Fear, dead peasants and a new commonwealth

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There is no denying that the federal Conservatives are organized. Here at home, the local riding association just finished its nominating campaign, and the candidates were on the phone, beating the bushes for support throughout the process, while the federal office mounted an aggressive telephone fundraising campaign.

I’m interested in the Conservative movement. What interests me in particular is the voting public’s general shift towards the right. What is it about conservative values that has become so attractive to us?

The principal change in society over the past 50 years is the shift from optimism to caution. Put another way, we’re more fearful of the future—because we have more to lose, and we know at both a conscious and subconscious level that we are facing the prospect of losing our dominant place in the world.

And if fear is the driving social undercurrent, what better protection could there be than taking a conservative position? The conservative paradigm is based on protecting and enhancing the status quo. It follows then, that if you’re a conservative, you’re at least going to hold on to what you have, and if you’re well enough connected, you may even improve your position.

Conservatism, as we’ve come know it over the past three decades, is deeply rooted in progressive individualism and capitalistic ideology. It’s an ideological architecture that protects the individual’s right to accumulate wealth, and limits the general public’s ability to redistribute that wealth. In other words, the function of a conservative government is to adjust regulation to allow money to flow more freely into private hands.

This dovetails nicely into the new global economy, in which the regulation of the financial markets is largely impossible. High net worth investors are now borderless. The rise of the super-wealthy is a global phenomenon. Here at home over 60 percent of Canadian wealth is held by the top one percent of the population. And even within that small group is a greater disparity, with most of the wealth skewed to the very top. And according to a TD Bank report, this small group will possess over 66 percent of the national wealth by 2018.

What I found surprising is that these gains in wealth are being taken not from the bottom segment of income earners, but from the middle to upper-middle income earners.

While these trends seem to be disturbing to some TD Bank analysts, in the U.S. Citibank sees this as a great opportunity for its wealthiest clients. And what they’re talking about is the new plutocracy, the rule of the wealthy over the rest of us. Here’s an excerpt from the report:

“We will posit that:

“1. The world is dividing into two blocs—the plutonomies, where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few, and the rest. Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties in the U.S. What are the common drivers of Plutonomy? Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist-friendly cooperative governments, an international dimension of immigrants and overseas conquests invigorating wealth creation, the rule of law, and patenting inventions. Often these wealth waves involve great complexity, exploited best by the rich and educated of the time.

“2. We project that the plutonomies (the U.S., UK, and Canada) will likely see even more income inequality, disproportionately feeding off a further rise in profit share in their economies, capitalist-friendly governments, more technology-driven productivity, and globalization.

The report goes on to arrogantly declare that, “The earth is being held up by the muscular arms of its entrepreneur-plutocrats, like it or not.”

The hope is, of course, that you or I can become wealthy one day. But frankly, the odds are against it. You have as much chance of joining the super-wealthy group as you have of winning the lottery, which is in itself a symptom of our emerging social values.

Joining that elite group, however, would radically change your personal value system. How else can one explain corporate executives taking out “dead peasant” insurance policies on rank-and-file employees, unbeknownst to the employees, and making their corporations the beneficiaries in the event of the employees’ deaths? The companies involved include Wal-Mart, Walt Disney, Procter & Gamble and hundreds of others.

If this doesn’t clearly define which side of the economic equation you’re on, nothing will.

So, the question you might ask is, for whom is my government working? The influential elite, or the rest of us not-yet dead peasants? To its credit, the current Harper government is taking steps to ferret out wealthy tax dodgers hiding their money in secret Swiss bank accounts. One would hope that this is more than window-dressing to sooth a public that is becoming increasingly aware of the hijacking of wealth that has occurred in this country—an awareness heightened by the recent financial meltdown and scandalous bank bailouts in the U.S.

As we approach the next federal election, we need to challenge all the parties and all candidates about their plans to create a new common wealth for the people. If we don’t, an increasingly unequal society will be no easy place for our children.

