[P2P-F] Journey to Earthland (GTN Discussion)

Fri Oct 28 07:23:29 CEST 2016

On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Great Transition Network <
gtnetwork at greattransition.org> wrote:

>
> From Anantha Prasad <fab4ap at gmail.com>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> [Moderator's note: Please note that the discussion will end on MONDAY,
> OCTOBER 31. We look forward to your contributions!]
>
> After reading the well-rounded, insightful responses to Paul Raskin's bold
> and brilliant exploration of the trials and tribulations entailed in a
> plausible planetary civilization, I have some thoughts/opinions and ponder
> points that I'll lay out below - first to John Bellamy Foster and then to
> Paul Raskin (which I had formed earlier).
>
> In response to John Bellamy Foster, I have the following thoughts:
>
> The existence of some form of class struggle, while a historical fact, was
> not in the way Marx envisaged. The struggles are part of
> eco-co-evolutionary interactions, where geographic/environmental
> differences along with stochastic forces mediated prominently even in
> complex human class based societies (Jared Diamond; Guns, Germs, and
> Steel). Marx's vision of capitalist development was along the lines of the
> polarizing Manchesterian model while the actual development took various
> other dynamic forms that he did not anticipate. The Bernsteinian way became
> a possibility, and eco-social democracy is now in the cards - because as
> Marx brilliantly observed,
>
> "No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for
> which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of
> production never appear before the material conditions of their existence
> have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind
> always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the
> matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only
> when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist, or
> are at least in the process of formation." (Karl Marx, Contribution to the
> critique of political economy, 1859)
>
> Marx's insights, while brilliant, are rooted in the 19th century idea of
> scientific and societal progress. Similar to Darwin's natural selection and
> its reliance on Malthusian struggle, Marx's is based on societal class
> struggle leading to a class-less society. In spite of the brilliance of
> some of his insights, his theories reflected the dominant mood of his time,
> wanting his *linear* social theory to be "scientific" and hence
> irrefutable. Therefore, while his foresight is admirable, his polemical
> prescriptions unfortunately are very unlikely to lead to class-less
> society. In fact, it can lock us up permanently in a conflict-ridden
> society that we may not be able to transcend.
>
> “The development of each is the condition of the development of all,”
> while laudable, is not rooted in the ecological realities of human
> evolution. Whether we can transcend eco-evolutionary constraints depends a
> lot on our future technological capability and ability to form social
> institutions that will allow that. As Stephen Jay Gould remarked about
> biological potentiality vs. biological determinism, "the flexibility of the
> human brain permits us to be aggressive or peaceful, dominant or
> submissive, spiteful or generous. Violence, sexism, and general nastiness
> are biological since they represent one subset of a possible range of
> behaviors. But peacefulness, equality, and kindness are just as
> biological—and we *may see their influence increase* if we can create
> social structures that permit them to flourish." [emphasis added]
>
> Will the future world be anti-capitalistic? No, I don't think so (for
> accumulation of capital is definitely a one aspect of our nature we cannot
> divorce ourselves from - and is quite important for our development as a
> species). It will more likely, if we succeed in our eco-democratic project,
> be one which is less nasty and enables more rational forms of development
> that increases human well-being without the gross social inequities and
> environmental degradation we see today. The social control of capital will
> be never be easy and complete, but hopefully will be much more conceivable
> than it is today.
>
> In my view, the limitation of 'rational-compassionate' elites (the class
> to which most of us belong) is that they can only be reformist - although
> the motives can be radical-idealist.
>
> Here are my earlier observations to Paul Raskin's book ……
>
> A historical foray into the past few centuries reveals that the advance of
> modernity, spearheaded by capitalistic modes of production relations, led
> to a quest for planetary civilization via liberal, enlightenment inspired
> ideals in the late 19th century --resulting in bitter disillusionment after
> the two world wars in this century. The hope of achieving these ideals via
> socialist revolution turned sour after the geo-political and economic
> realities of the Eastern bloc resulted in static, regimented, undemocratic
> societies, struggling unsuccessfully to compete with the West, and far from
> the global socialist vision.
>
> The neoliberal era developed not just from the emerging financial class,
> but also from the fertilization of ideas (Hayek, Freidman, etc.) that lay
> dormant in the Keynesian era that followed the Second World War. When the
> time was right i.e., when Keynesian reforms seemed inadequate in the 1970s,
> neoliberal ideas and the neoconservative allies formed a partnership that
> has resulted in some spectacular progress towards economic globalization,
> with all the attendant social and ecological crises. Today, we seem to have
> achieved economic globalization (except in Africa) with all its attendant
> glitter, glamor and stench.
