Peak Resources: democracy

Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts

The central assumption of the neoliberal economic model that material consumption and industrial expansion can continue without devastating political and environmental consequences is known to be false. Yet, every politician on Earth is pushing for further material growth which in a time of resource scarcity only leads to rapidly increasing income inequality. This in turn undermines the stability of society. And vulnerable societies that suffer major economic downturns are known to elect dangerous people and do some crazy stuff.

Overexploiting and degrading both ecological and social capital to gain ephemeral financial capital is the pathway to collapse of a society. Anthropological and agent-based modelling studies have shown that any society that undermines its ecological base runs into declining marginal returns from further material growth. When a threshold is passed, and net energy starts to fall, society can no longer afford to maintain its social organisation and infrastructure and starts to decay. If the ruling elite refuses to give up on trying to push the economy to grow the remaining resources will simply be swallowed up by the resource sector and benefit only a small minority of rich elites while the majority grows poorer over time. This will of course cause political turmoil as even the middle class starts to voice their dissatisfaction. And the entire process makes any democracy open to totalitarianism, a form of government in which the state has no limits in authority and does whatever it wants.

Full collapse from over-depletion and high levels of inequality. Source: Castro et al. 2014

“Democracy is first and foremost about equality: equality of power and equality of sharing in the benefits and values made possible by social cooperation” (Sheldon Wolin, 2010, p. 61).

Most societies have no mechanisms for sharing power and the benefits of cooperation in a time of involuntary degrowth, which we are currently in. Every government policy since the 1970s have only worsened the issue by promoting the enrichment of the capital owning class over the worker class through financialisation. Giving out cheap credit has masked the systemic issues and kept the middle class happy for a while, as they get to continue consuming resources in the moment, but its a giant ponzi scheme that will collapse eventually. Meanwhile, the working class has only suffered since the 70s, with falling living standards and increasing poverty, and thus started to heavily mistrust the ruling elite.

Furthemore, wealth equalizing institutions, such as income taxation, has become ineffective in a globalised world. Big corporations and rich individuals can escape national laws and continue to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else and nature. The world's richest 1 percent now owns as 82% of global wealth, while the poorest 3.7 billion people saw no increase in their wealth in 2018.

When people are desperate for change, ideology becomes a powerful weapon. If people have no way to influence the political system, no equality in control of the instruments of persuasion, other than voting every four years it cannot be called a true democracy. Private control over the media and higher education are examples of public loss of instruments of persuasion.

Rising inequality opens up a power vacuum that is easily filled by leaders of business or populistic parties in order to extract what they want from the system. The rich business elites usually claim the “trickle down” doctrine or that “government is the problem” to justify deregulation and tax cuts for the rich. While populistic parties (left and right) exploit the working class hate of elites and fuels polarisation and division in society while arguing for a centralised strong government. We see this type of development all over Europe and in the US.

The only way to combat this negative development, as I see it, is to promote decentralization of power and strengthening local economies with circular resource flows that stay within certain boundaries through for example a local currency. And promoting self-sufficiency. Also trying to even the playing field by offering alternative stories through online platforms when the mainstream media is failing. I know that many instead are calling for global governance to reign in multinational corporations but that won't be possible in a resource constrained world and it's certainly not what people are going to vote for.

If no credible options are put forward as the old story breaks apart there is a high chance that people will turn to “strongman” governance in their desperation for change. With potentially catastrophic consequences for peace and security. It's now 100 years since the end of World War I and we are again living in very dangerous times. Europe is so fragile that it feels like any shock could trigger something major, especially if we have a major financial collapse. Unfortunately, such a financial crisis looks increasingly likely as the global debt bubble has started to unravel. I hope there is still some sanity left among people to resist another major war.

We are in a double bind. Growing the economy will cause catastrophic climate change and massive biological extinction. But not growing the economy will lead to lots of suffering under the current neoclassical economic structure. Of course, we could chose to change our entire economic system so that its in line with the biophysical reality we live in, i.e. we would have to give up on growing materially and lower our consumption radically but do so in a more orderly and just fashion. But no, we have made no such decision, instead every government on Earth is trying to push its economy to grow further while dabbling in some greenwashing on the side.

