Week 39: A letter from year 2050. ESG on a Sunday. Oct. 3, 2021.
Dear all,
The year is 2050. Most of us are old, and some of us are wandering through the fields of Valhalla with sun in our faces and songs of glory and past memories in our ears.
The world in 2050 is different. In so many ways. Back in the 2020s, the majority of the population on planet Earth came to realise that the economic models based on continuous growth and consumption resulting in continuous depletion of earth’s resources, inequality, climate crisis were not serving a purpose for very many.
Yes, initially – in the mid 2020s – political elites tried to maintain beliefs and control the narrative around a model of society based on profit maximisation and individual pursuit of happiness defined as material status. All of that changed rapidly in the beginning of the 2030s. The climate crisis, and the spiraling inequality propelled by it, caused tectonic shifts in societies around the world. The amount of storms, droughts, and unpredicted weather events increased 10-fold in a very short period of time.
The middle classes, the beacons of growth in the consumption-based economies of the developing world, started questioning the system and its ability to sustain safety and security of their lives. The CO2 emissions that were supposed to peak in 2030 were growing despite symbolic efforts, mainly based on trying to cope with the consequences and not the causes.
Off-setting technologies were providing some solutions, but mostly to maintain a narrative in the developing countries that something was happening. By the end of the 2030s, the forests of the world were owned by a few individuals to compensate for their enormous CO2 emissions. And, occasionally, to sell credits to states that needed financing to feed growing populations.
The solutions provided in the beginning of the 2020s, like electric cars, were abandoned, mostly due to lack of the materials used to sustain them. New technologies were tested for years, and instead of vehicles, more and more people demanded entirely new transport solutions.
The energy supply from nuclear increased in mid-2030s, but in the 2040s the majority of the global energy supply was burned energy. Coal, oil and gas.
In the beginning of 2040s, movements around the world emerged questioning the purpose of the very system they were living in, working and dying for. In the political debates around the world, in the boardrooms, in the elite schools, at the desks of the dodgy bars in the outskirts of megacities, in the sweatshops, on the streets, a new narrative was emerging. A narrative about the purpose of living on this planet. About other kinds of happiness, not defined by material profits, not defined by the lines on the maps we draw, not by race, religion or even gender. A narrative built on local and regional cooperation, human and nature centric. A collective consciousness based on the profound connectivity of humanity and nature.
From 2042 an onwards, that narrative redefined the purpose of the economic models, from few to many. The new age of humanity began.
Banks, investors and insurers are driving oil and gas expansion in the Arctic
The world in 2050 will indeed be different, much different. Reading the above makes 2021 seem like a rather dull place. But we are still here.
There are many scenarios about what the future could look like, and many different opinions about where our current modus operandi will lead us. A perpetual circular energy flowing through our societies, through time, space and our imagination. Where are we going from here?
Some people are already setting the scene for what is to come.
According to Lord Deben, aka John Gummer, who chairs UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change, it would be a mistake to frighten people too much on climate change, despite the challenge the world faces. Lord Deben recently said that, yes, the situation is “catastrophic”, but if you scare the public “you don't get people to act”. Instead his committee says “drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”.
Well, in that case I think we should “drink and be merry” for this one about extraction in the Arctic too. But more out of sorrow.
As it turns out, oil and gas firms are planning to ramp up their fossil-fuel extraction in the Arctic by more than 20 per cent over the next five years, partly thanks to the financial support they receive from the banking sector, according to a new report by Reclaim Finance.
The report lists France’s Total as the leading European energy firm when it comes to oil and gas expansion in the fragile polar region – with its production expected to increase by 28 percent over the next decade. But the Russian energy giant Gazprom is considered the biggest Arctic predator, since 74 percent of its reserves are based there.
Other energy companies with short-term expansion plans in the Arctic are the US’s ConocoPhillips, Norway’s Equinor, Spain’s Repsol and Dutch Shell.
From 2016 to 2020, commercial banks have channeled more than $314 bn to the leading companies developing new oil and gas projects in the Arctic.
The top backers of Arctic expansionists include banks who have committed to restricting oil and gas financing in the Arctic: JPMorgan Chase (top globally with $18.6bn between 2016-2020), Barclays (4th largest, $13.2bn) Citigroup (6th, $12.2bn) and BNP Paribas (7th, $11.8bn).
European banks account for more than a quarter of the global underwriting and loans to Arctic developers, with increasing support from 2016 ($16.6bn) to 2020 ($28.4bn). Two European banks – HSBC and BNP Paribas – were top bankers of Arctic expansionists in 2020.
As per March 2021, investors hold roughly $272 bn in the top companies developing new oil and gas projects in the Arctic region. The biggest investors supporting Arctic expansionists include BlackRock, Vanguard and Amundi.
You can read how banks, investors and insurers are driving oil and gas expansion in the Arctic in the report.
But please bear in mind that all of the above mentioned financial institutions are, by any means necessary, “sustainable”……..
The disastrous rush to mine the deep sea
Keep drinking now, and go for the harder stuff, whiskey or vodka. Yes, it’s Sunday, but what you are about to read demands something stronger.
One of the largest mining operations ever seen on Earth aims to despoil an ocean we are only barely beginning to understand.
In late June, the island republic of Nauru informed the International Seabed Authority (ISA) based in Kingston, Jamaica of its intention to start mining the seabed in two years’ time via a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, The Metals Company (TMC, until recently known as DeepGreen).
As harmless as it may sound, this note was a starting gun for a resource race on the planet’s last vast frontier: the abyssal plains that stretch between continental shelves deep below the oceans. In the three months since it was fired, the sound of that shot has reverberated through government offices, conservation movements and scientific academies, and is now starting to reach a wider public, who are asking how the fate of the greatest of global commons can be decided by a sponsorship deal between a tiny island and a multinational mining corporation.
The risks are enormous. Oversight is almost impossible. Regulators admit humanity knows more about deep space than the deep ocean. The technology is unproven. Scientists are not even sure what lives in those profound ecosystems. State governments have yet to agree on a rulebook on how deep oceans can be exploited. No national ballot has ever included a vote on excavating the seabed.
Conservationists, including David Attenborough and Chris Packham, argue it is reckless to go ahead with so much uncertainty and such potential devastation ahead.
Mining companies insist on urgency – to start exploration. They say the minerals – copper, cobalt, nickel and manganese – are essential for a green transition. If the world wants to decarbonize and reach net-zero emissions by 2050, they say we must start extracting the resources for car batteries and wind turbines soon.
They already have exploration permits for an expanse of international seabed as large as France and Germany combined, an area that is likely to expand rapidly. All they need now is a set of internationally agreed operating rules.
Read more here.
A corporate logic to absolve climate sins
Are you ok? How do you feel? Want another one? Maybe a bottle this time?
After reading about the Arctic, I left for a walk in the forest nearby where I live. I had to. I could not “drink” any more. I had to touch the trees and look at the autumn leaves doing their tango with the northern wind, before landing on the humid ground.
The human relationship with forests goes way back. Nowadays, forests and their capacity to process CO2 emissions are used as compensation sinks so we can continue doing what we shouldn’t. As I walked around in the forest I was wondering who has used the carbon credits from the different trees I was looking at. Corporate names are still not there, but I would not be surprised if it will happen very soon.
At first glance, big corporations appear to be protecting great swaths of the U.S. forests in the fight against climate change. JPMorgan Chase (yes, them again) has paid almost $1 million to preserve forestland in eastern Pennsylvania. And forty miles away, Walt Disney Co. has spent hundreds of thousands to keep the city of Bethlehem, Pa., from aggressively harvesting a forest that surrounds its reservoirs.
Across the state line in New York, BlackRock (yes, also them again) has paid thousands to the city of Albany to refrain from cutting trees around its reservoirs.
JPMorgan, Disney, and BlackRock tout these projects as an important mechanism for slashing their own large carbon footprints. By funding the preservation of carbon-absorbing forests, the companies say, they’re offsetting the carbon-producing impact of their global operations. But in all of those cases, the land was never threatened; the trees were already part of well-preserved forests.
Rather than dramatically change their operations – JPMorgan executives continue to jet around the globe, Disney’s cruise ships still burn oil, and BlackRock’s office buildings gobble up electricity – the corporations are working with the Nature Conservancy, the world’s largest environmental group, to employ far-fetched logic to help absolve them of their climate sins.
