No 'imperial mode of living' = no more extraction = can be achieved as a collective adventure

by Dr. Haimo Schulz Meinen, Hannover University

Reply to the

Stirring Paper of the GAP Group Resources and Extraction, submitted by Ulrich Brand on the 30th of July 2014.

Thank you, Ulrich Brand, for your interesting remarks about Resources and Extraction in the „Global constellation“ (Part 1), in „National Constellations: Example of countries with progressive governments in Latin America“ (Part 2) and in „Al­ternatives“ (Part 3). I think the paper can help to open an interesting discussion and broadens the view. I subscribe to most of his commentaries.

But let me ask for some further conclusions. Ulrich Brand writes:

"The Problem is not only capital strategies but also the strong orientation of middle- and upper-classes towards a 'Western way' of life, i.e. imperial mode of living" (in Part 2, "National constellations: the example of countries with pro­gressive governments in Latin America" – 'imperial mode of living' Brand characterizes by “unlimited access to cheap resources and labour from other countries via the world market”, in Part 1, “The global constellation”). And:

"To criticize those actors who promote unsustainable modes of production and consumption and who gain from mining and resource extractivist activities" (in Part 3, "Alternatives ... in global North").

I think Ulrich Brand's claim is right – but pointing to to few people and to little consequences. What Brand calls 'imperial mode of living' applies to everybody of us – to all the 7.200.000.000 humans. There may have been left some several hundreds or thousands of gatherers and hunters which don't use and don't have adopted an imperial mode of living. But everybody of us, the rest, lives imperially as everybody participating in modern society is consuming both individu­ally and collectively products of formerly extracted oil, gas, minerals, water or something else.

And the problem is, everybody would be admitting if asked: Nobody gave us or, to be precise, to the owners and ex­tractors of the mines and fossil water reservoirs, the permission. We took it, simply, by force. The conquering states conquered by their troops or by annexing it, in history or (see the example of IS in Iraq) today. And we, the 'citizens', take profit out of it, now. I would call this “imperial mode of living”. Of course, as almost everybody does it, nobody bothers about the lack of a non-violently achieved permission. But shall we take it tomorrow and after tomorrow?

Some few people say “No!”. They hint to old anthropological findings that „[In] the past [..], the many ways in which man resolves the problems of subsistence, of social living, of political regulation of group life, [...] have been widely docu­mented by the researches of anthropologists among peoples living in all parts of the world. All peoples do achieve these ends. No two of them, however, do so in exactly the same way, and some of them employ means that differ, often strikingly, from one another.” (Statement on Human Rights (1947), American Anthropological Association, Julian H. Steward, and H. G. Barnett, Statement on Human Rights Submitted to the Commission on Human Rights, United Na­tions by the Executive Board,http://www.dmmserver.com/DialABook/978/140/518/9781405183352.html)

But rather a lot of the different forms did so WITHOUT extraction. They have proven that human life on earth can be di­verse without extracting resources. Their metabolic profiles account by 10 gigajoules per capita per year based on bio­mass compared to 65 gigajoules per capita per year in agrarian societies based on biomass compared to 250 giga­joules per capita per year in industrial societies based on fossil, hydro and nuclear energy and biomass (The Anthropo­cene Review published online 21 January 2014, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Fridolin Krausmann and Irene Pallua, size and human impact on Earth. A sociometabolic reading of the Anthropocene: Modes of subsistence, population, Fischer-Kowalski et al. 2014, http://anr.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/01/08/2053019613518033.full.pdf).

To be honest: Large populations numbering by millions like today haven't shown to be possible without extraction. Modern democracies neither, therefore. This is where some start to suspect that the postulation that any acceptable solution should resemble a modern democracy might be a hidden safeguard for allowing a broad scale extraction in the future by any means.

EFFECTIVELY breaking up with the imperial modes of living means to reduce energy and material consumption drastic­ally – not for some individuals that feel like it while the rest in their area carries on consuming imperially high. It means to fight for a collectively imposed ban of extraction and massive consumption in piloting areas. Everything below this suc­cess level was in the past decades and would be in the future simply pretending action while in fact allowing your neighbors to carry on with what you clandestinely would like to have as a remaining future option for yourself.

