Again”. </p>
<p>Ordinary electioneering is also boosted to the level of millenarian prophesy in statements <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/07/21/486940891/trump-to-promise-safety-will-be-restored-as-he-accepts-gop-nomination">like</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon – and I mean very soon - come to an end. Beginning on January 20, 2017, safety will be restored.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like Karl Marx, Trump exhorts us to radical change but remains vague on the details of his achieved utopia. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a4">The German Ideology</a>, Marx envisaged communism as a kind of paradise for enlightened gentleman farmers. Freed from the confines of subsistence, one could:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump’s utopia, however, is construed more along the lines of negative freedom. Specifically, not being shot when one walks down the street or the absence of illegal immigrants. </p>
<p>It seems a critique of the dystopian present, rather than a promise of a utopian future, is the cultural force that has propelled Trump so far.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140111/original/image-20161003-20239-17usmg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140111/original/image-20161003-20239-17usmg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140111/original/image-20161003-20239-17usmg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140111/original/image-20161003-20239-17usmg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140111/original/image-20161003-20239-17usmg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140111/original/image-20161003-20239-17usmg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140111/original/image-20161003-20239-17usmg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">What kind of freedom does Donald Trump’s land of plenty actually promise?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DonkeyHotey/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Competing visions</h2>
<p>Two writers who have not been reticent to set out the details of 21st-century utopias are Paul Mason and Rutger Bregman. </p>
<p>Paul Mason’s <a href="https://penguin.com.au/books/postcapitalism-a-guide-to-our-future-9781846147388">Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future</a> argues that the global finance system will be exhausted. Accordingly, proliferation of information technology will propel us beyond market-driven production. The resultant utopia will be, like More’s imagining, broadly socialist in conception.</p>
<p>While money is abolished in More’s Utopia, Mason sees it radically reduced in an economy of “free stuff” (enabled by thorough automation and knowledge circulating freely). One important and ongoing use of money in Mason’s postcapitalist utopia, however, will be the universal basic income. </p>
<p>This is a utopian notion that seems to appeal to even those outside the circle of re-constructed Marxism. Libertarians like this idea because it would remove the perceived ethical paternalism of the welfare system. Instead, the state would be merely a provider or guarantor. </p>
<p>The individual is then free to spend this guaranteed income in a way s/he sees fit. This could be a life of hunting, herding, fishing and critiquing - or not.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aIL_Y9g7Tg0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Free money’ is a notion already proposed by some of history’s leading thinkers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The universal basic income is also central to the vision Rutger Bregman presents in his book, <a href="https://thecorrespondent.com/utopia-for-realists/">Utopia for Realists</a>. While there are two key dystopian figures in Mason’s narrative – neoliberalism and climate change – Bregman’s utopia is more upbeat in its account of the present. </p>
<p>He notes that we are living in the world of neoliberalism’s triumph. But rather than despair, this leads Bregman to the conclusion that if ideas have changed the world before, they can again. Neoliberalism is simply a set of ideas, not a force of nature. The task is therefore a political one: change the ideas that organise our reality.</p>
<p>Bregman draws explicitly from the stream of utopian thinking and culture. Referring to the medieval dream of “Cockaigne” – where “rivers ran with wine, roast geese flew overhead and pancakes grew on trees” – he points out that in the context of the long history of human suffering and deprivation, we have already arrived in this land of plenty. </p>
<p>Repurposing a quote from William Gibson (a novelist familiar with the utopia-dystopia dyad), Bregman might say: Utopia is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140098/original/image-20161003-20205-173gxpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140098/original/image-20161003-20205-173gxpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140098/original/image-20161003-20205-173gxpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140098/original/image-20161003-20205-173gxpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140098/original/image-20161003-20205-173gxpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140098/original/image-20161003-20205-173gxpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140098/original/image-20161003-20205-173gxpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Land of Cockaigne by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1567.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Web Gallery of Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To the universal basic income Bregman adds two other requirements in order to achieve a global utopia now: open borders and a 15-hour workweek. The shorter working week would directly reduce CO2 emissions and distribute work and benefits more widely when the free movement of people is allowed. </p>
