Why I Hate the Tories

I am from a Labour party supporting background, raised in local authority housing, schooled and paid for and maintained in higher education by the same municipality, a Labour run council. My dad was a shop steward in the engineering union too, so it’s no surprise then that I have never even considered supporting the Tory party. It always seemed to me that the Tories did not represent my interests, rather they are the party of the wealthy establishment and the ‘bosses.’ 

I was 17 when Margaret Thatcher became Tory prime minister in 1979, and I remember being furious that I was not allowed to vote in that election, when older people, who I considered ignorant of politics were. Thatcher set about destroying the political post second world war consensus, often referred to as ‘welfare capitalism.’ The welfare state, which had served me and others like me so well, was consigned to dust bin of history and replaced with rampant individualism, privatisation of public assets, the neutering of trade unions, tax cuts for the rich, promoting inequality and a nasty patriotism bordering on jingoism.

Through the following 18 long years, first with Thatcher as leader, then John Major, all of these things came to pass, turning the country into a neo-liberal front runner in the process. Communities that were once characterised by social solidarity, like mining communities, turned into barren wastelands, where good jobs were scarce and money hard to come by. An attitude of ‘bugger everyone else, me, me, me, reigned in place of the old esprit de corps.

I can still remember vividly election night in 1997, when the Tories were spectacularly booted out of office, with big political names losing their seats, culminating in arch Thatcherite Michael Portillo losing a pretty safe majority in his constituency. The night just kept getting better. But Thatcher had managed to change the Labour party into a paler shade of the Tories, and we didn’t have to wait long for the disappointment to manifest itself with the New Labour government. The essentially neo-liberal policies continued, with a few of the rougher edges smoothed off.

The final straw for me was the Iraq war, when I decided that I could no longer vote for the Labour party, and a year or so later, I joined the Green party. It wasn’t an easy decision given my background, but I felt that Labour no longer represented my interests and I was becoming increasingly alarmed by climate change.

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour party in 2015, it does now look more like its old self, although not nearly as left wing as the right wing media would have you believe. Labour does though offer an alternative to the type of policies that been inflicted on the country for the last forty years.

The Tories of course made a comeback in 2010, and we have suffered a further nine years of their misrule, aided and abetted by first by the Lib Dems and then with the bigots of the DUP. A new nastiness has been a feature of the current Tory government, with the disgraceful demonisation of benefit claimants, and a cruel regime of sanctions on the most vulnerable in our society. The numbers of rough sleepers has rocketed and local authority budgets have been slashed leaving them only as procurers of some, mainly statutory, public services. 

This will get even worse if the Tories are re-elected, with the prospect of the NHS being sold off to US corporations, a removal of employment and environmental protections, and sub-standard regulations on the food we eat. It is the only way we will be ‘competitive’ once we leave the EU, if we do.  

Wages in the public sector have fallen in real terms by something like £5,000 per year, per person since 2010, when the fetish for austerity was inflicted by the Tories on the nation. A policy that has made matters worse, since the national debt has almost doubled over the last nine years, whilst the Tories talk of ‘sound money’ and ‘economic competence’ but the facts speak for themselves. The country has been screwed, but the wealthy continue to get richer.

And then there is Brexit. There was no clamour for a referendum on leaving the European Union (EU) in the country, only in the Tory party. UKIP never won a Parliamentary election, other than Tory defectors. The Tories latest austerity policies, together with the neo-liberal ethos introduced by Thatcher and continued by New Labour, by and large, led to the feeling that the referendum was seen by many as a golden opportunity to ‘stick it up the establishment,’ and of course this was enough to produce a vote to leave the EU.

The handling of Brexit has been a textbook exercise in rank incompetence, as the in-fighting in the Tory party continues with its obsession with the EU, while the country sees a spike in hate crimes. The Tories don’t care about the country though, only their own fixation with Europe.

So there you have it. An uncaring party which screws the poorest to benefit the richest people. Why people with little or nothing to ‘conserve’ ever vote for them is a complete mystery to me, but even if I was rich, there is no way I could vote for these mendacious bastards. Like 1979 the forthcoming General Election is a water shed election. Do whatever it takes to kick the Tories out on December 12.   

Principles for a Global Green New Deal

Written by Simon Maxwell and first published at Simon Maxwell.eu

Climate change is the defining issue of our time. From that perspective, a Green New Deal is an enticing prospect; a Global Green New Deal much more so. Even Joe Stiglitz says so. Hang on, though. There are two big problems - and a lot of work for us to do.

The first problem is that ‘New Deal’ and ‘Green New Deal’ appear to be portmanteau terms, signalling a desire to make progress on a range of economic, social and environmental fronts, but encompassing many different pathways.

To take just one example, the US Congress Resolution on a Green New Deal sponsored by Alexandria Orcasio Cortes (AOC), and currently in Committee, makes no mention of nationalisation; the UK Labour Party Conference Resolution (UKLP), entitled a Socialist Green New Deal, commits to take energy and rail into public ownership. It is certainly a good thing that the precise configuration of policy should adapt to local circumstance. But a sceptic might conclude that the portmanteaux open to reveal very different sets of clothes. I will have more to say later on a comparison of AOC and the Labour Party.

The second problem is that very few of the new deal options on offer deal satisfactorily with the interdependencies associated with a truly global transition. Developing countries should be provided with finance and technology to support their own domestic transitions, yes; but rarely is there a serious discussion of limits to global growth, global redistribution, the constraints on trade-led development, or the competitive pressures a new deal might unleash. There is a risk that some developing countries will be left floundering and disadvantaged as rich countries adjust.

These two problems lay down a challenge: to design a framework for a truly global but locally appropriate green new deal. That is no easy task, and will need a collaborative effort, but here are some thoughts to kick us off. The focus is on climate change. In brief,

There are technical and policy issues hidden within the global climate framework, to which developing countries need to be alert. Developed countries cannot continue to offshore emissions, and need to take responsibility for faster, deeper cuts in both their national emissions and total footprint. Cuts will need to be even faster, if burden-sharing is to allow some room for short-term emissions growth in poorer countries. And proposals to off-set emissions need careful analysis.

The term Green New Deal can, as noted, be a portmanteau term, covering a range of policies and approaches. Having a range of preoccupations is positive, if it means that policy-makers consider the full implications of action on climate change: the transition costs, for example, the lifestyle implications, and the impact on losers. However, is it necessary to distinguish the ‘climate must-haves’ from the ‘climate like-to-haves’? The issue of different approaches is more complicated. A ‘Socialist Green New Deal’ will perforce differ from a market-based Green New Deal. A key lesson: assess proposals on a New Green Deal in wider philosophical or ideological context.
     

