Citation: Karp, A. (2022). Educating for Climate Activism, Autonomy, and System Change. In: Peters, M.A., Heraud, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2262-4_268-1

This article ties together the literacy domains explored in the Climate Activism Curriculum series:

1. Ecological and Energy Literacy
2. Economic Literacy
3. Power Literacy
4. Social Change Literacy

Introduction

Humanity faces an ecological emergency. Wealthy countries have pushed rates of resource use and pollution to levels that threaten to make much of the planet uninhabitable. To significantly reduce the demands placed on the natural world, each nation must transition to a society of sustainable consumption. The changes to economies, political systems, cultures, and lifestyles are likely to be substantial. A lot is known about these problems and possible solutions, but many details have yet to be determined. The transition will rely on dedicated participants who can successfully navigate the many uncertainties, emotional challenges, and power struggles involved. It is the task of education systems to develop a generation of effective navigators.

Though the climate crisis receives the most attention of today’s many ecological issues, climate curriculums remain a work in progress. Those who follow research on climate education often acknowledge that there is no firmly established set of guidelines for the field, and that content can vary widely. With increasing recognition of the systemic nature of the problem, however, there are growing calls for shifting away from models that emphasize individual action as the solution and towards those that center an exploration of system change. It has become clear that if climate breakdown is to be addressed, a core goal of climate education must be to create committed activists who can think strategically about the interconnected systems at its root. How best can educators meet this need, and what sort of framework can help prepare students to drive a transformation of society?

A comprehensive climate curriculum would spend most of the time covering topics besides climate science. The model described below highlights various disciplines and a few key texts that can contribute to a well-rounded understanding of the complexities of the climate crisis and encourage efforts to change systems.

Holistic Climate Curriculum Content

This curriculum model contains five content areas that aim to analyze the major forces that give rise to today’s existential problems and their solutions: ecological systems, energy sources and technology, economic institutions, power structures and politics, and social movement-driven societal change. It envisions the development of literacy in each area and an understanding of the connections between them. This model could be used to guide curriculum development for current educators as well as courses in teacher education.

Ecological literacy: The natural world provides the resources and waste absorption capacity that communities use to meet their needs. The stability of ecosystems is essential for the survival of humanity and all other species, so it’s where the curriculum begins. Because each content area involves systems, and students will need to work towards systemic change, it is important to explore systems thinking early in this section. Introducing students to the tools used in the field of foresight, which incorporates systems thinking, can also encourage critical reflection and a recognition of the uncertainties involved in the transition to a sustainable society. Climate science is of course a component of this section, but it should be studied in the context of Earth System Science and planetary boundaries. The Limits to Growth, first published in 1972 yet still the best-selling environmental book in history, describes the basic components of today’s ecological issues: the ecological limits inherent in a finite planet, exponential growth of the economy and human population, ecological overshoot (when growth exceeds limits, triggering crises of resource depletion and pollution), technological solutions and their constraints, non-technological solutions (such as changes to economies and lifestyles), delays in returning below the limits, and the ensuing threat of societal collapse. Students should recognize that climate change is a symptom of the overarching process of ecological overshoot alongside other issues like freshwater depletion, topsoil erosion, and biodiversity loss. This broader view highlights the need for a comprehensive approach that sees humanity reduce its demands to what ecosystems can sustainably provide. To fully assess these problems, learners must also examine the profoundly inequitable levels of resource consumption between higher-income and lower-income countries, which establish different responsibilities for making deeper changes. A primary message in this section is that ecological limits are inescapable—technology allows us to exceed them for a while, but we must ultimately learn to live within them.

Technological/Energy literacy: Technology can be used in ways that either increase resource consumption and ecosystem damage or reduce them. Technological innovations thus heavily influence humanity’s interactions with the natural world, particularly those that allow us to capture and utilize energy. Energy is the capacity to do work; the types of economic activity we can undertake and their overall scale are constrained by the quality and quantity of energy available. Technological solutions are often regarded as sufficiently capable of addressing every ecological issue, making fundamental economic and lifestyle changes unnecessary. Students must be able to critically evaluate the validity of this perspective. Perhaps the most obvious aspect of the response to the climate crisis is the need for society to transition its primary source of energy from fossil fuels to renewable resources like solar and wind power, which don’t emit carbon. Two crucial questions that students should consider are what the transition process may look like and how an all-renewable society might operate. Many researchers modeling energy futures suggest that a world powered mainly by wind and sunlight will be reasonably similar to today’s, and anticipate a fairly straightforward (though massive) energy transition. However, other researchers highlight obstacles that could result in lower energy availability in the medium term (i.e. during the transition) or the long term (i.e. an all-renewable society may turn out to be less energy abundant). If energy limits do arise, they would necessitate various changes to lifestyles. Richard Heinberg and David Fridley’s book Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy provides a look at some of these possible challenges. Thorough vetting of researchers’ models and our expectations around technological solutions is vital for anticipating how society may need to change economically, politically, and culturally in order to respect both ecological and energy limits.

Economic literacy: Like technology, the structure of the economy shapes humanity’s impact on the environment. Economic institutions that promote high-consumption lifestyles tend to destabilize natural systems over time. As it becomes clear that models of a sustainable future rely overwhelmingly on technologies that may or may not live up to expectations, the next step is to investigate ideas for creating an economy that facilitates lower-consumption lifestyles. There is significant risk that explorations of economic issues connected to climate change will take the mainstream or “neoclassical” perspective that often claims to be value-free while tacitly endorsing unimpeded economic growth, anti-redistributive political views, and a conception of human nature as inherently greedy. This can quietly reinforce many ideas used to justify the current economy that students must be encouraged to question. The climate crisis should instead be explored from the perspective of ecological economics, which unlike other economic disciplines takes the reality of ecological and energy limits as a defining condition to which economies must adapt. Policy prescriptions arising from ecological economists offer potential answers to the question of how to reconcile human needs with the limits of a finite planet. Many point out, for example, that achieving a more equitable distribution of wealth could allow society to better meet basic human needs while reducing resource use. Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill’s book Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources highlights several of these ideas. Exposure to other heterodox economic thinkers is also essential for deepening students’ critique of the existing economy and instilling a sense of its malleability. Beyond the policy solutions arising from diverse schools of economic thought, the main messages this section would convey are that the economy is a human construct that we can collectively reorganize, and that many “economic laws” are simply a reflection of the current structure of economic institutions and the power systems that protect them.

Power literacy: There can be no discussion about how to create a sustainable economy without examining the power disparities in society. Social power can be defined as the ability to influence the actions or beliefs of others. The economy can only change if those who want to change it build more power than those who prefer to keep it the same. In a self-reinforcing loop, the current economy delivers extreme wealth to a small fraction of the population. This wealth then provides disproportionate political and cultural power that the superrich can use to block attempts to transform the economic institutions that benefit them. Change requires struggle. Students must critically evaluate notions of politics that equate democracy with elections while ignoring the political system’s reliance on money; such ideas obscure the reality of plutocracy. Groundbreaking political science research has shown that elections, while a necessary part of democracy, do not on their own allow citizens to exert meaningful control over policy decisions (Gilens & Page, 2014). Those with concentrated wealth are afforded various means of influencing political decision-makers and public opinion, and as a result legislation tends to align with the preferences of the superrich. The answer to such power disparities is for everyday people to engage in collective political action to combine their power and create a government responsive to public interests. In other words, in order to create a sustainable society, students must strive to create a more democratic society. The primary disciplines covered in this section are political economy and history, and the content should explore sources of power, how power is used, and past examples of elite opposition to social change. Because power in freer countries is exerted mainly through ideas and cultural values rather than through force, learners should thoroughly examine how propaganda has been used to sow hatred, doubt, and confusion over political issues and to shape culture in a way that legitimizes the status quo.

Social change literacy: With ideas about how a sustainable economy would operate and greater clarity about the political struggle that may be involved in creating it, students should then investigate ways to generate people power and democratize society. This entails learning about the theory and practice of democracy. What are the pillars of a democratic society, and how can we build them or strengthen existing ones? It also entails learning about activist movements, which have historically acted as a vehicle for everyday people to achieve economic, political, and cultural change. This section would explore the history of mass movements, providing inspiration and distilling lessons for students. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, a book by Lawrence Goodwyn on perhaps the largest democratic uprising in US history, illuminates the movement-building process through which millions of people organized themselves into a widespread political force. This section would also examine the cultural norms of thought and behavior that define the current society, trace their historical origins, and envision alternatives. Examples include notions of freedom, progress, consumerism, individualism, the role of government, and patterns of mass political (dis)engagement. Both economies and power structures shape culture and are shaped by it, thus the struggle to achieve fundamental change is cultural. Students should reflect on the sorts of cultural characteristics that might define a sustainable and democratic society, and those that help build the resilience needed for a challenging energy transition, and examine ways to shift culture in that direction.

The concept of justice is essential and relevant to each of these areas and should be discussed throughout the analysis. A few topics include the uneven responsibility for and impacts of ecological issues, the implications of proposed technological solutions for different groups of people, the extremely inequitable wealth distribution within the current economy, the repressive effects of concentrated economic and political power, and how cultural values affect our perception of what justice entails. The potential tradeoffs that accompany different perspectives on justice—within nations, between nations, between humans and other animals, and between present and future generations—should also be discussed to develop more nuanced views of ethical issues.

Cultivating Students’ Autonomy

Helping students to develop holistic knowledge about the climate crisis is an essential part of preparing them to lead an unprecedented transition to a sustainable society. Informed decision-making is impossible without it. However, it is also vital to cultivate the sorts of abilities and traits that will be utilized throughout the transition process, including self-confidence, critical and nuanced thinking skills, an orientation towards collective action, and the resilience needed to sustain engagement for the long term. Combining deep understanding with these skills can position students to become dedicated and strategic activists.

Qualities that enable an active and effective approach to today’s problems can be thought of as building blocks of autonomy. Instilling a sense of intellectual self-confidence, interest, and commitment will motivate students to continue refining their own analysis of the problem landscape over time. Sharpening the critical thinking skills needed to thoroughly evaluate evidence will enable them to arrive at more solid conclusions. Inspiring an orientation towards collective action encourages students to combine their efforts and develop the power needed for large-scale social change. Cultivating their willingness and ability to explore the challenging emotions arising from this curriculum builds the resilience needed for ongoing engagement with society’s toughest problems. Deconstructing the cultural values and assumptions that influence the decisions we make can help students to consciously choose their own path rather than remaining bound to the norms of the present.

Educators can support the development of those sorts of qualities by, for example, making it routine for students to identify implicit assumptions and collectively evaluate all evidence presented when encountering divergent views in the research, asking questions that reveal the cultural values shaping public discourse, and by providing a supportive environment for emotions to be worked through rather than ignored.

Educators are likelier to advance the transition if they’re fully aware of the dual nature of education: it can be a force for the transformation of society or simply reproduce the way things currently are. For too long, education has primarily operated to preserve the present order. Educators have a significant responsibility to try to make their work liberating and avoid reinforcing limits to social change. For example, it is difficult to see how a sustainable society will be realized if students learn

• They should take individual actions rather than work collectively to change systems.
• The crises we face are so severe as to seem impossible to address (i.e. there is insufficient discussion of solutions and the potential power of social movements).
• Technology alone can sufficiently reduce humanity’s impact on the environment, making it unnecessary to discuss and prepare for any significant changes to lifestyles.
• Economic growth is an unquestionable social good.
• Markets self-regulate and naturally solve any problems that originate from their operation.
• Our society is thoroughly democratic, thus average citizens already exert meaningful control over government policy.
• “Great men” at the forefront of movements are the main reason why social change occurs, rather than the rank-and-file participants themselves.

Each example expresses a way of seeing the world that can lead students to focus on marginal changes to society, feel powerless to make a difference, or wait for someone else to solve today’s crises. However, there are plenty of information sources (including some that are authoritative) that convey those perspectives. It is very possible for educators to discuss ecological systems, energy sources, economic institutions, power structures, and social change in ways that create or reinforce limits to societal transformation. The outcome depends on the quality of the analysis that educators explore with students.

And yet there are many obstacles to forming a high-quality analysis. Educators must sift through lots of information to find the most accurate perspectives across the many disciplines relevant to the climate crisis, which is a huge challenge. Certain details of the problem landscape will also change over time, requiring a reevaluation of possible solutions. As social movements grow stronger, propaganda aimed at sowing confusion and doubt from those who seek to block the sustainability transition will also increase, further muddying the waters.

Given all of these challenges, educators cannot be expected to arrange a perfect discussion of the causes of and solutions to the climate crisis. Even as they aim for liberation, in all likelihood certain barriers to change will be reproduced in the course of education. This need not be as significant of an issue if the curriculum focuses primarily on cultivating learners’ autonomy over any particular interpretation of the evidence. If students come to see that knowledge is power and they have the tools to decode reality for themselves (particularly if they are inclined to work with others to share the time investment required), they will be more likely to explore the topics beyond the classroom. Any shortcomings of the curriculum may therefore matter less.

In the quest to realize a sustainable society, students will only go as far as their collective efforts take them. Along the way, many questions will arise. Various courses of action will be called possible or impossible, and students must have the ability to form their own conclusions. It is vital that they possess the skills needed to handle the demands and uncertainty involved in this unprecedented transition process with a mix of assertiveness and flexibility.

A Few Pedagogical Considerations

Presenting incisive curriculum content is only part of the task of creating activists. Pedagogical approaches also play a significant role in shaping learning outcomes.

Beyond teaching social movement history and elements of strategy, there are other creative ways of building students’ interest in joining or starting a movement. Modern political and economic systems encourage atomization, and collective action feels unfamiliar and difficult to many people. Activities that get students frequently working in groups to build their comfort level and collaboration skills should be part of a curriculum aimed at system change. Bringing in local activists to share their stories and facilitate connections with existing movements could also help students to take the first step towards their own activist journey.

The personal approach taken by each educator also acts as an important model for learners. In response to the challenges of formulating a liberating climate curriculum, educators may be inclined to overstate their confidence with the material in order to maintain their authority in the eyes of students. If educators instead explain that they are co-learning many things with their students, that transparency can establish a more empowering learning environment. Students could more easily recognize that their views matter and will influence everyone’s takeaways, that learning never stops, and that they are capable participants in the analytical process. The result could be a stronger sense of intellectual initiative and self-confidence in each student.

Given that there is currently no singularly agreed upon climate curriculum, all educators are experimenting to find the best way to inform and empower new generations of activists. This means that it could be useful for educators to attempt to measure learners’ sense of empowerment and intent to join social movements, and adjust as needed. Sharing these insights with other educators could also accelerate the development of effective climate curriculums and help them become more widely implemented.

Activists as Educators, Social Movements as Education Systems

The idea that only formally trained educators have the ability and responsibility to help others develop an action-oriented understanding of the climate crisis is a major barrier to social change. Intellectual rigor, dedication, empathy, and humility are needed, but these qualities aren’t possessed exclusively by those with an advanced degree from a university. Most people who care deeply about addressing today’s ecological issues could take on the role of educator.

Furthermore, the task of scaling up this holistic climate curriculum is the very sort of campaign that movements can and should lead. Activists could work to create the pressure needed for schools to adopt this type of curriculum. Movement-organized education and discussion groups that meet frequently in communities and in online spaces could also be a cornerstone of societal transformation. Those employed as teachers should consciously aim to create activists who recognize that they are completely capable of becoming educators themselves.

Conclusion

To meet growing calls for system change, climate curriculums need to synthesize several disciplines. The broad literacies described above provide a foundation that can help students grasp the multiple dimensions of the climate crisis. By remaining focused on the goal of cultivating autonomy, educators can prepare students to become activists who are capable of reshaping the interconnected systems at the root of the problem.

References

Dietz, R., & O’Neill, D. W. (2013). Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources (First Edition). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Gilens, M., & Page, B. I. (2014). Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Perspectives on Politics, 12(3), 564–581. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595

Goodwyn, L. (1978). The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (Abridged edition). Oxford University Press.

Heinberg, R., & Fridley, D. (2016). Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy. Island Press.

Meadows, D. H., Randers, J., & Meadows, D. L. (2004). The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

The post Educating for Climate Activism, Autonomy, and System Change appeared first on Freedom and Survival.

Over the past year there has been much discussion about what we can learn from the coronavirus pandemic, and for good reason: the lessons instilled in its wake could dramatically change the course of society. Perhaps the most crucial insights are those that could help us steer away from the persistent existential threats we face. For the climate crisis in particular—which demands a societal reboot—the stakes could not be higher.

If certain lessons highlighted by our experience with the pandemic are internalized by the climate movement and much of the general public, we will be far better prepared for the fight to enact a Green New Deal. This essay identifies three of them, with each building on the previous one.

The first lesson is that money is not scarce. The federal government has created trillions of dollars for pandemic relief, dispelling myths about financial constraints that make progressive policies seem unaffordable.

The second lesson is that our society’s economic and political systems, as currently constructed, routinely cause unnecessary suffering. In particular, the pandemic illustrates how wealthy elites’ control over public policy tends to suppress government spending and produce an inadequate response to major crises. Fundamental system change is necessary.

The third lesson is that plutocracy is incompatible with addressing climate change. If the government is willing to reopen the economy in the midst of a growing plague to placate business interests, there’s little chance of reducing emissions at the steep rates that science prescribes, because doing so very likely requires the curtailment of some economic activity. We’ll need truly democratic governance to enact transformative climate policies.

The prospects for implementing a Green New Deal rest on the emergence of a new and enduring political common sense. However, the public can easily draw different conclusions about the response to the pandemic that perpetuate existing political narratives, fueling apathy or resistance to change. This essay argues that the climate movement must take on the task of mass education if the right lessons are to be learned. It concludes by outlining a broad curriculum containing these lessons and many more.

Lesson 1: Money Is Not Scarce

As the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act was being prepared in March 2020, economist and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) expert Stephanie Kelton began making her rounds in both agenda-setting and activist-oriented media outlets. She was trying to spotlight the fact that politicians had thrown out the question posed most often in discussions about public policy: how will you pay for it?

That question is perhaps the greatest intellectual weapon against progressive policies, and its power stems from everyday people not knowing the process behind government spending and what the real limits are. Most think that governments can only spend after collecting taxes, but that is only true for the ones that don’t issue their own currency (such as city, state, or certain foreign governments). The US federal government, as the issuer of the US dollar, doesn’t need to tax first before it can spend. It just creates new money out of thin air.

Kelton describes the very simple process: first, Congress passes a bill that authorizes spending on some priority issue and sends payment instructions to our central bank, the Federal Reserve. The Fed then creates new money with a few taps on a computer keyboard—“digital dollars” that are added to the bank accounts of every group paid by the bill. This happens every day as the government purchases things. That’s it.

The persistent myth has been that the federal government cannot spend on something new without raising taxes or cutting spending elsewhere. “Paying for” a new policy means combining the injection of new money into the economy with measures to remove an equal amount. Spending without simultaneously cutting back results in a budget deficit, and according to the myth, deficit spending will always lead to ever-rising prices and a collapsing economy.

However, massive deficit spending during the Great Recession did not lead to major inflation and neither has the new money created for pandemic relief, just 12 years later. Before 2008, big deficits had been run up for congressional priorities like waging war or cutting taxes for the wealthy—priorities never subject to the “how will you pay for it” question—without leading to an inflation crisis. But it’s these multi-trillion-dollar bailout events that are demonstrating as clearly as possible that increasing deficits are not inherently inflationary.

This doesn’t mean that there are no limits. The constraints on creating new money are set by the productive capacity of the economy. If so much money starts circulating through the economy that it greatly exceeds the amount of goods and services available for purchase, then inflation will occur. But if output can be increased, then new money can be absorbed without changing prices. It is after things are running at full capacity that continued increases in the money supply can generate inflation.

How close are we to that point? We don’t exactly know until we hit it. Economies emerging from a recession have plenty of unused capacity for production, with no real threat of inflation on the horizon. Also, if prices really started to rise, we know how to resolve the problem. The government can simply raise taxes or cut spending on lower priorities, like waging war, to remove money from circulation—even making these responses kick in automatically if prices were to accelerate.

The point is that government spending seems to have been kept artificially low through fearmongering about deficits and imminent inflation. We are seeing that it is possible to spend without simultaneously raising taxes or cutting spending elsewhere. It is this commitment to “paying for” all new spending that has tended to leave progressive policies dead on arrival, because few in Congress are willing to face political battles over the money-draining measures. Some new policies that serve public interests aren’t large enough to cause inflation and could simply be implemented without removing any money from circulation. And for large-scale programs needed immediately, like a Green New Deal, we could pass them first and rein in spending later if inflation becomes an issue. The real-world demonstration of increasing deficits without inflation means we should be spending more to meet public needs. Money is not scarce, and activists cannot ask for clearer evidence than what we see unfolding before our eyes.

There are two significant caveats here. First, there is a difference between the amount of spending that is possible with the current high-consumption economy and the one we must build. Humanity is experiencing ecological overshoot—a series of crises, including climate change, arising from overwhelming human demands on this finite planet. Addressing these issues requires wealthy nations to consume less. Making our society sustainable entails a process that would deliberately reduce the productive capacity of the economy, which would constrain the amount we can spend before experiencing inflation. Though spending doesn’t seem to face major constraints today, this may become more of an issue during and after the transition, and should figure into activists’ planning.

