Can President Donald Trump stop the transition to a new, CO2-neutral world with “America First”? Johan Schot doesn’t think so. He believes America First is part of the transition…
Niche actors are developing alternatives that are scalable and offer different future stories. On this podcast ‘In Search of the New Story’ with Cees van Lotringen, Johan discusses our current times in relation to deep transitions and the future of democracy.
Listen to the podcast in Dutch here. Or read on for a shortened transcript of the interview in English.
Cees van Lotringen: Welcome to a new episode in the podcast series Op zoek naar het nieuwe verhaal.. Today we are going to talk about the major challenges facing the world. This includes the transition from a fossil to a CO2 neutral world. In short, this means the transition from one period to another. In science, this is why people also speak of transitions. One of the experts in this field in the Netherlands is Johan Schot. He is a professor at the University of Utrecht and is involved in Global History and Sustainability Transitions. Johan Schot welcome to my podcast: Op zoek naar het nieuwe verhaal.
Johan Schot: I’m happy to join!
Cees van Lotringen: Johan, you are indeed concerned with the big, almost existential questions of our time. We have created a world that, thanks to the discovery of oil, is actually so successful that we are almost tempting fate. And that is why we are searching with all our might for alternatives.
On January 20, Donald Trump was sworn in as president and he gave an acceptance speech saying we must pump as much oil and gas as possible, because then we can give the Americans a golden age. With what amazement did you listen to that presentation?
Johan Schot: Well, not really with surprise because a transition is accompanied by a lot of transition pain and also with resistance. And in fact it is also necessary for transitions that existing institutions are broken down. And of course those who are broken down or who are going to suffer the disadvantages, will not just give up. So I see Donald Trump as part of the system fighting back. And that’s to be expected. So, in that sense, no surprise. But we will go through a transition because the problems we are facing are so great that the tide will turn automatically. The only question is before we get there who are the victims? How many victims are there? How much pain will have to be suffered and how will the pain be distributed? And that is actually what it is about here. At the moment, there is a lot of resistance and then a transition becomes very difficult. The costs that society will ultimately have to bear will be many times greater than if we commit to it early and in a gradual manner.
Cees van Lotringen: I assume you are of the opinion that we have partly passed that limit? That one and a half degree temperature increase on earth has actually already been passed. So does that mean that the transition will become more difficult, or perhaps impossible? How do you look at that?
Johan Schot: Well, not impossible. But it will come with more pain. And costs. The question is about the distribution of costs. The fossil industry can still make a lot of money for decades. So in itself, focusing on that from a Trump agenda of America First can be beneficial. Only the question is who bears the costs in that society and who bears the long-term costs? So it’s also about the distribution of the costs. And it’s actually historically the case that the elite and the existing elite only give in to the dominant elite when the costs for themselves become too high. So if we go back to the period at the end of the nineteenth century, for example. It was clear that the industrial revolution had created a number of major problems, including a poverty problem that led to the danger of revolution and uprising. But still, the elite was not prepared to give in and integrate workers into their future plans and, for example, into democracy.
It took two world wars for the elite to understand that they had to move to a different type of world. What we now call the welfare state to solve those problems. A lot of people have borne the costs of the elite’s inability to intervene in time. Moving on to the end of the nineteenth century. Back then, people spoke of the Golden Age. So those were a number of large industrial, super-rich people, comparable to today. Who profited optimally from that industrial revolution. But what also led to that was actually a kind of upper class, an oligarchy, of people who had a relatively large amount of influence in society and the economy.
Cees van Lotringen: Do you think that’s what we’re dealing with now? When it comes to Trump and the tech billionaires, is that comparable?
Johan Schot: I think that’s quite comparable in the sense that there’s an elite that’s trying to help determine the future so that it turns out in their favor. So in that sense I think that’s comparable.
Transitions are a layered process and so on the one hand you have a history of the winners that is also often written in history books. And Trump is now a winner. But there is also an undercurrent in society of alternative practices. Working in completely different ways. And that is also gaining strength. It has not yet manifested itself sufficiently politically, but it is also developing. So I am convinced that at the moment that it really becomes necessary, because the problems are so great, it is very important to have answers ready that have also been tried out, so that you can scale quickly. So there are different histories, you could say, running parallel to each other and happening simultaneously.
