Basic income is not a panacea

basic-income
Source: Crypto Coins News

I’ve recently seen a lot of excited talk about basic income. A bit over a year ago, it was announced that the Swiss would soon hold a referendum for its citizens. Then we were confronted with exciting stories of a small Canadian town that had experimented with the idea back in the 1970s. A couple of weeks ago, Finland’s government made it known that it would seek to implement it in the near future, with backing from the Right, Left, and the Greens. Then the Dutch city of Utrecht pitched in, claiming that they would give it a try. And now both mayors of two of the most conservative cities in Canada, Calgary and Edmonton, are trying to give it a go.

Each piece of news has been greeted with great enthusiasm. I’ve seen the words radical and progressive used many times to describe these announcements.

The idea of basic income–also referred to as guaranteed minimum income and universal income–isn’t new, but it is starting to see a large following. It is appealing for those on the right, who want to minimize the role of the state and end the abuse of welfare. Others think it is the best economic solution to the increasing replacement of workers by robots, and the simultaneous onslaught of bullshit jobs in the economy. It is attractive to the left because it would mean access to income for the most marginalized, and it would allow people to pursue their own interests, furthering democratic society. It would also help support those who mostly do care work, especially women, which is less economically valued in Western society. Because it is appealing to both conservatives and progressives, it is seen as a compromise even the far right and far left could agree on. Largely because of this, it is hoped that, if implemented, it could become a catalyst for a more just economic system.

And so major news sources are responding to this general excitement by publishing articles like “A guaranteed income for every American would eliminate poverty — and it wouldn’t destroy the economy“, “What you should know about the idea that could revolutionize the 21st century“, “Universal basic income, something we can all agree on?“.

As it is being proposed currently, basic income can make things worse: it can strengthen racist policies, increase environmental impacts of our current economic system, and increase wealth inequality between the rich and poor globally. Right now, at best, it seems more like a poor compromise–one that’s slanted toward the benefit of the elite.

But I’m not that excited. I agree that a compromise, if it is strategic, can help us get closer to our goals. But I don’t think this is a strategic compromise. Basic income can only be a strategic compromise if it is  proposed along with a host of other policies that would limit its negative effects. But it doesn’t seem like that’s what’s happening. To illustrate this, it might help to briefly provide some basic facts:

  • Yes, Switzerland is moving toward a basic income referendum. But Switzerland’s main business is providing a tax haven for the world’s richest people. It is also one of the most racist countries in Europe, with leading parties pursuing actively discriminatory electoral campaigns, and even green parties taking anti-immigration positions.
  • In the Canadian town, Dauphin, the experiment was cancelled when faced with an economic recession, caused by the collapse of Canada’s lumber and mining industries, which were predicated on the over-exploitation of one of the world’s largest forested areas–significantly driving climate change.
  • The party proposing basic income in Finland is centre-right, with neoliberal leanings. Other parties supporting the proposal are the Fins’ Party, which is anti-immigration and conservative.
  • Calgary and Edmonton make most of their money from the tar sands, one of the most environmentally catastrophic and socially unjust extraction projects in the world. This would fund their basic income schemes.

In each situation, it’s worth asking where the wealth that would sponsor it comes from, who it will benefit, and who it will exclude.

As it is being proposed currently, basic income can make things worse: it can strengthen racist policies, increase environmental impacts of our current economic system, and increase wealth inequality between the rich and poor globally. Right now, at best, it seems more like a poor compromise–one that’s slanted toward the benefit of the elite.

In this essay, I argue that current proposals of basic income can be problematic and help to further the goals of the elite. I also provide some suggestions of ways to address this problem while keeping the positive effects of basic income proposals intact.

 

switzerland
Source: Washington Post

Basic income: a tool for economic, social, and environmental exclusion?

J. M. Keynes’ ‘welfare economics’ was seen as the only satisfying compromise between the capitalist class and the increasingly powerful workers’ unions. But this was by no means a radical compromise–it guaranteed continued profits to the market system while making a deal with the poor. In this way, it remained in line with liberal economic thinking.