The second caveat, which follows from the first, is that MMT doesn’t eliminate the need for cultural change. It simply delays a reckoning with fiscal limits, as the ceiling for government spending is set according to inflation rather than arbitrary deficit figures. At some point we will likely need to remove money from circulation. Before that need arises, activists must cultivate wide recognition that it’s legitimate to cut the military budget, reduce the wealth of the superrich, and also scale back the consumption of the majority or redirect it from individual assets (like personal vehicles) to collective ones (like expanded public transit).

Lesson 2: Plutocracy’s Deadly Cruelty

Many Americans recognize that their government does not represent them. Political scientists have shown that we live in a vastly unequal society where the wealthiest individuals and large corporations control not only the economy, but the political system as well. When the policy preferences of the superrich diverge from the rest of the population, those are the policies typically implemented. Though it possesses some essential elements of a democracy, the US political system often operates as a form of plutocracy. However, discussions of politics tend to explore the surface phenomenon of Democratic and Republican politicians’ approaches to social issues like the pandemic. Seldom does the public hear serious discussion about how political decisions reflect the dynamics of a profit-maximizing economy and the priorities of the wealthy elites that control both parties.

Many crises facing society can be explained simply by reference to the economic goal of profit maximization. When greed is an economy’s central organizing principle, it means that financial self-interest is pursued even at the expense of diverse public interests. That principle alone is sufficient to cause extreme harm. Think of a pharmaceutical industry that pushes the sale of powerful drugs which produce an epidemic of addiction and broken families. Or a finance industry that peddles profitable subprime loans and inflates a housing bubble that obliterates the homes and wealth of millions when it bursts. Or a fossil fuel industry that obscures science and promotes carbon-intensive development until all life on the planet is threatened by climate breakdown. Business is a force that frequently undermines the well-being of the population and is now poised to destroy society itself.

These dynamics become entrenched because profits flow incredibly unequally, mainly to major corporate shareholders and executives. With wealth concentrated into the hands of this elite minority, they become society’s ruling class. They dominate the landscape of campaign finance and political spending in general, installing government officials who share their worldview and advance their interests. This makes it extremely difficult to create a new economy that prioritizes public well-being. The population is also forced to endure decisions arising from the ideological characteristics of the most powerful elites and those in government who serve them: different levels of inclination towards authoritarianism, hostility to government action in the public interest, aggression towards other countries, religious fanaticism, disregard for the poor, disrespect for facts, and on and on. At the least, this class will share an interest in maintaining social conditions favorable to keeping it in control. That means acting to ensure the public lacks the ability or desire to create a democratic society where decision-making reflects the will of the people.

The inevitability of unnecessary suffering

The devastation wrought by the pandemic is not just a matter of the strength of the virus but the background social conditions in which most people live. Those conditions are in large part a reflection of elite priorities. Decisions made by the wealthy minority in power to treat money like it is scarce and constrain government spending, siphon society’s wealth into their own pockets, and dismantle vital public institutions set the stage for a catastrophe.

One major background condition is our healthcare system. As for-profit institutions, health insurance corporations maximize earnings by denying people the care they need. In the 20^th century, US elites were able to fend off moves towards government-run healthcare systems that made public health a priority in Canada and many European countries by branding it as a nightmarish Communist takeover. Though such propaganda is still used, today single-payer healthcare is one of many progressive priorities deemed impossible due to “scarce money.” In the recent Democratic presidential primaries, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were asked again and again by debate moderators and the other candidates how universal healthcare could possibly be afforded. Efforts to make Medicare for All seem totally unworkable have succeeded to this point. The result is the continuation of a patchwork healthcare system that the poorest households pay more than one-third of their income for but often cannot use, and the development of numerous preventable health conditions in the population that increase the deadliness of coronavirus. And with health insurance tied to private employment, millions thrown out of work also lost whatever access to healthcare they had.

The state of the average household’s finances is another major background condition. The neoliberal legacy of the past 40 years is widespread financial insecurity. One key reason is a bipartisan commitment to withering union power. While Republican administrations have been enthusiastic in their attacks on worker organizations, Democrats helped into office by union support have generally left them to die thereafter. Ceaseless campaigns against unions by businesses and government since 1980 shrank their membership rate from 20% to 10%, significantly limiting the public’s means of fighting for wage gains. That’s why, despite increasing worker productivity, inflation-adjusted wages for most people are essentially the same as they were in 1980. The cost of living since then has, of course, increased dramatically. This is how we became a precarious society in which around 40% of workers struggle to afford an unexpected $400 expense and about 30% cannot even entirely cover monthly bills. The income reductions brought on by pandemic-driven economic shutdowns have caused excessive hardship for countless households already living paycheck-to-paycheck.

While the destruction of unions helped usher many families to edge of a financial cliff, the “threat of the deficit” ensured there would be little social safety net to catch them if they fell. History shows that both political parties have engaged in an elegant deficit dance where they repeatedly call government deficits a plague on future generations but Republicans reliably increase them and Democrats reliably cut them. This matters for everyday people because the supposed importance of the deficits themselves and the actions taken to “deal with them” helped create an extremely precarious economy for workers.

The deficits were largely generated by repeated tax cuts for the wealthy, which have helped the 400 richest Americans triple their wealth since the early 1980s, and by eye-popping spending on foreign invasions with no end in sight. The debt produced by these lost tax revenues and wars then gave politicians an excuse to not invest in vital government programs or to cut them outright, warning the public as Bill Clinton did that “Unless we have the courage to start building our future and stop borrowing from it . . . we will be condemning our children and our children’s children to a lesser life than we enjoy.” These cuts, at least for Republicans, may have been the primary goal of the deficit dance. Our social safety net, now so desperately needed, is deeply inadequate due to the actions of both parties. The public’s vulnerability was a bipartisan achievement—a natural result of plutocratic governance.

It was against this backdrop that coronavirus hit. Would the pattern of public deprivation continue in the face of a growing plague? Consider things from an elite perspective. A deadly virus seemed to be spreading out of control. A study by Imperial College London found that over two million people in the US would die if no action was taken, forcing the government to consider drastic measures. The economy needed to be shut down to have any chance of containing the outbreak, and clearly working people required some level of relief. Many were going to lose their jobs, but unemployment insurance typically replaces only 40% of a worker’s paycheck. Some senators opposed expanded unemployment relief, but letting incomes fall so dramatically in an economy reliant on consumer spending would be guaranteed to worsen the coming recession and damage profitability long into the future. Current and former Federal Reserve officials and research by JPMorgan Chase would later support this perspective.

The passage of the major coronavirus relief bill in March 2020 provided a crucial upgrade to our social safety net but was palatable to those running the economy. First, it authorized trillions in bailout funds for major industries. Second, the safety net expansion was temporary. The $1,200 payment to individuals was a one-time benefit, and the $600 weekly supplement to unemployment insurance (aiming to cover 100% of most workers’ lost paychecks) would only be available as long as the shutdown continued. Even then, the expanded relief for the unemployed came with an expiration date in late July, requiring congressional renewal. Elites needed to walk a fine line in responding to the pandemic, because their interests depend on a “Goldilocks” bailout for the public: neither too low nor too high. The main risks that this crisis presents to average citizens are the disease itself and its impact on livelihoods. But the primary threats for elites are shrinking profits and the public realizing that the government could actually afford to guarantee its well-being. With the economy brought to a standstill, elite priorities—not public interests—would of course determine the next steps.

A forced march into a plague that should not have surprised us

As the virus spread and deaths mounted, it must be emphasized how straightforward the federal government’s responsibilities were. The fundamental issue to address was the pandemic itself. The second issue was to manage the consequences of the economic shutdown to ensure it didn’t destroy the lives of working people. To reasonable observers, there seemed to be two tasks: first, set up nationwide testing, contact tracing, and targeted isolation of those affected so that the virus could eventually be contained. Second, extend the shutdown long enough to do so, providing essential workers with the personal protective equipment needed to keep them safe and all non-essential workers with the continued funding they need to stay home and survive.

As we now know, elites saw another option. It soon became clear that the Trump administration would offer no serious support for setting up the targeted testing and tracing measures needed to allow for a somewhat safe reopening of the economy. It would fall to individual states to establish them, but would those in power agree to keep businesses closed and the public well-provisioned at home until they were? Observers may have thought that a crisis of this magnitude would force elites to suspend their aversion to a strong social safety net. However, all businesses shared an interest in being able to quickly and easily call workers back to their jobs to attempt to get profits rolling again. Beyond that, from a class perspective, providing too much support for households could threaten the stability of elite rule.

The millions of people struggling with poverty, homelessness, and hunger before this crisis, now seeing that the government could always have helped them to fully meet their needs, might get dangerous ideas. The more clearly it is demonstrated to the people their deprivation is not inevitable—that it is a political choice—the greater the risk to our incredibly unequal social order. It could provoke popular demands to maintain this support. And when people have their basic needs met they have time to become informed about the causes of social ills and organize themselves politically. The preservation of plutocracy seemed to rely on an inadequate and very short-term public bailout. In the absence of a powerful social movement that could win greater relief, elites saw only one option: cut off government funds and force everyone back to work.

Those in power chose sickness and death for the population. There was never any prospect for an ongoing basic income to keep non-essential workers at home, and the $600 unemployment insurance supplement was reduced to $300 so that the threat of homelessness and food insecurity would compel the millions of unemployed to scramble for a job. All those who thought that decision-makers couldn’t possibly continue a commitment to narrow self-interest and hostility to significant government intervention in the face of a mortal crisis simply ignore a well-established pattern. Unnecessary suffering of the past gives way to unnecessary suffering now. The people must recognize that they were forced to march into a plague and it didn’t have to be this way.

Too many people think that the background conditions in society are not political. They take these conditions as a given and may view their own unmet needs as a purely personal failure. In reality everything is political, and we are seeing a visceral illustration that politics does matter. The intense hardship resulting from plutocracy often arises indirectly, as decision-makers cut social spending or refuse to allow sufficient spending in the first place. This indirectness obscures cause and effect for many people, and the misery and death attributable to austerity has never been broadcast on a constant feed by mainstream media. This crisis, however, is somewhat different. We are all simultaneously experiencing it. Persistent media coverage is generating widespread attention, with outcomes more clearly linked to the decisions of those in power.

Initially, the federal government’s poor response to the pandemic had set a floor of 100,000 virus deaths. With masses of people forced back to work after no serious containment effort, the death toll in January 2021 surpassed 400,000. Anti-science and anti-mask views surely contributed as well, factors that can also be traced back to elites’ longstanding campaigns to shape politics and culture in their preferred image. However, it remains clear that government inaction has directly translated into the avoidable loss of thousands upon thousands of our loved ones. A vaccine developed at a historically unprecedented pace is the only reason that the death toll may not stretch into the millions.

Some may trace the social disasters we face back to Trump, but that will not liberate us. While it’s indisputable that he made this crisis much worse than it could have been, a broader view reminds us that these deadly outcomes are ultimately the result of economic and political systems that prioritize corporate profits and concentrate power. These systems made the population vulnerable long before Trump. Before it fueled the pandemic, this vulnerability fueled his rise. He may be the cause of many avoidable deaths, but the institutions that produce a wealthy ruling class are the reason he gained power in the first place. The current order is built to cause preventable misery and respond inadequately to major crises; a serious government response to the issues we face depends on fundamental system change. That would be a crucial lesson to learn for dealing with the ongoing threats to our species’ survival.

Lesson 3: Plutocracy Is Incompatible with Addressing Climate Change

The pandemic has illuminated the brutality and inadequacy that often defines wealthy elites’ control over government, and should prompt us to consider whether we can conceivably address the climate crisis under elite rule.

We should start by recognizing the effect that the pandemic-driven economic shutdown had on carbon dioxide emissions. Daily emissions across the world in April 2020 were 17% lower than the previous year—the largest drop in recorded history. In the US, emissions dropped an incredible 32%. At the end of 2020, after scattered attempts to reopen parts of the economy, the full year’s emissions were estimated to have fallen by a record 7% globally and 12% in the US. It is valuable for us to see that rapid cuts to emissions are technically possible. But because they are not a result of conscious changes to underlying systems, the effect is temporary and causes extensive harm.

A carbon budget for keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius prescribes an annual decarbonization rate of 10% or more for wealthy countries, beginning immediately, until emissions are eliminated around 2040. The unprecedented drop in emissions resulting from the shutdown reinforces an idea over a decade old yet too infrequently acknowledged—the need for economic contraction in addressing the climate crisis.

At least two challenges suggest that in order to keep to our carbon budget, fossil fuel use would need to fall faster than renewables are installed, which would reduce the overall energy available for economic activity. First is the possibility that renewable energy infrastructure cannot be deployed rapidly enough. The large-scale adoption of new energy sources has historically taken several decades, and these new sources piled on top of older fuels rather than replacing them. We can surely speed this up with a concerted effort, but it seems very unlikely that the new energy available from renewables can match or exceed the energy lost from simultaneously closing fossil fuel plants. Second is the reality that fossil fuels are currently relied on for the manufacture and deployment of renewable energy technologies, and speeding up the transition would increase their use at least at the beginning. This would cut into the carbon budget if other fossil-fueled economic activities weren’t simultaneously scaled back or halted. Even as renewable energy deployment is ramped up dramatically, we’ll likely need a well-planned and equitable shutdown of some economic activity to achieve those rapid carbon cuts.

Would we then return to the high-consumption lifestyles to which we’re accustomed after the transition? The answer is a resounding no. There is good reason to think that an all-renewable society will be one with less energy available than we’ve previously gotten from fossil fuels and therefore have a smaller economy anyway. But even if renewables could allow us to maintain current lifestyles, we would need to consume far less to address the other serious ecological crises beyond climate change that are driven by our overconsumption. The energy transition must be understood as part of a broader transformation towards a civilization that operates within ecological limits.

The Green New Deal (GND) is often seen as a “green stimulus,” a massive investment program that will put people back to work in the service of the energy transition. But stimulus programs have historically been used to reinstate economic growth after a recession. It’s easy to overlook the reality that a GND that aims to adhere to our carbon budget won’t generate overall growth but rather move the economy towards degrowth and, ultimately, a steady state. If most earnestly believe that a GND is a growth strategy, it’s possible to imagine many elites outside of the fossil fuel industry supporting it and the public eagerly welcoming it. But the more complicated picture described above calls this support into question and would require activists to lay the groundwork for a climate-driven economic shutdown.

Will corporate elites allow this to take place? Those in power did initiate a closing of most businesses during the pandemic, which may lead some to think they would support another shutdown to preserve a livable climate. But there are unique reasons for the virus-driven shutdown. As coronavirus first began to spread, the costs of shutting down initially seemed greater than keeping businesses open. But when infections started to surge it became clear that there would be no regular economic activity anyway. It was recognized that the country faced an immediate mortal risk which threatened to overwhelm the healthcare system and cause panic—a major threat to business. It began to make more sense to temporarily shut down the economy and prevent the worst outcomes, which would allow profits to return sooner. And when the nation went into quarantine, the industries with the greatest political influence were able to use the need for immediate public relief to win a large bailout.

The shutdown wasn’t a suspension of the economic goal of profit maximization or elites’ pursuit of their self-interest. It just seemed to be the least costly path forward. A survey of prominent economists found that 88% believed we would need to tolerate “a very large contraction in economic activity” to contain the outbreak, and 80% said that prematurely ending the shutdown would lead to greater economic damage than maintaining it. A large number of executives and major shareholders were still not comfortable with closing business, however, and many began pushing almost immediately to end the shutdown. Given the fact that elites reopened the economy in the middle of a surging pandemic, there is no serious prospect that they’ll consider a much longer shutdown around a slower-moving issue like climate change. And because it would effectively entail a transition to an economy that prioritizes ecological health over profit, those in power will have no reason to even consider the transition. There is no need to contemplate the journey if you can’t stand the destination.

If plutocracy is incompatible with adhering to our carbon budget, then only by wresting control of government from the wealthy can we maintain a livable climate. That means electing a majority of representatives willing to enshrine our carbon budget in policy with all the challenges that entails, which will only be possible if activists build sufficient public support for a climate-driven economic shutdown.

At the beginning of the quarantine, the public recognized the deadly threat posed by the virus and accepted that closing business was necessary. After a few weeks some began to protest the shutdown, but polls found persistent majority support for maintaining it. To pursue a climate-driven shutdown, public support must instead be based on a deep understanding of the climate problem and its solutions, undergirded by sufficient funding to meet all basic needs. It must be understood and accepted that certain aspects of the transition, like lower-consumption lifestyles, would be permanent changes in how society operates. But this climate preservation plan would prioritize economic security for all, and it would avoid the other major challenge faced by individuals during the pandemic—isolation. On the contrary, community would be emphasized as we work to reduce fossil fuel use and create a sustainable society.

The shutdown reminds us that though corporate elites can seem all-powerful, ultimately the government determines whether businesses are allowed to operate or not. Corporations are creations of state law. No questions of ownership needed to be resolved; businesses simply had to comply with the government’s closure orders. It just so happened that the orders came from officials primarily representing businesses interests. A social movement in control of state governorships could initiate climate-driven shutdowns across the country, though control of the federal government would be critical for creating the funding needed to maintain them. A democratic wave must sweep the nation, sustained by a public thoroughly prepared for the challenges ahead.

Lessons Are Lost If Movements Don’t Teach Them

If most people realized that the federal government can spend without taxing or cutting or worrying about deficits, that wealthy elites’ control over government policy tends to produce extensive and unnecessary suffering, and that plutocracy is at odds with our ability to address climate change, it would represent a new political common sense that could advance the fight for a Green New Deal. However, it’s easy for many to overlook these lessons or interpret events in ways that perpetuate political disengagement and resistance to change.

In the first place, many citizens don’t devote themselves to sharpening their mental model of political reality and therefore aren’t actively searching for new perspectives. One reason is that from a young age we are taught that by voting in periodic elections, we are in control of the political system. We don’t learn that elections alone give average citizens “little or no independent influence” on public policy, or that corporations and wealthy individuals actually dominate. With little sense of the immense struggle we must engage in to get government to prioritize public interests, many don’t develop the habit of looking for lessons relevant to that struggle.

Fatalism and high information costs are also significant obstacles to a new political consciousness. As we grow up, the democratic power we are taught we have quickly proves to be overstated; voters repeatedly see elected officials disregard their interests. We then enter the workforce, which consumes most of our energy. Developing in-depth knowledge demands that we read widely and gather enough context to think for ourselves, a major time investment. Between feelings of powerlessness and the demands of work, many find little reason and insufficient time to scour the political landscape for new insight.

Those who do venture into the world of political analysis will encounter an information ecosystem that systematically underinforms and misleads them. Political elites and mainstream media maintain political common sense within narrow limits. As Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media: “the ‘societal purpose’ of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises.” Individuals who form their picture of the world from these sources are unlikely to come across ideas that threaten elite interests.

Consider some ways that the lessons discussed in the previous three parts of this essay can be overlooked or distorted:

Government spending must be reined in

It is a neat trick for a Federal Reserve official to type $2,200,000,000,000 onto a computer screen and suddenly Congress has the money to pay for (short-term) pandemic relief. The bigger trick is how to maintain the politics of austerity after the public sees the government create trillions of dollars in an instant. It might seem impossible, but we saw this story during the Great Recession. 

In the two years following the 2008 crash of the global financial system, the Federal Reserve created around $1.5 trillion to finance the government’s bank bailout and economic stimulus. The inflation long warned of by deficit hawks did not ensue. One might think that the federal government’s ability to generate funds for public priorities would have become apparent to everyone. But in the following year, when more money creation was clearly needed, the Obama administration acquiesced to Republican calls for deficit reduction. “Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same,” Obama declared in his 2010 State of the Union speech. “Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t.” Treating the new money like a debt that had to be repaid, the administration imposed austerity, and as a result the economic recovery turned out to be historically slow.

The 2008 bailout and stimulus didn’t spark widespread insight into money creation. Moderators in political debates continue to ask how we can possibly afford progressive policies. During Joe Biden’s presidential campaign last fall, a top advisor claimed that if Biden were to win the election his administration would “be limited” in its ability to spend because of “what Trump’s done to the deficit”—“the pantry is going to be bare.” With the Fed’s high-profile response to the current economic crisis far exceeding its actions after the Great Recession, we can expect eventual calls for a return to austerity. Without a credible threat of inflation, the Fed’s capacity for money creation will be limited by elites’ assertion that it is debt we must repay. Falling back on such myths helps to keep the public in the dark even in a moment of historic clarity.

Trump Was the Only Problem

It is also easy for people to draw conclusions only about the unique incompetence and deadly narcissism of the Trump administration in the midst of the coronavirus crisis rather than a lesson about the cruel nature of plutocracy. That’s because Trump’s response was exceptionally bad. He resisted calls to mass-produce protective equipment for health workers and ventilators for the sickest or deploy the testing, tracing, and quarantine measures needed nationwide to contain the virus. He touted treatments without evidence and encouraged protests against basic life-saving measures. He repeatedly boasted of his television ratings and lavished himself with praise. With cases rapidly rising and state economies repeatedly closing, he took to pretending that the pandemic was no longer an issue. He later hosted several super-spreader events and then claimed that the death toll was exaggerated as it stretched beyond 350,000.

