WATERMELON
Conference Newsletter of Green Left Spring 2024
APOCALYPSE WHEN?
English Local
Election Results
a commentary compiled by P.Murry
Many media
commentators are presenting the results of the local elections that took place in
parts of England in May 2024 as a Labour landslide foreshadowing another such
in a forthcoming general election or what Owen Jones has called an ‘electoral
apocalypse’ for the Tories.
Keir Starmer’s take on the results was that ‘the country wants change’; But some are sceptical that Labour can deliver.
‘The massive electoral shift from Cons to Labour won’t make much difference in practice, both parties having neoliberal values, belief in market dominance, […]’ Prospects of a Starmer-led govt after a General Election will not put this right, nor reduce defence spending, arms export, subsidies to Fossil Fuels, airport expansion, private ownership of energy, water, rail, rural buses, lack of social housing, creeping privatisation of NHS, industrial farming etc. ‘
Not everyone may share every one of these forebodings about what a Labour gov’t may or may not do, but there are indications that many voters, whilst anti-tory, do not totally support the Starmerite Labour project. Green and Lib-dem and independent votes have increased, and Labour has lost control of a few councils.
Tories might have a hard time being triumphalist, but
the Greens don’t, talking of ‘an
incredible set of results’, ‘exciting
breakthroughs’ and ‘massive expansions in Green groups across the country’.
And some
such as Owen Jones characterise
this as a ‘massive warning’ to Labour, possibly foretelling a
change away from a predominantly two-party template for English politics. However,
the First Past The Post electoral system still militates against this, so is a prediction
that these are the first signs of a move away from a two-party system premature? As
one Green activist commented on a local result ‘At this rate of progress we will have
over 50% of the vote in AD 2544’.
The horrors of the Gaza War and the complicity of Labour and Tories in these may have sparked some anti-Labour dissidence
as have the anti-Corbynista purges by Labour of its own activists, but will these
factors have a lasting impact?
A final factor worth mentioning is the Green Party strategy, approved at the autumn 2023 conference of standing candidates in as many constituencies as possible, does this put the GPEW, at odds with a wider trend towards anti-tory tactical voting which may have contributed to Sadiq Khan’s increased London Mayoral majority? And did this policy affect the Mayoral result in the north east where Jamie Driscoll was narrowly defeated by mainstream Labour?
References
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHX-N3m6oSQ
remarks by a GL member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glR7cs4aUuw
Daniella Radice, Local Elections Manager gp election email 5/5/24
GREEN LEFT OPEN MEETINGS; Videos
POPULATION,
MIGRATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE.
22/4/2024 Speakers: Nicole Haydock:
Ecosocialist Feminist, member of Green Left Peter Allen: Green Party
International Committee
https://petergreenleft0703.blogspot.com/2023/10/review-of-nomad-century-by-gaia-vince.html
Joseph Healy: Anti-capitalist Resistance
Written contribution by Alan Thornett:
author of ‘Facing the Apocalypse: Arguments for Ecosocialism’ read by Jay Ginn
DEATH BY 1,000 CUTS: THE DEMISE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Green Left open meeting, February 13
2024 Speakers Chris Jarvis, Green Party Councillor, Oxford City Council, Steve
Williams Green Party Councillor, Waverley Borough Council Ria Patel Green Party
Councillor, Croydon Council Rob Walker. Former Labour Councillor and Cabinet
member in Kirklees. Currently politically unattached but supportive of
Transform and Greens.
‘ISRAEL, PALESTINE, GAZA: WHAT SHOULD GREENS BE SAYING’
' https://youtu.be/3aMsGPaHLQk
SPEAKERS Annie Neligan (Greens for
Palestine) Carne Ross (Green Party Global Solidarity Spokesperson) Alexi Dimond
(Sheffield Green Party Councillor) Peter Allen (Green Left) Chair: Danny
McNamara (Green Left)
HOW TO COMBAT THE CUMBRIA COALMINE AND OTHER RETROGRADE ENERGY PROJECTS
SPEAKERS
WHAT DOES A SOCIALIST GREEN NEW DEAL OFFER CURRENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS?