Because we, especially the ruling elites, don't like the alternatives we have to choose from in this dilemma we have tried to maintained status quo at any cost. With the consequence of rapidly rising inequalities, failing infrastructures, collapsing ecosystems, climate disruption and failing states. But now this strategy has reached its end game. The global economy which has been stagnating and on life-support by central bankers stimulus for over a decade is starting to fall apart. All the while people around the world are electing unsavory authoritarian leaders “strong men”, that promote heavy extractive practices, due to increasing mistrust of the ruling elite. The latest example being Brazil.

And nowhere in the mainstream media or from elected politicians do we hear about the underlying issues of our current predicament. About how net energy decline restricts growth and forces the economy to contract. The fact that trying to push for further material growth now costs more than it benefits society. Or that it's simply not possible to fuel our current overconsumptive, overpopulated and destructive techno-industrial society with renewable energy. Not to mention the fact that it's not desirable since it would destroy the ecosystems upon which our very survival depends.

Using total factor productivity as an indicator of returns on innovation, Bonaiuti (2018) has shown how industrial nations have gone through three industrial revolutions of which the latest is now coming to an end. After the peak in the 1930s, when global oil and gas EROI hit a peak, productivity decreased until it reached only 0.34% in the period 1973-95. When US oil production peaked and massive privatization and debt accumulation took off to fund further consumption. The third industrial revolution, known as ICT, has not been powerful enough to compensate for the declining returns of the second industrial revolution. This is evidence that advanced capitalist societies such as the US, Europe and Japan have entered a phase of declining marginal returns or involuntary degrowth with detrimental impacts on societies capacity to maintain its institutional framework.

Total Factor Productivity % of the Private Non-Farm Business Sector (1750-2014). Source: Bonaiuti (2018)

Historical estimate of the global EROI of oil. Source: Court and Fizaine (2017)

In other words, fundamental resources are becoming scarce and expensive and we are becoming poorer and cannot afford to maintain or grow our current society so it starts to crumble. This shows up in the economy in terms of increasingly expensive basic resources like food, rising levels of debt, rising income inequality, underinvestment in infrastructure (e.g. health care, education, railways), and higher unemployment etc.

People are experiencing their living standards falling while politicians are telling them everything is just fine as is, or that the issue can be solved by tweaking the system. But this is no longer enough, people are fed up with false promises and incompetent governments. And rightly so, but the thing people don't realise is the fundamental drivers of our current situation and the fact that no matter how much more they exploit and destroy nature will it improve their lives. Actually, the opposite is true, it only undermines their own wellbeing in the long run. Only investments into low-energy infrastructure and restructuring of the entire economy, focusing on increasing social and ecological capital, can lessen people's suffering. Yet people around the world are voting for violent idiots that promises economic growth by aggressive exploitation of the remaining ecosystems that sustain all biological life.

For example, if the new president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has his way the Amazon rainforest will be decimated to give way for unsustainable soy plantations. The biodiverse rich region and home to traditional peoples will be destroyed and the ecosystems capacity to oxygenate the planet and store carbon will be greatly impacted. Bolsonaro also has plans to legalise the use of weapons on a wider scale which will probably lead to further indiscriminate killings of people trying to safeguard the Amazon and promote wide scale illegal logging. This of course will only undermine Brazilians wellbeing but the majority believe the opposite to be true.

Economic decline led by net energy decline doesn't have to result in despotism, although it can. A number of other factors are likely influencing how politics in resource scarce times turns out. Weak institutions, dysfunctional media, high levels of inequality, high population growth, high levels of private debt, a powerful military, and high vulnerability to changes in environment are other generic factors likely playing a role. Other factors tied directly to energy include: high dependency on food imports, government budgets tied to fossil fuel exports, high per capita energy use, and high dependency on energy imports.

There are several measures governments and organisations can take to reduce the risk of a society falling into the hands of a dictator. For example by promoting independent media, investing in low-energy infrastructure, reducing political polarization, strengthening democratic institutions, discouraging inequality, building local food production capacity, decentralising the economic and political system, limiting population growth, and reducing financial instability. In other words, the opposite of what many governments are trying to do currently. So people need to wake up to the realities of our situation and demand change, but such change needs to be guided by the understanding of biophysical realities. Otherwise it is doomed to fail, will only promote further violence and destruction.

