Download Article by Michael Müller, Environmental policy as social policy

Environmental Policy as
Social Policy
Michael MÜLLER
JULY 2010
FEPS Rue Montoyer 40 B-1000 Brussels +32 2 234 69 00 | www.feps-europe.eu
The 21st century will either be a century of sustainability or one of exclusion, violence and conflict of
distribution. We will either succeed in strengthening economic innovation by combining it with social
justice and environmental sustainability; or economic and social inequality will rise, causing more
crises and shocks.
This escalation, which is also expressed in the SPD’s policy statements, has been developing since the
1970s, ever since the social welfare state and its growth model have been put under pressure. The
two most important triggers were the publications of the Club of Rome in 1972, dealing with the
environmental dangers of economic growth, which until today are not taken seriously. Furthermore,
at the end of the 1970s, the future path was set for financial capitalism when the then British and
American governments wanted to boost their weak economies at the expense of third parties.
The crisis of the growth model
This party at the expense of the future, nature and the Third World, as Jesse Jackson characterised
this lack of responsibility, has ended the ‘social democratic century’. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Reagan were mainly responsible for the demoralisation of the economic order. The Chicago Boys, led
by Milton Friedman, had told them that deregulation was economic rationality. As market radicalism
matched their conservative ideology, they dismantled the welfare state which had been introduced
to the United States in 1933 through President Roosevelt’s New Deal.
With the strengthening of Wall Street in the 1980s a uniform approach to financial capitalism
became accepted. This is how the diabolic alliance of investment banks and neoclassical ideology was
born. It was the opposite of the post-war economic order, which had been established in Bretton
Woods in 1944. Its goal had been the regulation of financial markets in order to avoid severe crises.
For the economies to boost, not only did gold-diggers have free reign, but everything we had learnt
about the finiteness of our planet was forgotten. For a long time, we distanced ourselves from
environmental issues. Encouraged by open markets and fierce competition of Globalisation, the
wrong message of salvation, ‘growth; growth above everything’ was almost without controversy
during the 1990s. Instead of correcting the course, the erroneous trends were reinforced. The crisis
of growth, with its speculative excesses and environmental threats now becomes a political crisis.
Political modernisation was left far behind economic change and international transition. It was not,
as Willy Brandt had demanded, ‘in tune with the times’.
When the task is to tame global capitalism, environmental modernisation plays a crucial role.
Environmental organisations have recognised this. They lead a broad debate on growth,
understanding of nature, and sustainability.
2
Environmental questions need a socio-political answer. Social Democracy will also have to re-define
its path. In the past 150 years the transition from agrarian to industrial and to a working economy
succeeded. It was successful, but will have to end for two reasons.
First of all, the limits of the ecosystems will be reached. Regarding climate change, for example: the
concentration of greenhouse gases increases at a pace making global warming of two degrees Celsius
in 30 years at the latest unavoidable. Secondly, natural resources and fossil fuels are becoming scarce
and expensive. A world in which we continue behaving this way is simply unimaginable. Unless a
revolution in energy efficiency, recycling, the solar economy takes place, in the future, climate
resource wars loom.
A green revolution is not only necessary for the protection of the natural habitat, but also for
economic reasons. After the economic meltdown in September 2008 the return to real economic
stability is highly dependent upon the ecological markets. According to the theory of ‘long waves’ by
Nikolai Kondratieff, ‘green technologies’ are relevant today. This demands economic change,
modernisation of the infrastructure and a reform of education and science. The ecological knowledge
society becomes a great opportunity for our country and the European Union.
Financial capitalism is exhausting labour and nature. In order to maximise profit, social and
environmental consequences of economic decisions are being externalised. However, the short-term
advantages have turned into risks and crises. In all member states of the OECD, economic growth is
declining, with 22 out of 31 OECD states ‘only’ registering linear growth, which accounts neither for
the protection of the social systems nor budget consolidation. With its decline, economic growth has
disconnected itself from labour productivity. Labour is taken over by technology without the creation
of a sufficient number of new jobs. The solution is an increase in productivity in energy and
resources. It lowers costs, allows for competitive advantage and creates new jobs as thanks to more
efficient services, kilowatt-hours can be saved, waste be avoided, and emissions be reduced.
Unfortunately, the efficiency revolution was not a main concern for the red-green government. It has
only lately been put on the agenda by Sigmar Gabriel.
