Simpol common misconceptions #4

One more in the occasional series, setting straight the common errors people make with regard to Simpol.

This time:

Simpol promotes its global initiative to the exclusion of all other levels of action.

This one comes up from time to time and it is understandable that it does. Simpol argues that the root cause of many of our problems is destructive international competition. It proposes that the only way to cure this root cause in the long term is to enact simultaneous policy implementation.

It may therefore seem that Simpol is stating this is the ONLY action that  can have ANY effect. This is categorically not the case. It is in fact a false dichotomy that helps no one.

Simpol is a long term global strategy. But it recognises explicitly that short term local, regional and national strategies are also vital to mitigate the immediate negative effects of the current system. To use a medical analogy, just because the doctor knows that surgery will be required to cure an illness, does not mean that they will withhold pain relief medication or anti-biotics in the short term.

The two approaches should be clearly seen as being both compatible and mutually beneficial.

 

Occupy evicted – so what now?

So, eventually, it has come to pass that the occupy protestors at St Paul’s have been evicted. Is this, then, the end for the movement for change in the UK?

Not at all. Some people have treated occupy as if it was a revolutionary idea that came out of nowhere. Certainly, in the minds of much of the general public, this appears to be the general impression.

But, in truth, occupy is a visible symptom of something much larger – that the current system is unsustainable and morally unacceptable. I say this not to belittle occupy; in fact I have read numerous pieces in which occupy activists/advocates have said as much.

There were people working for real and lasting change before occupy. There will continue to be people working for real and lasting changing after occupy.

One of the great achievements of occupy has been to bring this debate into the mainstream. In this sense, I personally think the occupy school of ideas was much more important – both in theory and in practice. Sadly the school has also been evicted.

Still, whilst occupy has been going numerous organisations – mostly small – and individuals have been busy forging links and working together. The dominant attitude in the movement for change is now one of collaboration and cooperation. This is the other great achievement.

It is the second achievement that will be – or at least ought to be – the legacy of occupy. As we move forward we will all have to continue to work together if we are to bring about real and lasting change.

 

Challenging Simpol

By Robert Hickey

When one ‘designs’ a system of global governance (although I suspect it would be by more than ‘one’) it should both be democratically legitimate as well as capable of timely action. Yet, these two requirements are often at odds with each other, even within the relatively homogenous context of the nation-state. The democratic process does a decent job of preventing extremism in official government policy, particularly in multi-party systems where opposing parties have relatively equal power over the political process over time. Nations are often able to arrive at compromises, even if they sometimes come at the 11^th hour. Countries containing significant ethnic, religious or linguistic groups may have bigger challenges in achieving this, particularly when regions within countries have been historically autonomous entities from the now centralized government.

This issue plagues international organizations (quick glance over at the UN) such as in the U.N Security Council, where democratic decision-making takes on its most absolute form; decisions must be taken unanimously in order to be passed. It is true then, from experience here on Earth, that when national views migrate to an international democratic forums, and that forum is mandated with maintaining global security, fighting poverty and ensuring human rights are had by all (among other things), such democratic legitimacy has obvious faults. In some cases, it may act as a reason for inaction. With such diverse views and interests, how can any decision which is debated within, not be reduced to the lowest-common denominator that will satisfy all those voting. The reality it seems to me, is that it usually can’t.

How then can the need for global governance on so many issues; climate change, acidification of the oceans, addressing humanitarian crises, overfishing of the seas, deforestation, and other challenges, be addressed with such diverse views and interests at play? I do not mean this as a rhetorical question. I really do not know how it can be done.

Under the SIMPOL model, it would seem that the more nations that agree to diverge from the most optimal economic policies (in the sense of GDP gained without regard for social and environmental factors), the more that those that maintain traditional international destructive economic policies would benefit. As such, as more countries sign on to SIMPOL, the higher the incentive would be to not abide by the SIMPOL pledge. It seems to me that there is an inverse relationship here between the number of nations joining SIMPOL and the motivation to join. Not until all nations agreed would there be benefits for all. And getting all nations to agree…it is quite a task to be sure.

