Left Unity: The Importance of a Green Agenda
With the urgent need to present an alternative to the neo-liberal project and to fight its austerity measures, are we in danger of forgetting about the threat of climate change? Richard Willmsen argues that Left Unity must have at its base a radical green agenda.
The earth, taken from http://www.onearth.org/blog/the-great-carbon-bubble
The last couple of weeks have seen the publication of two articles in the mainstream media whose implications could not be any more explicit or terrifying. According to last week’s Guardian we face a(nother) global economic crisis as a result of the imminent bursting of the ‘carbon bubble’: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/19/carbon-bubble-financial-crash-crisis. What this means is that the energy markets have not yet priced into their models the fact that most of the world’s fossil fuel resources will have to stay in the ground if the world is to make any serious attempt to tackle climate change. The energy industry’s concerted efforts to sponsor inaction on climate change have, therefore, been an ongoing and desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable moment when their share prices take into account either the fact that their well will very soon run dry or that the global ecosystem which sustains all human activity will soon collapse.
Another article published today on the BBC News website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22002530) goes by the title ‘How is the world going to become extinct?’, and reports that a group of Oxford scientists are addressing this question very seriously indeed, speculating about what will (not might) deal the killer blow to the human race: an unpredictable and uncontrolled acceleration in computer technology is a contender, the unforeseen ecological side-effects of new synthetic organisms another. As this is the BBC, the article makes no specific reference to climate change, but it is unlikely that the scientists themselves are quite so complacent. In the words of Dr Nick Bostrom, “There is a bottleneck in human history. The human condition is going to change. It could be that we end in a catastrophe or that we are transformed by taking much greater control over our biology…this could be humanity’s final century.”
So, to recap: either we fundamentally and immediately transform our economic way of life and our relationships with technology and our environment, or we face not just social collapse but planetary annihilation. Could the need for a workable alternative to the insanely destructive logic of neoliberal turbocapitalism be any starker?
It is therefore critical that Left Unity have at its base a radical green agenda. It is not enough to pay lip service to the need to ‘protect the environment’. Every aspect of our opposition to austerity and our revisioning of society, each one of our policies and initiatives must be conditioned by the need to dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and develop sustainable alternatives. The concept of climate justice must also be a founding tenet of our organisation, especially given that climate change is already having a devastating impact on the lives of millions of people around the world, especially the very poorest. Above all, the question of who pays for climate change is a profoundly political one; thanks to another recent Guardian report (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/global-elite-tax-offshore-economy) we know that no less than $21 trillion is currently hidden in offshore accounts by the world’s rich. The resources we need in order to begin to reconstruct society on a fairer and more sustainable basis are there. If we are to survive for more than a few short and painful decades we simply have no alternative but to join together and seize them.
27 comments
27 responses to “Left Unity: The Importance of a Green Agenda”
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Spot on. Capitalism is incompatible with a low carbon society. Firstly capitalism relies on profits made by selling commodities, which means that the system relies on bouts of overproduction followed by crises.
The ecological impact means that when markets are expanding the pressure is on to extract resources, speed up production, and fly the products to the corners of the earth and beat the competition. This puts huge strain on the resource base of the planet.
Only under socialism can there be a proper debate about the level of resource extraction that is publicly required, without the debate being hi-jacked by the markets, corporations or neo-liberal policy makers. This last point is important as it enables us to make ecology part of our transitional demands.
A further point worth making is that less resource intensive, and therefore lower carbon, technologies exist on a more human scale, and are easier for workers and local communities to take over and run for themselves. Since the establishment of capitalism there has been a growing expansion and complexity in the structure of industries, so that no single worker can comprehend the whole process. This has been completed largely in the worlds of oil, nuclear, chemical and IT production, where complexes and systems confront people.
Therefore the re-humanisation of the production process is an eco-socialist demand that is going to be increasingly relevant as the century progresses.
As an initial aside I think your recap is somewhat adrift of the points made. The conclusion you wish to make may or may not be valid but it is not justified by these references.
