Green Alternatives to Globalisation

Caroline Lucas, Michael Woodin

Description

What are the Green alternatives to economic globalisation?



Written by leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, this manifesto argues that globalisation increases poverty, undermines democracy, and destroys the environment, the authors demonstrate the urgent need for a new approach - economic localisation - that is based on the Green principles of equity, ecology and democracy. Applying their thesis to current international crises, including climate change, trade and development, agriculture, and international security, we see how economic localisation could be adopted and applied to positive ends.
List Of Acronyms

Introduction

Section 1: Assessing The Damage

1. Globalisation: The Economics Of Insecurity

2. Democracy For Sale

3. A World In Decline

4. Globalising Poverty, Inequality And Unemployment

Section 2: The Green Alternative

5. Economic Localisation

Section 3: Turning The Tide

6. Connecting Hearts And Minds

7. Learning From History

8. Storming The Citadels: Sacking Bretton Woods And The Wto

Section 4: Applying The Alternative

9. Local Food – The Global Solution

10. Localising Money

11. A New Context For Multilateralism

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Environmental Protection
• Environmental Conservation
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Globalization
• Environmentalist
• Nature

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783710638
• Langue: English

Extrait

Green Alternatives to Globalisation

First published 2004 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright Michael E. Woodin and Caroline Lucas 2004
The right of Michael E. Woodin and Caroline Lucas to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 1933 9 hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 1932 2 paperback ISBN 978 1 7837 1063 8 ePub
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Woodin, Michael.
Green alternatives to globalisation : a manifesto / Michael Woodin and Caroline Lucas.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7453-1933-5 - ISBN 0-7453-1932-7 (pbk.)
1. International economic relations. 2. Globalization-Economic aspects. 3. Economic development. 4. Sustainable development. I. Lucas, Caroline, 1960- II. Title.
HF1359.W656 2004
338.9 27-dc22
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. The paper may contain up to 70 per cent post-consumer waste.
10 9 8 7 6 5
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Sidmouth, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England
For
Deborah, Talia and Rafael (MW)
Richard, Theo and Isaac (CL)
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
Introduction
Section One: Assessing the Damage
1. Globalisation: The Economics of Insecurity
2. Democracy for Sale
3. A World in Decline
4. Globalising Poverty, Inequality and Unemployment
Section Two: The Green Alternative
5. Economic Localisation
Section Three: Turning the Tide
6. Connecting Hearts and Minds
7. Learning From History
8. Storming the Citadels: Sacking Bretton Woods and the WTO
Section Four: Applying the Alternative
9. Local Food: The Global Solution
10. Localising Money
11. A New Context for Multilateralism
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
TABLES
5.1 Creating a General Agreement of Sustainable Trade (GAST)
9.1 Average Energy Use of Different Forms of Transport
BOXES
Box 1.1 Greens and Growth
Box 2.1 GATS
Box 3.1 The State of the World: a summary of GEO 3
Box 9.1 Supermarkets
Box 9.2 The Development Box
Box 9.3 GM Crops - Myths and Reality
Box 10.1 An Underground Currency for London
FIGURES
1.1 An environmental Kuznets curve, showing a supposed relationship within any one country between environmental degradation and average income
2.1 International trade and the percentage of US and UK voters participating in elections in an era of globalisation
3.1 Humanity s growing global footprint
3.2 Transport of goods in the EU by mode of transport, 1970-99 (aviation not included)
4.1 Unemployment in the EU and US
4.2 UK per capita GDP and ISEW (1950-96)
4.3 US per capita GDP and GPI
4.4 Personal income and satisfaction in the US
5.1 Percentage change in household income under Desai s CI proposal
Foreword
Mike Feinstein
The unsustainability of our lifestyle as a species cries out for response - both because of widespread environmental degradation that scars our planet, as well as criminal inequities among us that literally rob billions of people of the chance to realize their potential.
These negative trends are not new - in some ways, they ve been with us for hundreds if not thousands of years. But our failings today are magnified by the size of our global population, the immense power of our technology and a global economic system that exploits people and planet for short-term profit. This brings about an unprecedented urgency to our time.
Into this moment step Woodin and Lucas with their new book. Visionary yet precise, profound yet full of common sense, Woodin and Lucas carefully dissect the propaganda-laden myths of corporate capitalism that too often lead us to believe there can be no other way.
