Kristian Niemietz is the IEA’s Editorial Director and Head of Political Economy
Wutknopfargument (literally ‘rage button argument’) is one of those absurdly specific, highly abstract yet at the same time ultra-precise German words that cannot be translated into English; it can, at best, be clumsily explained.
A Wutknopfargument is an argument which challenges a core element of a particular worldview, in ways which reliably make proponents of that worldview explode with rage. To them, it is not simply an argument which they disagree with. It is an argument which they have heard too many times before, which they believe they have already thoroughly refuted, which they think has no merit whatsoever, and which they no longer have the patience to address. They are convinced that, at this stage, anyone who still brings up that argument must be either moronic, or malevolent.
For Keynesians, the Wutknopfargument is any argument that involves a comparison between the government budget and a household budget. Ask a Keynesian something like ‘But haven’t we already maxed out the nation’s credit card?’, and see what happens.
For proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), the Wutknopfargument is any variation of ‘But how are we going to afford this?’, ‘Isn’t there a risk that the government will go bankrupt?’, or ‘But won’t this be inflationary?’.
For Marxists, any variation of ‘But your ideas have been tried in the Soviet Union/North Korea/Maoist China/Cuba/Albania/..., and they failed’ will do the trick.
Now, if you are planning to visit a German-speaking country any time soon, please do not drop that word into a conversation in order to appear clever. Because it doesn’t actually exist. I just made it up while writing this article. Why? Because I can get away with that sort of thing, that’s why. And I know that you fell for it.
But while the word does not exist, the concept definitely does. For Extinction Rebellion/Just Stop Oil/Greta Thunberg-type climate change activists, the argument that pushes their rage button is that Britain contributes less than 1 per cent to global CO2 emissions. They hate that argument like nothing else in the world. If they had to choose between stopping climate change, and stopping people from saying that Britain doesn’t contribute much to climate change, they wouldn’t undoubtedly choose the latter.
The reason why it enrages them so much is that they see it as, at best, a form of petty-mindedness, and at worst, an excuse for inaction. Individually, it is true of most countries that they only contribute a small share to global emissions. It is just that, if everyone pointed the finger elsewhere, nobody would ever do anything. At some point, you just have to grasp the nettle, and lead by example.
As it happens, I actually agree that sometimes, the best response to a coordination problem is to simply start acting in a cooperative way unilaterally, even if there is a good chance that others will not reciprocate. Litter-picking initiatives in a neglected park are a good example. In a park where, for whatever reason, rules on littering cannot be enforced, cleanliness becomes a coordination problem. We may all prefer the park to be cleaner, but individually, none of us have a huge impact on the total amount of litter in it. If the park is tidy to begin with, most of us will tidy up after ourselves, because we know that most other people will do the same.
However, if the park is full of litter, you may wonder: why should I clean up after myself if nobody else does? What difference does it make? Thus, the park has a high-litter and a low-litter equilibrium, and a clean-up initiative is an attempt to switch it from the former to the latter. Sometimes, someone just needs to take that first step, even if they could reasonably argue that this is not their responsibility.
One of the things that Thunbergistas don’t understand, though, is that there are many things in between ‘Doing nothing while waiting for everyone else to act’, and ‘Doing everything unilaterally and unconditionally, with zero regard for either the cost or the effectiveness’. The former is a flawed strategy, yes. But it does not at all follow that one should therefore swing all the way to the opposite extreme.
My own rage button argument is the claim that we are currently ‘doing nothing’ on decarbonisation. It is so obviously completely untrue. We are doing a huge amount on decarbonisation, we have been doing so for over thirty years, and we are unilaterally imposing a huge cost on ourselves.
Climate change entered mainstream political discourse in the 1990s, and climate policy discourse still reflects a 1990s world. Let’s take 1992, the year when the first international agreement on climate change was adopted, as a benchmark. In 1992, high-income countries still accounted for two thirds of the world’s carbon emissions. The US emitted twice as much CO2 as China; Germany emitted more than India and Pakistan taken together, and the UK emitted about as much as the whole of South America. Under those circumstances, it made sense for environmentalists in high-income countries to say: why don’t we take the first step? Why don’t we do this unilaterally at first?
