I, suggested that we examine how past societies coped successfully with scarcity. He held up these war economies, with their heavy rationing, as a possible model for collective action in a contracting economy. In an age of scarcity, it will be imperative to set up new, more egalitarian models of distribution. Clinging to the old neoclassical model, he argued, could erode and perhaps destroy social cohesion and require the state to engage in greater forms of coercion.
“What you had [in World War I] was a very sudden transition to a serious scarcity economy that was underpinned by the necessity for sharing,” he said. “Ordinary people were required to sacrifice their lives. They needed some guarantee for those they left at home. These war economies were relatively egalitarian. These economics were based on the safety net principle. If continued growth in the medium run is not feasible, and that is a contingency we need to think about, then these rationing societies provide quite a successful model. On the Allied side, people did not starve, society held together.”
Adam Smith, he noted, “wrote that what drives us is not, in the end, individual selfishness but reciprocal obligation. We care about other people’s good opinions. This generates a reciprocal cycle. Reciprocity is not altruistic. That part of the economic core doctrine is preserved. But if we depend on other people for our self-worth, then we are not truly self-sufficient. We depend on the sympathy of others for our own well-being. Therefore, obligation to others means that we do not always seek to maximize economic advantage. Intrinsic motivations, such as obligation, compassion, and public spirit, crowd out financial ones. This model can also motivate a different type of political and economic aspiration.”
However, if we cling to our current economic model—which Offer labels “every man for himself”—then, he said, “it will require serious repression.”
He concluded: “There is not a free market solution to a peaceful decline.”
T he revolutionary theorists of the past invested tremendous energy in looking for the triggers of revolt, although nearly all were caught off guard by the eruption of the revolutions they championed and organized. Lenin said in January 1917, six weeks before the revolution that would bring him to power: “We of the older generation may not see the decisive battles of this coming revolution.” It is impossible, as Lenin discovered, to “predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. But when it comes, it moves irresistibly.” 20
“The history of human thought recalls the swinging of a pendulum which takes centuries to swing,” the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin said.
After a long period of slumber comes a moment of awakening. Then thought frees herself from the chains with which those interested—rulers, lawyers, clerics—have carefully enwound her. She shatters the chains. She subjects to severe criticism all that has been taught her, and lays bare the emptiness of the religious, political, legal, and social prejudices amid which she has vegetated. She starts research in new paths, enriches our knowledge with new discoveries, creates new sciences. But the inveterate enemies of thought—the government, the lawgiver, and the priest—soon recover from their defeat. By degrees they gather together their scattered forces, and remodel their faith and their code of laws to adapt them to the new needs. 21
Lenin placed his faith in a violent uprising, in a professional, disciplined revolutionary vanguard freed from moral constraints, and (like Marx) in the inevitable emergence of the workers’ state. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon insisted that gradual change would be accomplished as enlightened workers took over production and educated and converted the rest of the proletariat. Mikhail Bakunin predicted the catastrophic breakdown of the capitalist
“What you had [in World War I] was a very sudden transition to a serious scarcity economy that was underpinned by the necessity for sharing,” he said. “Ordinary people were required to sacrifice their lives. They needed some guarantee for those they left at home. These war economies were relatively egalitarian. These economics were based on the safety net principle. If continued growth in the medium run is not feasible, and that is a contingency we need to think about, then these rationing societies provide quite a successful model. On the Allied side, people did not starve, society held together.”
Adam Smith, he noted, “wrote that what drives us is not, in the end, individual selfishness but reciprocal obligation. We care about other people’s good opinions. This generates a reciprocal cycle. Reciprocity is not altruistic. That part of the economic core doctrine is preserved. But if we depend on other people for our self-worth, then we are not truly self-sufficient. We depend on the sympathy of others for our own well-being. Therefore, obligation to others means that we do not always seek to maximize economic advantage. Intrinsic motivations, such as obligation, compassion, and public spirit, crowd out financial ones. This model can also motivate a different type of political and economic aspiration.”
However, if we cling to our current economic model—which Offer labels “every man for himself”—then, he said, “it will require serious repression.”
He concluded: “There is not a free market solution to a peaceful decline.”
T he revolutionary theorists of the past invested tremendous energy in looking for the triggers of revolt, although nearly all were caught off guard by the eruption of the revolutions they championed and organized. Lenin said in January 1917, six weeks before the revolution that would bring him to power: “We of the older generation may not see the decisive battles of this coming revolution.” It is impossible, as Lenin discovered, to “predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. But when it comes, it moves irresistibly.” 20
“The history of human thought recalls the swinging of a pendulum which takes centuries to swing,” the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin said.
After a long period of slumber comes a moment of awakening. Then thought frees herself from the chains with which those interested—rulers, lawyers, clerics—have carefully enwound her. She shatters the chains. She subjects to severe criticism all that has been taught her, and lays bare the emptiness of the religious, political, legal, and social prejudices amid which she has vegetated. She starts research in new paths, enriches our knowledge with new discoveries, creates new sciences. But the inveterate enemies of thought—the government, the lawgiver, and the priest—soon recover from their defeat. By degrees they gather together their scattered forces, and remodel their faith and their code of laws to adapt them to the new needs. 21
Lenin placed his faith in a violent uprising, in a professional, disciplined revolutionary vanguard freed from moral constraints, and (like Marx) in the inevitable emergence of the workers’ state. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon insisted that gradual change would be accomplished as enlightened workers took over production and educated and converted the rest of the proletariat. Mikhail Bakunin predicted the catastrophic breakdown of the capitalist
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