Derek Wall
Encyclopedia
Derek Wall is an English politician and member of the Green Party of England and Wales
. Formerly the party's Principal Speaker
, he is known as a prominent ecosocialist, campaigning both for environmentalism
and socialism
. Alongside his political role, Wall is an academic and a writer, having published various books on the subject of ecosocialism and the wider Green politics
movement. He is a writer for The Morning Star
and keeps a regular blog.
. He is also a visiting tutor at the Department of Politics at Goldsmiths College
, University of London
, where he teaches a course on the new radical political economy
. His PhD
thesis was titled The Politics of Earth First!
UK.
He has written a series of books on eco-socialism
and green politics
. Getting There: Steps Towards a Green Society was published in 1990, and looked at the strategies of green politics. A Green Manifesto for the 1990s, also written in 1990, outlined the Green vision. In 1994, a book examining the roots of ecological politics, Green History: A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy, and Politics, was released. Also during 1994, he released Weaving a Bower Against Endless Night: An Illustrated History of the Green Party as a Green Party
publication. Having taken a BSc in Archaeology at the University of London, he subsequently completed a PhD at the University of the West of England, later published in revised in 1999 as a book entitled Earth First! and the Anti-Roads Movement: Radical Environmentalism and Comparative Social Movements. Academic reviews for the book were mixed. One academic reviewer commented that the book offered ‘valuable and often original information about the radical environmentalist movement’ but ‘fails to provide a systematic analysis of the topic’ and uncritically paid little attention to possible personal agendas of the activists interviewed.
His most recent work, Babylon and Beyond: The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical Green Movements, looks at the history of anti-capitalism
, including reformist capitalists (such as Joseph Stiglitz), anti-corporate critics (namely Naomi Klein
and David Korten
), monetary reformers, eco-socialists
(especially Joel Kovel
), Marxists
, green localists
(including Caroline Lucas
, Mike Woodin
and Vandana Shiva
) and anarchists
(particularly Michael Hardt
and Toni Negri). It includes a foreword by Nandor Tanczos
, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
MP.
Wall has written for the left-wing magazine Red Pepper
and is an advisory editor of Socialist Resistance
. He has also published articles in academic journals such as Environmental Politics
, Social Movement Studies
and Capitalism Nature Socialism.
in 1979. He joined the Ecology Party (later the Green Party of England and Wales
) in 1980. By 1987, Wall was standing for the Ecology Party against Chris Patten
in Bath
. At the time of the European Parliament election in 1989, Wall was one of three National Speakers in the Green Party
. In the elections themselves, which saw the Green Party
gain over 2 million votes (14.5% of the national poll), Wall received 15% of the vote in the Bristol constituency
. During his time in the Green Party
, Wall has been a Parish Councillor.
Wall rose to national prominence in the wake of the 1989 result, when he presented himself to the national press as a 'left wing' candidate for the ruling Green Party Council in opposition to the leadership. He styled himself a 'maverick' and a Green 'fundamentalist'. He was then in turn attacked as a 'parasite' by pragmatists such as Sara Parkin
and Jonathon Porritt
. These divisions contributed to highly negative press coverage at the time.
Wall was also a prominent figure opposing the organisational changes by the group known as Green 2000
along with Penny Kemp and John Norris. Organising a faction within the Green Party known as the Association of Socialist Greens
, this left grouping was accused by pragmatists such as Mallen Baker as being responsible for ensuring the party was "going knowhere fast".
Derek's critique of Green Party politics is that ambition tends to dilute policy, reduce democracy and lead to failure. He says of the Green 2000
project to modernise the executive structures and reduce the number of Principal Speakers to two:
At the 2005 general election
, Wall stood as a candidate for Windsor
and received 2.5% of the votes. In November 2005, he was beaten by Keith Taylor in the election to be the Male Principal Speaker
of the Green Party
, by 851 votes to 803.
He is a founder member of the Green Left, an anti-capitalist
and eco-socialist
faction within the Green Party
, which held its first meeting in June 2006.
