A complete manuscript of The Nature of the Beast is available for comment. It is under a password, so as not to upset potential publishers, and so I can keep track of who is looking at it. I would love to have feedback of any kind.
Use the Books and Downloads menu above, or go here.
A sample, the first 16 pages, can be downloaded without password.
[This was published at On Line Opinion 29 Nov 2011.]
It is characteristic of some past societies that their highest accomplishments occurred just before a precipitous decline in their fortunes, according to Jared Diamond in his book Collapse. It is less common that a society’s trajectory comprises a slow rise, a plateau and a slow decline. Diamond does cite some societies that were able to shift their strategy and successfully negotiate a crisis, so a crash is not inevitable.
The former pattern, accelerating into a crash, is a signature of a society oblivious to imminent peril. At least, the leadership of the society is oblivious to warning signs of a crisis, and they just keep on doing what they have always done. Or perhaps they become more and more dissolute, like the later rulers of ancient Rome.
There is an eerie sense of unreality in Australian public life. The things our leaders argue about, and the evidence they pay attention to, are largely irrelevant to our real situation, which is one of rising multiple crises. The longer the crises continue unattended, the worse will be the consequences.
The Modern Labor approach to serving the workers is, it seems, to allow private enterprises, any enterprises, to create jobs, any jobs. If the enterprises bring in export earnings that is even better. The quality of the employment, the usefulness or otherwise of the product, the pay and conditions, or even if the work occupies more than one hour a fortnight, all of those issues are secondary. The important things are that the unemployment statistic is kept down and that the Government can say money is flooding into the country. Oh, and that the employers are not threatening an advertising campaign criticising the Government.
It is in this spirit that we export vast amounts of coal, though it is by far our largest contribution to global warming and our grandchildren will suffer mightily for it.
[Extract from the closing chapter of The Nature of the Beast.]
We in the Western democracies smugly act as if we are the culmination of political evolution. Yes, history is dominated by authoritarian rule, many despotic and a few wiser and more benevolent. However, since “we” invented modern representative democracy none of that applies. The people rule, we assure each other, and democracy is spreading around the world.
Except of course that every advance in democracy has been resisted, sidestepped and undermined by those who want the world to be their servant.
I will now resume posting after a break.
I was travelling in August-September. Since my return I have focussed on finishing the long-intended short book on economics, The Nature of the Beast. My work earlier in the year was interrupted by some science left over from my retirement last year, by moving house, and by travel. I have now finished a draft with which I am pretty happy. I will be updating the pages relating to The Beast, and posting a few extracts.
In meantime the need for a concise, clear demolition of the dominant economic paradigm and a presentation of modern, sensible alternatives has only grown. The Occupy Wall Street movement is the most encouraging development in a long time, perhaps, we can hope, marking the end of the striking passivity that took hold after the sixties rebellions died away.
Recently some economics students at Harvard have walked out of Greg Mankiw’s economics course, echoing the criticisms of Parisian economics students a decade earlier, when they called for “post-autistic economics“. Steve Keen’s comments on some points of debate are illuminating. Other useful comments can be seen at Real World Economics Review Blog, and a commentary on Mankiw’s textbook is also starting there.
The 10th anniversary of “9-11” will see a frenzy of commentary. Ten years ago I saw it as the beginning of an end game that will see the collapse of US power, and perhaps of the current version of global consumer capitalism. Recent political and financial events in the US suggest it is still very much on that track. This is from 15 October 2001.
The aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. is developing ominously, and in broad terms predictably. Violence is being met with violence. More innocent people are dead, on both sides, and more relatives are grieving. It seems likely that the U.S. counterattack on Afghanistan will be counterproductive, because for every bomb that drops another young moslem will join the holy war against the U.S.
For all the fuss over the Murdoch crimes in Britain, there has been very little discussion of media ownership, and how it might be reformed to take the power away from a few rich egotists. So here’s another from my archive, from 30 Oct 2002, soon after the Bali bombing. Gee, the CT didn’t publish it.
“America, like Australia, needs informed and critical citizens rather more than it needs unthinking flag-wavers” editorialised The Canberra Times recently, and I thoroughly agree. Further along, it opined that “ . . . many [politicians] are in the process of tearing down many of the established institutions and conventions”, and I applaud.
Yes indeed, these are tough and welcome words. However I think we would be hearing both sentiments a lot more often if our media better reflected the current spectrum of public opinion. I think also that the editorial’s words carry some even tougher implications that perhaps The Canberra Times, and all Australians, could reflect more upon.
I have been well ahead of the pack on a number of important issues, political leadership among them.
Here is the opening sentence from a comment by Don Watson on political leadership, from the current issue of The Monthly.
“It is now all but universally agreed that the Australian Labor party is a near-ruin, ruled body and soul by factional bosses and opinion pollsters.”
Below is a post from my old website www.geoffdavies.com, dated 7 June 1993. You can also find more recent comments of mine here in the category “Political commentary”.
After two months abroad I find little has changed on the Australian political scene. John Howard has finally confirmed he will stay on, the obsessively one-eyed Government is still attacking the ABC for alleged bias, and the Labor Party is still clueless.
There’s not much more to say, really, about how we’re dealing with global warming:
“We’re running an epic experiment on global biophysical systems with only the faintest clue what we’re even doing, much less how to manage it. We know things could go rapidly, irreversibly, horribly wrong, but we’re not sure how likely that is, or when it might happen. So we just blunder ahead at top speed. Because coal is cheap.”
From an article by David Roberts of Grist. He’s commenting on a commentary in Nature Geoscience pointing out that climate models are not good at predicting tipping points.
[I have been very busy with family and other things, including moving house. Until normal service is resumed, here is a something well worth a look.]
An article by Bill McKibben in the Washington Post, “A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never!”, has been turned into a powerful 4-minute video by Stephen Thomson.
BetterNatureBooks 