What an ecosocialist analysis has to start from
Comments on socialistresistance.org2010sA comment by Alan in the thread under “London climate demonstration shows new radical mood” on socialistresistance.org.
The publication's own web text.
Editor's note. Under Liam Mac Uaid's report of the climate march in London on 7 March 2015, PhilW wrote that we should avoid phrases like “the damage that humans are doing to the climate”, which lead to moralising appeals for individual change, to populationism, or to despair at human nature, and so demobilise the struggle. “An ecosocialist analysis has to start from the nature of the capitalist system and its requirement for ever-expanding growth in exchange value.”
I don’t agree with PhilW on this (his comments above).
I don’t see the problem in taking about “the damage that humans are doing to the climate”, because it is true. Nor do I see a problem in saying that people need to change their behaviour in order reduce their carbon, or indeed their ecological footprint. It is not moralising (or demobilising) to say so. It is not as important as structural changes at societal/governmental level of course but it is important because such personal choices have a very big impact on both carbon emissions and wider ecological damage.
Even more problematic is his assertion that: “An ecosocialist analysis has to start from the nature of the capitalist system and its requirement for ever-expanding growth in exchange value.” This is true up to a point; but it is a very narrow (and inadequate) view of the ecological crisis as a whole.
It is true that capitalism with its drive for profit and growth is the biggest single factor in the ecological crisis today—but it is part of a much bigger picture. Even if we ignore the fact that capitalism is a product of human beings ecological destruction by humans did not start with the emergence of capitalism, and, in my view, will not automatically end with its demise.
What an ecosocialist analysis actually has to start from (in my view) is the role of modern humans in the current geological epoch. The uncomfortable fact is that modern humans are (and always have been) the most destructive species the planet has produced, and have always had a disproportionate impact on the environment and particularly on other species. Our impact on the biosphere, including species extinction, long preceded the arrival of capitalism.
Modern humans eliminated most of the big land animals and flightless birds they came across after emerging from Africa. With colonial expansion, sailors and colonists rampaged though isolated and vulnerable species such as the dodo, the great auk and the giant tortoise. Species went from abundance to extinction in very short periods of time—particularly island populations.
It’s true that environmental destruction (of all kinds) was greatly accelerated with the emergence of capitalism, but it was never just capitalism. Industrialisation—with or without capitalism—was (and is) also a massive challenge to the environment. As result of all this we are witnessing the greatest species extinction disaster since the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Whilst a socialist society would create far better conditions to turn all this around it would still be a huge challenge. The absence of capitalism would not be enough. For most of the 20th century capitalism, and its drive profit, ceased to exist over a third of the globe; in the Soviet Union and China. The impact on the environment, however, was at least as damaging as it had been under capitalism.
The reality is that environmental destruction will continue after capitalism is gone unless a sustainable alternative to it is prepared and constructed—which is far from an automatic process. This is another example of what ecosocialism is actually about. It is about the struggle not just for a socialist society, but for a sustainable socialist society, which is very different matter. One that is able to live in harmony with nature and not at its expense.