Polish Socialist Party (Democratic Revolution), Tha Basement, 92, Ladbroke Grove, London W11.) SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 18, October 1989
Greens and Growth IN OUR last issue, Steve Roberts argued that the Left in Britain should take on board the main planks of the 'Green' programme. Here PHIL HEARSE argues that the issue of economic growth is central to any dialogue
No socialist could be anything other than delighted by the fact that the anti-nuclear and anti-NATO Greens have replaced the pro-nuclear SLD and SDP as the third party in the opinion polls. The huge amount of media coverage of the Green Party conference is merely confirmation that ecological issues are here to stay as a major factor in politics. But before socialists merely try to 'add on' the Green programme to their own politics, it would be as well to take a critical look at what this programme implies. Creating a 'red-green' alliance might be more difficult than some comrades think.
Support for policies which defend the environment of course goes well beyond the Green Party. The Green Party itself has all the hallmarks of a radical petty bourgeois party, and is criss-crossed by numerous political currents from eco-socialism to the kind of eco-fascism expressed in the writings of Edward Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist.
At the European elections, the 15 per cent of the vote won by the Greens came dis proportionately from former Alliance and Tory voters. Sara Parkin's attack at the Green conference on red-green "parasites', and the insistence of the Green leadership that their party is 'neither right nor left' is an obvious attempt to keep together the Greens new-found electoral constituency.
Opinion polls showed that 94 per cent of the electorate did not know what the Greens stand for. At a General Election they are like ly to gain a much reduced vote, both because the Tories will point out vigorously that this is an anti-NATO party, and because under the present electoral system the Greens can't form the government.
But whether Green 'speakers' like Sara Parkin and David Icke like it or not, the demands of the Green Party are incompatible with the needs of British capitalism and the big transnational corporations. Objectively the Green Party is a radical party, but evidently not a party of the labour movement. In fact, the British Greens - unlike their German counterparts formed on the basis of the peace movement mobilisation and including hundreds of former cadres of left wing organisations - are on the right of the intemational Green movement.
The Green Party in Britain has emerged in its present form because of the slowness with which the labour movement has responded to SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 18, October 1989
DEBATE
between socialists and the Greens. the ecological crisis. The dual task for socialists now is to work out a socialist response to that crisis, and to attempt to for an alliance with those sections of the ecological movement, inside and outside the Green Party on specific issues, and - on a more permanent basis - with those Greens who agree on a socialist solution to the ecological crisis.
Only the most Neanderthal socialists (Like the Revolutionary Communist Party in Living Marxism) now argue that the ecological crisis is a myth. The scientific evidence of global warming being linked to 'greenhouse' gasses like carbon dioxide and synthetic complex fluorocarbons like CFCs is irrefutable. This is just the most dramatic and potentially catastrophic form of environmental degradation which has effected not only the capitalist countries, but also the deformed workers states (sometimes more savagely).
It is impossible to tell whether the damage to the ozone layer has now gone so far that it is irreversible. We do not know whether we can prevent the catastrophe of violent climatic changes and the gradual melting of the poles. But since socialism requires a planet for the human race to live on we have to work on the assumption that the earth can be saved. If it can be, then it can only be done on the basis of the kind of international planning and regulation which only international socialism can provide. Ecological concems naturally come up against the interests of both capitalism and the bureaucracy in the stalinist-ruled workers states. The most consistent Greens are also socialists.
It is the issue of economic growth which is the most controversial issue between Greens and socialists. Many Greens posit a nil-growth or negative growth society. Some even argue for 'de-industrialisation'. While it is obviously true that ecologically damaging industrial and agricultural methods and processes are the prime cause of the environmental crisis, it is not proven that industrialisation itself is incompatible with and environment-friendly economic system.
Overcoming world poverty requires massive economic growth and further industrialisation. Socialism in its full sense - a society of "abundance" requires massive economic growth, even in the advanced countries like Britain. It would be quite wrong, for example, to argue that even in a country like Britain (where millions live below the poverty line) economic growth has gone far enough and all that is needed is the abolition of capitalism. The liberation of
human race from drudgery and the slavery of alienated labour is impossible without enormous further economic growth. Indeed, the creation of a society of economic abundance is the centrepiece of any socialist project.
Socialists therefore have to argue for a programme of ecologically sustainable growth. Socialist planning would create the basis for the more rational use of existing resources and for the investment needed to find alternatives environmentally damaging industrial processes. There should be no illusions that working through all the neces sary changes and alternatives will be any easy process, but there are obvious areas which could be addressed immediately. Transport, for example, is one area where the socialist answer - better, cheaper public transport as an alternative to the millions of private cars - is automatically ecologically preferable.
It seems clear that the type of intensive economic development needed to create the basis for socialism will be based on computerisation and robotisation, which is still in its infancy, despite all the hype about the 'information technology society'. Even under capitalism, though, the application of this technology is becoming more widespread. There is no reason why it should be damaging to the environment.
