11.06.08
Capitalist and Socialist Responses
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Monthly Review
November 2008
Capitalist and Socialist Responses to the Ecological Crisis
Victor Wallis ‘
The global ecological crisis sprang forth full-blown at roughly the same historical moment that global capital-welcoming the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the decay of the revolutionary process in China-was claiming a definitive victory over socialism. The irony of this historic convergence lies in the fact that there could be no more decisive a refutation of capitalist precepts than their long-term incompatibility with species-survival.
Unfortunately, the steamroller effect of capital’s short-term political triumph has shown itself in unexpected places. Corporate hype about technological fixes has meshed conveniently with certain applications of the postmodernist “production of nature” thesis to lend credibility, even in leftist quarters, to the idea that while we might reject and challenge capitalism in matters of democracy and social justice, there is not much that we have to offer when it comes to decisions about production and consumption.
The ecological crisis is a complex mix of dangerous trends. Capitalist ideology characteristically views the components of this crisis piecemeal, thereby obscuring its systemic nature. The buildup of greenhouse gases and the consequent specter of a climatic “tipping point” have been widely if reluctantly acknowledged within the U.S. ruling class, although for the most part without any matching sense of urgency (witness how little serious attention is paid to this prospect in mainstream campaign discourse). But the other-not unrelated-dimensions of the crisis tend to be viewed either as local problems or, more alarmingly, as opportunities for future profit. I refer here to the spread of toxins, the depletion of vital goods (notably, fresh water and biodiversity), and the increasingly intrusive and reckless manipulation of basic natural processes (as in genetic engineering, cloud-seeding, changing the course of rivers).
An adequate response to the crisis will ultimately involve addressing all these dimensions. Given the range, widespread acceptance, and presumed normality of the existing power-patterns that this would call into question, however, such a response will require an unprecedentedly thoroughgoing process of mass political education. We are still only in the earliest stages of the necessary awareness. This means that we must first address convincingly the arguments of those who would downplay the depth of the transformation that long-term species-survival will require. One part of this task-responding to those who deny human agency in the climate crisis-is a matter of pitting straightforward scientific reasoning against assertions made principally by representatives of corporate capital.1 But another challenge to socialist ecology comes from those on the left who, out of a misplaced sense of what is politically “realistic,” put forward the view that the only feasible “green” agenda is a capitalist one. We need to examine (in context) some of the more recent expressions of this view before returning to address the larger practical challenges that capitalism of whatever hue is incapable of meeting.
Full: http://monthlyreview.org/081103wallis.php