Adam Aron’s The Climate Crisis:

Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social Movements

–Review Essay by Kim Scipes

Cambridge University Press, 2023; Paperback; ISBN: 978 1108987158

Adam Aron has written an ambitious book, one he intends to be the book on the subject of the climate crisis; and he has succeeded in many ways, especially for those who want as many of the specifics as possible.  He has written a book carefully supported by evidence and much research that not only includes the science behind “global heating”—his term for “global warming”—but also argues for the necessity of generating sufficient public pressure to facilitate political will to force governments and corporations to take action to keep fossil fuels in the ground, while transitioning to an electricity-based infrastructure and society.

Aron’s first three chapters are not anything that someone familiar with the issue of climate change would not have seen before, although he has put them together in a coherent package that is quite useful.  He joins the information with charts that well illustrate his points.  He notes that James Hansen testified to Congress in 1988 that human activities were affecting the planet to dangerous levels, and that “Since his testimony, more than 50 percent of all greenhouse gases in human history have been omitted…” Further, Aron argues, “Time is now running out to keep global heating from reaching levels that would be catastrophic for millions of species and for organized human existence as we know it” (p. 7).

He describes the history of efforts to stop climate change, climate science, and impacts of these changes.  Most importantly—and he refers to it numerous times throughout the book—“… as the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading and internationally recognized “expert” on climate change-KS] recognized in 2018, even a 66-percent probability of keeping [planetary warming below 1.5 degrees Centigrade] would require cutting 2010-level emissions by about 45 percent by 2030” (p. 57).  [According to statistica.com, greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 were 46.99 billion metric tons; a 45 percent cut would limit emissions to approximately 21.5 billion tons; the actual emissions in 2022 were 53.79 billion tons-KS.]

The importance of not exceeding a warming of more than 1.5 degrees Centigrade is monumental; it is the upper limit, according to general scientific consensus, to prevent potentially irreversible effects of climate change (Chu, 2023).  Above 1.5 C, it gets riskier as the temperature increases, ultimately risking crossing “tipping points,” beyond which processes initiated cannot be stopped or reversed, such as a river boat going over a waterfall!

The fourth chapter looks at capitalism and the climate crisis.  It is in the fourth chapter where things get interesting and he opens up ideas that heretofore have been confined overwhelmingly to those who are political radicals of one sort or the other; here, he essentially connects the climate crisis with capitalism.

In Chapters 5, 6, and 7, he focuses on how people who deny climate change develop their beliefs, and he suggests how that can be counteracted.

In Chapters 8, 9, and 10, he focuses from moving people to getting them to engage in collective action.

Aron begins Chapter 8 with a quote from long-time environmental activist and author, Brian Tokar, who argues that the problem of the climate crisis “is not a technical problem to be ‘solved’, but rather a systemic problem, rooted deeply in social and economic structures.”

 Aron talks about national responsibilities for greenhouse gas emissions, noting that the New York Times argues that “just twenty-three wealthy, developed countries have been responsible for half of all historical CO2 emissions, while more than 150 nations have shared responsibility for the other half.”  He further notes that “the USA ,,,  by itself is responsible for almost a quarter of all of these historical emissions,” and then comes Germany, the UK, Japan, and France, with the rest being western European countries and Australia” (p. 192).

Further in this chapter, Aron focuses on the problems of “extractivism,” the metal mining and projects to extract raw materials from the Earth to help advance the supply of renewable energy.  And here he’s generally focusing on multinational corporations’ effects on developing countries.

The rest of the chapter is extremely interesting:  he focuses on technical and market solutions to the climate crisis.  In doing this, among technical fixes, he considers large hydropower projects (dams); bioenergy, biomass, and biofuels; new nuclear power plants; and geoengineering.  Under the section on market fixes, he considers cap-and-trade efforts, carbon offsets, and carbon pricing or taxing.  In short, he argues, “… the only sure way to prevent more global heating is to leave remaining fossil fuels in the ground and invest in a fast and massive build-up of renewable energy sources” (p. 220).

And what I find especially of interest in this chapter is that he carefully examines and largely refutes all of the various proposals put forth by multinational capital and most of their controlled governments, including projects advanced by the US government.  To carefully address these various proposals in the way that he did should provide activists with ammunition to knowledgably oppose these kinds of projects.

Chapter 9 is where Aron provides a technical and social framework to guide climate action.  He starts off by quoting another climate activist and author, this time Stan Cox, who argues “to free ourselves from fossil fuels as soon as we can, to establish ecological stability and to ensure fair shares for all” is our goal.  Aron follows that path.

He examines the technical feasibility of the transition to renewable energy by examining challenges for a near-total reliance on renewable energy sources—examining the cost; and land, raw materials, and energy requirements—and then advances a framework for political action, including economic support, regulations and policies, social programs, and strategies for combatting the compulsion for consumption.

