Rejection of modernism and reason – instead, creeping fascism, like
fascism, appeals to the most base emotions (such as hate), using lies and ‘fake
news’ to get people worked up to such an extent they can no longer do any
rational or joined-up thinking.
3. Irrationalism – instead of rational thought,
creeping fascism tries to get people to just take ‘action for action’s sake’
based on ‘gut’ reactions and emotion.
4. Anti-science and learning – scientific facts are rejected in
favour of what they call ‘alternative facts’ (& what the rest of us know is
just wrong information or even outright nonsense!), and it’s why they dismiss
the knowledge of experts.
5. Fear of difference & diversity,
and hatred of dissent – it seems
creeping fascists/fascists become extremely frightened and angry if they ever
come across anyone who isn’t just like them!
6. Frustration at their current
economic situation – while
the frustration is often valid, creeping fascists/fascists prefer to take their
frustration out on minorities that are even worse off them, instead of taking
it out on the over-rich elite who’re actually causing their economic and social
problems.
7. Enemies of the nation’ – creeping fascists/fascists
always need ‘enemies’ in order to build up their hate-based ‘nationalism’; a
‘nationalism’/’patriotism’ which they often try to wrap up in national flags.
8. Domination – creeping fascists/fascists,
especially their leaders, typically have inferiority complexes; to make
themselves feel better, they therefore look for minority groups/ ‘others’ that
they can ‘boss’ or intimidate.
9. Machismo and misogyny – the need to dominate amongst
male creeping fascists/fascists is often closely connected to domestic and
sexual abuse, with such males being at least TWICE as likely to commit such
crimes as any other group of males.
1 Far-right populism vs. democracy – creeping fascist/fascist leaders often claim that
‘democracy’ is a bad thing, which is dominated by ‘woke liberal elites’, and
which should be replaced by leaders who ‘know’ what the ‘people’ really want –
even though such leaders nearly always come from … the very wealthiest elites!
11. Newspeak’ – this is
Umberto Eco’s version of what we now call ‘fake news’/ ‘alternative facts’; or,
in everyday language, lies!
But don’t let the current evidence
of a drift towards creeping fascism make you despair! Because there is now a
realistic hope that ‘Change IS Coming’! Because the election of Zack Polanski
as the new leader of the GPEW is an encouraging development on several fronts.
Not only will the election of a green populist as leader allow the Green Party
to move away from its current fixation with ‘soft Tory voters’, it may well
also allow the party to move back to the radical campaigning organisation it
was before 2017.
Zack Polanski’s election also opens
up the real possibility of some kind of agreement between the Greens and ‘Your
Party’. This is a real possibility, as both Zack Polanski and those involved at
the centre of the ‘Your Party’ project have expressed a clear willingness to
work together.
In terms of both the need for a
strong opposition to the far right, and the equally urgent need for a
determined push on ‘green’ agenda issues, a genuine Red-Green alliance of some
kind will be crucial. It’s no coincidence
that a big part of Farage’s creeping fascist agenda involves opposition to ‘net
zero’ and renewable energy, alongside calls for coal mines and fracking. With
Labour still adopting anti-refugee positions, something like France’s ‘New
Popular Front’ would be a real step forward – for both local and national
elections.
Polls suggest that a genuine
electoral alliance between the Greens and ‘Your Party’ could win a significant
number of seats – thus undercutting those who are already arguing that the
creation of ‘Your Party’ risks letting Farage’s Refuk into government.
In fact, France’s New Popular Front
– and the anti-neoliberal action programme it put before the electorate –
resulted in an impressive wave of enthusiastic support for eco-socialist
policies, which also helped block a victory for Le Pen.
Allan Todd is a member of Anti-Capitalist Resistance’s
Council, and of Unite Against Fascism; and is an ecosocialist/ environmental
and anti-fascist activist. He is the author of Revolutions 1789-1917
(CUP); Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary (Pen & Sword);
Ecosocialism Not Extinction (Resistance Books); Che Guevara: The Romantic
Revolutionary (Pen & Sword); and For the Earth to Live: The Case for
Ecosocialism (Resistance Books)
“Karl Marx’s
Ecosocialism” by Kohei Saito
Book Review by
Ashok Ghosh
Anyone who wants to understand the cause of the climate
emergency should read this book and then re-read the first three chapters of Capital
in the light of it.
