An old email about Australia's Foreign Policy White Paper

Back on 17^th September, 2017, shortly after a White Paper on Australia’s Foreign Affairs Policy was announced (see http://dfat.gov.au/whitepaper/index.html), I wrote an email to our Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister, the Hon. Julie Bishop, MP, on what I would like to see included in the final White Paper – I sent the email as I suspected life may prevent me from making a formal submission, and such was the case (submissions closed at the end of February).

I copied the email to quite a few other MPs, so it is not, in my view, a private communication, and thus I have decided to repost it here. I’m tempted to tweak some of it a little now, but have decided I “should” leave it as I emailed it …

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Dear Foreign Minister,

I understand (from media reports – e.g., at http://www.policyforum.net/australian-foreign-policy-white-paper/) that a White Paper will be prepared on Australia’s foreign policies.

Whilst I note some articles questioning this [1] , I consider that this is potentially a good action, depending on the details of how it is put together (and I note that your new Secretary of DFAT looks very capable), and what sort of consultation may be involved (I understand that public consultation is commonly part of the preparation of a White Paper). I have read some interesting articles on foreign policy and “grand strategy” [2] , and there have been quite a few articles on China’s resurgence after it bad couple of centuries, and the possible significance of that for Australia [3] .

On that, whilst I am not an expert, as an Australian citizen I would like to have a say on this area, knowing that this submission will be no more than one small item in a large field where there are many well-established and better informed experts.

Perspective is the issue I wish to begin this submission with.

Throughout human existence, our focus has gradually evolved to broader perspectives – from the family-like tribe of the hunter-gatherers tens of millennia ago, through the city-state focus as agriculture and civilisation developed until the evolution of the modern nation a few centuries ago. Now, with the growth of globalisation in recent decades and humans travelling into space, we have an awareness of humans as a rarity – a triumph of life on a small planet in a very large Universe which should be treasured.

I am of the view that our foreign policy needs to acknowledge, first and foremost, the sanctity – in a nonreligious sense – of life. Accordingly, we should have “not doing harm” as a high principle – much as doctors apparently aim to “first do no harm”.

The next aspect of perspective I wish to touch on is hindsight.

Hindsight is always - unfairly at times - a 20:20 vision exercise, and there is no shortage of such reviews (I have listed some examples in the footnote [4] ). Whilst it is important to learn from such exercises, and to attempt to ensure that properly informed and credible decisions draw on such lessons (the word prescient is perhaps applicable, in some instances [5] ), I consider that it is also important to recognise that there may be times when it is not possible to predict what will happen as a result of an action – no matter how genuinely we attempt to learn and apply knowledge.

Possibly the most convenient example to cite of that is the USA’s involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Although I have read several articles disputing the commonly accepted mythology associated with that period in history [6] , the key thought I wish to convey here is that a decision made with the best intentions can still be found to be wrong later.

There are a number of points that, in my view, flow from the acknowledgement of this possibility.

The most obvious is development and exposition of robustly considered principles, adopted as a guide with a view to try to minimise such later problems: the first of these should be, in my opinion, having the intention to “first do no harm”. This, in my opinion, is important as a guiding principle for civilised life generally, as well as for foreign policy.

I would suggest the following as implementations of this principle:

·         be extremely wary of arms sales.
Personally, I tend towards a preference that Australia never sell any weapons or munitions to other nations, to the extent of ensuring that such cost recoupment is never included in initial budgets, but that is neither realistic, nor fair on, for instance, smaller nations who have received our former Attack class patrol boats.
I am, however, very aware of the enormous damage that has been done by small arms and munitions (for instance, Human Rights Watch has a report on cluster munitions in conflict zones and where they have come from at https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/09/01/cluster-munitions-fewer-stockpiles-new-use, which also reports on progress in destruction of stockpiles; also, I consider the damage that Da’esh has done could have been reduced had their access to munitions not happened [along with a range of other matters such as cutting off their sales of oil]), and I do consider that Australia, as a responsible member-nation of the world, should be extremely wary of being involved in such sales (there will be exceptions, such as supplies to allies such as Iraq) and active in trying to manage or suppress unscrupulous or dangerous forms of such trade [7] .

