I don’t think Natalie Bennett did them any favours to be honest.

No sarcasm at all Tom, I totally agree with you, hence the “not yet…”at the end of my post.

And Natalie Bennett was rubbish.

Tom_W1987 – Member

I don’t agree, libertarian values can be used to justify market incentives that discourage pollution

Justify, yes. Deliver, no- that requires big-government intervention with enormous funding to deliver suitably huge bribes. And full-cost accounting can’t possibly occur without immense state intervention across the developed world. It’s actually a great and logical idea- one of the great failings of capitalism is that it so often doesn’t deal with true costs. But it’s by no means compatible with libertarianism; it’s enormously more interventionist than the west is now.

I’ll be honest, I just see most of this stuff as smokescreens for corporatism. Let’s stop banning companies from doing awful things and instead pay them not to do things they’re not allowed to do today. Instead of fining them for destructive behaviour, pay them more. Let’s talk about small government while arranging to flow enormous sums of money from the public purse to corporations, forever. Funny how so many people are suddenly for big government when it’s about taking money from the state. But god forbid you should spend it on people.

OTOH it’d encourage innovation- as soon as we start having governments make market interventions to discourage pollution, inventing new ways to pollute is incentivised.

But so many of the worst offenders regarding the environment are state owned. The French government own large chunks of our energy infrastructure, the Chinese state seems bent on burning all the coal in existence and the Russian government owns most of the gas. In the current global system, government and corporations are basically the same thing, a feedback loop of profit and vested interest.
If there were to be a system of libertarian capitalism, this mess of state-corporatism would need to be sorted out first.

Justify, yes. Deliver, no- that requires big-government intervention with enormous funding to deliver suitably huge bribes. And full-cost accounting can’t possibly occur without immense state intervention across the developed world. It’s actually a great and logical idea- one of the great failings of capitalism is that it so often doesn’t deal with true costs. But it’s by no means compatible with libertarianism; it’s enormously more interventionist than the west is now.

I’ll be honest, I just see most of this stuff as smokescreens for corporatism. Let’s stop banning companies from doing awful things and instead pay them not to do things they’re not allowed to do today. Instead of fining them for destructive behaviour, pay them more. Let’s talk about small government while arranging to flow enormous sums of money from the public purse to corporations, forever. Funny how so many people are suddenly for big government when it’s about taking money from the state. But god forbid you should spend it on people.

Time and time again corporations hind behind government, see Bhopal etc – you can’t resort to big government when big government throughout history has shown that time and time again – despite holding peoples “best interests” and lofty ideals superficially – becomes nothing more than a corrupt special interest group. Do you seriously think, that some of the biggest and most corrupt governments on the planet are going to make “big bribes” in the interest of you and I? **** no – that is hilariously naieve. What needs to happen, is that in combination with market based fines, not incentives, like you seem to suggest – people need to be be empowered to be able to take corporations that flout laws to court. This means being able to take legal action easily, cheaply and without fear of retribution – activists, scientists and NGO’s need to be empowered to look after the planets best interests – not government. Decentralisation makes corrupt practices harder to achieve, the thought of various world governments being the ones to dictate our environmental future makes me shudder.

The attitude of divide and conquer needs to be taken towards government and corporates, as Fin put it – they needed to be broken up and scattered – that includes removing the ability of corporates to influence environmental policy or bypass laws by removing as much of the duties associated with regulation from government as possible and producing a model that allows for strong decentralised action against corporates.

That’s where goal setting legislation works much better, rather than saying you can’t do x, y and z, it says that as a company prove to us as a government that you are making the necessary moves to lower your environmental footprint. And then the corporation is measured against their own metrics and current best practice.

That’s at one level, then individuals need greater incentives to be more energy efficient. I’d love more people to walk and cycle but the infrastructure needs to be there and people incentivised to use it.

Have you seen the shambles they have made of it in Brighton (my daughter lives there) – uncollected rubbish etc.

who does your daughter vote for out of interest Jambalaya?