A Global Green New Deal is not just about adding up a series of national transitions. It needs to address the issue of who has the right to emit within limited carbon budgets, and the spill-over effects of one country’s actions on another. The ‘entry-level package’ is about finance and technology transfer, but other questions about growth and trade need to be central. So far, coverage of those is insufficient.
   

A collective effort is needed to define the parameters of a Global Green New Deal, a Brain Trust for the twenty-first century, drawing on expertise in both North and South, and from both the development and climate communities. Experimentation will be the order of the day. However, three tests can be applied.  Is climate action SDG compatible, maximising synergies and avoiding making the achievement of other SDGs harder? Is it bottom-up, building climate compatible development planning into national strategies? And does it recognise the urgency of climate action?

On climate change

First, then, climate change may be the defining issue of our time, but there are some serious cracks in current approaches. We know that a rapid reduction in emissions is needed globally, faster than ever because so much time has been wasted. The UN Environment Emissions Gap Report summarises the data. Emissions are still rising, by over 1% a year, when they should be falling. The latest estimates are that reductions amounting to over 50% are needed from 2020-2030 if the world is to be on a least cost pathway to 1.5 degree warming. That compares to a globally leading 2% a year in the UK since 1990.

The current national pledges only promise about a tenth of what is needed to 2030. And meanwhile, as many as seven G20 countries are not on track to meet even those modest commitments. It is not surprising that the spotlight is shining on the revisions countries will make to their Nationally Determined Contributions in 2020: how many will pledge to reach net zero, and by when? The UN Secretary General called for countries to commit to net zero by 2050.  The pressure is on from Groups like Extinction Rebellion, who want net zero by 2025.  The climate talks in Glasgow at the end of next year will be pivotal.

Behind those headlines lie some deep problems. Some are technical. For example, the Integrated Assessment Models used in calculating least cost pathways do not take account of the impact of extreme weather events. If those were endogenised, then the rates of reduction required would be even higher.  Similarly, the cost of deviating from the least-cost pathway needs to be factored in, including costs associated with the increased frequency and severity of droughts, floods, storms and sea level rise. There also needs to be very careful analysis of the negative net emission requirements of some models, dependent on technologies which do not yet exist or have not yet been proved at commercial scale.

Other issues go to the heart of the policy-making process which drives the global climate negotiations.

One issue concerns how imported and exported emissions are to be handled, when most developed countries consume more than they produce, and most developing countries produce more than they consume. Is it right that the UK, for example, should be able to claim success in reducing emissions, when one key reason is that nearly half of the carbon the UK ‘consumes’ is generated in other countries in the process of making the goods we import – and this has risen, not fallen? 

Should the carbon content of these imports be removed from, say, the China account, and entered on the UK account? It is a mystery that footprints do not feature more prominently at the UNFCCC, and elsewhere – though attention is beginning to be paid to imported emissions, and associated questions of measurement, reporting, certification, regulation and taxation.

Another issue which dares not speak its name, apparently, is whether poor countries have a right to increase emissions, at least in the short term, because they have not contributed in the past to the high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Today, not surprisingly, rich countries emit more per capita than poor ones, even allowing for the fact that some of their contribution is off-shored to countries like China. The global average is about 7 tons/capita. 

However, the US has emissions of 20 tons/capita, Russia about 17, China about 9, the EUEuropean Union 28 about 9, but India only about 3. Meanwhile, India has a per capita income in PPP terms of about $US 8,000, the EUEuropean Union $US 44,000, and US $US 63,000. If a fair ‘burden-sharing’ approach allowed India to increase emissions, as it would, then developed countries would have to cut faster to compensate. Averchenkova and colleagues explored this issue in 2014.

They concluded that burden-sharing approaches ‘are likely to be unrealistic in terms of political economy because they fail to take into account the national self-interest of countries through consideration of national benefits of climate action’. A better approach would be to focus on the benefits of climate action for all countries. Nevertheless, ‘‘burden-sharing’ could help to provide an initial assessment of domestic commitments . . .’.

The COP in Glasgow will not resolve the technical or policy issues hidden within the global climate framework, but developing countries need to be alert to the consequences. In particular, they need to demand much more ambitious plans from developed countries, including with respect to their overall footprints. They will need to review commitments to carbon neutrality, be alert to the difference between ‘zero’ and ‘net zero’, look carefully at offset options, and probably be sceptical if commitments are made which require negative emissions later in the century. They will want to review burden-sharing options in terms of the global carbon budget. And they will certainly want to make sure that the costs of preparing for and responding to extreme weather events are properly considered.

On the elements of a Green New Deal

The all-encompassing nature of current new deal proposals has origins in the diverse package of measures put in place during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s original New Deal, in 1933-34 and again in 1935-36. Covering Relief, Recovery and Reform, the package included major public works, but also trade liberalisation, financial sector reform, labour rights, and social security. The package was informed by the work of a Brain Trust (think-tanks take note!) and evolved over time, as some measures worked and some did not (c.f. Adaptive Development!).

Interestingly, the programme did not rely heavily on deficit spending: federal expenditure remained at about 3% of GDPGross Domestic Product through the 1930s, and only rose (to 40% of GDP) when the US entered the Second World War. It is also interesting to note that the programme was highly political, in the sense of being contested at different points and on different issues from both right and left. And it ran into many legal problems in the Supreme Court. Key issues included federal versus state expenditure, the power of big business, income and wealth distribution, balanced budgets, segregation, tariffs, and rural versus urban interests: a normal day at the office, then, or in FDR’s case, a normal decade plus, in the life of any Government leader.

The idea of a Green New Deal has its origins in the financial crisis of 2008, over ‘comfort food and wine’, in the flat of Ann Pettifor, and with the participation of other left-of-centre and green thinkers. The first manifesto, published in July 2008, described a ‘triple crunch . . a combination of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, accelerating climate change and soaring energy prices, underpinned by an encroaching peak in oil production’. 

It proposed ‘two main strands. First, . . .  a structural transformation of the regulation of national and international financial systems, and major changes to taxation systems. And, second, . . . a sustained programme to invest in and deploy energy conservation and renewable energies, coupled with effective demand management.’ Specific measures included investment in renewable energy, insulation of homes, higher fossil fuel prices, and a series of financial measures, including a clamp-down on tax havens, and de-merger of banking and financial groups.

In the years since 2008, the Green New Deal Group itself has made further proposals, and there have been many others. Ann Pettifor has a new book on the Green New Deal, for example, as does Naomi Klein. Google has 15 million results for “Green New Deal”. As an illustration of the range of policies on offer, and no more than that, I have compared the AOC and UKLP versions. A side-by-side comparison can be found here. Both are ambitious and wide-ranging, with considerable overlap, but many points of difference, and some important omissions:

Both aim for net zero emissions by 2050, but with AOC including all Greenhouse Gases, and the UK Labour party only CO2. At the Labour Party Conference, there was a debate about adding the word ‘net’, with labour unions wanting protection for industrial jobs.  

