Why the Green Party is shit

[Bernie Gunther]

One important thing about green with a small 'g' politics is the (fairly compelling in my view) argument that you can't have sustainable capitalism any more than you can have socially just capitalism. Nor can you address one, certainly at scale, without addressing the other.

All that '... but you want to send us back to the 17th century' stuff needs to be understood in this context if it's meant to be a serious criticism rather than just a crude parody.

 

[killer b]

I'm a bit vague about intersectionality. It's a bit like oppression top trumps, yeah?

I think the basic idea behind it ('be aware of and perhaps take into account the different ways people can be oppressed'. I think) is pretty sound. The endless attempts to enforce and codify it via twitter, less so.

 

[elbows]

One important thing about green with a small 'g' politics is the (fairly compelling in my view) argument that you can't have sustainable capitalism any more than you can have socially just capitalism.

All that 'you want to send us back to the 17th century' stuff needs to be understood in that context if it's not just crude parody.

Much of my frustrations of the last 12ish years stem from the possibility that this stuff is not going to gain broader political attention, and will not get to mix much with other political ideas I like, until some more vivid displays of its unsustainability are on offer.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Much of my frustrations of the last 12ish years stem from the possibility that this stuff is not going to gain broader political attention, and will not get to mix much with other political ideas I like, until some more vivid displays of its unsustainability are on offer.

Even then, unless there's widespread conciousness of the way both unsustainability and injustice have their roots in capitalism plus a political movement arising from that conciousness that effectively does something about it; all that those 'vivid displays' are likely to achieve is political pressure to blame it all on foreigners while capital profits from it.

 

[tbtommyb]

what? intersectionality is discussion being funnelled in a particular direction, not a discussion starter in itself. Has it fuck renewed interest and discussion in the left's ideas, it's put countless people off even engaging.

I think it has renewed interest in the issue of privilege, and I think examining how people use privilege to create power structures that perpetuate their privilege is central to left wing politics.

 

[BigTom]

I'm a bit vague about intersectionality. It's a bit like oppression top trumps, yeah?

afaik it starts from academic feminism and a realisation that sexism isn't the only form of oppression and that other forms of oppression (eg: racism, homophobia) intersect with sexism in people who suffer from more than one oppression. Poverty/class/economic oppression is simply another oppression in this ideology, which puts it at odds with a marxist-feminist position, which sees sexism as intrinsically linked with capitalism and class. Intersectionalism is very individualistic and generally liberal (because the politics is all about the oppression/domination of the individuals in a relationship, and the solution to the problem is for people to check their privilege, ie become better people).

From this start you can kind of go two ways - one is to use the idea of different oppressions as a way of building solidarity between different oppressed groups, to see that the feminist struggle won't be complete until the anti-racist struggle is complete because black women will still be oppressed even if women aren't and to see a path for empathy in that a white woman can understand a black man's oppression because there'll be similarities.

The other, which is where the twitter intersectionalists have gone, is to use it to divide so a man can't disagree with a woman about sexism (this has some validity but they take it too far then get all in a twist when they find themselves arguing against a woman - eg see the comet scientist shirt discussion and how some people made a big thing about how a woman designed the shirt so it can't be sexist which troubled the intersectionalists who thought the shirt was sexist) and to play the oppression top trumps whereby a rich black woman is more oppressed than a poor white man because she has 2 oppression and he only has 1. Mostly it seems to just be used to shut discussion down.

I've never seen intersectionalism used in a practical sense, there's no praxis afaik, the only time it's come out in real life was in the student groups at Brum Uni during the anti-cuts stuff, and then it wasn't used to inform organisation/strategy/tactics but as offhand comments in discussions when an intersectionalist would say someone should check their privelege about something or other. I guess that it may be more practical in liberation stuff but I've not seen it in the anti-racism / anti-edl stuff I've been involved with in the past few years.

imo obviously.

 

[killer b]

I think it has renewed interest in the issue of privilege, and I think examining how people use privilege to create power structures that perpetuate their privilege is central to left wing politics.

but nobody other than middle class liberals on the internet have even heard of it?

 

[elbows]

Even then, unless there's widespread conciousness of the way both unsustainability and injustice have their roots in capitalism plus a political movement arising from that conciousness that effectively does something about it; all that those 'vivid displays' are likely to achieve is political pressure to blame it all on foreigners while capital profits from it.

