Dear Future,
From May 9-13th, 2007 a group of international activists convened in Hamburg, Germany to found the “World Future Council”. Initiated by Jacob von Uexküll, founder of the “Right Livelihood Award” (also labelled the “Alternative Nobel Prize”), the group declares itself a sort of “global conscience” charged with securing no less than the “future of the globe”.
One could dismiss this group as yet another self-styled “world saviour association”, if it were not for the impact it found in politics and the media right from the start. Subsidized by the City of Hamburg, their founding congress and “Hamburg Call to Action” was widely reported in the news and supported not only by the usual “we-know-what’s-best-for-you” activists, but also by prominent politicians, media luminaries, scientists and business people. What holds them together is a populist mix of central planning fantasies, naïve good will and a strong appetite for world government - well disguised under an umbrella of scientific misinformation, religious zeal and false promises.
The “Hamburg Call to Action” is a good example how such populist “movements” are manufactured. It follows a recipe which is probably as old as power itself and can be found in just about every populist mass manipulation scheme. Let us examine how some of the rules from the book of rhetorical tricks are applied in this latest manifesto:
Rule 1: Declare this moment to be the most decisive in history, where agreement with your plan is required to save mankind!
“Today we stand at the crossroads of human history. Our actions – and our failures to act – will decide the future of life on earth for thousands of years, if not forever.”[1]
This always makes an impressive beginning. Words like “crossroads”, “human history” or “future of life on earth” are very powerful. We could call them “adult four-letter-words”, immediately evoking strong emotions and reactions. When talking about numbers of years, a thousand is the minimum. The magic millennium touch has served generations of prophets of doom…
Rule 2: Threaten them with the wrath of future generations!
“Our generation will be scrutinized with exceptional fierceness by those coming after us, for decisions taken now will have profound consequences for them in terms of lives saved or lost.”
It used to be our ancestors and history demanding from us that we should learn from them and consequently do better. At least they provided case studies and historical data. Learning from the future, as is required here, can only mean to accept as givens the utopias of modern day prophets, the predictions of political clairvoyants and the prognostic computer models of scientists. All of them are equally arbitrary and constantly proven wrong by history.
Rule 3: Proclaim that your dogma is the end of all dogmas!
“The World Future Council identifies necessary policies …freed from dogmas which sacrifice our real world…”
The human mind unfortunately has to construct its worlds and realities without direct access to “absolute truths” or the possibility to objectively prove its assumptions. Any claim to describe the world free of doctrine, dogma or ideology - “as it is”-, is impossible and a dogma itself. It serves the purpose to establish an absolute truth that cannot be challenged and an authority that must be obeyed. It is probably the oldest rhetorical trick in the book of power.
Rule 4: Promise to solve principally unsolvable problems such as inequity and injustice!
“We seek to promote systems and institutions based on equity and justice, replacing those that perpetuate inequity and injustice. “
Equity and justice are qualitative values based on individual difference, preference and judgement. They cannot be measured, quantified or objectified and thus cannot be established by rules, laws or government measures. The best we can do to achieve them is to respect and apply the fundamental “natural laws” of social relations, such as equal rights, private property, voluntary exchange and binding contracts. Any promise beyond protecting natural law can only increase inequity and injustice. Institutions based on coercion cannot provide either equity or justice.
Rule 5: Focus on one topical issue and declare it the Archimedean point to solve all other problems!
“We have decided to focus first on climate change, because this is no longer just an environmental issue. It touches every area of our lives: peace, security, human rights, poverty, hunger, health, mass migration, economics.”
Climate change currently is the favourite cause of central planners, socialists and others promoting centralism and state intervention. Although based on scientifically unsound and highly disputed theories, it nevertheless is the darling of many scientists, politicians and activists for various reasons: to scientists it provides a rich source of funding and political influence, to politicians it provides a hard to beat legitimization for government intervention, taxation and central planning, to activists it provides a seemingly common sense cause and rallying point. The solutions proposed are always the same and never successful…
Rule 6: Declare your doctrine a “natural law”!
