A word on Utopia

I'm not worried about being too Utopian, I'm worried we aren't being Utopian enough.

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at.

- Oscar Wilde

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“It sounds a bit Utopian”

Sometimes I get asked if degrowth/eco-socialist ideas are too “utopian”. The person asking this question is usually trying to dismiss the concept because it “will never happen”.

In a former life I was a national account manager in the sales department of several blue-chip fast-moving consumer goods corporations, so I have had more than my fair share of sales and negotiation training. One of the first things they teach you in these training sessions is that when you are negotiating you should “open extreme” i.e., ask for everything you want. In fact, they tell you to ask for things you don’t even care about so that you have something you can ‘concede’ and still walk away with everything you want. We are taught that “If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no!”, that “you’ll always get a 100% of what you don’t ask for!” (i.e., ask for nothing, get nothing), and to “let them say ‘no’”, rather than simply assume the answer is a no, because sometimes the other party will surprise you with a “yes”. We are taught that we should set the agenda and tether to what we want, rather than to what the other party is asking for, so that we get “share of mind” and are more likely to walk away with our best-case scenario.

Of course, what we are seeking to do with our economy is different from an account manager negotiating with a buyer over fragrances, coffee or ice cream. However, the principles remain the same: we should not be afraid to lead the agenda, we should be pushing for everything we want and more and we should not be backing down until we get it. We should not be seeking to meet the other side of the political spectrum where they are, but rather trying to understand why they are where they are: they are playing by this book too: opening extreme and asking for everything they want. I know they are doing this because they wrote the book. The negotiation skills I learnt were honed by free-market capitalists.

Utopia has been top of mind for me lately as my daily experiences are a pendulum of both the very best and the absolute worst of humanity, and I constantly wonder what it would take to get more of the best and less of the worst. On a seemingly daily basis I am both stunned with wonder at what people can do for each other and brought to tears by the harm humans are inflicting on others. Today is a good example: my children are participating in ‘Zany Hair Day’ at their school, where, with the support of friends, family and the local community, the year 6 children, of who there are around 50 in total, have raised over $30,000 to support the Leukaemia Foundation. Many of those year 6 children have today shaved their head, or had a significant length of hair cut off, in support of the cause. An absolutely beautiful example of humanity at its best.

But when I check my social media feed after dropping my children to school I see that Israel is dropping US-made white phosphorous on Lebanon, rendering the land “uninhabitable”. I see a bony child with tissue thin skin on the brink of starvation because Israel is withholding food to Gaza and the international community is effectively doing nothing about it. I see whole families killed by Israeli bombs. I see Israel continuing to bomb Gaza even after the UN passed a binding motion calling for an immediate ceasefire. Closer to home I read about families who are struggling to make ends meet under the pressure of the (unnecessary and mishandled) rising cost of living, about how the stress of financial strain is manifesting in domestic violence and while I’m seeing this I also see the disdain with which MPs treat other MPs who are rightly pointing out that rent caps are necessary because families being made homeless is not the same, and should not be treated the same, as an investor being forced to sell an asset at a gain.

I’m a book lover. I’ll always have more books on my to-read list than I have time to read. Lately I’ve been reading two books at once, typically one on the devastating role colonialism and imperialism has played, and continues to play, in the world we see today (both from an environmental and a people perspective - of which the shocking events I describe above are a good example), and one on the more positive future we can create. I do this because I understand that we need to break down the existing power structures if we want a ‘more beautiful world’, but I also want to know what that world could look like in practice. I read wonderful examples of the future we can create and I share them as widely as possible because I know that Utopia won’t come without a struggle, but I also know that even a ‘watered-down’ version of Utopia won’t be realised if people don’t know about - and therefore aren’t pursuing - everything we could want (and then some) as our end game.

Am I worried that degrowth/eco-socialist ideas are too utopian? No. I’m much more worried that we’re not asking for enough, that the little we are asking for will be whittled down to virtually nothing and that we’ll spend most of our time focused on the agenda of those who don’t have our best interests at heart. I’m worried we’ll talk ourselves out of what we want and that we’ll concede our key asks without needing to, akin to starting a game of tug-of-war on the middle line while our opponents are firmly in their zone. This scenario worries me much more than a utopian ideal that sets us in the right direction, inspires people’s imagination and offers a viable alternative to the future, putting us firmly back in our ‘zone’.

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The above is adapted from a chapter of PROJECT TIPPING POINT, a 6-week online course and community of people who want to move the dominant culture in favour of life on Earth. If you are interested in joining our community of over 200 people, please use the code LAUNCH65 for a 65% discount.

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