Professor Nikos Papastergiadis, member of mέta’s Advisory board, presented the Inaugural John Berger Memorial Lecture at the Greek Community of Melbourne on Thursday 18 November 2021. John Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his ground-breaking essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to the BBC series of the same name, is credited with transforming the way in which a generation looked at and understood art.
Nikos Papastergiadis is Director of the Research Unit in Public Cultures and Professor at the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne and Visiting Professor in the School of Art, Design and Media, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Chair of the International Advisory Board for the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore. Co-chair of the Cultural Advisory Board for the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture, Melbourne. His current research focuses on the investigation of the historical transformation of contemporary art and cultural institutions by digital technology. His publications include Modernity as Exile (1993), Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000), Metaphor and Tension (2004) Spatial Aesthetics: Art Place and the Everyday (2006), Cosmopolitanism and Culture (2012), Ambient Perspectives (2014), On Art and Friendship (2020), The Museums of the Commons (2020) as well as being the author of numerous essays which have been translated into over a dozen languages and appeared in major catalogues such as the Biennales of Sydney, Liverpool, Istanbul, Gwanju, Taipei, Lyon, Thessaloniki and Documenta 13.
The context is the fraud and fiasco also known as COP26. The frame is DiEM25’s COP-OFF video chats. And the purpose is to discuss whether there was ever a possibility of Cop26 yielding a significant prospect for a timely green transition. In this discussion Noam Chomskky, Ann Pettifor and Yanis Varoufakis agree: Yes, the Green New Deal is a necessary move forward. But, only as a first step toward transcending capitalism – and doing so not in the direction of some new variety of feudalism but in the direction of a technologically advanced participatory, cooperative, democratised economic system. Watch the discussion:
This duscussion takes place in the context of DiEM25’s
COP-OFF — DiEM25’s Alternative Climate Conference, Nov 14 – 16
As our planet’s clock approaches midnight, world leaders are set to converge next month in Glasgow at COP26 in order to come up with new excuses, new symbolic targets and new ways to silence the real progressive voices who oppose them.
Climate change is real, it’s here, and it’s an emergency. But history has shown us that those who were supposed to lead us out of this crisis are so blinded by capital and powerful private interests that they’ve decided Earth itself is a small price to pay for the yachts, mansions, private jets and record profits of the 1%. They will gather, mingle over dinner and drinks, and preach their commitment to insufficient goals and targets. Then fail to meet even those.
We refuse to sit in the back while no one drives. This November, join Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Caroline Lucas and many other progressives in saying: COP OFF!
On November 14, 15 and 16, DiEM25 will gather progressives from around the world to discuss some of the most pressing issues of our time, with ideas you won’t hear at COP26. Why? Because of the danger they pose to business-as-usual: real change, real goals and real solutions. Check out the full programme below.
Guests: Harpreet K Paul (Perspectives on a Global Green New Deal), Joenia Wapichana (Congresswoman Brazil), Manon Aubry MEP (Global Alliance for a Green New Deal) Moderator: Lucas Febraro
Guests: Lorah Steichen (National Priorities Project), Medea Benjamin (Co-founder of Code Pink), Doug Weir (Director of Conflict and Environment Observatory) Moderator: Amir Kiyaei
Guests: Dušan Pajović (Green New Deal for Europe campaign coordinator for DiEM25), Caroline Lucas (Green Party UK), Paola Vega Rodriguez (Costa Rican political scientist)
Guests: Sabrina Fernandes (sociologist) Moderator: Maja Pelević
COP OFF: DiEM25’s Alternative Climate Conference, will be livestreamed on DiEM25’s YouTube channel. Click here for the event page.
The Centre for Postcapitalist Civilisation, mέta, presents Professor Robin Hahnel’s lecture, Climate Disaster: The Greatest Generation?, given at Evergreen State College on the 9th of November 2021 at the invitation of Prof. Savvina Chowdhury and in the context of the ‘Climate Foundations: Political Economy & Political Ecology’ course.
The lecture’s notes:
Climate Disaster: The Greatest Generation?
Robin Hahnel
Generational Challenges
The Greatest Generation is a book by journalist Tom Brokaw which profiles those who grew up in the United States during the deprivation of the Great Depression, and then went on to fight in World War II, as well as those whose productivity within the war’s home front made a decisive material contribution to the war effort.
When my generation came of age in the 1960s we faced formidable challenges
After WWII our country quickly became the biggest bully in the world — asserting a right to intervene in the political affairs of other countries in ways we would never tolerate other countries to intervene in ours.
Five generations after slaves were freed, their AfricanAmerican decedents living in the 1960s continued to be consigned to second class citizenship.
By 1966 the trend toward greater economic equality that began during the New Deal and continued briefly after WWII had come to an end.
And the forward momentum of the suffragettes had also been reversed — as Rosie the riveter was sent home to again become an obedient housewife.
As we responded to these challenges my generation was not entirely without accomplishments
To this day I am personally most proud that the anti-Vietnam War movement in which I was an activist contributed substantially toward ending that terrible conflict.
African-Americans of my generation, helped by a small minority of whites committed to winning civil rights for all, brought legalized racial discrimination to an end.
For a few years some of us known as “hippies” challenged Victorian sexual taboos and embraced a culture of cooperation, solidarity, and love.
And women of my generation launched “second wave” Feminism which arguably has achieved my generation’s most permanent accomplishments.
But no historian will confuse my generation with the greatest generation. Among our many failures the most notable are:
After helping force US withdrawal from Vietnam, our Peace Movement failed to secure a “good neighbor” foreign policy, and permitted the US to continue to act as the world’s biggest bully right up to the present day.
We failed to extend the trend toward greater economic equality coming out of WWII. Instead, over the past fifty years we permitted the most rapid rise of inequality of income and wealth EVER!
And we have now permitted our most important accomplishments in the areas of securing minority and women’s rights to be undone by a resurgence of racist and misogynist “roll back.”
In Short
Nothing could better symbolize our failure as a generation than the Presidency of Donald Trump, who is exactly my age, who will go down in history as the worst President EVER, and still may become President again as the Nominee of a Republican Party which he now dominates completely.
Donald Trump rose from spoiled-child and Vietnam War draft dodger to become a caricature of illgotten wealth, racism, misogyny, and American exceptionalism – which he proudly touts as his
“America First” foreign policy.
Your Generation
But my talk today is about something else. It is not about a previous generation that deserved the moniker of the “greatest generation,” nor about my own generation which regrettably came up short. My talk is about your generation and climate change.
Arguably my generation’s greatest failure is that we have left your generation to respond to the worst crisis and greatest challenge, humanity has ever faced.
Climate Change: The Greatest Crisis EVER!
Climate change is different from all previous human crises. By over-filling the upper atmosphere with greenhouse gases, humans now risk triggering catastrophic changes in the earth’s climate with literally unthinkable consequences for human civilization and life on the planet.
The overwhelming consensus among climate scientists is that unless we reduce global carbon emissions by at least 80% by 2050 we may pass a climate tipping point beyond return.
