Climate change signs the failure of the “free market” ideology. In the transition from old neoliberal individualism to an economy embedded in people and nature’s shared destiny, a new intelligence of democracy is key.
Introduction
One could think that answering the issue of climate change mostly requires some level of economic and technical re-engineering. Practical matters have to be dealt with practically to provide results. If this were entirely true, however, the world should by now be well on its way to implementing 100% renewable energy sources, having energy-efficient buildings, and sustainably managing the remaining forests it has. The alleged scope and emergency of the issue would have commanded it. Apparently, the world did not get the memo.
Some countries do definitely better than others but, on a global scale, we are far from having reached the necessary steps to achieve our governments’ solemn goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius maximum rise in temperatures by the end of this century. Why? The immediate answer is the forceful lobbying of fossil fuel companies. Yet, this, in turn, has to be questioned. What kind of power could these industries have that would convince the rest of the world to do next to nothing regarding the seriousness of a runaway global warming threat? None. More appropriately, just the one we allow them to have. Corporate interests can only do so much in financing disinformation campaigns, bribing politicians, and ensuring that the mass media they support with advertising money keep in line and remain “neutral.” The responsibility is primarily ours as citizens.
It is an upward battle because money is power and any occasion to foster legal privileges to influence the economy’s management and undermine political institutions will be taken. Compared to other basic forms of power that can turn into tyranny, such as personal dictatorship and ideology or religion, money is without any doubt the most insidious and the most efficient. It works like a silent but immediately effective asset for those who enjoy it and can rewrite the rules in their favor.
This confrontation between moneyed interests and the democratic ideal of governance is not new. What is new is that climate change has turned it into an opposition between life and death on a global scale. It is now common knowledge that the cumulative effects of this global warming process have mutually reinforced themselves for decades,1 fed all the while by our collective addiction to fossil fuels and deep-seated indifference for the indispensable balance of nature.
Simply put, this existential threat will be upon us as long as profit-making takes precedence over respecting a sustainable society’s environmental conditions. Therefore, the groundwork for fighting climate change is in the opposition of the true values of democracy to the power of money left to itself. Neoliberalism is, in our time, the ideology predicated on spontaneous economic wisdom and the eventual positive social outcomes of the market. Climate change signs the failure of this ideology. To constructively fight for our future, we, the people, need to unwrap neoliberalism’s intellectual pretense and assess how power can get back—and remain—where it belongs.
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Philippe Roussel has long been interested in studying the power structures defining our increasingly unsustainable and undemocratic world. This website serves as the primary platform where he presents his ideas and findings to an international audience.