Wall has continued to be an out-spoken member of the Green Party
, particularly on the issue of entering into alliances with other parties. He was given a vote of censure by the Green Party
Association of Green Councillors (AGC) when he made comments concerning the alliance between Green Party
, Conservative
and Liberal Democrat councillors on the Leeds City Council
; he stated in Red Pepper
magazine that, "While I understand that repellent Labour councils may be the only substitute for alliances with Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, the fall in our Leeds West vote suggests that voters were displeased by a perceived shift to the right by Yorkshire Greens".
He was narrowly elected as one of two principal speakers
of the Green Party of England and Wales in November 2006, alongside Sian Berry
. The position of principal speaker was the closest role to that of leader within the Green Party until 2008.
In 2007 he was re-elected as Male Principal Speaker alongside Caroline Lucas
, elected to the post of Female Principal Speaker.
He was prominent in the Green Empowerment group that campaigned against the creation of a single leader and deputy leader instead of the Principal Speaker system. He attacked the proposal for a referendum in Swansea:
Wall's critique centred on the link between the structure of leadership and ambition of the party; and the likelihood that a Leader coupled with ambition would be part of a project to move the party to the "right":
He also linked the idea of a leadership structure directly to abuse of power. His September 2007 keynote speech took up this theme:
At times, personal attacks surfaced in Wall's comments in the debate. Replying to a Guardian letter from Jonathon Porritt and others supporting leadership, Wall drew parallels with Porritt's own behaviour as a green 'leader':
In the subsequent party-wide referendum, 73% of members polled voted to create a single leader. Wall said of the result, "The result of this referendum challenges the Party to create a leadership structure that is true to green ideals. It has put our future leaders on notice that the membership expects a more focused, more effective party, with a leadership team that is truly accountable to the membership in a real and effective manner".
Nevertheless in 2010 he declared himself a candidate for the post of deputy leader under the new system, losing to the incumbent Adrian Ramsay
. During his Deputy Leader campaign, Wall continued to promote the view that a “right” wing of the Green party is attempting to subvert its democracy, agreeing that “talk of ‘modernising’ the Green Party [is] actually code for changing inner Party democracy and changing the politics of the Party”. Nevertheless, Wall's opponents, the joint ticket of Adrian Ramsay and Caroline Lucas, continue to promote both reform of the party and a left-leaning politics. Derek's defeat was met with disappointment from Green Lib Dems, who cited his defeat as a loss of a “good source of ammunition against the [Green] party”.
and anti-capitalist
who believes that "an infinitely growing capitalist economy destroys nature, fuels injustice and leads to an alienated way of life". He describes Green politics
as "the politics of survival", stressing that "unless we build a green economy based on meeting need rather than greed our children face a bleak future". Distinguishing between socially-oriented development and capitalist growth, Wall asserts that there is "no contradiction between development and ecology," while, on the other hand, there is "a contradiction between capitalist economic growth and human lifeand the life of all other species." He adds that "a world dominated by the need for constant growth puts people and the rest nature behind a blind economic system of accumulation."
movement. Though he does not discount the "plots and plans" of the corporate lobby
, American neo-conservatives free market liberals, which are "hardly secret", he criticises the tendency of many anti-capitalists
to be attracted to "warm conspiracies" which "generate a personal enemy with a human face who can be challenged". Instead, he wishes to address the "structural element" of capitalism
, drawing on the critical realist
philosophy of Roy Bhaskar
, who suggests that "invisible structures", like capitalism
and language, shape society but can themselves be changed by human activity. This means that "the conspirators construct, where they are successful, new structures, but as capitalists they are themselves bearers of deeper structural imperatives to exploit labour, subjectivity and the earth".
Stating that "history does not march to a predictable narrative", Wall criticises the determinism of some Marxists
, on the one hand, who promote "hyperglobalisation" in an attempt to move the world closer to the apparently inevitable socialist
order, and, on other hand, subsistence ecofeminists
, who look to turn to clock back to the time of peasant societies. He rejects productivism
in favour of "in different contexts economic arrangements that fulfil need equitably, develop humanity, sustain ecosystems and lead to cooperation".
. He cites the example of the Indian adivasis
, who regained the land they originally inhabited and sold tea via the Fair Trade
system. Here, Wall argues that "social preference rather than profit maximisation socialised economic activity". He welcomes the movements in Argentina that have seen workers occupy and reopen bankrupt factories. He applauds the work done on creating a "decentralised, socialist economy" in Cuba
and Venezuela
. Wall is encouraged by the growth in Green consumerism, noting that "we cannot shop or work our way to utopia, but such projects ease present ills and point roughly to a different future".
