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The pricing of everything

This article – which is a lightly edited transcript of the 2014 Annual Lecture of the Sheffield George Political Economy Research Institute – critiques concepts such as ‘natural capital’, ‘ecosystem services’, ‘green infrastructure’, ‘asset classes’ and the ‘ecosystem market’ that have been Monbiot forged by applying the neoliberal ideology to biological conservation. About the author George is the author of the e are witnessing at this moment Thus, Mr Ridley, as he was then, was able bestselling books Out of the the death of both the theory to put some of that into practice when he Wreckage: A New politics for W and the practice of neoliberal became Chairman of , and an age of crisis (Verso Books, capitalism. This is the doctrine which boy did he do it! He pursued market freedom 2017), Feral: Rewilding the holds that the market can resolve almost all of the kind that he’d been advocating for so land, sea and human life (Penguin, 2014), The Age of social, economic, and political problems. It long in his columns, and you can see the Consent: A manifesto for a new results today on your bank statements. In holds that the people are best served, and world order (The New Press, their prosperity is best advanced, by the 2007, Matt Ridley had to go cap in hand to the 2004) and Captive State: The minimum of intervention and spending self-seeking flea and beg it for what became corporate takeover of Britain by the state. It holds that through people £27 billion. This was rapidly followed by (Pan Books, 2001). pursuing their own self-interest, through the first run on a British bank since 1878. the invisible hand of that market, we can The government had to guarantee all the Citation maximize the general social interest. deposits of the investors in the bank and Monbiot G (2018) The pricing To illustrate the spectacular crashing eventually it had to nationalize the bank – of everything. The Ecological and burning of that doctrine – which being the kind of parasitic self-seeking flea Citizen 2: 89–96. unfortunately survives in terms of its that it is – in order to prevent, more or less, Keywords doctrinal impacts, even if it in no way a complete collapse of the banking system. Conservation; natural resembles its formative principles – let me By comparison to Mr Ridley, the likes of capital; nature; values tell you the sad tale of a man called Matt Paul Flowers, poor old crystal Methodist, Ridley. were pretty half-hearted, and about the He was formerly a columnist on the only thing that distinguished Mr Flowers Daily Telegraph, after which he became from the rest of the banking fraternity (and I think this tells us something about was that, one, he allegedly bought his own the meritocratic claims of neoliberalism) cocaine, and, two, he singularly failed the hereditary chair of Northern Rock. to bring the entire banking system to its His father had been chair of Northern knees. Where is Mr Ridley now? We don’t Rock before him, and as a result of call him Mr Ridley anymore. He sits in the About this article that he became the chair of the former as a Conservative peer. That This piece is a transcription building society and then bank. While is how our system works. of the 2014 Annual Lecture of the Sheffield Political he was a columnist on the Telegraph he It is not just that neoliberalism has failed Economy Research Institute, wrote the following: “The government spectacularly in that this system, which which was given by George is a self-seeking flea on the backs of the was supposed to prevent state-spending at the Octagon in Sheffield, more productive people of this world. and persuade us that we didn’t need state- UK, on 29 April of that year. Governments do not run countries, spending, has required the greatest and Transcribing was done by they parasitize them. Taxes, bailouts, most wasteful state-spending in history Patrick McEvoy, a geography Master’s student based in regulations, subsidies, interventions of to bail out the deregulated banks, which Australia. Minor edits have any kind are an unwarranted restraint on were deregulated according to neoliberal been made for flow and market freedom.” doctrine, and trashed the entire economy as house style.

