(Erice, Sicily, 18/9/97)
The crisis of the growth economy, ecological society and
Inclusive Democracy
TAKIS FOTOPOULOS
1. Introduction
Capitalism or Market economy?
Types of social controls on
markets
2. Markets vs the market
economy system
the marketization process
phases of marketization
3. The neoliberal market
economy
class structure and the
neoliberal consensus
4. Concentration of economic
power
and ecological destruction
theory and evidence
and internationalization
and concentration of political
power
5. Is there a way out of the crisis?
the sustainable development
approach
the deep ecology approach
the inclusive democracy
approach
The object of my lecture today
is twofold. First, to examine the causes of the present
multi-dimensional crisis, of whose an important dimension is
the ecological crisis. The thesis I will attempt to put
forward is that the ultimate cause of the present crisis at
the ecological level, but also at the economic, the
political and the broader social levels, is not, as it is
usually asserted, the industrial revolution, or technology,
overpopulation, productivism, consumerism, etc. To my mind,
all these alleged causes are in fact the symptoms of a much
more serious disease which is called ‘concentration of
power’. So, in the first part of the lecture I will try to
show that it is today’s concentration of economic and
political power, the former as a result of the rise of the
market economy and the subsequent growth economy, and the
latter as a result of the parallel rise of the present
liberal oligarchy, which is the ultimate cause of the
present crisis.
My second objective is to try to show that if we accept the
explanation of the crisis in terms of the concentration of
power, then, the project for an inclusive democracy, which
involves the equal distribution of economic, political and
social power, is not just a utopia but the only way out of
the present crisis which, it can be argued, threatens not
only the present forms of social life, but life itself. This
means that all current attempts to tackle the ecological
crisis which do not involve a serious effort to attack the
present huge concentration of economic and political power
are doomed to failure. The Earth summits, the World
Conferences on Population and Development will come and go,
as they had done so in the past few years, but the situation
will deteriorate continually, as long as the present
socio-economic system which institutionalises the
concentration of power remains intact.
In a nutshell, my argument is
that the present concentration of economic power is the
inevitable outcome of a process which started about two
hundred years ago with the rise of the system of the
market economy--a system that has resulted in the
present neoliberal economy which condemns one third of the
world population to unemployment and one fifth of it to
absolute poverty and a life expectancy of 40. It was the
rise of this system which has led, through different
processes and for different reasons, to the two types of the
growth economy, i.e. the now defunct ‘socialist’ version of
it (what used to be called ‘actually existing socialism’)
and the presently universal capitalist growth economy. As we
all know both versions of the growth economy, which
may be defined as the system of economic organisation
which is geared-- either ‘objectively’ or deliberately--
toward maximising economic growth, have been responsible
for the greatest damage to the environment in the entire
History and according to my thesis it is the concentration
of power (intrinsic in any kind of growth economy) that is
the ultimate cause of the ecological crisis, as part of a
multi-dimensional crisis.
But, before I discuss the issue of how we reached this
stage, I would like to clarify the terms I am using,
starting with the central concept of the market economy. Why
I am talking about the rise of market economy and not
capitalism? Obviously, the reason I prefer the term market
economy is not to comply with today’s “political
correctness” which has exorcised the words “capitalism”
and—more conveniently—“socialism”. It is a choice which is
implied by my belief that although the concepts “capitalist
mode of production” and “capitalist world economy” have
provided important insights in the analysis of social
classes and the world division of labour respectively, they
are too narrow and outdated.
They are too narrow,
because they imply that power relations in general can be
analysed in terms of (or be reduced to) economic power
relations whereas it is obvious that economic power is only
one form of power and, if used in particular as the central
concept in the analysis of social phenomena related to
hierarchical relations (in the household, work etc.), or
issues of racial and cultural “identity”, it is bound to
lead to inadequate or oversimplified interpretations.
They are outdated,
because in today’s internationalised market economy, neither
the Marxist class analysis nor the concept of the world
division of labour implied by the “world-system” approach,
are particularly relevant. We need a different class
analysis to understand today’s class structures, as well as
different conceptions of the North and the South to
understand the present international economic structures. Of
course, this does not mean that the concept of the market
economy, is, per se, broad enough to adequately interpret
social phenomena like the ones I mentioned . Still, the very
fact that this concept is used to explain only one part of
reality, the economic domain, without claiming that this
domain determines (not even “in the last instance”) the
other domains, does allow enough flexibility for the
development of adequate interdisciplinary interpretations of
social reality.
So, I am using the term “market economy” to define the
concrete system that emerged in a specific place (Europe)
and at a particular time (two centuries ago) and not as a
general historical category of an approach aiming to show
the evolution of the economic system throughout History, as
the Marxist concept of the mode of production supposedly
does. I will define the market economy as the
self-regulating system in which the fundamental economic
problems (what, how, and for whom to
produce) are solved `automatically', through the price
mechanism, rather than through conscious social decisions.
Of course, this does not mean that in a market economy there
are no social controls at all. Here, we should introduce an
important distinction between the various types of social
controls which will help us to interpret today’s
marketization and internationalisation of the economy.
There are three main types of
possible social controls on the market economy
1) regulatory controls,
which have usually been introduced by the capitalists in
control of the market economy in order to “regulate” the
market. The aim of regulatory controls is to create a stable
framework for the smooth functioning of the market economy
without affecting its essential self- regulating nature.
Such controls have always been necessary for the functioning
of the system of the market economy. Examples of such
controls are the various controls introduced at present by
the latest round of GATT, or by the Maastricht/ Amsterdam
treaties, which aim at regulating the world and the European
markets respectively in the interest mainly of those
controlling the respective markets (multinationals etc.)
2) social controls in the broad sense
which, although they have as their primary aim the
protection of those controlling the market economy against
foreign competition, still, they may have some indirect
effects that could be beneficial to the rest of society as
well. A primary example of such controls is the various
protectionist measures aiming at protecting domestic
commodities and capital markets (tariffs, import controls,
exchange controls etc.).
3) social controls in the narrow sense
which aim at the protection of humans and nature against
the effects of marketization. Such controls are usually
introduced as a result of social struggles undertaken by
those who are adversely affected by the market economy’s
effects on them, or on their environment. Typical examples
of such controls are social security legislation, welfare
benefits, macro-economic controls to secure full employment,
environmental controls etc.
The market economy, as I
defined it, is a broader term than capitalism and the two
should not be confused with each other. The market economy
refers to the way resources are allocated, whereas
capitalism refers to property relations. Although,
historically, the market economy has been associated with
capitalism, namely, private ownership and control of the
means of production, a market allocation of resources is not
inconceivable within a system of social ownership and
control of economic resources. This distinction between
capitalism and the market economy is particularly useful
today when many in the self-styled “Left”, after the failure
of the planned economy, rediscover the merits of a
‘socialist’ market economy. At the same time, several
“communist” parties in the South (China, Vietnam etc.) have
embarked on a strategy to build a “socialist” market economy
and are in the process of achieving a synthesis of the worst
elements of the market economy (unemployment, inequality,
poverty) and ‘socialist‘ statism (authoritarianism, lack of
any political freedom etc.).
