The Danish political party the Alternative (Alternativet) was officially established in November 2013 and was elected into Parliament in 2015 with 9 seats and 4,9 percent of the total votes. The party’s main goals are to achieve a ’serious sustainable transition’, a new political culture and better conditions for entrepreneurship. The Alternative is critical towards pursuit of economic growth as a primary goal for policy makers and aspire to a new understanding of progress.
The Alternative is aware of the existence of a number of relevant indicators for sustainable progress, yet we have not found one that is considered politically applicable. For example, the ‘five headline indicators for progress’ by the New Economics Foundation is compelling but we find the five headlines to be too complex to communicate to the public in the hyped speed of contemporary media.
Many Danes respond positively when we talk about economic, social, and ecological sustainability, and we wanted our indicator for progress to include these concepts. Accordingly, we decided to have one headline indicator for each type of sustainability in order to make it easily understandable.
We are still in a developing phase of our indicator, but it seems we will decide on the following: Economic sustainability is improving when the rate of employment on collective agreement terms and self-employed increases. The rate of employment has a significant impact on the public budget, so it is a key indicator to the health of the economy. Additionally, we want quality jobs and strong labour unions, hence we decided to only include jobs on collective agreement terms. Social sustainability is measured by improvements in economic inequality in terms of the income difference between the top 20 and the bottom 20 percent of the population. Research has found equal societies to have fewer social and health problems, so equality is a very important indicator of the well-being of citizens. Ecological sustainability is measured by the degree to which the Danish CO2-emissions are declining at a tempo where Denmark makes a fair contribution to securing the internationally agreed goal of avoiding more than 2 percent increases in global temperatures and aim at a 1,5 increase up till 2100. Climactic changes are likely the gravest danger to modern society and CO2 emissions are therefore a relevant indicator for ecological sustainability.
Our general idea is that the main indicators for economic, social, and ecological sustainability have to be positive if we are to propose a policy in Parliament. If we are to vote for a policy proposal from another political party, at least two indicators must be positive, and optimally all three. We will be able to communicate this very clearly to the public and be accountable with regards to these indicators of sustainability.
We are aware of the fact that many other indicators are needed for serious sustainable development. Therefore, each of these indicators will be supplemented with second-level indicators relevant to their area. Economic supplementary indicators could be job employment measured by gender and other ethnic background, job stability, job satisfaction, balance of payments and ratio of private investments to private savings. Social supplementary indicators could be happiness, children’s wellbeing, mental wellbeing, social trust, quality of health care, health inequality, inequality in wealth and income inequalities between gender and for ethnic minorities. Ecological supplementary indicators could be biodiversity, air quality, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, resource consumption and so forth. The supplementary indicators are considered important, and if a significant number of them are deteriorating or improving, this can affect our attitude towards a specific proposal.
We will decide on the main indicators shortly, and we will ask ecological sustainability experts to help us decide which supplementary indicators are relevant to their field. We will also host what we call political laboratories where we will invite citizens, experts and our own members to discuss the details of our new indicator for progress. This is in accordance with our vision on a new political culture with more democratic bottom-up processes.
We have discussed whether we should follow the headline indicator for New Economic Foundation’s indicator on ‘good jobs’. This includes the amount of the population with a secure job above the ‘living wage’. We are currently in favour of using the more simplistic percentage of the population with a job on collective agreement terms (and self-employed), since we wanted the indicator to be as simple and easy to communicate as possible.
If we vote for our own or a proposal by another political party in Parliament and the proposal passes, we can go to the media and evaluate whether the policy is improving the three main indicators for sustainability. If so, we can argue that it increases triple bottom line sustainability. When we participate in longer discussions we can discuss to which degree the policy improves or deteriorates relevant supplementary indicators.
Whether or not GDP increases is less relevant, the central goal is to ensure economic, social, and ecological sustainability.
We find this to be an accountable and transparent way of communicating with the public and participating in the political process. It matters to citizens whether new jobs are created and inequality and CO2-emissions are reduced. Also, we hope this approach can raise awareness of a triple bottom line understanding of sustainability in the public.
So is degrowth needed to ensure climate justice?
It is highly likely, but to us this is not the key question of our time. Whether or not GDP increases is less relevant, the central goal is to ensure economic, social, and ecological sustainability. Our indicator does not include GDP as we want to measure what really matters in relation to the wellbeing of mankind and nature. The public policy must be centered on achieving these goals and can only be successful via an intelligent cooperation with the private sector, civil society, and international actors.