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a result. It is also because it has singularly market’. The proponents of these ideas failed to create this great society of argue that we’re totally and monumentally innovators and entrepreneurs that we were failing to protect the environment because promised by the masters of this doctrine, people aren’t valuing it enough. They’ll by people like Friedrich Hayek, Milton create some road scheme, or supermarket Friedman and the rest. As Thomas Piketty, or motorway service station, and they see the name which is on everybody’s lips at the value of what is going to be destroyed the moment, so adeptly demonstrates in his as effectively zero, whereas they’re seeing new book, Capital in the 21st Century, what all the dollar signs associated with the has happened during this era over the past development which they want to put 30 years or so has been a great resurgence in instead. So, they argue, if we were to of patrimonial capitalism, of a rentier put a price on the natural world, and to economy where you make far more money say, actually, it’s really worth something either by owning capital or by positioning because it delivers these ecosystem services yourself as a true self-serving flea upon the to us in the form of green infrastructure back of productive people, a member of an and asset classes within an ecosystems executive class whose rewards are out of market, then perhaps we’ll be able to weigh all kilter with its performance or the value into that and persuade people, who are delivered. You make far more money in either otherwise unpersuadable, that this is really of those positions than you possibly can worth preserving. They also point out that through entrepreneurial activity. If wealth through that agenda you can raise a lot of under this system were the inevitable result money that isn’t otherwise available for the of hard work and enterprise, every woman ordinary kinds of conservation projects. in Africa would be a millionaire. These are plausible and respectable Just at this moment, this perfect moment arguments, and I think they are the road to Just at this “ of total moral and ideological collapse of the ruin, or the road to even greater ruin than moment, this neoliberal capitalist system, a large number we have at the moment. perfect moment of environmentalists have stumbled across Let me start to lay out why with an of total moral and it and say this is the answer to saving the escalating series of arguments. They are ideological collapse natural world. They devise a series of ideas, escalating in what I consider to be their theories and mechanisms that are supposed importance, starting off with the relatively of the neoliberal to do what we’ve been unable to do by other trivial and becoming more serious as we go capitalist system, means – namely, to protect the world that along. Perhaps the most trivial argument a large number of we and everything around us depends on, against the natural capital agenda, although environmentalists the living planet, from the despoliation and it is nonetheless a relatively weighty one, degradation which have done it so much is that in the great majority of cases, the have stumbled across harm over the past few decades. This is the efforts to price the natural world which lie it and say this is the pursuit of what could be called the ‘natural at the heart of the agenda are complete and answer to saving the capital agenda’: the pricing, valuation, utter gobbledygook. The reason why is that natural world.” monetization and financialization of nature they are looking at values which are non- in the name of saving it. commensurable. They are trying to compare Oh sorry, did I say nature? We don’t call apples and pears, things which cannot be it that anymore. It’s now called ‘natural directly compared, and the result of that capital’. Similarly, ecological processes is that they come out with stuff like the are called ‘ecosystem services’ because of Natural Capital Committee (NCC) did in its course they exist only to serve us. Hills, latest report. The NCC is something set up forests, rivers… I hope you don’t call them by the current UK government supposedly that anymore, those terms are terribly in pursuit of a better means of protecting outdated. They’re now called ‘green the natural environment (though with this infrastructure’. Biodiversity and habitats? government that sounds highly implausible). Not at all à la mode, my dear. We now The NCC produced a report recently which call them ‘asset classes’ in an ‘ecosystem said that if freshwater ecosystems in this

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country were better protected, the aesthetic been reduced to 41. It’s complete rubbish, value addition of that protection would and surely anyone can see that. Not only be £700 million. It said that if grassland is it complete rubbish, it is unimprovable sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) rubbish. You cannot make a silk purse out were better protected, their wildlife value of that pig’s ear. It is not possible to have would increase by £40 million. The value meaningful figures coming out of values of their wildlife – the chalkhill blues, and that cannot be in any sensible way measured the dog violets and other things which live in financial terms. on grasslands SSSIs – would increase by Now, there are some limited but genuinely £40 million. These figures are marmalade. commensurable pay-offs to do with the They are finely shredded, boiled to a pulp, natural world. For instance, a friend of At this point, all heavily sweetened and still indigestible. In mine asked me what was the most lucrative “ other words, they are total gibberish, but investment that a landowner could make? we require is for the they are not the worst I’ve come across. I said I didn’t know, probably some new cabinet office to give Under the last government – because this form of agricultural subsidy, but he said, an us a price for love started a little while back – the Department osprey. Look at Bassenthwaite in the Lake and the true value of of Transport claimed