April 4, 2009 by Robert Kozinets.

One of the blogs about the G20 (breakingviews.com), posted on Fortune.com, argued that “The G20 needs better protestesters.”

The author, Edward Hadas, argues that in the current time of great need we are lacking badly-needed insights.

“The global mismanagement of the financial system has led to a deep recession. Intellectual paralysis has gripped the authorities and their policy response has been risky. After such failure, the political leaders gathered in London for the G-20 conference deserve a serious challenge. Sadly, all they are getting are the senseless slogans of a hippie festival.”

There’s the logical leap. Mr. Hadas decries the “intellectual paralysis” and the risky policies of governments who really don’t have any precedent for the current sociocultural-economic conditions. I agree wholeheartedly, and have been writing about those conditions for a while now.

But expecting protesters to offer up “a serious challenge” to politicians engaged at the conference is entirely missing the point. Are they going to present a serious policy recommendation? It would be wonderful and terrific is they would. Gathered together under a single banner, represented by a single articulate voice, the protesters could say “here’s the way out, implement these policies and you will save they world.” But how likely is that?

But the authors insists on looking for the unlikely, and then chiding the protesters when he doesn’t find it. So, taking a look at whether there is anything substantial or comprehensive being protested, Hadas argues that there isn’t anything meaningful there. It’s naive. It’s vacuous. It’s full of simplistic sloganeering. It lacks “a new intellectual framework.”

The author concludes: “Protesters who look like they just want a street party aren’t likely to be up to the challenge. Sadly, the more intellectually sophisticated Left seems to be hardly more capable of helping out. Any protester who can articulate a coherent alternative to the establishment’s tattered notions really could change the world.”

Mr. Hadas, I wonder, is that what protests are for? Is that how social movements begin: the protesters articulate a coherent ideology, a new social vision, and then present it to the government, who enacts it?

Of course not. That’s ridiculous, and even more naive that the actions ascribed to the G20 protests. Why is Mr. Hadas insisting (and why do so many others insist) on judging the success of a protest based on what it “looks like”? The WTO Seattle Protests were a success based not on what they looked like, certainly not on their use of violence, but, I believe, because they showed a discontent underground, a cultural and subcultural current, that there are still people out there who don’t like the current system and who are organizing to try to change it.

One fascinating thing that these protests show, and one big reason why they matter, is their use of new technology. CNN ran a very interesting story about the use of information and communications technology tools by protesters at the G20 in London, and how authorities tried to use the same technologies to stay ahead of the protesters (thanks to Ece Ilhan for sending this to me). This protest, like Seattle before it, and others, was a manifestation of Net guru Howard Rheingold’s idea of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, a type of Smart Mobilization of mobs-within-crowds.

Do these protests matter? Are they significant?

Protests are symbolic acts of systemic resistance. They are groups of people who are displaying their unhappiness with entire social systems. They aren’t meant to articulate detailed policy recommendations or ideological statements. Their cultural contribution is images of angry crowds, of “the people” acting against hegemonic power in a general way, sounds bites and placards and images.

What we get are images. And images are powerful. In our culture, they are probably the most powerful articulations of all.

Look at these G20 images.

With the double peace sign (face-ainted in eco-green, of course), I guess it’s easy to see how this group could be linked to tthe generation of the hippies and the 1960s. But that simple fact isn’t enough to dismiss this protest, or these protesters. Instead, we might note, as a number of intellectuals have already noted, the lasting impact of the 1960s and the types of resistance that were pioneered during that time, the many social movements that have changed, and continue to change, the world. Images of hippies? Yes. Is that a problem? Only if you judge using kneejerk reactions, rather than carefully understanding why the metaphors and tropes of ’60s radicalism still hold power over four decades later. Read the sign, not just the signs.

Here’s another trope that leads to the “Street Party” dismissal. We see nudity and body emphasis, masks and drumming and dance at a lot of these protests. Why? Because they are about over-civilization. They are about machine culture. They are about ideology, and one of modern activism’s greatest weapons is the invocation of primitivism. It is primitivism that gives protest a lot of its power (and its appeal). I’ve written about this under the guise of tribes, and in my research on Burning Man. This is a very important relationship.

