THE POWER IS OURS
BY JOHN BUNZL
With the world in the grip of Covid-19 and a deepening economic slump, pundits are again asking whether capitalism as we know it has come to an end. The same was asked in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. But as sure as night follows day, the world soon got back to business-as-usual. To ordinary citizens concerned about climate change, wealth inequality and other global problems, our inability to gain any traction on these issues is frustrating. We can vote this way or that, we can protest about this issue or that, we can Occupy, we can rebel against extinction, you name it. Whatever we try, nothing seems to work. Yet, the power to reverse this is already in our hands if only we would realise it.
To fully realise our power, however, first requires that we take stock of the various misconceptions that prevent us from seeing it. We are limited not so much by corrupt or blind politicians, nor by greedy corporations, nor by the “money masters” – the private banks. We are limited only by the false walls of misconception we’ve constructed in our own hearts and minds.
The first of these is our assumption that politicians have the power to make the substantive changes needed to put the world on a just and sustainable path. There can be no doubt we believe politicians have this power because if we didn’t, we’d hardly spend so much time lobbying them or protesting. We lobby and protest, believing they can deliver on our demands – but even just a little thought reveals that they can’t.
Their inability to deliver stems from them being caught in a vicious circle that I call Destructive Global Competition. Today, capital and corporations can move fairly easily and instantaneously across national borders, so determining which country gains investment and employment and which loses it. Since politicians have no choice but to implement policies designed to attract or retain capital, so as to maintain employment, prosperity and tax revenues, it’s not hard to see why they’re constrained to implementing only market- and business-friendly policies which favour the rich, the corporations and the bankers and thus disfavour greater social justice and the environment. It’s a vicious circle. Little wonder there’s so little progress.
“Were we in their shoes, global economic forces would demand that we behaved pretty much as they do.”
To make demands of individual governments concerning any problem that transcends national borders makes no sense. Because for any nation, implementing our demands unilaterally would risk making its economy uncompetitive, leading to capital flight, unemployment and so on. Implementing our demands, in short, would not be in the national self-interest. So, why do we persist in demanding substantive change from people – in this case our national government – when it doesn’t have the power to deliver? Clearly there must be something wrong with our thinking.
Our second misconception is that the above problem must be the fault of investors, the rich or the corporations who move their capital or operations around. While no one should condone abusive or greedy corporate behaviour, the reality on the whole is that corporations do what they do because not doing it would mean losing out to others. For corporations, acting ethically or refraining from taking advantage of countries with lower regulations and taxes would mean losing out to less scrupulous competitors. Little wonder they so often fail to behave as we’d like. While it’s right to expose and high-light poor corporate behaviour, why do we persist in blaming and shaming corporations when it’s clear that their behaviour is only the natural consequence of the lack of a level playing field of globally binding regulations? Again, there must be something wrong with our thinking.
Lying deep beneath these misconceptions are the false walls we build in our hearts. We build and hold to them dearly because they allow us to blame, shame and complain about others and that makes us feel self-righteous; it makes us feel good - like campaigning warriors, boldly speaking out for the good of the world! But while raising public awareness of global abuses is certainly necessary, how can blaming people who are not really responsible possibly be good for the world? How can it be right to blame politicians or businessmen when it’s not really their fault and when change is not in their power. How can it be right when, were we in their shoes, global economic forces would demand that we behaved pretty much as they do?
If we want to help and heal the world, we must realise that we are all in the same boat; that no one is really to blame, and that global problems are caused by the absence of cooperative global governance. Not a world government, simply cooperative global agreements that solve global threats and are designed to be in every nation’s self-interest. “Designed”, because we are now at a stage in human evolution where global cooperation will have to be planned and established consciously and intentionally. Precisely because we are all in the same boat, there is no longer any out-group that might compel us to cooperate. So global cooperation will not happen all by itself. Instead it will have to be consciously planned and chosen. So what might such a plan look like? What might its design criteria be?
If the free movement of capital and corporations is a global phenomenon, our first deduction must be that only a truly global solution could possibly fit the bill. And since the nature of governments’ failure to act is that they are caught in the vicious circle of Destructive Global Competition in which they fear losing jobs and investment to other countries, it follows, secondly, that any solution must be implemented simultaneously by nations. If all or sufficient nations act simultaneously, no nation, corporation or citizens need lose out to any other: global and simultaneous – everybody wins. But since dominant nations may not see global cooperation as in their interests and would seek to free-ride and undermine global cooperation, our solution must give citizens the power to compel their governments to cooperate. Our solution must not just be global and simultaneous but also be driven by citizens.
For a few years, now, a relatively small number of citizens in a number of countries have been test-running a global solution which meets all the above design criteria. Over the course of recent general elections in the UK, for example, they succeeded in getting 100 Members of the UK parliament from all the main political parties to pledge to implement the campaign’s global policy package simultaneously alongside other governments. In some highly marginal UK electoral constituencies, all the main candidates signed the pledge, meaning the campaign gained a seat in parliament regardless of which candidate won the seat. Comparable results have also been achieved in the Irish, German, Australian and European parliaments.
“If we want to help and heal the world, we must realise that we are all in the same boat.”
But how could a relatively small number of citizens achieve such big results in such a short time? The answer lies in their discovery of a new and powerful way to use their votes. They do this by making it clear to all politicians that they’ll be giving strong voting preference in all future national elections to politicians or parties who pledge to implement the campaign’s policy package simultaneously alongside other governments. So, politicians who sign the Pledge gain an electoral advantage and yet they risk nothing because the policy package only gets implemented if and when sufficient governments around the world have signed up to it too. But if a politician fails to sign the Pledge s/he risks losing votes to their political competitors who signed instead, and so could risk losing their seats. With many parliamentary seats and even entire elections around the world often hanging on a relatively small number of votes, it’s not difficult to see that only relatively few campaign supporters will be needed to make it in the vital survival interests of politicians, parties and eventually governments to sign up. And therein lies the power that citizens already have, even in dominant countries such as the USA, to ensure that their governments sign up and cooperate. So, the power to create a better world is already in our hands – we only have to use it; we only have to realise it.
The campaign we’re talking about is called the Simultaneous Policy (or SIMPOL, for short). As one politician who signed the Pledge commented, “The compelling logic of Simultaneous Policy is really collective common sense – it’s a campaign to find out how common sense really is!”
John Bunzl is a businessman and the founder of The International Simultaneous Policy Organisation, or SIMPOL. He has spent the past 20 years raising awareness about the need for global cooperation. You can support SIMPOL by signing up here.