With regard to less intensive resources being more easy for workers to take over and local communities to run, where is the logic behind this? Assuming that energy requirements and style of life are going to be maintained as they are, rightly or wrongly, then how does this follow? If you mean workers taking over the company at the top and operating it, then how on earth does this ever happen ? If you mean at a lower scale then again I see the arguement as inherently flawed. If you consider electricity production as an example then I, as an engineer, can’t see a bunch of workers or anybody much else taking over and satisfactorily operating a grid based system, complete with complex levels of control and balancing. If you reduce it merely to the means of generation then it becomes slightly more plausible for small plant, but large plant is a different matter. At present it is hard to see any scenario whereby the large plant can be dispensed with in any realistic way. Once you start looking at biomass derived systems then the dream of low technology involvement vanishes once you realise that most workers don’t like the physical hard work involced. I have a small farm, and for example spent all day yeserday felling large, dead trees for forewood. It’s hard work, in difficult conditions, and some risk. There are not many people now who can stick this kind of work, depsite the initial claimed enthusiasms. Your ambitions may be laudible but you need to base it on reality not some utopian dreamworld.
Eco Socialism ..a contradiction in terms ..as is the idea that a green agenda is against austerity …its not that long ago that Caroline Lucas was calling for rationing , George Monbiot was saying hurrah for the recession and calling for a bedroom tax … Greens and environmentalism = the enemy of socialism and working class people … We need to be arguing against the culture of limits and go back to basics ..abundance for all ..not poverty for all …
Well said, Richard.
Tackling the economic and enviromental crises goes hand in hand. Nations, regions, localcommunities becoming more self sufficient is an essentia part of this….this does not mean total self sufficiency as that is not possible without a return to a hunter gatherer way of life but greater self sufficiency at all levels is possible. It will involve the creation of a bottom-ip society where the locus economc and political power is localised and decentralised. Whether those who sre declared socialists like it or not this is not vonsistent with any form of centralised state planning and the truth is that “markets” are inescapable. However, markets have to be seen as networks of human beings interacting not some monstrous behemothimposed upon them. I suggest some attention is paid to the sceince pf networks, complexity and emergence and it then beomes clear that ehat matters is how the interactions, rules and boundaries of the neteork are defined is what matters. That means it is amatter of how markes are tuned and regulated,…on their rules. A social market system is the only way to link the parts of a decentralised, bottom up economy. I will leave mycomments here but I am currently working out a broader set of ideas in what I have called “A Manifesto for a New Scotland”..if anyone is interested in reading more let me know..it is a work in progress and I hope to develop it further through collaboration.
Jim Osborne, Glasgow
Socialism is going to go nowhere fast if it doesn’t work out its attitude to these issues. I think the “abundance for all” mentioned by Micky D is the place to start. I have been working out ideas on this at http://www.peoplenature.org and invite you to have a look.
Undoubdedly The need to reduce environmental plotion and waste has to be a significant part of a radical socialist agenda. Masses of people will only join Left Unity however if we have a manifesto which promises good jobs for all , and a high standard of living for all. Yes we can hack away the luxury goods sector and the hyper consumption of the rich via progessive taxation – but we need a plan which shifts the balance of our economic sectoral mix from parasic financial chicanery to more manufacuring. We need a radical regional policy which restores skilled job availability in bulk to the deindustrialised wastelands outside the South East. Some of these key objectives may conflct with the “Green Agenda” at times. But if we are to be a mass Left radical party, then the job creating agenda has to have ultimate priority. The middle classes may be prepared to put environmentalism at the very top of the agenda. We cant if we are to build a new mass party with major working class support, and a new prosperous country with good jobs for all .
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Of course you are right that we need “a manifesto which promises good jobs for all , and a high standard of living for all.” I think that you are also absolutely right to say that “we need a plan which shifts the balance of our economic sectoral mix from parasic financial chicanery to more manufacturing” and a regional development policy that creates “skilled job availability in bulk to the deindustrialised wastelands outside the South East.” However, I think that you are quite wrong to assume that these key objectives necessarily conflict with an ecosocialist industrial policy.
Industrial policies that take into account the massive interlinked crises of climate change, resource depletion and environmental degradation are not incompatible with secure jobs and a decent standard of living for all – but they are incompatible with capitalism’s anarchic and ever more desperate struggle for new markets and more profits.
An ecosocialist industrial strategy has to have aims and objectives quite different from the crude imperative to capital accumulation that is currently the sole driver of economic activity in our society. It must recognise not only the inherent instability, injustice and unsustainability of the capitalist mode of production, but the limits to our ecosystem; that the biosphere on which we depend is finite, closed and constrained by the laws of thermodynamics.
