It's okay: I'm not out of my tree. I have a plea, and unusually, Mr Friedman can back me up.
Let us please stop insisting that business can or should solve social or environmental problems. They emphatically cannot: they never could, as Milton Friedman so eloquently explained in his 1970 essay, titled 'The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits'. We do not need the consent of business to stop climate change or eradicate poverty. Even if the individuals within companies supported those ideas, as agents and employees of the owners of companies, they have no mandate, no power to act. Society does not need the cooperation, the approval, the consent of the private sector to stop climate change or social injustice. That is what elected governments are for. Our responsibility, as citizens, is to elect the governments who will make the right social and environmental changes. If there are no such competent representatives present in the political system, we must find them, support them, and de-select those in power who are not capable of making these changes. Let's leave stockholders to elect business representatives, to perform their corporate roles. And the politicians we should be electing can close down the industries that are destroying our future, our planet, and social justice. Why? What's wrong with corporate social responsibility? Why shouldn't businesses give a little back, and try to be socially or environmentally ethical? Well, as Friedman put it, when a corporate representative is required to turn to ethics: "The businessman ... is to be simultaneously legislator, executive and jurist. He is to decide whom to tax by how much and for what purpose, and he is to spend the proceeds--all this guided only by general exhortations from on high to .... improve the environment, fight poverty and so on and on. The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This justification disappears when the corporate executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for "social" purposes. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be elected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster "social" objectives, then political machinery must be set up to make the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served. Can the corporate executive in fact discharge his alleged "social responsibilities"? How is he to know what action of his will contribute to [any social or environmental] end? He is presumably an expert in running his company--in producing a product or selling it or financing it. But nothing about his selection makes him an expert on [social or environmental problems]. Even if he could answer these questions, how much cost is he justified in imposing on his stockholders, customers and employees for this social purpose? And, whether he wants to or not, can he get away with spending his stockholders', customers' or employees money? Will not the stockholders fire him? (Either the present ones or those who take over when his actions in the name of social responsibility have reduced the corporation's profits and the price of its stock.)" Paul Polman, ex-CEO of Unilever, might well have sympathetic views on Friedman's foresight. It is not the job of business to save the planet or eliminate poverty. Worse, their efforts with one hand justify the continued damage they do with the other. The job of ethics, social well-being, and environmental sustainability is that of governments. Let's stop wasting time asking business to be ethical, and give back the mandate of governance to governments.
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'Mei you wei sheng zhi', says the young woman to the old one in the wheelchair, her voice muffled behind a blue surgical mask. 'There's no toilet paper.'
The old one peers up through the moist folds of her drooping eyelids, and quavers: 'are you sure? Check again.' Patiently, the voice comes again, filtered through mostly-pointless gauze: 'mei you wei sheng zhi'. It's true - the shelves are empty. No longer choosy about the brand or ply-count, people will take anything. There's only so many times you can say to each other and mutter to yourself 'this is insane'. Quite soon, we find ourselves doing what everybody else is doing, rushing to the shops in hastily-thrown-on jeans and a jumper, following a telephone tip-off, to scoop up anything tissue-related - kitchen paper will do - the instant it touches the shelf. By combining forces, we have enough to last us about 4 weeks. So this is what people do in a civilised society when panic sets in. People here are polite about it: there's no snatching, pushing, or shoving, and the glances above pale-pink and -blue masks, is an amused, wry one, marinated in shared understanding. But all are worried that what is unfolding in Singapore and rampant in China may yet break out here. Today the shortages are toilet paper and face-masks. As yet the shelves and shops are still well-stocked with fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and eggs. Noodles are no problem. Rice is available. But this is an indication of what happens when authority meets organic crisis and finds, like Canute's foolish courtiers, that forces of nature do not respond to legislative or market imperatives. Climate negotiators, take note. I am launching a campaign against psuedo-sustainability. I am talking about the kind of choice-within-non-choice rubbish that persuades us that multi-billion dollar organisations give a stuff about you, me, the environment, or our future. Like stickers on paper towel dispensers urging us to love Mother Earth by using less paper, while the electric hand drier roaring hot air, fuelled by GHG-exhaling lumps of coal, is notably free of moralistic sticker-wisdom.
