Author Archives: Richard

About Richard

I am vice-president of Science for Peace Canada and professor emeritus of Political Science at the University of Toronto. I spent my academic career studying the political economy of the global South, with special reference to Africa. Post retirement, my focus has shifted to the strategy and tactics on nonviolent action and to the viability and political feasibility of democratic paths to ecological sustainability

Science for Peace and Sustainability? Not without a Strategy

Humanity faces the gravest crisis in our short history. Our governmental leaders are unwilling or unable to grapple effectively with two looming catastrophes: escalating climatic disasters and growing arsenals of increasingly deadlier nuclear arsenals, combined with rising tensions among nuclear powers. Authoritarian tendencies throughout the world make matters worse, as far-right deniers and conspiracy theorists rise to the fore. Continue reading

The barrel of a revolver tied in a knot to symbolize nonviolence

10 Essential Things to Know about Nonviolent Resistance

  1. Two traditions of thinking about nonviolence hold sway.

    • Principled nonviolence: Adherents decide to use nonviolent means on ethical grounds. In the Gandhian approach, nonviolence is a way of living a moral life.
    • Pragmatic nonviolence: Activists, seeking to win rights, freedom, or justice, choose to use nonviolent techniques because they are more effective than violent means in achieving these goals. Gene Sharp is a major proponent of this approach.

However, in practice, principled proponents, such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, proved to be adept at pragmatically using nonviolent methods, Equally, some pragmatists, in their hearts, are pacifists as well as hard-headed realists. Continue reading

Gandhi is an icon of nonviolent resistance

How Nonviolent is Nonviolent Action?

The relationship between violent and nonviolent action is not as clear-cut as it may at first appear.

In principle, as nonviolence guru Gene Sharp repeatedly reminds us, violence must not be combined with nonviolent action. Why? For one thing, violence will undermine the legitimacy and moral high ground enjoyed by nonviolent resisters. Why is this legitimacy so important? Because of its effect in undermining the morale of the violent attackers, creating dissension among supporters of the invaders/usurpers, and building international support to sanction the aggressors/usurpers of power. Conversely, violence creates fear that not only scares off potential supporters or resistance, but also motivates the oppressor’s police and armed forces to fight back more determinedly. Thus, nonviolent discipline is a key to success, claims Sharp with few dissenting. Continue reading

total noncooperation with an occupying invader is like a walll the invader cannot penetrate

The Viability of Nonviolent Defence Today

“Non-violent defense” is an oxymoron. Or so it appears to many people. You hear the word “defense”, you think of “military”. You hear the term “national security”, you think of a state’s military strength (and perhaps diplomacy). The military has hi-jacked the terms defense and national security. Consequently, it sounds absurd to talk about non-violent defense.

But is the idea so preposterous?

Consider the war in Ukraine. Civilian resistance to the Russian invaders is inspirational. Civilians have blocked tanks and convoys, berated or cajoled Russian soldiers to undermine their resolve, given wrong directions to Russian convoys, refused to cooperate, and mounted spontaneous protests in occupied areas. And all these tactics were improvised on the spot.

Think how more effective non-violent defense would have been if it had been planned, and if Ukrainians had been trained in non-violent methods. With a civilian defense system in place, the Ukrainian armed forces might have allowed the Russian tanks to enter the country unimpeded. No immediate deaths, no destruction. And what can you, the invader, do with tanks when you face a population united in defiance, unarmed protest and complete non-cooperation? Ukraine would be indigestible.

Whether non-violent defense would have worked cannot be known. But what is certain is this: the prevailing notion of national security is leading us to death and destruction, in Ukraine and elsewhere. Thus, a potential alternative — civilian-based defence — deserves critical scrutiny. My earlier reflection on this system reviewed its strategy and tactics, some limiting conditions and provisos, and its potential benefits. Now I turn to lacuna and obstacles in the theory and practice of non-violent defense. Only hard-headed questioning will mitigate the skepticism surrounding this approach.

This critical review emphasizes the work of Gene Sharp – sometimes referred to as the “Clausewitz of non-violent warfare”. Recent major contributors on the methods of civilian resistance – in particular, Srdja Popovic and Erica Chenoworth – follow in Sharp’s footsteps. They provide either updated non-violent methods for a digital age (and for young rebels) or empirical evidence of the effectiveness of such an approach.

Two issues strike me as pivotal in getting real about non-violent defense. The first is recognizing and overcoming major domestic obstacles, especially vested interests, partisan divides, and apathy. The second involves seeing beyond the static typologies of non-violent action to conceptualize its implementation as a dynamic, mutually reinforcing process. Taking civilian defense seriously confronts its proponents with several dilemmas.

Not Just an Abstraction

Non-violent defense is not simply a theory. Not only is there a long history of improvised civilian resistance to invasions, but also countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Lithuania have institutionalized civilian defense at various times.

