A Green State of Mind

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in their two volumes of “Capitalism And Schizophrenia”, brought up a very important issue or question. That is, why do people desire their own repression, and how does that allow the formation of fascism. Even in democratic societies this question needs to be answered and analyzed in order to prepare humans to exist with and use free agency in opposition to the nature of structures that develop hierarchy and domination. A full understanding of how fascism occurs on the micro-level can result in a more fleshed out critique of the larger structures of power that grow from this foundation. This understanding begins with the definition of general fascism as the intersection of corporate power, militarism, and religious fundamentalism which in turn is taken apart to look at the conundrum of humans dealing with absolute determination and absolute freedom.

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When discussing sustainability, one usually thinks in terms of the environment and especially climate change and pollution. However, the principles of sustainability can be applied to economics as well. When the Green Party states that it supports community economics as part of its 10 Key Values, I propose that this is another way of describing economic sustainability. Like ecological sustainability, economic sustainability is both the decentralization of structures of control as well as an understanding that various components interact to achieve a type of dynamic equilibrium. For a community economy, this means a local democratic decision-making process and the interdependence of residents in the roles of workers, consumers, and taxpayers. The corporate model does not achieve this sustainability for the obvious reasons that corporations do not run on democratic principles either internally or externally, and that the benefits to corporations requires the disruption of the community equilibrium that results in profits taken away from the community. Community economics as economic sustainability can best be demonstrated by the existence of cooperatives, both historically and in the present situation. In fact, cooperatives can be seen as the authentic alternative to the corporate model through its democratic empowerment that was lacking in much of the Cold War debate between capitalism and communism in the last century. In other words, it can be said that cooperatives offer a real and practical solution to the question of how workers can control the means of production as an end to exploitation. I will begin with a short history of cooperatives and their principles, continue through how to grow and develop cooperatives in this county and the nation, and finish with the best way to transition existing business forms into a cooperative model.

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The philosophy of Alain Badiou is vital to the political work of the Green Party in that he describes the possibility of political action in regards to the event. And it can be easily said that September 11th is an example of the event in present time. People living after this event are in a new form of reality, and must be able to understand what kind of options are possible and what can occur when there is a disruption of predictable history and meaning. In fact, a new arena of the political emerges where previous assumptions disappear and there is a need to engage in this arena to reclaim freedom and a sense of purpose. The possibility of action and control are in fact more fully displayed after the event, and to an extent everything becomes politically important.

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