“Natural laws supersede all others because they determine the conditions of our existence. If we do not succeed in limiting climate chaos, our earth will no longer be habitable for most of its inhabitants.”
Climate models are scenarios based on very limited data and simple arithmetic equations. They can only predict the model, not the climate. Climate is principally unpredictable because it is an emergent phenomenon depending on an infinite number of factors and interdependencies. Human influence is minor in this self-organizing system. Equating arithmetic models with “natural laws” is not only unscientific, but a travesty of science. Climate change as such is continuous and natural since climate is a dynamic system far from equilibrium. Calling it “climate chaos” and subsequently demanding to put it in “order” is ridiculous, hideous and sheer hubris.
Rule 7: Give your plan a higher religious authority!
“The protection of the earth’s vitality, diversity and beauty is not only a matter of political choice. It is a sacred trust.”
When terms like “sacred”, “holy” or “creation” are being used in connection with political actions, they usually serve the goal of legitimizing these plans by referring to a higher authority. Many of the people that use them so emphatically here generally insist that they do not believe in a god or religion and vehemently protest against theories of creationism…
Rule 8: Claim to speak in the interest of non-existing entities in order to avoid accountability!
“The World Future Council speaks up and acts to protect the interests of future generations.”
In this way nobody can ask whether the people you claim to speak for really want to be represented by you. We cannot know how future generations think. But we can safely assume that they will be willing and able to speak for themselves. Other virtual entities often employed for this purpose are “the people”, the “common good” or the “general will”. All of these entities exist only as “emergent wholes”, i.e. as non-tangible phenomena without consciousness, will or goal. They can be useful as metaphors, but once they serve to legitimize political actions or laws, the door to totalitarian rule is opened.
Rule 9: Power is based on obedience. Obedience is highest in times of war. Declare war!
“History reminds us that, in times of crisis, humans can take giant steps in a very short time. For example, when attacked, countries have managed to convert their entire production within months to serve the needs of the war economy. When environmental disasters struck, some peoples quickly adapted and changed their ways of life – while others failed and perished.”
We are being told here in twisted yet ultimately clear terms that climate change and other environmental issues should be approached in a war-like fashion, requiring a strong and unified leadership, an authoritative officer corps, a rigid hierarchical command structure and foot soldiers that blindly obey. Theis crusader call is being used by politicians and power-seekers in just about every aspect of life. It can be recognized easily when campaigns are titled “War on …”, or when demands for “another Manhattan Project” appear…
Rule 10: Demand sacrifices (from others) in the name of a “Common” or “Greater Good” which you alone define!
“Our political and economic goals will from now on have to aim for the maximum of present well-being compatible with our obligations to future generations. The alternative is ethically and humanly unacceptable.”
The term “maximum of present well-being” tries to cleverly hide the demand for sacrifices, from which the authors necessarily must be excluded, since fulfilling their new duties will require much more resources than before…
Once credibility, authority and legitimacy are established in this way, the plan of action can be introduced. Although plans are important for outlining the steps required for reaching a certain goal or achieving a certain task, not all planning is just planning: some plans of action are actions for planning. The latter are usually initiated by people who neither believe in the human individual’s capacity for reason, nor in the ability of voluntary cooperation between individuals to achieve their goals and adapt to changing circumstances. They instead consider human beings (except themselves) as driven primarily by negative instincts of killing, hurting and cheating each other, of plundering the planet and wasting its resources. The human individual according to this negative anthropology needs to be told what is best for him and the planet. The knowledge of what is “best” is reserved to a selected few only, and –you guessed it- our activists belong to this exclusive group.
What sets such holders of higher knowledge apart from the rest of us can only be some privileged access to information about the universe, life on earth and the human mind. To ask where they get this information from is not a legitimate question. They just know, because their special consciousness tells them. We must trust and obey them. The recipes they promote, however, are not so enlightened and invariably from the same type: It is government that must set values and goals for people, guide their actions and enforce the grand master plan. Without government we would surely be lost and society would duly disintegrate:
“Decisions by governments determine rules and influence our values. They enable the private sector and all of us to act more effectively. The World Future Council calls on the G8 and EU and other upcoming summits to face up to their unique responsibilities by responding actively and immediately to the planetary ultimatum we have all been given.”
