Change Can Only Come from the Bottom of Hierarchies
By definition, democracy is a bottom-up system:
- nationally elected officials are a reflection of public opinion with a 3-year lag
- locally elected officials are a reflection of public opinion with a 6-month lag
Elected officials only move when the base moves. So it is strictly useless to go and see elected officials to explain that we have a good idea. Because elected officials only move if there is a real threat of losing a good share of their voters. That is called democracy.
In the same way, we choose the companies we work for. If we disagree with the way a particular company is run, we refuse to work in that kind of firm: we do not apply to work there, and we resign if we discover after the fact that the company's management runs contrary to our values. A company nobody wants to work for anymore is then forced to review its workings and its values if it wants to survive.
Likewise, when what a company produces does not suit us, is contrary to our values and to what we wish for, we stop buying its products. A company without customers shuts up shop. If it wants to survive, it is then forced to produce something else, or in another way.
The only way to change the current order of the world is for the majority of the population to want to change and to actually change its way of living day to day.
Change can only come from the base, and not from the top of a hierarchy.
The leaders of all democratic countries, in order to be elected, promise and do only what the population wants to hear. As long as the majority of the population is not convinced of the need to adopt a more measured way of life, candidates will continue to propose programmes that keep destroying the Earth's resources without which all life on this planet is impossible, because their only objective is to be elected. At present all candidates display "the return of growth" and "rising purchasing power" in their programmes, which leaves us only the choice of finding the least bad one to vote for.
We are lucky to still live in a democracy; let us make sure we stay in one. For that, change can only come from the base: let more and more of us adopt a measured way of life, in order to avoid the disorganisation and chaos that lead to totalitarian regimes.
There is nothing to expect from the top of a hierarchy. Whether it be the hierarchies of companies, countries, or unions of countries.
The irresponsible behaviour of the tops of hierarchies
That there is nothing to expect from the top of a hierarchy is a fact. A fact observed over decades.
The European Union, like any country in the world, has only one word on its lips: "Growth". A single priority: growth.
Even though the finite stocks of the Earth's resources, without which growth cannot exist, have for some already passed their production peak and are being emptied a little more each year, these tops of hierarchies still continue to believe, against all logic, that growth is possible. Being governed by such irresponsible people is frightening. Truly.
Not a single line in the European Union's roadmap about the approaching end of oil imported into Europe, or about the vital organisation to be put in place to manage to feed the European population without oil. Not one line. The subject does not exist. It is not discussed within the EU. The fact that in 10 or 20 years there will no longer be enough oil imported into Europe is not among the subjects addressed by Europe's leaders. Has the European Union even once mentioned the importance of adopting a more measured way of life? Is the European Union anticipating the millions of famine deaths to come when there is no longer enough oil in Europe to produce enough to feed the whole population?
Such irresponsible behaviour from the tops of hierarchies sends shivers down the spine.
These elected leaders are totally disconnected from the physical reality on the ground, from geological reality, from the fact that the Earth's resources — oil, gas, ores — exist in finite quantities underground. Is it because they now live solely in offices, and because they are supposed to manage a territory far too vast for a single brain to encompass all the physical and geological variations and particularities of this immense territory, that they are in fact completely disconnected from this reality of the planet's physical limits?