>
> The seduction of capitalism via its quest for maximization of monetary
> profits is mathematically convenient, and yields palpable results although
> neglecting a whole array of important side-effects. Yet, this is a
> simplistic and attractive way to achieve growth and wealth in traditional
> societies still in the grips of older forms of production-relations. The
> trickle-effect there is also substantial -- a lot of wealth is created,
> generating a huge middle class geared towards higher consumption, and youth
> eager to break away older forms and embrace modernity with all its glitter.
> It creates another round of chaotic urbanization (as for example in China
> and India).
>
> It should be remembered that constraining corrupt-feudal-bureaucratic
> forces were rampant in the Keynesian/old-style socialist economies –
> economic globalization and privatization were quick ways to deal with these
> barriers to economic growth for the neoliberals of the West as well as the
> local elites in these old-style economies impatient with the stultifying
> status quo – however, this process also increased inequities (in already
> unequal societies), and has given way too much power to financial
> institutions and certain segments of the elites, and also engendered newer
> forms of corruption.
>
> These forces have accelerated the ongoing clash between the traditional
> and the modern, between more nationalistic, industrial forms of production
> and the globalist (mobile-global-capital based) forms, those who have made
> it in the globalist era and those who have fallen behind (Global capitalism
> and the crisis of democracy - Jerry Harris) - which have led to
> obscurantist political movements - like ultra-nationalistic, religious,
> xenophobic and fascist forms in both developed and developing countries (as
> we are seeing now). Progressive forces are also on the rise especially
> among the enlightened youth.
>
> However, except for the most ideological of neoliberals, many enlightened
> individuals in the neoliberal camp see the breakdown to a fortress world
> and ecological degradation as undesirable and would pursue incremental,
> piecemeal Keynesian and ecological reforms (for example via Clinton,
> Obama). Emphasis will be on market reforms, with policies to ameliorate the
> most glaring forms of social inequities.
>
> We are entering an accelerated phase of technological innovation –
> biotech, energy, nano-tech, medical breakthroughs. Ecological modernization
> will become a new force …the momentum of technological change and the
> necessity of modern institutions adapting to them will demand a substantial
> amount of human management skill. Smart internet based solutions will
> become more widespread and penetrate all aspects of the global discourse.
> While newer more decentralized forms of energy creation offer better ways
> to organize from local up, more centralized forms will compete that will
> keep the status quo in terms of centralized bureaucracies etc. (Third
> Industrial Revolution by Jeremy Rifkin).
>
> The momentum and the consequences of a 81 trillion dollar economy
> historically achieved mainly through capital accumulation via profit
> maximization will be hard to constrain (towards equitable distribution of
> income and ecologically sustainable development). There are bound to be
> winners and losers, and inequality and polarization of wealth will wax and
> wane and may struggle towards some socially acceptable level in the absence
> of major catastrophes. The United Nations-inspired alternatives to GDP that
> emphasizes better indices for measuring "human well-being" will try to
> reform some nasty aspects of capitalism from within – factoring in the
> transnational aspect of production and distribution and the growing
> "precariat" class.
>
> Our most global of ecological problems, the possibility of rapid, human
> induced climate change, also inevitably creates winners and losers (mostly
> along traditional lines). A total ecological collapse, while possible, is
> still unlikely, because it underestimates spatial and temporal
> uncertainties, species adaptation and niche construction, and the amount of
> technological and social management that humans are capable of - although
> it is very likely that some fragile ecosystems will be permanently damaged
> if the IPCC projections of the rate of change are accurate, and no serious
> steps are undertaken to lower emissions. It should also be noted that some
> of the worst effects attributed to climate change today are very much
> confounded with human land-use change and other developmental, consumption
> and population demographic pressures in the pursuit of rapid economic
> growth geared towards global markets. Soil degradation and water scarcity
> will probably top the list as the most palpable
> of these impacts. Blaming it all on climate change will be
> counterproductive on the long run since climate change, even towards a new
> high, can be nonlinear and could yield surprises that will feed the
> skeptics.
>
> In summary, there will be a lot of social, political, economic and
> ecological forces at play – that will lead to various assorted political
> movements - some sinister and parochial, others progressive but fairly
> localized, others elitist and global, some bizarre and of no real
> consequence...which together will comprise the global citizens movement
> (GCM). What shape all these will eventually morph into is anybody's
> guess...one can envision this as an ongoing dialectical political struggle
> with no predictable winners or losers. In some respects all battles have to
> be fought all over again as the late Tony Benn used to say - and it seems
> clear that the dialectical struggle towards a planetary civilization
> entails this hidden logic. The progress is never linear, although there are
> periods when this may seem so.
>
> Grand global visions (still the domain of a small fraction of the
> globalized elites) however are necessary to inspire, shape and constrain
> these chaotic forces and Paul's contribution is therefore timely and
> invaluable. Detailing an elaborate vision (with all the major themes) is a
> worthwhile exercise – can we develop a mathematically feasible one (with
> future computing capabilities) that can maximize non-monetary profit that
> increases human well-being? How can food production/distribution, and other
> essentials like education, healthcare, and basic income be mandated? What
> kind of regulations and conflict-resolution by supra-national bodies will
> work? Will the future society be a form of market-assisted eco-socialism?
