The carbon tax will have a relatively small impact on household incomes, in most cases for those who are worse off, just a few dollars a week.
So why is it so hard to sell? The posing of this question is part of the answer: selling assumes a price and a product, rather than an idea and a future. Why would a cynical electorate, being told that this will come at no or little cost to almost all of them, see this policy package as in the community’s interest?
The current political pitch on the so-called carbon tax is being framed and sold on how its costs may affect individuals.
Polluting industries squeal about the costs they will pass on to consumers and the loss of jobs. The major parties’ strategies, though from different angles, focus on panicking or reassuring potential voters on personal costs and gains.
The missing element in both sets of rhetoric is any appeal to us, as responsible citizens, to take some collective responsibility for controlling our society’s polluting behaviours.
Selling policy on individual costs and benefits has become the preferred political strategy over the last two decades plus as market driven models policies drive major political parties views that potential voters are venal customers.
This change started with the 80’s paradigm shift, which reduced government to servicing markets as the presumed superior mechanism for distributing resources.
This shift reduced the political legitimacy of the society and the collective will as expressed by the state and reinforced the idea we were just a connected set of individual voters.
These fed into neo-classical economic equations that assume that humans are driven by rational self interest so greed will create wealth for all.
Most voters therefore not are capable of altruism or social concerns, but majorities can be wooed with bribes such as tax cuts, privatisation and growth.
This is clearly typified in Paul Keating’s claim that: “In a two horse race always back self-interest because at least you know it’s trying.“ This limited view of human capacity is now showing considerable wear and tear as many markets show hubris and stupidity.
There is also increasing evidence that human beings are not necessarily rational or self-interested and are firmly embedded in social and relational connections. There are many examples of political and social cultures that are much more collectivist than we are, starting with Aboriginal Australians.
Other countries and cultures, from the Nordic usual suspects to most non-European states, still hold social obligations to be both essential and valued, which may inhibit their economic growth but offer possible alternatives to more GDP growth as the only measure of well being.
There are many examples in Australia of unity and community support when we face war, floods and fire.
Even the current carbon debate shows high levels of collectivism in both the supporters and deniers as they act in tribal emotional unity.
The question is therefore why the politicians seem to only make use of our capacity to be communally minded when they want support for military enterprises, nostalgia for past nationalism or to unite in opposition to some unfortunate outgroup, such as boat people or the non-employed.
The fury that currently comes from the Opposition leader Tony Abbott shows he well knows that there is a core communitarian populist concern that he can tap for nasty ends.
Those who use the spectre of selfinterest as the basis for claiming support or opposition to the carbon tax have got it very wrong.
The very processes of some political rallies, shock jock attacks and mobilisation of opposition to the tax is deeply communitarian in its worst aspects.
It is tapping the anger and anxieties of the mob and sits dangerously close to tactics used by past right wing populisms who use hate bases and scapegoats to fuel anger and rouse political action.
The supporters are more eclectic in their tactics and some community initiatives are trying to appeal to our sense of responsibility and future concerns. However, the tactics of the Government are not helpful as their entire campaign seems to be based on proving that few will suffer any financial losses from this massive shift.
This approach can be confusing because surely a tax of this type designed to change behaviours has to hurt; generous compensation obscures this message.
It also fails to appeal to the logic that change means we should all contribute to reducing consumption as well. So some share of the pain would give us a sense of participation and commitment.
This approach would recognise that humans do not mostly share some dominant inherent selfish gene that pushes a universal button and are therefore prefer dollar arguments to all others.
There is increasing evidence and discussion emerging on the importance of social relationships, co-operation and fairness, as the rampant market-based individualism of the global financial crisis undermined continuous growth.
A notable recent contribution from Harvard socio-biologist Martin Nowak explores the high value of cooperation over competitiocn in human evolution and progress, describing how an experiment of pooling resources for climate change clearly over-rode self interest.
