Green New Deal

2. The historical ND was associated with Roosevelt’s promise to reform capitalism as an approach to solving (Keynesianism) the accumulation problem that the Great Depression had ruptured. The GND draws on this with its proposal to adapt Keynesian instruments to the new economic conditions and ecological crisis, in order to achieve “more sustainable” economic expansion without abolishing capitalist accumulation or the industrial application of technology and science as such.

Investment programmes were intended for use by ecological modernisation investment in particular (e.g. regenerative energy sources, thermal power stations, insulation, the expansion of public transportation, etc.). Secondly, these new growth strategies were meant to be combined with a politics for radically reducing labour time. Thirdly, the internal economic desertification of modern export economies was supposed to be overcome. At the same time, there was a call for the re-regulation of the world markets, with a function similar to the Bretton Woods system that was adopted after 1945 for developing global capital accumulation (Holland 1994).

In the meantime, social-ecological investment programmes now even exist for the European and global level (Czeskleba-Dupont et al. 1994; Willis 1994; Scheer 1999). In Germany, eco-investment is combined with reduced labour-time, above all in the Memorandums of the Alternative Economic Policy Working Group (AG Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik). Lastly, the “Crossover” Project, initiated by Burkart Lutz (1989), developed the concept of a “post-Fordist global regulation” which — in contrast to an orientation towards a world market dominant under neoliberal globalisation — sought a regionalisation of economic circuits by strengthening domestic market sectors (infrastructure, education and childcare, housing, transportation, etc.) (Brüggen/Peine 1999; Crossover 2000). Domestic market projects would be financed by higher taxation on the consumption of those luxury products that are especially damaging to the environment (Brüggen/Klein/Westphal 1998; Kremer/Mikfeld 2000).

3. The original ND formed a coalition between intellectuals, rural populations, and the labour movement. The concepts of the GND seek to form a new coalition between labour movements focused on material distribution and the middle class’s concerns with life quality. The goal was to win over worker milieus, which are traditionally oriented around wage issues, for a policy of reducing working hours through the relinquishing of income by upper-income groups who are especially concerned about the environment, combined with state assistance for wage compensation. While those with lower and middle income would gain through additional job opportunities, public assistance, and “redistribution within their class”, the academically shaped “alternative milieus” would have the opportunity to further pursue their ecologically informed interests (Brüggen/Dräger 1991).

In the intellectual sphere of the left Greens in Germany and France (Lipietz 1989), an attempt was made to more intensely politicise precisely these qualitative aspects of reduced labour-time. Proposals were worked out on how a labour-time reduction policy, aimed at the reappropriation of society’s vital processes, could be facilitated through state reforms (e.g. a taxation on overtime, public assistance programmes to compensate wages). The stipulated wage compensation was intended for lower and middle-income groups in particular, while the better-off were expected to give up part of their income (Arbeitskreis Wirtschaft 1993).

This attempt to orient the New Social Movements, together with the labour movement, around a labour-time policy, was seen as an alternative to other conceptions of coalition by the New Left that sought to connect both of these kinds of interests through a negative coalition against capital (cf. e.g. O’Connor 1998, 158-77 and 324-33). The GND assumes the task of devising prospects for reform and development that can be implemented in everyday politics and consider both interest groups. The negative coalition of the 1970s and 80s was only sufficient for the extra-parliamentary battles’ interests, but could not sustain reform policies and certainly not governing coalitions geared towards policy reforms.

In the mid-1990s, it became clear that the “red-green” reform strategy of the GND-type had gone into a process of erosion even before it had a chance to implement concrete reform policies (Schmidt/Wolf 1999). The hegemony of alternative milieus in parts of the middle-class was displaced by the new leitmotif of the flexible ‘entreployee’ – a ‘new “entrepreneurial” type of labour power’ (Voss/Pongratz 2003 [1998]). At the same time, the increasing pressure of mass unemployment and neoliberal deregulation had caused social democrats and unions to prioritise a corporatist position to safeguard existing economic bases. In this way, the common denominator of radical labour-time reduction had lost its relevance for everyday politics.

In order to replace the old reform coalition with a new constellation, a macroeconomic reform perspective was subsequently formulated. This new constellation would link individual creativity and the desire for a professional formation of the new “knowledge workers” with the security and redistributive interests of the old milieus. The connection between the two would allow them to jointly support a new ecological reform project (Crossover 1997). This reform perspective was formulated to stabilise the economic boom that since the end of the 1990s had been evolving, in order to create room for distribution as well as for basic social security and steps for ecological restructuring (Crossover 2000).