We therefore should have five key aims in developing our industrial strategy:
1 The assurance of meaningful employment and a life of dignity and modest comfort for all.
2 The development of a low carbon society, with a sustainable low carbon industrial base.
3 Freedom from a reliance on endless growth in the production of commodities.
4 Industrial production based on social needs rather than the maximisation of profit.
5 Democratic control in and of the workplace.
We should establish 10 key objectives in beginning to implement those aims:
1 To reduce greenhouse gasses (CO?, methane and nitrous oxide) emissions by at least 80% within twenty years.
2 To increase electricity production by at least 80% within twenty years.
3 To retrofit thermal efficiency equipment and materials in all existing homes, public buildings and commercial premises within twenty years.
4 To replace or totally refurbish 20% of existing homes and 50% of public and commercial buildings within twenty years.
5 To increase the use of public transport by 250% within ten years.
6 To reduce real unemployment levels to a maximum of 2.5% within four years.
7 To create at least one million new jobs directly concerned with infrastructural reconstruction over four years.
8 To abolish income differentials between men and women within enterprises within five years.
9 To reduce income differentials within enterprises to a maximum of 10:1 within five years and then progressively to a maximum of 5:1 within a further ten years.
10 To ensure that tertiary education and training/retraining is freely available to all within five years.
Of course creating jobs has to be our key priority. But they have to be jobs which are sustainable – economically, socially and environmentally – and only a society based on democracy and an industrial policy based on production for need rather than profit can deliver them.
So called ‘ EcoSocialism ‘ will not enthuse anyone beyond a handful of hairshirt greens and they already have their own party to vote for …In order to win votes socilaists need to be able to provide ordinary working people with a vision of a society in which they are better off , both materially and in every other way … Promising people a ‘ life of dignity and modest comfort ‘ is nothing more than promising them poverty forevermore …
There is nothing inherently wrong with the avergage person having access to consumer goods , being able to fly abroad for holidays , drive a car and all the other things associated with a modern lifestyle…We should seek to be able to provide this for everyone …and all the nonsense about self sufficiency and localised production is just that ..a throwback to pre industrial serfdom …thanks but no thanks …
We need to move on from the gains of capitalism , and there have been many ( as Marx realised ) in order to provide societies rich in production and consumption , pro new technology , pro cheap energy and realise that all this blather about regressing from capitalism into some sort of imagined rosy romantic enviro utopia , is actually just a backwards step into a hellish past … Whats next ? are ‘ ecosocialists ‘ going to call for more homeothapy in healthcare as opposed to stem cell research ?
If LU is anti-capitalist then it can be pro-green as a post-capitalist society based upon human need, not profit, involves collective decision-making. It gives humanity, for the first time ever, the ability to consciously shape its destiny. Giving us the opportunity to collectively recognise the importance of living in balance with nature.
But if LU ends up trying to reform capitalism it will be torn between promoting capitalist growth for more jobs & trying to change anti-ecological individual behaviour, such as taxing fuel even more. In otherwords, all the time we have capitalism there is a conflict between reformist policies that help the working class & reformist policies trying to save the planet.
We need an anti-capitalist LU, not some hybrid Old Labour/Green Party reformism.
I think that you are conflating ecosocialists with reactionary ‘deep greens’ and rich cranks like the late Teddy Goldsmith, Micky. One of the really important things that we all have to do if the Left Unity initiative is to develop into a real mass movement is to abandon the bad old tendency of many groups and individual socialists to simply dismiss the views of others by accusing them of advocating things that they haven’t, such as wanting to ‘regress from capitalism into some sort of imagined rosy romantic enviro utopia’, or just respond with ad hominem insults (‘Trots’, ‘stalinists’, ‘petit bourgeois feminists’ and now ‘hair shirt greens’ spring to mind). We all have to learn to really listen to each other with respect and respond thoughtfully – if vigorously – to each others’ ideas.
If you don’t think that working people are confronted with interlinked crises of climate change, resource depletion and environmental degradation you should say so, and we can debate that issue. If you do accept the scale of the environmental challenge facing us you perhaps should make clear how you believe that a socialist society should deal with it.
” Eco Socialism ..a contradiction in terms ..as is the idea that a green agenda is against austerity …its not that long ago that Caroline Lucas was calling for rationing , George Monbiot was saying hurrah for the recession and calling for a bedroom tax … Greens and environmentalism = the enemy of socialism and working class people … We need to be arguing against the culture of limits and go back to basics ..abundance for all ..not poverty for all …”
Ah , but they did say those things …both mainstream green voices …and Johnathon Porrit is part of the Optimum Population Trust , which cites population growth as a problem , whilst using pictures of black babies to promote that theme..