Above all, the only thing that matters in their eyes is keeping their elected seat. They therefore focus only on a short-term vision, proclaiming — in order to be elected — this false promise of "growth" and "increased purchasing power" that is impossible to keep since the stocks of the Earth's resources are close to empty, and deliberately deciding to keep wasting and destroying these Earth resources without which the human species, like any other species on Earth, has little chance of surviving. Even the future of their own children does not seem to concern them; it matters little to them that their own children may experience famine, wars or diseases. Besides, how many elderly people often answer that "fortunately they will no longer be here" — they will be dead before experiencing that period of horror when the planet is no longer livable for the majority of the population. And the reality is that we are mostly governed by the old, most of whom think only of saving what little skin they have left, no matter what happens to the rest of the world. In fact, the taxes we pay in all their forms continue, among other things, to finance the pensions that many elderly people have no scruples about spending while squandering oil resources through their immoderate lifestyle, contributing ever more to the destruction of the Earth's resources; it is all the same to them that future generations — who will never know the existence of the word "pension" — will then tear each other apart to survive, as long as these elderly people themselves experience no suffering in their lifetime. We oblige the young generations to show solidarity with the old by guaranteeing them a decent living for the rest of their days, but some of the old show no solidarity with the young generations and continue to contribute to climate disruption and the squandering of resources, because the future is all the same to them since they will be dead before the chaos comes. And unfortunately, the majority of our elected officials are old, whose only objective is that the rest of their life be comfortable; the future of the coming generations is all the same to them. If the chaos arrives sooner than expected, accelerated by their irresponsible behaviour, and the pension system no longer exists, they must not come crying for us to take care of them. Of course we want to take care of our elders who accompanied us in our youth, but we would like to be able to choose whom we help; we would wish to help those who truly deserve to be helped because they are not demolishing our future — and for that, the only way is to know the people we help. Instead of our taxes going into funds to be redistributed to people totally unknown to us.
And all of us, by voting for these leaders who are irresponsible with regard to the future of humanity, also contribute to our own downfall. Our tax money, which feeds the leaky coffers of the State and of Europe, finances this destruction of the Earth's resources without which we cannot survive.
The irresponsible example set by the European Union
The European Union pursues, and has always pursued, this objective as a priority above all others: free trade — that is, "the Economy first".
Recently, Europe has been trying to impose environmental standards. But these stand in total opposition to free trade. The two are not compatible. It is one or the other. It is high time to choose.
Free trade means exchanging products between the four corners of the world. The massive greenhouse gas emissions generated by this transport over utterly excessive distances, accelerating climate disruption, leave Europe completely indifferent. As do the monstrous pollutions generated by the extraction of fossil fuels and ores. Priority goes to the economic gains harvested thanks to cheap labour and to the disastrous environmental practices of faraway countries — massive deforestation in the front line, industrial livestock farming and pesticides in the second. All of this matters little to Europe; it comes after "growth" — growth that has not existed since the first oil shocks, but the EU keeps burying its head in the sand and digging the chasm that is swallowing it.
The European Union means the free movement of everything. The countries with the highest GDP relocate their factories to countries where GDP is lower and labour is cheaper, to increase economic gains. As a result, many people in the countries that initially had a higher GDP lose their jobs. GDPs across the world's countries balance out, by taking jobs from some to give them to others. Justice? Fairness? The day there is no more oil imported into Europe to power transport between countries, will we be ready overnight to produce locally again? Are we organising for it? Is Europe anticipating it?
Europe continues to promote free trade, which prevents local farmers from surviving. The European Union continues to prioritise free trade with countries on the other side of the planet, which creates unfair competition for European farmers and therefore prevents them from surviving, multiplying, and transforming their agricultural practices: the latter are indeed subject to environmental standards imposed by this same European Union, which consequently push up their selling prices. Unlike food produced in faraway countries that have no constraints of this kind and can sell at very low cost despite the cost of transport over such long distances. European farmers therefore have great difficulty surviving. Their numbers are not increasing. Their farming practices are changing even less. The day there is no more oil imported into Europe, will European countries be ready and organised to feed their entire populations? It was possible 2 centuries ago, before the advent of oil, because the size of the world's population was a function of what we were able to produce as food with our arms and a few draught animals. But today, the current size of the world's population cannot be fed without the help of oil. The question, then, is to anticipate as well and as quickly as possible how to produce our food without the help of oil, starting today, to avoid thousands of famine deaths in a few decades.
Europe views everything primarily through the lens of the Economy. The more consumption of cigarettes, of sugar, of big heavy cars like SUVs — the more consumption of anything at all — the better for the Economy. The harmful consequences for humans, forests, biodiversity, groundwater — these weigh nothing compared with economic gains, even though those economic gains have been falling since the oil shocks without anyone asking serious questions on the subject.
The European Union invests considerable sums in 5G or 6G, so that the population can watch videos in the metro, as if that were indispensable. Likewise Europe, just like the insatiable GAFA, is investing monumental sums in artificial intelligence and immense data centres, even though the Internet network cannot be maintained in the future, once the stocks of ores run dry.
