Going Green

Reading the manifesto of any radical and progressive party in Britain requires a leap of faith. The chances of the Greens forming the next government are roughly equal to those of New Labour declaring Britain a socialist republic – hovering, as they do, somewhere close to zero. The temptation, then, must be to say as little as possible by way of specifics and as much of what your imagined core supporters want to hear as possible. Thankfully, the Greens have resisted that temptation and produced a sober and informed document that could comfortably be accepted by socialists as well as environmentalists – and, I suspect, plenty of people who accept neither of those labels.

It’'s the economy, stupid!

The mainstream media, when it bothers to notice the Greens at all, tends to stereotype them as a single issue party. Critics on the left have often come to a similar conclusion from a different perspective – arguing that the Greens’ well worked out environmental policies tend to float around in a sea of ideological incoherence. There may be some historical truth to this charge, but today’s Greens can lay claim to a clear platform of radical proposals focused around an alternative economic strategy. Real Progress indeed.

At the centre of the party’s economic programme is a vision of sustainability based on economic localisation. This is promoted to counter the corrosive effects of market-led globalisation, which has allowed transnational corporations (TNCs) to trample over people’s basic living standards, considerably widening global inequality and leaving an enormous ‘ecological footprint’ (see ‘The case for localisation’ by the late Mike Woodin and Caroline Lucas).

Whereas conventional, neoliberal economics treats environmental and social concerns as ‘externalities’ – subordinating them to the drive for profit – the starting point of the Green economic platform is that the economy operates within a world of natural and finite resources, and should be treated as such. This means that we need to find ways to account for the environmental impact of our everyday activities, and re-imagine our economic relationships in ways that move beyond the accumulation of wealth and consumption-for-consumption’s-sake. That might risk sounding puritanical, were it not for the basic (and well argued) point that rising consumption levels don’t necessarily improve our actual quality of life, since they are accompanied by pollution, inequality and instability.

In practical terms, the Greens propose three main sets of practical changes that would start to reorient the economy on this basis. Firstly, they argue that the tax system should be recentred around ‘environmental sustainability and social equity’, replacing VAT with ‘eco-taxes’ calculated according to ‘natural resource usage, pollution and waste’. The Manifesto is short on detail, but the examples given – new taxes on aviation fuel and plastic shopping bags – give at least a general idea.

Secondly, the Greens promise to redistribute wealth by creating two new income tax bands, set at 50% for those earning over £50,000 per year and 60% for those earning over £100,000. The Manifesto also pledges to address the issue of ‘unearned wealth’ through reforms in the Inheritance Tax system and land reform (noting that currently ‘70% of the land is owned by 0.6% of the population’).

Thirdly, the Manifesto spells out the implications of economic localisation in relation to trade. The current global system tends to vest increasing power in the hands of unaccountable transnational corporations at the expense of elected national governments. Moreover, corporate-led trade doesn’t trickle down to individuals and actually damages local economies. To start with, then, the Greens would promote democratically accountable Community Banks, credit unions, micro-credit and local exchange trading as a means to encourage local investment (and, implicitly, cut off the basis for global finance capital its root). On a grander scale, they would also reform Corporation Tax with a greater number of tax bands, so that large companies pay more (up to 40%); cancel debt for the 52 poorest countries; and introduce a Tobin Tax on currency speculation. Finally, the Greens would seek to replace the WTO and have a General Agreement on Sustainable Trade (GAST) replace the current trade and services treaty (GATS), which is a principal means for the advancement of neoliberalism. They would also seek to ‘reform and democratise’ the IMF and World Bank so that their goals become the eradication of poverty and the enhancement of environmental sustainability. This goal of meaningful reform seems a little far fetched, given the record of these institutions in implementing punitive structural adjustment programmes on the global South, not to mention the recent appointment of neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz as President of the latter. But as the creation of a progressive IMF/World Bank would in any case require the effective abolition of what currently exists, I suppose this is a moot point.

A more serious loophole is the failure to address the significant decline in corporation tax payments in recent years. Increasingly, global corporations manage to evade taxation through transfer pricing, an accounting device which allows them to shift around their profits to manipulate the system. This deficit cannot be met through increased corporation taxes alone, but would require commitments to closer regulation of the international economic system beyond what the Greens are currently proposing.

The Greens also support a Tobin Tax, which has been welcomed as a positive demand in many quarters as a means to reduce currency speculation and the economic instability it brings – but questioned by others on the left as simply a palliative standing in the way of more radical demands to transform the international financial system.