Cees van Lotringen: It might be interesting, also for the listener, if we go back in time. You have done a lot of historical research into how transitions work. There have been a number of examples already, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the twentieth century do we also have examples? Could you perhaps tell us what we should pay attention to when it comes to transitions? What are the characteristics or properties of those deep transitions you focus on?
Johan Schot: Okay, so to first I need to explain what a deep transition is. Transition research often focuses on individual systems, for example the energy supply system. Which of course changed enormously in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, due to fossil fuels and the rise of electricity. We have to imagine that in the eighteenth century people lived by candles. A gas lamp had just come on the scene. The world was dark and, in the evening, or at night you could do very little. But also, the heating of houses and the mobility system looked very different. It was a completely different world. So, transition research is often about individual systems, such as development of the energy system. However, we have to change all systems at the same time, because you cannot change the energy system without also changing the mobility system. And without changing the food system. They are connected. And if you look at that, you can actually say that the entire economy will have to change and the entire society. Actually, the current society we live in was born in the industrial revolution and transformed the world. We live in a totally new world compared to the pre-modern world and we need a similar change now.
We need to change not only the energy system. Not only the mobility system, but we need to build a new economy. And that transformation is similar to the industrial revolution. It is not just a fifth industrial revolution. It’s a much deeper change that will also include a change in our emotions, values, norms and lifestyle as well as Industrial sectors. That is why we call it deep transition.
Cees van Lotringen: Are you saying that humanity will also change?
Johan Schot: Yes, that is part of it. In pre-modern times, people were very focused on the past. You were bound to the land or to the nobility as a person. You were not a free citizen. What happened in the industrial revolution? People became free citizens, individuals who had to and could develop. The question is whether we are going towards a society where the collective will be more important than the individual. And that is a very fundamental question.
In pre-industrial society everything was a raw material and important. Everything that had value. Very little was thrown away. We are moving towards a total waste society and that also has to do with how you look at the world and what you find important. So there is a whole discussion about economic growth and de- growth. I think that partly misses the mark. Because it’s not so much about consuming less, it’s about consuming differently. If you have a different value system, then you will consume differently. Then that’s what you want. And that’s what you believe in.
To give a small example, in the 1900s many people were against the car. It was seen as a killing machine. It was seen as absolutely not something that would become widespread in the future. In 1950 every Dutch person dreamed of owning a car. Although very few Dutch people actually owned a car. So what happened between 1900 and 1950? The desire to have a car developed. So first there was a building of a new culture before that new culture was realized in a new world. So it’s also about the development of new desires, new ways of looking at the world, new norms and values that are focused on sustainability.
Cees van Lotringen: You had between the two world wars a man called Edward Bernays. He actually invented public relations and also wrote a book about it. This helped to lay the foundation for the development of consumption and also deeply influenced people’s self-image. If you then talk about those major transitions, that also must play a role.
Johan Schot: That’s a good example. When the Netherlands came out of the second world war, we came out of a period of scarcity. A period of depression. We had learned to be frugal. The Americans came to tell us you have to consume. Well, that was a very difficult message. Moreover, that was seen as amoral. However, that has changed in ten years. People have, partly through marketing, learnt how to consume. A practical example is snacking, so consuming snacks. This originally did not fit into Dutch culture. People did not want to eat something between meals. However, snacks were introduced by companies, including Unilever. And they had no market, no sales market. And then they started a whole offensive, including many forms of marketing to teach people to snack. It has now become a preference. But we have to understand that there was a time when that it was not a preference, that it was even condemned and not by a small part of the population.
Cees van Lotringen: But at the time it was a kind of compensation for the scarcity and the pain that people suffered. That gave a kind of short-term feeling of happiness, I think.
