| Green Party Committees:
Platform |
IV. ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY
No economic system is sustainable unless it accommodates the ecosystems on which it depends.
Our current system—based on the notion of perpetual economic expansion on a finite planet—is
seriously flawed. We urgently need to apply human ingenuity to the goal of using far less from nature
to meet our needs, which is a different goal from exploiting nature and Third World people so that
we can meet the invented and implanted false “needs” that advertisers continually push at us in a
grow-or-die type of economy. We need to acquire the ability to distinguish between need and greed,
in spite of what the media assure us we “need.” We also need to restore a progressive tax structure,
rather than continuing to move money toward the top echelons of society while squeezing everyone
else. Such a restoration, plus the end to the bankrupting military adventurism and imperial designs,
would significantly reduce the huge federal deficit that has been imposed on the American people
since 2000.
Foremost, the Green Party stands for community-based economics and regional trade. We believe
that the only model of true economic security is for a community and area to be largely (not entirely)
self-sufficient in the production of its necessities. Through foreign trade, they can then export that
which is extra, and that which they could afford to lose should environmental disasters, social unrest
in their trading partners’ countries, or other disruptions disturb the flow of their trade.
We support not the corporate dominance of “free trade”—which, through the machinations of the
World Trade Organization places the desires of transnational corporations above the level of national
laws—but true “fair trade,” which protects communities, labor, and the environment. Communitybased
economics and regional trade keep money circulating largely in the community and the region,
rather than going to distant corporate headquarters as soon as a purchase is made. This is the most
rational model for economic security. It includes family farms and community-supported agriculture,
farmers’ markets, credit unions, nonprofit community-development corporations, incubator programs
to aid start-up small businesses, apprenticeship programs in local businesses, local currency,
community-focused banks, and trade with adjacent regions. Consumers in this type of market
economy prefer to patronize locally owned businesses because each purchase has a positive rippling
effect in the community. Unlike other political parties in the modern era, the Green Party views (even
community-based) economics not as an end in itself but as a service to community development
through the building and strengthening of community bonds that constitute the social fabric.
We can learn from indigenous people who believe that the Earth and its natural systems are to be
respected and cared for in accordance with ecological principles. Concepts of ownership should be
employed in the context of stewardship, and social and ecological responsibility. We support
environmental and social responsibility in all businesses, whether privately or publicly owned.
- Ecological Economics
To create an enduring society we must devise a system of production and
commerce where every act is sustainable and restoraable. We believe that all
business has a social contract with society and the environment—in effect a
fiduciary responsibility—and that the concepts of socially responsible business and shareholder
democracy can be models for prospering, successful business.
- We call for an economic system that is based on a
combination of private businesses, decentralized
democratic cooperatives, publicly owned
enterprises, and alternative economic structures.
Collectively, this system puts human and
ecological needs alongside profits to measure
success, and maintains accountability to
communities.
- Community-based economics constitutes an
alternative to both corporate capitalism and state
socialism. It values diversity and decentralization.
Recognition of limits is central to this system. The
drive to accumulate power and wealth is a
pernicious characteristic of a civilization headed in a
pathological direction. Greens advocate that
economic relations become more direct, more
cooperative, and more egalitarian.
Humanizing economic relations is just one aspect of
our broader objective: to shift toward a different way
of life characterized by sustainability,
regionalization, more harmonious balance between
the natural ecosphere and the human-made
technosphere, and revival of community life. Our
perspective is antithetical to both Big Business and
Big Government.
- Greens support a major redesign of commerce. We
endorse true-cost pricing. [See section E.1.True
Cost Pricing on page 62 in this chapter] We
support production methods that eliminates
waste. In natural systems, everything is a meal for
something else. Everything recycles, there is no
waste. We need to mimic natural systems in the
way we manufacture and produce things.
Consumables need to be designed to be thrown
into a compost heap and/or eaten. Durable goods
would be designed in closed-loop systems,
ultimately to be disassembled and reassembled.
Toxics would be safeguarded, minimally
produced, secured, and would ideally have
markers identifying them in perpetuity with their
makers.
- Sustaining our quality of life, economic
prosperity, environmental health, and long-term
survival demands that we adopt new ways of
doing business. We need to remake commerce to
encourage diversity and variety, responding to
the enormous complexity of global and local
conditions. Big business is not about
appropriateness and adaptability, but about
power and market control. Greens support small
business, responsible stakeholder capitalism, and
broad and diverse forms of economic cooperation.
We argue that economic diversity is more
responsive than big business to the needs of
diverse human populations.
