BOOKS Green Politics and Neoliberalism

Citation

Toke, D. (2001), "BOOKS Green Politics and Neoliberalism", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 85-89. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijshe.2001.2.1.85.1

Green Politics and Neoliberalism, by David Toke, is a ground‐breaking text, first because of its arguments that green politics is about much more than the environment and, second, because of the argument that green politics is a credible alternative to neo‐liberalism.

Neo‐liberalism, which shuns co‐operation in favour of social division and excessive competition, can be criticized for the social and individual stress which it causes. These failings can be analysed by extending the green critique of the external costs of economic growth to criticise the social costs of excessive competition. The book uses empirical examples drawn from the USA and the UK.

Some of the key themes discussed in the book are discussed in the October issue of The Political Quarterly, the leading UK politics journal. In this article, as in the book, Toke discusses how green radicalism poses a more credible alternative to neo‐liberalism compared to the discredited hard left, which is seen as promoting an inferior method of achieving the same materialist aims as neo‐liberalism.

The book begins with a discussion of how the success of green arguments in changing ideas about environmental policy can be effectively studied through the analysis of discourse. Toke continues with a critique of dominant, materialistically‐based notions of rational choice which are used to analyse politics and demonstrates how green politics seeks to re‐interpret people’s self‐interests. He then looks at how, in both theoretical and practical terms, green politics can present an effective alternative to neo‐liberalism.

Toke concludes by discussing how a non‐materialist rationality can be combined with a notion of human progress which puts health and wellbeing before material objectives.

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