<p>His arguments for these three policy shifts are moderate rather than revolutionary. Indeed, in his account of the history of the universal basic income, Bregman tells how then-president Richard Nixon almost instituted the policy in 1968. </p>
<p>This might be of interest to Trump, given his law-and-order narrative is modelled on Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign.</p>
<p>It is a sign of desperate times that such divergent stories, Trump’s apocalypse and Bregman’s global Cockaigne, can speak so compellingly to the present through the ancient language of utopia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Ryan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Utopia and dystopia are combined in current political thinking, from Donald Trump to the universal basic income.Matthew Ryan, Lecturer in Literature, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/470392015-09-21T04:04:24Z2015-09-21T04:04:24ZTwo visions of the ‘new economy’ collide where people and technology intersect<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95310/original/image-20150918-12343-1emeet8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=250%2C12%2C3787%2C2561&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">WikiHouse is one example of the technology-driven new economy, which focuses on people rather than profits.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WikiHouse</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Sydney in September, <a href="http://www.naomiklein.org/main">Naomi Klein</a> spoke passionately about how climate change opens up opportunities to <a href="http://fodi.sydneyoperahouse.com/program/capitalism-and-the-climate/">change our economic system</a> in a fundamental way, focusing it more on “people and planet” than on economic growth. </p>
<p>Her view is similar to that of the <a href="http://www.neweconomics.org/pages/what-we-do">New Economics Foundation</a> in the UK and to the <a href="http://neweconomy.net/about/necs-mission-and-vision">New Economy Coalition</a> in the US. These link systemic economic change to democratic empowerment, grass-roots struggle and the pursuit of environmental and social justice. </p>
<p>This is one emerging vision of a “new economy”. </p>
<p>Another vision is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun">technology-led</a>, increasingly centred on digital disruptors, such as peer-to-peer services like <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/airbnb">AirBnB</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/uber">Uber</a>. </p>
<p>The technology-led vision is linked to the increasing dominance of a service-based economy, as well as technological shifts to manufacturing processes that intensify competitive dynamics and global mobility. </p>
<p>Both visions have long histories, but there are fascinating possibilities emerging at their intersection, drawing on elements of both visions, designing social and ecological values into the heart of technological platforms. </p>
<p>Some of the best examples of this lie in the domain of web-enabled peer-to-peer services. These services use technology to eliminate many of the intermediaries and “middlemen” that have typified service provision in industrialised economies, particularly in food, transport and energy. </p>
<h2>Helping people access food and housing</h2>
<p>Two interesting examples of smaller-scale experiments that blur the boundaries between the two versions of the new economy are the Open Food Network and Wikihouse. </p>
<p><a href="http://openfoodnetwork.org/">Open Food Network</a> (to whose crowdfunding campaign I have contributed) uses open source software to link producers and consumers of local ethical food. Based in Melbourne, it describes itself as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An emerging networked e-commerce system for activating online food marketplaces and collaborative distribution … [enabling] farmers, eaters and independent food enterprises to connect, trade, manage Food Hubs and coordinate logistics.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://wikihouse.cc">Wikihouse</a> uses free and open source hardware designs to enable rapid build of eco-housing. Founded in the UK by architect and designer Alastair Parvin, it describes itself as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A small non-profit with a huge mission: to create the world’s simplest, most sustainable building systems, which are shared in commons – owned by and for everyone.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are systems Wikihouse claims make it possible for a team of amateurs to assemble the chassis of a mid-sized house in one to three days. Wikihouse is already being deployed to good effect in <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/small-business/67617829/WikiHouse-project-a-social-enterprise">Christchurch</a> in the wake of the 2011 earthquake. </p>
