I admit that I am not objective about this comment made on Vox:
The Green New Deal is what it means to be progressive. Clean air, clean water, decarbonizing, green jobs, a just transition, and environmental justice are what it means to a progressive,” Sean McElwee said. He's the director of Data Progress, a young think tank whose work has substantially informed the GND. “By definition that means politicians who don't support those goals aren't progressive. We need to hold that line. Get on the GND train or choo-choo, xxxxxx, we're going to go right past you.
The language could have been slightly more subtle. The point is unambiguous. The aim of those presenting the Green New Deal in the USA is to redefine what it is to be progressive.
I welcome this. As far as I am concerned that has always been the case in the UK as well; it's just that things have gone a little faster in the US of late.
If 2008 revealed anything it was that the left was bereft of ideas. I remember Occupy as a good example. The mood was right. The challenge was properly made. But when those outside St Paul's were asked what they wanted there was a long silence. They eventually asked for a tax justice agenda, and I had no problems with that. They even used some of my ideas as I recall. But it took too long to deliver and it was too narrow in focus, even in the heart of the City.
And the problem has recurred since. As I have said, without increasing my popularity as a consequence, nationalising rail and water are perfectly OK objectives but they do not actually change much. And what they do suggest is that our current problems are those of the twentieth century, which quite emphatically they are not. This has been Momentum's problem, in my opinion. Just what has the agenda been? I know in detail, but what's the big idea?
That's what the Green New Deal is. It's the big unifying idea. It's the theme around which everything else is built.
It has a purpose which has to be delivered: our survival depends on it.
It embraces fundamental elements of justice, and has a commitment to equality running through it which is inescapable, partly because no-one can avoid the problem of climate change, meaning no one can really opt out of this issue.
And when it comes to economics, you can argue it's unaffordable if you wish, but the alternative is much worse, so the simple fact is that the existing model that suggests the GND is unworkable simply shows its own shortcomings as a result. If the planet and its people demand the right to survive and finance says no there can only be one winner, and it's not going to be the City.
We can, and we will sweat over the detail. That's obvious. But the truth is that the Green New Deal pulls together three things. They are climate change. And the pressing need for social justice. Plus the requirement to rethink the economy.
You can't argue climate can wait any more.
The alternative to social justice is populism.
And whilst I am aware that those enslaved, on both left and right, to out of date interpretations of long dead economists wish to deny the realities that the core arguments of MMT explain, the fact is that the world is going to have to sweep them and their left and right wing dedication to market fundamentalism aside to deliver the reform that only the state, with its money making ability, can now deliver.
What it is to be progressive has, I suspect, been redefined for a generation to come. Deal with it, is my suggestion. In every sense.
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Always find it rewarding to read your blog posts. Given how an important chunk of the state has in recent years become a militaristic surveillance state with near-unquestioned police powers and new ways of invading privacy, curious as to your thought about dealing with the potential for serious abuse of power if the central state is now expanded greatly to pursue the profoundly transformative agenda of the GND.
Who do you trust more?
The state? Or Facebook?
I’m don’t understand your response, but since I’ve never had a Facebook account, maybe that tells you something. I don’t seem to have that option with the state. Perhaps these issues aren’t of concern to you. I think politically they deserve lots of thought.
OK, tell me why the Green New Deal creates a bigger state in these terms than we have now?
Precisely how, that is?
Because, I’ll tell you – I don’t see that that, at all
In other words, as excurse go for letting the planet fry this one is really bad
Spot on analysis.
SWL, Portes etc. are so yesterdays men.
The climate clock is ticking and yet Labour haven’t woken up, smelt the coffee and likewise ‘went Green’.
Not holding my breath with the current generation of leaders though. Now if somebody like Clive Lewis came in, got shot of the FCR for MMT and offered an unapologetic GND ( + PR too, and why not we’re talking about system change here). Labour would be Green in all but name.
Remember Corbynomics?
Just Sayin’.
Hmm. maybe I should make that clearer. Labor’s got a leader that’s been known to be partial to ideas like this so if Labour’s got a problem on this account it might not be with the leadership per se. It might be elsewhere.
The problem is that any idea, good or bad, will be tarnished if it is associated with you. You have spouted so many inconsistencies & argue with the left, the right, MMTers and yourself that you don’t have a shred of credibility outside the tiny pocket of your readership on here.
Is that why you bother to comment?
Or could it be that your comment actually reveals what you really think?
Ray Worstall?
How many Worstalls are there?
We could also have counter definition of what it means to be a green neoliberal – to remove all the green incentives and replace with a carbon dioxide tax at a level which just exceeds the best data on the damage that burning things will do to our environment. We have to allow a little margin for error. I think about 3% of national income seems to be the cost arising if the worst set of predictions come true
Oh, and remove subsidies to landowners for industrial agriculture ( sorry EU, that means we have to leave as it’s quicker to just get on and do this when we’re out, than have to change the law and attitudes in 27 other countries first before we’re allowed to do it ourselves ).