4. In light of the challenges for further reform, the discussion increasingly centres on the plan for a relative de-coupling of “resource consumption” from wealth production by increasing resource efficiency. Expected productivity gains in the area of the knowledge economy are drawn on to support the promise to couple gains in wealth with improving the ecological situation (von Weizsäcker et al. 1995; BUND 1996; Rifkin 1998). To begin with, the bold concept of an “ecological de-materialisation” counts on the use of less damaging and more resource-efficient production processes and products. Part of this is the idea of initiating a ‘promethean revolution’ (Georgescu-Roegen 1986) by shifting from a world economy based on fossil fuels to one based on solar energy (Scheer 1999). At the same time, the individual acquisition of more ecologically wasteful consumer products is expected to be gradually replaced by the direct purchase of the services the products are meant to achieve (mobility, communication, etc.). However, many of these restructuring scenarios suffer from the fact that they are above all concerned with the qualitative-material side of production and consumption, while neglecting their social components.

For the GND, the debate centres around the question of how a new form of managing the accumulation process can be found that is less “oblivious to nature”. The proposals differ from each other mostly in the question of if, and how far-reaching, the course of capitalist accumulation should be modified or “embedded”. The GND concept provides criteria for the extent to which such proposals actually provide for a sufficient “depth of intervention”. The neoclassical concepts originating from Marshall and Pigou fall short of a GND’s demands: They describe the ecological problems as external effects, which do not appear in the price and, for this reason, are to be re-incorporated through appropriate political frameworks; as the outcome of the partial failure of the market, this should be resolved through eco-taxes (Pigou 1939), accreditations (Dales 1968), or a clearer individual allocation of property rights (Coase 1960; cf. Land 1994). The “short-sightedness” of capital, which loses sight of the problem of ecological consequences, is to be remedied by Keynesian solutions (Betz et al. 1994) through state investment programmes and legal commandments and prohibitions (Bömer 1996).

William Kapp (1983) argues more radically: The “private business enterprise” necessarily produces a number of subsequent social and ecological costs, which can only be insufficiently identified by existing economic instruments. A holistic point of view should incorporate sociological, environmental, and psychological considerations into economic decisions. Alain Lipietz (2000) goes beyond this in his concept of political ecology, in which he outlines a ‘re-embedding’ of the economy, whose capitalist form has taken on a life of its own (cf. Polanyi 1944).

In contrast, O’Connor (1996) starts from the assumption that the ruthless exploitation of the natural means of production are necessary to the capitalist system: He argues, that the capitalist accumulation processes not only undergo periodic crises of under-consumption, but also recurring crises of under-accumulation. The depletion of natural and social means of production compels it — partly under the pressure of social opposition movements and partly under the pressure of a growing scarcity of “production factors” — to eventually pay such a high price for the necessary means of production that the accumulation process comes to a halt. Commoner (1977), Tjaden (1990), and Düe (1995) connect this thesis with the Marxist theory of over-accumulation. Despite growing insertions of fixed capital, productivity gains shrink due to the additional costs needed to compensate for the decomposition processes that were caused by the depletion of the natural conditions of production. The tendency of the profit rate to fall, triggered by the increasing organic composition of capital, is thus intensified. The ecological crisis appears then as part of the long-term, ever-intensifying capitalist over-accumulation crisis. Tjaden concludes that the capitalist money economy must be superseded by a new valuation standard, based on the labour value of commodities (182). He sees, however, little scope for the implementation of such wide-reaching perspectives and calls for a reform perspective internal to the system that relies on a combination of labour-time reduction, social assistance guarantees, and material downsizing of the supply of goods (Düe/Tjaden 1994).

One variant of these analyses sees the actual cause of the ecological crisis in the workings of the “labour-value principle” underlying the capitalist accumulation process. With reference to Marx and in contrast to the Ricardian interpretations of Marx of the Second and Third International (cf. Bidet 1989), labour value is not understood to be a fundamental constant of human economic activity that is neutral towards the societal formation, but rather as a form specific to capitalism, including the alienation of humans from nature. This is directed against a way of thought that is solely interested in minimising labour time (Schmied-Kowarzik 1984). The step towards a “doctrine of nature value” was taken by Hans Immler as a supposed theoretical expression of the ecology movement of the 1970s — at the cost of a regression back to a physiocratic conception without practical relevance (cf. Massarat 1993, 43 et sq.).

By concentrating all economic efforts on replacing labour with natural forces, the labour-value principle is accompanied by a one-sided view of nature. For Brüggen, the purely quantifying natural sciences treat nature as only a quantum of its labour-replacing potential (cf. Skourtos 1994). Nature is thereby deemed as something indifferent, so that everything can be replaced by everything else, and, in the end, even the planet can be exchanged, figuring the exodus into outer space as an alternative (Jäger 1999). An ecologically sustainable economic system is, thus, difficult to imagine (cf. Weiss 1996) without transcending the ‘paradoxical core principle of the capitalist development dynamic of wanting to save as much labour as possible by maximising labour intensity’ (Brüggen 1996, 80).