Climate change is not automatically the eco apocalypse some think it is , neither are other features of green doomsterism ..people on the left should read something optimistic for a change ..Bjorn Lomborg / Sceptical Environmentalist , Matt Ridley / The Rational Optimist , Daniel Bel Ami / Ferraris for all ..AV Mountford on the climate gate scandal ..
Greens are the enemies of progress , economic growth , wealth creation …they are also the enemiey of the working class …its hard to see how one is comradely with a bunch of people who stand against much of what socialists have fought for over the years …
Hi Mickey
There is no longer a debate on existence or possible extent of climate change, the only reason it took so longer to establish it as a scientific fact is because very powerful vested interests have made an extremely concerted attempt to prevent a consensus emerging as to the need to respond to it, as I mention in the article. It is now, fortunately, a universally accepted scientific fact and, tragically, an empirical reality. We now need to address the question of how to adjust to it and to deal with it in the most democratic, equitable and sustainable fashion. If you do not wish to make a constructive contribution to this debate there is little point in continuing this discussion.
There’s no point in taking up your climate denial, as you are adhering to it because you consider ecological considerations to be incompatible with socialism. This kind of reasoning is called “policy-based ‘evidence'” and does not do you justice.
If you want to be led entirely by what the “tradition” said, you will find that Marx understood discussed ecological limits, especially in relation to agriculture.
Marx was also a supporter of the shorter working day. That, in part, involves getting rid of wasteful production, either due to replication of effort as a result of competition, or the production simply for profit of essentially useless commodities. Think about the life-cycle of bottled water as a simple example.
“Growth” is a capitalist concept. You will find that war, disease and crime all contribute to economic growth. Is that supportable.
As for Ferraris: 2 million people, mainly non-motorists, are killed by motor vehicles every year. Is that socialist?
Think about the difference between use values and (capitalist) exchange values…..
Well done Richard for raising this key question.
Leave out the misguided comments about “hair shirt greens” (where did I put my best hair shirt?). No-one is talking about the (largely dreadful) Green Party except those who raise it as a straw man. We are talking about genuine socialists who also recognise the seriousness of the ecological crisis we face.
The key problem (that only someone who entirely disregards science can ignore) is the grave global environmental problems threatening us. These include, but are by no means limited to, global warming. These problems will clearly destroy society as we know it unless we address them seriously and urgently.
Anyone who thinks we can just pursue socialism, on its own, in this situation is simply refusing to face reality.
The question for those who do recognise reality is simple: Is Left Unity going to be based on the twin pillars of socialism and environment, or is it going to be another futile socialist project that ignores the ecological systems that support our life. We need to answer this question now, at the start.
Mike Davies
We have three establishment parties who will talk green ,but from an evidence perspective they are woeful in commitment or delivery . We have had “go blue get green” yet they commit to spending millions on new nuclear power stations .We see their coalition partners letting nuclear be part of the so called “energy mix”,then talk up the so called “green deal” & the green investment bank,which to date has helped who ?.
Labour also wedded to nuclear as well ,yet will tell people about their green credentials (contradiction or what).
LU should come at the green agenda not stating it has all the answers ,but be prepared to engage prior to policy making with environmental groups .locally & nationally ,which in turn tells many sections of the community that LU is a listening organisation ,that does its politics in a thought through manner & is a outward looking movement willing to engage in dialogue & in ideas to ensure we can deliver PERHAPS a new growth area in jobs ,that are both sustainable ,needed & for a LIVING WAGE .
There is nothing wrong with an umbrella approach on policy/ideas on what is after all OUR planet & one which we are just custodians of for our respective generations therefore important LU gets it right !
Peter………….
The question is ..is Left Unity going to be putting the positive case for wealth for all , or is it just going to ape the fashionable green doomsterism of the day with clap trap talk of apocalypse / disaster etc … The environment has never been cleaner , people are living longer and technology ( yknow ..the ability to overcome natural limits , make nature work in our favour ) continues apace …Are we for nuclear power , gmo foods , nanotech … etc ..or are we taking the luddite approach ( ” ere be dragons ” ) so beloved of most of the left in recent years … If its the latter then please dont call yourselves Socialist ..