By taking credit for saving well-protected land, these companies are reducing nowhere near the pollution that they claim.
The market for these credits is booming, according to BloombergNEF. In the first 10 months of this year, companies used more than 55.1 million carbon credits to offset their emissions (equivalent to the pollution from 12 million cars), a 28% increase from the same period in 2019.
While some of these credits are paying for projects that are truly reducing emissions, an unknown number represent inflated claims.
Greenwashing is rife – poor ESG standards partly to blame
Dear friends. The greenwashing we are facing today is rife.
Environmental, social and governance funds do little to drive change, largely because they rely on ESG rankings and other data that set the bar for good corporate citizenship “abysmally low”, research suggests.
Most sustainability funds, and the data underpinning them, focus on relative performance of metrics based on self-reported data, rather than on the absolute impact of their business activities on social or environmental goals, according to a report published last week from Util, a London-based fintech, that crunches publicly disclosed data to measure impact on sustainability goals.
As a result, sustainable funds look like and impact the world much like “vanilla funds”, the report noted. “Sustainable funds perform a little less badly, but the net impact is still bad,” it said.
Ok, that bottle that I wrote above before… Today it almost feels like an entire distillery would not be enough.
The world in 2050 will be so different.
That’s all for today.
How Would You Know? Raelle Kaia. Oct. 19, 2021.
If you were living in a totalitarian system, who would tell you?
It can be hard to know what to make of politics and society these days. Events seem to have overtaken us—there’s hardly enough energy to adapt to the massive societal shifts we’re living through. There’s hardly enough time to stop and consider whether or not we agree with these changes. To save us that time and energy, we’ve been offered a fairly simple narrative to explain things. It goes something like this:
There’s an incredibly dangerous pandemic raging, and duty-bound world leaders are scrambling hard to patch together a response to protect the people and prevent as much harm as possible. Fortunately, these leaders are able to consult with the finest scientific and medical minds in industry and academia, and at NGOs like the World Health Organization and the CDC. These responsible and honest technocrats have suggested a variety of important public safety measures such as imposing mass lockdowns, social distancing, business and school closures, and mandatory wearing of face masks. These measures have all been helpful in curtailing the deaths and harm caused by the pandemic, even though billions of people around the world have had to sacrifice to do so.
Meanwhile, the modern miracle of medical and scientific advancement has yielded a powerful new tool in the ongoing fight against the pandemic: a vaccine which offers very high levels of protection against the virus in question, and is extremely safe for all people to take. There are a few exceedingly rare cases of people having bad reactions to the new vaccines, but it probably doesn’t cause any actual deaths. After all, our leaders are encouraging, coercing, and mandating these vaccines with vaccine passport regimes. It would be ghoulish of them to force or coerce every man woman and child to take a vaccine if it actually killed or seriously injured some of them. The fact that they are imposing these mandates and coercions is evidence enough to assure us we can trust this policy.
That first-glance take on things is sufficient for many people, but many others find holes and gaps in it. You wouldn’t be reading this article in the first place if you were totally satisfied by that first-glance narrative. You would know better than to even open a link to an article talking about totalitarianism. Our leaders in government and media have made it clear that such subjects of thought are off limits: Do not open the links. Do not entertain dangerous ideas. Stay away from people who critique what is going on. Speak no words to them. Maintain barriers in your mind. Do your part to stop the spread of ideas that undermine public health and confidence in our government. Rest assured—totalitarianism is something that doesn’t really happen. Or maybe it happened back in the bad old days, but it’s impossible now. After all, if we were watching a totalitarian system implement itself before our very eyes, we would know it. Right?
But how would you know? Who would tell you? Would the news media tell you? Would your government tell you? Would the public health institutions tell you?
Let us consider the features of life that currently prevail in the zeitgeist of 2021. Most people in the Western World are currently living under a system in which governing institutions have declared and exercised the right to police the free movement of citizens, to prevent or limit public and private gatherings, to curtail free speech and the free press, to shut down small businesses and churches, to fire people from their jobs (and prohibit them from working at a new one)—all by executive decree issued under emergency powers with no due process. Even the most personal and intimate parts of the citizen’s life and body are regulated by these decrees. Examples include the forced obstruction of the breath and face, mandatory pharmaceutical products that must be injected into the body, and the need to provide digital or paper compliance passports in order to enter public spaces or work.
Any reader familiar with the meaning of the word totalitarian will recognize the paragraph above as describing the foundations of a totalitarian system. In a totalitarian system, the governing authorities assume power over and micromanage every aspect of life. There are no individual or minority group rights that constrain this power. That is what makes totalitarianism “total.” This governing agenda is promulgated by the mass media, the state, industry representatives, public health institutions, and by other NGOS, depending on how the system is constructed.
In addition to formal prohibitions and decrees, totalitarianism includes a cultural/societal element. Certain ideas and beliefs become verboten: namely, ideas and beliefs that undermine or criticize the totalitarian measures. When such ideas are expressed, they are met with swift denouncement and condemnation. The speaker of such ideas is shunned. The ideas must never be entertained—must never be engaged with—must never receive a fair hearing. Any speech that undermines the governing authority is too dangerous to merit consideration.
“Sure,” you might say, “In that sense, you could describe current conditions as totalitarian, but what you’re saying totally lacks context. These measures are all temporary. They are all required to fight a deadly pandemic. As soon as the need to fight the deadly pandemic goes away, so will the conditions you describe as totalitarian.”
All very well and good. But what if these conditions aren’t meant to be temporary? What if they aren’t even helpful in dealing with covid? How would you know? Who would tell you?
How long must this form of governance persist before you suspect it is intended to be permanent? How long before you suspect you are being conditioned to accept a New Normal that has nothing to do with covid? After two weeks to flatten the curve has come and gone? After Three months? One year? Two years? Five years? Ten years? How will you know when it has been too long? Who will tell you?
Even the most faithful believer in the prevailing system has likely heard rumblings of rumored objections to the prevailing narrative. Some examples include the claim that the covid vaccines don’t prevent infection or transmission—Or that natural immunity provides much stronger protection than the vaccines (in addition to actually preventing infection and transmission)—Or that the protection the vaccines do provide wears off in only a few months—Or that tens of thousands of people have been killed by the vaccines, with hundreds of thousands injured (often seriously injured)—Or that effective early treatments such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and vitamins C and D3 are being suppressed—Or that the risk and deadliness of covid has been greatly exaggerated, and would furthermore be greatly reduced by the widespread use of the suppressed early treatment protocols—Or that mask-wearing does nothing to stop the spread of covid—Or that covid almost never spreads through asymptomatic transmission—Or that covid testing protocols produce a high rate of false positives—Or that the death counts from covid are inflated by counting anyone who dies from any cause after a recent positive covid test as having died from covid—Or that the spread of the Delta Variant, and other covid variants, were actually caused by immune escape due to mass vaccination—Or that the same governments and public figures ordering mandates and lockdowns are themselves responsible for creating SarsCov2 as a bioweapon in contravention of international law.
You may have heard some or all of these things, and you may have heard them described as misinformation, or conspiracy theories, or fake news. You may have heard this from the corporate media or public officials. But what if some of the things listed above were true? How would you know? Who would tell you?
“The media would tell me,” may be an automatic response. Or perhaps, “The government would tell me,” or “public health officials would tell me.” And they would tell you. If you weren’t living in a corrupt system—they would tell you. But what if you were living in a corrupt system and you didn’t know it? How would you find out? Who would tell you?
That podcast or documentary you’re not supposed to look at would tell you. That friend you stopped talking to because they won’t take the jab would tell you. I would tell you. But you’re not supposed to talk to or listen to any of us. The government/media/public health complex has told you not to. Here’s an interesting question to ask: Who would be more likely to forbid you from listening to someone warning you of encroaching totalitarianism? A totalitarian? Or an honest actor only interested in faithfully reporting the truth?
But why listen to me? Or the friend or family member you canceled? Or the forbidden news source or podcast? We’re just people. We don’t have any special claim to truth. We might be able to provide you with facts, evidence, and reasoning. CNN and Dr. Fauci have facts, evidence, and reasoning too. You would have to compare and contrast what you were being told and see what lines up and what doesn’t. You would have to consider the possibility that you might be living in a totalitarian system. You would have to trust yourself and check in with your own intuition and reasoning. You would have to decide for yourself.
