A Powerful Voice In Alignment With GJC Agenda

Gus Speth has advised two presidents, clerked for a Supreme Court justice, run the UN Development Program, co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council and is currently a dean and Environmental Policy professor at Yale University. With this record under his belt, he has the ear of decision-makers and opinion-makers around the country and abroad. For decades, he has been at the forefront of battles to protect the environment, and helped nurture many of the groups which today claim the mantle of the US environmental movement.

But lately, he has been rethinking the strategy used by that movement to build power and access in Washington and in the State Houses of the land. “For the most part, advocates for change have worked within the current system of political economy, but in the end, this approach will not succeed when what is needed is transformative change in the system itself,” he says. “Environmentalists and other progressives have gone down the path of incremental reform for decades, and the results of that experiment are in. The roots of our environmental and social problems are deeply systemic and thus require transformational change […] It’s time for a large amount of civic unreasonableness.”

Speth’s thinking is the result of looking at why, despite being richer and more privileged than ever, the US is not solving the big problems, but rather, facing unprecedented social, economic, political and environmental crises. He finds that American society is addicted to economic growth, while showing little concern for its own well-being. “Americans today live and work in a system of political economy that cares profoundly about profits and growth and that cares about society and the natural world mainly to the extent it is required to do so,” Speth argues. “Government is excessively under the thumb of powerful corporations and concentrations of great wealth,” and “the prioritization of economic growth and economic values is at the root of the systemic failures and resulting crises America is now experiencing.”

While GDP and productivity have risen sharply, depression, poverty and other indicators of ill health are also at record highs, Speth points out. And these symptoms are spreading around the world. Everywhere we see job insecurity and shrinking wages, lack of access to healthcare, dramatic rises in military spending, and ever poorer quality of life for elders and the disabled. On the environmental front, Speth paints a frightening picture: “The rate of deforestation in the tropics continues at about one acre per second. Species are disappearing at rates about 1,000 times faster than normal. The planet has not seen such a spasm of extinction in 65 million years, since the dinosaurs disappeared […] Persistent toxic chemicals can now be found by the dozens in essentially each and every one of us […] The Colorado, Yellow, Ganges, and Nile Rivers, among others, no longer reach the oceans in the dry season.” And on and on.

He believes that the sole effective strategy, which delivers both a responsible government and socially and environmentally sustainable economy, is “a fusion of those concerned about environment, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force.” The GJC’s labor unions, community groups and environmental campaigners are pulling together at least two of those movements, and developing trust and exploring shared interests in order to birth a new economy driven by well-being rather than capitalist priorities.

“Sustaining people, communities, and nature must henceforth be seen as the core goals of economic activity, not hoped-for byproducts of market success,” says Speth. Reorienting the economy this way “would undoubtedly slow GDP growth, but our well-being and quality of life would improve.” The conversation “has been dominated thus far by lawyers, scientists, and economists,” he suggests. “Building the necessary muscle will require major efforts at grassroots organizing; strengthening groups working at the state and community levels; and developing messages, appeals, and stories that inspire and motivate because they speak in a language people can understand.” Mirroring the GJC’s guiding principles, Speth recommends that, “The new politics must be broadly inclusive, reaching out to embrace union members and working families, minorities and people of color, religious organizations, environmentalists, the women’s movement, and other communities of complementary interest and shared fate.”

When the ruling elite sense a mortal threat, as they did during the recent economic implosion, they put aside their competitive impulses and cooperate to preserve the system for future exploitation. For the rest of us- those who care about real democracy, a healthy natural world and fighting oppression- it couldn't be clearer that we need to actively formulate a broad united strategy as well, if we hope to win anything that changes the system itself.