Johan Schot: No, I think snacking went deeper. That meant a change in the eating pattern. People had to look at consuming food differently. But the point is that transitions are not only economic, they are also cultural and social. And it is about people’s preferences. In transitions studies, it is very important to initiate learning processes where people can discover and appreciate for themselves what they do and do not want. It’s about a social learning process.
Cees van Lotringen: It’s often the case that transitions are driven by innovations and technology. But you’re actually saying that if you really want a something to be successful, you also have to embed it culturally. A narrative is needed to develop that further. Is that right?
Johan Schot: Yes, but something important to add to that thought. Whether it’s about technology or culture Is often debated. But it’s about both. And what actually happened in the industrial revolution is that technology became an important way to change society. If you wanted to change society in the period before that, you did not become an engineer, but a priest. In the industrial revolution, technology became an instrument that was used to create new worlds. For example, laboratories and universities were developed.
But technology is not only about the technical side, but also about the social side. Every technology presupposes a world and presupposes a culture and presupposes certain users. And they are developed along with the technology. The problem with our society is that technical universities and engineers know very little about society (while they do change society) and many people who tinker with society, such as sociologists, political scientists and economists, know nothing at all about technology. And it’s about the link.
Cees van Lotringen: So, you believe that scientific education should be much more interdisciplinary, because we should actually combine different knowledge and skills to address these big issues?
Johan Schot: We need to bridge the gap between technology and what is needed in society. And that also plays a major role in digitalization, for example.
You can put a number of ethicists together who will talk about the digital society, which is completely disconnected from the development by technical companies. So then you are always lagging behind. And actually, these should be viewed integrally. Starting with education and at technical universities, where much more attention should be paid to society, to the economy. At Utrecht University, much more attention should be paid to technology in a history program. Here, students hear very little about technical developments.
Cees van Lotringen: And why is it that so difficult to achieve?
Johan Schot: It’s deeply ingrained in our industrial society – it’s an important characteristic is to create that separation. Why? In pre-modern times, people understood that technology could be dangerous. For example, it could cause unemployment. It could make the skills of craftsmen redundant. That is why there were institutions such as guilds, which would assess whether they wanted those technologies. And a lot of resistance to new technical solutions was often not against technology in general, but against very specific solutions that, for example, caused high unemployment. Back then, you could even end up in prison if you introduced a technology into the world that resulted in high unemployment. Now you’re a hero. Steve Jobs is seen as a hero. And that is the big difference. I am not advocating putting those kinds of people in prison. Let me be clear about that. What I am advocating is that much more integration is needed to look at the application of the technology, the development of the technology and all kinds of social and ecological consequences that could result (which currently the government must solve through legislation and regulations).
Cees van Lotringen: What I find interesting is that I think you are interested in both the humanities and the sciences of developments. And I remember a nice statement by Ronald Plasterk, who was once the Minister of Education. He once said “the sciences make the world and the sciences describe it”. Is that an example of the lack of understanding between the humanities and the sciences when it comes to those very big issues of transitions?
Johan Schot: On the one hand, yes, but on the other hand, it’s the scientists being a little arrogant: “We make the world and the people in the social sciences and the humanities are not important, they can only describe it”. What they forget is that it’s not only the scientists that make the world, but also the humanities and the social sciences. These disciplines have to connect with each other and with technology. You cannot think about a completely new society without thinking about the technological embedding. Conversely, you cannot think about a completely new society without the social embedding. Both need each other.
Cees van Lotringen: And back to all the research you’ve done on transitions. I read in your articles that it takes 40 to 60 years to go through a transition. What are the different stages of a transition? There has to be a kind of tipping point, what is needed to achieve that? Because I can’t imagine that many people think that we are going in the wrong direction. But transitions by definition take time.
Johan Schot: That is historically true in any case you look at. So, if you look at the development of the mobility system, the energy system, the food system – these take between forty and sixty years, depending on how quickly conflicting positions are resolved. Such as the agricultural crisis in the Netherlands at the moment. We are clearly at a turning point but there is no certainty, it will take a long time for a decision, so people either fall back on the old system or remain at its edges. However, if the new system is not being implemented properly then it takes longer. People can also choose to close their eyes for too long. Only then the question is who pays for the consequences? Are they the citizens? Are they the farmers? Who pays the price?