Dare to Consider
This leads us to the primary obstacle in resolving the questions above. If you were living in a totalitarian system, there is one thing that would keep you from realizing it, more than anything else: Refusing to consider it as a possibility.
Let’s imagine the example of a congenial fellow by the name of Credulous Craig. He wishes no particular harm to anyone and would like to just go about his business in peace, trusting the authorities to basically take care of things. When the authorities tell him what the new rules are, he doesn’t question those rules. Instead, he closely studies the new rules are so he can comply with them correctly. Craig doesn’t believe he could be living in a totalitarian or corrupt system. That seems outlandish to him.
If Craig were living in a totalitarian system, it would be impossible for him to know it as long as he refused to consider the possibility. The totalitarian media would tell him he was free. The totalitarian government leaders would tell him he was free. The totalitarian public health officials would tell him he was free. There would be a dissident down the road losing her access to work, free movement, places of public accommodation, medical care, and other human rights—that person would tell Craig he wasn’t free. But Craig wouldn’t listen to her. He would know that if anything wrong was happening, the media, government, and public health officials would tell him so. Craig would know that it was impossible for him to be living in a totalitarian system as long as he continued to deny it as a possibility.
Perhaps the dissident (let’s call her Incredulous Ingrid) would insist to Craig that he at least consider the possibility they were both living in a totalitarian system. “Fine,” says Craig. “Prove it to me. Show me the evidence that it could be true.” Ingrid shows him the evidence. She shows him data, sources, and reasoning to link the evidence together. But even if Craig finds Ingrid’s reasoning convincing based on the evidence she shows him, his position will not change. “It just couldn’t be true,” Craig will say. “There must be something wrong with your evidence.”
Craig may have been hoping Ingrid’s evidence would be easily refutable, which is why he challenged her to present it to him. But when Ingrid’s reasoning actually started to make sense to Craig, he defaulted back to his initial premise of “it just couldn’t be true.” In this way, Craig protects his sense of security and safety in knowing that his life is in the hands of people he can trust—not people seeking to exploit and harm him (and others). He wants to continue trusting those in power, even if he doesn’t understand why they are doing what they’re doing.
Ingrid could be correct or incorrect about her beliefs, and her evidence could be credible or flimsy. But as long as Craig refuses to consider the possibility of what she is saying, their conversation can have no other conclusion than for Craig to declare, “It just couldn’t be true.”
Ingrid might press him a little bit: “Why couldn’t it be true?” she asks. Craig might respond with something like, “If anything like that was true, there would have to be a massive conspiracy of evil people cackling and twirling their moustaches. That’s not how the world really works. I know that’s not how people really are.”
And then Ingrid might talk to him about how power operates, particularly in a hierarchical model. She might explain to Craig how those at the top of the power structure will always keep secrets, and that these secrets and the social relationships that cement these secrets form the basis of their power. She might explain to him how power is compartmentalized. Those lower down in the hierarchy are only given information on a need-to-know basis, and are not aware of the goals and motivations of those above them. She might explain to him how he is already familiar with such hierarchical and bureaucratic models of power—that this is the model of power that exists in a corporation, in a government, or in a military. She might point out to Craig that even among those who occupy positions of relative power, many will be oblivious to the totalitarian system they serve under. Like Craig, they are also telling themselves that it couldn’t be possible they are living in a totalitarian system. They simply affirm the narrative that tells them those with the most power are acting in service of the greater good. Then they close their eyes and follow the orders given to them from the next rung up on the hierarchy.
Ingrid might describe the Milgram experiment to Craig, which showed a majority of people were willing to administer electric shocks to torture a test subject—even to the point of death—as long as an authority in a white coat told them they were supposed to do so. She might give him examples of totalitarian systems from the past, such as the Soviet Union, Maoist China, or Nazi Germany. She might explain that in such systems, there were only a few super predators in select positions of power at the very top. There were many others in power who were complying to protect themselves, many others who were true believers in the ideology of the system and lost their moral compass along the way, and many others who were just “going along to get along,” assuring themselves that it couldn’t be possible they were living in a corrupt system.
Ingrid might explain to Craig the concept of regulatory capture, showing how predatory corporate interests in pharma, big tech, and finance have paired with philanthropic foundations to “donate” to institutions like the CDC, the NIH, the WHO, and the major media outlets—and to line the pockets of politicians with campaign contributions and multi-million dollar consulting gigs once they’re out of office. She might show him how the bulk of the world’s economy is controlled by a very small number of transnational corporations—how the people who control them serve on multiple boards of directors of multiple companies in various industries. She might explain how the corporations themselves are cross-invested in each other, how gigantic investment firms like Vanguard and Blackrock own controlling interests in every major corporate concern in the world, and how these firms are also cross-invested in each other.
She might demonstrate to Craig how this network of massive capital accumulation and cross-ownership has created a global system in which a small handful of people—just a few thousand, or ultimately even just a few hundred—have ubiquitous control over global policy decisions in both the public and private sectors, crossing international boundaries. When these stakeholders meet to coordinate policy at Davos, Bilderberg, or Jackson Hole, they are able to act as a self-appointed congress, parliament, or politburo. The policies they agree to become policy in governments across the world due to their coordinated financial power.
Having just heard Ingrid explain how it could all be possible, Craig will again declaim, “It just couldn’t be possible.” He will insist that the people in power would tell him about it if this were happening. Ingrid will point out that if the people in power were part of a totalitarian system, they definitely would not expose the corruption behind it. Craig would concede the point, but then he will insist that “someone” would expose the corruption. Ingrid will point out that the corruption already has been exposed. This work has been done by independent journalists, writers, historians, and researchers, as well as by whistleblowers and former insiders—that’s how she learned about it. Then she will provide Craig with a list of websites, books, and publications he can access to view this journalism and research for himself. Craig will decline to look at this information because, “It just couldn’t be true.” He will go back to insisting that if it actually were true, the corporate media, industry spokespersons, and public officials would have told him about it.
What is going on here? What keeps Craig from opening up to the possibility that the system he lives under might be corrupt? One potential reason is that Craig may suspect (or fear) that if he opens up to the possibility he is living under corrupt rule, he may actually become convinced of the fact that he is living under corrupt rule. Then he would have to deal with it.
What would that entail? First, it would entail processing a lot of grief and fear. Craig’s heart would be broken, having trusted the society he lived under, having believed in it, having participated in its rituals, having built personal dreams based on its promise, having supported the flourishing of that system and all that it has done. He would need to process the fear of the unknown, suddenly unsure of who he can trust anymore, or how to trust. He would need to process the fear of living under the power of people who are willing to harm him if it is useful to the realization of their objectives. Most difficult, Craig would now have to adjust his entire social life. He might need to conceal what he really thinks from friends, family, and acquaintances, knowing many of them will shun him if he shares what he has learned. He might need to prepare for losing friends and family if he is not willing to conceal his beliefs from them. He might need to prepare for being shut out of society, finding that he is no longer willing to comply with certain rituals and orders expected of him. He will need to process large amounts of emotional confusion and distress, wondering what is to become of him.
Nobody wants to have to do any of those things. We don’t want to live in a world where such emotional upheavals are a necessity. As a result, most of us will avoid considering the possibility that we live under a thoroughly corrupted leadership class as long as it is possible for us to do so. Someone like Craig might tell himself he already knows his society is corrupt. He knows better than to trust those bumbling and lying politicians and business leaders. He knows the media is slanted and biased. But he is unwilling to consider the possibility of totalitarian corruption—a type of corruption wherein there are no limits. In such a society, it’s not only the politicians, business leaders, and media institutions that are compromised, but so are the medical and scientific institutions we trust with our safety. We trust these institutions to tell us what is true even more than we trust the corporate media. In a totalitarian system, the institutions of science and medicine are indeed compromised, just as they were in Germany, Russia, China, and in other totalitarian societies of the past and present.
If enough members of the public believe “it just couldn’t be true,” then no amount of evidence will ever convince them otherwise, even when it’s happening right under their noses. Totalitarianism will proceed without obstruction. Only when citizens become able to consider the possibility that they might be living under a totalitarian system is it possible for them to acknowledge evidence of its existence.