You might as well offer a Q-tip to a prisoner on death row to clean out his ears before heading to the chair. This is not a choice, people, and this is not responsibility. Telling me to love the planet when I've used a sophisticated set of elevators to reach my client's office, 2 miles off the ground, clad in steel and glass, constantly air-conditioned, carpeted and furnished with petrochemicals and all manner of metals, where employees generate financial profits which require the extraction of rare earths and non-renewable resources, over which individuals have no choice whatever, would be hilarious if only it weren't so desperately criminally, stupidly, outrageously wrong. It's like offering safety advice at Suicide Point; handing out comfort blankets to babies before throwing them into a cooking pot. It's insulting to suggest that individuals in a bathroom on the 78th floor of a city high-rise are actually making a responsible choice for Planet Earth if they use fewer paper hand-towels. While we're at it, cancel the SDGs: they're from the same bullshit mould. It's okay. You can all relax. Because some worthy souls work in animal rescue homes, the rest of us don't have to worry about anyone else pulling the legs off kittens or flushing goldfish down the loo. We're not stupid - we know those things still go on. But we also know that good things are being done on the other side of the bad-things-in-life scale, so it's kind of like turning the volume down so the nasty noise isn't as disturbing.
That is like wheeling your baby's pushchair ahead of you out into the heavy traffic. We get this all the time (not the pushchair analogy - bear with me here). Example: I feel better about climate change because I know you are fighting the battle. You can't stop your work on saving the planet - the world needs people like you. Meanwhile, the people who say this carry on with their jobs, their every day lives, changing nothing (sure, maybe going flexitarian or saying 'no' to plastic bags - well done), feeling better about their planetary lethargy because 'people like us' are in the front line. Push that baby out into the traffic. The delivery truck barrelling down the street won't harm you: you've got a nice little buffer there to take the blow. Here's an uncomfortable truth: people like us are getting scarred, crippled, and broken, while everyone else sits watching David Attenborough box-sets. Depression, substance abuse, suicidal tendencies are all familiar friends to climate activists - and yet you feel better knowing we're in the front line? Aww, thanks. So here's some advice: if you give a shit about the planet, get out there and join us in the front line. Don't stand behind us waving banners. That's no good to us. Stand alongside and be prepared to sacrifice your physical and mental health. Feel better about the world that way. Oh. My. God. The danger is EXTREME - ooh hold everything, what's THAT? Even in the face of imminent runaway climate change, we are still like cats distracted by a toy. We just can't focus on the actual problem.
The full title of the latest IPCC Special Report on Global Warming, the one that warns that we have 12 years to prevent unstoppable catastrophe, is 'Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.' What has poverty to do with climate change?! Wake up, climate people! Climate change is NOT a poverty problem! It is a problem of physics now. It is also a problem of economic growth, but not the lack of it in the poor world. It's because of the resource extraction, the fossil fuel combustion, the massive material processing and production all feverishly clunking and whirring to keep economic growth going that is causing climate change. Poverty has nothing to do with Europe burning this summer. Poverty has nothing to do with California and Canada in flames or record storms in Hong Kong. Stop fiddling about pretending that we can stop climate change by bringing Western-style free market economics to sub-Saharan Africa (and that every dirty-faced, sad-eyed little girl will have her prayers answered if only her country can compete in the money economy). The problem is global addiction to fossil fuel combustion and psychotic obsession with economic growth at all costs. And nothing is going to send the poor deeper into misery than runaway climate change. When is the modern world going to learn that wealth doesn't roll down hill? Okay I know, coins are round (a lot of them are. Some are frilly like the 20¢ and 2 dollar pieces in Hong Kong and they don't roll anywhere). But notes definitely don't roll down to us at the bottom of the hill. And get with it, economists: the analogy doesn't work.