Good News and Bad News
The good news is that it is not yet too late. Nor does salvation require new technologies which are unknown and untested. It is perfectly possible for 10 billion people to live far more comfortably than most people live today on this planet, powered almost entirely by renewable energy technologies already at our disposal.
But there is every reason to believe that in order to achieve the “transition” that is necessary your generation will have to overcome political obstacles as great as any generation has ever faced.
First, let’s talk about what you must do. Then we can talk about the formidable obstacles that stand in your way.
What Is to Be Done?
No country can solve the problem of climate change on its own.
Reducing carbon emissions is what we economists call a “global public good,” which creates a perverse incentive for every country to attempt to “free ride” on emission reductions by other countries.
To prevent this “tragedy of the commons” requires effective international cooperation.
History
The international community has gathered to great fanfare to try to tackle this problem five times over the past thirty years.
In: Rio de Janeiro in 1992
Kyoto Japan in 1997
Copenhagen Denmark in 2009
Paris France in 2015
And now, in Glasgow Scotland in 2021
SO FAR TO NO AVAIL!
What Is Needed… Where We Are…
First I am going to present the outlines of an international treaty that is what is needed… and is possible…. even while most countries continue to have capitalist economies.
Then I’m going to talk about what was launched in Paris instead in 2015, and what is now going on in Glasgow… and may still be possible.
An International Climate Agreement should be Effective, Equitable, and Efficient
Effective means: By 2050 global greenhouse gas emissions must be down at least 80% below their level in 1990.
Equitable means: National responsibility for emission reductions must be allocated according to differential responsibility and capability.
Efficient means: Reductions should take place wherever they are cheapest.
Fortunately we know what kind of international agreement can accomplish all this
The size and speed of global emission reductions must be chosen based on information provided by climate scientists.
The distribution of national reductions must be done in accord with differential responsibility and capability as calculated by “equity specialists” like those at NGOs such as EcoEquity.
Country governments should be allowed, if they wish, to certify emission reduction credits (CERs) for sources within their territories to sell in an international carbon market.
When calculating whether or not a country has done its fair share to prevent climate change, reduction credits purchased by any entity within the country should be subtracted from the country’s reduction responsibility, while any credits sold by any entity within the country should be added to the country’s reduction responsibility.
Why Would This Work?
While it is difficult to determine how many credits to award an applicant for emission reductions, it is easy to measure annual national emissions, which must be done in any case.
As long as national emissions are capped and compliance with national caps are enforced, any mistakes a country government may make when awarding emission reduction credits cannot undermine overall global emission reductions which is the only issue that need concern the international community.
Because charity and guilt are far less powerful incentives in today’s world than self-interest, negotiations over climate reparations, climate debt, technology transfers, and adaptation funds will continue to yield much less than what is needed and deserved. On the other hand, if national emission caps are set fairly self-interest would drive sources in developed countries to purchase certified emission reduction credits from sellers in less developed countries and thereby provide LDCs the opportunity to achieve economic development in an environmentally sustainable way.
What Is Happening Instead?
None of the MDCs agreed to accept fair shares that are binding. Instead, in Paris countries agreed to make “pledges” to reduce their national emissions by specific amounts. Shortly I’ll say something about those pledges. But Paris moved us from national emission reductions which are binding to pledges.
It also moved us from a treaty which would have required contributions to be fair, to one where MDCs are making voluntary pledges in that regard as well.
Since it is both unfair and impractical to expect LDCs to pay for all the reductions in their countries which are needed, and it is cheaper to make reductions in LDCs than in MDCs, MDCs have also pledged to make technology transfers and contribute to a fund to help finance emission reductions in LDCs.
So far the aggregate reduction pledges fall short of what is needed to meet the 1.5 degree Celsius bar scientists have set. And so far the pledges of financial support for LDCs are woefully inadequate.
Glasgow is an attempt to improve in both these regards.
A Massive Green New Deal in the Advanced Economies
Replacing fossil fuels with renewables, transforming not only transportation, but industry and agriculture as well to be much more energy efficient, and rebuilding our entire built infrastructure to conserve energy will be an immense, historic undertaking.
What is needed if we are to avoid unacceptable climate change is the greatest technological “reboot” in economic history. We need to transform what we should think of as today’s Fossil-fuel-estan Economies into Renewconserve-estan Economies.
What does this kind of Green New Deal (GND) consist of?
A GND requires a large green fiscal stimulus – a dramatic increase in government spending on projects like transforming the electric grid to integrate renewable sources, and tax credits for renewable energy.
But since private investment far outweighs public investment, for a GND to be large enough to achieve the necessary transformation means the government must intervene in the credit system to redirect private investment away from asset bubbles and environmentally destructive luxury goods for the wealthy, into renewables and energy conservation.
There IS a Precedent!
The transformation of the US economy in response to WWII is the precedent we need to look to. There is already a substantial literature demonstrating that increasing spending on energy conservation and renewable energy production will create significantly more jobs per dollar of expenditure than spending on fossil fuel extraction and the military.
Some of the most extensive studies have been done by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, under the directorship of Professor Robert Pollin, and are available to the public on their website: www.peri.umass.edu.
Gridlock at the National Level
The Republican Party is doing, and will continue to do everything in its power, to block a GND. Which means that the first task for your generation is to help build the “resistance” movement working to expand the Democratic governing majority, and to replace rightwing Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Synema who are busy sabotaging the GND with
Democrats who do not.
Opportunities at the Regional and State Levels
In absence of any progress by the national government prior to the Biden administration, much was and is being done in blue states where Democrats control state houses and legislatures.
Climate legislation in California has dramatically reduced emissions there, including inducing car manufactures to make their new cars far more energy efficient nationally since they are now required to meet standards in California, their largest single market..
The Oregon legislature passed the Clean Fuels Program in 2015 which will reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector by 10%. In 2016 Governor Kate Brown signed the Clean Electricity and Coal Transition bill which will remove coal entirely from Oregon’s electricity by 2030, and double the state’s renewable portfolio standard to 50% by 2040. And when the Clean Energy and Jobs bill was torpedoed by three Republican walkouts to prevent a quorum and vote, Governor Brown issued an executive order in 2021 which will cut state GHG emissions by even more than the legislation Republicans scuttled would have.
Most recently, the Inslee administration in Washington State has finally passed significant legislation now that the Democrats control both houses of the State legislature.
Developing Economies Must Develop Differently
If they are able to sell emission reduction credits to developing countries, LDCs will discover that even though they have more lenient emission caps due to their lesser responsibility and capability, their best route to development is not fossil fuel dependent.
The whole point of the Greenhouse Development Rights Framework developed by EcoEquity in consultation with NGOs from the global south is to prevent climate change without denying anyone the opportunity to achieve economic development by creating incentives so LDCs will develop without depending on fossil fuels.
In Sum
The problem is not that we do not know what the solution looks like.
The problem is not that we must hang our hopes on invention of some miraculous new technology like carbon capture or cold fusion.
The problem is overcoming the political obstacles that stand in our way to launching the program just outlined.
What Are Those Obstacles?