Garden of Gods. Credit. John Fowler CC-BY 2.0

Europeans have for the last 30 years lived in their own little bubble of financial scams protected by American hegemony, but that is now imploding by debt deflation and utter disgust with the ruling elite. And while criticising the current neoliberal economic paradigm is one step in the right direction there still seems to be an unwillingness to reflect upon our deeper values, about rights and freedoms, that ultimately led us here.

We live on a finite planet that is now full of people but running low on resources. Our social contracts and economic frameworks developed during a time when the world was less crowded and had plenty of resources. Disregarding biophysical realities is not an option anymore. Therefore one must ask, are those social constructs of ours still valid?

Well, we know that our economic framework certainly is not. There's plenty of evidence to prove that. But how about our ideas about so called “natural” rights?

Social contract theory

The political ideology called liberalism, that we now take for granted, arose from 17th century European ideas about natural rights and social contract theory.

The idea and theory of a social contract gained prominence in Europe when it became one of the leading ways of explaining and delimiting peoples duty of obedience to their government and of their right to resist and overthrow government when it became oppressive. It was an attempt to explore the best form of government and its justifications. What should laws require? When do people have a duty to obey decent government? And when may they justly exercise their right to resist oppressive government?

According to the early formulations of social contract theory citizens may justly exercise their right to resist governments that flagrantly and systematically fails to perform its basic tasks or preserve fundamental rights. And laws are only legitimate when they are generated by the institutions and procedures that are part of the terms of the social contract.

Until the end of the 17th century the social contract was understood in communitarian terms. It was not understood in individualistic terms. The government received its legitimate power in a grant from the community as a whole, not from the the individuals comprising that community. And governments only have legitimate authority when that community consents, through its rightful representatives, to transfer its power to the government. Therefore, the right to resist an oppressive government was only justified by the community as a whole, not individual persons.

But then Thomas Hobbes came along and dropped a bombshell in his famous book Leviathan. He rejected the communitarian aspect of the social contract tradition and claimed that rights belonged to individual persons but that they are at constant war with each other, due to human nature being fundamentally egoistic, and therefore needed to grant power to a strong state that in turn would ensure protection. He believed such a social contract therefore needed to be non-liberal and absolutist-authoritarian.

During the early 19th century the idea of metaphysical natural rights came under attack. Utilitarianist like Bentham rejected the idea that any objective, universal and moral rights possessed by humans in virtue of a common human nature existed. More people agreed with Rousseau's ideas that human nature changed through history. Hume claimed that very few people had actually ever consented to be governed and that it was hard to see how such consent could ever be fairly proved. Furthermore, they argued, that society is much more like an organism which develops without conscious control by its parts than it is like an artificial machine controlled by some outside force. The claim of god given natural rights were believed to have led to bloody wars and revolutions that reigned terror upon Europe and so metaphysical rights and social contract theory were both out of fashion by 1815.

In the Americas, thinkers were slower to reject natural rights and social contract theory than in post-1815 Europe. But by 1861 the idea of natural rights came under scrutiny as it was suspected that the theory had contributed to the South's attempt to secede from the Union and its commitment to states founded on racial slavery. But the doctrine of natural rights continued to be widely popular throughout the period. Many anti-slavery arguments appealed to natural rights. And many pro-slavery arguments did the same, arguing that which legal rights anyone had depended on their natural rights, but slaves were not genuinely human, and so did not have the natural right not to be enslaved!

In Latin America, the idea of natural rights were seen as a obstacle in trying to create a stable government by the 1870s. They rejected the idea in favour for the liberal principles of J.S Mill and Herbert Spencer, as well as those of Auguste Comte´s authoritarian socialism.

The massive and seemingly pointless slaughter of the first world war came to be blamed on the organic theory of the state and society. That blame, along with modernisms distaste for evolutionist models, dethroning Darwin and makine Einstein king of scientific thought, eventually overthrew the organic theory. But utilitarianism continued to predominate in secular moral theory and political thinking, especially after the Great Crash of 1929 when people were sympathetic to socialist and collectivist premises.