Well initially I'm not even hoping for widespread consciousness of this stuff, I was just hoping to get to a point where related issues would worm their way into discussion on the likes on u75 in new ways. To at least partially bridge a gap that existed on, for example, between the peak oil thread and some of the other political discussions/stances/angles on u75. Or a discussion of sustainable politics and societies that doesn't get bogged down by either the nature of the mainstream capitalist greenwashing of recent times, hippy dippy shit, or earlier ecologist politics that may have interesting class dimensions and unpalatable eugenicist angles.

 

[J Ed]

Well initially I'm not even hoping for widespread consciousness of this stuff, I was just hoping to get to a point where related issues would worm their way into discussion on the likes on u75 in new ways. To at least partially bridge a gap that existed on, for example, between the peak oil thread and some of the other political discussions/stances/angles on u75. Or a discussion of sustainable politics and societies that doesn't get bogged down by either the nature of the mainstream capitalist greenwashing of recent times, hippy dippy shit, or earlier ecologist politics that may have interesting class dimensions and unpalatable eugenicist angles.

Interesting discussion in a programme I listened to today including on the limits of 'ethical consumerism' and green washed 'nicer' capitalism.

 

[tbtommyb]

BigTom one issue with it is that people sometimes use it to mean that because they are 'oppressed' to a small extent in some way this means that they therefore fit into the 'oppressed' group. E.g. a posh friend of mine told me 'it's so hard to be a Catholic in England' because people at dinner ask loads of questions, or because of the anti-Catholic laws from the 17th century or something. But I'm sure his wealth will see him through. However, this is a mis-use of the whole concept.

killer b maybe 'intersectionality' as a term yes, but I think the wider ideas around privilege are spreading further.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well initially I'm not even hoping for widespread consciousness of this stuff, I was just hoping to get to a point where related issues would worm their way into discussion on the likes on u75 in new ways. To at least partially bridge a gap that existed on, for example, between the peak oil thread and some of the other political discussions/stances/angles on u75. Or a discussion of sustainable politics and societies that doesn't get bogged down by either the nature of the mainstream capitalist greenwashing of recent times, hippy dippy shit, or earlier ecologist politics that may have interesting class dimensions and unpalatable eugenicist angles.

The 'unpalatable' things that you mention are often really good examples of what can happen when someone starts thinking about sustainability, sometimes even using real science, without also thinking about its relationship to capital, class and all the rest of it.

See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_ethics

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Despite reading an awful lot of Twitter I've never seen examples of "Twitter intersectionality" as described above being in the slightest commonplace. In general it seems to be a concept used pretty well, to challenge single-issue analyses based purely on gender, race, class etc.

 

[frogwoman]

Despite reading an awful lot of Twitter I've never seen examples of "Twitter intersectionality" as described above being in the slightest commonplace. In general it seems to be a concept used pretty well, to challenge single-issue analyses based purely on gender, race, class etc.

I have.

But yeah I think it encompasses a really big range of things from people who use that kind of stuff to inform really sound views and analysis (and let's be honest it was the comrade delta thing that really triggered a more widespread acceptance of this stuff on the British left, I have a good mate who agrees with us on most stuff who uses this stuff to inform her views and to be honest after her experience of 'class based' trotskyite politics that only appeared gave a shit about men in positions of power a totally understand why) to the sort of bollocks talked about in this thread, bellydancing as cultural appropriation and so on.

 

[frogwoman]

stethoscope

 

[JTG]

Thanks all, it was a throwaway comment but I feel better informed now

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think it has renewed interest in the issue of privilege, and I think examining how people use privilege to create power structures that perpetuate their privilege is central to left wing politics.

I disagree. To me, examination of how privilege is deployed isn't central to anything. Dismantling the power structures that are used against us, on the other hand...

 

[SpackleFrog]

No problem.

Well, powered by solar panels and with a much more efficient use of resources. If our current lifestyle is flagrantly unsustainable then a shift to a more sustainable path might look like a step backwards in some ways. But then there is also sometimes a bit of a value judgement in it - 'without capitalism we won't have thing xyz that I have decided we don't really need'. Of course, then you get into what are true desires, what are artificial ones created by capitalism, is such a distinction valid, etc. etc.

Not really what I mean - you said you felt the Greens were against large centralised power generation but the alternative - locally produced energy - is gonna mean a massive decline in living standards whether you're talking pop up solar power generators or bijou personal coal power stations.