<p>In many ways, both Open Food Network and Wikihouse could stand as an example of either version of the new economy. Both provide a web-based platform that cuts out or curtails the power of the middleman. Both stress the desire to create positive social change of a systemic kind, one that will disrupt the existing dominance of large-scale commercial provision of food or housing. These features echo the technology-led perspective on the new economy.</p>
<p>But “people and planet” are also designed into both projects. This is visible in their strong commitment to open-source and the way this supports small community groups anywhere in the world in setting up local initiatives easily and at low cost. </p>
<p>Similarly, both stress the inbuilt sociality and affordability of the practices they enable as the key to allowing broad take-up and scaling by replication (rather than scaling up). They seek to go beyond simply providing a software platform as a commercial service, aiming to connect like-minded groups around the world in a collaborative community. </p>
<h2>Debating the details</h2>
<p>Are these nascent multinational chains-in-waiting? Many less obvious and visible dimensions of the projects suggest not, such as not-for-profit legal structures as the umbrella entity for the projects, open-source intellectual property, an <a href="http://www.wikihouse.cc/support/">explicit avoidance</a> of venture capital investment. All these combine to create a <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Sustainable_Food,_Sharing_Economies_and_the_Ethos_of_Legal_Infrastructure">distinctive ethos</a> that resists being categorised as either/or of the two visions of a new economy. </p>
<p>The New Zealand chapter of Wikihouse, initially called Think Radical, tells its <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/small-business/67617829/WikiHouse-project-a-social-enterprise">own story</a> in slightly wry terms as one where it was “advised to formalise a company structure in the interests of credibility and trust”, at which point “it was suggested that Think Radical would be, well, too radical”. They named themselves Space Craft Systems instead. This move epitomises the sometimes uncomfortable straddling act that these projects embody. </p>
<p>The key point here is not to suggest that these projects are win-win solutions. On the contrary, it is more to insist that the political and ethical challenges that are put front and centre by social commentators such as Naomi Klein are equally integral to any technology-led vision of a new economy. </p>
<p>Debating not only the details that make these initiatives work in practice, but also their political and ethical implications, can help us to understand better the possibilities of the new economy. It will also remind us of the multiple ways in which peer-to-peer and sharing economies might transform the economic landscape ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47039/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bronwen Morgan receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She has contributed to the crowdfunding campaign of Open Food Network. </span></em></p>Two visions of the ‘new economy’, one based on environmental and social justice values, the other on disruptive technologies, are coming together to challenge the status quo.Bronwen Morgan, Professor of Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/468002015-08-31T04:13:51Z2015-08-31T04:13:51ZHow do we ‘change everything’ as Naomi Klein suggests? Let’s start by getting ‘adversaries’ to listen to one another<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93409/original/image-20150831-29517-hitsc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1387%2C570%2C1576%2C889&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's easy to get overwhelmed by the size of the problem.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paintings/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The author and activist Naomi Klein is currently on an Australian <a href="http://thischangeseverything.org/events/">book tour</a>, bringing us the terrifying message that climate change “changes everything”. I say terrifying because, if you follow Klein’s logic to its conclusion, the only way to stop climate change is literally to change everything: our cities, economies, energy systems and patterns of consumption.</p>
<p>Klein’s argument is that climate change threatens every dimension of our life on Earth – the result of an abusive relationship between people and planet, made possible by a voracious hyper-capitalist economy. Fixing climate change means changing how that economy works at its core. </p>
<p>That may seem a rather all-encompassing observation, but the persuasiveness of her argument comes from the insight that climate change isn’t just another “issue” on a shopping list of social problems. It’s an epidemic whose cure offers an opportunity to turn around myriad injustices perpetrated in the name of the economy. </p>
<p>But if climate change is connected to “everything”, how do we get “everyone” together to change it?</p>
<h2>Worldwide local action</h2>
<p>There isn’t one single approach, of course. Klein is careful to argue that a new world will only be possible if thousands of grassroots movements bloom across the globe.</p>
<p>But one aspect of her argument deserves more attention. How do you foster coordination and collaboration, both across geographical boundaries and between traditional adversaries?</p>
