Pick up any broadsheet newspaper today, and you’ll definitely find an article (if not a feature) on the current deficit ‘crisis’. The resolution, according to the new Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition, is cuts to public services. If you’re a little inexperienced in economics, yet a little bit of a history buff, this reasoned argument doesn’t quite make any sense when unemployment figures are so high and the numbers of people below the poverty line continue to increase. Further research indicates that the deficit’s proportion to Britain’s GDP is the lowest of the G7 countries.

Anyone who’s ever studied the Great Depression, even at GCSE level, is aware of basic Keynesian economics - that in order to escape an economic downturn you have to encourage exchange and monetary circulation. Named ‘fiscal stimulus’ by economists, this generally involves creating a general change of mentality, where the public begins to believe that the economy is stable, and their jobs (and savings) are secure. As such, in a globalised economy, it is perfectly arguable that the government has little control over the economy, but there are measures to ensure that this does not remain the case. A step towards self-sustainability has always been available, yet we continue to ignore this long-term development in favour of high-risk short-term growth in stopping financial services from moving their offices elsewhere.

The Case for Vestas

I can’t say I was a fan of supporting the Vestas workers on the Isle of Wight as I saw little benefit in making wind turbines in the UK that were only going to be exported to the US. However, more recently I have been beginning to see the benefits of the government nationalising the company. Apart from saving hundreds of jobs, had the government taken over the factory and given the reigns towards a workers’ collective (that would eventually pay the government back), the UK would have retained an exportable good.

This would have meant that there would be external currency fuelling the economy and thus less demands on government to fund a way of tackling the deficit. In addition, the government would have to do little to actually run the company whilst providing the workers with the benefit of continued employment and a fair wage from their gains.

Investment not Cuts

Public spending is not a bad thing as much as the Tories would like to argue otherwise; it provides education, health, transport, jobs, welfare, advice, defence… the list is endless. These services are essential for retaining well-being in order to provide potential for economic stability. If these services are cut, this may ease out current deficit but in the long-term, as Joseph Stiglitz has argued previously,  we will end up paying the price with a slow descent into a poorer educated workforce and an inability to continue with our own economic development.

Obviously, there is a case for tackling our deficit, but we should look towards investing in a medium-term solution rather than paving our way into yet another recession. The argument held by Larry Elliot in an article published in the Guardian today, has been the development of export-driven economic policy:

Export-led growth is certainly what the UK needs: whether it will happen is highly questionable. Consider the facts. More than half British visible exports go to the rest of Europe, the bulk of them to the euro area. Yet this is a part of the global economy that struggles to grow. Over a full economic cycle from 2001 to 2009 Italy did not expand at all; Germany managed less than 0.5% a year; France a little over 1%. Spain, Greece and Portugal have all announced austerity packages and, like Britain, are seeking export-led growth. But this will remain a pipedream all the while Germany is imposing deflation on the rest of Europe and while Angela Merkel seems intent on becoming the new Herbert Hoover.

The Case for an Economic Re-evaluation

This global economic downturn should have given us the opportunity to question what society we are trying to develop. There are inherent problems through which our economic beliefs have shaped our political approach to the economy. Instead of trying to seek out those problems and identify how we can change them, we have opted to take the regular apathetic ’shit happens’ attitude. Is this because we are scared to see the results as it would violently crumble our ideology of Free Market economics? Or is it because corporations and the government are fearful of the implications it would have on their profits and belief in infinite growth?

We need to recognise that the economic growth we continue to demand in order to achieve high rates of employment is not sustainable. For that, all we need to think about is where we actually gain our material wealth from; on a planet of finite resources, infinite growth is an idealist’s dream. For long-term economic sustainability we need to start creating a poltical economy which renews wealth from the efforts of its citizens rather than one that demands wealth externally.

Yes, this would mean that our manufacturing industry should be based on local demand and supply as well as local resourcing, ultimately not supporting an export-driven economy as I argued earlier, but the economy has never been so simple. My opinion is that we need to grow our export-based economy as a way of ultimately developing our own local economy. Thus, in a decade or two, the UK have a self-sustainable economy though initially grown-through and supported by external revenue.

Initially Published on AcaciaThorns: http://www.acaciathorns.net

The upcoming election to many is a premade decision: the Tories are going to come in because people are sick of Labour – which is all rather odd when you think that we’re going through a recession and usually that means a greater need for social security (and hence a shift to the left). Then again, it’s not like Labour are much to the left considering the passing of the Digital Economy Bill and the National Insurance hikes. Add that to the simple fact that the Liberal Democrats don’t really know which side of the spectrum they’re standing at (yes on green issues, no on immigration issues, etc) – and you’ve got yourself in massive conundrum. Or at least so in a country where winning an election is all about first-past-the-post and thus silences the smaller parties.

