The greatest threat facing humanity now is undoubtedly ecological disruption – greenhouse gas emissions and the decline in biodiversity. If this threat is to be addressed there will have to be a big cultural change worldwide. The attitudes which cause people to accept and even promote continuous ‘economic growth’ are based on a culture of individualism and competition. Since the victory of ‘capitalist roaders’ in China and the disintegration of the Soviet model of communism there is little serious challenge to this culture. Former notions of a socialist order emphasising communal values and co-operation have almost disappeared. Their rapid dissolution was made inevitable by the operation of ‘actually existing socialism’. In Soviet communism such grand talk was actually a smokescreen to hide the brutal self-aggrandisement of elites. In China the brutal elites have switched to capitalism with gulags. Such an understanding of socialism has always shared with capitalism the view that economics is a search for prosperity based on production. But it’s not. The original Greek term is actually ecos nomos – ‘management of the household’. Its parallel idea is ecos logos, origin of the word ‘ecology’, where logos translates as ‘study’. The history of language is full of surprises. If we consider that in ancient Greece those who ruled the roost were rich landowners and merchants, we can see that ‘the household’ that needed management and study was in fact an extensive affair with perhaps dozens of slaves as well as members of an extended family. Those charged with overseeing such estates would have been the original ‘economists’ and ‘ecologists’
Good land management has always been about careful consideration of the interdependence of life forms – a concern sadly absent from today’s industrialised agriculture. And in the end we all depend on the supply and wholesomeness of food. In fact real ‘economics’ is still about the management of the planet’s resources - not least food and water. The extent to which economics has departed from its original basis is actually a reflection of the extent to which the interests of the rich and powerful have moved away from any concern with the fundamentals of life. But our continued prosperity as a species– even our continued existence as inhabitants of planet Earth - requires a rediscovery of those fundamentals and a return to ‘economics’ as the management of our survival.
The cultural revolution that such a rediscovery requires is something we should all turn our attention to. Unsurprisingly, considering it’s the future that’s at issue here, those who are in the lead in attempting such a revolution at the moment tend be younger rather than older. It’s with the climate campers in the UK and the democracy advocates in Tahrir Square that our hopes must lie. Yet even those of us for whom life under canvas or demonstrating in the street may no longer retain its attraction there is a role – to press by any means we can for a revolution in basic attitudes. As secularists this should present us with little difficulty. Whether they be oil-rich Saudis or born-again Christians, fundamentalists among our religious adversaries are all enthusiastic proponents of the old cultural order. Whatever their beliefs are supposed to advocate – brotherly love or submission to a higher authority – their actual values are those of selfishness and unbridled competitiveness, involving denial of any significant ecological problem. It’s up to us as secularists to demonstrate a more rational and altruistic set of values. Genuine prosperity is based on efficient management of the planet not on an economic ‘growth’ which is in fact a malignancy.
Doug Holly
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