Liberal economics is based on the idea that the state ought to make it easier for the market to operate. The main way to do this is to build infrastructure that makes it easier for enterprises to conduct their business. A secondary role for the state is then to regulate the market’s negative impacts. Welfare liberalism is the extension of this role: to redistribute market surplus to, on the one hand, improve the livelihood of those who cannot participate in the market, and to further bolster the market by giving lower classes sufficient capital so that they too can become consumers, further driving economic growth.

Welfare in the minority world guaranteed consumption and production at a level never seen before. And while this really did raise the standard of living, many of the costs were eventually off-loaded onto the backs of the majority world.

A half-century later, and we now know the impacts that this has had. Welfare in the minority world guaranteed consumption and production at a level never seen before. And while this really did raise the standard of living, many of the costs were eventually off-loaded onto the backs of the majority world. Sweatshop labor, mining disasters, pollution, and now migration due to climate change–these are all rife in ‘Third World’ countries. Countless people are now forced to move from their land because it has either been privatized or their basic means of subsistence has been destroyed through free trade agreements.

These people will often strive for better lives and migrate to the ‘First World’, where they are faced with systemic racism, terrible working conditions, and a legal system that regards them as second-class citizens. At the same time, the increased political and financial power of the growing class gave rise to the ‘Not In My Backyard’ phenomenon, pushing polluting industries to the Global South, where states had less regulatory power and poor people have less ability to resist environmental injustice.

Add to this the fact that the money that made welfare programs possible was already derived from centuries of colonialism, which involved dispossession and resource-grabs backed by violence.

And even within countries welfare can be exclusive. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward have argued that welfare in the US was designed primarily for quelling dissent in times of unrest, and for forcing the lower classes to enter the workforce in times of political stability. In this way, it can be seen as a mechanism for perpetuating the current economic system, not fixing it.At first sight, welfare liberalism might seem like a positive way to address the inequality inherent in capitalism. But if you zoom out, it starts to look more like a tool to placate the poor within rich countries, all the while justifying continued exploitation of the rest of the world. In this way, it remains simply a compromise, legitimating the power of the elite, while externalizing the costs of the economic system to those who don’t have the privilege of being citizens of a rich country.

BasicIncome (1)
Source: Katoikois

Let me use an example to illustrate why basic income can be a continuation of this. It is telling that the country that has advanced the most in bringing basic income into the policy discussion–Switzerland–is also one of the most racist and migrant-unfriendly places in Europe. In this case, the Swiss try to redistribute the profits from their banking system (which are derived from providing tax havens to world’s richest people) to a small and already privileged society, while excluding others. At the same time, as it would increase the finances available to the poorest Swiss, it would also increase spending and therefore consumption, driving up the costs unloaded on to society and the environment. These costs will mostly not be borne by the Swiss, but by people in the Global South, who are the most affected by climate change, work in far more dangerous conditions, and are forced to migrate when their land and livelihood is destroyed. Effectively, basic income in Switzerland would entail closure of the world’s riches, for the benefit of a small community.

As it is currently proposed, basic income simply redistributes the profits of already rich nations to its poorer classes. It keeps in place, and strengthens, the divide between the Global North and South.

In most policy proposals for basic income that I’ve seen so far, the pattern is the same. As it is currently proposed, it simply redistributes the profits of already rich nations to its poorer classes. It keeps in place, and strengthens, the divide between the Global North and South.

It’s true that basic income, if it were designed right, could potentially address Piven and Cloward’s concern that welfare has been inherently exclusionary within nations. In fact, they themselves supported basic income as a solution. But while it seems like basic income might create some sort of level economic playing-field, it could also be blind to any kind of structural inequality that already exists. That is, if black people in the US received basic income, they would still have to contend with a history of racism, which continues to be embedded within the US legal structure, housing, education, and financial system. And it wouldn’t necessarily take into account the fact that the money funding basic income schemes has been made mostly through unequal trade with the rest of the world.

There’s another reason why basic income could be a big problem, which I have rarely seen discussed by its proponents. Let’s say these countries and cities do end up creating such a program. Would they also extend it to migrant laborers and undocumented migrants?

Because if they don’t, one could well imagine a scenario where corporations just stop hiring legal citizens (because they would start making demands for better working conditions once they have basic income) and instead hire cheap migrants, who have very little legal support. They would also pressure their governments to change regulations to facilitate their reliance on precarious migrant labor. In this scenario, basic income would simply be a tool for more efficiently redistributing the profit from the exploitation of secondary citizens to rich countries.