A recent article on The Conversation site, David T. Neal quoted research on how most of us prefer to live in places with both fair and more equal distributions of income.
This more collectivist interest can be linked to other research on the importance of social fairness to a sense of well being.
A recent New York Times article, detailed a range of studies into the value of fairness, including experiments by Ernst Fehr on children, many anthropological studies and other indicators that showed that fairness, an essentially social sense, underlies progress based on our capacities to collaborate and trust.
Taxation is an interesting indicator of our collective will and individual needs. On one level, it is resented but on another is seen as providing public goods and pooled risk management.
In a recent lecture, Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Terry Moran quoted a survey by the market research company Quantum which showed that over each of the past 17 years, the proportion of Australians who believed “government has an important role to play both in business, and in taking care of people who can’t help themselves”, has remained virtually constant. Around 85% of Australians – almost six in every seven – support this proposition, he said.
So why the current virulent opposition to any tax increases? His next sentence suggests to me a possible expanation. Moran claims: “This survey reveals an interesting paradox. Reforms that have successfully shifted the role of government and increased the influence of markets have continued, despite views of citizens which favour a strong role for government in the Australian economy and in Australian society.”
How has this been able to happen?
Distrust comes when governments persistently ignore public opinion and the benefits of this are unclear.
Maybe unpopular market shifting may have reduced voter confidence in government decisions on their expenditure priorities.
Various surveys, reported in the studies such as Australian Social Attitudes, explore this issue of the level of support for social spending or lower taxes.
In their contribution to Australian Social Attitudes: The First Report, published by UNSW Press, authors Shaun Wilson, Gabrielle Meagher and Trevor Breusch show there was a drop in support for services and increase of tax cuts in the time that neoliberalism was increasing its hold.
But by this century, more people had shifted back to supporting the funding of more services, particularly health and education.
There are many other surveys that suggest that people want both tax cuts and more services when the questions are separated. Who said we had to be rational?
Distrust of government and politicians is widespread. Pollsters Roy Morgan organisation carries out a regular measure of the image of professions reputation for ethics and honesty.
In 2011, Federal MPs overall ranked 22nd out of 30 in terms of honesty and ethics, while state MPs were ranked 25th – just ahead of real estate agents and car salesman at 28 and 30.
The survey reported the number of respondents who gave Federal MPs a rating of ‘high’ had dropped down to 14%, well down from its highest score of 23% in 2008.
Interestingly, public servants, added to the survey in 2007, scored 30% of ‘highs’. This hierarchy suggests that distrust of politicians runs fairly deep and disappointment at inaction post-2008 has caused some current damage.
The above surveys suggest that we are essentially social beings and do care about others. The electorate is capable of both generosity and commitments to the common good as shown in past specific levies, taxes hypothecated for particular purposes, (such as the gun levy and even the flood levy) are more accepted as the spending is clear.
An Opposition-run scare campaign, based on complete distrust of the Prime Minister, taps into the underlying distrust of politicians and may leave a long term problems for a different government.
There is high anxiety from the recent global financial crisis, continuing scares in Europe and other signs of future insecurity and exploiting this for short term gains may undermine faith in our political system as well as increase self-interest to protect ones own.
If the government appeals to our better angels, as they did in 2007, and campaigned on sharing (minor) pain reducing damage to the planet, maybe they would be doing much better.
Meeting Abbott on the field of greed does not encourage voters to be better citizens than customers.
Join the conversation
Comments (19)
Byron Smith
(PhD candidate in Christian Ethics at University of Edinburgh)
In my more frustrated moments, debates about who is going to pay an extra $10 or $100 or $1000 a year while we continue to pump out more than 1000 tonnes of CO2 every second can sound a little like arguments over the distribution of air-conditioning in a car about to drive over a cliff. I am not saying that there are not more and less just distributions of the burden of carbon emissions, simply that the national conversation in Australia (and in many other places, for that matter) has not adequately…
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Troy Barry
Mechanical Engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
A very good article. I suspect that "equitable" taxation is seen as an absolute moral good by modern progressives and the ALP in particular sees it as their raison d'etre. However the population at large supports only a more moderate role for the government in promoting equity - it's okay to take a little from everybody, but taking too much and especially taking from too few is seen as unfair. All Australians might have been happy to pay a small flood levy, but it became controversial when it…
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Rockstar Philosopher
Rockstar Philosopher (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Good point, if only we could get the rich back to paying their share.