Trickle-down economics is dead. Not dead like the TV remote or my phone when I forget to charge it and all that's needed are new batteries or the right charger cable. Properly dead, no heartbeat, no brainwaves. Unfortunately, like other things that are dead, the idea of it lives on. The idea of the trickle-down principle in capitalism is that rich and powerful individuals, families, and companies should be free to make as much money as they please, because if money is whirling like a hot spa at the top, inevitably it will splash over the sides and dribble down to everyone else, through the naturally-functioning processes of the free-market economy. Jobs will be created to produce, process, and sell the gold taps, bubble bath, and champagne flutes which accessorise the hot-tubs of the rich, generating incomes and cash flows for every level from top to bottom. Nice. But, sadly, it's just not true. What actually happens is that money concentrates at the top. Rich people don't get rich by spending lots of money - they get and stay rich by NOT spending, and by getting other people to pay (just ask Joseph Stiglitz who pays his first class flights to his money-spinning speaking engagements. Clue: it's not Joseph Stiglitz). Wealth flows uphill too, from us down below, to them up there, every time we pay rent to a landlord, or monthly fees to a mobile phone company, or tuition fees to a university, or interest to a bank because we can't get by every month without getting deeper and deeper into debt. But like the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, and Santa Claus, the fantasy of trickle-down economics lives on, even though in reality it is lying in the gutter, stone dead, and smelling really quite bad. Vegans are truly admirable. To coordinate and plan life around a vegan diet takes dedication, passion, tremendous planning, meticulous attention to detail and day-in, day-out commitment.
They cleanse their bodies and spirits from the pain and exploitation of sentient creatures, and for that, they rightly get to feel a sense of comfort that they are doing a good thing. That's why I want them to stop what they're doing. For all the good they are doing on the grand scale, they might as well eat meat. That's the tragedy - they feel good but it makes no difference. More animals are being bred in feed pens, pumped full of hormones and steroids and killed in fear and pain than ever - because demand is higher than ever and rising. It's only individual souls that are cleansed of guilt. The masses in a global population of 8 billion are unchanged. Worse still, it doesn't address the thing that is really going to kill us, and all the sentient beings on this planet. Many vegans think they are doing something for the planet (all vegans who are just doing it because they don't want to hurt animals or don't like cheese, this doesn't apply to you - fill your plates with all the chickpeas you can eat). But the planetary impact is as good as zilch. Fossil fuels are still dug up, rainforests are still burned, more planes are in the sky today than at any point in history, pumping out emissions that will cook the planet. Forgoing bacon and eggs achieves nothing. But imagine what you could achieve if you put that energy and organisation, that passion and commitment, into actually making a difference. If I could take away that comfort you feel, I would. Because imagine the anger, the pain, the fury you would feel without that moral superiority that comes with being vegan. Direct that phenomenal, admirable, revolutionary verve towards changing the system that is destroying us. I want you to be angry. Use it to do something that really matters. Then the planet, sentient creatures, and people will owe you their thanks for eternity. Vegans, stop being vegan and help us. We need you. When cancer patients are declared cancer-free, a process of callous neglect is started that doesn't acknowledge the physical and emotional trauma of treatment or the long, often painful and usually slow process that is misleadingly known as 'recovery. Instead of counselling (all but the luckiest of) patients that they may experience depression, exhaustion and stalled progress, patients are merrily told 'go now, you're (cancer-) free! Live your life! Be happy!'