So we have all been given “the planetary ultimatum”! Does this mean we get evicted from the planet within 30 days – unless what?
“Outdated rules and economic dogmas must not be allowed to endanger our common future. The challenge of climate change will only be overcome by global sharing of access to vital resources and technologies, ensuring clean energy, water, nutrition and education for all.”
What could be the “outdated rules and economic dogmas” that governments have to get rid of? Well, they are not mentioned explicitly, but clearly implied. The opposite of central planning and government intervention is the free market. A free market economy gives the individual consumer the last say on what is produced how, by whom, in what quantities and qualities. It is the natural enemy of coercive power. Its principles (if not distorted by governments) are voluntary cooperation and mutually beneficial exchange based on individual values, freedom of action and binding contracts, respect for elementary human rights of self-ownership and rightful property. These natural rules of human relations bring forth society independently from governments long before states even existed. They naturally strengthen social binds and with growing division of labor generate a social climate of trust and dependability.
Most human wealth has been produced under these natural laws of society, and most spectacularly so during the last 150 years. It was governments that periodically stifled, curbed and suffocated the growth of wealth or even destroyed it in wars against their own people and other governments. The only hope we can have in the future is to get rid of governments and focus on self-organizing social orders under conditions of maximal freedom and effective protection of our natural rights.
Wealth has always attracted a small minority who wants a share without the toil and sweat that is required in its production. Some take it by force through openly criminal acts of theft, robbery, plunder, corruption or fraud; others have devised legal “political” means to achieve the same. Their arguments seem altruistic at first glance: society cannot provide for everybody’s needs unless governments forcibly interfere by seizing goods and resources (through taxation), redistributing them according to arbitrary plans (made by politicians) and coercing people into modes of behaviour considered in line with the needs of the planet (as defined again by politicians, lobbyists and clairvoyant advisors). When these schemes invariably fail, because they in fact reduce wealth and restrict its distribution, the power seekers propose even more government and ever more coercion and intervention.
The founders of the World Future Council are likewise convinced that the role of government should not only be extended, but also centralized into a single global authority, guided by enlightened Platonian intellectuals:
“From time to time our ancestors created institutions sometimes called Councils of Seers Into The Future, to guide their decisions. Today we again need such councils on all levels. With its broad membership from governments, parliaments, civil society, business, science and the arts, the World Future Council will be a global voice highlighting our responsibilities as citizens of the earth… “
Global government should be realized through “a strengthened, democratised and revitalized UN System, capable of preventing war, genocide and crimes against humanity”. The worst of these crimes, we can safely assume, will be opposition to world government…
“We are entering an era of consequences” our new custodians sternly proclaim, and the reader wonders whether the eras before were of no consequence. They end their declaration with a promise “to all children living now and in the future” that, when read in the context of their earlier declarations, sounds more like a threat:
“We promise to do everything in our power to help sustain life on earth with all its beauty and diversity for future generations, and to speak up for comprehensive peace and true justice between the world’s peoples and countries.”
To entrust governments with the task to establish and maintain “comprehensive peace” or to expect “true justice” from coercive programs of central planning, intervention and redistribution has never in history been a successful proposition. But this never stopped people from starting new organizations promoting such agendas. Since the Catholic Church once made a successful business out of selling indulgencies to its believers upon installing the appropriate guilt feelings, guilt promoters all over the globe continue to successfully apply this business model for a wide variety of causes. The political entrepreneurs behind these ventures usually seek personal prominence, power and easy incomes by preying on well-meaning but often naïve customers, by profiting from symbiotic relationships to power and by thriving on parasitic positions and privileges within political and social structures. The state and coercive state power are their breeding ground; freedom, markets and private property their eternal enemies. They should not be entrusted with our future or the future of our children…
[1] All quotes from: World Future Council, The Hamburg Call To Action http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Dan/press_releases/english_press_releases/Hamburg_Call_to_Action-engl.pdf
From May 9-13th, 2007 a group of international activists convened in Hamburg, Germany to found the “World Future Council”. Initiated by Jacob von Uexküll, founder of the “Right Livelihood Award” (also labelled the “Alternative Nobel Prize”), the group declares itself a sort of “global conscience” charged with securing no less than the “future of the globe”.