Consider Sweden:  “Total defense” (military plus civilian defense) originated in neutral Sweden in the dangerous 1930s and World War II. Created in 1944, a Swedish Civil Defence Board undertook research on civil defense, organized training and oversaw the construction of air raid shelters. Sweden ran civilian-defence training centres in six cities during the Cold War. In 1986 the agency merged with the fire services board in a new Rescue Services Agency. The end of the Cold War led to a withering of the civil defence component. The initial idea – that all citizens had a duty to protect their country in an organized manner – fell into disuse by the mid 1990s.

The Russian attack on Georgia and seizure of Crimea however, revived the concept of total defence after 2014. Everyone between the age of 16 and 70 again has an obligation to respond in the event of an invasion or a natural catastrophe. “Everyone is obliged to contribute and everyone is needed” proclaimed a government pamphlet in 2018. Swedes were cautioned in the same pamphlet to prepare themselves for an emergency, though the emphasis was as much on peace-time natural emergencies as war. Nevertheless, in the event of war, the pamphlet declared that “we will never give up”. This basic idea is central to non-violent defence: an invader may occupy territory, but total non-cooperation and symbolic opposition will raise the costs of occupation, thereby discouraging invasion in the first place. In principle, all municipalities, voluntary organizations, businesses, trade unions, and religious organizations are required to prepare for civilian defence.

By March 2022, at the height of the war in Ukraine,  one in three Swedes was fairly or very concerned their country would be attacked.. Furthermore, a 2021 survey registered popular support for the idea of civil defense: 84 percent of Swedes said they would be willing to play a defense role, so long as it was non-combative.

Sweden is not an ideal case of civilian defense. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the government talked of raising the defense budget and perhaps abandoning Sweden’s neutrality by joining NATO. But the idea of civil defense persists as a defiant complement, though not alternative, to military defense.

Partisanship, Vested Interests and Apathy

If a country were to experiment with non-violent defense, what obstacles would the experiment encounter?

Sharp in Chapter 5 of Civilian-Based Defense contends that non-violent defense, to succeed, must not only adhere to an all-of-society, nonpartisan approach, but also secure the cooperation of the armed forces. People of both sexes and all ages must participate, according to Sharp. They will do so out of patriotism, the desire to maintain their way of life, and an abhorrence of domestic and foreign usurpers alike. It will also be necessary to bring the military onside, claims Sharp. Civilian-based defense (CBD) may thus begin as a minor supplement to the armed forces, the former’s role expanding as it demonstrates its efficacy and popularity.

Is this a realistic scenario in today’s world? The establishment of CBD, from this viewpoint, is largely a top-down exercise, based on two assumptions. The first is that partisan cleavages are bridgeable. According to Sharp, civilian defense must be “trans-partisan”. It must accommodate conservatives as well as liberals and socialists. If it becomes the project of a radical movement, or any single party, Sharp contends, its appeal will be too limited.

Secondly, this scenario assumes that reason will trump interests. The armed forces, various security apparatuses, suppliers of weapons and military technology and the national-security intellectual wing, are apparently swayed by evidence. Sharp emphasizes the importance of research in demonstrating CBD’s potential effectiveness. If research on CBD is positive, if the training of the population proceeds, and if civilians show enthusiasm, the armed wing of defense will acquiesce to the ascendancy of non-violent defense. Reason and patriotism will prevail.

Note that Sharp advocates “transarmament,” not disarmament. Presumably, it will be easier to sell CBD if it is seen not as pacifism, but as another form of struggle. The weapons in the new defence system are not munitions, missiles, warplanes, tanks; instead, they involve the subtle employment of 198 non-violent methods, their selection geared to the stage of engagement with the opponent, and the degree of the latter’s repressiveness.

I see three problems with this approach. The first pertains to interests. Sadly, we do not live in a world governed by reason; indeed, today people contest even what counts as fact. Interests shape dominant ideas, including those, or especially those, concerning national security. President Dwight Eisenhower, long ago, warned of the power of the military-industrial complex in bolstering military expenditures. Today, we would need to refer to an expanded military-industrial-security-intellectual complex. Thousands of billions of dollars are spent worldwide on the military and ancillary activities: on weapons, personnel, training, think-tanks, research and development. Many corporations, wealthy shareholders, employees and intellectuals are invested in perpetuating and extending the system of military defense. And defense budgets grow year after year.

In contrast, how much is spent on research on non-military forms of defense? Virtually nothing – perhaps the occasional grant for esoteric scholarly research.

Demilitarization will therefore involve a political struggle. It will be a struggle obviously in the superpowers. But even in in developing countries with weak institutions, the military tends to be comparatively strong. Much is at stake in defense policy for a range of powerful interests. No research results in favor of civilian defense are likely to persuade those whose profits, privileges or job depend on military defense. Non-violent defense – as more than a minor supplement to military defense – is a radical proposal.