1. The fossil fuel industry has been the most powerful industry in the world for over a hundred years – dominating domestic energy policy, and exerting great influence over foreign policy as well. The fossil fuel industry will lose a great deal of wealth if most of the carbon it owns is left in the ground, as it must be if we are to avoid triggering irreversible climate change. Which means the fossil fuel industry has everything to fight for, and plenty of money, political influence, and lobbying knowhow to fight with.
2. North-South Political Gridlock
Ever since the “Climate Summit” held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the major obstacle to an effective international agreement has been disagreement over who should bear the burden of preventing climate change.
Every international meeting has reaffirmed that (1) because climate change is a global commons problem it can only be solved if all countries cooperate, but (2) countries bear different responsibilities for having caused the problem, and have different capabilities for contributing to its solution.
There was long an intellectual problem as well as a political problem preventing this “agreement” from being put into action.
The intellectual problem which went unsolved for decades was how to make differential responsibility and capability operational – i.e. how to quantify these concepts. Fortunately, climate equity “experts” like those at EcoEquity have now solved this intellectual problem, and national “fair shares” of global emission reductions can now be easily calculated. See the “climate equity calculator” at www.ecoequity.org.
Of course that doesn’t solve the political problem, which is convincing countries they must do their fair share…. And that is one of the difficult tasks that remains for your generation to tackle.
But isn’t China now the problem?
Let me illustrate by rebutting one popular myth, namely that the big problem is China, which has now passed the US in annual greenhouse gas emissions. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Only two countries were responsible for more than 10% of global carbon emissions in 2015 -China was responsible for 30% and the US was responsible for 15%. So yes, China emitted more in 2015 than the US.
China vs. the United States
But the population of the US was only 325 million in 2015, and the population of China was 1.4 billion – more than four times as large!
The relevant metric when thinking about who is responsible for creating the problem is emissions per capita, which in 2015 was only 7.7 tons in China, while it was 16.1 tons in the US.
Moreover, since greenhouse gases can remain in the upper atmosphere for over a hundred years, what produces climate change is cumulative emissions. If we compare cumulative emissions from 1970–2013, the US ranks first, the countries that now comprise the European Union rank second, and China is a distant third — even though China has a much larger population than either the US or the EU.
US pledge vs. the Chinese pledge
The US “fair share” of emission reductions by 2030 compared to emissions in 2009 is based on US historic responsibility for cumulative emissions, and how wealthy the US is compared to other countries.
The US “fair share” is 14 billion metric tons, which can be divided into two parts: The reductions the US should do domestically — 5 billion metric tons. And the reductions the US should pay for to reduce in other countries since it would be cheaper than reducing them domestically — 9 billion metric tons.
At the Paris meetings in 2015 the US pledge to take responsibility for reductions in GHG emissions fell far short of our fair share.
In Paris the Chinese pledged to reduce emissions domestically by their full fair share!
US emission trajectory
China emission trajectory
Good News and Bad News
The pledges from most LDCs are the good news because they have pledged to do their fair share, and if MDCs would do likewise we would be well on our way to a global emission path that reduces the risk of cataclysmic climate change to an acceptable level.
The bad news is that almost all MDCs have not pledged to take responsibility for their fair shares, including the latest pledge from the Biden administration even if the US is no longer a “rogue climate state” as it was under President Trump for the last four years. However, there may be a silver lining.
For the most part MDCs have pledged to reduce their domestic emissions sufficiently – their pledges are close to their dotted green lines. The problem is that MDCs’ greater responsibility and capability requires them to pay for more emission reduction than they can reasonably accomplish domestically.
Fortunately this can be accomplished – MDCs can reach their blue lines -at a reasonable cost if sources in MDCs purchase CERs from sources in LDCs, or alternatively if MDCs agree to finance sufficient reductions in LDCs. A recent study by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts estimates the cost for the US would be roughly 1.5% of GDP, which is far less than the 3.5% of GDP we currently spend on the military.
The challenge for your generation
The key to overcoming the immense obstacles to secure necessary international cooperation, launch GNDs in the MDCs, and promote economic development powered by renewable energy in LDCs is to build a massive global climate movement.
To overcome political gridlock and defeat the fossil fuel lobby may well require a climate movement that is broader, stronger, and more strategically adroit than any previous progressive movement in human history… Which, in short, is the challenge your generation now faces.
Climate Change and System Change: A Word
The Left does a marvelous job of explaining all the ways in which capitalism makes our economies prone to causing climate change, as well as other kinds of environmental destruction.
I should know… I’ve contributed a great deal to this literature myself!
And there is good reason to believe that at least some versions of an alternative to capitalism would no longer be environmentally unsustainable, but instead protect the environment so future generations enjoy living standards and environmental “amenities” even greater than we enjoy today.
I have worked for decades to ensure that what economists call externalities would be fully accounted for during annual participatory planning, and that a long-run environmental planning procedure would adequately protect future generations from unsustainable environmental practices in the post-capitalist model known as a participatory economy.
Facing Up to the Sober Truth
BUT… unless we take adequate measures to prevent cataclysmic climate change in the next two decades, it may well be too late.
AND unfortunately, it is unrealistic to believe that anti-capitalist movements will be strong enough, soon enough, in enough countries in time to do that.
And that is why “system change” cannot be our answer to
“climate change.”
HOWEVER, we are not doomed yet! Fortunately, there is still enough time to prevent cataclysmic climate change even while capitalism persists. But only if we manage to replace Fossil-fuel-estan capitalism with Renew-conserveestan capitalism… and only if we do this starting NOW!
Appendix: Carbon tax, Tradable Permit, Offset
A carbon tax charges emitters $x per metric ton of carbon emitted. What is done with the revenue depends on the program.
A tradable permit program sets a limit of Y metric tons of carbon which can be emitted by “covered” sources, and requires any “covered” source emitting z metric tons to own z permits. The Y permits can be sold at an auction, or given out for free, or a combination of the two depending on the program. What is done with revenues from any permits sold at auction, and who gets permits free of charge depends on the program. “Tradable” means that whoever has a permit is free to trade it later to anyone else who wants to buy it from them, in what is called an “open permit market.”
In its most common form a carbon offset is something which private parties can buy should they so choose, to pay for the damage their own behavior causes because it emits CO2. Example: When you fly on an airplane you can buy offsets that “pay” for the damage you cause because the plane emits CO2. You buy the offset from an entity which then uses it to finance some project designed to reduce carbon emissions, such as reforestation.
Issue 1: What is done with tax revenues? What is done with the revenue from any permits auctioned off, or any payments for offsets?
Issue 2: What activity is covered? If not all, which emitters must pay a tax, or own a permit? For what activities are offsets available?
Equivalence: Suppose a tax of $x per metric ton of CO2 reduces emissions by an amount leaving Y metric tons in total emitted. In theory, the exact same thing would happen if Y permits were auctioned off.
How Effective any program is depends on how many tons continue to be emitted… period.
How Equitable any program is depend on: (a) How carbon intensive one’s consumption is. Fact: Poor people tend to spend a higher percentage of their income on carbon intensive activity — putting gas in their cars and heating their homes — so carbon taxes and permit programs tend to be “regressive.” And (b) what measures are taken to make the program more fair – for example, rebating poorer households from the revenues collected from either carbon taxes or auctioned permits.