One cannot argue that a president musing about injecting household disinfectant is about as unfit as they come. Against such a backdrop, no serious observer questions that if a Democratic administration had been in charge, the government’s approach to the pandemic would have been more appropriate. But as explained above, the tight restrictions on government spending that maintained an utterly inadequate social safety net and made the pandemic truly devastating were a bipartisan achievement. The spectacle of an exceptionally bad response to the latest crisis distracts from that reality.

A Democratic administration facing coronavirus from the beginning would very likely have mirrored Republicans in forcing people back to work rather than creating enough money to keep them at home until the outbreak was contained. That would have more clearly illustrated the cruelty of plutocratic governance. Recall that Democrats had full control of the government in 2009 as the Great Recession unfolded, but they produced an insufficient stimulus that left millions homeless and jobless. Obama then pivoted to spending cuts in 2010 when the unemployment rate was still nearly 10 percent. Could we expect different today? The 2019 effort by congressional Democratic leadership to enact a pay-as-you-go budgeting rule (PAYGO) suggests not. The PAYGO rule mandates that increases in spending be matched by budget cuts or tax increases to avoid federal deficit increases, dashing any chance of passing large-scale progressive policies. A Democratic administration might have emulated the pandemic response of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo—providing frequent reassurances to the public while pushing billions in cuts to Medicaid. The words of one of Biden’s top advisors about the spending limits imposed by Trump’s deficits suggest more of the same. Trump’s unique incompetence can easily overshadow the fact that deprivation has been and often continues to be a commitment of both parties.

Electing Democrats Is Enough to Solve Our Crises

The same dynamics can lead the public to think that serious climate action becomes possible simply by electing Democrats, when what’s needed is a revolutionary effort to replace plutocracy with authentic democracy. The Republican Party has long ignored, mocked, and misrepresented scientists and scientific evidence, a trait Trump took to the extreme during the pandemic. In comparison, any Democrat can seem very responsible. But one party’s radical anti-science pedigree and obvious allegiance to the fossil fuel industry doesn’t mean the other party is adequate: the country’s reliance on fossil fuels has remained firm through both Democratic and Republican administrations. Continuing that trend won’t allow us to maintain a habitable planet.

Joe Biden has a $2 trillion climate plan that currently aims to make the country carbon neutral “no later than 2050,” the most ambitious proposal ever put forward by a US president. It envisions the climate crisis as “an opportunity to revitalize the US energy sector and boost growth economy-wide.” Unless the public understands just how fast things must change and the implications for the economy, Biden’s plan may seem like more than adequate. However, research shows that wealthy nations must aim to eliminate emissions between 2035 and 2040 to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and reducing fossil fuel use that quickly very likely requires the curtailment of some economic activity. With no mainstream Democrat expressing support for a degrowth approach to climate action—or even acknowledging the need for it—we cannot expect a commitment to the much faster decarbonization timeline that science prescribes. The Democratic Party is not yet offering a path to a stable climate, but it’s not difficult for many to assume otherwise.

Government is inherently corrupt

In the face of an utterly disastrous response to the pandemic, another common interpretation is that the government is inherently corrupt and incapable of adequately responding to any crisis, a view stoked by decades of elites’ anti-government propaganda. We can expect people with this perspective to react in two ways. For those who have learned to fear or hate the government, a large-scale mobilization to address the climate crisis will seem like something to fight against. Others with a less emotionally charged view may simply ignore politics altogether, believing that nothing can ever change.

Around 100 million eligible voters (nearly half of the total) generally do not vote, in large part because they believe elections will never produce a government that represents them. This poses a major obstacle to progressive policy, as a fatalist attitude towards politics and repeated non-participation may lead to disengagement from all political work. Outside of election time, most people remain inactive even though their participation in social movements could elevate authentic champions of public interests and produce meaningful choices for the next election. Mistaking excessive corporate representation in government for inherent government corruption helps to keep elites in control.

Any of the perspectives above may be the lesson learned by millions of people. At best, they will remain political spectators, voting for a Democrat but uninvolved in movement-building or active support of pathbreaking candidates. At worst, they will be primed to resist the Green New Deal over a reinforced hostility towards deficit spending and government-led economic mobilization.

We need to turn the public’s notion of fiscal responsibility on its head. Political elites’ commitment to treating money like it is scarce is not just accepted but respected by too many people. Widespread understanding of the basic principles of modern monetary theory is the remedy. Without dispelling the years of propaganda we’ve received about “living within our means,” voters will continue to elect politicians who will gladly place needless limits on government spending. The power of monetarily sovereign governments to create vast sums of money has been demonstrated. The public’s well-being is much more affordable than we have been allowed to think. Federal deficits are not a barrier, and inflation is not currently a significant threat. We just need enough people to learn the lesson. And we must only elect representatives knowledgeable about and committed to fiscal reality.

A new perspective on money must be accompanied by a new perspective on debt. Economist James Galbraith pointed out that the economic shutdowns are poised to trigger a reckoning over private debt, because mounting debts can’t be paid even as workers return to their jobs. Will they be forgiven, as they should be, or will elites launch a massive campaign to seize homes and other assets? Any cancellation of household debt would reinforce the lesson illustrated by massive deficit spending: that the economic system is far more malleable than we’ve been allowed to think. It offers a vital teaching opportunity for activists working to transform the economy. Alternatively, if elites attempt to collect on this debt by robbing the public en masse, it may trigger an uprising that activists could help to channel in a productive direction. Economist Michael Hudson’s research shows that nearly all ancient societies recognized a periodic cancellation of private debt was absolutely necessary. Without it, unpayable debts would grow until creditors had totally impoverished or enslaved the public, and societies would collapse as a result. We will increasingly hear pundits say that all debts are legitimate and must be repaid. Learning about the history of debt empowers us to reject these assertions.

Citizens must also be able to put American democracy in context. Most adults have the right to vote (though that right is constantly being taken away for many), but because political campaigning is dependent on money, viable candidates are typically the ones who will reliably meet the demands of the wealthiest investors in politics. Both parties have maintained a society that needlessly deprives millions of people of their basic needs. Existential issues facing humanity are either met with an insufficient response or none at all. We need the public to look beyond the differences between Republican and Democratic politicians to see the political system’s general deference towards business interests. The state’s deadly negligence towards major crises is a result of this deference, not an inherent feature of government. We can address the issues we face if we build enough people power to replace plutocracy with truly democratic governance. As more people recognize that, political apathy and anti-government sentiment should recede. We’ll then be better positioned to organize a powerful mass movement and launch a Green New Deal.

We also need the public to understand what serious climate action looks like. That means learning about the carbon budget concept and the factors that shape it, as well as ways that society may change when transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy. To take the central example covered earlier: adhering to a small carbon budget to maintain a habitable climate seems to require a contraction of some economic activity. The pandemic revealed that we can quickly hit the brakes on the economy, but opponents of the transition will paint a threatening picture by linking it to the worst aspects of the virus-driven shutdowns. The success of the energy transition depends on extensive awareness of why it is necessary and how it would prioritize public well-being.

Knowledge is an essential component of democratic self-governance. It is key to appropriate outrage as elites limit government spending by claiming that money is scarce. It allows us to see through the falsehood that simply electing Democrats will open the door to serious climate action. It combats the fatalism inherent in thinking that public interests aren’t affordable or that politics doesn’t matter. If the public doesn’t internalize the right lessons, elites remain in control. If we’re to create a sustainable and democratic society, we need the climate movement to recognize that mass education is one of its core responsibilities.

Movement-Run Education Systems

The poor policy response to the pandemic reflects the lack of faithful representatives of public interests in government. Coronavirus relief bills provide some critical support for households but it is temporary and deeply insufficient, while the majority of funding is aimed at protecting corporate investors. Millions lose their jobs and their health insurance. Food banks are overwhelmed with requests. Then, before the virus is contained, people are forced back to work. Countless lives are directly imperiled by the government’s inadequate handling of this emergency.

The callous disregard of public well-being that defined this response must change if we are to address the climate crisis at this late stage. The climate movement must become powerful enough to seat a majority of public champions in government and open space for a rapid energy transition to occur. Formal efforts to instill the political lessons illustrated by the pandemic, as well as many others, are a crucial part of that process.

An informed citizenry is the foundation of the movement’s power, and building it starts with activists themselves. It’s important to establish robust internal discussion groups and formal education systems to ensure that each participant develops habits of intellectual activity and deepens their understanding of how society works. Through this process, the movement becomes more capable of meeting challenges both expected and unforeseen, and each participant becomes an educator capable of teaching the right lessons to others.

During quarantine, the Sunrise Movement began offering virtual teach-ins where activists could learn about the Green New Deal concept and various movement-building skills. This could be a step towards a much broader vision. We could develop a comprehensive curriculum that conveys the deep knowledge needed for self-governance in this time of converging existential crises. We need to understand the major forces that shape our society, from ecological systems and energy sources to economic institutions, power structures, and culture.

Developing ecological and energy literacy allows us to see the many existential crises facing humanity, which are all rooted in overwhelming human demands on our finite planet and require us to adjust our lifestyles. These parts of the curriculum would examine the details of a climate mobilization and explore how an all-renewable world may be different than the fossil-fueled one to which we’re accustomed.

Economic literacy tears down the myth that the economy is a “natural” entity arising from immutable economic laws only intelligible to business leaders and economists. Such myths encourage everyday people to accept a subordinate role rather than fight for their rightful place as equal participants in shaping a new, sustainable and democratic economy. The reality is that within the limits of ecology and energy, the economy is what we make it.

It is also crucial to develop a detailed understanding the power structures that determine how decisions are made in our society and the forces working against change. Studying these systems allows us to anticipate the forms of elite opposition that a full-scale Green New Deal will face and plan in advance to overcome them.

Finally, we should explore the immense role of culture in making the transition possible. Our understanding of modern life and our expectations about the future have been shaped by corporate propaganda and the energy surplus afforded by fossil fuels. We’ll need to break free from a conservative, consumerist culture that blocks the path to a sustainable society and cultivate an ecological and democratic culture in its place.

After activists establish a broad curriculum for internal use, we must bring it to the public to open space for a new society to emerge. This effort will help to build a durable political base for serious climate action: a constituency unencumbered by economic myths and conservative cultural norms, prepared for the challenges posed by the energy transition, and focused on electing a government full of authentic movement representatives—conditions under which a Green New Deal can be implemented.

The major question is how to build the means of informing the public at scale. Attempting to influence curricula at the K-12 school and higher education levels is important, and we should continue pursuing coverage in mainstream media outlets because of their massive audience. But there may be significant limits to these strategies, so activists must also develop independent means of communicating with the public. We need movement-run education and media systems that offer regular programming to communities across the country. Between on-the-ground efforts and online offerings, activists should aim to eventually reach millions of people each week. Independent outlets like Free Speech TV or Pacifica Radio could perhaps be early venues for these movement programs, but activists should also hold recurrent teach-ins in communities where they live. Those who aren’t already tuned into independent media, which is the majority, would never otherwise know about these opportunities. Non-activists must be offered programming where they are—it’s our responsibility to find them and bring them in.

The course on power structures would include instruction in media literacy. It would critically analyze how media outlets’ funding sources and other institutional factors shape their content, explore the information listeners are likely to hear or not hear, and introduce participants to the independent media ecosystem. Connecting the public to the many activist-oriented outlets that already work to teach people about the plutocratic and anti-ecological nature of our society could, on its own, significantly shift information streams around the country.

It is impossible to imagine creating a new society without fundamentally changing the picture of reality that the public regularly receives. In the past, climate activists viewed the organization of demonstrative actions like sit-ins and marches as their main work, and over the past few years organizing around elections has gained increasing focus. Now, direct education must also grow into a large, permanent movement activity. We have yet to see what is possible when a public deeply knowledgeable about its own interests organizes itself to elect a government authentically committed to those interests.

Conclusion

In order to create a society capable of a serious response to the existential threat of climate breakdown, we must learn certain lessons. Money is not scarce; we can afford to meet everyone’s basic needs. The government’s inadequate response to major crises is a natural result of elites’ control over it. Without truly democratic governance, made possible only by the active participation of an informed citizenry, there will be no rapid reduction in fossil fuel use. The education of large numbers of people is therefore a matter of life or death.

Activists cannot let the lessons highlighted by the coronavirus crisis disappear in the fog of mainstream media’s induced amnesia. If movements don’t develop the means to communicate them to millions of people, then we cannot expect a democratic awakening in the wake of this crisis. The body politic was sick long before the virus arrived, already at risk of collapse under the weight of its elite hierarchies. When its fever breaks, we must learn the right lessons about how to overcome the underlying issues that threaten its very existence.

The post Mass Education and the Climate Crisis: Lessons from the Pandemic appeared first on Freedom and Survival.

The late anthropologist David Graeber, who wrote about the 5,000-year history of debt, spoke about a strange paradox of being indebted. “The first effect of debt is to create isolation, shame, humiliation, a fear of even talking about it. On the other hand, if you look at history, the vast majority of revolts and insurrections are about debt. So in a sense it’s incredibly effective, ideologically, at isolating people. But once people overcome that isolation, the results are always explosive.”

We may be heading towards such a moment.

In June, we learned that Americans had been skipping millions of debt payments in the wake of coronavirus shutdowns. That’s what happens when a vast sea of workers living paycheck to paycheck see their income reduced. The $600 boost to unemployment insurance kept many households afloat, but the extra funds weren’t enough for those living in high-cost areas and many still working had seen their hours cut and wages lowered. With the additional unemployment benefits reduced to $300 for several weeks now, millions of households are struggling to afford basic needs. Yet even that support is already ending in several states, leaving the jobless with standard unemployment insurance that on average only covers about 40% of their previous pay. With job opportunities shrinking as the shutdowns continue, many will be forced to live on that meagre income over a long period—perhaps until that, too, expires.

We haven’t yet seen the catastrophic consequences of the stoppage in payment. Loan deferments and moratoriums on eviction have provided protection thus far. But a mountain of unpayable debt is piling up and creditors may demand far more than families can afford when these programs expire. The finance industry is readying itself for a wave of defaults. In a matter of months, millions of people could suffer foreclosures, evictions, car repossessions, and credit score downgrades that could block access to a home, a vehicle, or other essential assets long into the future. State budgets are also a disaster—balanced budget requirements in nearly all state constitutions guarantee vast cuts to social services if the federal government doesn’t provide needed funding. Corporate politicians are salivating at the prospect of workers having their pensions cut to fill the gap.

This debt crisis was long in the making. Households’ debt-to-income ratio was less than 40% in 1950. It grew steadily since the mid-1980s and then increased dramatically in the years up to the Great Recession, peaking around 120% when total household debt reached almost $13 trillion. At the beginning of 2020, before the shutdowns began, it stood at a record $14 trillion. To a significant extent, families were forced into debt through decades of stagnant wages and increasing cost of living. Both of these phenomena are a natural outcome of businesses seeking to maximize profits by increasing revenue (prices) and minimizing costs (wages). If all wages had risen with worker productivity over the past 40 years, full-time minimum wage workers alone would be making $24 per hour ($48,000 per year)—most people would have sufficient income to afford a comfortable lifestyle. Instead, poor and middle-class households have relied on credit to survive, thus much of today’s debt cannot be attributed to individuals’ wasteful spending. Any additional debt resulting from the economic slowdown during the pandemic clearly isn’t their fault. Graeber reminded us that people have often carried their indebtedness as a personal failing, a burden borne by millions with secret shame. Soon we will realize just how widely these chains are shared. The coronavirus shutdowns aren’t the main reason we have a debt crisis, but by reducing incomes they are accelerating the inevitable reckoning.

Economist Michael Hudson’s work shows that ancient societies also had to face the destabilizing impact of unpayable debt. Their solution, for thousands of years, was the jubilee: the periodic cancellation of personal debts. The purpose was to prevent social collapse by keeping household wealth from being completely redistributed into creditors’ hands. Creditors “were blamed for impoverishing society at large by their selfishness,” Hudson writes. “The Greeks called [it] hubris, money-love and wealth addiction.” How times have changed. Now we have a creditor morality that makes all debt seem legitimate, as if debtors’ interests have no moral standing. We are used to banks and landlords getting what they want at the expense of workers, an inevitable result of the prevailing belief that all of our debts and those of others always ought to be paid.

The debt crisis has two modes of resolution. It will either unleash mass homelessness and widespread financial ruin or force elites to cancel debts long treated as sacred. Social movements must seize this moment: either route offers an essential lesson for the public that activists must ensure is learned. If the public is robbed during a pandemic to protect creditors’ profits, it will further demonstrate the illegitimacy of our hierarchical social relations and could spark a revolt. If some level of household debt is eliminated, it will undermine the supposed rules of our economic system and reveal its true malleability.

Activists must be ready to steer either course towards a transformation of society. We have recently seen how organizing by the Debt Collective, a debtors’ union movement, led politicians to put forward proposals to cancel student loans. But the debt burden is so widespread that it can help trigger momentum towards a new society, and all mass movements should incorporate illegitimate debt into their narrative and debt cancellation into their political platform. Several movements recently wrote an open letter to Joe Biden calling for student loan relief, including climate activists, who in particular should be aware of the mobilizing power of unpayable debt. Mounting ecological crises that threaten our existence, led by the risk of climate breakdown, illustrate the need for deep social reorganization. To have any hope of a livable future, we must transition from a profit-maximizing economy to one that prioritizes ecological stability and a just distribution of wealth. This transition depends on a widespread political awakening and a surge of self-organization that can put social movements in control of government. We build this momentum as the public realizes that systems of concentrated power will destroy society and can no longer be tolerated, and that a fundamentally different economy is possible. These are lessons illustrated powerfully by the debt crisis.

Suppose the first option is taken, and creditors begin to strip millions of families of any assets they have. I believe that the sickness and death resulting from coronavirus—much of it preventable—should already be more than sufficient to lay bare the illegitimacy of the present order. But the debt crisis it is triggering might offer an even more direct illustration. Those unharmed by the virus may find themselves overwhelmed by its economic effects, and those ravaged by sickness will see their burden grow at their most vulnerable moment. What happens when millions suddenly share the experience of being besieged by the finance industry amid a pandemic?

The next step depends on the prevailing narrative and on efforts to organize a focused response. People can tolerate extensive misery when they believe it to be natural or inevitable. To the extent that we believe our debts are legitimate, we will accept our suffering when we inevitably cannot pay them. For such harm to generate appropriate outrage and spark political participation, individuals must know how deeply they’ve been wronged. Activists must spread the understanding that elites enriched themselves by forcing the public to survive on credit, and amplify the narrative that we have accumulated debt unworthy of repayment.

With the country united in its suffering at the hands of banks and landlords, we may see an uprising. Activists must plan ahead to guide events in a positive direction. We must ensure elites cannot scapegoat the most vulnerable for the pain they have caused. And we must have clear demands—for example: debt cancellation, secure housing, frequent relief payments to households until the virus is contained and a job guarantee thereafter, and a rapid decarbonization program. If the outrage over this injustice can be channeled into ongoing demonstrations and electoral organizing and remain focused on advancing a specific policy platform, we might just win fundamental changes not long ago considered impossible.

The second option for resolving the crisis, in which some debt previously treated as sacred is eliminated, offers another crucial lesson. We are regularly told that implementing progressive policies would destroy society. We are made to believe that nothing can change. Debt is a crucial mechanism of social control and perhaps the central emblem of supposedly inviolable economic laws. To see it disappear can be a revelation, a vivid example that we are not bound by the rules elites demand that we respect. Generally, debts should be repaid. But under certain circumstances, like when individuals have little choice and are forced to take on excessive debt or when the consequences of repayment are severe, the moral and economically sound response is to cancel it. The elimination of some level of debt is long overdue, and if there are repercussions for the financial system, like the failure of some private banks, then the government can reconstitute them into public banks mandated to serve community needs instead. A transformation towards an ecologically sustainable and just economy requires the public to have sufficient confidence that the changes we seek are necessary and possible. Mainstream economists and business leaders will relentlessly attempt to undermine support for the transition by convincing the public that these changes are impossible or would lead to chaos. Activists must cultivate an economically literate population to ensure these arguments fail, or economic myths may block the path to a new economy.

It tends to take a crisis for economic myths to be exposed to the world. Consider that during the Great Recession elites were forced to reveal that the federal government can create large sums of new money at any time. However, that power was quickly obscured when they asserted it was a debt the public must repay through austerity. Without large-scale organizations dedicated to instilling the reality of money creation in the public mind, a new consciousness did not sweep the nation. Meanwhile, the supposed sanctity of debt remained completely intact. Banks were allowed to foreclose on millions of people when the government could have written down their mortgage debt to a realistic value or eliminated it instead. Coronavirus has again forced elites to demonstrate the reality of money creation, reminding us that funding for public priorities is not scarce despite ceaseless efforts to make us think otherwise. This time, though, it may also reveal that debt truly isn’t sacred. But we should anticipate attempts to obscure the lesson. Debt relief might occur through the federal government creating new money to pay off loans, what heterodox economist Steve Keen calls a “modern jubilee”—that way the banks are paid and no debts are directly cancelled. Either way, activists must focus the public’s attention on the fact that debts can be wiped away if there is sufficient political will.

These are powerful lessons. It is the responsibility of all those who wish to create a livable future to teach them. That includes academics, independent media outlets, and non-profit organizations. Social movements already pushing for far-reaching change must recognize this mass education task as central to their work. These essential lessons threaten elites’ core interests, and those in power will do everything they can to bury them and nullify any uprising. Corporate media outlets cannot be expected to provide sufficient attention or sympathy to a revolt over debt. If we assume that these lessons are learned automatically, we won’t put in the necessary effort to educate the public. That’s a major reason why even the most revealing events don’t translate into a new consciousness.