Saito won the Deutscher Memorial Prize for this brilliant
work, which explodes the myth that Marx did not give primacy to ecology – in
fact ecology is at the very heart of Marxism.
Saito exposes the fallacy of Marx’s supposed
“Prometheanism” – “his historical materialism, it was said, uncritically
praised the progress of technology and productive forces under capitalism and
anticipated, based on this premise, that socialism would solve every negative
aspect of modern industry simply because it would realise the full potential of
productive forces…through the social appropriation of the means of production
that were monopolised by the capitalized class.” That view misses the whole point
of Capital, which describes the death knell of capitalism not only in
quantitative but also in qualitative terms. Capitalism by its very nature is
self-destructive. Only the barest thumbnail sketch of Saito’s thesis can be
given here.
Saito thesis is based on Marx’s voluminous notebooks,
published for the first time recently in the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe known
as MEGA. Many more notebooks are due to be published shortly. One third of
these were written by Marx in the last fifteen years of his life. They reveal
his voracious study of natural sciences, agriculture, biology, chemistry,
botany, geology and mineralogy. He studied pre-capitalist societies and learnt
Russian in order to research village communities in Russia. Incidentally, he
recognized the possibility of establishing socialism in Russia without going
through full blown capitalism.
Had Marx lived to complete Capital, volume 3 would
have differed in significant respects from the version prepared by Engels. Saito builds on the foundations laid by the Kuruma school,
hitherto little known outside Japan and Germany. To appreciate Saito’s thesis four concepts in particular
must be grasped – Reification, Metabolic Rift, Value and the formula Money-Commodity-Money
(M-C-M).
“Value” is the common criterion through which products are
made comparable and is embodied in money.
“Reification” turns on its head the purpose of human
existence. Instead of things existing for human beings, human beings exist for
the sake of commodities and do so solely in order to maximise Value.
The social relations between human beings are Reified into
material relations between persons and social relations between things – as
Marx famously said in Capital – “by equating their different products to
each other in exchange as Values, they equate their different kinds of labour
as human labour. They do this without being aware of it.” As Saito explains “to the producers, therefore,
the social relations between their private labours…do not appear as direct
social relations between persons in their work, but rather material relations
between persons and social relations between things.” Capitalism turns human
beings into nothing more than “bearers of commodities.”
“Metabolism” is used by Marx to refer to the relationship
between human beings and nature.
Capitalism deforms the relationship between nature and
human beings, causing a rift because it inexorably destroys nature in order to
maximise Value. With its rapid development of technology, it threatens “the
entire ecosystem with desertification, global warming, species extinction,
destruction of ozone layers and nuclear disasters. The problem is not simply
the inevitable consequence of quantitative increase in production but in the
qualitative difference between the capitalist mode of production and all others
that have preceded it.”
The essence of capitalism is that Value repeatedly goes
through the process of M-C-M with the sole aim of quantitative increase – as it
says in Capital – value is an “encompassing subject” of the process
M-C-M, in which “it alternately assumes and loses the form of money and
commodities, but preserves and expands itself through all these changes.” What
matters in capitalist production is no longer the satisfaction of social needs
but endless growth of Value for its own sake – in the words of Capital – the “blind
and measureless drive, its insatiable appetite for surplus labour” – the sole
aim of capital is to objectify labour into commodities as much as possible in
the shortest possible time.
The purpose of technological development becomes more
efficient exploitation of labour and natural resources at minimal cost.
The essential point to grasp, in Saito’s words, is that
“the capitalist tendency to degrade nature is derived from the law of commodity
exchange. Capital pays for value as the objectification of abstract labour and
not for social and natural forces that do not enter into the valorisation
process, though it appropriates the surplus products that they produce.
Moreover, capital ignores costs that are necessary for the recovery of natural
power after every use.”
