Response #2 re: the creation of a Green Eco-Socialist Network
Commentary re: the establishment of a Green Eco-Socialist Network
This was a contribution to a dialogue that appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of Green Horizon Magazine concerning the 2020 launching of a Green Eco-socialist Network (GEN):
https://stevenwelzer.medium.com/whats-the-alternative-to-capitalism-c2f5b3f434d8
Below is Linda Cree’s response . . .
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The Heart of Green Economics
By Linda Cree
It may come as a surprise to some newer Greens that the roots of today’s Green Party go much deeper than those of liberals, progressives or socialists of any stripe. Many of the paradigm-shifting insights that underlie our Ten Key Values come from strains of Native American thought brought to our party by early Greens such as John Mohawk (Seneca) and Walt Bressette (Ojibwe).
These teachings confound the dichotomy of capitalist vs. socialist and left vs. right. Instead, they lend themselves to the currents found in bioregionalism, deep ecology, and voluntary simplicity, as well as to critiques of industrialism and unrestrained economic and population growth. They help to form the basis for a profoundly Deep Green and different take on politics and economics, a take that is “neither left nor right, but out in front.”
Today, when “Green” is being conflated with “Eco-socialism” or simply “Socialism,” we would be wise to ponder exactly why early Greens felt a new political party was needed. If Green is synonymous with “Socialist,” couldn’t Greens have simply joined the Socialist Party?
Those of us who identify as Deep Greens generally say that a Green economy is different from a Socialist economy. But are we not anti-capitalist also? Don’t we also want the huge corporations broken up, the obscene wealth of the 1% redistributed, and the bloated and destructive military machine radically scaled down?
The answers, of course, are yes, yes, yes and yes. In our view, however, if we are to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, the economy Greens promote should not be an Eco-socialist economy but a uniquely Green economy.
Despite their many differences, both capitalist and socialist economic theories enshrine systems that are highly materialistic and utilitarian in outlook. Linear ideas of “progress” and “technological advancement” underpin these theories. Both see nature as resources to be exploited by humankind, although eco-socialists are more cognizant of the value and vulnerability of the natural world to industrialized cultures and, therefore, of the need to bring the environment into economic calculations more. Importantly, however, the moral sphere in both capitalist and socialist theories is limited to humans.
And now we’ve come to the heart of the matter, so let’s say it again. Insofar as they are concerned with moral responsibilities, neither capitalist nor socialist economic theories concern themselves with moral obligations beyond human beings. They are completely and unapologetically anthropocentric.
This is where Green Economics posits a radically different economic approach, an approach that is centered on affirming Life and our place in the web of life rather than outside of, or somehow “above,” the rest of the natural world. Unlike the anthropocentrism of capitalist and socialist economic theories, Green Economics is biocentric, or literally “life-centered.”
Potawatomi author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer tells a story that may help illustrate what is meant by biocentric economics:
“I once met an engineering student visiting from Europe who told me excitedly about going ricing in Minnesota with his friend’s Ojibwe family. He was eager to experience a bit of Native American Culture. They were on the lake by dawn and all day long they poled through the rice beds, knocking the ripe seed into the canoe. ‘It didn’t take long to collect quite a bit,’ he reported, ‘but it’s not very efficient. At least half of the rice just falls in the water and they didn’t seem to care. It’s wasted.’ As a gesture of thanks to his hosts, a traditional ricing family, he offered to design a grain capture system that could be attached to the gunwales of their canoes. He sketched it out for them, showing how his technique could get 85% more rice. His hosts listened respectfully, then said, ‘Yes, we could get more that way. But it’s got to seed itself for next year. And what we leave behind is not wasted. You know, we’re not the only ones who like rice. Do you think the ducks would stop here if we took it all?’ Our teachings tell us to never take more than half.”
Green Economics is not about machine values of efficiency, productivity and speed; it is about extending the moral sphere and constantly assessing the impact of our actions on all life. As John Mohawk puts it: Indians were constantly imploring the Europeans to rethink their relationship with nature. “You’ve got it wrong. You’ve got to be fair.” And what did they mean by that? “The Indians raised the question of fairness not about human to human; they asked about human to land, human to animal, human to everything.”
Such grounding in Ecological Wisdom means a Green Economics must question much that’s taken for granted in other economic approaches. Take the idea of scale. Greens understand that giant industrial projects are just as destructive to the environment whether they are done under capitalism or eco-socialism. Green Economics must not only concern itself with who is making the decisions behind such projects. It must also ask: Is it morally defensible to place a mega wind farm on a major migratory bird path? Or, can there be any justification for clearcutting and destroying the homes and home territory of bobcat and loon, trilliums and black bear? Or, what right have we to pollute the waters all life depends on? Green Economics must be committed to bringing our economies back to human scale and local control, not just for the sake of human beings, but for the sake of the many fellow creatures we inhabit this Earth with.
In forgetting that we are only one strand in the great web of life, modern humans have sought to appropriate the entire Earth and all it contains for their own exclusive use. Human supremacism reigns, accepted unquestioningly by both capitalist and socialist economists even as they strive to deal with the disasters it has led to.
The inescapable truth is that arrogant anthropocentrism has set us on a course of impoverishment, enslavement, and eventual species suicide. We desperately need a better perspective. There can be no Social Justice without Earth Justice. Green Economics must take into account the needs of All Our Relations and recognize that the health of our planet and our long-term survival absolutely depend upon our ability to create an economics that is biocentric rather than anthropocentric.
Biocentric Green Economics respects and celebrates the deeply interdependent and interconnected nature of all life on Earth. It is this biocentrism, this willingness to think outside the box of the Western paradigm, that can make the Green Party the most radical, the most subversive, the most revolutionary, and the most urgently needed force in politics today.
