Posted by John, April 4th, 2010 - under Immigration, Reformism, The Greens.



There is a contradiction at the heart of the Greens in Australia. They want change, often progressive social change, but they want it in the context of an ageing and putrefying profit system whose capacity to pay for reform is becoming less and less.

For example the Greens have suggested an interim measure – increasing the price of carbon by $20 a tonne – to overcome the present stalling of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in the Senate. Unlike the Rudd Government’s CPRS, the Greens’ proposal might actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions a little. And it doesn’t compensate the polluters.

It relies on price signals to lower consumer demand for coal fired energy and encourage green alternatives. In other words it is consumers – overwhelmingly working class people – who will bear the burden of this $20 carbon tax, not the polluters who will continue to profit under the Greens’ proposals.

This ‘change from within the system’ approach explains why the Greens are such committed supporters of war criminal Barack Obama even though he has approved more drone killings in one year than George Bush did in 8 years. Like Obama the Greens give the impression of change but in Australia have not yet had to deliver in Government on it.

The spectre however of the German Greens in power – where they capitulated on almost every one of their principles – must haunt the more intelligent Greens’ members and supporters or at least give them cause for concern.

This is not peculiar to the Greens. It is the result of the reformist project, of working within the system and playing the parliamentary game.

For example in Germany right now the Die Linke – the Left Party – is split over these very issues of power versus principle.

And the history of the Labor Party in Australia has been nothing other than ruling for capital at the expense of labour.

It seems to be the fate of reformist parties that they compromise away their principles. Certainly the Greens in Australia have become more conservative as they have become more popular.

Indeed in Canberra the local Greens support an ACT minority Labor Government which is hellbent on attacking its workforce with wage and job cuts. Even the same sex compromise these Canberra Greens passed is a rotten sop to the reactionaries in Federal Labor who would have overruled real equal marriage.

Now the Greens have sided with the reactionaries on population growth. According to the Greens leader Bob Brown ‘Australia cannot support a population of 35 million by 2050 as discussed by both the Prime Minister and the Opposition.’

Brown goes on to say that ‘the major parties population growth plan is outstripping Australia’s infrastructure and environmental capacity and affecting quality of life.’

Brown offers no evidence to support any of these assertions.

I would suggest that the infrastructure problems have more to do with Government inaction, inadequate taxation of companies and business inability or unwillingness to invest than any population issue per se. What links these matters is the primacy of profit as the policy and investment motivator, the very profit system the Greens want to use to create a better world.

The idea that population is the problem is not new. Perhaps the most well known proponent is the reactionary Malthus whose work created an economics of austerity and scarcity and who promoted inequity to serve the interest of the aristocracy.

Today the neo-Malthusians hide their essentially reactionary doctrines in glib comments about concern for living standards but the intent is the same – the defence of the ruling elite and their exploitative system.

They parrot seeming truisms about finite resources but fail to understand the problems of capitalism are not shortages but over-production. There is for example more than enough food produced to feed everyone adequately.

Finite resources are a social construct.

Malthusian reaction finds current expression in the Greens’ claim that Australia cannot support a population of 35 million and their targeting of immigration as the cause of the problem.

According to Bob Brown the solution is simple. Reduce skilled migration. In the eyes of the Greens the problem is people, not the profit system.

Brown counterbalances this with a call to increase humanitarian immigration ( a good move), but in the context of his statement that we cannot support a population of 35 million must mean a cut in overall immigration. This will impact most heavily on non-white immigrants.

If only there were less people, the world would be better is their mantra. This anti-human approach is the cornerstone of reaction, and the bedrock of the Greens.

But there is a problem here even for the Greens. In the 2009-10 year skilled migration is set at 108,100. By my estimates it is likely about 85,000 will come from Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East or South America. They will be the first targeted in any reduction in skilled migration.

And what about education? There were approximately 460,000 foreign students living in Australia in 2008 at all levels of education. On the logic the Greens use shouldn’t that number too be reduced? All of course to save the environment.

That will really help developing countries, the students and cash strapped Universities.

If skilled migration were to be reduced it would have implications for the development of Australian society. Take for example the Greens’ proposal for green jobs. According to Greens’ Senator Christine Milne:

How exciting would it be to present a plan to rebuild Australia’s energy infrastructure for zero emissions as fast as possible, creating tens of thousands of jobs, driving investment in Australia’s regions, cleaning our air and water and tackling the climate crisis?

Won’t we require skilled labour to do this? Or are the Greens planning to build some sort of left nationalist autarkic nirvana?

Actually Christine’s suggestion of a plan is not a bad idea, but under capitalism planning is undemocratic and anti-human – done by the minority for profit, not to satisfy human need.

Labor’s reformism had some connection to the working class, especially when that class took action to improve wages and conditions and defend jobs. The Greens’ reformism has no class base.

For example the Greens in Tasmania have not ruled out some sort of working arrangement (including Ministries) with the Liberals. Bob Brown wants a coalition of all three parties – i.e. to join the two conservative parties in an unholy alliance of ruling for business.

It is not only that the idea that immigrants are a problem lends itself to racism; the Greens proposal to spend more on Australia’s overseas aid budget to go to literacy and reproductive health is clearly aimed at keeping immigrants from poorer countries (ie those who are not white) out of Australia. So a good idea on the surface has a hidden message which undermines its worth.

Spend more to keep them out is the Greens’ message.

I have an alternative proposal. Open the borders. Let labour flow freely around the world as capital does. Unfortunately the Greens want controlled labour but free capital.

When you play in the sandpit of reaction you can end up with a racist rash all over your party.

There is a heavy responsibility on Greens’ members to overturn Bob Brown’s call to cut skilled immigration to save the environment.

Readers might also like to read, among others, The Greens support war criminal Obama, Stop work to stop the bosses’ war on the environment, Time for a mass movement to stop their climate change and Capitalism: it’s costing us the earth.