5G and AI will feed no one. Instead, those same millions invested in reorganising local, diversified agriculture across the whole territory would save thousands of lives in the future.
The fact that without the physical and biological resources necessary to all life on Earth there is no future for any living being — Europe could not care less; it comes second. The fact that quantities of products toxic to humans and to the Environment are produced and freely traded around the world and kill thousands of people — Europe does not care.
The toxic particles emitted by all the coal-fired power plants, which kill thousands of people — Europe does not care. Including Germany, which owns staggering numbers of coal plants, because the country cannot do without them to compensate for the intermittency of its gigantic areas of wind turbines and solar panels — areas that have been paved over and are therefore no longer available for growing food or replanting forests.
The numbers of deaths due to obesity and the overconsumption of sugar also come after economic gains: the priority is for people to buy as many products as possible; that they die of it comes second. Meat stuffed with carcinogenic hormones and antibiotics from the Mercosur countries, just like the carcinogenic pesticides used in those same countries to produce feed for European livestock — all that comes after the futile attempts to recover an impossible growth.
The day there is no more oil imported into Europe to power transport, will we be ready overnight to feed the whole population locally?
Finally, in 2025, the European Union wishes to "negotiate", or even withdraw and cancel entirely, the Green Deal.
The observation:
- free trade comes before the preservation of the Earth's resources vital to humanity
- free trade comes before the health of human beings
The only thing that matters in Europe's eyes is economic growth, even though this growth has not existed for years and can no longer exist.
Moreover, with an open market, planning is impossible. Yet for energy we need to plan for the long term. It is high time Europe understood this. Failing that, would it be time to leave it?
Some would still like to keep hope, explaining that the European Union is a democracy, that it can "hear" the voices of reason trying to express themselves through associations and think tanks. But what do these small organisations with little budget weigh, against the lobbies of the big industrialists who have all the financial means flowing freely to pay as many people as necessary to convince the members of the European Parliament and wear them down or corrupt them? It is these big industrial lobbies who, in the end, "run" Europe. Let us not be blind.
The European Union follows the financial interests of big industrialists, focusing solely on the short term, refusing to anticipate the long term — which consequently risks being violent, in terms of chaos and disorganisation, as people struggle to survive in a world without oil.
No anticipation whatsoever from Europe in the face of the approaching end of oil.
Only a small territory can be managed sensibly
The territory managed by the European Union is in fact outsized — far too large, concerning a population far too numerous — for the EU to be effective and responsive. Indeed, the administrative complexity put in place to manage Europe slows down every process. One need only mention the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which forces farmers to spend more time behind their computers than on the work that produces the vital food without which a country founders when no one eats anymore. We are still in a democracy; however, the hierarchies currently in place are experienced in some cases as disguised dictatorships, since once elected, leaders do as they please and allow themselves to apply the opposite of the programme they initially displayed before the elections — without deaths or torture, admittedly, but unjustly subjecting people to fines or to unfair competition from faraway countries. Farmers in particular live under these pseudo-dictatorships. All the people paid to manage and check that the laws of such a gigantic territory are properly applied, from their offices far from the reality on the ground, would be far more useful if they were employed instead in the fields, anticipating local food production, so as to be ready for the day when there is no more oil in Europe. Our taxes serve, among other things, to pay these countless office "inspectors" who in the end sink the farmers of their own country under a burden of standards and laws to comply with, making them lose precious time on paperwork and forms to fill in that hamper their productivity. They must not come crying with hunger when oil runs short in Europe and local agriculture is not sufficiently organised to feed everyone.
It seems obvious that the larger the population of a territory, the longer it takes to convince everyone to change direction. As a result, every decision takes such an inordinate amount of time that any decision that was initially urgent ends up being enacted too late — the damage has long since been done. It took more than 10 years, for example, for the ban on bisphenol A in materials in contact with foodstuffs to finally be "considered" (only considered...). And it has still not come into force... It is already too late for so many people affected by serious illnesses linked to this endocrine disruptor, including endometriosis. Inevitably, with the industrial lobbies whose first priority is to sell off their stocks of canned goods, Teflon-type non-stick pans, and carcinogenic plastic containers, consumers' health comes second. It is for the same reason that many carcinogenic pesticides are still authorised in Europe: the lobbies of the big agrochemical producers have all the money needed to put whatever pressure they want on the members of the European Parliament in order to keep the sale of their products authorised in Europe.