But by the 1960s, utilitarianism were overthrown and in the 1970s collectivism was abandoned and replaced by individualism. Natural rights and social contract theory returned to the stage. This was much due to the US unjust war in vietnam killing hundreds of thousands of innocents. People blamed it on deranged utilitarian thought. Unfairly utilitarianism itself was blamed for the US morally corrupt reasoning. And so people turned to Rawls, Nozick and Dworkin's ideas of individual rights trumping collective-utilitarian policies and the Kantian view that governments main duty is to give equal respect to all its citizens.

Modern critique

Given what we know today one must reject the old fashioned ideas of natural rights and social contract that originated from the 17th century and came back to force during the 1960s.

First of all, these ideas came into being in a world that still had plenty of resources and healthy ecosystems to support the population. It was a world were only white men were allowed to take part in discussions, where slavery was rampant, and humans believed themselves to rule over nature.

Our understanding of the world is much better today. We now know that we live in a world that is completely beholden to physical laws such as thermodynamics, conservation of mass, evolution, and diminishing returns of complexity.

We know that there are no such things as objective god given or natural rights, we made them up. We know that people in the past used the claim of natural rights to justify slavery because they didn't want to give up the “free” energy that generated their wealth. Similarly, they didn't recognize that all humans come from a common ancestor and that we are part of the larger animal community. Or that females often chooses the male, not the other way around. Neither did they consider the fact that without healthy ecosystems humans wouldn't survive.

We have to move away from the old reductionist thinking that treats humans and other organisms as isolated parts in a big machinery. We know that the world doesn't work that way. We are part of a whole that interact and feedback on each other. Outcomes are an emergent phenomenon that cannot be derived from studying parts in isolation. Depending on guiding principles, incentive structures, we get different outcomes. Our current incentives tells us to destroy ecosystem for profit so that we can consume even more resources until they run out and we starve. That's simply suicidal.

Moreover, we know that human nature is not just based on selfishness. Humans are capable of both egoistic and altruistic actions but incentives guide them to behave in one way more than the other. It is true in a strict biological sense that humans try to maximize their own and kins net energy in order to survive and thrive but we also know that reciprocity and cooperation has had an evolutionary advantage. By hunting or farming in groups, bigger prey or larger fields can be used to gain a larger energy surplus. Thus being an advantage also to the individual. But a society is much larger than any tribe (say 250 people) and so eventually one cannot rely on personal trust and reciprocity to maintain order. Therefore people invented social constructs like culture and religion to guide human behaviour. Later one, as societies grew ever larger they instituted authorities to oversee that these incentive structures were being followed.

In a full world, there is no room for individual rights over collective outcomes if we wish to avoid mass suffering of both humans and nature. Of course, people will react to this and say “look at all the dictatorships” bla bla etc. But they forget that they will eventually have to kiss their so called “individual rights” goodbye anyway if we continue on the current track. Fossil fuels and other resources are depleting, making us poorer, more unequal and more at risk of death from climate change. Resource limitations often lead to competition, conflict and war. Something we have already started seeing. The neoliberal capitalist ideals born out of the 1960s return to 17th century ideas about natural rights have been an utter failure.

And if we want to talk about rights we must admit that they are made up by humans and can be changed. From an objective perspective, a human has as much right to live as a hedgehog or an oak tree. Either that, or none of us has any rights at all and matters of mass killings or mass extinctions are simply a tragic fate of natural laws.

Now that the english have voted to exit the european union one must ask if it's not about time to have a referendum here in Sweden. The results could mirror those of the brits, a slight majority preferring to leave. A divide mostly between the upper and lower class and the old and the young. Swedes already said no to join the Euro and NATO so the sentiment of wanting to keep self-determination has always been strong.

Opinion polls show loosing confidence in established parties and a turn towards more radical left and right wing politics as people become increasingly aware of the major challenges society is facing. The conservative Sweden Democrats is thought to have gained some 20% of voters while the Social Democrats and the Liberals have lost a significant number of voters.

Economic, environmental and energy problems keep piling up without any clear vision or united efforts to tackle them on a national scale. On top of that immigration has become a major issue that divides the country. At the same time property prices and rents are sky high in city regions leading to segregation that only intensifies conflicts between the have and have nots.