The coronavirus pandemic and the economic mayhem arising in its wake are causing vast suffering. The key is helping the public to recognize that much of it was preventable and that no future is possible as long as the interests of the wealthy remain the guiding priority of our society. It is difficult to imagine events better poised to trigger fundamental change. These crises offer a vivid illustration of the cruel nature of elite rule and expose economic myths that have long convinced everyday people that their deprivation is inevitable. There is an opportunity here to open up space for a new society to emerge. Activists must seize it.

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Mainstream economics offers no solutions to climate chaos; ecological economics envisions a path forward.

“Promote consumption. Stimulate growth. Do as we say,” mainstream economists warn, “or you’ll find yourself with a faltering economy.” Unfortunately, given the way our economy is currently set up, they’re not wrong.

Workers remain employed, debts are repaid, and society maintains its stability only if consumption levels remain sufficiently high. On a finite planet, that is a serious problem. Wealthy nations must consume less if the ecological crises facing humanity are to be resolved, but the resulting reductions in economic activity produce recessions. These events lead to significant social hardship—shrinking wages, job losses, disappearing pensions, home foreclosures, and political instability. The structure of our economic system sets ecological health in conflict with economic well-being.

This conflict was described a decade ago in climate-specific terms by climate scientists Kevin Anderson and Alice Larkin. They pointed out that we must adhere to a finite carbon budget to limit global heating to tolerable levels, but unlike other scientists they also spelled out the economic implications. To keep to our budget we would need to reduce emissions towards zero at unprecedented rates, and the only historical examples of moderate emissions reductions had occurred in the context of economic recession. Where fossil fuel use had fallen dramatically, so did economic activity. This continues to be one of the most important messages arising from climate science: the actions we must take to maintain a livable climate would seem to come at the cost of economic upheaval.

Mainstream (neoclassical) economics offers little insight into this dilemma. But by developing economic literacy beyond the limits of the mainstream, activists can find ways out of it. Armed with a plan for transforming the economy, all that remains is to build a popular force capable of implementing it. The general public can and should participate in shaping how the economy operates, but the view of economics as a complex doctrine only intelligible to its neoclassical disciples encourages citizens to accept spectatorship. This self-doubt crumbles as it becomes clear that mainstream economics mainly serves to obscure and justify the simple exercise of corporate power.   

The Limits of Mainstream Economics

Rather than offering a path forward, neoclassical economics seems perfectly constructed to perpetuate the status quo. Examining some of the field’s fundamental ideas reveals that it largely amounts to ideology dressed up as a rigorous discipline.

Neoclassical economics utterly abstracts from reality, perhaps most strikingly in its view of human behavior. The field envisions human beings as “homo economicus,” a species of self-interested and insatiable consumers whose behaviors are driven by greed. Never mind that through more than 90% of human history, cooperation within hunter-gatherer societies was the foundation of survival.

The concept of “Pareto efficiency” is central to neoclassical economic thought. We are said to have achieved economic efficiency when it becomes impossible to reallocate economic resources to make someone better off without making someone else worse off. Of course, under these conditions, wealth redistribution is always inefficient and harmful.

When it comes to decision-making, neoclassicals assert that our policy choices should be made through cost-benefit analyses that assign monetary values to priceless gifts like life itself. What happens if the arbitrary numbers that economists feed into their formula suggest that the expense of rapid decarbonization is greater than the value of future generations? Simple—we let temperatures rise. It wouldn’t be the first time cost-benefit analysis endorsed predictably deadly behavior.

These value-laden pillars of the discipline treat ever-increasing consumption and existing inequities of wealth as wholly appropriate. And yet, for many non-economists, economics seems to be a value-free science that ordinary people would struggle to comprehend.

Perhaps the most conspicuous attempt to legitimize mainstream economics is the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences [emphasis added]. Unlike the original Nobel prizes, this award was not established by Alfred Nobel’s will in 1895 but by the Swedish central bank in 1968. It was then overseen in large part by the right-wing Mont Pelerin Society (MPS), a leading proponent of neoliberal ideas. The inception of the prize coincided with the rise of market fundamentalism and attacks by MPS economists on the original Limits to Growth study, published in 1972. Such illusions of prestige are needed to spread credulity for absurd ideas—like limitless consumption growth on a finite planet—which end up shaping our lives as citizens.

Growth-obsessed mainstream economics builds its biases into policy and official materials. One of the most consequential examples is the integrated climate-economy models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to evaluate our mitigation options. Models that envision us limiting warming to 2C often incorporate nonexistent technologies to magically negate emissions, which keeps decarbonization rates compatible with continued economic growth. Renowned economist William Nordhaus’s model, used to inform policy-making around the world, finds that action leading to 3.5C warming by 2100 is economically “optimal.” This work earned him a Nobel Memorial Prize in 2018. The IPCC has described the likely impacts of 4C warming—just beyond optimal—as “substantial species extinction, global and regional food insecurity, consequential restraints on common human activities [including growing food and working outdoors], and limited potential for adaptation in some cases.” Non-economists would recognize these as outcomes we must avoid at all costs.

Economics for a Stable Climate

Where should activists turn for insight into transforming the economy?

Rediscovering the work of veteran activist Noam Chomsky can be a useful start. Chomsky’s essays and talks combine insights from diverse economic thinkers and can be immensely helpful for deconstructing supposed economic realities. His heretical views on the economy stem from his reading of Gabriel Kolko (a historian), Karl Polanyi (an economic anthropologist), Ha-Joon Chang (a heterodox economist), and many others, including several anarchist thinkers. These voices emphasize that economics is inherently political and, as Chang assures us, “95 per cent” common sense.

There are also distinct branches of economic thought that envision a very different economy. Ecological economics (not to be confused with environmental economics, which is a sub-discipline of the neoclassical variety) offers well-developed perspectives and policy prescriptions to reconcile human needs with planetary boundaries. Herman Daly, the godfather of the field, points out that because neoclassical economics excludes the environment from its “pre-analytic vision,” with its foundational economic model a circular system of value exchange between businesses producing goods and households consuming them, the economy ends up looking like a perpetual motion machine. There are no inputs from the natural world (no resources, many of which are nonrenewable) or outputs to it (no inevitable waste products from economic activity). Just pretend that the economy isn’t a subsystem of global ecosystems and the idea of limitless growth will seem completely reasonable.

While mainstream economics is of little use to those seeking solutions to the real-world threat of ecological collapse, ecological economics proposes a steady state economy (SSE) that prescribes limits around human activity to maintain the natural systems we need to survive. The main priorities of this economy are sustainable economic scale and just distribution of wealth, goals not achieved through markets but through policies based on science and values. Once sustainable and just conditions are established, markets can then play the much smaller role of allocating scarce resources to the goods and services that are most desired. This economy could meet the public’s basic needs and allow for rapid emissions reductions without falling apart.

Ecological Economics’ Contribution to the Green New Deal

The Green New Deal (GND) must recognize and resolve the tension between economic stability and serious climate action. I believe the following changes to economic and social institutions, constitutive of a SSE, are essential to incorporate into activists’ plan to address the climate crisis.

First is the foundation of a SSE: a cap on the resources flowing through the economy, called throughput, which achieves the goal of sustainable economic scale. A nationally (and ultimately internationally) binding carbon budget would largely establish this throughput cap because fossil fuel use would likely fall faster than renewables are installed, limiting and reducing our energy consumption at least in the short-to-medium term. Measures to equitably distribute energy, such as Tradable Energy Quotas, would thus be essential to implement together with the cap. Rather than assuming the rapid addition of renewable energy capacity will sufficiently displace fossil fuel use, a scientifically-informed GND must reduce emissions with reference to our carbon budget, but the concept isn’t explicitly discussed within Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s GND resolution. Because shrinking energy use would produce the social ills associated with a recession under the current structure of the economy, the following SSE institutions are vital for maintaining economic stability and ensuring a just distribution of resources.

The second institutional pillar of a SSE is a democratically directed job guarantee. The GND resolution mentions a guaranteed jobs program among its “goals and projects,” and its proponents often envision the policy as a means of connecting individuals with a meaningful role in the transition to renewable energy. But it matters whether activists see the policy as useful-but-inessential or absolutely vital, as some fighting over the substance of eventual legislation may assert that large investments in renewables are sufficient on their own to create job opportunities. A whole-economy job guarantee is essential because the private sector’s control over employment links work opportunities to continued growth, and therefore ensures that mass unemployment follows from reducing consumption. A job guarantee would decouple employment from growth and eliminate the threat of joblessness as energy use and consumption shrinks. It would also allow citizens to reorient economic activity around less resource-intensive tasks like ecosystem restoration and caring for others. And if we find that fewer labor hours are needed with reduced consumption, the policy could incorporate work-sharing to shorten the working day, week, or year. Guaranteed employment will be a crucial stabilizing force as we fundamentally transform our society.

The third SSE pillar is bringing the monetary and financial system under public control. Money is a multi-purpose tool that facilitates economic activity in market systems. Growing economies generally require an increasing supply of money. There is a private channel of money creation which injects new money into the economy as private banks make loans (contrary to the usual presumption that loans come from existing money) and a public channel provided by central banks, which create money as national governments spend. However, about 95% of new money creation comes from private banks, while myths about “printing money” obscure the power of the public channel.

This has interwoven ecological, economic, and political effects. Ecologically, when investment decisions are driven by private banks seeking profits, the result tends to be ever-growing consumption. Economically, because private banks create the bulk of new money, the money supply is tied to debt that must be repaid. Currently, much of this money is used to speculate and inflate asset price bubbles. When it becomes clear that most debts won’t be paid or bubbles burst, banks protect themselves by cutting off lending. This is a major cause of recession as money creation stops and the supply shrinks as some debts are repaid. Central banks must then step in to create money as they did during the Great Recession, but whether they bail out and reinstate the private banks responsible for the instability or finance public needs is a political choice.

With the money supply controlled by private banks, we remain prone to financial crises that threaten the stability needed to complete the sustainability transition. And banking elites have historically controlled central banks, keeping the wraps on the public channel of money creation and maintaining economic conditions they find suitable. What is needed, then, is a government committed to serving public interests and unconstrained by myths about the scarcity of money. Such a government could revoke private banks’ ability to create money and operate the monetary and financial system to serve the sustainability transition, financing it in full without taxation and ensuring sufficient money creation to protect the economy against shocks as we rapidly phase out fossil fuels.

Though all of these policies require activists to dispel economic myths, this is particularly true for democratizing the monetary system. The movement must educate the public about how private and central banks create money, that national governments don’t rely on taxation to spend and do not need to budget like a household, and that currencies only function due to public authority and ought to be treated as a public resource. Private control of investment decisions rests upon a complete lack of public attention to these ideas.

Fourth, a non-growing economy requires defined limits to economic inequality. We could achieve this by establishing an income floor and a ceiling to income and wealth. Though the job guarantee would ensure a sufficient income for workers, a guaranteed income would be needed for those who cannot work. This would further decouple well-being from growth by ensuring that retired citizens can meet their needs without retirement accounts that depend on a growing economy. The maximum income and wealth limit would ensure that inequality never gets out of control as national wealth levels off, preserving social and political stability. In 2018 the ratio of average CEO-to-worker pay was 278 to 1, with executives making $17.2 million. A ratio of 25 to 1, for example, could establish an income range of $40,000 to $1,000,000 (in 1965 the ratio was 20 to 1). Simultaneously implementing universal basic services, such as widespread public transportation that makes personal vehicles unnecessary, would also encourage reduced inequality through shared consumption.

To maintain the integrity of our throughput caps we must also dampen the forces pushing the economy to grow. The goal of our economy is derived from its institutions, and corporations’ pursuit of profit maximization leads to an economy that maximizes consumption. The fifth SSE policy is turning corporations into non-profit cooperatives by establishing meeting community needs within ecological limits as their legal purpose. These cooperatives would be governed by the workers, customers, and community-members that interact with them to help ensure that this purpose is fulfilled, with clear reporting and accountability mechanisms built-in. How do we fundamentally change our productive institutions? We need to remember that corporations are creations of the state. A movement in control of government can transform or abolish the corporate charters that bring these institutions into existence in the first place.

The last major pillar of a non-growing economy is a stable population size. An expanding population creates ever-rising demand, and though the current global growth rate of around 1% per year sounds small, it results in the addition of one billion people to the planet roughly every dozen years. In November 2019, over 11,000 scientists from around the world declared that Earth faces a climate emergency and asserted the need to stabilize the human population as one of six “critical” steps to address the crisis. When breaking down emission trends, the IPCC shows that population growth has often approached or exceeded the impact of economic growth in driving increasing emissions in recent decades (Figure SPM.3). At the same time, the UN projects that the population will expand to between 9.4 and 12.7 billion by 2100.

Many activists avoid discussions of population, rightfully alarmed by the racist history of eugenics and concerned that it emboldens eco-fascist ideologues, but the moral issues raised by inaction remain significant. The rights of future generations and those whose basic needs are not met today depend on a population size that allows for ecological stability and a sufficient share of resource use. This applies to all countries that share this finite planet. Promoting a stable population in high-income nations, where citizens currently consume disproportionate resources, has the greatest impact on problems we face today. But supporting the right of all people to have their basic needs met means that the consumption levels of citizens in low-income nations must increase, and population growth in these countries will have a more significant impact on the global environment in the near future. Those who study population issues note that rapid changes in fertility in the past have resulted from non-coercive means that could be promoted today, like ensuring women’s voice in reproductive decisions, providing family planning services, and encouraging small-family norms.

While these policies may be some of the most important stepping stones to a SSE, additional changes, like capital controls and a shift away from consumer culture, would also be needed. Because corporations or other countries may seek to gain a competitive advantage by avoiding steady state policies, national governments will need to implement controls, such as laws limiting how much money can be moved abroad or compensating tariffs, to prevent capital flight and protect the domestic economy as it transitions. And by generating society-wide discussion about the corporate roots of consumerism and exploring definitions of freedom that emphasize ecological and democratic principles over limitless consumption, we can develop a culture that embraces an economy of sufficiency over excess.

Beyond SSE institutions, the role of energy in the economy also deserves particular attention from activists. Incorporating the work of energy analysts, who research the societal implications of large-scale conversions from one energy source to another, is critical to plan for the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. This work allows us to foresee potentially serious challenges arising during the transition and how an all-renewable world may be different than the one to which we’re accustomed. Some of these possible differences can be found in my previous essay on ecological and energy literacy. One major takeaway is the need to rapidly relocalize food production in anticipation of phasing out oil, which is currently a primary input to centralized, large-scale agricultural systems. If public support for rapid decarbonization is built on the expectation of a straightforward transition to a society largely similar to the present, it could be jeopardized if reality turns out to be more complicated. It’s crucial that activists plan ahead for issues that could threaten to derail the energy transition and prepare the public for the possibility that an all-renewable world requires changes to our lifestyles.

Conclusion

The ideas above dispel myths about the economy and help us envision new possibilities. Economic literacy allows activists to see that many of the harms caused by recessions aren’t the inevitable result of “economic laws,” but rather political choices. The idea that as consumption shrinks people unavoidably experience mass unemployment or that there isn’t enough money to provide for public goods is false. Poverty in the midst of extravagant wealth is a choice. The population’s basic needs, like having food and shelter, can be met in the context of decreasing consumption. Some of the ideas developed by ecological economists and other academics are vital for solving the problems activists are working on, but they can remain buried in books few will read, conferences few will attend, and classes few will take. What these disciplines seem to lack is a strong link to movements that need their vision and analysis but also represent the only vehicle for their ideas to ever define society. Liberatory knowledge must be spread beyond the ivory tower through movement institutions dedicated to public education, so that it may become the new common sense.

The current economic system is driving us towards ecological collapse, but there is nothing inevitable about it. The economy is a human construct that humans can change. That corporate power needs the cover provided by economists and economic theories hints at its vulnerability. By developing our own economic literacy, this strategy would no longer sway the public mind or win its acquiescence. Movements aimed at creating a fundamentally different economy would have the autonomous character they’ll need to overcome the legions of economists trying to convince them and the broader public that such changes would lead to chaos. Knowledge is power—let’s ensure we’re acting like it.

Read the next article in the Climate Activism Curriculum series: power literacy. Or check out this curriculum model that ties each literacy domain in the series together: Educating for Climate Activism, Autonomy, and System Change.

The post Towards a Climate Activism Curriculum: Economic Literacy appeared first on Freedom and Survival.

Climate change as an issue of economic and cultural transformation

Climate change is mainly understood by the public and by activists as an energy problem that can be solved through a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewables. What is less appreciated is that climate change is also an economic problem requiring a simultaneous transformation of the present economy. If we assume that currently non-existent negative emissions technologies do not come into being (Fuss et al., 2014), then in order to hold warming below 2°C—the limit most consistently identified in international climate discussions—rich nations must reduce emissions at rates above 10% per year, a feat that has never been achieved (Anderson, 2015). For context, emissions reductions greater than 1% per year have historically occurred in situations of economic upheaval or recession (Stern, 2007).

To overcome the apparent link between economic turmoil and serious climate action we can look to the discipline of ecological economics, which outlines the policies and institutional changes that could transform the current profit-driven economy into a non-growing, steady state economy (SSE) that has as its goal the meeting of basic human needs within ecological limits. Presently, if fossil-fueled consumption levels do not remain high enough, then economic growth reverses into recession. This outcome would likely make rapid emissions reductions socially and politically untenable. Establishing a SSE would eliminate the unstable grow-or-contract nature of the current economy and could allow for a swift transition to renewables while avoiding economic breakdown.

Because climate change is an economic problem requiring an economic transformation, it is also a cultural problem requiring a cultural transformation. The current economy allows individuals to consume as much as they can afford, and consumption plays an outsized role in our understanding of freedom. A SSE preserves vital natural systems by establishing limits to consumption, a fact that elites who own and manage the economy will seek to exploit. Why? Growth is treated as the best (and only) way to improve the economic situation of working-class citizens—a substitute for equality—and every step towards a SSE would spotlight the need to redistribute wealth. A non-growing economy requires clearly defined limits to economic inequality and calls into question the very existence of profit-maximizing institutions and the exorbitant private fortunes that exist today. To combat this threat to their financial interests and dominant social position, elites will vigorously oppose this transition. A key strategy will be attempts to generate public opposition by arguing that to limit consumption is to undermine an essential freedom. Establishing a SSE will thus only be possible if a new cultural understanding of freedom gains legitimacy over the consumerist definition, and climate activists must lead that campaign.

“The contest for legitimacy is a public battle for the supremacy of particular frames that underpin the legitimacy of specific norms and of the organizations and institutions that promulgate them,” writes Julie Ayling (2017, p. 362-363). Activists fight this battle by shifting discourse and the public’s understanding of core cultural ideas. Though industry possesses significant economic and political advantages, activist groups “typically do enjoy considerable ‘discursive’ and ‘symbolic’ power, meaning battles over ideas and legitimacy tend to be less one-sided,” observes Fergus Green (2018, p. 109). By generating a society-wide discussion aimed at redefining the concept of freedom, climate activists can protect their movement. A SSE embodies certain principles: the importance of limits, the equality of human beings, the ethic of sufficiency, and others. By asserting a new understanding of freedom that features these ideas, activists will undercut elites’ attempts to delegitimize the movement through appeals to the consumerist definition of freedom. This redefinition process can also drive the movement towards a SSE. The promise of freedom has historically been a central motivation of social movements, and by asserting a new, inspiring vision of eco-democratic freedom—and the climate movement as a vehicle for that vision—activists gain a potentially significant source of engagement.

The next section reviews the early history of corporate elites’ crusade to define freedom as consumption. Educating the public about this history is an essential part of redefining freedom, as it delegitimizes the corporate definition and shows that consumerist lifestyles had to be forced upon the public. The following section outlines an ecological and democratic understanding of freedom by sampling the views of prominent classical liberals and ecological thinkers. The final sections examine the reasons why activists must launch a mass-communication campaign to assert the eco-democratic definition over the consumerist definition.

Consumption as freedom: Business shapes culture in its preferred image

When one considers the world-leading consumption levels of US citizens, it is easy to imagine that daily life in the US was always defined by consumption. But prior to the start of the 20^th century, thrift had been a classic feature of American culture (Ewen, 1976). This trait became a major problem for business with the development of mass production, which for the first time led to a significant surplus of consumer goods beyond what citizens required to meet their basic needs. Business leaders feared a permanent crisis of overproduction, with social historian Stuart Ewen noting that consumerism “emerged in the 1920s not as a smooth progression from earlier and less ‘developed’ patterns of consumption, but rather as an aggressive device of corporate survival” (1976, p. 54). Business thus became preoccupied with the challenge of turning the American cultural ethic of sufficiency into one of constant consumption.

However, “underconsumption” was not the only crisis facing corporate elites. Around 1900, mass media that could bring news and other information to communities across the US were just getting established (Ewen, 2003).  This far-reaching press was informing the public about the increasing control of social conditions by large corporations and the violence unleashed against workers attempting to organize and improve their conditions (Ewen, 2003). An increasingly politically powerful public was forming solidly anticorporate sentiments. Business had tried to impose industrial discipline on American workers through horrific violence for decades, but began to shift towards organized propaganda, harnessing the new channels of communication to reestablish its social legitimacy. The creation of a consumer culture, it was thought, could address both problems.