If all sources are covered by a program, any carbon tax, or permit program where permits are tradable will be Efficient. And any alternative program, such as mandated reductions in emissions, will be demonstrably less efficient.
Net zero is popular among polluters for good reason – it’s toothless compared to emissions restrictions and a carbon tax.
“Make no mistake, the money is here, if the world wants to use it,” said Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor who today serves as UN climate envoy, while also representing an alliance of financiers sitting on a pile of $130tn worth of assets. So, what does the world want? If only humanity had the power to organise a global poll based on one-human-one-vote, such a species-wide referendum would undoubtedly deliver a clear answer: “Do whatever it takes to stop emitting carbon now!” Instead, we have a decision-making process culminating in the colossal fiasco currently unfolding in Glasgow.
The failure of Cop26 reflects our failed democracies on both sides of the Atlantic. President Biden arrived in Glasgow as his people back in Washington were pushing his infrastructure bill through Congress – an exercise that decoupled the bill from any serious investment in renewables and funded an array of carbon-emitting infrastructure such as expanded roads and airports. Meanwhile in the European Union, the rhetoric may be painted in bright green, but the reality is dark brown – with even Germany looking forward to copious amounts of Russian natural gas in exchange of green-lighting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The EU should be creating a pan-European Renewable Energy Union, but alas our leaders are not even debating this idea.
There are three reasons Cop26 is proving such a spectacular debacle. The first reason is a planet-wide collective action problem over “free-riding”. Large businesses, as well as states, take a leaf out of St Augustine’s prayer, “Lord please make me chaste but not just yet”. Everyone prefers a planet on which no one emits carbon to a planet that sizzles. But everyone also prefers to delay paying the cost of transition if they can get away with it. If the rest of the planet does the right thing, the planet is saved, even if you selfishly postpone your own conversion to environmental probity. And if the rest of the planet does not do the right thing, why be the one sucker who does?
The second reason is a global coordination failure. In one sense, Carney is correct: mountain ranges of cash are lying idly in the global financial system, its ultra-wealthy owners keen to invest it in low-carbon activities. But a private investment in, say, green hydrogen will only return profits if many other investors invest in it too – and so the investors all sit around waiting for each other to be the first. Meanwhile, corporations, communities and states join this waiting game, unwilling to take the risk of committing to green hydrogen until big finance does. Tragically, there is no global coordinator to match the available money, technologies and needs.
The third reason is simply: capitalism. It has always gained pace through the incessant commodification of everything, beginning with land, labour and technology before spreading to genetically modified organisms, and even a woman’s womb or an asteroid. As capitalism’s realm spread, price-less goods turned into pricey commodities. The owners of the machinery and the land necessary for the commodification of goods profited, while everyone else progressed from the wretchedness of the 19th century working class to the soothing fantasies of mindless petit-bourgeois consumerism.
Everything that was good was commodified – including much of our humanity. And the bad externalities that the same production process generated were simply released into the atmosphere. To power the capitalist juggernaut, carbon stored for millennia in trees and under the surface was plundered. For two centuries immense wealth – and corresponding human misery – was produced by exploitative processes that depleted “free” natural capital, carbon in particular. Workers around the world are now paying the cost to nature that the capitalist market never bore.
Free-marketeers would like us to believe that business has now yielded to science, and is ready and willing to step into the void of government inaction. We must not believe this for a moment. Yes, Carney is right that the money for the belated green transition is available, and it is ample. Those who possess it will undoubtedly invest it to supply, say, green hydrogen if we, society, pay them to do so. But at the same time, they will not voluntarily cease production processes that continue releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
This is why polluters adore net zero targets: because they are a brilliant cover for not restricting emissions. In exchange for non-verifiable offsets, they are allowed to continue plundering the planet’s remaining stored carbon, until the point arrives when their marginal private cost surpasses their revenue from the last unit sold. By cynically placing net zero at its centre, Cop26 became nothing more than an expensive cover-up for continued toxic emissions. Hiding behind Cop26, the great and the good lie to the young, lie to vulnerable people and even lie to themselves by repeating the truth that the “money is there” to be invested in the planet’s salvation.
What needs to be done? Two things at the very least. First, a complete shutdown of coalmines and new oil and gas rigs. If governments can lock us down to save lives during a pandemic, they can shut down the fossil fuel industry to save humanity. Second, we need a global carbon tax, to increase the relative price of everything that releases more carbon, and from which all proceeds should be returned to the poorer members of our species.
To earn a shot at rising to the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, we must first confront both the funders and the owners of the fossil fuel industries. Though this clash will not guarantee our future, it is a necessary condition for us to have one.
Disguised as sci-fi, Yanis Varoufakis’ Another Now contemplates how life post-capitalism might be more free and equal – and how that might be destroyed.
Almost immediately upon Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement on 28 October that his company was adopting the new identity Meta, Greek economist and political activist Yanis Varoufakis fired off a tweet, writing: “Hands off our mέta, our Centre for Postcapitalist Civilisation, Mr Zuckerberg. You, and your minions wouldn’t recognise civilisation even if it hit you with a bargepole.” In Another Now (Melville House, paperback 2021), a work of speculative fiction that is his first novel, Varoufakis offers an alternative vision to what he brands Zuckerberg’s “Technofeudalist” nightmare.
Varoufakis is the author of the best-selling economic analyses Talking to my Daughter About the Economy: orHow Capitalism Works — and How It Fails (Bodley Head, 2017), a history of capitalism, and The Global Minotaur: America, Europe, and the Future of the Global Economy (Zed, 2011), an analysis of the economic system from the 1970s to the 2008 housing market crash within which the US occupies a central role. He is also the author of Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment (Random House, 2017), a memoir of his six-month crash-and-burn tenure as Greece’s Minister of Finance. In that role in 2015, he attempted to resolve the country’s public-debt crisis by resisting the draconian terms being forced upon the country by the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (collectively known as “The Troika”).
In addition to serving on mέta’s Advisory Board, Varoufakis is currently a member of the Hellenic Parliament representing greater Athens. He is also co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), a pan-European progressive political movement, and Progressive International, an organization dedicated to uniting and mobilizing progressive activists and organizations around the world.
In his first work of fiction, Another Now is Varoufakis’ thought experiment disguised as a sci-fi narrative. It ponders what a society that balances freedom and equality might look like.
The narrator of the tale, Yango Varo, relates events that took place primarily from 2025-35 as recorded in the diary of a woman who recently succumbed to cancer. It concerns three friends: the diary’s author Iris, a radical contrarian living off a bequest from a hereditary peer; and Eva, a former Lehman Brothers investment banker turned academic. The third friend, Costa, is a computer engineer who made a fortune shorting high-tech stocks ahead of the dotcom bust in 2001 and another, even bigger fortune shorting financial services in the run-up to the mortgage-backed derivatives crash of 2008.
At his job, his technological innovations were constantly being shelved by his employers in the interest of extending the life cycle – and revenue streams – of existing, less-effective technologies. Disaffected by his experience in the tech industry and enjoying the autonomy granted to him by his wealth, Costa sets out on a secret project. He intends to create a kind of Freedom Machine that would offer users the ability to experience an infinite horizon of pleasure – freedom not only from want but from every boundary one could imagine.