> How to combat inequalities, human population growth, specific ecological
> degradation etc? How to inform early education based on planetary focus
> with our commonality emphasized? How to enable this to become a global
> curriculum that will be taught in all schools? etc.
> etc.
>
> Similar to the emergence of capitalism from within the feudal society, the
> elites can set the stage for a planetary phase with eco-social-economic
> democracy as the goal....this is more likely to be an eco-co-evolutionary
> process with some radical leaps and setbacks dotted spatially and
> temporally. Solidarity and the shared global vision necessary to move
> towards a planetary phase are enormous - especially those that are true to
> our cosmic and biological/evolutionary behavioral constraints. Paul's
> narrative, therefore, can act as a catalyst – and when the time is ripe,
> can help the take off towards a shared planetary civilization, with all its
> trials and tribulations.
>
> Anantha Prasad
>
> ************************************************
>
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 4:02 PM, Great Transition Network wrote:
> From John Bellamy Foster
>
> -----
> [Moderator's note: Please note that the discussion will end on MONDAY,
> OCTOBER 31. We look forward to your contributions!]
>
> The Movement Toward an Ecological Society:
>
> Comments on Paul Raskin’s Journey to Earthland
>
> John Bellamy Foster
>
> In the nineteenth century, William Morris first introduced the notion of
> the “movement toward socialism,” a perspective which is now widely employed
> by socialists worldwide to refer to the long struggle in which we are
> engaged. In line with this, I am entitling these brief comments “The
> Movement Toward an Ecological Society”—a form of necessary resistance that,
> in my view, must coincide with the Movement Toward Socialism. I very much
> admired Paul Raskin’s 2002 essay The Great Transition—so much so that I
> wrote an article at the time on its importance from the standpoint of a
> socialist ecology. Now nearly a decade and a half later, Raskin in Journey
> to Earthland seeks to go beyond The Great Transition in three respects
> through: (1) its depiction of a historic juncture of emerging planetary
> consciousness, which he refers to as “Earthland”; (2) its focus on a
> “global citizens movement” or global civil society as the agent of change;
> and (3) its vision of a
> “world in potentia” on the other side of the Great Transition.
>
> Yet, as much as I can identify with much of Raskin’s Journey to Earthland,
> the attempt to move beyond the original “global scenarios project” and to
> provide something a bit more like a utopian manifesto is fraught with
> difficulties. For me, Raskin’s 2002 The Great Transition remains a crucial
> starting point, full of possibilities and characterized by realism. It
> presents a genuine world of potentia in Aristotle’s sense. Journey to
> Earthland, for all of its visionary qualities, closes off some of these
> possibilities, and lacks, as I see it, both the realism and the utopianism
> of the original essay, The Great Transition. Journey to Earthland takes us
> further down one of the paths depicted in The Great Transition, namely the
> New Paradigm, while leaving the other paths mostly behind, though Market
> Forces and Policy Reform play a role in the struggle. But it lacks, for me,
> the full sense of “How the Change Came About,” to quote the title of the
> famous chapter in Morris’s
> News from Nowhere. In fact, one of the strongest points in the original
> Great Transition essay was its short historical retrospective on how the
> change came about, which seemed to evoke the struggles of radical
> ecological movements.
>
> Raskin’s present “global citizens movement,” although raising the
> important question of agency, seems by comparison abstract and arid. There
> is no real sense of struggle from below, i.e., from the population of the
> global South, and working people everywhere, caught in an epochal crisis in
> which their material conditions—both economic and ecological—are being
> undermined. Inequality is addressed but in the mechanical terms of social
> stratification and analysis. One loses the concreteness of the original
> Great Transition essay in which each scenario was associated with a
> particular thinker or thinkers. For me, the fact that Eco-communalism was
> associated with William Morris was very important, because of the unity of
> perspectives—ecological and social, art and labor—that Morris represented.
> In Journey to Earthland, Eco-communalism follows the scenario outlined in
> The Great Transition, where it seen as coming about only as a response to
> the advent of Breakdown. Moreover,
> it is treated as mere ecological localism. Morris is not mentioned this
> time around. For someone with my own outlook, this threatens to be close
> off the future, since Morris and Eco-communalism, stand for the
> ecosocialist approach. (However, the region that the unknown historian from
> 2084 describes as Ecodemia in Part III of Journey to Earthland can be seen
> as representing a continuation of ecosocialist values, although arising
> through another path.)