- Greens view the economy as a part of the
ecosystem, not as an isolated subset in which
nothing but resources come in and products and
waste go out. There is a fundamental conflict
between economic growth and environmental
protection. There is an absolute limit to economic
growth based on laws of thermodynamics and
principles of ecology. Long before that limit is
reached, an optimum size of the economy is
reached which maximizes human welfare in an
holistic sense.
- We support a Superfund for Workers program as
envisioned by the Oil, Chemical and Atomic
Workers Union in 1991. Such a program would
guarantee full income and benefits for all workers
displaced by ecological conversion until they find
new jobs with comparable income and benefits.
- The Green Party supports methods, such as the
Index of Social Health Indicators, the Index of
Sustainable Economic Welfare, and the Genuine
Progress Indicator, that take into account statistics
on housing, income, and nutrition.
- Measuring Economic Progress – Economic Growth and the Steady-State Economy
Economic growth has been a primary goal of American policy. Corporations, politicians beholden to
corporations, and economists funded by corporations advocate a theory of unlimited economic growth
stemming from technological progress. Based upon established principles of the physical and biological
sciences, however, there is a limit to economic growth.
American economic growth is having negative effects on the long-term ecological and economic welfare
of the United States and the world. There is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and ecological
health (for example, biodiversity conservation, clean air and water, atmospheric stability).
We cannot rely on technological progress to solve ecological and long-term economic problems. Rather,
we should endeavor to make lifestyle choices that reinforce a general equilibrium of humans with nature.
This requires consciously choosing to foster environmentally sound technologies, whether they are newer or
older technologies, rather than technologies conducive to conspicuous consumption and waste.
- Economic growth, as gauged by increasing Gross
Domestic Product (GDP), is a dangerous and
anachronistic American goal. The most viable and
sustainable alternative is a steady-state economy.
A steady-state economy has a stable or mildly
fluctuating product of population and per capita
consumption, and is generally indicated by stable
or mildly fluctuating GDP. The steady-state
economy has become a more appropriate goal
than economic growth in the United States and
other large, wealthy economies. A steady-state
economy precludes ever-expanding production
and consumption of goods and services.
However, a steady-state economy does not
preclude economic development—a qualitative
process not gauged by GDP growth and other
measures that overlook ecological effects.
- One way to measure the economy is to assess the
value of non-monetary goods and services and
measure the rate of infant mortality, life
expectancy of people, educational opportunities
offered by the state, family stability,
environmental data, and health care for all people.
Another measure is to quantify human benefit (in
terms of education, health care, elder care, etc.)
provided by each unit of output. Measuring the
gap between the most fortunate and the least
fortunate in our society, for example, tells us how
well or poorly we are doing in creating an
economy that does not benefit some at the expense
of others.
- For many nations with widespread poverty,
increasing per capita consumption (through
economic growth or through more equitable
distributions of wealth) remains an appropriate
goal. Ultimately, however, the global ecosystem
will not be able to support further economic
growth. Therefore, an equitable distribution of
wealth among nations is required to maintain a
global steady-state economy. A global economy
with inequitable wealth distribution will be
subject to continual international strife and
conflict. Such strife and conflict, in turn, ensures
the economic unsustainability of some nations
and threatens the economic sustainability of all.
- Citizen Control Over Corporations
We must end corporate welfare. Currently, corporations possess more rights and
freedoms than natural human persons. Through a series of judicial rulings, and by
virtue of their ability to control governments and economies through concentration
of wealth, corporations have rewritten our Constitution and have emerged as unaccountable, unelected
governments. The Green Party supports all reforms that seek governmental regulation of corporations.
In the interim, we support measures that hold executives and officers of corporations directly liable for
harm that results from their decisions.
The U.S. intentionally defines corporations through charters or certificates of incorporation. In exchange
for the charter, a corporation was obligated to obey all laws, to serve the common good, and to cause no harm.
Early state legislators wrote charter laws to limit corporate authority and ensure that when a corporation
caused harm, they could revoke its charter.
In the late 19th century, however, corporations claimed special protections under the Constitution. They
insisted that once formed, corporations might operate forever with the privilege of limited liability and
freedom from community or worker interference in business judgments.
One point remains unequivocal: Because corporations have become the dominant economic institution
of the planet, they must address and squarely face the social and environmental problems that afflict
humankind.
- The federal government doles out billions in
subsidies and tax breaks to corporate special
interests. The current level of influence now being
exerted by corporate interests over the public
interest is unacceptable. We challenge the
propriety and equity of corporate welfare that
comes in the form of tax breaks, subsidies,
payments, grants, bailouts, giveaways,
unenforced laws and regulations; and in historic,
continuing access to our vast public resources,
including the airwaves, millions of acres of land,
forests, mineral resources, intellectual property
rights, and government-created research.
