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Economic rationalism is the most effective intellectual tool for human exploitation yet invented. It can be used to justify literally any kind of destruction of people, places and resources. It cares for neither the past nor the future. It operates outside the bounds of human values and morality. Yet it is now the dominant philosophy of government and economic activity throughout the western world. To defeat economic rationalism we must fight it every day and every way. Here are some useful tools... |
Common sense
Canadian writer John Ralston Saul has a strong line on the historical
value of 'common sense'.
In Voltaire's Bastard he places us in the final stages of an Age of Reason where rationality has (inevitably) degenerated at the hands of value-free technocratic elites into a brutal and inhuman global system of consumption and exploitation. Rationality can only be opposed by human values like common sense, memory, compassion, and ethics. But these values can only be asserted by citizens accepting the responsibilities of participation. |
Sustainability
Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) is a powerful
alternative philosophy, especially its principle of inter-generational equity, which means
passing on a decent biosphere and adequate resources
to future generations.
ESD is becoming broadly accepted as a guiding principle for land-use related government programs in Australia (e.g. waste management), however it can be extended to almost every area of human activity. |
Social Capital and the long-term view
The question we need to ask of any kind of economic activity is - will it make a better life in 50 years time?
Capitalism receives a vast ongoing subsidy from education systems, transport, infrastructure, law, family life, cohesive society, and the environment. These are a kind of capital which never finds its way onto accounting books, but is nevertheless increasingly 'mined' by economic rationalism to create short-term profit. Because of its inability to see beyond the short-term, its blindness to history and to the fragility and intricacy of social linkages, and its refusal to admit the limits to resources, economic rationalism is quite irrational. Some economists are starting to create balance sheets which acknowledge social and environmental subsidies and resource replacement costs. In capitalism there is no analysis of the distant future. There is no concept that anyone must invest in the plant and equipment, skills, infrastructure, research and development, or environmental protection that are necessary for national growth and rising individual standards of living.- Lester Thurow, The Future of Capitalism. |
Ethics or the civic virtues
My friend Ian the barefoot philospher (who has thought about this a lot) says that there are three personal virtues -
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Participation
A most perceptive thinker on the crisis of values is Canadian writer John Ralston Saul.
He is keen not only to expose the loss of moral centre, but to suggest solutions - There is now a desperate need amongst technicians, manipulators of systems and profiteers to destroy any
remaining evidence that Western society could function on the basis of humanist cooperation.
Our elites need to be pessimistic about us in their own best interests. The establishment of self-interest as the prime driving force of the human character is the key to their approach.
But the void in our society has been produced by the absence of values.
And values are not established by asserting issues. Victory over one issue or another is wonderfully orgasmic and quickly slips away.
The constant base needed to supply values is the result of methodical participation.
The individual gains his powers and responsibilities by being there.
But we have no widespread belief in the value of participation.
The rational system has made us fear standing out in any serious way. Participation produces, but is also the product of, practical values and common sense, not expertise and reason.
John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastard - the Dictatorship of Reason in the West, pp 583-4. Saul sees participation, the acceptance by ordinary people of communal responsibilities outside of home and job, as the key to injecting common sense into politics and public discourse. As individuals there is a moral imperative on all of us to return to this time-honoured notion of citizenship. For society's activists and leaders however there is a different message - social change programs imposed from above, which do not genuinely empower communities, are likely to be just ephemeral technocratic solutions which contribute to the problems they purport to resolve. |
Democracy
It's easy to fall into the trap of somehow equating democracy and capitalism. After all, they are both about individual
liberty, aren't they?
But as a society we are now engaged, with little debate, in one of the most dangerous experiments in our history. At the heart of the danger is the profound divergence of interest between democracy and capitalism. As Lester Thurow explains - Democracy and capitalism have very different beliefs about the proper distribution of power.
One believes in a completely equal distribution of political power, 'one man, one vote', while
the other believes that it is the duty of the economically fit to drive the unfit out of business
and into economic extinction, 'survival of the fittest'.
The alternative to having government jump into the market on the side of those who are losing out
in the market is to drive the economically weak out of society.
The simultaneous existence [of democracy and capitalism] has never been tested during a time when
rapidly rising economic inequalities were widely known and government was determined to do nothing about it. The test is now under way.
Common sense should warn us this test cannot end well. The fearful experiment is only possible because of the replacement of human values with the justifications of economic rationalism. Because they respect no human values, markets are unable to create or maintain the civil societies which capitalism depends on. Only humans can do that. And humans achieve it by using laws and regulations to apply human values to social and economic systems exactly what the economic rationalist agenda most detests. |
Optimism
Demoralised people go shopping and watch TV...they are exactly what the economic system craves.
The media is extraordinarily complicit in creating hopelessness and disempowerment necessary to ensure a society of
passive consumers.
As a case in point I always think of Geraldine Doogue, a high minded journalist who fought her way into the ABC establishment and now hosts Life Matters on ABC radio. Its a morning program aimed at parents at home with children. Originally it was run by Kel Richards, an older man, who made it a warm celebration of families and children, while still dealing with serious 'issues'. Geraldine decided it needed a hard news adge. Now, each day, the show pursues, with chilling single-mindedness, a seemingly endless procession of depressing, worrying, frightening stories of injustice, cruelty, neglect and illness. The show should really be called 'Life Doesn't Matter' because you can't listen to it without feeling depressed and disempowered. By being true to the unspoken corporative norms of career 'journalism' Geraldine now contributes to the problems she is tying to solve.Therefore if we are to create activism and participation, we must tells positive stories that give people 'how to' tools to achieve change. We must always say and believe 'we can do it'. |
Urban Design
Yes, urban design...how we shape the world we actually live in. Economic rationalism thrusts
into isolated units fearful of the outside world. Yet the public realm is where
democracy and community occur.
To illustrate - recently I stood as a Green candidate in the southern Illawarra. Setting out to 'meet the public' I soon discovered that the only public places remaining in the unloved streets and traffic blasted shopping strips were three huge shopping malls. And of course these were not public at all - the moment I started handing out leaflets I was escorted off the premises by armed guards. The public realm had ceased to exist in the southern Illawara!A most eloquent champion for the public realm is Associate Professor Peter Newman, from the Institute of Social and Technology Policy at Murdoch University, WA - "A key characteristic of good public spaces is hope. Hope is where the interactions of a community give a subtle reassurance of a continuing experience of a good city life into the future. Cities can lose hope, they can lose the fight for public space and encourage people just to retreat to their private spaces."He won't mind if I include a short but inspiring chapter from Winning Back the Cities which establishs the connection between good urban design and hope. |
