A looming disaster

In his 1974bookThe American Marxist, early life metal worker, thinker and writer Harry Braverman discussed the question of where the critical power of decision resides in modern society. He made the point that –“…so long as investment decisions are made by the corporations, the locus of social control and coordination must be sought among them; government fills the interstices left by these prime decisions.” (Braverman H.1974 p.269)

This reality needs to be recognized if we are to effectively come to grips with the complexity of modern society and develop the thinking and action essential to any real and lasting success in meeting the challenges Climate change confronts us with. For elected Governments and the people who elect them to have a medium and long term future we need to ensure that we move towards a system of democratic control of economic and social decision making. While ever social and economic priorities are decided by, and in the narrow and short term interests of, an unelected wealthy and powerful few ecological sustainability and social harmony will continue to be in ever increasing jeopardy.

The current set of ecological and economic crises that now endanger the human future have their origin in our now long running preoccupation with conquering nature and destroying the very ecosystems of our planet that make human life possible. This is all driven by the pursuit of short term profits for a few. This whole process has been accompanied, indeed made possible, by various processes of misinforming the populace at large. At this point in time only a minority, and this minority of people come from several sections of our deeply divided society, have been able to resist the brain wash that includes deliberate falsifications about the real issues the human species is now faced with.

In a 2005 Now We The People ( NWTP Tas Project) booklet “ Woodchips, Lawsuits and Democracy” John Biggs, under the title “Keeping the Public Misinformed”, wrote — “In his novel 1984 George Orwell painted a picture of a world that we used to think was too horrific to be plausible outside of the Soviet bloc or Communist China. Orwell’s was a globalised world, where Big Brother maintained absolute power over everyone. His most devastating tool Was Newspeak, a bureaucratic language designed to misinform.

Don Watson in “Death Sentence: The decay of public language” (Random House 2003) has shown that Newspeak is now the current language of corporations – and of the Howard Government.” Referring directly to Tasmania’s forestry debate Dr.Biggs details how –“The use of Newspeak in the forestry debate… has a long history in Tasmania.”

It is vital that we recognize that the confusion about ways to a future for human beings does not spring from an inability to recognise reality—but from a long running and highly organized campaign to misinform by the few with power over our means of mass communication. These wealthy and greedy few also have undue influence in our cultural and -education systems. The dumbing down process is relentless. It helps to stifle discussion of the fact that there is a lack of democracy in the workplace and in the key areas of economic policy and investment decision making.

Several decades ago Green Bans Union leader Jack Mundey explained how difficult it was/is to introduce democratic procedure into investment decision making. After explaining that it was relatively easy to get wage increases, at that time, Mundey made the following point about the developers position on democratic discussion about investment decisions. “Now the money was there, but no invading of our sanctity, they said, by setting up any committee to determine which buildings should be built.” (Australian Left Review No 42 1973) In other words those with capital must be allowed to make the investment decisions, inputs by the people who live in an area or by the workers who build the buildings is just not cricket.

The dehumanization of work practices and cultures

To return to Braverman, discussing current work practices and backing up the following comment with detailed references he wrote- “If Taylorism does not exist as a separate school today, that is because, apart from the bad odor of the name, it is no longer the property of a faction, since its fundamental teachings have become the bedrock of all work design.” (Braverman H.1974 P. 87) For those readers not familiar with what Taylorism is about – –Taylorism was /is a very detailed, even minute study of work processes to the end of achieving the further division of Labor and the systematic deskilling and disempowering of the individual worker, and the consequent greater level of control of the work processes, and the worker, by management.

Put another way Taylorism is a minute study of work processes with the intention to divide the labour necessary to the production of a given product or even part of a product into distinct and separate operations. This results in the individual worker losing his/ her knowledge of the whole process necessary to producing a given product. The worker is now confined to producing one small part of the whole object or article being produced. The individual worker whose forbears once possessed the knowledge necessary to create or produce a whole part, or the whole object, being produced loses that knowledge and the bargaining power that knowledge gives. We are discussing here what has/is happening in mass production and not necessarily in every production process.

Taylorism results in the mental and physical activities involved in productive activity becoming separated in most mass production processes. The overall knowledge about how to produce a given object is now possessed only by so called experts in management. In an important sense it turns on its head the situation in which the one time guilds of skilled workers who guarded their knowledge about how whole objects or articles were made and transfers that power to people in management who do little or nothing useful in terms of the actual labour required to produce things. In terms of creativity and real efficiency Taylorism is a negative approach –but as a mechanism to control workers and the conditions of their work it works in that it gives near complete control to management.

