Yanis Varoufakis and David Adler argue in the Guardian today:
American carnage and Brexit collapse, detention camps and environmental breakdown — the daily barrage of bad news makes it easy to forget that these are disparate symptoms of the same disease unleashed by the 2008 financial crisis.
Back then, activists in Europe and the US pushed for a holistic cure: a Green New Deal to deliver necessary investments in people and planet. But establishment economists waved them off, preferring a shot-in-the-arm of easy money. Now, all the grave symptoms of recession have returned — and the old drugs don't work any more, antibiotics to which the disease has already adapted.
But now is not the time for I-told-you-so. Never before has so much idle cash accumulated as in the past decade — and never before has circulating capital failed so miserably to invest in human health and habitat. We are long overdue for a Green New Deal.
But as they rightly say, conventional quantitative easing bought change off and maintained the status quo. But not any more it won't. Change is, now, essential:
If 2008 saw the original development of the Green New Deal proposal, then, 2019 is the time to deploy it: a moment when the architects of the old strategy, pockets empty, no longer seem able to defend it. “There was unanimity,” said Mario Draghi, retiring president of the ECB, “that fiscal policy should become the main instrument.”
It is not, however, the case that any old change will do:
But fool me twice, shame on me. Having squandered the last crisis, we cannot fall again for Draghi's promise of a mild Keynesian stimulus in the face of human extinction. Instead, we must mobilize behind the Green New Deal as the only reasonable response to the coming recession.
As they conclude:
It is tempting to think of the present moment as a crossroads: we either get our Green New Deal, or we descend into eco-fascism. But the fallout from the last recession suggests that — if we do not articulate a shared demand — we might just as easily get a slightly reconfigured version of the status quo: a little more green around the edges, sure, but with roughly the same distribution of power and resources. Such a plan is already under way in Europe, where the European commission now calls for a “green deal” with none of the transformative content of the Green New Deal agenda.
With the climate strikers marching on their front feet — and the old guard caught retreating on its heels — we have a clear opportunity to achieve a true systems change. But it will require us to make clear to our governments: it is a Green New Deal or bust.
I could hardly disagree, could I? It's been more than a decade coming, and about 440 blogs worth of effort here to help keep it going, but the time for the Green New Deal has arrived. And it's now.
But not a word of it was heard in the Queen's Speech, which hardly mentioned climate-related issues at all. Which is how out of touch this government is.
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If the climate emergency and green issues play a part in the next general election at all, the Conservatives will be self-debarred by their own neoliberal ideology. They NEED it to be about Brexit. Only Brexit. And nothing else… (The same is true for the orangebook Swinsonites).
The opening speaker in the short film, explains EXACTLY why the GND does not feature in any Conservative – or orangebook LibDem – thinking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=209&v=MB0bkytOdNQ
And he does it v well (thank you Richard). The short film is well worth watching (less than 7mins).
Something about a Mont Pelerin Society being founded by Friedrich Hayek, Frank Knight, Karl Popper, Ludwig von Mises, George Stigler and Milton Friedman to promote neoliberalism as a political kill-switch…
Thanks Richard Murphy for showing that the brexit-obsessed Conservatives are not just “out of touch”, but irrelevant too…
Reposted
Thanks
I often wonder what goes through the mind of someone who can say this of something that was initially penned 11 years ago and has gone through several reinventions, deletions, additions and appropriations
the time for the Green New Deal has arrived
It’s been established that the 2008 version doesn’t mention the importance of biodiversity, or restraining air travel per se. The 2018 version talks about support EV usage for the private motor car, while the 2019 rejects support for private motoring. The US version is not about green issues fundamentally at all, but about reshaping the economic order to reduce inequality. Next year’s version will probably include a rejection of something that was in there before – perhaps a rejection of new long distance trains powered by renewables, or a new analysis showing that 100% CO2 neutral housing can’t be delivered using the existing housing stock and associated land, and some demolition and rebuilding would be more environmentally friendly. Who can predict?
I wonder if it’s important for people who claim to be progressive to know that they have their hearts in the right places, and to know that those hearts will still be in the right places the next year. Applying the same consistency and logic to their brain function isn’t necessary – that is for neo-liberals like me who are paid 30k a year to disseminate evil apparently.
Wow
You really have got the wrong end of the stick, haven’t you
And you really are backing the losing team to add to your woes
Why? What’s your wish? That we destroy life on earth?
‘Out of touch’?
You are being far too kind Richard.
They are in denial and really messed up. On the one hand they are heading for BREXIT with their ‘fuck business’ mantra whilst at the same time purposefully ignoring GND and protecting business from change to keep the profits rolling in. It also avoids alienating the public – remember my recounting my day last Saturday.
This is straightforward political strategy – GND would be like rubbing salt in the wounds of business already facing huge challenges because of swivel eyed loon BREXIT.
No BREXIT = GND.
BREXIT = No GND.
Not even the Tories are that stupid to wind up business and the electorate when they know that BREXIT will impact on economic performance. This is also why Boris has miraculously found money to bribe – sorry – to smooth over the impact of BREXIT (although the money he has found is derisory).
It shows us just how BREXIT is just like a cuckoo in the nest – shoving out much needed policy responses elsewhere – it’s so destructive.
Is there a danger that the UK Green New Deal can be depicted as yet another left-wing nationalist oriented response to some of the harm caused by globalisation?
Read an interesting article elsewhere talking about a Green New Deal but on a European level. The opportunities for shared solutions on energy and food seemed compelling. Of course Brexit blocks all consideration for some but perhaps under a non Tory government. I’d be interested in your view on whether Labour when they are talking about a Green New Deal are essentially seeing this in Nationalist terms rather than seeing the need for transnational solutions.
By the way I am supporter of such Deal I think it’s vital but I also think we must work with others too.
We have always worked with European and US partners. Indeed, they used our model and we continue to cooperate and will do so
I’d imagine that yesterday’s Party Politicial Broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party (by the Queen) didn’t bother mentioning anything about ‘Green Crap’, because the majority of votes they are targeting aren’t interested in it. In fact many of these voters probably believe the decades of propaganda from the right about it all being a horrible leftie conspiracy. They aren’t going to promise to spend money unless it improves their chances of getting elected (cf. the disgraceful voter ID crap) or is going to the voters they want to keep or get.