One could dismiss this group as yet another self-styled “world saviour association”, if it were not for the impact it found in politics and the media right from the start. Subsidized by the City of Hamburg, their founding congress and “Hamburg Call to Action” was widely reported in the news and supported not only by the usual “we-know-what’s-best-for-you” activists, but also by prominent politicians, media luminaries, scientists and business people. What holds them together is a populist mix of central planning fantasies, naïve good will and a strong appetite for world government - well disguised under an umbrella of scientific misinformation, religious zeal and false promises.
The “Hamburg Call to Action” is a good example how such populist “movements” are manufactured. It follows a recipe which is probably as old as power itself and can be found in just about every populist mass manipulation scheme. Let us examine how some of the rules from the book of rhetorical tricks are applied in this latest manifesto:
Rule 1: Declare this moment to be the most decisive in history, where agreement with your plan is required to save mankind!
“Today we stand at the crossroads of human history. Our actions – and our failures to act – will decide the future of life on earth for thousands of years, if not forever.”[1]
This always makes an impressive beginning. Words like “crossroads”, “human history” or “future of life on earth” are very powerful. We could call them “adult four-letter-words”, immediately evoking strong emotions and reactions. When talking about numbers of years, a thousand is the minimum. The magic millennium touch has served generations of prophets of doom…
Rule 2: Threaten them with the wrath of future generations!
“Our generation will be scrutinized with exceptional fierceness by those coming after us, for decisions taken now will have profound consequences for them in terms of lives saved or lost.”
It used to be our ancestors and history demanding from us that we should learn from them and consequently do better. At least they provided case studies and historical data. Learning from the future, as is required here, can only mean to accept as givens the utopias of modern day prophets, the predictions of political clairvoyants and the prognostic computer models of scientists. All of them are equally arbitrary and constantly proven wrong by history.
Rule 3: Proclaim that your dogma is the end of all dogmas!
“The World Future Council identifies necessary policies …freed from dogmas which sacrifice our real world…”
The human mind unfortunately has to construct its worlds and realities without direct access to “absolute truths” or the possibility to objectively prove its assumptions. Any claim to describe the world free of doctrine, dogma or ideology - “as it is”-, is impossible and a dogma itself. It serves the purpose to establish an absolute truth that cannot be challenged and an authority that must be obeyed. It is probably the oldest rhetorical trick in the book of power.
Rule 4: Promise to solve principally unsolvable problems such as inequity and injustice!
“We seek to promote systems and institutions based on equity and justice, replacing those that perpetuate inequity and injustice. “
Equity and justice are qualitative values based on individual difference, preference and judgement. They cannot be measured, quantified or objectified and thus cannot be established by rules, laws or government measures. The best we can do to achieve them is to respect and apply the fundamental “natural laws” of social relations, such as equal rights, private property, voluntary exchange and binding contracts. Any promise beyond protecting natural law can only increase inequity and injustice. Institutions based on coercion cannot provide either equity or justice.
Rule 5: Focus on one topical issue and declare it the Archimedean point to solve all other problems!
“We have decided to focus first on climate change, because this is no longer just an environmental issue. It touches every area of our lives: peace, security, human rights, poverty, hunger, health, mass migration, economics.”
Climate change currently is the favourite cause of central planners, socialists and others promoting centralism and state intervention. Although based on scientifically unsound and highly disputed theories, it nevertheless is the darling of many scientists, politicians and activists for various reasons: to scientists it provides a rich source of funding and political influence, to politicians it provides a hard to beat legitimization for government intervention, taxation and central planning, to activists it provides a seemingly common sense cause and rallying point. The solutions proposed are always the same and never successful…
Rule 6: Declare your doctrine a “natural law”!