The penultimate chapter, Chapter 10, is exciting.  Although he did not put as sharply as would have I, he argues the necessity of collective action to make the changes necessary:  “… the kinds of changes that will be necessary to complete the transition from fossil fuels in time to avoid the worst consequences of global heating are unlikely to take place without concerted governmental oversight and action, which in turn is unlikely to take place unless national decision makers are compelled to act by pressure from below” (253).  In other words, people have to get mobilized and organize themselves to force governmental officials to do the right thing when they are deciding these issues; without this grassroots mobilization, it is unlikely that the government will take necessary action.

In this chapter, Aron discusses social movement theory, including forms of organizing, types of struggle, frames of meaning, and locus at which social change is focused.  He then discusses social psychology theory.  Then he gives examples of climate change movements, during which he discusses 350.org, Extinction Rebellion, and the Sunrise Movement.  He then follows with an interview of Masada Disenhouse, the Executive Director of San Diego 350.  Then, interestingly, he discusses how an individual can be active without being an activist, which suggests a number of things one can do to contribute to making the world better without having to devote your life to activism, suggesting how they can contribute to the struggle.  This is something quite useful that I have not seen previously.

Altogether, he concludes his book with three “conclusions”:  (1) that international agreements will not be made workable until they have succeeded at the national level; (2) that to avoid catastrophe, fossil fuels must be left in the ground; and (3) that the key to widespread public support can only be won when individuals and collective efforts join together create active grassroots mobilization.

—

There is both a lot of excellent information and, in my opinion, political confusion in this book.  As far as I can tell, his analysis of the climate crisis is well done and congruent with many critical thinkers.  It seems excellent and is based on the best scientific knowledge currently available.

However, there are a number of areas that I feel are inadequate for his purposes and are worthy of further discussion.  I take them in turn.

Aron never considers conservation efforts; and “conservation” is not even listed in the index.  This is important because there are studies showing that we cannot replace all energy requirements met today by fossil fuels with renewables alone; we are going to have to considerably reduce our energy usage or continue to use fossil fuels.

His proposed “solution” or set of solutions is contradictory and inadequate; like many “Green New Deal” advocates, he has thoughtful ideas.  However, while he believes that capitalism is causing the environmental problems, his proposed solutions are limited to reforms—yes, fairly radical reforms in places—but they do not address the heart of the problem:  capitalism is killing us.  We simply cannot live as we are today, building onto the growth model, and ensure the survivability of large numbers of humans, animals, and many plants into the 22^nd Century:  we are going to have to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and quickly.  From the science I’m reading, there is no alternative.

While I think he’s absolutely correct to specifically interrogate the role of capitalism in the role of climate change—and agree with many of his findings—I don’t think he goes far enough.  While I do not know if Aron considers himself a Marxist or not, his approach limits his work in ways comparable to how Marxist analysis is generally limited.

In other words, the strength of the Marxist approach is the focus on the economic system and the political institutions that support it (specifically, their version of the state).  And this is certainly a key part of any critical analysis. 

However, Aron ignores the issue of power and domination beyond the economic system.  In other words, I argue that there is more to the world than economics; that there is also a political realm that is not limited by economic production, distribution, and consumption.  [There are other realms as well—such as community and kinship—but I want to limit my comments here to the political aspect.]  In other words, this political realm operates on its own dynamic—the striving for power and domination—that is not constrained by economics.

This is important in that it allows us to include the concept of “Empire” in our analysis.  Basically, the idea of Empire incorporates much of human history, where those having power actively seek to dominate and control not only people and area of their own land, but also those of other lands, whether because of seeking economic resources (such as raw materials, natural resources, related production, and/or human beings for home-country development), geo-strategic advantages (such as naval base locations), or even social benefits [such as demonizing “others” (i.e., “minorities”)] so as to buy social acquiescence from the majority), or any other reason that those seeking this power can put forth; a capitalist analysis simply cannot encompass all of this without stretching itself all out of shape.

In other words, Empire allows us to understand how one capitalist—or usually, one group of capitalists—can either seek to dominate or protect itself from another group of capitalists:  by mobilizing the productive capacity of multiple capitalists and converting some of their economic resources into military weaponry under military leadership of armies, navies, and air forces, as well as other forces such as the CIA and/or the NED (the so-called National Endowment for Democracy), they extend the reach of their power.  Thus, capitalists within an empire are able to project their control and/or defend their land in ways simply unavailable through general capitalist production.  And, when used offensively, an empire can secure more economic resources, geo-strategic advantages and/or social benefits for enhanced capitalist production and profitability not only in the “home” country but in the subjugated lands as well.

Aron makes the same mistake that many leftists today make:  they do not recognize that the United States of America is the homeland of the US Empire, the greatest, strongest, and most destructive empire (to date) that the world has ever seen.  Accordingly, there is no discussion in this book of the US Empire seeking to maintain control over as much of the world as possible since at least 1945, if not earlier.

