Build – profwork.org Blog

Davos WEF Update #1.4, 1/19/20

A lone Occupy Wall Street protester sits in front of Federal Hall, across the street from the New York Stock Exchange, in New York June 8, 2012. More than eight months after Occupy Wall Street stormed the global stage, decrying economic inequality and coining the phrase "We are the 99 percent," the movement appears to be losing steam. Donations to the flagship New York chapter have slowed to a trickle. Polls show that public support is rapidly waning. Media attention has dropped precipitously.

WEF claims to do good. Others doubt it.

As the World Economic Forum oligarchs convene in Davos, Switzerland, check out the heart-felt doubts of an Occupy Wall Stree activist invited to Davos, Micah White. The Anonymous guy above reading the China Daily might as well be me, but I am upfront, hardly anonymous.

Klaus Schwab, the WEF founder, would be held in vile contempt by neoliberal champion Milton Friedman. Here’s why:

Friedman and orthodox neoliberal ideologues regard unfettered capitalism as Pareto Optimal (best of all possible worlds), meaning that we can’t do any better than that! All this impressive theoretical effort derives from a grand-theory deduction (Tinbergen), not from induction based on data, such as today’s news. And tomorrow’s.
Schwab regards corporations as potentially, not yet actually, responsible and transparent social agents accountable to stakeholders. Costco provides a model mission and, yup, Walmart may be heading in that direction. Ray Dalio and even BlackRock, the largest investment corporation, have publicly declared such revision in their mission statements, with results. Corporate Social Responsibility does occasionally happen, so, as economist Kenneth Boulding states: “If it exists, it is possible.” Don’t go crazy yet: Profits provide the engine of capitalism (Shaikh).

Fossil fuels may provide the signal as to which of these models prevail. Divestment in coal is the litmus test for financial behemoths. Watch the coming Aramco IPO for insights about the future of these models of corporate behavior. The Aramco IPO will assess such variables as the adequacy of corporate governance, transparency and integrity, and, critically, the long-term price of a barrel of oil. The Saudi oil powerhouse appears to produce sweet product at the cost of $4/barrel. Their proven reserves appear to be 268 billion barrels and the sunk infrastructure investment is enormous, and vulnerable to sabotage. Do the math. As I write, the market price is about $65/barrel and the IPO has been valued at $1.85 trillion, to the chagrin of the Crown Prince who expected over $2 trillion to support his tottering feudal welfare state. See my notes. The worst event for Aramco: Petroleum reserves become stranded assets as climate destruction takes over.

Micah says:

At the heart of the World Economic Forum is the conviction that decisions are best made when the interests of all stakeholders are served. Explaining this concept in 1971, Schwab wrote:

Disclaimer

Dear Reader, I am glad that you dropped in. I want you to know what I do here.

No source pays me, and I do not seek remuneration. In retirement, I am busy, content, but fulfill a personal commitment in this project. The mission explains my intention, declared in 2007 as my Statement of Concern, my North Star. My principle concern: I do not wish to neglect household duties and my busy social life, nor to strain my wife’s patience.

My course-driven website supplemented my lectures and course offerings. Here they are:

These pages, perhaps over a thousand, follow the map of the course syllabus and schedule. My Public Policy Cycle offered the main text.

Fortunately, my server indicates that I receive close to one-hundred visits per day, with each visitor engaged for about four minutes. This pleases me. My work does appear in a myriad of college-level courses, parts of are apparantly being translated into Spanish, and permission has been sought for many courses. I am referenced a fair amount.

However, Dear Reader, I write as well for other purposes:

I fulfill a commitment that I made to progeny and, well, to Creation and to Being itself. Humanity is making a cataclysmic blunder: Wasting Life on Earth, degrading Nature, and diminishing the human Soul and stripping billions of people of their dignity. I abhor such atrocities and will speak out. This blog allows me to raise my voice, clarify my thoughts, share my words, and, hopefully, offer a unique perspective, a kind of Political Economy or even Political Ecology.
I heartily recommend the commonsense handbook ReWork. The book admonishes the reader to pursue their work in her unique way, to cut the falderal, and even to build your own tools. Thanks to the open-source volunteers who have built WordPress, an amazing app that has weaned me from hand-writing my own webpages or using the clunky DreamWeaver, my default editor — which won’t work on the Chromebook that I typically use.
My Statement of Concern laid out my mission in 2007. My sense of urgency has intensified. In the curriculum I worked within, environmental scientists handled climate change, so I obliquely referenced the impacts, but had no faith in public policy but trusted civil society, itself in crisis. Needless to say, Ramapo’s business-oriented economics faculty actively rejected the topic of climate change as they engaged their chrematistics, deluding themselves with their own capitalist ideology.
I appreciate that the RealPolitik that confronts the collision between capitalisms and climate catastrophe suited me and directed me to my North Star. As I explain later, Aristotle’s notion of Aporia challenged me, still does. This cataclysmic double-theme well suited me. How could I say “No.” Join me in tackling this Aporia, or Aporiae.

