Outline of a Green economic theory.

• Author: Rotering, Frank
• Position: Economics Reconsidered

The Green movement is based on humanistic values, a sound philosophical core, and enlightened policy proposals. These positive attributes have permitted the movement to grow rapidly and to become a leading force in the activist world. Despite this success, Greens do not yet enjoy widespread public support, possibly due to a missing key element--an economic theory. Conservative forces ignore ecological realities and reject the precepts of social justice, but their views are firmly grounded in the dogmas of mainstream economics. This foundation gives their statements an appearance of depth and validity that Greens cannot currently claim.

Given this situation, the Green movement should take the next step in its evolution and develop an economic theory of it own. This step would provide a solid conceptual basis for the movement's activist initiatives and electoral platforms, allow candidates to debate opponents with confidence and intellectual coherence, and it would demonstrate to the broader activist world that the time for a progressive economics has finally arrived.

Economic issues are of central importance for Greens because social injustice and environmental degradation frequently have economic roots. This fact is underscored by the movement's key values and philosophical statements. Of the Green Party's Ten Key Values, eight have strong economic content. These include grassroots democracy, social justice, ecological wisdom, decentralization, community-based production, gender equity, responsibility, and sustainability. Only non-violence and respect for diversity are arguably outside this scope.

The UK Green Party has published a "Philosophical Basis" document which refers repeatedly to the economic underpinnings of Green thought. It includes the following declaration:

Conventional political and economic policies are destroying the very foundations of the well-being of humans and other animals. Our culture is in the grip of a value system and a way of understanding the world which is fundamentally flawed. Based on these values and philosophical statements, referred to collectively in this article as the Green worldview, Greens support a wide range of economic policy proposals: replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources, internalization of costs, development of new economic indicators, etc. Many of these proposals are useful and progressive, but they would be decisively strengthened if they were based on a convincing economic logic.

The current approach assumes that a correct worldview is sufficient to generate well-founded economic policies. These assumptions are incorrect, for two reasons. First, personal and group biases can interfere with systematic thought, resulting in solutions that lack an adequate conceptual basis. Second, the solutions to many problems are too complex to be derived directly from a worldview--they require a method of analysis.

A more rigorous approach, and the one I propose, is to make the Green worldview the foundation...