Nonetheless, the cost of the US Empire has been great on the world’s peoples, with the costs escalating dramatically since 1981, with the Reagan Administration but continuing under both subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations.  Its military is the single largest polluter in the world, and each invasion involves much killing and destruction, and is an environmental nightmare that continues for decades if not longer:  Vietnam is still suffering from Agent Orange and unexploded ordinance utilized in the American war, which ended in 1975, and Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering as well, along with the other countries bombed by the US Empire but not invaded (Libya, Syria, and former Yugoslavia come immediately to mind although the list is much longer.) 

Over $18 trillion dollars of US taxpayer money has been spent on the Empire’s war machine alone—I refuse to call it “defense”—over the past forty years, resources stolen from the American people that could have been utilized for advancing education, providing health care, improving the infrastructure, addressing social inequities, aiding environmental recovery, addressing homelessness, and mitigating against climate change here at home.  Somehow, this was not mentioned, much less addressed, by Aron.  [While I am commenting specifically on Aron’s positions, I do not mean to demonize him; most leftists still do not understand the US Empire, and I am arguing it is way past time that each of us incorporate this understanding into our respective analyzes.]

However, an Empire cannot depend solely on its economic and military power alone; it must gain acquiescence if not active support from its “home” population; after all, this home population is where it has got to obtain “soldiers,” the cannon fodder, for the imperial armies.  Thus, there needs to be a cultural apparatus to tell the population that basically—and traditionally—“war is good business; invest your sons” (and more recently, daughters), and encourage them to do so.  This gets projected in many ways, starting with the education system, and this usually includes the religious system, but this is where plays, novels, TV, radio, film, and much of social media come into importance; seize the imagination, seize the acquiescence! 

If you think I’m exaggerating, think about all of the cultural energy in the United States that goes into sports (both local high school and college, as well as professional); explicit sexual material (“pornography” and all things related); celebrity gossip; beauty, fashion, and modeling; and news production; each intended to draw attention away from problems such as hunger, poverty, and inequality, much less capitalism, war, empire, and the climate crisis.

And these “diversions” are not “small” things; each of these areas require overall investments in the multiple billions of dollars, seeking even greater profits.

And we on the left have generally failed to include the mainstream corporate media and their role in “setting the agenda” in our analysis as to what people should focus upon.  During Fall 2023, an incredible amount of attention was paid to Donald Trump’s attempted coup on January 6, 2021—as it should have been—but there was so much focus on the details of this that the climate crisis had all but disappeared from US news reporting.  Then, after October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its military attack on Israel, almost all coverage was of Israel as “victim,” and for a long time, was the only perspective seriously reported; it was only after massive protests across the US that some news from a Palestinian perspective or even from critical Israeli sources even was shown.

At the same time, despite all of the extravaganza, our political elections are generally devoid of providing substantive information and addressing real issues, usually only providing to audiences of Americans the “thinking” of those who have been able to raise the most money from the rich.  Money buys further attention which, in turn, attracts further financial contributions, which allows the successful candidate to represent the interests of contributors, not constituents.  And much of the political “debate” is in-fighting among political candidates; and almost as soon as one election cycle is completed, other candidates emerge and start the diversionary process anew, always seeking money, time, and attention.

At the same time, however, even these people are constrained by the interests of the “news” producers, who do not allow candidates to address issues inimical to their’s, or to go beyond their limited parameters; think how little time has been devoted to the climate crisis in contemporary mainstream political discussion/debate.

And yet, the consequences of such elections can have profound impacts on people around the globe, both abroad and at home.  They behoove those of us who are politically aware to participate, at least to certain extents.

In short, this larger “ideological apparatus” is as important to the Empire as is the economic system or the war machine although perhaps not as immediately noticeable.

And, once established, cultural norms become especially important because of the dominative power they project over subjects; questioning established norms, and especially challenging them individually, risks making oneself vulnerable to counterattack, however defined, but covering the range from denigration, mockery, to being made to feel vulnerable and, ultimately, physical violence.

Thus, central for effective cultural domination is the establishment of individualism as desirable; “I don’t want to be with anyone else; they’ll betray me, they’ll cheat on me, they’ll make me limit my desires.”  And they may persuade me to look at things differently than I would on my own.

Yet—and this is the key point—individualism precludes resistance at much of any level.  And this is illustrated by the old saying, “You can’t fight City Hall,” a warning, if there ever was one, of the futility of challenging power, whether structurally, culturally, or even normatively.

However, that saying and all it suggests can be easily undermined by simply adding one word, which illuminates the power of collectivity:  “You can’t fight City Hall alone!”  Add that one word, and you change everything:  broadscale social change, while perhaps extremely difficult it might still be, is now possible when you seek others to join you in the same project.

