How red are the Greens?

    LAST WEEK the Green Party launched their election manifesto. They put
    forward many policies that socialists also support – on the environment,
    against nuclear power, against the war in Iraq.

    Jon Dale

    "The Green Party is committed to redistributing wealth so that everyone has
    more of a fair share," says their manifesto. They propose higher tax bands for
    high earners, higher corporation tax for companies making more than £1.5
    million a year profit, higher inheritance tax and a land value tax (on
    landowners). They would replace VAT with eco-taxes, according to the damage to
    the environment.

    Socialists support such measures, but they are insufficient to achieve real
    wealth redistribution. While a tiny minority continue to own the means of
    producing wealth and to control real power in society, they will find ways to
    evade tax.

    On privatisation, the Greens’ national policy is to oppose Private Finance
    deals that give big business guaranteed profits from public services, although
    many Green councillors have backed similar privatisation schemes (see Brighton
    report below). They would "aim to bring all affected facilities back into
    public ownership as soon as possible." (Why not immediately?)

    But they "don’t oppose the buying of goods and services from suppliers
    outside the public service." So the NHS would continue to be fleeced by big
    pharmaceutical and medical supplies companies. The railways would still be a
    golden goose for companies like Balfour Beatty.

    Such companies should be nationalised so that they could be democratically
    planned, as part of the public services.

    The Green Party does not acknowledge that capitalist society is divided
    into classes, where the owners of industry (a tiny minority of society) make
    as much profit as they can by paying their workers as little as possible. The
    interests of the capitalist and working classes are completely opposed to each
    other.

    ‘Community banks’

    Instead, the Greens "want to encourage responsible companies that are
    rooted in and serve the communities in which they’re based." Real economic
    progress, they say, "involves encouraging more local, smaller businesses – the
    real backbone of the economy – rather than the multinationals, which wield
    huge power but provide relatively few jobs."

    Socialists too would not argue for public ownership of all small
    businesses, just the 150 or so companies that dominate the economy. But unless
    these are nationalised, how are these "responsible" small businesses supposed
    to survive in competition with the giant corporations?

    Yet, the giant corporations that rule the roost in the economy switch
    production from one country to another in search of even lower wages, looser
    health and safety laws and pollution controls.

    Among the most powerful capitalist institutions are the banks. Rather than
    call for them to be taken into democratic public ownership, the Greens favour
    "democratically accountable Community Banks, designed to encourage local
    people to invest in their own economy." Such banks would be small fish in a
    shark-infested sea. They would never be able to get the funds required for
    real investment in jobs and public services while a few big banks dominate.

    So what do the Greens say about the small number of monopolies that rule
    the economy? "Changes in Company Law, taxation, and in monopolies and mergers
    legislation, will reduce the size of inappropriately large companies."

    Would Tesco and Asda sit back and let a Green government reduce their size?
    Or would they, along with the other 150 or so monopolies that control over 80%
    of the economy, exert their power to force the government to back down. Unless
    they were taken into public ownership, they would use every means they could
    to destroy a threat to their profits.

    General appeals

    Recognising opposition from "those committed to material affluence, the
    accumulation of power and the unsustainable exploitation of the Earth," the
    Greens say they’re "always ready to negotiate with those who oppose us, and
    reach fair settlements that respect the need for security, self-esteem and
    freedom of choice."

    This outlook has led the German Green Party into a coalition with the
    pro-big business Social Democratic Party of Schršder, a government that is
    trying to dismantle the welfare state, that continues to support nuclear power
    and has supported the US in wars.

    The Greens correctly highlight environmental destruction and the threat to
    continued life on Earth from pollution. Socialists also give this issue the
    highest priority (see the socialist 386). But the Greens can only fall back on
    general appeals for a cleaner, sustainable world. Unless the majority of
    society owns and plans the wealth it produces, life will remain under threat
    of extinction.