Trends Friends and Ends

Introduction

We talked earlier about how our political system is geared towards stability rather than reform.  In this lesson on major trends, I want to introduce the 30 year time frame for social change.

The stable nature of our political system means that it takes massive, tectonic pressure before significant society wide reforms occur. It takes time for that pressure to build and the normal lead time is around 30 years. That is, more or less, once per generation.

In the post War period left wing reforms, such as Gough Whitlam’s in Australia, represented the aspirations of generation X and many of their parents.

The environmental movement had its genesis in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The World’s first green party, the ‘United Tasmania Group’ was formed in 1972 and the Australian Wilderness Society was formed in 1973. Other national and international environmental organisations were formed around that time or in the subsequent decade.

The women’s rights movement has a similar vintage and trajectory.

The gay rights movement started in the United States in the 1970’s but gained momentum in Australia, Canada and Ireland in the early 1990’s. It is on target to achieve its major objectives over the next decade.

Some have claimed that economic cycles take place over around 30 years. Plant and equipment tends to wear out over that time and the costs of maintenance and upgrades become prohibitive. That is certainly the case for the military. Planes, tanks, trucks, submarines and ships have a working life of around three decades after which the maintenance cost curve makes replacement a better option most of the time. This necessitates a strategic re-think around every 20-25 years so that replacement can take place.

30 years is also time period when public service careers count for something and generational change takes place.

This 30 year time frame has two important ramifications. Firstly, reactionary politics is doomed. If you are only reacting to someone else’s agenda you have lost. You need to think strategically about where you are now, where you want to be, and what you need to do for the next three decades to achieve that. That is what the environmental movement did. It is what the gay lobby did. It is what the feminist movement did. It is what the corporate right are doing. It is what the church and social conservatives have not done.

The other thing to realise is that what is on the fringes now may be main stream in 30 years time. 30 years ago people smoked in their offices, vegetarians were weird and people went to jail for sodomy. Now people in the UK are being threatened with anti-terrorism legislation for teaching the traditional view on marriage to school children. Given that homosexuals form between 2 and 4 per cent of the population and not all homosexuals support criminalising dissent, this is an extraordinary outcome. If you had suggested in 1985 that teachers would face sacking and criminal charges for teaching a heterosexual view of marriage you would have been considered unhinged. What we should learn from this is that we need to pay close attention to those on the fringes if they are strategic and organised.

Having said that; reforms that only effect one sector or groups can progress more quickly.  Home education for example was legalised following a 10-15 year campaign.

So what are some of the trends we should consider? I suggest that there are four trends that will have profound implications for public policy now and over coming decades. Two are opposed. Three are interrelated.

The first is the global agenda towards the take-over of society by corporations. This has a ‘knock on’ effect on political parties and how people connect with public policy.

The second is a groping after environmental sustainability. This will determine the future of humanity.

The third, which is related to the first, is a systemic assault on identity under the rubric of “tolerance” and “diversity”.

The fourth and related trend is the commercialisation of humanity.

Corporate take-over of Society

Currently a sizeable portion of the population of any country would like to live in a country that is owned by its citizens, feeds itself, makes at least some of its own stuff, provides services to itself, and keeps key public assets like ports and water in public ownership.

None of the mainstream Western political parties represent these values. They believe in an ideology which goes by a number of names – neo liberalism, laissez-faire economics, economic rationalism, even if at the same time pursuing left wing social policies. What that boils down to is the belief that the community should not interfere with the investment decisions of business, whether local or overseas. Consequently the policies the parties actually follow are to:

  • Privatise of all public assets such as air ports, shipping ports, ultilities, and educational institutions
  • Weaken unions and collective bargaining and awards (in most but not all instances)
  • Abolish tariffs and other forms of industry protection
  • Allow foreign ownership of land, property and business
  • Water down health and safety standards, quarantine and import restrictions
  • Water down environmental standards and protections
  • Skew the legal environment against the community in favour of large corporations

 

These policies have been pursued to varying degrees since the 1980’s. They have resulted in:

  • Outsourcing of the workforce to cheaper countries
  • Loss of local manufacturing
  • Loss of local jobs in services
  • A housing crisis in the USA and Australia
  • Lack of food security
  • Lessening of sovereignty

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry describes it this way:

“Over the past 30 years many sectors of the Australian economy have been exposed to greater international competition and a flexible exchange rate. These fundamental reforms led to significant structural adjustment in the Australian economy and continue to drive structural change.”