I do acknowledge the potential of basic income to help reform the current economic system for the benefit of those who are the most affected by the current economic system–women, people of color, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and so on.

But basic income policies in countries like the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, and Finland could, potentially, make many of the world’s problems worse. By raising the average income, it would also help increase GDP and the spending power of the lower classes, as happened with welfare. Without adequate policies limiting environmentally destructive and socially unjust consumption, we would see a repeat of the negative effects of welfare, creating uneven burdens on the Global South. While it could give many a boost, because it gives everyone an equal amount of money, it would help make the system blind to existing oppressive institutions. It could help further the exploitation of migrants. In short, it would simply redistribute the profits of ongoing colonialism within the rich countries’ borders.

This may be due to the fact that basic income is, in each case, proposed by alliances between right, centrist, and leftist governments. But while this may look like a strategic compromise by the left, it can also become a way to further the goals of racist, neoliberal politicians, as well as the corporate elite. So when I see the news that Finland wants to experiment with basic income, I’m not that excited, because I know that it may just as well pave the way for more conservative policies shutting out, and legitimizing the exploitation of, the Global South.

As it stands, basic income is not a radical, progressive policy. It is more of a compromise between Keynesian welfare and neoliberalism, under the guise of economic equality within a nation’s borders. So no, it wouldn’t “eliminate poverty”, and it wouldn’t “revolutionize the 21st century”, but it would certainly help keep the current economy intact–with disastrous consequences down the line.

generation-basic-income-1024x682
Source: PBS

Beyond basic income: a more just proposal

So what would be necessary for basic income to be successful? It would mean not assuming that simply redistributing capitalism’s surplus will solve our problems. It requires a host of policies to be implemented, without which it may increase inequality globally. Here are some criteria for a more just basic income:

  • First and foremost, it should be seen as an end, not a golden ticket. It cannot substitute existing public services. For example, it cannot replace health insurance, since the key to a low-cost healthcare system is collective bargaining of medicine and equipment costs, which would no longer happen if it were assumed that basic income would replace this.
  • Limit environmental exclusion and externalization. This would require policies limiting consumption, specifically resource-and energy-intensive goods, as well as policies regulating environmental destruction and addressing environmental and social injustice, especially in the Global South.
  • Limit economic exclusion. Provide support for alternative economic enterprises that are less exploitative, especially in the Global South. Limit exploitative labor. Limit excessive working days, especially for low-income people. Raise minimum income. Put in place policies that allow (but not force) women, migrants, and people of color to be more involved in the economy.
  • Limit social exclusion. We need policies that guarantee accessibility of basic income for migrant workers, and/or ensure legal and financial support to migrants and refugees without status. In addition, policies must be put in place that better support historically marginalized groups within countries, such as black, indigenous people, or ethnic minorities. This would help address the social exclusion that would likely happen along with a basic income policy, which tends to be ‘blind’ to existing inequality.

As you can see, these are big demands. None of these can be implemented very easily, let alone at the same time. But, importantly, the list shows that basic income will not, by itself, bring about all the changes that the left is hopeful for. This requires strategic implementation of a wide platform of policies that are complementary and respond to existing inequalities, both within countries and outside of them.

When I’ve raised these concerns to others, many have responded that basic income might not be the be-all end-all, but it can get us a lot closer. People see it as a strategic stepping-stone, arguing that basic income could help facilitate a transition to these other policies.

But take again the example of Switzerland. These same proponents might argue that basic income could, potentially, free up time for people to get involved in politics and caring activities. In this way, it could be a crucial step toward a more democratic and just society.

But this is magical thinking. Without adequate research, it cannot be assumed that it would automatically lead to more democracy rather than, for example, an increase in protectionism, racism, and consumption. Creating a more just world is a lot of work, and there is no one policy that, somehow, paves the way for others. To do this, it must come hand-in-hand with other policies that limit its potential negative effects.

I want to stress that I’m hopeful for this policy to be part of a platform that may change our economic system for the better. But considering the type of parties that have proposed it so far, I’m worried that it could actually increase inequality between the North and the South and help drive economic growth and climate change. In particular, I would like to challenge basic income advocates to think a lot more about issues of citizenship and migration, and how basic income could contribute to the exploitation of migrants. This means that it can only be proposed as a part of a wider platform of policies.