·         Whilst we probably do need allies (that is a point I would like to see the experts’ opinions on included in the White Paper), and need to be engaged with such allies to the extent that is necessary to be reasonably confident that they will actually support us in our time of need, following said allies into war needs to be carefully considered first:

o   Our involvement with the First World War was largely automatic, and, in many ways, not to our benefit;   our involvement in the Second World War was more clearly warranted – both for our defence, and as an act against great evil;   our involvement with the wars in Vietnam and Iraq was, in my opinion, questionable;   our involvement in Afghanistan, on the other hand, was, in my opinion, justified, but has been tainted by our involvement in Iraq.

o   Canada did not participate in the Iraq War, and, as far as I am aware, did not suffer greatly in consequence [8] ;   on the other hand, New Zealand’s decision of principle regarding nuclear armed vessels led to a loss of access to intelligence and “being on the outer” for quite a few years, but, more recently, success [9] ;

o   If we are supporting something as an interim step (e.g., supporting an authoritarian or repressive state for sake of regional stability – as is possibly the case with Saudi Arabia {I don’t want to go back to Cold War era examples]), I consider that we should elucidate clearly what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what – if any – timeline we would expect the supported state to make changes for the better in - and I acknowledge that such change may take decades. Admitting that, or awareness of the flaws in a situation, may be politically undesirable, but that is a matter which translates to better communication of the need for stability, challenges facing the implementation of change, etc, and acceptance of the need for public debate on important issues – such as declarations of war [10] .

In making this suggestion, I also wish to acknowledge the complexity of many situations ,which is well expounded on in Ross Burns’ article “Looking for an end-game in Syria” [11] . (It is also appropriate to consider the very difficult problem of asymmetric warfare, and the challenges of balancing proportionate response, justice and the healing of victims or relatives of victims of events such as violent extremism.)

I would now like to go back to the issue of principles more generally, and would like to propose the following principles be considered for adoption, in addition to the principle of “first do no harm”, with appropriate statements of commitment, for guidance in our deliberations on foreign policy:

·         democracy (particularly as an expression and facilitator of freedom);

·         equity, human rights and human dignity;

·         human dignity; and

·         empathy.

I personally define “human dignity” as:

“the inherently cumulative holistic combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently undignified”.

On the point of empathy, I suggest that consideration be given to reading the article by Matt Waldman in 2014 “New America Foundation: Strategic Empathy” (linked to on the Council of Foreign Relations website at URL http://www.cfr.org/politics-and-strategy/new-america-foundation-strategic-empathy/p32799).

It is important, however, that the reasons for our adoption of these principles be clear. In my case, the reasons I am suggesting these are that these principles are the best means of ensuring:

·         human rights, as expressed generally in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, more specifically in the ”twin Covenants” (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), and various subsequent adaptations, for all;

·         the proverbial Australian “fair go” (i.e., equal opportunity for all);

·         efficient and effective access to resources for the betterment of all; and

·         that we all maintain our personal human decency – our “humanity” (when human beings object to helping our humans who are in trouble, the greatest diminishing of human condition is in those who did the objecting), as well as maintaining the national equivalent sense of being a “decent” nation.

Further to this, I also propose that our measure of commitment to this be what we are prepared to go without in order to see these happen.

It seems to me that the issue that is probably raised most by activists as a measure of this is that of access to oil (i.e., are we prepared to forgo access or low cost access to oil for the sake of demonstrating a commitment to the principles I have suggested), on the grounds of the quest for oil having led to (in part) past colonialism and its legacy, wars, suppression of human rights in West Asia (aka “the Middle East”), etc, but I do acknowledge that there are other issues to balance here - such as the suffering that would be caused by larger unemployment in the event that our currently oil-dependent economies lost that access, the alliance implications associated with supporting our biggest (but not necessarily best) ally, the USA, and so on … although I do wish to point out that I have yet to come across such counterbalancing issues being presented in public debate, or presented credibly in public debate (which would require acknowledgment of the issues raised by activists as well).

I question, however, whether economic issues are the only measure of such a commitment. In any case, the impacts of any such commitment need to be considered all round. As examples:

·         the campaign to isolate the apartheid regime in South Africa is generally accepted as having contributed to change, and thus the long term betterment of all South Africans overall (there could, perhaps, have been more support of capability building subsequently – which would have come if we adopted a principle of empathy for such decision making);

·         campaigns to isolate the USSR and Cuba did not work, and, in fact, it was the promotion of contact with China (at the expense of Taiwan [12] ) that has opened the door to some change there [13] ; and

·         there is ongoing, intense debate over actions such as attending conferences in Palestine/Israel, and whether that benefits/harms one side or the other.

On a personal note, I have worked on Australian aid projects in China and Viêt Nám (water and wastewater treatment plants), and am pleased those have helped the population of those places, at least in the short term (by improving physical health), but there are also longer term, broader issues to consider, such as whether such actions encourage repressive regimes, or contribute to the many problems associated with population growth.

It can be difficult to make decisions in such complex situations, and those who do so – or attempt to do so – have my respect and admiration.

In undertaking those deliberations, anything which continues the historical trend towards a broader, more realistic (as it could be termed, since it acknowledges the interconnection of life on this world) perspective could be considered beneficial and appropriate (perhaps even “great”, in the sense of “punching above our weight” – which is an attitude that could be questioned, but may have value in promoting acceptance of foreign aid [14] ), whereas anything which tends towards the older, more narrow focused view is, in my view, small minded – not maliciously, perhaps, quite probably as a result of lack of thought or fear of the immediate impacts (such as reduced funding for Australians), but still undesirable.