Wealth through avoidance
The social democratic key points for ecological modernisation are the democratisation of the
economy, fairness during the transition process, and sustainable development. A new balance
demands more diversity, competition and decentralised organisation. This is the core of the
transition process because today’s big structures promote the concentration of power and make
innovation difficult.
Sustainability requires closeness and the love for our neighbours abroad; stability and
decentralisation; diversity and thrift. However, this transition will only be accepted if it is fair because
it demands stresses and strains as well as redistribution.
3
The ecological challenges can only be dealt with if the social and democratic achievements of the last
century are preserved and developed further. This, however, cannot be done as usual, because
nature does not allow for unlimited growth. The solutions must therefore go beyond an efficiency
strategy, because its successes are time and again compensated by mass growth. Only if we become
able to also control our urge for expansion and respect the protection of social and ecological
resources is a fairer, more successful life possible for everyone. Ecological modernisation cannot be
separated from the question of social equality.
With its ecological modernisation, the SPD can play a central role if it redefines its core competence,
namely to be the party of social progress. The SPD needs to lead the way to a good future, one in
which it will no longer follow the dogma ‘faster, higher, further’. This is the ecological New Deal
which is necessary today and follows the tradition of big transformations towards the welfare state.
It not only follows technological and ecological goals, but also induces a cultural change of paradigm.
Hence, this is also about a change of ‘nature inside of us’.
Green tax reform, nuclear phase-out, climate protection and the expansion of renewable energies
have brought our country forward and gained much international recognition. Now we have to
follow more ambitious goals in order to achieve sufficiency and consistency (lasting subordination
under the biological cycle).
In order to achieve this, people need common values, reliability during the transition process and
convincing perspectives for a good future. The guiding principle for this is a sustainable development
based on social democratic ideas for reform: on Olof Palme’s idea of common security; Willy Brandt’s
idea of the common survival of north and south; and Gro Harlem Brundtland’s idea of a socially and
ecologically fair development.
Sustainability turns the environment into a milieu and leads to a changing progress in the
development of economy, technology and society. On the one hand, it is important to deal
responsibly with time: decisions have to be taken with the foreseeable future in mind. On the other
hand, the prioritisation of society over economy is important. Moreover, we need a qualitative
growth which makes development socially and ecologically fair and also creates more democracy and
freedom of meaning.
Sustainability is an encompassing concept for reform. It not only includes the reorganisation of
financial policies, but also the reform of science and research. It strengthens the educational system
and fosters the transition of health and social systems. Its goals are the modernisation of cities;
agriculture adapted to the local climate, and the re-vitalisation of rural spaces. The main advantage
lies here, that sustainability be achieved quickly at all levels because it links different actors with each
other through regulative principles.
4
Sustainability entails a new understanding of growth, a fast growth of those sectors that are socially
and ecologically compatible and shrinkage of those that are not. It is only in this way that the world
can once again be balanced. This is what has been described as targeted growth and shrinkage in the
SPD’s policy statements of 1989 in Berlin.
In order to slow down the escalator of nature’s devastation, a first step has to be taken and the
energy and raw material productivity needs at least to be doubled in 2020 as compared to 1990. This
efficiency revolution is possible; however a simple decoupling of growth will not be sufficient for the
decrease in consumption. For this to happen, energy services need to be decentralised.
This economy of avoidance would also benefit trade, production-oriented services and the labour
market, because a reduction of the volume of sales of materials and resources is profitable for
companies and the economy due to lower costs. It decreases the dependency on raw materials and
boosts competitiveness as the worldwide demand of eco-efficient products increases. This economy
will be possible thanks to modern information technology. Energy supply is the strategic key to
ecological modernisation. Increase in efficiency and renewable energies come together, meaning
that electricity from renewable energies will cover more than 30% of the demand in 2020. 300,000
people are already employed in this sector. 46 states have copied the German model. Renewable
energies are a history of success.
In connection with a massive increase in efficiency, the average energy demand per capita can be
slashed by mid-century. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) has shown that
instead of a 6,500 watt society a 2,000 watt society is possible. Comparable data needs to be
collected on the supply of materials and raw materials.
In times of Globalisation, the European model of society needs to reassert itself. As a union of
sustainability, the European Union will be a worldwide model for cooperation, diversity and
democracy. For this to happen, the Union as well as single Member States have to play a pioneering
role when it comes to a social-ecological economic, research, structural and regional policy. This
modernisation will become the guiding principle of a peaceful and fair world order.
5