The last two words of Saito’s book sums it up well – “Marx
lives!”
SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMdqzVJAwpU
Could slowing down save the planet? This Japanese
philosopher thinks so
Japanese
philosopher Kohei Saito has become a face of the global movement for
"degrowth." From his collectively-owned patch of forest outside
Tokyo, he argues that humans need to stop consuming to save the planet.
HOW ABOUT
SMASHING SCIENCE? Glyn
Goodwin
I have been reading Carl Sagan’s
‘The Demon haunted world’ written last century. This paragraph stands out,
showing remarkable insight:
“I have a foreboding of an
America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a
service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries
have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in
the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even
grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own
agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our
crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in
decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we
slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive
content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now
down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous
presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of
celebration of ignorance”
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the
Dark
We can relate this to the
wholescale firing of climate scientists and the re-writing of science reports
for political purposes The idea is to emphasise doubt. Anyone who has ever come
across the seminal work ‘The Merchants of Doubt’ by Oreskes and Conway will
understand that misinformation from paid and willing scientists can be very powerful,
but the science is still false. The idea is to create doubt, muddy the waters.
Of course, when the science is so
strong that doubt has all but gone then the next step is to smash it up.
Eliminating the instruments which can tell you with no doubt what is happening.
Abolishing science in a ‘kill the messenger’ manner.
The idea of abolishing science not
only is medieval, but it is positively dangerous, not just for Americans but
for all of us. It is not the first time it has happened. The USA once tried. In
1897, the Indiana General Assembly considered a bill, known as the “Indiana Pi
Bill”, that proposed to redefine the mathematical constant pi (Ï€) as 3.2,
according to the Indiana State Library. While the bill passed the House,
it was ultimately shelved in the Senate due to the intervention of a passing
Purdue professor who exposed the mathematical inaccuracies.
What Trump and his acolytes are
doing is far worse, eliminating our ability to predict what may happen. Not
only does it destroy at a stroke that ability, but they are rewriting
science according to political dogma. This is the precursor to something
else worse. If you look at the Atlas Network, you find that the plan is not
confined to the USA and a few other countries but worldwide domination. They
expound ‘freedom’; but it really is about maximising power for the elite
because they can.
What freedom is this? Perhaps the
‘freedom’; as described by economist James McGill Buchanan. This is hyper libertarianism on steroids,
neoliberalism plus. It is anything but freedom for the majority.
To find out why things are framed
as one thing and mean the opposite we need to pop back 2500 year to the works
of Sun Tzu, The Art of War, another seminal work, which generals carry round
with them. In this we see the skilful strategist defeats the enemy without
doing battle, he talks of deep penetration, deception and many other things;
that we should recognise, divide and rule setting the enemy against itself. It
teaches many lessons which the right have listened to and the left have
ignored. We fight on uneven terrain, with the right occupying the high ground.
Never attack uphill warns Sun Tzu.
So where is the Green Left on the
journey to recognising this fundamental truth? We should be wary of science
denial and pseudoscience, if you remove the basis for baselines then what do
you have? Chaos.
Carl Sagan is eloquent on this
speaking from the last century but resonating as if he were in the room. We
should recognise science as something which can be trusted above all other
methods. By removing a basis of science, you remove the trust is brings. Not to
say that science per se is right, it doesn’t work that way, but without that
trust in the scientific method you quickly find yourself on the ground Reform
seek to deform.
March for
Science, London, 2017Credit: Les Levidow
The post-modern dictat of
‘putting science in its box’; saying that it is ‘just an opinion’ should and
must be resisted. As science is dismantled in the USA we can see where that
leads, this is the land of the far right where you are tricked into fighting
for fascism believing you are fighting for freedom. Whenever you are told ‘no
debate’ alarm bells should ring loud and strong. That is the land of
authoritarianism, if people say you just have to accept it, think North Korea,
think the Stasi, think Trumpism and stand firm. This is an act to rid us of
pesky democracy. Once cowed into silence it is another of the ten points to
fascism ticked off as Stacy Adams so cogently vocalises.
