by Steve Showen
A variety of organizations and speakers participated in the conference, focusing on building an independent political movement that is pro-worker, pro-immigrant, anti-war, anti-genocide, pro-healthcare, and that responds to the climate emergency. Kshama Sawant and Jill Stein gave powerful speeches reflecting the character and experiences of their respective organizations, Workers Fight Back and the Green Party: Kshama’s success in building a movement to win a $15 per hour minimum wage in Seattle (now $25/hr), and Jill’s 2024 candidacy for president, gaining the highest returns of any third party. Both campaigns faced an onslaught of billionaire backed Democratic Party opposition.
In keeping with the theme of the event, both speakers acknowledged the enemy is the rich, as they personify the plundering profit-driven system of capitalism. Chris Hedges characterized this period of capitalism as “proto Christian fascism.” Jill exclaimed: “As the empire is falling we are rising! … I want to make the point: We do have the power!” One moderator, Margaret Elizabeth, opined that “the antidote for the crisis of capitalism is ecological socialism, and democratic control of what we’re producing.” Kshama credited the labor organizing successes of the 1930’s to the socialists and communists. However, rather than name a particular ideological solution, Kshama concluded her remarks with a proposal that I think many awakening Americans can get behind: “We must take the reins away from capitalism and replace capitalism with a system of solidarity, sustainability and democracy.”
While noting the goal of the conference was to build a unified movement of many groups and interests, I was thinking about how the work of these two particular organizations, Workers Fight Back and the Green Party, might complement each other. WFB has established itself as a champion for labor power, and also fights racism, sexism and oppression, fights for affordable housing and free healthcare for all, and opposes genocidal war in Gaza. WSB also calls for a new political party. Likewise, the GP resonates with these demands and others outlined in its encompassing platform, and is already an established political party. The GP brings an emphasis on local economics and concerns for the environment, with a focus on the future and sustainability.
I interpreted Margaret Elizabeth’s remarks to be an allusion to the socialist theme of workers owning the means of production by her calling for “democratic control of what we’re producing,” implying that the broader society should play a role in determining what “we” are producing. Currently, the direction and scope of the economy are determined by banking and corporate interests, whose priority is profit making without regard for people, planet or peace. I’m sure most of us would agree it is imperative to reverse these priorities, hence reversing who’s making the political economic decisions. We the People are in the best position to determine what is best for the general well being of everyone. Greens would ask: How does our production affect the natural world? What are the limits of economic growth beyond which we jeopardize our life support, planet earth?
The Green Party has roots in ecological economics, pioneered by Herman Daly. Rather than base an economy on destructive GDP growth, as does capitalism, Daly advocated for a steady-state economy, which calls for “two key principles in order to stay in balance with the living world. 1) Never extract more than ecosystems can regenerate. 2) Never waste or pollute more than ecosystems can safely absorb.” (Hickel/Daly)
Jason Hickel, in Less is More, How Degrowth Will Save the World, which can be thought of as a transition to a steady state economy, maintains we can all enjoy a higher standard of living while consuming far fewer resources. Hickel calls this “radical abundance.” Hickel explains the illusion of artificial scarcity was created by capitalists as the engine of capital accumulation, “created in order to get people to submit to low-wage labor, to pressure them to engage in competitive productivity, and to recruit them as mass consumers.” The success of increased productivity can result in mass layoffs, an artificial scarcity of jobs, prompting workers themselves to call for more capitalist growth to retain their jobs. “Reversing artificial scarcities created for the sake of capitalist growth can render growth unnecessary, shortening the work week without any loss of well being. The economy would produce less as a result, yes – but would also need less. It would be smaller and yet nonetheless much more abundant.”
As the labor movement becomes stronger, it can become an influential player in determining what kind of economy we could all be working in and designing, ourselves. We can do this not only in the context of thriving within earth’s limits into the future, but by restoring the health of natural systems in the process. For example, revitalizing the family farm and employing regenerative agriculture has a vital role to play in restoring a safe and secure food supply, and healing the soil and the earth. The worker and the farmer are brothers in the movement, the tin man and the scarecrow, challenging the wizards of Wall Street.
And may the tinman and scarecrow of our time recall the 19th century Farmer-Labor and Populist Party lessons: The black arts of the wizard lie in the fact he has stolen the power to create our money from We the People. The Constitutional power to create our money is the key to self-governance. Reclaiming the money power from the banking sector enables the people to democratically determine what projects best serve the public interest, and to pay for them without incurring any debt whatsoever. The first point in the People’s Party platform of 1896 was to replace private bank debt money with sovereign debt-free public money, as they had seen Lincoln effectively demonstrate with his Greenbacks during the Civil War.
More to that story for another day.
Let us be assured that not only can we improve the quality of our work life, we can also create new jobs with a higher purpose. “Democratic control of what we’re producing” extends the theme of owning the means of production to include our participation in determining what is being produced, and what sort of economy, by whatever name we call it, will best serve the well being of people, planet and peace.