Here’s another powerful, ubiquotous protests image: good versus evil, and the demons among us. As Jay Handelman and I wrote in our 2004 JCR on Consumer Activism, the roots of a lot of consumer activism (and of social movements and activism in general in America) draw from religious, moral roots. This image creates a spectral, haunting, looming demon out of American dollar bills, to try to draw attention to that ancient root of all evils in the world: money, capital, and the systems that sustain it. Channeling fear, hatred, and anger in this way doesn’t follow a logical, intellectual process. Instead, it draws on instinctive reactions, to try to mobilize and to shock into a new form of (moral) awareness. Images like this, which are artistic, religious, and visceral, show that this is not a “mere” street party or hippie celebration.

Here’s a key visual. It’s an image. It says something is wrong. It says the system isn’t working. It is encouraging us not to simply patch up or fix the current system, but to thing about what could be. To envision another world. The world of the possible. This is the essence of social movements. Images of discontent. Intimations of a better way.

First, come the protests. Then comes the organizing, the consensus building, the ideology construction, the alternative-weighing, and finally the policy recommending and politicking and movement making. It doesn’t happen all at once.

We’re seeing the front end of the wave. Don’t expect finished work. But it is up to all of us to take these initial forays and work on them. We can ask ourselves if the system is working or not. And if it isn’t, then we need to ask ourselves what each of us can do to imagine a possible world that is better.

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April 4, 2009 by Robert Kozinets.

No more Cowboy Economics, “they” declare from on high.

I’ve been reflecting on this global recession for the last few posts, and now we have globally ruminated over it through the fascinating G20 WTO Summit in London.

As widely reported, a lot of the involved parties went away happy from the G20. CNN’s consensus was that the biggest winner from the G20 was, without a doubt, the International Monetary Fund. The IMF will see it financial resources triple. It flagging legitimacy is going to be propped up, and “suddenly it’s being viewed as a savior of countries large and small.” Financial lending condition will be related, the money is going to flow.

The G20 was all about adapting to financial crisis by increasing government financing. It was about stimulating the free market by offering government incentives. It was about healing capitalism by altering capitalism. It was about quietly burying University of Chicago style free market financial governance models.

In some ways, it was an officiating ceremony over the death of one global economic mode of governance, and the birth of another.

• Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd captured this idea nicely when he said, “We’re beginning to crack down on cowboys in global markets.”

Cowboys are free marketeers, lone wolves, snatch-and-grabbers, exploiters. What do you do with uncivilized rebels causing a major ruckus? Well, I reckon y’all restrain ‘em. Y’all rope ‘em in. Y’all regulate ‘em, y’all.

A book I read during my Ph.D. program was very influential on my thinking. It was called Capitalism vs. Capitalism: How America’s Obsession with Individual Achievement and Short-Term Profit has Led It to the Brink of Collapse. That’s seems like a pretty self-explanatory title, but I”ll tell you a little bit more.

In the book, the author, Michel Albert, a French business executive, talks about two basic models of capitalism at play in the world today.

• The first is the “Anglo-American model” where greed is good, individual gain is rewarded, the stakes are determined by risk-and-reward, and the government is generally free-market-positive or laissez-faire. This is the kind of economic governance suggested for years by the school of thought that has come to be known as Chicago School of Economics-stule governance.

• Albert then talks about “the Rhine model.” This model originated in the Swiss, German insurance industries, where risk had to be shared by communities, and which was later followed in the post WW2 periods by Germany and, to a large extent, Japan. That is a more communal form of capitalism, where the government attempts to manage the economy for the long-term success of the entire society. He emphasizes that this is a communally-oriented capitalism, capitalism run for the common good, not, as it has been ideologically termed, “Welfare State” or “Nanny State” Economics.

Both models have their origins and their main definition elements in the world of finance. Both had strong ideological elements. And, in the post-Communist world, both had global aspirations. Albert proposed that the Anglo-American model was spreading, and was disastrous and would fail. And that we needed to look at the Rhine model as the ideal.

The book was originally published in 1991, 18 years ago. It’s ideas hold up fairly well today.

I think this is the big shift we are seeing. The Anglo-American model has been ascendant through the 1990s and up until about 2005, and then we’ve seen the pendulum turn to a more Rhine-like model (meanwhile, all his classifications have been complicated by the alterations in global politics). Politically, big parts of the world have seemingly moved from extreme right to center to left.