And we have done precisely that. We pretend that we haven’t, but we have. Since 1992, (what is now) the EU-27 has cut its carbon emissions by a third, and the UK by almost half. Global emissions, however, have almost doubled over the same period. Our relative contribution has therefore tumbled. The EU-27 now contributes less than 7 per cent to global emissions, and the UK, as mentioned, less than 1 per cent. China accounts for almost a third, and India for more than 8 per cent.
If you mention this to a climate activist, what they will hear is ‘I don’t care about climate change, and I don’t want to do anything that inconveniences me’. My radical proposal for them would be: why not just take that statement at face value for a moment, rather than speculate about the motives of the person saying it? When somebody says ‘The UK contributes less than 1 per cent to global CO2 emissions’, why not just take that as ‘The UK contributes less than 1 per cent to global CO2 emissions’? It’s true regardless of how it may be ‘politically coded’, and it dramatically weakens the case for unilaterally imposing ever-greater costs on ourselves.
Again, there are many things in between ‘Doing nothing’ and ‘Doing everything unilaterally and unconditionally’. Here’s what I would do, at this stage. I would use the UK Emissions Trading Scheme to cap annual emission in such a way that the UK’s share of global emissions equals its share of the global population; in other words, I would cap the UK’s per capita emissions at the global average.
The UK currently has just under 70m inhabitants, which is 0.84 per cent of the world’s population. The world as a whole currently emits 38.6bn tonnes of CO2 per year, so under my scheme, the UK would commit to keeping its emissions at or below 0.84 per cent of that level, which is 324m tonnes.
As it happens, the UK’s actual emissions are 313m tonnes, which is marginally below my suggested cap. So, if introduced today, there would be no immediate change, other than a marginal increase in UK emissions.
From then on, however, the UK could depart radically from the currently envisaged Net Zero trajectory. My system would operationalise the reciprocity principle: we will if you will. If the rest of the world (or at least, large-enough parts of it) made an effort to decarbonise, so would Britain. If the rest of the world did not, Britain would not either. If Britain’s sacrifices make no meaningful difference to the climate, then under my system, Britain would not make them.
That’s not ‘doing nothing’ – far from it. It’s about doing nothing stupid, for a change.
What we’re reading
Glorious findings. Over at Works in Progress, Kara Dimitruk and Ben Southwood have made the case that key institutional preconditions for the Industrial Revolution were not simply stronger property rights or constitutional government, but the ability of post-Glorious Revolution England to reorganise rigid and fragmented property rights. Parliament passed thousands of acts to consolidate land, lower costs, increase productivity and create integrated markets.
The kids aren’t alright. Mani Basharzad, an IEA junior research associate, has written for CityAM on why Andy Burnham’s solution of using public contracts and government incentives is not the right way to tackle the youth unemployment crisis. Businesses are already labouring under higher costs thanks to Labour policies. Instead of subsidising hiring or attaching additional conditions to public procurement, ministers should seek to cut takes on work and simplify rules.
NEET ideas? Paul Collier has also tackled the NEET (not in education, employment or training) crisis for the New Statesman. He suggests it cannot be solved through a single policy as it reflects multiple, overlapping failures in education, healthcare, welfare and labour market. Collier’s solutions may not appeal as much to Economic Affairs readers, requiring a preventative, cross-government approach, more education and long-term institutional interventions.
The innocence of youth. Completing our Burnham-NEET trifecta, Matthew Bowles has been in The Critic on this topic. Like Basharzad, he argues that Burnham’s solutions rely too heavily on government intervention, warning that local leaders have limited powers to reverse rising costs caused by national policies. He condemns our Prime Minister-to-be for unveiling an ambitious agenda without the ‘toolbox’ of fiscal and legislative tools needed to realise it.
Mulling over Moldova. Something completely different. Pimlico Journal has a travelogue from Moldova – a “post-Soviet time capsule” hanging between a Soviet past and an uncertain European future. Manty of the economic, political and social structures of the USSR have endured, meaning that the country remains uniquely frozen in time. Reform is frustrated by corruption, oligarchic policies and geopolitical pressures – a study in how not to escape path dependence.
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Like your logic. However I think you are using national emissions data. National consumption data, so adjusting for imports and exports, is probably better. Takes the UK from being just below the global average to above.