Both speak of a just transition. In the case of AOC, this is ‘for all communities and workers’, and with a special focus on groups described as ‘frontline and vulnerable communities’. In the case of UKLP, there is an explicit commitment to ‘a workers-. . . (and) state-led programme of investment and regulation, based on public ownership and democratic control, . . .  that reduces inequality and . . .the cost of which would be borne by the wealthiest not the majority’.   

Both lay out ambitious plans for infrastructure, energy and transport. In the case of AOC, the priority is investment in renewable capacity and energy efficiency, combined with repair and upgrading of infrastructure. In the case of UKLP, the plan is similar, but with the addition of public ownership of energy, and taking ‘transport into public ownership and invest in expanded, integrated, free or affordable green public transport’.     

In terms of industry, agriculture, and jobs, both envisage significant greening, including renewal of ecosystems. Both are optimistic about jobs and the potential to reverse regional imbalances. AOC, for example, calls for ‘ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition’. It goes on to argue that the Green New Deal should include ‘guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States’.   

• On social provision more generally, both include an element of protection for workers’ rights, including unionisation, and both lay out a wider agenda on services, including (AOC) health care and housing, and (UKLP) ‘universal services’.
     
• On trade, an important difference is that AOC calls for ‘trade rules, procurement standards and border adjustments with strong labour and environmental protections’. It says nothing about imported emissions. UKLP, on the other hand, does not reference trade rules, but does say it is important to ‘measure and tackle consumption emissions, not just those produced on UK soil’. It also references migration, which AOC does not.                                                                                                                                                                  
• Neither document has much to say about carbon pricing (on which see the report of the High Level Commission), and neither explores in any detail what ‘net’ emissions might mean, for example by referencing offset options under the Clean Development Mechanism or its successor, the Sustainable Development Mechanism. Neither has much to say about lifestyle issues, including diet (on which see, for example, the EAT-Lancet Report on Food, Planet, Health, or the recent IPCC Special Report on land). Neither discusses fiscal issues in any detail, including the overall cost and sources of financing. And neither has much to say about the rest of the world – in the sense of understanding what will be the impact on trade of climate actions elsewhere, or how we might work together on new technology. 

It would not be fair to AOC or UKLP to consider these resolutions as final and definitive policy platforms. The UK Labour Party, for example, has recently fleshed out proposals to achieve a carbon neutral energy system by 2030. However, the comparison illustrates both the range of preoccupations under the label ‘Green New Deal’, and the fact that different approaches are possible.

Having a range of preoccupations is positive, up to a point, if it means that policy-makers consider the full implications of action on climate change: the transition costs, for example, the lifestyle implications, and the impact on losers. The new commitment in Germany to spend €40 billion to help coal mining areas adjust to the closure of mines is an example of where such thinking can lead. A line of sight needs to be preserved, however. Having a Green New Deal is not an excuse to throw everything on the wish list into the kitchen sink. Is it necessary to distinguish the ‘climate must-haves’ from the ‘climate like-to-haves’?

The issue of different approaches is more complicated. A ‘Socialist Green New Deal’ (copyright UKLP) will perforce differ from a market-based Green New Deal. Nationalisation will be one dividing line. Tax will be another. Regulation versus voluntary codes may be another. There are important arguments, and it is good to have them. They play to wider debates on the future of capitalism: see recent contributions by the likes of Collier, Stiglitz, the IPPRInstitute for Public Policy Research (London) Commission on Prosperity and Justice, and, most recently, Branko Milanovich. A key lesson: assess proposals on a New Green Deal in wider philosophical or ideological context.

On a Global Green New Deal

Entry-level thinking about the global dimension of a green new deal is simply to facilitate transition in every country around the globe. Such thinking is evident, for example, in the AOC call for ‘promoting the international exchange of technology, expertise, products, funding, and services,  . . .  to help other countries achieve a Green New Deal’, and in UKLP to ‘support developing countries’ climate transitions through free or cheap transfers of finance, technology and capacity’.

We know from the work of CDKN and others that this is not enough. Mitigation and adaption at national level are important. But action on climate change, especially in large economies, reverberates around the world, affecting the size of markets for different products, as well as prices, influencing migration flows, and modifying the risk of natural disasters. The effects may be positive or negative: new markets for products like lithium, for example, and new possibilities for industrialisation in producer countries; or, conversely, loss of competitiveness because of the failure to adopt new technology or invest in energy efficiency. 

One piece of recent research suggests that mitigation in rich countries could benefit developing countries in two ways: all would benefit from the reduced cost of extreme weather events, and oil importers could benefit significantly from lower oil prices. By 2050, GDPGross Domestic Product in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique could be between 2 and 6 per cent higher. 

There are also wider questions. For example, as discussed above, the issue of who has a right to emit within the remaining carbon budget. And is global growth sustainable, or should we either be agnostic about growth (Kate Raworth) or think about ‘de-growth’ (Jason Hickel)? Remember that the latest UK Labour Party policy paper on development committed (in 2018) to ‘reducing the importance of growth as an objective for UK-funded development programmes’. The test, then, of work on a Global Green New Deal is whether these issues are taken into account.

There is a stream of work on a global green new deal, though smaller than that on a green new deal: only 74,500 Google hits, compared to 15 million. An early example, perhaps the earliest, is a report coordinated by Edward Barbier for the UN Environment Programme in 2009, ‘Rethinking the Economic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal‘. The main purpose was to insert an environmental element into then discussions about global recovery from the food, fuel and financial crises. A Business as Usual recovery, based on fiscal stimulus, would worsen environmental burdens. Instead, a Global Green New Deal (GGND) would rest on three pillars:

Revive the world economy, create employment opportunities and protect vulnerable groups.

Reduce carbon dependency, ecosystem degradation and water scarcity. 

Further the Millennium Development Goal of ending extreme world poverty by 2015.

The policy package contained many familiar elements: removal of fossil fuel subsidies, retro-fitting buildings, investment in renewable energy, low carbon transport, and payment for ecosystem services, all backed up by increased aid. There were limited proposals on trade and finance, including reducing non-tariff barriers on clean technology. The report concluded that ‘A GGND is not just about creating a greener world economy. It is about ensuring that the correct mix of economic policies, investments and incentives reduce carbon dependency, protect ecosystems and alleviate poverty while fostering economic recovery and creating jobs.

Reviving the world economy is essential, but measures that focus solely on this objective will not achieve lasting success. Only through the national actions and global cooperation envisioned in a GGND will the world sustain its economic recovery by addressing the imminent challenges posed by climate change, energy insecurity, growing freshwater scarcity, deteriorating ecosystems, and above all, worsening global poverty.’