This meanwhile farmers are struggling due to unreasonable EU rules and practices. Sweden imports almost 50% of the food that is consumed despite all the fertile land and freshwater the country has. However, the trend is shifting towards more locally grown food as people become aware of the benefits and the enjoyment in knowing where their food comes from. But it's a slow process.

The danger of course, in these times of political turmoil, is for demagoguery to gain more traction as people struggle to make sense of shifting power structures and harsher socioeconomic conditions. There are no easy or quick fixes, even if Sweden leaves the EU we still have many problems that our own government is to blame for, the massive private debt burden for example. The rising economic inequality and unfunded pensions that indebted students without any sight of gaining high paying jobs will ever be able to pay for. Exiting the EU or stopping immigration won't solve these problems, we need structural change of our entire economic system. The question is if we have the courage to change our way of living before it is changed for us, whether we like it or not.

The People vs Empire

On the 6th of October, the self-organized European Citizens' Initiative against TTIP (Transatlantic trade and investement partnership) and CETA managed to pass the goal of getting more than 3 million people to sign the citizen petition against the secretly negotiated and highly controversial trade deals between Europe, the US and Canada.

Mehr Demokratie. Credit: Kurt Wilhelm (CC-BY-SA 2.0)

With reference to major risks of the ISDS clause (corporations suing states), lowering environmental standards and worker rights, deregulation of public institutions and infringement on internet freedom, the initiative wants the negotiations to be stopped.

Yesterday, citizens all over Europe went out to demonstrate the undemocratic so called trade deals, attracting hundreds of thousands of people in Berlin. The biggest protest in Germany for many years. Demonstrations also took place in eight Swedish cities.

One of the most common arguments for TTIP is that "there will be more growth and jobs" through, for example, removing safety procedures (crash testing) in the automobile industry which according to a recent study could lead to a drastic increase in traffic-related deaths in Europe (since a European car is 33% more safe than the American counterpart). In other words, it would generate more financial capital for the big multinationals at the expense of ordinary Europeans' health and safety.

According to a leaked document, published on Corporate Europe Observatory (20th of April, 2015), murky negotiations of "regulatory exchange" that would force laws drafted in any of the 78 states to go through a screening processes by a technocratic elite has taken place without public knowledge. This screening process would be done by a bunch of lawyers and lobbyists, in form of a permanent, undemocratic, and unaccountable group of technocrats. Most people think this type of group only will serve to uphold the interests of multinational corporations.

According to attorney David Azoulay, at the Centre for International Environmental Laz, "Not only will it extend an outrageously burdensome process on future legislation, but any current legislation in the public interest that doesn't sit well with trade interests on either side of the Atlantic could be subjected to the same process to make it conform to corporate interests"

In summary, this is the response of a predatory Empire, and it's elite, to a world without growth. It starts cannabilizing on the very foundation that underpins it, ordinary people and nature. Now is the time to change the entire system, or crumble under it.

Source: Pixabay (CCO Public Domain)

New muzzle law in Spain sparks protests

On the 11th of December Spains conservative government passed a new law that goes against basic human rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. The law which is officially called "Law for the Protection of Citizens' Security" has been renamed the muzzle law by the Spanish public.

On 20th of December thousands of demonstrators took to streets in several large Spanish cities (Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Almeria, Granada, Valencia) to express their anger at the new law which sets huge fines for "offences" such as burning the Spanish flag or demonstrating outside government buildings or other strategic buildings.

The new law could fine citizens up to €30,000 for disseminating photographs of police officers, €600,000 for participating in demonstrations outside parliament buildings, €600 for insulting police officers and €30,000 for burning the Spanish flag.

The demonstrators included groups opposed to forced evictions because the law can levy fines of €30,000 for attempting to prevent home repossessions. Some protestors even said that "we are returning to the time of Franco and it is completely unconstitutional, we must protest because we cannot remain silent". Many believe the new law is an attempt by the Spanish government to muzzle protestors over their handling of the deep economic crisis that has gripped the country for several years.

Media Attention

Pieces of news have been reported in international media outlets, many questioning the Spanish governments decision. Here in Sweden, politician Gudrun Schyman has critized Swedish mainstream media for not writing about this important piece of news as well as the lack of public response in Europe, saying "Why is not entire Europe boiling in wild protests against what is happening in a EU country with 46 million inhabitants?". Instead it has been totally quiet when freedom of speech and freedom of assembly died in Spain. What is happening in Spain is shocking and should worry many Europeans, we cannot take our liberties for granted. Who knows, perhaps it will be our turn next time.