I would like to challenge basic income advocates to think a lot more about issues of citizenship and migration, and how basic income could contribute to the exploitation of migrants.

Anything less would just help further close off the minority world–and drive the exploitation of the majority world. Getting excited about progressive policies is great, but only if they are actually progressive, not half-assed compromises between the existing elite and the middle and lower classes who already profit the most from the current economic system.

Thanks to Adrian Turcato for the title.

Thanks also to people at the Social Costs of Automation and Robotics group and the Degrowth reading group for the discussions on this topic.

 

“Trading one superstition for another”

Source: Thomas Allison - Daily Texan
Source: Huffington Post

by David Summerhays

My first thought on reading The Theology of Consensus by L. A. Kauffman—which recently appeared in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, and then reached a wider audience in Jacobin Magazine—is that I have rarely read an article so important, thoughtful, and well-researched that nonetheless does little more than trade one superstition for another. The concerns she raises are critical and seldom discussed yet the author seemingly fails a test of basic critical thinking: she never asks if the problem she deftly analyzes might be pandemic. That is the fatal flaw of Kauffman’s well-researched article.

 

The Good

Kauffman’s article begins by tracing the origins of consensus decision-making within activist circles to two Quakers in the 1970s who adapted the practice from Quaker tradition.

Kauffman describes consensus decision-making as “a process in which groups come to agreement without voting… [G]roups that make decisions by consensus work to refine the plan until everyone finds it acceptable.” She adds that it “has been a central feature of direct action movements for nearly 40 years.”

The first crucial and thoughtful concern the author raises is the danger of moving practices from the religious realm to the secular realm. Kauffman points out that when this occurs such practices can become superstitious, a sort of magical technique, rather than the contemplative practice or symbol they were intended to be. I could not agree more with the author: taking religious material (e.g. myth) as a blueprint for practical action is a recipe for disaster. She writes: “Consensus can easily be derailed by those acting in bad faith. But it’s also a process that is ill-equipped to deal with disagreements that arise from competing interests rather than simple differences of opinion. The rosy idea embedded in the process that unity and agreement can always be found if a group is willing to discuss and modify a proposal sufficiently is magical thinking, divorced from the real-world rough-and-tumble of political negotiation.”

Indeed, Quakers do await a kind of “unity” to appear among us, but that unity is inseparable from the presence of the divine, so to speak. In other words, unity should be seen as a miracle. We could say symbolically that we have some control but not final say over unity happening. Unity is not literal, in the same way Christians should not read the Bible literally; nor should we expect unity to necessarily fully arise in reality, just as it would be unwise for a Christian such as my brother to hold his breath until Christ returns.

Any “faith” in consensus necessarily arising is indeed misplaced and would create quasi-magical expectations for consensus practice and occult its limitations. Like any superstition, this would lead to a lack of realism and therefore ineffective action that poorly serves the cause of justice. Rituals and prayer cannot replace thoughtful action. Nor can a superstitious view of consensus sustain hope and courage in the long-term. As superstitions are exposed, the only options are apathy, cynicism, or fanaticism.

Just as we must protest when an organized religion discourages us from acting on urgent social problems, Kauffman is right to call us to be just as critical and suspicious of superstition with regards to consensus. The symbolism concealed in these superstitions may provide necessary meaning and direction to our lives, and that is worth celebrating, but superstition as a plan for action does not ultimately serve the oppressed. Kauffman convincingly shows that superstitious understandings of consensus do exist within activist circles and do cause problems, even if she perhaps exaggerates how widespread the problem is.

The second concern the author raises is even more important: consensus process is an expression of middle-class, white culture and can be alienating to others. I could hardly agree more when Kauffman notes:

“[The consensus] tradition has been imbued with whiteness. The Clamshell Alliance was, after all, an overwhelmingly white organization, bringing together white residents of the New Hampshire seacoast with white Quakers and an array of mostly white radicals from Boston and beyond for action in a white rural region…

“Time and again, activists of color found the use of consensus in majority-white direct action circles to be alienating and off-putting, and white activists’ reverent insistence on the necessity and superiority of the process has exacerbated difficulties in multiracial collaboration and alliance-building.”