Cees van Lotringen: Yes, but do you think that there should be compensation for the losers of the transition?
Johan Schot: That depends on who the losers are, how much benefit they have had from the transition, how deep their pockets are. For example, Shell can feed the energy transition. But if they don’t want to do that then that is their strategic choice. But I wouldn’t compensate them for that.
Cees van Lotringen: Is the position of farmers different?
Johan Schot: The position of farmers is different because they are victims trapped in the old system and have actually been invited by all actors to develop a certain side. And yes, they are now also the ones who promote that. Because they do not see a way out. But also, we have to understand that they believe in this way of farming. So, if they want to go through the transition, they will first have to gain experience.
Cees van Lotringen: That brings us to an important point. Because to believe that things can be done differently or better, you need examples. So here you have, so to speak, the frontrunners and sometimes they don’t get enough support, but they present the alternative.
Johan Schot: Yes. In my work, we conduct what we call experiments. These are demonstrators, where we try to organise learning processes and try things out in practice to show what can be done and how it should be done. Because often we don’t know the exact problem. Take for example, alternative ways of farming. There can be all kinds of negative consequences. So, biofuels were seen as very positive for a long time, but there are many negative consequences.
History shows us that niche actors are important. When existing actors dominate, the chance that a transition will take place is very small, because they are completely bound to the existing interests and insights. So you need new, new actors. And then you need learning processes, experiments. And you also need visions of the future. And those visions of the future are not a kind of blueprint of where we are going, but they are a source of inspiration and orientation of which way you are going.
Cees van Lotringen: And do you think that we are being offered sufficient future prospects?
Johan Schot: Future perspectives are being worked on, but they are either not linked to action or linked insufficiently to action.
Cees van Lotringen: Why is that?
Johan Schot: I think because there is still insufficient willingness among the actors (in the Netherlands at least). The Dutch economic development is dominated by what we call regime actors (dominant actors). The Netherlands has been a success story in a certain way. The Netherlands came out of the Golden Age. It was relatively late with industrialisation. However, we say (in the historical research) that we were not late, that we were different. Why? We initially saw less of the advantages of industrialisation. Only gradually did we discover that we were increasingly being outcompeted. So that is what we had to make that transition. And the Netherlands has made that very successful. In part by investing enormously, in fossil fuels, for example. We are now at the heart of the old transition and have developed a lot of interests there. Both in terms of agriculture and industry. So that is why that transition is very difficult for us.
Cees van Lotringen: Do you see in the Netherlands a new generation of people emerging who will bring the new era, the new narrative?
Johan Schot: Yes, they are there. For example, look at agriculture. There are farmers who are practicing agriculture in an alternative way. That is a niche right now. It is small and has a lot of trouble breaking through and scaling up. This is actually a remarkable thing, because the problems in the Netherlands with agriculture are very big. We are running up against the limits and that’s clear. The answer given is innovation, which is necessary in the short term because you can reduce our nitrogen problem through innovation. Only the costs of that are getting higher and higher. In people’s world of experience and the entire network around it there is enormous resistance to a transition to alternative agriculture.
The only way to solve that is actually two ways. One is to turn the tide. Another way is to stimulate and develop alternatives and at some point they will come together. But if the tide turns and there are no alternatives, you cannot make the transition. A good example is the oil crisis. We had an oil crisis in the 1970s and people were thinking very hard about alternative energy systems. But they didn’t exist. There was no solar energy, there was no wind energy, so people couldn’t go that way.
Cees van Lotringen: The Den Uyl cabinet was on the point of actually following the proposals of the Club of Rome, if I remember correctly.
Johan Schot: Well, it was In the Netherlands, the Club of Rome was very popular. Lubbers spoke about selective economic growth. I also think it is a much better model than de-growth. So the concept of selective economic growth is actually a concept that has been revalued a lot. And that is actually about stimulating a certain part of the economy that needs to develop, to solve those problems.