Mother Teresa once said: “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.”
The Alternative wants to communicate as clearly as possible that we are for a sustainable development rather than against growth, as we find this inspires and resonates deeper with the public.
Naturally, the main institutions of the current economic model will have to be reformed in order to ensure a serious sustainable development. Therefore, the Alternative proposes reforms of the financial sector, lower working hours, an ecological tax reform, increased investments in green research and infrastructure, more redistribution, increased financial transfers from the developed to the developing world partly focused on climate change mitigation and adaption, and a slowdown of the massive subsidies for conventional agriculture and the fossil fuel industry.
Rune Wingaard has a Masters degree in social science and international development studies from Roskilde University, where he also works and teaches economics, politics and quantitative methods. He is part of the Economic Council of the Danish political party the Alternative and is very engaged in co-creating a transition towards a much more sustainable, just and thriving society.
The multilateral approach to climate change: denial and delay
The intergovernmental process to fight climate change leads up to COP 21, the upcoming meeting in Paris. This time, unlike all the last times, hopes are high that an agreement will be reached. It should limit the greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere to an amount that would cause a global warming to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius. Nobody knows if this is a safe level, but the intergovernmental process concluded it might be safe enough.
The negotiations follow a pattern you might expect in a negotiation game where everybody wants to bargain a good deal for themselves: poor countries want to maximize support, the rich want promises from all the others, and there’s as little commitment on funding as possible.
National Contributions would only start in 2020. Another 5 years lost.
Most participants agree with what is in the documents of the International Panel on Climate Change. Yet this knowledge does not translate into drastic measures. Action is limited to long-term negotiations on the international level and prudent changes on the national policy level. In the day-to-day choices we make to frame our lives, the urgency isn’t there – it’s not even on the radar.
Roads for diesel or gasoline cars are still being built, public transport suffers from budget cuts, and coal power plant construction permits are still legal.
Roads for diesel or gasoline cars are still being built, public transport suffers from budget cuts, and coal power plant construction permits are still legal.
Investments in sustainable energy and alternative transport are not guided by the climate change imperative but by economic, strategic, and political arguments. Fossil fuel is still subsidized in most countries. Natural gas is a midway investment to make the shift to fossil free more gradual. These investments will be guzzling gas for the next 30 years.
The current approach is seen as the reasonable and moderate pathway. Everything else is deemed unrealistic.
As a result, emissions will continue rising above current levels for some time to come. But the total level of emissions required to stop heating the climate is less than zero.
Redefining moderation
If we keep going along this route, we will be in crisis mode within decades. The situation will be so urgent that all use of fossil fuel will have to be taxed at prohibitive levels or banned. Denial will be impossible. Major powers will consider climate change as an existential, military threat, and may be ready to respond to it militarily if need be. After all, a country’s carbon footprint goes down after being bombed.
In an environment of strict rationing, massive use of private fossil fuel-powered cars will be unacceptable. The new highways that are planned now will be redundant before they are fully operational. Even those that are built right now will depreciate faster than calculated. Coal power plants and buildings needing heating or air conditioning will be considered extravagant in a strictly rationed world.
In every part of the society, on every level of the administration, there are already people who fully realize what the crisis entails and have internalized it in their actions. However in general they are marginal: their “moderate”colleagues implore them to be “reasonable”.
In every part of the society, on every level of the administration, there are already people who fully realize what the crisis entails and have internalized it in their actions. However in general they are marginal: their “moderate”colleagues implore them to be “reasonable”.
Waiting until the crisis is acute is irresponsible. We need to redefine what is realistic. Realistic planning is to go as quickly as possible – right now – to zero emissions. Every delay is irresponsible.
What we need is a mainstream acceptance that “There Is No Alternative” . Remember the Thatcherite revolution? Her – ruinous – thinking on economics was accepted as mainstream and labelled as the only option in a couple of years. The same must happen with “going for zero” climate change thinking. Unfortunately, this time there really is no viable alternative to going for zero, asap.
It is at this point that we should redefine “moderation” and “realism”:
Moderation is to accept reality and what has to be done to avoid a global humanitarian crisis.
Realism is to accept that any additional investment in a carbon world is a waste and a crime, and act accordingly.
The course we’re on now is the true extremism.
All current long-term fossil fuel-based investments (power plants, roads, ships, house heating) should be considered unacceptable.
