On the CUSP of a better future?

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Yesterday I was at the launch of a new initiative, called the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). The event was chaired (and the centre is run) by Professor Tim Jackson, one of the country’s leading thinkers on sustainable economics, and the author of one of the best (and most accessible) books on the subject – Prosperity Without Growth.

It was really pleasing to see that a centre has now been set up to push forward work on the idea of sustainable prosperity – or creating a world “in which people everywhere have the capability to flourish as human beings – within the ecological and resource constraints of a finite planet.”

This is not just about climate change, economic inequality or well-being – it incorporates most modern progressive issues and touches every area of our individual lives and society. In short, it is probably the most important challenge that human beings are presented with right now.

So, the launch of this centre is welcome (to say the least), and another useful aspect of the centre is its focus on both research and practice – not only putting together rigorous academic thinking on how to achieve a more sustainable future, but also testing this thinking out and putting it into action, as the latter is what is most urgently needed. I hope the work of CUSP will be complementary to that of existing organisations like nef, who have done great work in getting individuals, politicians, businesses and other institutions to take this range of issues seriously and start gaining traction in tackling the challenges they present.

One question that was asked at the launch event yesterday was how we can get politicians to take action on a radically sustainable agenda. Caroline Lucas gave a good answer, in that we need more courageous politicians who are prepared to do more radical things, and that the only way they’ll develop the confidence to do this is to know that they won’t be punished at the ballot box for doing so. The way to give them this confidence is for people to show them that we want these policies.

So, ultimately, we – the public – have an important role to play in making this change happen – by being vocal in our support for sustainable economic policies, opposing the status quo, supporting companies and institutions that are trying a new way of working and generally by showing politicians this is how we want the future to be.

In conclusion, this will only happen by us leading the politicians. So let’s join the movement, support these organisations and start showing politicians that we want more fun, and less stuff!

#CUSPlaunch #MakeProsperityMatter

Let’s get angry!

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About a year ago I published a blog post lamenting the lack of real protest and action being taken against the (still extant) Government’s attempts to dismantle some of our most cherished and respected institutions – including the NHS, education system, welfare state and BBC.

Since that post, the severity of the situation seems to have ratcheted up a notch or two – including plans to convert all state schools into academies, attacks on the working arrangements for junior doctors and a very public attempt to undermine and dismantle the BBC.

These issues, and others, have each seen a level of protest in response to them – and for certain issues (such as the white paper for the renewal of the BBC charter) the vocal public response seems to have had an effect in mitigating the worst of the damage. This should help to prove the point that protest, action and making our voices heard about the things that matter to us does work.

But although we have seen some action and protest focused on specific issues, I’m stunned that there have not been more mainstream voices helping people to see that these manifold acts of vandalism to different aspects of our state are not isolated events, but part of a coordinated plan by this Conservative government to take its neoliberal project as far as it can, whilst it remains unfettered by coalition government.

Progressives should be leading the revolt against this government’s policies, and exposing its broader philosophy and project to the mainstream, in language and terms that are both accessible and emotive for people. We need to get people angry.

As I said in closing my blog post a year ago – we must resist the policies of this government, and this may be our final chance to do so before the things that we hold dear vanish before our eyes. So, let’s help people to rise up and provide a sustained, vocal challenge to both the philosophy driving these policies and the government that will implement them – unless we resist.

Why tax is a moral issue

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There’s been a lot in the press about tax recently.  The leak of data from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca confirms my view that tax is more of a moral issue than a practical one – and that paying tax fairly is a moral duty.

Let’s start by defining what tax is.  It’s about contributing your fair share to keep society running well, including funding public services and supporting those in need.

It says a lot for the dominance of the neoliberal, individualistic way of thinking in most western societies that the idea of tax is often cloaked in convenient double talk portraying it in a negative light – usually focussing on the idea of the ‘tax man’ – a shadowy figure who will take your money from you (to be spent on who knows what).  Many people seek to minimise the taxes they pay, but why can’t we see paying tax as the positive moral act that it is – like doing a service for your community or helping an old lady across the road?

So, paying tax is simply ‘doing your bit’. If we see it this way, as a moral issue, paying tax becomes a question of how much you’re prepared to ‘play fair’ as a member of society – to what extent you are prepared to play your part to contribute.

It’s also an unusual thing within ethics – a relatively simple moral issue. The government sets specific rates of tax we need to pay, and there are legal consequences if we fail to pay at these rates.

