Talking About Greens
Dear Editors,
Adam Buick ("Why the Greens are Wrong", June Socialist Standard) is not. in my opinion, correct about the Green’s analysis of contemporary society. He asserts that we are not against the market and not against profit-making, and that our political strategy begins and ends with the election of a Green government.
This is not the case. The paragraphs in which he says “businesses only take account of their own narrow financial interest, ignoring wider social or ecological considerations . .. the result is an economic system governed by uncontrollable market forces which compel decision makers to plunder, pollute and waste" could come from any Green Party publication. As our political analysis deepens and matures (although the Green movement has deep roots, the Green Party’s history is rather briefer than your own 90 years) the thinking of Greens like Derek Wall (whom you quote approvingly) has become widely accepted. We know ourselves now to be anti-capitalist, and have long been anti-statist, seeking a shift to self-managing, self-reliant communities. Our vision of a green economy is one in which money is local and impossible to accumulate (witness our support for Local Exchange Trading Systems), in which all stakeholders and not just shareholders participate in the running of an enterprise, in which long-distance trade is regulated for fairness, sustainability and need and in which banking is democratic and community-based (note our participation in Credit Unions).
LETS and Credit Unions are only two ways in which we are putting this into practice directly. Our recently-adopted strategy was clear that elections are only one democratic opening available to us — Greens are active in community initiatives, nonviolent direct action and green economics. Our attitude to elections is clearly based on building local support first — earning the support of the community for Green action in local government, and seeking to build direct democracy through "town meetings" and referenda.
Of course, the Green Party has plenty of points of disagreement with the Socialist Party — we’d be discussing merger if we didn’t We do believe in a libertarian, rather than a planned economy — we believe that given control over their lives, people do act responsibly and morally. We believe that much of the “means of production" are not simply misused and monopolised, but destructive in their very design — we call for a retooling of society. We are not so certain that the working class will be the last to achieve emancipation — what about woman, subsistence farmers, the unemployed, or even other species? It is not your class background that determines your revolutionary potential, but your actual lifestyle or aspirations. And we do believe that important as community and workplace action is. change across the whole of society must be facilitated by Greens in every level of government
I hope these real points of difference will be dissected in your pages in the future — as the old saying goes, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Alex Begg,
Green Party Local Support Coordinator,
Leeds
Reply:
We’re sorry, but the Green Party does accept the market and it does accept profit-making. Not. it is true, in their present form but as modified by the legislation to be enacted by a Green government.
The “Green economy" that the Green Party wants seems to be a small-scale, localised economy but still one in which the market and profit-seeking firms have a place. You yourself mention that this will still involve money, banking and shareholders. But shareholders draw an unearned income from the firms they invest in, so these firms will have to make profits in order to be able to pay this out. Interest-free banking under capitalism is conceivable as a remote possibility, but not profit-free firms — even small ones.
If we had to put a name to it, we would say that this "Green economy" would be a small-scale, modified capitalist economy. The main objection to it is that it is never going to happen. Capitalism has a built-in tendency to the concentration and centralisation of industry and, with this, of government and the population as well.
Capitalism runs on profits. Under the competitive pressures of the market, most of these have to be re-invested in new and cheaper methods of production which are generally “capital intensive” and so large scale. This "accumulation of capital” (as Marx put it) is an economic law of the system which cannot be reversed by the action of any government. Still less by the sort of self-help action at local level (LETS, credit unions, housing associations, allotments, etc) that you say the Green Party is now into as well as trying to get a Green government elected.
We are not saying that a more decentralised decision-making and administrative structure with more local democracy is not desirable. What we are saying is that it is impossible to achieve within the context of capitalism. In fact the only framework within which it could be achieved is that provided by Socialism: a world in which the natural and industrial resources of the planet have ceased to be the private property of individuals, firms and states, and in which market forces have ceased to operate because production is carried on directly to meet needs.
The same goes for the problems faced by the groups you mention — women, subsistence farmers and the unemployed (most of whom, by the way, are members of the working class, properly understood as the vast majority in society who are excluded from the ownership and control of productive resources). Their problems, too, can only be solved within this framework.
Where this points is towards our policy of trying to get people to concentrate on working to establish this framework rather than diverting their energies into trying to get a few minor — and precarious —improvements within the present system. This is the real difference between the Socialist Party and the Green Party — and all other parties.
Editors.
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