SPEAKERS Mark Douglas: Green Left,
Feminist Green New Deal (presented by Jay Ginn) Tahir Latif: Greener Jobs
Alliance
possible future topics
Disability and
socialism
Agriculture: food
production vs conservation and rewilding
New Municipalism’ in the 21st century/ participatory budgeting, democracy and citizens’ assembly
GPEW NATO and defence policies
Nuclear power
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greens must go the co-operative way
Nicole Haydock: North Wales Green Party
Manchester is where Robert Owen (1771- 1858) the first British Utopian Socialist
founded the Co-operative Movement. Owen believed that if a community shared
everything and made communal decisions democratically, they could create a utopia.
Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, cooperative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others
Formed in 1844, the modern movement can
be traced back to the Rochdale Pioneers in their effort against poverty and the
promotion of equality.
To this day, Robert Owen and the
Rochdale Pioneers’ legacy remain a strong one in the city. With 5 City Mayors, Greater Manchester Andy
Burnham is an active member of the incorporated Co-operative Party. The Co-op Party
affiliated to the Labour Party in 1927. The Welsh Labour Party is also a co-operative company limited.
In legal terms, The Green Party of
England and Wales is akin to a cycling club or a residents’ association. It has
no legal rights. In practice, it means that it cannot start legal action to
defend itself – although legal action can and have been taken against the party
as evidenced recently. It also cannot
borrow money, nor can it hold properties or enter into contracts in its name.
Worse still, all legal and financial responsibilities lie with individual
elected members of the Executive.
Set up 11 years ago by a Conference motion, the “Governance
Review Working Group” failed to deliver in its mandate to reform the party, as did the ambitious but time constrained
Holistic Review Commission of 2017.
Relaunched in 2021 by the Green Party Regional Council
(GPRC) as the “Party Structure Working Group”, the adoption of the principle of
incorporation was finally delivered at the Spring Conference of 2023.
Article 1.v) of the
constitution now reads: “ The legal form of the Green Party shall be a company limited by
guarantee (from the Commencement Date of that company )“
However, with no mandate and no
specification as to which model the party would be incorporated and 4 related motions
submitted by GPRC for the Autumn 2023 Conference having failed to make it
though the priority ballot, the party remains dangerously unincorporated and showing
signs of an increasing level of dysfunctionality.
Going back to their
“Incorporation Scoping Paper” ( 2015) from Bates, Wells Braithwaite which
explored all options as requested by the Green Party Executive, their
solicitors explained : “ If a commitment
to co-operative principles is important to the GPEW and its membership, then
GPEW should proceed with option C ( the co-op co. ltd model ) as there
is considerable overlap with the co-operative principles and the GPEW’s
philosophy and approach to party members representation”.
So, how would a
co-operative company limited make a difference to the way the party operates ?
As opposed to the deeply confusing existing structure acknowledged by over 400
hundred members who took part in GPRC’s Party Structures consultation held in the
winter of 2021, this model of incorporation would have a simple two tiers
structure. Company limited by guarantee ( that is not for profit ) have
directors and “ company law members”.
At present, local
parties and regional parties – as well as the Young Greens - are not incorporated
and not even legally part of the
national party, as evidenced in Judge Hellman’s recent ruling in the civil
court case Shaharar Ali v the GPEW.
“Company law members” can
either be (a) individual party members, (b) local parties or (c) regional
parties. If some local parties or regional parties wished to retain their
autonomy and therefore not be incorporated, they could do so. But they would
not benefit from the GPEW’s limited liability status, nor would they enjoy the
rights of members as company members by law.
A new Memorandum and Articles
of Association would need to be drafted and approved by a ballot of members in
order to become our new instrument of governance.
You will find the link to
the Co-op party rule book here : https://party.coop/wp-content/blogs.dir/5/files/2022/02/Co-operative-Party-Rule-Book-amended-December-2021.pdf?mc_cid=ca09cc183d&mc_eid=UNIQID
If you wish to learn more the co-operative company limited model of incorporation and support my motion , please visit https://spaces.greenparty.org.uk/s/2024-autumn-conference-agenda-forum/ and scroll down to 4th February 2024.
