Keep your eyes on the prize

Some of the most difficult disputes seem to take place between people who have shared interests but very different ideas as to how these interests are best achieved. A good example of this is explored in a recent article in Prospect where political economist Mathias Larsen of the LSE’s Grantham Institute considers the the conflict between the ‘green growth’ and ‘de-growth’ positions with regard to tackling climate change and other environmental problems.

A simple framing of the disagreement would be that one approach is looking for less environmentally damaging ways of achieving GDP growth and associated benefits, while the other is willing to sacrifice the economic benefits of GDP growth in order to protect the environment. Larsen feels this framing is too simplistic, as he puts it:

“The problem is that the dichotomy does not produce two, distinct and equally coherent opposing political projects. Instead, there is enormous disagreement within each camp, and substantial overlap between them. What looks like a clash of worldviews is better understood as a crowded landscape of opinions, where there is a lot more agreement than conflict.”

Mediators will recognise the danger of an overly simplistic framing of a perceived conflict, which leads to a polarisation of views and the defending of and attacking of respective positions, while loosing sight of shared interests. In the matter of tackling climate change this also presents plenty of opportunities for those who have much less interest in the protection of the environment to divide and rule.

Framing what’s at stake in terms of GDP growth is a large part of the problem. If the relationship between the economy and the environment was being discussed a hundred years ago it would have been impossible to position it in this way as the concept of GDP hadn’t been developed. While GDP has proved extremely helpful in macro economic management and wartime planning, its shortcomings have long been recognised, e.g. failing to properly account for unpaid work and the costs of pollution etc. And, as economist Diane Coyle has pointed out in a recent book (The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters), it may not even be that good at measuring output and productivity in the modern digital economy, involving unpaid user labour, cloud infrastructure, hybrid work, AI etc.

In his book ‘The Invention of Infinite Growth’ historian Christopher Jones likens the quest for GDP growth since the 1940s to ‘a hamster wheel that must always be kept turning’. While recognising that the post war growth focus delivered a great deal to many people, he argues that the economic, social and environmental context has changed since the concept of GDP was developed and perspectives need to be broadened to create a balance between human desires, social well-being and planetary sustainability.

Larsen sees a real risk that the debate around green growth or de-growth becomes a ‘zero sum fight over GDP’, when a more reasoned dialogue exploring a number of open, practical and pragmatic questions ‘might reveal hybrids, compromises and pathways for a green transition that refuse to treat GDP as either sacred or taboo’.

Reframing the dialogue away from too great a focus on GDP will be an important part of making meaningful progress in developing a more sustainable world. Larsen encourages those who have a deep interest in protecting the environment and natural world on which we rely to move away from ‘policing abstract paradigms’ towards building pragmatic coalitions to achieve shared interests.

In a similar vein in his recent series of Reith Lectures, Rutger Bergman considered some of the most successful social and political reform movements, such as those that led to the abolition of slavery and the promotion of civil rights. He highlighted the importance of a pragmatic approach that was able to form coalitions which embraced a wide spectrum of actors and views while keeping the shared goal in sight.

It may well be that, while it may offend some of our more purist sensitivities, the more we can accommodate the ideas of those we might not totally agree with, but with whom we share enough interests, while keeping the overall objective in clear focus, the better chance we may have of achieving what we seek. Another way of putting this might be: never let the perfect be the enemy of the very good.

The importance in any dialogue of a focus on underlying shared interests rather than defending positions, clear objectives, careful framing, the exploration of fresh perspectives, open questions to build understanding and develop options, going to the balcony to keep an eye on the big picture, along with a bit of give and take to reach an acceptable outcome, will not come as a surprise to those who practice mediation.

As the song goes: ’Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on!’.