- We support strong national standards for labor
rights and the environment so that corporations
can no longer force states and cities into a brutal
competition for jobs at any cost. Legal doctrines
must be continually revised in recognition of the
changing needs of an active, democratic citizenry.
Huge multinational corporations are artificial
creations, not natural persons uniquely sheltered
under constitutional protections. We support
local and state government attempts to define
corporations and to prevent them from exercising
democratic rights that are uniquely possessed by
the citizens of the United States.
- Livable Income
We affirm the importance of access to a livable income.
- We call for a universal basic income (sometimes
called a guaranteed income, negative income tax,
citizen’s income, or citizen dividend). This would
go to every adult regardless of health,
employment, or marital status, in order to
minimize government bureaucracy and
intrusiveness into people's lives. The amount
should be sufficient so that anyone who is
unemployed can afford basic food and shelter.
State or local governments should supplement
that amount from local revenues where the cost of
living is high.
- Job banks and other innovative training and
employment programs which bring together the
private and public sectors must become federal,
state and local priorities. People who are unable to
find decent work in the private sector should have
options through publicly funded opportunities.
Workforce development programs must aim at
moving people out of poverty.
- The growing inequities in income and wealth
between rich and poor; unprecedented
discrepancies in salary and benefits between
corporate top executives and line workers; loss of
the “American dream” by the young and middleclass
—each is a symptom of decisions made by
policy-makers far removed from the concerns of
ordinary workers trying to keep up.
- A clear living wage standard should serve as a
foundation for trade between nations, and a
“floor” of guaranteed wage protections and
workers’ rights should be negotiated in future
trade agreements. The United States should take
the lead on this front – and not allow destructive,
predatory corporate practices under the guise of
“free” international trade.
- True Cost Pricing and Tax Fairness
Middle-class and poor people are paying an ever greater proportion of federal
taxes, and too often local and state taxes are unfair and regressive. The tax code is a labyrinth of
deductions, loopholes, exemptions and write-offs, the result of insider- and industry-lobbying that has
damaged our economy as it has served the interests of big business, financial institutions and the rich.
The high price of corporate welfare corrupts the political process by encouraging the exchange of political
favors for campaign donations. Corporate tax breaks are ultimately paid for by higher taxes on the middle
class. Tax breaks distort the rules of the marketplace and seldom serve a larger public purpose.
We call for a tax policy that moves to eliminate loopholes and other exemptions that favor powerful
interests. Small business and the self-employed, in particular, should not be penalized by a tax system that
benefits those who can influence the legislative tax committees for breaks and subsidies.
A central goal of tax policy should be transparency—a system that is simple, understandable, and
resistant to the schemes of special interests.
When taxes are levied against labor, using labor in production becomes more expensive and is therefore
a disincentive for employment. This also diminishes the economic value of labor by decreasing the worker's
purchasing power thus discouraging work.
Corporations focus on revenue growth at the expense of nearly everything else. Even breaking the law
can be justified when the fine for being caught is less than the profit to be made. We must motivate the
business community to act responsibly towards the people and the Earth. One way is true cost pricing and the
other way is fair taxation.
- True Cost Pricing
True Cost Pricing (TCP) is an accounting and pricing system that includes all costs into the price of a
product. This would make ecologically-sound products cheaper to the consumer in terms of market price and
the demand for these products would increase. Also, various cultural/traditional industries that have been
marginalized by unrestrained technology could flourish.
Under our current system, many products carry hidden environmental and social costs such as air and
water pollution, deforestation, and toxic waste. These costs are created during the production, use, or
disposal of the products. While the producer internalizes revenue and profits from these products, the costs
are externalized to society and the natural environment. In addition, many of the laws that exist to prevent
environmental and social damage are not adequately enforced. Examples include smog checking of vehicles,
and tobacco taxes and court settlements, which are not being used as intended. In this way, externalized costs
equate to a subsidy.
TCP would account for these costs. To implement TCP, we call for:
- Environmental taxes such as the Carbon Tax. [See
carbon tax in the next section]
- TCP to be a basis for decisions on government
projects and in Environmental Impact Statements.
- Integrate TCP into domestic industrial policies
and regulations, and likewise promote it in
international trade agreements.
- Implement product labeling to inform consumers
of the total cost of the product's ingredients and
manufacturing process.
- Enforce laws that exist to prevent environmental
and social damage.