Trade agreement being negotiated behind the scenes

In my last post I had a critical look at the trans-pacific partnership (TTP). And so to be fair and also bring this issue closer to home I will in this post have a look at the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). TTIP is very similar to TTP, a proposed regional free-trade agreement, but between the European Union and the United States. Proponents of TTIP argue that it would result in multilateral economic growth, while critics argue that it would increase corporate power and make markets more difficult to regulate for public benefit. Like TPP this trade agreement has been delayed by leaked draft documents, due to it's secretive nature, but could be finalized by the end of 2014.

Corporate Control

Similar to the case of TTP a very controversial clause in the TTIP is the Investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS). The ISDS would allow corporations to sue governments, for any government action (at any level, including local government level) that limits a corporation's future profits. One example of how the ISDS clause in TTIP would impact countries can be found in the case of the Swedish, part state owned, energy company Vattenfall suing the German government over the issue of terminating nuclear power plants. Vattenfall demands payouts of 4,7 billion euros (Der Spiegel), and has caused outrage in Germany. Other examples includes tobacco companies suing the Australian government over health labeling of cigarettes, and fracking companies suing the Canadian government over environmental protection. The original justification for introducing ISDS in trade agreements was for trade deals with countries where the judicial system was weak in protecting foreign investors. But this is not the case with either the EU or the US. According to the latest UN report on the topic, ISDS cases has increased from 0 in 1992 to 514 in 2012.

Responses by civil society

There is now a growing civil society resistance to TTIP and ISDS inclusion in the TTIP negotiations. Last month there were 450 protest actions across 24 member states (The Greens Europe). The European NGO Finance Watch writes about ISDS that "the very principle of such a mechanism is anti-democratic, because it allows investors to challenge legitimate regulations and other rules that have been created and voted by democratic institutions with a view to protecting their citizens". Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has reported that of 560 lobby encounters that the European Commission trade department held to prepare the negotiations, 520 (92%) were with business lobbyists, while only 26 (4%) were with public interest groups (CEO). That must be considered corporate capture. A large number of European scientists have also voiced concern over ISDS legal nature, quote "there is little evidence linking the conclusion of the Treaties to increased flows of foreign direct investment, and there is little evidence that they contribute to other development goals, such as encouraging good governance" (University of Kent). And a recent study from Tufts University has concluded through modelling that TTIP could lead to: net loss in exports for the EU, a net loss in GDP, and a loss in employment of some 600 000 jobs, and the author conclude by stating that "In the current context of austerity, high unemployment and low growth, increasing the pressure on labor incomes would further harm economic activity" (Capaldo, 2014).

Impact on environment, health and food standards

Many environmental organisations fear that the TTIP will ignite a "race to the bottom" regarding environmental regulations in the EU, so that they come to resemble the US far weaker regulatory system. Most likely the TTIP will accelerate the privatization of public goods and services such as National Health systems. This could have tremendous effects on public health. And many analysts agree that TTIP would allow big food corporations to avoid food safety regulations and undermine sustainable agricultural practices in the rush for profits and trade. For example, the US has much weaker standards on animal welfare, ecosystem protection and GMO labeling. These are serious citizen concerns that has not been sufficiently addressed by governments wishing to take part of the TTIP.

Conclusion

Trade unions, consumer groups, environmentalists and digital rights activists are opposed to increasing corporate rights over sovereign nations. Almost all (centre-)left groups in the European Parliament have voted against ISDS. So have the French Assemble and the Dutch Parliament. In Sweden, however, both the moderates (M) and social democrats (S) are positive to the TTIP (ETC, 2013). The current prime minister, Stefan Löfven, has stated that he welcomes the TTIP but that "social justice issues should be included" (ibid). This is a paradox since the (S) representative Mikael Damberg in a leaked document to Cecilia Malmström, the EU commissioner for trade, has signed a letter pushing for ISDS inclusion in TTIP (TTippen.se). The most troubling issue is perhaps how much of the negotiations have been kept secret from public and governmental scrutiny, similar to the TPP. Moreover it seems that countries have become so desperate for economic growth that they are willing to throw everything they worked for, in terms of environmental and health regulation, out the window. I am also surprised that conservatives don't seem to react to this issue as much as the left, one might think that they should be even more concerned with national sovereignty.