Even many who instinctively suspect there is something deeply wrong with globalization, often have trouble fully unlearning these myths that we have come to internalize as a result of their almost mantra-like repetition in our daily lives. And even if we have unlearned them in our own lives, we often have difficulty articulating this in concrete terms to others.
To help us with this, Woodin and Lucas bring to bear a sophisticated knowledge of the alphabet soup of economic globalization - WTO, GATS, NAFTA, IMF MAI, and TRIPs - and expose the failings of those institutions in traditional economic terms.
How many of us for example, when hearing a simplistic, jingoistic, yet intuitively attractive saying like a rising tide lifts all boats , can succinctly explain why globalization is not the answer to poverty? Woodin and Lucas can and do, by giving clear, empirical evidence that the problem is not that there is not enough wealth to go around. Rather, the problem is the way wealth is created and distributed in the first place.
What about the principle of comparative advantage , which suggests that goods should be produced wherever they can be done so most efficiently ? This is frequently used to justify economic globalization and at first glance, it also has an intuitive appeal making it hard to argue with.
But Woodin and Lucas demonstrate how the mobility of capital (so coveted by transnational corporations) seeks absolute profitability as a basis for comparative advantage, and thus drives down labour, environmental and health and safety standards worldwide.
Such a critique is critical, because it exposes the sheer lunacy of economics based upon unlimited growth on a finite planet - especially an economics that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of the few, while squandering scarce resources at the same time.
But in addition to opposing the status quo, for those of us marching in the streets, debating in the classrooms, or struggling in City Halls and state and national legislatures, we also have to provide a positive alternative. That is where the work of Woodin and Lucas is perhaps most compelling.
Defenders of the status quo often ridicule Green visions as unrealistic back-to-nature fantasies that have little relationship to reality ( those Greens are so against trade, they don t even want to let us eat bananas ).
By contrast, Woodin and Lucas propose a sophisticated vision of economic localisation that involves reforming monetary, investment and trade policy within an ecological context.
Woodin and Lucas suggest a world where the flow of ideas, technologies, information, culture, money and goods has, as its end goal, the rebuilding of truly sustainable national and local economies worldwide. Embodying what Greens everywhere learn from nature - that we are all deeply interdependent - the emphasis of economic localisation is not on competition for the cheapest , but on cooperation for the best .
In such a world - recognizing that democracy, ecology and social justice go hand in hand - control of the economy would also move back from the boardrooms of distant corporations to the peoples and communities that are directly affected by it.
As an activist involved in Green politics, I find Woodin and Lucas s book very inspiring and reassuring. Inspiring, because it demonstrates how problems today, can be turned into solutions tomorrow. Reassuring, because the book itself reflects the increasing maturation of the Green movement over the last three decades. Having been both inside and outside the halls of power, Woodin and Lucas combine the energy of street protest with the policy-making expertise of serving in elected office. The vision and practicality of their recommendations reflect that fact.
One can look around the planet and despair at the immensity of the challenges we face. But just as the current system benefits from a series of self-reinforcing policies and institutions, Woodin and Lucas remind us that a more sustainable and just economy can come into being with similarly synergistic practices.
Acknowledgements
Many people have helped us get to the stage of collecting all these ideas together and setting them out in some kind of order. Most of them are unknown to us. They might have said something at a conference, painted a witty slogan on a placard or penned an article that, in turn, inspired others to think, write or speak until we got to hear of it. We are grateful to you all.
We are, however, particularly grateful to those whom we do know about. Colin Hines has been an extraordinary source of inspiration for many years and owns the intellectual property rights to much of what we have to say. We are also very grateful to Molly Scott Cato for her guidance in Green economics and to James Forder for his patient tutorials in the conventional variety.
Many others have helped us to refine our ideas along the way. They include Steve Dawe, Paul Ingram, Penny Kemp, James Robertson, Lucy Ford, George Monbiot, Spencer FitzGibbon, Justin Wilkes, Darren Johnson and Craig Simmons. Timely literary advice was forthcoming from Emily Miles and Rob Sykes;Xanthe Bevis finished the index and Stig designed the figures. Many thanks also to David Weston, Chris Keene and the excellent folk at WDM Scotland for their ceaseless flow of extremely useful emails.
We are very grateful to Roger van Zwanenberg at Pluto Press for suggesting the book in the first place and to Julie Stoll, our extraordinarily patient editor.
Finally, the book