An interview with Molly Scott Cato
An Interview with Molly Scott Cato, Ph.D. (born in 1963 in Wales) is a green economist and prominent member of the Green Party of England and Wales. She is Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at the University of Roehampton and Convenor of Roehampton Business School's Responsible Capitalism research centre. Molly is the Green Party's Economics Spokesperson. She currently lives in Stroud.
Bang Wang
Published by The Bund
The first Part: About Bioregional Economy
1: I think some people might get confused with the picture of post-hippie park when they were imagining a Bioregional community, they might think of farming, kniting, and exchanging a green leaf currency etc... maybe just a kind of advanced 'Parking', although the people in a Bioregional community don’t seem to wear bikinis or leaves walking around in a park. How can one distinguish between the two immediately?
I don't see this proposal as one arising from lifestyle but rather from taking seriously the need to change our provisioning systems to stop them putting intolerable pressure on the planet. I begin with the question 'What is the best level of human well-being that we can achieve while reducing our carbon dioxide emissions by 90%?' This has implications for the way we live which would mean stronger more local economies, providing for our own needs within the bioregion. The hippy lifestyle was actually in many cases pretty heedless; bioregionalism is about taking a self-conscious and responsible approach to how we live.
2: Can you give an example of how you personally practice Bioregional Economy in a practical way? (e.g. your local work to propagate the Stroud pound and responses from different aspects).
I spent three years on the core group of Stroud Community Agriculture. I then moved on to set up the Stroud pound to encourage people to produce more locally and to buy more local products. I can send you a paper to read on the theory and experience of that if you like. Then I was elected as a local councillor. This year we have a budget for building a hydro-electric scheme at our office and a fund of £100k to support local food businesses or manufacturers of renewable energy equipment. We are organising a meeting about models of community renewable generation with a view to having a fund to support that in next year's budget.
3: Where do you get the inspiration for the idea of Bioregional Economy?
There was a lot of work done in California from the 1960s onwards. The work of Kirkpatrick Sale is particularly powerful. The main inspiration is nature herself and also the beauty of the part of the world where I live.
4: How does Bioregionalism differ from Communism?
Although theoretically communism means the dictatorship of the proletariat in reality it has usually meant a very strong state. A bioregional approach would accept that there is a role of government at different levels to create the framework within which the market operates (there is a lot on this in Chapter 10 of my book), for most individual products and services a market system would predominate. However, the bioregional approach does have implications for the way that assets are presently owned, especially land, which is presently in highly concentrated ownership and is the crucial resource for a bioregional economy.
5: In E.F. Schumacher's 'Small Is Beautiful', he said that, "from an economic point of view, the central concept of wisdom is permanence. We must study an economics of permanence.” Do you agree with this statement? if so, what kind of permanence can the Bioregional Economy povide?
Permanence is important - taking into account the needs of future generations - but we must not let this imply any sort of stasis. Rather we need to see a dynamic transition towards sustainability. I think the concept of balance, between people, species, and between ourselves no our environment, it is important alongside permanence.
6: I like what you said, "It is the opposite of a life lived in the limited knowledge that food comes from Tesco, leaving everything to the global corporations who are only too willing to take on this responsibility in return for their profits”. I also heard about 'No to Mill Road Tesco'. Tesco wanted to plan an Express store on Mill Road about 3 years ago. Cambridge City Council’s licensing sub-committee’s decision to reject the store’s alchohol application was greeted by loud applause from campaigners, but the protesting finally failed because of lacking the litigation cost. In this case, what sort of effective strategies will the Bioregional Economy create?
The example you have cited about Tesco is one of thousands where the national government's drive towards growth and profit has overridden local communities' desire to protect their comment and environment. Again Chapter 10 of my book raises the question of subsidiaries: what is the appropriate level for power to be exercised? Planning would clearly reside at the bioregional level or lower, so no right of appeal to distant central government whose policies are dominated by corporate lobbying.