“Natural laws supersede all others because they determine the conditions of our existence. If we do not succeed in limiting climate chaos, our earth will no longer be habitable for most of its inhabitants.”
Climate models are scenarios based on very limited data and simple arithmetic equations. They can only predict the model, not the climate. Climate is principally unpredictable because it is an emergent phenomenon depending on an infinite number of factors and interdependencies. Human influence is minor in this self-organizing system. Equating arithmetic models with “natural laws” is not only unscientific, but a travesty of science. Climate change as such is continuous and natural since climate is a dynamic system far from equilibrium. Calling it “climate chaos” and subsequently demanding to put it in “order” is ridiculous, hideous and sheer hubris.
Rule 7: Give your plan a higher religious authority!
“The protection of the earth’s vitality, diversity and beauty is not only a matter of political choice. It is a sacred trust.”
When terms like “sacred”, “holy” or “creation” are being used in connection with political actions, they usually serve the goal of legitimizing these plans by referring to a higher authority. Many of the people that use them so emphatically here generally insist that they do not believe in a god or religion and vehemently protest against theories of creationism…
Rule 8: Claim to speak in the interest of non-existing entities in order to avoid accountability!
“The World Future Council speaks up and acts to protect the interests of future generations.”
In this way nobody can ask whether the people you claim to speak for really want to be represented by you. We cannot know how future generations think. But we can safely assume that they will be willing and able to speak for themselves. Other virtual entities often employed for this purpose are “the people”, the “common good” or the “general will”. All of these entities exist only as “emergent wholes”, i.e. as non-tangible phenomena without consciousness, will or goal. They can be useful as metaphors, but once they serve to legitimize political actions or laws, the door to totalitarian rule is opened.
Rule 9: Power is based on obedience. Obedience is highest in times of war. Declare war!
“History reminds us that, in times of crisis, humans can take giant steps in a very short time. For example, when attacked, countries have managed to convert their entire production within months to serve the needs of the war economy. When environmental disasters struck, some peoples quickly adapted and changed their ways of life – while others failed and perished.”
We are being told here in twisted yet ultimately clear terms that climate change and other environmental issues should be approached in a war-like fashion, requiring a strong and unified leadership, an authoritative officer corps, a rigid hierarchical command structure and foot soldiers that blindly obey. Theis crusader call is being used by politicians and power-seekers in just about every aspect of life. It can be recognized easily when campaigns are titled “War on …”, or when demands for “another Manhattan Project” appear…
Rule 10: Demand sacrifices (from others) in the name of a “Common” or “Greater Good” which you alone define!
“Our political and economic goals will from now on have to aim for the maximum of present well-being compatible with our obligations to future generations. The alternative is ethically and humanly unacceptable.”
The term “maximum of present well-being” tries to cleverly hide the demand for sacrifices, from which the authors necessarily must be excluded, since fulfilling their new duties will require much more resources than before…
Once credibility, authority and legitimacy are established in this way, the plan of action can be introduced. Although plans are important for outlining the steps required for reaching a certain goal or achieving a certain task, not all planning is just planning: some plans of action are actions for planning. The latter are usually initiated by people who neither believe in the human individual’s capacity for reason, nor in the ability of voluntary cooperation between individuals to achieve their goals and adapt to changing circumstances. They instead consider human beings (except themselves) as driven primarily by negative instincts of killing, hurting and cheating each other, of plundering the planet and wasting its resources. The human individual according to this negative anthropology needs to be told what is best for him and the planet. The knowledge of what is “best” is reserved to a selected few only, and –you guessed it- our activists belong to this exclusive group.
What sets such holders of higher knowledge apart from the rest of us can only be some privileged access to information about the universe, life on earth and the human mind. To ask where they get this information from is not a legitimate question. They just know, because their special consciousness tells them. We must trust and obey them. The recipes they promote, however, are not so enlightened and invariably from the same type: It is government that must set values and goals for people, guide their actions and enforce the grand master plan. Without government we would surely be lost and society would duly disintegrate:
“Decisions by governments determine rules and influence our values. They enable the private sector and all of us to act more effectively. The World Future Council calls on the G8 and EU and other upcoming summits to face up to their unique responsibilities by responding actively and immediately to the planetary ultimatum we have all been given.”