Although the market today permeates all aspects of life,
from family life to culture, education, religion, etcetera,
it can easily be shown that, despite the fact that markets
have existed for a very long time, the marketization
of the economy is a new phenomenon, which emerged in the
last two centuries. Markets, up to the end of the Middle
Ages, played no significant role in the economic system.
Even when, from the sixteenth century on, markets became
both numerous and important, still, they were strictly
controlled by society, under conditions that, made a
self-regulating market unthinkable.
The crucial element that differentiates the market economy
from all past economies (where markets were also
self-regulating, since all markets tend to produce prices
that equalise supply and demand) was the fact that, for the
first time in human history, a self-regulating market
system emerged—a system in which markets developed
even for the means of production, that is, labour, land and
money. In fact, it was at the end of the eighteenth century
that the transition from regulated markets to a system of
self-regulated ones emerged, marking the `Great
Transformation' of society, that is, the move to a market
economy, which had built-in elements to become the present
internationalised economy.
Thus, the introduction of new
systems of industrial production during the Industrial
Revolution, within the framework of a commercial society,
where the means of production were under private ownership
and control, inevitably led (with the critical support of
the nation-state) to the transformation of the socially
controlled economies of the past, in which the market played
a marginal role in the economic process, into the present
market economies. This was inevitable because private
control of production required that those controlling the
means of production would have to be economically efficient
in order to survive competition. And this meant that they
had to ensure two things:
a) the free flow of labour and
land at a minimal cost, and
b)the continual flow of
investments into new techniques, methods of production and
products, in an effort to improve efficiency and the sales
figures
The first requirement, i.e.
securing the free flow of the means of production at minimal
cost, implies marketization and the second one growth.
Marketization means that those having private control of the
means of production have a vested interest in minimising the
social controls on the markets, particularly the markets for
labour, capital and land. This is so because if, for
instance, legislation to protect labour is introduced, this
will make the labour market less flexible and, consequently,
the flow of labour, less smooth or more expensive. The
second requirement, i.e. investing in new techniques,
methods of production etc in order to survive competition
inevitably leads to expansion. This is a process aptly
expressed by the motto `grow or die'. So, the two
requirements that I mentioned, which are both implied by the
same needs of efficiency and competitiveness, highlight, on
the one hand, the ‘objective’ logic of the system of the
market economy that is expressed by marketization
and, on the other, the dynamic of the same system, economic
growth.
Therefore, in a market economy
we have two sets of needs which, in effect, are in direct
conflict with each other. On the one hand, we have the
“private” needs of those controlling the means of production
for efficiency and competitiveness, which inevitably lead to
marketization and growth and, on the other, we have the
social needs to protect labour, or the environment, which,
also inevitably, lead to the expansion of social controls
over the markets, i.e. to the ‘socialisation’ of the
markets. Of course, such a conflict arises only in a system
of social organisation where society is separate from the
economy, as it is in a market economy. This is why, as soon
as a market economy was established, a ceaseless social
struggle began. Schematically, this is the struggle between
those controlling the market economy, i.e. the capitalist
elite controlling production and distribution, and the rest
of society. Those controlling the market economy aimed at
minimising social controls on markets, particularly the
labour market , so that the free flow of commodities could
be secured. On the other hand, those at the other end,
particularly the growing working class, aimed at maximising
social controls on the markets, that is, their objective was
to maximise society's self-protection against the perils of
the market economy, especially unemployment and poverty.
At the theoretical and political level, this conflict was
expressed by the clash between economic liberalism
and socialism (in a broad sense). Economic
liberalism sought to establish a self-regulating market
system, using as its main methods laissez-faire, free trade
and regulatory controls. On the other hand, socialism sought
to conserve humans, as well as productive organisation,
using as its main methods social controls on the markets.
This struggle constituted the central element of Western
history, from the Industrial Revolution to date.
We must note here however that
whereas the fundamental components of the market economy
were two, marketization and growth, still it was only one
of them, marketization, which, historically, has divided the
intelligentsia of the industrial era and led to the two
large theoretical and political movements, liberalism and
socialism. No similar divide had arisen with respect to the
second component, that is, economic growth, until we entered
the post-industrial era. In both the capitalist and the
‘socialist’ versions of the growth economy economic growth
became a central element of what I will call the
dominant social paradigm (i.e. the system of
beliefs, ideas and the corresponding values, which is
associated with the political, economic and social
institutions). Thus, economic growth became a liberal as
well as a socialist objective, although it is intrinsically
linked to the market economy. This, of course, was due to
the post-Enlightenment identification of Progress with the
development of productive forces that was adopted by
socialists, Marxists in particular.
Coming back to marketization,
historically, we may distinguish three main phases in the
process of marketization:
a) the liberal phase, from the 1830’s to the 1870’s, which
after a transitional period of protectionism led to
b) the statist phase, from the 1930’s to the 1970s, which
was succeeded by
c) the present neoliberal phase.
As it is obvious from this
periodization, the long-term trend since the rise of the
market economy has always been one of minimising social
controls on the markets and, what is important from our
point of view, of a parallel concentration of economic
power. It could easily be shown, both theoretically and
empirically, that there is a direct relationship between
marketization and concentration of economic power: the
higher the degree of marketization (i.e. the lower the
social controls on markets, particularly social controls in
the narrow sense) the higher the degree of concentration of
power. Historically, it was only during the relative brief
statist phase that this long term trend towards
marketization was reversed, although even then it was social
controls to protect labour, rather than the environment,
that were introduced. This was mainly the result of the
intensification of the social struggle against the economic
elites, a struggle which was favoured by a series of
contingent political and economic factors that we do not
have the time to consider here.
Today, the neoliberal
internationalised market economy is universal. Here,
however, it is important to note that the technological
revolution which has led to the present post-industrial
society not only has created mass open or disguised
unemployment, which the state is now unable/ unwilling to
control, but also has led to structural changes in the
working population and the electorate. So, a new class-
structure has emerged in advanced capitalist countries. At
the one end is the underclass, consisting
mainly of the unemployed and those of the inactive
population who fall under the poverty line. At the other end
is the economic elite and the overclass,
namely the upper middle class that has been created by the
marketization process. Interestingly enough, the underclass,
to which it is estimated about 30 percent of the adult
working population belongs, and the overclass, which
constitutes about 1 percent of the population, share between
them about 28 percent of the national income, 14 percent
each!