Trade agreement that upsets

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a regional free-trade agreement between the United States and some pacific countries. It threatens local economies self-determination over big corporations and any hope of a green trade deal that could ultimately do more to reduce carbon emissions. Critics have described the TPP as NAFTA on steriods (stoptpp.org) because of its focus on giving legal power to multinational corporations over nation states and their citizens. The proposed TPP is now, however, running into difficulties as the public learns more about it.

What is TPP?

TPP is a proposed regional free-trade agreement that as of 2014 includes twelve countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region (see map below). These countries combined represents an economic power of more than 40% of the worlds GDP, making the TPP the largest economic trade agreement to date. The agreement started with discussions in 2005 and should have finished by 2012 but was delayed because of major controversies and outrage due to leakages of secret documents around Intellectual Property and Environment Chapters in the proposed agreement by WikiLeaks. The push for this kind of an trade agreement probably started as a alternative way to WTO negotiations after 12 years of stagnation, partly due to well-organized public resistance in many countries. At the moment U.S. corporate interests are driving the agenda of the TPP (The Guardian). It is according to many commentators no coincidence that leftist Latin American governments and China has been left out of the agreement.

Controversy

There has been extremely little transparency regarding the TPP negotiations. Few people have had access to the draft agreement and outermost secrecy has been in place. Large corporations and lobbyists, however, have been able to see chapters of the document. Thus when WikiLeaks first revealed parts of the TPP draft in November of 2013 many people and citizens rights groups got very upset. One part of the TPP which consist of giving corporations the right to directly sue governments for regulations that infringe upon profits or potential profits may explain why the TPP negotiators tried to hide the details from public awareness (Guardian, 2013). Because they knew it would evoke strong opposition, given the value people place in national sovereignty. Other parts of the draft, which have been leaked, includes:

Intellectual Property (IP) Chapter

The IP Chapter covers topics from pharmaceuticals, patent registrations and copyright issues to digital rights. Experts say it will affect freedom of information, civil liberties and access to medicines globally. The latest 77-page document is a working draft from the negotiations in Vietnam, dated 16 May 2014. The IP chapter of TPP would, if signed, effectively let corporations monitor citizens online activities, cut off peoples Internet access, delete content, impose fines and pursue stronger criminal regulations related to online copyright (ComputerWorld). It would end up instituting very controversial laws such as SOPA and PIPA that would restrict internet freedoms and free speech to the benefit of corporations. Overly protective patent laws on medicines and biological seeds etc. would also increase health care costs and farming practices and thus have a major impact on public health and food security, especially in poorer nations.

Environment Chapter

The environmental chapter in the TPP does not require nations to follow legally binding environmental provisions or other global environmental treaties. Pollution controls could vary depending on a country's domestic circumstances and capabilities. The chapter shows how trade above all is promoted, beyond environmental goals and values, basically stating that local environmental laws are not to obstruct trade or investment between member countries. Furthermore there is an emphasis on “...flexible, voluntary mechanisms, such as voluntary auditing and reporting, market-based incentives, voluntary sharing of information and expertise and public-private partnership”, but that even such measures should be designed in a manner that “...avoids the creation of unnecessary barriers to trade” (WikiLeaks). At a time of worldwide environmental challenges (including species die-offs, dangerous pollution of the oceans and climate change) people would expect that trade could be a tool to protect the planet, not hasten ecological collapse.

Conclusion

According to Noam Chomsky, the MIT professor, the TPP is not about "free trade" at all. He says “These are extreme, highly protectionist measures designed to undermine freedom of trade. In fact, much of what’s leaked about the TPP indicates that it’s not about trade at all, it’s about investor rights” (Huffington Post). Simply put, this proposed agreement protects corporations over citizens and profits over the environment. If signed, this agreement could further exacerbate economic inequalities and environmental degradation in many nations.

Inequality and economic crisis leaves democracies open to totalitarianism

Involuntary degrowth and its consequences