We can look back to the 1970-80’s
through the lens of ‘The Shock Doctrine’ where anyone not fitting a ruler’s
whims can and will be snatched from the streets and dumped back beaten and
bloodied or simply killed.
Then we look at what is happening
in the USA again and we see Trump’s private army of masked men kidnapping
people almost at random off the street in a populist reign of terror. To what
end we might justifiably ask, while we still can. Some food for thought as to
where the dash to end democracy is going. And who pays for it?
At the bottom of it all lies
deception by words, ‘Freedom!’ shouted liberally at every opportunity, after
all who doesn’t want ‘freedom’. When you get rid of the science base level as
post modernism says as just an opinion, then anything goes. Beware of
authoritarianism dressed up as progressive ideas.
In the words of Son Tzu:
‘Measurement determines Estimation
Estimation determines Calculation
Calculation determines Comparison
Comparison determines Victory’
Now imagine why Trump wants to
destroy measurement. We should be very wary of authoritarianism dressed up as
progressive ideas, whether it is No debate or Freedom. Anyway, these are a few
thoughts which occurred to me on news of the destruction of
satellites measuring CO2, and books being read.
References
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250807-us-to-rewrite-its-past-national-climate-reports)
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/07/trumps-gold-standard-doubt-science/683590/
https://www.atlasnetwork.org
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind
the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/curtis-yarvin-trump
https://time.com/6092844/peter-thiel-power-biography-the-contrarian/
https://www.desmog.com/americans-prosperity-history-research-background-funding/
You can find a whole lot of info
here: https://www.opensecrets.org/
CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
The COP30 UN
climate negotiations in Brazil will be one of the most crucial climate summits
in recent years. Ten years on from the Paris climate agreement, nations must
resubmit their climate plans. Saturday 15th November is a Global Day of
Action. Climate protests will be taking place around the world. In the UK,
there will be events in major cities demanding climate justice. The UK trade
union movement is also launching a Year of Climate Action this autumn.
|
|
Manifesto for Eco-Socialist Revolution
Fourth International Resistance Books, 2025
Mark Douglas, Green Left, Hackney. mdouglas@gn.apc.org 6th
August 2025
|
It's good news when a new manifesto arrives, especially on Ecosocialism.
But there are too many introductory paragraphs saying the same thing... ‘capitalism
is bad’. Also, is this a real manifesto or a programme? I think it's a
programme for the long term, maybe over a generation, i.e. over 25 years.
It is good that the Fourth International has adopted
thoroughgoing Eco-Socialism. They say...'Time is pressing if we do not want to
go beyond crucial tipping points': eg. deforestation, greenhouse gas rising
emissions, desertification, ice sheet retraction, excessive nitrogen, air
pollution, atmosphere heating, etc.’
Chapter 5 is the 'Eco-Socialist Alternative', a list of
eco-socialist demands.
1. Public Prevention Plans for social needs,
2. Socialise productive wealth to provide essential services to
all people under popular democratic control
3. Expand commons and public services against privatisation and
marketisation water, housing, health, transport.
4. Equalise wealth to deal with climate injustice and ecological
degradation, radical tax reform, eliminate tax havens, socialise bank funds.
5. Create racial solidarity, fight racism and oppression,
eliminate police militarism, oppose all austerity policies.
6. Nobody is Illegal! Freedom of movement and residence on
Earth.
7. Eliminate unnecessary and harmful economic activities,
stopping the climate and bio-diversity catastrophe requires significant
reduction in global energy consumption,
8. Food sovereignty! Get out of agribusiness, industrial
fishing, and meat industry. Go vegetarian, radical agrarian reform,
distribution of land to peasants and co-operatives, organic agriculture.
9. Co-existence with all life, stop the massacre of species,
expand bio-diversity.
10. Urban reform, vast housing programmes to eliminate slum
cities in the south, repopulate rural areas along with a sustainable economy.
11. Socialise the assets of energy multinationals, no
compensation to fund the transition to a green economy, create decentralized
clean energy networks under people’s control.