<p>Collaborations can create tension, and battles over competing interests often see good intentions fail. We are used to the familiar tension of “jobs versus the environment”, for instance. There are also difficulties in balancing the need to coordinate campaigns nationally (or globally) while still ensuring that local communities feel that their efforts are meaningful.</p>
<p>The answer to better collaboration is to build effective alliances and coalitions based on mutual interests and values, not just single issues and events. </p>
<p>But being good at campaigning and being good at coalitions are not necessarily the same skill. Campaigns require fast action, a clear strategy and a smorgasbord of tactics. Coalitions between people who haven’t worked together, or between national and local players, require trust. </p>
<p>Trust takes time. Time to break down the stereotypes (“blokey” unionists, “demure” Christians, “hippy” environmentalists) and time to discover where the common ground may lie.</p>
<h2>Forging new bonds</h2>
<p>It’s no surprise that the most successful and creative climate action, both in Australia and among the examples in Klein’s book, have come from regional areas. <a href="http://www.lockthegate.org.au/">Lock the Gate</a> and <a href="https://fightforthereef.org.au/">Fight for the Reef</a> both emerged from local rural communities. </p>
<p>Sure, every community has its share of tensions and regional Australia is no exception – as shown by encounters between loggers and greenies, or farmers and indigenous leaders. But these regional communities also have relationships that are stronger than in cities. They are places where more people know each other by name, and where saving the place where they live (whether we’re talking about farmland or the Great Barrier Reef) is a tangible unifier – literally and figuratively common ground.</p>
<p>So what will it take to bring these kinds of unusual alliances to our cities? At the moment, factors like anonymity, busy lifestyles, and professional cliques all hamper the building of trusting relationships across different groups.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/papal-encyclical">recent encyclical</a>, Pope Francis interpreted climate change as an invitation for us not only to renew the relationship between people and planet, but to reimagine our relationship with each other.</p>
<p>So while we work to end our utilitarian relationship with the planet, powerful climate action can only be built if we follow that example and see each other and each other’s organisational leaders as whole beings, with a full range of dreams, aspirations and motivations.</p>
<p>Building a broad movement will challenge those who are currently inside or outside the climate movement in different ways. For those “outside”, it will mean recognising that the welfare of the planet is all of our issue, and making space for thinking about how climate affects every issue we face. </p>
<p>For those “inside”, building a diverse movement means letting go of some control. If we are to stop climate change, no one group can “own” the issue – including the “greenies”. It will be much easier with everyone on board, after all.</p>
<p>New groups and constituencies that embrace the challenge of climate change need to feel like it can be their space too. It won’t work if people are made to feel they need to become a “lefty” to care about the planet.</p>
<h2>First understand, then act</h2>
<p>One tip for building a diverse movement is learning the art of the “relational meeting”, where people take the time to understand what makes each other tick. Coalitions that use community organising, like the <a href="http://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/">Sydney Alliance</a> (of which I am the founding director), tend to train their leaders to build relationships <em>before</em> working on issues. As a consequence, they have cultivated relationships between traditional strangers – from the <a href="https://www.catholic.org.au/">Catholic Church</a> to the <a href="http://www.cancer.org.au/">Cancer Council</a>, and from the <a href="http://www.arabcouncil.org.au/">Arab Council</a> to the <a href="http://www.nswnma.asn.au/">nurses’ union</a>. </p>
<p>Another ingredient that makes diverse relationships work are “bridge-builders” – the translators and diplomats who can speak many activist languages, like those who are fluent in both “climate” and “union”, say, or “church” and “neighbourhood group”.</p>
<p>Yet another is the habit of letting the relationships lead groups to the solution rather than presenting people with fully formed prescriptions for action. We all know we need to work together across the planet to stop climate change, but we also need to respect everyone as capable actors in the process – including those who live in vastly different places or think in very different ways.</p>
<p>For instance, Lock the Gate has worked because local people have led and directed the strategy for <a href="http://www.lockthegate.org.au/ban_on_maules_creek_spring_clearing_vindicates_community_concerns">opposing land clearing at the Maules Creek mine</a>, and national climate campaigners supported their lead. If national groups had tried to dictate the strategy, the movement might have fractured. </p>
