Greening Keynes? Productivist lineages of the Green New Deal

Abstract

Climate change has propelled the Green New Deal to prominence as a strategy for greening the economy. This article interrogates the Green New Deal’s coherence and suitability as a response to ecological crisis. Retracing the intellectual lineages of New Deal-era economic thought, the article reveals a common Keynesian inheritance of productivist preoccupations with full employment, rising income and productivity, that links Green New Deal proposals with their New Deal progenitors. This Keynesian inheritance generates internal inconsistencies within Green New Deal proposals, undermining their coherence and suitability as visions of green transition. Green New Deal proponents seek a political economy that respects ecological limits but they rationalize and legitimate their visions of green transition through a Keynesian commitment to a virtuous circle of rising investment, full employment, increasing income, and economic growth. This Keynesian inheritance is both premised on the denial of ecological limits and tarnished by its historical association with environmental destruction. Outlining an alternative approach, the article revisits the methodological historicism of New Deal-era economic thinking as a guide for redefining strategies of green transition. Drawing on Keynes’s reflections on the historical impermanence of the ‘economic problem’ and mapping contemporary institutional dynamics, the article proposes a more consistent, transformative, and radical rupture from incumbent macro-economic imaginaries

You Will Never Walk Alone: Ethnographic Training as Collective Endeavor

“…Such endeavors are not without adversity, sadness, and lamentations. But as former Liverpool manager and player Kenny Dalglish reflects, it’s “about sticking together even when your dreams are tossed and blown” (Green 2021:12). That such projects are increasingly taken up at universities and other spaces signals that the ethnographic craft is often, and often best, engaged collectively.…”

Quantity and quality of job creation in renewable energy and energy efficiency: A review of international evidence

“…If it implies lower levels of labour productivity (economic output per worker), then it could adversely affect prospects for long-term economic growth. On the other hand, critiques of Green New Deal approaches argue that they perpetuate a narrative around the need for full employment, high production, high consumption economies which are incompatible with conserving nite resources and minimising ecological footprint (Green, 2022). Developing on from Blyth et al (2014), we therefore contend that policy should not be focused on maximising jobs per unit of investment in the long run.…”

“…There is a growing international momentum behind the setting of net zero emissions targets in law or policy (Climate Watch, 2023), and the introduction of Green New Deals involving substantial investments in green jobs and infrastructure, for example in the US and EU (Green, 2022). Over the last decade, the costs of leading renewable energy technologies such as solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind power have fallen rapidly or substantially (IRENA, 2020; Jansen et al, 2020).…”

Analysis of green deal communication on twitter: environmental and political perspective

“…The environmental perspective of the Green New Deal partially overlapped with the "European Green Deal" topic, suggesting that the discussion at the core of these environmental agreements are similar. These include debates over the deployment of state power to gradually decarbonize economies, revitalize communities, and limit emissions (Green, 2022;Driesen and Mehling, 2023). Other key terms used within this topic were words like "climate change," "planet," "world," "global," and "environment," as well as terms related to energy resources like "renewable," "fossil," "energy," "power," "electric," "gas," "coal," "wind," and "solar" (Bagus and Peña-Ramos, 2023;Belaïd et al, 2023;Donaghy et al, 2023).…”

“…Previous studies suggest that the transition of economies towards sustainability provokes discussion from those who see the changes on which the Green New Deal is based as necessary. The methods of change, especially renewable resources and energy acquisition, are also at the center of debates, not only among the public, but also political critics (Bloomfield and Steward, 2020;Allam et al, 2022;Lachmann, 2022) and academics (Pilař et al, 2019;Green, 2022;Chaudhuri and Huaccha, 2023;Morgan et al, 2023;Presberger and Bernauer, 2023). Although the debates were associated with criticism, there was not such a negative sentiment compared with the political perspective of the Green New Deal: the rate of negative posts was 39%, with neutral and positive posts accounting for 45% and 16%, respectively.…”