Ten Key Values

This statement of the Green Party (U.S.A.) values was composed in 1984 by the original U.S. GREENS organization. Although it has been reviewed and honed over time, its form has remained consistent for U.S. Greens ever since. It is not a 'platform' per se but a general philosophical statement of values, meant to guide the Greens' organizing strategy as well as our policies. (To see the platform that the California Green Caucus developed around these values in 1998, click here.) Descriptions are stated as questions, intended to emphasize the evolutionary nature of the Greens' program.

ECOLOGICAL WISDOM

How can we operate human societies with the understanding that we are part of nature, not on top of it? How can we live within the ecological and resource limits of the planet, applying our technological knowledge to the challenge of an energy efficient economy? How can we build a better relationship between cities and countryside? How can we promote sustainable agriculture and respect for self regulating natural systems? How can we further biocentric wisdom in all spheres of life?

GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY

How can we develop systems that allow and encourage us to control the decisions that affect our lives? How can we ensure that representatives will be fully accountable to the people who elected them? How can we encourage and assist the "mediating institutions" -family, neighborhood organization, church group, voluntary association, ethnic club- recover some of the functions now performed by the government? How can we relearn the best insights from American traditions of civic vitality, voluntary action and community responsibility?

SOCIAL JUSTICE

How can we respond to human suffering in ways that promote dignity? How can we encourage people to commit themselves to lifestyles that promote their own health? How can we have a community controlled education system that effectively teaches our children academic skills, ecological wisdom, social responsibility and personal growth? How can we resolve personal and inter-group conflicts without just turning them over to lawyers and judges? How can we take responsibility for reducing the crime rate in our neighborhoods? How can we encourage such values as simplicity and moderation?

NONVIOLENCE

How can we as a society, develop effective alternatives to our current patterns of violence at all levels from the family and the street to nations and the world? How can we eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth without being naïve about the intentions of other governments? How can we most constructively use non-violent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree and in the process reduce the atmosphere of polarization and selfishness that is itself a source of violence?

DECENTRALIZATION

How can we reduce power and responsibility to individuals, institutions, communities and regions? How can we encourage the flourishing of regionally based culture, rather than an dominant monoculture? How can we have a decentralized democratic society with our political economic and social institutions locating power on the smallest scale ( closest to home) that is efficient and practical? How can we redesign our institutions so that fewer decisions and less regulation over money are granted as one moves from the community to the national level? How can we reconcile the need for community and regional self determination with the need for appropriate centralized regulation in certain matters?

COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS

How can we design our work structures to encourage employee ownership and workplace democracy? How can we develop new economic activities and institutions that will allow us to use our new technologies in ways that are humane, freeing, ecological and accountable and responsive to communities? How can we establish some form of basic economics security, open to all? How can we restructure our patterns of income distribution to reflect the wealth created by those outside the formal monetary economy; those who take responsibility for parenting, housekeeping, home gardens, community volunteer work etc.? How can we restrict the size and concentrated power of corporations without discouraging superior efficiency or technological innovation?

POST PATRIARCHAL VALUES

How can we replace the cultural ethics of dominance and control with more cooperative ways of interacting? How can we encourage people to care about persons outside their own group? How can we promote the building of respectful positive, and responsible relationships across the lines of gender and other divisions? How can we proceed with as much respect for the means as the end ( the process as much as the product of our efforts)? How can we learn to respect the contemplative inner part of life as much as the outer activities?

RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY

How can we honor cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity within the context of individual responsibility to all beings? How can we reclaim our country's finest shared ideals; the dignity of the individual, democratic participation, and liberty and justice for all?

PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY

How can we be of genuine assistance to grassroots groups in the third world? What can we learn from such groups? How can we help other countries make the transition to self sufficiency in food and other basic necessities? How can we cut our defense budget while maintaining an adequate defense? How can we promote these ten GREEN values in the reshaping of our global order? How can we reshape world order without creating just another enormous nation-state?

FUTURE FOCUS

How can we induce people and institutions to think in terms of the long range future, and not just in terms of their short range selfish interest? How can we encourage people to develop their own visions of the future and move more effectively toward them? How can we judge whether new technologies are socially useful and use those judgments to shape our society? How can we induce our government and other institutions to practice fiscal responsibility? How can we make the quality of life, rather than open-minded economic growth, the focus of future thinking?