If our current lifestyle is flagrantly unsustainable

This is basically the issue in 7 words. "Our" lifestyle isn't flagrantly unsustainable - take it apart and understand the us and them dynamic behind it. My living standards aren't flagrantly unsustainable and probably yours aren't either - it's the obscene consumption of the super rich which absolutely cannot be sustained.

 

[SpackleFrog]

One important thing about green with a small 'g' politics is the (fairly compelling in my view) argument that you can't have sustainable capitalism any more than you can have socially just capitalism. Nor can you address one, certainly at scale, without addressing the other.

All that '... but you want to send us back to the 17th century' stuff needs to be understood in this context if it's meant to be a serious criticism rather than just a crude parody.

This is the thing isn't it though - people who quite rightly get alarmed about carbon emissions etc and how we as a species are killing ourselves and many other species at a fairly rapid pace but who cannot or will not think outside of the current profit driven paradigm can only suggest that we cease to consume. That's where all the mad 'zero growth' stuff comes from - and of course you'll never build mass support among people for this kind of idea, because reducing consumption without economic restructuring means reducing the consumption of the poorest, not the wealthy. In short, pushing the living standards of working class people back to 1700's levels.

Spiney and me know someone who is a fascinating example of this.

 

[BigTom]

I've usually found zero growth / steady state stuff to be linked to anti capitalist green politics tbh, the idea that capitalism requires growth and that growth is not indefinitely sustainable so capitalism is not indefinitely sustainable.

Also a slightly wider idea that we need to think of our economy as a finite space, so at some point growth must stop (or only come about through efficiency improvements)

Your right though that when this idea is linked to liberal politics it does what you say, needs an eco-socialist ideology underlying it

 

[andysays]

I LIKE TO UTILISE MY FOOD FOR MULTIPLE PURPOSES.

Thereby following the "reduce, re-use, re-cycle" maxim - you're clearly an instinctive green, you just need to embrace it

 

[andysays]

One important thing about green with a small 'g' politics is the (fairly compelling in my view) argument that you can't have sustainable capitalism any more than you can have socially just capitalism. Nor can you address one, certainly at scale, without addressing the other.

All that '... but you want to send us back to the 17th century' stuff needs to be understood in this context if it's meant to be a serious criticism rather than just a crude parody.

Agree with this 100%, which is why I was disappointed to see that the Green Party principles thing tbtommyb linked to above fails to make this point adequetely.

Greens need to be as explicit about the exploitation of people as they are about the exploitation of nature.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

This is the thing isn't it though - people who quite rightly get alarmed about carbon emissions etc and how we as a species are killing ourselves and many other species at a fairly rapid pace but who cannot or will not think outside of the current profit driven paradigm can only suggest that we cease to consume. That's where all the mad 'zero growth' stuff comes from - and of course you'll never build mass support among people for this kind of idea, because reducing consumption without economic restructuring means reducing the consumption of the poorest, not the wealthy. In short, pushing the living standards of working class people back to 1700's levels.

Spiney and me know someone who is a fascinating example of this.

I think there needs to be a clear relationship between directly democratic control of the means of production and sustainable consumption. A great deal of the other stuff sorts itself out if you have that bit sorted out, in my view.

... big 'if' though.

 

[SpineyNorman]

In my experience the ideal typical green is someone like taffboy.

 

[tbtommyb]

I disagree. To me, examination of how privilege is deployed isn't central to anything. Dismantling the power structures that are used against us, on the other hand...

I'm roughly equalling privilege to power, which is admittedly lazy, but you've got to examine how the power structures work in order to dismantle them, no? but yeah i should have added '... and then knock them down'.

 

[brogdale]

The loathsome 'Economist' interviewed Natalie Bennett...and set a trap that she fell into...

They are broadly against consumption, for example: “The world is sodden with stuff, it cannot have more stuff,” said Ms Bennett. Yet they do not appear to have considered what that would mean for billions of the world’s poorest people, almost none of whom live in Britain. When Bagehot suggested to her that there was a problem with this, Ms Bennett said he was worrying too much: to be poor in India wasn’t so bad as to be on benefits in Britain, she suggested, “because at least everyone else there is poor too”.

That is contemptibly naive and also a shame.

 

[tbtommyb]

This is the thing isn't it though - people who quite rightly get alarmed about carbon emissions etc and how we as a species are killing ourselves and many other species at a fairly rapid pace but who cannot or will not think outside of the current profit driven paradigm can only suggest that we cease to consume. That's where all the mad 'zero growth' stuff comes from - and of course you'll never build mass support among people for this kind of idea, because reducing consumption without economic restructuring means reducing the consumption of the poorest, not the wealthy. In short, pushing the living standards of working class people back to 1700's levels.

