So back then, were your ideas completely out of favour? Was globalisation essentially seen as a force for positive change?
No, In the 60s and 70s Rachel Carson [an American conservationist whose book Silent Spring is credited with advancing the global environmental movement], realised that using pesticides on a small patch of grass in your garden can have an impact on the other side of the world, so there was this growing realisation that we need more holistic science. This, along with Schumacher’s ‘Small is Beautiful’ and another report called ‘The Club of Rome’, lead to a very powerful environmental movement that did influence policy.
It’s very important, I think, for us to understand that there was huge goodwill from people when they realised how polluting our system was. There was pressure on government to change towards decentralised renewable energy and to promote holistic science. What almost no one understood though, was that after the second world war, there had been a very conscious decision to integrate all the world’s economies under one umbrella. It was thought by a lot of well intentioned politicians and business people, that this was a way of avoiding another depression, another world war. I knew some of these people who really believed that this, so called, economic integration was essential.
Although there was a growing awareness of a need for decentralised development, people were not aware of how trade treaties were dramatically centralising economic activity. They were the path that led to global economic integration, in which, quietly, global corporations were getting more and more power. It wasn’t some sort of conspiracy. But sadly, the environmental movement wasn’t saying: wait a minute, these trade treaties are creating an unfair playing field. It’s not even what Adam Smith promoted, it’s not free trade, it’s very monopolistic, but it’s out of sight.
Then, from the mid 80s globalisation really took off and suddenly academics, the media, virtually all sources of knowledge, no longer talked about decentralisation. In fact, even environmentalists and social activists ended up promoting globalisation.
I work with people at the grassroots who are convinced that everybody at the top knows everything perfectly well and they’re just nasty greedy people. That’s not my experience. I find that the main problem we’re facing is a blindness to the workings of something that’s become so big. It’s very hard to see the connections.
If you are the CEO of Monsanto or Goldman Sachs or the President of the United States, or the Prime Minister of the UK, the idea that keeping growth going is essential in order to create jobs, and avoid social instability, is quite understandable. I feel that the environmentalists and social activists, who have been working at the grassroots, are really the ones who need to be more educated about how these trade treaties are having such a disastrous effect because they favour big, global business over small, local ones.
What has been created is a completely unfair playing field, where everything small, starting with small farmers, is being eradicated. Over the last few decades, in economic miracles China and India, we have seen huge social instability, an increase in poverty, farmer suicide and massive increases in pollution. Simultaneously, the media and advertising play a very big role in making anybody who is not white and western feel inferior. When you rob people of their livelihood, bombard them psychologically, make them feel like they’re backward and stupid and rob them of self respect, that’s a recipe for violence.
The violence will often lead to local conflict which is increasing between different ethnic groups, different religious groups, different regional groups. But also, it’s leading to a growing hatred of the west. We really need to wake up to the fact that the same system that’s creating tremendous economic and identity insecurity in the UK, is creating that on a more massive scale on the other side of the world and it’s not serving anybody. More instability, more war, more pollution more poverty. We’re at a point now where we really need to rethink and move in a different direction.