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) also produced a report on a GGND in 2009, ‘A Global Green New Deal for Climate, Energy, and Development’, described as ‘A big push strategy to drive down the cost of renewable energy, ramp up deployment in developing countries, end energy poverty, contribute to economic recovery and growth, generate employment in all countries, and help avoid dangerous climate change’. The main focus was on renewable energy.

I would say that both these reports fail to pass the test of dealing with interlinkages and disruptions on a global scale. Two more recent contributions, respectively from UNCTADUnited Nations Conference on Trade and Development (concentrating on finance) and the World Bank (concentrating on trade) come just a little closer.

The UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) Trade and Development Report for 2019 is sub-titled ‘Financing a Global Green New Deal’. Climate issues are subsumed within a general and familiar narrative about faltering growth, debt dependency, over-financialisation, hyperglobalisation, and looming threats associated with disputes over trade and intellectual property. 

The key idea, though, is that ‘beyond the immediate risks that could stall the global economy are a series of macrostructural challenges that predate the Global Financial Crisis and have gone largely unattended since then. Four stand out because of their high degree of interdependence: the falling income share of labour; the erosion of public spending; the weakening of productive investment; and the unsustainable increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.’

This is classic ‘new deal-ism’, linking issues in order to provide comprehensive solutions. In this case, the key response is to ‘reclaim policy space and act to boost aggregate demand’. Governments must ‘tackle high levels of income inequality head on, adopting more progressive fiscal arrangements, and directly targeting social outcomes through employment creation, decent work programmes and expanded social insurance. 

But they must also spearhead a coordinated investment push, especially towards decarbonization of the economy, both by investing directly (through public sector entities) and by boosting private investment in more productive and sustainable economic activities.’

To support all this, the main focus of UNCTAD’s recommendations are in the area of international finance: coordinated capital controls, action on illicit financial flows, better taxation of multinationals (especially digital), and more and better ‘public banks’.

The 2020 World Development Report on Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains has a chapter on the environment. Its key findings are summarised as follows:

1. Global value chains (GVCs) are a mixed blessing for the environment. Scale effects— which refer to the rapid growth of GVC economic activity—are bad for the environment, whereas composition effects—which refer to how tasks are distributed across the globe— have ambiguous effects. Technique effects—which refer to the environmental cost per unit of production—are positive for the environment. 

2. GVCs are associated with more shipping and more waste in the aggregate than standard trade. Both have environmental costs. 

3. One important concern has been that industries might migrate to jurisdictions where environmental regulations are lax, but that concern is not borne out by the data. Rather, by locating production where it is most efficient, GVCs can lower the net resource intensity of global agricultural production.   

4. The relational aspect of GVCs can attenuate environmental concerns. Knowledge flows between firms can enable the spread of more environmentally friendly production techniques throughout a GVC. The large scale of lead firms in GVCs can accelerate environmental innovation and push for higher standards. 
5. GVCs also facilitate the production of new environmentally friendly goods. Products such as solar panels, electric cars, and wind turbines are produced at lower costs in GVCs and help reduce the environmental costs of consumption.

Other initiatives are worth noting

The C40 cities group have recently declared for a Global Green New Deal, ‘putting inclusive climate action at the centre of all urban decision-making to secure a just transition for those working in high-carbon industries and correct long-running environmental injustices for those disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis – people living in the global south generally, and the poorest communities everywhere’.

On trade and supply chains specifically, many are working on tracking and reporting on carbon emissions along supply chains, with some policy-makers proposing border carbon adjustments, or taxes on imported carbon. Others are working to tackle supply chain sustainability. Examples include the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, the G7 Fashion Pact, and the One Planet Business for Biodiversity Initiative. The UK has set up a Global Resource Initiative task force on greening the UK’s supply chain. Other commitments were made at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit in September 2019.

No doubt there is more to be dug up on the debate about a GGND. It would be sensible, for example, to triangulate with separate debates on Green Growth, Just Transition, or Deep Decarbonisation Pathways. For the time being, though, there remain many gaps.

On the way forward

What comes next? Frankly, it feels like a big ask at this point to set down the content of an alternative Global Green New Deal.

If FDR were still with us, he would no doubt set up a twenty-first century Brain Trust to help adjudicate on the big questions identified above: allocating emission rights, painting a picture of green growth, separating the must-haves from the like-to-haves, and dealing with the global dislocations associated with climate action. This needs voices from both North and South, and from the climate and development communities: really, a new, reinforced CDKN.

FDR would also emphasise that the best is the enemy of the good, and that the way forward is to get started, experiment and learn from experience. Remember that there were 15 Bills passed through Congress in the first 100 days of his first administration, but that not all innovations worked, and not all survived. As a disciple of Robert Chambers, that seems eminently sensible to me: adopt process rather than blueprint planning; start small and grow; embrace failure; etc . .

Nevertheless, there are some principles at stake, some tests of whether a new approach is right:

First, SDG and climate compatible development planning both need to be bottom up, recognising local circumstances. For climate action, I have argued elsewhere that countries need to incorporate climate compatible development into development planning and industrial strategies, beginning with improved country diagnostics. Aid programmes need to follow.

Second, SDG compatibility. Climate change itself is an SDG (Goal 13) and links strongly to others, including SDG 7 on energy. There are wider links to other SDGs, including on income, inequality, democracy, and the like. The SDGs cannot be treated as a simple check-list, however, and it is unrealistic to expect that compatibilities can be found across the board. It seems reasonable to ask that cross-checks be made, that synergies and co-benefits should be maximised and that a kind of ‘do no harm’ principle should apply, that action on climate does not make achieving other SDGs more difficult.

Third, urgency. The UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) Emissions Gap Reports make clear how fast and deep emissions cuts need to be to 2030 if Paris temperature targets are to be reached on the least cost pathway. Commitments to zero or net zero by 2050 imply continued, sustained effort, well beyond the potential quick wins like closing down coal. Will proposals for a Global Green New Deal be able to demonstrate that emissions globally will fall at the required pace?

The UK General Election is a Crucial Crossroads for Greens

Written by Allan Todd

“So, let’s draw out the connections between the gig economy, which treats human beings like a raw material from which to extract wealth and then discard, and the dig economy, in which the extractive companies treat the earth with the very same disdain.”

Naomi Klein, On Fire: The Burning Case For A Green New Deal (2019)

“May you live in interesting times!” is said to be an ancient Chinese curse. Whatever its origins, it makes the point that the ‘uninteresting’ periods in History are the safest ones to live through: those with no wars, no famines, no economic crises, and no destructive natural disasters.