 

(See further https://www.acci.asn.au/policy/trade-international-affairs)

These policies are largely implemented through trade deals. The trade deal negotiations are conducted in secret. The deals are not voted on by Parliament but are simply signed by the government of the day. In Australia this is done pursuant to the foreign affairs power in the Constitution. They are not put to the people in a plebiscite and normally they are not talked about during elections. They have no mandate. Donald Trump is the only Western World politician who has made international trade negotiations a domestic political issue.

The argument for them is that free trade details can give domestic businesses access to foreign markets. However the success rates vary. According to industry sources they are patchy for Australia for example. These agreements are typically very one sided. For example, try buying farm land in China, or a mine in India, or try logging forests in Japan. Nations with more powerful economies and a nationalist outlook are well placed to take advantage of smaller nations, or nations with a greater adherence to ‘free trade’. The other argument advanced for free trade deals is that they bring development to poorer countries and so contributes to human development overall. This is humanitarian argument and is too complex to consider in detail here. What we can say is that outsourcing has shifted wealth and opportunity to developing countries but has undermined the living standards of those in developing countries, while massively shifting wealth upwards to a very small percentage of the population. The benefits received by the masses in the poorer countries are variable depending on their domestic policies. We can say overall that this policy has clearly benefitted China over the United States of America.

This free trade and investment agenda reflects a global agenda on the part of major corporations to remove any state barriers to investment. This enables them to play countries off against one another and so reduce their costs by forcing down wages, safety, and environmental responsibility. Essentially it marks an attempt to return the relationship between capital and labor to that which existed in the nineteenth century.

This agenda has been pursued for the last quarter century by various trade negotiations such as the:

Perhaps the most extreme example of this trend the Trade in Services Agreement. If ratified this agreement will forever change your life, the life of your children, and the country you live in. According to Wikipedia the agreement aims to privatise the worldwide trade in services such as banking, healthcare and transport. The negotiations are taking place under extreme secrecy however an analysis from Wikileaks is available. See here (https://wikileaks.org/tisa-financial/analysis.html). Among other things the agreement aims to prevent countries from regulating harmful financial practices

The Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations are also being conducted under extreme secrecy. All we know about the TPP comes from Wikileaks. The Australian Parliament does not have access to any of the draft text of the agreement. What we do know is that it is modeled on a similar agreement called the North American Free Trade Agreement. Like that agreement it overrides the legal system of each country that is part of the agreement. It creates international courts whose judges are appointed by multinational corporations to judge disputes between the corporation and the country. It allows corporations to sue National, State and local governments for loss of profits if they interfere. These lost profits do not arise from breach of contract. It is enough if a company thinks that it might have invested in something one day, and now it can’t, so it can sue for the profits it thinks it might have made. This has occurred under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFT).

So for example, depending on the exact text of the agreement, a foreign multinational could sue for compensation if a country, state or local government:

  • declares a marine reserve, national park or other reserve where the company might have made money exploiting resources one day
  • restricts cigarette advertising
  • imposes pollution controls
  • restricts a publication, for example, a pornographic publication
  • restricts foreign ownership of land, intellectual assets, or strategic infrastructure like ports or oil refineries

For example, in Germany Swedish energy company Vattenfall is suing the German government for billions of dollars over its decision to phase out nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Because governments are afraid of being sued under these agreements transnational corporations can blackmail them into adopting policies that favour foreign companies over the national interest.