Clearly, a PhD is NOT like living with cancer, but the after care is comparable. We are told 'go, be free! The world is yours!' The reality is quite different. The application inbox for unpaid internships of UN, EU institution and many other sector jobs is populated with PhD grads. What's that all about? Marx shone a spotlight on the exploitation of workers by capitalism. Throughout much of the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th Centuries, workers worldwide rose up to demand better conditions and reasonable pay. Countries shackled by exploitation threw off their colonial masters and tried to build a better, fairer future for all. And now, in the rich countries of the free world, workers of all levels of qualification, experience and sector, are required to give their labour for free. And we're all okay with that?? Which of these great, proud companies and institutions will stand up in this, the second decade of the 21st Century, and say 'we will not exploit our workers. Your intellect, your struggle, your labour and your lives have value. As long as we exist, we refuse to employ slaves. We will not steal the labour of our beating heart'? Are there no institutions in our free world who will put their principles to the test of fair and equal treatment? You trained us. You told us to go out and do our best, invest in our futures. And your thanks is to steal the best that we have. Welcome to the free world of the 21st century. What's free? Your labour and plenty of lies. There seems to be a teeny-tiny yawning chasm between some peoples' realities. What's that? You want evidence? Okay, I'll explain. At a university job-advice meeting last year, a well-meaning Prof quipped that we really shouldn't worry so much about the job market. Jobs would come, he said, and in the meantime, 'it's a rite of passage to live off pot noodles for a couple of years'. Hmm. Caveat: this Professor really was well-meaning (is still - he's still alive, despite the heart-attack-inducing stress of academic life). Somehow, he always managed to make time to advise PhD students. He was a human, in a mostly not-human environment, where most supervisors were as cuddly as a gravel bed, and Prof-bots masqueraded as actual people with functioning blood-streams, pumped by living hearts. But this does shine a light on the gulf between different peoples' experiences. Maybe it was easier, back whenever he was an aspiring academic, to make that leap between 'notice me: I've got a PhD' and 'I'm a Professor now: bow before me and tremble'. But now, it's about much more than managing your food budget. Don't get me wrong: I like pot noodles as much as the next broke gourmand. But it's about so much more than our dinner choices. No matter how many pot noodle dinners I choose over Wagyu Beef, the pennies saved are not going to pay my rent for the maybe two (maybe more) years it will take me to build a publication profile deep and extensive enough for me to make the shortlist for all those over-subscribed Assistant Professor/Research Associate/Post-Doctoral positions. It's not about tightening your belt or cutting your coat to suit your cloth. It's about there not being enough jobs, so that after dragging yourself on your elbows for five (six, seven) years to get those skills that make you credible, you find that bar set another notch higher than you can reach. School doesn't teach us the things we really need to survive the modern world. Formal education, that long process of going to school every day in the morning, going to classes, doing homework and taking exams, doesn't teach us the skills and knowledge we need to live with dignity, with physical and emotional balance, with humanity. It might teach us how to compete and frequently it teaches us how to fail (yes, Zizek-quoting-Beckett, you MIGHT have a point that we can also learn to fail, fail again, fail better..... but a lot of the time we just fall down, get up and fall back down again). Here are some of the essential things in life that schools don't teach:
Schools don't teach us to care for nature and to live with ecological sustainability. They don’t teach you how to find a job, how to get financial security. They don't teach us how to respect and care for the elderly. They don’t teach you how to find dignity. They don’t teach you how to look after yourself, plan for your future, secure your old age care. They don’t teach you how to care for others, for partners, for children, for dependants. They don’t teach you how to love, how to understand each other. They don’t teach you how to be a woman. They don’t teach you how to be a man. They don't teach us how to be socially, racially or sexually equal (no matter whether we wear skirts or trousers to class). They don’t teach you to care for animals. They don’t teach you how to listen to and respect your global neighbours. The point is not that education is currently SUPPOSED to provide skills for these things - the point is that the things we are taught at school do not equip us for real life, and that the whole purpose of education needs to be re-thought. My underlying point is: what goals should society have? What objectives do education systems currently have and should they be different? So what am I suggesting: that schools teach children the art of love? Partly, yes, but more specifically that schools should equip people for the realities of social and economic life. Incidentally, is Scotland the most sexually egalitarian society in the Western world? After all, the men there wear skirts and trust me, they are sexy as hell.... |
AuthorHow to identify myself... a deeply concerned citizen of a fucked-up world, swinging with circadian regularity between esprit de vie and deep, black despair. PhD, entrepreneur, author, international experience, woman (should I add chromosomes to my list of qualifications....?) Archives
May 2020
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