The ultimate expression of this trend, in my view and, perhaps, that of many religions and economists, is empathy, which helps us to:

·         unlock access to the best resources for doing; and

·         ensure outcomes are directed to those with the greatest need.

To illustrate how this could be applied to foreign policy, I would like to consider China and the USA.

Firstly:

·         the Chinese people have significant needs, and the Chinese government has made outstanding progress in providing for those needs (e.g., lifting people out of extreme poverty), but the Chinese government:

o   has not met all the needs of its people;

o   has imposed conditions and methods which breach human rights; and

o   tends to ignore the valid needs of others in the region, as exemplified by tensions over the South and East China Seas.

·         the USA is a powerful nation, with the world’s leading economy, but:

o   it does not cater for need of all its people;

o   has problems with human rights; and

o   has a history of mixed results from its overseas actions, ranging from outstanding, in the case of the Marshall Plan, for instance, to highly questionable, in the case of its war against Spain in the late 1890s, as an older and thus, perhaps, less contentious example.

If we consider these two nations from the point of view of giving aid, I am of the view that it is useful to “state the obvious”, and therefore consider why we should give aid to China, but not to the USA:

·         the USA has, overall, considerable economic wealth, and the capability (including through genuinely democratic votes) for that to be distributed to people in need (that it doesn’t is a poor reflection on that nation’s lack of empathy as a nation, I would contend);

·         China, although overcoming, in recent decades, a good deal of its problems with poverty and growing its economy, still struggles to meet the needs of its people for a range of reasons, including corruption, a poor governance system, and limited capability in some key areas (I have worked on some aid and other projects aimed at addressing this issue).

The topic of aid to China raises a few issues:

·         where the capability of a government to effectively deliver aid is flawed, it is possible that actions should possibly include one or more of the following:

o   improving that capability of governance as an early activity;

o   ensuring corruption is properly identified, acknowledged and addressed;

o   the use of non-governmental organisations (NGOs); and

o   providing aid that has conditions - the unfashionable “aid with strings”, which can be seen as, and sometimes is, patronising and offensive, but may be required, no matter how great a nation considers itself. Having a clearly established (stated), existing commitment to empathy helps reduce the potential for this to be viewed as such.

·         China is perhaps an exception to the norm that giving aid reduces the possibility of instability or other problems migrating to neighbouring nations.

That last point can also be rephrased slightly: poorly conceived intervention can cause problems which haunt us later – West Asia is probably the most cited example of that.

I also note, however, that it is possible for such intervention to work – for instance, the British intervention in Sierra Leone in the early 2000s, which a complex mix of actions, most of which are ignored by the media for a sensationalist focus on military events. The key is to learn what works, and what doesn’t and in what situations (e.g., knowing what situations match particular actions, much as – and I apologise for a terrible example - doctors will vary medicine to suit the needs of individual patients), and then apply that knowledge.

I wish to cover a few other issues arising from this line of thought:

·         I make a differentiation between the people of a nation and their government. The current events in Syria and, two decades ago, in the former Yugoslavia, which led to the expression of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) principle, have made it clear that governments do not always hold the interests of their people with the reverence and solemnity that they should;

·         China and the USA both consider themselves great nations: they, at times, tend to make the mistake of conflating size and greatness (particularly China, I suggest). I would suggest that greatness is better measured by characteristics that perhaps used to be considered “noble” – characteristics such as freedom and democracy [15] , human rights and dignity, effective education, quality of life (including accessible health care – which could be considered to exclude the USA), and, perhaps, a deliberate move towards the broader world view of the future.
I would judge the latter by signs such as the presence of empathy towards all – albeit with a pragmatic [16] basis (I am aware, for instance, of the challenges for good governance of large populations, as faced by India and China);

·         there can be concerns around misapplication / misuse / abuse of empathy.

The latter problem can be considered a variation of the potential problems associated with “tough love”. There are situations where one has to be “cruel to be kind”, but this can be a problem where that “toughness of love” is based on faulty evidence, and thus is either unjustified, ineffective, or actually harmful.

As an example of that, there is a balancing act between withholding aid to put pressure on a government, and allowing the aid to proceed for the sake of people in a nation.

The sanctions which helped end apartheid are an example of good application of the principle of “tough love”; many of the decisions to withhold aid made during the Cold War are, I would suggest, probably not.