>
> The concept of a global civil society or a “global citizens movement’ is
> one that raises all sorts of problems from a socialist perspective,
> particularly when it is presented as the agency of historical change. It is
> true that Gramsci raised the issue of the struggle for the hegemony of
> civil society (by which he meant the main non-state, cultural institutions
> of society on which the state and the ruling class depended for its rule)
> as part of the philosophy of praxis. Some post-Marxists grabbed on to this
> to promote the notion of civil society itself as agency and the basis of
> change. Nevertheless, the origins of the concept of civil society and the
> reality that it addressed make it practically indistinguishable (as the
> examination of Hegel and many others will show) from bourgeois society. The
> notion of civil society was central to the original concept of the
> bourgeois revolution and represented the rising capitalist class and
> related interests. To focus, then, on global civil
> society or a “global citizens movement” tends to displace the workers, who
> do not belong centrally to this conception—either in its original or in its
> present-day usage. In U.S. history, self-proclaimed “citizens’ movements”
> were almost invariably the enemy of labor and civil rights. Today in Latin
> America, progressive governments are being opposed by rightwing so-called
> “civil society” movements, mostly standing for the disenchanted middle and
> upper classes.
>
> It is true that left figures, including Naomi Klein, have employed the
> notion of global civil society, and that this has had considerable
> resonance in the anti-globalization and ecology movements. But the attempts
> to separate this conception from what Samir Amin has called “the liberal
> virus” from which it emerged have been mostly unsuccessful. Global civil
> society is usually associated today (and in Raskin’s own analysis) with
> NGOs. But these are predominantly funded (with some notable exceptions) by
> international capital and the state. Such organizations may be a human face
> in the climate of neoliberalism, but they are overall part of the system
> and its perpetuation. The notion of a global citizens movement cannot be
> seriously addressed outside the context of imperialism.
>
> None of this, of course, is to decry the important struggles from below
> that necessarily must operate in this sphere of civil society. To say that
> civil society, as an agent, speaks for Earthland, as Raskin does in a very
> well-meaning way, is likely to be viewed with some skepticism by those
> struggling for ecological and social justices around the world: first
> peoples; workers in the global South, ecosocialists, radical ecologists,
> and environmental justice activists, etc.. A realistic view of the movement
> toward a Great Transition, in my view, must be rooted in what David Harvey
> has called “co-revolution,” in which the struggles of diverse movements
> against oppression and for the earth come together. Moreover, this must be
> anchored, as Richard Falk, has noted in this discussion, in struggles in
> the global South in particular.
>
> There are also serious questions of praxis. I agree with Herman Daly in
> this discussion that the concrete struggle, if it is to succeed, must focus
> on the immediate problem, such as climate change, which means challenges to
> the current system of capital formation. The struggle would have to evolve
> in a practical way and with a clear strategic orientation, dealing first
> with the most pressing needs. The likely form in which such a constellation
> of movements could align with each other as part of an ecological project
> (at least where the global North is concerned) would be a popular front
> against the fossil fuel industry analogous to the popular front against
> fascism in the 1930s. This would be an ecodemocratic phase of struggle and
> would depend on the mobilization of the popular classes and the extent to
> which such a mobilization is genuinely ecological and democratic (which of
> course means anticapitalist) in orientation. Only then—though this would
> surely take many decades and
> probably reach into the next century, would we be able we move toward a
> more genuine ecosocialist revolution in which earth is safeguarded.
> Revolutionary humanity would be able to address the question of a society
> where human labor is no longer governed by accumulation and the fetishism
> of commodities, and where “the development of each is the condition of the
> development of all.”
>
> From a critical-realist standpoint, I see no reason to emphasize the
> concept of planetary consciousness while excluding (as Journey to Earthland
> does) the scientific assessment of the Anthropocene, which is the basis of
> our most unified understanding of the Earth System crisis. The imperatives
> demonstrated by natural science must be integrated with our understanding
> of social imperatives and human and ecological needs. A realistic approach
> to a Great Transition would require the issuing of a Manifesto that burns
> with a rage borne of a sense of social and ecological justice, and at and
> the same time inspires united action by connecting the end of the
> domination of the earth to the end of the domination of humanity. A whole
> new peoples’ culture would have to emerge, something better conveyed in The
> Great Transition. Both science and art, which Morris called the two
> “inexhaustible” sources of human creativity must enter in here. As a
> sociologist, I see as realist only those
> analyses that tell me about class, race, gender, imperialism, and
> struggles for the earth. Without these, and especially class, as real live
> forces, it is a bit like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
>
> Here we turn to the marvelous clues to the future provided by the unknown
> historian in 2084. All we know about her or him is that the history was
> written in Mandela City. This historical account from the future has
> somehow, in some reversal of the arrow of time, fallen into Raskin’s hands.