The catch: the price of entering the blissful world of the Freedom Machine is that one could never leave it. This is a price he believed no one would be willing to pay. This refusal, Costa thinks, would be based on a recognition of the ultimate emptiness and futility of unending desire under capitalism.
To protect his project from being stolen by corporate hackers, henceforth known by its technical acronym HALPEVAM (Heuristic ALgorithmic Pleasure and Experiential VAlue Maximizer), Costa creates a security device that inadvertently opens a wormhole into an alternative reality, the “Other Now” of the book’s title. He begins communicating via batch-file messaging technology with someone in Other Now, who is in fact his Other Self, identified as Kosti. The messaging back and forth between Costa and Kosti, which soon brings in Iris and her Other Self Siris, and Eva and her Other Self Eve, provides an opportunity for Varoufakis to lay out how things might work in a world without capitalism. Of course, these are ideas Varoufakis has put forth elsewhere outside the realm of fiction.
Kosti’s world involves direct democracy applied to corporate governance in which each employee receives a single share of an organization’s stock and an equal vote in all decisions. Everyone also has a Personal Capital account from a central bank that has three buckets: an Accumulation fund based on their work income; a Legacy trust fund given by society to all at birth intended for retirement or extreme emergency; and a monthly Dividend from the state derived from a 5 percent tax levied on all gross corporate revenues. These policies emerged from the wreckage of the great disruptions set off by cadres of various techno-rebels in Other Now, which brought an end to capitalism in the wake of the 2008 crash and the point at which it diverged from the Our Now inhabited by Costa, Iris, and Eva, along with the rest of humanity.
The balance of the plot deals with the interactions between Costa, Iris, Eva, and their Others as they confront their existence – their aspirations and their discontents – in their divergent Nows. Other Now is not an unmitigated utopia, it turns out: corporations may have been democratized, capital markets and investment bankers may no longer exist, but patriarchy continues to hold sway. The shared prosperity of Other Now brings with it a renewed social conservatism. Shady characters continue to find ways to game the financial system even if their machinations are quickly uncovered and swiftly dealt with.
In the book’s final pages, the wormhole begins to deteriorate as corporate hackers get close to breaching HALPEVAM’s security device. Big Tech’s takeover of HALPEVAM would, of course, result in its total monetization. Corporations will offer only short-term pleasures in pay-per-view until its customers are completely enmeshed in their experience. This is the very specter of the Technofeudalist nightmare Varoufakis abhors in Zuckerberg’s notion of the “metaverse”. What’s more, the ability of Our Now users to communicate with their counterparts (it goes without saying for a fee) would likely devastate Other Now, as well.
How the various characters respond to the impending doom is the denouement of Varoufakis’ narrative. In offering a glimpse of how things might be different, Another Now invites us to contemplate possibilities that are not without their challenges, but worth entertaining nonetheless.
Leaders at the COP26 summit have no intention of tackling the growing environmental impacts caused by their ‘defence’ spending
World leaders gathered in Glasgow last week for the COP26 summit in a bid to demonstrate how they are belatedly getting to grips with the climate crisis. Agreements to protect forests, cut carbon and methane emissions and promote green tech are all being hammered out in front of a watching world.
Western politicians, in particular, want to emerge from the summit with their green credentials burnished, proving that they have done everything in their power to prevent a future global temperature rise of more than 1.5C. They fear the verdict of unhappy electorates if they come back empty-handed.
Western armed forces are the most polluting on the planet – and the goal at COP26 is to keep that fact a closely guarded secret
Climate scientists are already doubtful whether the pledges being made go far enough, or can be implemented fast enough, to make a difference. They have warned that drastic action has to be taken by the end of this decade to avert climate catastrophe.
But the visible activity at the summit hides a much starker reality. The very nations proclaiming moral leadership in tackling the climate crisis are also the ones doing most to sabotage a meaningful agreement to reduce humanity’s global carbon footprint.
A photo from the opening of COP26 showed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit’s host, warmly greeting US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But rather than fete them, we should treat this triumvirate as the big villains of the climate talks.
Their armed forces are the most polluting on the planet – and the goal at COP26 is to keep that fact a closely guarded secret.
Hidden from view
US expenditure on its military far outstrips that of any other country – except for Israel, when measured relative to population size. Although the UK trails behind, it still has the fifth largest military budget in the world, while its arms manufacturers busily supply weapons to countries others have shunned.
And emissions from the West’s militaries and arms makers appear to be growing each year rather than shrinking – though no one can be certain because they are being actively hidden from view.
Washington insisted on an exemption from reporting on, and reducing, its military emissions at the Kyoto summit, 24 years ago. Unsurprisingly, everyone else jumped on that bandwagon.
Since the Paris summit of 2015, military emissions have been partially reported. But all too often the figures are disguised – lumped in with emissions from other sectors, such as transport.
Most of Europe has refused to come clean, too. France, with the continent’s most active military, reports none of its emissions.
According to research by Scientists for Global Responsibility, the UK’s military emissions were three times larger than those it reported – even after supply chains, as well as weapons and equipment production, were excluded. The military was responsible for the overwhelming majority of British government emissions.
Total emissions by the Norwegian military over the next decade will rise by 30 percent as a result of its F-35 purchases alone
And new technology, rather than turning the military green, is often making things much worse.
The latest fighter jet developed by the US, the F-35, is reported to burn 5,600 litres of fuel an hour. It would take 1,900 cars to guzzle a similar amount of fuel over the same period.
Norway, like many other countries, has been queuing up to get its hands on this new-generation jet. According to the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen, the total emissions by the Norwegian military over the next decade will rise by 30 percent as a result of its F-35 purchases alone.
As well as discounting the environmental harm caused by military equipment procurement and supply chains, countries are also excluding the significant impacts of conflicts and wars.
Each year of the US occupation of Iraq that began in 2003, for example, is conservatively estimated to have generated emissions equivalent to putting an additional 25m cars on the road.
Military spending up
Unlike the farming and logging industries, or the manufacturing industries, or the fossil fuel industries, efforts to curb the growth in military spending – let alone reverse it – are off the table at the COP26 summit.
And for that, Washington has to take the major share of the blame.
Its “defence” budget already comprises about 40 percent of the $2tn spent annually on militaries worldwide. China and Russia – ostensibly the two bogeymen of the COP26 summit – lag far behind.
The government of Boris Johnson unveiled last year what it called “the biggest programme of investment in British defence since the end of the Cold War”. Britain is no outlier. After a short-lived “peace dividend” caused by the break-up of the Soviet Union, global military expenditure has been on an almost continuous upward trend since 1998, led by the US.
Paradoxically, the upturn began about the time western politicians began paying lip service to tackling “climate change” at the Kyoto summit.
US military spending has been rising steadily since 2018. It is set to continue doing so for at least another two decades – way past the deadline set by climate scientists for turning things around.
The same global upward trend has been fed by a surge in military expenditure by Middle Eastern countries – notably Saudi Arabia and the UAE – since 2013. That appears to reflect two trends rooted in Washington’s changing approach to the region.