K2L Bulletin Board, #1

Welcome to my little project, dubbed “Capitalism to Livelihood.” I am Professor Emeritus of Sustainability from Ramapo College, having retired in July, 2015.

I have continued several themes that emerged from two specific courses, World Sustainability and Ecology, Economics and Ethics. Such daunting challenges required a lot of background, mostly in political economy, perhaps political ecology.

My commitment: Work out the systematic scenario speculation of what might occur between now (early November 2019) and 2030, even 2050 — but the further the time horizon, the vaguer the scenario.

Let me get this out of the way: This effort comes from my concern that Humanity and Nature will be degraded significantly within either time horizon in the default case of business as usual (BAU).

These concerns pertain not to some way distant future, like 2100 (when your kids may wonder where were you when this was going down). I make my point by referencing this morning’s New York Times (I haven’t peeked):

President Trump formally withdraws the US from Paris Accords on climate.

Trump formally withdraws the US from the UN Paris Agreement on climate change. See Secretary of State Pompeo’s Tweet. Thus, the largest economy in the world continues to shred the international order. Uh, neither China nor Russia nor India have joined the Paris Accord. Get the Big Picture? Ain’t happening anyway. This is what Aristotle termed an Aporia: no path through it.

Trump huffed and puffed:

President Trump had long held that the accord would cripple growth and intrude on American sovereignty.

Consumption Trumps Production

For a simple reason: Consumers rule in the capitalist hegemon, the USA, where nearly 70% of the GDP provides private household consumption. No other nation comes close.

As I explored the Livelihood layer of capitalist civilization through volume one of Braudel, I advocated the bolstering of the household as an intermediary between civil society and the highest layer of capitalism, the global — now captured as Neoliberalism.

A seminal source comes from Annie Leonard, now the director of a CSO the powerhouse Greenpeace, the highly informative and entertaining Story of Stuff.

A robust theoretical review from Schnaiburg adds depth to the underlying potential. Barnes captures the neglected significance of the household that, despite its decentralized ubiquity (which can be transformed into a strength) but consumption rests with, well consumers, who can, in effect, vote with their money.

Less direct control over production exists, but indirect means are available, including the market signals emanating from demand. Investors, financial intermediaries, pension funds, sovereigns, however, can exert considerable sway, and do. The withdrawal of financing for new coal-fired electricity plants and nuclear energy (post-Fukishima) have a profound impact through the nerves of capitalism.

Existentially, the decision-makers at the quarternary level live in real-time, with families and with reputations to uphold. Their income suffices. Much potential to guide future investments can result.

I, however, appeal to the consumer to exert leverage that registers and gets results. Cases are needed here. Start with Annie Leonard.

“Environment” to “Creation”

This blog initiates a glossary around the theme that I am not an environmentalist but my concern is the defilement of Creation, a sublime gift from God. The latter reflects the influence of Laudato Si’ by Pope Francis.

OED

On Nov 2, 2019, I ventured into the OED to explore a word I find disagreeable: environment. But, wait, you say: “Aren’t you an environmentalist?.” Uh, no, as in: emphatically, “NO!”

Counterintuitively, at my personal introduction to my scores of classes, I would, with little fanfare, so indicate. My friend Larry Susskind once told me that he, too, was not an environmentalist. So, I figured I better address this in my blog post.

Let me confound this further: So when asked, “Then what are you?” My tantalizing response: “I am Pro-Life,” in the sense of an intense advocacy of all life, all of Creation (a gift from God), Nature writ-large. Thus, any and all degradation, rupture, debasement, denigration, reductionism of the dignity and sustenance of any and all life viscerally offends me. Are you listening, the occupant of the Oval Office?

Definitions

I would like to get my language straight, presented as a glossary to which I will refer throughout this project:

environment: The OED etymology refers to the French origin as nearby surroundings.
neighbor: My neighbor are the “near-dwellers” who surround me, for whom we should build reciprocal relations.
bio-region refers to the ecology that nestles and which I inhabit, dwell, and to which I am obliged to reciprocate

community: social capital, networks: Includes networks; See Putnam and Gordon
capitalism: thus capital itself, implies wealth, investment: See OED re capitalism:

Discussion

Gather the provisional glossary as blog here but switch to html5 page as support on website. Use definition lists and copious links, internal and external. Thus, this blog initiates a writing process after WordPress failed login and poor support from Aabaco web server.

See Guardian on environmental writing.

Infrastructure Rising

A new industrial Kondratieff Cycle looms on the horizon, built around emerging, now tangible, infrastructure needs that will cost perhaps $10 trillion between 2020 and 2030, as discussed below. A partial provisional typology and examples include:

Defensive armoring of (selective) cities and regions with a preference to protect gated enclaves of the plutocrats.
Long neglected, decaying, obsolete infrastructure needs will explode: electric grids, tunnel between NJ and NY), countless bridges, airports, broadband, water and sewage projects.
The food and energy infrastructure and cumulative practices will undergo rapid and massive alteration, perhaps beginning in 2030, way overdue — and way too late to forestall the massive damages.