I started off wanting to cheer this article – an angry denunciation of the rich folk who often back Green causes – but I then began to wonder whether I was falling for what amounts to an ad hominem argument, and felt rather ashamed of myself. To be sure, it is true that many greenies are extremely well off, or comfortable members of a middle class that feels guilty about material wealth – the legacy of all kinds of crap cultural and political ideas – but is it really a killer argument that a cause X or Y is backed by rich folk like Zac Goldsmith or Peter Melchett? What counts in the end is are their ideas right or wrong? For instance, Bjorn Lomborg is a sharp debunker of eco-cant and I think his take on the more extreme forms of greenery is accurate, but what does it matter whether Lomborg is a middle class Danish academic, heir to a massive fortune, or a humble shop worker?
There is a broader point here. At the Libertarian Alliance conference last weekend, I could not help reflecting on the many posh, incredibly rich folk who were old fashioned liberals (or Whigs, as they used to be called). The walls of the National Liberal Club – a fine institution – are adorned with wonderful portraits of gentlemen in frock coats and women in elegant dresses, or stern-looking 19th century businessmen and industrialists. One of the benefits of having an independent income is that it gives a group of people time to think about certain issues that cannot be done by someone working long hours for a salary and who has to please a boss; independence of means also can encourage independence of mind.
So Brendan O’Neil is wrong on this occasion, although I share his skepticism on green scares 100%. I do not give a monkey’s whether Jonathan Porritt is posh or not; it is his reactionary ideas to roll back the glories of modern industrial civilisation that bother me very much.
Brendan O’Neil is a pillock. Always was, always will be.
It isn’t ad hominem if the rich are using the combination of their personal wealth and their ideologies to yank the ladder up with them. Al Gore’s mansion uses a lot of power but unlike me he doesn’t have a garden, he has grounds, extensive grounds with forests and the like. he offsets his carbon by this expedient. Otherwise the fact his gaff uses 20x the US energy average might be an inconvenient truth.
These people can also afford to be green far more easily than most of us. Say they lobbeyed for punitive taxation on flights? Well Zac Goldsmith could afford to pay thousands for a flight and Joe public just can’t afford that. This is the formation of a bizarre new aristocracy and I think a rather nasty one. I wouldn’t rule out these people trying to make the ownership of a car beyond most people’s means. Some of the huge tax raised would be spent (squandered?) on cheap public transport for the plebs. So, you see they’d be be able to explain away their hybrid Lexuses because by driving them they’re subsidizing sustainable transport for the meek. Bless ’em the meek – they never get anything.
No, JP, I don’t think there’s too much wrong with Mr O’Neill’s piece. I must confess I read it very quickly and I missed his last paragraph first time. It would appear therefore that both Mr O’Neill and I have come to roughly the same conclusion about the motives of scum like Porritt. Although I’d leave out the “progressives” mind.
Nick, the problem is that bashing rich advocates of X or Y is a double-edged sword. I support capitalism and I want to get rich; I am pretty comfortably off already but I know a few in our broad circle who are loaded. Does that mean that Marxists, for example, should be allowed to get away with the old canard that we are just pushing a bourgeois ideology? Of course not.
The trouble with O’Neil’s tactic is that it can hit one on the rebound.
Maybe, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable to point out if someone is advocating laws, taxes or regs which will affect everyone if it happens that due to their wealth or whatever other circumstances they would be less adversely affected than other people.
If a rich person advocates something like a tax system that will save them money than that’s fair enough and quite understandable. But if they advocate a whole raft of measures to “save the planet” which doesn’t fall as heavily on them then I think it stinks because it is something they’re proposing, allegedly, for the “common good” or some higher moral purpose. It just seems dishonest.
Your point about independent income is well made. And if these folk want to devote their time and money to specific environmental projects then fair play to them. It is when they’re saying that all of us whether we like it or not are going to be affected. The likes of Goldsmith are not like independently wealthy philanthropists or thinkers of yore – they out and out statists.
I’m not sure this makes much sense. And BTW I have almost as much contempt for the likes of Swampy in his treehouse as for Zac in his mansion.
Nick, fair dos; one added point is that of the late Steve Irwin, the Aussie guy who used to put his hands down the throats of crocodiles and other nutty things and who ended up being killed by a stingray. He built up a big fortune from his immensely popular TV shows and bought a bunch of land in northern Australia to protect the wildlife there. Now, that is great, that is exactly the sort of use of personal wealth for environmental causes that I applaud.
I think the real problem that people who are both (a) wealthy and (b) deep green comes from the conflict between
(a) the fundamental tenet of deep green belief is that our material impact on the planet is too great; and
(b) having a wealth lifestyle, which by definition means you are a high-impact consumer.
If you really believe (a), then you cannot live (b). Especially given the, umm, evangelical tone of deep green discourse, pointing out that someone is not practicing what they preach is not entirely out of bounds here.