And finally devolve more environmental policy to local and regional governments.
Green neoliberalism – it’s the next big counterpoint to green progressivism.
It has a problem….
It doesn’t work
WHich is really going to be a strong selling point
This paper says it works
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/carbon-price-helped-curb-emissions-anu-study-finds-20140716-ztuf6.html
And so does Rupert Read, who opposes green neoliberalism for ideological reasons.
Green neoliberalism – accepting that climate change is real, it will impose a cost, and that we want to deal with it in the most efficient way known to mankind so far, which is harnessing market forces.
It’s the next big thing and those who prefer the green progressive route need to look at the places where the green new deal has been tried and hype its successes.
Much as I like Rupert I do not agree with him on all things
And many in the Greens would not agree with him on this
Flanders lad says:
“those who prefer the green progressive route need to look at the places where the green new deal has been tried”
Where its been tried? And where would that be?
“Green neoliberalism”
is a contradiction in terms. Besides which they’ve had 40 years, they did nothing about it and they’ve been walking dead since the GFC anyway. There now, that’s 2 lines more than you deserved.
I totally support the GND, but if it doesn’t make room for nuclear its a losing battle. There simply isn’t enough rare metals like Indium and Tellurium to make wind and PV power cover even 40% of the planet. Not even when you pretend that you can recycle a significant amount.
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/8/4/156/htm
Which, since there is enough easily extractable Uranium from seawater to last centuries, makes nuclear much more ‘renewable’ than wind and PV.
But yeah, lets risk the species because some people refuse to look at the data and think that the safest way to generate electricity is somehow the least safe.
You’ve ignored tide
And the simple fact is, no one trusts nuclear
For good reason
It cannot be in the mix
No one has suggested Fusion Power which is intrinsically safe as the most difficult thing is to keep it going. If any thing goes wrong it shuts down and there is no radio active products. There are some trial fusion reactors but none have produced more energy than used. This would be a game changer if it can be made to work. It need to be financed properly through the Green New Deal.
Money also need to be invested into wave power. UK has plenty of this and it could even protect coastal erosion.
It could be mentioned
With the addition that no one has yet made it work
I agree nuclear cannot be in the mix, and a GND will not succeed politically if technocrats insist on it.
Ben Oldfield says:
“No one has suggested Fusion Power ”
….but they have….every time the subject of nuclear energy crops-up.
I liken it to the technological solutions for the Irish border. Very much still at the fantasy stage and if ever to be introduced is likely to be far too late.
We could also solve the global energy supply by installing horse gins adapted for unicorns. 🙂
I’m not suggesting that research on the development of fusion power should be stopped, indeed it perhaps would benefit from more resources and better funding, but we need solutions we can implement now, not ‘sometime-never-perhaps’.
Nuclear power is not renewable, by definition. The waste generated already will haunt us for decades, centuries, to come. The cost is too high. Only for a very short period of its very expensive life is nuclear power a ‘clean’ option.
It is not just about generating electricity, it is about more efficient use of power sources and its transfer as well – much can be done there. The overwhelming dominance of the oils industry has stifled innovation for decades – there are many many alternatives that could have been developed for transportation as well as power supplies, if there had been an open market, long before now.
And the tidal turbines are looking like a strong contender for the ‘reliable source’ of the future. Well, certainly for Scotland anyway.
Phil,
Your comment couldn’t possibly be more obsolete. Nuclear is no longer economically viable. Renewable and battery combined is far cheaper overall see here:
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/solar-power-cost-decrease-2018-5
Agreed….
Apart from all other objections, it just does not work any more
@ Phil
There are other PV and battery options coming along which do not utilise the rare earth metals you are talking about.
Check out perovskite PV cells and the current research going on with carbon-based electrodes within batteries and super capacitors.
Thanks Johan,
Both you and Phil might find this to be interesting:
https://utilitymagazine.com.au/looking-beyond-lithium-ion-in-energy-storage/
@ Marco
Thank you for the link :-). I’m in the enviable position of still being a student at uni so have access to much of the research “first hand” as it were.
Renewables is a field I maintain an interest in, particularly pv and battery tech, although my own research is a little tangential to that at the moment.