First, as it has withdrawn its overstretched occupation forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has increasingly outsourced its military role to wealthy client states in this oil-rich region.
And second, as Israel and the Gulf states have been encouraged to forge closer military and intelligence ties against Iran, these same Gulf states have been allowed to play military catch-up with Israel. Its famed “qualitative military edge” is being gradually eroded.
Propping up this Middle East arms spree is the UK, which has been exporting to the Saudis, and the US, which heavily subsidises Israel’s military industries.
Power competition
All this means that, while western politicians promise to cut emissions at COP26, they are actually busy preparing to increase those emissions out of view. Ultimately, the problem is that little can be done to green our militaries, either substantively or through a greenwashing makeover. The military’s rationale is neither to be sustainable nor to be kind to the planet.
The arms manufacturers’ business model is to offer clients – from the Pentagon to every tinpot dictator – weapons and machines that are bigger, better or faster than their competitors. Aircraft carriers must be larger. Fighter jets quicker and more agile. And missiles more destructive.
The arms manufacturers’ business model is to offer clients – from the Pentagon to every tinpot dictator – weapons and machines that are bigger, better or faster than their competitors
Consumption and competition are at the heart of the military mission, whether armies are waging war or marketing their activities as purely “defensive”.
“Security”, premised on a fear of neighbours and rivals, can never be satiated. There is always another tank, plane or anti-missile system that can be purchased to create greater “deterrence”, to protect borders more effectively, to intimidate an enemy.
And war provides even greater reasons to consume more of the planet’s finite resources and wreak yet more harm on ecosystems. Lives are taken, buildings levelled, territories contaminated.
The UK has 145 military bases in 42 countries, securing what it perceives to be its “national interests”. But that is dwarfed by more than 750 US military bases spread over 80 countries. Shuffling off this energy-hungry power projection around the globe will be much harder than protecting forests or investing in green technology.
The US and its western allies would first have to agree to relinquish their grip on the planet’s energy resources, and to give up policing the globe in the interests of their transnational corporations.
It is precisely this full-spectrum power competition – economic, ideologic and military – that propelled us into the current climate disaster. Tackling it will require looking much deeper into our priorities than any leader at COP26 appears ready to do.
mέta | Centre for Postcapitalist Civilisation
Coincidences may be hilarious, or, from another point of view, revelatory. And one can never be certain it was by pure coincidence that Mark Zuckerberg decided to rebrand Facebook’s parent company as meta, giving his new venture a name almost identical to that of our mέta – the Centre for Post-Capitalist Civilization. All the more so, since he has already named “Diem” his company’s cryptocurrency in the making…
But naming disputes are for corporate-minded copyright holders. On our part, we are only delighted to stress the contrast of values and intentions brought forward by this odd similarity of brands. For Mark Zuckerberg’s “vision” validates our core argument: that a post-capitalist dystopia is emerging all around us, a state of affairs that urgently needs to be challenged by our struggles for emancipatory alternatives.
Meta’s rush to the “metaverse” phantasmagoria depicts what the newly coined term “technofeudalism” stands for: privatising, exploiting and radically enclosing the whole of our social interaction and lived experience – pushing the digital/analogue divide to the point of a class apartheid with unheard of anthropological connotations.
In that sense, we owe many thanks to Mark Zuckerberg for (unintentionally) highlighting the relevance of the post-capitalism debate. Hence, we suggest a preliminary reading/viewing list for those inclined to follow mέta’s endeavour in theory, politics and art.
Slavoj Žižek and Yanis Varoufakis on techno-feudalism:
“You, and your minions, wouldn’t recognize civilization even if it hit you with a bargepole,” said the former Greek finance minister, slamming Facebook’s CEO for the social media giant’s new name.
As Facebook faces a firestorm for changing its corporate name to Meta amid heightened scrutiny over how the tech titan harms humanity, Greek economist and Progressive International co-founder Yanis Varoufakis on Friday called out the company for stealing the moniker of a global anti-capitalist think tank.
Varoufakis, in a tweet, took aim at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who announced the new name at a conference Thursday, as the social media company contends with widespread criticism of its practices thanks to revelations from former-employees-turned-whistleblowers.
“Hands off our mέta, Our Center for Postcapitalist Civilization, Mr. Zuckerberg,” tweeted the former Greek finance minister, who is on the think tank’s advisory board. “You, and your minions, wouldn’t recognize civilization even if it hit you with a bargepole.
Hands off our mέta, our Centre for Postcapitalist Civilisation https://t.co/t9aIR0ahSC, Mr Zuckerberg. You, and your minions wouldn't recognise civilisation even if it hit you with a bargepole pic.twitter.com/aleOplqo12
The mission page of mέta’s website explains that “we are already in the early stages of an era that can only be described by that which it succeeds: we live in postcapitalist times. They may turn out dystopic, utopic, or anything in between.”
“Through art and research, argument, and poetry,” the site says, “mέta (the abbreviation of our Our Center for Postcapitalist Civilization) works to break with a dystopic present to imagine the world anew—to grasp our present historical moment so as to help radical progressive movements find a path from the emergent dismal postcapitalism to one worth fighting, and living, for.”
Along with Varoufakis, other advisory board members include scholar Noam Chomsky, musician Brian Eno, filmmaker Ken Loach, economist James K. Galbraith, and philosopher Slavoj Žižek.
In addition to the social network Facebook, Meta also owns the photo- and video-sharing platform Instagram as well as the messaging application WhatsApp.
As Common Dreamsreported Thursday, while Zuckerberg celebrated the new corporate name for the company, tech ethicists and branding professionals warned the world not to be “fooled” by the move.
“It’s tempting to view Facebook’s rebranding as nothing more than a cynical attempt by the company to distance itself from endless scandals and the real-world harm caused by its surveillance capitalist business model. But it’s actually much more sinister than that,” said Evan Greer, director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, in a statement Friday.
“With this announcement Mark Zuckerberg revealed his end game: He’s making a play to control the future of the Internet,” she asserted, accusing the CEO of “co-opting the terminology of decentralization and attempting to solidify his stranglehold on the future of human attention and interaction.
I took a dive into the "Metaverse" and went on the BBC to talk about Facebook's rebranding and how we need to fight tooth and nail to ensure that the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world don't define and control the next generation of the Internet. pic.twitter.com/rjVRPBqkUD
— Evan Greer is on Mastodon and Bluesky (@evan_greer) October 29, 2021
Emphasizing the the importance of recognizing that “the Internet is changing,” Greer argued that “we need to fight tooth and nail to ensure that the policies governing this next generation of the Internet are carefully crafted to protect vulnerable communities, free expression, and human rights––and that they don’t undermine the potential of truly decentralized technologies, which could help finally end the era of Big Tech surveillance capitalism.”
“We are at a crossroads,” she said. “It’s time to decide what we want the future of the Internet to look like. And then it’s time to fight for that vision. Before it’s too late.”
Sean Michael Wilson
I was interviewed on a radical podcast and we got to discussing the politics of Walking DeadTV series, especially what kind of economy and society they had after the zombies started, noting that it is no longer a capitalist world they inhabit. On the spur of the moment I summarised it with a joke:
“The zombies killed capitalism!”