This is where we come back to capitalism, which is essential to confront.  The fact is that capitalism is killing us.  And it’s killing us through growth; an essential requirement of capitalism is that it must grow to survive; i.e., it is a growth machine.  And it is so much of a growth machine that it must grow beyond what is needed for survival or even living at a sustainable level by every human being on the planet; it must create the demand for growth beyond what is naturally there.  In other words, to put it in terms perhaps more metaphorically understandable, it is like a cancer that must continue to grow even if it destroys the host, ultimately causing its own destruction and demise.

In plain language, we either kill the cancer or we kill the host:  there is no alternative.

The point I’m making here is that Aron is basically on target:  our established production system threatens the existence of humans, animals, and most plants on this planet.  By utilizing fossil fuels for energy, each—oil, coal, and natural gas which, when burnt, attack the atmosphere surrounding and protecting the planet from the sun’s rays by emitting “greenhouse gases” (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and low altitude ozone)—are contributing to the escalating threat to survival of living things on this planet.

As Aron has explicated, for over 100 years, scientists have shown that adding carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere has raised the temperature of the Earth.  We now know that for over 800,000 years—no misprint!—the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere have never exceeded 300 parts per million (ppm).  Yes, natural processes, such as exploding volcanoes have released CO2 into the atmosphere, causing heating to increase and decrease over time, but never in this time period has it ever exceeded 300 ppm.  Until around the year 1950. Today, according to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), one of the most scientifically renown bodies in the world, it is 422 ppm (see NASA, 2023).

As the greenhouse gases have attacked the atmosphere, which is overwhelmingly made up of oxygen (78%) and nitrogen (21%), it has allowed more heat from the sun to get inside of the atmosphere and keep more of what gets in for a longer period of time.  This has warmed the planet approximately 1.1 degree Centigrade since the 1850-1900 period, roughly the beginning of widespread industrialization.

While that might not seem like much of a warming, nonetheless, it has caused myriad changes to our planet.  Most importantly, it has melted glaciers and the ice that cover the planet, and this has led to rising oceans, changes in weather patterns around the world (with increased deaths and destruction by hurricanes and typhoons, along with more deforestation and increased fire damages), death of coral reefs (the home of plankton, the base of the aqua-marine food system that feeds approximately one-third of the world’s population), etc., etc.  And the melting ice does not reflect as much sunlight back into space, keeping that heat inside the atmosphere, and further increasing the temperature of the planet, which leads to more ice melting….

To prevent this problem from escalating further, emissions must be stopped and, ideally, the CO2 and associated chemicals removed from the atmosphere; but in any case, stopped. 

And not in the real-distant future:  if we don’t make major changes by roughly 2030, we’re going to see the beginning of extermination of the human species by the turn of the 22^nd Century, a mere 77 years from now.  That’s within the lifetimes of many of us, and certainly within the lifetime of Gen Z’s children.

This is why incorporating empire into our analysis is so important:  it allows us a way forward beyond which a simple capitalist analysis does not.  By arguing that the United States is the physical homeland of the US Empire—the site of economic production to produce the military weaponry, the financing that enables its use, and the location of politicians who can decide to use/not use it—the US effort to dominate the other countries of the world (usually through political and economic domination, instead of the traditional territorial acquisition) is foregrounded and brought into focus. 

The US has been consciously trying to dominate the rest of the world since at least 1945, if not earlier—and that US governments under both the Democrats and Republicans increasingly have been diverting resources away from the American people since about 1981 so as to ensure the continuation of the US Empire (see Scipes, 2023a).  Accordingly, with this understanding, we can show the necessity of building global solidarity between “ordinary” Americans and the peoples of the world for the good of each of us.

From that, we can mobilize our resources to join together to challenge our respective forms of capitalism that is threatening to destroy us all.

We Americans must reject the US Empire’s efforts to dominate other people’s out of solidarity with the peoples of the world, as only through global solidarity do we have a chance to kill the cancer of capitalism; in other words, only by uniting in global efforts to refuse to overproduce can we have a chance to stop the climate crisis.

That will look different in diverse countries.  The imperial countries, who have tried to capture and monopolize the resources of the world, will have to give up usage of large amounts of them.  This is so as to give the formerly colonized countries additional resources to improve the lives of their peoples, and then keeping the rest in the ground.

In other words, by recognizing the US Empire, we activists are forced to look at all the countries of the world, and not just concentrate on our own.

Concurrently, the issue is do we forthrightly confront that problem collectively and try to come up with solutions addressing historical inequities and having the least impact on the largest numbers of people, or do we continue as usual, and let the rich make the decisions—either directly or through their bought-off politicians—which will hurt most of us dramatically and detrimentally?  That is the issue at hand.  Yet nowhere in this book is this laid out so forthrightly.

And finally, I must go even further.  To his credit, Aron recognizes that mere “policy positions,” scientific papers, etc., while necessary, are not sufficient to fight climate change; we need to mobilize the citizen to force the end of greenhouse gas emissions as well as other forms of environmental destruction.  He is clear on that.

