Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Month: May 2019

Ikke helsvart

23.05.2019 /

Jeg har i mange år vært opptatt av et fag jeg ikke har snøring på, samfunnsøkonomi. Jeg har faktisk lest et par-tre bøker for å bøte litt på min uvitenhet, og jeg piner meg av og til gjennom en og annen avisartikkel om emnet.

Her er min oppsummering av noe av det jeg mener å ha lært:

Friedrich Hayek (d. 1992) anses av mange som “neoliberalismens” far. Basert på blant annet hans arbeider har økonomer forholdt seg til et sett nærmest naturgitte “lover” som skal være matematisk beviselige og dermed ufeilbarlige. “Økonomisk vitenskap” har vært basert på disse lovene. Kritikk av dem og tvil har ikke vært stuerent, og mange økonomer har fått svi med arbeidsledighet hvis de våget stille spørsmålstegn ved dem.

Nå er det slik med vitenskap at vitenskapelig kritikk er en forutsetning for vitenskapelig utvikling. Slik jeg forstår det har ikke økonomisk vitenskap vært tilstrekkelig åpen for vitenskapelig kritikk.

Hayeks arbeider har ligget til grunn for legitimering av markedsliberalismens eksesser (som bl.a. Milton Friedman var en talsmann for). Vi har også sett sosiopolitisk bevisste økonomer (for eksempel Joseph Stiglitz) som har vært forferdet over disse eksessenes katastrofale følger, men som ikke har klart å frigjøre seg fra de neoliberalistiske “lovene”.

Med finanskrisen ble det litt uro i rekkene blant samfunnsøkonomer. Også psykologifaget slo noen sprekker i de neoliberalistiske modellene, ikke minst ved å påvise empirisk (altså målbart) at menneskets atferd på markedet ikke er rasjonell (jf. den snart klassiske boken Predictably Irrational av Dan Arieli, som jeg aldri kan få fullrost nok).

Det er lenge siden det ble klart for de av oss som har vært opptatt av klodens fremtid at Markedet definitivt ikke ville løse klimakrisen. (Dessverre er det enda de færreste regjeringer som har fått med seg denne innsikten.)

Ja, dette med kloden, dere vet, klimaet og artsmangfoldet …
Temmelig alvorlige greier, nesten så en har lyst til å låse seg inn på kammerset og vente på at det hele er over. Men nå finnes det altså økonomer der ute som faktisk ER begynt å arbeide med saken, og det at de ikke alle er arbeidsledige gir et visst lite håp.

Her er et veldig kort, lett og nesten søtt intervju med én av dem i Dagsavisen: Ebba Boye fra Rethinking Economics

Så er det en smellvakker italiensk-amerikansk økonomiprofessor som har introdusert en ny dimensjon til økonomifaget, blant annet i boka The Value of Everything. Hun er ute etter å omkalfatre mye, og hun går løs på et av selve fundamentene i faget, begrepet verdi. Mariana Mazzucato ser på begrepet verdiskaping og dekonstruerer det, kan man si. Hun lager et nytt begrep: verdiuthenting (i praksis nærmest parasittisme, hvis jeg forstår henne rett; rentenisme).

Uavhengig av den vakre økonomen vet jeg at på 2000-tallet har de 400 største selskapene i USA brukt 54 % av overskuddet til å kjøpe tilbake egne aksjer; 34 % av overskuddet har gått som avkastning til aksjonærene og kun 9 % er blitt reinvestert i driften. Dette er et eksempel på verdiuthenting.

Samtidig, skriver Mazzucato, bidrar offentlige utdanningsinstitusjoner og forskning til næringslivets innovasjon, men neoliberalismen definerer visstnok ikke offentlig utdanning som verdiskaping.

Jeg er virkelig ikke den rette til å dosere om samfunnsøkonomi. Jeg gjør et fattig forsøk kun fordi jeg tror det er viktig at vi stiller oss bak økonomer som tør risikere arbeidsledighet ved å utfordre vedtatte “sannheter”. Det er like så viktig som å stille seg bak utforskende journalister, menneskerettsaktivister og andre som risikerer represalier for å forsvare menneskeheten og kloden.

Jeg tror dessuten det er viktig at økonomene faktisk snakker til oss på et språk vi kan forstå og vi stiller dem til veggs hvis de ikke taler vår sak.

