Tasmania’s future

There is a quiet but enthusiastic social movement growing in Tasmania. It is about exploring new futures for our island state. And it is more about vision and listening to the wisdom within our diverse and rich communities than is currently the case.

Recently a conference entitled “Community, Economy and Environment: Exploring Tasmanian Futures” was held at the University of Tasmania.

One of the sponsors was the University of Tasmania’s Department of Geography and Environment which investigates the role of Place and Change in Tasmania’s sense of community. The other sponsor was the Prout Institute of Australia, dedicated to research into alternative social and economic futures. It was a very empowering day for the nearly 100 people who attended (96 to be exact).

The formal program had five speakers:
Dr. Michael Towsey, Queensland University of Technology — A New Economics: for people, for communities, for life.
Ms. Peg Putt, leader of the Tasmanian Parliamentary Greens, Tasmania — The Environment, the Future.
Jake Karlyle, futurist and author — A Cooperative Economy: What might it look like?
Dr. Johannes Bauer, Lecturer in Ecology, University of Sydney — Nature Conservation, the Forestry Transition and the New Player Tourism.
Michael Badcock, Chairman of the Australian Vegetable Growers Association — Globalisation, the Economy and the Environment: Who is going to pay?

Each speaker expanded on the theme of the conference, but for me the first talk was the key-note speech that sketched the big canvas. Dr. Michael Towsey, from the Queensland University of Technology presented the essentials of a workable framework for making communities healthy and sustainable — ‘painting the big picture’ as he called it. Where does society’s accumulated wisdom and knowledge reside? How do individuals and communities access that knowledge base? Learning from the elders within our communities, cultures and traditions, was the answer. What was so uplifting about Michael’s presentation was the respect and inclusiveness he brought to the three historical sources of human wisdom — the environmental, the spiritual and the humanist traditions.

Michael began by examining what the environmental tradition has to offer contemporary society and our economic system. He explored with the audience the geophysical boundaries that naturally create a sense of place in which a community lives and evolves. He compared the sustainability of a healthy community (or an economy) to a living organism; the smallest communities similar to individual living cells. Both require food (inputs or imports), both are bounded by semi-permeable membranes (borders and custom posts), both produce secretions (exports) and excretions (waste). And in order to survive both rely on the maintenance of an internal stability — or homeostasis (constant supply of essential goods and services at constant prices).

Life is a never-ending struggle to maintain an unstable equilibrium.

Michael summed up the idea of an economy as a living system with this quote attributed to the philosopher, P.R. Sarkar:

“Life is a never-ending struggle to maintain an unstable equilibrium.”

This statement represents a truth for the smallest living organism as it is for human beings and for complex human societies and economic systems around the world.

As the globalised world is now showing us on a daily basis, maintaining an economic equilibrium is a constant endeavour; like trying to balance a broom stick on the end of one’s finger. This was Michael’s metaphor for an unstable equilibrium. Orthodox economists assume that an economy is a physical system (for physical read dead) and, using equations borrowed from physicists, they assume an economy automatically reaches a stable equilibrium. (Imagine the broom hanging from one’s finger tips.) Deregulating an economy and allowing totally free trade on the assumption it will find a new equilibrium is like trying to balance a broom on one’s finger tip with one’s eyes closed. Economies are living systems, not dead!

I sensed the audience really wanted to explore this powerful metaphor in relation to the main socio-economic systems that drive our world — capitalism, communism and the latest reincarnation of capitalism, globalisation.

Michael used maps of his home state Queensland, to show how artificially constructed political boundaries divide the land and its peoples into arbitrary shapes. He then showed other boundaries created on biogeographical borders like river catchments, vegetation types or shared biogeography. His intention was to demonstrate the creation of natural human communities, healthy, sustainable because they are integrated with their local bioregions.

This was wonderful food for thought and reflection. But he moved on to discuss the contribution of the humanist tradition! What keeps old economies stuck where they are? What makes them unsustainable? Is there a history to the way things are that leads back to fundamental flaws in how societies choose to manage themselves?

Divine right of kings

Michael argued that European civilisation over the past two thousand years or more can be viewed as a struggle against the divine right of kings. Various forms of this ruler-God model have been enacted through the centuries on each continent. What emerged in opposition to the divine right of kings, and which we today take for granted, was political democracy and the separation of powers. However Michael argued that Europe’s historical mission to establish humanism is a not yet complete.

Today we live in a globalised world where the divine right of kings has metamorphosed into the divine right of corporations. And our response must be to establish economic democracy and an additional separation of power. Economic democracy would mean that local communities had the constitutional right to determine how their economies developed. Michael suggested that a fourth pillar of government be inserted along side the legislature, executive and judiciary. He called it the Audit branch of good governance. It would be responsible to define measures of economic progress, to audit government and community economic activity, to monitor the unhealthy bleeding of wealth from one community to another and to manage money supply in the public interest.

From the spiritual tradition, Michael discussed the universal message common to many religions and philosophies: Compassion for others; balanced living as the way to health and happiness, trust and respect in our connections with each other and with the natural environment. In practical economic terms this translates into triple bottom line accounting and alternative economic indicators which recognise the importance of the social, ethical and spiritual dimensions of human life.

Self reliance

This was a really inspiring talk punctuated with the wisdom of many world thinkers, philosophers, writers and theologians. It also included the wisdom of ordinary people like you and me, including this gem from Tasmania’s own Bill Mollison:

“I teach self-reliance, the world’s most subversive practice.”

Michael talked about moving away from individualism with its tendency to create competitive and conflict economies to a co-operative and sustainable economy. Seeing the local and global communities as a linked network — the World Wide web or Internet shows how at one level this is already happening — the hidden connections that connect everyone together.

I hope this gives you just a taste of a day that was ‘simply good to be part of’. When people take the time to explore their surroundings, to become reflective, then inspirational thinking and action are the fruits.

At the end of the day there was a mini-forum presented by local speakers, covering aboriginal history, soil health, plantations, impacts of forestry on health, food & housing cooperatives, land for wildlife, etc. What was different about this conference was the respectful listening and constructive engagement of all the participants. People felt free and relaxed to explore ideas and to express themselves openly. I really believe that this is the healthy way to develop a genuine community voice in Tasmania.

I encourage others who feel a social conscience for the plight of their local environment and communities as well as for their planet to come along to one of these seminars planned for the future. Many thanks for planning and organising assistance from Rob Blakers, Helen Cameron, Karen Brown, Peter Pullinger, Ollie Cheng, Frank Nicklason, David Obendorf, David Reid and many others, and a big thank you to those who prepared a wondrous lunch! — and of course to all those good folk who took the time on a Saturday to attend from all over the State.

Liila Hass,
Convenor