Who Will Build the Ark? by Lola Seaton

Author:Lola Seaton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

5. UTOPIAS, NOT PRAGMATICS

What then of strategies? I do not propose any panaceas here. Looking for pragmatic solutions, as Pollin does, forces us into a narrowed framing of the problem: one value (sustaining future generations), one problem (climate change), one goal (reduce carbon emissions) and one solution (renewables).28 Once we open out the debate to include not only sustainability but justice, well-being, conservation and democratic processes, it becomes impossible to think in terms of simple strategies or single-technology solutions. We need to think of strategies that are not pragmatic but utopian – because the pragmatic is a seductive pathway to the status quo.

First, we need a shift in our thinking. We have to counter the hold on our collective minds of economic growth-ism, technological hubris and Adam Smith’s idea of individual self-interest automatically leading to societal good. We must reject established hierarchies of thinking, in which economists and engineers rule the roost, social scientists are in a sorry second place, and the humanities are nowhere in the picture.29 We must reopen the question of values, asking what we mean by a good society and making the case for why we should care about our fellow humans, future generations and the natural world. Our analyses must be equally multi-dimensional, avoiding the trap of mono-causality, or trying to explain everything through Marxism, feminism, or some other system. It is vital to bridge the structure–agency divide, to explore how our actions in production, consumption and the deployment of our ‘savings’ implicate us in the very system we are struggling against.

Second, we need concrete structural changes. On the economic front, while universal basic income may be a starting point, the end-goal must be transferring ownership of productive assets. There are real opportunities for this in the Global South, not least in devolving control of state-owned forests to local communities – Nepal took a big leap in the early 1990s, and India is moving in the same direction through its landmark Forest Rights Act.30 These shifts combine a transfer of control over the means of production with a democratization of environmental decision-making, as local communities get a say on development projects such as mines and dams. This could be made into a stepping-stone towards co-design and co-ownership of those projects. Simultaneously, Covid-19 has reopened the discussion on progressive taxation, if only to generate resources to fight the pandemic. Instead of falling prey to the rhetoric of needing ‘financial packages to restart the economy’, we should be asking, ‘how can we shape a different economy?’

On the political front, the battle is clearly to create deeper democratic processes and to align them with environmental problems. Fully participatory democracy may be a far cry, but the principle of environmental and social subsidiarity – that is, to federate upwards only those functions that cannot be discharged at a lower level – could help to strengthen transparency and accountability. Democratization must include public oversight of science and technology, but we also need to educate our scientists and engineers in ethics

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