Cees van Lotringen: I would say the first transition that is really underway and threatens to become successful is renewables, the alternative forms of energy supply. They are competitive and that is why America and Trump are going to have a hard time, because a lot of Republicans have now invested in Texas in solar energy and wind energy. And it is competitive and that is their problem.
Johan Schot: I have also been active in China, and you can see this there. They have taken a lead in both solar energy and wind energy. Why? Because we did not see it or did not want to see it? And they are going to expand that lead.
Cees van Lotringen: And is that also specifically in the case of China because of their wealth and perhaps also because of the way in which they have organised their state? We can think fifty years ahead, but we don’t that because we have a short-term interest. Takes the return on your finances. That is all short-term.
Johan Schot: There’s an important point here. Because it’s true, and historically it’s also unique – that our science enables us to look fifty years ahead. And we can look fifty years ahead and say this is what’s going to happen to the world. So you have to anticipate that. That kind of anticipation is actually unique, in long-term history. And China is better equipped to anticipate because of the planning economy. Although we shouldn’t underestimate how much experimentation they actually allow.
There is indeed a whole system of social experimentation. There is also a lot of entrepreneurship in China. The differences are sometimes exaggerated, because we in the West can also anticipate and we should use that more, that is true. And the question is why we don’t do that. Well, we are the winners of the industrial revolution. And we still hold on to old structures. And China is less bound to that.
Cees van Lotringen: You’re talking about the democratic order that we know in the West. But isn’t that democratic order a problem? That short-term thinking that we do, while we are talking about a period and changes that are so great that you should actually put much more power into it to make it a success.
Johan Schot: What do you mean by democracy? Do you mean that people should be free to choose who their leaders are, through elections? If that’s what you mean. I think that system has major problems. But for me democracy means much more than that. It’s also about what’s called participatory democracy. That means that people have to be involved in decisions that affect them.
Cees van Lotringen: What is actually happening is that we have a public-private partnership or perhaps an exchange of interests, but that the citizens are completely forgotten. Those citizens are desperately needed to make a transition because we must be able to support those pioneers. And that is a different approach than has been used in Western democracies up to now.
Johan Schot: The current democratic model is a Western model, completely focused on individuals. If a person is an individual, he must then join the democratic order and must also be well educated and raised. That is why women were initially not allowed to participate because they were seen as incompetent (as well as other citizens). And we have slowly expanded that. And now we have a definition of who is allowed to participate. But to participate through elections, voters must be sufficiently moderately informed. So you need media for that. You need universities. But it is an individual model that fits in within a market model where people also make individual choices on the market. We must move towards a model where there is more room for collective.
That is what Kees Klomp calls the municipalities, for example. There are societies like China where the collective already plays a more important role. There are also societies that have difficulty with our concept of democracy. And I think that we have to look for new forms of democracy and new forms of organising society. That is part of this transition, of this deep transition. It is also about the current political order. The international order, for example, is also completely built on nation states. You have decisions taken at the level of a country and then we have a kind of addition where nation states negotiate with each other, they are then embedded, but it has to be implemented by the nation state. We have to move towards local forms of democracy, but also more power for certain issues at supranational institutions. So actually we have to position that new world order much better. And there is far too little thought given to how that should be, because people want to hold on to and maintain the current world order. But that is not maintainable.
Cees van Lotringen: Let’s take the global South, so the countries that are former colonies. They no longer believe in our model at all. They actually think it’s a corrupt model.
Johan Schot: I think we have to accept that our model of reality is no longer an export product. Our most successful export product has been that you have to be a nation state. You have to have free elections. Only then are you a really good country. And we have exported that. And we are at the end of an era in which we can export that. So we need new forms of political organisation, where there is indeed room for solving long-term problems. And I don’t know exactly what that should look like. I only know that it will take a longer period. We were just talking about the length of transitions. I don’t think we are going to solve the problems in five years. This is a process of a hundred years. But we have to move towards a new organisation of the economy. It is a process. Look, when the industrial revolution started, it only concerned 5% of the economy. Only much later did it concern the entire economy. So you’re actually building the new, within an old system. And that new is continually expanding. And if we don’t go fast enough, then we get shocks and those shocks are going to accelerate that process.