” As for Ferraris: 2 million people, mainly non-motorists, are killed by motor vehicles every year. Is that socialist?’
No its bad driving …
The “Eco-Agenda” is obviously a major theme in the discussions on this Left Unity website. It of course simply isn’t such a priority amongst the mass of ordinary citizens our proto new radical Left party needs to recruit from and engage as voting support. Having said that, I for one cannot agree with Micky D that “the environment has never been cleaner” (might be in most of the UK ,Micky, but in the recently industrialised regions of China and India., etc, where the capitalist class have exported the “smokestack” industries which still manufacture the physical commodities of our society, pollution and industrial death rates are more pre-victorian than 21st century). There is undoubtedly a lot to be done to make our human productive, extractive, agricultural and physical infrastructure activities more sustainable for future generations and our planet.
However, “Socialism” for me, and for the majority of citizens who may be attracted back to it, is all about creating abundance for the majority by fully exploiting the technological brilliance of our species for the general good. Doing this whilst as far as is possible safeguarding our environment , for now, and future generations,is a part of this package.
We need to recognise though that just as “socialism” has many different “schools”, some extremely distasteful and reactionery, from collaborationist reformist social democracy of the New Labour ilk, to the murderous tyranny of statist totalitarian “Stalinism” , to the racist lumpen ” Strasserism” of fascism. So “environmentalism” has throughout the 20th century, and today, had many different “faces”. The early 20th century “back to the soil” agricultural idyll adherents of early German fascism (from which Himmler sprang), and fascism’s critique of mass production and Big Business vis a vis the small producer, shares a lot of common roots with current worldwide “Green” positions . Similarly the aristocratic , “we don’t want our green and pleasant estates mucked up by the plebs overbreeding” , “green” beliefs of the likes of Prince Charles, are also the dark side part of this “broad church of “greenness”. So neither the “green” or “socialist” histories or ideologies have historical clean hands.
The point for us today as radical democratic socialists is surely to embrace environmental concern and environmental best practice, but without compromising our objective to fully utilise the technologies and techniques of our brilliant human species to build a world in which there is no hunger, no unemployment, no poverty. We cannot compromise on this economic objective. To do so is to cease to be socialists in any meaningful sense, and of course also simply means that the mass of working people out there desperate for a quality job , good housing, good education for their children, and top quality health and welfare services, will simply have no interest in our new party. The Green Party has scooped the electoral pool for the comfortably off middle classes who can even think in terms of “rationing being perhaps necessary in the future” and “austerity not being such a bad thing , because it safeguards the environment”. Let the Greens keep that electoral cohort. We shouldn’t compromise our socialist politics to compete for either that type of voter or member.
We are not part of that type of “Green” tradition or ideology. We must be a radical Left party, fully signed up to an environmentally responsible agenda, but in the context of drastically reining in the outrageous consumption of the superrich, seeking new , efficient, environmentally sensitive ways to produce energy and products, and minimising waste, whilst massively boosting the productive capacities of society to provide a rising standard of living to the mass of our citizens, and assisting in the struggle for the same worldwide.
Personally I feel that a green agenda is essential for any political group aiming to look to the future but I take umbrage at the idea that it’s purely about carbon output or indeed that it’s incompatible with economic growth. (I should say now that I don’t necessarily equate economic growth with the fundamentalist capitalism that this country has been overtaken by – if we are to plan to operate in the real world growth as a whole country is still going to be desireable for some time to come).
In face especially in the UK with it’s engineering and service industry there is a lot of scope to forge a new green economy that benefits everyone. At the end of the day we can’t compete globally with the other main manufacturing bases, nor do I think it’s right that we go ‘full luddidte’ and become an agrarian economy.
No matter what our views the truth of the matter is that the country where we live will probably need to operate at least in a vaguely seemly manner in the global economy for some time to come. If traditional manufacturing and raw materials industries are revived we should still strive to make them as green as possible and then make our green technology skills into another export product.
As for rationing I think there needs to be a sea-change pretty much globally as to how power is used and shared. The amount of power and energy used could easily be reduced using technology, and again the technology and science sector is something we’ve managed to just about keep.
I did ask someone the other day, but apparently many of the deep mines are going to be inaccessible after being capped and filled, and of course as we all know many prior manufacturing locations have been re-purposed or razed.