I suppose the current government-sponsored massacres in Syria is what got me thinking about this subject. If the international community, through the UN, has problems making even a statement condemning the violence, what does that say about the prospects for taking unified action on immediate and long-term challenges like climate change? Such lack of sufficient and timely action is the elephant in the room and it exists horizontally across all global challenge areas.

Perhaps I am just in a disparaging mood, and minds and institutions entrenched in the past and present can change in time to address an uncertain future. Momentum on a global scale will certainly takes much force to redirect.

I really hope that making comparisons between the Syrian case and climate change is my own simply convolution of comparing apples to oranges. For all of us.

I am interested in the comments section of having a discussion on how to reconcile this action vs. democratic legitimacy paradox at the global level.

Party Politics: Meaninglessness in a globalised world

By John Bunzl, Simpol founder

With politicians of all parties bemoaning the public’s deepening disinterest in party politics and trying to devise ever more elaborate wheezes to entice them back to the ballot box, almost no one seems to have noticed that globalisation itself is quietly setting the narrow parameters within which national political discourse has become confined.

Today, financial markets represent a largely borderless world with trillions of dollars able to move from one end of the global to another in a matter of seconds. Likewise, it’s relatively easy for major corporations to switch or outsource their production to wherever in the world offers the lowest costs and the highest profits.

The ability of capital to move freely and globally by and large has the effect of forcing all governments to enact only those policies designed to enhance (or defend) their nation’s ability to attract capital, investment and jobs. For without them, their economy will go into decline. It follows, then, that whichever party we elect has no choice but to follow substantially the same market- and business-friendly policy agenda; that is, what might be called the “national competitiveness” agenda – the modern-day version of pursuing the national interest.

That’s why, in whatever country we may live, we find left-of-center parties adopting policies traditionally espoused by right-of-center parties. It’s why New Labour’s Tony Blair was often said to be the best Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher. Or, as the former Conservative prime minister, John Major, himself once put it, “I went swimming leaving my clothes on the bank and when I came back Tony Blair was wearing them” (The Week, 29 October, 1999).

Hence globalisation, for all its good and bad points, has also resulted in all political factions, once they come to power, having no choice but to pursue substantially the same policies. Party politics, consequently, has become substantially devoid of meaning. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that lower voter turnouts, and the general pervading cynicism about politics, are the inevitable outcome. These effects are the ingredients of what the famous philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, calls a “legitimation crisis”; a breakdown in the adequacy of the existing worldview and its governance systems to command allegiance amongst the population as a whole.

Globalisation, in other words, has rendered much of what citizenship means meaningless. And so, for anyone to try to address politics only at a national level is, in this day and age, to miss the “bleeding rhino head in the room”; that thinking about politics and governance now needs to move decisively up to the global level. Our thinking about politics needs to move, in other words, from nation-centric to world-centric.

The ossification and emptiness of today’s political discourse is one symptom, in effect, of the present global crisis brought on by globalisation; a crisis which, in a broader view of things, is telling us that the present most senior organs of governance in the world – nation-sates – are now no longer capable of governing adequately; that they are reaching the end of their evolutionary lives and now need to be “transcended and included” by a still-higher level of governance. As philosopher, Ken Wilber, concurs, “The modern nation-state, founded upon initial rationality, has run into its own internal contradictions or limitations, and can only be released by a vision-logic/planetary transformation” (Sex Ecology Spirituality, p. 192).

And as to how citizens may discover a completely new way to engage with politics which is truly transnational (i.e. world-centric) and which transcends the old party-political divides, there is now a solution available; a solution called the Simultaneous Policy (Simpol) http://www.simpol.org. As Wilber points out, “The central idea of Simpol is very powerful; that is, the notion of how to link votes in one country with votes in another – how to link political action in one country with action in another. International competition is built-in to the nation-state system at its current level of development, and so the issue is not environmental concerns, but how to get humans to agree on environmental concerns. This is really fascinating and very hopeful. In my opinion this is the crucial issue for the 21st century”.

