How to organise ‘the one percent’ to fix climate change
This post identifies how ‘the one percent’ can organize themselves so that their self-interest will drive them to act collectively to fix destructive climate change. This will ensure that actions to mitigate climate change that currently have to rely on altruism will instead be in the individual interests of members of the one percent.
Executive Summary
Human civilization faces destruction if urgent action is not taken to fix climate change;
Collectively, ‘the one percent’ has the power to co-opt governments across the planet to do what is necessary to mitigate climate change;
The reason why the one percent has not yet done so is because they do not see coordinated collective action as feasible and achievable;
Unmitigated climate change seriously threatens the interests of the one percent and their families. But they face a classical ‘collective action trap’. This trap makes attempts to organise collective action futile due to free-riding and narrow self-interest;
However, collective action traps can be overcome by particular forms of organisation. These forms of organisation align the interests of individuals with the interests of the collective by rewarding cooperation and punishing free-riding;
The goal of this paper is to identify how the one percent can organise themselves in such a way that they will escape their collective action trap. Once organised in this way, it will be in their individual interests to act for the common good on climate change.
The Strategy:
The power of the one percent
An international coalition of sufficient numbers of the one percent has the power to force governments to do whatever is necessary to overcome climate change.
Groups within the one percent already control (and generally own) the media, and therefore control politicians and governments;
The only political parties that can win elections are those that advance the interests of the one percent, and subordinate the interests of ordinary citizens.
Currently, this power is not organised and coordinated.
It operates in a diffuse and distributed fashion, and only emerges when the collective interests of at least some of the one percent happen to be aligned with their narrow, individual interests.
Many of the one per cent are unaware of how their pursuit of their individual interests produces collective power in some instances.
Note that I am using the term ‘the one percent’ to refer broadly to extremely wealthy and powerful individuals and organisations, including corporations and the leadership of non-democratic governments (like China).
But coalitions of the one percent are not using this power at present to mitigate global warming, despite its potential to end human civilization this century,
and despite its potential to destroy millions of lives, including the lives and legacies of members of the one percent.
Why the one percent are not fixing climate change at present:
Why are the one percent refraining from using their collective power to ‘fix’ global warming?
Their inaction is not because they are ignorant of the dire consequences of climate change for themselves and for human civilization.
As individuals, many are already making significant investments to establish ‘bolt holes’ in an attempt to escape these dire consequences.
And their inaction is not because they don’t care if human civilization and many lives are damaged, including their own.
In these circumstances, most of the one percent are just like any other human being, with normal motivations and values: if they could take action as individuals that would save human civilization, they would do so immediately.
If any member of the one percent were given a ‘magic wand’ that they could wave to fix climate change, they would use it without hesitation. This paper identifies a feasible way to build such a collective magic wand.
If the world really was run by a small cabal of the mega-rich, global warming would have been fixed long ago.
The reason why the one percent are not acting is because it is against their individual interests to do so:
It would require them to contribute their own money, time and energy;
But without any reasonable prospects of actually mitigating global warming.
They know that individual action will be futile unless enough of their fellow members of the one percent join them in collective action. But:
individuals and corporations that contribute significant financial resources to fix global warming will be disadvantaged economically;
And they will be outcompeted economically by those who do not contribute and instead ‘free-ride’ on the investments of others;
Economically, the smart thing for individuals to do is to refrain from contributing to collective action, but to take any benefits that it produces.
Members of the one percent know that if their fellow members act like normal human beings, collective action will not emerge, and any individual action will ultimately be in vain.
The one percent face a ‘collective action trap’
The one percent are caught in a ‘collective action trap’. Within such a trap, collective action for the common good is prevented because it is against the interests of individuals.
A similar ‘collective action trap’ already impedes the emergence of widespread collective action against climate change amongst ordinary citizens.
As a consequence, many individuals believe that any attempt they make to mitigate climate change will be pointless.
These traps are universal. They tend to impede the emergence of cooperation amongst human beings and also amongst other living organisms.
Collective action traps have also been referred to as cooperation barriers, ‘the tragedy of the commons’, multi-polar traps, collective action problems, the propensity of natural selection to favour self-interest over altruism, coordination problems, etc.
Within a trap, individuals are dis-incentivized to join collective action, no matter how beneficial it may be for the group,
and are incentivized to refrain from contributing to collective action.
