On the polder
In this episode we explore how to reframe everyday politics from a strictly pragmatic view…
Driving southward from Amsterdam towards Utrecht, I notice a large set of buildings off to the side of the motorway. Some government department, by the look of it. Oh yes, that’s it: Rijkswaterstaat, ‘Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management’. But also something to do with roads, judging by the de-icing trucks and other stuff like that that I’ve seen along the roads with their logo on. Odd. And then I remember that, to the Dutch, roads are basically just canals on dry land. So yeah, it does make sense. In a practical sense, at the least.
It’s there in the background in so much of Dutch culture: water dominates everything. Further east, almost every small town is built around its own port: it’s only in the past century that roads have really become a practical means to move goods around. And out on the polder, the need to manage water in the right way is where so much of Dutch politics came from, because for everyone out there it’s literally a matter of life and death.
The fundamental fact of the polder is that it’s land that’s below sea-level:
So if you’re farming out on the polder, you’ll have to get rid of any excess rainwater and so on somehow, because it won’t flow out to the sea on its own. But the only place you can put that water is on your neighbour’s farm; and the only place that she can put it is on her neighbour’s farm, along with all of her excess water too. (Or dump all of it back on your farm, of course.) And that problem will ripple - literally - all the way across the entire polder. So it doesn’t matter whether they follow a different religion to you, or a different politics, or even if you hate each other or whatever, you’ll still have to find some way to work together about this - because if don’t, you’re all going underwater. To quote a Wikipedia article on this:
Ever since the Middle Ages, when the process of land reclamation began, different societies living in the same polder have been forced to cooperate because without unanimous agreement on shared responsibility for maintenance of the dykes and pumping stations, the polders would have flooded and everyone would have suffered. Crucially, even when different cities in the same polder were at war, they still had to cooperate in this respect. This is thought to have taught the Dutch to set aside differences for a greater purpose.
Yet it’s not just the polder now: with climate-change and suchlike, we’re facing much the same kinds of issues everywhere, often at literally global scale.
So how did they do it? How did they make it work? We need to find out how this is done…
There are two key things that sit right at the core of this: responsibilities, and governance.
There are several key things that are not at the core of this: rights, religion, politics and suchlike. It’s really not about those things at all. In fact, if any of these do come into the picture, there’s a real risk that everything will fall apart.
Instead, it’s always strictly pragmatic. It’s about tasks that everyone needs to do - and, because there are real-world consequences if we don’t do them, about what needs to happen if we don’t do them.
For example, all over the polder, there’ll be drain-channels to guide any excess water away:
But if those channels aren’t kept clear, the water can’t drain away, which can cause a flood, or damage people’s crops or houses. So if there’s a drain-channel on your land, you’re responsible to keep it clear. And that burden of work is considered fair and reasonable, because the same applies to everyone, and because if you take on the land, you also take on the responsibilities for that land.
And then there are the tasks that are too big for one person - things like building and maintaining the dykes, building and dredging the canals, the roadways, the larger bridges, the big pumps, and all the other infrastructure that makes it all work:
Those are everyone’s responsibility, working together, one way or another. Sometimes the work itself may be handled by some specialist - in part that’s where the Rijkswaterstaat came into the story, way back in 1798. But even if the task might have be handed over to someone else, the responsibility for that task ultimately remains with the polder community - otherwise, again, everyone on the polder is going to end up underwater.
Yet what happens if you can’t do that responsibility? - for example, if you’re ill, or you’ve broken your leg, or some other way that you’re unable to work? Well, that’s when there’s a social obligation on others to help you do it, because it’s in everyone’s interest that that work gets done. But that also means that there’s then an obligation on you to help others in the same way when it’s needed - a bit like the tradition of barn-raising in the US, for example - though in this case there’s a bit more urgency because it’ll definitely be in your interest that that work gets done.
What happens if you don’t have the competence - the literal ‘response-ability’ - to do the task? You’re a newcomer to the polder, for example, or a teenager coming into adulthood. You may well be keen and willing to do it, but if you don’t know what’s involved and how to do it right, you’re likely to be more of a hindrance than a help. That’s when there’s a responsibility on the community that you get the practical training and education that you need: that you get the right help from the experts to show you what to do, how to do it, and why. If that doesn’t happen, then through no real fault of your own, there’s a real risk that you could cause everyone to end up underwater - so yes, it’ll definitely be in everyone’s interest that you can do that task, and do it right.
What happens if you won’t do the task? - for example, that you demand it’s your ‘right’ to take all the benefits but reject all responsibility, in classic libertarian form? Well, that’s when things can get complicated, because whether we like it or not, we’re going to need some governance here…
It’s not about politics in the usual sense: it’s purely about pragmatics, all of it driven by the physical facts of the polder, nothing else. The polder is below sea-level; there are necessary tasks; if we don’t do those tasks, everyone’s going to go underwater; and if we don’t share those tasks fairly, the community is going to fall apart, people will stop doing the tasks, and, again, everyone will go underwater. Out on the polder, our libertarian is basically just a freeloader - and that attitude literally cannot be tolerated for long out there, because it leads to steeply-increasing risk that everyone will go underwater.
Historically, what most communities have done in that kind of context is to appoint someone to help manage and resolve these kinds of issues. A role somewhere between of the reeve, the bailiff, the water-bailiff - something like that. Inspect the area to see that each task has been done. If not, first find out why. If it’s because they can’t do it, arrange for assistance or education. If it’s because they won’t do it, that’s when sanctions start to apply. And if they still insist on playing the ‘I have a right to be a freeloader!’ card, well, that’s when it gets to be time to say goodbye: if they can’t abide by the survival-rules of the polder, they can’t abide on the polder either. Abstract, arbitrary, ultimately-indefensible notions of ‘property-rights’ and the like must necessarily go out of the window when the livelihoods and lives of everyone (including their own) are put at risk in that way.
There’s a lot more detail, of course, but that’s basically how it works in the polder: a pragmatic basis for governance, and ultimately a pragmatic basis for government as well. It does scale quite well too. This does suggest that it might be useful to explore this more, given the challenges coming our way right now at a fully global scale.
There’s only one problem with the polder-model for which I can’t yet see a solution. On the polder, if someone refuses to accept their responsibilities, they may get kicked off the polder - of necessity, as seen above. It shouldn’t matter much: after all, relative to the polder, there’s always somewhere else to go. But what happens when the metaphoric polder we’re living on is the entire planet, and there isn’t anywhere else to go? Tricky…