The power of propaganda was demonstrated by President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information during World War I, which successfully transformed a pacifist population into one clamoring for war (Ewen, 2003). Edward Bernays, a member of the Committee and later the recognized “father of the public relations industry,” brought the tested techniques of manipulation to the private sector. He observed that “mass production is profitable only if its rhythm can be maintained—that is, if it can continue to sell its product in steady or increasing quantity . . . today supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand . . . [and] cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda . . . to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable” (Bernays & Miller, 2005, p. 84). Both public relations and advertising would develop into their own sectors of business in the 1920s.

Control would be gained by associating individual liberty with the purchase of goods (and the corporations producing them) in the public mind. In 1924, retail magnate Edward Filene observed that “modern workmen have learned their habits of consumption and their habits of spending (thrift) in the school of fatigue, in a time when high prices and relatively low wages have made it necessary to spend all the energies of the body and mind in providing food, clothing and shelter. We have no right to be overcritical of the way they spend a new freedom or a new prosperity until they have had as long a training in the school of freedom” (as cited in Ewen, 1976, p. 29-30).

An expanding corporate propaganda machine would provide that training. “During the 1920s,” Ewen observes, “advertising grew to the dimensions of a major industry” (1976, p. 32). Between 1900 and 1930, national advertising revenues grew from $200 million to $2.6 billion, a thirteen-fold increase (p. 62). Growing investment produced great successes, with business increasingly associating itself with liberty. Historian Kerryn Higgs (2016) notes how marketing publication “Advertising Age credited the National Chamber of Commerce with divorcing the word ‘big’ from the word ‘business’ in the public mind” (p. 177). “Private enterprise” was replaced by “free enterprise,” and Henry Link of the polling firm Psychological Corporation later promoted “a transfer in emphasis from free enterprise to the freedom of all individuals under free enterprise; from capitalism to a much broader concept: Americanism.” Link recognized that unlike “free enterprise,” “Americanism” possessed a “terrific emotional impact” (p. 179).

The reach of this propaganda machine was exemplified by the massive campaign launched by the National Association of Manufacturers in the 1930s to define the “American Way of Life.” It replicated the WWI model, establishing local Committees on Public Information composed of influential community leaders throughout the country. These agents “funneled articles, features, and films to newspapers, radio stations, and movie theaters,” sent speakers to “every local group of any sort,” and “distributed pamphlets and weekly bulletins to schools, clubs, and libraries” (Higgs, 2016, p. 175). Particular care was taken to target the young:

“Aware that the adult population was cynical about the corporate claim to ‘service,’ they aimed specifically at schools, where Young America, their weekly children’s magazine that portrayed capitalism as dedicated to looking after them and their communities, was sent to thousands of teachers, who used them in classroom assignments. You and Industry, a series of booklets written in simple language, linked individual prosperity to unregulated industry, and was distributed to public libraries everywhere. One million booklets were distributed every two weeks by the US Chamber of Commerce, which, along with the giant industrial corporations, was also involved in the campaign” (Higgs, 2016, p. 175).

The corporate elites driving the expansion of a consumer culture were joined by economists calling for a “new economic gospel of consumption” (Higgs, 2016, p. 71) and political leaders offering enthusiastic support. Higgs (2016) notes that “President Herbert Hoover’s 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes welcomed the demonstration ‘on a grand scale [of] the expansibility of human wants and desires,’ hailed an ‘almost insatiable appetite for goods and services,’ and envisaged ‘a boundless field before us … new wants that make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied’” (p. 72). This collective effort would eventually culminate in the society that the American people (and those of other wealthy countries) know today, in which individuals see themselves as consumers rather than citizens.

An ecological and democratic understanding of freedom

A brief sampling of the history of corporate culture gives us a sense of the effort that business has put into shaping the public’s understanding of freedom in its preferred image. Before we explore why activists need to stimulate a societal rethink of freedom, we must reflect upon the concept that will replace the corporate definition.

When we recognize that addressing climate change requires us to create a fundamentally different economy, we must reckon with the fact that ordinary people have little say over the structure of the economy and thus over their own fate. Elites will not willingly make these changes. In order to transform the economic system, the public must gain control of it—in this way, economic democracy is vital to achieving a sustainable society. An understanding of liberty in the age of climate crisis must therefore foreground the freedom of the public to shape the economy.

A new definition of freedom must also highlight the importance of limits. One can find strong support for limits within classical liberal thought, which today is often claimed by wealthy industrialists as a moral foundation for unimpeded, self-interested action. However, two of freedom’s greatest theorists, Wilhelm von Humboldt and John Stuart Mill, recognized that limits could rightly be placed on individual liberty. Even in asserting freedom’s importance for human development, Humboldt always recognized that it exists within justifiable limits. Not only must our sphere of action preserve the equal rights of others, but restrictions on our action are warranted when “freedom would destroy the very conditions without which not only freedom but even existence itself would be inconceivable” (Humboldt & Burrow, 1993, p. 144-145). In Mill’s view, a SSE represented an important step in human advancement: “It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on” (1909, p. 751). These perspectives remind us that limits are not only necessary to preserve freedom and even existence, but can also act as a catalyst towards forms of progress more aligned with human flourishing.

Contemporary perspectives further inform our understanding of ecological freedom. Though some academics seem to take the market-centered, acquisitive definition of freedom shaped by corporations as the definition (Dibley, 2012), others remind us that such ideas can be defined differently and in ways that are more descriptive of reality. Consider Peter Brown, who recognizes that “we are required to re-examine, and ultimately to redefine the emancipation project. The narratives from which we currently take our bearings are simply not true to our circumstances” (2012 p. 7). Brown calls for the recognition of human equality to temper our understanding of freedom. “We must see that how we live is often unavoidably harmful to others. There are no actions that affect us alone. . . In a world of limits, liberty may be legitimately exercised only if one is using only his/her fair share of low entropy sources and sinks. . . All persons in all cultures and all generations have equal moral claims to flourishing, constrained and enhanced by the claims of other species for their place in the sun. We are not the chosen species, or the chosen people. This, if you like, is the new emancipation” (2012, p. 14).

The corporate messages flowing through society have conjured a myth of individualism at the heart of conceptions of liberty, which ignores the fact that society is only possible through the care we provide and work we do for one another. Bruce Jennings (2015) argues that our understanding of freedom must be informed by the relationships we have with others and with the natural world. Freedom should be recognized as a social practice arising from the bonds of interdependence that we share. This view elevates each person to the status of subject rather than object, and does not privilege the individual over the community—rather, balance is sought between the flourishing of each. It entails a recognition that we are only free to the extent that others are, too. Power relationships should be examined and the ability to make decisions should be distributed to all affected by them. These guiding principles suggest that “the message of planetary boundaries and the end of the liberal era of cheap fossil carbon is not the bad news of lost liberty but the promise of a newfound freedom—a more humanly fulfilling kind of liberty” (p. 307).

Jason Lambacher (2009) believes that activists have avoided discussions of freedom because many citizens in wealthy nations have been free to “live in ways that appear to ignore ecological limits as if they were not there. In fact, this is a vital issue – our dominant political concepts, such as freedom, have not yet become ecological” (p. 32). Our ways of life, and every layer of society, must be transformed around the reality of limits. Figuring out how to live sustainably will of course be an ongoing process, part of learning how to be free on a finite planet. “What is important is not the validity of a single approach to environmental sustainability,” he writes, “but rather that people feel inspired by the challenge of freely creating an ecologically responsible culture” (p. 41).

An ecologically compatible freedom will foreground democracy, both political and economic. It will acknowledge that liberty—and life—cannot exist without limits. It will be shaped by our recognition of interdependence and human equality. It will balance the interests of both individual and community. It will be broader than the simple consumption of goods, a vision encompassing the many parts of human nature left behind by the current society. Activists must assert and continue to develop this eco-democratic definition of freedom, both to protect and to drive the movement towards a SSE.

Redefine freedom to protect the movement

It is clear that as activists recognize the need to establish a SSE and begin to vocalize their demands, business will leverage the vast communications system it has built and the cultural cues it has implanted to make this transformation appear catastrophic. To protect the climate movement, citizens must learn how the consumerist definition of freedom has been carefully constructed as a pillar of a culture that serves corporate interests—the result of a century of corporate PR and advertising campaigns rather than a signifier of the inherent acquisitiveness of human nature. By educating the public about this history and exposing the narrowness of the consumerist definition as compared to the eco-democratic definition, which better supports human flourishing, activists delegitimize “consumerist freedom” and undercut corporate messages that utilize it. The following subsections illustrate why redefining freedom is an essential defensive strategy by exploring the nature of the counterattack activists will have to withstand.

The Corporate Culture Machine

Stuart Ewen (1976) notes that it would take a few decades, but the post-World War II period finally realized elites’ vision of the mass-consumption society. Advertising and public relations deserve a lot of credit for these developments. “The new society was one which distributed culture on a mass scale,” Ewen writes. “This triumph over the locality of people’s lives as a source of nurturement and information is, perhaps, the monumental achievement of twentieth-century capitalism: centralization of the social order” (p. 206-207).

Activists must recognize the extent to which corporate elites control society’s information systems and thus have the means to dominate social narratives. A primary consideration is that major media institutions are themselves corporations whose advertising clients are also corporate entities, and all share an interest in burying or delegitimizing challenges to the profit-driven economy. Sociologists highlight additional contours of the modern propaganda machine by exploring climate science denial networks. Wealthy family foundations now funnel untraceable “dark money” to various cultural and political causes, obscuring the support provided by specific individuals and organizations (Brulle, 2014). Corporate think tanks have also proliferated, set up to constantly generate ideas and literature that can be passed off as independent research or science (Dunlap & McCright, 2011). Front groups and astroturf campaigns further obscure reality, suggesting independent or even grassroots movement support for corporate positions. An online rightwing echo-chamber regularly amplifies baseless or conspiratorial stories through social media networks until they reach mass media channels (Dunlap & McCright, 2015). These are some of the narrative-shaping realities with which activists must contend.

The Public’s Vulnerability

Another component of the threat facing the climate movement is the public’s vulnerability to manipulation through claims of “curtailed consumerist freedom.” Developing an ecological consciousness within a consumer society presents significant challenges (Hamilton, 2010; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2004). Clive Hamilton (2010) warns that “Consumption behaviour and the sense of personal identity are now so closely related that a challenge to someone’s consumption behaviour may be a challenge to their sense of self” (p. 574). This identity-linked dependence on consumption can be exploited by corporate elites and mobilized against the transition to a sustainable society. In Hamilton’s view, consumer identity can only change with a massive environmental calamity or a widespread loss of confidence in consumer life, thus the task of achieving sustainability is primarily cultural, not scientific or technological.

In a review of climate change communications research, Susanne Moser (2016) highlights specific psychological defenses identified by researchers that can be triggered through different frames. Most relevant here is the defense that arises against identity change, a resistance to changing how we see ourselves through “avoidance, denial, helplessness, reinforcement of existing identity, or attack on others” (p. 355). The triggering frames are those that have already been used by business in shaping a corporate culture, including proclamations that “The American way of life is not up for debate” or “The threat to mobilize around is what ‘they’ propose as solutions to climate change; Fostering anti-science and anti-government sentiments; Emphasis on freedom from government, individual freedom, [and] free market economics” (p. 355).

Appeals to Freedom, Then and Now

These threats are not hypothetical, as business has repeatedly exploited issue frames appealing to freedom. Grace Nosek (2018) highlights how the tobacco industry used this framing decades ago to protect against regulation. An industry messaging memo recommended the mantra “Freedom of choice is an American birthright. Infringement on this right is an injustice” (p. 758-759). This argument successfully defended these businesses in the first waves of legal challenge, until the anti-tobacco movement finally reframed smoking as a systemic public health issue.

We can see explicit freedom frames already used by business in climate change litigation. When a coalition of state attorneys general recently sued fossil fuel companies for documents about whether they lied to the public and shareholders about the risks of climate change, Exxon countersued and used a freedom frame, asserting that “The allegations repeated today are an attempt to limit free speech” (Nosek, 2018, p. 767). Noteworthy also was the amplification of the corporate message through the vast communications system discussed earlier. Exxon was painted as the freedom-defending victim through two opinion pieces in the Washington Post and dozens of stories from the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and the Heritage Foundation. The counterattack also included denunciations from other state attorneys general and threats of a counter-investigation by corporate politicians.

This is War

Because the SSE has not yet become an explicit goal of mainstream climate activism, we have not yet seen the most vicious expressions of corporate self-defense. Ron Arnold, longtime vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE), makes the nature of his work very clear. “Our goal is to destroy, to eradicate the environmental movement…. We’re dead serious—we’re going to destroy them. . . People in industry, I’m going to do my best for you. Environmentalists, I’m coming to get you…. We’re out to kill the fuckers. . . We [CDFE] created a sector of public opinion that didn’t used to exist. No one was aware that environmentalism was a problem until we came along” (as cited in Higgs, 2016, p. 234). Some who defend corporate power openly treat any attempts to regulate industry as war. Activists must prepare for the unprecedented cultural onslaught that will be waged when corporations are faced with an existential threat.

Summary

Groomed to be consumers, US citizens place disproportionate emphasis on the things they buy to attempt to shape their identity. Left unquestioned, this fact can be turned against the movement towards a SSE. But, Clive Hamilton (2010) reminds us, “identities that can be forged from the products provided by the market are not to any great degree the creations of those who adopt them, but are manufactured by marketers or popular culture” (p. 573). Aside from constraining authentic human development, this process causes a host of social ills. “The inability of consumerism to allow true realisation of human potential manifests itself, to an ever-increasing degree, in restless dissatisfaction, chronic stress and private despair, feelings that give rise to a rash of psychological disorders—including anxiety, depression and substance abuse—and a range of compensatory behaviours including many forms of self-medication” (Hamilton, 2010, p. 572). Activists must illuminate these outcomes of a society defined by consumerism.

As freedom is invoked in discussions of social issues, the effect is to legitimize or delegitimize a particular point of view or policy. As activists expose the narrowness of unlimited consumption as freedom, and the way it obscures the public’s inability to participate in shaping the economy itself, the credibility of both the current hierarchical economic system and its defenders is undermined. It becomes harder to attack the movement to establish a SSE as this shift takes place. When citizens hear the defenders of corporate power speak about freedom and still take them seriously rather than thinking immediately of the domination they actually represent, activists have not yet done enough to clarify reality.

Redefine freedom to drive the movement

The eco-democratic definition of freedom is not only part of the cultural foundation for a SSE, which is crucial to humanity’s survival, but also points towards a more humanly fulfilling society. This definition gains legitimacy as activists highlight these merits and vocally assert the concept in public discussions. By helping the public to see the climate movement as a vehicle for this kind of freedom—including, in particular, the fundamental freedom of ordinary citizens to reshape the economy to avoid ecological collapse—activists can fuel the movement.

Discourse researchers follow the ways that climate change is discussed and observe the impacts on citizen engagement with the issue. Of particular interest are depoliticizing discourses that encourage apathy. “Depoliticization refers to the deletion of alternatives and of democratic debate about alternatives regarding climate change from public spheres,” notes Anabela Carvalho (2018, p. 6). “In spite of climate change’s massive impacts on citizens around the world, it has been transformed into a seemingly consensual techno-managerial matter where citizens have no say. Those depoliticization processes have crucial implications for public engagement” (p. 6). How we talk about climate change determines how we understand it, and whether and how we take action. These discourses tend to be unexamined and exert an unseen marginalizing influence.

Carvalho, van Wessel, and Maeseele (2017) describe several types of marginalizing discourses. Scientization suggests that climate change is a problem of technology whose solution must be led by technical experts. Economization envisions climate change as a problem of economic calculation that can be solved entirely through market-based mechanisms, with economists at the helm. Moralization frames the issue as humanity versus CO2 and treats the solution as a matter of individual responsibility, as if personal consumption choices can solve systemic problems.

By vocally championing the eco-democratic definition of freedom and establishing the climate movement as a fight for collective self-determination within ecological limits, activists can politicize climate change and maximize mobilization through various mechanisms: issue tangibility, engaging values, movement legitimacy, and participant identity-formation.

Issue Tangibility

Dale Jamieson (2017) writes about the connection between the British anti-slavery movement and current attempts to address climate change. He highlights how the distance between the colonies where slavery was practiced and Britain’s mainland made the issue just as distant and abstract in the minds of the public. Abolitionists realized that in order to generate a movement against slavery, they would have to make the issue visible. After parliament rejected abolition, activists started the “blood sugar” campaign—using pamphlets, speeches, and formal organizations to inform citizens about the amount of flesh they were consuming as they ate slave-produced sugar. As a result, 300,000 people boycotted Britain’s largest import; Abolition followed.

Jamieson (2017) observes that “For people to support moral change in a world in which there is a rupture in space, time, or scale between a cause and a harm, they must somehow be reconnected in people’s consciousness” (p. 181). However, “carbon’s assault on what it is to be a person seems less deep, direct, visceral and even true than slavery’s assault on our shared notions of humanity” (p. 181). Highlighting climate change as a freedom issue may make it more tangible, exposing the link between this global problem and citizens’ everyday experience of lacking control over their economic conditions. As the public associates the climate crisis with inadequate wages, crushing debt, and overwork—economic oppression stemming from an economy that serves elites rather than the people—the connection may be visceral enough to drive action. Achieving economic democracy would not only allow citizens to create a SSE but also address these social ills, a connection activists must emphasize.

Engaging Values

Literature on climate change engagement often focuses on the connection to human values, and advocating for eco-democratic freedom may attract new movement participants for whom freedom is a highly cherished value. Corner, Markowitz, and Pidgeon (2014) note that divides on climate change are more a representation of the values at stake than disputes about science, and that if the self-transcending values typically associated with activist engagement can be joined with more traditionally self-interested values, the combination could hold promise for generating action: “The challenge for climate change communicators seeking to make the most effective use of research on human values is to identify ways of bridging between the diverse values that any given group of individuals holds and the values that are congruent with a more sustainable society,” including “Coupling, for example, values around security or freedom with self-transcending values like concern for the welfare of others” (p. 417).

A sustainable economy will only be brought about through public control. By highlighting the freedom dimension of climate activism, activists add the promise of liberty to the range of values that inspire people to join the movement. In terms of audience, the point here is not to try to convince skeptics and “conservatives” that they should support climate action, though that could result, but to attract those already inclined to act by vocally championing a new vision of freedom.

Movement Legitimacy

As the climate movement’s goal of advancing a new vision of freedom becomes well-known, it stands to gain broader cultural legitimacy that can also encourage participation. Julie Ayling (2017) writes that “legitimacy is an intangible but crucial resource that assists an organization to exercise authority in numerous ways” (p. 351), and the battle for legitimacy “plays a significant role in progress on climate change mitigation” (p. 366).

This is evident in the effects of the fossil fuel divestment movement, which aims to delegitimize investments in coal, oil, and gas by pointing out the need to halt carbon emissions and the industry’s political efforts to block that outcome. Ultimately, activists’ goal is to remove the fossil fuel industry’s social license to exist. “For the divestment movement,” Ayling (2017) observes, “legitimacy strengthens its case for fundamental economic change and enables it to mobilize its supporters, garner public support, and fund its activities” (p. 355). Since it began in 2012, the movement has spread to over one thousand institutions and divestment activists have transformed discussions around climate change: asserting it as a present emergency, spotlighting the culpability of the fossil fuel industry, and undermining the legitimacy of both the industry and investing in it. Ayling finds that “there are signs that the movement is making progress in building its own legitimacy and in damaging the industry’s” (p. 350). Noam Bergman (2018) notes how divestment activists have generated politicized understandings of the climate issue, which have led to increased engagement: “The most prominent impact has been the discourse shift, a clear cultural impact, which in turn has precipitated mobilisation, political and financial impacts” (p. 12).

The same can be true for climate activists aiming to redefine freedom. By asserting the legitimacy of eco-democratic freedom and establishing the movement as a vehicle for this vision of freedom, activists can legitimize their movement—encouraging participation—while also exposing the illegitimacy of an economy that is run by elites, driving towards ecological collapse, premised on limitless consumption, and forced to manufacture consent for consumerist lifestyles. As the movement gains greater social acceptance, the effect will be greater mobilization.

Participant Identity-Formation

Carvalho et al. (2017) cite an extensive US survey (Roser-Renouf, Maibach, Leiserowitz, & Zhao, 2014) which “showed that ‘identity’ was the largest barrier to engagement with climate change politics, with a third of respondents saying they were not ‘activists.’ The survey also showed that most people have low expectations for the efficacy of their political actions: they do not believe that they can alter the course of climate policies and hence do not even try” (p. 127).

Here we see a clear indication of the connection between identity and participation in political action, suggesting that cultivating an activist identity among the public could boost engagement. Also present is a sense of fatalism. By framing the climate movement as a fight for freedom—requiring no special qualifications to participate—and informing the public that freedoms have historically been won by social movements composed of ordinary people, such self-defeating beliefs can be combatted. And by helping prospective participants see themselves as freedom fighters, activists can encourage the development of activist identities that drive engagement and commitment. These strategies also align with observations by Moser (2016) that identity-based resistance to change can be overcome through “inspiration,” “appeal to deeply held values,” the illustration of “new social/cultural norms,” and “stories of positive transformation” (p. 355-356).