That interview was considering a subject that has become quite a hot one in the comic book world: about how we can arrange things in terms of readers, money and sales, etc to help struggling comic book creators. I myself am a professional comic book writer (graphic novels if you prefer their posh term), with more than twenty books published, three of them with New Internationalist (Fight the Power, Goodbye God and Portraits of Violence). Recently there has been more talk in the graphic novel world about creators simply not being able to make ends meet. An announcement this year by the popular creator Hannah Berry, that she will no longer make any long graphic novels, has become something of a symbolic rally point for the issue. Why has she made that decision? Because she simply can’t afford to, it takes too much time for too little money:
“To make a graphic novel takes me three years of blinkered, fanatical dedication, and I realised while working on Livestock that I just can’t do it again. I’m done. I’m out. And from quiet talks with many other graphic novelists, ones whose books you know and love, I can tell you that I’m far from being the only one…This is the problem with making graphic novels in the UK today, and it’s one we need to address: the numbers do not add up.”
Now amongst the debate on such fine comic book places as Broken Frontier has been very detailed consideration of how we increase our readership, market our books better, make books that people want to buy, increase our social media presence, etc. All in order to make the numbers add up to a decent living for creators. Berry mentions that we should perhaps pressurize the government to provide more in the way of arts grants for making comics. There is certainly a case to be made for that, compared with the far higher subsidies received for other art forms. All of these are relevant. But, oddily enough, the main cause of the basic problem is rarely mentioned. And what is that? Yep, you guessed it – our old adversary that so far refuses to lie down, capitalism. Among 99% of the people talking about this the question of how the basic economic system affects comic book creators hardly raises its head.
Most of the views and discussions I have seen about the economy of comics are based on the idea that what we need is more READERS. I want to say something quite radical: actually we have enough readers already. What we lack is PROFIT. And by that I do not mean therefore we need to get more profit. What I mean is that the problem is the very idea of profit itself. The need, the compulsion, to make profit within a capitalist style economy. That’s our real problem. At the very least there should be an awareness that this is the underlaying cause.
This is why I say it’s the main problem: because in a capitalist economy the main focus is on making profit. Not on making things people want or need. And it’s a system based on making profit which is controlled by a tiny elite of people who have a huge influence on what gets made. So, in capitalist economy human creative energy – in the arts, sciences, education, everything – is focused on what will make a profit. So, if some good comic does not sell enough then it does not make enough profit and it’s cancelled. Or some good idea never gets made in the first place because the publisher knows that it probably won’t sell enough, it won’t make enough profit. They would like to publish it but they can’t. The ‘economic reality’ stops them. How many of us comic book creators have heard that from publishers? How many of us have therefore had our great ideas wither on the vine? How many editors and publishers have regretted being chained to that situation too?
So, if this profit obsession is such a barrier to our creativity, in many fields, why don’t we get rid of it? Why not set up another, better system? Some think because we can’t. We are not capable of any system other than ‘the Big C’. I don’t have space to go into that now, perhaps in another article. So, for now, let’s presume that we CAN come up with a better, alternative system. Probably one that draws on elements of socialism, anarchism and environmentalism. Let’s just call it a ‘Better Economic and Social System’ (BESS). In a BESS private profit will not be the main focus. Instead we will focus all of our energies towards creating good societies, towards creating a sense of well-being, healthy lifestyles, environmentally friendly policies, a good education etc – all the things that we human beings need for a decent life. And art is part of that. Music is part of that. Dance is part of that. And comics are part of that. So, in a BESS what will matter is not ‘Will this comic make enough profit?’, but the far better questions of: ‘Is this a good comic? Is it interesting? Is it funny? Is it moving?’. When those are the criteria comics will flourish far more than now, when the poison of profit no longer taints our efforts.
There is also the issue of WHO decides. In the Big C that tiny elite of the power get to decide most of what happens in our economy. In a BESS decisions about what gets made and how we make it, and how we use our resources, will be made by people in general – by us all, as equals, working together in some kind of local democratic council type groups. Again, I’ve no space here to say much more about how they would work. Anyone interested to consider it more can email me. Or check out the various approaches to organising a better society than can be found in books or online, such as the ‘parecon’ system or the ‘anarchism 101’ pages at The Anarchist Library. But, basically, we comic book folk could bring our ideas to the arts council of our area and try to persuade them that the book is interesting. It won’t be some elite group of councillors who decides – that would be little better than things are now when we have to supplicate ourselves to publishers. It’s a council, or collective or community that WE are also equal members of, and that decides things in a truly democratic way with real processes for bringing up complaints and appeals. How much better that would be than now, were creators get ideas rejected mostly on the grounds of low profit potential, and with absolutely no process in place to challenge that decision.
I said we have enough readers. A study of facebook found that 24 million Americans have noted ‘comics’ as an area of interest on their accounts. According to data on the Statista Portal, around 28% of 8 to 16 year olds in the UK regularly read comics. No one seems to be sure about the figure for adult readers in the UK, but, at a guess, I would say it may be around the same figure as the 4% of the population that regularly attends the opera. What this means is that we already have enough people interested to read comics. Certainly enough to influence those local arts groups in a BESS that comics are something worth focusing some of our limited resources into. If there are, say, just 1000 people interested to read your comics that’s plenty – that’s one thousand real flesh and blood people, all of who matter, all of whom are part of society and get a say in how it’s run. We already have enough people interested in comics to allow for many, many comics to be given the backing of those arts councils up and down the country. And by backing I mean money, yes. In a BESS meaning some kind of credits for ‘useful work done for the community’. Not a grant, but the same kind of credits received for their useful contribution by the teacher, the street sweeper, the brain surgeon. Credits that can be spent on the things we all need for a decent, healthy, happy life. In such a system the numbers WILL add up. Not by magic, but by organising things well, according to what we want, need, value, and are prepared to work for. Which is not what happens under capitalism.
Lastly, in a BESS, it is highly likely that that amount of readers of comics will go up. Because there will also be less of a barrier of having to buy comics. Many of those council backed comics that we creators would make would be available for free, just like the local play park is free. So, many more readers will check them out. Or readers would ‘pay’ some allotted credit for them, which would probably be small amount, simply deducted from their total credit balance. In the same way they pay for milk or a new pair of shoes. And, as its not a capitalist profit based system, creators would not get that credit, direct from reader to creator, or some % of it via a publisher. Creators, like everyone, receive their collectively agreed on level of credits via the local council (that they are a full and equal member of, remember) for their work. So, they would not receive 100 times more credits if their book is read by 100,000 people instead of 1,000. So, that would free us from the slavery of obsessing with numbers, to the shallow ‘sell, sell, sell,’ mentality of capitalism. And there would be far less of a problem of the silly desire to become ‘rich and famous’ too. We would not need either in order to feel we are doing something worthwhile. The focus would be on something very simple, but rather healthy: on making good comics that people value. Just that. And since the horrible profit issue would be out of the way we would all be more free to focus on experimenting, flexing our artistic muscles, trying new ideas. Or simply making good films, good music, good comics.