Troy Barry
Mechanical Engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
It may be a bit of a stretch to link the politics here to evolutionary ecology and toddler behaviour, but I couldn't help think of this when reading Rob Brook's article today:
"If two children have to work together, but one child gets more toys than the other, the lucky child tends to share the spoils evenly three times out of four.
"It seems that collaborative effort in winning the reward makes for an equitable division of the spoils, and even very young children know this."
Margo Saunders
(logged in via email @aapt.net.au)
Great article. To use the language of public health, we are probably seeing low response efficacy -- ie, a low level of belief that the recommended action will actually avoid the threat. However, allowing a pro-environmental measure to be hijacked into a 'tax' is also a p.r. disaster of major proportions and should find its place as a case study in political communications courses for years to come. And, as has been suggested, it's also a case of squandered potential, given that many households and businesses actually want to reduce their carbon footprint and are being offered no real assistance or incentives to do so. In the meantime, we look around and see an incredible waste of energy and resources, which seem to be addressed only by under-resourced NGOs calling for people to take voluntary action.
Douglas Cotton
(Douglas Cotton B.Sc. (Physics) B.A. (Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin.)
Maybe it's hard to sell the C tax because people are starting to doubt that restraining CO2 will have any effect on controlling increases in temperature, especially when there have not been any such increases for seven and a half years since January 2003 and the climate records are starting to look like an upside down hockey stick. The next sunspot maximum in 2013 is predicted by NASA to be the lowest since 1907 and people are getting more worried about predictions of another Little Ice Age in a…
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Daryl Deal
retired (logged in via email @melbpc.org.au)
It is less of a problem to be poor, than to be dishonest. - Anishinabe
Douglas Cotton
(Douglas Cotton B.Sc. (Physics) B.A. (Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin.)
This is an example of a dishonest paper, or one that made a huge mistake
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
Here is my explanation of the error and how the world has been misled into "backing the wrong horse" ...
In column 1 p.37 Prof. Pierrehumbert writes "We can determine that the temperatures of the atmosphere and ground range at least from 220 K to 285 K. But absent additional information (sic) we cannot tell that the high end of that range actually comes from the…
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Daryl Deal
retired (logged in via email @melbpc.org.au)
If we wonder often, the gift of knowledge will come. - Arapaho
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=taxonomy
Douglas Cotton
(Douglas Cotton B.Sc. (Physics) B.A. (Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin.)
Updated 21 July 11pm AEST: Please just keep comments to the conclusion of this paragraph at http://earth-climate.com - and based on Physics ... thanks, Doug
Now, consider a carbon dioxide molecule that is warmed by capturing a photon. The photon has to be in a certain frequency range and it is quite true that observations show that photons in this frequency range are in fact not getting out to space, and the assumption has been that this somehow "traps" heat (like an insulating medium) and this…
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Douglas Cotton
(Douglas Cotton B.Sc. (Physics) B.A. (Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin.)
OK, consider a carbon dioxide molecule that is warmed by a photon. The photon has to be in a certain frequency range and the captures mostly take place only in the upper stratosphere. Temperatures at this level are actually higher than at the top of the troposphere, though from there on down to the surface they get warmer. Now it is quite true that satellite observations show that photons in this frequency range are in fact not getting out to space, and the assumption has been that this somehow…
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Rockstar Philosopher
Rockstar Philosopher (logged in via email @gmail.com)
2010 was the hottest year on record, you need to update your talking points.