Taking on the work of Marx
on the distinction between use-values
and exchange-values
, Wall stresses that "exchange values must be rejected", so that "economics can be bent towards serving the needs of humanity and nature rather than its own violent abstract growth". This means building things to last and sharing resources: he advocates the increased use of libraries, permaculture
and the localisation of economies where possible. He highlights the Rastafarian
notion of 'Ital'
, a form of localism
in which "what is sacred is what comes from the earth and is grown locally", and where localism and internationalism
are mixed "without building walls between sects" in what Wall calls a "worldwide rooted cosmopolitanism".
Nonetheless, Wall envisages as the ultimate aim the rolling back of both the market and the state. To this end, he wishes to "defend, extend and deepen" the commons against enclosure
as a way of giving people back their means of production. He believes that the extension of the commons provides the best model for consensus-based social and ecological management and sharing. In the same vein, Wall supports Open Source Software
as one of the "new commons regimes... created with technological and social change", one which "is a stunning example of how both the market and the state can be bypassed by cooperative creativity". "Marx," he quips, "would have been a Firefox user".
direct action
to affect change. Babylon and Beyond focuses heavily on unique and creative expressions of anti-capitalist
economics and protest, and Wall tells protestors "to keep making noise". He has cultivated ties with African-American and Afro-Caribbean Green activists and takes a strong interest in the controversial Pennsylvania-based African-American organisation MOVE
. From 1995, he helped develop a British-based campaign to free US death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
.
and is influenced by spirituality through "pursuing a pagan appreciation of the living world in a variety of ways". In Babylon and Beyond, he argues that Zen
acts as a guard against utopianism as it "is based on being in the world rather than escaping from it". He also links anti-capitalism
and Zen
, stating, based on the work of anthropologist and economist Marshall Sahlins
, that "Zen minimises need and provides an alternative road to affluence".
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
. Formerly the party's Principal Speaker
Principal Speaker
Principal Speakers were the public spokespersons of the Green Party of England and Wales but have since been replaced in the party by a national Leader and Deputy Leader...
, he is known as a prominent ecosocialist, campaigning both for environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
and socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. Alongside his political role, Wall is an academic and a writer, having published various books on the subject of ecosocialism and the wider Green politics
Green politics
Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy...
movement. He is a writer for The Morning Star
The Morning Star
The Morning Star is a left wing British daily tabloid newspaper with a focus on social and trade union issues. Articles and comment columns are contributed by writers from socialist, social democratic, green and religious perspectives....
and keeps a regular blog.
Academic career
Wall teaches economics at Duff Miller - a private sixth form collegeSixth form college
A sixth form college is an educational institution in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Belize, Hong Kong or Malta where students aged 16 to 18 typically study for advanced school-level qualifications, such as A-levels, or school-level qualifications such as GCSEs. In Singapore and India, this is...
. He is also a visiting tutor at the Department of Politics at Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...
, University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, where he teaches a course on the new radical political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
. His PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
thesis was titled The Politics of Earth First!
Earth First!
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
UK.
He has written a series of books on eco-socialism
Eco-socialism
Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
and green politics
Green politics
Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy...
. Getting There: Steps Towards a Green Society was published in 1990, and looked at the strategies of green politics. A Green Manifesto for the 1990s, also written in 1990, outlined the Green vision. In 1994, a book examining the roots of ecological politics, Green History: A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy, and Politics, was released. Also during 1994, he released Weaving a Bower Against Endless Night: An Illustrated History of the Green Party as a Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
publication. Having taken a BSc in Archaeology at the University of London, he subsequently completed a PhD at the University of the West of England, later published in revised in 1999 as a book entitled Earth First! and the Anti-Roads Movement: Radical Environmentalism and Comparative Social Movements. Academic reviews for the book were mixed. One academic reviewer commented that the book offered ‘valuable and often original information about the radical environmentalist movement’ but ‘fails to provide a systematic analysis of the topic’ and uncritically paid little attention to possible personal agendas of the activists interviewed.