Yes, there are loopholes here and there in the tax system which can complicate the practical side of things, and enable an individual or company to minimise or avoid paying tax altogether –  but these are practical matters and to my mind the moral (as opposed to the practical) side remains simple and clear – it’s following the spirit of the principle of paying your fair share of tax that matters.  So, if you have to go to significant lengths to identify loopholes to avoid paying tax or minimise it, then it’s pretty likely you’re not behaving in the spirit of the idea and therefore not behaving morally.

The fact is that if you don’t pay enough tax you are behaving selfishly, anti-socially and amorally.

As a quick aside, the people (and more often, companies) who explain their lack of payment of tax by saying they contribute to the economy in other ways (like creating jobs through their wealth) are missing the point spectacularly.  Tax is a way for everyone – rich and poor alike – to make an equal contribution (according to their means) to society. Paying tax correctly is a non-negotiable – it’s the starting point of your contribution, and other ways of contributing to a society or economy can follow this – but they do not replace it.

Finally, back to the issue that prompted this blog post in the first place – tax havens and offshore companies.

From a moral perspective, it’s a no-brainer – every individual and company should pay tax in the country they are based in. If they are based in more than one country they should pay tax proportional to the amount of time they stay in each (as individuals) or the amount of income they make in each (as companies). Any attempts to manipulate the picture of where an individual is resident or where and how a company makes money should be seen as an immoral act – and also illegal.

It therefore follows that the entities (including tax havens and offshore companies) that enable individuals or companies to manipulate the picture in this way in order to pay less tax (i.e. to avoid ‘doing their bit’) – as well as the legal firms that provide advice on how to do this – are immoral and should be made illegal.  We should get rid of them altogether.

That joke isn’t funny anymore

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The possibility of Donald Trump becoming the world’s most powerful person may have seemed like a joke a year ago (at least, to anyone but him), but now the reality is dawning that it might actually happen. He looks like a shoe-in for the Republican nomination now and will certainly give Hilary Clinton a run for her money in the main race.

It would be easy to scoff at the rise of Trump and to feel secure that anyone who is informed about the world wouldn’t go anywhere near voting for him.  The reality though is more complex – and sobering.

Yes, he quite clearly has no knowledge of the world, little understanding of politics, no policy content and the political views he ‘articulates’ in his speeches represent a series of lazy, ill-informed, far-right prejudices.

Yet this is not a problem for many of the people whose support he is gaining.  They don’t need to know the detail of what he plans to do about the problems he is identifying – beyond knee-jerk statements such as ‘build a wall to stop the Mexicans coming in’ – as this isn’t what many people are looking for.  Nor do they need to realise that he is the one person that will do least to promote their interests as the mass of American society, or as the economically disadvantaged end.

The fact is, they’re angry and scared (for various reasons – from lack of economic opportunity to race), and they’re looking for someone who represents their views – and this is often about identifying with a particular person and their worldview rather than the detail or substance of what they are saying.

So this is Trump’s core audience – and it is a substantial one.  There appears to be little that other candidates can do to reach this audience on this occasion, as it has become connected to a person, rather than actively considering candidates on a policy level.

The audience we really have to worry about though is the group of people that is jumping on the bandwagon as support for Trump grows, as these are the voters and political figures that could get him over the threshold of the White House. This broad group includes various sections of people, including:

– Political opportunists – members of the political elite who see which way the wind is blowing and don’t want to be prevented (by something as inconvenient or minor as their principles, say) from being behind the winner when the result is announced. An example of this group are the other Republican candidates who were ripping shreds out of Trump a few weeks ago but have since undergone a Damascene conversion to his cause and are now publically backing him.
– Party loyalists – voters who are inclined to put party political loyalty before a realistic analysis of what the candidate offers (‘I must support Trump in order to keep the Democrats out’).
– Floating voters – people without a particularly strong political affiliation but who like to look out for their own interests when voting. These people may be inclined to vote for Trump as the support builds for his campaign, as they feel comfortable going with the populist flow, can see how he might benefit them and are able to rationalise the less pleasant bits of Trump’s views to themselves because lots of other people are supporting him now (the ‘other people like him – he can’t be that bad’ argument).

The members of each of these segments in this overall group may intensely disagree with Trump’s views and may even believe him to be dangerous, but may all be inclined to turn a blind eye to the reality of the Republican candidate before them and the dangers he poses, party due to ideology or the pursuit of their own interests and partly because the bandwagon is gathering pace and it doesn’t seem so bad to get involved when lots of other people are doing so.  But, as history shows us, when seemingly rational, informed groups of people ‘turn a blind eye’ like this, things can go very wrong indeed.

