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Mercifully,
the high season of partisan electioneering is
coming to an end. Politics is always in season
in Virginia but this election rut has been
especially gruesome. There is one positive
result: The 2006 Fall election cycle has made it
crystal clear that the Commonwealth is (and the
US of A are) desperately in need of a new way to
measure citizen well-being.
For
most citizens it is impossible to tell the
difference between the “tax and spend”
tactics of one major party and the “spend and
spend” tactics of the other. It is impossible
to know which is worse: Tax cuts for the rich or
Cadillacs for welfare queens – or whatever
those “liberals” are up to now.
Both
parties have prepared for this election by
doling out tax cuts, subsidies and pork for
individuals, enterprises and institutions that
represent the party faithful be they soccer
moms, NASCAR dads, farmers, investors, unions,
radical Christians, snowmobile owners who drink
bourbon or whom-so-ever. The election materials
focus on scaring voters about what will happen
if the other party wins. As Doonesbury points
out, Fear Himself was the main player in the
election process.
It
has been extremely depressing to open the mail
box or tune into the electronic media and learn
what consultants to political action committees
believe will impress or sway voters. The fliers
and ads insult the intelligence and integrity of
nearly every voter in the Commonwealth.
Signs
of the Times
The
Friday, 3 November front page of WaPo
could have been a hoax edition intended for
Halloween or Friday the 13th.
But
for the fact that there are far better places to
spend $2 billion and that dysfunctional
governance impacts all citizens, these stories
could constitute a sick joke. There were other
stories on WaPo’s front page to put the
real world in perspective:
There
was nothing on the front page concerning the
balance of payments deficit, the federal budget
deficit, declining consumer confidence, the Wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, energy
over-consumption, Global Climate Change, what
the evangelical Christian leadership is up to,
traffic deaths, traffic congestion, lack of
affordable and accessible housing or other
indicators of governance and settlement pattern
dysfunction. These topics were the subject of
stories on other pages.
The
urban dysfunction and fisheries collapse stories
set the context for a political campaign that
has dwelt primarily on the marriage amendment
and other divisive culture-war issues
orchestrated by Fear Himself.
A
New Metric
So,
what of substance can be learned from the
current political party rut?
The
most important thing is that both major
political parties rely on attracting votes by
touting their contribution to malignant
economic growth and over-consumption.
The
rhetoric of both parties equates prosperity and
citizen well-being with increased consumption.
Both parties claim they are best suited to ensure
that citizens can continue to prosper by
over-consuming natural capital. (See “Soft
Consumption Paths,” 7 August, 2006; “The
Whale on the Beach,” 28 August, 2006; “Jackpot
Winner,” 25 September 2006; and “Big
(Gray, Brown) Sky Country,” 23 October
2006.)
Reinforcing
this perspective, both major parties claim they
have the secret to continue gross
over-consumption at little or no cost to the
voter. Candidates promise that if elected they
will lower taxes, or tax the rich, or give tax
breaks to the rich to encourage them to spend
more so the economy will grow faster and per
capital consumption will grow even more rapidly.
It
is safe to assume that most citizens would not
want the economy and consumption to grow rapidly
if they understood that this means that their
grandchildren will have less and their great
grandchildren may have nothing. Having no more
Salmon is only the tip of the melting iceberg if
the current trajectory is continued.
What
the strategists driving both major political
parties miss is that maintaining the standards,
benefits and expectations of contemporary
civilization is very expensive. It will take
time, money and natural capital to provide for
safe, happy citizens. In the long run, making
citizens happy and safe requires shrinking the
ecological footprint and scaling back
consumption. Prosperity based on increasing
consumption is a dead end. A sustainable future
requires Fundamental Change in settlement
patterns and Fundamental Change in governance
structure.
There
is another way to consider the realities that
will shape the future: Making a few richer and
richer by taxing or tolling everyone for goods
and services that only those at the top of the
economic food chain can afford is not
sustainable. That is, however, the metric of
success applied by the two major political
parties.
Politicians
are promoting the Romanization of contemporary
society -- but with a twist. Bread and circuses
were cheap. Rome's profligate consumption was
limited to an elite few. Gross over-consumption
by millions is dramatically expensive, and it is
unsustainable.
We
have seen no politician’s ads which suggest
that an examination of the role of advertising
is needed. Inflated advertising claims are
driving an unfounded and unsustainable view of
citizen well-being. Automobile and real estate
ads are helping put the wrong size dwelling in
the wrong location. Ads for goods and services
convey an impression of need and entitlement
that fuels over-consumption and dysfunctional
settlement patterns.
We
have seen no politician’s ads that raise the
issue of enterprise scale. There is a lot of
talk about the value of small government but how
about small enterprises? The argument can be
made that beyond a certain enterprise size, the
economies of scale become economies of
domination and destruction. This is not just the
19th century monopoly issue. The scale of Wal*Mart,
Exxon-Mobil, Microsoft, General Motors and
others make what is good for the enterprise and
the enterprise stock holder more important than
what is good for consumers, for society or
perhaps even the survival of the species in the
case of energy consumption and the settlement
pattern. See “Collapse,
An Appreciation,” 8 August 2005.
In
the month when the nation-state’s population
passed the 300 million milestone it is
remarkable that there is not a single citizen in
the United States living within a governance
system that reflects contemporary economic,
social and physical reality. Even worse, no ad
by anyone running for office that we have seen
has raised the issue of Fundamental Change in
governance structure.
The
fact that privatization of public activities
like maintenance of the mobility system or the
issuance of passports makes economic sense is
not so much a vote of confidence for private
enterprise as it is a condemnation of the
disciplines of Public Administration and
Political Science. Recent analysis in New York
State suggests that there is wide variance in
the cost per capita of governance from region to
region. In no place is the cost of the current
governance structure cheap. In no location is it
worth the money being spent.