Talking the talk…

Here at Simpol we’ve been looking back at some of the comments made by our dear leaders and we’ve discovered something interesting (although perhaps not surprising!).

It seems those in positions of power are fully aware of the need for global cooperation . They are even quite happy to ‘talk the talk’ about it.

Here’s a few choice quotes we found:

“And yes, we need global co-operation. But that shouldn’t be difficult. It just takes leadership…”

David Cameron, talking about climate change

…”but the underlying problems have not been tackled and they can’t be tackled by any one country acting alone…”

Mervyn King (governor of the Bank of England) talking about the global economic crisis. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15203847

”Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

Barack Obama,  President of the USA

“Global co-operation is the best –I believe the only– answer…to dig our world back out of recession…to create the growth, trade, and international rules we need for a fairer, greener, safer planet.”

Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister

“We are in the 21st century. There is not a single country that can direct the world on its own,” “The world is totally, fully interdependent and interlocked.”

Nicolas Sarkozy, French President

“We should step up co-operation on international supervision and regulation. We must work together to address major global challenges.”

Wen Jiabao, Chinese Premier, talking about climate change.

…and yet and yet… Strangely enough, they seem curiously unwilling to ‘walk the walk’. Why should this be?!

The answer of course is that, for all the talk, our global system is dominated by destructive international competition and the fear of first mover disadvantage this engenders in those very same politicians.

Unless we solve that problem we will get nowhere.

Let me leave you with a couple more quotes. First, here’s one from a global figure who is, perhaps, more inclined to action on cooperation than most:

“(Business leaders) need to embrace global co-operation and partnership on a scale never before seen”. “and abandon short-term thinking in favour of long-term solutions to climate change and other pressing global challenges.”

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations

Finally here’s one more from Mr David Cameron:

“…take power away from politicians and give it to people… We know that the best ideas come from the ground up, not the top down.”

They say talk is cheap, but in this case the cost of inaction is more than any of us can afford to pay! It’s time to take action together now!

 

 

2012 – a year of change

It is perhaps the defining feature of the modern age, that change has become our most constant companion. No more, it seems, for the punctuated equilibrium of old. What are we to think now, of the much vaunted ‘end of history’?

Consequently, it is a brave or a foolish individual indeed who makes predictions for the future – even over so short a time as a year. Who, for example, would have bet a mere 365 days ago that Time Magazine’s person of the year 2011 would ‘The Protestor’? Who could have predicted the events that would lead to this unprecedented outcome?

I think what we have seen  in 2011 is indeed the Year of Protest. This has been the year of mass recognition that the current system is practically unsustainable and morally unacceptable.

So I will be brave/foolish and make this prediction for the year ahead. 2012 will be the Year of Change.

Across many sources in many areas – from permaculture to decentralised energy to commoning to political projects like Simpol and the fledgling Democratic Reform Movement (and many many more) – I have seen amazing ideas spreading all over the place.

These ideas will, I think, propagate and spread ever further into the mainstream. Then the tremendous energy that has been so obviously present in the actions of 2011 will  begin to translate into real and lasting change.

But then perhaps this prediction is not so foolish, as it is all of us who must be the authors of this change. It is not enough to predict it – we must be the ones to make it happen.

We are 2012. We are the Year of Change.

Deficit Reduction vs. Growth Stimulation: a false dichotomy in a globalised world

By John Bunzl, Simpol Founder.

The government says deficit reduction, the opposition says go for growth.