From Carbon to Renewable Energy

As expected, the Greens have a lot to say about climate change, although the core of their position is easily stated: we need to reduce carbon emissions through the expansion of renewable energy production. But tackling climate change doesn’t simply mean ‘business as usual’, as both Labour and the Lib Dems think. The Greens argue that we would actually need to reduce energy-use (in the home as well as in business) and find more equitable means to distribute the limited resources that the earth provides. The Greens also reject the myth that nuclear power can be a clean energy source, arguing instead that a 40% increase in renewable energy by 2020 should be achieved by a mix of solar, wind and wave power.

So far, so unobjectionable. But the Greens are less impressive when it comes to addressing the Kyoto model of emissions trading: ‘We have an opportunity to lead Europe, not only in energy generation, but also in carbon emissions trading.’ This is not necessarily as progressive as it might sound, since there is significant research – conducted by Carbon Trade Watch, amongst others – which shows that the ‘emissions trading’ system has the potential to exacerbate environmental and social injustice, creating incentives for the expansion of monoculture plantations in the global South rather than restraining consumption in the North. A more consistent commitment to economic localization might take account of the perverse incentives that the commodification of pollution creates.

Welfare for all

Universal, public provision is at the centre of the Greens’ approach to welfare. Their approach is centred on rebuilding the welfare state through the creation of a Citizens’ Income, establishing this ‘unconditional, non-withdrawable income as a universal right, to cover basic needs’ (see www.citizensincome.org). In marked contrast to New Labour – which has eroded the universal principle of welfare provision through a bewildering array of tax credits and means tests – this would actually extend the ideals (if not always the practice) of the post-war welfare model. The key advantage of such a scheme is that it allows everyone to draw some benefit from the system, instead of the current residualisation of welfare which treats it merely as a way to discipline the poor and encourage the unemployed to accept underemployment and precarious work. This universal aspect seems to me a vital principle if widespread public support for a welfare state is to be maintained and the spectre of tax revolts (haunting us from across the Atlantic) are not to become a reality. Green provisions for children and pensioners are also based on the Citizen’s Income model – with proposals for a child-rate Citizen’s Income (basically, an enhanced Child Benefit) and a Citizen’s Pension.

The Greens make two firm commitments on work. Firstly, they would sign up to a Charter of Workers Rights. Secondly, they make a commitment to reduced working hours – ending Britain’s opt out from the EU Working Time Directive and reviewing the ‘potential’ for a 35 hour week – whilst, disappointingly, stopping short of a commitment to this.

The section on social housing is short on specifics, although it makes positive noises on investment and land reform.

Health and Education

On health and education, the Greens emphasise the need to recover and defend a ‘service ethos’ rather than ‘commercial management’. This is translated into a commitment to increase public investment through higher rates of income and corporation tax, topped up by reductions in defence expenditure.

Their mantra on health is that ‘prevention is better than cure’. As a result, health promotion and illness prevention are prioritised, giving a wider meaning to the Green principle of ‘sustainability’ beyond the conventional sense of ‘environmental issues’.

The main theme here, though, is a rejection of the currently dominant neoliberal model of healthcare promoted by the major parties: ‘The Green Party rejects the nostrum of patient choice, which actually undermines the NHS by replicating services, often using private provides, inorder to offer the illusion of choice.’ In policy terms, this means a rejection of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and the two-tier system of foundation hospitals, as well as abolishing prescription charges and reintroducing free eye and dental checkups.

Importantly, the manifesto also recognises that domestic policy is not the sole agent of privatisation, but that international trade negotiations are starting to encompass even these core ‘service’ sectors and treat them as potential markets. In this regard, the Greens advocate opposition to the EU endorsed WTO proposal to extend GATS to healthcare.

The Greens have considerably less to say about education, although they do promise universal provision paid for by a more progressive tax system. On schools, the emphasis is on flexibility (in the sense of diversity, rather than greater privatisation). But there is no mention of the persistent problem of the tax-breaks achieved by private schools through their ‘charitable’ status, and no mention either of the way in which flexibility is currently being discussed by mainstream politicians in the guise of promoting new, business-oriented ‘academies’. The sole concrete pledge is a promise to scrap SATS tests.

The manifesto is a little better on education beyond core schooling. Lifelong education is interpreted as a necessity to ‘help people to reach their full potential as human beings’ in an ‘equitable and just society’ rather than ‘just skills for the workplace’. This provides a rationale for their commitment to expand childcare facilities, scrap tuition fees and restore maintenance grants. But again, few details are provided and the section as a whole is rather weak.