Spiney and me know someone who is a fascinating example of this.

I think 'zero growth' is a pretty broad church and I think a lot of it is outside the current profit driven paradigm, hence they argue for a wholesale change in economic structure e.g. look at this report from a green think tank. I was going to go to their event but couldn't make it so I will need to read through it in more depth, but from different part of the site:

As part of our 'Post-Growth Project', Bill Blackwater addressed the key question ‘'Why do capitalist economies need to grow?' (pdf, 278 K) in a provocative essay which argues that growth is essential to capitalism and that therefore anybody who believes we need to abandon growth as a political goal must accept that this means we need to abandon capitalism. Green House's Victor Anderson has now responded by taking issue with some aspects of Bill's essay in a new Gas entitled Growth, Capitalism and the 'Green Economy': a response to Bill Blackwell (pdf, 255 K). This is hotly-debated territory in the Green movement, and we hope and anticipate that this conversation will develop and attract new participants, enabling us all to understand better the relationship between capitalism and growth.

It's a more sophisticated analysis than 'don't consume' and so I think a zero growth society wouldn't necessarily have to mean lower living standards for the majority and could improve it in many ways (e.g. less work). That said, I think sorting out massive income inequality would be a prerequisite of any shift to zero growth, to stop a small elite not applying it to themselves.

Separately on the point about sustainable lifestyles, I think I need to look into the data a bit more. Do you know of any good emissions analysis adjusted for income? My initial thought that while the super rich's consumption is very high, a lot of it wouldn't have high embedded emissions because they're buying expensively branded trinkets and shite. number of miles flown is probably a better indicator (and obviously the rich fly more).

 

[tbtommyb]

I think there needs to be a clear relationship between directly democratic control of the means of production and sustainable consumption. A great deal of the other stuff sorts itself out if you have that bit sorted out, in my view.

... big 'if' though.

Why does democratic control lead to more sustainable consumption?

Also, on a separate point - I think a lot of the green movement has been focused on what a future society will look like. Will it be a bright green society saved by sustainable technology? Will it be a deep green return to older society? Will it be a dark green future of destruction? (other greens are available). Because there's been so much discussion on the what there's been less on the how. But I think there is a (growing?) realisation that capitalism is a major impediment, unless you're throwing your lot in with technology.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I think 'zero growth' is a pretty broad church and I think a lot of it is outside the current profit driven paradigm, hence they argue for a wholesale change in economic structure e.g. look at this report from a green think tank. I was going to go to their event but couldn't make it so I will need to read through it in more depth, but from different part of the site:



It's a more sophisticated analysis than 'don't consume' and so I think a zero growth society wouldn't necessarily have to mean lower living standards for the majority and could improve it in many ways (e.g. less work). That said, I think sorting out massive income inequality would be a prerequisite of any shift to zero growth, to stop a small elite not applying it to themselves.

Separately on the point about sustainable lifestyles, I think I need to look into the data a bit more. Do you know of any good emissions analysis adjusted for income? My initial thought that while the super rich's consumption is very high, a lot of it wouldn't have high embedded emissions because they're buying expensively branded trinkets and shite. number of miles flown is probably a better indicator (and obviously the rich fly more).

Very fair points. On the statistics though, I think it's important not to get too bogged down in what the numbers are now because they don't help you to see the potential.

A world in which humanity co-operated on producing renewable energy would re-write carbon emissions totally, and that's the only viable solution to climate change.

 

[8ball]

I'm a bit vague about intersectionality. It's a bit like oppression top trumps, yeah?

You can also win by inventing a new category, but it works best if you already tick some of the other boxes.

 

[butchersapron]

The answer is political not statistical. The mention of the peak oil debate above reminds me of what i think is an exemplary piece of what Bernie was saying he'd like to see more of:

The Peak Oil Complex, Commodity Fetishism, and Class Struggle

I argue that Peak Oil arguments cut both ways. Though they can be used to criticize capitalists’ stewardship of important natural resources, they can also be used to justify attacks on working class wages, working conditions and social guarantees in the name of “escaping the energy apocalypse.” For the key issues in the coming years will be: What classes will pay for “the energy transition”? What classes will benefit from potentially a century of “expensive oil”? What classes will lose wages, profits and/or rents? And finally, will class society be transcended in the course of this transition?