12. Socialise Big Tech and open the 'Black Box' data centres.
13. Peoples Liberation and self-determination...against war,
imperialism and colonialism. Dismantle military alliances such as NATO along
with military budgets, abolish all private armies, solidarity to specially
oppressed people in Palestine, Ukraine (what about Tibet, Kurdistan, Uigur?).
14. Guarantee employment and training for all in the green
transition, eco sustainable and socially useful activities. Work transfer from
wasteful, harmful processes like agribusiness, big fishing, meat sector (+
Advertising, gambling, grouse shooting, corporate hospitality?) Green jobs
guarantee.
15. Work less, live a good life. Reducing excessive energy
consumption leads to lower work routines. Socialise many domestic work
activities. Elimination of wasteful jobs leads to less work days. Work quality
rises.
16. Reduce, Re-use and Recycling of waste mandatory for
agri-waste, contaminated material, etc. Circulatory systems for all waste.
17. Women’s rights, body autonomy, eliminate misogyny, and all
forms of oppression against women.
18. Reform of education system, release from domination by
capital, spread indigenous knowledge. Research directed to ecological science.
19. Extend democratic rights, freedom of association, for
strikes, free elections, abolish private media, dissolve private militias.
20. Cultural Revolution for respect of the living and 'love for
Pachamama', abolish patriarchal ideology of domination.
21. Democratic Self-managed Ecosocialist Planning, concerning
key economic resources, not about local shops. Devolved planning to combat
climate chaos.
Next chapter 6 covers the debate on Degrowth, which basically
means industrialized countries have to shrink and poor societies to grow, the
'Contraction and Convergence Scenario', first promoted in the 1990s.
Final chapter 7 is The Ecosocialist Rupture which argues for the
convergence of mass popular movement to create unstoppable force for social
change. The main problem is that the Labour aristocracy in the west has been
bought out by capitalism.
'The construction of self-organised organs of popular power is
at the heart of our strategy.
The Left must go Green and the Greens go Socialist.
We are the group for trade unionists,
allies and all supporters of the labour movement in the Green Party of England
& Wales. We believe that a powerful, organised labour movement bringing
together millions of working people is essential to transforming society for
people and planet. We work together to offer practical solidarity to workers in
their struggles, empowering Green campaigners up and down the country to work
closely with trade unions.
If you are a Green Party member who
supports our objectives, go to https://gptu.greenparty.org.uk/join/ If you can't join but would like to hear about the latest news,
events, and campaigns, go
to https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-up-to-hear-more-from-us-2/
https://greenerjobsalliance.co.uk/news/
The GJA was launched in 2010 to campaign around the
issue of the jobs and skills needed to transition to a low carbon economy. Our
work combines supporting local projects through to advocacy at regional,
national, and international level. We are a loose coalition of trades unions,
student organisations, environmental groups, and individual supporters. We
believe that a focus on the workplace and the need for worker / union
engagement means the GJA helps to fill a large gap in climate change work.
2025-6 The Year of Trade Union Climate Action
Tahir Latif: Greener Jobs Alliance
This autumn sees the commencement
of the long-awaited Year of Trade Union Climate action. Agreed at 2024 TUC in an unopposed vote and
reiterated in Motion 75 passed at this year’s Congress, the year of action aims
to bring the climate and biodiversity crisis – an existential threat to the
planet, after all – to the top of the political agenda where it belongs.
The huge groundswell of support for
serious climate action engendered by the 2019 Friday protests was dissipated by
the pandemic. Into the resulting vacuum
we have seen the disastrous rise of the Far Right, the anti-migrant protests and
unchecked racism, all of which dominate our media narrative. The question is: in a world where the
energies of the Left are understandably focused on countering that narrative,
calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza (and the UK’s complicity in it) and
organising a response to Starmer’s ‘anti-Labour’ government, what place is
there for the climate movement that goes beyond regarding it as a sideshow?
It is of course absolutely correct
that we demonstrate against the tide of racism and the atrocities being
committed against the Palestinian people.