Transport

The Greens’ transport agenda is perhaps the most radical aspect of their whole programme. Their starting point is that ‘Our transport systems have been built to solve the wrong problem’, namely the inadequate supply of roads and runways relative to our spiraling demands to travel more. Instead, the Greens argue, we should address the ‘root causes of [the] demand for mobility’. This is a laudable aim, although I am left doubting whether this could be achieved without a fundamental shift in economic and social relations (beyond the rather more modest changes that the Green Manifesto lays the groundwork for). The question to ask then, I suppose, is whether their approach to transport at least moves in the direction of what they term a ‘modal shift’.

Judged in these terms, the transport policies put forward by the Greens seem well worked out. There is a welcome recognition that an integrated public transport system actually works out far cheaper than developing equivalent provisions for private travel. This provides the rationale for the Greens’ commitment to return rail and tube to public ownership. The importance of a publicly accountable planning system, which such a move would make possible, is also recognised.

The Greens don’t duck the issue of the need for massive investment in public transport provision, which they would meet by reallocating the government’s £30 billion road building budget. They would also provide incentives for fuel-efficient vehicles as well as introducing congestion charging and road pricing. The latter policy, made famous by Ken Livingstone but first conceived of by Thatcher’s mentor Keith Joseph, requires a little more explanation than the manifesto is prepared to give it if it is to be seen as a progressive move, however. In London, congestion charging works well because there is, broadly speaking, an economic division between car owners and those of us reliant on public transport. But this is not necessarily true for the whole country, and it would need to be integrated with cross-subsidies for public transport use if it were to become an incentive to switch over, rather than simply a regressive tax to drive the poor off the roads.

To tackle air transport growth, the Greens would introduce a new tax on aviation fuel, which is currently exempt from taxation: ‘in effect, a public subsidy worth around £9 billion a year’. The wider impact of this policy of having the cost of air transport reflect more closely its ‘true environmental costs’ is not lost either. Tackling air transport growth would ‘also force a re-appraisal of the real cost of international trade’, especially in the area of food supplies, where the heightened cost of imports would make local produce more viable.

Environment

It is a little surprising to come across a section explicitly on the environment in a manifesto which otherwise tries to integrate environmental and sustainable thinking at all levels of policy. But this section also tries to show the connections with other issues, whilst reaffirming that ‘The central aim of green politics is to reduce our burden or “ecological footprint” on the planet to a sustainable level.’

The commitment to a Zero Waste policy starts by claiming that ‘Our growing mountains of waste represent economic inefficiency,’ before setting out policies to ‘reduce packaging, outlaw incineration, set standards for the recycled contents of products, and stabilise the market in recyclable materials.’ The ambitious goal of these policies would be a 60% reduction in domestic waste by 2010.

Unsustainable industrial and agricultural processes also come in for criticism, with the Greens highlighting several otherwise obscure issues that environmental campaigners are trying to put on the agenda: the strengthening of the EU’s Chemicals Directive, with a view to promoting the development of biodegradable substances; and a ‘precautionary principle’ with regard to the alleged benefits of genetic modification and nanotechnology.

The Manifesto also draws attention to the WTO’s wide-ranging agreement on Trade-Related Apsects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) which, amongst other things, has been used to commodify natural resources by patenting them.

Animal rights are also flagged up in this section, with pledges to ban live animal exports, fur imports and battery chicken rearing.

Food and farming

‘Our current approach to food supply is unsustainable and fosters economic insecurity.’ This is a well worn territory amongst environmentalist and international peasant farmers movements, but it is nevertheless welcome to see a British political party taking up the challenges of food sovereignty and intensive agriculture in its manifesto. The Greens draw attention to the ways in which the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy fuels factory farming and intensive agriculture, and the intense pressure that the international trade in farm produce places on rural economies.

In particular, the manifesto draws attention to the long supply chains controlled by transnational corporations, and promises a ‘food-chain revolution’ to localise production and supply, rebalancing the market in favour of small, less intensive farms. The Greens also propose to set a target for organic produce of 30% by 2012; assist the growth of farmers markets and local coops; and take on the supermarkets by introducing a strengthened and legally binding Code of Practice to reduce anti-competitive behaviour. Although it is not fully spelled out, this last point would, paradoxically, work against the current ‘free trade’ agenda because it implicitly recognises that the practice of deregulation is self-refuting, since markets are susceptible to power relations that market mechanisms, left to their own devices, cannot control.

Crime and Justice

As with their approach to healthcare, the Green approach to crime is also holistic – emphasising that criminal justice ‘needs to be a product of a dynamic, equitable and democratic community’, Their crime policies are therefore focused on prevention, with detailed measures to control gun crime, as well as a pledge to increase the emphasis on community policing.