Between these two poles are
the middle groups which constitute the vast majority of the
population, about 70 percent of it. However, it is only the
upper part of these middle groups, consisting of about 40
percent of the population, which financially is,
according to a recent British study, the privileged
minority, and electorally, according to Galbraith,
the contended electoral majority. It is only this
part of the population which is in full-time, well-paid and
secure jobs that controls the bulk of income. In advanced
capitalist countries, the top 40 percent of the population
on the average control almost two thirds of income and by
their political and economic power, determine the electoral
outcome. On the other hand, the lower part of the middle
groups, consisting of about 30 percent of the population,
includes all those in low-paid, insecure and poorly
protected jobs i.e. the marginalised and the
insecure. Most of the growing army of part-timers and
occasional workers in low-paid jobs with no formal
employment protection, as well as the traditional blue
collar low-skilled working class, belong to this category.
Therefore, the post-industrial
neoliberal society is not even a “two-thirds society” as it
used to be described. It is in fact a “40 percent society”.
Now, socially, the social groups constituting this
privileged minority are hostile to any expansion of statism
and the welfare state and, in general, to any effective
social controls on markets which may affect their income and
wealth. They are increasingly attracted by the ideology of
the private provision of services like health, education and
pensions—although a significant part of this ‘attraction’ is
forced by the neoliberal undermining of the state provision
of these services. Their attitude towards statism and the
welfare state is determined by the fact that public services
and their financing by taxation have a disparate effect on
the privileged minority and the underclass. In other words,
it is the privileged minority which has to finance --mainly,
through taxation-- public services in which they are not
interested anymore (because of their deterioration I
mentioned) and which benefit mostly the underclass. As the
privileged minority is also the electoral majority (because
they take an active part in the electoral process, whereas
the underclass mostly do even not bother to vote, frustrated
by the inability of political parties to solve their
problems), the electoral outcome in advanced capitalist
countries is determined by the attitudes of the privileged
minority/ electoral majority.
The inevitable result of these
changes in the class structure and composition of the
electorate has been the rapid decline of traditional
social-democratic parties and their consequent attempt to
capture a significant part of the vote of the privileged
minority by `modernising' themselves, according to the
guidelines of the neoliberal agenda. This is how what I
call the ‘neoliberal consensus’ has been created
which replaced the defunct socialdemocratic consensus of the
period of statism. The new consensus does not imply that the
state has no more economic role to play. One should not
confuse liberalism/neoliberalism with laissez-faire. We
should not forget that it was the state itself that created
the system of self-regulating markets. Furthermore, some
form of state intervention has always been necessary for the
smooth functioning of the market economy system. The state
is called today to play a crucial role with respect to the
supply-side of the economy and, in particular, to take
measures to improve competitiveness, to train the working
force to the requirements of the new technology, even to
subsidise export industries. Therefore, the type of state
intervention which is compatible with the marketization
process not only is not discouraged but, instead, is
actively promoted by the neoliberal consensus, especially by
the supposedly `progressive' elements within it (Clinton
administration, social-democratic --or centre-left-- parties
in Britain, France, Italy, Greece etc).
So, the main objective of the elites which control today’s
market economy is, at it has always been, to maximise the
role of the market and minimise social controls over it, so
that maximum `efficiency' and growth may be secured.
Therefore, social controls in the narrow sense are
universally phased out. The same applies to some significant
social controls (in a broad sense) like import controls,
tariffs etc. which are also ruled out as hampering the
expansion of the present internationalised market economy.
Still, this does not mean the elimination of all
controls over the markets. Not only “regulatory” controls
remain in place and in some cases are expanded but even some
social controls are not eliminated. Also, as regards social
controls in the narrow sense, although the welfare state is
left to decay, various “safety nets” are kept in place in
advanced capitalist countries, to check massive social
unrest. So, we are not just faced with an attempt to put the
clock back to the 1840s. In fact, a new synthesis is
attempted today. The new synthesis aims to avoid the
extremes of pure liberalism, by combining essentially
self-regulating markets with various types of safety nets
and controls, which secure, on the one hand, the privileged
position of the “over-class” and of the “40 percent
society”, and, on the other, the mere survival of the
“under-class”, without affecting the self-regulation process
in its essentials. Therefore, the nation-state still has a
significant role to play not only in securing, through its
monopoly of violence, the market economy framework, but also
in maintaining the infra-structure for the smooth
functioning of the neoliberal economy.
Still, as I said before, the
present neoliberal phase is not only associated with a
minimisation of social controls over the market but also
with an inevitable huge concentration of economic power.
This economic concentration is evident at all levels: as a
concentration of production and trade, concentration of
capital, concentration of income within the North and the
South and between them, concentration of wealth and so on.
Thus, to give some data about the present concentration of
economic power, the 500 largest corporations, although they
employ just 5% of the world population, they control 25% of
world production and 42% of the planet’s wealth. More
specifically, up to 40% of world production in 12 important
industrial sectors, which include the motor industry,
electronics, computers, steel, oil, the mass media etc., are
controlled by at most 5 companies, whereas 10 companies
alone control every aspect of the food chain[1].
Finally, whereas the share of world trade for the 48 least
developed nations (representing 10% of the world’s
population) was halved in the past 20 years and today these
countries control just 0,3% of world trade, 359
multinationals account for 40% of global trade![2]
Not surprisingly, the richest
20% of the world’s population are now 78 times wealthier
than the poorest 20% whereas in 1960 they were just 30 times
better off[3].
In the European Union in particular, a recent Eurostat
report showed that just over a quarter of the income in the
EU 12, in 1993, was shared among the top 10% of households
while income for the bottom 10% amounted to 2% of the total.[4]
But, as the distribution of income is a major determinant of
the consumption pattern and-in a market economy-of the
production pattern as well, one can easily see the link
between inequality and the present eco-damaging economic
development.
Thus, as regards the top 10
percent first, it is well known that it is the consumerist
lifestyles of the rich that are causing most environmental
degradation . For instance, according to the latest data,
the `Group of 7' richest capitalist countries in the world,
where 12 percent of the world population live, is the cause
of about 42 percent of greenhouse gas emissions .[5]
At the other extreme, on the
basis of all existing evidence, it is hard to reject the
proposition that it is, mainly, poverty as development
(i.e., poverty caused by development) that is causing the
environmental degradation and not poverty as
underdevelopment (i.e. poverty caused by the lack of
development). In other words, it is concentration of
economic power, as a result of the importation of the system
of the market economy and the consequent growth economy by
the elites in the South, which has led to the destruction of
local communities and of their self-reliance, in favour of
the export economies which are being established today all
over the world, within the framework of the
internationalised market economy. Thus, in Latin America,
whereas in 1961 about 11% of the population were landless,
by 1975 this has gone up to 40% . In general, approximately
80% of all Third World agricultural land continues to be
owned today by about 3% of landowners[6].