My comrade, Mike Davies, may feel obliged to adopt diplomatic language when dealing with people like Micky D. I feel under no such obligation. Mr. D is either an agent provocateur or, if his comments represent the genuine point of view of someone active in Left Unity, then he is a dangerously unhinged lunatic who should be regarded with pity perhaps, but certainly given no political credence as his ravings are, at best, ignorant and arrogant, and at worst fascistic and suicidal nihilism.
Anyone who really believes that Climate Change is benign and poses no risks for human civilisation; that population growth (whether the babies are black, brown, yellow or pink) is not a problem in a world of finite (and probably shrinking) food resources and grossly unequal distribution; that uncontrolled increases in consumption and never ending economic growth is both possible and desirable and that environmental sustainability is not desirable (or in fact absolutely bloody essential) for the future of our species… is either criminally selfish and so short sighted that he sides with the capitalists who want to gorge themselves today and don’t care if this condemns our kids to poverty and starvation in a generation, or alternatively is simply stark raving mad.
The precise consequences of severe Climate Change are not known (and that in itself is incredibly dangerous) but it is quite possible, and perhaps probable, that it poses as much of a threat to our species and to human civilisation as nuclear war did (and still does). Any significant rise in global temperatures (eg. 2, 3, or 4 degrees Celsius) will be unevenly distributed but we can reasonably predict that amongst the consequences will be a huge rise in sea levels and serious disruption to existing weather patterns. Both of these spell disaster for human population centres (most of the world lives in cities and most cities are on low-lying land). They would also devastate agriculture and food production and distribution.
If the Greenhouse Effect becomes a runaway process with catastrophic self-sustaining feedback and temperature increases lurching upwards (and nobody knows if they can be held at the 2 degree mark) then our species could be extinct in a few generations and human civilisation will collapse much sooner. I am not saying these things definitely will happen – I don’t know, and nor does anyone else, but the risk is unacceptably high and getting higher with each hour, day, week and year, that nothing effective is done to halt the process.
What is absolutely certain is that the continued assumption of never ending growth in consumption and energy use, based on the unsustainable exploitation of finite natural resources and the burning of fossil fuels, is a sure way to guarantee disaster. This lunacy depends on widespread economic, technological and biological illiteracy and on personal greed and short-termism (of workers as well as capitalists) blinding people to the medium and long-term consequences of their actions (or inaction).
The Alliance for Green Socialism consists of socialists, and socialist/marxist organisations who have concluded that environmental sustainability is an essential pre-requisite for socialism to succeed, and that socialism is the only system under which we can achieve that sustainability. We are quite prepared to debate these issues with others on the left (and so far we are the ONLY left organisation which declares sustainability to be an absolute necessity rather than just a fashionable, and disposable, add on) but I see no point whatsoever in trying to unite with people who are so wedded to selfish personal consumption and nineteenth century economic assumptions that they blind themselves to reality. Let’s hope that Mr. D is as isolated within Left Unity as he deserves to because there is quite enough work to do convincing enthusiastic but inexperienced people that they cannot immediately found a new party on the basis of a simple desire for ‘Left Unity’ (which I share as much as anyone), without having to waste time dealing with complete nutcases.
As for rationing – there is nothing reactionary about promoting this, in fact in the developing and future situations I think it will be a socialist principle. There has always been, and will always be, rationing of one kind or another: the question is whether it is done by price (eg. where only the rich can afford to eat anything but gruel) or by entitlement and quota which shares out what there is to all citizens on the basis of need. I know which one fits with my principles.
” As for rationing – there is nothing reactionary about promoting this, in fact in the developing and future situations I think it will be a socialist principle. ”
There you go ..youve just outed yourself … ‘ Austerity for all ‘ …..nothing socialist about you at all , authoritarian perhaps , backwards yes ..but socialist ? Get real …
Tell me how you are going to get working class people to vote for more austerity under the banner of your reactionary green nonsense …
” unhinged lunatic agent provocateur fascistic ‘
Dont hold back any will you ? Consumerism is a great thing , its lack of consumption that is bad …its called poverty , austerity , mass unemployment … Personally i look forward to the day when those presently starving in Africa etc are wandering around shopping malls texting each other on their smartphones as to where they are going for lattes … that would be progress ,not your green doomsterism with its attendant authoritarian streak which says rationing is a good thing …
It has to be said Micky D, that while there is an authoritarian green faction (often posing as anti-authoritarian), the question of ecological sustainability is a very important one. I think falling into the trap of dichotomous thinking is a very dangerous one here; just as there is an authoritarian ecology there is also an ecosocialist agenda, one that may even be a little to libertarian for the majority of people seeking to found a new political party. A call for the liberation of wealth for all is at the core of the socialist spirit, but to think of this wealth solely in terms of access to smartphones and cafe lattes is already to reduce what a socialist concept of wealth could be. Obviously, it would be better to have a world where starvation was replaced by western style living for all, but does wealth only consist of, what can only be thought at the present time as, accumulated commodities? Isn’t wealth also attached to notions of the commons, and to a global commons? What kind of socialism do you think is attainable on a dying planet?