It is not possible to resist totalitarianism without this awareness, and that is the purpose of this article. Because the covid measures adopted by our governments are totalitarian in their nature, it is paramount that each of us at least consider the possibility that the object of these measures is totalitarian rather than altruistic. If we are not in fact living under a totalitarian system, there will be no harm done in making sure. It’s good practice for citizenship. If, on the other hand, we are currently watching a totalitarian system attempting to take full control over society, it is imperative that we become aware of this so we can break the spell of compliance.
Mass Formation
At this point, it will become helpful to examine totalitarianism as a social-psychological phenomenon. This will shed light on the psychological distress incurred in confronting the possibility that society has become totalitarian. It will also help explain how it is possible for an entire society to fall under a totalitarian spell without even realizing it.
Here, I will be summarizing the work of Mattias Desmet, Belgian professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University. Professor Desmet specializes in mass formation and totalitarianism, drawing from past preeminent scholars on the subject, particularly Gustave le Bon and Hannah Arendt. For a deeper dive into the subject, you can watch this full-length interview with Desmet.
The process by which an entire society falls into a totalitarian way of thinking and living is called mass formation. It is necessary that four psychological conditions exist in ample supply for a society to become vulnerable to mass formation. They are:
1. Abundant levels of free-floating anxiety among the populace
2. Widespread social isolation and alienation
3. Frustrated sense-making and confusion in individual lives
4. Abundant levels of free-floating psychological discontent and lack of purpose and meaning
In considering the state of Western societies in recent years, most of us will recognize that these four conditions have indeed been in abundant and growing supply. Our societies are populated by people who are increasingly isolated from each other, living bereft of meaning and purpose. We have become increasingly anxious as we realize that all is not well in our world, yet we struggle to identify the source of the illness, or to make sense of the societal dysfunction we live within. We are anxious, alienated, confused, and discontented.
With conditions ripe for mass formation, an aspiring totalitarian leadership class will need to utilize mass media to supply the populace with a unifying narrative. This narrative will present the populace with a concrete object of anxiety to focus on in the form of a new threat. The level of fear attached to this new object will be amplified as much as possible. This converts the agonizing free-floating anxiety into manageable concrete form; all anxieties are subsumed and poured into the newly proffered object. The narrative also provides a strategy about how to deal with this object of anxiety, and this resolves the lack of sense-making in the populace. Since all anxiety has been linked to and directed at the proffered object, the people are willing to follow the strategy to deal with this object no matter the cost. This is the beginning of mass formation.
Mass formation now progresses to step two, in which people implement the strategy presented to them and begin waging a heroic battle with the object of anxiety. If the strategy requires personal sacrifice, so much the better. Through sacrifice, the struggle becomes more meaningful, helping to resolve the individual’s free-floating discontent and lack of purpose. The ordeal also creates a social bond with other members of the crowd—there is shared struggle and shared sacrifice. The radical lack of social connection is transformed into a massive experience of social connection with the crowd. The narrative has now resolved all four of the psychological conditions necessary for mass formation to occur and solidify. The resolution of these conditions creates a state of mental intoxication in the populace, equivalent to a state of hypnosis.
Now that mental intoxication has taken hold, the crowd will continue to go along with the narrative, no matter how contradictory or blatantly false it is. It will not matter to them if the narrative is wrong. In addition, the call to action supplied by the mass media will include ritual behaviors which symbolize the social connection of the crowd and their heroic struggle. These rituals actually increase in power the more absurd and meaningless they are. The rituals are stripped of all practical significance by their arbitrary nature, serving to purify them as expressions of adherence to the mass formation.
Applying these principles to 2020-2021, we can observe how mass media presented the world with covid as the new object of concrete anxiety, together with instructions about how to address it: lockdowns, social distancing, masking, vaccinations, censorship, and obedience. The absurdity of the lines of tape on the floor, the hanging Plexiglas barriers, wearing masks at restaurants while standing but not while sitting, double masking, standing six feet apart, arbitrary changes in all of these rules, and all the rest of it solidified the power of these rituals. They became signifiers of the newly meaningful struggle against the virus that imparted purpose and social solidarity into the lives of the people.
The next step was for the mass media to supply the populace with enemies. Just as all anxiety was poured into the concrete object of covid, all aggression was to be directed at these proffered enemies: the unvaccinated, those opposed to face masks or lockdowns, and anyone else who spoke out against the narrative. When captured by mass formation, people become radically intolerant of dissident voices. The dissidents threaten to break the spell of the mass formation, which would dissolve the state of mental intoxication and plunge the populace back into the previous state of anxiety, alienation, confusion, and discontent/purposelessness, now in amplified form. With the mass media and public officials fanning the flames of hatred, the populace develops a zeal in denouncing and persecuting the enemy.
In the inverse, the populace develops radical acceptance and adulation for the leaders and media voices who propagate the mass narrative. In fact, the more corrupt and abusive these leaders become, the stronger the level of mass adulation. The crowd implicitly recognizes the role of the imposed sacrifices in fueling and maintaining their state of mental intoxication. Abusive and deceptive leaders who perpetuate the narrative become suppliers of this intoxication the same way a drug dealer supplies an addict. In contrast, dissidents who seek to dissolve the narrative by exposing its falsehoods and contradictions threaten to pitch the subject back into psychological disarray.
According to Professor Desmet, only about 30% of the populace is fully captured by the mass formation, becoming true believers. But about 40% of the populace go along with the narrative, led by the pressure and power exerted by the leadership class and mass media. Only the remaining 30% seem to have immunity to mass formation and are able to see through it. The 40% will eventually see through it as well, and that will break the spell—the question is how long it will take.
As of this writing, in October 2021, we are living through a critical juncture in the totalitarian life cycle. The absurd and draconian parameters of the mass narrative are starting to cause major disruptions in the social fabric. In response, the 40% will either come to recognize the features of the burgeoning totalitarianism and break the spell, or will remain aligned with the mass formation. This choice point will determine whether totalitarianism fades out before it can take root, or whether society will descend fully into the dark nightmare of a totalitarian epoch.
Identifying the Features of a Totalitarian System
This article is an attempt to communicate to members of that 40%. I have written a number of articles and have engaged in many conversations since the summer of 2020, seeking to convey my concerns about the direction society is moving. These efforts have met with some success, but most of the time I have found myself in the position of Ingrid speaking to Craig. No amount of evidence, data, references, sources, or reasoning can avail when communicating with someone who has already predetermined that what you are saying is impossible.
That is why this article is not full of links and evidence, or arguments dispelling the vaccine narrative, the lockdown narrative, the mask narrative, the death counts, or any of the rest of it. I’ve already written articles that lay out the case for those perspectives, along with links to the sources of information behind them. Instead, I am seeking to address that primary barrier to communication—the belief that “it couldn’t be true,” or “it’s just not possible” that our leadership class is compromised and unified enough to be misleading us to this extent.
In our society, we have not yet seen widespread arrests of political dissidents. In most places, speech has only been censored so far—it is not yet an arrestable offense. Targeted minority groups are being barred from public life, but they have not yet been confined to ghettos or camps. Digital passports and checkpoints are being rolled out for all aspects of life, but they have not yet achieved mass acceptance.
If we insist on waiting for totalitarianism to reveal itself in full flower before believing it could be possible, it will be too late to prevent it. When I suggest we are living under a totalitarian system, I do not mean this system has achieved societal dominance as of yet. What I mean is that the leadership class has demonstrated their commitment to moving society in a totalitarian direction through incremental steps. That is to say, the totalitarian system already exists, and its ideology has already captured the leadership class—but it has not yet achieved full expression in the society at large.
If you do not believe it is possible that our leadership class has adopted a totalitarian ethic, then you are the reader I most want to connect with. I want to ask you again, if you were living under a totalitarian system—How would you know? Who would tell you?
If you were living under a totalitarian system, would your news outlets leave it to you to decide what you believe and what your opinions are? On matters of great public dispute, would news outlets refrain from settling the dispute for you? Would they constrain their reporting to provide you only with verifiable facts about the who, what, and where of events? When exploring contested opinions and questions of why and how, would they provide balanced coverage of opposing views, with reasoned discourse and investigations of possible corruption in government and business?