Of course, I also think it is perfectly appropriate to ask anyone who is wealthy and who supports higher taxes and/or more redistribution why they don’t just write a check or fund directly what they apparently believe should be funded. Nothing chaps my ass more than Warren Buffet saying taxes should be increased, while he refrains from voluntarily writing a check to lead the way.
It’s a bit of a rubbish article, but it’s not entirely sophistry. That rich people support ‘green’ arguments isn’t a criticism of of the arguments in any way shape or form. Indeed, if all the supporters of the greenhouse gas theory failed physics O level, that still wouldn’t in any way count against the theory. However, it is reasonable to point out that those advocating a course of action as objectively correct, happen subjectively to do quite nicely out of it. That’s healthy skepticism and the uncovering of conflicts of interest.
It’s a bit like pharmaceutical companies pubishing drug trials. The fact that a scientist works for Glaxo doesn’t invalidate his experiments. But when Glaxo claim an objective argument for people taking their drugs, the obvious conflict of interest means that we should use extra rigour and scrutiny when assessing the evidence on its merits. Of course if you just take the line ‘Drug companies are big evil capitalists and all the science they do is tainted and worthless’, that’s just as silly as saying ‘Greens are all left-wing overpaid urbanite twits, therefore all the scientific theories they come up with must be crap and we’ll just laugh them off’
The rich greenies are hypocrites as they don’t implement personally, what they preach. That’s reason enough to bash them.
That has got nothing to do with our AGW skepticism.
O’Neill, at the end of the article, makes the point that Greens cannot be defeated by arguement alone as they have financial interests behind there ideas. He suggests that they will need to be opposed in practice ultimately by violence.
This follows from Marx’s proposition that our ideas are mainly determined by our economic circumstances.
They wont be defeated by argument alone because their ideas aren’t rational.
The rich greenies are hypocrites as they don’t implement personally, what they preach.
Semantics, but hypocrisy is not simply saying one thing and doing another, it is professing one ideology in public and practicing another secretly. Most of these knobs aren’t hypocrites, they simply apply a double standard, one which makes perfect sense to them. One set of rules for themselves and one for the great unwashed. There is no secret involved.
Rich Greens are simply the modern manifestation of noblesse oblige. We simply are the natives they’re trying to put the bowler hats and brassieres on.
R.C. Dean:
When the greenies complain about consumptoin, I like to tell them that Big Government is the biggest consumer, and that they need to call on the government to consume less.
At least it’s fun to watch them go through contortions trying not to deal with such realities.
Brad, I’m not sure I see the difference between “professing one ideology in public and practicing another secretly” and ” apply[ing] a double standard”.
Oops, clicked too soon.
We simply are the natives they’re trying to put the bowler hats and brassieres on.
Not really, since the bowler hat and bra crowd were actually wearing what they were foising on the natives. This is more like taking bowlers and bras away from the little people while wearing them yourself.
I think many of the Greens see themselves as hero(ine)s in some 18th century novel. Many see themselves as lords of the manor, of course, and the rest see themselves as Doctors and Parsons or Professors, (at Oxford or Cambridge, naturally). Attenborough, for instance, almost certainly imagines himself as the Parson preaching to his flock, then retiring to his Parsonage to do great science with his collection of exotic butterflies.
The obstacles to their attainment of this perfect lifestyle is the fact that there are far too many people and that we ignorant plebs don’t seem to want to go back to being honest serfs who tip their hats and say ‘Yes sur’ to their obvious betters.
R C,
Merely that having a double standard can both be professed, I do one thing, you do another, and the reasons are patently obvious (to themselves anyway). Meanwhile being a hypocrite has the person stating how all should act, and make people believe that is how they act as well, when they actually don’t. Really hypocrisy is a double standard PLUS a lie. Subtle difference, but that’s what gets me most about “our betters” is that, by and large, they make no secret that the rules simply don’t apply to them. The allowance for the double standard is manifest, they make no attempt to even con people into thinking they act as they tell you you should. You couldn’t get a self respecting Statist off the ground without the ol’ double standard. What makes it even worse is the useful idiots excuse it anyway.
And as for noblesse oblige and the bowler hats, it’s simply how certain characters in the 1800’s acted, those who funded missionaries to lead the dark heathens toward enlightenment. I guess it’s the patronizing attitude involved in both cases. In the latter it is that patronization which perhaps leads to the development of the double standard.
I guess at the end of the day, most people of wealth, whether self made of inherited, by and large believe themselves superior to everyone else. Not surprising, but some simply ignore the masses and cold shoulder them entirely, while others, out of some pathological self interest, deem to coerce them for their own good. But they still have no doubts as to their superiority. Some hold such little regard for people that they fell compelled to stoop and “help them” whether they want it or not.