> The journey to the Commonwealth of Earthland, we are informed, had its
> roots in 2021 in line with the formation of the global citizen movement
> (GCM). This was followed by the collapse of the New Earth Order (NEO)
> championed by the Conventional Worlds mobilization. The result was The
> Reform Era (2028-2048) in which the UN introduced a New Global Deal (NGD)”
> that promoted “resilience economies.” The GCM, however, was not to be put
> off and demanded “Earthland Now!” It organized worldwide discontent by
> creating an “Earthland Parliamentary Assembly (EPA)” that adopted a new
> world constitution in 2048, thereby formally establishing the Commonwealth
> of Earthland. End of story.
>
> This is in many ways an exciting tale. But it is hard to see the struggles
> of the vast majority of the world population, and real flesh and blood
> people, in this. The conflicts that characterize our world are mostly
> leaped over. The reality of imperialism, which structures the present world
> system, is rendered invisible. The UN is treated as a democratic entity.
> There are no signs of its evil siblings the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF
> and NATO. Can they have just hung up their gloves? Everything seems to be
> the product of elites, or perhaps NGOs acting as surrogates for global
> civil society, which in turn is a surrogate for the entire 99%. There is no
> real hint of revolutionary struggle here. No real counterrevolutions or
> wars that seek to disrupt the process. It is a fairly straight road to
> civita humana.
>
> At the end we get the new ethical structure of the Commonwealth of
> Earthland with its three great regions of Agoria (an ecological modernist
> society), Ecodemia (an ecosocialist society), and Arcadia (a deep
> ecological society). This is the most imaginative and exciting part of The
> Journey to Earthland. I especially liked the descriptions of Ecodemia and
> Arcadia, and I would like to live in either one of them. Agoria seems a lot
> like present reality, and of course this is intentional. And how such a
> Commonwealth could exist, without Agoria going to war on the other two, I
> cannot quite fathom. Of course, the idea is that Agoria is more like
> today’s Sweden than today’s United States, which gives it more
> plausibility. All three worlds—Agoria, Ecodemia, and Arcadia—seem to be
> constructed according to Western ideals (and those of the global North).
> Journey to Earthland is quite clear, however, that the overall thrust (even
> though one rightly has suspicions about Agoria) is
> “post-capitalist, since profit and capital accumulation would no longer
> have primacy.”
>
> Most of the values that dominate in the Commonwealth as a whole make it
> seem like a dream world (in both the positive and negative sense). My
> biggest objection would be to the conception of “time.” The main idea is
> that there will be an enormous increase in leisure. It seems like few would
> disparage such an eventuality, and certainly in a more ecological society
> there would be decreased working time—and a slowing down of working time.
> But the Marxian-Morrisian vision has always been one of the creation of
> non-alienated, meaningful work, allowing for the full development of human
> creative powers in all of their artistry. The notion of leisure as the
> object can be seen as resembling the mechanical view presented in Edward
> Bellamy’s enormously popular Looking Backward, where everyone retires from
> work at an early age to a life of leisure. In contrast, Morris’s News from
> Nowhere presents periods of work and repose in people’s lives and a slowing
> down of work, along with the
> total cessation of the production of useless things by useless labor. But
> work itself, for Morris, remains the essence of the human being, as in
> Marx. What is needed is a regulation of the metabolism between human beings
> and nature—i.e., of labor and production—not a society without work. The
> work/leisure dichotomy needs to be transcended in favor of a world of
> meaningful, creative work, and the fullest development of the potentia of
> each and every human being.
>
> Postscript. In defense of Paul Raskin, I can see one way in which Journey
> to Earthland may have been distorted, without his even being aware of it. I
> believe the unknown historian from 2084 who was his key informant, was an
> inhabitant of Agoria, and thus presented Raskin with a rather biased and
> truncated Agorian history of the formation of the Commonwealth of
> Earthland, which then became Part III, and affected the entire essay. No
> doubt this historical account was all the more convincing to Raskin since
> Agorian society was so close in its set up to today’s dominant capitalist
> society. This prevented him from seeing the implausibility of the Agorian
> account. If I am right in this supposition, and Raskin’s informant was
> actually from Agoria, then, perhaps a new Journey to Earthland will someday
> have to be written—if it were to turn out that, say, an inhabitant of
> Ecodemia were to appear with an Ecodemian reading of the same events. We
> would then learn at last the true history
> of the origins of the Commonwealth of Earthland; that it grew out of the
> Movement Toward Socialism.
>
> ********************************************
>
> September 27, 2016
>
> From Herman Daly
>
> -----
> Thanks to Paul Raskin for a clear-headed and inspiring discussion.
> Especially thanks for emphasizing that even in Earthland:
>
> "The most controversial question—What should be considered irreducibly
> global?—has provoked a tug-of-war between contending camps advocating for
> either a more tight-knit world state or a more decentralized federation.
> The debate on the proper balance between One World and Many Places has not
> abated, indeed, may never find resolution."
>
> That seems to me quite true and worthy of much further thought and
> discussion.