So, if brain dead zombies can end capitalism, so can we. And since we lovely humans are not brain dead (most of us, anyway), we should be capable of replacing it with something that works better – for the arts, for the sciences, for education, for the environment, for us all.
The COVID-19 pandemic generated uncanny circumstances being experienced worldwide, after all the tragic consequences of wars in the 20th century. The everyday environment is far from the common social-economic order. People of all classes are trying to cope with physical restraint, spiritual loneliness, global uncertainty, and anxiety about the future.
The Post-Truth regime we’ve been witnessing for over a decade, combined with the pandemic, has further complicated our realisation, perception, awareness and knowledge. Political and economic activity is being structured according to a new impasse.
What does this naked and absolute truth we experience mean for the future? This is the most asked question today in the global arts and culture scene: the most omnipresent and operational human action versus economics and politics.
Post-truth is understood as the modification of the meaning of truth, a system which aims to capture political and economic power. The current concerns about global economy, politics and culture that are under the unavoidable hegemony of post-truth, are forcing us to re-think the relevance of truth – which is the main concept and goal of contemporary art – and the relevance of today’s Relational Aesthetics productions.
Artists, art critics, academicians and experts working in this field are facing a new challenge to communicate with the pandemic-stricken public through contemporary art. The main setback in this field is the difference in political- social-economic orders, despite the growing controlling power of capitalism.
The truth is that there are countries and regions which respect democracy, justice, human rights etc., and there are countries that are far removed from these indisputable values. To my regret, I speak from a country [Turkey] with a damaged democracy that embraces post-truth. As Jürgen Habermas put it: “A ‘post-truth democracy’ […] would no longer be a democracy.” *
In non-democratic systems, there are a series of adverse issues that relate to the relevance of contemporary art and culture productions, as well as activities of artists towards their audiences. Mass media collaborates with ruling powers which offer limited democracy, all the while convincing people that they actually live in a democracy. The culture and art industry, with its populist, financially dependent systems and inevitable PR backing, promises an almost selfless service to the society of the spectacle, which simply produces illusions. Skeptical or dissident artists are confronted with this ongoing complexity.
In 2016, in Berlin, during my participation in ‘Soul for Europe’, I had the opportunity to justify the ongoing power of contemporary art and culture production in countries with limited democracy. I claimed that contemporary artists, art experts, artistic and cultural activities in Turkey (and in similar countries in the region), private institutions or individual initiatives, are effective in fulfilling cultural aims and intentions, such as:
a clear and unbiased vision towards democratic transformation
freedom of expression and communication
respect for pluralism, human and gender rights
responsibility on ecological problems
development of public awareness
Visual artists with their aesthetically qualified, conceptually competent artworks, are widely and strongly enriching visual productions, and women artists are at the forefront of this. But, how artists profit from their productions, or rather how they survive, remains a crucial question.
Most artists work at universities, graphic design companies or public art studios. A small number of artists are supported by their families or other private income. Private galleries occasionally employ curators. However, museums or private art and culture venues, are not enough to meet artists’ employment demands, not to mention that these often prefer to run their institutions with low-wage policies.
Under the current political and economic conditions in Turkey and in the region, it may be difficult to continue to strengthen socio-cultural and artistic endeavours. Artists are today looking for opportunities to live and work abroad in the EU, but this too has become almost impossible under pandemic conditions. Fortunately artists and art professionals can see, categorise and mark the apparatuses that serve post-truth regimes.
These adverse apparatuses show the affluent life of the privileged classes as the only goal of life, with productions used as “a must” towards this goal. These institutions intervene into the organic communication between creative people and the public with the intention of converting every piece of this communication into money. They canalise existing art forms and their critical information through alien systems, and load them with contents that don’t belong to them. They convert the quality of artworks, which aim to reach very large audiences, into profit.
Here, we need a new approach to the global art market; to underline the border between the socio-political-cultural value and the market value of artwork. This is more essential in non-democratic countries where only decorative creations can be exhibited and marketed. In the post-truth pandemic order we live in, especially in the countries where democracy is damaged, Relational Aesthetics products, which make critical and oppositional visual productions between the truth regime and the Post-truth regime, are seen in opposition to traditional identity, nationalism, religion and Neo-capitalist mass-culture.
If we consider that Relational Aesthetic artworks have a function within the visual aggression of Post-truth, it is evidently the enigmatic visual language that penetrates into the subconscious of society and provokes awareness. However, in many countries these productions are abused by censorship and vandalism. But these attacks are not preventing the continuity of art production. The curators who stand by artists and their works inevitably take a political stand and provide opportunities for this continuity.
In such hostile political environments, a counter-position is created by empowering art and culture workforces through the founding of NGOs, as well as art and culture initiatives at the global level. Global artist and art-experts residency programs, and artistic and cultural projects funded by public and private initiatives, are the main strongholds of sustainability.
Since 1990, exhibitions, symposiums and workshops organised in Turkey, the Balkans, the Middle-East and South Caucasus in collaboration with EU institutions, significantly reflected the will and vision of collaboration in arts and culture. Throughout the 1990’s EU culture policy applications didn’t only provide opportunities for artists and curators seeking new audiences and markets, but also supported cultural ventures in non-democratic or semi-democratic countries.
However most of these countries are still exposed to political and economic transformations and blockages. This means that the art and culture workforce is still seeking new allies and partners to tackle and overcome the grandeur of the task. The EU’s distribution of knowledge and funds for multicultural exhibitions into region or city-based locations also played a role in reducing the authority of modernist state-controlled art and culture structures based on local, national or 20th century Eurocentric proclamations.
Turkey’s art and culture developments since the 1980’s is an example of this significant role. The intense art exchange within the region, where Istanbul is the center of early accomplishments in art and culture, consists of multilateral exhibitions, roundtable or symposium meetings and artist residencies.
Currently two directions influence art and culture policies in Turkey: One of them is the prevailing official culture policy trapped into Modernist ideology, mixed with nostalgia to an illusory İslamic art and culture. The other is in correlation with private sector investments, the irrepressible dynamism of contemporary art-making and cultural activities through international exchange, communication and market relations.
I think that the EU made efforts to fulfil its function of preserving cultural diversity, while at the same time providing equality in the systems of communication and exchange. However, there is a big problem in this function. The EU’s policy of updating art and culture policies in countries experiencing political and economic turmoil has fissures that need to be revised.
For instance, the mainstream international art and culture industry has very strong links with private international enterprises. It comprises a huge and complex network of artists, galleries, media, curators, collectors, private and official institutions. It is therefore an impenetrable entity that has its own rules and concepts and does not like to be manipulated by any other power. It has its own power and all the actors of the system enjoy this power.
The other system includes official institutions, museums, universities and state/nation political policies. The interests of this system are founded in nation-state ideologies, which is another unit one cannot easily penetrate into. Another issue are the dynamics of art itself. Artists are independent, free, and want to do whatever they believe in.
If there is a next future, the EU art and culture policy should consider its interest in democracies in bordering territories, and support the dissident art and culture producers living in autocracies.
Beral Madra is an art historian, critic, curator, member of mέta’s Advisory Board and elected member of DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective.
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