If we want to take care of our health, we cannot trust hierarchies: we have no alternative but to inform ourselves as best we can, and to decide for ourselves to no longer buy, consume, or use products harmful to our health.
Let us become realistic again, and accept that the size of a territory and its population must be reasonable in order to be managed effectively, fairly, sensibly.
Reducing the size of the area and population being governed makes the tops of hierarchies more accountable
Who can claim to know every particularity of a territory when it covers an immense area and a voluminous population? Who can claim to know everything and to have enough time to absorb all the information needed to guarantee systematically making the right decisions — information that is different for each physically and geographically distinct part of the territory, information that is different for each part of the population with a different local culture?
It is quite simply impossible.
Continuing to want to centralise decisions to the extreme over an ever-vaster territory covering an ever-larger population, with the sole aim of imposing by force laws that only a few people judge "just", "fair", "logical", when those few can know in their lifetime only a tiny part of the reality on the ground of this immense territory and the massive population that inhabits it, leads to absurd decisions and poor management of priorities. Indeed, out of ignorance and lack of information impossible to collect in a limited time, we have lost count of the cases where the decision taken among the various possible options failed to consider the ranking of the lesser harms generated by each of them. For that is generally what it comes down to when leaders must make a decision: which option will generate the least damage, the fewest disasters, the fewest deaths? How can the right decision be made without knowing all the information about the territory concerned?
Examples illustrating the absurdity of such an extremely centralised system are not lacking; they are legion. Let us take a true example to illustrate it. It started with good intentions: a civil servant in an office in a big city, a specialist in biodiversity protection, imposes on a small village far from that big city a ban on goats grazing in an area where a protected plant has been located: for the survival of this species, goats must on no account come and munch on it. Yet it so happens that the region surrounding this village presents extremely high fire risks, known for a long time, with local obligations to clear brush in this very area where the protected species had been located. It was the goats that had, from time immemorial, carried out this mandatory brush-clearing task, the only way to slow the progress of flames in case of fire. The shepherd in question, who was also the mayor of the village, had all the trouble in the world accepting this absurd management of priorities imposed on him by a stranger in an office in a distant city who did not even know the region in question and its fire risks. For it was indeed a matter of saving human lives. The drawback represented by the risk of this plant disappearing — a plant that would have ended up burning anyway in a fire — was minor compared with the risk of deaths in case of fire. Climate disruption is increasing the frequency of fires, and we cannot ignore the devastation caused by the recent fires in Australia, or more recently still in Los Angeles, for example, where the surrounding vegetation was not kept short enough to limit the spread of the flames. So much time lost and wasted on both sides, simply because a centralised power cannot know the entirety of a territory that is too vast.
What is more, placing all power in the hands of only a few people at the top of hierarchies is dangerous: this power, which can be imposed through just a few heads, attracts corruption and abuse. It is obviously so tempting for companies to manage to convince these few heads — sitting on the continuous stream of money collected by force through taxes and levies — to buy their products or services, even when these prove more harmful than beneficial to the population, resorting to corruption if necessary.
And many of us take part in these misdeeds when we work in these unscrupulous companies, or when we are civil servants infantilised by these hierarchical systems that impose obedience and who therefore ask themselves no questions: a plethora of companies and service providers of every kind rush towards these tops of hierarchies in order to extract maximum profit for themselves. This is how we see companies advising and convincing senior civil servants to invest millions in projects that run counter to all logic. Public administrations are regarded as inexhaustible geese laying golden eggs, from which money flows endlessly: big industrialists do not hesitate to use every means to extract the most from this windfall.