It is as a result of this new and updated version of the
enclosure movement that landless peasants take part in the
destruction of their local environment, in the form of
deforestation and general destruction of the eco-systems,
for the sake of survival itself.
Therefore, what has to be
stressed is that both in the case of the consumer patterns
of the rich and the production patterns of the poor the
ultimate cause of the environmental destruction is not just
economic growth. The amount and-- more important-- the type
of growth taking place are crucially conditioned by the
concentration of economic power, which, in turn, is, as I
already mentioned, the inevitable outcome of the separation
of the economy from
society. Thus, the phenomenon of increasing
concentration of economic power has characterised the entire
historical period since the rise of the market economy. This
is of course not surprising since both
orthodox and Marxist economic theory could be used to show
that the maximisation of economic growth and efficiency
crucially depend on the further division of labour,
specialisation and the expansion of the size of the market.
The inevitable consequence of the pursuit of profit,
through maximisation of efficiency and the size of the
market, has been the concentration of economic power in the
hands of the elites that control the economic process. This
can easily be shown by empirical research. A recent study,
for instance, has confirmed that “there is a robust positive
relationship between industry profitability and market
concentration”.[7]
This is a clear indication that the pursuit of profit by
those controlling the market economy does lead to
concentration.
Here, it must be noted that
the recent change as regards the scale of production does
not affect the continuing and accelerating concentration.
Thus, at an early stage of marketization, the concentration
of economic power was the outcome of the ‘massification’ of
production, namely, the concentration of the production
process in big production units that secured “economies of
scale” and economic efficiency. Today, capitalist companies,
to survive competition in the internationalised market
economy XE "internationalised market economy" , have to
“produce small quantities of high quality, semi-customised
goods tailored to niche markets, thereby displacing
economies of scale as the central dynamic of competition”.[8]
So, nowadays, the concentration of economic power coincides
with a parallel process of ‘de-massification’ of production
and diversification, which is consistent with the
requirements of the post-industrial society and modern
technology. However, this “de-massification” of production,
although it may influence the size of production unit, it
certainly does not affect the degree of concentration of
economic power at the company level. For instance, the huge
concentration of investment power in a small number of
capitalist firms is indicative: the largest 100
multinational corporations account for a third of the total
foreign direct investment stock[9].
Furthermore, the increasing
concentration of economic power which accompanied the rise
of the market economy is also evident at the inter-country
level. As it is well known, a historical gap has been
created between the North and the South, since the time the
market economy of the North started penetrating the
traditional economies of the South. About two hundred years
ago, when the marketization process was just starting in the
North, the average per capita income in the rich countries
was only one and a half times higher than that in poor
countries[10].
A hundred years later, in 1900, it was six times higher, and
by the time of the importation of the growth economy into
the South in the early fifties, it was 8.5 times higher. The
gulf has increased dramatically since then, and by 1970 the
per capita income in the North was 13 times higher than in
the South[11].
In the eighties and early nineties, the concentration
process was further accelerated. Thus, the “Triad countries”
i.e. the countries in the three main economic regions (North
America, European Union and Japan) which make up only 14
percent of world population, during the period 1980-91,
attracted 75 percent of foreign direct investment,
accounted for 70 percent of world trade and received about
70 percent of world income.[12]
As a result, the per capita income of ‘high income
economies’ (according to the World Bank definition) where
only 16% of the world population live, was in 1995 almost 58
times higher than the per capita income of ‘low income
countries’ where 56% of the world population live. In the
last eight years alone, when the internationalised market
economy became universal, the world inequality has exploded.
The per capita income of the poorest countries, in 1987,
was 7.3% of the US income (in PPP terms), whereas in 1995
it has fallen to 4.7%![13]
However, concentration of
economic power has not been the prerogative of the
capitalist growth economy. A similar concentration took
place in the socialist growth economy. Therefore, the
difference between the two types of growth economy with
respect to concentration is reduced to who owns the means of
production and how they are allocated among different uses.
So, both the market mechanism of the capitalist growth
economy, as well as the planning mechanism of the socialist
growth economy result in establishing a few in privileged
positions, at the expense of the many. In the market
mechanism, this is brought about automatically through the
unequal distribution of income that results from the
mechanism’s functioning, while in central planning this is
accomplished through the institutionalisation of the
bureaucratic élite in a privileged position within the
planning process.
Therefore, neither the
‘socialist’ concentration of power was accidental, when
socialism took the form of soviet `democracy’ at the
political level and central planning at the economic level,
nor of course the capitalist concentration of power has been
accidental, when capitalism has taken the form of
parliamentary ‘democracy’ and the market economy
respectively. In both cases, concentration is justified by
the respective ideology, Marxism and liberalism. Thus, in
Marxism, concentration of power is considered necessary in
the `transitional’ period to communism, whereas in
liberalism, as long as it is `legal’, it is not considered
to be incompatible with the fundamental liberal principle of
the `primacy of the individual’, even though, of course,
concentration negates the principle’s universality. It is
therefore clear that both systems, in practice, were unable
to keep their promises: neither ‘actually existing
socialism’ led to the liberation of human beings, nor
‘actually existing capitalism’ has, in reality, affirmed the
`primacy of the individual’.
Of course, concentration of economic power does not
constitute a new phenomenon. In all hierarchical societies,
some concentration of wealth has always accompanied the
concentration of political and military power in the hands
of the various élites—a fact usually `justified’ through a
system of social rules based upon religion. The new element
in the growth economy is the fact that the reproduction of
the social system itself, as well as of the power of the
élite controlling it, crucially depends on the realisation
of the growth objective which, in turn, is `justified’
through its identification with Progress. So,
economic growth functions not just as a fundamental social
and economic goal, but also as a basic means to reproduce
the structures of unequal distribution of economic and
political power which characterise the modern hierarchical
society, as well as a central element of the ideology that
supports it. Therefore, the hierarchical society took
a new form with the rise of the market economy in the West
and of the planned economy in the East. In this new form,
the élite draws its power not only (as in the past) from the
concentration of political, military or, in general, social
power, but, primarily, from the concentration of economic
power, whether this concentration is brought about by the
market mechanism, or through central planning.
However, the fact that the
modern hierarchical society relies for its reproduction on
the maximisation of economic growth constitutes, also, its
fundamental contradiction. This is not because, as it is
usually argued, the continuation of the growth economy has
serious environmental implications, but, because the
necessary condition for the reproduction of the growth
economy is the concentration of its benefits to a small
section of the world population, in other words, the huge
inequality in the distribution of world income. This is on
two counts:
-
first, it is simply not
physically possible for the wasteful consumption
standards, which are today enjoyed by the “40 percent
societies” in the North and the élites in the South, to
be universalised and enjoyed by the world population.