Under a GND the UK could “burn’ its stocks of so-called ‘spent nuclear fuel’ sitting in storage waiting at Sellafield. The UKs stock of gen3 water cooled reactors burn nuclear fuel at circa 2% efficiency. China is developing Gen4 Fast Reactors that burns gen3 waste so efficiently its waste is rendered in some designs nearly safe as background radiation. 2 birds (dispose of dangerous waste, cheap reliable energy to power the UK of several 100s of years), 1 stone (Gen 4 nuclear). See the section on Fast neutron reactors:-
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx
Also nuclear may be a necessary bridge to an all (so-called) renewable future, since its all too easy to not put all externalities into the analysis and make errors
https://alexcoram.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/mathsnuclearumass2o13oooo1o.pdf
And how’s that working out in practice?
Richard, you ask whether China’s nuclear power investments are “working out in practice?” – The link I gave above spells that out: here’s more, which suggests China is on course to be carbon neutral by circa 2030 or 2040 – why the UK cannot at least pretend to be paying attention and working at least a little bit with the Chinese on part of a possible solution to CO2 emissions seems perverse at best, and simply stupid and corrupt at worse. In 20 or 30 years time, the whole world will be buying fast breeder modular reactors from China, fueled by Uranium from filtered sea water (1000s of years worth) and or rare earths (10,000s) years worth hanging about in mine tailings) – enough time to get fusion off the ground.
(BTW current renewables have a huge eco-footprint c/w nuclear fission or fusion).
A GND really should at least take these developments – and properly account for ALL real-world externalities for ALL proposed solutions to CO2 emissions. Reality will not allow anything else.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/fast-neutron-reactors.aspx
Who is paying you Natasha?
What you say is true. I can just see Brussels cheering that on.
Give it time
The power of a good idea is to sweep all before it
As I tried to indicate in my first post, the character of the state has developed towards militarism, surveillance, a worsening situation. Size alone is not the issue, but reach is. I in no way suggested or would suggest we should let the planet fry — I understand the need for a very bold Green New Deal with sweeping aspirations — but I haven’t yet seen it as a binary choice to have a Green New Deal plus a very concern for protecting rights and individual freedom from abuses of state power . But I am concerned others who have demonstrated a pretty weak grasp of human rights and individual liberty and legal protections in recent months and years — and who definitely talk like they want to be the people running things — don’t actually care at all about building in protections. They show a lot of indication that they do see this as binary — that if you raise issues, important values, you’re an enemy. In framing my first post to you, I merely asked if you had any thoughts about this. If you don’t beyond what you’ve said, I don’t think less of you or the Green New Deal.
I am still struggling to see why you are linking the issues – and you do not seem to have evidence to do so
you don’t see evidence of the development of a centralized, militaristic surveillance state intensifying in our lifetimes, abuses of power against democratic consensus? A Pushback against technocracies overruling local wisdom? Maybe we’re just misunderstanding each other. i actually think this is a lively issue going forward, the one I’ve raised, and I suspect others will raise it with you or within your earshot, and perhaps in terms that do a better job than I have.
I see all the issues
I see no reason at all to link them to the GND
I just thought of a way to express things differently, which might or might not be illuminating. I live in Italy, and if tomorrow there was a push for a massive Green New Deal, people would immediately talk about how to avoid strengthening state corruption. Athough people don’t hear much about it outside of Italy, there is a lot of political discussion about how to implement policies for the collective good in ways that don’t pass through the hands of the corrupted state.
Other governments in other countries are corrupted in ways different from the corruptions in Italy. But I do think the US state is a corrupted state, and one can point to others in the west. That, in my view, can’t be ignored in thinking about how to succeed with a Green New Deal on the scale being talked about. Militarism, privacy issues are not the only corruptions, just 2 that I mentioned, and other might mention more.
Which is of course not an argument against pursuing a Green New Deal (although I expect some reactionary arguments will use anything they can get their hands on). But I see every reason in the world to consider how to deal with a corrupted state in looking to implement a Green New Deal.
But in many countries the state is not corrupted
And given the size of the shadow economy in Italy I would suggest the private sector is where the problem really lies
I think think the GND will have to expand beyond thinking of climate change as the problem of carbon. There are at least 2 further issues which may prove to be equally deadly: what’s been called, perhaps hyperbolically, “The 6th Mass Extinction” and the issue which dare not speak its name – population.
Climate change and intensive agriculture may see us all finished sooner than we think: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature It may result in one of those “tipping points” beyond which recovery will be impossible.
We have a group of dangerous, malign incompetents in charge globally, from Trump to Putin, May to Macron supported by a self-interested plutocracy bankrolling the counter-charge. Ok, maybe this time it really will be different, but the history of “revolutionary” movements, like the Labour Party, is one of being co-opted to the status quo.
You may not have noticed that Rupert Read and I are planning to debate these issues
We are discussing arrangements tomorrow
Hadn’t noticed. Look forward to that.
