The ‘Blue Economy’ Myth: We Have To Stop Thinking The Ocean Can Be Run Like A Business

• by: Nnimmo Bassey

Nnimmo Bassey – Photo: https://nnimmobassey.africa/blog/

10-13-2024 ~ Protecting the Earth’s oceans is problematic when profit is the leading concern.

In response to the increasing global demand for resources and the economic pursuits that come with it, attention on the world’s oceans continues to grow. But how should marine resources be properly managed? The blue economy is the umbrella term that looks at the planet’s oceans from an economic perspective and refers to the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems.

On one side of the coin are the exploitative activities and economic sectors, including fisheries, aquaculture, maritime transport, tourism, offshore renewable energy like wind and tidal power, and biotechnology. On the other side are marine conservation efforts.

Global platforms like the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Commission, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the Center for the Blue Economy have called for oceanic sustainability efforts.

In March 2024, the United Nations Environmental Assembly adopted a resolution on “strengthening ocean efforts to tackle climate change, marine biodiversity loss and pollution.” A press release issued by the European Commission after the session stated, “By submitting and negotiating the resolution, the European Union and its Member States reiterated their determination to play a leading role in protecting, conserving, restoring, and sustainably utilizing the world’s oceans.”

The concept of the blue economy is rooted in the recognition that the oceans are vital to human well-being and the global economy. Still, they are also threatened by overexploitation, pollution, and climate change. Therefore, the blue economy seeks to balance economic development with the need to protect and restore the ocean environment, ensuring that future generations can enjoy marine resources. Read more

What Ideas From The Paleolithic Are Still With Us In The Modern World?

• by: Jan Ritch-Frel

Michael Hudson – Photo: michael-hudson.com

10-11-2024 ~ An interview with renowned economic historian Michael Hudson on where our calendar comes from, his collaborations with the late intellectual David Graeber, and the long-lost practice of forgiving debt.

Is the order of the modern alphabet connected to how our shared ancestors counted the phases of the moon and its effect on tides 50,000 years ago? Did the first stirrings of government and bureaucracy emerge from the efforts of early astronomers to reconcile solar and lunar calendars? These are the kinds of questions that have kept economic historian Michael Hudson up at night.

On the surface, learning about the origins of the methods people use to bring order to their lives—such as time, weights and measures, and our financial systems—seems like just another history lesson. One ancient practice leading to another, resulting in guesswork of what people did before the last Ice Age.

But it goes beyond interesting. It’s very useful. The more we can parse out and extrapolate the beliefs and attitudes of previous eras, the more we might be able to step out of present behavior patterns and perceive social problems we keep creating because we thought we had to.

A deeper reach into human history is now possible, thanks to a growing body of archaeological and scholarly research collected in recent decades. Many experts in related fields have speculated that this research will have a large social impact as it percolates through centers of influence and we become accustomed to relying on a wider, global human historical evidence base as a reference. Society will greatly benefit from minds that are trained to think in deeper timescales than a millennium or two—archaeology and biological sciences increasingly permit useful insights and pattern observations into humanities at a historical depth spanning millions of years.

Hudson’s research has already made inroads into modern life. Many contemporary economists rely on his understanding of financial history in the Ancient Near East. Hudson’s collaboration with the late anthropologist and activist David Graeber inspired his launch of the debt cancellation movement during Occupy Wall Street. Graeber’s book Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a popularized adaption of Hudson’s research on the early financial systems of the Near East, encouraging Graeber to follow up and coauthor the bestselling book The Dawn of Everything, an overview of new interpretations in archaeology and anthropology about the many paths society can take.

I reached out to Hudson for a conversation on these topics, starting with his reflections on what drew him into prehistory in the early 1970s, and his collaborations with Harvard prehistorian Alex Marshack. Read more

What Would A Real Renewable Energy Transition Look Like?

• by: Richard Heinberg

Richard Heinberg

10-07-2024 ~ The seven steps that could help build a social movement and ensure a sustainable future.

The transition from relying overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to using alternative low-carbon energy sources could be “unstoppable and exponential,” according to some experts. A boosterish attitude by many renewable energy advocates is understandable; overcoming people’s climate despair and sowing confidence could help muster the groundswell of motivation needed to end our collective fossil fuel dependency. But occasionally, a reality check is required.