Secondly, many societies today are riven with partisan divides and authoritarian tendencies. The United States is an obvious example, but the phenomenon is widespread, in Europe and beyond.

Is it possible to forge trans-partisan support for CBD in these circumstances?

Sharp notes in Civilian-Based Defence (ch. 5) that non-violent defence is more likely to work where social cohesion is high and democracy and civil society are strong. However, these ideal conditions are not, he claims, prerequisites.

But is Sharp correct? Can non-violent defence happen in the absence of social cohesion and strong democracy? It seems unlikely. The issue would be politicized and viewed with deep suspicion by conservative/populist forces. And autocrats would not empower their people via training in nonviolence.

Thirdly, alienation and cynicism are rife in many societies today; Yet Sharp emphasizes that non-violent defense requires intensive preparation and training of all or most of a country’s population. What will induce people to shake off their apathy and devote their free time to training? Motivation is a problem, magnified by deep partisan divides.

All these considerations – vested interests, partisan divides and alienation – suggest that a top-down, apolitical approach will not work. The reality is that non–violent defense is a radical democratic initiative. Nonviolent action is inherently democratic to the extent that it empowers people vis-a-vis their rulers or aggressors. Only a mass movement will be powerful enough to overcome the vested interests in militarism and motivate people to participate in training and preparation.

Of course, even if CBD fails as a national system, or is limited to a subsidiary role, people may, when the need arises, spontaneously take up nonviolent resistance. But a trained response would be so much more effective.

A Dynamic, Mutually Reinforcing Process

The prospect of non-violent defense is enhanced if it is understood as a dynamic process, rather than a static design. Don’t get lost in Sharp’s 198 methods of non-violent action and the complexities of relating strategy to circumstances. The key is this: CBD focuses on agency. People possess power to shape their own futures; how therefore  should this agency be harnessed for the common good? People have power because rulers depend on the ruled. Rulers cannot rule if the latter withhold their consent (or perhaps more accurately, assent). Thus, Sharp and his followers explore the bases of consent, and how consent can be denied to internal usurpers or external aggressors through nonviolent means.

Sharp and the others adhere to an inductive approach. They draw principles of effective action from successful and unsuccessful cases. In their examples, groups and individuals improvised responses to attempted domination — for example, the passive resistance of the German population to the French-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr Basin in 1923, the heroic non-violent resistance to German occupation in Denmark and Norway during World War II, and the astounding non-cooperation and defiance of the Czechs and Slovaks that met the Warsaw Pact army’s invasion to end the Prague Spring in 1968. The point of these cases is obvious: if improvised strategies can work so effectively, imagine if they were organized!

Fine. But how do you begin the process? Enthusiasm for nonviolent defense may be limited at first, and powerful groups will not cooperate and may be actively obstructive.

The process seems to work like this. The more the government builds the capabilities of the civilian defenders, the greater the willingness of people to unite and resist, drawing on the learned repertoire of nonviolent strategy and tactics.  And the more advanced the capabilities and the united willingness of defenders to resist, the less likely that enemies will attack or usurpers will usurp power. The costs of domination become too high.

What comprise the capabilities of non-violent defense? They include organizational structure, committed and shrewd leadership, training facilities geared to the general population, the proportion of the population that wants to participate, and ultimately the strength of civil society.

The final factor alludes to the importance of institutional involvement in civilian-based defense. What political parties, trade unions, religious bodies, school systems, municipalities support the system? Obviously, nonviolent action is much easier to develop within a democracy; indeed, it is inherently democratic. Again, CBD empowers people.

As the capabilities grow, the willingness to resist and the participation of the population expands. Concomitantly, the costs of asserting domination on the part of usurpers or aggressors rises, enhancing the prospects of peace – provided the society in question is willing to pre-empt conflict by negotiating jointly acceptable solutions to outstanding disputes.

Being Realistic

Demilitarization – reducing the budgets and roles of the armed forces – is a critical goal in today’s world. We face the rising probability of a nuclear holocaust resulting from accident, miscalculation, or escalation arising from a war like that in Ukraine. We are also very close to runaway global warming. The military, in the United States and increasingly elsewhere, is one of the largest institutional emitters of greenhouse gases. In addition, massive defense budgets are dedicated to waste – contributing neither to production not higher living standards – whereas we need to reallocate these resources to fighting climate change. Nonviolent defense, together with a renewed commitment to nuclear disarmament, is a potential way of achieving demilitarization.

Besides bolstering demilitarization, civilian defense has other positive outcomes. It reinforces civil society, builds democracy, discourages would-be tyrants and enemies, and extends norms of non-violent conflict resolution.

