The YouTube video of 12-year-old Victoria Grant speaking at the Public Banking in America conference last month has gone viral, topping a million views on various web sites. Follow the conversation at Truthout.

Via people contacting this blog, and with conversations through the social network profiles I have created over time, I have had an interesting vantage regards the feelings people have toward the ecosocialist movement. People identifying themselves under the umbrella term of ‘ecosocialists’ represent a very mixed bag. There are those with a well considered sense of their political standing, describing themselves in manifold ways: non-market socialists, Marxist-autonomists, anarcho-syndicalists, deep ecologists! etc. Others have more mainstream social-democratic type leanings,  are environmental activists or are those waking up to economic and environmental crises for the first time and are yet to develop a sense of political identity.

The thing that often strikes me, particularly in the UK is how many ecosocialists are politically unaffiliated but looking for an organisation to be a part of. I can relate to this, it took me a long time to join a party; generally disillusioned by politics and politicians whatever colour flag they wave.

Eventually I decided to join the Greens, in the absence of a significant number of people making like Zapatistas! and in the context of the unfolding ecological and economic crisis, joining the greens seemed like the best fit. There are elements of the party I struggle with; alas a complex democratic structure will never be perfect for each individual, and party politics is not the only battleground as I see it. I was particularly happy that the party officially recognised occupy and of course there is the Green Left, the omission of which would probably have had me looking elsewhere.

As Green parties in Europe and elsewhere have grown, developed a bureaucracy and full time leadership of professional (or would be professional) politicians,  their ‘natural’ trajectory seems to have been to gradually make more and more accommodation to the political establishment until they have been largely absorbed into it, like the German and Irish Greens. However, over the past four or five years, the Green Party in Britain has tended to move to the left.

This is, I think, the result of a number of factors. First, the development of New Labour  created a huge vacuum on the left, into which the Green Party has been sucked - almost by default. Second, despite the narrow reformism and environmentalist niche politics that (traditionally) the bulk of Green Party members have felt comfortable with, the objective reality of British involvement in seemingly endless imperialist adventures, the greatest world financial crisis in history and the ever growing threat of climate change, have combined to lead to increasing numbers of Greens to develop a more generalised critique of capitalism. Third, while this tendency to move to the left has been effectively counteracted within other Green parties by the lure of elected office, in Britain the electoral system serves to marginalise us - and thus to some degree offsets the pressure to conform and accommodate. Fourth, the collapse of Labour Party membership and the increasing irrelevance of the far left sects over the last few years has resulted in a steady (if modest) stream of homeless socialists of various hues and traditions into the party.

Based on specific policy examples can we describe GPEW as an explicitly socialist party?

I don’t think so. It is de facto a social democratic party - but I mean a proper social democratic party rather than the post social democratic neoliberal parties like Labour in Britain and the SDP in Germany. By social democratic, I mean that it is implicitly (and to a modestly increasing degree, explicitly) anti-capitalist, but that it has no real analysis of the nature of capitalism and the state, and consequently no overall strategy for how to get from where we are to where we want to be.  As a result, the politics of the party tends to be a jumble of crankish nostrums, modest reformism and a few elements of various strands of socialist theory.

However, that is no reason for socialists not to be members of the Green Party; I was for a good few years a member of the Labour Party, which claimed to be socialist and until 1994 had an explicitly socialist constitution, though it was clearly a pro-capitalist party. So I feel perfectly comfortable being a member of a party way to the left of Labour, whose leader has repeatedly proclaimed it to be anti-capitalist and whose policies, though muddled and contradictory, are in many respects socialist.

The only reason that socialists should be active in this or that political formation is because they believe that it has the potential to play a part in building the mass movement of working people this is the only agency capable of rebuilding society.  I think that can be said of the Green Party.

Some green party members have argued that the Green Left is not relevant, after all the Green Party is ‘left’. How would you respond to that?

The Green Party is certainly a party of the left and is - fuzzily - anti-capitalist, but its politics are syncretic and impressionistic, having largely developed out of a narrow and essentially middle class environmentalism, mixed with elements of pacifism, feminism and (increasingly explicit) radical egalitarianism.  It is, in some ways, the heir of the politics of the ‘fruit juice drinkers and sandal wearers’ of the ILP that so irritated Orwell.  As a result, to a large degree the Party’s politics are built on sentiment rather than rigorous analysis. This is compounded by the fact the the Party has a very weak tradition of organised internal debate and political education.

It seems to me, therefore, that the role of Green Left within the Party should be, as Lenin put it, ‘to patiently explain’ the nature of capitalism and the interrelationship between it and the looming environmental and resource crises. Our role should be to make connections and point out conclusions to be drawn. In particular, we should be endeavouring to ensure the maximum amount of political discussion and debate at every level of the Party at all times.

In his essay Towards a Revolutionary Party, Duncan Hallas, wrote:

‘Such a party cannot possibly be created except on a thoroughly democratic basis; unless, in its internal life, vigorous controversy is the rule and various tendencies and shades of opinion are represented, a socialist party cannot rise above the level of a sect. Internal democracy is not an optional extra. It is fundamental to the relationship between party members and those amongst whom they work.’

I think that his view of the necessity for internal democracy and organised political debate is as relevant for the Green Party today as it was for the International Socialists 40 years ago - and Green Left’s central role should be to act as vigorous advocates of both ever more debate and ever more democracy in the Party.

You know Joel Kovel. What is it about his work that you have found particularly inspirational and informative?

What most impresses me about Joel is his intellectual courage and rigour. For example, his book Overcoming Zionism is a fearless and damning analysis of Zionism and what he calls the ‘state sponsored racism’ of Israel. He knew that to publish it would be to expose himself to organised abuse and would endanger his academic career, but he still spoke out - and lost his professorship as a result.

His book The Enemy of Nature remains one of the most important expositions of ecosocialist theory yet written. In it, he brings his original background as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst to play in making a creative contribution to a Marxist understanding of the concept of human nature and the dialectical relationship between humanity, social production and ‘nature’. He writes:

‘There is an inescapable tension between humanity and nature. From one side, a fully embodied creature, obeying all the laws of the universe; from the other, a stubborn, proud and willful creature who distinguishes the self from nature and even chooses to protest the natural. We can say it is a facet of human nature to quarrel with nature and even to reject the purely natural given…

Both social production and consumption are are direct extensions of human nature, in that each transforms nature through an engagement with the imagination and the ensemble of human powers. Production - and the human capacity for labour - is, as Marx insisted, a matter of looking ahead: every object that gets made exists in the imagination before it does so in reality’

In a speech to Occupy Wall Street a few months ago, he said:

‘An association of free people will take care of nature because they see themselves as part of nature. They will struggle for a new world based on a new kind of production that gives nature intrinsic value. They will develop the tools for overcoming and healing the cancer of accumulation and the ecological crisis it generates. Such a society will be in harmony with nature and not nature’s enemy. I would call it “ecosocialism,” and I hope you will join in its building. ‘

Stirring stuff.

You have recently written a chapter for a book, soon to be released. Can you tell us a bit about that book and your contribution?

The book is titled Capitalism, Crisis and Alternatives. It is a collection of essays attempting to present a comparative analysis of the world crisis in different regions and to contribute to the debate about alternatives to neoliberal policies, with particular reference to the the multiple dimensions of the crisis.

My contribution is a chapter entitled A Green Industrial Revolution. Starting from the position advocated in the Million Green Jobs pamphlet I argue that if we are to use the process of de-carbonising Britain to create more aggregate demand and hundreds of thousands of socially useful jobs, it will be necessary for us to rebuild our industrial base - to strategically re-industrialise in fact. However, we need to explicitly develop clear aims and objectives (that are completely different to those of the British ruling class) and new democratic forms of common ownership, control and planning. I suggest what some of those aims and objectives might be and use the electrical generation and distribution, transport and construction sectors as exemplars, as they would provide the base for all further re-industrialisation.

I think the Green Left, the anti-capitalist – ecosocialist group within the GPEW has enormous potential to grow and attract many of those unaffiliated ecosocialists I mentioned in my intro. Do you think this to be the case and would you have any suggestions for how it could move forward.

I agree, but perhaps not in the way that many comrades in Green Left or on the left in the Green Party would first think of. I don’t believe that we should aim to be primarily a recruiting sergeant for the Green Party within the wider labour movement, nor that we should just focus our efforts on drafting motions for conference which will notionally move Green Party policies to the left - and we certainly shouldn’t see ourselves as the beginning of yet another sect. I think that we should be building what Hal Draper, author of The Twin Souls of Socialism, described as a political centre.

What Draper meant by a political centre was not a sect that claims for itself exclusive rights on the Full and Correct Programme and which calls on working people to climb up to its level, nor an internal faction that is concerned almost exclusively with getting the correct line passed at conference and getting the right people elected to party office. He saw it primarily as a non or informal membership propaganda/educational centre as distinct from a membership group enclosed in organisational walls. He gave the loose grouping round Monthly Review at the time as an example - a contemporary British example might be Compass.

I see the key tasks of such a centre (or tendency) as being: to mutually develop a body of ideas and analysis and to publish a body of political literature expressing and promoting them; to form cadres of party workers and militants around this political core; to establish its ‘kind of socialism’ as a presence in left politics, with its own physiognomy and name.

For us, that ‘kind of socialism’ is ecosocialism,  and the task of Green Left is to develop and explain ecosocialist ideas, not only to members of the Green Party, but to all activists we work with in the wider movement. In my view, that means that first priority of Green Left should be building its capacity to be a forum for the development of ecosocialist ideas and as a broadcaster of those ideas in a range of media, starting with the regular publication of the Watermelon. Second, Green Left must be much more outward looking and seek to provide a forum for all those interested in ecosocialist ideas. Our membership requirements are pretty loose at the moment; all that is required is membership of the Green Party and a small subscription to cover running costs. I believe that we should open up Green Left to all socialists regardless of what party they are or are not members of. We should aim to be, if you like, a red/green equivalent of Compass.

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To mark international workers day Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has signed the biggest labour law reform since he took power in 1999.

Chavez made his first live public appearance since April 13, to announce the reforms prior to a return to Cuba for more cancer radiation therapy.