There are millions of options of how we could get to zero carbon, but There Is No Alternative to the fact that we need to go to zero now. So we should redefine “moderation” and “reasonable” as: going for zero now.
Turning the tables
Are the engineers who design, the bosses who approve, the politicians supporting policy changes, the people buying cars, the families buying houses in the suburbs, consciously choosing to make the wrong decision? Greenhouse gas emission growth is not the fruit of a big evil master plan. It involves millions of individual decisions, an environment of decisions. To roll back emissions it will be these decisions that make the difference.
The current approach to climate change is a negotiation where individual countries try to limit change for themselves and maximize it for the others. The incentive structure of these negotiations encourages minimizing change, rather than maximizing it. It does not create an environment that leads to exponential change beyond the agreed-upon indicators.
The complicated interrelations of the economy, the climate, political power, and society cannot be managed simply with top-down international agreements. Under the new definition of moderation, this is an extremist tactic, putting lives and livelihoods at risk. It stifles the imagination and flexibility needed to go to zero fast enough. Real change will be result from transformation of the political economy at the local level.
The strategy: going for zero
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. (Churchill)
Every single decision matters. Like in wartime, the theater is everywhere.
The battle against a coal power plant investment is never lost: construction could be planned, but the municipal permit can be revoked. The permit is given but the imminent domain procedure is not successful, it can be started and never finished as investors disinvest. It can be built and never used over environmental concerns. It can be taken out of production early.
As every investment is composed of a chain of decisions that need to be taken one after the other, by tackling the individual decisions, accumulatively, change can happen faster, as changes become exponential rather than linear.
Within a moral and long-term economical timeframe, every person anywhere must stop any investment in fossil fuel-heavy products now.
Realism makes every person who has internalised climate change an ally. Office workers, like myself, will have to make alliances with politicians, communities, and action groups. Like-minded groups will need to work together to bring down the traditional barriers and create a new normal.
The objective is to stop every single individual investment in fossil fuel use. Most struggles will initially be lost. It is the war that counts.
The objective is to stop every single individual investment in fossil fuel use. Most struggles will initially be lost. It is the war that counts. With every resistance it becomes more difficult to present business as usual as an option, as “moderation“.
Individuals will need the backing of a mass movement to find the strength to resist and to have access to the knowledge to make a case. As the powers that be in the energy sector will resist, other instruments, like manifestations, petitions, civil disobedience and boycotts will be necessary.
Every decision already taken can still be stopped, overturned, or postponed at every level. Losing a struggle is only a step in winning the war, and losing the war is beyond imagination.
Every person who is asked to sign, to design, to propose, to make concrete, to breathe the air, will need to act on the knowledge that it is not worth it to continue with the old model. They will need to recognize that for the world, the children, for votes, and for their career, it is better not to do this.
The action plan for the Paris Agreement
Chances are there will be a binding agreement concluded at COP 21. The agreement will confirm the climate crisis, and the commitment to keep the temperature rise to only 1.5-2 degrees. Attached to the agreement there will be Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) that will be insufficient.
These NDCs will be irresponsible and amount to climate terrorism. The proposed measures should happen now, not in 2020. The agreed principles in the agreement should be strong and binding enough to form the legal basis to reject every unacceptable investment and go directly for zero.
If the going for zero strategy is implemented, investments in alternatives have a future and fossil fuel-based infrastructure has none.
If the going for zero strategy is implemented, investments in alternatives have a future and fossil fuel-based infrastructure has none.
Going now for zero on every decision possible will lead to tipping points where fossil fuel investments become less attractive economically, environmentally, and politically. An exponential change will happen.
Postscript
As emissions plummet immediately, every cap and trade system would implode too.
Sam Gardner is a development and humanitarian professional with field experience in Central and South Africa, Central America and Asia.
I’ve recently seen a lot of excited talk about basic income. A bit over a year ago, it was announced that the Swiss would soon hold a referendum for its citizens. Then we were confronted with exciting stories of a small Canadian town that had experimented with the idea back in the 1970s. A couple of weeks ago, Finland’s government made it known that it would seek to implement it in the near future, with backing from the Right, Left, and the Greens. Then the Dutch city of Utrecht pitched in, claiming that they would give it a try. And now both mayors of two of the most conservative cities in Canada, Calgary and Edmonton, are trying to give it a go.
Each piece of news has been greeted with great enthusiasm. I’ve seen the words radical and progressive used many times to describe these announcements.