- Establish an information clearinghouse,
consultant's network, and other communication
channels for the exchange of information about
ecologically benign techniques.
- Recognize that TCP may have short term impact
on people of lesser financial means and implement
measures to mitigate these effects.
- Fair Taxation
Taxes pay for important public services. Tax policies should foster a more equitable progressive tax
structure, as opposed to the present regressive nature of taxation that levies the heaviest burdens on those
least able to pay.
Corporations currently receive tax breaks that promote growth and the consumption of resources. Tax
breaks should promote sustainability and social responsibility.
Any shift in tax policy must be done gradually, so that people and government can adjust to the changes.
Also, changes should move toward appropriate scale of collection and use of taxes
We propose:
- More progressive taxation. Sales, corporate and
income taxes should be adjusted to relieve the
burden on those less able to pay and increase the
burden on large and multinational corporations
and the super wealthy, who do not pay their fair
share. Raise the state income tax for higher
income people. Also, reduce income taxes for lowwage
workers to encourage people to seek
employment rather than relying on public
assistance.
- Raising corporate taxes. The corporate share of
taxes has fallen from 33% in the 1940s to 7% today,
while the individual share has risen from 44% to
85%.
- Implementing tax policies that promote
sustainability and social responsibility. Subsidies,
export incentives, tax loopholes and tax shelters
that benefit large corporations now amount to
hundreds of billions of dollars each year. These
promote growth and the consumption of
resources.
- Shifting investments away from such things as
automating the production of disposable
products, which reduces the number of jobs. Also,
discourage leveraged buyouts and mergers, which
extract working capital. Instead, we must promote
community development and job creation.
- Imposing Carbon taxes on all fossil fuels, because
of detrimental effects of carbon emissions on the
environment. Those with the highest carbon
content would be taxed the most, ranging from
coal (highest) to oil to natural gas. Revenues
would go into a fund initially earmarked for
carbon-reducing activities. [See section E.Clean
Air / Greenhouse Effect / Ozone Depletion on
page 47 in chapter III]
- Offsetting Regressive Taxes. The carbon tax would
favor those of lower income by being directed to
fund public transportation improvement and
subsidies, weatherization and other efficiency
measures, and passive solar installations. As
revenues increase, the funds would be used to
provide relief to low income people in such
programs as housing and education and could
eventually replace regressive taxes such as sales
taxes.
- Encouraging the enactment of the Tobin tax on
financial transactions across borders.
- Decreasing taxes on labor.
- Decreasing the cap on the mortgage tax deduction
for both federal and state income taxes.
- Re-establishment of the inheritance tax.
Inheritance tax revenues should be dedicated to
health and welfare benefits for the poor and to
enlisted soldiers salaries.
- Aiming for revenue neutrality in the tax changes.
We are not proposing a bigger overall role for
government. However, there are some situations
where certain priority activities are under-funded.
- Shifting tax policy gradually so that people and
government can adjust to the changes. Also,
changes should move toward appropriate scale of
collection and use of taxes.
- Community Economic Involvement
Reforms that allow communities to have influence in their economic future should
be implemented. Such reforms include the following:
- Locally owned small businesses, which are more
accessible to community concerns.
- Local production and consumption where
possible.
- Incentives for cooperative enterprises, such as
consumer co-ops, credit unions, incubators,
micro-loan funds, local currencies, and other
institutions that help communities develop
economic projects.
- Allowing municipalities to approve or disapprove
large economic projects case-by-case based on
environmental impacts, local ownership,
community reinvestment, wage levels, and
working conditions.
- Allowing communities to set environmental,
human rights, health and safety standards higher
than federal or state minimums.
- A national program to
- invest in the commons;
- to rebuild the infrastructure of communities;
- repair and improve transportation lines
between cities, and;
- protect and restore the environment.
A federal capital budget should be put in place and
applied in a process that assesses federal spending as
capital investment.
- Applying direct democracy through town
meetings, which express a community’s economic
wishes directly to local institutions and
organizations.
- Small Business and the Self-Employed
Greens support a program that counteracts concentration and abuse of economic
power. We support many different initiatives for forming successful, small enterprises that together can
become an engine of (and sustainable model for) job creation, prosperity and progress. Small business is
where the jobs are being created. Over the past decade and a half, all new net job growth has come from
the small business sector.
The Green economic model is about true prosperity—Green means prosperity. Our goal is to go beyond
the dedicated good work being done by many companies (referred to as “socially responsible business”) and
to present new ways of seeing how business can help create a sustainable world, while surviving in a
competitive business climate.
We believe that conservation should be profitable, and employment should be creative, meaningful and
fairly compensated.
