Insecurity and the Economy

Our community is experiencing severe housing and food insecurity. The increasing numbers of people living in tents and depending on food banks indicates that action by the government is essential and urgent.

Homeless in the Ball Park

 

The 2023 CBC Massey Lectures, The Age of Insecurity, feature filmmaker and writer Astra Taylor who explains how society runs on insecurity and how we can change it. The lectures are also available as a book, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, from House of Anansi Press.

Taylor takes a deep dive into the history of capitalism and explores how, paradoxically, the ways that we’ve been encouraged to achieve security — purchasing health and wellness products, buying life insurance, acquiring property — actually work against us.

She also looks forward at the ways we might be able to achieve true security, using collective action. 

But today, we also live in an era of manufactured insecurity, imposed on us from above. Consumer society, Taylor argues, capitalizes on the very insecurities it produces, making us all insecure by design.

How we understand and respond to insecurity is one of the most urgent questions of our moment — nothing less than the future security of our species hangs in the balance. (Taylor, 2023)

Agnieszka K. Wielgosz serves as a vocal sustainability/ regenerative wellness advocate. She is the woman behind CEI Collective, serving the creative needs of wellness professionals, regenerative & green living brands to grow and make a dynamic impact.

When we consider the phenomenal speed at which the USA ramped up industrial production during the Second World War, or the efficiency with which developed nations are able to respond to natural disasters, we see that notions of “money” and “the economy” quickly fall by the wayside.

If only we allocated the same amount of resources and effort into the health of our global community!

It’s a well established fact that modern societies with advanced levels of technology could easily provide all the resources required for their citizens to live in ample comfort and safety, without having to resort to money, credit, bartering or worst of all, debt.

With shared responsibility and co-owned resources, humanity would quickly overcome the artificial boundaries that currently separate us, leaving us free to pursue a better way of living whilst caring for our shared environment. (Wielgosz, 2020)

A report by Lars Osberg tracks Canadian income inequality through 75 years of growth and recessions and speculates about the post-COVID-19 future. 

Although the Keynesian consensus on the importance of full employment to balanced growth and social stability enabled growing real wages and stable inequality, it was replaced, after a surge in inflation in the 1970s, by Neo-Liberal policies that emphasized budget balance and low inflation. But slowing growth and the concentration of income gains at the top produced widening income gaps, increasing discontent and political instability—even before COVID-19 hit. In the post-COVID-19 era, the Green New Deal emphasizes social and environmental sustainability, and is reflective of the economic policy changes that likely lie ahead. This report has contrasted the balanced growth and stable inequality of the Keynesian consensus era, 1946–1980, with the unbalanced growth and increasing top-end income shares of the Neo-Liberal years that followed. It has also contrasted the policy choice facing both past regimes—how to share the gains from growth—with the possibility that a post-COVID-19 world will be dominated by a more depressing choice: how to allocate the costs of contraction. As always, future policy choices will be conditioned on prior experiences. The era of Keynesian consensus decision-making saw full employment and the sharing of the gains from economic growth as central issues because that generation had experienced the costs of social instability. And although they could not solve the problem of inflation, they left a social insurance system and a history of stable inequality to their Neo-Liberal successors, which muffled initial discontent with the high unemployment, stagnant middle-class wages and increasing inequality of Neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism solved the inflation problem but could not produce a fair distribution of the gains from economic growth—and that matters. When social insurance protections are dismantled and top-end incomes grow faster than middle-class incomes, inequality and insecurity increase over time. So the legacy of Neo-Liberalism includes the populist political reaction of those who were left behind in the Neo-Liberal decades and those who were, and will be the casualties of the COVID-19 years. The legacy of Neo-Liberalism also includes a global climate crisis. Those failures of Neo-Liberalism will condition Canada’s responses to the challenges of the post-COVID-19 world. (Osberg, 2021)

Prior to the Keynesian consensus era, 1946–1980, Crown Corporations, including Wartime Housing Limited built thousands of homes in Canada.

Klein, Seth. (2020) A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Toronto, ON:ECW Press.

Wartime Housing in Halifax

 

The abstract from the Masters Dissertation of Jill Wade (1984) entitled Wartime Housing Limited, 1941-1947 : an overview and evaluation of Canada’s first national housing corporation asks the question of why did the federal government not reconstitute WHL as a permanent, low-rental housing agency.