Point of order, China is dropping CO2 output faster than anyone else and mostly by dropping coal.

Mostly because they’re the ones most able to get rid of dirty energy production, because a huge chunk of their energy production was dirty in the first place.

That may be, but it’s still “a good thing”™

China’s a great example of why strong central government fails in regards to economic policy btw – here we have a country whos environmental agencies are massively corrupt and when corrupt officials are arrested you can’t even be sure that it is for the right reason. This is a country where accusations of corruption are used as a political tool to further the self-interest of various individuals. There were a bunch of arrests at their environmental agency not so long ago, but you can bet that’s not because someone within government actually gave a shit about the environment – it would have been an internal power struggle, as par for the course in China.

That’s at one level, then individuals need greater incentives to be more energy efficient. I’d love more people to walk and cycle but the infrastructure needs to be there and people incentivised to use it.

But in the current state-corporate system, that infrastructure will never be built beyond a few pet projects and tokenism, as there is no real benefit to those interests which have the greatest influence over the legislature.
We will never legislate ourselves out of these problems, as the current system simply will not allow it, nor will it simply give up and let us try something different. It must be removed, as it cannot be meaningfully reformed.
To go back to the OP, the Greens will always struggle as this very dilemma is at the heart of the party. I know Jamby is a bad example to draw from, but his comments about bins is indicative of the problem.
The standard consumer mindset (perpetuated and encouraged by the state-corporate system to boost profits) sees it as the duty of the council (and their outsourced agents) to clean up their rubbish, as they pay their taxes, after all. A service in exchange for payment. The Green mindset asks the individual to think about how much waste they create, take responsibility for it, reduce it as much as possible and to challenge others to do the same. Through taking individual responsibility, a person can massively reduce both their impact on the environment and their reliance on state-corporate bodies.
The state-corporate system seeks to control and contain populations through mass consumption, this is the true authoritarianism, as alternative voices are quickly put down using corporate media assets.
Green libertarianism offers an alternative to this insidious type of state-corporate nannying. Unfortunately, it’s an alternative that most “happy consumers” are less than interested in.

So lack of refuse collections and local services being underfunded is a local councils fault, not Central government cutting off the budget…
No wonder some of you are so easy to control, like clockwork automatons, wind you up and get the media to point you in the wrong direction.
Evolution gave you the capacity of critical thinking, try and employ it once in a while

Have you seen the shambles they have made of it in Brighton (my daughter lives there) – uncollected rubbish etc.

IIRC, the rubbish collection issues were caused by contracts negotiated by the previous, non-Green administration, and because although the Greens had the controlling group in council they didn’t have a majority so struggled to get things passed.

Bingo, Miketually.

I don’t think Natalie Bennett did them any favours to be honest.

And Natalie Bennett was rubbish.

Natalie’s main task as leader was sorting out back office systems, and growing the party membership. She’s successfully done those.

She didn’t do brilliantly in debates and interviews pre-election, but the only reason the Greens got into the TV debates, etc was because of the growth in membership.

Even so, the Green’s achieved a reasonable amount in the election. Kept Caroline Lucas as Brighton MP, did well in Bristol, more Parliamentary candidates than before, etc.

In Darlington, where I live, membership has grown from 8 to 80+ and the party went from zero council candidates in the previous election to fielding more candidates than the Lib Dems with one or more in every Council ward and fielding a Parliamentary candidate.

Tom_W1987 – Member
…a huge chunk of their energy production was dirty in the first place.

a huge chunk of their energy production is our (moral) responsibility, as it’s used in the manufacture of goods that we’ve chosen more or less exclusively on price.

(fwiw Tom, i hope you don’t feel i’m nit-picking your post, merely using it to highlight an issue)

a huge chunk of their energy production is our (moral) responsibility, as it’s used in the manufacture of goods that we’ve chosen more or less exclusively on price

This is my reply whenever any says “but China…” in response to a suggestion we need to sort ourselves out. Yes their total CO2 emissions are higher than ours but their per capita is lower and a big chunk are caused by them making stuff for us.

