Kleinian analysis cont.

To: Retort
From: NK

Guns Beat Greens: The Market Has Spoken
Naomi Klein
November 30, 2007

Anyone tired of lousy news from the markets should talk to Douglas
Lloyd, director of Venture Business Research, a company that tracks
trends in venture capitalism. I expect investment activity in this
sector to remain buoyant, he said recently. His bouncy mood was
inspired by the money gushing into private security and defense
companies. He added, I also see this as a more attractive sector, as
many do, than clean energy. Got that? If you are looking for a sure bet 
in a new growth market, sell solar, buy surveillance; forget wind, buy weapons.

This observation coming from an executive trusted by such clients as
Goldman Sachs and Marsh & McLennan deserves particular attention in
the run-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali at
the beginning of December. There, world environment ministers are
supposed to come up with the global pact that will replace Kyoto.

The Bush Administration, still roadblocking firm caps on emissions,
wants to let the market solve the crisis. We're on the threshold of
dramatic technological breakthroughs, Bush assured the world last
January, adding, "We'll leave it to the market to decide the mix of
fuels that most effectively and efficiently meet this goal."

The idea that capitalism can save us from climate catastrophe has
powerful appeal. It gives politicians an excuse to subsidize
corporations rather than regulate them, and it neatly avoids a
discussion about how the core market logic of endless growth landed
us here in the first place.

The market, however, appears to have other ideas about how to meet
the challenges of an increasingly disaster-prone world. According to
Lloyd, despite all the government incentives, the really big money is
turning away from clean energy technologies and banking instead on
gadgets promising to seal wealthy countries and individuals into
high-tech fortresses. Key growth areas in venture capitalism are
private security firms selling surveillance gear and privatized
emergency response. Put simply, in the world of venture capitalism,
there has been a race going on between greens on the one hand and
guns and garrisons on the other - and the guns are winning.

According to Venture Business Research, in 2006 North American and
European companies developing green technology and those focused on
homeland security and weaponry were neck and neck in the contest
for new investment: green tech received $3.5 billion, and so did the
guns and garrisons sector. But this year garrisons have suddenly
leapt ahead. The greens have received $4.2 billion, while the
garrisons have nearly doubled their money, collecting $6 billion in
new investment funds.  And 2007 isn't over yet.

This trend has nothing to do with real supply and demand, since the
demand for clean energy technology could not be higher. With oil
reaching $100 a barrel, it is clear that we badly need green
alternatives, both as consumers and as a species. The latest report
from the Nobel Prizewinning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change was characterized by Time magazine as a final warning to
humanity, while a new Oxfam report makes it clear that the recent
wave of natural disasters is no fluke: over the past two decades, the
number of extreme weather events has quadrupled. Conversely, 2007 has
seen no major terrorist events in North America or Europe, there are
hints of a US troop drawdown in Iraq and, despite the relentless
propaganda, there is no imminent threat from Iran.

So why is homeland security, not green energy, the hot new sector?
Perhaps because there are two distinct business models that can
respond to our climate and energy crisis. We can develop policies and
technologies to get us off this disastrous course. Or we can develop
policies and technologies to protect us from those we have enraged
through resource wars and displaced through climate change, while
simultaneously shielding ourselves from the worst of both war and
weather. (The ultimate expression of this second option is Hummers
new TV ads: the gas-guzzler is seen carrying its cargo to safety in
various disaster zones, followed by the slogan HOPE: Hummer Owners
Prepared for Emergencies. Its a bit like the Marlboro man doing
grief counseling in a cancer ward.) In short, we can choose to fix,
or we can choose to fortress. Environmental activists and scientists
have been yelling for the fix. The homeland security sector, on the
other hand, believes the future lies in fortresses.

Though 9/11 launched this new economy, many of the original
counterterrorism technologies are being retrofitted as privatized
emergency response during natural disasters - Blackwater pitching
itself as the new Red Cross, firefighters working for insurance
giants. By far the biggest market is the fortressing of Europe and 
North America - Halliburton's contract to build detention centers 
for an unspecified immigration influx, Boeing's virtual border fence, 
biometric ID cards. The primary target for these technologies is not 
terrorists but immigrants, an increasing number of whom have been 
displaced by extreme weather events like the recent floods in Tabasco,
Mexico, or the cyclone in Bangladesh. As climate change creates more
landlessness, the market in fortresses will increase dramatically.

Of course, there is still money to be made from going green; but
there is much more greenat least in the short termto be made from
selling escape and protection. As Lloyd explains, the failure rate
of security businesses is much lower than clean-tech ones and, as
important, the capital investment required to build a successful
security business is also much lower. In other words, solving real
problems is hard, but turning a profit from those problems is easy.

Bush wants to leave our climate crisis to the ingenuity of the
market. Well, the market has spoken: it will not take us off this
disastrous course. In fact, the smart money is betting that we will
stay on it.