[…] Cross-posted from Tax Research UK […]
Steve Keen explains briefly how we can help fund such paradigm shifts …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=149&v=287Cu5me0Og
A fuller discussion on Keens video….https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/understanding-government-debts-and-deficits/?fbclid=IwAR2wEqDM9mjYsoE9CDFzjo1nD9ma5Btoaf_5CyPAGmd7aBFfY3JFVY8Vm6c
Niall Ferguson s column is a reminder of the political calculation… https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-democrats-will-commit-political-suicide-by-embracing-socialism/
I tried to read it and was blocked by a paywall
I usually think having Niall Ferguson against you is a sign you are doing something right….
Richard,
Re. the forthcoming debate with Rupert Read I notice that someone above said that Read reluctantly thought that carbon pricing (and so-called “green neoliberalism”) was viable or adequate.
I would like to make a few points about that if I may, even if you are already aware of them, just for the record.
1. First and foremost carbon trading is fast becoming a non-issue in electricity generation as renewables have become cheaper than fossil fuels. The article and data that I listed above makes those observations on a basis where both fixed and variable costs are included. Which more or less implies that some fossil and nuclear plants may continue to be commercially viable for a limited time although it is not viable for their owners, or anyone else, to build new plants of that nature.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/solar-power-cost-decrease-2018-5
So with carbon being outpriced, carbon trading or a carbon price generally, is no longer the main game. Looking forward, the most that it can do is put pressure on existing fossil fuel generators which may well be important but a carbon price should no longer be necessary to prevent the construction of new polluting plants. With affordable electric vehicles set to come on stream faster than expected it may turn out that carbon price schemes will end up being limited to land use, agriculture and building.
One take-away from that is that a neo-lib scheme that bases everything on a carbon price has pretty much missed the boat but that doesn’t mean that they can say ‘well and good, the price mechanism will now takeover’ as renewables become even cheaper. The price mechanism and private sector generally do not have have the authority or co-ordinating ability to transform the energy sector, industry, and households within the time frame required. They don’t do infrastructure they just do their part of it (sometimes) and there are two time frames: the main one to urgently reduce CO2 emissions and the other, to get additional clean energy capacity available for the electric vehicle revolution.
2. The Green New Deal has other aims with one being to provide the full employment conditions that would underpin decent wage growth. Neo-liberalism (without or without carbon prices) doesn’t so that. It does precisely the opposite. In any case its pretty hard to have “green neoliberalism” when neoliberalism itself (which used to be called “monetarism”) is fading into extinction. Its primary policy tool, monetary policy, ist kaput.
I won’t go into commercial abuses of carbon credit trading schemes as the Australian example which is cited by “Flanders Lad” (above) and allegedly supported by Read, was a carbon tax, the idea of which isn’t particularly “neo-liberal” anyway
3. The US Democrats’ GND resolution also emphasises trade justice and does so by necessity, saying this: “(K) enacting trade rules, procurement standards and border adjustments with strong labor and environmental protections to stop the transfer of jobs and pollution overseas and to grow domestic manufacturing in the United States.” What Colin Hines might call “progressive protectionism”
Neoliberalism with its precious race-to-the-bottom “free” trade won’t do that and any “green” efforts on the part of neo-libs will be circumvented by corporations that simply offshore their production to non-compliant jursidictions.
Um, I think that covers it, more or less.
And I agree…
This from the Economist’s
https://amp.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/02/07/a-bold-new-plan-to-tackle-climate-change-ignores-economic-orthodoxy?__twitter_impression=true
“A bold new plan to tackle climate change ignores economic orthodoxy”
“Of course, much the same could be said for the New Deal, or indeed the effort to win the second world war. In fact, the criticism of the economic approach to climate change implicit in the Green New Deal is not that it is flawed or politically unrealistic, but that it is a category error, like trying to defeat Hitler with a fascism tax. Climate change is not a market glitch to be fixed through pricing, in this view, but part of a dire social crisis. It is hard to judge such arguments without decades of hindsight. But they seem to be winning, raising the possibility that, for the moment, economists have lost the chance to lead the fight against climate change.”
would also seem to suggest that neoliberalism isn’t up to the task…
Thanks Peter
Borrowed for a blog….
[…] carbon pricing does not work. Marco Fante explains why here. The essence is simple though: renewables are cheap enough to ensure that carbon pricing is itself […]
So what will it take convinces leaders with enough support and keeping the works localised giving local benefits vs national or other nations the benefit.
Germany have a very large amount of solar panels. We have however several large oil companies needing a transition to safeguard the capital entrusted to the managers to invest.
Shell PLC with encouragement are going the right way in leading the way before some expensive oil assets get stranded like sandbanks when the tide runs out.
Stranded assets are the fossil fuel nightmare
And rightly so
And why anyone with any sense will avoid this sector now