I don’t think calls for rationing and global austerity is a good way to go either; but would people want all this crap in a socialist world? By which I mean, would the newest smartphone and the latest coffee joint be so fetishised? The question isn’t one of whether or not these items are produced or available but of our relationship to them. If it were anything else, Marx wouldn’t have called for collective ownership of the means of production but for their destruction. To see environmental concerns as only ever luddite concerns is like seeing socialism as merely a way of killing kulaks.
On Steve’s affirmation of a policy of rationing: this is well beyond the current situation and is merely a statement of his own particular apocalyptic imagination. Still, we need to begin from the beginning; from the position of what bodies need to live. Without a habitable planet, every other consideration is merely a pipedream; that said, in the time between now and some impending ecodisaster, if it even is unavoidable (the jury is out), then we still face the fact of billions of people living now. That the universe will eventually turn cold isn’t an argument against going to work; so apocalyptic fantasies aren’t an argument against socialism.
Wanting everyone in the world to have the levels of personal consumption currently ‘enjoyed’ by middle class North Americans and Western Europeans is not just crass, it is exactly the kind of capitalist utopian crap that we are being fed by the Yellow Press and the Right Wing media all the time. I heard one “Free Marketeer” on the radio this week saying that the sweatshops in Bangladesh were helping to bring millions of Bengalis out of poverty and this should be replicated across the developing world, despite occasional tragedies like the collapse of the building in Dacca. This is the Big Lie writ large.
The growth of sweated labour industries in Bangladesh (and to some extent in China and India too) is what has swallowed up much of the enormous and unsustainable population growth of those countries. If it wasn’t for these industries providing work for much of the population that can no longer live by working the land then Bangladesh would be in a far worse state than it is (and it’s in pretty bad shape now). However, these industries don’t provide decent jobs and secure employment. They provide dangerous and insecure jobs on poverty pay. The factories undercut textile and garment manufacturers in richer countries for a while but this is no route to prosperity. A change in demand (or a collapse in world trade in certain items) could wipe out these jobs in a very short space of time.
In the case of China – they have thrown all their eggs into the basket of export led growth and are now utterly dependent on continued (capitalist) world trade to sustain themselves, having abandoned Mao’s policy of self sufficiency in food completely. If there were to be a dramatic drop in world trade and a failure of the rice harvest in large parts of Asia (and climate change makes both much more likely) then they will be well and truly in the shit.
Mass consumerism on the model being promoted by capitalism is not sustainable – do you get it? It doesn’t matter whether people want it or not (although getting people to accept reality is a practical problem). They, the great mass of humanity at large, cannot have it because it is impossible to produce and consume at this level without another dozen or so planets to exploit – but we only have the one. Allowing capitalism to con people that they can and must have the impossible and the unreasonable (like that three year old child) is the purpose of much of our mass media – why should we have to put up with such infantile, puerile and frankly insane rubbish in a discussion amongst supposedly adult socialist.
So let’s concentrate on developing a socialist strategy to build environmentalism and sustainability into our policies and our political organisations. I hope Left Unity will succeed in this but I still see signs that it is seen by some as an add-on. Lots of parties have some good policies on environmental issues (the SP for instance) but when push comes to shove they have often been prepared to leave them to one side (as in TUSC) because they have no real ideological commitment to, or understanding of, the central part these policies must play in modern socialist analysis and campaigning.
If Left Unity is really Left then it must be Green as well. If it just pays lip service to environmentalism then it will just go the same way as so many other ‘Unity’ initiatives over the years.