Between 1941 and 1947, a federal crown corporation called Wartime Housing Limited (WHL) successfully built and managed thousands of rental units for war workers and veterans. At the same time, an Advisory Committee on Reconstruction study (the Curtis report) described the enormous need for low and moderate income shelter throughout Canada and recommended a national, comprehensive, and planned housing program emphasizing low-rental housing. Instead, in 1944 - 1945, the federal government initiated a post-war program promoting home ownership and private enterprise; it neglected long-range planning and low income housing. Thus, an interesting question arises. Why did the federal government not reconstitute WHL as a permanent, low-rental housing agency (Wade, n.d.)

The evidence of stagnant middle-class wages and increasing inequality is seen in the growing numbers of homeless people and the increasing importance of food banks and soup kitchens in our community.

Feed Nova Scotia essential for food security

The role of the government to protect the health of Canadians was essential during the Covid 19 emergency. Government Action, similar to wartime programs, to guarantee the right of Canadians to adequate housing and access to healthy food is urgently required now.

References

Klein, Seth. (2020) A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Toronto, ON:ECW Press.

 

Osberg, L. (2021, March 2). From Keynesian Consensus to Neo-Liberalism to the Green New Deal. | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/75-years-of-income-inequality-canada 

Taylor, A. (2023, June 16). The Age of Insecurity. 2023 CBC Massey Lectures. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/radiointeractives/ideas/2023-cbc-massey-lectures-astra-taylor/lecture-1-curas-gift 

Wade, J. (n.d.). Wartime Housing Limited, 1941-1947 : an overview and evaluation of Canada's first national housing corporation. Open Collections. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0096317 

Wielgosz, A. K. (2020, October 20). A New World is Possible: An Introduction to Resource-Based Economies. Agnieszka K. Wielgosz. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://agnes-wielgosz.medium.com/a-new-world-is-possible-an-introduction-to-resource-based-economies-5def63e87e2a 

Renewables path to RBE

 

Mobilizing for the Climate Emergency in Canada will uncover that changes in the way we plan for a green resource based economy have been in the works for decades.

Changes in the works

 

Connie Vitello reports on a solar energy milestone in Antigonish Nova Scotia that marks generation of a megawatt of renewable power. It began with a pair of community meetings, in the fall of 2014 and again the following spring, at which a hundred or so people from Antigonish took a long, hard look at Nova Scotia’s energy mix. Recognizing the dominance of coal, oil and natural gas, residents decided they could do better. A Co-op was formed in the summer of 2015 to advance the cause of renewable power.

 

The Co-op was formed in the summer of 2015 to advance the cause of renewable power. “We’re entirely independent, entirely volunteer” said David Morgan, who became president that June. They settled on the “buyers co-op” business model, wherein they bring together members interested in purchasing rooftop solar arrays every year and make one large group purchase rather than several smaller ones. This allows them to secure discounts on the shipping of solar panels and on labour costs from partnering solar installers, specifically Appleseed Energy in West Arichat and Nova Sun Power in Pictou. The savings are modest, said Morgan, averaging 5-7 per cent, but they’re not insignificant, and far from the Co-op’s only benefit. As Morgan described it, the Co-op has offered free property assessments to its members to gauge solar potential, organized several public information sessions on the power of renewables, led walkthroughs of solar homes to showcase the technology, and pulled off their group solar purchases every year for five years running. To date, they’ve empowered 123 households to install rooftop solar, from Tatamagouche in the west to Sydney in the east and Musquodoboit Harbour in the south. The Co-op boasts a membership of 500 or so people with only a $5 entry fee, their cumulative investments in solar totaling just shy of $3 million.1

Steve Cohen writes that the movement away from fossil fuels is not without victims. The decline in Wyoming’s coal industry and the simultaneous rise of that state’s wind business is an example. The number of jobs in wind business is smaller and the skill base is different. These transitions are inevitable in a capitalist society, government programs and policies are needed to ensure that the victims of this transition receive the help they need to find meaningful employment as we move toward a Renewable Resource Based Economy.