Thus, as it was recently pointed out “it seems clear
that the material consumption of industrial people
cannot be universalised to encompass all humans on
earth. The required increase in material production is
large. To simply universalise the North’s standard of
living now, global industrial production would need to
rise 130 times”.[14]
It is also noteworthy that even this already untenable
goal understates the problem by not including present
growth and the short-term population growth projections.[15]
In this sense, one may argue that the present rapid
growth rate in countries like China, whose GDP rose by
an average rate of 11 percent in 1980-95,[16]
is physically sustainable only if the parallel huge
increase in inequality continues .
-
second, a universalised
growth economy is not environmentally
sustainable, at the present state of technological
knowledge and cost of “environmentally-friendly”
technologies. In other words, the universalisation of
such technologies would not be possible, given their
cost and the concentration of world income. Furthermore,
it is at least doubtful whether after the
universalisation of such technologies their beneficial
impact on the environment will remain the same.
So, concentration and
ecological disintegration do not simply constitute
consequences of the establishment of the growth economy,
but also fundamental pre-conditions for its
reproduction. Contrary to the under-consumptionist ‘civil
societarians’ who hope that the elites of the Triad, facing
the threat of an inadequate demand because of growing
inequality, will be induced to introduce a world mixed
economy,[17]
in fact, the opposite is the case. The growth economy in the
North not only is not threatened by the growing inequality
of the present internationalised market economy XE
"internationalised market economy" , but, instead, depends
on it. Thus, just as the production of the growth economy is
not possible without the plundering of nature, its physical
reproduction is equally impossible without the further
concentration of economic power.
In conclusion, it is obvious
that the present concentration of economic, political and
social power in the hands of the elites which control the
growth economy is not simply a cultural phenomenon related
to the values established by the industrial revolution, as
significant currents within the ecological movement naively
believe. Therefore, the realisation of ecological balance is
not just a matter of changes in value-systems (abandonment
of the growth logic, consumerism etc.) which would then lead
to an eco-friendly way of living. In fact, the concentration
of power constitutes the inevitable outcome of a historical
process that started with the establishment of hierarchical
social structures and the implied ideology of domination of
human over human and nature[18]
and culminated in the last two centuries with the
development of the market economy and its by-product the
growth economy.
In other words, the market/growth economy and concentration
of economic power are opposite sides of the same coin. This
means that neither the concentration of economic power nor
the ecological implications of the growth economy are
avoidable within the present institutional framework of the
internationalised market/growth economy. But--and here is
the contradiction--the increase in the concentration of
economic power inevitably leads to the realisation that
Progress, in the sense of improvements in welfare through
growth, has a necessarily non-universal character.
Therefore, the moment of truth for the present social system
will come when it will be universally acknowledged that the
very existence of the present wasteful consumption standards
depends on the fact that only a small proportion of the
world population, now or in the future, are able to enjoy
them.
But, let’s consider in some more detail the implications of
the present internationalisation of the market economy on
concentration of power. I am not talking about the
globalization of the economy since there is a significant
difference between globalization and internationalisation.
This difference is not just semantic.
Internationalisation, refers to the case where markets
become internationalised and, as a result, the economic
policies of national governments and the reproduction of the
growth economy are conditioned by the movement of
commodities and capital across frontiers. On the other hand,
globalisation refers to the case where production itself
becomes internationalised, in the sense that production
units become stateless bodies, operating in a borderless
world, with activities which do not primarily aim at the
country which is their national base, but, involve instead
an integrated internal division of labour spanning many
countries. And, in fact, all the evidence is that
internationalisation does happen on a massive scale, whereas
globalisation is still very limited.
As regards today’s role of the
state, as I said before, the nation-state, contrary to the
claims of the “globalizers”, still has a significant role to
play in the neoliberal internationalised economy. However,
this role does not involve anymore the enforcement of social
controls to protect society from the market. The state’s
role today is exclusively related to securing the
reproduction of the market economy through its monopoly of
violence and to creating the stable framework for the
efficient functioning of the markets. So, in the same way
that in the first phase of marketization, when the market
economy was basically national, the nation-state was
assigned the role of enforcing—through its monopoly of
violence—the market rules, in today’s internationalised
market economy the same role is assigned to the state, but
also to international organisations like NATO and a
capitalist controlled UN (the latest example was the Gulf
war). Of course, this does not deny the fact I already
mentioned of the loss of the state’s economic sovereignty
and its replacement by a multi-level system of
political-economic entities, consisting of micro-regions,
traditional states, macro-regions and world cities which are
becoming the keyboards of the global economy.
So, an important effect of the
internationalisation of the market economy has been to
enhance further the concentration of economic power, despite
some physical decentralisation of industrial production.
However, the accelerating trend towards internationalisation
of the market economy and the resulting increasing
concentration of economic power has serious implications as
regards the concentration of political power as well. For
instance, as a recent report points out with particular
reference to the European Union, today, 50 percent of
legislation is decided in Brussels.[19]
All this has already led to a
debate about the future of politics and democracy. Those who
take for granted the present institutional framework of the
market economy and liberal “democracy” are divided as
regards their reading of future trends. On the one hand,
there are those who support the view that the present
trends, in the long run, lead not only to the end of the
nation-state but also of “politics” and “democracy”, as we
know them. Thus, the supporters of the “end of politics”
thesis argue that the natural place for the general good,
the political sphere, on which liberal democracy rested,
disappears in the present age of the networks. On the other
hand, there are those in the civil societarian “Left” who
attempt to put a case that the nation-state is still the
most appropriate engine for the reproduction of the growth
economy and that the argument about globalisation is hugely
overstated.
I would have no difficulty in agreeing with the thesis
about the forthcoming end of “politics” and “democracy”,
provided, however, that these terms are meant to represent
the present statecraft and liberal oligarchy which today
pass for politics and democracy respectively. This is so,
because today’s “politics” and “democracy”, in fact,
represent a flagrant distortion of the real meaning of these
terms and are indeed in the process of being phased out, if
not in form, at least in content. Just as in the past the
“nationalisation” of the market led to the death of the
communities, the free towns and their federations, one may
reasonably expect that the present internationalisation of
the market will lead to the death of nation-states and
national politics. Even if the present political
institutions survive in the future they will be devoid of
any real content and they will be just remnants of the past,
constituting a symbolic formality, similar to the monarchies
still existing in some European countries.
But, the fact that we may
agree with the hypothesis about the end of the nation-state
and the consequent end of politics and democracy in their
current meanings, does not imply that we will, also, have
to agree with the conclusions of the supporters of this
hypothesis. In other words, although it is obvious that
within the new institutional framework no meaningful
politics and democracy is possible, this does not mean
politics and democracy themselves are superfluous. What is
obviously superfluous is the present institutional framework
of the market economy and liberal democracy, which however
both the supporters of the nation-state and those assuming
its end, take for granted !