The positive conclusion to draw here is that it is still possible to persuade this group to support another candidate, and this is the group that we – and anyone wishing to influence the result of the election from afar – need to focus on.  But the negative conclusion is that there is a real danger of Trump getting in, with perfectly rational people voting for him – and very few of them will be doing so on the basis of his policies.

So, Trump is not a joke – he’s a real threat.  Now is not the time to simply sit back and watch in bemusement or horror as his campaign builds momentum.  Now is the time to start taking action to show people the level of the threat they are facing, and do everything we can to help the Democratic candidate to get over the line.

Political scheming

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A short post this time – just to flag up a very good article from Owen Jones in The Guardian about the  various ways that the Tories have successfully manipulated the truth in various issues over recent years.

My favourite quote from the article is below:

“Illusions are what the Tories excel at. They back Labour’s spending – down to the last penny – when in opposition, then in government claim that it was financial extravagance that plunged the country into economic chaos. The crash may have originated in Britain’s financial hub, a sector whose lavish donations keep the Conservatives financially afloat, but Cameron and Osborne skilfully transformed a crisis of the market into a crisis caused by state spending. A failing of laissez-faire economics was spun into a historic opportunity to scale back the state.”

For me, this is the key fact about the last few years of Conservative (including the coalition) government, and I find it almost unbelievable that the media and the general public in the UK have swallowed whole the Tories’ narrative about austerity and why the cuts were needed, when it is so obviously a none-too-subtle smokescreen to enable them to push through the ideological cuts and further dismantling of the state that they had so yearned to complete after Thatcherism.

We need to make more noise about this false narrative, as everyone has been mislead, and the country is suffering for it.

Where’s the fight?

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The General Election result in May 2015 was a shock for anyone of a vaguely progressive bent.  It was more than just a shock though – it brought about a sense of profound dread as to what this group of Conservatives would do to our country and society once they had disentangled themselves from the shackles of a coalition government.

This Government (and the powerful array of mainstream media that support them) appears driven by a fervent ideological desire to bring about a market society – to treat every aspect of human life as a function of economics – under the assumption that every person is naturally just interested in furthering their own needs, and that anything that gets in the way of this should be attacked or dismantled.

The current breed of Tories at the top of this government also want to use this opportunity to aggressively pursue a range of other traditionalist conservative prejudices – from the promotion of fox hunting through to the destruction of the BBC.

As I write this, proposals are being discussed to dismantle some of our most cherished and respected institutions – including the NHS, education system, welfare state and BBC.

The scale of these attacks is unprecedented since the war.  They attempt to do things that even Thatcher at her most bullish thought were a bit much.

And once these things are gone, we’re unlikely to get them back.  It took two world wars for some of the countries of Europe (including Britain) to realise that there was such a thing as society, that life for everyone would be better if we looked after each other and to make the investment in creating institutions that would achieve this, like the welfare state.   So, without another epoch-defining event, we are unlikely to get to that point of ‘a society fit for people’ again – so this truly is a battle of life and death for some of these institutions.

Needless to say, what’s happening under this current Government makes me dismayed and angry. But what annoys (and mystifies) me most about these developments is the terrifying lack of dissenting voices or, heaven forbid, action in response to them.

Is it because everyone is happy with what’s happening here?  Surely not.  Is the lack of action due to ignorance of what’s being done in our name (on a paper thin mandate based on a tiny majority)?  Is it because the dominant voices of the mainstream media and the state make it difficult for any dissenting voices to cut through to the public to challenge their views?  Or have we been battered into submission by the steady barrage of attacks on progressive society that took place during the 5 years of the coalition?

It is of course a mixture of these things, plus another potent overarching influence – the fact that, over several decades, we have already slipped into a society where the emphasis is on pursuing our own individual needs (and lambasting any groups, institutions and individuals that could compromise them in any way), rather than seeing ourselves as part of a mutually supportive group, in which an important aspect of living a good life is to contribute towards the common good.

Perhaps we simply aren’t shocked about this stuff anymore as we’ve stopped questioning or resisting the overall narrative that’s being offered to us.

But we must resist it – and this may be our final chance before the things that we hold dear vanish before our eyes.   So, who’s prepared to fight for them – and for each other?

Where next for progressive politics?

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I’ve just caught up with a very interesting post by Neal Lawson on OpenDemocracy today.

The article asks how the Labour Party should  move forward in the light of it’s devastating defeat in the 2015 General Election – not simply as a votewinning machine but as a true political force that can deliver a progressive, fair future within the transformed political and cultural landscape of Britain in 2015.