to have discovered District where there is a pair of ospreys “the true value of time.” A report states breeding, and the owners of the land society and we’ll have “forecast growth in the real value of time is around it have 300,000 people visit per year. a single figure for the shown in table 3.” They charge them for car parking and they meaning of life!” The Department of Environment, when it probably make about a million pounds per launched the national ecosystem assessment year. You can compare it to what you were in 2011, came up with something equally doing before then – rearing sheep on the interesting. It said it had established the land – which is only viable because of farm true value of nature for the very first subsidies since otherwise it is a complete time. Unfortunately, it hasn’t yet given us waste of time and money. It is in several a figure for the true value of nature, but it senses, but in this case you actually lose has managed to find figures for particular money by keeping sheep on the land while components of the true value, and let me also trashing the environment. It is almost give you some of those. It said that if we entirely sheep-wrecked in the Lake District. looked after our parks and greens, well, it So you’ve got this direct comparison and would enhance our well-being to the tune of it’s fantastic. The ospreys come out looking £290 per household per year in 2060. Well- very good from it because you’ve got two being is composed of recreation, health and land uses directly commensurable since solace, natural spaces in which our culture both of them are costed directly in pounds. finds its roots and sense of place, shared I’ve got no problem with that at all. You social value arising from developing a can legitimately say there’s a powerful sense of purpose, and being able to achieve economic argument for having ospreys important personal goals and participate rather than sheep. in society enhanced by supportive personal You can also look at watersheds. There relationships and strong and inclusive is an insurance company which costed communities. You put all these things Plynlimon, the highest of the Cambrian together into one figure and you come up mountains, and worked out that it would with £290 per household per year. be cheaper to buy and reforest it in order At this point, all we require is for the to slow down the flow of water into the cabinet office to give us a price for love and lowlands than to keep paying out every year the true value of society and we’ll have a for carpets in Gloucester. Again, there were single figure for the meaning of life! I know some directly commensurate values. The what you’re thinking, it was 42, but Deep land would cost so much; you would be likely Thought failed to anticipate the advent of to slow down the flow of water through Strictly Come Dancing, which has depreciated forestation to such an extent; that would the will to live to the extent that it’s now reduce the flood frequency to such a level;

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and you would be paying out less in flood serve the present. That’s the model. Then that repairs. There were quite a few assumptions debt is sliced up into all these weird exotic in there, but you could mash it together and vehicles like collateralized debt obligations come up with a rough ballpark figure. In the and all the things that worked out so well last great majority of cases, though, you are not time around. Now, nature is to be captured looking at anything remotely resembling and recruited by the City, to be put into the “The government’s financial commensurability or financial care of the City, as that quote suggests. This measure. That is problem one – the most is utterly insane! In order for them to extract real agenda is not trivial of them. So you can see, if that is the any value from it, the same task force says we to protect the most trivial of them, there are quite a few need to unbundle ecosystem services so that natural world from problems here. they can be individually traded. If there is the depredations of Problem two is that you’re effectively one thing we know about ecosystems – and pushing the natural world even further we know it the more we discover about them the economy, it’s to into the system that is eating it alive. Dieter – it is that you cannot safely disaggregate harness the natural Helm, chairman of the NCC, in the same their functions without destroying the whole world in pursuit of report I quoted from previously, said, “The damn thing. They function as coherent, the thing which has environment is part of the economy and holistic systems which depend upon each been destroying it needs to be properly integrated into it other, and their resilience is dependent upon so that growth opportunities will not be the diversity of systems that come together – economic growth missed.” There you have what seems to me in an ecosystem. The moment you start to and everything that to be the government’s real agenda. This unbundle those and trade them separately goes with it.” is not to protect the natural world from the you create a formula for disaster. depredations of the economy, it’s to harness Problem three is something which I assume the natural world in pursuit of the thing which must be a very rude word because hardly has been destroying it – economic growth anyone ever uses it, certainly not in polite and everything that goes with it. All the society. It begins with a ‘p’ and it’s five letters things which have been so damaging to the long, and a lot of people who you’d expect to natural world are now being sold to us as being come out with it – and perhaps if they drop its salvation. Commodification, economic a hammer on their toe or something, they do growth, financialization, abstraction – all – don’t seem to be able to utter this word. It those things are supposed to protect the is, of course, power. Power is the great issue living planet. Did I say living planet? Sorry, I which in this entire agenda, of the pricing keep getting confused. I meant asset classes and commodification of nature, seems to get