It is also probably worth noting that there will be considerable resistance to the notion of empathy. My view is that such resistance is countered by, in addition to already advanced arguments based on the benefits of promoting human rights and the sharing of stability:

·         acknowledging that nations can, as with individuals, be in a situation of “unearned advantage”. I dislike the term “privilege” (perhaps more accurately termed “social privilege”), as that (a) generally comes across as aggressive, and (b) can hide any awareness that the person with the unearned advantage may not be feeling privileged (e.g., rich people also experience stress, depression, unhappiness, etc). In the case of nations, those that gained from the industrial revolution compared to nations which are trying to develop now, as we deal with negative effects of that revolution, is probably the example I’ve come across most frequently, but there are others – for instance, the benefits that England received hundreds of years ago by taking silver from a Spanish ship, which was taking the silver from South America;

·         the greatest benefit of being (or trying to be) empathic is to us – it results in us being better human beings wherever we are, and, in Australia, it allows us to manifest our proudly held beliefs in a “fair go”, and being a hospitable people.

Senator Robert Kennedy’s comments in response to the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. are, in my opinion, a similar call to the “better angels of our nature”:

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."

Whatever decisions are made, for whatever reasons (whether empathy or “tough love” or normal foreign policy principles), I consider it vital to have a well-communicated (much better communicated than the ABS did with their proposed changes to the Census) explanation of the decision making and reasons involved.

One of the reasons for the unpopularity of globalisation is that so many people do not see any benefits for themselves and their families as a result of that, and, in fact, consider they are experiencing problems as a result. Without entering into a debate on that topic in this submission, it does, in my opinion, show that there has been a failure to communicate the benefits and mechanisms by which they would be realised (time frames etc) by those who have advocated for globalisation.

If actions supporting globalisation, such as trade agreements, are ultimately in our best interests, we need a series of explanations of that which are accessible to the complex mix of people that make up our nation.

Perhaps a better (or less contentious) example of this need is justifying why foreign aid budgets are anything other than the often recommended figure of 0.7% of GDP.

Finally, in this era of computing, the Internet, and the drive for “smarter” everything, ranging from phones through the so-called “Internet of Things” to the jobs and economy, I would also like to suggest a stated commitment to learning and improving our foreign policy – not only learning from the past or mistakes [17] , but learning from other current events [18] and successes as well – which is a principle well stated in a review of the film “Sully” [19] - and adapting to the future as best can be done.

As examples of the latter, one of the best ways Councils in Australia can prepare for the effects of future climate is to ensure maintenance of infrastructure is done properly, which possibly has implications for how financial aid is given, and needs also to be considered when we provide aid for infrastructure projects overseas. Any argument that the need for such projects to be financially sustainable as a result (which I have come across in internationally financed projects) misses the human benefits of possibly contributing to ongoing maintenance, possibly by means of a lump sum initially for draw down only for maintenance purposes, if that ensures the project will proceed effectively. If the project does not proceed, human suffering will result for those people affected now, and Australia’s reputation will be harmed in the future – commitment to the principles of empathy and human dignity, however, would help us avoid that mistake.

With regard to change generally, our challenge is and always will be to ensure change avoids generating a backlash on the one hand, or “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” on the other.

To sum this submission up, I respectfully urge that the following principles be incorporated into our foreign policy:

·         “first do no harm”;

·         nuanced application of knowledge and a commitment to learning and seeking to manage change;

·         well-communicated explanations of decision making and thinking (although this overlaps the issue of “transparency”, I see it as slightly different. It may also require a series of explanations which are accessible to the complex mix of people that make up our nation);

·         commitments to democracy, equity, human rights and human dignity; and

·         for sake of maintaining our humanity, empathy.

Thank you for your time.

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[1] For instance, http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=7571 and http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=7544

[2] As examples of those:   http://warontherocks.com/2016/09/the-consistent-incoherence-of-grand-strategy/;   http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/csi-pentagon-who-killed-american-strategy/;   http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/blowback-as-national-policy/;   and   http://warontherocks.com/2015/03/what-obama-gets-right-and-wrong-on-grand-strategy/.

[3] Such as:   http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-31/paul-keating-warns-australia-to-prepare-for-the-rise-of-china/7800062;   and   http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37211357.

[4] For instance, http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2016/07/11/chilcot-report-lessons-learned-or-mistakes-to-be-repeated/, http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/chilcot-and-a-very-british-history-of-dubious-military-decisions/ and http://www.cfr.org/world/mead-despite-mistakes-united-states-tides-history-iraq/p7620

[5] For instance, http://www.cfr.org/iraq/guiding-principles-us-post-conflict-policy-iraq-report-independent-working-group/p8644

[6] For instance: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html, and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/27/10-myths-about-afghanistan

[7] Some links I found useful are https://unchronicle.un.org/article/small-arms-no-single-solution, http://fas.org/asmp/campaigns/smallarms/primer.html, https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/204/42564.html, and http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/armed-violence/conflict-armed-violence/direct-conflict-deaths.html.

[8] URL https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canada_and_the_Iraq_War&oldid=734640476

[9] URL http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-13/new-zealand-celebrates-anti-nuclear-victory-over-united-states/7731644

[10] See, for instance, http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=7526 and http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/he-who-lets-slip-the-dogs-of-war/.

