Chapter 25
Changing Direction: Introduction

The last chapter of Part 1, Chapter 24, described the near future we can expect if we continue to let uncontrolled market forces largely determine the level of production and the sorts of products that are made ... and it’s a bleak prospect.

Reacting to the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN Secretary-General insisted that unless governments everywhere reassess their energy policies, the world will be uninhabitable. Unless action is taken soon, some major cities will be under water, Mr. Guterres said in a message, which also forecast “unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, widespread water shortages and the extinction of a million species of plants and animals”. – from United Nations News.[34]

We now move on from the analysis of the existing market economy laid out in Part 1 and turn to look at ways in which we could change direction and head for a rather better future than the one we appear to be facing. In an overpopulated world that is undergoing a storm of technological change, and on top of everything else is armed to the teeth, improving the outlook won’t be easy. Yet humanity ought to be able to do so much more if we could only set our mind to it. Of course ‘setting our mind to it’ is a major part of the problem, and we shall need to modify structures and incentives so that we are encouraged along a new path rather than battling a headwind every step of the way. Key will be changing the way our economy works so that we are in control of the market rather than letting the market control us. So the chapters that follow contain policy suggestions based on the economic analysis in Part 1. They assume that to achieve a better world, the goals of policy should be:

• An environmentally sustainable world that tackles climate change, pollution and the destruction of nature.
• A fairer world where everyone has the opportunity for a reasonable life.

Most people probably share these goals, although of course not everyone does. If your aim was to be fabulously wealthy and lord it over the impoverished but cowed masses, in a world that is fast becoming arid and lifeless, then there is nothing to stop you from using the economic analysis in this book to design some very different policies (although I hope you won’t).

I should emphasise that while the chapters to come will contain policy ideas, they do not provide or pretend to provide, a detailed set of proposals that are feasible in legal, political and financial terms. That is a challenge for all of us.

25.1 The Logic

The logic of the policies that will be described in the next chapters is summarised here as a set of requirements. All of those requirements follow from this first statement:

It is essential to moderate human impact on the environment

Note: an environmentally sustainable world is put as our overarching requirement because on a dead planet ‘fairness’ is meaningless. Humans have survived under all sorts of horrible regimes – while there’s life there’s hope. However, below we shall add the second goal of a fairer world as being necessary to achieve the first, as well as something we would wish for.

It follows that ...

• We need to control and moderate global consumption of stuff and energy.
• Moderating consumption will require global agreement.
• Global agreement will require greater equality between nations, since poorer nations will not accept remaining poorer than the richer ones indefinitely.
• Greater equality is necessary between individuals as well as between nations, if measures to limit consumption are to be seen as fair and gain public support. Therefore, fairness is added as a second goal, for practical as well as ethical reasons.
• Both automation and moderating the production of stuff, reduce the amount of labour needed. Therefore, employment in services that do not produce material goods is required, or a universal basic income must be provided.
• In order to finance the salaries of people who don’t produce stuff (e.g. pensioners, those working in services provided for free such as healthcare and education, those paid a universal basic income), the production of stuff must be taxed in some way. That puts up prices and reduces the competitiveness of manufacturing as it is essentially paying the salaries and pensions of all workers, not just of its own. So a country that follows this policy must regulate its trade with others that do not, or failing that, at least impose the relevant taxes in such a way that imported and local manufactures are equally affected, e.g. by taxing sales, not wages.
• We need to build long-term sustainable investments that improve the quality of life and reduce human impact.
• We need to reduce the impact of farming: the space occupied, the energy used, and pollution. We need to limit hunting and fishing.
• We need to limit world population, ideally reducing it as that increases the level of the sustainable standard of living that can be offered and reduces human impact on the environment. Greater space per human would improve the quality of life, by allowing more spacious houses and cities, and more national parks and wild spaces.
• To gain acceptance of lower consumption levels, we need to curtail the propaganda in favour of consumption. Advertising operates as a public misinformation service, promoting consumption as the way to be healthy, happy and successful. We shall want the opposite message to dominate.
• Similarly we need to provide alternatives to material consumption that are sustainable and provide interest and fulfilment.
• We need an education and a philosophy that explains and supports the above goals.

25.2 Policy Overview

Based on the above requirements, a set of policy suggestions are listed in the bullet points below, aimed at achieving or at least moving towards the desired fairer and more environmentally sustainable world. In the chapters that follow these ideas are explored one by one, and the reasoning behind them explained.

• Livelihoods – providing the means to live

  • Provide jobs for all who want them. Share out work.
  • Services will in many cases need to be cheap or free, or purchased with a different currency that can be spent on services but not material goods.
  • Remove taxes from employment.
  • Tax unearned income and the super rich.
  • Tax undesirables: pollution, energy, resource use.
  • Promote fairness in the distribution of basic goods, if necessary rationing them where supply has to be limited.
  • Invest for the long term.
  • Align economic boundaries with government boundaries, since governments with economic responsibility must also have some economic control.
  • Encourage resilient local economies, e.g. favour local businesses via dual currencies (local plus national).

• Reducing environmental impact and protecting the natural world

  • Manage population.
  • Reduce impact of farming fishing & hunting.
  • Reduce impact of industry.
  • Adopt sustainable lifestyles – encourage moderation in household consumption.

• Public support, participation and well-being

  • Promote community and political participation. Encourage support for international cooperation and agreement.
  • Provide ways to take local spending decisions locally.
  • Curb advertising – replace with genuine and accountable public information.
  • Limit inequality.
  • Make available pleasures that are environmentally sustainable – arts, nature, sports, crafts, social life.
  • Improve quality of working life: working conditions, variety & interest, job security, sick pay, pensions.

25.3 Summary

Unrestrained market forces are provoking environmental damage and levels of inequality that endanger humanity. A change of direction is urgently needed. This chapter proposed two main goals – an environmentally sustainable world and a fairer world – and derived some requirements from those goals.

Based on those requirements and the economic analysis in Part 1 of this book, a set of policy ideas were then outlined. The next three chapters discuss the suggested policies.