Unless special forms of organisation are in place, self-interest tends to trump cooperation amongst living organisms.
How to organise the one percent so that it is in their interests to act collectively for the common good against climate change
However, during the long evolution of life on Earth, collective action traps have been overcome repeatedly. The evolutionary process has discovered how to organise self-interested organisms into collectives that cooperate for the common good:
Evolution has organised groups of molecular processes into cells, groups of cells into multicellular organisms, multicellular organisms into cooperative animal societies, humans into tribes, tribes into kingdoms, and so on.
You are a cooperative of trillions of cells. Your cells don’t know you or care about you. But simply by pursuing their individual cellular interests, your cells produce the complex, coordinated functions that constitute you.
The methods discovered by evolution can be used to organise the one percent so that they will use their collective power to fix global warming.
Fortunately, this will not require the one percent to abandon their own individual interests or to become self-sacrificing.
Evolution produces collective action for the common good by embedding organisms in arrangements that make it in their interests to act collectively. Within these forms of organisation:
It pays to cooperate: the disadvantages of cooperation are removed, and where necessary, cooperation is rewarded.
Free-riding and other actions that operate against the common good are dis-incentivized e.g. by punishment and other sanctions.
The punishment of free-riding by the group has been essential for enabling cooperation in human tribes and other non-hierarchical groups of humans.
In organisations that implement these principles, cooperation and the common good will triumph, and free-riders will be out-competed.
If sufficient numbers of the one percent are organised in this way, the easy and self-interested thing for them to do will be to act collectively to fix global warming.
Specific actions that can be taken to organise the one percent
These principles identify in broad terms what the one percent must do if they are to organise themselves so that their self-interest will then drive them to fix climate change.
In essence, they will need to use their power to ensure that members of the one percent who take collective action benefit from doing so, and any who refuse to act for the common good suffer financial, reputational and other damage.
Crucially, this will include punishing any who refuse to use their power in this way.
As a result, it will be in the individual interests of members of the one percent to take the specific actions needed to overcome the collective action trap,
and it will be evident to the one percent that taking these actions will ensure that collective action to fix climate change is both feasible and effective.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to develop a detailed action plan that identifies the specific actions that the one percent could take in order to organise itself in this way. I will restrict myself to identifying a number of possibilities.
However, so that there is no misunderstanding, I need to emphasize that I am not advocating that the one percent take any action that is illegal. The options discussed here should be interpreted as referring only to actions insofar as they are legal.
Examples of possible action include:
Co-opting the power of the media to, for example: promote actions that will mitigate global warming; impose reputational damage on any who endanger human civilization by opposing such action (including by destroying their legacies); make it impossible for any politician to be elected who refuses to support appropriate action; impose reputational damage on members of the one percent who do not act collectively; organise boycotts and other financially-damaging campaigns against recalcitrant members of the one percent; and so on.
The power of the media will be co-opted by using the collective power of the one percent to, for example: organise advertising and financial boycotts against recalcitrant media corporations; impose reputational and financial damage on proprietors of media corporations and their families; destroy the stock price of recalcitrant media companies then take them over; and so on.
Co-opting the power of governments to, for example: declare a World-Wide State of Emergency against climate change; impose regulatory and taxation regimes that drive businesses to mitigate global warming (including regimes that remove economic externalities that currently prevent corporations from acting pro-environmentally); fund specific mitigation measures; establish a new legal framework that punishes any actions taken by corporations or individuals that contribute to endangering the survival of human civilization; impose financial and reputational damage on corporations and their owners who do not join ‘The Coalition of the One Percent’ (including by destroying their legacies); and so on.
The power of governments will be co-opted by, for example: withdrawing and blocking campaign funding to any recalcitrant politicians; de-funding think tanks that produce climate-denial propaganda; funding new think tanks that support action against global warming; using the co-opted power of the media to destroy the careers of political opponents; and so on.
Although many of these actions involve sanctions, in practice few members of the one percent are likely ever to be punished. This is because:
sanctions will be imposed only after individuals are given ample opportunity to avoid the sanctions by acting in the interests of humanity; and
if the arrangements that impose the sanctions are credible and effective, self-interested individuals will avoid them by acting for the common good.
Once a critical mass joins ‘The Coalition of the One Percent’, this collective action will be self-organising and self-expanding. It will increasingly be in the interests of the remainder of the one percent to join The Coalition.