Doing the former, Chancellor Osborne tells us, will keep interest rates low and so, in time he hopes, help the economy to grow. But given future growth is heavily dependent on the growth of other national economies around the world, the only thing to be said for deficit reduction is that it will prevent us from being eaten alive by the markets, at least for now. But doing the latter—going straight for growth, as Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls would have us do—would give deficit reduction a lower priority and so likely incur the wrath of global bond markets, push up interest rates, and so make growth much more difficult or impossible anyway! So whichever way we go, there’s no solution in sight. I’m not an economist, but when each argument is as self-defeating as the other, one does have to wonder if our economists and politicians are really looking in the right place for solutions. A genuine solution, in other words, probably lies on an entirely different plane altogether.

Indeed, both arguments depend for their success on what happens in the wider global economy; on the health of the economies of other nations. If other nations don’t grow, there won’t be sufficient demand for our exports. If they don’t grow, then, we can’t grow—regardless whether the deficit is reduced or not. And even stringent deficit reduction won’t necessarily prevent us from being eaten by the markets. For it’s important to understand that any nation’s standing with the markets is an entirely relative affair. That is, there’s no absolute state of affairs that guarantees market approval. Rather, it’s whichever nation is most vulnerable that will get eaten; whichever nation that, regardless of its absolute economic health, fails to keep ahead of its competitors that will be sucked under, dismembered, and consumed. So whether it’s keeping the markets happy or keeping GDP up, both approaches are predicated on events and forces no nation can control.

It’s here, then, that we see the fallacy upon which both approaches are based. National political parties, we see, are in the business of getting us to believe that national governments can actually deliver solutions; that they still have relevance in a globalised world. But the truth is that the factors determining success lie well beyond any individual government’s control. The blunt truth, then, is that while we may like to believe our governments are in the economic cockpit, they’re just sitting in First Class along with the transnational corporations and hedge-fund managers, buffeted and shaken by global market forces no one is in control of. But the disastrous effects are felt most in Economy Class, of course; by the poor in both rich and poor nations alike. Politicians may pretend to be in control, and we may want to believe them, but the fact is that in our globalised world it’s the overwhelming impersonal forces of global markets that determine what happens; forces that are running out of any democratic control or accountability.

Solutions, we must realise then, no longer lie within the gift of individual national governments, but can only be achieved through widespread international cooperation; cooperation strong and broad enough to reign the markets in. As the governor of the Bank of England, Mervy King, also acknowledged in a recent interview, the underlying problems in the global economy which caused the current sovereign debt crisis, “cannot be dealt with by any nation alone. … They won’t be tackled,” he says, “unless countries, as a group, come together to ensure that the world economy can keep growing.” One might also add, that nations won’t stop themselves from being eaten alive by the markets until they come together to agree robust global rules and taxes to ensure global markets start to operate in the common good rather than just for the benefit of the globally mobile few.

So there are solutions, but we won’t find them by listening to governments or economists. Only when we take on board the truly global nature of our problems will we realise, both that solutions can only be achieved in the realm of global international cooperation, and that we, citizens, are the ones who will have to drive our respective governments towards it.

A tall order, you might think, and rightly so. But there are some people who’ve taken up this monumental challenge. Over two general elections, in 2001 and 2005, a small group of UK citizens campaigning for global cooperation succeeded in getting 27 Members of the UK parliament and countless candidates from all the main political parties to pledge to implement the campaign’s global policy package simultaneously alongside other governments. In some UK electoral areas, more than one candidate signed the pledge, meaning the campaign gained support in parliament regardless which of those candidates won the seat. This showed the campaign was capable of transcending party-political divides and was global in scope.