Economically, we have moved from increasingly emphasizing openness and free-markets governing themselves, to increasingly emphasizing the governmental regulation of markets. We are now carefully considering the management of markets for the common good. And that common good is increasingly complex, requiring increasingly delicate and sophisticated governance bodies.

Related side note: Isn’t it interesting that the biggest protests take place at the WTO meetings, not at the UN? Perhaps the WTO is really the major global regulatory body that direct the investment of resources today.

I think we are definitely moving in the right direction. Overall, I like the directions President Obama is taking the country. I think the WTO is clearly thinking clearly about global capitalism and the need for its regulation.

But there’s more, much more that can be done.

Not just the Great Cowboy Crackdown. We need clearer assessments of our past and present. And we urgently need new models, new ways of thinking about where we are, and where we want to Be.

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April 1, 2009 by Robert Kozinets.

In the last few posts, I’ve laid out what I speculate may be three big differences between this recession and prior ones.

• 1. Globalization. Although globalization has been going on since well before David Ricardo was potty-trained, we have had some pretty dramatic shifts in production and wealth over the last decade.

• 2. Digitalization. Although technology has been allowing us to abstract concepts and ideas from the real world and share them in an immaterial way for millennia (the alphabet? the scroll?), information and communications technology advances of the last decade are changing the way that we relate to the physical world in unprecedented ways.

• 3. Green Consumerism. Although Rachel Carson was already preaching to an eco-conscious choir in the 1960s, we’ve seen a mass diffusion of awareness in the last few years that is just beginning to manifest in a questioning of consumption habits, alongside some small changes, alongside a few bold government initiatives. Those changes could get a lot bigger fast.

As well, these changes all work together. Each one has the potential to accelerate the others.

So what do we have with these three trends in terms of their effect on “growth”–which is what the recession and depression terms are supposed to be capturing?

First, we have a world where the capital flows, the currency prices, and the employment rates are still in flux, still reflecting massive changes that have taken place at the level of vital services and things being produced and moved around, controlled and available.

If we have less production in high wage countries like the USA, Canada, and France, and more in low wage countries like China and India, it makes sense that, on the global stage, support services would, as a total number, be lower. The guy who is working in the plant in China, making less, is going to be spending less on his food, clothes, entertainment, escargot, cologne, and so on than the guy working in the plant in France. And all those support services are going to suffer. In Windsor Ontario, where the auto plants used to pump out cars, the people who used to work on the assembly lines can no longer afford to eat in restaurants, shop in the malls, or go to the movies the way they once did. Job losses aren’t isolated. It all trickles down.

That bespeaks continuing trouble and challenge for North America and Western Europe.

Next, we have the shift towards information technology increasing consumer power, reducing prices, and changing different types of consumption from physical to lower-cost virtual. That means lower prices at the cash register (which may be increasingly a disintermediating virtual cash register), and subsequent lower revenues. It means more opportunities for peer-to-peer “sharing,” of films, music, TV shows, books, and magazines too. It means less material needed to produce things. And all the service jobs associated with those material things start to disappear. All of this can lead (particularly if the industry required to support these immaterial forms of consumption is lower cost than the one required to support the former more matter-based form, and also if it, too is being globalized, see point #1 above) to reduced financial growth.

Finally, we have consumers questioning and potentially reducing consumption because of environmental concerns. Less stuff bought, smaller cars, more bikes on the road, more efficient light bulbs, less energy consumed–these have their economic ramification, and those ramification ramify (sorry) the more this green “movement” gathers momentum. Green means leaner living. And leaner living means lower revenues as well. In the aggregate, it means reduced financial growth.

Does anyone remember the book “Green Is Gold/Business Talking to Business About The Environmental Revolution“? For particular companies and individuals, maybe, but in aggregate? I really don’t think so. Not real green. Real green means less. Less consumption, less production, less for everyone. Sorry.

Doom and gloom? I don’t think so. I think we need to question the entire enterprise of measuring recession and depression and think in more subtle terms about what we’re doing and where we need to go and, in particular, what we define and gloss to ourselves as a civilization as “progress.”

No, I’m not done with this yet. Is anybody out there? Halloooo?

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