How then can we promote CBD? Civilian defense may proceed as a gradual process. Initially, it may be seen as only a supplement to military defense. Realism suggests that this approach is the most viable option. If popular enthusiasm grows and civilian capabilities advance, the military may be gradually reduced to a border control agency. But such a harmonious process is likely to be blocked at an early stage. Apolitical gradualism has severe limits.

Authoritarian states, for one thing, would balk at empowering their subjects. Civilian defense reveals the acute dependence of government on the assent of the ruled, together with the non-violent acts of omission and commission that withdraw that assent and paralyze rulership.

Nonetheless, in authoritarian systems, citizens have often improvised effective non-violent tactics. Consider the revolts of the people in eastern Europe and republics of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s; the “Arab Spring” of the early 2010s, which featured in many cases massive street protests; the “color revolutions” beginning in 2004 in the post-Soviet countries of Eurasia, including Ukraine; and the non-violent revolts against military rule in Sudan, Myanmar and elsewhere. Indeed, nonviolent protest reached its apogee in the period 2010-19, inhibited eventually by the pandemic.

Nonviolence, at a minimal level, is just common sense for people with grievances but without deadly weapons.

Partisan divides and power structures also hinder the expansion of nonviolent resistance at the expense of the military. “The people united will never be defeated,” yes. But the people are rarely united, and vested interests are powerful. Partisan and other cleavages allow those who govern to divide and rule their subjects. Social cohesion, together with democracy, is a key ingredient of success with non-violence. Unfortunately, many societies today are riven by partisan loyalties and authoritarian tendencies. What to do?

Accept the reality: civilian defence, in its full manifestation where the military’s role considerably shrinks, is a radical proposal. It will probably be advocated only by a progressive movement, along with measures to9 achieve democratization,  equity, and a Green New Deal for a just transition. Civilian defence, as a radical project of democratization and demilitarization, is the missing link in the programs of the left.

What sort of states are the best candidates for CBD? Nuclear-armed states are unlikely candidates. From the strategic viewpoint, it is assumed nuclear weapons deter attacks. We know the logic is strong. How else could a nuclear power such as Russia, without the deterrent, get away with attacking and devastating Ukraine, the second largest country in Europe? States will be reluctant to surrender their nuclear weapons.

Non-violent defence can still play a supplementary role in the US, the UK, France, India and Israel, acting as a major deterrent to domestic usurpers of power and building civil society for the longer run. In addition, the more states adopting CBD, the lower the international threats; the lower the tensions, the more likely are agreements on limiting and eventually abolishing nuclear weapons. There is an indirect benefit of civilian defence.

Clearly, CBD would be easiest to introduce in small democratic countries and territories that lack a military. Cases that come to mind include Costa Rica, Mauritius and Iceland.

Countries bordering on a Great Power could also benefit from civilian defence. These countries could not hope to defeat an invading force from the superpower – or at least not without inflicting enormous damage and casualties upon themselves. Besides training the population in the principles and methods of nonviolent defence, civil society organizations would need to build strong links with peace groups internationally and with dissident groups within the superpower. The aim would be to precipitate internal dissent in the aggressor’s country and international condemnation of the invader, together with sanctions, in the event of a conflict. This strategy would proceed along with a willingness to negotiate to resolve conflicts with the great-power neighbour. Ukraine would have been a major candidate for such an approach. Smaller countries would be in a more dangerous position with CBD. They would face the prospect of forced assimilation to the dominant ethnic group of the superpower, as has happened in Tibet and the western regions of China.

Democratic middle powers, especially the Nordic countries, also offer an opportunity. Sweden is an exemplar. They would begin with civilian defence as a supplement to military defence. As CBD is a dynamic process, it might expand over a decade as it demonstrates its viability. Given catastrophic climate change, civilian and military defence would both expand to encompass preparation and training in handling “natural” disasters (extreme heat and storms, floods and forest fires). The body in charge might be termed a “civilian protection agency.”

Nonviolent defense is one element in a broader program to allow humans to live and thrive in an increasingly dangerous world. Politics is key.


Richard Sandbrook is professor emeritus of Political Science at the University of Toronto and President of Science for Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a large crowd engaged in nonviolent resistance

Demilitarization: Is It Time for Civilian-Based Defence?

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Albert Einstein’s famous comment is more profoundly true today than when he uttered it in 1946. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explained in 2015, Einstein’s understanding of this old mode of thinking still defined the prevailing national security doctrine of all major states. It’s time for a change in thinking. Continue reading

to illustrate devastation of climate change

Climate Emergency: Getting Out Alive

Jim Morrison observed that nobody gets outta here alive. Though Morrison had a point, Kim Stanley Robinson sketches an optimistic scenario in which we – or many of us – do get out of the climate emergency alive. Robinson, in  a book of 530 dense pages entitled The Ministry for the Future, mixes sci-fi with hard science to make his case. It is a tour de force, though a book of such demanding complexity that it is more likely to be talked about than read.