As activists more fully develop their identity through their efforts against climate change, the movement becomes more resilient and autonomous and more compelling to those searching for an authentic self. Climate activists must be aware of the fact that, at its best, their work creates a new identity within people, and they ought to be as conscious and encouraging of that process as possible.

Summary

This section can be summed up by an activist from Toronto’s climate movement, who observed that “success will be based on how much we can inspire people to engage, and how much it will feel like… feel for people as though we were creating a space to be free” (Del Rio, 2017, p. 59). The fight for freedom has often been a central motivation of social movements. The energy behind the cause of self-determination has often led individuals to risk their lives. It lends itself to something larger than oneself, something so valuable that it can lead to the most selfless commitment, even as it allows for perhaps the most authentic expression of the self. Within mainstream climate change activism, discussions about the meaning of freedom and about the movement as a vehicle for expanding liberty have been uncommon thus far. Activists have yet to harness the force that is unlocked when establishing climate change as an issue of freedom.

Conclusion: Illuminating our choices

How can activists stimulate a society-wide reconsideration of freedom? First, activists’ analysis must incorporate the necessity of a SSE in addressing climate change, which reveals the need for a cultural transformation that replaces consumerist freedom with an ecological and democratic definition. Then, campaigns dedicated to this transformation should be launched. Developing activist-controlled education and communication networks to be in constant touch with the public also seems essential to drive this cultural change and counteract the corporate culture machine. Academics writing about ecological freedom could make their work accessible to movements by hosting public discussions. All of this should be a part of larger efforts to create a participatory, democratic culture in which being intellectually and politically active is the norm, thus laying the groundwork for public control of the economy.

The nature of choice is often limiting (consider Hensher, 2019, in this collection). Defining the course of one’s life, for example, means foreclosing multiple possible paths in order to follow the ones we choose. Right now we are exchanging many paths and cherished things, many freedoms, in order to pursue limitless consumption. But this is no conscious choice. In fact, it is a choice made for us by those in power, who have put immense effort into preventing us from seeing what options we have. Only when we become conscious of the tradeoffs we are making will freedom of choice be anything more than an illusion. The task of activists is to make our choices clear—to help the public see that it need not walk the path to ruin. When the people recognize that they have alternatives, that the choices available are ultimately constrained only by our ongoing acceptance of elites’ hierarchical and consumerist worldview and the boundaries they’ve established, then a transformation may be possible. We must choose to create an economy that does not force us to remain on the consumption treadmill, one that allows for the rapid emissions reductions needed to maintain a livable climate. It is this conscious choice that will see humanity define itself, a choice that many did not know they had, now perhaps the most important one we’ll ever make.

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The post Defending and Driving the Climate Movement by Redefining Freedom appeared first on Freedom and Survival.

This is a response to an article by Bill McKibben on the development of the climate movement. For context, check out the original article.

The Climate Movement—Looking Ahead

The climate movement has had some major successes. The efforts that stalled the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline were a real accomplishment. Tens of thousands had pledged to commit civil disobedience if the Obama administration approved the pipeline, which long seemed like a foregone conclusion. Following years of organizing, political engagement, and protest, it became the first major fossil fuel infrastructure project to be rejected on the basis of its climate impact—a huge feat.

Particularly important was the growth of fossil fuel divestment activism, stimulated in large part by Bill McKibben and 350.org, which provided a way to get involved on climate change for a new generation of activists. I was one of them. As we built divestment campaigns on our college campuses, we stoked discussion of climate change throughout society. Through our efforts we also developed our intellectual and political autonomy. Friends I worked with formed a national student-led divestment organization and then went on to found Sunrise, now campaigning for the Green New Deal (GND).

And yet the climate movement can and must grow stronger. In my view, the movement has yet to develop the full analysis of the problem it hopes to solve, and consequently its full, autonomous identity. I lay out what I believe to be the full analysis in my essay on the next steps of the climate movement, but I’ll recount some main points here.

We have known for over 10 years that in order to keep warming to 2°C we must reduce carbon at rates thought to be incompatible with economic growth. The only historical instances of deep emissions cuts have happened in the context of economic recession or upheaval. One question in particular should have animated climate activists’ thought and action over the past several years: How do we rapidly reduce emissions without creating the sort of economic turmoil that could force populations to oppose the transition to renewable energy? It remains the question that should drive our analysis today.

Thankfully, the discipline of ecological economics describes how we could establish a non-growing, steady state economy that ensures the well-being of the public even as growth ends. The economy is, after all, just a human construct that—unlike ecological limits—humans can decide to change. When noting the differences between the New Deal era and the GND resolution, McKibben says that “our main goal is not ending an economic depression but the full-scale decarbonization of the economy in light of the climate crisis.” However, as described above, the GND must consciously include policies necessary to avoid an economic depression. Climate activists’ main goal is not just an energy transition but the creation of a steady state economy that provides the stability needed to complete the transition. The sixth mass extinction currently underway and other severe ecological crises—which lack a large political movement of their own, but also threaten our survival—also require an economy that can allow for shrinking consumption without falling apart. Ultimately, the economic goal of profit maximization must be replaced by the goal of meeting basic human needs within ecological limits.

This is where the political and cultural implications come in. Without the illusion of unlimited growth, which is sold to the public as the best (and only) way to improve their economic situation, there is no longer any excuse for extreme inequality. Without growth, redistribution is the only way to address unmet material needs—untenable to elites who want to maintain and expand their wealth and power. Serious climate action thus tramples on elite priorities in general, not just those of the fossil fuel industry. Furthermore, bringing about this egalitarian steady state economy is only conceivable if the public gains control of economic and political decisions from which it is currently excluded, and begins to question and cast off the consumer culture that it’s taught to embrace. In this way, full-scale climate action requires the movement to establish authentic democracy and culture, and tramples on elite rule itself. Our analysis has thus far been too narrow—there is more to creating a sustainable civilization than the energy transition alone. We must create a society built to respect ecological limits and learn to live within them.

In his article, McKibben recalls his path towards activism, noting that he spent 15 years attempting to communicate the nature of the problem to others. But he claims that he was “analyzing the problem incorrectly.” To the extent that he was attempting to speak truth to power, he is right. For example, Exxon knew about the severe risks of climate change around 1970 and simply concealed its knowledge—those in power already knew the truth. The idea that informing elites of the damage they’re causing will lead them to change course is a misunderstanding of how power works in our society. Those in power knowingly destroy people and planet in pursuit of profit and control, obscure the public’s sense of reality, and repress corrective social movements, with collapse the only possible result. But to the extent that McKibben’s efforts were aimed at informing the public—the right audience for generating a mass movement to challenge these power systems—that is exactly what must continue today. We face issues that demand we know something about the nature of the climate, about energy, about culture, about the workings of our economy and our political system, and about power and the history of the movements that have driven social change. Citizens must have some knowledge of these topics if they’re to respond rationally to the crises we face, and neither schools nor the media provide it.

Activists must recognize that our only hope of spreading the required level of understanding is through independent media and education institutions. We should also recognize that phenomena like climate denial wouldn’t exist without industry’s control over society’s information systems. Ron Arnold, a longtime Vice President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE), a corporate think tank, bragged about it: “Our goal is to destroy, to eradicate the environmental movement  . . . We [CDFE] created a sector of public opinion that didn’t used to exist. No one was aware that environmentalism was a problem until we came along.” An activist-controlled means of society-wide communication will only become more important as the movement grows and business feels increasingly threatened. The only “catastrophic threats” highlighted by corporate media will be activists’ program for creating a sustainable society, and the increasingly hysterical narratives will only be countered if activists can speak for themselves and reach large numbers of people. McKibben observes that the urgency of the climate crisis forced activists to “move beyond education to confrontation,” but while nothing ultimately changes without confrontation, the need for education never ceases. Education and action must continue simultaneously.

McKibben asserts that the movement must grow stronger, which is significantly determined by the number of people involved. I agree; we should aim to have millions participating. But just as important, the movement must grow in autonomy—participants’ intellectual and political preparation for self-government. That the GND idea has been put forward is a sign of activists’ increasing autonomy. But as I write in my essay analyzing the movement, it remains a resolution, with concrete policies yet to be determined. Activists must develop this transition plan ourselves based on our own analysis of the problem, incorporating the policies needed to establish a steady state economy. Beyond that, we ought to cultivate a comprehensive public understanding of the destructiveness of elite rule that demonstrates its utter illegitimacy. We must also develop within ourselves and the public the self-confidence and participatory habits necessary to replace elite rule with a self-governing citizenry.

The Need to Work towards System Change

“Going forward,” McKibben writes, “we must fight for the changes we know we need to make for a livable planet.” As explained earlier, evidence seems to clearly point to the need for a fundamentally different economy, not just a transition to renewable energy. He suggests that “If we replace fossil fuels with sun and wind, the effect will inevitably lead to at least some erosion of the current power structure.” But system change will never happen incidentally—it must be an explicit goal, and we must try to understand how to make it happen. In a truly sustainable future there will be no solar billionaires, or billionaires of any kind, because a non-growing economy requires limits to inequality. When we don’t question the deepest assumptions on which our society is built, such as whether anyone can justifiably claim to deserve such unlimited wealth, it leaves untapped the transformative clarity and moral outrage that a full-scale climate movement needs.

“I don’t know the final destination,” McKibben acknowledges. “While I don’t know how to change the ‘system,’ the urgent nature of the climate crisis doesn’t let us simply put off action.” Though we cannot predict exactly what a sustainable society will look like, we certainly know its broad outline. And though we are limited in our understanding of the dynamics that cause social transformation, we should be wary of becoming content with what we don’t know, which will keep us from gathering as much knowledge as we can to guide the process. McKibben’s thinking shapes the worldview of many people trying to address climate change, who may get the impression that transformation isn’t necessary or that a path towards it isn’t knowable. Activists should always be striving to better understand how to create the society we need. There are ways forward if we recognize system change to be necessary.

Opportunities for a Meta-movement

Climate change is clearly a symptom of overwhelming human demands on this finite planet, an expression of limits to growth. It is also a symptom of societies under elite rule, an expression of our deficit of democracy. This crisis demands that we create an all-renewable economy that serves the public without growth, only possible if the public deepens democracy and wins the ability to bring it about. I don’t think climate activists yet recognize the extent to which this platform naturally aligns us with other movements.

For example, McKibben observes how climate change fuels conflict, as in the severe drought that provoked the Syrian Civil War, which links climate and anti-war activists. But there is a much stronger connection that hasn’t entered mainstream activist analysis: There are no prospects for globalized air travel and shipping without oil. If climate activists aim to create a world that isn’t powered by oil, we also challenge the US government’s ability to maintain a global military presence. But empire is a shared priority for US elites, and a less mobile future will be opposed by not just the fossil fuel industry but all major sectors of business. Are we preparing for that opposition? Are we nurturing these connections with the anti-war movement? It’s hard to imagine anti-war activists could do more to constrain military interventions abroad than support a transition away from oil. We don’t yet appreciate both the elite priorities threatened by serious climate action and our natural connections to other movements.

Seeing how limits weave through the problem of climate change and its solutions is essential. Even as activists have sought to link concerns over economic and racial justice to climate action, we’ve underestimated the extent to which a sustainable society must foreground equality. A non-growing economy establishes limits on our consumption and forces us to learn how to share. It forces us to reckon with the extreme inequality that to this point has been justified by the illusion of limitless growth. Overcoming the inequities that other movements aim to eliminate becomes essential, not just desirable, if a sustainable economy is to be achieved.

In developing these ideas, I concluded that climate activists have been defining themselves far too narrowly. To address the climate crisis, we must change our economy and our political system and develop an ecological culture. In other words, we must create a new society. To do that, we must cultivate a citizenry ready and willing to step into the role we’re currently denied: that of self-governing equals.

People are waking up to the threat of climate breakdown, due in large part to the efforts of the movement. We owe incalculable gratitude to Bill McKibben, who has had a major role in building it. The question now is whether we have an analysis broad enough to address the crisis at scale. I believe the ideas above must be incorporated into the eventual GND legislation and the movement’s plans, and be well-understood by the public. Elsewhere I write about a broad public education campaign that I think is necessary to help citizens understand our interconnected problems and how their actions fit into a vision of full-scale transformation. I want to find others who are excited to create this education campaign to join with and make it happen. It’s time for an enlightened public to revoke its consent for a corporate state that stands in the way of a sustainable society.

The post Strengthening the Climate Movement: A Response to Bill McKibben appeared first on Freedom and Survival.

Attempting to look ahead towards the ways in which the movement must develop is not only useful, it’s vital. Activists recognize that even as we are pushing forward, time is not on our side. The more complete our plan for addressing climate change, the faster we may be able to implement it. In addition, let’s keep in mind that we’re proposing an unprecedented transformation involving every layer of society. Just as important, if not more so, are attempts to foresee and avoid major obstacles that could threaten to derail the transition to a sustainable society. The better we plan for the transition, the more likely it is to be completed.

Of the variables in our control, humanity’s ability to prevent climate catastrophe will be determined by two things: the ideas that shape our understanding of needed solutions and the type of movement we build to implement them.

Let’s first talk about the ideas.

Limits to Growth

What kind of a problem is climate change? Activists have described it as an issue of economic justice, racial justice, or intergenerational equity. Some call it a technological issue while others insist it’s a matter of political will. A solid case can be made for these descriptions and countless more, suggesting that climate change is humanity’s all-encompassing problem. It doesn’t seem to get any bigger picture. But even after incorporating the idea that economic and racial justice must accompany all attempts to address the crisis, it remains, in the mainstream analysis, an energy problem requiring a transition from a society powered by fossil fuels to one powered by renewable energy. That task is understood to be unprecedented and massive, one that requires a social movement to break the political power of the fossil fuel industry to enable governments to commit to the transition. The end result will be a society largely resembling the one we live in today, except more just and powered completely by renewables.

However, there is another perspective that is quite revealing, though it has received much less attention: that climate change is perhaps the direst symptom of ecological overshoot—of human activity expanding beyond ecological limits. Leading a group of interconnected emergencies including mass species extinction, freshwater depletion, topsoil erosion, and others, the climate crisis could and should be recognized as an expression of limits to growth. This understanding brings into view essential ideas that would expand the mainstream analysis of what solutions to this crisis must look like.

What may be the most consequential question about climate change was raised over 10 years ago. In 2008, climate scientists Kevin Anderson and Alice Larkin published a paper warning that in order to limit warming to two degrees Celsius (2C), fossil fuel use would need to be reduced at rates that had previously only occurred in the context of economic recession. The paper noted that a planned economic contraction would seem to be necessary to reduce emissions fast enough. As time passed and emissions continued to rise, even keeping warming to 4C came to require rates of decarbonization said to be incompatible with continued economic growth. For context, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described the likely impacts of 4C warming as “substantial species extinction, global and regional food insecurity, consequential restraints on common human activities [including growing food and working outdoors], and limited potential for adaptation in some cases”—truly an avoid-at-all-costs scenario. And yet attempting to understand and resolve this apparent contradiction between economic stability and serious climate action didn’t become a core matter for climate activists.

The GND envisions a transition to 100% renewable energy over 10 years, with the presumption that a massive buildout of renewables will sufficiently displace fossil fuel use. Rapidly ramping up the supply of renewable energy may seem like the same thing as rapidly reducing fossil fuel use, but it’s not. Historically, new sources of energy have usually layered on top of those already used, and this has been the case for wind and solar installations whose numbers have grown alongside increasing emissions. The finite amount of carbon we can emit to maintain a specific probability of keeping warming to a chosen level, say 2C—our finite carbon budget—must be the focus. Any plan to address the climate crisis must reduce emissions in line with our budget.

While science tells us the total carbon budget, a host of considerations based on our values determine how that budget is divided between and within countries. That’s why the public must have a basic understanding of how our national carbon budget would be derived, so that it is subject to both scientific and democratic influence. But these are topics for another article. Let’s say that a fair budget was established and a plan committed to adhering to it—we already know that the rates of emissions reductions needed are so high as to make the prospect of continued economic growth unthinkable and contraction necessary.

Why is that? It has to do with falling energy use. Economic activity and energy use are intertwined—without energy, all the parts of the production chain grind to a halt. There are a couple reasons why energy use would decrease in the course of reducing emissions in line with our carbon budget. The first is that historically, the large-scale integration of new energy sources has taken 40 to 60 years. Even with a concerted effort to deploy renewable technology, we may not be able to displace fossil fuel plants one-to-one. To avoid catastrophic climate change, fossil fuel use may need to drop faster than it can be replaced with renewables, and this would entail a drop in energy use. Second, if we are able to deploy renewables as fast as we hope to, it will be because the process is driven largely by fossil fuels. Currently, renewables’ whole production and deployment process depends on fossil fuels—we haven’t seen renewables bootstrap their own rapid expansion, and energy analysts have raised doubts about whether renewables’ power (ability to deliver energy per unit of time) is sufficient to do so. Thus in order to keep to our carbon budget, as fossil fuel use is directed towards the energy transition it will need to be diverted from other economic activities.

A major reason these challenges haven’t been highlighted is because any suggestion of limits to growth or the need to reduce energy demand and consumption are met with assumptions that technology will always provide a solution. The savior technology in the IPCC’s scenarios that see humanity keeping warming to 2C is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)—burning plant matter (which is assumed to be carbon-neutral), capturing the resulting carbon emissions, and storing it permanently underground—which is expected to enable us to remove carbon from the atmosphere while becoming society’s new major energy source. However, BECCS does not exist and both bioenergy and CCS have overwhelming obstacles to their development at scale—not least of which is that cultivating plants to burn for energy is not inherently carbon neutral. In the course of learning about the reality of ecological limits, one also becomes aware of the limits of technology in putting off our need to adapt to them. There are no serious prospects for addressing climate change while maintaining economic growth.

Under the current economic structure, reducing energy use and the consumption it enables causes economic distress. We need to cap fossil fuel use and reduce it in line with our carbon budget, but we also need to ensure that the population is taken care of and the economy doesn’t fall apart in the process. Thankfully, the discipline of ecological economics has been developing over the last several decades to determine how to organize the economy in light of our finite planet. Activists have thus far experienced economics as a marginalizing force, as those defending the status quo argue again and again why the sustainability transition (or any form of economic intervention aiming to help the public) is economically infeasible. Ecological economics, however, is the only branch of economic thinking to take seriously the reality of limits, which in fact forms its analytical basis as the defining condition to which humans must adapt.

While allocative efficiency—directing resource use to the highest-value uses—is considered the primary goal of mainstream (neoclassical) economics, ecological economics has it as a third goal. Of higher priority is achieving a just distribution of resources among the current population, and between future generations and other species. This is in part accomplished by the first goal: to maintain an economy of sustainable scale relative to the global ecosystem that contains and sustains it. Such an economy is called a “steady state economy,” which neither grows nor shrinks and maintains a near-constant level of consumption. This non-growing economy is an essential solution to all of humanity’s ecological crises, which have overconsumption at their root, though as a “necessary but not sufficient” achievement. The climate crisis requires a rapid transition to renewable energy, but that can only come about if the economy is structured to operate without growth and avoid collapsing in the course of the transition.

Articles about the GND and statements from activists often contain the phrase “transform the economy,” but it largely refers to the energy transition and not to establishing a steady state economy. If activists don’t recognize climate change as a limits issue, and continue to assert the mainstream view that economic growth is an absolute good—even arguing that the GND is “fiscally responsible” because it could boost growth—then we will reinforce the very ideas we must be questioning. If we continue to talk about a “sustainable economy” and the word “scale” never comes up, we’re missing the core of the discussion.

Climate activists ought to take some direction from ecological economics, which outlines the policies that would define a sustainable economy. The foundation is a cap on resource consumption (called throughput), which climate activists would largely achieve by establishing a binding carbon budget at the national and ultimately international levels. Limits on other resources could follow. These conditions could in part be met by implementing Tradable Energy Quotas, a policy that has undergone rigorous review by the British government, which would cap carbon and ensure all have access to energy as the cap shrinks. In reducing consumption, this cap would produce a recession under the current economic structure, so certain institutional changes would also need to take place to maintain economic stability and the well-being of the public. Establishing a democratically directed federal job guarantee (JG) and a democratized monetary and financial system would accomplish those goals. We must also dampen the forces pushing the economy to grow. We could transform corporations into cooperatives, changing their legal purpose from profit- and consumption-maximization to meeting community needs. And we could stabilize the population size by addressing drivers of growth like women’s lack of economic opportunity and voice in reproductive decisions and by instilling a more ecologically minded culture. In my reading of ecological economics, these four changes are the institutional pillars of a steady state economy. Other policies—including reforming trade deals and international monetary structures to prevent corporations and other countries from escaping steady state policies, and minimum and maximum incomes to limit inequality—would also be important, but the aforementioned pillars along with a cap on throughput would seem to establish a stable and democratic steady state economy.

A limits perspective shows why a JG (mentioned among the GND resolution’s “goals and projects”) and a democratized monetary system (one possible version of “public financing”) are not simply aspirational but essential. The JG not only ensures that each citizen will have an occupation that advances the renewables transition, but the private sector’s control over employment means that job prospects are currently tied to continued economic growth. If growth ceases and consumption shrinks, which must happen, businesses would cut their expenses by laying off the workforce and reducing wages—forcing the population to demand we restart growth to obtain a job. The JG could decouple employment from growth and eliminate the fear of joblessness. And with popular control over what jobs we create, we can reorient economic activity towards less resource-intensive tasks like restoration of ecosystems, education, and caring for others.