When white activists insist on decision-making practices that are a profound expression of white, middle-class culture, a kind of white supremacy results—a white supremacy that endlessly claims to stand for racial justice while viewing its own culture as universally valid and therefore refusing to negotiate its customs. This leads to strained relationships and low motivation for cooperation.

Kauffman’s critique of consensus correctly states, moreover, that this practice does not remove all lines of privilege. It favours people with the time, energy, and patience to deal with a consensus process. Particularly if these processes are poorly facilitated, they can be lengthy and draining.

Nonetheless, as a Quaker and environmental organizer, there are some less impressive parts of this article.

 

Source:  #Hashtagrevolution
Source: Beyond the Choir

The Bad

Something akin to consensus is a frequent practice in many North American aboriginal cultures (cf. the Iroquois Confederation). Even as a Quaker, I learned about consensus in a restorative justice training, heavily inspired by aboriginal cultures. It seems overwhelmingly likely that the development of consensus in activist culture was influenced by a few centuries of cohabiting North America with aboriginal peoples. Moreover, anarchists have been inspired by Quakers since the 19th century, so although I have not analyzed the author’s source material, it seems unlikely that consensus was helicoptered in—out of nowhere—by two Quakers in the 1970s as Kauffman claims.

The author also doesn’t mention that consensus seems to have been a reaction against relatively top-heavy organizing of the 1960s that, of course, also favoured people with privilege. The assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King reminded activists that charismatic organizing can be stopped cold by lopping off the heads of leaders and offending organizations. The challenges involved in organizing for justice in our world are immense. So although it is important to know the limitations of consensus, Kauffman’s article would have been much stronger if it included any reason to believe that the difficulties many experience when practicing consensus are inherent to consensus rather than inherent in the difficult nature of the problems activists seek to solve through consensus.

The author also claims that “better practices” than consensus exist but did not give any examples—which was unfair and I thought suspicious. She accuses consensus of magical thinking, but it would be magical thinking on her part if she believes that any quick-fix replacement for consensus will magically generate an egalitarian, multi-cultural revolution, or even necessarily get us one step closer. It is impossible to evaluate her claim that better practices exist without an example. This omission is fundamental, diminishing the value of her article, which is excellent in so many ways.

The activists I work with know that consensus isn’t magic. Nor have I been to many consensus sessions (or Quaker meetings) that lasted 4-8 hours… this concern does not seem entirely insurmountable and it is obvious that consensus benefits from training and reflection.

In addition, while her exposition of superstition inherent in consensus is excellent, her rejection of consensus-process generally seems exaggerated and polemical. It is quite possible to have a successful and efficient consensus process that has zero expectations of “unity” arising by magic. As Kauffman notes, consensus would be ill-advised when parties have differing material interests or a power imbalance (e.g. divorce proceedings in cases of domestic violence). But consensus is used every day, quite frequently to everyone’s satisfaction. My experience is that usually it works just fine, particularly in situations of relatively low diversity of opinion or when well-facilitated.

Nor have I met many people who seemed to have the dogmatic attachment to consensus the author seems to think is widespread. The activists I work with know that consensus isn’t magic. Nor have I been to many consensus sessions (or Quaker meetings) that lasted 4-8 hours. The long ones I can think of were, not surprisingly, poorly facilitated. Kauffman is correct that “consensus-specialists” can become arcane to outsiders, but this concern does not seem insurmountable and it is obvious that consensus benefits from training and reflection.

But let us move on to far larger problems.

 

Source: New Yorker
Source: New Yorker

 

The Ugly

Despite the misgivings above, I find the author makes a very interesting and plausible link between consensus and Quaker theology, but this raises the entire problem with the article: Kauffman is implying that every other activist practice besides consensus emanates from entirely secular and rational sources, having no religious roots and certainly no superstitions. She implies that it’s easy or even possible to find an activist practice that is free from the kinds of superstition and white culture brilliantly illustrated in her article. This assumption is fundamental to her article, for otherwise, if she was aware that activist practice was rife with superstition and almost inextricable from white culture, her article would simply be a baffling call for us to exchange one superstitious expression of white culture for another. Her implicit assumption is necessary for her article and it is wrong.