>
> It is then suggested that, "Nevertheless, a wide consensus has been
> established on a minimal set of legitimate, universal concerns that cannot
> be effectively delegated to regions. Their irreducible “Spheres of Global
> Responsibility” are summarized in the chart."
>
> *Rights*: Civil liberties; political participation; education, health, and
> material well-being
>
> *Biosphere*: Shared resources; climate, ecosystems, and
> biodiversity;refuges and parks
>
> *Security*: Disarmament; dispute resolution; emergency planning; disaster
> relief; humanitarian intervention
>
> *Economy*: Trade and finance; communications and transport; development
> aid; consumer protection
>
> *Culture*: Space exploration; heritage preservation; world university
> system; intellectual property
>
> In my opinion this list does not represent a wide consensus, nor are all
> the goals irreducibly global, nor is it a minimal list. Indeed, one has to
> wonder what is not considered a "global responsibility"? However, the
> question it raises is central: What would be the minimal set of global
> responsibilities to which nations must be willing to sacrifice sovereignty
> for global survival? I emphasize minimal because the ability to cooperate
> globally is a scarce capacity and we have had only limited success at it so
> far. It is important to put first things first, to prioritize and not
> dissipate our effort on things that are of lesser concern, or not
> irreducibly global in nature, and therefore within the capacity of
> individual nations to solve for themselves. I will give my short list of
> global priorities in the hope that others will do the same. That should
> reveal whether or not there is wide consensus, and just where the consensus
> may lie.
>
> In first place, I would put nuclear disarmament and national dispute
> resolution. In second place, I would put avoiding ecological disaster, such
> as climate change, provoked by uneconomic growth and careless technologies.
> Accomplishing those two necessarily global goals is about as much as I am
> currently willing to hope for from our limited capacity for global
> cooperation among nations. If these two goals are not achieved, then the
> others will probably be short-lived, even if achieved. After achieving the
> big goals first, we can turn attention to those secondary goals with an
> irreducible global dimension. Probably nations can manage their own health
> care, education, parks, civil liberties, consumer protection, trade and
> finance, university systems, and intellectual property laws. If we try to
> globalize everything we will just create one holistic, unified,
> integrated---and insoluble---problem.
>
> I think the strongest argument against what I have said is that the most
> critical global goals are likely the most difficult to achieve, and that by
> tackling the less important and easier ones first, we may learn how better
> cooperate to solve the big ones. That raises the question of whether we
> have time for that gradual and less urgently motivated learning. Another
> question is whether some of the goals listed might be candidates for a
> large measure of "de-globalization" or "re-nationalization"---e.g. trade
> and finance.
>
> As Paul said, there is a tug-of-war between two alternative visions of
> global community: as a tight-knit world state, or as a more decentralized
> federation. I am pulling in the direction of a federation united by the
> global goals of avoiding nuclear war, and of avoiding environmental
> catastrophe. I look forward to hearing the thoughts and conclusions of
> others on this important question that Paul has raised.
>
> ---Herman Daly
>
> *******************************************************
>
> September 13, 2016
>
> From Richard Falk
>
> -----
> Comment by Richard Falk on Paul Raskin’s “Journey to Earthland”
>
> Reading “Journey to Earthland” is an extraordinary experience. Paul Raskin
> is not only a master navigator of the complexities of our world but someone
> who conveys a vision of the future that manages to surmount the
> unprecedented challenges facing humanity at several levels of social,
> cultural, and ecological being. His vision of a humane future for the
> peoples of the world is fully sensitive, as well, to the need for
> transforming the modernist relationship with nature based on domination,
> exploitation, and alienation that has resulted in an ecological backlash
> that threatens our well-being, and even raises doubts about the survival of
> the human species. And perhaps most remarkable of all, Raskin not only
> depicts a future that is convincingly portrayed as necessary and desirable,
> but also shows us that it is technically possible to achieve, although not
> presently *politically* feasible. To make this desired and desirable future
> a viable political project is the underlying mission
> of “Journey to Earthland.”
>
> In an important sense, the book falls outside the typical genre of utopian
> writing because it is preoccupied with how to close this gap between what
> is possible and what is feasible, and in the process making the desirable
> future attainable. It is here, with a certain exuberance of expectations,
> that Raskin pins his hopes on the emergence of a robust global citizens
> movement that will challenge the status quo by mobilizing people around the
> world until a tipping point is reached, and a new political consciousness
> takes over enough of the centers power to facilitate transition to the
> humane future that he is proposing. There is no doubt in my mind that this
> book is a culminating expression of Raskin’s own journey, as well as an
> indispensable gift to the rest of us, providing the best available set of
> conceptual tools to engage actively with human destiny and, especially, to
> see beyond the darkness resulting from present trends. In what is
> essentially an extended essay, Raskin sets
> forth concisely, with flourishes of intellectual elegance, all we need to
> know about what to do to achieve the desired future for an emergent
> planetary civilization.