With that in mind, it's painfully clear that we’re certainly living in ‘interesting’ times! At present, the 99% are victims of an increasingly harsh, exploitative and destructive neoliberalism - or what Naomi Klein describes as a ‘gig and dig economy’.

One other thing that is also increasingly clear is that the next general election - whether it comes before or after Christmas - will be the most crucial one we’ve had for more than a generation: crucial for the UK as a whole, and crucial, too, for the Green Party. It will also be crucial for me.

For the UK

“Austerity does not promote growth or reduce deficits - it is bad economics. It is also a public health disaster. It is not an exaggeration to call it economic murder.”

Prof. L. King, Cambridge University, 2017.

What is beyond doubt is that, since Johnson became prime minister, we are facing a neoliberal Tory government even more vicious than the Thatcher governments of the 1980s. One of the most disturbing factors is that, prior to becoming PM, Johnson had several meetings with Bannon, one of Trump’s erstwhile advisers. Just like, after becoming Leader of the Tories in 1975, Thatcher and her team held many meetings, in the years running up to 1979, with ‘New Right’ ideologues from the USA.

Thus Johnson wasted no time in appointing a hard-right cabal as the core of his government. Johnson, and the likes of Rees-Mogg and Gove, have been calling for years for the destruction of all that EU ‘red tape’ that binds the free market with workers’ and consumers’ rights and environmental protections. Which is precisely why those rights and protections have been taken out of the legally binding Withdrawal Agreement and, instead, placed in the non-binding Political Statement:

The Tory hard-right cabal

As well as wanting a hard Brexit in general terms, it is now clear that our NHS will be on the table in any post-Brexit trade talks with the US. In addition, Johnson’s government will almost certainly continue supporting the dirty energy companies - including those wanting to roll out fracking across the country. There have already been indications that the ‘traffic lights’ controls on earth tremors will be relaxed once Brexit is out of the way. Thus in no way will Johnson’s government be taking any serious steps to counter the growing Climate Crisis:

The reality of current ‘reductions’ in carbon emissions

On top of all that, Johnson is most unlikely to take steps either to reverse the vicious austerity that has, since 2010, been imposed on the 99% by the Tories - and the LibDems - or the accompanying massive tax cuts for the 1%. Nor will he be closing off the various tax loopholes that enable the wealthy to avoid paying even the small amount of tax for which they are, technically, liable.

As shown by an academic study - carried out by medical researchers from Cambridge and Oxford Universities and the University College of London, and published in BMJ Open, in November 2017 - that austerity has, since 2010, led to an estimated 120,000+ austerity-related excess deaths:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/tory-austerity-deaths-study-report-people-die-social-care-government-policy-a8057306.html

https://evolvepolitics.com/horrific-new-study-shows-tory-cuts-linked-to-120000-needless-deaths-since-2010/

Professor Lawrence King, of Cambridge University, one of the report’s authors, actually referred to these deaths as “economic murder”.

Austerity DOES kill!

Apart from all these negative aspects, Johnson has also shown he is more than prepared to break the law in order to push his policies through. For all these reasons - and more - the next election will face the people of this country with an incredibly crucial crossroads: make the wrong choice, we - and future generations - will pay a dreadful price.

For the Green Party

However, the next election will also face the Green Party with a crucial crossroads of its own. For sometime, the Green Party has had a programme which combines both environmental, and social and economic justice, policies. This holistic stance is summed up well by our slogan, “For The Common Good”:

For The Common Good

That slogan reflects that the fact that the Green Party has recognised that attempts to protect and restore the health of our planet will only succeed if we also tackle the issues of poverty and gross inequalities that are destroying the social cohesion of our society. It is also a reflection of the understanding that all our major problems - the Climate Crisis, austerity, an under-funded NHS, a cash-strapped educational system, and racial and gender inequalities - all stem from one source: the neoliberalism forced on us by the 1%.

That radicalism offered by the Green Party has undoubtedly played a significant role in helping, since 2015, to move the Labour Party towards more progressive positions on both the Climate Crisis and on ending austerity. It is something we should rightly be proud of - and something which we should preserve at all costs.

Sadly, however, there are signs that the whole Brexit issue may lead the Green Party to put that entire radical stance at risk. Earlier this year, there seemed to be a serious attempt to form a ‘Remain Alliance’, which would agree just one ‘Remain’ candidate in certain seats. In practice, that would mean, in many seats, the Greens working with - and standing down in favour of - the LibDems.

Whilst Brexit is an important issue - I voted ‘Remain but Reform’, à la Another Europe Is Possible, in which our party rightly played a leading role - it is not the most important issue. Whether we are in or out of the EU, the Climate Crisis, neoliberalism and the rise of the far right, will all still have to be dealt with. So what the Green Party must avoid at all costs is playing any role which will place yet another neoliberal government in power.

As 2010-15 showed only too painfully, the LibDems are led by neoliberals who were more than prepared - for 5 full years - to back the harshest of austerity policies. The LibDems also voted for the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, which parcelled up our NHS into bite-sized chunks for future sale to private health companies - and which forces the NHS to give more service contracts to private company vultures like Branson’s Virgin Health Care.

Those who thought that the LibDems had, since 2015, ‘changed’ their positions on such issues had a rude ‘wake-up’ call on Wednesday 23 October, when all 19 LibDem MPs abstained on a motion which would have forced Johnson’s government to keep our NHS off the table in any future post-Brexit trade talks with the US:

Our NHS - not safe in LibDem hands

Yet, the very next day, Green Party members received a communication from HQ which seems to indicate that such a ‘Remain Alliance’ may still be on the cards. If the Green Party forms any pact with the neoliberal LibDems in the next general election, it will completely wreck its radical street cred. So, when that crossroads is reached, our leadership will have to think very carefully indeed.

A personal crossroads

Apart from being a crucial election for the future of this country, and for the Green Party, the next general election may also prove to be a very crucial one for me.

In the 2015 general election, I was happy to stand as the Green Party candidate for Copeland - which, at that time still had a Labour MP - as we were the only mainstream party totally opposed to austerity. Even Ed Miliband’s Labour Party - no doubt listening to Ed Balls and co. - was offering an ‘austerity lite’ programme. Despite this, Labour held the seat, with a 2500 majority over the Tory candidate - and the Greens came last out of 5, with 1179 votes.

However, the political situation began to change significantly after Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party later that year - most notably, with Labour rejecting any more austerity.  The existing MP for Copeland, Jamie Reed, was strongly opposed to Corbyn and was, in fact, the first Shadow Bench MP to resign after Corbyn was re-elected as Leader in 2016. Then, in December 2016, Reed resigned as an MP, thus sparking a by-election in February 2017.

As Labour’s vote in Copeland had been declining for several years, making it a marginal seat, I argued that our local Green party - Allerdale and Copeland - should stand aside and call on our supporters to vote Labour, in order to reduce the Tory majority in parliament.