In Australia the Australian Labor Party (ALP), under pressure from the Left faction, has backed away from allowing corporations to sue the Australian Commonwealth, Australian States and Territories, and local councils in the courts run by the corporations. However the ALP leadership may change their mind if they are in office.

When it comes to trade, the only difference between liberal and conservative politicians is that the former see a role for government in redistributing wealth to create opportunity by providing for education, health and social safety nets. They also owe some favours to some unions and special interest groups. This is less the case for conservatives who are more likely to owe favours to business interests. The Tea Party movement sees little role for government at all and would in effect hand over control of society to a handful of large corporations. In Australia the Liberal Party (those are free traders) is associated with think tanks like the HR Nichols society that see public health care and education as unwarranted interference in personal freedom and the efficient functioning of markets. The National Party (conservatives) usually adopt the Liberal position though they sometimes take issue with specific concerns like quarantine.

In effect, as regards trade and sovereignty, Australia is a one party state as is  Canada and New Zealand. The situation in Europe and the UK is complicated and overshadowed by the European Union. The United States is pursuing trade agreements that are advantageous to US based corporations.

This disconnect between the kind of country that many people want to live in, and the kind of country that agreements like NAFTA and the TPP create, has left a sizeable portion of the population disenfranchised.

Since the society and the economy are connected there is a similar disconnect on social issues.

Previously in our history it was assumed that people would marry and have children, and that children needed and had a right to, a mother and a father. It followed that the man should be able to earn a wage that could provide for a family. Since he was earning a wage and providing for a family it followed that he should be able to participate in public life by voting. This franchise of working and voting of was later extended to women and Indigenous people.

That consensus has now evaporated. In the West there now exists a major social divide between two camps. In the traditional camp people still believe that children need a mother and a father and so it follows that the economy should support the family by providing living wages, opportunity, and other supports such as State funded health care and education (at least outside the US). Family units are seen as the foundational building blocks of society.

In the progressive camp people do not believe that children need a mother and a father and so believe that society should uphold other family models. It follows that society no longer has an obligation to provide living wages to support a single bread winner and their family. In this view society is no longer composed of family units but of looser collectives of self-actualising individuals. This is largely a post-modern humanist narrative.

None of the major parties represent these narratives and all are struggling to contain these differences within them. The education system, the church, and the broader civil society also face challenges in accommodating both views.

This lack of real fundamental value differences is hollowing out the major parties and weakening their factional systems. Those differences that do exist between the factions mostly reflect the traditional/progressive divide on issues like gay marriage and positive discrimination. In Australia, conservatives are in revolt over homosexual marriage, and in the USA the Tea Party is effectively a party within a party. So called ‘wet’ liberals, those who seek a middle path on most issues, are currently marginalised within the major parties.The working class is increasingly divorced from those leftist parties that are supposed to represent them but who have instead turned to the ‘progressive’ vote. Much of the working class vote is being harvested by Republicans in the US, and nationalist parties elsewhere, of which Australia’s ‘One Nation’ is a stand out example.  In Australia, Labor has the left-overs and is increasingly a white collar party of the urban middle class. Left wing democrat parties in Europe are struggling to re-invent themselves or trending to the hard left.

I suggest that upwards of a third of voters now realise that they are no longer represented and are shifting loyalty away from political parties in favour of affinity and interest groups, and towards their own communities based on shared values. I call them ‘value tribes’ of which campaign organisation GetUp! is a good example. It is from these values tribes and social groupings that change will come.

Sustainability

The idea of looking after the environment is not new, but as an ‘ism’ in the West environmentalism has its origins among academics, hikers and hippies in the late 1960’s. Putting the ‘ism’ aside, people who think strategically now realise that those companies and countries that invest in sustainability now will do much better in the future than those that do not. For that reason China is massively investing in renewable energy and has closed around 1000 small coal fired power stations, and plans to close several larger ones. India is investing massively in renewable energy. The Rothschild’s have divested from coal and oil. Around 40 countries, including China, now have emissions trading schemes.

