Review - The Economics of Happiness

On Tuesday night I attended a film screening at Rancho Notorious (its the space upstairs at Thousand Pound Bend, for those of you playing at home).The film was The Economics of Happiness - one I've been trying to see for a little while now. It is a really interesting discussion of globalisation and the issues it creates. It investigates an apparent contradiction -  the constant pursuit of economic growth in the developed world resulting in increasing levels of unhappiness and distress in the west, alongside an increasingly dire social situation in the developing world.

The film is steered by Helena Norberg-Hodge - a researcher who has dedicated her life to investigating the impact of economic development on agriculture and cultural evolution. She discusses these impacts in the context of the Ladakhi people from Tibet, an isolated community that until the 1970s was thriving on local economic and social engagement, living a relatively simple way of life with a surprisingly high standard of living - a life that she describes as "joyous and rich".

I've recently submitted a thesis on the role of corporations in the environmental movement, especially in our current neoliberal free-market economic landscape. Not surprisingly, many of the themes I explored in my essay were touched on in the film, though framed in a slightly different way.

Historically, economic growth has always been the aim of the game. In our modern era, with the developed world having already achieved high levels of employment, infrastructure and affluence, the economic growth sought by consumer culture becomes problematic. When this infiltrates the community of the Ladakhis, it creates unemployment, depression, and an internal perception of poverty, all in just 30 short years.

As was discussed with friends this week, one critical issue is that "ours isn't a free market". The level to which subsidies, commercial lobbying and inequality in free-trade agreements preference transnational corporations means that our global economy could not function without state support. I'm pretty sure this isn't what was intended. This balance ensures social, ecological and personal wellbeing (which is often completely at odds from the commercial agenda) will become further and further from our grasp as long as growth is pursued.

The film proposes localisation - the antithesis to globalisation - as a way to counteract our projected pathway, and to me, the rationale seems sound. An example given was the local bookshop: it returns (on average) $45 to the local economy, as opposed to a chain store which returns approximately $13. If these figures are translated to food, services, clothing, recreation, etc. the impacts are huge!

Not only that, the environmental impacts of buying locally are significant. This is particularly evident with fashion, where a garment produced by an international retailer could have already been to 4 or 5 different countries during the production process before it even lands in store, with much of its true environmental impact still to come.

True localisation isn't just visiting the farmers market once in a while. The film shows how much of an impact local economies can have. Returning to community based activities has big social benefits, not to mention the fact that it can help to correct economic and environmental imbalances.

I would love to discuss this in much more detail and hear your thoughts on the film, globalisation and economic growth, or why you like shopping local.

Systems Thinking

I'm deep in essay writing mode - its 7am and I've been at it for approximately 12 hours. I'm currently writing about the limits of environmental CSR initiatives in a neoliberal economy.Needless to say, it got me thinking about paradigm shifts. Conveniently, Donella Meadows is one of my key sources. Here are two extracts from Places to Intervene in Systems in Order of Increasing Effectiveness.

People who manage to intervene in systems at the level of paradigm hit a leverage  point that totally transforms systems.

You could say paradigms are harder to change than anything else about a system, and therefore this item should be lowest on the list, not the highest. But there's nothing  physical or expensive or even slow about paradigm change. In a single individual it can happen in a millisecond. All it takes is a click in the mind, a new way of seeing. Of course individuals and societies do resist challenges to their paradigm harder than they resist any other kind of change.

So how do you change paradigms? Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the seminal book about  the great paradigm shifts of science, has a lot to say about that. In a nutshell, you keep  pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm, you come yourself, loudly, with assurance, from the new one, you insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don't waste time with reactionaries; rather you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded.

Systems folks would say one way to change a paradigm is to model a system, which takes you outside the system and forces you to see it whole. We say that because our own paradigms have been changed that way.

...

The highest leverage of all is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to realize that NO paradigm is "true," that even the one that sweetly shapes one's comfortable worldview is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe.

It is to "get" at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny. It is to let go into Not Knowing.developer.

People who cling to paradigms (just about all of us) take one look at the spacious possibility that everything we think is guaranteed to be nonsense and pedal rapidly in the opposite direction. Surely there is no power, no control, not even a reason for being, much less acting, in the experience that there is no certainty in any worldview. But everyone who has managed to entertain that idea, for a moment or for a lifetime, has found it a basis for radical empowerment. If no paradigm is right, you can choose one that will help achieve your purpose. If you have no idea where to get a purpose, you can listen to the universe (or put in the name of your favorite deity here) and do his, her, its will, which is a lot better informed than your will.

It is in the space of mastery over paradigms that people throw off addictions, live in constant joy, bring down empires, get locked up or burned at the stake or crucified or shot, and have impacts that last for millennia.

Back from the sublime to the ridiculous, from enlightenment to caveats. There is so much that has to be said to qualify this list. It is tentative and its order is slithery. There are exceptions to every item on it. Having the list percolating in my subconscious for years has not transformed me into a Superwoman. I seem to spend my time running up and down the list, trying out leverage points wherever I can find them. The higher the leverage point, the more the system resists changing it—that's why societies rub out truly enlightened beings.

I don't think there are cheap tickets to system change. You have to work at it, whether that means rigorously analyzing a system or rigorously casting off paradigms. In the end, it seems that leverage has less to do with pushing levers than it does with disciplined thinking combined with strategically, profoundly, madly letting go."

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The Ethics of Affluence/Existential Crisis

I live a good life.As much as I sometimes struggle to pay my mortgage, I sometimes work more than I'd like to and can't take as many holidays as some, I generally have everything I could want or need. I also am fortunate enough to have a great deal of choice as to how I live my life. I spend my working (and playing) life on pursuits I enjoy.

I also read a lot.

And as a rule I don't read a lot of fluffy, happy, easy stuff. Much of what I read makes me really, really sad and embarrassed to be someone who contributes to the great imbalance of global economic and social conditions. I know that the way I live my life contributes to the continuing deterioration of our natural environment, the social injustices carried out all over the world.

I spend a lot of time with people who are aware of and concerned about how the current state of global business and industry looks. I purposely surround myself with people who are motivated to make a positive social impact, to change the world for the better.

Those of you who know me, know that I am passionate about bringing awareness to the industry and the public about the real effects of a multi-billion dollar global trade like the fashion industry. I want people to be aware of what situations they are enabling when they buy fast fashion goods, and of what they can do to support a different kind of system.

I am frequently overwhelmed by it all though.

I know I'm not the only one who feels like the system is broken. But do we really have no choice but to continue to operate within the system we hate? What is the alternative? Falling off the grid and joining a commune?

I often wonder how I manage to go about my daily business while I'm aware of the fact that children are used to produce the chocolate I sometimes eat while I'm watching TV or the fact that the t-shirt I wear will likely end up adding to the massive problem of textile waste in this country? Is it just a matter of suspending this awareness for a period while I eat my chocolate? The further removed I am from the direct consequences of my choices the easier it is for me to ignore the reality.

Is there something wrong with me that I'm not satisfied with ignoring the reality? That I cannot see myself continuing to exist here in Australia in my ivory tower, drinking lattes, playing with my iphone and accumulating things I'll never use?

Where to from here?