7: You might have seen Darwin's Nightmare (2004), a documentary directed by Hubert Sauper, dealing with the environmental and social effects of the fishing industry around Lake Victoria in Tanzania. the children of Angola received guns for Christmas, the children of Europe received grapes. The appalling living and working conditions of the indigenous people, in which basic sanitation is completely absent and many children turn to drugs and prostitution, all because the Nile perch is fished and processed for export, with all the prime fillets sold to European supermarkets, leaving the local people to survive on the festering carcasses of the gutted fish. I assume it's easier for westerners to give up eating this big fish for sympathathetic reasons, or even to start eating fish and shrimps with bones and shells in order to reduce the carbon dioxide caused by the transportation of shipping food to the low wage countries, and rescuing the overseas laborers from being exploited in peeling bones and shells for long working hours, but what about giving up coffee and tea?
This is precisely the point of the bioregional proposal: the resources of local communities and the abundance they could produce should belong to their citizens. The global trade system wastes energy but it also enables this exploitation especially through the WTO and global reserve currency system. I propose a system of 'trade subsidiarity' where tax systems encourage consumption from within the bioregion before looking further afield. Exports would attract tariffs related to their distance travel. Fair trade would become a global norm enforced by law. So coffee and tea would not be banished but would become luxuries and their prices would rise.
8: What about the immigrants who need pineapples, curries, Chinese chives, or other desirables to comfort their homesickness?
That is more of a problem, but since much of the world's migration is an economic response to the unfairness of the post-colonial nature of political economy the incentive to migrate and leave behind your family and culture would be greatly reduced.
9: What about the poor who cannot afford ‘the choice’ but ‘price?
The poor would be much better protected because they would have access to land to produce for their own needs and would also have greater control of the assets related to their productive employment. This should enable them to cease to be wage slaves. The disabled and elderly would still require social protection paid for through taxation but the current poor who are in low-paid employment or unemployment would have much greater freedom to create the lifestyle of their choice.
The second part: about China
1: In a talk about Nature and Government, Chuang Tzu said, "Now I regard government of the empire from quite a different point of view. The people have certain natural instincts: to weave and clothe themselves, to plough and feed themselves. These are common to all humanity, and all are agreed about this. Such instincts come from nature." Do you believe what he said?
Yes: there was much wisdom in ancient Chinese philosophy. You will see that I quote Lao Tzu at the end of Chapter 10. I bought the Dao De Zhing as a student and have valued its wisdom ever since.
2: Pollution in China is one aspect of the broader topic of environmental issues there which has caused widespread environmental and health problems. How would the success of a Bioregional Economic experiment in one or two small places in Europe be of benefit to such a massive country thousands of miles away?
I do not see the bioregional proposal as a western proposal but a relearning of ancient wisdom from societies across the world. The phrase ' not in my backyard' is usd pejoratively to imply selfishness. In Stroud people say that they are LAMBYs, meaning 'Looking after my backyard. I see the bioregional approach as one of spreading this idea globally. If everybody looked after their backyard the whole world would be protected. In fact I am really teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here, since Chinese peasants have lived in this way for thousands of years. The question is about what standard of life they or we can aspire to without destroying our planet. Technological advance means that we do not need the drudgery of the peasant life but we cannot afford the constant change and movement of contemporary society.
3: Tian Yu, a 18 years old Chinese girl returned alive from Foxconn suicides, paralyzed from the waist down. Now she is sitting in her wheelchair making handmade slippers in her hometown. Documentary filmmaker, academic and activist Ai Xiaoming is making a documentary about her. Tian Yu said the reason that she left her village, joined the migrant workers and worked in Foxconn was not just economic, but also for the irresistible seduction of citylife. An article translated from a German supplement 'Unrest in China' says, "Between a known and apparently orderly life in the village and the adventurous ‘modern’ city life, tensions (between the two) leads many young migrants to ‘commute’, alternating between periods of employment in the city and returning to the village when they have no work (or have simply had enough of the city), lasting only until the village gets too boring and they leave once more." What is your suggestion for these young people? Do you think they can find a solution to face the threat of unemployment and build up a reasonable quality of life within their regions after the world factories crashed?