Despite his health and significant limitations to his campaign for the October 7th presidential election the polls show he is well ahead of his nearest rival.

The changes to the labour laws include an extension of maternity and paternity leave, a four-hour reduction in the work week and greater severance benefits. This is in addition to a significant increase in the minimum wage announced last month. Chavez said of the reforms:

“We have a law which will go down in history. That history...tells us that the triumph of the people, of the workers, has never come about without a long process of resistance, of struggle, suffering even. This law, which I will have the honour of signing...is the product of a long process of struggle,”

Report from Al Jazeera Below:

21st Century socialism is alive and kicking in Venezuela, George Galloway's barn storming success in Bradford shows that an overtly socialist agenda can deliver big results here in the UK too.

We have to embrace socialist breakthroughs such as Galloway's in the Bradford West by-election ; breakthrough's which emerge from an otherwise baron wilderness of Socialist success in recent times. We need to embrace them, hold them tight, learn from them and push hard for others. 

I don't think the historic victory dubbed the 'Bradford Spring' requires any complex analysis. Galloway won because he is overtly socialist. He is anti-cuts and anti-war. Yes he is a 'personality' and the left can't expect to put forward many others of his ilk but the momentum can spearhead other successes if we adopt the same explicitly socialist programme.  


Mainstream commentators have attacked the landslide result as a 'one off' or 'opportunistic' but this is lame, predictable, establishment diatribe and shows no respect for the democratic process or for the people of Bradford. To quote from a post I just read on the Occupy London Facebook page 'You can crush our flowers but you can’t stop the spring!'  

The Bradford West result, with not only a lack of mainstream media coverage during the campaign but a virtual denunciation post-election was a grassroots movement embraced by many young people, many of whom engaging with political struggle for the first time. 

A local business donated their offices as a makeshift base and DIY banners and leaflets were created and distributed. The spring was well and truly, sprung. The votes for the RESPECT party (Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community & Trade Unionism) poured in from wards representing a broad cultural cross-section despite the commentariat spuriously denouncing it as an isolated Muslim phenomena.

Concurrently and crossing the North Atlantic Ocean, Hugo Chavez the most frequently elected, oft called ‘dictator’ in the world, continues to provide the threat of a good example, furthering the Socialist project and demonstrating what happens when a government prioritises people and not the business interests of  the minority. This occurs all the while, as with this country in the face of a typically biased right leaning media.

Venezuela’s national minimum wage in accord with proposals from the National Union of Workers (UNT) is to increase a staggering 32.25% in 2012. The increase means that in dollar terms Venezuela will have the highest minimum wage in Latin America. On Saturday the President announced: “This leap forward in favour of the workers forms part of the project of redistribution of national income to achieve substantive equality,” and “Every year without fail the [Bolivarian] Revolution has decreed an increase in the minimum salary, as a way of solidly constructing social justice. It is one of the reasons why Venezuela is the country with the lowest indicator of inequality in this continent,”

This redistribution of wealth is largely possible because the Bolivarian Revolution nationalised industries. In addition and for the same reasons the economy is benefitting from low unemployment of only 9%. It should also be noted that the number of workers receiving the minimum wage has fallen drastically in the past decade or so - from 65% in 1999 to 21% in 2010.

Compare this to the ideologically driven austerity in the UK and other European countries. Unemployment is rocketing up to 25% with youth unemployed an appalling 50% in Spain. With cuts and increasing inequality the real human costs begin to stack up.

Suicide rates are soaring across Europe as many face too grim and undignified an existence. The sad case of the suicide of Mr and Mrs Mullins from Bedworth sticks in the memory. The Independent reports that Mr Mullins had worked as a PT instructor in the army but had left too soon to qualify for a pension. His wife had learning difficulties and according to her husband could neither read nor write, preventing her from finding work. £57.50 per week jobseeker’s allowance was insufficient. Once a week the couple walked 12 miles into Coventry for vegetable hand-outs from the Salvation Army, and Mr Mullins would keep a broth going until the next week when the couple would next walk the 24 mile round trip. Neighbours had seen no activity from their house for several days. Police broke in and found them dead. Side by side. A tragic symbol of the harsh consequences of the Austerity measures and you would hope a wakeup call to an alternative. 

In contrast last year Venezuela came forth in an international Gallup poll on Well-Being. In the same poll the UK came 17th. Chavez commented: “This means we are on the right path, even with all the errors that we have to put right. Nonetheless, this is the right path, the path of socialism, the redistribution of income.”

To the future and one has to feel more optimistic. The political landscape of Britain has changed since the Bradford spring. Concrete and straightforward alternatives have been proposed that could create jobs, get the economy going again, be good for the environment and still pay the deficit in the longer term without cutting public services. Onward to other constituencies and the lesson as I see it - a bold left wing approach can be very popular. Next the Slough Spring etc.  Keep belief in Marx's famous maxim "What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable"  Galloway proves that the 21st century Socialist project does not need to be restricted to Latin America. Detrimental conditions produced by the Bourgeoisie are rife and the foundations laid by the anticapitalist movement over the past decade can begin to bear fruit with major electoral successes.