in an ecosystems market. left out. Because it gets lefts out, because it It gets far worse still when you look at gets almost deliberately overlooked, what the way in which this is being done. Almost we’re effectively seeing with the natural as soon as the government’s Ecosystem capital agenda is the invocation of money Markets Task Force first reported, it was as a kind of fairy dust. Something that you pushing nature towards the model of sprinkle over all the unresolved problems financialization. It talks of harnessing of power and expect them magically to City financial expertise to assess the ways resolve themselves. But because they’re that these blended revenue streams and unresolved, because they’re unaddressed, securitizations enhance the return on because they’re even unacknowledged and investment of an environmental bond, are actively disavowed, not only can they not which gives you an idea of what the agenda resolve themselves, but the natural capital is, as well as the amount of gobbledygook it’s agenda cannot possibly work. I believe these already generating. What we’re talking about issues of power are absolutely integral to the is giving the natural world to the City of pricing of nature. London to look after. What could possibly go To give you an example of where in wrong? Here we have a sector whose wealth principle a pricing system could work, because is built on the creation of debt, on stacking you’re looking at high commensurability, up future liabilities and shafting the future to very straightforward outputs and a simple

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monitoring system, let us discuss the state to make that market work. Because we Emission Trading System persuade ourselves that we don’t need that (ETS), which seeks to reduce carbon emissions anymore because it is a market and because using a carbon price. I’m not inherently there’s money involved, we end up fudging opposed to it. I can see its potential. It is as the issue of power and not addressing those good a mechanism as any other for trying underlying problems. gradually to decarbonize society as we ought To give another example: the Economics to be doing, but it has been an utter and total of Ecosystems and Biodiversity exercise failure. An effective price for carbon begins at (overseen by Pavan Sukhdev at Deutsche about £30 per ton. That’s the point at which Bank), a huge exercise involving a vast you begin to see serious industrial change amount of expenditure that came up with in response, disinvestment in fossil fuels, all these totally bogus figures as to what investment in low-carbon technologies, things were worth. It came back with maybe and all the energy-saving technologies and one or two which weren’t so bogus, and the rest of it which we so desperately need one of the most famous was its valuation to see. Almost throughout its history, the of mangrove forests. It said if someone cuts price of carbon has hovered around €5 per down the mangrove forest and replaces it ton and that’s where it is today. The reason with a shrimp farm, that would be worth for that is a very old-fashioned one. It’s that about US$1200 per hectare per year to that the heavily polluting industries – carbon- person. If we leave the mangroves standing, intensive industries which were being asked because it protects the local communities to change their practices – heavily lobbied who live on the coastline, and because it’s the government of the EU and the European such a wonderful breeding ground for fish Commission and the MEPs to ensure that and crustaceans that the local fisherfolk they received an over-allocation of carbon use, it’ll be worth US$12,000 per hectare per permits. Far too many permits were issued, year. And they say, look, by publishing the with the result that the price has stayed very figures, we have demonstrated that it makes “People have known low. When the European Parliament started sense to save the mangroves not to cut them for centuries the talking about withdrawing some of these down, therefore this will change the way tremendous benefits permits, they too were lobbied, and they too that things happen. My left foot! People which mangrove caved in and failed to withdraw them, so the have known for centuries the tremendous price has stayed very low. benefits which mangrove forests deliver. forests deliver. Has What we see here is the age-old problem Has that protected them from being turned that protected them of power. Governments and the Commission into shrimp farms or beach resorts? No. from being turned are failing to assert political will, they are The reason it hasn’t is that it might be into shrimp farms or failing to stand up for themselves and say worth US$12,000 to the local impoverished this is how the market is going to function. community of fisherfolk, but the fact that it’s beach resorts? No.” It’s not going to function without this worth US$1200 to a powerful local politician interventionist approach, and without it, we who wants to turn it into shrimp farms, all end up with something that is almost entirely but guarantees the shrimp farms will be useless. In fact, it’s been worse than useless built. When you’re faced with the realities because I don’t think there’s been a single of power, this value is what counts. Putting -burning power station, motorway or a price on it doesn’t in any way change that airport in the EU since the ETS came in relationship. In fact, what it does is to create which has not been justified with reference this false sense of reassurance. You do not to the market created by the trading system. solve the problem that way. You do not solve What’s happened is that you have not the problem without confronting power. changed anything by sprinkling money And yet, what we’re doing here is reinforcing over the problem, you’ve merely called it power, strengthening the power of the something else. You’ve called it a market people with the money, strengthening the as opposed to a political system, but you power of the economic system as a whole still need the regulatory involvement of the against the power of nature.