In the GND resolution several options for financing the energy transition are mentioned: “community grants, public banks, and other public financing.” Popular education about where money comes from, who controls it, and how it is created is sorely needed. The public must understand that there is a private channel of money creation which injects new money into the economy as private banks make loans (and accounts for 95% of new money creation, which drives economic activity) and a public channel provided by central banks whose existence is obscured. During the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve and other central banks created trillions of dollars to bail out the private banks that caused the collapse, while populations were told that there wasn’t enough money to finance public goods. I think that gaining popular control over the Fed is vital, not just because the public could then decide to generate all needed financing for the transition, but because the current privatized system of money creation creates unrepayable debts and leaves the financial system unstable. It isn’t difficult to imagine a financial crisis equal to or larger than 2008, produced by the same unbalanced privatized system, disrupting the transition as it unfolds over many years. There are books dedicated to educating readers about how money is created and how that investment power could be made to serve the public interest, and a thorough explanation cannot be provided here. But with public control over money creation, private banks and businesses that oppose the transition won’t be able to block it by starving the country of needed investment funds. The financial instability threatened by the carbon bubble will also be better managed by publicly accountable monetary institutions forced by movements to take the climate crisis seriously and ensure public well-being. And like the JG, a democratized monetary system can decouple the link between working class interests and growth, since continued corporate growth is currently necessary in order to have sufficient retirement savings, whereas public money can simply ensure a sufficient pension without growth.

A focus on limits helps climate activists recognize that we must be planning to maintain economic stability. If the economy begins to falter, with growing numbers of people without work and a loss of the savings they need to retire, then the population won’t be able to support the transition even though no future is possible without it. And limits analysis reminds us that not only is excess pollution a cause of collapse on a finite planet, but so is the depletion of the resources our economy relies on. In the present fossil-fueled economy, oil is used everywhere. It is a key input to industrial agriculture—generating fertilizers, powering the cultivating machines, and fueling the trucks that carry produce all over the country. It is involved in producing both coal and gas, and in the manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels. But conventional oil production has stagnated since 2005, and the “unconventional” sources like fracking that are keeping production rising are of dwindling supply, according to independent geologists. Without prospects for continued increases in oil production, economic growth is poised to end soon anyway—not on our terms, but in some form of collapse. This suggests that an economic crisis driven by oil depletion—another obstacle that could derail the renewable energy transition—must be accounted for in our planning.

Limits of Renewables

If climate change was understood as perhaps the direst manifestation of the limits to growth on our finite planet, it would reinforce the need to create a non-growing, steady state economy. But even when viewing climate change as an energy problem, activists have yet to incorporate analyses that argue there are fundamental differences between fossil fuels and renewables, with important implications for the energy transition and the feasibility of continued growth.

Before the 18^th century, humanity’s primary sources of energy were wood combustion and a combination of human and animal muscle, and most people were farmers. As coal came to replace these energy sources it transformed society, enabling the Industrial Revolution. Followed decades later by oil and then gas, these cheap, highly energy-dense fossil fuels led to the mass production society we know today, with a seemingly endless supply of material goods, an array of electric appliances that save countless hours on time-consuming tasks, and the ability to travel incredible distances in short periods of time. Fossil fuels come from ancient sunlight stored in plant matter that was trapped underground and converted into concentrated energy by intense heat and pressure over millions of years. We’ve lived our entire lives in the midst of an energy surplus produced by these long-term processes and have come to regard the resulting lifestyles as normal. As we transition away from these energy sources to forms generated by sunlight and wind in real time, our lifestyles and modes of organizing society will likely change again.

We are accustomed to using energy whenever we want, with the flip of a switch. However, renewables like solar and wind provide energy intermittently, only when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. We can install batteries to store energy for use when it can’t be collected, long-distance transmission lines to transport energy from sunny and windy areas to overcast and calm locations, and redundant generating capacity aimed at collecting far more than our total energy demand to address intermittency and make renewables act like controllable fossil fuels. We tend to focus on the financial costs of new infrastructure, but the most fundamental and important costs are physical, like the energy required to build out these strategies. As we commit more energy to the infrastructure needed to make renewables controllable, less is available for the things we actually want energy for—making goods, renovating buildings, educating students. As the energy cost of our energy system increases, we may find that there are limits to how much renewables can become “on demand” before too much energy is exchanged for control. Instead, we may have to restructure how and when we work to utilize energy when it’s available.

Replacing oil is also likely to present a challenge. Oil currently powers 95% of transportation because it is uniquely suited to propel cars, trucks, ships, and planes. It is a liquid at room temperature, making it easy to store, and is extremely energy-dense. There are about 45 Megajoules of energy per kilogram (MJ/kg)—a single barrel contains the energy equivalent of over 10 years of human labor. Renewables like solar and wind produce electricity, which must be stored in batteries for use in our vehicles. However, current batteries have a fraction of the energy density that oil has, 0.5Mj/kg, and even the best theoretical battery would max out around 5MJ/kg. This means that for large or long-distance vehicles that require more energy, the necessary battery would be very big and heavy. Powering large vehicles like tractor trailer trucks with batteries will be impractical, while electrifying commercial planes is likely to be impossible. Crucially, heavy trucks carry most of our goods, including food, across long distances over the highway system to the communities where they’re consumed. This means that we urgently need to relocalize agriculture. And with energy costs in mind, we’ll need to cut down on cars, live closer to our places of work, and expand public transportation. In general, we’re likely to have less mobility in an all-renewable society and relocalizing much of our economic activity will become vital.

Having alluded to the importance of energy costs, we should understand that it always takes energy to gather or generate energy we can use. Energy analysts have developed a ratio called “energy returned on energy invested” (EROEI or EROI) which tells us the relative amount of energy available for economic activity from different sources. When we first discovered oil, it would flow from wells under its own pressure and had an EROEI of 100:1—for every barrel of oil we invested, we would get 100 back. This immense energy surplus allowed us to create amazing societal complexity and the marvels mentioned earlier. But after using the most easily available sites, we’ve had to move towards “unconventional” sources of oil like deep-sea drilling and fracking, which have a much higher energy cost. Today, the net energy of oil is around 20:1 worldwide. Though establishing this net energy ratio is inexact, much can be learned from looking at the relative EROEI of different energy sources. Studies suggest that on average, wind provides somewhere around 19:1 while solar provides 10:1, and these numbers would decrease as we account for the energy costs of other infrastructure that will be necessary, like batteries or other forms of storage. These findings suggest that we’ll likely have less energy in an all-renewable world and thus a smaller economy. That’s right—both carbon budget analysis and energy analysis suggest that we’ll need an economy that can thrive with reduced consumption.

There are several other significant implications of establishing an all-renewable society described by energy analysts, and these analyses ought to be a central input to any energy transition plan. It’s understandable that climate activists wouldn’t have any interest in acknowledging what humanity has accomplished through fossil fuel use or suggesting that using only renewables may require changes to our lifestyles, since the fossil fuel industry has already pointed to these ideas to disparage the demand for a transition. We know, however, that whether the reason is peak oil or climate change, the transition must take place. Perhaps counterintuitively, I believe this information doesn’t threaten the transition but rather makes it more likely to be completed. The public must be made aware that an all-renewable society may be different in significant ways from the fossil-fueled one we know today. The structure of our society and our lifestyles are shaped by our main sources of energy, and adaptation may be necessary. There is danger in painting a picture of a straightforward energy transition that arrives at a society nearly identical to the current one, when evidence suggests that this may not be the case. We won’t have prepared ourselves and others for the challenges involved, and elites will seize upon any unforeseen obstacles to bolster their attempts to derail the transition. Most of all, we need to be consciously and forcefully advancing a culture that recognizes and respects ecological limits and thoroughly understands the innumerable shortcomings of a society ruled by elites, who’d prefer that citizens aspire to meet their needs through consumption.

Limits of Corporate Culture

Climate activists are well-aware of the efforts of the fossil fuel industry to create doubt within the public about the reality and seriousness of the climate crisis. However, there is a bigger picture here as well. Many of the ideas and habits we have received as authentic culture were at one time visions arising in corporate PR and advertising firms. Consumer culture was a necessity that arose as mass production developed in the 1920s, and corporations sought not only to turn a thrifty American population into one embracing constant consumption but to legitimize their own existence by defining this hierarchical, consumptive economy as a system of freedom in the public mind.

After a century of corporate PR and advertising campaigns, we have learned to have an outsized role for consumption in our lives. Citizens have come to define their identity through their consumption choices, searching for a sense of self through the offerings of the market rather than their own goals and actions and the relationships they share. Unable to meet basic needs like connection and meaning in this society oriented towards the empty goal of quantitative increase, consumption also serves as a form of self-medication—a replacement for the human desires that are left unfulfilled. Consumption choices have also become the primary means of political participation for some, who have been convinced that citizens only have enough power to change their individual behaviors and can’t imagine themselves joining in collective action to change the systems that shape the behavior of millions.

In addition to the propagation of certain cultural ideas by sustained, billion-dollar campaigns, the experience of living in a society in which citizens are so far removed from the decisions that concern them exerts its own pacifying force. It leads to a domesticated mindset and habits of passivity that keep the public from taking control of its own affairs. Faced with existential crises, we tend to make bystanders of ourselves.

The economy and the culture are connected. A population groomed for a spectatorship role seems paralyzed exactly when a mass mobilization to create a sustainable society is most needed, and consumer culture legitimizes the present economy, making transformation unthinkable for many. Leaving core cultural ideas unquestioned ensures this malaise remains undisturbed and allows elites to easily defend the status quo. Our ecological crises demand that we consume less, and this would seem to pit activists against citizens’ current means of identity formation, sense of well-being, and feelings of political empowerment. But this is only a problem if activists don’t forcefully articulate that these dependencies reflect how the consumptive society undermines authentic human development and relationships, and fosters isolation and hopelessness.

Perhaps most significantly, elites will argue that to reduce consumption is to destroy freedom. This is where activists must be most vocal in pointing out that the image of humanity as a consumer is an ugly distortion stifling the rich complexity of human nature. It is a caricature meant to cause the public to willingly conform to corporate interests. Elites have needed to monopolize the definition of freedom, equating it with limitless consumption, to distract the public from the fact that it has been denied the freedom to shape the economy.

A sustainable economy can only be brought about in the midst of a supportive culture that aligns with and champions its values. Foremost among these values is an ecologically compatible definition of freedom that activists and the public need to cultivate. I think this definition should emphasize the right of citizens to collectively participate in the most fundamental economic and political decisions that shape their fate and include a thorough recognition of the importance and benefits of limits. Unbridled freedom to consume has driven humanity to the brink of societal collapse, demonstrating that freedom without limits destroys both freedom and survival. When maximizing consumption is no longer the goal, humanity is encouraged to prioritize intellectual and moral progress and develop aspects of human nature that are undermined by the consumer society.

We need to recognize that we live on a finite planet of interconnected webs of life and that our actions inevitably affect one another. No species can think itself so exceptional as to dominate the planet’s life-support systems, nor can any group of people; we must learn sufficiency—the meaning of enough consumption—and a moral skill parents try to teach us in childhood: how to share resources. The idea that a life defined by self-interest is most fulfilling or even possible must be exposed as a myth; society is only possible because we rely on one another, and freedom arises from these relationships of interdependence. We must be willing to navigate the challenges of living within limits, driven not just by necessity but by the recognition that we develop more authentic culture and liberate ourselves in the process.

An ecological culture must emerge, revealing the illegitimacy of the old economy and the legitimacy of the new one. A comprehensive sustainability transition will only be carried out if this cultural battle is being fought and won, and activists must be conscious of that. We cannot avoid these battles, and after learning of the extent to which elites have shaped culture in their preferred image we should be eager to fight them.

Limits of Our Current “Democracy”

A plan that is truly aimed at stopping climate change and our other ecological crises must establish a steady state economy with a fundamentally different goal: the fulfillment of basic human needs within ecological limits rather than the pursuit of short-term profit. However, an economy that functions without growth threatens not just the fossil fuel industry but all of private economic power. Economic growth has historically been used as a substitute for equality, allowing elites to claim that all are benefiting even as they capture nearly all of the financial gains of ongoing resource extraction. Redistribution of wealth and power would become a central discussion when society is no longer under the illusion of limitless growth, thus the owners and managers of the economy will fiercely oppose this plan. The sustainability transition is therefore only conceivable if we bring about a truly democratic society in which the public gains the freedom to restructure the economic institutions that shape our fate.

A basic impediment to creating a more democratic society is continued belief that the people are as free as they could ever hope to be. In reality, the ability to make economic and political decisions is constrained to a small percentage of the population, and decisions are made on the basis of elites’ financial self-interest. Activists must educate the public about the authoritarian foundations of our society. We must understand all the ways in which the public is marginalized from decision-making and the many obstacles that elites are likely to place in the movement’s path.

We should expect that the process will generate political tumult unlike any that we’ve witnessed. Corporations are familiar with their latest profit opportunity being opposed by the public, and respond with deception, character attacks, infiltration, and other tactics to break movements. These institutions are almost never forced to justify their existence itself, and we should expect corporate media to overheat with narratives about the illegality, immorality, and cataclysmic implications of activists’ program.

Taking single-issue campaigns as a model is inadequate for the task ahead. Elites face an existential threat to their power, thus after flooding national discourse with endless stories meant to delegitimize the movement they will use the only remaining option: force. Activists should thus recognize that this transition may more closely resemble those popular efforts throughout history which aimed to fundamentally change a government, which ultimately require the security forces called in to repress the movement to refuse their orders. This extreme solidarity, as with the rest of the transition, will only be achieved if the groundwork is laid in advance.

Because this effort requires that the public create means by which it can shape society, we must also be able to envision what a more robust democracy would look like and how it would work. First is the existence of a critically and independently informed public that understands its own interests and can evaluate paths forward. Next is a culture of regular participation, in which informing oneself with critical sources of information, having frequent discussions with others on important topics to refine our understanding, and building movements to champion our priorities are the norm. We also need institutions that facilitate participation—systems that make it easier to become informed, to gather with others, and to directly weigh in on major decisions. Not only should voting be encouraged and made easier, but increasing the number of referenda in which the public can vote directly on issues following a thorough education and discussion process would be a step towards increasing democracy. Maintaining powerful movements outside of the formal political system is also important, so that the public has an accountability mechanism for the decisions it makes. And finally, instilling a spirit of equality within the population is perhaps most fundamental. Belief in inherent human hierarchies gives rise to and justifies systems of domination; the principle that all people are equal and deserve to be treated equally by society is a defining justification for democracy in the first place. Advancing all of these elements of democracy should be recognized as climate activism.

Building Autonomy

To this point I have touched upon many of the main ideas that I think must shape any comprehensive plan to construct a sustainable society. But this plan will remain a collection of ideas without a movement powerful enough to implement them.

The need for a rapid, national energy transition (that ultimately becomes international) seems fairly obvious. Though some started thinking about a large-scale climate mobilization a few years ago, activism has mainly been aimed at isolated local or state efforts (outside of a coordinated national or international vision) and sought change at the edges of “political possibility.” Why then, after several years of climate movement organizing, has the movement’s focus on this idea only emerged now? I think a primary reason is growing autonomy. Activists hadn’t been asking what the problem itself demands or may not have had the self-assurance to fight for an obviously necessary national transition plan. We may have been limiting ourselves. That the idea of this plan has been put forward and is being discussed is a sign of increased autonomy, a characteristic of a movement becoming more intellectually active and showing more political initiative—something that we must recognize and quickly cultivate further.

Affirming the need for a national plan is one thing, but what policies will it incorporate? For far too long, activists have demanded that people in positions of power develop a plan to address climate change. Implicit in that demand is the implausible assumption that political elites could or would do so, but perhaps most dangerous is the assumption that they should. Between the constant cultural grooming for highly self-interested, consumerist lifestyles and day-to-day exclusion from participating in decisions that shape our lives, we the people have internalized a sense of ourselves as passive spectators, a domesticated mindset that I think gets peeled away as one becomes more involved in a movement to change society. A thoroughly domesticated population makes no demands; this movement is beyond that stage. Activists, in consultation with the numerous thinkers whose work helps us envision how a sustainable society would operate, now need to develop this plan for ourselves.

Much has been made of politicians endorsing the GND, but it is mainly a slogan for now and doesn’t foreground the need to adapt to limits to growth. With this idea incorporated, no corporate political officials will support the plan. We should note that politicians expressing support for a vague populist idea they can later ignore or coopt is the rule in US political history. Activists’ power lies with an enlightened public. After developing its own platform, this movement will need to commit to the hard work of cultivating an independently thinking and politically active population, until the base for an authentically representative political system exists across the country.

As this plan develops, I envision activists consciously developing their own autonomy and involving millions of people in everyday movement-building. We should aim to enlist 3.5% of the population in this effort, a percentage that has never failed to achieve fundamental changes to governments in the last century of nonviolent revolts, which in the US would amount to about 11 million people. For context, 13 million people voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries. One measure of movement autonomy will be the extent to which each participant and the broader public understand the transition plan and can clearly articulate its rationale to others, rather than a model in which the leadership knows the details while the rest follow. The public needs a thorough sense of what is necessary and possible, since elites will relentlessly argue that we don’t understand our own interests and that our ideas are infeasible. Preserving the movement’s clarity of thought is crucial.

Autonomy also means cleansing ourselves of guardianship, of the sense that those in power have some special ability to make the decisions that shape our fate, if we’re to successfully expand democracy and enable public control over these decisions. We must not hold ourselves back with unfounded deference to power systems that will tell the people they have no right to change society in fundamental ways. We must unlearn our tolerance for illegitimate economic institutions that force us to march towards collapse. The social transformation we need will only be implemented by a movement comprised of individuals who are ready and willing to take the reins of their society, which will require major collective self-confidence in the face of a media marginalization deluge.

As we expose the illegitimacy of our social institutions and reject the limits they impose, we also open political space in our society that could be filled by worse forms of authoritarianism. The more that each participant understands the society we’re working to create and the better organized our efforts, the better chance that the movement will maintain control of the process.

Remember, for elites force is a secondary option. Ideas and information are the primary tools in the war for the future. A wide-reaching communications and self-monitoring/survey system and a sustained public education campaign are therefore foundations of an autonomous mass movement. These institutions would enable the movement to maintain constant touch with the population and be aware of the knowledge, attitudes, and mental state of its own participants. This would protect and insulate movement culture and allow the movement to speak for itself as the corporate culture machine ramps up. As the Sunrise Movement continues to inform the public about the GND, this program could be expanded to spread literacy in multiple areas that would allow ordinary citizens to develop a fairly comprehensive understanding of our problems. What would that curriculum look like? I think it would organize information into five broad areas:

• Ecological reality: An introduction to the severity and urgency of ecological overshoot; The limits of using technology to solve the problem; The need to establish a steady state economy (and why growth may end soon anyway)
• Energy reality: The differences between fossil fuels and renewables; How these differences are likely to require changes to how we live and organize society; The energy availability challenges we must overcome during the transition
• Institutional reality (political-economic platform): An introduction to ecological economics; The major institutional changes and policies needed to establish a steady state economy
• Reality of power: The extent to which our economic and political systems are undemocratic; How societies with concentrated decision-making power are pushed toward collapse; The history of corporate propaganda; How elites have historically repressed social movements
• Building autonomy: The need to establish a liberated culture that celebrates human development rather than increasing consumption; Ways to create a more authentically democratic society; Social movement strategy and history; Rapid community resilience development (relocalizing agriculture, public transportation, etc.)

For years I have been writing a book that attempts to tie these issues together into a broad, coherent narrative that can quickly deepen the political-economic understanding of new activists and create the autonomous mass movement I think we need. I was a fossil fuel divestment activist who stepped away to develop my own thoughts, always planning to return to the movement with an analysis encompassing the scale of the challenge. But after bringing these ideas to a handful of climate activist groups, I found that they had defined themselves too narrowly—these issues didn’t fit within existing movement narratives and appeared irrelevant to their work or seemed abstract in comparison to the local-scale action they were accustomed to. These experiences taught me that how the movement defines itself and the problem it’s attempting to solve is critical.

Climate change needs to be recognized as a manifestation of limits to growth, requiring that we establish a steady state economy alongside the energy transition—otherwise, that transition may be fatally disrupted by major obstacles before it is completed. In reality, it may never truly begin at the necessary scale if the movement isn’t prepared to develop an authentically democratic society and end corporate rule. And we’ll have overlooked the broader reality of ecological overshoot in the last few years that we can set a different path. Recognizing the need to develop a highly informed public, cap consumption and embed ecological principles into our economic institutions, expand our democratic institutions, and initiate a cultural rethink in light of ecological limits, the climate movement could quickly launch new campaigns in these areas. It could expand beyond the narrower vision of itself, claiming its full identity as a movement aiming to create a new society.

It’s fascinating to think about the forces that turn an idea into a social institution, a way of life, a revolution. Though other factors play a role, belief seems to be a key. The GND slogan was floating around for years until a small group of young activists seized upon the idea of a comprehensive, federal climate plan, believing it to be necessary and possible, and turned their belief into action. They then found their belief confirmed and supported by a representative elected by popular movements, further elevating the sense that it could be achieved. In the same way, the ideas presented here won’t impact the plan as they should unless people believe in them enough to act.