The article provides a useful, credible analysis of the situation and of the best way forward for the party and progressive politics in general.   It also supported my own overall sense that politics has changed and that it makes no sense for progressives (the term ‘the left’ is redundant now) to build themselves around a party any more.  Rather, it needs to work the other way round – we need a political entity (a party) to represent the vision of a diverse progressive movement (from online platforms such as 38 Degrees to members of the well-being movement).

And this representative ‘big tent’ role could be the best future for the Labour Party.

Read the article here.

Listen, don’t change

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I was at the Compass Change:How? conference today and was struck by a few things in a discussion we had about ‘why it’s so hard getting people to change’.  By this it meant getting members of the public to take action for a more progressive, sustainable (etc.) world.

The first thing that struck me was the way that many people seeking change on progressive issues seem to believe there are two sets of people – first, us – the people seeking a better world, who are ethical, intelligent, well-informed and see the world for how it really is, and them – the general public that we are trying to influence – who aren’t so enlightened and don’t care so much.  This assumption is deeply condescending to other people and completely untrue.  And is perhaps at the root of our problem of why we find it so hard to gain social change.

The second thing that interested me directly follows from this point – it was the assumption we have as ‘change seekers’ that other people need to be ‘changed’ in some way – in other words, the idea that we need to shift them from their current position to another one, because we don’t approve of their current position.  When we articulate it like this, it’s not hard to see why we’re having problems gaining social change on key issues – because we’re trying to herd people into opinions and actions that they’re not currently prepared to take, and we’re doing so in a way that pays little attention or respect to what they think.

These observations gained greater credibility in my mind as one member of the conference suggested that the best way he had found to gain change was to actually ask people what matters to them and then to listen to their views properly and respectfully – and then try to find a course of action that takes account of these.  It’s really no surprise that this should be one of the most successful ways of gaining change as it doesn’t try to change people – it tries to change issues by focussing on the things that people care about.

But this idea of ‘listening to people’ has its risks for the progressive change makers.  I hear many progressive voices saying that we must become more democratic and let people have a voice – but at the same time they want people to hold particular views and behave in particular ways.  These two aims are conflicting – it’s one or the other.

As people seeking change, we’ve got to work out what we want from people.  If democracy matters to us and we want to let people have a voice we have to do this whilst understanding that people may choose some things we don’t like as progressives.

These are just thoughts I’m chewing over at the moment, and I’ve not formed a definitive opinion on them but they do provide food for thought….

How to change the world

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This interesting article in the New York Times got me thinking again about something I’d been working on a few years ago – the question of how to we can gain the level of change needed to tackle big global issues like global warming and just what role we as individuals can play in this.

The article made me wonder whether we’re getting it the wrong way round when we take things like the carbon footprint of the world and divide responsibility for it between individuals, as individuals are often not the agents whose actions and decisions will produce the level of change that is needed – it’s companies, countries and other institutions and groups of people.

So, if we want to seek change on big issues, perhaps we need to redistribute the level of responsibility for these things – and assign more responsibility to those agents with the level of influence and power to make the big changes . This doesn’t diminish our responsibility to live good lives as individuals – but simply rebalances the burden of responsibility for change to those agents that have the power to make it happen on a big scale.

This also affects the way we might go about seeking change in the world as individuals. It doesn’t mean we should stop ‘doing our bit’ or stop leading planet-friendly and compassionate lives – as these are part of living in line with our everyday values as individuals, and this is a vital part of what it means to live a good, dignified, fulfilled human life. But what it does mean that if we’re seriously looking to change the world as individuals we should be prioritising something else – and that is to do everything we can to influence the real agents for change on these issues.

So, if each of us is serious about getting a better world, let’s separate the actions we can take to live in line with our values as individuals (like planet-friendly living) from the actions we can take to gain real change (like lobbying companies, voting, becoming politically active) – and then do both of these things.

Clone towns revisited

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Recently, the New Economics Foundation (nef) published a follow up to their influential 2005 ‘Clone Town Britain’ report. The updated report has surveyed Britain again and found that 41 per cent of UK towns are clone towns and a further 23 per cent are on the verge of becoming clone towns.

The original report explored how our local towns and commuities had been affected by the growing dominance of major chains on the high street, and this follow-up continues the theme, whilst also exploring how the economic downturn has affected this situation. This is important stuff as it affects the quality of our lives and communities directly. The report provides a few ideas on how we can start to make things better. Also see the ‘How to connect‘ section of the Life Squared resource base for other ideas.

Check out the new report here.