Here again, let us take one example among so many to illustrate this phenomenon. A company making hydrogen-powered rubbish trucks manages to convince regional elected officials to impose the use of their trucks in the countryside. The rural municipalities thus have imposed on them, without any say in the matter, the use of a rubbish truck costing several hundred thousand euros to manufacture a single truck, and weighing several dozen tonnes, which will inevitably destroy the small country and village roads, which will then have to be rebuilt. Moreover, it is known and proven that the energy efficiency of hydrogen is deplorable: an enormous quantity of energy is needed to produce hydrogen. Consequently, using hydrogen for transport is an aberration. Not only is the elected official or civil servant imposing this decision unaware of the disastrous efficiency of hydrogen production, because they did not even bother to inform themselves, but being shut away in a city office far from the reality of the countryside, they do not realise that this truck weighs tonnes and will wreck all the fragile little roads of the countryside and villages. All the CO2 that would not have been emitted by an oil-powered rubbish truck will be emitted in equivalent or even greater doses through all the CO2 generated to manufacture the hydrogen and all the CO2 emitted to manufacture the concrete needed to rebuild the roads. All while digging the chasm of public debt a little deeper, given the thousands spent on manufacturing this single truck, as well as the thousands needed for the slightest repair of such a truck — which can only be repaired in a country other than ours — to which are added the further thousands needed to repair all the country roads.
Why do the people imposing this kind of disastrous decision not follow the reasoning through to the end before generating monumental, irreversible damage? Because they are too disconnected from the reality on the ground. It is not by staying shut away in an office in a big city that one can become aware of the specificities of each part of a territory far too vast to manage. It is no doubt also because they do not risk losing their job in the event of a serious mistake.
Some civil servants may indeed have a doubt, telling themselves inwardly that there may be a risk of being wrong in deciding to invest colossal sums in a project that may do more harm than good, but this is the flaw of the French administration: "everyone makes mistakes", they tell themselves, "if it really turns out to be a mistake, it does not matter, since taxpayers' taxes and levies are compulsory and will in any case replenish the coffers even if they are leaky — and besides, dismissing civil servants is prohibited by law, and my salary increases automatically with my seniority whatever I do, so no risk for me." It is for exactly the same reason that countries' borrowing rates are so low compared with private-sector borrowing rates: "in any case, the taxes and levies the population is obliged to pay will always repay the countries' loans", even if these countries are managed any old way and throw money out of the windows.
We are entitled to wonder why borrowing rates in the public sector are so low when we observe how public administrations are managed and how the amounts of these loans are used. Nobody, absolutely nobody, would lend to a private company managed the same way as a country: it is the guarantee of never seeing the loaned money again. When a customer is not satisfied with a company's services, they stop buying that company's products or services. On the other hand, even if we are not satisfied with public services, we are compelled and forced, through taxes and levies, to pay the public administration.
When we suffer the dictatorship of this kind of absurd decision, which runs counter to all logic with respect to the specificities of the territory to which it applies, and which does more damage than anything else, how can we not be outraged? How can we not want to revolt?
If we passed the people behind these disasters in the street — that is, if these people managed territories small enough for us to have the chance of passing them — we could at least inform them beforehand of the irreparable consequences their decisions would cause. These leaders would also find it harder to hold our gaze when we pass them, once the damage has been experienced and endured; they would therefore think a little harder about the consequences of their decisions before taking and imposing them, all the more so as they would themselves suffer the unpleasant consequences, since they live in that territory.
Hence the importance of decentralising power to territories as small as possible in terms of area and population size — the only way for a territory to be managed sensibly, thereby enabling quality public services.
Why keep wanting to centralise to the maximum when it is impossible to properly manage a territory too vast to be known in its full extent, with all its local particularities? Why persist in this dead end?
A dead end that carries this same danger of putting too much power in too few pairs of hands, which attracts corruption. It is indeed so much easier for big industrial companies to wear down or corrupt only a few hundred members of the European Parliament, who then impose their dictatorship on an entire immense population, than to have to persuade thousands of village mayors per country, or millions of consumers per country, to buy their products and services with massive advertising campaigns that pollute their private lives.
This monumental hierarchy that is the European Union is in fact steered from the shadows by the lobbies of big industrialists, who see only their short-term interest and do not anticipate what will become of their companies the day there is no more oil imported into Europe. For how else can we explain that Europe is not planning for the future, concentrating all its efforts on production that is as local as possible and as unmechanised as possible, starting with agriculture, so that on the day the last drop of oil imported into Europe is gone, we are ready to feed ourselves sufficiently, being as self-reliant as possible?