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Let me offer one or two more examples of will always be valued at x + 1 because cost– that. Let’s start on the outskirts of Sheffield benefit analyses for these things are always with Smithy Wood. Smithy Wood is an ancient profoundly rigged. A barrister will then woodland that 800 years ago was recorded as be able to say, well, there you are, there’s a providing charcoal for the monks who were metric, it’s x + 1 for the road and x for the making iron there. It’s a critically important wood. End of argument. All those knotty part of Sheffield’s history and culture. It’s full issues to do with values and love and desire of stories and a sense of place and a sense and wonder and delight and enchantment – of being able to lose yourself in something all the issues which are actually at the centre completely different. Someone wants to turn of democratic politics – are suddenly ruled half of Smithy Wood – the great centre of out. They’re outside the box, outside the Smithy Wood, completely fragmenting it – envelope of discussion; they no longer count. into a motorway service station. Now this We’re being totally disempowered by that might have been unthinkable until relatively process. At the moment we see a phenomenon recently, but it is thinkable now because the called ‘green grabbing’. Whereas forests in government is in the process of introducing the developing world acquire value which something called ‘biodiversity offsets’. If you is meant to protect them, as something to trash a piece of land here you can replace it’s trade off against our carbon emissions here, value by creating some habitat elsewhere. This local communities are being pushed off those ties into this whole element of fungibility, of forest lands and in some cases the forests are tradeability, of being able to change places, being converted to plantations because they where nature is dematerialized and turned have multiple uses as well as carbon storage. into something which can be traded, either Exactly the processes you are trying to avert in the form of money or something which are accelerated by this financialization and is said to have similar value. Now what this fungibility of nature. So that’s problem three, means is that we’re going to plant 60,000 the problem of power. It seems to me saplings with rabbit guards around them in But the real problem, and this comes to the “ some other place and that will make up for nub of the argument for me, is over the issue to be unlikely that trashing Smithy Wood. which I will describe as values and framing. anyone would have It seems to me to be unlikely that anyone In response to an article I wrote vaguely on given that proposal would have given that proposal to trash this issue last week, Professor Lynn Crowe to trash Smithy Smithy Wood, this ancient woodland, and from Sheffield Hallam University wrote build a service station in the middle of it, what I thought was a very thoughtful piece Wood, this ancient were it not for that mechanism of biodiversity in which she asked the question, “How else woodland, and build offsets. So something that the government can we address the challenge of convincing a service station has tried to sell us as protecting nature those who do not share the same values as in the middle of actually threatens nature, as understood by ourselves of our case?” For me, the answer the people who love it as a source of wonder is very simple. We don’t. We never have and it, were it not for and delight and enchantment, which is what we never will! That is not how politics works. that mechanism of an ancient woodland is for me and I dare say Picture a situation where Ed Milliband stands biodiversity offsets.” for many other people as well. up in the House of Commons and makes such That’s just one example. Let me give you a persuasive speech that David Cameron another one. Say we decide that we’re going says, you know, you’ve completely won me to value nature in terms of pounds or dollars over, I’m crossing the floor and joining the or euros and that is going to be our primary Labour benches. It doesn’t happen! That’s not metric for deciding what should be saved and how it works! That’s not how politics has ever what shouldn’t be saved. Well, you go to a proceeded! You do not win your opponents public enquiry and you find that miraculously, over so that they come onto your side. What while your wood which you’re trying to save you do to be effective in politics is first of all is being valued at x pounds, the road which empower and mobilize people on your own they want to build through the wood is being side, and, secondly, attempt to win over the valued at x + 1 pounds. Let me tell you, it undecided people in the middle. The hard

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core of your opponents who absolutely do not core values, and I think you can say the same share your values are not going to be won over. about the Labour Party in this country. This is the horrendous mistake which new That, in effect, is what we’re being asked Labour here and the Democratic Party in the to do through this pricing-of-everything US have made, where in order to win the next agenda, where we’re saying – because election they think they must appease people our opponents don’t share our values, and who don’t share our values and become like they’re the people wrecking the environment them. Instead of trying to assert our values – we have to go over to them and say, we’re we are going to go over to them and saying, like you really, we don’t really care about “Look, we’re not really red, we’re not scary nature for its own sake, we don’t really at all, we’re actually really conservatives.” believe in any of this intrinsic stuff, we don’t That was Tony Blair’s message, it was Barack believe in wonder and enchantment, we just You can never Obama’s message, and it was certainly Bill want to show you that protecting nature is “ Clinton’s message. This whole approach going to make money. One, it’s not going to win by adopting of triangulation possibly won elections work because the cost–benefit analysis will the values of your (though in 1997 a bucket and a stick would always be rigged, but, two, so much more opponents, by trying have won), but in the UK it greatly eroded damagingly, we completely destroy our own to go across to meet the Labour vote across the intervening years. moral authority, legitimacy, and position in So we have ended up with a situation where so doing. It was very telling to me that in a them. You