Despite the author’s touching belief in the sanctity of the rule of law, democratic representation and social and ecological justice, the book raises disturbing questions. Success in mastering climate change depends heavily on violence to deter carbon-intensive enterprises and life-styles and on extensive geo-engineering. Is this really what a just transition will entail? If so, how do those committed to non-violence and skeptical of geo-engineering respond?

Fiction….or Non-Fiction?

Taken as a work of fiction, The Ministry for the Future is unconventional. Robinson blithely breaks all the rules of novel-writing. For one thing, very little character development takes place. For another, he stands the maxim, ‘show, don’t tell’ on its head. ”Tell, don’t show” prevails in the form of a series of mini-lectures ranging from the Jevons Paradox and cognitive behavioural therapy to the depredations of rentier capitalism and the promise of Modern Monetary Theory. So be warned: this is not a novel for leisurely reading.

Do enjoy the sheer audacity of the book’s shifting points of view, however. The novel shifts back and forth from third-person omniscient, for narrative and idea-development, to the first-person viewpoint of an amazing array: a photon from the sun, a reindeer, a carbon atom, Gaia, the weather system, and my favourite, the market. This zany approach entices the reader, but also makes us reflect on phenomena far outside our experience. This is, after all, only sci-fi.

Or is it? If it were sci-fi, we might dismiss it as a lark. We cannot dismiss this book, however, because it is heavily based on scientific knowledge and on existing climate trends. The mini-lectures are there not only to inform readers of complex realities, but also to persuade them not to dismiss the dangers he sketches as mere fiction. He harnesses the imaginative power of fiction to alert us to the imminent threat of climate disaster and to a potential pathway to safety and justice.

We begin the book with a searing portrayal of what lies just ahead. It describes in graphic detail a horrendous heat wave in central India that kills 20 million people. It is a horrifying event, yet the risk of such a deadly heat wave occurring in the next few years is high, according to climate scientists. As I was writing this article, NASA and NOAAA issued a report announcing that, in 2019, the earth trapped nearly twice as much heat than in 2005. Already, hundreds of thousands have perished from the heat throughout the world, including hundreds in France in 2003. Today, a headline caught my eye: ‘B.C. Records Hundreds of Deaths Linked to Heat Wave’. If a heat wave can hit Vancouver, where the weather is usually cool, no one is safe. Meanwhile, people in the Persian Gulf and the Indus Valley now regularly experience brief episodes of wet-bulb conditions beyond human endurance. We may know the facts, but Robinson’s fictional account brings home the terror.

So, what does Robinson propose? How do we get out alive?

The Survival Scenario

We observe the climate crisis and the halting response to it mainly through the eyes of Mary Murphy, the thoughtful and committed head of the Ministry for the Future. Established under the Paris Climate Agreement, the Ministry is based in Zurich. Its mandate is exemplary: to work on behalf of children, those yet unborn and animals in pushing for measures to create a just and stable climate Predictably, the Ministry is poorly funded. Its international staff is over-stretched and ineffectual at first. But the ministry has a greater impact following a devastating global depression in the 2030s.

The survival scenario is too complex to summarize. Suffice it to say that there is no integrated program that rallies the world in concerted action. Instead, the world muddles through to the 2040s and 2050s. The concentration of carbon in the atmosphere begins to decline from a dangerously high 450 ppm, half of the world’s surface returns slowly to the wild, and the human population declines to a sustainable level. Robinson offers a decidedly democratic-socialist perspective, though his scenario involves no revolutionary upheaval. Instead, we witness a gradual movement to practical forms of cooperative organization and democratic representation. Strangely enough, the conservative central banks play a key role in this scenario. Mary and others persuade the bankers that, if we fail to conserve the world, worrying about inflation is pointless. Central bankers, tentatively at first, and then enthusiastically, embrace quantitative easing to support a new carbon coin currency, with one ton of sequestered carbon worth one coin. This stable currency persuades even petro-states and energy companies to accept complex compensation for leaving their hydro-carbon assets in the ground. All the parts of the puzzle fit together, though with many false starts.

Is all well that ends well? Not really. The scenario depends for its success on many strands, but two are controversial.

Geo-Engineering?

We may recoil at the geo-engineering, which is undertaken on a massive scale. The Indian government, following India’s devastating heat wave, resorts, without consulting other governments, to ‘solar radiation management’. It seeds the upper atmosphere with sulfur-dioxide dust to emulate the effect of a major volcanic eruption. The experiment reduces global temperatures marginally over three years. A second complex engineering feat, which I will not attempt to explain, is to stabilize glaciers in Antarctica. ‘This effort succeeds in slowing down the movement of glaciers into the sea, thus reducing the rise in ocean levels. Finally, the Russians dye the ice-free areas of the Arctic Ocean yellow to reflect solar radiation and impede oceanic warming. All experiments seem to have a positive effect.