Kauffman has therefore put her finger on a whale of a problem: Enlightenment superstitions underlie a vast majority of leftist thought and activity. Enlightenment culture, the tragic bedrock of the radical left, is inextricable from white culture, and even white supremacist, cis-hetero-patriarchy.

We know that modern culture and activist culture in particular is filled with superstition and is a profound expression of white culture, and perhaps even white supremacy. Many historians, political scientists, and philosophers have already explored the problematic ways that ideals of democracy, freedom, equality, and even the modern project of “rationally remaking the world” are rooted in Christian myths, superstitious, and inextricable from those superstitions (cf. Hegel, Nietzsche, Weber, Schopenhauer, Paul Tillich, Charles Taylor, Adorno, etc.). They are equally inseparable from white culture. This work may not be well known and its implications for activist practice may be very little explored, but it is a solid and respected body of literature.

Kauffman has therefore put her finger on a whale of a problem: Enlightenment superstitions underlie a vast majority of leftist thought and activity. Enlightenment culture, the bedrock of the radical left, is inextricable from white culture, from superstition, and from white supremacist, cis-hetero-patriarchy.

To understand this, let’s take, for example, the Christian myth of the “end times,” the mythical events “after” the Last Judgment under the reign of Christ. In Christian theology, the mythical “end-times” remove the possibility for human reason to err and to sin but rather human reason is reunited with the ability to perfectly discern truth, justice, and love. Within this state of ecstasy, humanity could leave behind all symbol, ritual, and myth, freely discarding all its traditions, for they would no longer be necessary when God is “transparent” (symbolically speaking) to all through every bit of creation. Humanity would arrive at a fully Rational culture that is rich, inexhaustible, and totally liberated. A culture that is Rational would be universally valid, rather than particular and relative.

Although they did not say so explicitly, the thinkers of the Enlightenment, the intellectual founders of modern society, were in effect claiming that these “end-times” are nigh. The Enlightenment, with its optimism about the power of real-life reason to overcome error and selfishness, began a project of “rethinking everything,” a universal application of Reason. This is the modern project. They predicted that we have the power today to bring about the Kingdom of God. The coming of Reason would mean that the world’s cultures were unnecessary and could be discarded as part of a global (colonial) effort that was at first missionary before it was educative and liberatory. The European Christian traditions of white supremacist, cis-hetero-partriarchy were called Rational and universal; everything else was seen as inferior and irrational. “Liberation” and “education” has always meant some genuine liberation and genuine edification mixed with oppression and the undermining and destruction of traditions throughout the world. That is why the victims of this Enlightenment superstition have always primarily been the oppressed, be it through colonialism that sought to educate away other cultures or through a “liberation” that in fact ensures the domination of European tradition, e.g., the European economy or cultural norms.

It is therefore not easy to find any political ideal that is not drenched in this founding superstition of the Enlightenment, the confusion of Reason with reason.

For instance, the Enlightenment ideal of maximizing freedom (liberalism) makes no sense without the confusion of Reason with reason. When different actors are liberated to compete, freedom without Reason can just as easily lead to oppression and destruction as it can to harmony. Economic liberalism (commonly known as the ideal of capitalism) cannot be maintained without a faith that Reason will prevail once liberated. The same goes for social liberalism and even utopian anarchism: they depend on a faith in Harmony-through-freedom.

Many, when rejecting liberalism then turn to the Enlightenment ideal of a progressively more Rational state governed by “the People.” But meritocracy, linked to the ideals of democracy, equality, education, technology, objective science, and Rational policy, suffers the same problem: a faith in Progress as Reason begets greater Reason.

The problem of consensus is simply a subset of the superstition of Harmony arriving through the respectful and free competition of ideas, aided by Progressively more skillful facilitation and participation. Kauffman’s article seeks to “liberate” us from the hidden oppression of consensus or help us Progress to an improved practice. In other words, she trades one superstition for another. She correctly exposes one superstition but with seemingly zero awareness of how giant the problem is.

Kauffman’s article seeks to “liberate” us from the hidden oppression of consensus or help us Progress to an improved practice. In other words, she trades one superstition for another. She correctly exposes one superstition but with seemingly zero awareness of how giant the problem is.

