The laws of physics tell us we can’t build a rocket that will travel faster than the speed of light, that gravity governs objects on Earth, and that perpetual motion machines are not possible. In chemistry, diffusion constants, reaction rates, and atomic properties set the limits of chemical reactions and types of molecules that can be synthesized. Biology dictates our absolute need for clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy, and biodiversity for our survival and health.
Those are laws of nature and we can’t change them. We have to live within their boundaries. Capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, corporations, currency, markets, and regional borders are not forces of nature. We invented them. If they don’t work, we can and must change them.
Instead we try to alter nature to fit our priorities. Look at what happened at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009. We saw 192 nations gathered to deal with the atmosphere that belongs to no one — 192 national borders, 192 economic priorities, trying to shoehorn nature to fit our creations! We should be looking for ways to make our systems work with nature, not the other way around.
It’s a message that’s starting to emerge from the Occupy movement. It’s not just about the one per cent who rake in an ever-increasing proportion of society’s wealth while 99 per cent bear the real costs. It’s also about corporate power and the systems that facilitate it. A few corporations have become bigger than most governments.
Occupiers know, because so many are young, that the inequities represented by the one per cent today are also inter-generational. Although not all corporations are bad, many of them, and the super-rich who run them, are increasing their wealth at the expense of generations to come — exhausting resources, extinguishing species, and poisoning air, water, and soil. The costs of those problems will be most strongly felt by successive generations to come, yet economists discount them.
Why do the governments we elect to look after our well-being and future act as cheerleaders for the corporate sector? Because money talks.
Corporations may produce or do things that we need and that are good for society, but their real mandate is to make money, and the more they make and the faster they make it, the better. orporations are said to be the economic engines of society. But as Joel Bakan explains in his book The Corporation, when profit is their primary goal, corporate leaders will fight to reduce their share of taxes, demand subsidies, oppose regulations, and fire hundreds of employees for the sake of the bottom line.
David Suzuki
Globalization does not encourage the highest standards for workers, communities, or ecosystems. Instead, corporations often go for the lowest standards of medical care, wages, and environmental regulations because it’s all about maximizing profit. The global economy means our garbage and toxic effluents are shared with the world, dumped into the air, water, and land.
When you buy running shoes, a cell phone, or a car, it’s almost impossible to know whether slave or child labour was involved in its production. How can you be aware of the ecological impacts or the toxic materials that may be generated in the manufacturing process? These costs are hidden, yet each time we make a purchase, we become part of that system that exploits people and ecosystems.
To me, the Occupy movement is about putting decisions and democracy back into the hands of people. We need democracy for people, not corporations; we want greater equity; we demand social justice; and we want to recognize and protect our most fundamental needs — clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy, biological diversity, and communities that support our children with love and care.
My generation and the boomers who followed have lived like reckless royalty and thoughtlessly partied like there’s no tomorrow. We forgot the lessons taught to us by our parents and grandparents who came through the Great Depression: live within your means and save some for tomorrow; satisfy your needs and not your wants; help your neighbours; share and don’t be greedy; money doesn’t make you a better or more important person. Well, the party’s over. It’s time to clean up our mess and think about our children and grandchildren.
Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.
• Two responses to John Hawkins’ Transforming a system in crisis
A. Isla MacGregor:
“Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they’ve told you what you think it is you want to hear.” – Alan Coren
“For a ruling bureaucracy, the possession of power is the highest goal, and to keep and strengthen its power is the paramount aim of its policy.” – Erich Strauss
“No government has ever been, or ever can be, wherein time-servers and blockheads will not be uppermost.” – John Dryden
Much has been written on TT of late from numerous commentators and writers about their dissatisfaction with the Greens, Labor and Liberals and electoral politics generally.
Over recent years in Australia new political parties and independents have popped up dissatisfied with what existing parties have offered or the problems that beset those parties internally.
Tasmanians are now at a critical juncture in progressive politics because of the enormous dissatisfaction with the Greebor alliance and the citizens tired of the same old farces being played out in our Parliament by elected members.
The following article by Brian Martin on Demarchy outlines an alternative to electoral politics that would provide a system of governance not prone to corruption and control by vested interests.
Many people view the current political system as a failed one, yet no options have been articulated by many of the ‘indignados’!
In my view Demarchy offers a viable alternative to representative democracy and would be interested in furthering discussion on this system.
Demarchy: a democratic alternative to electoral politics
The basic idea
The present standard system of representative government is based on electing a small number of officials who then make decisions on a wide range of issues.
Demarchy, by contrast, is based on a network of numerous decision-making groups. Each group deals with a specific function, such as transport, land use or health services in a local area. The membership of each body is chosen randomly from all those who volunteer to be on it.
Random selection is also called the lot system, the jury system or sortition. Demarchy can also be called statistical democracy.
If the community decides that certain categories of people should be represented, such as ethnic minorities, then it is easy to arrange random selection of the required fraction of group members from these categories.
The term of office of each group member is strictly limited. Selection of new members is staggered so that skills and experiences can be passed on to the newcomers.
Read the rest, with Cartoons, HERE
B. Desmond:
Following John Hawkins’ contribution (TT: Transforming a system in crisis, HERE) I want to alert readers to this paper. The paper is well worth reading as it provides a framework for people to consider reform.
The author Campbell Sharman, a Canadian, was the 2006 Australian Senate’s visiting academic who wrote the paper on citizen driven electoral reform which details a Canadian example and provides a very good explanation of a reform process. Link to the paper, published on the Senate website HERE
The strength of the paper is that it describes the Canadian situation, compares various aspects of the Canadian situation with Australian processes. But most importantly it describes a British Columbian process whereby a group of citizens developed an alternative approach to governance that achieved 58% support by the electors of BC, only failing by 2% from achieving automatic adoption.
This is the citizens web site http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public with their last report.
What is important is that Tasmania does need to reform itself.
How is that to be achieved? As a first step one gains support for the proposal that there be change, then establish what change process should be followed to canvass all the options, then to propose a particular reform or a series of options that would then be followed by the electorate making a choice ie status quo or the new proposal. Who would own such a process, finance it and promote it. I am suggesting that there was a Canadian example that may just work for Tasmania.
What do Tasmanian Times readers think?