What’s going on? All we have are questions

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What’s happening in this region? I know very little about McAdam, St. George, Back Bay, Blacks Harbour, Deer Island, Campobello, Grand Manan. My regular view takes in St. Andrews to St. Stephen-Calais and up the road to Fredericton and Saint John.

The last time I went to Grand Manan was a sightseeing trip with the family. Before that, it was working for the defense lawyer on the Grand Manan Five trial. And by the way, what’s happened as a result of that? Where is Ronnie Ross now? What is the drug and theft situation three years later? How much better is the policing on the island? Are there any more RCMP officers there? And what’s being done about strengthening and diversifying the local economy there?

Has anyone solved the lack of banking facilities on Campobello? I’ve never been over there, but from what I’ve read and seen online, it’s a pretty place with declining real estate values. Is anyone working to solve these issues?

And where is the coordinated economic development strategy for the region? I don’t see one coming from Enterprise Charlotte, though perhaps they have one we don’t know about. And where, in fact, are the development strategies for the towns? I know St. Andrews is trying to boost its tourism industry. But is that a strategy or a collection of tactics, such as bringing in tour boats and creating new events? Or even product development, such as renewing the Algonquin Hotel and creating a sustainable business case for the golf course? What about retirement living strategies, or developing the knowledge-based economy? And what happened to the St. Andrews Chamber of Commerce, and why was the tourism marketing agenda handed over to four of five main attractions instead of leaving it with the Chamber?

As for St. Stephen, has anyone figured out yet how the new civic centre is going to pay for itself? Where is the economic development plan for the town? And if there is one, why don’t we know about it?

What about our political (so-called) leaders? What are they doing, other than handing out government cheques before election time? Do any of them have real plans—as in a strategy—for improving the area? Or is it, as it seems to be, only about staying in power, whining about any criticism, or touting the ideological party line in letters to the editor?

More importantly, what is the future for our key industries: aquaculture, forest products, manufacturing, tourism and so on? What are we doing about the declining enrollment at the college in St. Andrews, for example? Or incubating value-added businesses attached to our core industries?

Why is it that I get the feeling we’re all flying blind here, living in a weird, aging retirement bubble? Do we actually have any plans—or even small notions—for keeping our kids here and gainfully occupied? Or is the real concern of parents to get their kids educated and get them the hell out of here?

I realize that the both the media and the local town administrators are trying their best to put a happy face on everything. And I suppose “boosterism” can be a good thing. But it can also become, in some cases, a campaign of well-meaning disinformation. As with the recent story in the Courier about the economic impact of Atlanticade, claiming that the event drew 10,000 visitors and generated over $3 million. And who was responsible for this information? The event organizers, who have a vested interest in promoting its future support in the region. At the very best, I suspect this information is based on creative guesswork rather than on any scientific data gathering during and following the event.

From where I’m sitting, there is only one strategic goal for the region: developing a healthy and sustainable economy in the region. Given the depressed real estate values in the area as compared to the rest of the country, generational crime and poverty, and the lack of high-quality employment opportunities, this should be the top priority for all of us.

What I would propose is the formation of a regional development forum, which, as its first step, would begin by touring the region and collecting views and information about the present state of our social and economic conditions. The second step would be creating a multi-disciplined board of directors tasked with creating a socio-economic development strategy for the entire Charlotte-Fundy Isles area. This strategy would be aimed at adding to the strengths of each part of the region, and indexing these into a larger, coordinated development plan.

The third part of the strategic plan would be implementation, which would require seeking the development funding to market and sell the opportunities of the region. The marketing effort would be aimed
at three primary audiences: our young people, potential businesses in the region, and potential investors outside the region.

Core targets for development would be food processing (value-added aquaculture), knowledge-based enterprises (attached to existing arts and sciences), transportation and small manufacturing (U.S. border proximity), retirement living (low real estate values, relaxed coastal living), and tourism infrastructure development (renewing hotels, regional connections, parks, ferries, cooperative regional marketing, etc.)

The only question remaining, I guess, is who is actually willing to start?