Title
The Green Party to
register as a co-operative company limited
Synopsis
The principle of
incorporation has finally been approved by Conference. The next stage is to
adopt new Articles of Memorandum of Association to complete the process. Both
the Co-op Party * which is affiliated to the Labour party ( not to be confused
with the Co-operatives UK ) and the Welsh Labour Party are co-operative
companies limited by guarantee.
Motion
Conference therefore
calls on GPEX to urgently seek to employ legal professionals to assist the Green
Party Regional Council in the draft of a new Memorandum and Articles of
Association based on the values of the co-operative movement to be submitted
for consideration by the Co-operatives UK and the Financial Conduct Authority *
before Spring 2025.
A plan to save the future
from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics
PUBLISHED BY VERSO 2022,
Hardback, 15pounds, 226pp.
Authors: Troy Vettese and
Drew Prendergrass
REVIEW by MARK DOUGLAS, GREEN LEFT, HACKNEY.
Eco-Socialism is a growing
political movement. More and more Socialists are moving towards it. Of course,
there are far more socialists in Britain than active Greens, maybe the ration
of 5 to 1. But there is a long way to go.
We all agree that capitalism is an unsustainable system. We need to transform this view into a mass movement internationally.
Half- Earth Socialism is a really interesting read, with many insights. It's written by smart social scientists based in the US and central Europe. Half Earth references the great US scientist Edmund Wilson who has argued for half the Earth to become wilderness-a haven of bio-diversity and stabilizer of the carbon cycle. It's a fantastic concept in attempting to deal with ever deepening climate crisis. Can we really imagine humanity 'giving up' half the Earth land and sea ...and all those resources?
The books main attack is on Prometheanism. 'Marx has a reputation as a Promenthean, that is, he is seen as a thinker who believes that total control of nature is necessary for human freedom'(p32). They argue that Marxism has been fundamentally flawed by this human exaggeration of power. The illusion of humanities domination of the natural world is the ultimate hubris.
The first chapter is spent
quoting the growth of science and technology from the 17th to the 20th century
and views of thinkers like Locke, Hegel, Malthus, Marx and Trotsky.
'Prometheanism is so ingrained in Marxist thought that it must be confronted,
refuted and extirpated so that Socialism can be made fit for an age of
environmental catastrophe'.
The second large chapter, ‘A New Republic’, addresses the challenges to the climate crisis. 'The utopian tradition...lies in the capacity to link food, land, ecology and politics in a single analytical framework-an approach sorely lacking now' (p60). There are three false solutions: BECCS, (Bio-Energy Carbon Capture and Sequestration), expanded nuclear power and Half-Earth Colonialism. These are technical 'remedies' to the climate crunch and they are demolished very well. There are dozens of technical fixes being promoted, like those of Bill Gates or National Geographic, all of which fail to address the guilt of capital.
The goals of Half-Earth socialism are simple enough: prevent the Sixth Extinction, practice 'natural geo-engineering' to drawn down carbon through re-wilding ecosystems...and create a fully renewable energy system.'
The last challenge is the factory farming system, which they argue must be demolished. A major cause of greenhouse gases and pollution means that humanity needs to transition to a vegan lifestyle. Well that's a pretty serious goal. We must plan for a transition to an organic, low carbon, vegan agriculture, probably with quotas. With mass reforestation there will be limits on wasteful, conventional farming.
So in summary the plan is for:
1. Rewilding the Earth
(50%)
2. 100% Renewable energy
(cuts in high consumption)
3. Global veganism to
conserve energy and land use
4. World wide Socialist
planning to equitably manage production along with mass democracy.
They argue that the Left (and the Green movement?) must combine and concentrate all efforts on these goals with a strong vision to motivate the mass of people to strive for them.
The book is weak on politics or strategy, barely mentioning any current political events or trends so lacks a political focus, but the message is clear. The paperback edition has not arrived.
My best book on Eco-Socialism is ‘Fight the Fire' by Jonathan Neale, a long time activist and member of the Campaign against Climate Change, based at Housmans shop, London.