<p>This is the “walk and chew gum” manoeuvre that the 21st-century climate movement needs to master: building new relationships while still mobilising the old. It has to be an open-minded, open-hearted journey in which all are open to learning and change. </p>
<p>If we need to “change everything”, let’s hope that includes ourselves. Let’s reimagine how we work, what strategies we use, and what we fight for as we work together to save our common home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46800/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Tattersall is affiliated with Sydney Alliance and GetUp.org.au.</span></em></p>Climate change ‘changes everything’, says the writer Naomi Klein. The only way society can respond is to change itself - and that will need everyone on be on the same page instead of arguing about it.Amanda Tattersall, Honorary Associate, Department of Geography, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/449752015-07-30T00:50:48Z2015-07-30T00:50:48ZAfter capitalism, what comes next? For a start, ethics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89606/original/image-20150724-3647-2101ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This Occupy Toronto sign sums up the sentiment, but people are also moving on from capitalism in practice by such means as digitally enabled collaboration and the sharing economy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ericparker/6250928990/in/album-72157627782819207/">flickr/Eric Parker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If the comments generated by the recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun">publication of excerpts</a> from Paul Mason’s forthcoming <a href="http://www.penguin.co.uk/books/postcapitalism/9781846147388/">book</a>, Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future, are anything to go by, its release at the end of the month should kick up a storm.</p>
<p>Mason’s book is about a seismic economic shift already underway, one that is as profound as the transformation from feudalism to capitalism. In the excerpts, Mason observes that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… whole swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The shift is evidenced by developments such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons-based_peer_production">collaborative production</a> and the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy">sharing economy</a>. Mason attributes this economic transformation to advances in information technology, particularly the global networks of people and ideas that are now possible.</p>
<p>Such large-scale pronouncements inevitably generate an equally strong pushback, albeit in very different ways. For example, some comments on the published excerpts align with Fredric Jameson’s <a href="http://newleftreview.org/II/21/fredric-jameson-future-city">observation</a> that sometimes for the Left:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other comments are more aligned with climate-change denialism and the sentiment that “it is easier to desire the end of the world than to desire the end of capitalism”.</p>
<p>For those of us who research and practise in the area of what might be called “diverse economies”, Mason’s provocations are welcome. They help to shed light on the array of economic activities that are usually ignored in discussions about economics and they provide an opportunity to debate our economic future.</p>
<h2>Enabling but not guaranteeing a better future</h2>
<p>Mason’s is a technologically focused vision of transformation. Information technology provides both the catalyst and the means for transitioning from capitalism to a new post-capitalist world. This world will be characterised by “a new way of living” and “new values and behaviours” as unrecognisable to us today as the gritty world of belching factories and waged work would have been to the landed gentry and tenant farmers of pre-industrial Europe.</p>
<p>But there is one important difference between Mason’s post-capitalism and the capitalist and feudal systems that preceded it. The reshaped economic system will, according to Mason, offer hitherto unrealised economic freedoms and liberties with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the whole of human intelligence one thumb-swipe away.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is no doubt that information technology is transforming the lives we can now lead. But technology does not in and of itself guarantee a better future. The much-vaunted “successes” of the sharing economy do not necessarily improve the precarious and exploitative working conditions of those who sign up. For instance, drivers are <a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/uber-unionized-worker-owned-co-op-denver-cabbies">finding this with Uber</a>, the app-based ride-service that is <a href="https://www.uber.com/cities">networked across 58 countries</a> and had, in December 2014, an estimated value of <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/ubers-new-funding-values-it-at-over-41-billion-1417715938">US$41 billion</a>.</p>
<p>Where information technology is generating better futures it seems to rest on explicit ethical commitments that are developed independent of online apps and cyber networks. </p>
<p>For example, in Japan, <a href="http://community-currency.info/en/currencies/asia/fureai-kippu/"><em>Fureai Kippu</em></a> (literally “ticket for a caring relationship”) is based on a commitment to caring for the elderly. Volunteers earn “time credits” by providing care to elderly people. They can transfer these credits to relatives or friends who need care, or they can save the credits for their own future use.</p>