Jeg tror fremfor alt at det er utrolig kult at noen økonomer nå er med på laget.

Alt er altså ikke helsvart.

Og i mellomtiden går det an å sette av dagen

30. AUGUST 2019

TIL

KLIMABRØLET


Where do we get our facts?

19.05.2019 /

You might be wondering how come a person who pretends to care passionately about human rights (in every which interpretation) hardly ever refers to the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya from Myanmar.

Very simple: I have no first-hand knowledge of the past and ongoing crimes apparently committed not only by the army and government but even by the majority population in Myanmar. I only know about it through the media.

Now the US emperor appears to hold a grudge against “the media”. However there are others, too, who distrust the media, and with good reason, if I may say so. Many of us also distrust the pharmaceutical industry, politicians, doctors, wolves, etc., again with good reason. The media and the pharmaceutical industry will engage in pretty shady practices to boost profits and satisfy share holders, and more often than not, their ruses will not be exposed. Of course, if a pharmaceutical company fails to alleviate or cure medical ills, as evidenced by statistical breakdowns, it will loose its share holders anyway. Doctors are not always as conscientious or skilled as they should be and, finally, wolves occasionally manage to kill a dog or four or even a human every few hundred years. I’ll get back to the politicians later.

But first, I would like to make a few points:

  • Without the media, we would not only have been confused, but blind kittens awash in a sea of conflicting events.
  • The pharmaceutical industry and doctors have contributed to a dramatic lengthening of our life expectancy.
  • Wolves keep the deer population within reasonable limits (just as foxes limit the rabbit population) and deer, whereas pretty to look at, nourish the ticks that infect thousands and thousands of people every year with Lyme and other serious diseases.

Yes, we are often misinformed. Yes, some media are so self-serving that they can destabilise nations, not least if their audiences lack certain necessary tools – the kind of tools delivered by decent educational systems – to assess information. There are, moreover, tens of thousands of hard-working journalists dedicated to learning and presenting what is truthful and exact. Many of them are up against serious obstacles, even oppression. Some even risk or even lose their lives. We need them! We need to defend them!

Normally, what little I write here, is about matters of which I have first-hand knowledge. First-hand knowledge may stem from various sources. Once in my youth, when I was to go on in-house duty for three consecutive weeks, I first went to the library and borrowed a large stack of books about Armenian history. I read them all, taking meticulous notes. The other day, I found the old notes and was touched by my devotion to the topic. This I did, not for school nor for work, but because I was truly interested. I cannot remember why. What I remember is only my keen interest in the topic. There are countless other people out there who want to understand and who desperately want to learn.

I do have first-hand knowledge about Palestine, for reasons I will not go into. Likewise I have first-hand knowledge about dictatorships in Latin America and in Spain. I have lived in several countries and have seen more than has been good for me. But I have not lived in Asia or Oceaniea, and I need the media. I desperately need the media. I often check what I read against other outlets, and of course, like others, I distrust some more than others, depending, of course on the issue.

One source I have been particularly fond of is “The Listening Post” on Al Jazeera . It discusses various news outlets’ take on hot topics. Take Narendra Modi’s BJP in the recent Indian elections:

Now that is a text-book example of a successful marriage between self-serving media and dishonest politicians. I know very little about India, but listening to the podcast from the Listening Post, I get the impression that in the so-called Western countries, we would do well to study the nuts and bolts of what is often referred to as the world’s largest democracy. We might learn something about ourselves.

By the way, Merriam Webster’s definition of “democracy” does not mention the role of the market, of media outlets owned by oligarchs, of powerful investor interests, of phenomena such as Breitbart and Fox News. What is Democracy, I ask you?

Cockroach rhetoric

10.05.2019 /

I assume we have all heard exclamations such as “He treats her like an animal!”. I have even read somewhere that Amazon treats its workers “like animals”. However, more and more often, I find that this sort of juxtaposition of animals and humans is not quite to the point. I suggest substituting the word “animal” with “cockroach”. After all, we live in the age of “animal rights” and treating a person like an animal may not be such a bad thing.

Personally, I am all for “animal rights”. I believe that the expression usually refers to merciful treatment and humane living conditions, as it were, for – well yes, for animals. The expression “human rights”, however, basically means the right to vote, for those of us who believe that voting makes a difference, and the right to publicly state one’s opinions (admittedly a right I am making use of at this very moment).