This moment also demands that we believe in ourselves. We must shed a domesticated mindset and develop a liberated identity, taking ourselves seriously enough to prepare for a social transformation that will only come about if we consciously lay the groundwork for it. To take control of society, the public needs some understanding of the physical reality—outside of our belief—to which we must conform. Belief in a straightforward energy transition won’t overcome the very likely physical obstacles to that straightforwardness. A self-governing citizenry would be thinking about topics like this, because they’re not technical ideas best left to others but the details of the transition we need to survive. There are ecological limits, and we must learn to live within them. Then there are man-made limits on democracy, which we can no longer continue to accept and must overcome. To all believers: let’s make a truly comprehensive transition plan and fight to take our rightful place as society’s collective self-governors.

The post Limits and Liberation: The Next Steps of the Climate Movement appeared first on Freedom and Survival.

Michael Löwy’s essay on ecosocialism brings up several vital topics that prompt us to have a deeper discussion and form a more detailed understanding of the outline of a sustainable society.

Envisioning and Building a Deeper Democracy

Early on, Löwy states that “The core of ecosocialism is the concept of democratic ecological planning.” It’s great that this vision incorporates a much more participatory democracy, as this often seems understated in ecological activism. Attention is regularly paid to the fossil fuel industry’s role in dictating various priorities within national and state politics, and activist campaigns often revolve around gaining support for climate-friendlier legislation—useful to be sure, but there is much less emphasis on establishing the constitutive pieces of democracy like a culture of critical thinking or public campaign financing. These things are de-facto left to those who think of themselves as “democracy activists.” But how many people describe themselves this way? How much activism is dedicated to creating a truly democratic society? A major part of the challenge is questioning the assumptions and cultural messages suggesting that the present society is “what democracy is.” Attempts to envision a more broadly democratic society are an important contribution of ecosocialists like Löwy. Climate change and other existential ecological crises demand large-scale changes to society that are only conceivable if we live in a society in which citizens, not corporations, make fundamental decisions. If ecological activists do not involve themselves in fashioning a much more functional democracy, including the ability of the public to legislate their country’s sustainable level of consumption and a rapid energy transition (and the accompanying economic changes that would be needed) as a binding national plan, then our needs will be constrained by the narrow limits of our present “democracy.”

With that in mind, democratizing money creation and investment must be recognized as an essential part of ecological activism. Löwy writes that “for investments and technological innovation to serve the common good, decision-making must be taken away from the banks and capitalist enterprises that currently dominate, and put in the public domain.” As Mary Mellor’s work shows, just a decade ago trillions of debt-free dollars were created by central banks to bail out the private banks whose recklessness led to the Great Recession, while populations across the world were subject to austerity and told that there wasn’t enough money to finance public needs. Though unlimited sums can be deployed to aid those in power, today the public is told repeatedly that society simply cannot afford to finance the rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The economic instability inherent in the current financial system (i.e. the sort that could lead to recession and derail a national or international energy transition) and the control by private banks over what society invests in are conditions that, if left out of ecological activists’ analysis, would seem to present fundamental barriers to any large-scale economic transformation. Addressing climate change and other ecological crises requires that democracy extend to money and finance.

A central challenge will be finding balance throughout the process of establishing a much more democratic society. As Herman Daly points out, it doesn’t make sense for the public to vote on the smallest details of everyday life. And yet, we are experiencing existential crises because the public, which tends to prioritize values such as care for others and living meaningfully over maximizing short-term profit, has little to no say over the structure of the economy—a deficit of democracy. Clearly the public must gain the power to make fundamental decisions about how society works, and that will require a certain amount of knowledge about our crises as a prerequisite. But finding the balance between this hard-won freedom and the ability to spend one’s life outside the voting booth is part of the transition process. Delegation of tasks through representatives is a way to make political work more efficient, but vigilance and accountability mechanisms are essential for oversight and adjustment. Daly makes a strong case for how markets could serve the public as another form of delegation, and it may be possible for other institutional changes to eliminate the anti-democratic and anti-ecological characteristics that markets currently exhibit.

Foregrounding Ecological Limits

Turning to the “ecological” part of “democratic ecological planning” at the “heart of ecosocialism,” I believe certain ideas should feature more prominently. Foremost is a discussion of limits to growth. Löwy writes that “The issue is not excessive consumption in the abstract, but the prevalent type of consumption, based as it is on massive waste and the conspicuous and compulsive pursuit of novelties promoted by ‘fashion.’” However, the ecological crises we face are all rooted in overconsumption—“excessive consumption in the abstract.” While waste and fashionable consumption are clearly areas that can be targeted to reduce human demands on this finite planet, the ultimate goal is to attain a level of consumption that meets the population’s basic needs while avoiding the destruction of the natural systems necessary for survival—and this seems likely to fall below what’s achievable by eliminating waste.

Another important discussion is the need to stabilize the human population and allow it to gradually shrink over time. Löwy quotes Barry Commoner, who emphasized that “the capitalist system and its technology—and not population growth—was responsible for the destruction of the environment.” But total consumption is a product of both consumption per person and the number of people. When breaking down carbon emissions trends, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identifies economic and population growth as the fundamental drivers of emissions. Population growth in wealthy countries increases throughput today, and if we aim for a tomorrow defined both by sustainable and equitable levels of per capita consumption, then we must recognize the need for a gradual reduction in population size.

Incorporating Ecological Economics and Energy Literacy

If the goal of ecosocialism is to achieve a sustainable economy, it seems to me that it should take some direction from the discipline of ecological economics. Strikingly, though the essay invokes “the growth question,” there is no discussion of a steady state, non-growing economy as a necessary goal of ecosocialist work. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that though we face several ecological crises (a sixth mass extinction event, eroding topsoil, freshwater depletion, etc.), only climate change has any semblance of a social movement addressing it in the US, and those committing themselves to creating a sustainable society don’t universally recognize the insights of ecological economics or a steady state economy as a centerpiece of their efforts. It’s true that the analysis and ideas within ecological economics tend not to sufficiently incorporate an explicit discussion of power and the opposition that elites would present to the realization of a steady state economy. This is where the discussions and attitudes generated by ecosocialists and other activist groups can provide a necessary complement, as well as the means of implementing these ideas (and keeping ecological economics from being a largely academic tradition). These groups need one another.

One last, essential topic not discussed is energy analysis. Work from Charles Hall and others, further developed for a public audience by Richard Heinberg, suggests that renewable energy is fundamentally different than fossil fuels and will provoke changes in how we organize society. Perhaps most significantly, studies of “energy returned on energy invested” (EROEI) suggest that wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy yield significantly less net energy (what we can use to power economic activity besides generating energy, itself) and can only support a smaller, non-growing economy. This would also mean that human work would have to substitute for certain tasks previously reliant on fossil fuel energy, preventing a drastic reduction in working hours in an all-renewable society. For reasons of energy, it may not be the case that “ecosocialism heralds a substantial increase in free time.” But the better able we are of foreseeing the challenges of the energy transition, the more prepared the public will be to deal with those challenges and the likelier that the transition is completed.

Firmness, Flexibility, and Clarity in Movement-Building

I’ll end with a few comments on firmness and flexibility, and about the role of education in activism. Many responses to Löwy’s essay call for more detail, either about the type of society ecosocialism ultimately aims to achieve or how to get there, or about ecosocialism’s stance towards varied issues of oppression or ways of thinking. Surely there is some threshold level of detail that promotes or inspires action around a vision, and yet it is often contention about the details that keep those who broadly agree from working more closely together. Clearly there are some aspects of our vision for change that must remain firm in order to have integrity and meaning, while other aspects should be kept flexible in order to promote collaboration and resist splintering, and to deal with unforeseeable challenges as they arise. Those who believe that a mass movement is necessary to accomplish a Great Transition may be served by thinking about these questions.

I believe that clarity is a characteristic of strong movements, and in the interests of clarity we should leave aside labels except where they serve a clear purpose. Instead, let’s be explicit and encourage direct discussion about our ultimate goals. Work to be aware of and open about your own ideology. If you’re committed to a certain principle or solving a problem, try to be open to all evidence that may impact these things and change your mind accordingly. Being too rigid, too narrowly self-defined and not open to change, or believing that broadening a movement’s vision would dilute its focus are all tendencies that threaten to keep activists’ sights aimed lower than what our crises demand.

My concern is that too much rigidity will prevent a more transformative vision from being adopted by current activists. What is the vehicle for the types of ideas expressed in this essay? There is a growing democratic socialist movement, so it would seem that the more this movement can be infused with an analysis of ecological crises, the more likely these ideas are to be implemented. Environmental justice groups have potential, but their sphere of concern will have to expand beyond local or regional issues to encompass larger-scale goals. The climate justice movement may be another vehicle for a broad transformation of the sort Löwy describes, but this depends on activists recognizing that addressing climate change requires us to create a non-growing economy and a truly self-governing society. Degrowth is a developing movement that appears to have the broad vision demanded by these crises, but currently too few adherents.

If a sufficiently powerful rationale for far-reaching change is not presented or if existing movements define themselves too narrowly to accept a broad vision of social transformation, the ideas presented here will not change society. They will remain ideas.

The Central Role of Education in Activism

“What guarantee is there that the people will make ecologically sound decisions?” Löwy asks. “None. Ecosocialism wagers that democratic decisions will become increasingly reasoned and enlightened as culture changes and the grip of commodity fetishism is broken. One cannot imagine such a new society without the achievement, through struggle, self-education, and social experience, of a high level of socialist and ecological consciousness.”

Education is a central task of activists. In order to build a movement autonomous enough to transform society, those seeking this transformation must cultivate individuals who understand how our various ecological crises reflect humanity consuming beyond natural limits. Current ecological activists don’t see an absolute need for a non-growing economy—this must change. I continue to feel that a significant number of ordinary citizens must also develop a healthy obsession with creating an authentically democratic society. And the better we can foresee the challenges associated with the transition, both the inherent difficulties and those purposely created by elites who seek to maintain the status quo, the more likely we are to make it happen. An independent system of popular education appears to be an essential movement institution.

We must develop within ourselves and others the autonomy to overcome the limits placed upon us by those in power. The US has not yet seen an informed, critically thinking public organized enough to challenge for authentic representation. Let’s see how responsive our existing decision-making structures can be in the context of this public autonomy, and which structures are simply anti-democratic. Let’s reveal the limits of our present “democracy” and, if we find that these limits keep us from the social transformation needed to preserve the natural world and the life it makes possible, fashion new institutions with a steady hand.

The post Ecosocialism: Deepening Democracy and Foregrounding Ecological Limits appeared first on Freedom and Survival.

This is a response to an article by Pablo Solón on the meaning of Vivir Bien and the experience of trying to implement it in Bolivia. For context, check out the original article.

Pablo Solón discusses Vivir Bien (VB) as an alternative to neoliberalism. In his essay, he discusses the ideal of VB, VB as implemented in Bolivia after it was written into the country’s constitution, and the way that VB interacts with and complements other worldviews aimed at social liberation. Throughout the essay, several ideas about social change arise that provide an opportunity for deeper reflection.

Redefining Progress

One central theme is the idea of development. Solón describes VB as a worldview that “questions the very essence of the notion of ‘development,’ of always advancing toward a higher point, always searching to do better,” and calls this idea “a fiction.” VB’s belief in the cyclical nature of time and reality suggests that there is no meaningful way to define development in any form, but Solón’s beliefs expressed throughout the essay instead point towards a redefinition of the term. He notes that VB “is not merely a version of development that is less anthropocentric and more democratic, holistic, or humanizing, for VB does not embrace the conventional Western equation of development with progress and permanent growth.” I believe Solón is expressing that VB doesn’t just seek a more democratically led and egalitarian drive for material accumulation, a view I certainly share, but I tend to think of the pursuit of a “more democratic, holistic, or humanizing” society as part of a new definition of “development.” Solón himself speaks in the essay of developing “real democracy” and a unified vision with “holistic answers” to the issues we face, entailing efforts like expanding renewable energy and agroecology—views that suggest to me a redefinition of development. This is important because if humans are striving beings by nature, then asserting a new, meaningful view of progress would seem important to animating a mass movement (rather than removing the idea of development altogether).

Arguing against the idea of development in any form ensures that society’s elites will continue to define it. Our striving can be diverse; it doesn’t have to be primarily material—in fact, defining progress as material accumulation quickly becomes hollow. But pursuing the right things—knowledge of the world, knowledge of one’s self, understanding of others, justice, inclusivity, a mindset emphasizing appreciation rather than accumulation—I think these can form the foundation of “development” in the society we’re aiming to achieve. In general, I believe that social transformation consists of a redefinition of important cultural ideas rather than throwing them out, which cedes control of the definition of reality to those in power.

Decolonizing Our Worldview

Solón also discusses VB’s emphasis on decolonization, which is a multi-layer process of liberation that isn’t content with democratizing formal political institutions (like gaining the right to vote). Domination is also exerted in the economic realm and even more deeply over our culture and our minds. Solón notes that VB pays explicit attention to ordinary people’s worldview and how it has been shaped by existing social structures to replicate the status quo. This worldview could include internalized ideas about the inferiority of the population and the superiority of those in positions of power, or the belief that the present society is natural or inevitable. I believe the most fundamental layer of liberation is the one we cannot see—it is how we think about the world and our place in it. Our worldview, which is typically implicit, is what maintains the more visible, oppressive economic and political institutions in society as legitimate.

The emphasis on decolonization is premised by a vitally necessary question: How free are we really? Such a question is revolutionary because it encourages us to rethink assumptions that would lead us to think and act like passive spectators in society, never seeing ourselves as the rightful decision-makers. Decolonizing one’s worldview also involves a rejection of the view of oneself primarily as a “consumer.” Redefining what a “good life” consists of and how much energy and resource consumption is enough for that life will play a primary role in determining societies’ demands on the environment. The call for decolonization highlights the need for a critically thinking, reflective mass movement.

Authenticity is also an important part of the discussion around development and decolonization. We are inevitably products of our societies, including concerted efforts made by elites to shape us into passive spectators, as culture and social institutions interact with human nature. But to the extent that we learn about the currents of influence that shape our view of ourselves, of the world, and of what constitutes a meaningful life and a just society, we can more consciously choose how to live. We can start to “see with our own eyes, think our own thoughts, and dream our own dreams.”

Striving for Harmony Between Individual and Community

The ecological issues we face can only be addressed through collective action, through individuals working together to create a new society. Solón also briefly mentions VB’s view of the connection between the individual and the community. It can be easy to forget one or the other in trying to effect a Great Transition, but balancing these is vital to the success of a movement. Being part of a movement is about working towards something larger than oneself—a just community. But the individual and their unique character and value cannot get lost through overemphasis on the community. Ultimately, only a just community is capable of imposing the limits on itself that allow for the preservation of the natural world. Without the individual there is no community, and without the community, there will be no free, living individual. As Solón observes, the quest for a society constructed harmoniously between individuals, the community, and nature is an ongoing process.

The Importance of Persistent Movements

After explaining the ideals behind VB, Solón goes on to describe how the government of Bolivia has fallen short of implementing VB in practice. The government continues to extract the country’s resources with little apparent attention to VB. In this discussion, what seems to be missing is how VB gained recognition by the government in the first place. I would imagine the industries that have been converting Bolivian resources into profits for years had no interest in seeing an indigenous president elected nor VB written into the country’s constitution. Solón writes that “for the first time, after centuries of exclusion, indigenous peoples’ vision was recognized and incorporated as a core element in the [nation’s] political agenda.” This would seem to be an important step towards democracy. What was the popular force behind these developments, and where did it go? This is vital context, because the picture presented by Solón shows that even with these achievements, which must have been the result of long periods of social struggle, a movement must persist to ensure accountability. The state, surrounded by competing power systems and staffed by some with outdated worldviews, will not pursue elements of VB without sustained efforts to hold it accountable. Where in the story is the people’s movement?

When describing how the government has failed to follow VB, Solón notes that “what matters most is whether urban and rural communities, social movements and social organizations, are getting stronger; becoming more self-organized, creative, and resilient; embracing greater solidarity; practicing complementarity; and contributing to the restoration of nature. On these criteria, Bolivia has lagged.” However, these developments could only ever originate within popular movements. Later, after the public has achieved sufficient control over its political system, then government could be used to advance this process. The mistake is thinking that government alone will produce these effects.

Solón writes that “institutionalizing and formalizing a cosmovision inevitably leads to its dismemberment,” but we must guard against the idea that giving structure to our ideals necessarily leads to hierarchy and eventual corruption. It seems to me that continued corporate influence, the extractivist values held by government officials, and the lack of a powerful, independent movement capable of forcing government accountability could be major factors in the “dismemberment” of VB. In other words, the corruption of this ideal is perhaps more related to the imperfect conditions surrounding it than the attempt to give it structure. It can be painful to see a beloved ideal become corrupted in trying to put it into practice, to know that others are receiving a false picture of it. In my view, the point of a far-reaching social movement is to embed fundamentally different values within our social institutions—replacing authoritarianism with democracy, replacing the economic goal of profit maximization with the goal of meeting community needs while respecting ecological limits, replacing narrow self-interest with concern for others, etc. If we understand that even the most sincere attempts at implementation will likely never reach the ideal, then we should make clear that this is simply part of the struggle towards a just society and it should not deter us.

Solón does draw the correct conclusion from his observations, affirming that “the Bolivian experience over the last decade demonstrates that for VB, the goal of taking power should be to encourage emancipation and self-determination from below, questioning and subverting the colonial structures that persist or arise even in the new ‘revolutionary’ state.” This is an important lesson about the nature of democracy: it seems to take persistent effort, first to gain public control of the state and then to continue that same autonomous mass movement to maintain accountability. That’s what it would take to really implement an ideal like VB. Democracy is not defined by state-led action, but movement-led action.

The Need to Democratize Money

One major institutional transformation that must be achieved by a population in control of its government is the democratization of its monetary system (and the removal of control from private banks). In this scenario, communities would come together to determine their needs and the currency required to meet them, and would drive the injection of new money into the economy by providing their budget to a democratically accountable and transparent central bank. This appears to be one fundamental way that democracy and sustainability are intertwined. As Mary Mellor has pointed out, enough money could be created to employ the entire working population and prioritize occupations that vastly reduce resource extraction (such as education and care for others), preserving nature while ensuring the public is sufficiently provisioned. If the government is forced to harvest the country’s resources to generate revenue, then it is not monetarily sovereign. Even the most authentic government won’t be fully in control of its policies without democratically directed money creation.

Creating a Broad, Transformative Movement

Solón concludes with a discussion of how VB complements other visions of social liberation. He writes insightfully about how these various systemic alternatives “point toward the same broad objectives.” Highlighting this alignment is essential for many reasons. First, it prevents divisions. Showing how other systemic alternatives are indeed complementary is important because liberation movements can get bogged down in semantics and perceived differences that may be trivial or may not even exist. The more we explicitly discuss the principles that underlie various visions for liberation, the more we will see their natural alignment. This would seem to protect against divisiveness, which elites rely on to maintain control of society: “Although not easy, nurturing a bold, synergistic approach is the only way to overcome the mistakes of fragmentation and the forces of cooptation in advancing a Great Transition.”

Solón’s discussion of alignment also emphasizes the need for collaborative action. As activists working on various issues, we have yet to take seriously enough the idea that transformation may only be achievable by working together. Granted, it takes serious, sustained work to develop and maintain an ongoing multi-issue movement. People must believe that it is necessary. There must be greater efforts made towards connecting currently uncoordinated movements and visions for change.

Lastly, recognizing complementarity can lead to a vision that is broad enough to create a transformation of society, rather than just partial reforms. Not only do we recognize the need to work with others, but we also make this possible by combining various critiques of the existing society and broadening our concerns. I believe that our principles form the foundation of our movement, and the more broadly these principles are applied the more internally consistent, compelling to both current members and prospective participants, and powerful the movement becomes.

Conclusion

Creating a broadly democratic society is a serious challenge. Bolivia’s example shows that even electing an indigenous president and enshrining VB in its constitution, as much struggle as it took, isn’t enough. Movements must persist until existing institutions have been transformed (or new ones created) to distribute decision-making power much more equally. Even then, the continued organization of the public outside of these institutions as a safeguard of accountability and transparency may be necessary. Solón describes this well: “The best way to avoid being captured by the logic of power is to empower autonomous counter-powers, not as passive state clients, but as entities truly capable of counterbalancing the conservative and reactionary forces that remain, as well as those that develop within the new structures of power. Above all, the vitality of the transformation process depends on encouraging the idea and practice of the commons throughout society and between society and nature.”

Indeed, our ability to create sustainable societies will be determined by how far we spread the ethos of democracy. Individuals must transform from passive spectators to active participants in the shaping of society, and to help others become aware of our right and responsibility to self-govern. It means breaking out of the narrow social role we’ve been taught to play, in an ongoing process of decolonization. It calls us to connect and distill the information and ideas that help us understand the world—such as those that appear in this forum—and bring them to the public. Sufficiently active and enlightened, we can choose a different path. “Ultimately,” Solón writes, “the key to social transformation lies with the capacity of commoners to build a different modernity with balance, moderation, and simplicity at its center.”

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