Access to capital is often an essential need in growing a business. [See section I.Banking and Insurance
Reform on page 66 in this chapter]
The present tax system acts to discourage small business as it encourages waste, discourages
conservation, and rewards consumption. Big business has used insider access to dominate the federal tax
code. The tax system needs a major overhaul to favor the legitimate and critical needs of the small business
community. Retention of capital through retained earnings, efficiencies, and savings is central to small
business competitiveness. Current tax policies often act to unfairly penalize small business.
- Government should reduce unnecessary
restrictions, fees, and bureaucracy. In particular,
the Paper Simplification Act should be seen as a
way to benefit small business, and it should be
improved in response to the needs of small
businesses and the self-employed.
- Health insurance premiums paid by the selfemployed
should be fully deductible.
- State and local government should encourage
businesses that benefit the community especially.
Economic development initiatives should include
citizen and community input. The type and size of
businesses that are given incentives (tax, loans,
bonds, etc.) should be the result of local
community participation.
- Pension funds (the result of workers’
investments) should be examined as additional
sources of capital for small business. [See section
J.Pension Reform on page 67 in this chapter]
- Insurance costs should be brought down by
means of active engagement with the insurance
industry. Insurance pools need to be expanded.
- One-stop offices should be established by
government to assist individuals who want to
change careers or go into business for the first
time.
- Home-based and neighborhood-based businesses
should be assisted by forward-looking planning,
not hurt by out-of-date zoning ordinances.
Telecommuting and home offices should be
aided, not hindered, by government.
- Work and Job Creation
There is plenty of work to do that does not jeopardize our future, does not widen
the gap between the richest and the poorest in our society, and that can enrich our
communities. We must encourage the creation of these opportunities. People
whose livelihoods depend on supporting remote, multi-national corporations cannot be expected to
support changing the system.
The Green Party proposes a third alternative to a job or no job dichotomy: that is to provide everyone a
sustainable livelihood. The need of our times is for security, not necessarily jobs. We need security in the
knowledge that, while markets may fluctuate and jobs may come and go, we are still able to lead a life rooted
in dignity and well-being.
The concept of a “job” is only a few hundred years old; and the artificial dichotomy between
“employment” and “unemployment” has become a tool of social leverage for corporate exploiters. This
produces a dysfunctional society in various ways: (1) It is used to justify bringing harmful industries to rural
communities, such as extensive prison construction and clear cutting of pristine forests. (2) It has been used
to pit workers (people needing jobs) against the interests of their own communities. (3) It has created a selfesteem
crisis in a large segment of the adult population who have been forced into doing work that is
irrelevant, socially harmful, or environmentally unsound.
We will also promote policies that have job-increasing effects. Many people will still need jobs for their
security. We need to counterbalance the decline in jobs caused either by new technology, corporate flight to
cheaper labor markets outside our borders, or the disappearance of socially wasteful jobs that will inevitably
occur as more and more people embrace a green culture.
To begin a transition to a system providing sustainable livelihood, we support:
- creating alternative, low-consumption
communities and living arrangements, including
a reinvigorated sustainable homesteading
movement in rural areas and voluntary shared
housing in urban areas.
- Universal health care requiring coverage for all.
[See section F.Health Care on page 30 in chapter
II]
- The creating and spreading local currencies and
barter systems.
- Subsidizing technological development of
consumer items that would contribute toward
economic autonomy, such as renewable energy
devices.
- Establishing local non-profit development
corporations.
- Providing people with information about
alternatives to jobs.
Creating Jobs
For creating jobs we propose:
- Reducing taxes on labor. This will make labor
more competitive with energy and capital
investment. (See Taxation above.)
- Solidarity with unions and workers fighting the
practice of contracting out tasks to part-time
workers in order to avoid paying benefits and to
break up unions.
- Adopting a reduced-hour (30-35 hours) work
week as a standard. This could translate into as
many as 26 million new jobs.
- Subsidizing renewable energy sources, which
directly employ 2 to 5 times as many people for
every unit of electricity generated as fossil or
nuclear sources yet are cost competitive. Also,
retrofit existing buildings for energy conservation
and build non-polluting, low impact
transportation systems.
- Supporting small business by reducing tax, fee
and bureaucratic burdens. The majority of new
jobs today are created by small businesses. This
would cut their failure rate and help them create
more jobs.
- Opposing the trend toward “bundling” of
contracts that minimizes opportunity for small,
minority-owned, and women-owned businesses.
- Reducing consumption to minimize
outsourcing—the exportation of jobs to other
countries—thus reducing the relative price of
using U.S. workers.
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