It's deeply frustrating to see Rebecca Long-Bailey still talking about a ‘Green Industrial Revolution' in the Guardian this morning, in an article that is widely presumed to represent the launch of her Labour leadership bid.
Let me be precise as to my criticism. First, no one else but Labour is talking about a Green Industrial Revolution. So it must be something different from the Green New Deal most people think we need.
Second, that difference would appear to arise because Labour do, indeed, see this as a bit of industrial policy. In fact, they see it as an excuse for a bit of post-Keynesian investment-led growth.
And, third, that's not remotely what the Green New Deal is.
For a start the Green New Deal is not about growth. It may result in more GDP. Equally, it might result in less. What it is about is doing more of the right thing for each other using less carbon.
So it is about reducing energy consumption.
And changing the way we travel.
As well as protecting biodiversity.
Whilst creating better housing, local transport, energy grids, and flood defences.
But it's also about better food.
And protecting biodiversity.
Whilst changing the way we save.
And the way we even account for what we do.
So to claim this is an industrial revolution is to lick on a tiny part of the whole and over-emphasise it.
Or it's just spin.
Either way, it's not good. And as a poor part of a lacklustre article from Long-Bailey, it's not the foundation of a leadership bid as it stands, I hope.
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The green new deal is about sustainability?
A holistic approach to maintaining a good standard of living that could last until our sun burns out and blasts the Earth into its fiery grave, until entropy shrivels the universe to a darkened ember. Those are quite a few years off, and would it not be wonderful if we found an equilibrium where society was still putting back as much as it takes from our environment and many thousands of years from now our legacy lives on in the resources that are all still there for people to use.
Labour, at the moment, seem like a hopeless cause.
I believe we can begin to stabilise the current triple-crunch crisis ( that’s financial meltdown when the credit crisis begins, climate change and ​peak carbon costs. We can also lay the foundations for the emergence of a set of resilient low-carbon economies, rich in jobs and based on independent sources of energy supply. This will create a more stable economic environment in which there is a lot more local production and distribution, and enhanced national security.
In other words GDP has to grow, it’s just that some of it shifts around. If people become worse off in ways, including non-material ways like environment and health, that they can personally measure then political economy is failing.
Unfortunately, the words New Deal have more resonance in the USA than in the UK.
Labour needs to reconnect with working class communities decimated by de-industrialisation. So perhaps she is thinking that using the words Industrial Revolution will have particular resonance here. Emphasising that meeting environmental needs can be accompanied by growth in well paid industrial jobs (which need not require growth in GDP) can’t be a bad thing.
But ignoring the climate crisis in her pitch (other than including one sentence saying we need solutions to it) is definitely not a good sign.
Labour needs to get over focus groups
Have they learned nothing?
I’m beginning to think the LP is a lost cause and that, without root & branch reform, will become increasingly impotent as the main opposition party – which doesn’t bode well for the smaller parties. It really needs to get its act together fast but, unlike the Tories, its internal mechanisms are not geared for quick change. At least that’s how it appears to an outsider. Who on earth came up with ‘Green Industrial Revolution’? The two major priorities its new leadership needs to fully comprehend are: 1) the scale & immediacy of the ecological/environmental threat to the planet; 2) how macro-economics actually function, especially in relation to transitioning to a sustainable future.
My fear is that either it cannot grasp the nature of the problems facing it or else it will simply take too long for the reform process to manifest itself publicly in a positive way. In either situation the right-wing oligarchs will continue to cement their relationship with those ‘deprived and dissatisfied’ who voted them into power (plenty of scope for fiscal goodies). Hence, by the time of the next GE, the Tories will have a new popularist narrative built on a stronger base than since Thatcher.
I’m probably even more paranoid than usual about the threat from the right because I’ve just recently watched the old (1983) Granada series on the Spanish Civil War (for anyone interested – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu5f9hp0IP4&list=PLUtqZXAZojHiDD1_j7rpZl8qmFzRIGmkx). Scary stuff – and only 80 years ago. A critical mass of angry people is always a prime target for reactionary ideologues. ‘Manufacturing consent’ is nothing new. History still offers strategic lessons to be learned by the left.
Sorry – a bit off topic.