However, in my mind, even that recognition is not sufficient.  We must have a program by which to try to win support from the US population as part of the global upsurge; for an earlier effort, see Scipes (2017).  But I’d also go further than Aron in another way:  he argues for mobilization, but that, too, is not sufficient; as I’ve argued elsewhere (Scipes, 2023b), we need to build organization as the foundation for mobilization.

In short, I argue that while Aron is raising critically important issues—and I give him credit for going as far as he has done—I don’t think he goes far enough in fully understanding them so that we can attempt to resolve them.

CONCLUSION

Overall, how do I see Adam Aron’s The Climate Crisis?  I think the scientific material to be quite strong, although I wish he could write more directly; his use of charts and graphs is quite helpful.

I am less impressed with his political “answers.”  However, he raises a lot of key points not usually included that have stimulated my responses, and I expect they will raise responses from others.

I think this is an important contribution, and definitely deserves additional attention.

References:

Chu, Jennifer. 2023.  “Explained:  The 1.5 C Climate Benchmark.”  MIT News, August 27.  On-line at https://news.mit.edu/2023/explained-climate-benchmark-rising-temperatures-0827.

NASA.  2023.  Evidence as to climate change:  on-line at https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/.

Scipes, Kim.

—        2017.  “Addressing Seriously the Environmental Crisis:  A Bold, ‘Outside of the Box’ Suggestion for Addressing Climate Change and Other Forms of Environmental Destruction.”  Class, Race and Corporate Power.  On-line at http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol5/iss1/2.

—        2023. “Forty Years of the United States in the World.”  Z Network.  On-line at https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/special-history-series-40-years-of-the-united-states-in-the-world-1981-2023/.

—        2023.    “Organizing to Save the World:  Building Organizations from the Group-up.” Green Social Thought.  On-line at http://www.greensocialthought.org/content/organizing-save-world-building-organizations-ground.

Biography

Kim Scipes, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Purdue University Northwest in Westville, Indiana, and a long-time political activist.  He has published four books and over 260 articles in peer-reviewed and specialty journals, general interest magazines, and local newspapers in the US and 11 different countries; a complete list of his publications, many with links to original articles, can be found at https://www.pnw.edu/faculty/kim-scipes-ph-d/publications/.  Scipes taught a course on “Environment and Social Justice” bi-annually between 2006-2022.

With new FBI and Department of “Justice” (DOJ) attacks expected in early January, a defense, mobilization and information session attracted hundreds of allies of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP). On Friday, December 23 they zoomed into the “Emergency Mass Meeting: Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!” The APSP told its supporters that it expects indictments in early January 2023 and possibly sooner.

Indictments could include many more than the four names listed as “unindicted co-conspirators” during raids of July 29, 2022: Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Party Director of Agitation and Propaganda Akilé Anai, African People’s Solidarity Committee Chair Penny Hess and Uhuru Solidarity Movement Chair Jesse Nevel.

At 5 am that morning, the FBI invaded multiple St. Louis locations, including the private residence of Omali Yeshitela and his wife and APSP Deputy Chair Ona Zené Yeshitela and the Uhuru Solidarity Center, as well as the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg FL.

During the December 23 webinar, Yeshitela vividly recalled that flashbang grenades were set off and laser points were directed at his chest when he opened the door of their home, and a drone almost hit Ona when she came down the stairs. Both of them were handcuffed and the entire Black working-class St. Louis neighborhood was under siege for hours. The federal agents seized all of their devices, such as computers and phones, thereby seriously hampering their political work.

As reported by Toward Freedom, in St. Petersburg FBI agents lured Akilé Anai “outside her home, saying her car had been broken into. Upon opening her car, they forced her to hand over her devices.”

The FBI and DOJ claimed that the raids were sparked by Yeshitela’s having conversations with with Aleksandr Ionov, a Russian they accused of spreading “Russian propaganda.” During the webinar Yeshitela described how insulting and demeaning it was to insinuate that the APSP is unable to analyze African people’s state of oppression and make decisions for itself but can only reach conclusions after Russians tell it what to think.

This is particularly chilling for those who do solidarity work with Latin America, Africa and Asia. According to the precedent set by the July 29 raids and indictments, anyone who meets with any representative of another country could face criminal charges under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which the APSP expects to be used to justify their bullying. Actions against the APSP could lay the foundation for indicting me for interviewing and writing about Cuban doctors.

Legal abuse could be leveled against everyone else who has visited the island and explained what the revolution has accomplished. The FBI/DOJ could indict Monthly Review for publishing my book on Cuban Health Care along with every other publisher who releases books on Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and other countries that have resisted US imperialism.

A noticeable exception would be citizens and lawmakers who meet with and are influenced by agents of Israel. They have no reason to fear harassment. Of course, it might be quite different for those having the temerity to meet with Palestinians.

After the raids, the Black Alliance for Peace announced that it would “concentrate its efforts on not only opposing the U.S. war agenda globally but the war and repression being waged on Black and Brown communities within U.S. borders.”

A major purpose of the December 23 webinar was to build nationwide and international support for the July 29 victims so people are prepared to respond when the indictments come down. In light of this, the Green Party of St. Louis issued a statement which appears below. Following it are the APSP’s “Principles of Unity” which it asks organizations to endorse. You can communicate your support at the website HANDSOFFUHURU.ORG.

The Other Barrel

What is written above only describes one barrel of the corporate state’s shotgun. The other barrel consists of efforts to shut down the many projects under the APSP umbrella. They simultaneously offer meaningful life-changing needs for those in poor Black US communities and provide examples of what a socialist society could look like.

The projects are part of what the APSP calls its “Black Power Blueprint” (BPB) and what socialist theorists might call “concretization” of its ideas which “prefigure” a post-capitalist society. The BPB’s efforts may be the most extensive integration of theory and practice occurring in the US today.

Perhaps the prime example is Uhuru Wa Kulea (African Women’s Health Center) which has a vision “to provide health and self-care programs that reinforce our traditional African culture, and invest in the future of our community with doula and childbirth educator certification programs along with opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship.” Concepts for the Center rely heavily on the health care system of Cuba, which now has life expectancy greater than the US, due to its focus on women and children.

APSP-related efforts also include

• The Uhuru House Community Center which transformed a condemned building into a three-story community event and program space named Akwaaba Hall;

• A Community Basketball Court to allow for “spirited youth programs” and tournaments;

• Murals at the Gary Brooks Community Garden that has been in operation for two years and at the recently completed Community Basketball Court which depict “Black families controlling our own culture and food economy by planting, growing and harvesting food from the garden;”

• Completed renovation of a 4-plex apartment building devoted to housing for the African Independence Workforce Program which creates jobs for those re-entering the Black community from the prison system;

• The Uhuru Jiko Kitchen and Bakery/Café which, once the refurbishing of an existing commercial structure is completed, will bring African economic and cultural life to a depressed commercial area and will help stop gentrification;

• A planned program for the Black Power Square where condemned buildings have been removed to make way for retail opportunities by utilizing shipping containers to house community-based small businesses and create jobs.

The above are in St. Louis. APSP also runs Uhuru Foods and Pies in Oakland CA and St. Petersburg FL, a community garden/farm in Huntsville AL, furniture stores in Oakland CA and Philadelphia PA, a radio station in St. Petersburg FL and the Burning Spear newspaper.

The goal of attacking the APSP leaders is to exterminate every project and every component of the BPB which Omali Yeshitela speaks of as “building duel and contending power,” funded to a significant degree through reparations raised by the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM). The government, of course, has virtually unlimited police and legal resources at its disposal to drown out dissent. If it can force the APSP to divert its energies and limited budget to its legal defense, the FBI/DOJ can undermine projects and terrorize solidarity activists even if it imprisons very few.

This is the message from one barrel of the snarling state:

“Don’t hope for a new life …

“don’t imagine a new world…

“and certainly don’t try to build one …

“because capitalism is all you can look forward to.”

The other barrel of the shotgun screams that efforts by US citizens to build solidarity with victims of global oppression will be met with the most vicious attacks the corporate state can muster.

Statement by Don Fitz on behalf of the Green Party of St. Louis, December 23, 2022.

The Green Party of St. Louis fully agrees with the right of African people to advocate and organize for the unification, liberation and self-determination of Africa and African People as laid out in the “Principles of Unity.”

The FBI raid of July 29 was not just against the APSP. It was an attack on all working for social justice and liberation.

As has happened many times before, governmental violence was unleashed first against Black/African victims to serve as an example.

The Biden administration is fully responsible for opening one of the most repressive eras in US history.

We would have to go back to the racist president Woodrow Wilson and his imprisonment of Eugene Debs to find a case of people being arrested so blatantly for their political beliefs.

Even during the US war against Viet Nam, people were not arrested merely for listening to Vietnamese views or visiting North Viet Nam.

The current actions of the Biden administration are a message that no one can question his proxy war against Russia – a message that Americans have lost the right to make their own decisions.

The events of July 29, 2022 are meant to intimidate any who stand in solidarity with movements and countries who are struggling for their liberation, such as Cuba.

They are warning that the same could happen to supporters of revolutionary Venezuela.

The FBI raids are a threat to those who defend the right of Nicaragua to chart its own course.

Indictment of Uhuru members aids and abets those criminals who overthrew the democratically elected government in Peru on Dec 7, 2022.

Biden’s proxy war against Russia gives lie to his supposed opposition to climate change. One of the real reasons for Biden’s “Hate Russia!” campaign is to allow US corporations to corner the market of fossil fuels in Ukraine and force Europe to buy US natural gas at absurdly high prices.

Under Evo Morales, Bolivia sought to control its own lithium, a critical element for “alternative” energy. When he was violently overthrown, the Trump/Biden supporter Elon Musk (of Tesla fame) proclaimed “We will coup whoever we want!”