The justification for geo-engineering is that global warming exceeds the point where it is reversible through conventional methods. Will this indeed be our predicament? Most of us harbour strong doubts about geo-engineering. We believe it is impossible, in complex systems, to gauge the unintended, and possibly devastating, effects of major interventions in climate dynamics. We may, however, be forced to rethink our position. Global warming is proceeding much faster than expected. Three or four degrees (Celsius) of warming would be disastrous. How many of us would survive as the tropical and semi-tropical regions become uninhabitable? If we are headed in that direction, we may have little choice but to consider geo-engineering as a last resort.

Violence or Non-Violence?

The second controversy concerns the legitimacy of employing violence to deter carbon-intensive activities and life-styles. In the novel, characters who have earned our respect condone the use of violence.

Attention in the novel focuses on a shadowy international ‘terrorist’ group based in India – the ‘Children of Kali’ – and a ‘black-ops’ group associated with the Ministry for the Future. Mary Murphy stumbles on the secret operations established by her deputy at the Ministry. She struggles with the morality of violence; Mary is depicted as a well-balanced, fair-minded democrat. Eventually, she accepts the necessity: ‘The hidden sheriff, she was ready for that now, that and the hidden prison. The guillotine for that matter. … The gun in the night, the drone from nowhere. Whatever it took. Lose, lose, lose, fuck-it – win!’

What transpires is a cascade of violence. Underground groups commit widespread sabotage of pipelines, polluting power stations, passenger jets (60 crash in a single day) and private passenger planes. Air travel ceases as dirigibles return. The Children of Kali assassinate billionaires who profit from hydro-carbons. Drones sink container ships and factory-fish ships, and pulverize cement factories, Cattle ranching ceases as a bovine fever fatal to humans spreads among cattle and other domestic animals. Direct attacks – such as an operation that kidnaps the rich and famous at an Economic Summit at Davos – strike fear into the hearts of the powerful. And the violence succeeds in lowering emissions. The age of carbon-intensive industry and travel ends, while vast tracks hitherto dedicated to animal agriculture revert to wilderness. As the human population dwindles, the natural world undergoes a renaissance. Consequently, the concentration of carbon dioxide begins a steady decline in the 2040s or 2050s.

Considering the beneficial outcomes, is violence justified in the fight for a just transition?

Those of us committed to non-violence would answer in the negative. Yet, whether we like it or not, violence is likely to come. As extreme weather events multiply, as these events destroy agricultural and other livelihoods, the resulting panic and anger create conditions for extremism and ‘terrorism.’ In fact, adverse climatic trends are already exacerbating violent conflicts in tropical regions; in Syria, Sudan, Mali, and Central America, for instance. Security agencies in the United Kingdom and Canada have already identified such non-violent groups as Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, and PETA as potentially subversive. Extreme climate, loss of livelihoods, growing criminality, and collapsing governments are fuelllng a growing stream of climate migrants/refugees. If we do not take decisive action to halt carbon emissions, with dangerous tipping points in the offing, we invite instability, conflict and violence.

What Might Happen, Must not Happen

Combating global warming is thus not just a fight for climate activists; it is a fight for peace and justice activists as well. Kim Stanley Robinson shows as what might happen. But we have agency, and the violence and chaos that might happen, must not happen. Robinson’s final words are not exactly a consolation, but at least ground us in the reality of our situation: “We will keep going, we will keep going because there is no such thing as fate. Because we never really come to the end.”

Artificial Intelligence

Futureproof? Artificial Intelligence and the Human Prospect

New York Times  technology reporter Kevin Roose begins his new book with some good news.

Futureproof: Nine Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, (2021) adopts an upbeat tone in proposing how we might live well in this age of automation. “Artificial intelligence could be unbelievably good for humankind, if we do it right. A world filled with AI could also be filled with human creativity, meaningful work and strong communities.” Furthermore, artificial intelligence and automation “could bring us together, armed with new superpowers, to solve some of our biggest problems.” What problems? Big, big ones: to “eliminate poverty, cure diseases, solve climate change, and fight systemic racism.” Great!

But his repeated use of the conditional verb “could” evokes caution. Is this vision only hypothetical?

It appears to be so: Roose notes that “none of this will happen without us.” Well, that’s not a surprise. What do “we” need to do?

