Olching at Comment is Free, in commenting on the silly Burchill/Monbiot spat the Today programme cooked up sums up nicely the reasons why why I’m a socialist and not a Green:
olching
Aug 06 08, 4:11pm (about 15 hours ago)
[…]
I think the dominant Green discourses we see nowadays are more about social control than anything else. It’s a form of capitalism anti-capitalism, one which espouses to be anti-capitalist, but is in fact hard-line capitalist in its essence. It commodifies morals and ethics, and puts a price on them (which is why we have the whole issue of pricing the poor and less well-off out of consumption rather than looking at production, exploitation, and social justice).
This new form of capitalism has largely succeeded in appropriating 1970s/80s Green thought and co-opting it into a comprehensive pecuniary-moral framework. The fact that it has largely succeeded is apparent by some right-wingers still not ‘getting it’ that Greenism (for want of a better word) that this is not a socialist plot (as some will have it), but is capitalism’s best friend. Anything socialist went out of the window in the 1980s. In fact, it was never really part of British Green issues; more so in mainland Europe, but here the social justice issue advocates were purged in favour of Green free marketeers (see the Greens in Germany as I would say the proto-example of where environmentalism lies).
So by and large Greenism is a hyper-capitalist social control model that can be applied domestically and internationally: This is why it is also imperialist. It dictates what developing countries are not to do and thereby seeks to sustain the status quo relationship between ‘the west’ and the rest .One commenter here suggested that Greenism wants to penalise only rich countries. I had to laugh so much I think I cracked a rib. But this is essentially the ‘trick’ of Greenism, the capitalist anti-capitalism: Appear to appease one side while employing the systems of the other side (put very simply). So in demanding the Green changes be implemented, the global status quo relationship is upheld. Social justice, historical context, and political issues are shunted aside for the master doctrine of climate change.
Yes, exactly.