It is as if she discovered dead the canary in a coal mine and suggested we replace the canary. In fact, we need to evacuate the mine before the fumes that killed the canary kill us. Certain understandings of consensus contain superstition, to be sure, but consensus-superstitions are only a tiny subset of Enlightenment superstition.

This leads us to Kauffman’s other point—that consensus contained white practices that were alienating to other races. We could make the exact same argument about the Enlightenment—that it took white supremacist, cis-hetero-patriarchal values and called them “Rational,” and therefore transcultural and universal. Any Enlightenment political ideal (freedom, democracy, Rational policy) contains some element of white supremacist, cis-hetero-patriarchy.

Dropping Enlightenment superstitions would be a gargantuan task for anyone and discarding one’s own culture is quite unlikely. The entirety of modern culture needs a radical reevaluation that keeps its truth but scraps its superstitions and supremacy, which is an enormously complex task.

The radical left needs a radical transformation. For the past century it has criticized liberalism but replaced it with the ideal of democracy (economic or political), which is inseparable from the superstition of Progress. But then it criticizes totalitarianism but replaces it with the ideal of liberalism, which is also inseparable from the superstition of Harmony-through-freedom.

In short, the radical left has been exchanging superstition for superstition for the past century but now we are stuck: socialism is widely viewed as an ideal that “doesn’t work” but liberalism is also an obvious failure. Now, nobody cares to listen to the radical left, and for good reason. This leads to articles such as Kauffman’s which correctly criticize current practice but are utterly unable to propose something free of superstition that is also equal to the massive problems of modernity.

What might this shift in the radical left look like? Although it would be out of the scope of this article to describe it in detail, we can look at how it would impact consensus. First of all, the shift needed would look nothing like what Kauffman proposes. Kauffman’s approach to consensus is typical of the Enlightenment: for her, practices involving superstitions are to be entirely dropped, since no symbol, myth, or ritual will be necessary in the Rational end-times, which apparently are nigh. Consensus for her is something to be entirely discarded. Certainly I agree with Kauffman that superstitions make a poor blueprint for practical action but superstitions do make excellent myths, symbols, and rituals—the type of meaning-making activity that gives order and direction to our lives and has the power to comfort us in difficult times in ways that literal language struggles to do. In the “meantime” we humans need myths, symbols, and rituals and so do activists. Communities, after all, are built on them. And a community of resistance, at least in my opinion, is precisely what we need.

The real solution to consensus, and for the radical left generally, is to explicitly transform superstitions into explicit rituals and symbols—rituals and symbols that express the ideals of white, middle-class culture. We must then affirm that many people need these symbols and defend them while firmly rejecting a purely literal understanding of them. We must equally reject white supremacy by affirming white symbols, ideals, and rituals as important to those who are moved by them but denying their universal validity.

Consensus needs to be finally recognized as having ritual elements, with its symbolic meanings expressed. Doing so clarifies that it is not only a blueprint for rational action but linked to meaning-making cultural activity through ritual and symbol. Saying it has ritual elements does not to deny that it also includes practical and technical function, in the same way that saying it has symbolic and metaphorical elements does not deny that it has literal elements. For instance, sitting in a circle symbolically expresses the white, Enlightenment ideal of equality but also practically arranges people so that they can hear and see each other. Seeking everyone’s opinion is a symbol for the kind of justice we seek to create within a world where billions simply don’t count, but also as practical within the goal of building power.

The superstitions that Kauffman mentions about consensus—that expecting Harmony to arise through “non-hierarchical space”—can be seen as a symbol for our shared ideals of liberation and caring for all of creation that we feel called to fight for. Although it would be utopian to expect such a world to ever come to pass, we are called in this moment to seize the opportunities around us to move toward such a world. Understanding the symbols and ritual involved in consensus is inextricable from rejecting any superstitious expectations about its results. No matter how perfect the world consensus symbolizes, consensus-practice will always be messy as a blueprint for rational action in the “meantime.”

Consensus needs to be affirmed as a beautiful and effective ritual of white culture, its history as appropriated from indigenous people must be recognized and thanks given. By recognizing consensus as an expression of white culture (and it is white culture now, even if the form was inspired by other cultures), a genuine negotiation of practices can happen when doing interracial or intercultural work. The intuitive appeal of consensus to white people—rooted in ritual and symbol—can finally be expressed humbly and without implicit white supremacy. Consensus would no longer be seen as Rational but rather white.