That suggestion lost by one vote, and we stood a candidate. Despite losing the vote over whether or not to stand a candidate, I both campaigned and voted for our candidate, Jack Lenox. The result of the by-election was a Tory gain from Labour - with Copeland becoming even more marginal than it had been before. When it came to the 2017 general election, I argued again for us to stand aside - this time, the suggestion was overwhelmingly supported - though the accompanying decision, to call on our supporters to vote Labour, was not, in the end, carried out. Although the Tory MP was nonetheless re-elected, her majority was reduced to 1695 votes.

Since then, my view about not standing has not just remained the same - it has become stronger. There are, of course, many reasons for most ordinary people - not just eco-socialists - to see a Labour government, led by Jeremy Corbyn, as being considerably better for them than yet another Tory government or, almost as bad, another Tory-LibDem coalition. Some of those reasons include Labour’s commitments to:

•           adopt a Green New Deal

•           end austerity

•           ban fracking

•           stop and reverse the privatisation of our NHS

•           bring back into social ownership the main public utilities

There are clearly several aspects of Labour’s current policies and stances - for instance, on Brexit, nuclear energy and PR - that still leave much to be desired. But, even with such caveats, a Labour government under Corbyn would be a distinct improvement over the hard-right Tory government we currently have.  For me, a Green government - or a Red-Green coalition with Labour - would be the ideal outcome of the next election. But the unfair voting system we have makes both of those scenarios unlikely.

We thus have to deal with where we are now - and that, for so many reasons, means trying as hard as we can to end the reign of neoliberal governments.  That means, in the 80+ marginal seats that Labour needs either to hold (such as Workington, the other seat covered by our local Green party) or win (such as Copeland), the Green Party should stand aside and call on their supporters to vote for the Labour candidates. In such marginal seats, the most practical and effective ‘green’ vote is to vote Labour.

Ideally, in return, Labour should agree not to stand in Caroline Lucas’s seat, and should also stand aside in the Isle of Wight - where, had they done so in 2017, a Green Party MP would have been elected, instead of the Tory who is the current MP. But, even if - as in 2017 - Labour makes no concessions to the Greens, we should still not stand in those key marginals.

There are those in the Green Party who argue that, because Labour gave us nothing in 2017, they should be ‘made to hurt’ in the next election, so that they’ll come on board in the subsequent one. Two wrongs have never made a right - especially with regards to this issue: for those who will be hurt the most if Labour fails to form the next government will be the most vulnerable in our society.

That alone is reason enough for eco-socialists to do all we can to get a Labour government elected. Our local party has already selected candidates for our two seats. When an election is called, we will then have to decide whether or not to stand. Whilst I fully appreciate that it will be disappointing for Green supporters in Labour’s marginal seats not to have a Green candidate to vote for, my view is that - given all that will be at stake in the next election - it would be an unjustified indulgence to insist on having a Green candidate, regardless of its impact on the national outcome.

Thus, as in 2017, I shall be arguing for us to stand aside - and to call on our members and supporters to vote Labour.  However, this time - unlike in the February 2017 by-election - if that vote is lost, I have already decided what I will do. I shall neither campaign nor vote for our candidate - instead, I shall, ‘For The Many, Not The Few’, campaign and vote for the Labour candidate:

 For The Many

I have had friendly advice that, if I do so, I may well be expelled from the Green Party. I shall be sad if that happens - especially as there is no other party that I wish to join; plus I’ve only just been elected as Keswick’s first Green councillor! However, in the end, I feel I have to do everything I can to prevent yet another neoliberal government - whether that be a Tory one, or a Tory-LibDem one.  

Allan Todd is a member of Allerdale & Copeland Green Party, an anti-fracking activist and a Green Left supporter

Editors note: I do hope that Allan does not leave the Green party over this. He is a fantastic activist both within the party and outside as an anti-fracking and Extinction Rebellion activist.

Achieving an Ecological Civilization - an Introduction

Written by Charles Posa, McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden and first published at Green Social Thought

We begin by way of a conclusion.

The now globally dominant system through which we make our living in nature is capitalism.

But capitalism is in process of self-destruction, now rapidly undermining the natural and social conditions for its own and humanity’s further existence. If we are not to go down with it, we must construct an ecological alternative – democratic, science-based, imaginative and sustainable.

In other words, a system of relations between people and with the rest of nature that is more compatible with our continuing existence. Unlike the limited forms of democracy under capitalism, we need a system that engages us all in the political-economic decisions that shape our relations with each other and with nature.

We do not have to look far to find an alternative. Outside of the capitalist market economy, we already engage informally in relationships of reciprocity, continuing those practices that define our species as a social one. The moral alternative to globally dominant capitalism, including its customary and legislative commitment to the right of private wealth accumulation, is a moral, and therefore customary and legislative commitment to sustain and expand the commons, including a healthy natural environment and life-affirming social relationships.

This moral and practical alternative necessarily includes much that capitalism’s supporters have long promised, while ultimately delivering the opposite. To engage human capacity for addressing the existential challenge we now face, we need more than ever to enhance

·       Democracy, not oligarchy.

·       Scientific inquiry, not dogmatism.

·       Imagination, not mindless bureaucracy and conformity.

The resistance to the life affirming aims of enhancing democracy, scientific inquiry and imagination originates in the attachment to and aspiration for the personal wealth only available on a finite planet to a minority. To prevail over these egoistic aspirations, our main tools for achieving an ecological civilization are education, organization and political action that model and institutionalize ecologically sustainable relationships among people and with nature. 

In the face of barriers erected by a ruling minority, the people have a moral right and today an urgent responsibility to exercise and support peaceful disobedience to the barriers placed in the way of democracy, science, imagination, education and corresponding political action for a more just and ecologically sustainable society.

Arguments for these conclusions and their elaboration constitute the body of this work. It will be the people themselves, organized in political movements and organizations, who will through their experience, learning and action construct an alternative to a moribund capitalism, if there is to be one. Ours is a contribution to this process, drawing from our own experience and what we have so far been able to learn from associated reading and discussion.

What follows in this preface is a brief introduction to the theoretical framework, research methods and communication standards we have adopted for this series of articles. It is likely that some of these will be unfamiliar if not unconventional to many readers. While each of the authors has prior experience writing both scholarly and journalistic work, we have adopted standards here we believe better suited to the needs of those engaged in political action for a more just, democratic and sustainable society, which today, we hope, will ultimately include everyone.

We offer breadth, rather than depth of analysis. Throughout this effort we refer the reader to some of the more accessible sources of the in-depth presentations of the science upon which we have drawn. We focus here on the forest, even while knowing that practical action also requires knowledge of the relevant details. These latter, however, are specific to the diverse communities in which we live, a reason why bottom-up forms of democracy are essential to achieving an ecologically sustainable global society.

