Welcome to Green Social Thought’s collection of labor and economics articles. Take a deep dive into green economics and labor perspectives. As advocates for environmental responsibility and social justice, we bring you insights into a transformative economic approach that challenges the status quo, particularly degrowth and union and worker rights.
In a world grappling with the consequences of excessive consumption and environmental degradation, degrowth stands as a bold alternative. Our articles explore the the green vision of reshaping our economic landscape, with a particular focus on scaling down unnecessary and detrimental aspects, such as military expenditures and empowering workers through unionization.
Explore the economic implications of embracing degrowth policies, from redefining prosperity to creating resilient and inclusive communities. Exploration of economic alternatives that prioritize people and the planet.
Review Essay-Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade by Jeff Schuhrke
Kim Scipes
This is a very detailed examination of AFL and AFL-CIO foreign policy program between the 1940s and 1990s, showing not only their efforts but the process by which they carried out this work. Focuses on anticommunism to rationalize its repressive work against workers around the world, with especially strong focus on the work of the American Institute of Free Labor Development (AIFLD) in Latin America.
The white saviour complex and global AI governance
Shamira Ahmed
To counter the white saviour industrial complex in global AI governance, a shift towards more inclusive and equitable practices is necessary, that places positionality and reflexivity at the centre of global AI governance and overall ELSP research on the digital economy. Inclusive representation is paramount, voices from the Global Majority and marginalised communities should be included in global AI governance discussions.
Ratepayers Have Had Enough of Rising Energy Bills
Keerti Gopal
Some advocates are calling for more community-owned electricity providers, or public power, instead of investor-owned utilities. Public power utilities would be owned by community members and controlled by local government, giving ratepayers a more direct say in decisions about electricity sourcing or rate changes.
Against Productivism
Tom Wetzel
Capitalist society has a dynamic tendency towards constant technological change — change in products, methods of production, and in the ways workers are managed in the production process. I am going to suggest that capitalism has a very distinctive way of developing technology that is inherently conflicted — it provides human benefits but is also highly destructive in various ways. The destructive character of capitalist technological development is rooted in autocratic control and exploitation of workers and a constant tendency to externalize costs onto workers, the larger community, and nature.
US Unions Must Look Beyond Themselves to Save Themselves
Kim Scipes
Argues that unions in the US–and by implications elsewhere–need to reject business unionism for social justice unionism by using their power in workplace to not only back workers there, but to back working people in work places AND in the community, at the local, national and/or global levels. Either we work for good of all, or today’s unions die a long, slow, painful death.
Hickel: Climate, Energy and Natural Resources
Jason Hickel
Relying on capital to deliver an energy transition is a dangerously bad strategy. The only way to deal with this crisis is with public planning. On the one hand, we need massive public investment in renewable energy, public transit and other decarbonization strategies. And this should not just be about derisking private capital – it should be about public production of public goods.
The Union Makes Us Strong: Understanding Trade Unionism in a Global Context
Kim Scipes
Discusses the need for labor activists to go beyond “lowest common denominator” union organizing.
Stop the Ukraine War: Refuse to Handle Military Cargo
CounterPunch News Service
The ILWU has always criticized NATO’s war moves. Since the end of World War II we’ve opposed U.S. wars and coups in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Serbia (former Yugoslavia), Cuba (Bay of Pigs Invasion), Chile (coup), El Salvador and Nicaragua. On May Day 2008, ILWU shutdown all West Coast ports to oppose the “imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” (as the Caucus resolution read). We have taken action at the point of production against U.S. wars and the apartheid government in South Africa. We refused to load military cargo to the anti-communist military juntas in Chile and El Salvador. We are […]
Bolivia Presents Revolutionary Socialist Program To Transform World
Ben Norton
Bolivia’s President Luis Arce used his platform at the United Nationss to propose a revolutionary 14-point socialist program to transform the world. “Today we find ourselves facing a wide-ranging, systemic capitalist crisis that increasingly endangers the life of humanity and the planet,” he warned. “We should not only reflect on the economic, social, food, climate, energy, water, and trade crises, but also identify with clarity the origin, in order to change a system that reproduces domination, exploitation, and exclusion of the large majorities, that generates the concentration of wealth in a few hands, and that prioritizes the production and reproduction of […]