I believe in God and ‘No LNG’

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It’s Canadian Thanksgiving morning as I write this. I’ve just woken up with a dream still in my head. In the dream I am reading a small religious booklet. On the first page is a sunny description of heaven. On the next page is a mention of hell, which surprises me, because I’d somehow thought that the booklet was Hindu.

As my mind clears waiting for my morning coffee, it occurs to me that religion, at its core, is based on social control and cultural motivation. The idea stops me. I have to think about that.

Imagine a priest in some ancient society. She’s the one people turn to find out whether this year’s crop will come in. Or to explain why a child was born with a deformity. And after years of explaining how God works, she realizes that beneath it all, one of her main tasks is holding the community’s collective anger and fear in check. Her second real mission is keeping her king in control of the physical side of the social equation. As a priest, she uses her mystical understanding of the unknown to provide order.

Admittedly, my dream has likely been triggered by the book I’m reading. It’s “Living in the End Times” by Slavoj Zizek. Zizek crosses a lot of lines, making him a difficult read. But one passage caught my attention. It’s an investigation of the real meaning of “turning the other cheek.” Apparently, in Christ’s time, there were two punishments involving slapping. The first was a backhand slap on the offender’s right side of the face. This punishment was a serious insult, placing the recipient on a lower level. The other slap was open-handed, delivered to the left side of the face. This punishment was reserved for equals.

So, according to Zizek, when Christ instructed his followers to turn the other cheek, what he was actually advising was to encourage an aggressor to use the other side of his hand, to force him to treat his victim as an equal. And then, as an equal, the victim could rise up against his oppressor. Wow. That interpretation changes everything. If that’s true, Christ was not exactly promoting a culture of victimhood.

Zizek goes on to excoriate the Israelis on their unfair displacement of the Palestinians. In another passage he reviews charity. And it’s here that he reminds me about our current LNG issue. He writes: “When confronted with the starving child, we are told: ‘For the price of a couple of cappucinos, you can save her life!‘, and the true message is: ‘For the price of a couple of cappucinos, you can continue in your ignorant and pleasurable life, not only feeling any guilt, but even feeling good for having participated in the struggle against suffering.’”

Well, that nicely sums up the feel-good aspects of fighting LNG in this area, especially for some of the well-heeled people living in St. Andrews who don’t want their view disturbed. But what about dealing with the root causes that allowed LNG plants to be considered here in the first place? Could it have to do with the prospect of starving children? Not directly. I would hope that children aren’t actually starving across the river in Washington County. But a great many of the people living over there are financially hard pressed, and have been for decades.

There is an immorality to this position on LNG that continues to go forward unaddressed. Do we ask ourselves, “If my neighbour is suffering, am I not also suffering?”

Coincidentally, one of the other books I’m reading is Lester Brown’s “Plan B 4.0,” an ambitious plan to offset global climate change. About halfway through the book, Brown drops a nugget. He tells us that, in Germany, the alternative energy industry is far more labour-intensive than the fossil fuel energy industry, requiring more workers and resulting in more employment.

Now, wouldn’t that be a better industrial model for the Charlotte and Washington counties? And, it’s in fact a model that’s almost in place. Matt Simmons, the recently deceased Peak Oil crusader, moved to Rockport, Maine, and was involved, I think, in the establishment of the new offshore wind farm there.

Here’s what I would propose. That the citizens of the bi-national counties form the Atlantic Alternative Energy Development Corporation, with a mandate to produce new, “green” energy for domestic use and export to New England. The first job for the new corporation would be lobbying both federal governments for greater top-up subsidies for green power.

Or we can blindly continue with our “good work,” fighting those bad LNG companies. But if I were living below the poverty line in Washington County, I would definitely be turning my cheek on the LNG issue. “Slap me on the other cheek,” I would say, ”so I can engage in a real fight. We demand an equal opportunity here, too.”

In the end it’s either working together, or starting a new religion—where fair is actually fair.

