ACT HAS A PROBLEM: one which it shares with just about every other Western conservative party; Climate Change. William F. Buckley, who founded, and for many years edited, the thoughtfully right-wing magazine, The National Review, described a conservative as “someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” All very well when the forces driving history are human; but not helpful at all when inhuman forces are driving events, and yelling “Stop!” will in no way slow them down.
At present, Act isn’t really addressing the Climate Change crisis seriously. Oh sure, it pays lip service to the reality of anthropogenic global warming, but its policies show scant evidence of serious thought about the problem that is going to dominate the economics and politics of the next fifty years.
Out in rural and provincial New Zealand, for example, the Act Leader, David Seymour, and his colleagues are attracting big audiences. Farmers, their families, and voters working in businesses associated with farming, are angry with the Labour Government, and disillusioned with their traditional electoral champions in the National Party.
Act understands that rural New Zealanders are feeling put upon and devalued by urban New Zealanders; that they are chafing under an ever-increasing number of government rules and regulations. Keen to draw these voters away from National, Seymour is not about to tell his audiences that life on the land is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.
Instead, he promises to abolish the Climate Change Commission and make a bonfire of the Government’s regulations and red-tape. The cockies, of course, applaud, and Act’s poll-numbers rise. For the moment, that’s all Seymour and his party care about. Their mission is to drag National’s numbers down to around 20 percent, and pump their own up into the hight teens. At that point (as Labour discovered vis-à-vis the Alliance) the whole equation on the Right could very easily unravel – leaving Act as the runaway favourite of conservative voters.
All very well, but if the ultimate balance of political forces leaves the Right sharing 40-45 percent of the Party Vote, and the Left in firm command with 55-60 percent, then Act will find itself all dressed up, but with nowhere to go.
What’s more, without a coherent and believable policy response to the unrelenting pressures of Climate Change, Act could easy end up becoming the top-dog in a conservative kennel that gets smaller and smaller with every passing year.
In ten years’ time, the big political and economic arguments will have moved well beyond the Neoliberal shibboleths that defined the period between 1979 and 2008. In ten years’ time, Capitalism itself will be struggling to retain the support of a majority of citizens – even in the West.
Parties like National and Act will find themselves in the same unenviable position as the reactionary political movements that advocated for the return of absolute monarchy in the early-to-mid nineteenth century. It won’t be a case of them having no supporters, merely of having too few to count any longer as a serious force. History will have rolled right over them. Their last, unheeded, words will be: “It’s not stopping!”
Regarding the politics of the future, the lines of division are already becoming clear. The battle will no longer be between capitalists and socialists: comprehensive state control of the economy will be taken for granted. How else could humanity have responded with any degree of effectiveness to devastating floods and droughts; heatwaves and cold-snaps; rising seas and advancing deserts? No, the political battles of the future will be between those who still believe that science can and will rescue humanity from the ravages of Climate Change; and those who offer a new “green” paradigm for the way in which human societies interact with the natural world.
In the elections of the future, the followers of Scientism will contend for power with the followers of Ecologism. A meritocratic technocracy will find itself opposed by an anarchistic collectivity of simple-lifers. The technocrats, based overwhelmingly in the cities, will be trapped in a frustratingly symbiotic relationship with the simple-lifers – for the very simple reason that, overwhelmingly, it will be the rural simple-lifers who grow the food. Dependent upon one another, and united in their struggle to survive in an overheated world, the parties of Scientism and Ecologism will be constantly re-defining and re-negotiating the terms of their co-existence, while contending jointly with an increasingly hostile planet. Parties determined to rehearse the arguments for and against capitalism/socialism will have become utterly irrelevant.
Ironically, it was the recent “Groundswell” protests that anticipated the fundamental political proposition of the Climate Change-driven future: those Tractors bearing placards declaring “No Farmers, No Food” spoke more truly than they knew.