There is nothing that has yet been dis covered in the silicon chip which is destruc tive to the environment. Provided that alternative energy sources to fossil fuels and nuclear power can be found, there is no reason why we cannot build a society based on 'automation plus workers control', opening the way towards international socialism. But still, the implementation of an environment-friendly programme of growth does presuppose the overthow of capitalism and the stalinist bureaucracies.
How then should socialists proceed? The strategic task is the fight to win the labour movement to campaigning on environmental issues and reworking the socialist programme in a 'green' direction - which, as we have said, cannot be achieved by trying to 'add on' the Green programme to socialism.
Revolutionary socialists have to try to forge an alliance with 'red greens' inside and outside the Green Party to fight together for a programme of ecologically sustainable socialist planning. The last two decades have shown us that the 'red' programme has to go 'green': but to be implementable in the real world the 'green' programme has to go 'red".
Page 29
No easy remedies for Nicaraguan crisis Nicaragua - Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution by Alan Benjamin (Walnut Publishing, San Francisco, 1989). Available from Socialist Outlook at £5.50 including p&p.
Reviewed by Patrick
Baker This book is a welcome contributtion to the debate among socialists around the development of the Nicaraguan revolution. Largely based on primary research and extensive contacts with indigenous social research bodies - particularly the Managua-based ITZTANI institute - the book analyses some of the key aspects of Nicaraguas development since the 1979 revolution.
The author, a leader of the US marxist organisation Socialist Action, is neither an uncritical cheerleader nor a simple commentarist. His critical approach has led to unusually sharp polemics from some other US marxists - such as Paul LeBlanc, a leader of the Fourth Interationalist Tendency - who claims, among other things, that *Socialist Action comrades appear to believe (in contradiction to Trotsky) that a socialist economy can be brought to Nicaragua and solve the country's most pressing problems without the spread of socialist revolution... '(1).
Such a comment is difficult to reconcile with the key concluding passage of the book 'Extending the revolution: Key to Survival', in which the author • surveys the other Central Page 30
REVIEW American revolutionary struggles, and concludes that "The fate of the Nicaraguan revolution is inextricably tied to the outcome of these struggles' (2). LeBlanc's critique also ignores the main strength of Benjamin's analysis: his detailed ac- count of the Sandinistas' policy of class alliance in their attempt to shore up the ailing Nicaraguan economy, and the politi- cal and economic conse- quences of this policy. From the beginning, Ben- jamin recognises the incredible strains and pressures that have faced this tiny, underdeveloped country: the Contra war, financed by the world's strongest imperialist power; the crippling economic consequences of this war, combined with the effects of the economic blockade, and minimal aid from the USSR. Benjamin's does not argue that all these adverse circumstan- ces could be reversed simply through a voluntaristic turn by the FSLN leadership. However, he does argue that in such cir- cumstances the Sandinistas' policy of reliance on, and there- fore extensive concessions to, the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, often at the expense of the work- ing class and poor peasantry, has not and will not improve the dire political and economic situation that the Nicaraguan people face. In addition, it has led to some friction between the Sandinistas' base in the rural and urban unions and the leadership. Benjamin catalogues the various circumstances in which the Sandinistas have turned to such policies: in relation to the
Nicaragua Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution
by Alan Benjamin agrarian reform; in response to pressure not only from the USA, but also such 'allies' as the USSR and European Social Democracy; and in relation to the Arias/Esquipulas 'peace plans'.
On each occasion, the Sandinistas' pleas for investment in the Nicaraguan economy on the part of the 'patriotic bourgeoisie' have fallen on deaf ears, and been met instead by decapitalisation and the flight of billions of dollars of capital to Miami.
Yet it is not only on a domes tic level that the Sandinistas have, on occasion, chosen some strange friends: they have hailed the re-election of the PRI in Mexico, despite their cancellation of vital oil supplies to Nicaragua; and the crushing of Solidarnosc, though they may have reconsidered when the Kremlin bureaucracy cut their aid programme.
The point of such criticisms is not to wave the Trotskyist Transitional Programme at the Sandinistas, but to point out that the bourgeoisie as a class cannot be relied upon - concessions notwithstanding - to shore up an anti-imperialist revolution such
LOS DanEROs CANPESMOS RASTAEL FIN LIRAN as that in Nicaragua.
Though the use of the market (to one degree or another) is by no means excluded as a tactic, particularly in an underdeveloped country such as Nicaragua, this is not the same as a strategic alliance with the bour-
Benjamin's work is informed by the marxist notion that, particularly in such circumstances, it is only the working class, in alliance with the poor peasantry, that can be relied upon to free such a country from the hold of imperialism as a part of the strug gle for socialism.
As such this book, though fairly short and thus not entirely comprehensive, contains a wealth of information as well as marxist analysis, and will prove very useful to all those in solidarity with the Nicaraguan
NOTES
1) Understanding the Nicaragua revolution - P.LeBlanc, BIDON по.67, р. 15.
(2) Dynamics pp169-170 SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 18, October 1989
Just some reformist rubbish? Livingstone's Labour By Ken Livingstone, Published by Unwin Hyman, £12.95 hardback
Reviewed by Mick Woods The title of this review is Ken's inscription in my copy. Reformist - yes: