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well i think it's worth saying first off that the green party's views and mine are quite different. i regard the green party's policies as a good first (and sometimes second, third etc.) step towards the sort of society i would want. i will try to discuss it from a green party perspective, though inevitably some of my own views will creep in. 
well aside from the rather platitudinous nature of all that, it's clear from a historical point of view that capitalism causes wealth to go upwards and that this can only be reversed, or perhaps more accurately minimised, by state led redistribution measures (in a capitalist context - see britain 1945-1979 as an example). how do you propose to achieve your aims in the context of the present system?
and it seems to me that oxfam has the focus exactly right. the west is extremely wealthy, while many in the third world do not have decent access to even the most basic necessities. what better way could there possibly be to tackle third world poverty than the west giving some of its vast wealth to the third world?
the greens have proposed to introduce a land value tax, which can't really be avoided nor evaded if done properly. in a capitalist context i think the only credible way forward on taxation is to move it from labour and capital onto land.
i think ken put it very well regarding green party policy. but there's a broader question here about how wealth is created, or indeed what wealth really is, and it seems to me that a big part of the green party's vision is precisely to move away from current prism through which subject is viewed. this is what i was alluding to when i talked about changing social priorities.
i would also like to make a more general point about framing. it's always interesting to see how debates about this sort of thing are framed - the limits imposed on discussion by its terms of reference and implicit or explicit assumptions. obviously if one can frame a debate one can control the range of possible answers. a few weeks ago i listened to any questions on radio 4, there were representatives of the three main parties and mark serwotka on the panel. there was a question about what public services were likely to be cut after the autumn statements, and following a good opening from serwotka, the debate became about the deficit and the budget, including several minutes of mark littlewood (former lib dem, now part of a free market think tank) wanking on about "living within our means", "taking tough decisions", "the changes we need to make if we don't want to see the UK go the way of greece" and blahdblahblah; public services barely got a look in, except to say how much they could be cut! and this framing is typical of these debates: the issue is considered in narrow terms and naturally this produces narrow answers.
Originally posted by Dauphin
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and it seems to me that oxfam has the focus exactly right. the west is extremely wealthy, while many in the third world do not have decent access to even the most basic necessities. what better way could there possibly be to tackle third world poverty than the west giving some of its vast wealth to the third world?
As a tangent, this is a different point to fair taxation - I fully support the principle of the relatively undertaxed and better off in the current system paying a larger share (see Amazon, Starbucks, Jimmy Carr et al). I see the reason for the better off paying lower taxes as a matter of tax collection methods and ability - it is easier to raise income tax on the lower and middle classes as they can collect the tax through PAYE and ensure high compliance; taxing any transnational conglomerate or high net worth international and making sure they pay is harder. Even the American embassy refuses to pay the congestion charge in London, whilst Boris has to cough up for CGT in the U.S. (on a UK property!) despite being only a notional citizen of that land.
Two, being a relatively rich country now and redistributing it is only sustainable and a net plus for the majority if you don't **** up the reason for that wealth generation in the first place. The Greens mode of thinking that growth is unnecessary to maintain a standard of living - we can just tax the wealth and redisrtibute - seems bonkers. In a world of 2% real growth, a rate of zero per cent growth will halve your country's wealth generation potential in about 35 years (i.e., your wealth generation is half of what it could have been). I find it hard to believe that halving your country's potential GDP inside a generation will lead to the average person being better off - unless there is an economic principle that allows median incomes to more than double whilst keeping GDP flat for decades. I know I wouldn't want to be entering retirement into such a society.
i would also like to make a more general point about framing. it's always interesting to see how debates about this sort of thing are framed - the limits imposed on discussion by its terms of reference and implicit or explicit assumptions. obviously if one can frame a debate one can control the range of possible answers. a few weeks ago i listened to any questions on radio 4, there were representatives of the three main parties and mark serwotka on the panel. there was a question about what public services were likely to be cut after the autumn statements, and following a good opening from serwotka, the debate became about the deficit and the budget, including several minutes of mark littlewood (former lib dem, now part of a free market think tank) wanking on about "living within our means", "taking tough decisions", "the changes we need to make if we don't want to see the UK go the way of greece" and blahdblahblah; public services barely got a look in, except to say how much they could be cut! and this framing is typical of these debates: the issue is considered in narrow terms and naturally this produces narrow answers.
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