It’s a very worthwhile task to perform a religious analysis of modern culture and activist culture in particular. I’m glad to see the author doing it but she stopped about a light year short of finishing the job. I have rarely found an article that raises such important problems with such well-researched points that was so completely inadequate to the task of even beginning to resolve them. Yet I must say I am grateful for her very fruitful effort.

David Summerhays is a Quaker and environmental organizer who organizes community conversations and teaches piano.

An ethics of surplus and the right to waste?

Sign at the UConn Public Surplus Store.

by Max Liboiron

At the most recent Association of American Geographers (AAG) meeting in Chicago last month, Josh Lepawsky and I coordinated a pair of panels on discards, diverse economies, and degrowth. As a concept, degrowth has taken off since the last global recession. At its most basic level, degrowth is about production without economic or material growth, and it encompasses a great diversity of types of economies that might achieve this: steady-states, gift economies,community economies, solidarity economies, and so on. As such, degrowth is also a way to organize social life, including ethics, values, and norms, as well as the systems of worth and circulation at the core of economics. In Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, authors write that: “‘Simplicity’, ‘conviviality’, ‘autonomy’, ‘care’, ‘commons’ and ‘dépense’ are some of the words that express what a degrowth society might look like.”

Lepawsky and I are interested in degrowth because of what it means for waste. Accounting for and with waste will ground-truth new economic imaginaries: how do they deal with left overs, excess, externalities, and by-products? How do they manage toxicity that is already permanently on the planet, and how do they avoid creating new toxicants? At the same time, discussions of new systems of value and circulation can vitalize discussions already underway in discard studies around surplus, valuation, reuse, scale, and the social side of technical systems.

In this post, I want to focus on surplus and dépense in particular. Growth and surplus are two different things: sometimes it is a good idea to have a surplus of food or other materials such as in preparation for winter or drought. Growth is the idea that surplus, whether in the form of profit or production of goods (or both), is the goal of economies, rather than one of many ways of organizing goods in a variety of economies. There can be surplus without accumulation being the main driver of production.

This brings us to dépense. Let’s say you’ve saved up some food for the winter, and the winter was shorter and warmer than expected, leaving you with extra stored food at the end of the season. What do you do with it? Proponents of degrowth might say: “waste it!”

Historic Doukhobor 1895 Arms burning sketch by William Perehudoff, artist from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Historic Doukhobor 1895 Arms burning sketch by William Perehudoff, artist from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Source: Discard Studies

Originally signifying the expenditure of excess energy in the writings of George Bataille, under degrowth the term dépense has come to highlight how some forms of wasting can be celebratory, ethical, and at the very least thought about in terms of what positive social values wasting might engender. Authors of Degrowth mention the practice of potlatch by Indigenous peoples of the Northeast coast, a mix of consuming, gifting, and destroying goods in a celebratory feast. We could also consider the Freedomite Doukhobor‘s practice of burning all possessions, including houses and clothing, every few years as a protest against materialism. In Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Erathe point of thinking about dépense is that “The different patterns of excess energy use [or wasting] characterize and distinguish different types of societies across space and time. Excess can be spent on sacrifice or festival, in war or in peace. … How should we go about the removal of the problem of energy and excess?” (87). How should we waste?

What would happen if we paired an ethics of surplus, where accumulation was always temporary and not the goal of economic production, with processes of wasting that enacted social values? In this situation, we might have a right to waste. If human rights are moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of behaviour, and degrowth has ushered in a new ethics of surplus, then celebratory, ritualistic, generous, thoughtful wasting may very well become a social norm that would gain the status of a right.

Of course, this assumes that wasting doesn’t cause harm to health or environment. It also doesn’t address what to do with the already existing surplus of legacy wastes we have to manage from nuclear waste to plastics. Yet this is precisely the power of the concept of degrowth: it is an economic imaginary, a politics of possibility, that can allow us to look at old questions with new frameworks.

Max Liboiron is an activist, artist, and Assistant Professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland researching plastic pollution.

This piece was originally published on the Discard Studies website.