>
> JTE describes the contours of a desirable future, including the
> adjustments that must take place at the level of values, involving a
> turning away from consumerist and materialist conceptions of the good life
> without giving up the gains of modern science and technology. What Raskin
> envisions is a more spiritual sense of the meaning of life that is
> expressed qualitatively through leisure and a satisfying lifestyle that is
> without the tensions and anxieties of a capitalist outlook. The society
> thus envisioned would no longer be driven by the quantitative criteria of
> growth and wealth, which have led to gross disparities of life
> circumstances—extremes of poverty for many and wealth for a few—that can
> only be sustained through coercion. Raskin imaginatively shapes an
> attractive future based on these core values and the need to gain political
> traction from the action of people who are awakened to this challenge and
> inspired by its potentialities. He is clear about the need for people
> in civil society to be the main vehicles for realizing this vision, and is
> skeptical about such a desirable future being delivered by existing
> economic and political elites whose consciousness is captive of the
> modernist embrace of neoliberal structures, militarism, and a materialist
> worldview. In a fundamental respect, this call to action rests on an ethics
> of responsibility.
>
> Since a desirable future is possible while present trends are pointing
> toward a disastrous future, we who realize this double truth have a heavy
> responsibility to act, to become activists promoting the journey to
> Earthland. This burden of civic responsibility is the essential feature of
> what it means to feel, think, and act as a global citizen, guiding the
> pilgrimage from the here and now to the there and then. Because this is a
> journey undertaken without a map that charts a safe course, I have
> described the ideal global citizen as “a citizen pilgrim,” an image that
> Raskin also affirms.
>
> Let me turn to raise a few questions that might prompt further reflection
> and commentary. I have read JTE while on a lecture tour in Pakistan, and
> have been struck by the relevance of social location. I spent several days
> in Karachi, a security-obsessed, impoverished, yet vibrant city of at least
> 22 million people, most of whom struggle with the ordeals of daily
> existence while the privileged elites seal themselves off from the masses
> in heavily guarded gated luxurious communities. True, there are many young
> idealistic persons in Pakistan devoted to human rights and environmental
> protection who are active in an array of local communities. However, the
> dominant social priorities are often the immediate and the local: opposing
> a forced eviction in the city to make way for a shopping mall or a
> gentrified neighborhood, protesting the assassination of a social activist
> that was perceived as a threat to religious zealots, and lending emergency
> assistance to the victims of a natural
> disaster—flood or earthquake—by providing urgently needed medical
> supplies, food, and shelter. What I am asking myself and Paul Raskin is
> whether Pakistanis can read JTE without dismissing it as the musing of a
> Westerner not faced with the realities of the sort that pervade life in
> Karachi, and much of the Global South and many inner cities in the North.
> In effect, how relevant is social location? Would Raskin write the same
> book if his consciousness had been shaped by a lifetime in Karachi? These
> questions raise others. Is there more than one journey to Earthland? Are
> there alternative Earthlands? Do we need a multi-civilizational expression
> of desirable possible futures written by similarly ethically and
> spiritually sensitive individuals who see the world around them and a
> preferred future from within the imaginative spaces of their varied social
> locations?
>
> Again, writing from my recent experience, I wonder about the degree to
> which the political and economic systems as now constituted would act to
> break the will of any global citizens movement. I happened to be in Tahrir
> Square in Cairo weeks after the Egyptian people made history in 2011 by
> rising unexpectedly to overthrow a corrupt and oppressive tyrant, Hosni
> Mubarak. There was much popular excitement in the aftermath of this
> historic occasion, the thrill of a successful populist empowerment giving
> rise to confidence that the future would bring to Egypt a democratic
> political order and a far more equitable economy. And yet, two years later,
> the Egyptian people again exhibited their agency, but this time to support
> a coup against the elected political leadership that has resulted in
> producing a more repressive military governing process in Egypt than had
> existed during the three decades of Mubarak’s rule. Such an improbable
> outcome reflected the strength of counterrevolutionary
> forces that will do whatever it takes to prolong the ascendancy of the old
> order. Applying this understanding to the vision of Earthland, isn’t it
> important to envision the future from a more dialectical standpoint as an
> epic struggle between opposed worldviews and their civilizational
> embodiments?
>
> This leads to another concern. In the aftermath of the Cold War, there was
> a widespread sense that democratization was the wave of the future. After
> the collapse of the Soviet Union (and its subsequent eagerness to be part
> of the neoliberal world order) and the opportunistic participation of China
> in the capitalist structures of trade and investment, it seemed that there
> was only one kind of planetary future one that American political leaders
> were promoting around the world. But something has happened to that firm
> ground on which we seemed to be standing twenty years ago. We are now
> living in an era of the popular, and not just the populist, autocrat. That
> is, peoples all over the world are electing leaders by democratic means
> that are dismissive of human rights and political freedom.