Or would your mass media outlets tell you what you are supposed to believe? Would they tell you what you are not supposed to believe? Would they urge you to be angry and afraid? Would your news articles and broadcasts instruct you on which opinions are correct and which are incorrect with fact-check and debunking articles? Would the major media outlets express the same opinions and beliefs as each other on these matters of great public dispute? Would they provide platforms to powerful public officials without challenging their statements? Would the news media denounce minority opinions as misinformation or as “unhinged conspiracy theories?” Would news commentators denounce entire minority groups on air, instructing viewers to likewise condemn and shun members of these groups? Would they opine that members of these groups be denied jobs or medical care, or that they be blacklisted?
If you were living under a totalitarian system, would the process of science, knowledge, and learning be encouraged? Would unorthodox ideas and challenges to prevailing concepts be welcomed as part of the scientific process? Would prevailing scientific views be subject to scrutiny and testing, and would alternative views and studies receive funding and media coverage? Would freedom of speech be cherished and encouraged as a benefit to science, knowledge, and learning?
Or would media and state authorities proclaim that “the science is settled?” Would these authorities denounce those who challenge the scientific conclusions endorsed by the state? Would politicians prohibit doctors from prescribing medications endorsed by many in their field? Would the state revoke the licenses of doctors who inform the public about medical options endorsed by many in their field? Would tech executives deplatform doctors and scientists who publish their medical and scientific knowledge online? Would these executives censor all scientific or medical opinions that differ from those promulgated by the state-approved agencies? Would they also censor and deplatform ordinary citizens or independent journalists engaging in public discourse on these matters? Would politicians mandate a single medical procedure for every man, woman, and child rather than leave medical decisions to individuals and their doctors, tailored to each individual’s unique needs?
If you were living under a totalitarian system, would major changes in law, governance, and the rights of individuals occur only with ample public debate and comment? Would they occur through due process and legislative procedures enshrined in law? Would the actions of government be constrained by limited powers and by rights reserved to the people?
Or would governance issue via executive decree under emergency powers? Would these emergency powers extend for weeks, months, and years? Would these decrees and emergency powers be used to prohibit the movement and gathering of citizens, to prevent them from working or operating their businesses, or to mandate their compliance with medical procedures chosen by the executive? Would the same sets of policies be adopted by executive decree simultaneously in countries throughout the world? Would governments and businesses promote use of a digital identification with proof of compliance to state mandates? Would presenting this digital ID become a condition of entry into every public building or public transport vehicle?
If you were living under a totalitarian system, would a diversity of views and perspectives be welcomed? Would a spirit of tolerance and respect prevail in society regardless of race, sex, religion, belief, creed, or political views? Would political leaders and mass media promote these values of social cohesion despite differences? Would the values of privacy, speech, and free association and movement prevail as pillars of a free society?
Or would certain widely-held beliefs, creeds, and political views be roundly condemned by the leadership class and mass media? Would the nation’s executive leader publicly disparage large segments of the population for following their beliefs? Would that executive leader pronounce that members of this minority group be barred from accessing public accommodations and lose their livelihoods unless they submit to a medical procedure selected by that executive? Would businesses and members of the public follow the lead of the leadership class, segregating and discriminating against the targeted minority group? Would it become common for members of the majority group to refer to members of this minority group in dehumanizing terms, even wishing for their deaths?
The questions listed above will not yield crisp answers to the question of whether one is living in a totalitarian society. They are meant to provoke the mind. They are meant to point out that most of the mass media and prevailing leadership class in our global society are behaving as though they are totalitarian-aligned. If the global leadership class is behaving in a totalitarian manner, the possibility cannot be denied that they might—just might—be functionaries in a totalitarian system.
Breaking the Spell
Perhaps there is no spell—no hypnosis. It is good to consider all possibilities. Perhaps we are not living through the collective illness of mass formation. It is not necessary to conclude that we are. It is only necessary to honestly consider that we might be. We might be witnessing the attempted installation of a global totalitarian system.
If we consider this as a real possibility, two things will happen:
- We will begin honestly exploring the evidence, facts, and reasoning of the counter-narratives and discover whether or not they hold water.
- We will begin opposing the prevailing totalitarian covid measures as a safeguard—just in case the possibility that we are living under a totalitarian system is actually true.
There are no downsides to this approach. If we are not actually living under a totalitarian system, we will have improved our abilities as diligent citizens. We will have contributed to the flourishing of our free society by supporting open discourse, civility, and compassion for others in a diverse social context. If we discover through our research that authoritarian measures are actually logical and effective policies by which to address covid, we can rest assured that we have double-checked this assumption before assenting to it. We will have performed our duty in holding power accountable to the people.
On the other hand, if we are indeed living under the leadership of aspiring totalitarians, these steps will enable us to discover this is happening. These steps will also help to prevent those aspirations from bearing fruit. These steps will assist us in helping to break the spell of mass formation.
The hypnosis of totalitarianism cannot be broken through evidence or argument alone, for reasons I have already delineated. It is nevertheless paramount that those who see through the hypnosis keep speaking out—keep pointing out the absurdities, contradictions, and falsehoods of the narrative.
Exposing the internal contradictions of the mass narrative will not break the spell, but it will weaken the spell. The use of light, gentle humor and playfulness can also help weaken the spell. Exposure to divergent viewpoints and attitudes lessens the depth of hypnosis. That’s why the censorship regime and a controlled media are absolutely crucial to perpetuate mass formation. That’s why the mass narrative encourages followers to shun, banish, and discriminate against those who resist. In order to keep the spell going, the targets of the mass narrative need to be isolated from those who can see through it. Continued contact with people and ideas that contradict the narrative gradually dissolves the glue that holds a mass formation together.
For the reader who came into this article already aware of the totalitarianism we are living through, the call to action is to keep speaking. Resist the urge to silence yourself. Don’t expect to change any minds, and don’t get discouraged when minds don’t change. Just remember that your voice weakens the strength of the spell with every word.
For the reader who came into this article without awareness of the totalitarianism but stuck with it all the way to the end, I salute you. Having made it this far, you are probably at least open to the possibility that we might be living under a totalitarian system. And if you have come to recognize that possibility, it would be a good idea to look into the evidence that supports it. I’d suggest taking a look at this resource article I’ve put together, with many pages of links to information sources that dispel the prevailing covid narrative. You can also take a look at my series of articles that walk through the reasoning supported by this evidence step by step. A good place to start would be What to Make of Covid and the Lockdowns?
We’ve come too far as a people to fall back into the worst follies and collective illnesses of the twentieth century. Oftentimes a trauma repeats itself, like a loop or an echo of the original wound. It may not seem like it, but I believe humanity is ready to experience a rebirth of dignity, wisdom, and sovereign awareness. This flirtation with totalitarianism we’re experiencing serves as a reminder of what we’re leaving behind, and why our change in consciousness is needed.
One way or another, we are destined to leave totalitarianism behind us. Better to expose it and reject it before it can take root, rather than wait until we’ve suffered through its devastation, atrocities, and inhumanities. We can either do this the easy way or the hard way.
Or, in the words of Seneca the Younger: Fate leads the willing; the unwilling it drags.
If you’d like to learn more about totalitarianism and mass formation dynamics, here are a series of informative links for your elucidation:
Mattias Desmet is a Belgian professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University, where he lectures on mass formation and totalitarianism. He draws from scholarship regarding the phenomenon of totalitarian systems and the psychological conditions necessary for totalitarianism to take hold in a society (termed mass formation), Professor Desmet is able to explain how mass formation has taken hold on a global level in response to covid. He details the conditions that led to this mass formation, the reasons it has persisted, provides examples of its expression in unquestioning adherence to mainstream narratives and authoritarian policies, and describes the conditions necessary for mass formation to dissolve, led by the 20-30% of people who are psychologically immune to this process.
The following two interviews both provide excellent explorations of these issues:
The Psychology of Totalitarianism with Reiner Fuellmich
The Masses Have Fallen under a Spell with Pandemic Podcast
Mark Crispin Miller is an NYU professor whose expertise is the use, propagation, and identification of propaganda. Ironically, for the past year NYU has been attempting to overcome his tenure protections and fire him for speaking out against covid propaganda. In the following video series he details the masterwork of propaganda unveiled across in the world in 2020 by way of covid.