In reality, energy transitions are a big deal and typically take centuries to unfold. Historically, they’ve been transformative for societies—whether we’re speaking of humanity’s taming of fire hundreds of thousands of years ago, the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, or our adoption of fossil fuels starting roughly 200 years ago. Given 1) the current size of the human population—there are eight times as many of us alive today compared to 1820 when the fossil fuel energy transition was underway, 2) the vast scale of the global economy, and 3) the unprecedented speed with which the transition will have to be made to avert catastrophic climate change. A rapid renewable energy transition is easily the most ambitious enterprise our species has ever undertaken.

The evidence shows that the transition is still in its earliest stages, and at the current rate, it will fail to avert a climate catastrophe. This will result in the death of an unimaginable number of people or forced migration, with most ecosystems transformed beyond recognition.

We’ll unpack why the transition is such an uphill slog. Then, crucially, we’ll explore what a real energy transition would look like and how to make it happen.

Why This Is (So Far) Not a Real Transition
Despite trillions of dollars being spent on renewable energy infrastructure, carbon emissions are still increasing, not decreasing, and the share of world energy coming from fossil fuels is only slightly less today than 20 years ago. In 2024, the world will use more oil, coal, and natural gas than it did in 2023. Read more

Israel Has Successfully Provoked Iran To Enter War

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

Mireille Rebeiz – Dickinson College

10-06-24 ~ An interview with Lebanon expert Mireille Rebeiz, who says that “I would like to believe that Lebanon will not turn into a second Gaza,” but now finds itself “in the middle of a major storm.”

After nearly a year since the Hamas-led terror attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of close to 1200 people (roughly 800 civilians and nearly 400 security forces though some Israeli civilians and soldiers may have been killed by friendly fire as the controversial “Hannibal Directive” was deployed on that date, according to reported testimonies of soldiers and officers), Israel’s destruction of Gaza continues unabated.

Israel has rejected calls from the international community for a ceasefire/prisoner swap deal and blatantly ignored an International Court of Justice ruling not to engage in any military offensive in Rafah where the situation in the southern Gaza city was already “disastrous.” Now, however, after having killed more than 41,000 Palestinians (though the toll could reach up to 186,000 dead according to a study published in early July in the prestigious medical journal Lancet) and making Gaza practically unlivable, Netanyahu’s neo-fascist government that makes Europe’s right-wing extremists seem like little farceurs has turned its focus to Lebanon. A joint operation between the IDF and Mossad spread terror by exploding walkie-talkies and pagers that people in Lebanon used, killing many and severely wounding thousands, while the Israeli military carried out massive airstrikes across southern Lebanon that have already killed more than 1,000 people, including many children, and wounded thousands.

Airstrikes have killed scores of senior Hezbollah figures, including its long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah. But the airstrikes on Lebanon did not stop even after Nasrallah’s death despite calls for de-escalation, raising fears of a regional war between Israel and Iran. The Israeli military has even targeted central Beirut, and up to one million people may have been displaced. And as even further evidence that Israel is seeking to provoke a regional war, it launched a ground offensive in the south of Lebanon where heavy fighting is apparently taking place between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters. Indeed, Iran seems now to have been dragged into a regional war by launching a major missile attack on Israel.

What is Israel after in Lebanon? Has Nasrallah’s death altered the direction of the conflict? Are we on the brink of a full-blown war in the Middle East? In the interview that follows, Mireille Rebeiz, a Lebanon and Hezbollah expert tackles these and other related questions. Rebeiz is Chair of Middle East Studies and Associate Professor of Francophone Studies & Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dickinson College (Pennsylvania). Read more

Interview With Economists Santiago Capraro, Carlo Panico & Luis Daniel Torres-Gonzàles On The Causes Of Inequality

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

09-26-2024 ~ Economic inequality is one of the most pressing issues of our times. Inequality has pernicious effects on individuals and society at large. It causes a wide range of health and social problems, from reduced life expectancy and lower social mobility to violence and mental illness. Economic inequality erodes societal cohesion and fuels support for authoritarian leaders.   But what is driving inequality in the contemporary world? A recently published book, titled Inequality and Stagnation: A Monetary Interpretation, and co-authored by academic economists Santiago Capraro, Carlo Panico and Luis Daniel Torres-Gonzàles, attributes rising inequality to the outgrowth of the financial sector. In the interview that follows, Santiago Capraro, Carlo Panico and Luis Daniel Torres-Gonzàles make the case for an economic approach that, in their own view, offers the best explanatory framework for understanding the driving forces behind inequality.

