In an article for the www.inequality.org LNS’s Research and Policy Director describes the Green New Deal (GND) as a “strategy to counter America’s grotesque and growing inequality.”
“While the Green New Deal [GND] is often portrayed as a program for climate protection, it is equally a strategy to counter America’s grotesque sand growing inequality. The Green New Deal resolution recently submitted by Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey proposes a broad vision to transform America, calling for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era.” 1 It notes that such a mobilization provides “a historic opportunity to create millions of good, high-wage jobs, virtually eliminate poverty in the United States, provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all U.S. persons, and counteract systemic injustices.”
The GND resolution is an outline of goals with the policies and programs to be filled in by many hands. Drawing on the experience of the original New Deal and the homefront mobilization for World War II, my recent Labor Network for Sustainability discussion paper “18 Strategies for a Green New Deal: How to Make Climate Mobilization Work.” The article lays out key strategies of the GND that will create a more equal society:
- Use the powers of government to rectify past and present injustice.
- Ensure full employment.
- Guarantee jobs for all.
- Ensure worker rights and good union jobs.
- Tax the rich.