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How Did We Get Into This Mess? How Did We Get Into This Mess?

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Abstract

For the first time, the United Kingdom's consumer debt now exceeds our gross national product: a new report shows that we owe £1.35 trillion(1). Inspectors in the United States have discovered that 77,000 road bridges are in the same perilous state as the one which collapsed into the Mississippi(2). Two years after Hurricane Katrina struck, 120,000 people from New Orleans are still living in trailer homes and temporary lodgings(3). As runaway climate change approaches, governments refuse to take the necessary action. Booming inequality threatens to create the most divided societies the world has seen since before the first world war. Now a financial crisis caused by unregulated lending could turf hundreds of thousands out of their homes and trigger a cascade of economic troubles. These problems appear unrelated, but they all have something in common. They arise in large part from a meeting that took place 60 years ago in a Swiss spa resort. It laid the foundations for a philosophy of government that is responsible for many, perhaps most, of our contemporary crises. When the Mont Pelerin Society first met, in 1947, its political project did not have a name. But it knew where it was going. The society's founder, Friedrich von Hayek, remarked that the battle for ideas would take a least a generation to win, but he knew that his intellectual army would attract powerful backers. Its philosophy, which later came to be known as neoliberalism, accorded with the interests of the ultra-rich, so the ultra-rich would promote it. Neoliberalism claims that we are best served by maximum market freedom and minimum intervention by the state. The role of government should be confined to creating and defending markets, protecting private property and defending the realm. All other functions are better discharged by private enterprise, which will be prompted by the profit motive to supply essential services. By this means, enterprise is liberated, rational decisions are made and citizens are freed from the dehumanising hand of the state.

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... A more critical view drawing on valid knowledge of science and empiricism is more likely to show the climate-disaster as an exploitative (mis)-management of life-sustaining resources of global proportions (Giddens, 2011). By contrast, a colonized perspective may view this outlook as 'hurtful to jobs', or 'bad for the economy', whereas decolonization of this worldview reveals an existential threat to our futures (Monbiot, 2017) and the quality (and quantity) of (human) life on earth (IPCC, 2018). Where some may see these viewpoints as equally relevant, a critical investigation reveals colonization in one and validity in the other, and the difference is dependent upon the source and nature of knowledge generation. ...
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Article
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... Florida, 2017). Finally, the neoliberal post-industrial paradigm depends on the continuing growth of consumption and mass manufacturing, which both undergird the long-term destruction of the ecological environment of the planet (Monbiot, 2007;Moore, 2017). ...
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... For teachers who are not sufficiently aware of the cultural assumptions that underlie their own worldview and communication norms, challenges to their unconscious beliefs could trigger fight-or-flight reactions in the form of authoritarian responses. Unexamined and unconscious beliefs may include ideologies of neoliberalism (Monbiot, 2017), the notion that White, Western norms of politeness are universal and 'correct' (Brown, 2015;Castagno, 2014), and an individualistic orientation and worldview (Triandis, 1988). This is not to excuse teachers who react disproportionately to students who break minor classroom rules or norms, but a reason for teachers to critically examine their own unconscious cultural biases and assumptions. ...
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Psychological trauma is prevalent worldwide, and post-traumatic stress is likely to be present in every second language classroom. It has been established that post-traumatic stress can negatively affect verbal learning, memory, concentration, and the speed of second language acquisition. However, very few empirical studies have been published on how the second language teaching environment minimises or exacerbates post-traumatic stress. Of those that do exist, student voice is minimal, a validated trauma screening instrument has not been used, and the focus is on refugee background students rather than international and immigrant students. There has also been a dearth of studies located in university-based English language centres. The purpose of the present study was to fill these gaps in the literature. It aimed to investigate how adult students who have experienced post-traumatic stress responses perceived a positive English as a second or additional language (ESL) learning environment. Using a theoretical framework drawing on socio-environmental theories of trauma and critical pedagogies, this critical qualitative study had two stages of data collection. In Stage 1, 39 participants who were ESL students at one of three universities in south-east Queensland, Australia, completed a validated post-traumatic stress screening questionnaire. Subsequently, 20 of these participants were interviewed about their experiences of the ESL learning environment at their respective universities. The semi-structured interviews were based on trauma-informed learning principles identified in the literature review: A safe and secure environment; agency and choice; foregrounding of student identities; recognition of strengths; social belonging; and meaning. Interview data were analysed with a critical thematic analysis through a trauma-informed lens. Four major themes emerged in the findings. These were: understanding and responsiveness by teachers; power, control, and hierarchies; transformative second language learning; and institutional supports. Within the themes of understanding and responsiveness, the main findings were divided into the sub-themes of attunement and understanding; acceptance and understanding of the English language learner role; understanding students’ lives outside the classroom; and understanding and respect for students’ cultural backgrounds.