Restorative justice and rehabilitation are recognised as important means to reduce re-offending rates, and as a counterpoint to the use of prison as a dumping ground for people with serious social and mental health problems.

There is also support for tackling hate crime, and a pledge to implement the EU Disability Directive, which bizarrely ends up in this section – an inadvertent and awkward recognition that the Greens have little to say on equality issues in this manifesto.

There is also a pledge to oppose national ID cards and use the £3billion spent on them for other crime prevention measures.

Democracy

As well as advocating economic localisation, the Greens advocate political localisation too – noting that the UK has a very centralised political system despite devolution. The Greens advocate proportional representation (PR) at a local level; greater powers for the Scottish and Welsh assemblies; regional government in England (noting that regionalisation of sorts is happening anyway with the growing influence of Regional Development Agencies, but that these are unaccountable); and increased powers for the European Parliament over the unelected Commission.

Cynics might find this all very convenient – given that the Greens’ current strongholds are in local government, the Scottish Assembly and the European Parliament, and that they stand to benefit greatly from PR. But there are positive arguments in favour of their position too. The consistent thread running through these policies is an emphasis on greater democratisation – let the people decide, whether by means of ‘proportional representation, citizen’s initiatives and referenda.’ It is in the Greens’ interests to oppose the ‘sterile grip of the two-party system’, but this doesn’t make their position untenable. It can be argued that the current post-Thatcher consensus and, in particular, the electoral emphasis on marginal constituencies with their fantasy, middle England ‘hard-working families’ – is encouraged by the failure of our political system to accommodate diversity within its representative structures. The Greens don’t put it quite as bluntly, of course, although they do point out Britain’s ‘democratic deficit’. They also promise a series of other welcome reforms: an upper house elected by proportional representation; a written constitution; the disestablishment of the Church of England; and stripping the monarchy of its legislative roles (although they stop short of a full-blown republican platform).

There is a significant and surprising omission in the Greens approach to democracy, however. Their emphasis on making our ‘representative’ institutions more representative is welcome, but the manifesto has little to say on participatory democracy. Practices that are well tried and tested internationally, such as participatory budgeting, do not get a look in here. This is disappointing, given that such measures would be consistent with the ethos of ‘localisation’ that the Greens argue for.

Peace, security and international policy

The Greens argue for ‘a truly ethical foreign policy’, which would mean the ‘equitable sharing of the world’s resources’ on the basis of ‘economic localisation’. There is a superficial paradox here: how can greater local differentiation lead to increased equality? The rationale of their position is that localisation would disperse the power currently vested in TNCs, Western governments and neoliberal financial institutions, thereby enhancing people’s ability to have a meaningful stake in the decisions that most affect them.

I have already dealt with the economic side of these proposals above, but these do not exhaust the Greens’ international policy commitments. The manifesto pledges to decommission nuclear weapons and work for arms reduction. It argues against militarism and neo-conservative strategies, such as those which led to the Iraq war (which the Greens steadfastly opposed), and questions the present government’s ‘misguided faith in the “special relationship”’. There is a pledge to end export credits for arms sales – which are, in effect, a massive subsidy to Britain’s defence industry – and a pledge to promote an International Arms Trade Treaty too. The Greens also promise to reduce Britain’s military spending to the EU average, although they unfortunately have nothing to say on the present drive to create a more militarised EU, either as a counterpoint to US power or as a complement to it.

On UN reform – a very pertinent issue at present, although one that the mainstream parties have remained very silent on – the Greens argue for the abolition of permanent seats on the Security Council and the introduction of a majority vote principle.

The Greens also oppose the EU Constitution, which is the other major international issue that’s gone missing in the current election debate. Their objection is not to the EU itself, or to engagement with Europe, or even to the idea of a Constitution. Rather, they argue that the present document will do nothing to make the EU more transparent, accountable or environmentally sustainable.

Asylum and migration

The section on asylum is short and, on the whole, a bit disappointing – though mainly for what it doesn’t say rather than for what it does say. The Greens recognise the need to reduce ‘push factors’ – such as arms sales and unfair trade – which are the causes of displacement. This, at least, grapples a major issue that falls outside the current moral panics on immigration: the need to understand why people feel compelled to uproot themselves in the first place.

There are welcome commitments to grant benefits to asylum seekers and give them the right to work. But the manifesto does little to challenge the current asylum and migration system: no commitments are made regarding detention centres, for example, and in warning that we should not confuse asylum with economic migration, the manifesto actually fails to address the positives of economic migration at all – let along the social and citizenship rights of economic migrants. All this is unfortunate, although in mitigation the Greens could point to the positive record of both Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert (their 2 MEPs) on such issues.