True, in many countries, beating people is a crime, except when the police or soldiers are the ones doing the beating. Besides, in some countries, you are allowed to beat children or women, while in others this is, strictly speaking, not allowed, though the authorities turn a blind eye on such practices.

Animal rights movements, however, unequivically condemn the beating of animals. I doubt that animal rights also extend to cockroaches, which is why I made the suggestion in the first paragraph. They do not extend to humans either.

Spain is a country where not one of the executioners or torturers of the Franco administration has ever been brought to justice, and the Franco administration’s post-war heinous crimes are ignored by members of the population that have not had a parent or other relative tortured and/or killed by Franco’s henchmen. In Spain an average of 4 women a month were killed by their partners or X-partners in 2018. Yet, in Spain, the beating of dogs is no longer tolerated. If you strike your dog in a public place, you will surely be rebuked or at least frowned at by whoever sees you doing so.

Spanish cockroaches, however, are furiously stamped upon. I therefore draw the conclusion that in Spain, women enjoy a lower standing than men and dogs, while their situation compares favourably to that of cockroaches. I shall not for the present dwell upon the status of separatist Catalonians who, I fear, might ere long find themselves in the gutter, figuratively speaking, of course.

And take Israel. Animal rights enjoy a higher status there than just about anywhere else in the world. According to a monthly, conservative, Zionist magazine devoted to Middle-East issues, “a nation-wide ban on possession of fur is even moving through the Knesset—such a law would be the first of its kind in the world.” Yes, that was possession, not farming. The same article explains in detail and with references to ancient texts, that animal welfare is rooted in Jewish law.

This might to some extent explain the ultra-post-modern attitude of the best-selling Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari, who questions the moral supremacy of man over animals. Moreover, he questions the value of ranking animals as good or bad (e.g. we like elephants but not cockroaches).

A brief look at Times of Israel reveals that animal rights is a popular and beloved topic. Animal rights activists obviously enjoy a different status in Israel than do human rights activists.

According to the British site VEGANLife, “Israel has one of the biggest vegan populations in the world with an estimated five percent of the population (about 400,000) following a plant-based diet and/or advocating veganism. The Israeli Tourism Ministry has started to promote Israel as a Vegan Nation,”

However, for inmates of Israel’s concentration camp in Gaza, life does not compare favourably even to that of cockoaches:

To be brief let me quote the UN OCHA fact sheet

The Gaza blockade (through the land, air and sea) is a denial of basic human rights in contravention of international law and amounts to collective punishment. It severely restricts imports and exports, as well as the movement of people in and out of Gaza, and access to agricultural land and fishing waters. Gazans are unable to provide for their families and the quality of infrastructure and vital services has deteriorated.

  • The average wage declined by over 20% in the past six years.
  • 54% of Gazans are food insecure and over 75% are aid recipients.
  • 35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli military measures.
  • 50-80 million litres of partially treated sewage are dumped in the sea each day.
  • Over 90% of the water from the Gaza aquifer is undrinkable.
  • 85% of schools in Gaza run on double shifts.
  • About one-third of the items in the essential drug list are out of stock.

How would you feel if you lived in a place like that?

Let me be clear: Outside Israel, Israeli treatment of Palestinian human beings – I repeat: human beings, not cockroaches – is condoned and applauded not by non-Israeli Jews, but by crackpot evangelicals and alt-right fundamentalists all over the world including in my own country.

SHAME

Please, please, please turn the ship around

08.05.2019 /

Janet doesn’t want to have children because she cannot bear the thought of the future she imagines would await them. Her mother angrily tells her not to be “so silly!” though she cannot explain what’s so silly about her daughter’s well-founded fears.

The fifteen-year-old in the house next door is playing truant today, to go and join an enormous congregation of school children demonstrating to “save the climate”. His parents wring their hands, but what can they do other than threaten to cancel his next allowance. They don’t do that, though, because in their hearts, they are a little proud of him.

Many of us have started apologising on reflex, in a general sort of way and to nobody in particular, every time we book a plane ticket or eat meat. Are we genuinely contrite or are we just paying lip service (in a general sort of way and to nobody in particular)? I do think many of us eat a little less meat, but I very much doubt we fly less, on the whole. I certainly don’t. For 22 years, I could not afford to fly at all. Now that I finally can, I do. And yes, I wish I could go by train, but travelling by train for days across Europe with a dog is an almost superhuman, not to mention super-canine, affair.