... Ignoring these innovation types and non-monetary oriented methods to measure innovation ignores social and ecological issues. Further, they put society in danger of falling prey to neoliberal capitalist agendas, ignoring social problems such as hunger, homelessness, and climate change (Monbiot, 2016). ...
Article
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Innovation spaces and hubs are increasing in numbers internationally. Entrepreneurs and start-up founders who use these spaces and hubs are often unaware of being inside an echo chamber, i.e. a filter bubble they share with only like-minded people who have similar ideas and approaches to innovation. Digital technologies that use algorithms can aggravate these echo chambers by filtering towards improved personalised experience and preferences. Yet, social inclusion fosters diverse ideas and creativity, hence, has a positive impact on innovation. We studied the social navigation patterns of entrepreneurs and start-up founders, and their awareness and opinion about homogeneity in innovation spaces. This data informed the design of a tool to escape their echo chambers. The tool gives its users the opportunity to discover networks and innovation spaces that are at the creative fringe, that is, marginalised from mainstream spaces and hubs for creativity and innovation. Our findings show that users of innovation spaces often find themselves surrounded by like-minded people. Further, our study participants welcomed the ability to identify fringe spaces in order to discover and access more diverse people and ideas. Our approach seeks to unlock the diversity advantage of the creative fringe for the purpose of creativity and innovation.
... The rise in a prophetic branch of climatic sci ence has been juxtaposed with a growing mistrust in scientific authority (see Hulme 2009). Beyond the politicisation of science, action to protect the planet has become the playground of ecofascists and a particular strain of violent biopolitical management (see Chaturvedi and Doyle 2015;Monbiot 2017;Parenti 2011). As if to crystallise the claim that the climate crisis signals a cli mate of crisis in which thoughtlessness reigns, the 'global pause' brought about by the pandemic COVID19, produced in the troughs of unsustainable livestock prac tices that fuel the climate crisis, has failed to ignite the question of the underlying causes of either the crisis or its broader symptoms -pandemic included. ...
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The aim of this article is straightforward: to present two clarifications of Hannah- Arendt’s seasoned political concept of natality and to conclude by positioning this new account of natality within the context of the climate crisis. In many ways, this concluding section, where natality is read as a form of historical emancipation, hinges on the degree to which I succeed in reframing existing conversations around natality. In the first instance I submit an ‘earthly reading’ of natality before turning to discuss the historical implications of this ‘re-earthed’ natality as enacting a form of weak messianism akin to that of Walter Benjamin. Rethinking natality in this way, I present an account of Arendt’s work as always already inclined towards the issues brought to light in the climate crisis. And so, while the forms of emancipation and redemption that I locate in natality may already be commonly read in natal actions, which break spontaneously into the world and recall the originality of appearance, I nevertheless contend that its political implications reach new grounds with the revisions that I offer in the body of my article. By way of conclusion, I join critical Anthropocene theorists in contending with the ‘slow violence’, ‘willed racial blindness’ and ‘crises of the imagination’ that the climate crisis elicits. This is the setting that sits behind my intervention into natality and, in turn, it is this setting that I suggest can be illuminated through the weak messianism of a ‘re-earthed’ natality. Arguing for Arendt’s latent consideration of the earth, I hope to expose the ruined fragments of the past that shape the present crisis and gesture towards their radical redemption. If I succeed in showing that natality can be used as a resource to rethink both the prehistory and the present of the climate crisis then I will have achieved a reorientation in thinking about Arendt’s politics. Which is merely to say that I will have revealed concerns for the earth as intrinsic to natal actions and, in turn, their appearance as messianic disruptions on the earth. Prompted by the need to think critically about the historical appearance of the climate crisis whilst retaining, at the same time, the injunction to think expansively about future action – that is, as not determined exclusively by the violence of the climate crisis – this article defends a reconsideration of natality as a form of critical historical intervention. Formulating this reconstruction is then ‘operationalised’ in the concluding section where I invoke its revolutionary force in remapping the history of the climate crisis.