<p><em>Fureai Kippu</em> emerged in the 1980s, building on a tradition of volunteerism and reciprocal assistance. Technological advances have enabled the network to spread geographically. There are now schemes in London, Los Angeles and Switzerland, and credits earned in these locations can be transferred to relatives or friends elsewhere, including Japan. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_xmyM_uNXkU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Mayumi Hayashi talks about the successes of Fureai Kippu in providing elderly care in Japan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Technology is augmenting relations of care for others. Technology does not bring these relations into being.</p>
<h2>The ethics of the new economies</h2>
<p>In our research on the <a href="http://takebackeconomy.net/">diverse economic practices</a> that exist outside the purview of mainstream economics, we find people are forging new types of economies around six ethical concerns:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>What do we need to survive well?</p></li>
<li><p>What happens to surplus, or what is left over after our survival needs have been met?</p></li>
<li><p>How do we act responsibly to those whose inputs help us to survive well (whether other people or the environment)?</p></li>
<li><p>How much and what do we consume in order to survive well?</p></li>
<li><p>How do we care for the commons – the gifts of nature and intellect that we rely on?</p></li>
<li><p>How do we invest so that future generations can also live well? </p></li>
</ul>
<p>For us, these are the different rhythms around which new forms of economic life are taking shape. Like Mason we see these new forms as the building blocks of a “post-capitalist” world (as we wrote about almost ten years ago in <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/a-postcapitalist-politics">A Postcapitalist Politics</a>). Unlike Mason, we see innovations in information technology and networking as <em>supporting</em> rather than driving the economic changes that will be needed.</p>
<p>Our route to post-capitalism foregrounds the ethical dimensions of economic life, and how technologies and regimes of governance might:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Foster less “me”- and “now”-focused subjects of history;</p></li>
<li><p>Support more responsible interactions with the ecologies in which we live.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Mason rightly points out that post-capitalism calls forth new types of human beings. He looks to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… young people all over the world breaking down 20th-century barriers around sexuality, work, creativity and the self.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While we too welcome the widespread acceptance of transformations that feminist and queer politics initiated, there is a worrying undertone of hyper-individualism and libertarianism if we limit ourselves to these examples.</p>
<p>We find glimpses of post-capitalist subjects on a wider canvas of how people are transforming the ways they take responsibility for other humans and “earth others” (or what Pope Francis calls <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">our common home</a>). Think, for example, of <a href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Sin-Patr-n-Stories-from-Argentinas-Worker-Run-Factories">the workers in Argentina</a> who, after recovering rundown factories in the 2000s, said things such as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The factory isn’t ours. We are using it, but it belongs to the community … The profits shouldn’t go to us … but to the community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We find glimpses in how the people of Norway manage their sovereign wealth fund by foregrounding the well-being of future generations. As <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/business/global/14frugal.html?_r=0">one Norwegian economist</a> explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We cannot spend this money now; it would be stealing from future generations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Instead funds are invested for the future and increasingly in investments, such as clean-energy technologies, that will also benefit environmental futures.</p>
<p>Technology and networks in themselves are not liberation. But they can serve to sensitise us to the indivisible nature of people and planet, and to amplify our capacities to empathise, work together and find a way forward on a planet that is damaged, but not beyond repair. In our view, this is the post-capitalism our present circumstances require.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44975/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While some find it hard to imagine life after capitalism, the digitally connected people of the world have begun embracing a new set of ethical concerns requiring new types of economies.Jenny Cameron, Associate Professor, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of NewcastleKatherine Gibson, Professor of Economic Geography, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityStephen Healy, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.