The workers field of activity is reduced to one or two mind numbing tasks and work that was once interesting and potentially mind stimulating now becomes a boring instead of a potentially interesting, creative and mentally stimulating activity. Humans have demonstrated a capacity to think laterally and be creative across a field of matters and to an extent that no other mammal has revealed an ability to achieve. Taylorism denies that humanness to the workers who are actually doing much of the work that keeps human societies afloat.

In capitalist societies there is some logic to this approach in that it assists the few, with capital, to control the many workers who actually do the work. United, organised, with clear purpose and armed with knowledge workers have potential to exercise some control over their conditions of labour. As individuals without knowledge, purpose and organised to- getherness the individual worker is essentially reduced to blindly accepting the power ,over much of their lives, of those with, or those representing, capital. The study and implementation of Capitalist approaches to work cultures in the Soviet Union was one of the great tragedies of the 20th Century.

Capitalist work practices and cultures in the Soviet Union

Braverman provides strong evidence that the now defunct Soviet Union aped capitalist work practices, rather than following the heart and spirit of Marxist ideas. To wit “Soviet economists and social scientists insisted that job satisfaction studies are irrelevant” . and that “ … a growing body of Westernised sociological and management literature in the Soviet Union seeks to make explicit the debt of Soviet society to capitalist industrial practice. (see Braverman H. 1974 p17 )

The extremely difficult problems faced by the young Soviet Union had led, then Soviet leader Lenin, to advocacy of a study of Taylorism despite that he recognised it as having the anti-humanist aims it has . Lenin was faced with the reality of his new Soviet State having been invaded by several armies from capitalist countries. It seems he saw study of capitalist work practices, adapted to Soviet conditions, as being of use in helping the development of an effective heavy industry and utilization of technology to giving the new Soviet state the means to defend its borders against invading foreign military forces. Under Stalin, capitalist, particularly Taylorist, approaches to work cultures was part of an approach that spelt disasters of massive proportions. Marxist ideas for worker emancipation were ignored as capitalist practices were adopted.

As Braverman put it “… whatever the precise factors at work, the critique of the capitalist mode of production, originally the most trenchant weapon of Marxism, gradually lost its cutting edge as the Marxist analysis of the class structure of society failed to keep pace with the rapid process of change.” (See Braverman P. 12-13)

To return to what all of the above has to do with tackling Climate Change problems. Basically my point is that the Soviet experience, while it undermined and set back the cause of genuine socialism, did not fail because Socialism, in a democratic and flexible form , is not possible. My argument is that Socialist ideals of fairness in terms of equal opportunity for all, and production organized to meet peaceful and cooperative human needs are valid and need to be part of guiding us to a sustainable and equitable future.

Our current predicament

For the reasons briefly outlined above Humanity is racing towards a precipice that all too many of our kind have already fallen over or are on the edge of. Quite dramatic changes to our economic approach and practice are essential. These changes will not occur over night ideas have to be developed and those positive ideas already developed struggled for. Currently the decisions about economic policies and practices are not made in any democratic manner — thus influencing immediate change in the practices of the current decision makers is an immediate issue. Such partial changes in the short term are essential to human survival. Yet, important though they are, such changes are only a short term, time buying, processes.

Need for Democracy in Economic affairs and Work cultures

The immediately above mentioned partial changes need to be supplemented by policy approaches and legislation that begins NOW to dis-empower the few over rich and greedy . This is a major shift that requires people education and action, plus parliaments and governments being prepared to represent the people and the human future rather than the dictates of the greedy and powerful few, as now happens. This involves a need to put an end to the current situation in which major corporations can and do buy the major political parties. There needs to be revision of legislation regarding large donations to political parties and the granting of expensive favours to politicians.

And there needs to be a radical shift in the world of media and an end to control of so much by so few. Legislation to achieve all of this plus is possible given the political will and the pressure from enough people. The artificial divisions between so many workers and so many environmentalists is a modern Achilles heel of people’s movements. Acceptance of the lies on which these division are based allow the corporations chiefs and those people who would like ‘to be corporation chiefs, or be favoured by corporation chiefs, to dominate in politics, the economy and social life.