His most recent work, Babylon and Beyond: The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical Green Movements, looks at the history of anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
, including reformist capitalists (such as Joseph Stiglitz), anti-corporate critics (namely Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.-Family:...
and David Korten
David Korten
David C. Korten is an American economist, author, and former Professor of the Harvard Business School, political activist and prominent critic of corporate globalization, "by training and inclination a student of psychology and behavioral systems". His best-known publication is When Corporations...
), monetary reformers, eco-socialists
Eco-socialism
Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
(especially Joel Kovel
Joel Kovel
Joel Kovel is an American politician, academic, writer, and eco-socialist. A practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst until the mid-1980s, he has lectured in psychiatry, anthropology, political science and communication studies. He has published many books on his work in psychiatry,...
), Marxists
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, green localists
Green politics
Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy...
(including Caroline Lucas
Caroline Lucas
Caroline Patricia Lucas is a British politician. Lucas is the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, and the Green Party's first and only Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom...
, Mike Woodin
Mike Woodin
Michael Edward Woodin was the Principal Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales and a city councillor for Oxford from 1994 to 2004...
and Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva , is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D...
) and anarchists
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
(particularly Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt is an American literary theorist and political philosopher perhaps best known for Empire, written with Antonio Negri and published in 2000...
and Toni Negri). It includes a foreword by Nandor Tanczos
Nandor Tanczos
Nándor Steven Tánczos , a member of the New Zealand Parliament from 1999 to 2008, represented the Green Party as a list MP. He briefly lost his seat in the 2005 General Election, but returned to Parliament following the sudden death of Rod Donald just prior to the first sitting of Parliament, as he...
, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand is a political party that has seats in the New Zealand parliament. It focuses firstly on environmentalism, arguing that all other aspects of humanity will cease to be of concern if there is no environment to sustain it...
MP.
Wall has written for the left-wing magazine Red Pepper
Red Pepper (magazine)
Red Pepper is an independent ‘red, green and radical’ magazine based in the UK. For most of its history it appeared monthly, but relaunched as a bi-monthly during 2007.- Origins :...
and is an advisory editor of Socialist Resistance
Socialist Resistance
Socialist Resistance is a Trotskyist and ecosocialist organisation in Britain which publishes a Marxist periodical of the same name. In July 2009 the International Socialist Group merged into it, making SR the British Section of the Fourth International.-Origins:It was launched on 8 September...
. He has also published articles in academic journals such as Environmental Politics
Environmental politics
Environmental politics is an academic field of study focused on three core components:The study of political theories and ideas related to the environment.The examination of the political parties and environmental social movements....
, Social Movement Studies
Social Movement Studies
Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers sociological research on protests, social movements, and collective behavior. The journal also published reviews of books on these topics. It was established in 2002 and is...
and Capitalism Nature Socialism.
Political career
Wall first became involved in the Green movementGreen Movement
The Green Movement refers to a series of actions after the 2009 Iranian presidential election, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office...
in 1979. He joined the Ecology Party (later the Green Party of England and Wales
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
) in 1980. By 1987, Wall was standing for the Ecology Party against Chris Patten
Chris Patten
Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes, CH, PC , is the last Governor of British Hong Kong, a former British Conservative politician, and the current chairman of the BBC Trust....
in Bath
Bath (UK Parliament constituency)
Bath is a constituency in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, previously of the House of Commons of England. It is an ancient constituency which has been constantly represented in Parliament since boroughs were first summoned to send members in the 13th century...
. At the time of the European Parliament election in 1989, Wall was one of three National Speakers in the Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
. In the elections themselves, which saw the Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
gain over 2 million votes (14.5% of the national poll), Wall received 15% of the vote in the Bristol constituency
Bristol (European Parliament constituency)
Bristol was a European Parliament constituency centred on Bristol in England, but covering much of Avon. Until 1984, it included parts of southern Gloucestershire and northwestern Wiltshire....
. During his time in the Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
, Wall has been a Parish Councillor.
