Pathfinders – Helicopters over Helvellyn
The world sees its first paper trillionaire while food prices rocket and existential crises loom on all sides. Have you concluded that capitalism has become a parody of itself, with psychopathic zombies in charge? Yup, and you know what else? You need a break!
If you’re a) reasonably fit and b) have the resources to get out into the countryside, the great outdoors might just save your sanity. It’s not just nature’s quiet grandeur, or the comforting knowledge that it will all still be there when today’s cardboard Caligulas are long gone. If you look closely, you’ll realise something important about people, even when there’s nobody in sight.
You may notice a general absence of litter. There is a thing called ‘broken windows syndrome‘, in which visible signs of neglect, litter and vandalism tend to encourage more of the same. There is a flipside. ‘No Littering’ signs don’t work half as well as there being no litter in the first place. The more pristine the environment, the more people try to keep it that way.
As you meander along your country paths and hilltop trails you will also notice how many have been flagged, stepped, safety-railed, bordered and gravelled. That’s all done to help you, and protect the landscape too, by people you will never meet and never be able to thank. And here’s the thing. They do it for nothing. No wages, no perks, no stakeholder shares or investment opportunities, no title deeds, no face-in-the-paper or picture-on-the-pub-wall. Mountain Rescue, those anonymous heroes of the high passes, rescue people from mountains. These volunteers rescue mountains from people.
For example, volunteers are currently repairing some of the high paths on Helvellyn, in the English Lake District, as part of a three-year project involving helicopters, hard work and hundreds of tonnes of stone. This is necessary because the paths are worn down by up to 19 million visitors a year. Says one local Ranger: ‘We are privileged to have such a great bunch of volunteers who are willing to head out into the hills in all weathers to clear blocked drains, build paths and engage with people all across the Lake District… We certainly couldn’t monitor and maintain all 400 paths each year without this vital contribution’.
You’ve heard that saying, ‘no such thing as a free lunch’. It’s a capitalist saying, which reflects a bitter capitalist mindset. In reality, ‘ordinary’ people are perfectly willing to give their cooperative labour for free if it adds something useful to the general commonwealth. Even when it’s at considerable risk to themselves. Mountain Rescue volunteers jeopardise their own lives because dopey urban types are daft enough to go swanning up a peak without a map, wet weather gear or a compass. Lifeboat volunteers plough grimly through heavy swells to rescue party-boat people who didn’t bother to check tides or a weather forecast. Socialists know all this very well. What we don’t understand is why so many people don’t know this. Instead they believe humans are vile and antisocial, therefore a post-capitalist cooperative society is impossible, and we deserve to be ruled by super-rich tyrants.
Another thing you might spot, on garden walls or gates, are eggs for sale, or jams or chutneys, with a little honesty box next to them. Sure, it’s all a bit twee, and most jam makers aren’t depending on the income. But now a whole cottage industry in baking has sprung up, with cake sheds ‘packed with cookies, brownies, old-school sprinkle cakes or lemon drizzle… for which you are trusted to pay through an honesty box system’. So successful have cake sheds become that local killjoy councils are considering stepping in to insist on trading licences, public liability insurance and health and safety certificates. With some bakers making £1,000 a week, trust has its limits. Those entrepreneurs have installed CCTV.
A recent sciencex.com article has this to say about trust: ‘Social trust is shaped largely by personal experiences of navigating the world, as well as by how strongly people believe others are likely to act honestly or dishonestly in everyday life.’ The article reports a recent Norwegian study of over 8,000 people which ‘shows that we often overestimate others’ dishonesty and that people are more honest than we think.’ Perhaps more surprising is that when study subjects were told that they had identified dishonesty where none existed, many promptly adjusted their expectations accordingly. Mistrust, it seems, is not ingrained. If better evidence comes along, we can change our minds and become more trusting.
Mistrust is the central and irreducible problem, not just in capitalism, but in any property society that relies on trade, even barter. Why? Because private ownership of property introduces a conflict of interests between buyer and seller. The seller has an incentive to rip off the buyer, so the buyer can never really trust the seller. The mistrust at the heart of the trade transaction then scales up to the whole society, rewards the biggest liars and con artists, and reinforces a mutual suspicion that affects and infects all human relations. It’s the broken window syndrome again. Lies and dishonesty beget more lies and dishonesty. Democratic sharing and free lunches? Don’t be so naïve!
In a gift economy, which is socialism, there is no central conflict of interests. The donor gains no material advantage by making the gift, so has no incentive to lie about it. Likewise, the recipient has no reason to distrust the donor. The trust at the heart of the gift economy scales up to the whole society, and reinforces a mutual respect and confidence that pervades everything. Truth and honesty beget truth and honesty. Just like the unspoilt countryside, we will collectively strive to keep it that way.
Still, you don’t have to go yomping up a mountain to see decent, selfless behaviour in action. It’s all around you, every day, in spite of ‘common sense’ and received wisdom. It’s why socialism will work.
PJS