The
bottom line is that citizens need a new metric
to measure happiness and safety other than
consumption.
A
Place to Start
Back
in October, Business Week Online called
attention to a study released in July by
Analytic Social Psychologist, Adrian White at
the University of Leicester. The research behind
White’s “first ever World Map of
Happiness” has a number of challengeable
assumptions as well as data collection and data
aggregation disconnects but it provides a place
to start thinking about alternatives to
mass-consumption as a basis for happiness and
safety of citizens.
White’s
analysis rates nation-states by the most happy
populations. Five of the top 10 are in Europa.
US of A is 23 out of 178. China is 82, Russia
167.
The
United States’ ranking is not bad until you
recall a lot of these nation-states are places
like The Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Zimbabwe, Burundi and, of course, Sudan. Sudan
and Darfur raises the need to measure by New
Urban Region and Urban Support Region, not by
nation-state.
As
we have pointed out in the four columns noted
above, USofA is burning up far more Natural
Capital per capita than any other nation-state.
The 23rd ranking in spite of gross
over-consumption confirms the view that
something is wrong. Further, only those at the
very top of the economic food chain are happy
and they are not all that satisfied, they want
more and more.
As
Friend’s of Virginia’s suggests in PROPERTY
DYNAMICS, the top of the economic food chain
makes up five percent of the Commonwealth’s
population. The bottom 50 percent of the food
chain are losing ground in terms of economic,
social and physical measures. The 45 percent in
the middle – the Running as Hard as They Cans
or (RHTCs) -- are not happy. As the title of the
category suggests, RHTCs are running as hard as
they can to keep their heads above water. They
have no time for politics beyond the misleading
sound bites of the party machines and Fear
Himself.
White’s
work identifies a number of factors that make
people happy. It turns out those are the ones
upon which governments at all levels in Europa
tend to spend their resources. Citizens in
Europa have not only created a
multi-nation-state trading block to counteract
forces that generated two World Wars but have
also done far more than the US of A to create a
functional governance structure at the regional,
subregional, community, village, neighborhood
and cluster scales. The result is to downplay
the roll of nation-states and provinces
(“states” in the US of A). MainStream Media
knows that readers and viewers in this country
have no frame of reference for a functional
governance structure and so do not even mention
this important fact.
By
contrast in the United States politicians
focus on tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and
pork for voting blocks and programs to
increase the rate of consumption. Did someone
mention Fundamental Change?
In
the Meantime
Until
there is Fundamental Change in governance
structure and citizens move beyond the current
two-party duopoly, the very best one can hope
for is that neither party gains control of more
than one branch of the legislature and the
executive mansion at federal or state levels. It
would be best if neither party has unquestioned
control over any legislative chamber or
executive branch.
It
would appear that many citizens who do not have
a personal stake in a political party feel a
“balance of vulnerability” this is a good
stop-gap strategy. However, since there is no
efficient, effective governance structure at the
regional, community, village, neighborhood and
cluster levels in the US of A, citizens tend to
vote back into office incumbents at the state
and nation-state levels. These candidates run on
platforms composed of pork, subsidies and
“local” issues.
This
is especially true for congresspersons who have
stepped into the governance vacuum to
“solve” problems like transportation, safety
and “cutting taxes.” In flier after flier
our incumbent congressperson stresses these
three points even though traffic congestion has
grown worse every year they have been in office,
government is far less efficient now than 26
years ago and the valid measures of “safety”
are all in decline.
Incumbents
like to stress the importance of seniority. What
is the benefit of tenure or seniority in a
failed system?
Elected
governance practitioners act as if 95 percent of
the citizens agree with them even if less than
50 percent voted for them in the last election.
One of the most heartening and intelligent
actions by the national government in the past
year has been the decision to repair and keep in
operation the Hubble telescope. The alternative
was to spend the money trying to get manned
missions back to the moon and then on to Mars.
Did
someone say the marine fisheries are on a
trajectory to collapse in 42 years? Did someone
mention Global Climate Change? If humans cannot
make the Earth habitable what chance is there of
making Mars into Tahiti? If humans squander the
resources of a rich living planet, what good is
a poor dead one?
Does
anyone think the decision on Hubble would have
been the same if the election was not too close
to call and the administration needed things to
offset bad press on many fronts?
Does
anyone think that the United States would have
rushed into Iraq with few allies, cooked
intelligence on the “weapons of mass
destruction” and the links to Al Qaeda, with
no plans for reconstruction and no exit strategy
if real bipartisan support was needed to declare
war?
An
excellent case can be made for the fact that
fewer bad decisions are made if there is no
clear majority at the federal or the state
levels.
Would
this lead to stalemate? A “do nothing”
congress or legislature? Did someone mention the
2006 regular or special session of the Virginia
legislature?
The
real question concerns good decisions. What
about sound governance action? Will there be a
real national energy policy without Fundamental
Change?
Will
there be functional plans that balance land use
travel demand with transport system capacity in
every New Urban Region without Fundamental
Change?
Will
there be affordable and accessible housing for
all citizens without Fundamental Change?
Will
there be effective (conservative) action on
conservation without Fundamental Change? (See
“Quantification
of Land Resources and the Impact on Land
Conservation Efforts,” 28 August 2006.)
We
suspect the answer is “no” to all these
questions.
It
will take Fundamental Change of the governance
structure and Fundamental Change of settlement
patterns to achieve a sustainable trajectory for
civilization. However, a stalemate would be
better than what we have seen in recent years.
The
first step is a new way to quantify “happy and
safe,” the current season shows how far that
is away.
--
November 6, 2006
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