Wall rose to national prominence in the wake of the 1989 result, when he presented himself to the national press as a 'left wing' candidate for the ruling Green Party Council in opposition to the leadership. He styled himself a 'maverick' and a Green 'fundamentalist'. He was then in turn attacked as a 'parasite' by pragmatists such as Sara Parkin
Sara Parkin
Sara Parkin is a former Green Party of England and Wales activist and politician. She rose to prominence during and after the 1989 European election, in which the Green Party received 15% of the vote...
and Jonathon Porritt
Jonathon Porritt
Jonathon Espie Porritt, CBE, is an English environmentalist and writer. Porritt appears frequently in the media, writing in magazines, newspapers and books, and appearing on radio and television regularly.-Early life and family background:...
. These divisions contributed to highly negative press coverage at the time.
Wall was also a prominent figure opposing the organisational changes by the group known as Green 2000
Green 2000
Green 2000 was a movement to streamline the constitutional arrangements of the Green Party of England and Wales in the early 1990s, with the stated aim of getting a Green government by the year 2005.-Overview:...
along with Penny Kemp and John Norris. Organising a faction within the Green Party known as the Association of Socialist Greens
Association of Socialist Greens
The Association of Socialist Greens was a political faction founded by Derek Wall and others in response to attempts to organise the UK Green Party on more conventional lines in the 1980s...
, this left grouping was accused by pragmatists such as Mallen Baker as being responsible for ensuring the party was "going knowhere fast".
Derek's critique of Green Party politics is that ambition tends to dilute policy, reduce democracy and lead to failure. He says of the Green 2000
Green 2000
Green 2000 was a movement to streamline the constitutional arrangements of the Green Party of England and Wales in the early 1990s, with the stated aim of getting a Green government by the year 2005.-Overview:...
project to modernise the executive structures and reduce the number of Principal Speakers to two:
“The right around the Green 2000 faction wanted to make us into a mainstream party with mass appeal, ditch the radicalism, re-engineer the Party constitution and centralise power. We fought them. I remember Sara ParkinSara ParkinSara Parkin is a former Green Party of England and Wales activist and politician. She rose to prominence during and after the 1989 European election, in which the Green Party received 15% of the vote...
talking to the Independent about 'socialist parasites' i.e. myself and Penny Kemp who had been members nearly as long as her. They won and then imploded, when the Party received just a couple of percentage at the 1992 General Election. When the 'realists' believe in achieving a Westminster Parliamentary government by 2000 (thus Green 2000), give me fundamentalism.”
At the 2005 general election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
, Wall stood as a candidate for Windsor
Windsor (UK Parliament constituency)
Windsor is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In its modern form, it elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election.-Boundaries:...
and received 2.5% of the votes. In November 2005, he was beaten by Keith Taylor in the election to be the Male Principal Speaker
Principal Speaker
Principal Speakers were the public spokespersons of the Green Party of England and Wales but have since been replaced in the party by a national Leader and Deputy Leader...
of the Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
, by 851 votes to 803.
He is a founder member of the Green Left, an anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
and eco-socialist
Eco-socialism
Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
faction within the Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
, which held its first meeting in June 2006.
Wall has continued to be an out-spoken member of the Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
, particularly on the issue of entering into alliances with other parties. He was given a vote of censure by the Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
Association of Green Councillors (AGC) when he made comments concerning the alliance between Green Party
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...
, Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
and Liberal Democrat councillors on the Leeds City Council
Leeds City Council
Leeds City Council is the local authority for the City of Leeds metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England.-History:The city council was established in 1974, with the first elections being held in advance in 1973...
; he stated in Red Pepper
Red Pepper (magazine)
Red Pepper is an independent ‘red, green and radical’ magazine based in the UK. For most of its history it appeared monthly, but relaunched as a bi-monthly during 2007.- Origins :...
magazine that, "While I understand that repellent Labour councils may be the only substitute for alliances with Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, the fall in our Leeds West vote suggests that voters were displeased by a perceived shift to the right by Yorkshire Greens".
He was narrowly elected as one of two principal speakers
Principal Speaker
Principal Speakers were the public spokespersons of the Green Party of England and Wales but have since been replaced in the party by a national Leader and Deputy Leader...
of the Green Party of England and Wales in November 2006, alongside Sian Berry
Siân Berry
Siân Berry is an English politician and member of the Green Party of England and Wales. From 2006 to 2007, she was one of the Green Party's Principal Speakers...