This perspective gives rise to a critical attitude with respect to the neoclassical notion that the ecology problem can be solved through the “capitalisation” of natural resources or by eco-taxes. For this reason, politics must ensure, through clear and intervening basic guidelines, that various economic activities are guided by the conditions that are given naturally and socio-historically. In this way, the distribution of qualitatively limited consumption and production quotas can be regulated by state auctions and certificate systems (Elltrup 2000).

Other attempts to supplement the capitalist money economy through a second economy of energy flows, draw, by contrast, on forms of the ‘equalising consideration of nature’. The oldest approach traces back to the preliminary work of Podolinsky. Developed by Georgescu-Roegen especially, it was picked up in Germany by Altvater (1992), among others. Against modern industrial capitalism, the advocates of this approach point out that generating gains in productivity and prosperity relies on the exponentially increasing consumption of fossil fuels, the burning of which involves the irreversible increase in entropy. Here, “entropy” becomes the measurement for resource consumption and the basis for an economy concerned not only with conserving labour, but primarily with a parsimonious interaction with nature. Scheer (1993) has, for example, proposed an entropy tax.

The consideration developed by Schmidt-Bleek, among others, for compensating the money economy through an economy of material flows, operates within a similar logic (1994, 103 et sqq.). Thus, the resource efficiency of a product should be measured by relating the quantity of material spent for its production and usage to the number of service units (services and uses) that are possible with this object (108). Thus, accordingly, the advocates pursuing this approach (the Wuppertal Institute, among others) are concerned with technological progress that would aim at privileging “dematerialised” forms of knowledge production for the creation of value (Weizsäcker et al. 1995).