The idea of basic income–also referred to as guaranteed minimum income and universal income–isn’t new, but it is starting to see a large following. It is appealing for those on the right, who want to minimize the role of the state and end the abuse of welfare. Others think it is the best economic solution to the increasing replacement of workers by robots, and the simultaneous onslaught of bullshit jobs in the economy. It is attractive to the left because it would mean access to income for the most marginalized, and it would allow people to pursue their own interests, furthering democratic society. It would also help support those who mostly do care work, especially women, which is less economically valued in Western society. Because it is appealing to both conservatives and progressives, it is seen as a compromise even the far right and far left could agree on. Largely because of this, it is hoped that, if implemented, it could become a catalyst for a more just economic system.
As it is being proposed currently, basic income can make things worse: it can strengthen racist policies, increase environmental impacts of our current economic system, and increase wealth inequality between the rich and poor globally. Right now, at best, it seems more like a poor compromise–one that’s slanted toward the benefit of the elite.
But I’m not that excited. I agree that a compromise, if it is strategic, can help us get closer to our goals. But I don’t think this is a strategic compromise. Basic income can only be a strategic compromise if it is proposed along with a host of other policies that would limit its negative effects. But it doesn’t seem like that’s what’s happening. To illustrate this, it might help to briefly provide some basic facts:
Yes, Switzerland is moving toward a basic income referendum. But Switzerland’s main business is providing a tax haven for the world’s richest people. It is also one of the most racist countries in Europe, with leading parties pursuing actively discriminatory electoral campaigns, and even green parties taking anti-immigration positions.
In the Canadian town, Dauphin, the experiment was cancelled when faced with an economic recession, caused by the collapse of Canada’s lumber and mining industries, which were predicated on the over-exploitation of one of the world’s largest forested areas–significantly driving climate change.
The party proposing basic income in Finland is centre-right, with neoliberal leanings. Other parties supporting the proposal are the Fins’ Party, which is anti-immigration and conservative.
Calgary and Edmonton make most of their money from the tar sands, one of the most environmentally catastrophic and socially unjust extraction projects in the world. This would fund their basic income schemes.
In each situation, it’s worth asking where the wealth that would sponsor it comes from, who it will benefit, and who it will exclude.
As it is being proposed currently, basic income can make things worse: it can strengthen racist policies, increase environmental impacts of our current economic system, and increase wealth inequality between the rich and poor globally. Right now, at best, it seems more like a poor compromise–one that’s slanted toward the benefit of the elite.
In this essay, I argue that current proposals of basic income can be problematic and help to further the goals of the elite. I also provide some suggestions of ways to address this problem while keeping the positive effects of basic income proposals intact.
Basic income: a tool for economic, social, and environmental exclusion?
J. M. Keynes’ ‘welfare economics’ was seen as the only satisfying compromise between the capitalist class and the increasingly powerful workers’ unions. But this was by no means a radical compromise–it guaranteed continued profits to the market system while making a deal with the poor. In this way, it remained in line with liberal economic thinking.
Liberal economics is based on the idea that the state ought to make it easier for the market to operate. The main way to do this is to build infrastructure that makes it easier for enterprises to conduct their business. A secondary role for the state is then to regulate the market’s negative impacts. Welfare liberalism is the extension of this role: to redistribute market surplus to, on the one hand, improve the livelihood of those who cannot participate in the market, and to further bolster the market by giving lower classes sufficient capital so that they too can become consumers, further driving economic growth.
Welfare in the minority world guaranteed consumption and production at a level never seen before. And while this really did raise the standard of living, many of the costs were eventually off-loaded onto the backs of the majority world.
A half-century later, and we now know the impacts that this has had. Welfare in the minority world guaranteed consumption and production at a level never seen before. And while this really did raise the standard of living, many of the costs were eventually off-loaded onto the backs of the majority world. Sweatshop labor, mining disasters, pollution, and now migration due to climate change–these are all rife in ‘Third World’ countries. Countless people are now forced to move from their land because it has either been privatized or their basic means of subsistence has been destroyed through free trade agreements.
These people will often strive for better lives and migrate to the ‘First World’, where they are faced with systemic racism, terrible working conditions, and a legal system that regards them as second-class citizens. At the same time, the increased political and financial power of the growing class gave rise to the ‘Not In My Backyard’ phenomenon, pushing polluting industries to the Global South, where states had less regulatory power and poor people have less ability to resist environmental injustice.