. The position of principal speaker was the closest role to that of leader within the Green Party until 2008.
In 2007 he was re-elected as Male Principal Speaker alongside Caroline Lucas
Caroline Lucas
Caroline Patricia Lucas is a British politician. Lucas is the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, and the Green Party's first and only Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom...
, elected to the post of Female Principal Speaker.
He was prominent in the Green Empowerment group that campaigned against the creation of a single leader and deputy leader instead of the Principal Speaker system. He attacked the proposal for a referendum in Swansea:
I find the title "leader" embarrassing: it is so patronising, assuming a bunch of people have to be "led", the shepherd label that assumes the members are sheep.
Wall's critique centred on the link between the structure of leadership and ambition of the party; and the likelihood that a Leader coupled with ambition would be part of a project to move the party to the "right":
Political parties universally tend to attract those addicted to fame and careerism. ... Clearly, the biggest barrier to green electoral victory is the lack of proportional representation. Greens have been elected around the world in countries with PR. ... The fear is that a leader will shift the party to the right, cutting the Greens' radical edge. ...
The call for a single leader would compromise the party's commitment to radical democracy. It also suggests a failure to think about strategy in any real sense. The fear is that it could be part of a more extensive shift towards a new green politics of shallow environmentalism, rather than a thorough critique of an unequal, profit-motivated society.
He also linked the idea of a leadership structure directly to abuse of power. His September 2007 keynote speech took up this theme:
what is power? You can't touch it or taste it. Sometimes I think you can smell it, like wealth or sewage, and if it is piled up in one place it stinks like rotten cod. For it to smell sweet, we need to spread it around. For power to be creative, we need to spread it around.
Collecting power in one place is like collecting money in a mega billion bank account, the work of a miser, a misery, a self obsessed fanatic. Green politics is about giving everyone power.
At times, personal attacks surfaced in Wall's comments in the debate. Replying to a Guardian letter from Jonathon Porritt and others supporting leadership, Wall drew parallels with Porritt's own behaviour as a green 'leader':
Jonathon Porritt's call for the Green Party to select a single leader is flawed. Rather than suggesting the Green Party becomes a little more like the conventional top down political parties, Jonathon could show a little more personal leadership. Last year he took 42 flight clocking up air miles to go to meetings to tell people to cut CO2. I am calling on Jonathon to use video conferencing a little more and to fly a little less.
In the subsequent party-wide referendum, 73% of members polled voted to create a single leader. Wall said of the result, "The result of this referendum challenges the Party to create a leadership structure that is true to green ideals. It has put our future leaders on notice that the membership expects a more focused, more effective party, with a leadership team that is truly accountable to the membership in a real and effective manner".
Nevertheless in 2010 he declared himself a candidate for the post of deputy leader under the new system, losing to the incumbent Adrian Ramsay
Adrian Ramsay
Adrian Philip Ramsay is an English politician and Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales. First elected at the age of 21 in 2003, he was a Green Party councillor representing Nelson Ward on Norwich City Council, where he was Coordinator of a fourteen-strong Green groupuing and the...
. During his Deputy Leader campaign, Wall continued to promote the view that a “right” wing of the Green party is attempting to subvert its democracy, agreeing that “talk of ‘modernising’ the Green Party [is] actually code for changing inner Party democracy and changing the politics of the Party”. Nevertheless, Wall's opponents, the joint ticket of Adrian Ramsay and Caroline Lucas, continue to promote both reform of the party and a left-leaning politics. Derek's defeat was met with disappointment from Green Lib Dems, who cited his defeat as a loss of a “good source of ammunition against the [Green] party”.
Beliefs
Wall is an eco-socialistEco-socialism
Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
and anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
who believes that "an infinitely growing capitalist economy destroys nature, fuels injustice and leads to an alienated way of life". He describes Green politics
Green politics
Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy...
as "the politics of survival", stressing that "unless we build a green economy based on meeting need rather than greed our children face a bleak future". Distinguishing between socially-oriented development and capitalist growth, Wall asserts that there is "no contradiction between development and ecology," while, on the other hand, there is "a contradiction between capitalist economic growth and human lifeand the life of all other species." He adds that "a world dominated by the need for constant growth puts people and the rest nature behind a blind economic system of accumulation."
