A question for all campaigners

Posted on January 18 2016

I am giving a talk on campaigning at an NGO this afternoon. I always find such things a challenge. What to focus on? How to say it? How to make it relevant to this organisations particular concerns? I do more thinking about presentations than I usually let on about.

But then a thought occurred to me, which was that none of the people working at the organisation in question should actually want to be there. After all, their aim should be to solve problems. And if they did then they would be a out of a job. So that should be there objective: to make themselves redundant in the jobs they have now. Knowing what they might do then could be very telling, for them and the organisation.

So I asked myself the question, given that I do some campaigning: what would I do if we had tax justice? I know it's unlikely, but it's a fair to ask.

I have to say that going back to accountancy practice would not be my choice.

And I have not seen a commercial deal or idea that has really excited me for a while.

The reality has been that my career has been a lot more interesting since I began work on tax justice than in its first twenty years or so, and that's because the intellectual challenges have been so much bigger. So I'd want to teach now. And what? I suspect it would be on finding the new state of well-being to replace the economist's conventional idea of equilibrium.

Equilibrium has never appealed to me. It is antithetical to everything I believe in: change that drives increase in well-being; doing better, just because it's what we as people are really meant to do; exploring new ideas, relationships and experiences because they are how we grow. None of that suggests this state where nothing can change or all will be worse off has any merit to it at all. In fact, I simply do not believe that state exists, or should, so aiming for it is positively harmful. It is merely a statement of the conservative mind set made manifest in economic theory.

But equally, I do not think that opportunity is unfettered; we now know that and so choice is inevitable, but the choice we make cannot be driven by the absurd notions of Pareto optimality.

I found that an interesting exercise because I would not be doing tax in an ideal world. But since we do not live in an ideal world I will carry on with where I am, because the change I seek drives in the direction I want to go.

Which is the reason why the question is important: unless there is goal congruence there is no point doing anything.

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6 Responses

  1. Richard says:
    January 18 2016 at 10:19 am

    Surely after achieving campaigning goals, in your case Tax Justice, comes policing what has been achieved. Goals achieved on one day will inevitably begin to slip, beginning literally the following day, unless matters are sufficiently policed and kept under constant review as the world moves on. That will inevitably mean more ideas and more campaigning. So, I don’t see this ending!

  2. David Drinkwater says:
    January 18 2016 at 10:34 am

    A can of worms Richard, put the lid back on quickly. Although a big fat juicy rag worm is could for catching Cod!

  3. Keith Fletcher says:
    January 18 2016 at 1:32 pm

    Fortunately there is something innately human about striving to achieve a goal for purely intellectual, moral or spiritual reasons.

    Earning a living is often an annoying necessity which prevents us from really achieving remarkable things!

  4. Pilgrim Slight Return says:
    January 18 2016 at 1:33 pm

    Looking at your record – that is – how you have bolstered your blog with written work (books) and further research, I believe that your particular message to other campaigning groups is to create intellectual depth about the issues one campaigns on.

    As I’ve said before, what seems to set you apart (and I add the ‘seems’ because I have not exposed myself to all campaigns because I don’t have the time) is that you also set out a vision of what a society employing your ideas would look like – and mostly I think that this vision is also very practical because you use real data history to add a realism to your alternatives.

    What I see with a number of campaigns is that they are really good at raising issues and mobilising support for the problem but are often unclear about what a better version of what they are seeking to change should look like after they have consent for change. Other campaigns seem to plateau out and at worst go into a steep dive and everyone seems to have got wound up for nothing.

    Maybe this is much more true for campaigning organisations who have to agree amongst themselves about the ‘what next’ after identifying a problem to focus on – a considerable strategic objective since you are trying to get disparate opinions about the same problem into one vision.

    It is probably much easier to be in the situation that you are in where you campaign mostly ‘alone’ but seem to have some key affiliations and partnerships.

    I believe that ‘Richard’ (above) is also right. It would be very hard for your to ever walk away from these ideas – even if they were adopted. However, in my view you have made the most of your time on the planet and I’d replace the word ‘doomed’ with ‘committed’!