So, the crucial question which
arises here is whether it is possible, within the existing
institutional framework, to radically reduce the present
huge concentration of power which, according to our
analysis, is the ultimate cause of the present crisis. For
supporters of what we may call the sustainable
development approach, which was promoted by the
Brundtland Report[20]
and embraced by the Green realos all over the world,
it is possible to achieve sustainable development, which is
defined as “development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs”.[21]
According to this approach, the continuation of growth is
the key to social justice, since it can eliminate poverty[22]
and it is also the key to environmental protection, mainly,
because the elimination of poverty would eliminate a crucial
eco-destructive factor[23].
Furthermore, such growth could be environmentally
sustainable, provided that “industrialised nations can
continue the recent shifts in the content of their growth
towards less material and energy-intensive activities and
the improvement of their efficiency in using materials and
energy”.[24]
Here, one may point out that
there are two main ways in which economic growth may reduce
poverty: either through the trickle-down effect (as
neoliberals argue) and/or through some kind of
redistributive government action (as socialdemocrats of
various sorts argue). But, as regards the former, the
inefficacy of the trickle-down effect may easily be shown[25]
and even a very recent World Bank report had to admit that
the miraculous pace of growth in East Asia has widened the
poverty gap.[26]
Also, as regards the latter, it is obvious that effective
redistributive government action in favour of the underclass
is by definition excluded within the framework of free
capital markets implied by the neoliberal internationalised
market economy XE "internationalised market economy" , which
is taken for granted by this approach. In fact, as I already
mentioned, if any redistribution of income takes place in
this framework it is against the underclass, not in favour
of it!
So, what supporters of this
approach in fact argue for is the possibility of a “green
capitalism”. But, this assumed possibility ignores the
fundamental contradiction that exists between the logic and
dynamic of the growth economy, on the one hand, and the
attempt to condition this dynamic with qualitative criteria
on the other. Thus, the contradiction that emerged in the
past, when an attempt was made by socialist statism to
introduce socialist criteria (equity and social justice) in
the growth process is certain to emerge again at present, if
a similar attempt is made to introduce ecological criteria
(e.g. sustainability and enhancement of the resource base)
into the same process.
Finally, although one would
agree that some gains have been made in pollution control
and the efficient use of energy and resources, still, there
is no sign that the major ecological problems have become,
as a result, less serious or threatening. Instead, the
opposite seems to be the case with respect to all major
ecological problems, that is, the greenhouse effect, acid
rain, salinity, ozone depletion, forest loss,
desertification, soil loss and so on.[27]
In fact, even the latest Earth Conference in New York, a few
moths ago, had to admit that the situation has worsened in
all these respects since the first Earth Conference in Rio.[28]
One may therefore conclude that the fact that this approach
ignores the phenomenon of the concentration of power, as a
fundamental consequence and also a precondition of growth,
is not irrelevant to the essential solutions proposed by it,
that is, more growth and better policies, laws and
institutions, as well as increasing efficiency of energy and
resource use. It is therefore obvious that the real aim of
this approach is not to propose ways to achieve sustainable
development but, instead, ways to create an “eco-friendly”
market/growth economy, which is a contradiction in terms.
But, supporters of the
sustainable development approach are not the only ones who
see the way out of the ecological crisis in contradictory
terms, that is, in terms of a growth economy subject to
qualitative prescriptions of sustainability. Deep ecologists
fall into a similar trap. Deep ecology attributes equality
to all forms of life ('biocentric equality') and suggests
that relations with the natural world will have to change
first, in order to change social relations, and not vice
versa. Thus, supporters of this approach argue that the
ultimate cause of the ecological crisis should be found in
the historical identification, since the Enlightenment, of
progress with economic growth. Consequently, the way out of
the crisis is to abandon notions of progress so that the
present growth economy can be replaced by a “steady-state
economy” or even a “declining-state economy[29].
Similarly, others see sustainable development in terms of “a
development path towards a stable state”, which necessitates
a “stable population”[30]—a clear
indication that the deep ecology approach adopts fully the
overpopulation myth .
So, deep ecology sees the
causes of the ecological crisis as the direct outcome of an
anthropocentric approach to the natural world, i.e.
an approach which sees human values as the source of all
value and aims at the use of nature as an instrument in the
satisfaction of human wants. It is, also, clear that the
deep ecology approach considers the present non-sustainable
development as a cultural rather than as an institutional
issue, as a matter of values rather than as the inevitable
outcome of the rise of the market economy, with its
grow-or-die dynamic, which has led to the present growth
economy.
However, it would be hardly justifiable to blame
anthropocentrism for the present global ecological damage.
Anthropocentrism, after all, was around—especially in the
West—long before the process of massive ecological
destruction started about two centuries ago. One could
therefore argue that it is not anthropocentrism as such that
has led to the present crisis but the fact that the market
economy and the subsequent growth economy had to be founded
on an ideology that justified the human domination of nature
en masse. If this is so, then, the way out of the
ecological crisis is not just a matter of changing our
values to put nature on an equal footing with treasured
human values. No one could seriously expect that a new
culture involving a non-domineering approach towards nature
could have a chance of appealing to the vast majority of the
Earth’s population who are daily faced with the dilemma of
jobs versus the environment. It is therefore obvious that
the dilemma “growth economy” versus “a steady-state economy”
is a false one and is usually put by people who do not face,
as a result of their social position, this genuine dilemma.
Furthermore, changing our
values with respect to our relationship to nature will not,
by itself, force the market economy or the state to wither
away. It is therefore naive to suggest, as deep ecologists
do, that “if everyone consumed significantly less, the world
market economy would probably collapse.”[31]
It does not require a deep historical knowledge or knowledge
of economics to realise that a decline in sales, far from
leading to a collapse of the market economy, may simply
induce a slump leading to even more massive unemployment at
the economic level which might easily be accompanied by the
rise of totalitarian regimes at the political level (perhaps
of the eco-fascist variety this time).
Also, the enclosure of land in
the South, as well as the kind of technologies developed
within the market economy, are not just matters of policy
but part and parcel of the market economy system itself.
Similarly, competition and integration in the world economy
are not simply cultural issues but inevitable outcomes of
the institutional framework defined by the market economy.
Therefore, the root of the problem is not, as a deep
ecologist put it, that “the entire capitalist culture ... is
ecologically illiterate and, therefore, dangerous and
unsustainable.”[32]
The capitalist culture is a culture that has developed in
consistency with the fundamental organisational principles
of the market economy and the growth economy, that is,
efficiency and competition. It is the establishment of the
market economy that required its own culture and not vice
versa. People (I do not mean those controlling the means of
production) did not wake up one fine morning and decided to
be efficient and competitive. It was the destruction of
their own livelihood by the enclosure movement in Britain,
or by colonialism in the colonies, which forced them—in
their struggle to survive—to join the market economy system
and adopt the principles of competitiveness and efficiency.
