Privatisation & globalisation

In this third and final article in this series, we will discuss seven new ways of living which we can adopt as economic growth fails. They are not revolutionary (revolutions never achieve their utopian visions because of something called "human nature"). Rather, they may allow us to "muddle through" the best we can right now with what we already know how to do. We will do these things because they will work -- and we certainly need to stop doing things that don't work, and find new ways that will work.

- Private Water Companies Come to Texas Bringing Soaring Rates, Little Recourse for Consumers
- Portraits of the Southwest in the Shadow of Drought
- No Time Left to Adapt to Melting Glaciers

Too many proposals for dealing with the end of the age of cheap abundant energy either ignore the economic dimension or offer wildly optimistic estimates. The widening spiral of economic dysfunction in today's industrial societies makes both those stances problematic. We need to consider the possibility that an economic system that has few ways to pursue projects that don't make a profit will find it impossible to profit from the measures that might ensure its survival.

Cities can no longer work separately in the global economy, they must form public and private partnerships to repair our old and outdated infrastructure, integrate an environmental agenda with economic and social agendas, invest in education, identify and leverage their assets and work regionally, says former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who also believes the Great Lakes region is “one of the most dynamic regions in America.”

By privatised public space, I mean that space which appears to be a public space (a square or a lane, for example) is in fact owned and controlled by a private landowner (or sometimes managed privately for a public owner.) Either way, different rules apply. It's a trend which has been driven along by private sector regeneration schemes, and reinforced by a plethora of increasingly contentious public order legislation. But it is all but invisible.

Social-democracy had its apogee in the period 1945 to the late 1960s. At that time, it represented an ideology and a movement that stood for the use of state resources to ensure some redistribution to the majority of the population in various concrete ways: expansion of educational and health facilities; guarantees of lifelong income levels by programs to support the needs of the non-"wage-employed" groups, particularly children and seniors; and programs to minimize unemployment. Social-democracy promised an ever-better future for future generations, a sort of permanent rising level of national and family incomes. This was called the welfare state. It was an ideology that reflected the view that capitalism could be "reformed" and acquire a more human face. ... The social-democratic solution has become an illusion. The question is what will replace it for the vast majority of the world's populations.

-Germany and Greece flirt with mutual assured destruction
-Make foreign currencies legal in UK
-RMB: steaming ahead in Africa
-BerkShares boost the Berkshires in Massachusetts

Back in May in response to a question during an interview I suggested that when the sovereign debt of a major nation is finally questioned, it will signal the endgame for the worldwide bull market in just about everything. That moment has arrived, and my thesis will now be tested.

And, I'm not talking about the United States. I'm talking about France.

The energy descent from peak oil production imposes decades of contraction in the global economy. An orderly contraction, particularly in the US, is not likely for a number of reasons. The decline of the oil civilization is a phenomenon and spectacle of such complexity that understanding it requires a systems perspective. This summary of the case for a disorderly contraction and its core drivers demonstrates the capacity of systems tools to show the interlocking feedback structure that shapes how this momentous change plays out over time.

- 'Farms' Owned by the Rich Provide Massive Tax Shelter
- Offshore Banking and Tax Havens Have Become Heart of Global Economy
- Matt Taibbi: The Real Housewives of Wall Street

- Oil Without Apologies: Chevron's CEO on energy and peak oil
- Japan, Oil and the Fragility of Globalization
- Thinking about peak oil and Transition in Ghana
- While the Saudi elite looks nervously abroad, a revolution is happening

Japan's crisis now reaches across the globe with significant disruptions in manufacturing supply-chains. It's a cautionary tale on the need for resilience. Can this help prompt greater understanding for and interest in relocalization and the Transition movement?

The world-system has been in a structural crisis since the 1970s. The primary characteristic of a structural crisis is chaos. This is not a situation of totally random happenings. It is a situation of rapid and constant fluctuations in all the parameters of the historical system. This includes not only the world-economy, the interstate system, and cultural-ideological currents, but also the availability of life resources, climatic conditions, and pandemics. The one encouraging feature about a systemic crisis is the degree to which it increases the viability of agency, of what we call “free will.” When the system is far from equilibrium, every little input has great effect.

Africa is being measured for its land profitability potential. So are other regions in the political South. This process is part of the new structural agri-food adjustment programmes that are already in place in the developing South. It includes agri-investor friendly new industrial policies, the disinvestment by and withdrawal of government equity in profitable public sector enterprises, financial sector 'reform' that ushers in private banking and asset management.

Rob Dietz's article, "Economics for the Story of Stuff" (May 10, 2010) contains unwarranted attacks on the economics profession. This is caused by a fundamental misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the desirability of economic growth. Economic growth does not imply "more stuff" but rather "more valuable output." ... We will NEVER run out of non-renewable resources simply because the price will rise to make extraction cost-prohibitive. At that point, we will have to switch to renewables simply because of the cost.