The developing world in particular has woken up to the fact that there is only so much clean water, so much arable land, and so many fish in the sea, yet their populations are growing.

Environmentalism was once seen as a luxury that Western countries could afford. However it now has serious geostrategic implications. Sustained draughts in Syria, Afghanistan, and North Africa have helped de-stabilise societies and modern Western militaries are factoring climate change into their long term planning.

China is making strategic global purchases of farm land, water and rare metals. Russia is building food self-reliance through selective breading.  Russia has banned genetically modified crops, specifically GM corn which is patented and promoted by US multinational Monsanto.

Russia understands that growing Monsanto GM crops makes the farmers dependent on seeds and chemicals from that company as well as poisoning the food supply. In the event of war, a country dependent on GM corn would be dependent on a US multinational for its food supply.

After the coupe in Ukraine Monsanto set up an office in Kiev and is now seeking to convert Ukraine to GM crops. This would have the effect of making Ukraine dependent on an American multinational for their food supply. Ukraine is historically the bread basket of the Russian empire. Capturing Russia’s grain resources was the reason given by the Nazi’s for invading Russia in World War Two. Russia sees the situation in Ukraine as a direct threat to its security and is again preparing to repel a future invasion.

The other trend in sustainability is that it makes countries look good. If your country has the last black rhino’s and the black rhino goes extinct it doesn’t make you look good. Caring about the environment is now seen as something that mature and civilised countries do.

This trend is on a collision course with the first trend towards unrestricted exploitation. The first trend represents a belief that there are no limits to growth. That human population can grow indefinitely, that exponentially increasing consumption of resources can continue forever, and that the earth can absorb unlimited amounts of pollution OR that there are technical fixes that make these things possible. This belief is not founded in physical reality but does favour the short term interests of the rich. For this reason there is a quiet war going on against environmentalists on many fronts.

Assault on Identity

The drive for equality, seen most recently in the same sex marriage debate, is expressed with reference to values of inclusion and fairness. However it is a concept of equality that goes beyond mutual respect; to denying differences between cultures, genders, and orientations. Instead of saying that men and women are equal but celebrating their differences, it denies difference. Instead of saying that motherhood and fatherhood are equal while celebrating their differences, it denies difference and seeks to reduce fatherhood and motherhood to a form of service provision by any care giver. Instead of celebrating the different phases of human development from pre-birth to senescence as a uniquely valuable, it sees only diminished adult hood at either end of a person’s productive life. Instead of acknowledging the fundamental value differences and world view differences between cultures, it patronises them by asserting that they are all really the same. Intellectually, the new ‘equality ideology’ fits broadly under the term ‘cultural Marxism‘.

Parrallels with classical Marxism are thus not coincidental. Communism preached economic equality with reference to values of fairness and inclusion. However in doing so it denied people ownership of their own lives and property, and of course, some communists were more equal than others.

Both world views harbour a pathological hatred of traditional parenting and of religious faith, and both seek to put the State in the role of God and Parent.

Both world views are untenable since neither are grounded in material or social reality. For this reason both world views seek to punish dissent and impose one ideological template on society. The new ideology of “tolerance” “inclusion” and “diversity” is thus revealed as intolerant, exclusive, and violently conformist. Examples are provided in your materials. The public policy implications of this are vast and poorly grasped. Some thoughts for you to consider are:

  • If any ‘significant other’ is sufficient for parenting, why should biological parents have custody of their children?
  • Girls develop neurologically earlier than boys which means that equal age mandatory school attendance systemically discriminates against boys.
  • A man and woman are both called up for military service. Who cares for their children?
  • If a single man wants to adopt or obtain surrogacy why should he be denied this when single women and lesbians can access IVF?
  • Gender specific toys should be banned in an androgynous society.
  • If mothers and fathers have nothing uniquely different to bring to parenting, why should marriages be restricted to two people?
  • Why should gender preference not be a ground for abortion?
  • If there are no fundamental differences between cultures why have countries?
  • In all of world history, in what countries have equal numbers of difference races lived together in harmony?
  • Why have man woman unions been the preferred method for raising children in most societies for all of history?
  • If there are no real differences between genders and cultures is there any reason to study history, language, culture or religion?