The great majority of the world’s cobalt, also essential for “alternative” energy, lies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (home to many other essential minerals). Efforts of the Biden administration to destroy the APSP reveals his plan for anyone who advocates self-determination for Africa.

Principles of Unity

We unite with the right of African people to advocate and organize for the unification, liberation and self-determination of Africa and African People.

• We denounce the FBI and US government’s attacks on the African Liberation Movement historically and currently

• We demand that the US government drop the charges against any member of the African People’s Socialist Party, the Uhuru Movement and those named and implied in the indictment and warrants

• We demand the return of all confiscated property to the Uhuru Movement and compensation for damages and payment of reparations for the attacks

• We demand an end to FBI surveillance and infiltration of the Uhuru Movement and release of all documents on the Uhuru Movement since the 1960s

• We denounce the assault on the anti-colonial activity and programs of the African People’s Socialist Party/Uhuru Movement such as the Black Power Blueprint and other economic institutions and projects.

Find out more about the repression! At 6 pm CT, January 9, 2023 join the APSP update on the indictments and defense. Click on https://handsoffuhuru.org/ and scroll to “Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!” to register. At 7:30 pm CT, January 11, 2023 the Missouri Green Party will have a webinar on “The Long Story of Repression in the US.” Email the author at fitzdon@aol.com to get information and to register.

Don Fitz (fitzdon@aol.com) is on the Editorial Board of Green Social Thought. He was the 2016 candidate of the Missouri Green Party for Governor. His book, Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution, has been available since June 2020.

 “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” – Audre Lorde

So long as capitalism dominates, there is no escaping its unrelenting assault on rational and humane cultural values and practices, most prominently today in the form of the consumerism purveyed in every media by commercial advertising. 

Even worse is the pervasive example of many of capitalism’s leading representatives, teaching through their demeanour and authoritarian delusions their commitment to hierarchical and exploitative order.   

And when all else fails, the ruling class casts up from its midst prominent reminders of the tendency of a cornered capitalist order towards fascism. History may not repeat itself, but it most certainly rhymes. Once again, humanity faces the challenge of defeating fascism in its contemporary form (neofascism), lest it take humanity past the threshold between civilization and barbarism.  

An even greater challenge may be recognizing the more subtle purveyance of capitalist values through commercial dominance of popular culture, a dumbing down of more complex reality, a  fascination with technology divorced from its use (currently exemplified by an obsession with trivial use of texting and twittering), a loss of time for reflection (a panacea for rapid thinking and speaking as an alternative to more careful reflection), a continuing emphasis on possessive individualism (exemplified by a preoccupation with the projection of everybody as a star, creating a culture of selective humanity), self-absorption, and the misrepresentation of modest concessions of capitalism to essential humanism as a serious progressive accomplishment.

All the while, capitalism remains the culture of the isms – racism, sexism, chauvinism, nativism, militarism – reproducing the exploitative, alienating, private property essence of the system by thriving on paranoia of the other (“the enemy”).

In our view:

If capitalist culture is overtly hyper-masculine with more than a tinge of misogyny, the emergent culture of an ecologically sustainable society is feminist, with an emphasis on caring.

If the emphasis within capitalist culture is on competition, with selfishness as a core value, the emphasis within the emergent culture is on cooperation, with altruism as an honored behavior.

If money is the measure of everything within capitalist culture, the utility and beauty of human artefacts, the generosity and friendship of people and the diversity and health of nature are among the more prominent measures of value within the emergent culture. 

If capitalism extols nationalism and individualism, the ecologically sustainable alternative values generosity and human solidarity.

Culture as experienced

For the purposes of this introduction to the cultural changes that might be expected to accompany and therefore signal the transition from a predominantly capitalist society to an ecologically sustainable one, authoritarian beliefs and behavior can serve as a marker.  Authoritarian beliefs and behavior are clearly not the only cultural baggage of a hierarchical class society but the shedding of such beliefs and behavior would self-evidently be a marker of the transition to an ecologically sustainable society.   

Authoritarian beliefs and behavior can begin quite innocently enough. As children we were often simply expected to behave. “Don’t play with the matches!” “Stay away from the burner!” “Don’t talk with strangers!”  If we acted accordingly, we probably survived to reach adulthood.   

In school, we were likely successful if we accepted as truth whatever our teachers told us was true, particularly when the information was tagged with the warning that it would be on the test.  If our physics teacher told us that F = ma and if we were able to replace two of the letters in this algebraic equation with the numerical values given us, it is probable that we got the right result often enough to pass the course.  

At our first job, if we did as we were told, we probably stayed on for a while, and may have received our employer’s recommendation for our next job. In most cases, we accepted the authority of our parents, teachers and employers. As parents, teachers and employees ourselves, we have likely compared our actions to those of people we admire or at least accept as authorities and probably, more often than not – if we are honest with ourselves about this – we have imitated them, probably without much thought.    