@mike when you are in charge you take responsibility. Brighton has more than enough money to ensure rubbish is collected, it’s a matter of competence and priorities. Being in charge is more
complicated than being in opposition

@yunki I am not going to comment on other people’s voting preferences

As I said above with PR we’d likely have 30 Green MPs more of a voice but very little real influence

Tom_W1987 – Member

Do you seriously think, that some of the biggest and most corrupt governments on the planet are going to make “big bribes” in the interest of you and I? **** no – that is hilariously naieve.

No, I’m not- I’m saying it’s a stupid idea (*), that’s the entire point of my post. It’s neither libertarian, because it requires big government and big intervention, nor a good idea, because of the inevitable outcomes.

(* I almost said unworkable, but that’s wrong. It’s definitely workable, it just wouldn’t achieve any of the things people claim it would)

Tom_W1987 – Member

China’s a great example of why strong central government fails in regards to economic policy btw – here we have a country whos environmental agencies are massively corrupt and when corrupt officials are arrested you can’t even be sure that it is for the right reason.

That’s not an issue of strong central government, it’s an issue of massive corruption- in some cases, because of weak government, letting corruption run rife… in others, because government is part of it. But it doesn’t follow that strong government is corrupt.

No, I’m not- I’m saying it’s a stupid idea (*), that’s the entire point of my post. It’s neither libertarian, because it requires big government and big intervention, nor a good idea, because of the inevitable outcomes.

Then I fail to see your point – as I never suggested big bribes – I’m suggesting increasing peoples personal freedoms by giving them a stronger ability to pursue environmental laws. Think of the environment as a propety rights issue.

That’s not an issue of strong central government, it’s an issue of massive corruption- in some cases, because of weak government, letting corruption run rife… in others, because government is part of it. But it doesn’t follow that strong government is corrupt.

Hofstedes power distance index – visualized.

Corruption perception Index

Tom_W1987 – Member

Then I fail to see your point – as I never suggested big bribes

You proposed discouraging pollution with market incentives. What is that, if not formalised bribery? Do as we want and we’ll give you a biscuit. And they have to be big enough to offset the actual costs.

Your 2 diagrams actually show that there’s not a simple correlation between power distance and corruption. But also, power distance =/= strong government- you can have a weak government with a great deal of power inequality and vice versa.

You proposed discouraging pollution with market incentives. What is that, if not formalised bribery? Do as we want and we’ll give you a biscuit. And they have to be big enough to offset the actual costs.

A stick (read fines) isn’t a bribe is it – isn’t this how most of society works – as in – don’t kill people or we might have to put you in prison? What I’m saying is to lay down hefty fines and then make civil litigation easier for people who feel/know that they have been wronged by corporates – give people who make environmental research or activism their life work the tools to be able to take corporates to court and win.

I’m assuming I’m being bribed not to kill my fellow man then?

<double post>

A stick/fine isn’t a market incentive. But you started out saying that green politics are too authoritarian and now you’re advocating making companies do what you want with a big stick.

Your 2 diagrams actually show that there’s not a simple correlation between power distance and corruption. But also, power distance =/= strong government- you can have a weak government with a great deal of power inequality and vice versa.

Yes, semantics – you could have a strong libertarian government. But decreasing PDI most likely entails decentralizing government.

A stick/fine isn’t a market incentive. But you started out saying that green politics are too authoritarian and now you’re advocating making companies do what you want with a big stick.

You’re conflating green libertarianism with a certain brand of psychotic american libertarianism – it doesn’t entail the ability to do whatever the hell you want. Again, as I’ve mentioned before – if you consider the environment to be a property rights issue – civil cases could be brought by citizens without much central government involvement. Devolving power like that would go someway to reducing that PDI coefficient – central governments remit should be to make sure that it is possible for those people to exercise their right to living in a clean environment.