These questions are significant for many reasons not least because they deal with foundational questions of identity. To date human identity has been understood in the following terms:

We are a sister/brother/daughter/son. We come from a family with a name. We speak the language of our people. Our people are united by a common history that binds us to a certain place. That place is our country and our people are our nation. Our territory belongs to us and us alone. Our customs remind us of who we are. Our children are born here. We are mothers, fathers, grandparents. Collectively we are a nation.

These are the foundational building blocks of identity. The new ideology seeks to remove or diminish all these identity markers. See further Antonia Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, and Herbert Marcuse’s analysis of ‘represive tolerance’. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn provides a different perspective.

In this context I note that in East Germany children were denied higher education unless they swore loyalty to the atheist State. Christians were thus denied university entrance. The Chinese and Cambodian communists declared the year zero, destroyed their civilisations, and made children publicly renounce their parents and pledge their loyalty solely to the atheist State. In Cambodia children were no longer treated as children, and men and women were merely ‘comrades’. The State became the mother/father/God substitute with terrible results.

Cultural Marxism is explored further in Lesson Ten.

Commercialisation of humanity

Parallel with the emerging trend towards androgyny is the idea that we gain our sense of identity value or worth from what we contribute to the economy, rather than valuing the economy by what it contributes to us. Our value of ourselves is in our work, our money, and the newness of our possessions. It does not arise from the divine spark within, or of being the universe aware of itself, or of being created in image of God. We are merely producers and consumers. It follows that we are not sacred, and being unsacred, we treat others as unsacred. The current epidemic of violent pornography and drugs bears testimony to this. So does the loss of weekends. The idea of a seventh day of rest is a Biblical notion that acknowledges the value of a person apart from what they do. Fair wages and holidays are now seen as contested luxuries to be bargained for rather than rights one has as a citizen or as a human being. That said; the economy does not need citizens. Rather it needs individual units of production and consumption. It is better for the economy if parenting, sex, and pretty much everything else that is part of family life is commercialised. Divorce is good for the economy. It creates demands for more goods, more houses, more legal services, more psychological services, and more childcare services than exist in intact families. Therefore if your primary objective is economic growth you would want a higher divorce rate.

Using people for money is of course not a new idea. The nineteenth century saw both white and black slavery, work houses where people were punished for being poor, and transportation of the working class. The British navy used press gangs to kidnap people and force them into naval service so that Britain could build a global empire. Many died of scurvy. What has changed is that in the nineteenth century these values were imposed violently whereas today they are internalised through marketing.

This discussion, I hope, brings us back to the question of whether we actually live in a democracy. Australia has not had a plebiscite on any significant social or economic issue since we extended the franchise to the first Australians. If there is a referendum on same sex marriage it will be the first time in nearly half a century that Australians have actually been asked about anything important. We have been kept in the dark about trade agreements. We are not consulted about going to war. No one in this country ever voted for or against multiculturalism, immigration, free trade, or tariffs. Similarly in Europe no one has ever voted in favour of the European Union. No member country allowed its people a plebiscite until former Prime Minister Cameron did in Britain and a clear majority voted against remaining in the EU. {editor note: In late 2017 Australia had a non binding postal plebiscite. Turn-out was approximately 80 per cent with 60 per cent of those voting in favour of homosexual marriage}.

Which brings us to the question of whether the Westminster System actually works?