Natalie Bennett, a Green Party member of the House of Lords and former Green Party leader, has spent many hours in speaking engagements as well as in her very active role in the House of Lords. This makes her book very readable since material included is very well-explained.
The potential obscurities and diverse implications of neoliberalism are elaborated clearly even to the novice reader of books about political theory. In rejecting neoliberalism and the sometimes rather more vague ‘centrism’ that is fast losing meaning in the UK context, Bennett builds a foundation of ideas and policies to outline what she calls ‘Greenism’ towards the end of the book. It would have been very easy to make this a ‘preachy’ work; it is rather a sharing effort, giving the reader an opportunity to see how they may act or react to the societal conditions we face – both in the specific environment of the UK, and globally.
In attempting to construct a vision of social hope and give it practical form, rejecting ‘business as usual’ for its manifold negative effects, Bennett is neither rejecting innovation nor technology in principle. Instead, the perspective of the book as whole is summarised in the author’s own words:
“When I am talking about innovation, I mean something … fundamental and transformative – innovation in the way our societies work, how we care for each other, relate to each other and the natural world, and how we meet our most basic needs. And, crucially, how we think about our lives.” (p.4)
Change welfare
From about 1979 onwards, the end of Beveridge-influenced welfare states, which had started with his 1944 ‘Full Employment in a free Society’, began with the opposing values of neoliberalism changing government policies, led particularly by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In the UK, the official level of unemployment under Thatcher may have peaked at about 3.3 million or 11.8%. But Bennett draws our attention to how the fall into neoliberalism led particularly to the 2007-2008 financial crisis, a global and systemic failure to manage financial institutions in the name of ideas associated not simply with Reagan and Thatcher but social democratic acolytes of their ideas such as Tony Blair. Bennett’s message in public meetings about politics being what we do, not what we have done to us, is a core rejection of ”There is no alternative” to neoliberalism and its crushing rejection of social solidarity in favour of the market as the answer to all conceivable societal questions. Her observations and analysis debunk the associated fallacies of neoliberalism.
Change attitude to growth
We do not need an economic growth that exceeds planetary boundaries threatening our needs and the survival of many species. We do need, as Bennett emphasises, to consider what we want society to create. This includes the circular economy offered cogently by Kate Raworth in Doughnut Economics (see our March 2022 article on an Oxford rally) and eloquently by Tim Jackson in Prosperity without Growth. In each case, these works are about how we live within the limits of what we have and what we may create for the future, without wild technological optimism or neo-religious faith in markets or growth. Since ‘business as usual’ includes the ‘politics as usual’ (my term) of the 2024 Conservative and Labour parties who are still accepting these ‘faiths’, Bennett’s arguments for ‘changing everything’ appear strongly justified.
Where the reader might falter a bit is in the extent to which the idea of changing everything is as clear as it might be in identifying exactly where the urgency lies. It is nevertheless a sage analysis.
Change climate strategy
The lack of social justice crushes the potential of people to address the ‘Damoclean’ climate and ecological emergencies. We observe new records of climate change and ecological losses; we see human lives lost before their time; we wonder at the frequent loss of species and seem powerless all too often in our defence of the only shared home we have. Where Bennett’s analyses sit in relation to the emergence of Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Fridays for Future, Last Generation and equivalent groups globally are not completely clear. She is accustomed to being in a political party, working inside the system. A party has to have the human skills to get things done. These are not always available – especially in the post-Brexit UK.
Change is not limited by Bennett to what is allegedly financially possible under myopic neoliberalism. Change cannot be achieved without the support of movements already acting within society, which thus adds to the strengths of those active within the system who are also working for change.
Change employment practices
Bennett rejects the nature of the current forms of employment by emphasising what are long-promoted Green alternatives: a universal basic income (UBI), fewer working hours in formal employment notably through a four-day week and system change to avoid repeating the failures of social democracy and neoliberalism. The transformation of society owes a great deal, according to Bennett’s exposition, to giving people more freedom with their time, just as the addition of a right to flexi-time might. This vision of society, of course, is far from unknown even in the absence of UBI in the UK context. Many retired people with multiple voluntary activities contribute to the wellbeing of UK society, its diversity and support systems, and to the protection of the environment, with no payment at all for such commitments. In offering lists and examples of such projects in her book (e.g. p.18), the author demonstrates that many valuable things in society are not about markets or even employment.
Bennett sees UBI as a global requirement for societies. This is pertinent to the present since, as she notes (p.31), not one country is currently set to meet the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. These goals, successor to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2000-2015, offer a quite modest basis for raising the quality of life in societies. It does however include supporting and enhancing the roles of women, protecting the interests of children, and ensuring people have a sustaining environment and climate to live in. Having myself taught about these goals in development studies courses in the past, I recognise that under-funding seriously constrained the MDGs and that now the 17 SDGs are arguably under threat in a world system dominated by neoliberal values.
End of part one – part two out now (5 April).
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