‘Optimism of the Will’: Ecosocialist Dreamin’ by
Traditional Iroquois attitudes on the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world were based on this philosophy: ‘In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.’ Such a worldview is one still shared by many other Native American nations, and by other indigenous groups around the world.
However, the latest statistics on the ever-worsening Climate and Ecological Crises make it painfully clear that today’s generations - never mind “the next seven generations” - aren’t being considered by the fossil fuel giants, the other big capitalist corporations, or the governments that facilitate their Earth-destroying ‘business-as-usual’ projects. In January, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that 2023 was the warmest year since records began, with EVERY DAY being 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial tempertures. While the Global Tipping Points Report for 2023 warned about the increasing risks of “irreversible change” as regards both climate change and nature loss, with 5 of the Earth’s major tipping systems already near to crossing irreversible tipping points, thus posing “threats of a magnitude never faced by humanity.”
The importance of being Gramsci
‘Optimism
of the will’ is the second element of a political approach the Italian Marxist Antonio
Gramsci advocated during the 1920s and ‘30s. As early as March 1924, he warned
that ‘the
thick, dark cloud of pessimism… oppressing the most able and responsible militants…
may in fact be the greatest danger we face at present.’
There was certainly plenty to be pessimistic about in 1924; by then, there were multiple crises of capitalism: post-war austerity and its mass poverty, and the rise of fascism. Many saw these crises as the ‘monsters’ of a capitalist world-order that was disintegrating, but from which a new and better world was struggling - with considerable difficulty - to emerge. Gramsci described it thus: ‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.’
For Gramsci, things soon became even worse: in November 1926, he was arrested and imprisoned, remaining a prisoner until his death in 1937. Meanwhile, the threats posed by capitalism’s ‘monsters’ and ‘morbid symptoms’ increased: the ‘Great Depression’, Hitler’s coming to power in Germany, and increasing signs of an approaching new world war. Nonetheless, he maintained that ‘optimism of the will’. In December 1929, he wrote: ‘I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will…Whatever the situation, I imagine the worst that could happen in order to summon up all my reserves and will power to overcome every obstacle.’ Today, there are still ‘monsters’ - those Gramsci wrote about (including the spread of ‘creeping’ fascism around the globe), and the new existential crises of climate change, ecological destruction, pandemics, and several nasty imperialistic wars. To many, it seems as though today’s ‘world is dying’ too.
Dreaming is revolutionary!
The
need to free humanity from capitalism’s ‘morbid symptoms’, to create another -
and better - world is becoming increasingly clear. This urgent need was
underlined by the historian Eric Hobsbawm:‘If humanity is to have a recognizable future, it cannot be
by prolonging the past or the present. If we try to build the third millennium
on that basis, we shall fail. And the price of failure, that is to say, the
alternative to a changed society, is darkness.’ More recently, Neil Faulkner put it thus: ‘We believe that
the old order is doomed and we must build a new one based on democracy,
internationalism, ecosocialism, solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, and
the total transformation of society to serve human need not private greed.’
By far the best hope for replacing today’s ‘old order’ with a new one lies with ecosocialism. Many consider ‘dreaming’ of a better world is impractical and unrevolutionary. Yet such dreaming is very much ‘in the spirit of Marx’ - and is based firmly on the possibilities seen in present-day realities. As early as the 1960s, Che Guevara argued - against his ‘orthodox’ communist critics - that his dreams of the possibilities for global emancipation were not divorced from the existing material circumstances and conditions of the time. Che believed ‘revolutionary hope [is] necessary for revolutionary politics and practice.’
Such hoping and dreaming is similar to what the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch termed ‘Real Possible’ hope, which ‘begins with the seed in which what is coming is inherent.’ Lenin, too, stressed the importance of dreaming a concrete vision of a better future: revolutionaries ‘should dream!’ - even if those dreams ‘may run ahead of the natural march of events.’ For him, ‘If there is some connection between dreams and life then all is well.’ Thus, as Ernest Mandel argued: ‘hopes and dreams are… categories of revolutionary Realpolitk.’