 

While the need to maintain the planet’s resources may have begun the move toward sustainability, the new set of constraints posed by ecosystem needs is also generating business opportunity. Recently a group of businesses in Minnesota started to work together to push for the development of a circular economy. According to Jessica Lyons Hardcastle, writing in Environmental Leader: “Dow, 3M and Target are among the 25 major companies and organizations that have launched an initiative to promote the circular economy. The Minnesota Sustainable Growth Coalition says adopting circular economy principles — where raw materials are extracted and made into products that are designed and manufactured for reuse and remanufacturing or recycling — will uncover business growth opportunities and drive innovation. Circular economy principles also promote better waste management by sending less material to landfills.”2

In his book, “A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency”, Seth Klein writes to encourage people to reject the harmful notion that only the profit seeking sector undertakes real job and wealth creation.

 “wealth is created whenever natural resources, human ingenuity, human labour and finance capital are combined to add value (including the production of services, not only goods). The for-profit private sector is certainly effective at doing this (although not always in the most socially and environmentally helpful ways), but it does not hold a monopoly on such activity. The public sector does it, as do the co-op sector, Indigenous nations, municipalities, -owned businesses, crown corporations and credit unions " - 3

The transition to an economy that involves cooperative action by people to accumulate resources that circulate renewable products and services is likely to be part of an evolution from a market based to a resource based economy.

 

References

 

1	(2021, February 26). The Making of a Megawatt : Antigonish Solar Energy Milestone - The .... Retrieved March 9, 2021, from https://environmentjournal.ca/the-making-of-a-megawatt-antigonish-solar-energy-milestone/
2	(2020, March 9). A Renewable Resource-Based Economy Requires Public-Private .... Retrieved March 9, 2021, from https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/09/renewable-resource-based-economy-requires-public-private/
3	Klein, Seth. (2020) A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Toronto, ON:ECW Press.

Seize the COVID moment to remake the world economy

 

Klaus Schwab discusses The Davos Agenda 2021: What is stakeholder capitalism? Its history and relevance are in the book Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet.

Moving to a new economic system?

 Today, the stakeholder concept is ready for a comeback, albeit in an updated, more comprehensive form. We are facing a whole set of social, economic, and health crises, and the best response to these challenges, would be for all actors in society to consider more than their narrow and short-term self interest. So what could stakeholder capitalism look like today, and how does it differ from the stakeholder management my father’s generation intuitively implemented in the 1960s and 1970s?1

 

Social Contract in the 70's

Terence Corcoran asks if the long battle against turning shareholder corporations into tools of 'public purpose' is now lost? In the words of Klaus Schwab, the 82-year-old German economist who founded the World Economic Forum in 1973, the existing corporate enterprise model, the shareholder version that has dominated much of the world’s economic progress over the past century, needs to be replaced. Over the week of Jan. 25, the Davos Dialogues will aim to seize the COVID moment to remake the world economy. “It is essential for leaders from all walks of life to work together virtually for a more inclusive, cohesive and sustainable future as soon as possible in 2021.” The stakeholder movement does not deny the success of the shareholder model, often described as part of the triumph of neoliberalism.

Canada’s top government-based pension plans, from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan — the country’s largest shareholders — are now backing the stakeholder movement. They want to know “how companies identify and address issues such as diversity and inclusion, human capital, and climate change” along with “social inequity, systemic racism and environmental threats.”2

 

Stephan Richter, Director of the Global Ideas Center, a global network of authors and analysts, and Editor-in-Chief of The Globalist, and Uwe Bott, Chief Economist of The Globalist Research Center and Senior Editor at The Globalist, suggest that Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum are running away from their past by suddenly disavowing neo-liberalism. Schwab notes that “For the past 30 to 50 years, the neo-liberalist ideology has increasingly prevailed in large parts of the world. This approach centers on the notion that the market knows best, that the ‘business of business is business,’ and that the government should refrain from setting clear rules for the functioning of markets. Those dogmatic beliefs have proved wrong. But fortunately, we are not destined to follow them.”

It also means tackling global mega corporations, especially those based in the United States. Beginning with their often-grotesque tax shenanigans, they are the real free riders in a troubled world. Their systematic effort to avoid paying their fair share — and thereby to contribute to preserving democracy and fairness in our societies — can no longer be tolerated. Holding these mega corporations to account firmly — even breaking them up — is in their own collective self-interest. For unless this happens, the essence of what these companies ultimately depend on the most — i.e., a consensus in favor of continued global integration — will vanish. It is already brittle enough.3 

Daniel Araya, Contributor to Forbes, AI Advisor, and Policy Analyst, asks if The Venus Project could be the next stage in human evolution.