Strategies
In a chapter of Babylon and Beyond entitled "Life After Capitalism: Alternatives, Structures, Strategies", Wall suggests that "conventional economics is surprisingly dangerous for a subject normally portrayed as a neutral science", and advocates the proposition of "solid liveable alternatives" by the anti-capitalistAnti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
movement. Though he does not discount the "plots and plans" of the corporate lobby
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
, American neo-conservatives free market liberals, which are "hardly secret", he criticises the tendency of many anti-capitalists
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
to be attracted to "warm conspiracies" which "generate a personal enemy with a human face who can be challenged". Instead, he wishes to address the "structural element" of capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, drawing on the critical realist
Critical realism
In the philosophy of perception, critical realism is the theory that some of our sense-data can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events, while other of our sense-data do not accurately represent any external objects, properties, and events...
philosophy of Roy Bhaskar
Roy Bhaskar
Roy Bhaskar is a British philosopher, best known as the initiator of the philosophical movement of Critical Realism.-Early life:Bhaskar was born in Teddington, London, the elder of two brothers...
, who suggests that "invisible structures", like capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and language, shape society but can themselves be changed by human activity. This means that "the conspirators construct, where they are successful, new structures, but as capitalists they are themselves bearers of deeper structural imperatives to exploit labour, subjectivity and the earth".
Stating that "history does not march to a predictable narrative", Wall criticises the determinism of some Marxists
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, on the one hand, who promote "hyperglobalisation" in an attempt to move the world closer to the apparently inevitable socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
order, and, on other hand, subsistence ecofeminists
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
, who look to turn to clock back to the time of peasant societies. He rejects productivism
Productivism
Productivism is the belief that measurable economic productivity and growth is the purpose of human organization , and that "more production is necessarily good".-Arguments for productivism:...
in favour of "in different contexts economic arrangements that fulfil need equitably, develop humanity, sustain ecosystems and lead to cooperation".
Propositions
Wall first suggests "embedded markets", embedded in society, with "state provision decentralised", as a first step to adapt capitalismCapitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. He cites the example of the Indian adivasis
Adivasi
Adivasi is an umbrella term for a heterogeneous set of ethnic and tribal groups claimed to be the aboriginal population of India. They comprise a substantial indigenous minority of the population of India...
, who regained the land they originally inhabited and sold tea via the Fair Trade
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
system. Here, Wall argues that "social preference rather than profit maximisation socialised economic activity". He welcomes the movements in Argentina that have seen workers occupy and reopen bankrupt factories. He applauds the work done on creating a "decentralised, socialist economy" in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
and Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
. Wall is encouraged by the growth in Green consumerism, noting that "we cannot shop or work our way to utopia, but such projects ease present ills and point roughly to a different future".
Taking on the work of Marx
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
on the distinction between use-values
Use value
Use value or value in use is the utility of consuming a good; the want-satisfying power of a good or service in classical political economy. In Marx's critique of political economy, any labor-product has a value and a use-value, and if it is traded as a commodity in markets, it additionally has an...
and exchange-values
Exchange value
In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value refers to one of four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market...
, Wall stresses that "exchange values must be rejected", so that "economics can be bent towards serving the needs of humanity and nature rather than its own violent abstract growth". This means building things to last and sharing resources: he advocates the increased use of libraries, permaculture
Permaculture
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...
and the localisation of economies where possible. He highlights the Rastafarian
Rastafari movement
The Rastafari movement or Rasta is a new religious movement that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica, which at the time was a country with a predominantly Christian culture where 98% of the people were the black descendants of slaves. Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia , as God...
notion of 'Ital'
Ital
Ital or I-tal is food often celebrated by those in the Rastafari movement. The word derives from the English word "vital", with the initial syllable replaced by i. This is done to many words in the Rastafari vocabulary to signify the unity of the speaker with all of nature...
, a form of localism
Localism (politics)
Localism describes a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and local identity...
in which "what is sacred is what comes from the earth and is grown locally", and where localism and internationalism
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
are mixed "without building walls between sects" in what Wall calls a "worldwide rooted cosmopolitanism".