So we have all been given “the planetary ultimatum”! Does this mean we get evicted from the planet within 30 days – unless what?
“Outdated rules and economic dogmas must not be allowed to endanger our common future. The challenge of climate change will only be overcome by global sharing of access to vital resources and technologies, ensuring clean energy, water, nutrition and education for all.”
What could be the “outdated rules and economic dogmas” that governments have to get rid of? Well, they are not mentioned explicitly, but clearly implied. The opposite of central planning and government intervention is the free market. A free market economy gives the individual consumer the last say on what is produced how, by whom, in what quantities and qualities. It is the natural enemy of coercive power. Its principles (if not distorted by governments) are voluntary cooperation and mutually beneficial exchange based on individual values, freedom of action and binding contracts, respect for elementary human rights of self-ownership and rightful property. These natural rules of human relations bring forth society independently from governments long before states even existed. They naturally strengthen social binds and with growing division of labor generate a social climate of trust and dependability.
Most human wealth has been produced under these natural laws of society, and most spectacularly so during the last 150 years. It was governments that periodically stifled, curbed and suffocated the growth of wealth or even destroyed it in wars against their own people and other governments. The only hope we can have in the future is to get rid of governments and focus on self-organizing social orders under conditions of maximal freedom and effective protection of our natural rights.
Wealth has always attracted a small minority who wants a share without the toil and sweat that is required in its production. Some take it by force through openly criminal acts of theft, robbery, plunder, corruption or fraud; others have devised legal “political” means to achieve the same. Their arguments seem altruistic at first glance: society cannot provide for everybody’s needs unless governments forcibly interfere by seizing goods and resources (through taxation), redistributing them according to arbitrary plans (made by politicians) and coercing people into modes of behaviour considered in line with the needs of the planet (as defined again by politicians, lobbyists and clairvoyant advisors). When these schemes invariably fail, because they in fact reduce wealth and restrict its distribution, the power seekers propose even more government and ever more coercion and intervention.
The founders of the World Future Council are likewise convinced that the role of government should not only be extended, but also centralized into a single global authority, guided by enlightened Platonian intellectuals:
“From time to time our ancestors created institutions sometimes called Councils of Seers Into The Future, to guide their decisions. Today we again need such councils on all levels. With its broad membership from governments, parliaments, civil society, business, science and the arts, the World Future Council will be a global voice highlighting our responsibilities as citizens of the earth… “
Global government should be realized through “a strengthened, democratised and revitalized UN System, capable of preventing war, genocide and crimes against humanity”. The worst of these crimes, we can safely assume, will be opposition to world government…
“We are entering an era of consequences” our new custodians sternly proclaim, and the reader wonders whether the eras before were of no consequence. They end their declaration with a promise “to all children living now and in the future” that, when read in the context of their earlier declarations, sounds more like a threat:
“We promise to do everything in our power to help sustain life on earth with all its beauty and diversity for future generations, and to speak up for comprehensive peace and true justice between the world’s peoples and countries.”
To entrust governments with the task to establish and maintain “comprehensive peace” or to expect “true justice” from coercive programs of central planning, intervention and redistribution has never in history been a successful proposition. But this never stopped people from starting new organizations promoting such agendas. Since the Catholic Church once made a successful business out of selling indulgencies to its believers upon installing the appropriate guilt feelings, guilt promoters all over the globe continue to successfully apply this business model for a wide variety of causes. The political entrepreneurs behind these ventures usually seek personal prominence, power and easy incomes by preying on well-meaning but often naïve customers, by profiting from symbiotic relationships to power and by thriving on parasitic positions and privileges within political and social structures. The state and coercive state power are their breeding ground; freedom, markets and private property their eternal enemies. They should not be entrusted with our future or the future of our children…
[1] All quotes from: World Future Council, The Hamburg Call To Action http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Dan/press_releases/english_press_releases/Hamburg_Call_to_Action-engl.pdf