Bibliography: E.Altvater, Der Preis des Wohlstands, Münster 1992; Arbeitsgruppe Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik, Memorandum, Cologne 1990; id., Memorandum, Cologne 1991; Arbeitskreis Wirtschaft, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ‘Thesen zur Beschäftigungspolitik’, Andere Zeiten, vol. 1, 1993, no. 5, 28-30; F.Beckenbach, ‘Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer Ökologisierung der Ökonomie’, Prokla 67, vol. 17, 1987, 55-70; H.Behrens, ‘Ökologie und Sozialismus oder: warum heute noch Kapitalismuskritik?’, Z 6, vol. 2, 1991, 122-41; K.Betz, L.Klassen, W.Schelkle, ‘Übernutzte Umwelt, unterbeschäftigte Arbeit’, Berliner Debatte – Initial, vol. 5, 1994, no. 2, 115-26; J.Bidet, ‘Wert’, KWM 8, 1989, 1417-23; H.Bömer, ‘Ökosozialer New Deal als Konzept alternativer Wirtschaftspolitik’, Z 28, vol. 7, 1996, 94-110; W.Brüggen, ‘Der politische Preis der ökologischen Währung: Einwände gegen die Ökonomisierung der ökologischen Kritik’, Widerspruch 31, vol. 7, 1996, 79-95; id., K.Dräger, ‘Die Zukunft der Grünen’, Utopie kreativ 12, vol. 2, 1991, 48-57; id., D.Klein, Th.Westphal, ‘Den Marktmechanismus planvoll nutzen?’, Blätter, vol. 33, 1998, no. 10, 1227-35; id., E.Peine, ‘Exportweltmeister und ihre Pyrrhussiege’, Widerspruch 39, vol. 19, 1999, 82-97; E.Bulmahn, J.Schuster (eds.), Jenseits der Ökosteuern, Münster 1996; BUND, Misereor (eds.), Zukunftsfähiges Deutschland, Basel et al. 1996; R.H.Coase, ‘The Problem of Social Costs’, The Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 3, 1960, no. 1, 1-44; B.Commoner, The Poverty of Power: Energy and the Economic Crisis, New York 1976; Crossover (ed.), Zur Politik zurück: Für einen ökologisch-solidarischen New Deal, Münster 1997; id. (ed.), Regionales Wirtschaften als linke Reformperspektive, Münster 2000; id. (ed.), ‘Postfordistische Globalsteuerung – ein Konzeptvorschlag’, Andere Zeiten, vol. 7, 2000, no. 2, 6-14; R.Czeskleba-Dupont, ‘Ehe die Natur sich abschließend rächt’, Z 22, vol. 6, 1995, 81-92; id. et al., Europäische Energiepolitik und Grüner New Deal, Schriftenreihe des Instituts für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung, no. 78, Berlin 1994; J.H.Dales, Pollution Property and Economics, Toronto 1968; D.Düe, ‘Der Nutzeffekt der gesellschaftlichen Arbeit’, Z 22, vol. 6, 1995, 92-100; id., K.H.Tjaden, ‘Zwischen Reaktion und Illusion’, Z 21, vol. 5, 1994, 156-69; S.Elltrup, ‘Die Durchsetzung gesellschaftlicher Interessen im Vergabeverfahren’, Andere Zeiten, vol. 7, 2000, no. 1, 13-19; N.Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Cambridge-London 1971; id., ‘The Entropy Law and Economic Process in Retrospect’, Eastern Economic Journal, vol. 12, 1986, no. 1, 3-25; S.Holland, Towards a New Bretton Woods, Nottingham 1994; H.Immler, W.Schmied-Kowarzik, Marx und die Naturfrage, Hamburg 1984; M.Jäger, Probleme und Perspektiven der Berliner Republik, Münster 1999; W.K.Kapp, Social Costs, Economic Development, and Environmental Disruption, London 1983; U.Kremer, B.Mikfeld, ‘Regionalwirtschaft und strukturpolitische Doppelstrategie’, Crossover 2000, 14-43; R.Land, ‘Ökosteuer oder Ökokapital?’, Andere Zeiten, vol. 2, 1994, no. 4, 3-12; A.Lipietz, ‘Three Crises: The Metamorphoses of Capitalism and the Labour Movement’, in: M.Gottdiener and N.Komninos (eds.) Capitalist Development and Crisis Theory, London 1989, 59-95; id., Die große Transformation des 21. Jahrhunderts, Münster 2000; B.Lutz, Der kurze Traum immerwährender Prosperität, Frankfurt/M-New York 1989; J.Martinez-Alier, K.Schlüpmann, Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment, and Society, Oxford 1987; M.Massarrat, Endlichkeit der Natur und Überfluß in der Marktökonomie, Marburg 1993; J.O’Connor, ‘The Second Contradiction of Capitalism’, in: T.Benton (ed.), The Greening of Marxism, New York-London 1996, 187-239; id., Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, New York-London 1998; A.C.Pigou, The Economics of Welfare, London 1939; K.Polanyi, The Great Transformation, Boston 1944; J.Rifkin, The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, New York 1998; H.Scheer, Sonnen-Strategie, Munich-Zürich 1993; id., The Solar Economy: Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Global Future, London 2002; W.Schmied-Kowarzik, Das dialektische Verhältnis des Menschen zur Natur, Freiburg 1984; F.Schmidt, F.O.Wolf, ‘Dritter Weg für Deutschland – eine Alternative zum öko-sozialen Umbauprojekt?’, Andere Zeiten, vol. 6, 1999, no. 5, 56-80; F.Schmidt-Bleek, Wieviel Umwelt braucht der Mensch, Berlin 1994; M.S.Skourtos, ‘Vom Oikos zur Ressource’, in: B.Bievert, M.Held (ed.), Das Naturverständnis der Ökonomik, Frankfurt/M 1994; K.H.Tjaden, Mensch – Gesellschaftsformation – Biosphäre, Marburg 1990; G.Voss, H.Pongratz, ‘From Employee to “Entreployee”: Towards a “self-entrepreneurial” workforce?’, Concepts and Transformation 8, vol. 3, 2003, 239-54 [1998]; J.Weiss, ‘Umweltpolitik im Kapitalismus’, Z 28, vol. 7, 1996, 37-51; E.U.v.Weizsäcker, A.Lovins, H.Lovins, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use, London 1998; J.Willis, Greenpeace International, Energy – a New Deal for the World, Brussels 1994.

Willi Brüggen

Translated by Robert Ogman

→ alliance politics, alternative economic policy, disembedding, ecological economy, ecological modernism, energy, entropy, Fordism, information revolution, justice, hegemony, historical bloc, Keynesianism, limits to growth, mastery over nature, New Left, new social movements, post-Fordism, reduction of labour time, second contradiction of capitalism, social contract, Tonnenideologie

→ alternative Wirtschaftspolitik, Arbeitszeitverkürzung, Bündnispolitik, Energie, Entbettung, Entropie, Fordismus, Gerechtigkeit, geschichtlicher Block, Gesellschaftsvertrag, Grenzen des Wachstums, Hegemonie, informationelle Revolution, Keynesianismus, Naturbeherrschung, Neue Linke, Neue soziale Bewegungen, ökologische Modernisierung, ökologische Wirtschaft, Postfordismus, Tonnenideologie, zweiter Widerspruch im Kapitalismus