For Act, that fundamental division between technocrat and simple-lifer offers a straightforward path to political survival. Ever since the father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, wrote “Reflections Upon the Revolution in France” conservatives have celebrated the slow rhythms of the seasons and the tiny, incremental changes that shape the world beyond the mad rush (and even madder ideas) of the city. A party that celebrated the stoic virtues of rural living and was content to be instructed by Mother Nature, would find many followers. Alternatively, as a party of libertarian individualists, an urban culture – based upon the unsentimental rigors of scientific expertise – might offer Act’s followers a better fit. As they used to say in the Middle Ages: “City air makes you free.”
The world to come: the world shaped by Climate Change; will not be a neoliberal, or even a capitalist, world. The state will offer and organise whatever defence still avails humanity. It will hold the ring while the children of Climate Change weigh the relative merits of the “technological fix”versus the simple life of the ecologically-friendly farmer.
William F Buckley’s peremptory demand that History stop in its tracks is profoundly unrealistic. The key conservative insight has always been that, while History cannot be stopped, it can be ridden.
While National resigns itself to going “gentle into that good night”, Act just needs to learn how to hold on tight.
We need to stop treating the laws of commerce like some sort of religion and start living by the laws of physics instead. Physics, you know, Life the universe and everything !
That’s that indigenous / Maori movement that that psychology professor from Auckland was talking about when he said Maori science, isn’t science.
I see a far bleaker future where the state (as ruled by Wellington elite) no longer holds sway. Having collapsed due to lack of finance from a economy no longer functioning and their ability to field an effective army, to enforce their rules, is limited.
Rule of the land will be by tribal feudalism. People will form loose tribal associations based on location and common purpose. The rise of the war lord will be here. Those tribes (and not just Maori tribes) strength will be based their ability to defend and conquer, resources and land, from and against their neighbour. This is how mankind originally ruled themselves and will do so again.
Once the state has collapsed there will be a succession of feudal kingdoms constantly at war over resources and land. We will go through another “Dark Age” but it will be interesting if after 500 years some sort of civilization will reestablish itself.
Capitalsm, Communism, and other societal constructs are only possible in peacetime and with cooperation between tribes. I don’t see those constructs coming back whilst the rule of the weapon reigns.
I’m afraid you are absolutely right.
Throughout history, groups of humans have fought bitterly over resources, and attempted to annihilate the competition.
What characterised the period approximately 1820 to 2021 has been the use of fossil fuels to facilitate severe population overshoot, and to fight wars for resources.
Without access to fossil fuels and machinery that runs on fossil fuels, the humans that manage to get through the first bottlenecks will be reduced to fighting with stick and stones and bows and arrows….just as their distant ancestors did before fossil fuels facilitated elaborate machines for killing people and stealing resources.
The big difference between the future and the pre-industrial past is that our ancestors had the benefit of easily-extracted resources, abundant wildlife and stable climate: they are all gone via the orgy of unrestrained consumption promoted by bankers, industrialists, economists and politicians.
Well put……so it’s about intelligent control of the ‘down slope’ rather than accelerating towards a collapse due to a ‘head in the sand’ mentally presently followed by 99.9% of the world.
That’s bleak, Gerrit, but plausible. I hope to God you’re wrong.
I agree it is bleak, Chris.
Unfortunately, all the evidence indicates our corrupt and inept (or wittingly ignorant and obstinately stupid -it makes no difference) political establishment will just keep doing what they have always done, which is to facilitate looting and polluting of the Earth.
What characterises the current period of the burgeoning crisis is the promotion of non-solutions -such as electric cars and ‘Carbon Trading’- by governments and bureaucracies (even subsidies for that which does nothing to address emissions), and the ABSOLUTE REFUSAL to address any of the prime drivers of Planetary Meltdown, i.e. Ponzi finance -dependent on interest paid on debt- consumerism, overpopulation, tourism, corporatised sport etc.
Indeed, the very idea of abandoning consumerism is entirely taboo for the political establishment…and so they will keep doing what they do (accompanied by ever bigger lies) until they can’t.
Policy amounts to futile (and counter-productive) attempts to sustain that which is unsustainable, leading to even more squandering of resources and yet more pollution. I see at at all levels, from central government down to the local inept and in-denial council, and the do-nothing mayor.