Organising the organisation of the one percent
But won’t the collective action trap tend to prevent the emergence of this critical mass in the first place?
A major challenge is to develop a strategy that will ensure it is in the interests of a sufficient number of the one percent to join before the critical mass is reached and it becomes self-organising.
Key elements of the strategy are likely to include:
Initial recruitment will target those members of the one percent whose interests are already aligned with the common good because they are strongly motivated to act ethically and morally; early adopters will establish a leadership group for ‘The Coalition’; those who join The Coalition will use their personal networks to recruit others like themselves and to promote the strategy being developed here; conferences, planning meetings and think tanks will be funded to develop more refined and detailed strategies for overcoming the cooperation traps that beset the one percent; as the number of adopters increase, their collective ability to influence political and media systems will also increase; they can begin to use this growing power to identify members of the one percent who will not join The Coalition, and who are particularly vulnerable to financial and reputational damage that can be imposed by the emerging collective; successful punishment of recalcitrants will be publicized as a warning to others; recruitment will often use the device of seeking “conditional commitments” to support collective action (e.g. individuals will be asked to make a commitment that they will join The Coalition once a specified number of other members of the one percent also either join or make conditional commitments to do so [provision for conditional commitments enables individuals to avoid any personal costs until it is evident that sufficient will join to ensure the viability of the campaign]); and so on.
Early joiners of The Coalition are likely to be:
systems thinkers who are smart enough to understand how and why this strategy will overcome the collective action trap; and
individuals who are motivated by a desire to leave a legacy that is of historical and evolutionary significance, and avoid leaving a legacy of shame.
The one percent will not be able to escape the consequences of inaction over climate change
The longer it takes for serious action to be taken against climate change, the easier it will be to overcome the collective action trap.
This is because it will become increasingly likely that individual members of the one percent will be unable to escape the destructive consequences of inaction.
Runaway global warming will be so damaging and widespread that its consequences will soon become unavoidable and out of control.
‘Bolt holes’ will become increasingly ineffective at enabling the one percent to avoid the consequences
Eventually, the only way that individual members of the one percent will be able to avoid the destructive consequences of climate change will be to fix it for everyone.
It is understandable that individuals will try to desert a sinking ship. But if their escape is blocked, they will have no other option but to stay and help save the ship.
Once inaction over global warming causes systems of law and order to collapse, ‘bolt holes’ will not protect the one percent.
Their ‘bolt holes’ will become prime targets for pillaging and theft.
Including by the private guards that they hire to protect themselves and their families – the guards will not trust their masters, and will eventually realise that it is in their best interests to turn against them.
In the meantime, collective action initiated by the one percent will impose reputational and financial damage on those who attempt to set up ‘bolt holes’ (including by destroying their legacies).
Eventually, collective action by the one percent will force governments to outlaw the use of ‘bolt holes’ and to confiscate any existing ones that survive the reaction against them.
Smart members of the one percent are realizing that they will not be able to rely on ‘bolt holes’. They understand that they need at least to hedge their bets by supporting collective action that is essential for the survival of complex human civilization.
I am reading this as “we should create a social movement among The One Percent, which organizes together to cancel and oppress anyone who opposes strong climate action”. I think this is crazy for a lot of reasons:
The idea of creating a social movement to advocate for a change in behavior/norms, and having it start small with early-adopters and “true believers”, then grow over time as the benefits to joining the group become larger and larger with more members, is not a brilliant new idea. Rather, it is how pretty much all social movements already operate. The question you need to be thinking about isn’t just the idea of starting a movement, but “How will my social movement manage to outcompete all the others?” Your answer seems to be “we’ll be more willing to use aggressive cancel-culture techniques against our enemies”, and that probably works well in the late-game (when you’re already in control of the government, media, etc, you are free to be as totalitarian as you wish), but works badly in the early-game. What kind of early adopters would join such a spiteful movement with such a cynical long-term plan? Probably (totally spitballing here) angry people who feel rejected by ordinary society—not charismatic politicians and brilliant scientists and powerful entrepreneurs who all have better coalitions they could join elsewhere. That kind of movement will have a hard time snowballing to world domination. By contrast, Effective Altruism has had lots of success by being explicitly friendly and open-minded rather than combative and political.