However, all conundrums have a window of opportunity to create the change people actually want to see – and on 6th May, we may begin to see the rise of a much smaller party who we won’t have to campaign against to create the change we want to see. In three major constituencies, the Green Party (which believes in all the things that us People and Planetters campaign for) has an opportunity to become MPs in Westminister: in Brighton, Caroline Lucas; in Lewisham, Darren Johnson; and in Norwich, Adrian Ramsay. These gains are not born out of a political system in crisis, but also because people do not want to waste their vote by voting for parties that do not represent their views.

The time for only voting for either two (or three) major parties is over. As students, none of them represent what we need right now:

• fair and affordable education,
• international justice,
• freedoms of speech/press/expression,
• equality & equity,
• improved national public services,
• increasing employment,
• fairer tax systems,
• cheaper and more reliable public transport, etc.

All of these are policies that the Greens are representing with fairer national and international economics which put people and sustainability before profit. It is sad that our generation sees politics as the epitome of evil and distrusts every politician. Political support is a predominant reason (but not the only one) as to why so many social reforms have occurred in the past, including the right to form unions, the right to vote, and the emancipation of slavery.

We are young, and we are those who can still have hope. We campaign and are members of People & Planet because we care and because we think that change is possible. Let us not lose hope. Let us make a political movement and shout out loud our concerns. The Green Party represents what we are as a generation of those looking for change. Thus I urge you - vote for (and join) the Greens.

Alternatively, have a look at the main election website (which is actually rather cool) .

This post was initially posted on AcaciaThorns (http://www.acaciathorns.net)

Whilst a People & Planeter in UCL, I was always rather oblivious to the way that People & Planet was run nationally. Partially this was because I didn’t really know much about the network (we had just started a group the year that I joined) and partially it was because the idea of taking part in a national decision-making group was rather daunting. Luckily, in my final year, I decided to take a little of a risk and ended up going along to the Forum in Manchester.

Forum is a strange place. It brings all of the key people and planet individuals across the network together to discuss key issues. Overall, you end up having massive discussions, debates and decisions over the future of People & Planet and students involved. It’s a fantastic opportunity to learn how campaigns work, how they are managed and how you can really build and develop your own strategy.

Too many times in university, we organise our campaigns without strategy and without order. We play the campaign by ear rather than by trying to meet deadlines. The fact is we need to put the too together and we need to do that at a national and local level. It is so much easier to influence Oxford if you say ‘well, Cambridge/UCL is doing it, and we have the opportunity to beat them too it’ or if you show how the particular changes can be implemented within a given time and resource framework. This method also shuts up the nay-sayers in the university who may say that they do not have time/money/resources to deal with these challenges.

The Forum is the place to be if you want to create effective change, now and in the future. It is the place to be to take on a campaign and make it suitable for your university. It is also the place to be if you want to have a great party and be challenged by a very relevant quiz.

If you want to take campaigning further, go to this year’s Forum - this weekend (19 - 21 March) in Camden, London. There are going to be MASSIVE decisions made, so make sure you’re there!

Book online for FREE here: http://peopleandplanet.org/forum/10

There is no doubt that power is held in the hands of the few rather than the many; it is also beyond doubt that this power is largely held by large corporations fuelling their wealth and power at the expense of those poorer. Yet as a lowly campaigner who wishes to seek international justice, there can either seem to be no way in which to pull these companies into ethical rein, or there can be too many. Since I seem to have stumbled across the latter, I thought I might make a little comparison between those that I can think of:

1. Fairtrade  (Bottom-Up)
2. Worker Rights Consortium (Top-Down)
3. The Forest Trust (Cleaning the System)
4. RBS and Ditch Dirty Development  (Legal & Financial Pressure)

(more…)

Walking through the international development department in Oxford is a rather strange affair. It’s bizarre to think that so many of these people would eventually become some organiser or officer for a big development NGO/government/corporation. It’s even stranger when you think that so many of them come from a strong background in economics and see the world as homogenous mathematical models. I guess that’s my social anthropological bias, where everything economic is so much more complex and subjective… (more…)

Initially, I was planning to write/scribble about the politics and policies of Copenhagen. It would have included copious amount of moaning, sighing and sheer cries of anguish/hopelessness. This would have been pointless - a mere rant that meant nothing. If you really think about COP-15, it’s just a bunch of hot air. It is the meeting of the elite, rich and overly intelligent. It is not a gathering of those suffering or those who will be most impacted by climate change. So why waste another paragraph on it? (more…)

Today, Oxford Uni People & Planet decided to do some undercover investigations into the finance world by asking students some questions about their interests in Corporate Social Responsibility. Surrounded by garish corporate logos, which seemed to be overflowing with absolute colourful positivity (hiding their negative underside). (more…)

The mass famine and drought in East Africa has affected me in ways that have truly made me think about what the whole climate change problem is all about. I suppose thinking about it and really writing it down can be difficult to transfer, so I apologise if much of this fails to make any sense. (more…)