Power Point Presentation Slides on Steady-State Economics
Howdy:
I've attached the slides from a power-point presentation that I have created as an "on-line" module that I hope will eventually serve as part of a series of presentations that will help new members to the Green Party understand some of the more important issues for the party and its organizational challenges.
It should be fairly self-explanatory, but I have also created sound files for the slides and as soon as I can figure out how to connect the two into a video file that I can upload onto a website, I will include those. If anyone has any suggestions about how I can do that, I would appreciate the technical help. (I'm using Linux Mint 6, and haven't been able to find a screen capture program that works on my Acer Aspire 3620 laptop.)
(I've also attached Open Office Impress odp file for this presentation, as that is what I work in. If you don't know what that is, just use the ppt file.)
Bill Hulet
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Great presentation
Good work, Bill. Very succinct and educational.
Jim Johnston,
Lambton-Kent-Middlesex
Opinions expressed are my own.
Good Work
I wonder if anyone besides us will believe the contents. It makes sense and we know what that means!
A friend of mine used to say
"If it makes too much sense they won't do it"
There is some truth to that statement. The flaw is that large scale change happens on the time scale of decades, generations, and even beyond the average human life span. In my opinion change is incremental rather than focused on one time events.
In any case I think we're headed in the right direction and presentations such as this really help in building our knowledge.
Matthew Piggott
Kitchener Centre
"People of good faith, figuring out where we are, not falling victim, making choices, based on our values, with the best available information." These views are my own and do not represent the official position of the Green Party of Canada.
Lots of people believe---
I think lots of people believe it. My concern is how many people inside the Green Party of Canada disagree with this analysis. I think we should be putting a lot more resources (i.e. some) into raising the economic and political literacy of the membership instead of assuming that we are all "singing from the same songbook". My experience would lead me to think that a lot of people in the party assume that we all want the same things, but if we tried to work out details we would find a wide divergence of opinion.
I have no problem with differences of opinion, but I would like them to be fleshed out and a dialogue take place rather than have wild explosions when people find out that they really disagree about substantial things. Moreover, I think that if we make the effort to explain all of this stuff it will make our case while strengthening the degree of support within the party.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H.L. Mencken
Bill, on what basis do
Bill, on what basis do people in the party disagree with this?
Emma Stangl
Re: Disagreement
Bill, on what basis do people in the party disagree with this?
My experience from other groups is that it is possible to work very hard together and have very substantial disagreements that have never been articulated. The problem comes when it is time to make a tough decision about scarce resources (or when you are successful and get someone elected.)
In particular, I have talked about this with prominent Greens who didn't disagree with me, but didn't want the rank-and-file members or the general public exposed to this because they felt that it would drive people away from the party.
On a practical level, my understanding is that the last platform of the Green Party involved a very large expansion of government spending (one figure I heard was $20 billion.) This directly contradicts the idea of ending growth because the only way we could finance this would be by a corresponding expansion of the tax base, which assumes an expansion of the GNP.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H.L. Mencken
Soooo might this have to do
Soooo might this have to do with an unquestioned assumption amongst members of the party that "If a political party does not give a lot of money to a particular issue or cause, that means the party does not think that issue or cause is important"?
In other words, the belief that financial allocation shows you where the priorities are. Certainly that is at least partly true, but it's not the whole picture. Not spending a lot of money on an issue doesn't mean nothing is being done on the issue, and furthermore spending a lot on an issue doesn't guarantee that your spending will have the desired effect either.
Putting money towards something looks like "action!!" and people like to see action: "Oh good, they are doing something about the problem instead of just watching and waiting and sitting around."
I think part of that is that it's hard for the average person to trace the dollars that go into something (say health care) and see if they actually have an effect.
Emma Stangl
Yes, Money is Part of the Problem
I don't know if I it is a question of "action" so much as an unwillingness to make the effort to explain to people that while we have nothing against things like a national day care program or reduced tuition for university, that they are all based on the assumption of unlimited exponential growth, which the world cannot support. My feeling is that that would have led to a nasty fight within some elements of the Greens plus a fight with professional "advocates" in the NGOs that support these programs. The thing to do at that point is to start talking about the implications of a steady-state economy and why it is that any really Green program has to be based on a period of fiscal austerity.