The term “Resource Based Economy” was first coined by Jacque Fresco, the founder of The Venus Project. Fresco believed that a Resource Based Economy could support the scientific integration of automating technologies (AI and robotics) and engineering systems in providing the highest possible living standards.4

https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F5f4ae74ae2aa5c77bd707f4e%2F960x0.jpg%3Ffit%3Dscale

 

The COVID crisis has shone a light on the deficiencies in the present economic and monetary systems to address a worldwide existential threat. Oskar Gonzalez has produced a Video on the transition to a resource-based economy.

A Balance is Needed

 

The just distribution of wealth, the challenge of inequality, and the need for worldwide coordinated action in a crisis point to the need to reconsider the effectiveness of neo-liberal capitalism and the current monetary system to best support the common good.

 

References

 

1	(2021, January 22). What is stakeholder capitalism? It's History and Relevance .... Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/klaus-schwab-on-what-is-stakeholder-capitalism-history-relevance/
2	(2021, January 22). Terence Corcoran: The murky rise of Klaus Schwab's .... Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-the-murky-rise-of-stakeholder-capitalism
3	(2021, January 26). Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum Run Away from .... Retrieved January 26, 2021, from https://www.theglobalist.com/world-economic-forum-klaus-schwab-neoliberalism-capitalism-corporate-responsibility/
4	(2020, September 1). Is The Venus Project The Next Stage In Human Evolution?. Retrieved January 26, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielaraya/2020/09/01/is-the-venus-project-the-next-stage-in-human-evolution/

Venus Project Forbes and Bill McKibben

 Forbes, has published an online article in which Daniel Araya (PhD), a technology consultant and advisor working at the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation and public policy, reports on an interview with Roxanne Meadows and Nathanael Dinwiddie of The Venus Project to better understand their thoughts on the future. One area of concern involves how the Venus Project envisions utilizing AI in decision-making.

Meadows and Dinwiddie: Applying the methods of science and technology (including AI) to the operation of the world’s societies will lead to a substantially more reliable functioning of support systems than we have today. Homelessness, starvation, war, and environmental degradation are consequences of today’s political and economic approaches to decision-making. A Resource Based Economy operates within a unified systems approach that utilizes the methods of science and AI to arrive at the most appropriate decisions at any given time. Unlike today’s implementation of technology, this new approach would be carefully carried out with the utmost human and environmental concern. The real-time influx of quantitative and qualitative data would provide real-time feedback, enabling humanity to constantly observe and continually improve the operation of the system over time.1

Bill McKibben and Yuval Noah Harari have written about the need for caution and vigilance as technology moves to develop AGI (artificial general intelligence) with intelligence surpassing humans and decision speeds a million times faster than humans.

 

 

The human masters of these systems may have personal enrichment and worker control motives resulting in an increase in inequality in society.

 1(2020, September 1). Is The Venus Project The Next Stage In Human Evolution?. Retrieved September 3, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielaraya/2020/09/01/is-the-venus-project-the-next-stage-in-human-evolution/

Getting Involved in change after Covid19

One of the themes running through the YouTube video Designing and Constructing a TRUE Net Zero City. (https://youtu.be/ap3NCou1rSc ) is that the current Covid-19 crisis may be the pause before the opportunity to make significant changes in how we use and share resources on our planet.

Trends to act upon

The Economist reports that rich countries are trying radical economic policies to counter Covid-19. The Economist article comments that history suggests that the effects will be permanent.

 The vast majority of economists support these measures. Nominally they are temporary, designed to hold the economy in an induced coma until the pandemic passes, at which point the world is supposed to revert to the status quo ante. But history suggests that a return to pre-covid days is unlikely. Two lessons stand out. The first is that governmental control over the economy takes a large step up during periods of crisis—and in particular war. The second is that the forces encouraging governments to retain and expand economic control are stronger than the forces encouraging them to relinquish it, meaning that a “temporary” expansion of state power tends to become permanent.1

Joseph Zeballos-Roig writes that Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

https://i.insider.com/5e8b4b8ac0232045ff29f7f5?width=1200&format=jpeg&auto=webp

 Nadia Calviño, the country's minister for economic affairs, told the Spanish broadcaster La Sexta on Sunday evening that the government was planning to introduce the cash handouts as part of a barrage of policies meant to help people get back on their feet.
She said enacting basic income was "mostly aimed at families, but differentiating between their circumstances."
Calviño didn't offer a specific date as to when basic income could be rolled out in the country. But she said the government hoped it would become "a permanent instrument."
"We're going to do it as soon as possible," she said. "So it can be useful, not just for this extraordinary situation, and that it remains forever."2

In the publication Climate Change and Cities urban planners have done an assessment report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network. Urban planning and urban design have a critical role to play in the global response to climate change. Actions that simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and build resilience to climate risks should be prioritized at all urban scales – metropolitan region, city, district/neighborhood, block, and building.