[11] URL http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=7569

[12] I consider the recent moves towards a national Taiwanese identity, perhaps as the survivors of the regime that fled there from mainland China pass on, to be an excellent direction for that nation.

[13] On that principle, I found the following article interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/opinion/web-people-vs-wall-people.html

[14] For instance, see http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/the-weight-of-the-punch-british-ambition-and-power/;

[15] On that, there was an interest map published by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies showing the overlap between autocracy and violent conflict at http://africacenter.org/spotlight/overlapping-effects-autocracy-conflict-africa/.

[16] Although I consider pragmatism important, I have chosen not to advocate for it on the grounds that it receives too much emphasis at present.

[17] As examples of that:

·         http://www.cfr.org/world/repeating-1930s-mistake/p19445;

·         http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/history-as-farce-from-napoleon-to-maliki/ (I actually liked the cited Karl Marx comment that history repeats itself “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”, which I haven’t come across before);

·         http://www.cfr.org/world/avoiding-mistakes-disasters-past/p7604 (written after the Indian Ocean tsunami);

·         http://www.cfr.org/syria/obamas-syria-policy-deadly-mistake/p32365 (an article which argues, in 2014, on the dangers of inaction - a topic on which I like John F Kennedy's quote "There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction");   http://warontherocks.com/2016/08/assad-or-we-burn-the-country-misreading-sectarianism-and-the-regime-in-syria/;   http://warontherocks.com/2016/08/want-to-build-a-better-proxy-in-syria-lessons-from-tibet/;

·         http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/history-and-americas-atomic-future-four-questions-on-nuclear-statecraft/;

·         https://justiceinconflict.org/2016/07/21/seeing-the-forest-for-the-trees-the-international-criminal-court-and-the-peace-justice-debate/;   https://justiceinconflict.org/2015/11/05/tired-of-waiting-darfur-victims-withdraw-from-icc-case-against-bashir/;   https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2016/05/26/why-the-method-matters/.

Some other links in this category are:

·         http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/will-america-make-the-same-mistakes-as-china/;   http://warontherocks.com/2015/07/the-opm-cyber-blunder-is-americas-fault-not-chinas/;   http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2015/11/12/chinese-cyber-power-not-learning-from-the-united-states-mistakes/;   http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/08/13/Is-China-making-a-big-mistake-about-Japan.aspx;

·         http://blogs.cfr.org/campbell/2013/10/21/reflections-on-united-states-counter-terrorism-mistakes-in-africa/ (on that continent, I find Africa Center for Strategic Studies a good source of information (http://africacenter.org/);

·         http://warontherocks.com/2015/05/civilian-casualties-drones-airstrikes-and-the-perils-of-policy/;   http://warontherocks.com/2015/05/we-need-an-independent-review-of-drone-strikes/;

·         http://warontherocks.com/2016/04/before-we-head-to-libya-again-learning-the-wrong-lessons-from-a-failed-intervention/;   https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2016/04/15/lessons-in-failure-libya-five-years-later/;

·         http://www.cfr.org/israel/three-mistakes-united-states-must-not-make-israeli-palestinian-peace-talks/p22885;   http://www.cfr.org/palestine/us-repeating-mideast-mistakes/p12442;   http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2011/12/03/panettas-dangerous-mistake/;

·         http://blogs.cfr.org/cook/2012/12/03/morsis-mistake/ (although I haven't access to the full article [budgetary constraints :) ], I would add to any such analysis that the Muslim Brotherhood could be considered to have made a mistake when they broke the agreement NOT to seek Egypt's Presidency).

[18] As an example of this, this article is about subterranean warfare as an issue to consider in military spheres – which is somewhat ironic, given Australia’s involvement in that in World War One and the Viêt Nám War: http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/preparing-for-warfares-subterranean-future/.

[19] URL https://theconversation.com/why-the-miracle-on-the-hudson-in-the-new-movie-sully-was-no-crash-landing-64748

Adapting to the Future of Work: our Third Most Imperative Need

In writing to that title, my views are that our most imperative need is adapting to climate change, very closely followed by dealing with inequality, inequity and injustice – not only in nations with well developed economies, where it has received some attention (e.g., Thomas Piketty), but the older problems of poverty, hunger, thirst, preventable disease and poor or bad governance that afflicts too many nations on our little planet (not only are these different facets of the same problem, the attitudes and flaws leading to the different manifestations of that same problem are, in my view, in essence the same).

But after those issues, in my opinion, comes the need to adapt to the changed nature of work as we move into the future.

The discussions (arguments?) about what is causing this (e.g., technology, robots, AI, etc) are all, in my view, moot: what matters is that change will happen, and we can’t – realistically – either ignore it or fight against it.

