The Toxic Mess Of The Locust Economy: DOUCET

Former Capital councillor Clive Doucet raises bees in Cape Breton Island and, accordingly, gets the latest buzz on what the bee community is thinking.

By Clive Doucet

I awoke recently thinking about former U.S. president Donald Trump being shot.

Shooting anyone, be they a convicted criminal or a saint like Mahatma Gandhi, is never a good idea. Killing just confirms what is happening anyway; and what is happening now is that unless force is used, there is a loss of confidence in government everywhere. The Trump shooting is just another reflection of society’s chaos; who actually pulls the trigger has become irrelevant.

On this fine summer morning, if bees could talk what would they have to say? I think their first observation would be that humans are a violent species. The 20-year-old boy who climbed to the roof of a building with a rifle wasn’t doing it alone. He was doing it because the society he belongs to is a violent place.

The U.S. has the largest, best-armed military on the planet. It was the first government to use nuclear weapons and remains the only nation to do so. Surveys show many Americans think shooting someone in political office is a reasonable response to a political disagreement and presidents are shot frequently. It seems the present shooter modeled the Kennedy assassination.

Combine this with the fact that Americans own guns, lots of them, and consider owning guns more essential than the liberty of verbal expression. School children are shot in their classrooms with assault weapons, and nothing is ever done about it except repetitious expressions of shock and horror, but only if the body count is high. Then the media caravan motors on. Nothing changes.

I think bees would say that humans are more like locusts than bees. We have developed the world’s largest and most effective locust economy and consume everything in our way; plants, minerals, fish, mammals. The principal role of government in a locust economy is to feed the machine under the guise of Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Not even environmental meltdown has checked this human desire for more of everything. The fishing draggers are back in Canadian waters. Thirty-two years ago, they dragged the seas dry and we’re starting the same cycle all over again. That’s what locusts do.

Bees would also say that if the human economy didn’t depend so violently on constant growth, it would be a very different place. Much more effort would have to be made figuring out how the economy actually functioned, rather than simply growing what was already happening. It would be a less violent place. In my youth, former prime minister Lester Pearson. the leading bee of the day, refused to join in the Vietnam War. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have been persuaded to join the Afghan war either. There was even a question whether the nation should belong to NATO. Today, the only question is how much money we should be spending on that organization.

The institutional side of government was also rich and accomplished. Not only did Canada set the bar domestically, we often did internationally as well. Everything from co-op housing to the esoteric Canadian Law Reform Commission which was created to ensure federal laws remained current and useful. The final study the commission completed was a two-year cross-Canada effort which recommended the federal government switch to a proportional electoral system. Former prime minister Stephan Harper, the leading bee of that day responded by disbanding it. Yet, this was a recommendation if implemented would have changed the Canadian political landscape by making true majorities possible instead of minority-seat majorities.

Greek politician Pericles defined democracy in the simplest possible terms. “It is the rule of the majority.” By his definition, neither Canada nor the U.S. have a democracy. Hillary Clinton received more votes than Trump in a U.S. vote although this is largely forgotten. It is also largely forgotten that former prime minister Brian Mulroney gave away 21 different Crown corporations for a fraction of their actual worth, and ex-PM Jean Chretien was his able partner. A world threatened by climate change needs strong public capacity, not weaker. For example, a national rail service that takes you where you want to go when you want to go.

A less violent society needs to respect the original Periclean idea of democracy that the majority should rule and be led themselves by values other than pure profit. For example, in Nova Scotia, electrical power is now controlled by a for-profit corporation which guarantees its shareholders nine-per-cent profits each year and prices are rising. Thus large annual increases are hard-wired into the system of electrical delivery. There’s nothing the government can do about it.

The actual running of the locust economy is now done mostly by private corporations. This includes communications. Your browser is not a public service. It’s a privately owned service. There is no way to access a national public broadcast without going through a private portal dependent on advertising. No wonder people have little confidence in government anywhere. Throw in the gun worshipping culture south of the 49^th parallel and you have a toxic mess in which no one is safe.

As happens in a every locust economy, history is repeating itself. How different were the Roaring ’20s of 1924 from 2024? They were and are both products of the boom-and-bust locust cycle. The difference is the size and complexity of today’s global boom and as will be the global bust. The bust isn’t hard to predict. Climate disasters and supply chain meltdowns will continue to slow the growth machine down with their enfeebled governments on the sideline; and their uncertain electorates unable to react to much more than media jingoism like ‘axe the tax’ and ‘build the wall’.

The strange Trump shooting followed by discordant cries from politicians for unity don’t auger well for any of us. Unity with what? The world needs to change, not unite around more of the same.

Clive Doucet is a former Ottawa City Councillor for Capital Ward and author.  His last book was Grandfather’s House, Returning to Cape Breton..

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