Looking for LEED design

This needs to be done in ways that are responsive to and appropriate for local conditions.

 Urban planners and urban designers have a portfolio of climate change strategies that guide decisions on urban form and function:
 • Urban waste heat and GHG emissions from infrastructure – including buildings, transportation, and industry – can be reduced through improvements in the efficiency of urban systems.
 • Modifying the form and layout of buildings and urban districts can provide cooling and ventilation that reduces energy use and allow citizens to cope with higher temperatures and more intense runoff.
 • Selecting low heat capacity construction materials and reflective coatings can improve building performance by managing heat exchange at the surface.
 • Increasing the vegetative cover in a city can simultaneously lower outdoor temperatures, building cooling demand, runoff, and pollution, while sequestering carbon...3

SWAGR (Solidarity with Alton Gas Resistance) is a Halifax-based group of organizers from Council of Canadians, Ecology Action Centre, Solidarity Halifax and the general community. The focus of this group is to support resistance efforts against the Alton Natural Gas Storage Project, and we take our direction from frontline Mi’kmaq communities and other residents of the surrounding area.

Protecting water

In Nova Scotia, Alton Gas has a hugely destructive plan to create salt caverns in which to store natural gas, by dumping the equivalent of 3,000 tons of hard salt into the Shubenacadie river everyday. This massive 50 year project would seriously harm the river ecosystem and put the health, livelihoods and rights of the Mi’kmaq people at risk. It is also in contravention of the Fisheries Act, which prohibits the deposit of “deleterious substances” into water frequented by fish.

 Since September 2016, Mi’kmaq water protectors have been asserting their rights under the Peace and Friendship treaties by building infrastructure (the Treaty Truck House and then the Treaty Camp) on Shubenacadie River. For over 2 years, they have permanently occupied this site, effectively preventing the company from breaking the provincial, federal and treaty laws.
Now, in a surprise move, instead of opposing the Alton Gas project for not complying with federal regulations, the Federal government is looking to make completely new rules, just for Alton Gas, so that the project can go forward. This proves what Water Protectors have been asserting since last November: the current plan is not compliant with the Fisheries Act.
Article 10 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) clearly states “Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their land or territories.” Any removal of Mi’kmaq people will directly violate UNDRIP along with the Trudeau government’s promise to fully implement the Declaration.4

Aquaponics Farmers that add fish to their vegetable mix say they're combining the benefits of an ecosystem with the resource-efficiency of an water-based operation.

 “Even though [aquaponic farmers] have been operating in the U.S. for more than 30 years, we don’t have a good count,” Cufone says. That applies both to commercial operations such as Hasey’s that sell to regional supermarkets and also to backyard, or “recreational,” farms like the one Aney would like to set up. The latter are especially difficult to track. RFC wants to see aquaculture acknowledged as a positive addition to American agriculture and thereby boost its lobbying power. Haney, an RFC member, calls aquaponics, “the answer” to generating year-round income for farmers constrained by the seasons.5

These trends reported in the media today may suggest several ways to get involved now in projects in Nova Scotia that are closely related to the outcomes of the work of the Venus Project and Resource Based Economy described in the video.

References

1	(2020, March 26). Building up the pillars of state - Rich countries try radical .... Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/03/26/rich-countries-try-radical-economic-policies-to-counter-covid-19
2	(2020, April 7). Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic .... Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/spain-universal-basic-income-coronavirus-yang-ubi-permanent-first-europe-2020-4
3	(n.d.). Urban Planning and Urban Design - Urban Climate Change .... Retrieved April 7, 2020, from http://uccrn.org/files/2019/09/ARC3.2-PDF-Chapter-5-Urban-Planning-and-Design-wecompress.com_.pdf
4	(n.d.). Stop Alton Gas – for our river, water, air, and climate. Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://stopaltongas.wordpress.com/
5	(2017, August 30). Aquaponics Farmers Band Together to Set Their Industry Apart. Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://civileats.com/2017/08/30/the-effort-to-keep-aquaponic-farming-afloat/