A couple of centuries ago, workers are supposed to have thrown their wooden shoes, called sabots, into machines – thus giving us the term “sabotage” (a cute story which apparently doesn’t match the etymology), but we still now have a heavily industrialised world.

To go a little further back, there were at least some aspects of the Agricultural Revolution which were opposed - for instance, the practice of enclosures, which at one stage was opposed by England’s Tudor Monarchs as it would “would lead to lower tax revenues, fewer potential military conscripts for the crown, and more potential underclass rebels”. Despite that, and riots, agriculture was revolutionised, leading to unemployment that was – badly – addressed by the English Poor Laws, and a large population of urban workers who helped run the Industrial Revolution.

Now we have a situation where commercial agriculture is – in first world nations – very heavily mechanised, and employs far fewer people.

To some extent, it may be possible to adapt. Apart from the creation of jobs by the Industrial Revolution a century or so after jobs were lost by the Agricultural Revolution, as a more modern example, decades ago bridge design calculations would be performed by teams of engineers using log tables and slide rules (I still have – and can use – a slide rule; my class in high school was the last to learn that, as well as the first to use a computer, at a nearby regional agricultural science institute [it was NOT a personal computer, or anywhere near being a desktop PC]): now, engineers are more likely to be ensuring the calculator and, more recently, computer input is correct and that interpretation of the results is sound, resulting in some engineers still being engaged in bridge design – fewer than decades ago, per bridge, but still there, just as farmers are still present, guiding the machines and making decisions that – at present – machines cannot.

However, ignoring the development of new fields in engineering for the moment, the inescapable reality is, compared to historical times, jobs are fewer in those two example fields.

Now, as mentioned, there has been the development of new jobs in fields that didn’t exist previously – such as computer engineering. However, have those jobs have fully replaced the numbers of jobs that were lost?

As an example, consider the city of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. From here:

·         the population peaked in 1971 at 146,009;

·         “The decline in Newcastle's steelmaking, shipbuilding and other blue-collar industries caused the population to dwindle during the 1980s … until the mid-1990s, when census figures began showing growth”; and

·         the population exceeded 147,000 in 2011.

This webpage has a graph showing an unemployment rate (as a percentage) that peaked in the early-mid 90s, but has now reached a value comparable to the rest of the state of NSW. That suggests to me that the city has, in the last decade or two, got back to the position it was in during the year 1970: what happened to all the extra jobs that should have been there to cater for the natural growth of the city?

To put that another way, over the same period of time, the total population of NSW grew by around 60%: why doesn’t Newcastle have enough jobs to support a population of 230,000, rather than what it was half a century ago?

So what happened to the missing jobs? They went elsewhere, and thus, in my opinion, count as jobs that have been lost and not replaced, no matter that the number of (different) jobs is now what is was half a century ago. They also probably involved a lot of pain owing to unemployment and relocation, with family break ups and other trauma, before people either found new positions or new types of work.

That leads to the issue of changing careers. A great number of words have been devoted to this, at an accelerating rate, however:

1.       some of the proposals which have been made are unsuitable (some are downright ridiculous);

2.       people who are facing the prospect of retraining may also be facing the prospect of financial hardship for themselves and their families;

3.       there is no adequate acknowledgement, that I have come across, of the human disappointment of having to give up something which one enjoyed and possibly looked forward to, let alone the anger that results from having followed the advice one was given younger (back in the day of “careers counselling”) in good faith, only to find one is being viewed as defective for not being able and willing to instantly throw one’s career aspirations out and leap aboard a new and stranger job bandwagon.

That last point does not apply to everyone: some people have drifted into jobs, and are basically working for survival, but the first two points may well apply to those people. Nevertheless, dealing constructively with anger and grief and fear is a major issue, a major block to being able to change successfully, an issue that is only going to grow as the rate of change of work accelerates, and one that continues to – at present – be inadequately addressed.

To digress a little, glib reactions or trivialising or ignoring the issue do not help: the issue, in my opinion, has to be acknowledged sensitively and genuinely by those in society (whether business owners, technical experts, media commentators, politicians, or others) who are leading, advocating for  or implementing changes.

If not, we could find ourselves facing a situation I came across when I was working in Asia a few times in the 90s, where the focus on favouring people having jobs clashed with the Western “ideal” of using mechanisation to get things done more quickly – to no-one’s benefit.

We also need to be wary of getting so caught up in the glitz and glamour of being able to do something that we forget to ask whether we should do that, or whether safeguards are needed. If we don’t, we risk another thalidomide (as morning sickness pill), or Minimata Bay, or Bhopal.

There have been some considerations of how we are going to survive in the future, and some trials are underway of things such as a living wage. The Foundation for Young Australians released an excellent report “The New Work Mindset”, which argues that jobs skills are transportable, and that guidance to young people needs to be based around type of jobs, rather than a specific career. (Unfortunately, older workers who could benefit from the linkages identified by that work haven’t been given access to that information.)