That is why there is no real hope for industrial humans in so-called democracies, in which the dollar determines everything, including the fate of humanity.
Only a mass abandoning of consumerism by the masses and adoption of Permaculture has any hope of preserving the habitability of the Earth.
Do you see any indication of a widescale abandonment of consumerism, Chris?
I don’t.
I am yet to see you or Martyn use the word Permaculture.
I think you may have watched to much Mad Max over lockdown
The laws of commerce aren,t laws at all. More some everchanging hodgepodge of hope driven by greed and consumerism.
You are starting to sound religious which is a bit of a concern given the dark ages were about 500 years in the past. Given the tendency of history to repeat & the knowledge that the majority do not always make good decisions (although I still defend their right to make those decisions) along with the potential problems to come there would appear to be every chance that some form of religious power (especially if it could form some sort of unity between the major religions around the world) could arise.
Bonnie,
Not much difference between the warlord or the church. Catholic church in the dark ages was as brutal as any warlord. Religion will not cut the mustard unless it takes up arms to defeat the infidels. Once it does that it becomes like any other warlord. It simply carries a cross or sickle on its banner.
As is being witnessed currently in Afghanistan.
My take is that when people bemoan Labour, the 38% ers, the other 62% just don’t see ACT nor National as a credible alternative. I.have not seen one credible answer to what the opposition would do to correct all of today’s issues. All I here is yap, yap yap. So if Labour are useless, as many say, the alternative is less than useless.
You were doing well until you introduced the puerile and false dichotomy of scientism and ecologism.
I’d be delighted, Richard, if you could come up with better ones! Names that capture the dichotomy between solutions grounded in human technological hubris, and solutions based on a genuine respect for Nature’s limits. I’m the first to admit that “Scientism” and “Ecologism” are less than elegant nouns.
I’ll start by saying I agree climate damage (its not change any more than PTSD isn’t shell shock) is real and an existential problem.
That said, lets be honest, the reality is none of the current parties are showing much interest in this problem. The Labour govt has been dragged kicking and screaming at the behest of negative public opinion and activism from groups like Greenpeace to do something, anything, such as promoting EV’s, but its nowhere near enough.
The problem is in large part industrial farming but no ones making the move to compensate farmers and require farm sizes be reduced across the whole of the country to sustainable levels.
To be fair Australia has done even worse than us but its cold or is that warm comfort, when the planet gets hotter and hotter and food stocks fall ever lower and bee numbers keep declining.
In short, this is not a case of one side or another. Its problem that to date no political entity has shown many signs of wanting to fix but then maybe politicians and politics are no longer what’s needed. They worry about upsetting their conservative supporters so half measures is all we get.
Maybe its up to us to demand those causing the damage change or stop buying what they are selling until they do.
“They worry about upsetting their conservative supporters so half measures is all we get.”
Yes. Gutless, self serving politicians for sure. However, the problem is actually the supporters!
Well said mate.
‘All very well when the forces driving history are human; but not helpful at all when inhuman forces are driving events, and yelling “Stop!” will in no way slow them down.’
It was our responsibility [to the next generation] to stop driving overheating when it could have been stopped by radically reducing emissions.
But the corporate liars and other saboteurs of the future (ACT, LINO, National, the Greeds etc.) were able to manipulate the masses into orchestrating their own demise in the pursuit of money and materialism.
Yep, Jimmy Carter tried to ‘make the change’ but the oil industries, plus the media, made sure the oil-God loving Regan got in.
First thing Regan did was remove the solar panels on the white house roof that Carter put there, plus roll back the ‘mpg’ rules put in place during the USA’s oil crises’, such that the USA cars typically use twice as much petrol as European cars. JUST Insane.
What’s with all this ridiculous situation whereby Sam’s post are all in vertical single letters?
Is this a way to shut people down? Pretty poor in my opinion.
It’s nothing. You can switch to desktop while on your mobile and it’ll frame it better.
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