Add to this the fact that the money that made welfare programs possible was already derived from centuries of colonialism, which involved dispossession and resource-grabs backed by violence.
And even within countries welfare can be exclusive. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward have argued that welfare in the US was designed primarily for quelling dissent in times of unrest, and for forcing the lower classes to enter the workforce in times of political stability. In this way, it can be seen as a mechanism for perpetuating the current economic system, not fixing it.At first sight, welfare liberalism might seem like a positive way to address the inequality inherent in capitalism. But if you zoom out, it starts to look more like a tool to placate the poor within rich countries, all the while justifying continued exploitation of the rest of the world. In this way, it remains simply a compromise, legitimating the power of the elite, while externalizing the costs of the economic system to those who don’t have the privilege of being citizens of a rich country.
Let me use an example to illustrate why basic income can be a continuation of this. It is telling that the country that has advanced the most in bringing basic income into the policy discussion–Switzerland–is also one of the most racist and migrant-unfriendly places in Europe. In this case, the Swiss try to redistribute the profits from their banking system (which are derived from providing tax havens to world’s richest people) to a small and already privileged society, while excluding others. At the same time, as it would increase the finances available to the poorest Swiss, it would also increase spending and therefore consumption, driving up the costs unloaded on to society and the environment. These costs will mostly not be borne by the Swiss, but by people in the Global South, who are the most affected by climate change, work in far more dangerous conditions, and are forced to migrate when their land and livelihood is destroyed. Effectively, basic income in Switzerland would entail closure of the world’s riches, for the benefit of a small community.
As it is currently proposed, basic income simply redistributes the profits of already rich nations to its poorer classes. It keeps in place, and strengthens, the divide between the Global North and South.
In most policy proposals for basic income that I’ve seen so far, the pattern is the same. As it is currently proposed, it simply redistributes the profits of already rich nations to its poorer classes. It keeps in place, and strengthens, the divide between the Global North and South.
It’s true that basic income, if it were designed right, could potentially address Piven and Cloward’s concern that welfare has been inherently exclusionary within nations. In fact, they themselves supported basic income as a solution. But while it seems like basic income might create some sort of level economic playing-field, it could also be blind to any kind of structural inequality that already exists. That is, if black people in the US received basic income, they would still have to contend with a history of racism, which continues to be embedded within the US legal structure, housing, education, and financial system. And it wouldn’t necessarily take into account the fact that the money funding basic income schemes has been made mostly through unequal trade with the rest of the world.
There’s another reason why basic income could be a big problem, which I have rarely seen discussed by its proponents. Let’s say these countries and cities do end up creating such a program. Would they also extend it to migrant laborers and undocumented migrants?
Because if they don’t, one could well imagine a scenario where corporations just stop hiring legal citizens (because they would start making demands for better working conditions once they have basic income) and instead hire cheap migrants, who have very little legal support. They would also pressure their governments to change regulations to facilitate their reliance on precarious migrant labor. In this scenario, basic income would simply be a tool for more efficiently redistributing the profit from the exploitation of secondary citizens to rich countries.
I do acknowledge the potential of basic income to help reform the current economic system for the benefit of those who are the most affected by the current economic system–women, people of color, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and so on.
But basic income policies in countries like the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, and Finland could, potentially, make many of the world’s problems worse. By raising the average income, it would also help increase GDP and the spending power of the lower classes, as happened with welfare. Without adequate policies limiting environmentally destructive and socially unjust consumption, we would see a repeat of the negative effects of welfare, creating uneven burdens on the Global South. While it could give many a boost, because it gives everyone an equal amount of money, it would help make the system blind to existing oppressive institutions. It could help further the exploitation of migrants. In short, it would simply redistribute the profits of ongoing colonialism within the rich countries’ borders.
This may be due to the fact that basic income is, in each case, proposed by alliances between right, centrist, and leftist governments. But while this may look like a strategic compromise by the left, it can also become a way to further the goals of racist, neoliberal politicians, as well as the corporate elite. So when I see the news that Finland wants to experiment with basic income, I’m not that excited, because I know that it may just as well pave the way for more conservative policies shutting out, and legitimizing the exploitation of, the Global South.
As it stands, basic income is not a radical, progressive policy. It is more of a compromise between Keynesian welfare and neoliberalism, under the guise of economic equality within a nation’s borders. So no, it wouldn’t “eliminate poverty”, and it wouldn’t “revolutionize the 21st century”, but it would certainly help keep the current economy intact–with disastrous consequences down the line.
