Crisis and Transition: Lessons from the End of Feudalism for the Green New Deal
More details to come on the UEP Practical Visionaries Blog
Outstanding historical analysis of a climate change topic: the social transformations and policies needed to implement the Green New Deal.
Drew Merrill's thesis is exemplary in the breadth and depth of the historical lens used to inform the implementation of the Green New Deal. Drew offers the crisis of the Black Death plague in medieval Europe and the transition it caused away from feudalism, as an analogy to the crisis of climate change and the transition it necessitates away from fossil fuels toward new social relations for a green future. The thesis is in two parts. The first part describes the Green New Deal, its roots in the original New Deal, and presents a Theory of History about the development of capitalism and the need to revise its traditional narrative. The second part offers policy recommendations in Housing, Transportation, Energy Democracy, Green Infrastructure, and the Job Guarantee. In addition to discussing the most promising policies to implement the Green New Deal goals, the thesis skillfully addresses the concern that “much of the discourse about the GND assumes away existing antagonistic social relations without understanding their origin or consciously seeking to resolve the underlying tensions.
Abstract
The climate crisis, and humanity’s response, are precipitating a transition from a mode of production organized by fossil fuels to a yet-to-be-defined mode of production organized by renewable energy. The result of this transition is contested; it is no sure thing that we will decarbonize rapidly enough. Likewise, the social outcome remains unclear; the enormous organization of labor and resources required for the transition could inspire further democratization or incite a tightening of authoritarian regimes. With a combination of planning and activism, calls for a Green New Deal (GND) offer templates for a democratizing transition. However, the GND is more a concept than a specific strategy or design for decarbonization. Further, the integration of activists and planners necessary to organize grassroots support for and implement GND-based policy interventions at the local level is underdeveloped. Finally, much of the discourse about the GND assumes away existing antagonistic social relations without understanding their origin or consciously seeking to resolve the underlying tensions. This thesis attempts to address these issues.
The thesis is two parts. The first part explores the topic and relevant history, and the second examines specific policy areas. After introducing my research questions in Chapter One, I attempt to define the GND in Chapter Two. In this chapter, I connect the GND to its predecessor, the New Deal, before discussing the components and principles presented in House Resolution 109 by Senator Ed Markey and Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in 2019. In Chapter Three, I conduct a literature review of several climate and social justice focus areas, namely housing, transportation, green infrastructure, and economic development.
Chapter Four, A Theory of History, offers a revisionist history of the development of capitalism, taking the view that it is not a natural and transhistorical force but a set of social relations. These social relations were specific to the conditions of a particular place and time, the English countryside, two hundred years after the Black Death of 1348. Developing from this logic, I explore the conditions that led to “primitive accumulation,” the dispossession of peasants from the land during this time. I scrutinize the later implications for other social relations, focusing mainly on money as a leveling factor that mediates societal resources. This revisionist take on history provides a counter-narrative to the conventional focus on frugality and thrift as conditions for pre-capitalist wealth building. The conventional view reifies austerity and artificial scarcity but lacks historical accuracy and deserves disputation.
In Chapters Five through Nine, I cover Housing Policies, Transportation Policies, Energy Democracy, Green Infrastructure, and the Job Guarantee. Each chapter first relates the topic to the history presented in Chapter Four. Synthesizing my findings from the literature review, I identify key policy and social relations where municipalities can significantly impact climate response. I end each chapter with a series of policies that can be exploited to hasten the transition in a socially just and equitable way. Finally, in Chapter 10, I summarize my key findings and discuss the logic and assumptions underpinning those findings. I argue for framing the economy as a “mode of provisioning” as opposed to “mode of production”. I then define four primary social relations which determine a mode of provisioning: 1) landholding, 2) mobility and transportation, 3) production and distribution of energy, and 4) the organization of labor. I argue that redefining these social relations to not rely on the imperative of market mediation is necessary for a just transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