Nonetheless, Wall envisages as the ultimate aim the rolling back of both the market and the state. To this end, he wishes to "defend, extend and deepen" the commons against enclosure
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
as a way of giving people back their means of production. He believes that the extension of the commons provides the best model for consensus-based social and ecological management and sharing. In the same vein, Wall supports Open Source Software
Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
as one of the "new commons regimes... created with technological and social change", one which "is a stunning example of how both the market and the state can be bypassed by cooperative creativity". "Marx," he quips, "would have been a Firefox user".
Non-Violent Direct Action
Wall stresses the importance of combining electoral politics and non-violentNonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
to affect change. Babylon and Beyond focuses heavily on unique and creative expressions of anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
economics and protest, and Wall tells protestors "to keep making noise". He has cultivated ties with African-American and Afro-Caribbean Green activists and takes a strong interest in the controversial Pennsylvania-based African-American organisation MOVE
MOVE
MOVE or the MOVE Organization is a Philadelphia-based black liberation group founded by John Africa. MOVE was described by CNN as "a loose-knit, mostly black group whose members all adopted the surname Africa, advocated a "back-to-nature" lifestyle and preached against technology." The group...
. From 1995, he helped develop a British-based campaign to free US death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. He has been described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate", and his sentence is one of the most debated today...
.
Zen
Wall practices zazenZazen
In Zen Buddhism, zazen is a meditative discipline practitioners perform to calm the body and the mind, and be able to concentrate enough to experience insight into the nature of existence and thereby gain enlightenment .- Significance :Zazen is considered the heart of Zen Buddhist practice...
and is influenced by spirituality through "pursuing a pagan appreciation of the living world in a variety of ways". In Babylon and Beyond, he argues that Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
acts as a guard against utopianism as it "is based on being in the world rather than escaping from it". He also links anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
and Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
, stating, based on the work of anthropologist and economist Marshall Sahlins
Marshall Sahlins
Marshall David Sahlins is a prominent American anthropologist. He received both a Bachelors and Masters degree at the University of Michigan where he studied with Leslie White, and earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1954 where his main intellectual influences included Karl Polanyi and...
, that "Zen minimises need and provides an alternative road to affluence".
Quotes
- How to be green? Many people have asked us this important question. It's really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills. Here's the answer. Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life.
- At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.
- This will be a long fight and anti-capitalism may fail. Nevertheless, at the very worst, even in failure we might succeed in bearing witness to the pathological absurdities of a world where money makes human beings and the rest of nature a means rather than an end.
See also
- Green Left (UK)
- Red PepperRed Pepper (magazine)Red Pepper is an independent ‘red, green and radical’ magazine based in the UK. For most of its history it appeared monthly, but relaunched as a bi-monthly during 2007.- Origins :...
- Mumia Abu-JamalMumia Abu-JamalMumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. He has been described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate", and his sentence is one of the most debated today...
- ZazenZazenIn Zen Buddhism, zazen is a meditative discipline practitioners perform to calm the body and the mind, and be able to concentrate enough to experience insight into the nature of existence and thereby gain enlightenment .- Significance :Zazen is considered the heart of Zen Buddhist practice...
- John Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and also editor of Monthly Review, an independent socialist magazine. His writings have focused on political economy, environmental sociology, and Marxist theory...
- Ian AngusIan AngusIan Angus is a socialist and ecosocialist activist in Canada. Angus joined the New Democratic Party in 1962 and then the Young Socialists in Ottawa in 1964. He was active in the YS and the League for Socialist Action into the 1970s...
External links
- Another Green World: Derek Wall's Green Blog
- Derek Wall's Books on Amazon.co.uk
- Derek Wall's Green Party Page
- Red Pepper Article, "The Future is Geek": Derek Wall Hails the Open Source Revolutionaries
- Guardian Unlimited Politics Special Reports, "The Leadership Question Is A Cop-Out": Derek Wall, an economics lecturer, is challenging to become the Green party's new principal speaker at its conference in Lancaster
- Canadian Journal of Sociology Online Review of Babylon and Beyond
- Activists Must Be Amphibians: A Review of Derek Wall's Babylon and Beyond
- Socialist Unity Network Interview with Derek Wall
- Weekly Worker Interview with Derek Wall: Going back to Marx