Tom_W1987 – Member

You’re conflating green libertarianism with a certain brand of psychotic american libertarianism

No, I’m pointing out that the positions are contradictory. The key elements of your “green libertarianism” are interventionist

Easier civil litigation is a good idea but not as a substitute for state intervention- that just creates a greater imbalance of power between large companies and individuals. But again, strengthening the individual’s legal power is also state intervention.

No, I’m pointing out that the positions are contradictory. The key elements of your “green libertarianism” are interventionist, or they’re meaningless.

Easier civil litigation is a good idea but not as a substitute for state intervention- that just creates a greater imbalance of power between large companies and individuals. But again, strengthening the individual’s legal power is also state intervention.

That’s anarchism or full blown minarchism you’re thinking of – the state should intervene when individual freedom is threatened by large corporates – I just do not think that they can be trusted to do that themselves – so funding should be directed to providing legal support.

@mike when you are in charge you take responsibility. Brighton has more than enough money to ensure rubbish is collected, it’s a matter of competence and priorities. Being in charge is more complicated than being in opposition

I’m too far removed from Brighton to know the specifics, but if the previous administration signed a long-term contract what could a new administration do?

TBH Tom you just don’t really seem to know what you want. You want libtertarianism but with government imposing fines, with government funding civil legal action (without diminishing government’s own powers), you say the state should intervene then you say they can’t be trusted to do so…

It all feels like “green libertarians” like the word but don’t really like the meaning. It’s no wonder you keep contradicting yourself considering what a mess of philosophies it is.

It’s not actually that much of a mess really. Green libertarianism starts from the understanding that the current system is far too weighted towards the protection of profit, and very much weighed down by the bloated executive and legislative branches needed to protect that profit.
What tom appears to be proposing is an extension of the mandate of the judiciary to act on the part of citizens to keep corporate and governmental interests and actions in line with pre-determined legal criteria.
This would naturally lead to smaller government, as the interests government protects and the negative aspects of the running of such large government would be largely proscribed.
Forgive me if I’m getting any of this wrong, im at work and trying to type in a hurry.

What Fin said, like socialism which can range from New Labour to Marxism – libertarianism is a grey and fuzzy political ideology.

So…

Would the Green Party be electable if they actually pushed their more libertarian policies over the more socialist bits?

Or have we come to the consensus that they are in no way libertarian 😕

Tom_W1987 – Member

libertarianism is a grey and fuzzy political ideology.

There’s “grey and fuzzy” and there’s “contradicting yourself in a single sentence”. And then there’s “calling it libertarian even though it requires big government and massive state intervention to make it work”

But I think we’re going around in circles now. It’s pretty clear that most of “green libertarianism” which is green, isn’t very libertarian, and likewise most of the libertarian bits aren’t very green. This isn’t to say there’s not some good ideas in there.

So…
Would the Green Party be electable if they actually pushed their more libertarian policies over the more socialist bits?
Or have we come to the consensus that they are in no way libertarian

I don’t think the British have ever been that comfortable with libertarianism. It’s mostly associated over here with the more American, free market sizzle, which everyone on the British left is petrified of, because it doesn’t revolve around trains. The British right also feel a bit uncomfortable with libertarianism because, deep down, they just like telling people what to do, while a great number of the British public just like being told what to do.
So, no, I don’t think the Green Party taking a more libertarian approach would necessarily make it more electable.

To answer your second question, the green party is a mish mash of socialists, anarcho-syndicalists, libertarians, green conservatives, anti-vaxers and hippies. I am a green party member and a libertarian. I do not think the two things are mutually exclusive, but there is a definite push from elements within the party towards a more traditionally socialist mindset.

Green (and far Left) politics only work if the economy is tightly controlled, it’s the very opposite of Liberty.

You don’t know much about libertarianism do you?

it’s the very opposite of Liberty.

if your idea of liberty is the freedom to collect loads of cash for no reason other than foolish pride

Well a quick scan shows they seem to have moved a chunk of the bat shit crazy anti science off the main pages… Might help them.