The political challenge

Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979-1990 claimed that “there is no alternative” to a capitalist market economy. She made this argument to buttress her advocacy of neoliberal policies. As noted in her biography, Thatcher’s “political philosophy and economic policies emphasized deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labor markets, the privatization of state-owned companies and reducing the power and influence of trade unions.” Hers was an articulate statement of the aims of the capitalist class globally. The environmentally and socially destructive results are now horrifically evident.

We began the research and writing that led us to this present argument ten years ago. After a politically tumultuous period since the global economic collapse of 2008, it is easy to forget that as recently as January 2010 there was still very little public doubt within the core capitalist countries about the permanency of capitalism. Not only was capitalism the seeming victor in the Cold War, but there was seemingly no viable alternative social system.

It was easy to believe that capitalism represented the end of history, given that the “socialisms” of the 20th Century had apparently proven unworkable. Certainly, it was easy to agree that dogmatism, bureaucracy, conformity and kleptocracy did not represent the kind of outcome wanted and needed by humanity. But what has capitalism delivered in the meantime, if not its own variants of dogmatism, bureaucracy, conformity and kleptocracy?

It has also delivered growing wealth and income inequality within and between countries, a global race to the bottom in wages, working conditions and environmental regulations, the greatest global economic crisis since the Great Depression, and rapidly developing global ecological crisis. As if that were not enough, capitalism once again seeks salvation through a resurgent arms race that again includes further development and deployment of nuclear weapons.  

The intellectual challenge

An effort to identify and contribute to the emergence of an alternative was the impetus to our research and writing. We searched from scientific accounts of the origins and development of humankind to the present struggles of the people for a more just, democratic, peaceful and sustainable existence. 

We are of course limited to our own direct personal experience and activity, to the shortfall in the number and diversity of those from whom we have learned, and by our inability to do more than sample a wide range of relevant and burgeoning literature and other forms of recorded knowledge and opinion.

It helped that one of us (Karen) has focussed in the arts and humanities, including as a teacher, researcher, artist and poet, and that the other (Charles) has similarly been engaged in research and teaching in both the natural and educational sciences and that as partners, we have collaborated in the student, peace, labor, environmental and other social movements of the people for over fifty years.

Evidently, our greatest shortfall in relation to the publication of this series of articles is in the social sciences, which has received the lion’s share of our attention over the past decade and will likely continue to do so in our remaining years.

Among academics and journalists preoccupied with advancing original formulations that merit claims to personal intellectual property, it has become popular to invent and propose alternative social systems, suggesting that the options in that respect might be as diverse as their authors. This is NOT our intention.

Anything in this argument that could be claimed as unique to us should on that account be dismissed. In the first place, ALL ideas are socially constructed, evident in the fact that we each must use socially constructed language to communicate our ideas. Intellectual property rights will have no place in any society that claims to be an advance over capitalism, nor will any other claim to private ownership over the Commons, defined here as the shared heritage of humanity.

Moreover, we hold to the wisdom that the new invariably emerges out of the womb of the old, a process in which either the old system replicates itself or, in the case of a moribund system, a new one ultimately replaces it. One task of social science research, in our view, is to identify the new system as it emerges from the old. The empirical evidence by which to judge the results of such social science research is convergence in social theory and practice on the features of the new system, leading to the replacement of the old system by the new one.

We expect to be successful in identifying most, but not likely all the characteristic features of the emergent system. We encourage critical review of each of our arguments. Our aim is no more than to contribute to the process of identification and action towards the replacement of the current, moribund capitalist system. Its successful replacement will be a system which proves itself capable of liberating the latent potential of the people to move past the obstacles created by capitalism to humanity’s continuing existence. There is, of course, no guarantee that capitalism will not be the last human social system on Earth. Time is of the essence.

The principal objective of this contribution to discussion, therefore, is to identify a viable path out of the present existential crisis, a crisis created by the convergence of wealth and income inequality and the destruction of an otherwise supportive natural environment. Such a path necessarily includes a more equitable distribution of resources as part of a more conservative, sustainable relationship with nature.

Co-equal objectives are the advance of democracy, education, scientific inquiry and imagination, which we argue constitute the foundation for achieving a healthy human society and a sustainable relationship with nature. Having found a limited role within emergent capitalism, these foundational elements of any society fully committed to the full and free development of the people require vigilant popular development and support in the face of a now moribund, self-destructive capitalism.

The main premise of this series of essays, argued at some length, is that capitalism, once a relatively progressive system, liberating humanity from the constraints of a moribund feudalism, is today the principal cause of growing wealth and income inequality and of human destruction of an otherwise supportive natural environment. As such, capitalism is itself a moribund system, its defenders increasingly engaged in constraining the development of democracy, education, science and imagination.

Historical materialist theory

While we rely almost exclusively on the existing consensus within the scientific community on the state of knowledge in most fields of scientific inquiry, we make an exception in the field of social science, where there is no acknowledged scientific consensus on the fundamental issue of the nature and laws of societal evolution.  Here, our theoretical viewpoint must be considered presumptive.  

We subscribe to the Marxian theory of evolution of human society, often identified as historical materialism, thereby emphasizing both its scientific content and the methodology it shares with all other fields of scientific inquiry. Materialism in philosophy acknowledges that the subject material under investigation has an empirical existence independent from our ideas, theories and conjectures about it.

Like every other scientific theory, historical materialist theory must be judged by its ability to explain the corresponding empirical evidence. We do not examine that evidence in detail in this work. Rather, we presume the validity of historical materialist theory. 

Marxian historical materialist theory contends that capitalism did not always exist, but rather came into existence historically recently, probably first during the late middle ages, initially confined to mercantile capitalist trading relationships between a few European city-states, but ultimately extending (by the twentieth century) to an international network of capitalist nation-states, dominated by a few whose reach assumed globally imperial dimensions, such as the imperial reach of the United Kingdom and the United States.

Only within the past few decades has this international system reached its present global dimension, in which the global marketplace, including supply chains and corresponding international political structures, are now dominated by a network of the largest transnational capitalist corporations, their directors and chief political and academic representatives (the transnational capitalist class).   

According to Marxian historical materialist theory, incompatibility between the “mode” and the “forces” of production drives the struggle for reform or revolution of the social system, the latter corresponding to a qualitative change in the mode of production to enable better utilization of the new technologies and ideas and the creation of corresponding institutions. The change from feudalism to capitalism was an historical precedent for the current struggle within capitalism for socialism.