Despite today’s multiple crises - and the depth of those crises - there is more than a glimmer of hope. Because, as well as globalising its economic reach and imposing its addictive fixation on perpetual growth in GDP and profits, capitalism has also created a vast global army of the dispossessed and exploited, and an international environmental movement, which between them - using Marx’s term - have the potential to be the ‘grave-diggers’ of this hugely exploitative and ecologically-destructive system. As Marx observed: humanity tends to set itself ‘only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.’ And the solution that has by far the best potential for solving those multiple crises is… ecosocialism.
For those still struggling with maintaining hope, perhaps these words, from the late and great Seamus Heaney, will help tip the balance the right way:
‘History says, Don’t
hope
On this
side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.’
================================================
Allan Todd is Acting Organiser for Transform
Cumbria, a member of ACR’s Council and of Left Unity’s National Council, and an
ecosocialist/environmental and anti-fascist activist. He is the author of Revolutions
1789-1917;Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary; Ecosocialism Not Extinction; and Che
Guevara: The Romantic Revolutionary (out May 2024)
P.E.Dant notes https://adamtooze.com/2020/08/28/pessimism-of-the-intellect-optimism-of-the-will-the-line-so-often-attributed-to-gramsci-was-taken-from-romain-rolland
Crisis in Children's Social Care is a national issue
Watermelon editor Peter Murry has invited me to submit another piece for
the Green Party of England & Wales (GPEW) Spring Conference edition, even
though I decided to hang up my GPEW membership at my 69th birthday in October
2022 after 17 years membership. (I felt excluded by what I experienced as
website inaccessibility, while online voting figures for internal elections
seemed to indicate that I was not alone in feeling so excluded.)
My main political activity since has been letter writing to Morning Star and
Hereford Times (HT); and while my own parliamentary constituency is Hereford
& South Herefordshire and the local GPEW ‘target to win’ constituency is
North Herefordshire, HT covers both constituencies.
I submit below a copy-and-paste of my latest letters submission to HT, where I
am regarded as “a long-time and valued contributor” according to the HT editor,
while detractors of my online published letters talk of ‘Wheatley’s Weekly
Whinge’
The local and the national
From my observations of HT ‘talking point’ pieces by North Herefordshire MP Sir
Bill Wiggin over at least the past year, there seems to be a checklist or ‘tick
box’ list along the lines of ‘get as many attacks in on the Green Party as
possible, even if it’s treading old ground’. That would help to explain his
lack of an ‘off-switch’ regarding references to Herefordshire’s failed
children’s services [under a 2019-2023 Independent-Green coalition].
Toni Fagan has already written HT letters:
“Herefordshire’s families have not suffered in isolation. Polly Curtis’ book
Behind Closed Doors explains that the UK removes ‘more children from their
parents than any time since records began, more than other western countries.
Mothers are punished. Fathers are ignored. Social workers are burning out.
Poverty is invisible. Children are failed.’”(1)
I was already aware of that scenario through email from London-based ‘Support
Not Separation’ (SNS). SNS say, "Separating children from their birth
families, especially their mother or other primary carer, causes serious long
lasting harm. When considering the welfare of the child under the Children Act
1989, avoiding the trauma of separation must be a primary concern.