... As Cooper and Burrell (1988, p. 94) expressed it, postmodernism posits the politically conservative view that "systems have lives of their own which make them fundamentally independent of human control." This pessimistic assumption of the demise of agentic power coincides with the rise to global dominance of neo-liberalism over the past four-to-five decades; an "ideological turn" that has centralized the power of global elites in mystified systemic forms that increasingly incorporate institutions and organizations (Hanlon et al., 2017;Monbiot, 2016;Whitehead and Crawshaw, 2014;Peck and Tickell, 2002). Furthermore, postmodern theorists have highlighted the role of new technologies in strengthening the influence of hegemonic forms of power; the ubiquity and insidiousness of which is claimed to be further subsuming (and thereby debilitating) agentic power. ...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the role of abstract forms of power in organizational change by exploring the role of such forms of power in the recent structural transformation of an iconic Australian Intellectual Property law firm. The research literature reflects relatively few studies on the increasing complexity of power dynamics in organizational and institutional arrangements. Design/methodology/approach The complexity of the investigated phenomena led to the adoption of three qualitative methods in order to access the specific forms of data that were perceived to be relevant to answering the research question (“How did abstract power dynamics influence the nature and outcomes of the firm’s structural transformation?”). Ethnography was used in the attempt to discern, through participation and observation, the assumptions that manifested in action and/or inaction; phenomenology in the exploration through unstructured interviews with 41 staff members and 4 clients of the firm, of their interpretation and “sense-making” of their “lived experience” of “what was going on” in the firm; and narrative enquiry in establishing a narrative of critical events, and their impact on “what was going on” in the firm, including those that had occurred over the years prior to this research initiative. Findings The research shows the effects of contradicting forms of abstract power (namely, hegemonic (ideological) power, dominant institutional logic and structural power) as the firm struggled to address challenges to its existence. The impact of these forms of power upon the partners’ apprehension and interpretation of the emerging challenges to the firm’s business performance remained inconspicuous throughout the period of transformation. However, these contradictory forms of abstract power insidiously created tensions within the organization which were poorly addressed, resulting in organizational dysfunction and destructive sectarian conflict. The results show that the inability of partners to discern the nature of the forms of power which were influencing their responses to the crisis was a consequence of under-developed collectively reflexive capabilities and an absence of collaborative problem-solving practices. This resulted in a negative outcome for the firm. Research limitations/implications The research has significant implications for collective endeavor in global business operations that are becoming increasingly complex. In particular, the complexity of power relations, as insidious ideological forces supported by ubiquitous technologies threaten to subsume agentic power in ways that domesticate and neutralize it, requires the development of sophisticated forms of collective ways of “working with power” – capabilities that include the ability to demystify the abstract forms of power that can shape the experience of social realities as “inevitable and natural.” Further research into these forms of power, and the surreptitious role they play in organizational arrangements, is an important requirement. With respect to limitations, as the research is located in the interpretivist research paradigm, the issue of interpretation is problematic. A strong effort was made to limit unwitting interpretive bias but the possibility of such bias cannot be ruled out, especially as, in some cases, the data are an interpretation of prior interpretations of events and/or experiences (as, e.g., in the interview data). Practical implications Working constructively with various forms of power is becoming a critical capability within organizations. This has implications for the relational and communicative skills that underpin effective collaboration of staff and other stakeholders. Such collaboration needs to include the collective ability to make explicit through critical dialogue the surreptitious influence of abstract forms of power upon the prevailing organizational arrangements and routines. To achieve this, these forms of power have to become demystified through constructive critique of the taken-for-granted aspects of everyday organizational life. This has important implications for leadership development practices and educational programs. Social implications Unless leaders develop the ability to make the influences of abstract forms of power more conspicuous, and develop collaborative capabilities to work with insight into their management, they run the risk of agentic power becoming subsumed and neutralized by such forms of power. This has important implications for organizational agency and, especially, for the creative agency of the individuals who work within organizations. On a broader scale, it has implications for institutional arrangements and for the critical apprehension of global ideologies. Originality/value Studies of abstract forms of power are relatively rare in the research literature. This is probably a result of the long-standing dominance of positivism, with its realist ontological assumptions and its objectivist epistemological assumptions. In exploring the influence exerted by abstract forms of power on the inability of the partners of a professional services firm to apprehend their situation more accurately, and to interpret their strategic options with greater insight, this research makes an original contribution to the understanding of the influence of abstract power dynamics in organizational change, and in organizational arrangements more generally.
... In particular, New Public Management (NPM) scholars have highlighted that market-based solutions extend into public sector arenas where these approaches might not previously have been seen as legitimate (Gruening, 2001;Radnor, 2010;Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). Neoliberalization is also a broader cultural schema that creates the frame of reference of what is possible, creating a 'taken for granted ordinariness' (Monbiot, 2016). Crouch (2004) has argued that the current era is one of 'post-democracy' where largely unaccountable, opaque and distant corporate power takes control over the daily lives of citizens, as well as the resource and land base of urban areas (see also Klein, 1999;Monbiot, 2000). ...
Article
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Consumers' debt overtakes gross domestic product. The Guardian
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Larry Elliott, 23rd August 2007. Consumers' debt overtakes gross domestic product. The Guardian.
New Orleans: A National Humiliation. The New Statesman
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Anthony Lane, 27th August 2007. New Orleans: A National Humiliation. The New Statesman.
Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate
  • George Lakoff
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