Beyond basic income: a more just proposal
So what would be necessary for basic income to be successful? It would mean not assuming that simply redistributing capitalism’s surplus will solve our problems. It requires a host of policies to be implemented, without which it may increase inequality globally. Here are some criteria for a more just basic income:
First and foremost, it should be seen as an end, not a golden ticket. It cannot substitute existing public services. For example, it cannot replace health insurance, since the key to a low-cost healthcare system is collective bargaining of medicine and equipment costs, which would no longer happen if it were assumed that basic income would replace this.
Limit environmental exclusion and externalization. This would require policies limiting consumption, specifically resource-and energy-intensive goods, as well as policies regulating environmental destruction and addressing environmental and social injustice, especially in the Global South.
Limit economic exclusion. Provide support for alternative economic enterprises that are less exploitative, especially in the Global South. Limit exploitative labor. Limit excessive working days, especially for low-income people. Raise minimum income. Put in place policies that allow (but not force) women, migrants, and people of color to be more involved in the economy.
Limit social exclusion. We need policies that guarantee accessibility of basic income for migrant workers, and/or ensure legal and financial support to migrants and refugees without status. In addition, policies must be put in place that better support historically marginalized groups within countries, such as black, indigenous people, or ethnic minorities. This would help address the social exclusion that would likely happen along with a basic income policy, which tends to be ‘blind’ to existing inequality.
As you can see, these are big demands. None of these can be implemented very easily, let alone at the same time. But, importantly, the list shows that basic income will not, by itself, bring about all the changes that the left is hopeful for. This requires strategic implementation of a wide platform of policies that are complementary and respond to existing inequalities, both within countries and outside of them.
When I’ve raised these concerns to others, many have responded that basic income might not be the be-all end-all, but it can get us a lot closer. People see it as a strategic stepping-stone, arguing that basic income could help facilitate a transition to these other policies.
But take again the example of Switzerland. These same proponents might argue that basic income could, potentially, free up time for people to get involved in politics and caring activities. In this way, it could be a crucial step toward a more democratic and just society.
But this is magical thinking. Without adequate research, it cannot be assumed that it would automatically lead to more democracy rather than, for example, an increase in protectionism, racism, and consumption. Creating a more just world is a lot of work, and there is no one policy that, somehow, paves the way for others. To do this, it must come hand-in-hand with other policies that limit its potential negative effects.
I want to stress that I’m hopeful for this policy to be part of a platform that may change our economic system for the better. But considering the type of parties that have proposed it so far, I’m worried that it could actually increase inequality between the North and the South and help drive economic growth and climate change. In particular, I would like to challenge basic income advocates to think a lot more about issues of citizenship and migration, and how basic income could contribute to the exploitation of migrants. This means that it can only be proposed as a part of a wider platform of policies.
I would like to challenge basic income advocates to think a lot more about issues of citizenship and migration, and how basic income could contribute to the exploitation of migrants.
Anything less would just help further close off the minority world–and drive the exploitation of the majority world. Getting excited about progressive policies is great, but only if they are actually progressive, not half-assed compromises between the existing elite and the middle and lower classes who already profit the most from the current economic system.
Thanks to Adrian Turcato for the title.
Thanks also to people at the Social Costs of Automation and Robotics group and the Degrowth reading group for the discussions on this topic.
We are often told that we need economic growth to address social problems such as unemployment and poverty and to improve everybody’s welfare. However, if one of your sleeves is tight on you, this does not necessarily mean that you need a bigger shirt: perhaps what you need is to reshape your shirt. Indeed, this will be your sole option if you have little thread left.
Economic growth is not a realistic answer to social problems in a world with vanishing natural resources, ecological degradation and climate change. The sensible answer is a deep transformation of the economy to make it more egalitarian and better suited to people’s aspiration to satisfy their basic needs and to live a meaningful and fulfilling life, while we get rid of many economic activities that we do not really need, and contract the economy to sustainable levels, carefully and in a truly democratic way. Currently, this idea is best known with the name of degrowth (see this website or this one), and their supporters pursue it at all levels, including individual consumption choices, grassroots self-organization to experience alternative forms of collective functioning, and political action.
However, very few people in the degrowth movement are aware that we are essentially repeating a cycle of mobilization that had already taken place from the late 1970s to the early 1990s (Piulats 1984 is a good sample, in Spanish). In that period, the ideas and practices that we currently call degrowth were labelled just as green, without knowing that the environmental movement would later become dominated by other different shades of green. The movement was especially strong in West Germany, becoming a reference all over the world when its political arm, Die Grünen (the German Greens) irrupted into the Federal Parliament in 1983.