Cees van Lotringen: You’re actually saying that what we’re seeing now in California, those enormous fires. That’s a blessing in disguise. Because it supports the realisation and insight that we can’t move forward this way and that the damage is therefore only getting bigger. And that these shocks hold up a mirror to show us our future the existence if we continue on this path.
Johan Schot: I would never call it a blessing because it is not a blessing. No, it is not something we welcome. It is something that if we don’t change, we must prepare for. And it is also something that we can study scientifically. For example, I work a lot with investors. Investors who have to look to the future because they make investments that they have to cash in on in the future. And in their scenarios of the future, for example, they hardly take wars into account. And as a historian I always say to them: name a period in history where there were no wars. Those big shocks, such as wars, they are not likely, they will come, they are certain.
Cees van Lotringen: Yes and we are of course very fixated on economic growth and we always assume that even if there is a corona crisis, we will eventually return to the growth path. But we are increasingly coming to the insight that in the second half of this century it could well be that global GDP will halve. I don’t know if it’s true, but in any case, the problems are becoming so great that we should actually no longer expect growth but a decline.
Johan Schot: Well, you have to keep in mind that all activities that are needed to absorb the consequences of a shock are positive for economic growth. Currently, there are a lot of harmful activities that count for economic growth. So we are actually measuring economic growth incorrectly. Secondly, it is about distribution. So, per person it is going down, but it may still be the case that a large group of people benefits. So who exactly bears that reduction.
Eventually, as I see it, we can change our course. The industrial revolution led to such oppression, poverty and inequality problems that eventually the elite agreed to do something about it.
Cees van Lotringen: Yes, you have the American author Peter Turchin. He described, for example, how this kind of conflict goes. And certainly when social inequality becomes too great. Then it escalates at some point. Do you see that danger specifically in America now?
Johan Schot: Yes, that danger is enormous in America, and already visible. Right now it’s only Trump that knows how to mobilise that because the Democrats don’t actually have a good alternative story, not even what they stand for. They partly want to keep the same story as Trump, but slightly adapted. It’s also true that we have to understand that people are also stuck in the old frame, so they may want and they also believe in what Trump says. It’s not easy. It is not just a matter of a different story. Americans have to start believing in it and they have to see examples.
Cees van Lotringen: I think we are coming to an end of our chat. So I want to ask you my last question. A recent report by Triodos, which was carried out by Motivaction, states they see the tipping points in the transition getting closer. How do you look at that from all the research that you have done? Is that realistic? Certainly if you take sixty years as a starting point, Are we there yet?
Johan Schot: It’s plural tipping points. We’ve also done research on that and also developed a method to measure those tipping points. But I see that for the energy transition there is a tipping point. We are close but not everywhere in the world, for example in China, we are furthest along with that. I don’t see it yet for the food transition. I don’t see it yet for the mobility transition either. So in terms of the entire economy, I don’t see it yet that we are very close. But there are what we call pockets where that is the case. But that’s how change happens. Change starts small and scales up. What I do find interesting is that the report also says that lifestyle is potentially an issue. That people realise that what they eat (and such) is not good and that the willingness to do something about it is increasing. That’s very important. Because that provides a feed for those alternative practices. It’s enormously important.
Cees van Lotringen: Oh maybe one last question that I always ask my guests. Imagine that I have the idea to write a new narrative for a new era. What do you think, with your knowledge and expertise, should be in such a book?
Johan Schot: Well, that should be about a journey into the past to show how the world as it exists now was actually a specific choice. So the world could have looked different. And there are also examples of a world without a car. Very easy to imagine. And we’re not locked into an existing solution. And the other part of the book would be a journey into the future, describing what kind of beautiful, wonderful futures are possible with sustainability. So it’s not just about less. It’s about different.
Cees van Lotringen: Well, I think that’s a nice conclusion. Johan Schot, professor at the University of Utrecht and specialised in world history and sustainable transitions. Many thanks for this conversation! I would like to inform the listener that he can listen to this and other podcasts on the website in search of the new story or on your favorite podcast channel!