Therein lies the rub. Roose offers no plan because he lacks a problematic. Yes, he is rightfully skeptical “that the private sector will save us.” Yes, he thinks a strong welfare state and extensive retraining programs are needed to handle the disruptions. Yes, he implores us to stop bowling alone and recreate community in order to back “collective action.” But how do we overcome atomization, and for what sort of joint action? No answer, except for a stirring call to “arm the rebels” within the high-tech oligopolies – the usual suspects: Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, Alibaba, Microsoft, and others. Well, that’s something of a political nature.

But very thin gruel. Roose’s idea of arming tech rebels fighting for “ethics and transparency” is to provide them with “tools, data and emotional support.” That doesn’t sound promising, though further revelations of algorithmic manipulations and the unsavoury military contracts of big tech are important.

Not surprisingly, with little to offer, Roose concludes by urging his readers not to get “too discouraged.” If “we” are determined, “we” may still harness technology for the common good.

Am I too harsh in my judgment? You judge. Roose’s approach is emblematic of what we might term a “progressive neoliberal” stance. That stance deplores certain social trends, hopes for good social and ecological outcomes, but it hasn’t a clue how to bring them about. The failure stems from avoiding an analysis of systemic power relations, of which technological development is one pillar. The analyst turns instead to the easier question of how individuals can best accommodate existing trends. The author’s “Nine Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation” enumerate common-sensical ways in which humans can individually adapt to, and perhaps even thrive with, this runaway monster. Believing that another glorious world is possible leads nowhere if you lack a strategy.

But you may ask: is there really a problem with AI that requires a problematic? Can’t we just keep clicking happily away on our phones while hoping for the best? After all, learned economists claim that, in the long run, everyone benefits from automation because more and better jobs are created than are lost. Overall, living standards and satisfactions allegedly rise. Let’s click and be happy!

Sorry, no. The techno-optimists’ view is suspect. Although saying a good word on behalf of the machine-wrecking Luddites is considered a mark of intellectual ineptitude, we may at least understand their anger. The following questions just touch the surface of what is at issue:

  • Why should we assume that what may have happened in the past –new jobs and higher living standards for most – will recur in today’s different circumstances?
  • Is there an ethical case for sacrificing a generation or two for the long-run gain of future generations? What happened in the first industrial revolution in the West, and what is happening now in many countries of the global South, was and is brutal. The “satanic mill” involved exploitation, child labour, shortened life-spans – until the advent of trade unions, labour solidarity and the first stirrings of democratic government. Can we justify sacrificing lives for technological change?
  • Can today’s workers aspire to fill the new and better jobs that are created in this” fourth industrial revolution” powered by AI? In general, no. According to various reports, massive numbers of jobs are being lost – albeit, as Roose suggests, “invisibly.” Currently, the pandemic is providing both motivation and cover for companies to replace disease-prone humans with machines. The job losses are occurring at all levels, though particularly hard hit are the low-income occupations. Most of the new, good jobs involve high-tech/advanced-skills. Can unskilled and semi-skilled workers be retrained to fill these jobs? Probably not, unless exceptional retraining and income-replacement programs .exist, which is not the case except in the Nordic countries. Thus, many displaced workers end up in the insecure and poorly remunerated livelihoods in the gig economy, providing services for the winners of technological change and financialization.
  • If AI is our master rather than our useful servant, do we want it? As Roose points out, AI and automation have not made workers happier. Just the opposite: they suffer more stress than 30-50 years ago. Futureproof tell us why. AI is programmed to squeeze the last bit of productivity out of every worker. The Amazon warehouse is the paradigmatic case. The lot of growing numbers of workers is constant surveillance and monitoring by machines. The aim is “algorithmic management” – machines with the capacity to monitor, assess, reward, and even fire workers. Employees effectively will work for machines. And surveillance does not stop at the factory/warehouse/mine/office door. ”Surveillance capitalism” denotes a society in which advanced surveillance equipment (such as facial recognition and cellphone tracking) allows intelligence agencies to keep tabs on anyone deemed suspicious. Artificial intelligence is generating a cornucopia of tools for monitoring and controlling dissenters and dissidents – a boon for authoritarian leaders worldwide. Not to mention the latter’s new capacity for censorship and online disinformation campaigns. The latter are used to discredit opponents and reinforce extremist political identities. Advanced algorithms using globally networked digital technology spread conspiracy theories and deploy memes to reaffirm the false beliefs of virtual communities. Fascism gains a new lease on life.

Yes, there is a problem with AI. We live in a world faced with destruction from new generations of nuclear weapons, hatred spawned by the manipulated identities of those left behind by technological and social change, and accelerating global warming. All these problems grow worse as companies devote billions of dollars, thousands of PhDs, and millions of hours to perfecting algorithms to control our shopping and political preferences. From a societal viewpoint, it’s mad.

Thus, we return to the issue of a problematic. Lacking a problematic is a debilitating weakness when it comes to harnessing technological development. If you don’t understand the dynamics, you can’t think through feasible means of taming the beast.