Unfortunately, Die Grünen became split in two main factions. The fundamentalist or fundi, which we would currently call degrowther, would soon have to share the party with the self-called realists or realos, closer to what we currently call green capitalism. Fundis went under pressure after an electoral defeat in 1990 (when the Greens did not share the general enthusiasm for a quick reunification of Germany, warning of the many problems that this would cause to East Germans, and focused their campaign on the then virtually unknown issue of climate change; paraphrasing the German Railways’ slogan Everyone is talking about the weather. We don’t, their slogan was Everyone is talking about Germany; we’re talking about the weather!; e.g., Jungjohann 2013). In a party congress in 1991, the fundis were defeated and left the party (see different views of this congress here and here). The end of the German Greens of the 1980s was rounded off with the death in 1992 of its most emblematic member, the fundi Petra Kelly.
After these events, the ideas, experiences and illusions of the early Grünen were forgotten almost completely. However, their spirit has never ceased to manifest itself in lots of grassroots initiatives. And, behind this veil of amnesia, there is a hidden treasure: the political programmes of the German Greens of that times. As described in a paper that Jorge Riechmann published in Ecología Política in 1994 (if you understand Spanish, this review is a must read), there was a conscious process of programmatic elaboration. It was carried out by the assemblies and representatives of the party all over West Germany, the many social movements where they had their roots, and hundreds of experts hired with the funds obtained from the presence of the party in the institutions. They envisioned, with much detail, how Die Grünen could foster a transition toward a socially fair degrowth.
Even though Die Grünen had already moderated some of their positions before the upheaval of the early 1990s (Blühdorn 2009), the rich programmatic document on international economic policy elaborated between 1988 and 1990 still declares that “For us it is no longer international politics in the national interest but national politics in the international interest” (p. 7) and that “we should not hide the fact that our foreign economic guidelines could bring about a noticeable reduction in our current standard of living” (p. 93). Few current radical parties would dare to go so far.
I was appalled by the amnesia surrounding the early Grünen, which I noticed in many different ways, not least by failing to find some key programmatic documents with search engines. Taking advantage of a trip to Berlin to give a talk, I visited the historical archive of Die Grünen (run by the Heinrich Böll Foundation) and I photocopied some of these documents. I put them together with some other documents in this small repository.
By studying the early programmes of Die Grünen, the degrowth movement can save much effort and leap forward in the detail and quality of its political proposals. Like the protagonist of Groundhog Day, we can also learn from that past to avoid a repetition of the same story.
This is just the beginning. I hope that this (or some other) repository will be enriched with more programmatic documents and with translations.
Salvador Pueyo is a scientist and an activist. He holds a PhD from the Dept. of Ecology of the University of Barcelona, and has worked at research institutions in several countries. He applies complexity science to macroecology, macroeconomics and global change. He is a member of Research & Degrowth.
The two images in this article were found in the document, “Gegen arbeitslosigkeit und Socialabbau: Sinnvoll arbeiten – solidarisch leben” by Die Grünen.
The seemingly insurmountable ecological crisis and staggering inequality facing humanity requires a vision that links urgency with inspiration. In recent years, a number of calls for a ‘safe living space’ have been made. This refers to a civilization that addresses fundamental human needs but does not overstep biophysical limits. In other words, we need governance institutions that reside between a social ‘floor’ and a biophysical ‘ceiling’. While this has garnered increasing traction among academics, activists, policy-makers, and well…just about anyone who cares about the future of children, unfortunately, the centre of power (Washington, London, Ottawa etc.) has another future vision.
The supreme rationale of this vision is to forever fabricate new ways to create new wants (i.e. new commodities) from consumers in the so-called “developed” world. The creation of new markets for new ‘wants’ we didn’t even know we wanted does not appear without consequence. Resource inputs, cheap human labour and a repository for waste products become imperative as ever-growing markets become a touchstone of the global economy. No corner of the world is left unscathed in the search for new raw materials, cheap labour and waste dumps. Often these activities occur at the periphery of the global economy, where pristine environments and culturally unique yet marginalized societies offer new sources of “fodder” to assimilate back into the centre of global economic power.