This is the main reason why
sustainable development is not just a cultural issue, or a
matter of changing policies, but a matter of changing the
entire institutional framework and replacing it with
institutions which negate the concentration of power, that
is, to my mind, with a marketless and moneyless economy
based on an inclusive democracy. Then, and only then, can
one seriously hope that the culture based on the growth
ideology and the subsequent idea of dominating nature will
wither away. In other words, concentration of power within
the context of the growth economy is the necessary condition
for the present set of cultural values which involve an
ideology of dominating nature. Although simply negating the
concentration of power is not a sufficient condition
for the development of a new set of values with respect to
our relationship to nature, it is definitely the
necessary condition for a radical change in cultural
values.
Finally, it is not the
industrial society itself or technology as such that
should be blamed for the present ecological crisis, as deep
ecologists usually assert. Technology has never been
'neutral' with respect to the logic and the dynamics of the
market economy. Still, environmentalists, as well as
socialist statists explicitly, or usually implicitly, assume
that technology is socially neutral and that we only have
to use it for the right purposes in order to solve not just
the ecological problem but the social problem in general. It
is obvious that this approach ignores the social
institutioning of science and technology and the fact that
the design and particularly the implementation of new
techniques is directly related to the social organisation in
general and the organisation of production in particular.[33]
In a market economy, as in any society, technology embodies
concrete relations of production, its hierarchical
organisation and, of course, its primary aim which, in the
case of a market economy, refers to the maximisation of
economic growth and efficiency (defined on the basis of
narrow techno-economic criteria) for profit purposes. So,
technology is always designed, or at least those designs are
adopted, which best serve the objectives of the
market/growth economy.
Similarly, it is not
industrialism in general that created the present
eco-damaging form of economic organisation but the specific
type of industrial society that developed in the last two
centuries in the framework of the market/growth economy.
Therefore, the ultimate causes of the ecological crisis are
the market economy and its offspring, the growth economy and
not its symptoms, namely, the present type of technology and
industrial society.
If now we accept the thesis
that I tried to put forward that the cause of the ecological
crisis, as part of the present multi-dimensional crisis, is
ultimately the concentration of power at all levels that is
implied by the present socio-economic framework, the obvious
conclusion is that the only way out of the crisis is the
creation of the subjective and objective conditions which
will lead to a new society. A society which, at the
institutional level, will create the necessary conditions
for the abolition of concentration of power and, by
implication, for the re-integration of nature and society.
Such a society is what I call an inclusive democracy,
which I will attempt to summarise briefly here, whereas
those interested in a further exploration of the topic and
the crisis of the growth economy generally are referred to
my latest book “Towards An Inclusive Democracy“.
But, first, I have to stress
that the project for such a society is not just a utopia,
(or, in its ecological version, an eco-topia) in the
negative sense of the word. A social project is not a utopia
if it is based on today's reality. And today's reality is
summed up by an unprecedented crisis of the `growth
economy', a crisis which engulfs all societal realms
(political, economic, social, cultural) as well as the
Society-Nature relationship. Furthermore, a social project
is not a utopia, if it expresses the discontent of
significant social sectors and their, explicit or implicit,
contesting of existing society. Today, the main political,
economic and social institutions on which the present
concentration of power is founded are increasingly
contested. Thus, not only basic political institutions are
contested in various ways, but also fundamental economic
institutions, like private property, are challenged in a
massive way. The explosion of crime against property in the
last quarter of a century (in Britain, for instance,
burglary has increased by 160 per cent and theft from
vehicles by nearly 200 per cent since 1979[34]),
despite the drastic enhancement of private and public
security, is not just a cultural or temporary phenomenon. It
should be seen, instead, as a long-term trend reflecting, on
the one hand, the explosion of unemployment and the massive
abuse of drugs (which are also structural phenomena) and,
on the other, the growing discontent with the rising
inequality in the distribution of income and wealth-- an
inequality, which, within the context of the present
consumer society, becomes unbearable.
So, how we may define a new
conception of democracy? A useful starting point in
discussing a new conception of democracy may be to
distinguish between the two main societal realms, the public
and the private, to which we may add an "ecological realm",
defined as the sphere of the relations between the natural
and the social worlds. Contrary to the practice of many
supporters of the republican or democratic project, I will
include in the public realm not just the political realm,
but also the economic realm, as well as what I will call the
‘social realm in a broad sense”. In other words, I will
include any area of human activity where decisions can be
taken collectively and democratically. To my mind, the
extension of the traditional public realm to include the
economic, ecological and ‘social’ realms is an
indispensable element of an inclusive democracy. So, we may
define the political realm as the sphere of political
decision-taking, the area where political power is
exercised. The economic realm is defined correspondingly as
the sphere of economic decision-taking, the area where
economic power is exercised with respect to the broad
economic choices that any scarcity society has to make.
Finally, the social realm is defined as the sphere of
decision-taking in the workplace, the education place and
any other economic or cultural institution which is a
constituent element of a democratic society.
Correspondingly, we may
distinguish between four main types of democracy that
constitute the fundamental elements of an inclusive
democracy: political, economic, ecological and ‘democracy in
the social realm’. We may then define, briefly, political,
economic and democracy in the social realm as the
institutional framework that aims at the equal distribution
of political, economic and social power respectively, in
other words, as the system which aims at the effective
elimination of the domination of human being over human
being. Similarly, we may define ecological democracy as the
institutional framework that aims at the elimination of any
human attempt to dominate the natural world, in other words,
as the system which aims to reintegrate humans and nature.
Therefore, in this conception of inclusive democracy it is
first recognised that political or direct
democracy, where political power is shared equally
among all citizens, is neither feasible nor desirable,
unless it is accompanied by economic democracy in the sense
of equal distribution of economic power. Political and
economic democracy in this sense would represent the
re-conquering of the political and economic realms by the
public realm, that is, the reconquering of a true social
individuality, the creation of the conditions of freedom and
self-determination, both at the political and the economic
levels.
However, political and economic power are not the only forms
of power and therefore political and economic democracy do
not, by themselves, secure an inclusive democracy. In other
words, an inclusive democracy is inconceivable unless it
extends to the broader social realm to embrace the
workplace, the household, the educational institution and
indeed any economic or cultural institution which
constitutes an element of this realm. A crucial issue that
arises with respect to democracy in the social realm refers
to relations in the household. Women's social and economic
status has been enhanced this century, as a result of the
expanding labour needs of the growth economy on the one hand
and the activity of women's movements on the other. Still,
gender relations at the household level are mostly
hierarchical, especially in the South where most of the
world population lives. The problem here is that, although
the household shares with the public realm a fundamental
common characteristic, inequality and power relations, it
has always been classified in the private realm. Therefore,
the issue which arises here is how the ‘democratisation’ of
the household may be achieved.