Both are clear and immediate threats that demand a response. But what do we do after we have protested, what
is the alternative we are offering? That
is where we need to raise the flag (to use a currently popular designation) for
climate action.
If we take it as given that the
surge in support for Reform UK stems from a disaffection with ‘business as
usual’ politics, then it is incumbent on us as a movement to provide an
alternative that is equally radical and non-BAU, but one which offers actual solutions
to our current social malaise not just something to shout at. A serious climate programme, simply and
clearly articulated, something newly elected Zack Polanski is more than capable
of doing, will provide that positive alternative: creating thousands of good
jobs, rejuvenating our local communities, uniting us around collaborative cross
sectoral projects for the benefit of all, and making our lives liveable and
affordable. And by the by protecting us
from climate catastrophe.
Just as importantly, we can
conceive of climate action as the quintessential anti-war activity. With the government’s aim of ramping up arms
production, backed by the urgings of Trump to make it 5% of our GDP, a £77Bn
black hole in the country’s finances beckons, with no useful product at the end
of it. Climate action, by contrast,
builds rather than destroys, protects rather than threatens, and in its very
DNA promotes equality and – because climate recognises no borders – peace. This year’s TUC also saw the passing of UCU’s
excellent ‘Welfare Not Warfare’ motion, calling for arms spending to be
redirected towards public services and actual needs.
It is in this context that the Year
of Trade Union Climate Action takes place.
Several unions are developing plans for activities, events and actions
across the whole year to highlight different aspects of the climate crisis. With COP30 taking place in the heart of the
Amazon rainforest, we cannot just let the usual coterie of fossil fuel
lobbyists have their way. Here are some
of the more immediate dates for your diaries in the build up to, and during,
the COP, and which will kick off the year of action:
Saturday
20th September – 'Make Them Pay' demo. A mass protest calling to tax the super-rich,
protect workers and make polluters pay. More
than 80 organisations - unions, grassroots groups, NGOs and beyond - are signed
up in support and will be joining others around the world in a globally
coordinated day of action leading to COP30. Assembly on Portland Place from 12pm: look for
meeting point J for the Climate Justice bloc and meeting point E for Workers
and Trade Unions. Coaches are being
organised from Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Nottingham, Leicester, Leeds,
Manchester and Sheffield.
Thursday 24th
September - A year of trade union
climate action: mobilising for 14th and 15th November. An online meeting aimed at all union and
climate activists ahead of the protest days in November.
Tuesday 21st
October - Why the climate crisis
is an international working-class issue: building global solidarity. Online meeting featuring speakers from every
continent ahead of the global day of protest on 15th November.
Sign up for
both online meetings at the Campaign against Climate
Change Trade Union Group website.
On Friday 14th November, we want every union branch in
every workplace to take action to demand action to tackle the climate crisis.
Whether it’s lunchtime protests in the streets, handing out leaflets, linking
up with community actions, or raising the issue in work (working temperatures,
air quality etc.). We need to take up the spirit of the global climate strikes
in 2019, and get every workplace active and creative to highlight the threat of
the climate crisis to working people, our families and communities.
On Saturday 15th November, demands for action on climate
will be taking place across the entire world. In the UK, there will be
gatherings in major cities, showing solidarity with our fellow workers in the
Global South and demanding climate justice for all. Watch this space for further
details of the global protests.
FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS
A DEMONSTRATION OF JUST TRANSITION
Pearl Ahrens – Fare Free
London – 2025-09-09
It’s not hard to think of clever
policies which support a just transition, but the one staring us in the
face is free public transport. Making
public transport free would unequivocally support the worst-off in our society
with their living costs, and encourage people onto public transport. It would
help advance the socialist goals of the movement, and would help the Green
Party win electorally, if they got behind this policy.