Douglas Cotton
(B.Sc.(Physics), B.A.(Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin)
Rockstar - Yes, due to the fact that Venus caused a peak in 2010 and Jupiter and Saturn were simultaneously causing near maxima in longer term cycles as explained at http://earth-climate.com . With the Venus cycle being only 39 months, we find 2011 now significantly colder than 2010, and even 2003. In the NASA sea surface figures there is no indication of any build up of heat in the last seven and a half (7.5) years - in fact quite the contrary. See their charts: http://earth-climate.com/2003-2011.jpg and, to learn the reasons for this, take 10 minutes to read my site - maybe you'll be the 9,000th visitor.. Stick to your Philosophy and I'll stick to my Physics and the Physics of this professor: http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html.
Toby James
retired physicist (logged in via email @yahoo.com)
You are spot on John. We have been told by the Prime Minister's chief climate advisor and by the IPCC, that if Australia were to cease emitting all its anthropogenic CO2, the effect could only be measured in a couple of parts per thousand of a degree Centigrade.
Why should we support a tax and accompanying threat to shut down existing power generation, and the rest of it.
And who is going to pay for the new gas-fired base load power stations that will have to backup the renewable power when the sun goes behind a cloud and the wind stops blowing?
Politicians seem to think we've all gone soft.
I'm a little surprised at Eva's seeming naïvety.
After Howard and Iraq, politicians have got to work a good deal harder than the Gillard Government is currently doing to pull the wool over our eyes.
Rockstar Philosopher
Rockstar Philosopher (logged in via email @gmail.com)
If you're using this argument, I'm going to assume you believe the science (otherwise why would you even bring this point up).
Since you believe the science, you're aware that there is a global maximum to the amount of CO2 we can put out. How could this be shared any fairer than using the one man one vote concept? Everyone gets their ration and we pool it as a nation. So what you're essentially saying is that Australians are worth more than Chinese or Indians or Africans (if you're not, please explain how you justify your conclusion). How does this idea in anyway fit into the values of mateship and the fair go. This "but we won't make a difference" is anti-Australian.
Barry Calderbank
(logged in via Facebook)
Not all those who oppose the carbon tax oppose action on climate change. Indeed, if opinion polls are reasonably accurate, around 80% of us want action on climate change yet only 40% want the carbon tax. If that is so, around half of the opposition to the carbon tax is from people who actually support action on climate change - but not this particular action.
I suggest that many simply don't trust the current government to manage the large amount of money that will be churned via the carbon…
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Doug Cotton
(logged in via email @live.com.au)
I take it that we are talking about "backing the wrong horse" - so no doubt there could be some discussion on a certain recent experiment mentioned here http://tarpon.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/greenhouse-gas-theory-trashed-in-groundbreaking-lab-experiment/ To that I would add my own comments, particularly those in the bold type paragraph and in "Science Note 10" at my site http://earth-climate.com I would appreciate any genuine attempt to debunk what I have said with Physics, especially now that…
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Doug Cotton
(logged in via email @live.com.au)
Search Google to see if you backed the right horse
"Biology Cabinet laboratories Professor Nahle"
Comments everywhere like: "Greenhouse gas theory of global warming is refuted in momentous Mexican lab experiment."
And what did I say at http://earth-climate.com before reading this news?
All air molecules are radiating photons in all directions as they rise and cool, the only difference being that greenhouse gases can temporarily capture certain photons and send them off in a different direction…
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Douglas Cotton
(B.Sc.(Physics), B.A.(Econ), Dip.Bus.Admin)
Why a carbon tax? Please read this just published , peer-reviewed paper http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html
This experiment basically debunks Greenhouse warming theory. The significance of this experiment (published after I had written the rest of the content of http://earth-climate.com ) is that it confirms that air is warmed primarily (if not entirely) by contact of air molecules with the (warmer) Earth. The warm air then rises by convection and cannot return to the ground…
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