On the other hand, there are also reactions to the growing problem of job insecurity and underemployment based on cutting back personal spending – a reaction which shows that some of the attacks on working conditions in recent times are actually counter-productive (see also here).

I suspect “the answer” to this growing problem will be a combination of many things, much as the Industrial Revolution ultimately led to a combination of measures aimed at protecting workers, consumers and the environment.

To develop that complex set of actions I have termed “the answer”, I consider that we need to:

·         listen to workers (as mentioned, cutting workers conditions – and thus their pay – is also cutting consumer confidence and spending);

·         help workers (things like the “Towards A New Work Mindset” report, and the counselling support being given to workers in industries facing mass layoffs are steps in the right direction, but our careers advisers and job agencies also need to learn how to help people change careers, including people who wish to do so BEFORE they get laid off);

·         listen to managers and business owners (they often have significant responsibilities and challenges, and a complex set of accountabilities to workers, shareholders and regulators. Businesses that employ people are still of great significance, and, as someone whose parents were raised during the Great Depression, I have an innate horror of what being without a job can be like;

·         help managers and business owners (as an example, I have had managers who I would walk over broken glass for, including doing things like unpaid overtime, but others have been so inept at human interactions that all I want to do is work strictly to the letter of agreement. How necessary would cutting penalty rates be if more managers / business owners had the interpersonal skills of the good managers I referred to?);

·         listen to those developing and implementing new technologies (problems – including shortcomings of existing legislation – have, at times, been pointed out by such people [I recall reading such article about 3D printing [“additive printing”], for instance);

·         help those developing and implementing new technologies by making sure they understand that there may be a human / ethical impact from their actions, and they do actually need to spend some effort considering, or working with others who are considering, whether their work should be done, or perhaps should be done with safeguards or that society should be given help to adapt to what this will bring about;

·         help politicians, who do have an incredibly demanding job, to adapt legislation and regulations for the changes that are happening and will come – and in better ways than the old English Poor Laws of the late 1500s. 3D printing and the use of “drones” (pilotless aircraft) are probably obvious modern examples of the need for legislation or other responses (such as training/regulating commercial drone operators), but another is the need to change insurance regulations to ensure that older people are allowed to keep working as our retirement age gets lifted. I also suspect we will see a great deal more one person businesses, and the erratic transition from paying hobby to going concern needs to made far easier and more forgiving.
More importantly, perhaps, government needs to become the leading example of adaptation – we need more job sharing, part time work, flexible work, and deferred deadlines in government and government funded projects to give more people a chance of having a reasonable income for longer.
Getting a project done quickly by fast tracking it looks good in the media, and can help with political battles, but it means there will be  short period of intense and VERY stressful employment, followed by a spike in unemployment and the stress that goes with that.
If this results in a slight cost penalty, then I consider we may need to accept that as the price of surviving as a civil society as we move into the future.

Let me repeat that: we may need to accept that as the price of surviving as a civil society as we move into the future.

It is worth reflecting that we, as a species, have come a long way – from the taming of fire through the taming of plants and animals that we call agriculture, democracy (still, as Winston Churchill said, better than the alternative), the printing press to the nightmare of war in the 20^th Century. We have faced and dealt with an incredible array of issues, problems and challenges; some not so well - the fight against slavery continues now, nearly two and a half millennia after the great Emperor Ashoka banned it, but, on the other hand, human rights is widely accepted as a concept, even if the details are disagreed over, and, in other areas, smallpox was eradicated within a couple of centuries of Jenner’s initial vaccination, and the Green Revolution of the mid-20^th Century was a powerful thing. Other problems are only now becoming fully apparent, two centuries after they started forming – but the ozone hole is shrinking, and new ways of generating electrical power are being developed and implemented.

The nature of future work is one more problem for us to solve - but this time, let’s do it more quickly and less painfully than with others …

Sustainable Progressivism

The great Dr Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:

“It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless.”

I agree with this - but only when thinking in the short and medium term. In the long term, true, sustainable change can ONLY be achieved by changing the heart.

As an example, consider the overlapping issues of racism and slavery. At the height of the Age of Imperialism and the “New Imperialism”, a century and more ago, there was a widely held view that “the white man’s burden” meant predominantly white nations should occupy other nations, and seek to impose their views of how to live on those other nations, whose people were seen as inferior (see also here). To simplify considerably, that view of inferiority was significant in considering slavery to be acceptable.

Nowadays, many, if not most, people in those nations see racism as wrong - or, at the very least, highly questionable; most, I suspect, see slavery as wrong.