Hi John,
Regarding this: “Who on earth came up with ‘Green Industrial Revolution’? ”
I don’t know about those specific words in that context. As to the actual origins and current evolution of the idea:
https://theconversation.com/what-is-ecological-economics-and-why-do-we-need-to-talk-about-it-123915
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/kondratiev.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Industrial_Revolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3M8Ka9vUA
https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/36601-jeffrey-sachs-we-need-a-sixth-wave-of-sustainable-and-green-technologies
http://theconversation.com/market-forces-are-driving-a-clean-energy-revolution-in-the-us-95204
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/solar-power-cost-decrease-2018-5
Thanks
“Or it’s just spin.”
It’s all about spin unless the Greenies are prepared to Do What It Takes.
I’m with Attenborough why believes that it must include Population Limitation.
Too many consumers. Obvious!
Hi Richard,
This reply was written in response to a comment that you made below the line of this post: “WHAT THE ELECTION PROVED IS THAT WE NEED A NEW POLITICS THAT REFLECTS REALITY”.
Sorry to post this in the wrong place especially after such a long absence on my part. I also apologise for the length of my reply but yours was a major post on a big subject in that case, it warranted a big reply (or so I thought) — and it closed while I was writing it — so I hope you don’t mind.
Anyhow the following reply responded to a comment about nationalised rail and started like this:
The railways in Australia are run by state governments, so not quite “nationalised” but totally govt. run nonetheless. They are cheap. They are not expected to pay for themselves. Everyone involved accepts that idea just as easily as they accept that the idea that they wouldn’t want to pay a road toll everywhere they drive.
The Australian trains run quite well, especially in New South Wales, they are popular, not controversial generally and rarely the subject of election campaigns. In the major cities the direct trains that run to and from the airport are, nonetheless, privatised, captive market, monopoly rip-offs and everyone hates them.
Electricity supply has been privatised in Australia. It has become a hugely unpopular, oligopoly rip-off, and the subject of fierce debate in election campaigns. For what its worth, in the UK it seems that the YouGov polls had consistently showed pretty strong popular support for nationalisation in several key industries (whether one chooses to dismiss that lightly or not).
I would agree that many people are looking for new ideas rather than a redux of the old 1930s socialism vs nationalism clash (which is vaguely what we seem to being going through – worldwide). But then again socialism is pretty popular with millennials which means that (while it does need an update) the idea of it is back, one way or one another, for the long term. Which isn’t entirely a bad thing I would’ve thought.
At any rate my point is that nationalisation, where it works, needn’t be like the 1970’s or inefficient or entirely incompatible with new ways of doing things. There is something distinctly British in the idea of thinking that it would be.
More significantly it wouldn’t appear that the nationalisation platform was Corbyn’s main problem. It also didn’t appear that the election, generally, was about ideas or ideologiesand that was the election’s biggest problem. I hate to state the obvious but the election was hijacked by Brexit – big time – and Corbyn’s main problem was his hopelessly evasive, ambiguity on that subject. There are times when leaders have to take a decisive stand – and he didn’t. Regardless of his reasons that was untenable.
So what did the election prove? A lot of things but I’ll stick to the things that people aren’t talking about. For example the Brexit dominated election surely showed us, more clearly than ever before, what the First Past the Post Westminster system does. In this case takes a an issue that had split the nation neatly down the middle and turned into into a “landslide” for one particular side. That which was roughly 50/50 in a referendum gets turned into a complete rout by FPTP representation.
The election showed us that Britain has what is arguably the most unrepresentative “democracy” in the Western World.
The election also confirmed once and for all that Britain was destined to learn the lesson of Brexit the hard way. The people that enabled that agenda will deserve what they get. Others will suffer through no fault of their own. That said, it seems now that there was no way of avoiding that outcome. Even if the Remainers did prevail in a repeat referendum the pervasive pest of Brexitism would have continued to hang around like a bad smell drawing all the nation’s attention unto itself and de-railing any attempt at dealing with other issues, just like it has has done for the past several years. At the election it seemed like Britain had come to a point where allowing Brexit to fail was the only way to get rid of it or, more to the point, get rid of the all-consuming distraction that it has become.