2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece, Part 1
2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece, Part 2
2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece, Part 3
Academy of Ideas - I can’t speak highly enough of this series of educational videos on the subjects of psychology, conformity, societal sickness, personal strength and freedom, and mass psychosis. There could be no better school to foster understanding of what is happening throughout the world right now. Because these videos are so valuable, I am including links to a lengthy list of specific gems:
How to be Free in an Unfree World
Edward Bernays and Group Psychology: Manipulating the Masses
Do We Live in a Sick Society?
The Psychology of Power – How to Dethrone Tyrants
How The “Greater Good” is Used as a Tool of Social Control
How Civil Disobedience Safeguards Freedom and Prevents Tyranny
Is Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity?
Can Ideas Induce Mass Psychosis?
The Manufacturing of Mass Psychosis – Can Sanity Return to an Insane World?
Do We Live in a Brave New World? Aldous Huxley’s Warning to the World
Why an Obsession with Safety Creates Sick Minds and a Sick Society
Is 1984 Becoming a Reality? George Orwell’s Warning to the World
How to Escape from a Sick Society
CJ Hopkins: The Covidian Cult
In this brilliant three-part series published on his Consent Factory platform, satirist and writer CJ Hopkins details the parameters and dimensions of the covid ideology that has swept the world beginning in March, 2020. Among other things, he demonstrates that this ideology has all the features of a cult, and of totalitarianism, explaining that totalitarianism itself is a cult writ large across society.
The Covidian Cult (Part I)
The Covidian Cult (Part II)
The Covidian Cult (Part III)
Richard Grannon is an expert on codependency and narcissistic abuse. He also offers extensive insight on how these dynamics, enacted on the micro level, are also enacted on the macro level as a tool of domination by the ruling class. These four videos provide an excellent summary of this information:
Mass Psychosis & You - Why People Have Lost Their Minds — Dr. Chris Martenson breaks down the elements necessary to induce mass psychosis, cites historical examples, demonstrates their presence in the current covid hysteria, and provides examples of how the flames of this hysteria/psychosis are being deliberately fanned by establishment actors in government and media institutions.
Yuri Bezmenov was a Soviet KGB Agent in the 1960s who defected to Canada after coming to recognize the hypocrisy and corruption of totalitarian society. In this compilation of lectures and interviews from 1983-1984, Bezmenov provides an indispensible education in propaganda, intelligence agency psyops, manipulation of the masses, and other topics pertinent to propaganda and media control, delivered with his unique brand of humor and personable style.
This is what mind control looks like. This is Operation Mockingbird – This brilliant video compilation speaks volumes about mainstream media control and propaganda, with no commentary, no interpretation – just clips from TV news, displayed in context.
I’ve also included links to a selection of my own articles—written and published over the course of 2020–2021 in response to the wave of authoritarian governance, thought, and belief that swept the world in those years. They represent an appeal to freedom of thought, speech, and conscience, and advocate for a return to democratic, human, and spiritual values. These articles also offer research, critique, and insight regarding the nature of the crisis of this time and the possible intentions and implications of these events.
What to Make of Covid and the Lockdowns? My original article stating the case against lockdowns, masks, and social distancing regimes. An appeal for open discourse. December, 2020
Why Are They Doing This? An exploration of the possible reasons or motives for the continuing lockdown regimes in light of the evidence that they are neither necessary nor useful, and in light of the considerable harm they have caused and continue to cause. March, 2021
On the Mind-Altering Power of Taboo. A critique of censorship as antithetical to human flourishing accompanied by an examination of taboo and censored areas of inquiry—and of who is protected and harmed by their taboo status. April, 2021
Toward a New Religion. An exploration of the “New Normal” societal changes in values and belief that have accompanied the lockdown regimes, seen through the lens of religion and spirituality. April, 2021
Understanding Technocracy. An exploration of the nature of technocracy in further depth, examining it from psychological, ideological, and spiritual perspectives. April, 2021
Fact-Checking is the New Pravda. A dissection of the propaganda technique of fact-checking, which has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in the corporate press in recent years. Fact-checking is perhaps the most effective and important tactic available for shaping and controlling popular thought and belief. July, 2021
How to Inform Yourself when Living under a Censorship Regime. Following a short discussion of censorship and its dangers, this article collects many pages worth of links to independent media sources, podcasts/videocasts, articles, documentaries, peer-reviewed scientific journal studies, and other useful information sources. These sources can provide the reader with access to all the knowledge, reasoning, and references needed to fully explore and understand the critiques of the prevailing mass narrative regarding covid and other issues. September, 2021
Ecological Leninism. Adam Tooze, London Review of Books. Nov. 18, 2021.on Andreas Malm’s post-pandemic climate politics
The carbon clock is ticking. Governments and official agencies assure us that all will be well, that they can balance the risks. Some insist that technology will save us. We have achieved the impossible before, we will do it again. But why believe them? Progress towards decarbonisation has been limited. Fossil fuel interests remain stitched into global networks of power directly descended from the age of imperialism. Their political outriders may be cynical hacks, but public support for the fossil fuel status quo is all too real. The carbon coalition seems death-driven, defiant of expert advice. Centrist liberals are loud in expressing outrage, but shrink away when push comes to shove. There are periodic waves of protest. Children boycott school. There are demands for a new social contract and a just transition. A minority, tiny as yet, calls for rebellion.
With only minor alterations, this could be the portrait of a nation sliding towards defeat in a major war: relentless time pressure; limited resources rapidly running down; over-confident technocrats; promises of wonder weapons; pro and anti-war factions at loggerheads; desperate young people calling for a halt to the madness. War remains a crucial way of thinking about collective peril and about agency in the face of that peril; in climate politics, the rhetoric of war and wartime mobilisation is commonplace. American advocates of the Green New Deal called for a repeat of the staggering industrial production achieved during the Second World War. In the UK, memories of the postwar welfare state persist. There is talk of the Marshall Plan.
But isn’t this all rather too convenient? A ‘good war’, fought by democracies, ending in spectacular victory and inaugurating a golden age of economic growth and the advent of the welfare state. One way of reading the recent burst of publications – three books in the space of a year – from the historian and climate activist Andreas Malm is as a sustained challenge to this complacent historical framing of our present condition. The historical analogy he prefers to draw is with the First World War and its aftermath, a world defined by the upheaval of revolution and the violence of fascism – the beginning, not the end of an age of crisis.
To have in mind the Second World War and the birth of the modern interventionist welfare state is to take your bearings from such thinkers as Maynard Keynes, with his promise that ‘anything we can actually do, we can afford.’ The First World War and the years after it evoke a different cast of characters. Malm’s own political background is in Trotskyism, and he now declares himself an ecological Leninist. His co-authors in White Skin, Black Fuel named themselves the Zetkin Collective after the German communist and feminist Clara Zetkin, whose interpretation of fascism they draw on and whose ashes were interred in 1933 beside the Kremlin Wall.
Some will accuse Malm of cosplaying revolution while the planet burns. But his position is actually one of tragic realism. As he and his colleagues argue in White Skin, Black Fuel, the defining fact about climate change is that it is ‘a revolutionary problem without a revolutionary subject’. The environmental movement may have aligned itself with social justice activism, but it hasn’t been ‘able to challenge capitalism [at all] with anything like the power once evinced by the Third International or the national liberation movements, or even the social democratic parties of the Second International; a lame successor, it won no Vietnam War and built no equivalent of the welfare state.’
The bridge between our reality and that of the revolutionaries of a century ago is the awareness of looming disaster. The revolutionaries of the early 1900s had come to regard the 19th-century promise of inevitable progress as empty or, as Walter Benjamin saw it, catastrophic. Facing total war, they insisted that action was essential to forestall disaster. As Marx and Engels had warned in the Communist Manifesto, the fight between the oppressor and the oppressed would end ‘either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes’ – ‘socialism or barbarism’, as Rosa Luxemburg put it. A century later, what is our predicament? Though the ruling classes talk of climate crisis, Malm says, their actions betray them:
They are not perturbed by the smell from the blazing trees. They do not worry at the sight of islands sinking; they do not run from the roar of the approaching hurricanes; their fingers never need to touch the stalks from withered harvests; their mouths do not become sticky and dry after a day with nothing to drink ... After the past three decades, there can be no doubt that the ruling classes are constitutionally incapable of responding to the catastrophe in any other way than by expediting it; of their own accord, under their inner compulsion, they can do nothing but burn their way to the end.
