The very idea that the Trans-Pacific
doesn’t understand the environment, let alone the economics and ethics relating to natural systems.
It’s more of the same “the market will provide” idiocy. It is a wonder “trickle down” wasn’t
Mr Foss thinks that certification schemes will ensure
environmental protection. They won’t. That is because there are two types of commerce – the small-c local, ethical enterprises connected to place and community, and the big-C unethical and disconnected commerce (with owners and managers living on effectively another planet). Mr Foss has dealt mainly with the latter interplanetary variety, who wear smart Italian suits in London offices.
It is the unethical and the disconnected big-C Commerce that the TPP most serves – after all, they are the ones around the table while the people are excluded. The actions of the big-C boys will be to the detriment of the small-c local family enterprises.
Think Walmart versus the local clothing store. One of the biggest cons of the age is to get small-c local enterprise to associate themselves with
The local ‘small-c’ commerce generally contributes to our place; moral philosopher Adam Smith’s village economy. The latter big-C commerce generally extracts from place and privatises gain. They are the modern-day colonising powers. They form oligarchies and unethically influence government policies. They take while promising low-paying ‘jobs’ and ‘GDP growth’ (which goes to their
Mr Foss’ claims that certification schemes indicate a positive of the TPP lump all commerce – robber baron and local entrepreneur – into the same box. Certification schemes like the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) were accepted by small-c companies who were ethically linked to their land and community, and who recognised that, because they were smaller, labelling was essential to encourage the market position of their produce.
Mr Foss is also confused about what the
He should research the Planetary Boundaries work available at the Stockholm Institute before he again suggests that a commercial deal, one of whose aims is to commoditise life within a Mega-Corporate trade system, will do any good for the environment. We are running close to many boundaries, and exceeding some, and the root cause of much of it is short-term greed supported by powerful big-C interests. Exactly the type of people who have access to the TPP details while we, the people (including small-c local family enterprises), do not.
I once spat out my coffee when a neo-liberal economist spoke with the conviction that only a cliché can provide: “the free market provides the best environmental solution.” It is truly amazing that they taught economists that
If you have that short-term selfish mindset, then you always, always, liquidate natural systems that cycle slowly – like forests, soils, water and fisheries. Neo-liberal economics doesn’t just tolerate that mindset, it champions it.
Destroy the complex forest and convert it to wasteland or a plantation, driftnet the ocean, hoodwink the Solomon Island chief out of his valuable forest for hollow promises of a soon-to-be-rotting jetty and some unsealed eroding tracks.
Mr Foss seems blind to history and the implications of short-term personal greed by people who live far removed from the consequences of their actions. Mining of long-cycling natural systems (soils, fisheries, forests, wetlands, etc.) is our own New Zealand history, and it is accelerating today as the greedy and powerful robber barons have reasserted their political influence around the world. This practice was recorded as far back as the Epic of Gilgamesh (4100 BP) for heaven’s sake. Plato wrote about it (2450 BP). The smoky skies of South East Asia are testament to that continuing Big Commerce way.
So-called ‘trade’ deals like the TPP that focus on the protection of the profits of Mega-Corporations will not change that extractive thinking that commoditises life, including human life. It will only reinforce it.
This government seems intent on looking after
It would follow the majority of European countries that have banned GMO trade in order to protect our environment and our economy.
If a government held democracy dear to its heart, it would not accept the right of Mega-
If we live by their approved laws, then that is not democracy; that is Oligarchy. Beyond the edge of oligarchy lies totalitarianism and tyranny.
If a government understood power, people and place then it would, at the very, very least, make open all these TPP clauses and conditions to which some of the most unethical big-C Corporate entities on this planet have access.
The fact that this Government has failed to do any of these things is a disgrace.
Mr Foss, your claims of environmental gain are empty spin serving unworthy ends.
Chris Perley
An edited version of this opinion piece was published in the Hawke’s Bay Today, 30th October 2015.