The challenge now is to make sure that the ensuing crisis isn’t wasted. That idea may seem remote to Remainers that have just suffered through a long, demoralising contest are now dreading the near future. I feel a little uncomfortable saying it from the distance of another continent but sometimes an outsider’s perspective can be useful. Things can appear more clearly to those that aren’t in the thick of it. What does seem abundantly clear to most outsiders now is that Brexit will fail for the reasons that have already been identified and those that are yet to be discovered. Its Tory proponents, with their fat parliamentary majority (and no one else to blame) will also fail despite what some the Left’s perennial defeatists might think.
That leaves a vacuum in the space that lies just ahead of the immediate future, some opportunities for those that would fill it and, hopefully, some more room for politics that reflect reality.
Thanks Marco
My point was not that there is no case for nationalisation – there often is – but that it was an unnecessary distraction
The rep issue is focussing one what will actually change people’s lives
Few think nationalisation well. So it was the wrong policy for that reason
Richard,
You seem to be surprisingly crabby about this “Green Industrial Revolution” thing when I could just as easily imagine you offering reluctant, partial and qualified support. If you are annoyed that Long-Bailey is pinching an idea (or part of an idea) without acknowledging its origins I wouldn’t blame you at all.
That would be a bit much. Maybe Labour is basing their label on Jeremy Rifkin’s 3rd Indusrtial Revolution (or something like that), maybe Long-Bailey is trying to distance herself from the more (seemingly?) radical aspects Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s GND or distance herself from the British originators of the first Green New Deal concept. If so, I don’t see why. Moderate US Democrats have embraced their own versions of the GND idea – and the GND name without fear of being associatied with its origins. If Labour is going to take on a big and gutsy idea then they will need to big and gutsy. There’s no point in their being selective or cautious about it.
If you were annoyed about the fact that Long-Bailey’s long article stressed words like “growth”, “re-industrialisation” and “patriotism” or annoyed about the fact that she didn’t allow room to actually explain her “party’s plans for a green industrial revolution”. I wouldn’t blame you for that either.
Nonetheless I do think that it may be a bit of a stretch to say that the idea of an industrial revolution is a “tiny part of the whole” GND idea, if that is what you were saying (?). A truly transformative technological revolution that fundamentally changes the nature of energy consumption, eliminates life-threatening externalities and our reliance on finite resources, cannot, by any serious definition be a tiny part of the general idea.
For what its worth I might suggest that you use this Labour notion rather than attack it . Correct them by engaging with the idea rather than rejecting it outright. Being one of the originators of GND gives you a bit of leverage to do that, maybe? Either way they have given you a premise to reignite a bit of interest in the original idea. If so it may be better to do that in a seemingly positive way.
Just a thought…
Some in Labour are engaging with it e.g Clive Lewis
He has taken a lot of stick for doing so
McDonnell did not get this
I hope it was not personal
McDonnell can be such a dinosaur sometimes that it may a blessing to find that he is keen on the idea in any shape or form (?). Either way he and the other party elders will need to realise that this is not PR and that what they have done is take on a really big idea and one that has a history. Big ideas need constructive debate and that’s not a bad thing. Debate generates interest.
They’ll learn that lesson that out soon enough I suspect. One can only hope that they do so graciously.
Oh and I forgot to mention – Happy New Year!
(I hope that doesn’t seem ironic)
Not at all
And to you!
RBL is in an election campaign for the leadership of the party for which she is considered current favourite. She is obviously trying to capture votes from all sides of the Left and does not want to alienate some of the unions, such as the GMB, hence the term Green Industrial Revolution that allows her to keep her options open. She is probably banking on picking up second choice votes from Clive Lewis if he falls by the wayside. Tactically, it is probably a wise move. RBL favours extending democracy within the party which would mean weakening the power of the unions and the PLP. If this happens then I see the Labour Conference adopting the Green New Deal in full. This is likely to take two or three years to achieve, but as Labour is not in power that will not matter too much. After that there will be a battle convincing the general public in a General Election and that will be no easy feat.
Clive Lewis would face the same difficulties if he was elected as leader. He has everything to play for by being more radical and attracting votes from the general membership, but there is a big difference between supporting a policy and getting it implemented which I am sure JC would confirm.