We are faced with the reality that both major political parties are now largely owned , or very heavily influenced, by the large privately owned corporations . This control /influence is exercised via massive donations, plus corporation power over the mass media. There is also undue influence, on government decisions, by the powerful corporation lobby system . The big polluters are getting massive support from public monies and various other forms of government assistance to bolster their power over society and their bottom lines as they push us further along the road to our own destruction.

Elected Governments, responding to people pressure and acting in the interests of people rather than corporation profit, need to replace the large privately owned corporations as the real decision makers in economic, social and environmental policy matters. To achieve such a radical shift a much wider recognition of where power of decision in modern society currently resides is necessary. Further it is essential that every possible opportunity to build bridges between people with the same basic needs and interests is acted upon. Workers and environmentally concerned people from all walks of life, who put the human future above short term profit, need to be encouraged to recognise that they have common ground.

The unity of workers and environmentally concerned people that existed for example in the Green Ban campaigns led by Jack Mundey in the early 1970’s is an example of the strength such unity gives to peoples movements. Many areas of Sydney in particular that get rich, or richer, quick developers had plans to destroy and replace with high rise buildings were saved from destruction by union bans and by residents actions. The Green Bans Movement has an important history of its own and will not be easy to emulate. It was in a period when the upsurge of people’s action was still in vogue.

It is my hope and, rightly or wrongly, my belief that we are again approaching a situation of increased awareness of the need for ordinary people to inform themselves and act in their own interests. More people are realizing that quietly accepting the drive to our own destruction, that is inherent to the continuation of current policies by governments and institutions and people passivity, spells disaster for their own and particularly their children’s future. That is why I believe it is so important that proposals for real change become much more the subject of discussion as between concerned activists in particular. None of us has all the answers but collectively and in joint actions that involve people we can find realisable solutions.

Some brief points about pressing issues.

The recent NWTP Tas project paper “Out Of The Forests: A New Way Forward For Tasmania” (Don’t forget the rally, HERE)contains ideas and proposals that can be important in helping to develop the common ground for a economically socially and ecologically sustainable future. What is required is returns on investments in ecologically sustainable and socially beneficial projects rather than, Government boosted, returns on investments in ecologically damaging projects. (This paper is available on the following websites www.nwtptas.org.au Policy paper on TT: HERE).

For Tasmania, changing forestry practices is an important part of the many responses we need to make to the numerous threats posed by climate change and global warming. The situation is deadly serious and there is a long way to go on a wide variety of aspects of the problems we face. As Senator Christine Milne so aptly put it in her comment on the responses to the relatively recent Climate Change Risks Report “The absurdity of the situation is that the Government’s own emissions trading trading legislation … will do nothing to stop the outcomes outlined in today’s report.” (Sunday Tasmanian 15-11-09).

The Liberal Party’s position, particularly under the National leadership of Abbott, is even more hopeless. Turnbull’s success in getting the Rudd Ministry to agreeing to give even more public money to the coal and other polluting corporations did not satisfy the Liberal Coalition majority. They chose Abbott whose approach is threatening to directly align Australia with the Climate Changer sceptics, and even with the nuclear madness.

The calls of Senator Milne, and Senator Bob Brown, for the Rudd Labor Government to negotiate with the Greens for a positive course of action needs to be given wide public support. While the odds are at best difficult such negotiations could have the potential to begin to change Australia from a Climate Change laggard to a positive example for the world.

In the coming Tasmanian State election a strong vote for Green and Independent candidates who like Andrew Wilkie, an Independent candidate in Denison, have publicly demonstrated an understanding that confronting climate change issues is a real need. The election of independents like Andrew Wilkie and an increase in the Geeen vote would provide real pressure on Rudd to face the reality climate change represents. Such a change, at the Federal level, if it could be effected, would create a political climate in which the resolution of Tasmania’s growing problems could be much more positively approached.

At a State Government level while Forestry issues loom large they are by no means the only problem we have. Disturbing as the privatisation of public enterprises and resources and the suggestion of political dealings suspect of corruption are, the focus needs also to be on what are candidates in our next year’s State Election proposing to do about Climate Change. Developing wind power in suitable areas, and a more realistic pay back price from the State electricity services for electricity generated on people’s roofs from solar panels are among the many urgent issues that require immediate action.
We also need realistic attention to a proper audit of our water situation including of ground water and the effect of current forest and plantation policies on the availability of adequate clean water .Further concerns include the effects of pollution on the planet’s oceans and the real threat pollution poses to the availability of eatable fish from our seas. We do need to revisit the issues of lifestyles and of economic and social priorities. Equity and sustainability need to be given much higher priority.“