J. Polychroniou: Income and wealth inequality has risen sharply since the 1980s in most advanced economies around the world and has been blamed for many of the social ills facing capitalist societies in the 21^st century. Economic inequality is also particularly problematic in most emerging and developing economies–and there is little evidence to suggest that this is due to less redistributive pressures in the developing world than there are in advanced liberal democracies. Indeed, in your new book titled Inequality and Stagnation: A Monetary Interpretation, it is argued that the cause of inequality, along with the sluggish growth of recent decades, is the outgrowth of the financial sector. In your view, how did the changing character of the financial system following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system lead to rising inequality and sluggish growth?

Caprano, Panico & Torres-Gonzàlez: Our book addresses theoretical, historical, and institutional issues, deriving from the writings of Keynes and Sraffa a Classical-Keynesian approach that focuses on the interactions between political arrangements, distributional variables, and the level of output and growth. This approach is used to argue that the outgrowth of the financial sector is the main cause of low growth and rising inequality observed during the last decades.

The Classical-Keynesian approach denies that money is neutral in long-period analysis, i.e. denies the absence of persistent monetary influence on the levels of growth and distribution. It highlights that monetary factors and the institutional organization and conduct of economic policy play a key role in affecting the path of the economy, offering the following interpretation of recent events.

After the abandonment of the Bretton Woods Agreements, financial regulation shifted from an approach based on the discretionary powers of the authorities over the managers of financial firms to one based on fixed rules, such as capital requirements. The pressures of the financial sector on the political world favored this change that led to the transformation of the specialized system, which forces financial companies to operate in a single type of activity, into a universal one, which allows them to operate in multiple businesses, such as credit intermediation, capital market operations and insurance.

The new approach to regulation has allowed for the introduction of a wide range of financial innovations and has made speculative activity predominant over the funding of production and international trade. As a result, the sector has grown at higher rates than the rest of the economy and has increased its degree of concentration and its ability to obtain legislation favorable to its interests. Read more

The Left Wins Presidential Election In Sri Lanka

• by: Atul Chandra & Vijay Prashad

09-25-2024 ~ On September 22, 2024, the Sri Lankan election authority announced that Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) alliance won the presidential election. Dissanayake, who has been the leader of the left-wing JVP since 2014, defeated 37 other candidates, including the incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party (UNP) and his closest challenger Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya. The traditional parties that dominated Sri Lankan politics—such as the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the UNP—are now on the back foot. However, they dominate the Sri Lankan Parliament (the SLPP has 145 out of 225 seats, while the UNP has one seat). Dissanayake’s JVP only has three seats in the Parliament.

Dissanayake’s triumph to become the country’s ninth president is significant. It is the first time that a party from the country’s Marxist tradition has won a presidential election. Dissanayake, born in 1968 and known by his initials of AKD, comes from a working-class background in north-central Sri Lanka, far from the capital city of Colombo. His worldview has been shaped by his leadership of Sri Lanka’s student movement, and by his role as a cadre in the JVP. In 2004, Dissanayake went to Parliament when the JVP entered an alliance with Chandrika Kumaratunga, the president of the country from 1994 to 2005 and the daughter of the first female prime minister in the world (Sirimavo Bandaranaike). Dissanayake became the Minister of Agriculture, Land, and Livestock in Kumaratunga’s cabinet, a position that allowed him to display his competence as an administrator and to engage the public in a debate around agrarian reform (which will likely be an issue he will take up as president). An attempt at the presidency in 2019 ended unsuccessfully, but it did not stop either Dissanayake or the NPP.

Economic Turbulence
In 2022, Colombo—Sri Lanka’s capital city—was convulsed by the Aragalaya(protests) that culminated in a takeover of the presidential palace and the hasty departure of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. What motivated these protests was the rapid decline of economic possibilities for the population, which faced shortages of essential goods, including food, fuel, and medicines. Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt and went into bankruptcy. Rather than generate an outcome that would satisfy the protests, Wickremesinghe, with his neoliberal and pro-Western orientation, seized the presidency to complete Rajapaksa’s six-year term that began in 2019. Read more