But how could a very small number of citizens achieve such big results in so short a time? The answer, it seems, lies in their discovery of a new, powerful way to use their votes. They do this by writing to all parliamentary candidates in their electoral area, informing them that they’ll be voting in future national elections for ANY politician or party—within reason—that pledges to implement the campaign’s policy package simultaneously alongside other governments. Or, if they have a party preference, they encourage their preferred politician or party to sign that pledge. In that way, campaign supporters still retain the ultimate right to vote as they please, but they also make it clear to all politicians that they’ll be giving strong preference to candidates that have signed the Pledge, to the exclusion of those who haven’t. So, politicians who sign the Pledge stood to attract those votes and yet they risked nothing because the policy package is only to be implemented if and when sufficient governments around the world have signed up too. But if politicians failed to sign the Pledge they risked losing votes to their political competitors who had, and so risked losing their seats.

With many parliamentary seats and even entire elections around the world often hanging on a relatively small number of votes, it’s not difficult to see how, with this novel way of voting, only relatively few campaign supporters could make it in the vital interests of all politicians to sign up for global cooperation. And therein lies the power that citizens who join this campaign already have to ensure their governments cooperate. As increasing numbers of citizens in all democratic count learn to use their votes in this way, one can imagine how more and more governments could be driven towards global cooperation. As more signed up, others would come under pressure to follow.

Whether democratic or not, and whatever their level of development, the worsening world predicament is in any case making it in the interests of all nations to solve problems cooperatively, as Mervyn King suggests. But what this campaign uniquely seems to provide is an appropriate framework for that to occur, and a way for enlightened citizens to take the lead. Moreover, the campaign is spreading: some Members of the European, Australian and other parliaments have signed up alongside their UK colleagues. The campaign presently has supporters in over 70 countries and endorsements from some leading statesmen, economists and ecologists. So maybe global cooperation is simply a matter of time; and of how quickly world citizens realise that voting in this new way may well be the most potent way forward. The campaign’s name? The Simultaneous Policy (Simpol) http://www.simpol.org.

It’s that time of year…

… and though it’s undoubtedly a cliche, I find myself wondering what Christmas is really about. I’ve read a lot of pieces recently that decry Christmas as a hyper-commercial travesty. Some pieces were heartfelt, some bitterly cynical, some downright funny.

But whatever the case, I still believe that most people set out with good in their hearts at christmas. They want to express their appreciation for their loved ones at a time of happiness.

So perhaps the problem with Christmas is actually that it should be like that all the time.

Obviously the booze and food we can’t do every day, else we’d all keel over from heart failure after a month.

But the kindness, the community, the sharing and the giving – these are values that run deep within us all. So I don’t think decrying Christmas as commercial nonsense is the answer (true as it sadly is these days).

In these heartless modern times now, more than ever, we need something to unite us, to bring us together. In the end, we need each other.

Peace on Earth, goodwill to all Men… who was it that said that?

Happy Christmas to you all!

The Durban Deal

So, a deal has been done in Durban. There are of course a multitude of views and opinions being expressed on this. As ever, there are those who point out that these deals don’t go far enough to achieve meaningful results.

What I found interesting and even a little heartening though, was a comment made by Chris Huhne, the UK Energy and Environment Secretary. He said:

“It shows that when the European Union is united, we can play an absolutely critical role in protecting our national interests. This is a very good example of how the European Union actually can act very crucially in the British national interest, in a way we could not possibly achieve on our own.”

This may not seem like much, but it does represent a very important point and maybe, just maybe, a change in the way this problem is being thought about in the places of political power.

It shows that, finally, it is being recognised, that acting cooperatively can be in the interest of all.

It’s a small step to be sure and, in truth, each nation will still be looking to its own national competitive interest above all else. It will take something much greater than this to change that mindset once and for all – it will take People Power to do that. Until then we will still be stuck with deals that don’t do the job.

But it is a shred of hope nonetheless. It is also proof that all the campaigning is worthwhile; that the message is, ever so slowly, getting through.

 

As the year end approaches…

It’s time for a spot of traditional futurology!

So, two questions:

 

1) How do you think the world will be in:

a) 1 year?

b) 5 years?

c) 10 years?

d) 20 years?

e) 50 years?

 

2) How do you think the world could and/or should be over those timescales?

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and predicitions!