The appeal of the city lifestyle is not accidental: it has been created through the psychological manipulation of a powerful advertising industry. The reality of city life for many Chinese people a well as Europeans is exploitation, alienation, isolation. We are being persuaded to devalue relationships with family, nature and other species and to value material objections, commodities, that we can be sold. This cultural shift needs to be actively resisted because it is a key cause of the environmental destruction that threatens our future. (I had lots on this in chapter 7)
4: In China more than 500 million people use water contaminated by human and industrial waste as their main resource. One of CNN’s documentaries(2012) showed the compensation that was given by the factories for the whole village was only 1200RMB a year. During the talk of 'There is no Wealth but Life', you used a quotation from Summers memo, "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that". In this case, do you think a mutual ethic can still be an effective method for those people who think the compensation of death is cheaper for the poor? ( e.g. in a Canadian documentary called The Corporation, it examines the modern-day corporation, considering its legal status as a class of person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person.)
This is the logic of the market system and one of the key reasons why I am opposed to neoclassical economics. A good first step would be to change company law so that it does not allow people to act immorally with the defence that they have to maximise shareholder value. But neoclassical economics is also dangerous because although it is unproven theoretical nonsense it is taught to young people as facts and distorts their moral outlook.
5: Ajahn Brahm is a Theravada Buddhist monk. He is currently the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery in Australia. In one of his speeches about 'Emptiness', he told a joke about 'A nun and and a mouse'. A nun lived contentedly in a cave with her emptiness for many years. One day, a mouse came in through a hole and started to trouble her, she thought that if she got a cat, it would scare the mouse off. So she did just that, but the cat needed milk to drink, so she had to go down to the village to get milk for the cat everyday. Why not get a cow? she thought that should save her a lot of time. So she did, but the cow needed grass to eat, and the grass needed to be looked after too, therefore she had to get a farm. Obviously she was not an expert on farming, so she had to get a farmboy...it went on and on until finally she was totally fed up and started to try to think of a better solution. In the end, she filled up the hole with clay and stones, so the mouse could never come back again. Do you think her resolution is too radical? Or you do you think time is the key, no holes can be fixed over night?
I am not sure of the moral of the story. I don't believe in isolation; rather I think you should be choosy about who you let into your cave, and those judgements require spiritual insight as well as financial or practical considerations.
The third part: about Your life
1: Where do you get food and household items?
I have a rather complex system for food. I already mentioned the community farm and we could visit and take some photos. I am part of a small wholefood co-operative and we have our food delivered in bulk. We also have an excellent farmers' market where you can buy milk, meat, cheese etc. When I have to visit the supermarket I choose the Co-operative.
As for other things I try to follow the ancestors and not buy things or buy second-hand. I have been learning to make baskets and chairs and that makes me very attached to them so I won't buy more. You can also take photos of those!
2: How do you encourage your children to take care of the earth?
I hope I have encouraged them to be morally responsible people and I am very proud of all three of them and what they have chosen to do. Like most young people my sons see no problem with flying whenever they choose, but neither of them drives and they walk a lot. My daughter disapproves of flying and travelled to Moscow by train.
3: You said that you don't fly, why? What sort of transportation would you choose for travelling?
I am travelling to Latin America later this month and was planning to travel by ship but it is much too time-consuming. As a compromise I am flying out and returning by ship. Most of my travelling can be done easily by train, although it takes more time and money. The year before last I travelled to Helsinki and St. Petersburg by train and ship. It was really a pleasure. For me the distances are part of the point of travel. Otherwise you might as well watch the world on TV.
4: Could you tell us a story about what is the best gift you have received? (Christmas, Mother's Day etc..)
Last Christmas my son Josh gave me a wind-up torch which was a thoughtful present because it was just right for me. It was also funny because on Christmas Eve we went to sing to the cows on the farm and it was totally dark and I spent the whole evening moaning about not having a proper torch. Nobody let on but they had a good laugh about it when I opened my present in the morning. Another present I remember was a bicycle that my grandfather renovated for me when I was about 10. All the other presents had been given out and I felt rather flat and it was wheeled in and I was so delighted. Cycling was my freedom and I have enjoyed it ever since.