So what is the problematic? It is devastatingly simple. I learned this truth years ago when I taught the political economy of technological change. Technological development is not a force of nature; it does not just happen. There are many innovations and inventions that could be harnessed. Those that come to fruition – receive finance and nurture – are the ones that suit the economic and power interests of the dominant elites. This self-evident truth increasingly applies to university-based research as well as commercial research. The incentives make it so.

Strategically, the implication is that if you want to change the pattern of technological development, you have to challenge the power structure. Roose is right: artificial intelligence could be “unbelievably good for humankind.” With enhanced productivity and new ways of interacting, we could solve our major problems and extend the realm of freedom for all. But not by following Roose’s nine rules of individual adaptation. Yes, “none of this will happen without us.” Yet that admonition requires substance.

Can “we” take on power structures? Can we organize a progressive mass movement that avoids the usual problems of sectarianism, identity clashes and schism? Can we develop a program that might have wide appeal, despite the rise of populist-nativism? It is a daunting challenge, especially in this age of surveillance capitalism powered by AI. But we have no other option but to try – if we want to be “futureproof.”

[header image: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay]

the book cover of the novel

The Pandemic Within

Strangely, reading Albert Camus’ The Plague (1947) during the pandemic did not depress me (further). Instead, I felt exhilarated. Yes, Camus depicts widespread despair in Oran (Mediterranean city in Algeria) as it undergoes months of quarantine. Fear and unrest rise as bubonic plague kills thousands each month But, as usual with Camus, his ideas are engaging.

Camus has intrigued me since undergraduate days. As a young man, I identified with his defiant attitude in “The Myth of Sisyphus” and L’étranger. Yes, our lives are utterly absurd in the sense of meaningless. But, despite all, including an empty heaven, we live. We may be Sisyphus with his futile unending task of pushing a boulder up a hill. However, we endure, and we can even imagine Sisyphus happy. Why? Because we devise our own meaning.

As an older man re-visiting these works, I found that defiance less satisfying. Perhaps age dulls the sense of possibility. In any case, in The Plague Camus is less defiant, more humble, and distinctly chilling.

The crux of the novel arrives at the beginning, when the narrator (Dr Rieux, as it turns out) observes that people consider themselves free, but “no one will be free as long as there are pestilences.” This observation has both an obvious, and a less obvious, meaning.

Obviously, epidemics and pandemics curb the freedom of everyone. People spend aimless days of high tension, mourn their dead, and are restricted to concentration camps if exposed to the virus. Even so, the experience of the people of Oran is, in some ways, not as dire as ours: people flock to bars, restaurants, cinemas and beaches, despite the contagion. No social distancing there, surprisingly.

People wait to be freed from the pestilence. Religion offers little consolation. Father Paneloux, his own faith in doubt, pleads for people to surrender to “God’s will”, not to question a fate that is all part of His design. Dr Rieux, the good doctor, is unpersuaded. We can count only on ourselves, he thinks. God remains mute in his heaven, in the face of all atrocities. Rieux, the model of an ethical and thoughtful person, acts to heal the afflicted purely out of common decency. That is all one can rely on.

At the less obvious level, the plague represents the propensity within humans for violence and murder. Tarrou, a visitor to Oran of mysterious origins, develops this idea in conversation with Rieux. Other reviewers have represented the plague as  fascism, but I see no evidence for this interpretation. Although the story is deliberately obscure, a youthful Tarrou apparently participated  in a radical left-wing group that assassinated people to advance a Utopian future. He later realizes a bitter truth: not only is killing never justified by any principle, but also, and more unsettling, “we all have the plague, and I have lost my peace.” The virus – the propensity for violence – may remain dormant for a while, but it never disappears. It will become virulent again and the contagion will spread.

So how do we live? Only by being perpetually on guard against the resurgence of the pestilence and taking the side of victims. “While unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilence,” we must “strive our utmost to be healers.”

Are we humans worth saving, if our basic natures are so debased? Yes, says Camus, in a carefully balanced judgment . “There are more things to admire in people than despise.” We hope he is right. We hope to encounter many Dr Rieux, to become Dr Rieux. But one thing is certain; indeed, it is the key lesson. To achieve peace, both in the political and the personal sense, we must be true healers. We must be alert to, and act against, the pandemic within.

Richard Sandbrook is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Toronto and President of Science for Peace Canada.

Image by Random House.

Making the Impossible Possible: Coalitional Movement Politics in the Decisive Decade

This is the decisive decade for humankind and other species. We tackle dire trends now.  Or we face a bleak future in which our constricted pandemic life now becomes the norm for all but the wealthiest. Our rational and technological prowess, in combination with market-based power structures, has brought us to the brink of catastrophe. Can movement politics be part of a solution?

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