have to there are effectively no political alternatives recent interview, George Lakoff singled out leave them where to the neoliberalism being advanced by the as the thing making him groan the most they are and then coalition government, where the opposition with utter despair the attempt to monetize project your own is in almost every case failing to oppose. It is nature in order to save it. He was arguing in that position because it has progressively that well-meaning people were trying to do values to people who neutralized itself by trying to appease people the right thing but were completely failing might be persuaded who do not share its values. to apply a frames analysis. A frame is the to hear those values George Lakoff, the cognitive linguist, has mental structure which you use to approach and might come over done so much to explain why progressive and understand an issue. As a result, instead to your side. parties keep losing the elections that they of framing it with their own values and ” should win and keep losing support even describing and projecting their values – in the midst of an economic crisis, an which is the only thing in the medium- to environmental crisis, and every other crisis long-term that ever works – they were caused by their political opponents. As he throwing all those out, surrendering them, points out, you can never win by adopting and going over to the values of people who the values of your opponents, by trying to go are wrecking the environment. How could across to meet them. You have to leave them there be any long-term impact than more where they are and then project your own destruction? values to people who might be persuaded Or let me put it another way. All of us are to hear those values and might come over a mixture or somewhere along the spectrum to your side. That is what the conservatives between intrinsic and extrinsic values. have done on both sides of the Atlantic. Extrinsic values are all about fame and image They’ve been extremely good at that, and money, about driving down the street in especially in the United States. They have your Ferrari and showing it to everyone, and basically crossed their arms and said, we’re about having these external justifiers and here, we don’t give a damn about what you motivators and seeing yourself in the light stand for, you hippies and the left. This is that other people see you. Intrinsic values are what we stand for and we’re going to project about being more comfortable with who you it until you feel that you have to come to are, about being embedded in your family, us. So what we’ve got there is a Democratic your community, among your friends, Party which is indistinguishable from where whoever you’re with, and not requiring that the Republicans were ten years ago. It has constant show of resource-holding potential, gone so far to the right that it has lost its as a biologist would call it. Research in

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70 countries produces remarkably consistent understood changing people’s values, results showing that these values are very something the left has never grasped. If highly clustered. For instance, people who we surrender to the financial agenda, and greatly value financial success tend to have if we say this market-led neoliberalism much lower empathy than those with a approach is the way forward, then we shift strong set of intrinsic values, much less social values – because, let’s face it, we concern about the environment and the environmentalists are among the last lines natural world. They tend to have much more of defence against that gradual societal shift The three essential of a tendency towards hierarchy and status. towards extrinsic values. We must stand “ These are very strongly clustered. But we up and say we do not share those values keys to all political are not born with these values, they are the – our values are intrinsic, we care about change, which product largely of our social and political people, we care about the natural world, we apply to protecting environment. are embedded in our communities and the the environment What the research also shows is that if people around us and we want to protect you change that environment, people’s them and not just ourselves. We are not going as much as they values shift en masse with that change. So to be selfish, it isn’t about money. Unless we apply to everything if for instance you have what in the United do that, who else is going to do it? So you else, are, in this States they dismissively call ‘socialized say to me, well, what do we do instead? You order: mobilization, medicine’ and we call the NHS, you have produce these arguments against trying to a good functioning health system where save nature by pricing it, by financialization, mobilization, and no one is left behind, where everybody is by monetization, by valuation, by all of these mobilization.” treated, and that embeds and imbues among things. Well, what do you do instead? the population a strong set of intrinsic values Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is no because they say, “Oh, I live in a society mystery. It is the same answer that it has where everybody’s looked after and that always been. The same answer it always must be a good thing because that’s the will be. The same thing we can’t damn well society that I live in.” People thereby absorb be bothered to get off our bottoms to do. In and internalize those values. If, on the other fact, there are three things that work. The hand, you live in a devil-take-the-hindmost three essential keys to all political change, society, where people die in the street which apply to protecting the environment because they cannot afford medical care, that as much as they apply to everything else, are, will reinforce extrinsic values and push you in this order: mobilization, mobilization, and further towards that end of the spectrum. mobilization. This is the only thing that ever The more that spectrum shifts, the more the works and everything else is a fudge and a values shift with it. substitute and an excuse for not doing what People on the right understand this very works. It applies to attempts to monetize well. Mrs Thatcher famously said economics and financialize nature, or anything else, is the method, the object is to change as much as it does to all the other political the heart and the soul. She completely issues we are failing to come to grips with. n

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96 The Ecological Citizen Vol 2 No 1 2018