Susan George, 'Transforming the Global Economy: Solutions for a Sustainable World'
Article published: Sunday, December 7th 2008
The most obvious crises we face collectively today are all linked and the solutions to them must be linked as well. The first of these crises is socialthe crisis of mass poverty and growing inequality. The second is the financial crisis that the public authorities refused to see coming. The third crisis, most ominous of all, is that of climate change and species destruction. It is accelerating faster than most scientists, much less governments, thought possible.
Each of these crises is negatively linked to the others: they intensify each other with negative feedback. Growth and trade will reinforce the environmental crisis. The food and energy crises have in turn strong links to the financial crisis, since speculation has been an important factor in both. Food and energy are also intimately linked to the climate crisis.
The question is what we can do about all this; and by we , I mean people everywhere who understand that the triple crisis is real and urgent. We need large-scale solutions: sophisticated, industrial solutions and huge involvement of governments in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions drastically enough to save our future. Sometimes big can be beautiful and right now is one of those times.
The dilemma I wrestle with is this: Can we save the planet while international capitalism remains the dominant system? I do not see how even the most convinced, most determined people could carry out the necessary systemic change before a runaway climate effect takes hold. The ecological crisis is of a different nature from the financial and poverty crises in the sense that once climate change is underway, as it is now, it is irreversible and we havent time for theoretically perfect solutions. Accuse me if you like of suggesting a way to give capitalism a new lease on life and I will plead guilty.
The great opportunity is to be found in the financial crisis itself. Properly targeted and used, it could open the door to the quantitative and qualitative leap we must make. The political issue is not simply to "throw the rascals out", because they would be replaced by other rascals just as bad, just as beholden to the corporations, their lobbies and the financial markets. The trick is to convince politicians that ecological transformation and environmental practices can pay off politically. I can see only one way: the coming together of people, business and government in a new incarnation of the Keynesian war economy strategy. Not military this time, but environmental; a push for massive investment in energy conversion, eco-friendly industry, new materials, efficient public transport, the green construction industry and so on.
I am trying to describe a scenario that can be sold to the elites because I dont think they will embrace genuine environmental values and conversion if theres nothing in it for them. There are also plenty of advantages in such an economy, for working people. It would mean not just a better, cleaner, healthier, more climate-friendly environment, but also full employment, better wages and new skills, as well as a humanitarian purpose and an ethical justificationjust like World War II.
How could one finance such a huge effort? At present, taxes almost always stop at national borders. The secret is to take taxes up to the European level and to the international one through currency and other financial transaction taxes. This would require nothing more than political determination, the cooperation of the Central Bank and a few lines of software. Since currency trades now amount to $3.2 trillion dollars every day, a tax of one basis point, that is, a levy of one per thousand could raise a tidy sum for ecological conversion and poverty reduction. Carbon taxes are another much mooted and equally feasible idea. So is a unitary profits tax on transnational corporations. Tax havens that allow affluent individuals and corporations to avoid paying their fair share of the conversion should also be shut down. In exchange for their bailouts, the banks and investment houses have to accept regulation forcing them to participate in the ecological offensive. Nobody is asking for the moon here. Banks would still make loans, finance investments and earn a fair return for their services. Taxes on currency transactions at one basis point are not going to ruin anyone. Unitary profits taxes on large corporations would simply return us to the era when the companies paid their taxes because they couldnt avoid them.
A Keynesian ecological programme would, furthermore, bring many constituencies together in a common cause. Broad alliances are the only way to go, the only strategy that pays. The Global Justice Movement, as international social activists call it, has begun to have some success in working democratically and making alliances with partners who come from different constituencies but are basically on the same wavelength. Now we must go beyond this stage and attempt something more difficult: to forge alliances also with people we don’t necessarily agree with on quite major questionsfor example, with business. We must find where the circles of our concerns overlap. At least one of those overlaps ought to be saving our common home.
More: Manchester
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