The question that Malm poses in his pamphlet Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency is whether the pandemic has changed anything.* For many on the left, last year’s crisis was bewildering but, at least at first, encouraging. On climate there seemed no possibility of progress, but in the face of the pandemic the state seemed to have uncoupled from the interests it usually serves. ‘Covid-19 came as an instantaneous and total saturation of everything,’ Malm writes. ‘Like a gust blowing out the tinted windows in a skyscraper, it stripped the state down to its barest relative autonomy.’ Suddenly, the state was free to act independently of big business.
Governments in the North were in a rare position to sacrifice the well-being of their capitalist economies for the lives of their elderly and potentially younger cohorts too. One may regard this moment as bringing out the best in modern bourgeois democracies, the respect for life trumping the respect for property, a victory for the egalitarian premise to which democracy is sworn.
Malm briefly indulges the idea that a dramatic intervention might resolve the climate crisis, but promptly dismisses it: ‘The contrast between coronavirus vigilance and climate complacency is illusory. The writing has been on the wall about zoonotic spillover for years, and states have done as much to address it as they have done to tackle anthropogenic climate change: nothing.’ When the crisis struck, Malm might have added, government action was in large part directed towards shoring up existing property relations and the existing distribution of wealth and income. The interventions were gigantic but overwhelmingly conservative in their intentions and effects.
What kind of government machinery might produce better results? The left calls for a Green New Deal, or what Daniela Gabor has called the ‘big green state’, but there is no guarantee that a more ambitious version of state intervention would drive change. We should hardly find it encouraging that the Green New Dealers take the Second World War as their model. Keynesian macroeconomics may have come to the fore during the war, but the machinery of government itself was at the time increasingly occupied by business interests. Plans for an interventionist industrial policy and intense regulation were shelved. So where might we look for alternative models of emergency government? What if, Malm suggests, the proper model for a climate activist state is not the New Deal, but a wartime regime that was far more desperate, and more austere? What if the model we need is War Communism?
It’s an audacious proposition. The brief period of War Communism between 1920 and 1921 is one of the most contentious in Russian revolutionary history. Opinions differ as to whether it was a desperate improvisation or a genuine effort at radical change. There is no disagreement, however, that it was a period of terrible violence. For historians such as Sheila Fitzpatrick and Ronald Suny, broadly sympathetic to the revolution, it is the phase when the regime hardened into an authoritarian and, where necessary, terroristic dictatorship. War Communism is the very last thing you would propose as a model of economic transformation. The economy of the former tsarist empire was on its knees; society was deindustrialising; there was a disastrous sundering of exchange between the countryside and what was left of the cities. The famine that followed pushed the Bolsheviks close to surrender.
Malm is aware of all this, but remains undaunted:
Let it be said, then, that invoking War Communism is not to suggest that we should have summary executions, send food detachments into the countryside or militarise labour, just as no one who looks at the Second World War as a model for climate mobilisation wants to drop another atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Many of the perceived necessities the Bolsheviks turned into virtues, we can readily recognise as vices. But, conversely, some of what they saw as their weaknesses we may regard as strengths.
What fascinates Malm about War Communism is the sharp corrective it offers to any cornucopian vision of the future. In Trotsky’s own words, the position of the revolution in 1920 was ‘in the highest degree tragic’. Radical innovation was forced by harsh necessity. The Bolshevik zone, confined to a rump of the Russian empire, was desperately short of food, coal and oil. A harsh requisitioning system made it possible to feed the army, but a more innovative solution was needed to address the desperate shortage of coal. Cut off from fossil fuels, Trotsky turned to wood. The Red Army’s armoured trains were fired with logs. By 1921, according to Malm, an improvised organic energy regime had triumphed over the combined fossil-fuel forces of reaction. What Malm is challenging us to imagine is a movement against fossil capitalism in which an embattled group of energy revolutionaries breaks away from the global empire of oil and gas, as the Bolsheviks did between 1917 and 1922, to forge a new politics, a new economy and a new energy regime. As Malm points out, at least today’s War Communists will have solar and wind power.
Let’s assume that Malm isn’t making a proposal for action so much as undertaking a radical thought experiment. If we were to translate his historical analogy into regular policy talk, the point would presumably be that any serious attempt at energy transition will involve, along with pricing and negotiation, a combination of nationalisation, regulation and prohibition enforced not just according to the letter of the law, but with militant energy. The question is, what kind of political formation would be required to pull this off? War Communism was administered by a revolutionary party locked in a life and death struggle for survival. That is not our situation, at least not yet.
A far more promising route is suggested in White Skin, Black Fuel. One of the organising distinctions of this massive collective work is between sectors of the economy that are irreducibly dependent on fossil fuel extraction and those that use fossil energy but aren’t existentially entangled with it. With the former there can be no compromise: survival depends on shutting them down. The latter, by contrast, are the actors that must be recruited if any Green New Deal strategy is to succeed. The worry for any putative ‘big green state’ is what kind of fight the extractive fossil fuel sector will put up.
The surge of far-right parties across Europe and the presidencies of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have triggered a wave of debate about a second coming of fascism. Trump and Bolsonaro are also climate deniers. Malm and his co-authors in White Skin, Black Fuel argue that this is not a coincidence. First, they note that over the last twenty years the defenders of fossil fuel extraction have shifted tactics. Climate denialism in the 1990s was an overt and clearly self-interested lie, a conspiracy against science; the emphasis today is on broad-based movements that aggressively defend the fossil fuel way of life. Even with considerable funding from business, the big lie became hard to uphold; Exxon and BP now acknowledge the existence of climate change. In response, climate resistance has adopted the more indirect mechanisms of hegemony. Trump and Bolsonaro back coal, oil and gas, but rather than attempting to engage in scientific argument, they simply spray soundbites. To appeal to their constituencies, they need only evoke anti-elite prejudice, and the reverb of old climate-sceptic memes will do the rest.
This is not to say that climate is explicitly at the core of their agenda; it is a corollary of their appeal to anti-elite, working-class nationalism. White Skin, Black Fuel attempts to set out the ways in which gas-guzzling consumerism, fossil fuel addiction, settler colonialism and structures of racial power are historically entwined. There is a similar link between fossil fuels and historical fascism. The fascists in Germany were in a better position than the War Communists. They had coal. But they also had to find a way to break the grip of oil, the commodity basis of Anglo-American power. In the event, the chemicals conglomerate IG Farben devised a way of making oil and rubber out of Central European coal. Not by accident, a huge synthetic chemical factory was at the heart of the Auschwitz camp complex.
In addition to its historical and ideological dimensions, the nexus between authoritarianism and fossil fuels operates, according to Malm and the Zetkin Collective, at a deeper psychological level. Echoing what Herbert Marcuse, in his reading of fascist mass psychology, described as the desire to attack, split and pulverise, Trump praised the labourers who ‘break through rock walls, mine the depths of the earth, and reach through the ocean floor, to bring every ounce of energy into our homes and commerce and into our lives’. It isn’t just ‘Drill, baby, drill’ that cements the link. The cognitive dissonance of the liberal mainstream is a key component in the psychogram of a dying fossil fuel civilisation sketched by Malm and the collective. In an echo of Clara Zetkin’s argument that fascism is history’s revenge for the failure to make a socialist revolution, they see the hypocrisy and inconsistency of mainstream climate policy as driving voters towards the far right. To harp on the climate crisis while doing nothing about it is, in the long run, intolerable. Liberals’ failures make Trump look honest. He may deny the science, but at least he’s true to himself.
It is against the backdrop of this portrait of societies in deadlock that we should read Malm’s latest provocation, How to Blow up a Pipeline. Though the book makes a general argument for militant action it is best understood as an intervention at a specific conjuncture. The German movement Ende Gelände, whose protests Malm participated in, had remarkable success between 2015 and 2018 in mobilising direct action against Germany’s brown coal mines and smoke-belching power stations. But the movement suffered a serious setback when the Merkel government stitched up a deal with the coal industry and trade unions to delay the exit from coal until 2038, a ridiculous horizon entirely out of line even with the modest commitments of the Paris Agreement. This was a turning point for the climate movement in Germany.