What has changed over the last few centuries? Laws, certainly - slavery has been subjected to increasing legislation for around several millennia [see Note 1 below], and advocacy against slavery dates back quite some time as well - for instance, the Roman Emperor and noted Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote in support of the Stoic view that people are equal – although he didn’t take action to end slavery (see here for a nuanced discussion of the obstacles and issues, and also here; incidentally, the word “stoic” has changed: in the context of this paragraph and the referenced historical era, it is a philosophy more akin to Buddhism than the connotation of repressed emotions the word has today).

However, there has also been education and face-to-face interactions and deliberate campaigns and some good science (to counter the bad science, including the appalling applications of eugenics) that have shown the perceptions that people had that ownership of other people as property was wrong, and that has shown many people - perhaps until the growing, fear-driven xenophobia of this millennia - that racism is founded on wrong presumptions, and thus is unfounded, and is actively harmful, and thus is actively morally wrong.

To choose another example, consider sexism. As with racism, there are still a disturbingly large number of people who are sexist, but, also as with racism, their number and the vehemence and violence of their views have been reduced as compared to a century or two ago. As with racism, legislation - often in response to campaigns which, effectively, educated and thus changed the heads, if not the hearts, of Parliamentarians - has helped (e.g., giving women the vote, first done in the then colony [now nation] of New Zealand in 1893 and the then colony [now state] of South Australia in 1894 [see here]), but what has made the change sustainable is, in my opinion, education, face-to-face non-stereotypical interactions and deliberate campaigns.

Science is less clearly an advantage in the fight against sexism, but it has been beneficial, for instance, in dealing with homophobia (e.g., Evelyn Hooker’s 1950s study) and, to some extent transphobia - although bipartisan education to counter stereotypes and other fallacies and misconceptions by those who had never had to think deeply about their gender identity helped in achieving the final stages of anti-discrimination legislation here in the late 1990s. (It was also not helpful that it took so long for scientists to listen to trans people and stop assuming that problems being experienced by trans people were due to being trans, rather than the vicious discrimination experienced from bigoted people. [See Perkins, R, “Transgender HIV/AIDS Needs Assessment Project”, 1994; McNeil, J et al, “Speaking from the Margins”, 2013; Dept. of Health (Vic.), “Transgender and gender diverse health and wellbeing: Background Paper”, 2014]; Note 2) Subsequently, the normalisation of gender identity issues has proceeded, often with education, but recent backlashes suggest there is a need to not take gains for granted, and find a way to educate those who are most personally threatened or insecure (or simply intellectually wrong) about the range that does exist in gender identity.

The backlash also shows the need for, in the short to medium term, legislation to, in Dr King’s words, “restrain the heartless”.

The longer term approach of education to change the minds and then the hearts of those who are discriminating could be described as “social engineering”. However, if that is the case, it could equally be argued that it is undoing the deliberate, wilful and malicious social engineering of people who created ad propagated such hate in the first place.

At some point in history, someone decided – whether out of active hate, ignorance or intellectual incompetence - to teach their kids that “x” is “bad”, and actively demonised “x” to push that biased viewpoint in. My view is that by the time such warped “parenting” gets to the 4^th generation, when one is beyond any chance of talking to the originator of these malicious views, it will have been degraded to the furphy of “oh everyone knows that … “x” ”, and challenging it becomes much harder – as every advocate for social advance over the last few millennia has known.

That bad parenting, based on the “Mini Me” view rather than love and wanting one’s child to be the best and all that they can be, is active and malicious social engineering that harms the child as well as the victims of the child’s learned hate (bigotry).

In the short term, the acts of hate that are discrimination need to be banned – by governments.

In the medium term, affirmative action needs to be implemented to reverse the damage that has been caused by possibly centuries of such hate – and government needs to take a lead in this.

In the long term, education to counter and stop the passage of hate is needed, education until inclusive views become part of the endemic “oh everyone knows ..”. That education can be delivered to a limited extent by advocates, but for such changes to become widespread and established enough to be sustainable, the resources of government and its influence on education are needed, which will require recognition that hate is as harmful as drink driving or not wearing seatbelts.

Notes

Note 1: the following partial list is from this Wikipedia page, which also includes steps along the way to abolishing serfdom:

 - abolition of slavery in the Maurya Empire in India in the 3^rd Century BCE by the renowned Emperor Ashoka (I couldn’t find any independent verification of this online);

 - short term abolition in China during the Qin and Xin dynasties in China in the 3^rd Century BCE and 1^st Century CE respectively (I couldn’t find any independent verification of this online);

 - after some kingdoms made partial abolitions (for Christians only), abolition of slavery and freeing of any slave who reached France by King Louis X in 1315 CE;

 -  after abolition in quite a few other places, abolition in the United Kingdom in 1834, and the USA in 1865, which was partially countered by the notorious “Black Codes”; and

 - all the way up to a League of Nations Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery which was still being ratified by nations as recently as 2008, and new anti-slavery acts such as the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Note 2: there is some useful guidance on appropriate behaviour here.