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Proposal 010-15 Green Party of the United States Platform AmendmentPlease read the proposal and keep comments on the topic of the proposal only.Designate your vote by using the following terms: AGREE, BLOCK, or STAND ASIDE. Any blocks will require a vote of the council Per Section 4.3 of the GPCO Bylaws, "All decisions concerning policy, finance, and objectives shall require consensus or a vote of at least 60% of the membership present at a state meeting and/or the Council".There are currently eight ( 8 ) active voting chapters in the Green Party of Colorado. A vote of at lease 60% quorum requires at lease one response from five ( 5 ) chapters.Active ChaptersAdams/JeffersonArapahoe CountyDenverDouglasGreater BoulderPikes PeakSan MiguelSouthwestThe floor is now open for one week of Agreement Seeking (December 16, 2015).Thank you,Brittany Hoover, Council Facilitator 1. Basic Info:Date proposed: December 9, 2015Name of the sponsor(s): Andrea Mérida,2. Title: Green Party of the United States Platform Amendment3. Text of the actual proposal:1. Current language of plank that is being addressed:IV. Economic Justice and SustainabilityA. Ecological EconomicsParagraph 4Current language of plank that is being addressed:“Sustaining our quality of life, economic prosperity, environmental health, and long-term survival demands that we adopt new ways of doing business. We need to remake commerce to encourage diversity and variety, responding to the enormous complexity of global and local conditions. Big business is not about appropriateness and adaptability, but about power and market control. Greens support small business, responsible stakeholder capitalism, and broad and diverse forms of economic cooperation. We argue that economic diversity is more responsive than big business to the needs of diverse human populations.”Proposed revision or amendment of the current language, or proposed new plank:Greens seek to build an alternative economic system based on ecology and decentralization of power, an alternative system that rejects both the capitalist system that maintains private ownership over almost all production as well as the old narrative of state socialism that assumes control over industries without democratic, local decision making. We believe the old models of capitalism (private ownership of production) and state socialism (state ownership of production) are not ecologically sound, socially just, or democratic and that both contain built-in structures that advance injustices.Instead Greens will build an economy based on large-scale public works, municipalization, and workplace and community democracy. Some call this small-scale, decentralized system “ecological socialism,” “communalism,” or the “cooperative commonwealth,” but whatever the terminology, Greens believe it will help end labor exploitation, environmental exploitation, and racial, gender, and wealth inequality and bring about economic and social justice.Production should be democratically owned and operated by those who do the work and those most affected by production decisions. This model of worker and community control will ensure that decisions that greatly affect our lives are made in the interests of our communities, not at the whim of centralized power structures of state administrators and of capitalist CEOs and distant boards of directors. Worker-owned production, embedded in and accountable to our communities, provides an incentive for enterprises to make ecologically sound decisions in materials sourcing, waste disposal, recycling, reuse, and more. Democratic ownership of the means of production is the cure to centralization of, first, workplace power and is in turn a cure to centralization of broader economic power.4. Background: The Green Party of the United States has a deadline of 12/31/15 for proposals to amend or add planks in the national platform. In accordance with our rules.GPCO has been asked to cosponsor this proposal, along with North Carolina and New York.In short, this proposal clarifies what is possible outside strictly free-market systems. It is a plank Colorado should support, with our state's track record with worker-owned collaborativeslike Left-Hand Brewery of Fort Collins and P&L Printing in Denver.5. Justification/Goals: This new platform plank removes the old wording entirely and addresses the economic inequalities, social inequalities, and productivism of both capitalism and state socialism and emphasizes grassroots democracy—in the workplace. This workplace grassroots democracy has been largely absent from the Green platform, and many believe it is the way forward for a truly ecological economy and a new system.6. Pros and Cons: The GPUS platform will provide more specific alternatives to economic systems, instead ofsimply being against "stakeholder capitalism."7. Alternatives to the proposal: Take no action.8. References: The Ten Key Values of the Green Party, IV. Economic Justice and SustainabilityA. Ecological EconomicsParagraph 4
Thanks, Brittany!Colleagues, please vote yes on this proposal. Instead of being a party "against" things, we ought be begin to spell out what we're "for," at least also regarding economic systems.Thank you!
I agree with most of the proposal and disagree with parts of the proposal. There is no mention of preserving small businesses (on the scale of a local family or individual business, not the current federal interpretation of what is “small”). Therefore I am opposed to this wording, and if that means a block, then I block.I'd prefer that we have a discussion of the wording of such proposals rather than a take-it-or-leave-it approach.Michael HaugheyAJ Greens
I agree with most of the proposal and disagree with parts of the proposal. There is no mention of preserving small businesses (on the scale of a local family or individual business, not the current federal interpretation of what is "small"). Therefore I am opposed to this wording, and if that means a block, then I block.I'd prefer that we have a discussion of the wording of such proposals rather than a take-it-or-leave-it approach.Michael HaugheyAJ Greens
Michael, what do you suggest as alternate wording, then?
Here's what the author of the proposal, Michael Trudeau of North Carolina, has to say about the issue of small business:
Most cooperatives are small businesses. There is nothing green about private, hierarchical ownership of capital. We are for small business—small, democratically owned and operated business, that is, as the platform plank lays out. Hierarchy is not green. Top-down is not green.Small businesses are fine if the relationships within them are egalitarian. Why would we let one person own another person's labor within, say, a mom-and-pop family business? We would not.That said, even in "actually existing" socialist and communist countries, the government did not seize mom-and-pop-style small businesses. So if that sort of argument is being made by anyone, that we would "not allow" the existence of such businesses, it is a red herring—the platform plank is not about expropriation; rather, it talks about the kind of economy we want to create. We are allowed to propose the type of economy we'd like to create.
For my own part, this makes the need for unions ever more necessary, because it provides the worker some rudimentary control over the value of their work.Let me know your thoughts, Michael. Thanks.
Michael, Can you please clarify your response? We have enough consensus to pass the approval but I need to know if you are blocking or stand aside and Andrea is trying have a dialogue with you about the wording.
AGREE!! 😀 I love the proposed plank. The only minor issue I have is some of the clunkiness in the wording, but I don't think I'd hold up the process for my preference on how to use the English language. The last sentence might read more clearly in this way: "Democratic ownership of the means of production is the antidote for centralization of workplace power, a major key to decentralizing broader economic power."Michael, as to your issue with the wording.. I think the absence of the term "small business" is in harmony with a vision of a Green society. It's an old term, and if we discussed what "small business" means to people, their perceptions would be safe in the platform as its being suggested. This is a brave new view on how Greens want to approach Economics in a way that balances protecting the environment with the need for individuals and local communities to have a fair claim in the profits of their labor.
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