The transition from one mode of production to another is characterized both by the development of technology and the associated attempts to reform or replace the relations of production with new ones. These changes can be either historically progressive (the use of more advanced technologies and, in the case of the transition from capitalism to socialism, more cooperative relationships of production, and associated ideas and institutions) or regressive, towards the social relationships and hierarchical ideas associated with feudalism and slavery (the principal other examples of once dominant hierarchical social systems).

Increasing personal indebtedness (debt slavery) for securing necessities of life (including education, accommodation, communication, transportation, healthcare, potable water, and food) is evidence of this regressive trend.

We also recognize as an enduring, progressive, but currently subordinate mode of production, the communal mode that characterized most of human history from the time of our origins as a species. This is the cooperative mode of production based on voluntary sharing of resources and non-monetary exchanges of goods and services, commonly found today within families and local communities.

If there is to be a social system beyond capitalism, it will, in our view, necessarily correspond to a reversal of the trend towards privatization in the ownership and management of resources and tools of production and distribution and an expansion of the commons. Building on the remaining commons, the new system will correspond to the transformation of most social means of production and distribution into communal property under communal management, decentralized to the extent feasible, that is, into a more just, democratic and sustainable relationship between people and with nature.          

The most recent developments within the capitalist mode of production include the greater mobility of capital, the spatial extent of its dominance – now global, and the transnational character of the dominant capitalist corporations. Imperialist rent continues to be paid, but in the form of a transfer of wealth from a globally distributed working class to a globally distributed owning and managerial class, mainly and increasingly to the oligarchic billionaires within that class. To be enduring, system change will likewise need to be global.  

Contemporary global capitalism and the theory of historical materialism

Capitalism is a dynamic system. As such, its behaviour can be explained and predicted by scientifically discoverable laws. As applicable to capitalism today as they were when Marx articulated them, they nevertheless need to be applied with recognition of the changing historical circumstances and the adaptations that the capitalist ruling class has made to those conditions, especially constraints. These include the spatial dimension over which capitalism operates, the extent of monopolization and financialization of capital, and the removal of nation-state barriers to the mobility of capital while using these barriers to control labor.

For a contemporary account of capitalism in its now global dimensions, we recommend William I. Robinson (Cambridge University Press, 2014 Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity. For an account of Marx’s laws of value, accumulation and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and their application to the 2008 financial crisis, see Michael Roberts (2018, Lulu.com) Marx 200: A Review of Marx’s Economics 200 Years After His Birth and his (2016, Haymarket Books) The Long Depression: How It Happened, Why It Happened, and What Happens Next.

Distinct from the more predominant form of Marxian analysis, however, we neither ignore nor attempt to fully explain capitalist societies by application of Marx’s three laws of capitalism’s behaviour. All social systems are dynamic and interactive, including the continuing existence of communal, slave, feudal and capitalist social relationships.

Any attempt to explain and predict the behaviour of a society in which capitalism predominates through the laws governing capitalist behaviour will at best be a first order approximation. While communal, slave and feudal modes of production are no longer dominant over any part of the Earth, they continue to contend within predominantly capitalist societies as subordinated alternatives.

The crisis within contemporary capitalism has fostered the re-emergence of feudal and slave relationships as means by which the ruling capitalist class and its court jesters endeavour to maintain their class privileges even while the basis for capitalism (the surplus produced by industrial wage labour) rapidly declines as a proportion of capital investment with continuing automation (replacing manual labour with automated machines) and the emergent application of so-called artificial intelligence (replacing learned skills and managerial capacity, that is, need for a substantial capitalist managerial class).

On the other side of the coin, despite pro-capitalist efforts to privatize everything, there remains the commons shared by all of humanity. Those looking for a model for a society beyond capitalism need look no further than communal behaviour within families, between friends, and in every community. 

Before the onset of more temperate climate conditions characteristic of the Holocene era (the last ten thousand years), non-class societies appear to have prevailed over the inhabited parts of the Earth (that is, for well over 90% of human history).

Thankfully, some communally organized societies have survived to the present day, notwithstanding the genocidal behaviour of their class-divided neighbors and invaders. In consequence, the First Nations have much to teach the rest of us about stewardship responsibilities and usufruct rights that portend an ecologically sustainable society beyond capitalism.

Our solar future

While physical laws, notably the second law of thermodynamics, have as a consequence the inevitable devolution and death of all existing forms of the current organization of matter and their replacement by the birth and evolution of new forms, there is nothing inherent in natural processes that dictates such an early demise of life on Earth, including prospectively of human life, as is now associated with the continuing expansion of the capitalist mode of production. 

The complex forms of organization of matter that have given rise to human life and human civilization are a product of the energy that continues to bathe our planet from the Sun (a process expected to continue for billions of years more) and the materials that will continue to be present in the Earth’s biosphere for an indefinite future.

A premature end to human civilization on Earth could only be the result of our failure to act as agents for the building of a replacement to capitalism, that is to create a new social system, one in better harmony with nature and human existence.

Revolutionary voice

The title of an essay by Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” contains the principal lesson to be learned from past failures to move beyond capitalism. Our revolutionary voice is not male, but gender-neutral, not hegemonic, but collaborative, not competitive, but cooperative, not violent, but demonstrably peaceful, not aggressive, but forcefully diplomatic.

In this work, we identify this effort to find our revolutionary voice with democratic ecosocialism, thereby linking it with those green, social, and democratic movements that envision our future as the extension of what remains of our global commons, the expansion of the global commons at the expense of private property, the growth of the voluntary, non-market exchange of goods and services found within families and local communities at the expense of the capitalist market-place, the practice of democratic decision-making at work and in the community at the expense of management and leadership rights. 

Our voice expresses our task, that of replacing the primacy of private profits with the primacy of the health and welfare of people and nature. Our revolutionary voice is to be found in those who prioritize our cooperative relationships and voluntary exchanges of services and goods over participation in the capitalist marketplace.

Methods of research and communication

Our methods of research and communication flow from recognition that knowledge, like language itself, is socially created, not the product nor “intellectual property” of individuals, especially not the property of for-profit corporate media. The method of research adopted in the development of Achieving an Ecological Civilization (the first drafts of which were titled Towards a Green Social Democratic Alternative to Capitalism) is iterative, meaning that each draft is for discussion and further development, by either the initial authors or anyone else who wishes, with each new contributor taking responsibility but not credit for their revisions.

That is our intention in any case. Constrained by the dominant practice of for-profit publication, we do need to place obstacles in the way of publication of this work as private for-profit property. The result is a Creative Commonwealth license, modified in practice as may be needed by the intent expressed here.

All significant changes are the work of those who make them. A global democratic ecosocialist alternative to capitalism will necessarily be the work of hundreds of millions. But time is of the essence.

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden

Fredericton, New Brunswick, CANADA

www.greensocialdemocracy.org

apcamcfadden@aol.com