Some progress is being made: Many uses of plastic will soon be banned, and it is true that annual CO2 emission from my country has not risen since 1990. As a matter of fact, it is almost exactly what it was then, 8.4 tonnes.

Meanwhile, half my country is up in arms because of the recent dramatic rise in the cost of driving a car (road tolls, tax on petrol, etc.). And yes, it IS UNFAIR that people who cannot afford to live in the metropolis have to spend their savings to get to work every day. In the end, they – and all of us – will be the ones to pay the cost of climate change and the socio-economic effects of it. Compared to that price, road tolls and costly fuel will be Sunday School.

Critics say we must stop raising spectres from the graves, stop being so apocalyptic. We have no right, they insist, to ruin people’s peace of mind. Children must be allowed to have faith in the future, they say; do not fill them with fear, they say.

Alas, many children, those whose parents are farmers, do not need to be told. Their parents wrung their hands last summer, helplessly monitoring scorched fields and slaughtering livestock for lack of water and fodder. The year before last, fields were inundated; houses and cattle were carried away by flash floods. Already this year, my country’s fruit harvest is lost due to climate anomalies. Am I being apocalyptic? Am I ruining anybody’s sleep but my own by observing and narrating what I actually see with my own eyes?

Meanwhile: Business as usual. We are going full blast. There are opportunities to be made the most of. Let the morrow take care of itself.

In some other countries, where social cohesion is scant due to poverty and oppression, they solve citizens’ malaise differently : fascistoid parties and even governments are cropping up everywhere, promising to bring back, by hook or by crook, the “good-old-days”, when youngsters and wives and employees did as they were told and kissed the hands that whipped them. In such countries, you will probably be too busy trying to avoid getting whipped (or put in jail) to worry about the climate.

Not so here, not yet. Here, we (excepting the very few who are taught in institutions run by religious fanatics – more often than not, Evangelical or Saudi-funded Whahabi) have a deep respect for science. After all, laboratories are on the verge of being able to create atoms and brain cells. But science has not been harnessed to save us from the effects of exponential climate change. (Please note the word “exponential”. This word is not a mere adjective; it is tantamount to a curse.) Science can only tell us that exponential climate change will be inevitable and catastrophic unless we turn the ship around in time, as it were.

Turning the ship around in time would mean obstructing “business as usual” so seriously that the powers-that-be refuse to even contemplate the idea. Who would allow them to stay in power if they did?

So, in my Democratic country, while we still mostly resist the lure of fascist rhetoric, we – voters – are definitely not resisting the lure of neoconservative rhetoric:

  • The market will adapt to the “green” shift.
  • Technology will solve the problem.
  • The problem is that Africans have too many babies.
  • We cannot entirely rule out that this is not caused only by mankind.
  • The effects will not be all that serious.

I add, for the record, what many members of the public say:

  • You can’t fight it, it’ll all go to hell anyway. Let’s just enjoy while we can.
  • That bloody “green” political correctness…!

Let me introduce a name here: Naomi Klein, a very smart lady who has been writing words of warning for years and whose critique is very sharp indeed, and very prophetic. In one of her recent articles (I cannot understand how she finds the patience to continue explaining, so nicely, what we refuse to understand) which I urge you to take a look at, you will see, at least indirectly, that Naomi Klein has little faith in the market as a problem solver.

NOT because you and I don’t care, but because you and I have to pay the rent, and we have to pay for petrol, child care, etc. Every year we have to pay. WE had no say in the decisions made back in 1988. WE had no idea then. And even now, in 2019, we hope that it will all turn out all right. At any rate, most of us can’t really afford more expensive petrol.

For my part, I am very confused, too. I don’t at all doubt the effects of climate change. I understand implicitly the effects of greenhouse gasses. I have understood that ever since I read Carl Sagan’s book Cosmos in 1980.

But I don’t see how our so-called “democratic” states can convince voters to elect “green” politicians who will make their lives very much worse than they are. I don’t see how this can be done unless the state is totalitarian and I definitely don’t want a totalitarian state.

Dear Naomi Klein, please figure it out.

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