It is absurd to have centralised so much, as if we wished to set up a kind of disguised dictatorship in order to impose by force — through fines to be paid in case of non-compliance with the laws — what a few people "believe to be right for such a vast territory" when they personally know only a tiny part of it, far too little to make the right decisions wherever they are applied.
Faced with such an absurd system, the only remaining option is to leave the country — provided one could find another country where power is as decentralised as possible, if any exists. In the meantime, since we cannot refuse to pay taxes and levies for poor-quality public services, at least for all the private companies we can decide which products and services we buy, choosing quality ones, contenting ourselves with what is essential for living.
Disasters are most likely to occur in centralised states where wealth is concentrated in the hands of rulers who have no personal contact with the environment. - The Third Chimpanzee - Jared Diamond
Territories of at most 150 people for a sensible organisation
"Most people cannot intimately know more than 150 individuals. This is why the critical threshold of human organisations' capacity lies around 150. Below this threshold of 150, communities, companies, social networks and military units can sustain themselves mainly on intimate knowledge and passed-along gossip. There is no need for official ranks, titles or codes of law to maintain order." Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
A territory inhabited by no more than 150 people can be managed sensibly and effectively without hierarchy. Because it is possible for each member of this territory to know the 149 other members. Because it is possible for each member of this small territory to know its particularities, its physics, its geography, its climate, its existing resources.
Failing the possibility of returning too soon to such small territories, given the outsized population today, we could in the meantime at least decentralise as much as possible, starting by giving maximum power back to the municipalities. So that a leader is as little disconnected as possible from the reality on the ground, from the territory they govern and the population that inhabits it, in order to make the best possible decisions concerning it. It is also harder for the leader of a very small territory to be corrupted, or to make bad decisions that affect its inhabitants, whom they pass every day and whose gaze they will have to hold.
In any case, the day there is no more oil in Europe — finding ourselves without means of transport, with roads less used and no longer maintainable, and perhaps even without means of communicating at a distance if the Internet and telephone networks can no longer be maintained — we will have no choice but to relocalise decisions to small territories that can be covered on foot or by bicycle by those who govern them.
Finally, agriculture, which imposes a sedentary life, was possible for 12,000 years because the climate had become stable. It is likely that in the future the climate will be so disrupted that human beings will become nomadic hunter-gatherers again, living in small groups of fewer than 150, thus requiring no hierarchy, rediscovering their spirit of mutual aid and cohesion.
Relying on hierarchies is infantilising
Letting the entire responsibility for our lives rest on the leaders of hierarchies is infantilising. Whether within a country or a company.
Likewise, it is too easy to blame the tops of hierarchies for all the ills of the planet. For we are consumers. Everything we buy has an enormous impact. The more products and services we buy, the more we degrade our own Earth resources vital to our survival.
It is too easy to vote for increased purchasing power while continuing, on the side, to buy the cheapest meat from industrial farms on the other side of the world — squandering oil resources that could instead be used to reorganise local food production, and releasing tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted by this international transport, triggering ever more storms, floods, fires and droughts. Let us not then go and accuse only the public authorities of being incompetent. They are incompetent above all because they do not know how to explain to the population that rising purchasing power and the survival of the human species are incompatible.
Let us expect nothing more from the tops of hierarchies, especially those covering an outsized territory.
It is time to take responsibility for ourselves.
In a world without hierarchies in place, we would all be obliged to take responsibility, each doing our best, respecting and helping those around us as best we can; we would be far more cooperative and respectful.
Failing, unfortunately, the ability to replace the dictatorship of these extremely centralised hierarchies, the only room for manoeuvre we have is to change our ways of living, to adopt a more measured way of life.
It is the only lever at our disposal. Let us choose to concretely adopt a measured way of life. Let us choose to vote with our wallets. Let us choose to vote by consuming as little as possible, buying only what is necessary for living.
We are happier when we take our responsibilities into our own hands.
Decentralisation: giving power to bioregions (in French)