The militant activists of Ende Gelände had been trained in the direct action techniques of the anti-nuclear movement, but now it was the mobilisation of schoolchildren, inspired by Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future, that led the way. A school strike 1.4 million strong – the largest co-ordinated youth protest in history – took place on 15 March 2019. This was closely followed by a series of protests across the UK by Extinction Rebellion. By September 2019, the Friday strike movement numbered four million protesters worldwide, a third of them in Germany. But to the frustration of Malm and many in the Ende Gelände movement, Fridays for Future showed no interest in direct action. The protesting schoolchildren stuck to the tradition of noisy street demonstrations. In the UK, as Malm observes, XR followed recent mobilisations in the US by positioning itself against violent action.
The question that drives How to Blow up a Pipeline is why the new movements of protest in 2019, despite their scale and dynamism, refused to adopt the techniques of physical obstruction and disruption successfully modelled by Ende Gelände. Part of the answer is moral. The US movement, in particular, has imbibed a commitment to non-violent methods. Some argued that attacks on property would only produce a painful and repressive backlash, and indeed, this summer, Jessica Reznicek, who with Ruby Montoya mounted a sabotage campaign against the Dakota Access pipeline, was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. But, as Malm argues, these familiar tactical concerns have been reinforced in the current phase of the climate movement by a peculiar reading of history, in which the power of self-control and non-violence is fetishised. The new movements, he writes, look to ‘historical precedents – people winning against hopeless odds, great evil suddenly put to an end – that can break the hold of apathy’:
If they could prevail, the reasoning goes, so can we. If they changed the world by all means but violent ones, so we shall save it. Analogism has become a prime mode of argumentation and the main source of strategic thinking, most visibly in XR, the rare organisation that defines itself as a result of historical study. Note that the argument is not that violence would be bad at this particular moment – say, because the level of class struggle is so low in the global North that adventurist actions would only rebound and suppress it further: words that would never pass XR lips – nor that it might be expedient only under conditions of severe repression. Instead, analogist strategic pacifism holds that violence is bad in all settings, because this is what history shows. Success belongs to the peaceful. The roster of historical analogies begins with slavery.
But, as Malm points out, the climate movement’s appropriation of history has been one-sided. How can one treat the suffragette movement seriously without emphasising its use of direct action and sabotage? Even more grotesque is the representation of the abolition of slavery as if it were achieved through the high moralism of Quaker ‘NGOs’, rather than slave rebellion or the radical example of militant abolitionists.
By ruling out direct action, the climate movement robs itself, in Malm’s view, of its only serious means of leverage. What’s needed, he argues, is not the slow shift of public opinion and electoral results, but a more encompassing ‘theory of change’:
Here is what this movement of millions should do, for a start: announce and enforce the prohibition. Damage and destroy new CO2-emitting devices. Put them out of commission, pick them apart, demolish them, burn them, blow them up. Let the capitalists who keep on investing in the fire know that their properties will be trashed. ‘We are the investment risk,’ runs a slogan from Ende Gelände, but the risk clearly needs to be higher than one or two days of interrupted production per year. ‘If we can’t get a serious carbon tax from a corrupted Congress, we can impose a de facto one with our bodies,’ Bill McKibben has argued, but a carbon tax is so 2004. If we can’t get a prohibition, we can impose a de facto one with our bodies and any other means necessary.
Malm is aware that such tactics risk alienating support, inviting media denunciation and provoking massive repression. As he admits, ‘climate militancy would have to be articulated to a wider anti-capitalist groundswell, much as in earlier shifts of modes of production, when physical attacks on ruling classes formed only minor parts of society-wide reorganisation. How could that happen? This cannot be known beforehand. It can be found only through immersion in practice.’ These are the words of a revolutionary cadre hedging his bets.
Given how remote the goal of comprehensive decarbonisation is, it is less the aim than the manner of politics that matters. Given the reality of the underlying conflict, division and strife are not to be regretted, but embraced – an essential Leninist lesson. To adopt an antagonistic stance is to do no more than respond adequately to the situation. As Malm and the collective conclude in White Skin, Black Fuel, ‘if nothing else, the anti-climate politics of the far right should shatter any remaining illusion that fossil fuels can be relinquished through some kind of smooth, reasoned transition ... A transition will happen through intense polarisation and confrontation, or it will not happen at all.’ From this point of view, the question isn’t whether liberal activists do or don’t want to engage in sabotage. If we keep to our current course, sabotage is coming. If it isn’t directed from the top, it will bubble up from below. The question is whether the mainstream climate movement can ready itself for the agonising dilemmas to come. Can it sustain its coherence and momentum in the face of crisis, violence, division and, quite likely, defeat?
It is at this point that the dramas of 20th-century European history return to haunt Malm’s vision of the future – not as an inspiration to revolution, but as a way of giving meaning to resistance that may ultimately be in vain. Imagine that we are no longer in the world of school strikes and UN conferences. Imagine that, after the melting of the ice caps and a dramatic civilisational collapse, a huddle of people are eking out an existence in northern latitudes. What will they tell their children about the disaster? Will they say that ‘humanity brought about the end of the world in perfect harmony? That everyone willingly queued up for the furnaces? Or that some people fought like Jews who knew they would be killed?’
The ‘Jews’ Malm evokes are the resistance fighters of the Warsaw ghetto and the camps who engaged in heroic but doomed uprisings against the Nazis. And he means this extraordinary analogy seriously: ‘If it is too late for resistance to be waged within a calculus of immediate utility, the time has come for it to vindicate the fundamental values of life, even if it only means crying out to the heavens.’ He cites Alain Brossat and Sylvie Klingberg’s Revolutionary Yiddishland: ‘Their combat was for history, for memory ... This affirmation of life by way of sacrifice and combat with no prospect of victory is a tragic paradox that can only be understood as an act of faith in history.’ ‘Better to die blowing up a pipeline,’ Malm concludes, ‘than to burn impassively.’ Thus the image of blowing up a pipeline returns, not now as an act of sabotage but one of self-sacrifice. At this intersection of a monumental past and a dark future, we reach a dead end.
Earlier in How to Blow up a Pipeline, Malm gestures at an alternative. Imagine, he writes, that the mass mobilisations of the latest cycle of protest become impossible to ignore.
The ruling classes feel themselves under such heat – perhaps their hearts even melting somewhat at the sight of all these kids with handwritten placards – that their obduracy wanes. New politicians are voted into office, notably from green parties in Europe, who live up to their election promises. The pressure is kept up from below. Moratoriums on fresh fossil fuel infrastructure are instituted. Germany initiates immediate phase-out of coal production, the Netherlands likewise for gas, Norway for oil, the US for all of the above; legislation and planning are put in place for cutting emissions by at least 10 per cent per year; renewable energy and public transport are scaled up, plant-based diets promoted, blanket bans on fossil fuels prepared.
If this were to transpire, Malm concedes, ‘the movement should be given the chance to see this scenario through.’
The majority of climate activists put their hope in this reformist vision: we should indeed hold on to it. But let us also admit that although those lines were printed only months ago, they already seem out of date. And Malm soon provides us with a vision much closer to the way the world looks today. Imagine that ‘a few years down the road, the kids of the Thunberg generation and the rest of us wake up one morning and realise that business-as-usual is still on, regardless of all the strikes, the science, the pleas, the millions with colourful outfits and banners ... What do we do then?’
The centrist will counsel patience. Anything we can actually do, we can afford, Keynes said. By the same token, he added in a radio talk delivered in the spring of 1942, we can afford anything we can actually do, provided we remain patient and take the necessary time. That is a telling qualification. As Malm remarks, it is a fundamental assumption of social democracy that it has history and time on its side. But to imagine that is still the case, to talk as if we can safely distinguish between the short, medium and long term, is one of the most insidious forms of soft denial at work today. We should no longer indulge in it.
As Malm points out, neoliberalism has repeatedly found ways of jumping over its own shadow to meet a crisis at the scale and pace demanded by the situation. The response to the pandemic has provided just such a demonstration of flexibility. But trusting to that kind of politics when it comes to climate change is a recipe for planetary disaster. Malm forces us to face a crucial question: what are the social democratic politics of emergency? If his version of ecological Leninism is to be refused, what is our logic of action in the face of disaster? What are our political options when there is every reason to think that we have very little time left? As Daniel Bensaïd reminds us, in an essay quoted by Malm, in 1914 Lenin made a note in the margins of Hegel’s The Science of Logic: ‘Breaks in gradualness ... Gradualness explains nothing without leaps. Leaps! Leaps! Leaps!’