Institutional care and adoption must be treated as a last resort. Social
services, CAFCASS and family courts must implement the law according to this
central but often ignored principle. Poverty and/or poor housing must not be
used as evidence of ‘neglect’ or ‘future harm’ to children when what is needed
are support and resources."(2). And so I think it will help if I add the
subtitle of the Polly Curtis book: ‘Why We Break Up Families and How to Mend
Them’. A quoted review on the book cover says of the author: “One of Britain’s
best journalists writing about social justice provides a damning indictment of
a dysfunctional society.”(3)
I close by stating that when Michael Gove was Secretary of State for Education,
Children, Schools and Families in 2013 he said that the problem with modern
social work graduates is that they have been force-fed a load of left-wing
dogma about the impact of poverty; he said that social workers should instead
focus on promoting the concept of ‘agency’ or family self-empowerment.(4) By
contrast, I note that Graeme Andrew Logan was put up for adoption almost as
soon as he was born, and was adopted at four months old to join the Gove
family. Yes, I’m writing about Michael Gove who is now the ‘Levelling Up’
Secretary.(5)
ALAN WHEATLEY
Notes
1 https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/24121220.candidate-perfect-mp-herefordshire/
2 https://supportnotseparation.blog/about/
3 https://transparencyproject.org.uk/behind-closed-doors-why-we-break-up-families-and-how-to-mend-them-by-polly-curtis-a-book-review/
4 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10442309/Michael-Gove-many-social-workers-not-up-to-the-job.html
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gove
EXTRACTS FROM ‘Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: An Eco-Socialist Perspective' by Pritam Singh (The full article is at Capitalism Nature Socialism. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2023.2282135)
An Unusual Text
Beautiful” is an unusual book. It is not a standard academic text that has an overall and structured plan with each chapter fitting neatly as an elaboration of different aspects of the plan. It is a collection of papers previously published and texts of lectures delivered at different events. The collection covers the time span between 1961 and 1972. The book title conveys the unifying theme behind these papers and lectures. The beauty and significance of the book is that despite being a collection of papers and lectures and not a structured single text, it does convey a running theme, with different degrees of affinity of each chapter to the title of the book. The subtitle, “A Study of Economics as if People Mattered,” clearly indicates the author’s direction of thought in the book. As opposed to the traditional economics where “things” or “commodities” dominate theorising, policy, and practice, Schumacher’s study aims to centralise the human beings and social relations that make up the economy of “things.”
Two Streams of Orthodox
Economics
There are two streams of economic orthodoxy that Schumacher critiqued.
And while they were and are opposed to each other in their comparative view of
the rationality of economic systems, they also share a common vision: the
vision of big-ism or gigantism. Schumacher identified this trend towards
support for “vastness” in economic theory and practice in both market-based
systems as well as centrally-planned economies:
The focus of Schumacher’s attack was on
profit-based economic system, and to the extent he criticised the
centrally-planned economic system, which he equated with public ownership or
socialism, it was concerning the idea shared by most socialists of his time
that progress in a socialist economy was synonymous with economic growth.
It is necessary here to emphasise that the planning-oriented/Stalinist
stream should not be equated with the entirety of the socialist or Marxist
Left, because there are serious criticisms of the planning-oriented/Stalinist
stream from some currents in the socialist or Marxist Left.
Schumacher’s Critique of
Orthodox Economics
Schumacher criticised both streams of orthodox economics, though he
concentrated his attack on the market economy stream. His critique can be
viewed through four interconnected lines of argument: 1. Infinite economic
growth is not possible due to ecological limits; 2. Economic growth through
increasing GDP does not lead to “prosperity” and improved quality of life for
all; 3. Large scale economic activity is not necessarily more innovative and
efficient than small scale economic activity; and 4. The unrestrained
mechanisation of economic activities leads to dehumanisation and disconnection
from nature.
Schumacher’s critique of the central core of
orthodox economic visions of economic growth generated by large scale
industrialisation has been vindicated by the subsequent patterns of
industrialisation and the concomitant decline of agriculture, especially in the
developing capitalist economies. Large-scale industrialisation by destroying
agriculture in such economies has not led to diffusion of prosperity but to
clusters of economic activity resulting in the enrichment of the few and
dispossession, unemployment, and underemployment of the many. The co-existence
of massive mansions and degrading slums in many metropolitan spaces especially
in the newly industrialising countries such as Brazil (São Paulo and Rio de
Janeiro), India (Mumbai), Pakistan (Karachi) and Nigeria (Lagos) illustrate the
falsity of agricultural decline and industrial upsurge leading to greater
levels of prosperity. Such urban clusters of economic activity created through
the operation of external economies of scale result also in spatial inequalities
between regions with such clusters and the regions without such clusters. These
spatial inequalities manifest through and overlap with further socio-economic
inequalities (see Cypher and Dietz Citation2008).
The faith of orthodox economic theory in the possibility of continuous
economic growth suffers from a foundational flaw in that it does not
acknowledge the ecological limits to economic growth and further, the
consequences for growth itself when these limits are crossed. When the
ecological limits to economic growth are crossed, the ecological destruction
caused by it interacts back on the economy by destroying or polluting economic
resources which are necessary for economic growth. Pollution resulting from
such ecological destruction causes human (and non-human) harm which adversely
affects human capabilities and economically productive activities.