What’s more, any attempt at solving this from within the system has continued on the same lines. To protect nature, we are told we need to turn it into a commodity, or trade it on the market. Hence cap and trade schemes and eco-tourism enterprises, which just makes it easier for the same systems to keep profiting. Conceiving of market solutions to solve this crisis created by markets only serves to reinforce this dangerous power which is destroying true wealth, the kind that cannot be bought back or retrieved when lost. It is clear that this process, which is oh so reminiscent of colonialism, is not the way we are going to arrive at a ‘safe living space’. It is no wonder why it is hard to be enthusiastic about the prospects of searching ‘within the system’ for a solution.
Recently, however, I was refreshingly surprised to find a glimmer of hope from the institutions of our own global governance system. At this August’s meeting of the International Society of Ecological Economics in Reykjavik, there was a lot of excitement sparked by the talk of one plenary speaker, Polly Higgins. Higgins was a barrister at the Royal Courts of Justice in the UK and has since devoted her life to demystify the law and provide a potential solution to curtail the destruction of our global commons. At the plenary, she explained her campaign to legitimize “ecocide” as an international criminal law against humanity. Yes, that’s right…a law! Is it possible to enact a law so global in its vision, that it would serve to cut off the dangerous feedback of new market creation and associated eco-social destruction?
Through skillful chicanery, the neoliberal agenda has greatly influenced conservation policy in recent years by turning the benefits of ecosystems into tradable commodities which can be allocated through the market to maximize individual utility (and hence aggregated to achieve social well-being). However, such an approach ignores the high costs of defining property rights for ecological benefits which simply cannot be owned. Instead, the recognition of ecocide and subsequent codification as an international law would sanctify ecosystem structure and resulting processes that ensure human well-being for present and future generations. Without recognition of the sanctity of the global commons for our collective welfare, continued economic growth will invariably result in local (and increasingly global) resource depletion, fueling more social conflict and war.
Ecocide refers to damage or destruction to ecosystems (either by direct human agency or climate catastrophes) to the extent that human well-being is negatively impacted. By invoking criminal implications, an international criminal law would trump national sovereignty and could set in motion a paradigm shift away from continuous economic growth on a planet of finite resources. Corporate leaders would not be liable to monetary fines; instead they would be tried in an international criminal court for committing ecocide. It may come as a bit of a stretch to make an argument for improving the law, given that law has undeniably advanced further ecological degradation under a dominant political economy in which corporations are legally bound to put profit first in responding to their shareholders. However, an ecocide law would supplant corporate obligations by imposing a higher normative obligation to address injustice and equality first in the stewardship of a ‘safe living space’.
One outcome of causing mass ecological damage and destruction has been manifested in climate change as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. In relation to floods, tsunamis, rising sea levels and other naturally-occurring forms of ecocide, all nations would have a legal duty of care under an ecocide law to give assistance to communities suffering directly or indirectly from the degradation of the global commons and the ecological services these resources provide. In the case of climate change, the loss of the beneficial climate regulation service, irreversibly degraded by industrial activity, results in impacts often far removed from the source of degradation. An international criminal law on ecocide would place the burden of proof directly on those most powerful to influence and direct human impacts on ecological structure. These include heads of state, ministers, heads of banks, and corporate executives who are in a position to make decisions that impact many millions of others. In this way, we can begin to prioritise decisions that put the well-being of the planet and society first above private interests.
Much to the disregard of most economists, there are inherent dangers of viewing the earth and its resources as property–in which an imposed value can be placed to hasten and facilitate trade and consumption. The insightful aspect of Higgin’s plenary talk on an ecocide law transmitted the often neglected yet fundamentally moral characteristic of the environmental problems we face. Pretending that these can be addressed objectively under a single value ethic (e.g. utilitarian welfare) through cap-and-trade or punitive taxes will continue to mask and even reinforce perceived climate and other environmental injustices in the world today. If a ‘safe living space’ is our collective goal, we need to look beyond national laws and appreciate the boundaries for which the earth is sovereign…for which no space exists for bargaining or buying time. A global law brings with it an unavoidable ethical decision to put an end to the self-serving driver which crashes the floor and shoots the ceiling way into the air, away from reality.
For more information on the proposed international criminal law on ecocide, have a look at: www.eradicatingecocide.com.
Vijay Kolinjivadi is a PhD student studying Ecological Economics at McGill University in Montréal, Canada. His research has led him to report on the dangers of commodifying nature and to identify how and when human-nature relationships can be resilient in the face of inevitable change. He enjoys traveling and reading in grassy meadows among other things.