I think a lot of people would freak at this point---both within and outside of the party---which is why I think it is important to make a fuss about this inside the party to ensure we are singing from the same songbook.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H.L. Mencken
"One half of all exponential
"One half of all exponential growth happens in the last doubling cycle" - wow, I never thought about it that way.
How do we develop the ability to think ahead? It's difficult or maybe impossible (examples abound) to change adults who cannot see past the end of their own nose. So, it has to start younger. Schools. Parents.
"...but only if we accept significant change in our lives."
Exactly. People will see it as suffering a loss, having to give up something, when really it only feels that way because they have been Pavlov-dogged into thinking that having more stuff will make them "happy". But generally they don't notice that stuff doesn't make them happy until a personal crisis of some sort causes them to question their beliefs and values, and that doesn't happen for everybody.
Furthermore, if stuff doesn't make you happy, what does? I would say, valuing oneself, and being valued by others, for who one is rather than what one does (accomplishes, acquires). We don't do that very well in Western culture. It's so much surface and quick fix.
So we are back to schools and parents. And I'm stumped on that one because if adults are very difficult to change, children are raised by adults, and children basically hypnotically absorb, without question, the spoken and unspoken beliefs around them (I forget what age it is, 7 or 8, before which children don't develop a capacity of rational discernment, really being able to tell what is true and what is false?)....
then how do we evolve the talents and orientations required for where the world is going, not where it has been?
Emma Stangl
Emma Stangl
Focusing on youth is a cop-out
Emma:
I know that most people agree with you about concentration on educating the youth, but I think that is wrong-headed.
I know that it looks like you are "getting" kids in elementary school. But once they enter adolescence and enter puberty that all goes out the window. Teenagers are all obsessing about sex, young adults too plus careers. Young families are too busy with young children to find time for anything else. (I know these are generalizations, but that is what political parties work with.)
Middle-aged people and seniors are the folks who have the time, money and freedom to think big thoughts and support change. We should be putting our focus on them.
As for educating the public, I don't think that the Greens have ever tried to do this. My experience is that the party either doesn't have the organizational depth to do this (in areas with weak EDAs) or where it does, it puts all its energy into elections.
When I get the time and energy I'm going to write another power-point "module" to explain the way the Greens could develop a new way of doing politics that is based on educating the public and helping them mobilize for change.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H.L. Mencken
Oh probably. I am
Oh probably. I am accustomed to feeling hopeless against ignorant people. I'd been looking at this from my own individual experience (30 yr old professional) and forgot about the senior demographic so I appreciate you pointing that out.
I don't think we "lose" children entirely once they become teenagers and young adults. They may come back to the philosophies of their youth later on. However you're saying that it's not "too late" if people happened to grow up by a different set of beliefs and values.
Emma Stangl
Hopelessness Can Be Dealt With
I think that people's sense of hopelessness comes from the way we tend to go about things. I think that when we focus on trying to take over government and then have it make the necessary changes we are teaching people a variety of counter-productive things.
First, that only Parliament can change things. Second, that everything has to be dealt with all at once.
Well I think that if people can have an experience of actually, personally making a change all by themselves, they can realize that they have the power. And if they can realize that they don't have to solve all the world's problems by themself---just the ones in their particular area (and let the other folks deal with their part of the problem), then the problem becomes human-sized again.
This is why I think it is important that the Green Party develop an emphasis on doing politics "in a new way", one that isn't totally focused on elections. It empowers people and gives them a reason to stay involved even if their candidate doesn't win.
I've been involved in a lot of different projects over the years and I have always felt empowered by the experience, not made to feel hopeless. If we could be an engine to similarly get other folks involved in making their communities better places to live, they too might feel like they can accomplish more.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H.L. Mencken