The Green Party manifesto for the
London elections (Greater London Assembly and Mayoral) has for the last few
years supported a flat ticketing structure, which would be a step in the right
direction. Fare Free London campaign,
launched last year, and Fare Free Yorkshire launched this summer, are asking
for one step further. The implementation
of free public transport would be a recognition that the non-polluter shouldn’t
pay, and a useful gift to the millions of people struggling with the cost of
living. It would actually be more accurate to say ‘extending’ rather than ‘implementing’
free public transport, as in London many demographic groups already get certain
types of public transport for free, and nationally the over 66s already have
free bus travel. With over 150 cities in the world already operating with free
public transport, it’s less of a radical demand than it first seems.
It’s great to see the socialist
political strand asserting itself within the party, with the election of Zack
Polanksi and the influx of new members joining to support him and to push for
socialism more broadly. This movement brings a vibrancy and hopefulness to the
party-political landscape. For many years the climate movement has been
suffering with the reputation of asking unrealistic privations of people –
turning off your lights for Earth Day springs to mind. We on the left know that
the climate movement shifted years ago towards a ‘just transition’ and moved
away from a ‘politics of guilt’, but the reputation still sticks. Free public
transport is emblematic of a new politics of plenty: a generous state which
genuinely rewards people for doing the right thing for the climate. Perhaps it
lays the groundwork for easier implementation of road user charging, or perhaps
it stands on its own merit as a good solid policy easing the cost of living.
Either way, it sets up a framework for a state that provides services in
exchange for taxes, rather than cuts services and charges us for them. For the
Green Party, supporting free public transport would help the electorate
recognise the exciting change occurring within the party.
Some amongst you in the readership of
Watermelon might be thinking, ‘surely it would be better to have more reliable
and more frequent public transport, not just free public transport?’ Our answer is that all three are needed, plus
improving accessibility on the network for disabled people. Free public
transport is the same demand as ‘more investment’, but framed in a way that’s
oriented towards the public, not towards policy wonks. With free public transport,
what you see as a passenger is a real benefit to you, not a behind-the-scenes
change in funding arrangements that doesn’t really affect your day-to-day. Of
course, there would be a funding change: a funding set-up with less reliance on
tickets would need to be topped up with more investment from taxation, but the
overall pot of funding could be more fairly arranged if the burden were placed
on the wealthy through taxation, rather than on the poorest in our society who
need buses to travel around. And while free public transport alone doesn’t
reduce car usage, it effectively equalises the two options: even a small ticket
price seems like a barrier to a journey by public transport, and once you
already have a car your journeys are free at the point of use.
When we speak to people about this
idea, the response is very positive, which is rare when talking about transport
policy. People often come up with concrete ways that free public transport
would improve their lives. The hardest part in this campaign is persuading the
politicians that it would be worth putting the effort in. Ideally we’d have
legislative change to make free public transport possible everywhere.
Currently, local authorities have the power to reduce fares (the West Midlands
Combined Authority made buses free after 7pm last December), the problem is
they don’t have revenue-raising powers to infill the loss. Instead of making
councils take the hit, the national government could grant local authorities
the powers to implement a payroll tax (how free public transport is funded in
France), to exploit increased land values around bus and train interchanges
(how they fund it in Hong Kong), or the national government could simply fund
public transport long-term from a central pot, for instance by ending all
road-building projects.
Having Green Party support (locally
or nationally) would be a huge boost to the campaign, and it would demonstrate
to the public that we think travelling in an environmental way shouldn’t feel like
a punishment.
A VIEW OF A HOSPITAL AS A DATA
MINE
The raw data arrives,
Sometimes it walks, sometimes it hops,
Or limps on crutches,
Or is wheeled in on wheelchairs,
Or is carried in ambulances, or on stretchers.
Then more data is refined and extracted
By different grades of worker.
Some use thermometers
Needles, pressure cuffs and X-rays.
Some ask questions.
Some make observations,
Then the raw data is sorted,
Sat in chairs, laid on beds,
Sent to wards, or operating theatres.
Now the workers
Must sit down at screens
And keyboards and terminals
To extract and input the important stuff
Sweeter than any honey
Made by bees in a hive,
More nutritious than any food carried
Into a nest by ants.
Data can be sent to centres,
Processed at vast expense,
Regardless of environmental cost,
And translated into money,
For somebody,
Other than workers or patients.
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