The final question that arises
with respect to the conception of an inclusive democracy
refers to the issue of how we may envisage an
environmentally-friendly institutional framework that would
not serve as the basis of a Nature-dominating ideology. Some
critics of inclusive democracy misconceive the issue as if
it was about the guarantees that an inclusive democracy
might offer in ensuring a better relationship of society to
nature than the alternative systems of the market economy,
or socialist statism. This is a clear misconception of what
democracy is about because, if we see it as a process of
social self-institution where there is no divinely or
‘objectively’ defined code of human conduct, such guarantees
are by definition ruled out. Therefore, the replacement of
the market economy by a new institutional framework of
inclusive democracy constitutes only the necessary
condition for a harmonious relation between the
natural and social worlds. The sufficient condition refers
to the citizens’ level of ecological consciousness and one
can only hope that the radical change in the dominant social
paradigm that will follow the institution of an inclusive
democracy, combined with the decisive role that a
well-rounded education in knowledge and skills will play in
an environmentally-friendly institutional framework, would
lead to a radical change in the human attitude towards
Nature.
So, a democratic ecological
problematique cannot go beyond defining the institutional
preconditions that offer the best hope for a better human
relationship to Nature. However, there are strong grounds to
believe that the relationship between an inclusive democracy
and Nature would be much more harmonious than could ever be
achieved in a market economy, or one based on socialist
statism. The factors supporting this view refer to all three
elements of an inclusive democracy: political, economic and
social.
Thus, at the political level,
there are grounds for believing that the creation of a
public space will by itself have a very significant effect
in reducing the appeal of materialism. This is because the
public space will provide a new meaning of life to fill the
existential void that the present consumer society creates.
The realisation of what it means to be human could
reasonably be expected to throw us back toward Nature. As it
was recently pointed out with reference to the work of
Hannah Arendt “a world in which labour is seen as only one
part of a meaningful life will find consumption less
tempting”.
Also, at the economic level, it is not accidental that,
historically, the process of destroying the environment en
masse has coincided with the process of marketization of the
economy. In other words, the emergence of the market economy
and of the consequent growth economy had crucial
repercussions on the society-Nature relationship and led to
the rise of the growth ideology as the dominant social
paradigm. Thus, an ‘instrumentalist’ view of Nature became
dominant, in which Nature was seen as an instrument for
growth, within a process of endless concentration of power.
If we assume that today only a confederal community-based
society could secure an inclusive democracy, it would be
reasonable to assume further that once the market economy is
replaced by a democratically run confederal economy, the
grow-or-die dynamics of the market economy will be replaced
by the new social dynamic of the new society: a dynamic
aiming at the satisfaction of the community needs and not at
growth per se. If the satisfaction of community needs does
not depend, as at present, on the continuous expansion of
production to cover the wants that the market creates, and
if the link between society and economy is restored, then
there is no reason why the present instrumentalist view of
Nature will continue conditioning human behaviour.
Finally, democracy in the
broader social realm could also be reasonably expected to be
environmentally-friendly. The phasing out of patriarchal
relations in the household and hierarchical relations in
general should create a new ethos of non-domination which
would engulf not only First Nature but Second Nature as
well. In other words, the creation of democratic conditions
in the social realm should be a decisive step in the
creation of the sufficient condition for a harmonious
nature-society relationship.
But, apart from these
political and economic factors, an ecological factor is
involved here, which strongly supports the belief in a
harmonious democracy-Nature relationship. That is, the
‘localist’ character of a confederal community-based society
might also be expected to enhance its
environmentally-friendly character. Small scale communities
are more likely to have the formal conditions required for
successful and enduring collective management of the
commons. Furthermore, it is reasonable to assume—and the
evidence about the remarkable success of local communities
in safeguarding their environments is overwhelming that when
people rely directly on their natural surroundings for their
livelihood, they will develop an intimate knowledge of those
surroundings, which will necessarily affect positively their
behaviour towards them. However, the precondition for local
control of the environment to be successful is that the
community depends on its natural surroundings for its
long-term livelihood and that it therefore has a direct
interest in protecting it—another reason why an ecological
society is impossible without economic democracy.
In conclusion, the present day
ecological crisis is basically susceptible to two solutions:
one solution presupposes radical decentralisation. Thus, the
economic effectiveness of the renewable forms of energy
(solar, wind, etc.) depends crucially on the organisation of
social and economic life in smaller units. This solution
however has already been marginalised by the
internationalised market economy, precisely because it is
not compatible with today's concentration of economic,
political and social power. This is why the alternative
solutions which are being advanced today are solutions which
supposedly concentrate many advantages of renewable energy,
but without necessitating any radical changes in the
market/growth economy.
Finally, I would like to touch
on the question of citizenship. The new conception of
democracy that I described briefly implies a new conception
of citizenship: economic, political, social and cultural.
Thus, political citizenship involves new political
structures and the return to the classical conception of
politics (i.e. direct democracy). Economic citizenship
involves new economic structures of community ownership and
control of economic resources (i.e. economic democracy).
Social citizenship involves self-management structures
at the workplace, democracy in the household and new welfare
structures where all basic needs (to be democratically
determined) are covered by community resources, whether they
are satisfied in the household or at the community level.
Finally, cultural citizenship involves new democratic
structures of dissemination and control of information and
culture (mass media, art, etc.), which allow every member of
the community to take part in the process and at the same
time develop his/her intellectual and cultural potential.
This conception of
citizenship, which could be called a democratic conception,
presupposes a ‘participatory’ conception of active
citizenship, where political activity is not a means to an
end, but an end in itself and where, as Hannah Arendt put
it, we do not engage in political action simply to promote
our welfare but to realise the principles intrinsic to
political life, such as freedom, equality, justice,
solidarity, courage and excellence. It is therefore obvious
that this conception of citizenship is qualitatively
different from the liberal and social-democratic conceptions
which adopt an ‘instrumentalist’ view of citizenship, i.e. a
view which implies that citizenship entitles citizens with
certain rights that they can exercise as means to the end of
individual welfare.
To sum it up, to my mind,
after the collapse of the state socialist project, democracy
may represent the only way out of the multi-dimensional
crisis. But democracy does not mean the various oligarchic
regimes in the North that call themselves today democratic,
let alone the despotic regimes in the South. It also does
not mean an anachronistic return to the classical conception
of democracy. Democracy today can only mean a synthesis of
the two major historical traditions, namely, the democratic
and the socialist tradition, with the radical green,
feminist and libertarian traditions.-