Winners and losers in the Ovarian Lottery

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When you start rereading your books for the fourth or fifth time you know it’s time to recharge the home library. So we drove to Saint John last week and slapped down a hundred bucks for three new books.

The first one was “The Trouble with Billionaires” written by Toronto Star columnist Linda McQuaig and her associate Neil Brooks, a tax adviser. It’s a good read. McQuaig and Brooks are on to the biggest financial trend of the last three decades—the enormous transfer of wealth from the North American middle class to the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the population, and the rise of the Asian economy.

This has all happened, as we all know, as a result of deregulation and globalization. Corporate executives started actively embedding themselves into the U.S. political system in the Nixon era, and from the Reagan years to the present day have managed to reduce government oversight and taxation of “high net worth” individuals to an all time low.

Meanwhile, they began transferring their assets off shore, including factories to Asia and cash to hidden bank accounts in places like the Cayman Islands. All this was based on the theory that we were migrating toward a "post-industrial" economy, and the lost manufacturing jobs would be replaced by new, better innovation and service sector jobs.

This, of course, was dead wrong. Those new innovation jobs also migrated elsewhere, as did the service jobs. Which is why most of the cool new tech toys we buy—like laptop computers and iPods—come from China and a lot of our banking and tech support calls now come from India.

It also turns out, no surprise, that the migration of wealth to the top and the loss of high quality jobs isn’t good for the rest of us. And not just economically. It’s literally bad for our health—to the point of shortening our lives and even making us shorter! Just 75 years ago the average U.S. male was the tallest in the world. Today, the average American male at 5-foot-9 is relatively shorter. The average Dutch male now stands at just over 6 feet tall. The Netherlands offers one of the most egalitarian lifestyles on the planet, as do the Danes, Scandinavians and Germans. They’re all tall, live longer—and even work fewer hours—than the average American.

The last chapter of McQuaig’s and Brooks’s book is titled “Revamping the Ovarian Lottery.” This is a notion that should be close to a New Brunswicker’s heart. Moncton, with its more equal complement of businesses, has arguably become a healthier place to live than either Saint John, dominated by the Irvings, or Fredericton, dominated by the McCains and government movers and shakers.

While we can appreciate the energy of K.C. Irving and the original McCain brothers, we should resist worshipping their children and grandchildren who may be very fine people, but who got a very big leg up over the rest of New Brunswick citizens. This should not be seen as envy. These lucky few are benefiting greatly from our oceans, forests and soil, not to mention the talents of our people. Along with their large fortunes they also inherited unearned access to our collective “commons.” The gratitude should be all theirs, and so should a public share of their enormous income as well.

Instead, our governments are still competing for a “race to the bottom” offering tax breaks and incentives to keep or attract businesses. Governments have been taught that most large corporations are now footloose and can invest anywhere. So be it. However, governments can also invest in homegrown small to medium sized enterprises, or SMEs, which bring can bring even more local innovation and diversity to the marketplace.

Governments that toady to the wealthy create a hothouse environment for discontent and economic collapse, as we are now beginning to witness across the border.

Undistributed wealth is like rigor mortis setting in to a society. It has a calcifying or ossifying effect. When decisions and opportunities are only available at the top innovation stalls. This is further compounded when big money loses its geographic connection. It becomes harder to empathize with the fate of local businesses when most of one’s money comes from Class A shareholder earnings or foreign investments.

The downside of reinforcing—rather than reducing—the “ovarian lottery” is multi-generational crime and poverty. And here we return to the tale of two towns. One town is regularly featured in the Court News reports—a revolving door of ongoing petty crime related to drugs, family violence, sexual abuse and last names with a history. The other town is featured in the entertainment page—a season of classical concerts, philanthropic garden parties, art openings and last names with a very different history.

The answer, of course, is rebuilding the entrepreneurial and working middle class across the region. We need fewer low-end jobs and contract positions and more real jobs, including unionized jobs, that offer lasting benefits, pension plans and job security. And we need a government that understands how to foster that kind of environment without pandering only to those who’ve already won the ovarian lottery.