Planning Green Growth

by Graham Caswell Sun Sep 08, 2002 23:18

It's an interesting article. Basically it was written in preparation for the Johannesburg summit and gives an overview of the global environmental crisis. While there's a brief explanation of the Green 'no-growth' perspective the author basically argues that the green perspective is not sufficiently 'anti-capitalist'.

The last part of the article presents a vision of 'eco-socialism' which, according to the author, is still marginalised in the Green movement, but "as the total inability of capitalist solutions to solve environmental problems become more apparent, interest in it will inevitably grow". I suppose it depends on what you mean by a capitalist solution.

The article is interesting because it is a detailed look at the green movement from an ideologically socialist perspective. However there's a few problems with it - not least that two of the most important books concerning 'no growth' or 'steady state' economics are ignored, even in the references. If you are really interested in green economics see EF Shumacher's 'Small is Beautiful' ( see http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099225611 ) and Richard Douthwaite's 'The Growth Illusion' ( see http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1870098765 ).

While there's a lot of similarities in the perspectives and motivations of socialists and greens there's some important differences as well. Greens would be less into 'one size fits all' solutions, for example, and would be much more supportive of small business and enterprise.

Personally I think that socialism and capitalism have a lot in common - big western ideas of how everybody should live. The green perspective is a bit more natural.