I agree on Micky D’s blindness to production processes, the unsustainable nature of capitalist production and the weirdness of the thought that people would fetishise commodity consumption in a socialist society. As I said, wealth doesn’t just come down to commodity or capital accumulation. At the same time, I share concerns about how to approach these problems with people outwith the ecological movement. For instance, do we suppose that grim prognostications will do anything? Those people who remain unconvinced by warnings of ecological disaster (which I personally think is a real possibility) do so because of cognitive dissonance and the development of a sort of delusional way of thinking…but delusions aren’t forms of false consciousness or unconsciousness, they are pragmatic ways of coping with strange experiences and overwhelming realisations; you can’t argue someone out of a delusion. The challenge is how to get people on board with an ecological orientation such that it is attractive and desirable.
There seems to be a lot said about growth in the above debate. I tend to agree with the idea that capitalist growth follows the popular logic of the cancerous tumour: exponential growth based upon the voracious consumption of resources in competition with the host. In this case, capitalism competes with the planet in order to use up all their is in order to achieve economic growth. Yet this growth, which is measured by the production of material wealth, isn’t just about growth in and of itself, is it? It is about competition between different arms of production, according to the terms of capital markets in which a lack of growth means failure, means loss, means collapse. It is thus not simply a matter of saying that mass consumerism isn’t sustainable, it is that capitalist markets are unsustainable. Consumerism, the demand for consumer products, doesn’t come from people; the demand for wealth, for conditions beyond scarcity and deprivation, is what people express in their desires. In a world of advertising and fashion, of the shaping of minds by these kinds of producers,desires get captured and captivated into commodities (material goods and immaterial experiences- like going to a cafe for a latte). This isn’t to fall back on false consciousness or the stupidity of the masses, it is however to say that when people are offered what looks like a way to attain their desires they will go for it.
Remaining with growth, doesn’t it feel a bit like all that is over anyway? Has capital been primarily accumulated through material production or has an illusion of growth, an illusion that in the last decade has come crashing down, been sustained by the accumulation and trading of fictive capital? While it is clear that fictive capital can’t operate without material production, and while the financial market is not immaterial in the sense of lacking all materiality (it depends on computers, Micky D’s beloved smartphone, and so forth), it does seem that what we have been living through has already been an abandoning of growth. Growth disappeared and was replaced by the image of growth. so the question is whether or not social well-being is necessarily tied to the growth of exchange values. If it is the case that growth isn’t going to kick in again anytime soon- and that whatever wealth is being produced is being concentrated more and more the pockets of a plutocratic class via aggressive austerity practices- then the question of people getting on board might be based on the mismatch between the promises of consumerism and its inability to deliver, which is what we saw in the 2011 riots. It will also be based on the shift of people’s desires from a widescreen TV to a decent place to live and enough to eat. This transition is already underway but right now, and for a time to come, I suspect that consumer desire and material need will coexist.
For my own part, I practice a kind of Stoicism; a detachment to material accumulation that doesn’t fall into a Cynical rejection of material possessions. The Cynic Diogenes lived a frugal life, repudiating material goods on the basis that they were immoral (I know this is not your point). One day, the homeless Diogenes, dressed in rags, came to a stream to fetch himself a drink of water from his simple clay cup. When he got to the stream he was a young girl drinking from it with cupped hands. He threw his cup away and announced that he had been out done in simple living by a child. When people see you talking about rationing, I think this is the image that they have: a Cynic’s life of almost abject frugality. Indeed, while this might eventually become necessary (how can jump over their own shadow to say it won’t?), I don’t think most people are keen on the idea of living like a Diogenes…a condition that capitalism is already creating. Even the Stoic insistence on a detachment from material goods (that is, being neither obsessed with nor averse to them) seems unlikely at the moment.
So my questions are: do we have enough material wealth already for people to have enough?; should we conflate the demand and desire of people for wealth and the current capitalist understanding of how that demand should be answered?; how do we address the ecological crisis without seeming like harbingers of death, paralysing people or looking like bastard’s come to take everyone’s pretty things away. In the immediate instance, while the majority of people in the UK are unconvinced or unaffected by the ecological crisis, how do we work so as to get them on board?
I hope my post doesn’t seem antagonistic at all, and I hope that it isn’t completely missing your point. I ask these questions not out of a sense of hostility but genuine desire to be part of conversation that would seek answers, no matter how provisional.
You cant fight the politics of austerity by basically promising more austerity …we need to convince ordinary people they will be better off under socialism as opposed to some reactionary hatred of comsumerism …