Who is “The One Percent”? I don’t think you ever define it. Is this the most powerful 1% of people on the planet? Or the richest 1% in terms of net worth? Or are we talking yearly incomes? Twitter followers? You seem to be talking about rich people in the United States and Europe, but what about carbon emissions in China, India, and etc? Even if we achieve totalitarian cancel-culture in the western world, will we be able to bully China and other countries into following along? You might quibble, “look, these are minor differences—the top 1% most influential people in the world are gonna be pretty similar now matter how you slice it”. But I think it’s worse than that. I think “The One Percent” is not even a natural or coherent group of people—it’s just a slogan. If you look at graphs of net worth, wealth is clearly distributed on a power law. This means that there is often just as big a difference between the median person and the 1%, as between the 1% and the 0.1%, or the 0.1% and the 0.01%. I think this is a big mistake that left-leaning people make when they think about class conflict—they assume that “the rich” is a coherent group with a set of common interests, but actually there are many tiers of increasing richness with different common interests, there aren’t any hard divisions between the tiers (if you are in “the 2%”, which side do you choose in a class conflict?), and this phenomenon means that class conflict is harder to inflame than many activists assume.
I am reading you as proposing a campaign of repression and cultural change to make opposing climate action totally taboo. But this kind of thing has many obvious downsides: by silencing opposition and making people afraid to speak their minds freely, you will silence necessary debates on society’s direction. If we reorient our entire culture around climate change, what will happen to people who believe that climate change actually isn’t that bad and humanity might have bigger problems (like preparing for pandemics or working to avert nuclear war)? Will those people be cancelled, and will crucial work on solving other global problems not get done? Even within climate change, will there be room for necessary debate about strategy when everyone is rushing to demonstrate their allegiance to the party line? (How important is nuclear power for mitigating climate change? Does geoengineering have a role, and if so, what kinds of geoengineering? Will we have to electrify 100% of transportation, even airplanes, or should we also aim to create net-zero synthetic fuel from carbon in the air?) What about people who think that climate change is a big problem demanding urgent action, but who also think that exaggerated climate catastrophism is causing people to suffer from mental illness, like anxiety and depression, to the extent that people are refusing to have children because they are haunted by visions of an apocalyptic, uninhabitable planet, even though no scientist believes that such a dire future could ever occur due to global warming?
Overall, your post seems to express a mindset like “Everybody already knows that climate change is humanity’s #1 problem, and that this is a dire crisis justifying almost anything to solve it. Since it’s obvious to everyone what the necessary course of action is, we don’t need to indulge the luxuries of free discussion and scientific exploration and political debate, which all just leads to infighting and delay. Instead, we just need to browbeat the world into all working together and doing what we know is right!”
This is the correct strategy in some situations, like if it’s WW2 and you are being invaded by a fascist nation and the obvious response is to just try to fight the invaders with everything you’ve got.
But in my view, it’s not the correct strategy for our current age and the problems humanity now faces. Climate change is bad, but it is not apocalyptic. Estimates often say things like “the USA could lose up to 10% of GDP by 2100!”, which would be like having 5 extra recessions over the next 80 years of 0% growth, instead of normal years with 2% growth. That would be pretty lame, and I hope we take strong measures to avert that, but IMO it isn’t worth turning all of culture into a never-ending totalitarian propaganda cancel-fest, because creating such an oppressive culture would impede humanity’s efforts to make progress on… pretty much every other problem we face in society. (And I believe we face many dire problems in addition to climate change!) Instead, I think we have to have the humility to admit that the correct answers AREN’T all obvious (for starters, people don’t even agree about nuclear power or geoengineering), and we need to build movements that try to think hard and explore different potential solutions, and if anything encourage GREATER freedom, debate, and disagreement, instead of just browbeating.
It is good to see that you agree that the strategy I have outlined here is effective and appropriate if destructive climate change is otherwise likely to destroy human civilization this century. In particular, your penultimate paragraph states: “This is the correct strategy in some situations, like it’s WW2 and you are being invaded by a fascist nation and the obvious response is to just try to fight the invaders with everything you’ve got.”
In fact, I think that ‘business as usual’ will drive climate change that is far more destructive to human life on Earth than any fascist invasion. You clearly disagree that the threat of catastrophic climate change is that dire. We will have to agree to disagree on that. I am sure it would be futile to debate that issue with you here.
Nevertheless, it is gratifying that you see the value of the kind of strategy I have outlined for dealing with threats that endanger civilization.