Climate Change Summit Displays Inherent Flaws of Globalism
Mack the Knife
By Janet Daley
19 Dec 2009
There is scope for debate - and innumerable newspaper quizzes - about
who was the most influential public figure of the year, or which the
most significant event. But there can be little doubt which word won
the prize for most important adjective. 2009 was the year in which
"global" swept the rest of the political lexicon into obscurity. There
were "global crises" and "global challenges", the only possible
resolution to which lay in "global solutions" necessitating "global
agreements". Gordon Brown actually suggested something called a
"global alliance" in response to climate change. (Would this be an
alliance against the Axis of Extra-Terrestrials?)
Some of this was sheer hokum: when uttered by Gordon Brown, the word
"global", as in "global economic crisis", meant: "It's not my fault".
To the extent that the word had intelligible meaning, it also had
political ramifications that were scarcely examined by those who
bandied it about with such ponderous self-importance. The mere
utterance of it was assumed to sweep away any consideration of what
was once assumed to be the most basic principle of modern democracy:
that elected national governments are responsible to their own people
- that the right to govern derives from the consent of the
electorate.
The dangerous idea that the democratic accountability of national
governments should simply be dispensed with in favour of "global
agreements" reached after closed negotiations between world leaders
never, so far as I recall, entered into the arena of public
discussion. Except in the United States, where it became a very
contentious talking point, the US still holding firmly to the 18th-
century idea that power should lie with the will of the people.
Nor was much consideration given to the logical conclusion of all this
grandiose talk of global consensus as unquestionably desirable: if
there was no popular choice about approving supranational "legally
binding agreements", what would happen to dissenters who did not
accept their premises (on climate change, for example) when there was
no possibility of fleeing to another country in protest? Was this to
be regarded as the emergence of world government? And would it have
powers of policing and enforcement that would supersede the authority
of elected national governments? In effect, this was the infamous
"democratic deficit" of the European Union elevated on to a planetary
scale. And if the EU model is anything to go by, then the agencies of
global authority will involve vast tracts of power being handed to
unelected officials. Forget the relatively petty irritations of
Euro-bureaucracy: welcome to the era of Earth-bureaucracy, when there
will be literally nowhere to run.
But, you may say, however dire the political consequences, surely
there is something in this obsession with global dilemmas. Economics
is now based on a world market, and if the planet really is facing
some sort of man-made climate crisis, then that too is a problem that
transcends national boundaries. Surely, if our problems are universal
the solutions must be as well.
Well, yes and no. Calling a problem "global" is meant to imply three
different things: that it is the result of the actions of people in
different countries; that those actions have impacted on the lives of
everyone in the world; and that the remedy must involve pretty much
identical responses or correctives to those actions. These are
separate premises, any of which might be true without the rest of them
necessarily being so. The banking crisis certainly had its roots in
the international nature of finance, but the way it affected countries
and peoples varied considerably according to the differences in their
internal arrangements. Britain suffered particularly badly because of
its addiction to public and private debt, whereas Australia escaped
relatively unscathed.
That a problem is international in its roots does not necessarily
imply that the solution must involve the hammering out of a uniform
global prescription: in fact, given the differences in effects and
consequences for individual countries, the attempt to do such
hammering might be a huge waste of time and resources that could be
put to better use devising national remedies. France and Germany seem
to have pulled themselves out of recession over the past year (and the
US may be about to do so) while Britain has not. These variations owe
almost nothing to the pompous, overblown attempts to find global
solutions: they are largely to do with individual countries, under the
pressure of democratic accountability, doing what they decide is best
for their own people.
This is not what Mr Brown calls "narrow self-interest", or "beggar my
neighbour" ruthlessness. It is the proper business of elected national
leaders to make judgments that are appropriate for the conditions of
their own populations. It is also right that heads of nations refuse
to sign up to "legally binding" global agreements which would
disadvantage their own people. The resistance of the developing
nations to a climate change pact that would deny them the kind of
economic growth and mass prosperity to which advanced countries have
become accustomed is not mindless selfishness: it is proper regard for
the welfare of their own citizens.
The word "global" has taken on sacred connotations. Any action taken
in its name must be inherently virtuous, whereas the decisions of
individual countries are necessarily "narrow" and self-serving. (Never
mind that a "global agreement" will almost certainly be
disproportionately influenced by the most powerful nations.) Nor is
our era so utterly unlike previous ones, for all its technological
sophistication. We have always needed multilateral agreements, whether
about trade, organised crime, border controls, or mutual defence.
If the impact of our behaviour on humanity at large is much greater or
more rapid than ever before then we shall have to find ways of dealing
with that which do not involve sacrificing the most enlightened form
of government ever devised. There is a whiff of totalitarianism about
this new theology, in which the risks are described in such cosmic
terms that everything else must give way. "Globalism" is another form
of the internationalism that has been a core belief of the Left: a
commitment to class rather than country seemed an admirable antidote
to the "blood and soil" nationalism that gave rise to fascism.
The nation-state has never quite recovered from the bad name it
acquired in the last century as the progenitor of world war. But if it
is to be relegated to the dustbin of history then we had better come
up with new mechanisms for allowing people to have a say in how they
are governed. Maybe that could be next year's global challenge.
Mike Cawood, HND BIT
news:d2c6c8b8-1acc-4e37...@m25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
Aloysious Cholmondeley-Smythe
news:d2c6c8b8-1acc-4e37...@m25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
>
> By Janet Daley
> 19 Dec 2009
>
> There is scope for debate - and innumerable newspaper quizzes - about
> who was the most influential public figure of the year, or which the
> most significant event. But there can be little doubt which word won
> the prize for most important adjective. 2009 was the year in which
> "global" swept the rest of the political lexicon into obscurity. There
> were "global crises" and "global challenges", the only possible
> resolution to which lay in "global solutions" necessitating "global
> agreements". Gordon Brown actually suggested something called a
> "global alliance" in response to climate change. (Would this be an
> alliance against the Axis of Extra-Terrestrials?)
>
> Some of this was sheer hokum: when uttered by Gordon Brown, the word
> "global", as in "global economic crisis", meant: "It's not my fault".
> To the extent that the word had intelligible meaning, it also had
> political ramifications that were scarcely examined by those who
> bandied it about with such ponderous self-importance. The mere
> utterance of it was assumed to sweep away any consideration of what
> was once assumed to be the most basic principle of modern democracy:
> that elected national governments are responsible to their own people
> - that the right to govern derives from the consent of the
> electorate.
>
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"Climate change" was invented by Labour in collusion with other leftie
governments simply in order to give themselves "reasons" for giving everyone
tax increases. "Climate change" is a religion, not a science. The climate of
the Earth has been changing since long before dinosaurs were roaming and it
will continue for millions of years into the future. We also have "global
warming", however this is mainly fuelled by all the hot air coming from the
government.
Remember that "climate change" is a scam run by the British Labour
government on the British people in order to screw more tax grabs from them.
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