I am afraid that both in the degrowth movement and in the vegetarian movement activists have overestimated the im­portance of personal consumption choices. With 84.7 percent of the world's total consumption being consumed by only the three most consuming decils (source: Eriksson, Ralf/ Andersson, Jan-Otto, Elements of Ecological Economics, Routledge 2010, p. 33; roughly two billion inhabitants mostly of the industrialized countries) personal consumption choices of even one hundred of millions of growth or meat critics (vegetarians of choice have been estimated 75 million in 2010, Leahy, Eimear; Lyons, Seán; Tol, Richard S. J.: Working Paper. An estimate of the number of vegetarians in the world, ESRI working paper, No. 340, Provided in Cooperation with: The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Dublinhttp://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/50160/1/632222107.pdf) won't change the societal consumption pat­tern in total even if their number doubles or triples. Personal choices differ and there are always so many different areas of choices possible.

I think we still have to refer to virtually ALL of us. „It is an illusion (to believe) that (no harm is individually induced) as long as a person is part of the society. Although the capitalist society is based on individuals, it functions also on a high­er level by structures which cannot be controlled by individuals but themselves control the individuals.“ This was stated by the marxist philosopher Marco Maurizi referring to the believed power of vegetarians (orig. „Es ist eine Illusion, dass keine Tiere mehr für einen getötet werden, solange man Teil dieser Gesellschaft ist. Die kapitalistische Gesellschaft funktioniert zwar durch die Individuen, aber sie funktioniert auch auf einer höheren Ebene durch Strukturen, welche die Individuen nicht kontrollieren können, sondern diese durch die Strukturen kontrolliert werden.“ Quelle: http//www.tier­rechtsgruppe-zh.ch/wp-content/files/marco_maurizi_interview.pdf, hier aber zit. nach: Rude, Matthias, Antispeziesis­mus. Die Befreiung von Mensch und Tier in der Tierrechtsbewegung und der Linken, Stuttgart: Schmetterling Verlag 2013, S. 117.)

Similarly the scandinavian economic ecologists Eriksson and Andersson have criticized degrowth activists: “Although degrowth is an important 'post-materialist' and 'post-developmentalist' standpoint, it still does not contain a strategy to overcome the strong forces pushing for growth. […] In order to become politically relevant degrowth must go beyond individual and local experimentation and be grounded in robust macroeconomic analysis.” ( Eriksson, Ralf/ Andersson, Jan-Otto, Elements of Ecological Economics, Routledge 2010, p. 131f.)

“There is an obvious solution that can materially address for the better every aspect of this nasty problem that we have created: protected areas, where industrial-scale extraction of living or ancient carbon and other minerals is not permit­ted. Examples are national parks, wildlife reserves, watershed protection areas, municipal nature parks, tribal sacred areas, and wilderness areas. They can be owned by the public, private individuals, or associations, or be tribally con­trolled.” (Harvey Locke, “Protected Areas. Foundation of a Better Future Relationship with with Energy”, pp. 238-241, here p. 240, in: Butler, Tom/ Wuerthner, George (eds.), Energy. Overdevelopment and the delusion of endless growth, Post Carbon Institute/ Watershed Media 2012, http://energy-reality.org/books/)

To conclude my remarks as reply to Ulrich Brand:

I believe and have shown on previous occasions and papers (Visualizando imperialismo y remedios, 2013 AAHRI and IV Jornadas de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Historia de las Relaciones Internacionales ALAHRI  Conference in Buenos Aires) that regional fractions of industrialized societies can col­lectively opt out of industrialized mode of living, organize the necessary dismantling process and in fact start and enjoy this as an ethically satisfying and logistically challenging adventure. This is the only way to end imperial modes of living and to effectively protect resources. Especially in Latin America we can point to different good examples – but not of progressive governments, but of remarkable individuals protecting entire regions. As Douglas Tompkins in Chile and Ar­gentina or Sebastiao Salgado in northern Brasil has done, we can open new protected areas in Europe even against ex­tractarian advocates within the regions by denying their right to do so. Challenging the state right to carry on extracting paves the way to dismantle in the next few decades until reaching a level of low energy input comparable to hunter and gather societies. Region by region.

As a director of “Bios Intelligent Decline”, a branch of “Bios Bestattungen”, I will present at the Degrowth conference means and ways for everybody interested to take part in this organized withdrawal from industrial society step by step, lot by lot, region by region. A future without extraction of resources is possible, an ethical must and a good adventure. -