>
> In every corner of the world, right-wing ultra-nationalist, militarized
> governments that bring order and security are being chosen by voters over
> those that promise the rewards of democratic pluralism and responsible
> attitudes toward climate change, nuclear weapons, and other challenges of
> global scope. Whether it is Putin in Russia, Abe in Japan, Modi in India,
> Duterte in the Philippines, or Sisi in Egypt, the pattern of
> authoritarianism is evident even if explanations in the various national
> settings are quite diverse. This pattern can also be seen in the resurgence
> of proto-fascist parties in Europe in the wake of mass discontent with
> existing economic and social policies, especially relating to immigration,
> of the established order. The Brexit vote in Britain and the rise of Trump
> in the United States are likewise illustrative.** In other words, in the
> transition from the modern to the planetary that Raskin so clearly depicts,
> including his recognition that bad things are bound
> to happen along the way, is it not important to take greater account of
> this emergent “democratic” passion for ultra-nationalism from below and
> securitization from above? Or maybe it is necessary to begin asking
> ourselves whether under the pressure of the times we, the peoples of the
> world, can abide the uncertainties of substantive democracy? And should not
> this dimension of the present be considered in evaluating and discussing
> the role of the global citizens movement that is so central to Raskin’s
> transformative hopes?
>
> I suppose, in the end, I am saying that there are some issues that need to
> be more fully addressed before people outside the still liberal democratic
> West can be expected to sign up for the journey to Earthland. In effect, in
> places like Pakistan where the struggle to find out how to be a
> constructive *national* citizen seems such a current preoccupation for
> those who seek to be politically responsible, an essential challenge is how
> to present Raskin’s message of the responsible *global* citizen in forms
> sufficiently relevant that it seems existentially responsive to the fears,
> hopes, and concerns of this part of the world.
>
> In conclusion, it may appear captious to expect more when JTE already
> gives us so much. At the same time, when Raskin raises our hopes so high,
> it is all the more important to begin the journey with eyes wide open.
> Otherwise, the risks of early disillusionment are high. Remembering that
> this is a planetary journey that already and inevitably has a multitude of
> points of entry is an aspect of being a responsible global citizen. I am
> led to wonder whether Paul Raskin might consider appending in a second
> epilogue (perhaps encouraged by recalling that Tolstoy’s War and Peace had
> two) in the form of “A Letter of Invitation to Non-Western Friends” (either
> to join the journey or suggest a variant of their own).
>
> ** It seems evident that if Trump had not needlessly alienated so many
> constituencies in the United States, his essential autocratic, militarist,
> and isolationist message would have had a strong prospect of prevailing.
>
> Richard Falk
>
> **************************************************************
>
> Thursday, September 1, 2016
>
> From Paul Raskin
>
> -----
> Dear Friends:
>
> Our series of thematic discussions has been uncommonly rich and animated.
> Still, from time to time we’d best step back to a whole-system panorama,
> lest we lose sight of the forest for the trees. After all, it is the big
> question of how to shape the global social-ecological future that brings us
> together.
>
> In that holistic spirit, our next discussion will consider my new
> essay—“Journey to Earthland: Making the Great Transition to Planetary
> Civilization” (or “JTE,” for short). I wrote it as a sequel to “Great
> Transition,” the 2002 treatise that launched GTI. The new volume has four
> central aims. First, it updates and develops GTI’s overarching conceptual
> framework. Second, it introduces the idea of “Earthland” for the latent
> supranational community now stirring in the Planetary Phase. Third, it
> describes the integrated planetary praxis and global movement needed to
> carry the transformation forward. Fourth, it paints a granular picture of
> the kind of flourishing civilization that might await us on the far side of
> a Great Transition.
>
> To get your copy of JTE, go to www.greattransition.org/
> publication/journey-to-earthland. From there, you can either download a
> free pdf or order a paperback through Amazon for $12. (If neither of these
> options works for you, please request a complimentary copy by emailing
> info at tellus.org with your mailing address.)
>
> In light of JTE’s sweeping scope, I suspect many of you will wish to
> elaborate certain formulations and take issue with others. I welcome your
> comments in the spirit of a collective exploration with ample room for
> difference within a canopy of unity.
>
> NOTE: This discussion will go on for TWO full months—SEPTEMBER and OCTOBER.
>
> Looking forward,
> Paul
>
> Paul Raskin
> GTI Director
>
> -----
> Hit reply to post a message
> Or see thread and reply online at
> greattransition.org/forum/gti-discussions/178-journey-to-earthland/2145
>
> Need help? Email jcohn at tellus.org
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Hit reply to post a message
> Or see thread and reply online at
> http://greattransition.org/forum/gti-discussions/178-
> journey-to-earthland/2149
>
> Need help? Email jcohn at tellus.org
>
>
>

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