The speed of global heating and the scale of biodiversity loss is now
forcing orthodox economic theory to acknowledge the ecological dimensions of
economic growth.
A Few Points of Criticism of
Schumacher
Schumacher’s emphasis on human aspects of economics, ends up ignoring
almost completely the biodiversity loss associated with the economic growth
initiated, theorised, and propagated by human beings. Human impact on
biodiversity loss is presented today, respectively, through the lenses of the
Anthropocene or Capitalocene; and in both approaches, despite their serious
differences, the devastating human impact on the diversity of life in the
ecosphere is put in the limelight
His admiration for Buddhist economics, justifiable in some ways from an
ecological perspective, led him to unjustifiably praise Burma (now Myanmar) as
a country pursuing a desirable model of development (p 38). Apart from the
political aspect, there is a conceptual error in deducing from an appreciation
of the economic dimensions of the teachings of Buddhism to appreciating a
country claiming to be following the teachings of Buddhism. A similar kind of
error will occur if someone appreciative of the economic and philosophical
foundations of Marxism were to praise Stalinist Russia, where the Stalinist
regime claimed to be inspired by Marx’s work.
Schumacher’s criticism of industrialisation and its association with
gigantism led him to gloss over if not romanticise the character of agrarian
work. Undoubtedly, agrarian work being close to nature is different from
machine-related industrial work and does possess aspects of enjoyable
creativity, but it can be very heavy work and, especially under the conditions
created by orthodox economics destruction of rural life and agricultural
economies, can involve drudgery and many unpleasant aspects. The global peasant
farmers’ organisation, La Via Campesina, has perhaps done the most
heavy-lifting in terms of reshaping notions of agrarian work, and changing the
theoretical and practical applications of “small is beautiful” in the food
system. They have done so by promoting and implementing “food sovereignty,”
such that access and control over resources and decision-making, labour
processes and trade are returned to producers’ hands, and the alienation of the
current agricultural system is reversed to build a non-alienated food system of
the future (see Giacomini Citation2018).
Schumacher viewed the social and economic phenomenon of women entering
the labour force at the cost of household work very negatively. This was
certainly a very socially conservative view of women’s place in society.
Schumacher's views on fossil fuels revealed an anthropocentric flaw in
his ecological vision. He viewed fossil fuels positively and his worry was that
their excessive use caused by unlimited growth will lead to their exhaustion
and thus threatening “civilisation”
A final critical evaluation of Schumacher might not view him as an
ecological thinker at all. From the standpoint of contemporary ecological
thought, his relative neglect of biodiversity loss marks him out as an
anthropocentric thinker. He is seen as standing out more clearly in the company
of the heterogeneous critics of technology which was current in the 1950s and
1960s, both in the USA and elsewhere, including people like Lewis Mumford,
Jacques Ellul, Ivan Illich and, a bit later on, Langdon Winner. It is argued
that many of these writers, like Schumacher, had a fundamentally religious
motivation, and their critiques of modern technology intersected at various
points with ecological ideas. But they are seen as distinct from ecological
thought then and even more so now.Footnote11
Conclusion
Schumacher’s articulation of small as beautiful has been a powerful
corrective against the gigantism embedded in orthodox economic theory, both
bourgeois and Stalinist. The development of ecological socialist thought
bringing into the limelight many comparative advantages of small scale
highlights the contemporary significance of Schumacher’s contribution. More
nuanced criticism, such as that offered here showing the strengths and
limitations of Schumacher’s contribution, can pave the way for his contributions
to be incorporated into the development of eco-socialist thought and vision
that, on one hand, criticises capitalism and the bourgeois economic theory as
historically and ethically inappropriate, and, on the other hand, also
criticises the Stalinist model of industrialisation as environmentally
destructive and socially brutal. Eco-socialist economic theory, by integrating
nature centrally into economic analysis, not only makes a theoretical advance
over bourgeois and Stalinist economic theorising, it also paves the way for an
eco-socialist politics that envisions modes of political organisation to bring
about socio-economic change oriented towards ecological sustainability and
social justice.
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