Knowing that we are professional researchers and teachers and supposing that we might prefer to apply research habits and standards to medical practice, our family doctor advised one of us that in treating a large number of patients within rationed amounts of time, he had to rely on his ability to memorize and recall solutions. There was simply insufficient time for careful, methodical research into each patient’s situation.

There are occasions when safe, positive outcomes depend on such respect for authority. But when confronted with new, complex situations, exclusive reliance on our memory of the behavior and words of those we have come to accept as authorities may not take us out of peril.  In such situations – and in real life these situations occur frequently enough – we need those human capacities that are sacrificed in a social environment that has stressed authority and obedience. We need the ability to consider the objective facts of the situation, to apply scientific theory and appropriate ethical standards to fashion a solution or a course of action.  

Application of scientific theory and appropriate ethical standards requires conceptual understanding and deep personal conviction, respectively. These are not acquired by memorization and imitation or in response to commands. Only when we understand a scientific theory and have reasoned conviction in an ethical standard are we likely to apply them in novel situations. Otherwise, more conventional concepts and standards – however necessary and helpful these have been in other circumstances – might in the new circumstance act as a barrier to successful problem-solving.   

In the face of the scientific evidence of climate change and the environmental harm this is causing, to what do we ascribe the delay in taking essential, scientifically, technologically and economically feasible action to slow down, if not reverse, this potentially species-ending phenomenon?  Has it been a lack of availability of scientific knowledge and technological know-how?  Lack of appropriate ethical standards?  

In addition to the inertia of for-profit industries wedded to the production of greenhouse gases, our contention is that a cultural wall exists between appropriate science and ethics on the one side and our operative understanding and convictions on the other. This wall is the cultural barrier constructed to rationalize conservative behavior even in the face of catastrophic levels of environmental degradation. Who has constructed this barrier? Certainly. the self-interest of those profiting from the fossil fuel industry has played a part. But it is likely that responsibility for denial and delay is more widely shared. In any event, only the collective global “we” can take this cultural barrier down, in the process constructing a new culture, one that is more environmentally conservative.    

Similar questions and responses could be advanced in relation to the aggressive expansion of income and wealth inequality in recent decades and the evidence of the resulting individual and societal harm this has caused. In this case, needed is a culture that is more socially communal.

Definitions of culture

Culture, as used in this article, means “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.” It is used here exclusively in this sense and not in the hierarchical sense (as in the supposedly “high” culture claimed by the ruling elite versus the “low” culture of their subordinates nor the supposedly “civilized” culture of the predatory colonial powers versus the “uncivilized” culture of the resisting oppressed indigenous peoples and subordinate classes among the colonizers) nor in the anthropological sense (of the varied symbolic systems for representing experience of different human societies). For more complete definitions of the three basic senses in which the term culture is commonly used, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/culture.

Among the principal elements of a cultural alternative to that of contemporary capitalism are cultural affinity for and corresponding insistence on inclusive democratic decision-making at work and in the community, human solidarity, imagination, science, conservation of nature and education. Leadership in the struggle for an ecologically sustainable society necessarily comes from those who include these among their cultural norms and practices. The neoliberals with their moribund ideology have become the antagonists of each of these vital elements of a healthy human culture, practices we need if we are going to overcome the socioeconomic crises that the neoliberals have led us into.

Motivation for success in achieving each of these elements of a green social democratic culture is our need to express our diversity, to have our experience included in the discussion and activity which shapes the future. The systems of the 20^thcentury did not accommodate this need.  Those of the 21^st century must.   

A brief elaboration of these principal elements of a green social democratic (ecosocialist) culture is the objective of this argument.  

Generalizing from Eric Hobsbawm’s work, we can gain an historical perspective on culture:

– Feudal pre-capitalist society was characterized by a more authoritarian culture (hereditary authority including Church and feudal lord), primacy of husbands over wives, parents over children and associated culture.   

– Capitalist society is characterized by a transitional culture between authoritarian and democratic. Political systems can include limited electoral democracy. The nuclear family of pre-capitalist society is in capitalist society in transition to a family with greater gender equality and associated culture. This corresponds to a transition from a predominantly agricultural economy to a predominantly non-agricultural one, with associated cultural changes. 

Readers interested in a detailed account of the parallel development of culture and capitalism will find this in Eric Hobsbawm (Abacus Press/Little, Brown, 1962) The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848, (Abacus Press, 1975) The Age of Capital: 1848-1875, (Abacus Press, 1987) The Age of Empire: 1875-1914, and (Abacus Press, 1994) The Age of Extremes: 1914-1991.

In our article, Gaining Revolutionary Perspective, we identified a series of dichotomous social policy variables that were most frequently represented in the twentieth century as choices. In that essay we argued, instead, that social policy determination on these issues can achieve optimal solutions in the form of temporal reconciliation of the opposing human needs through democratic decision making, that in these cases, either/or choices do not present optimal solutions. Included were competition versus cooperation, centralization versus decentralization, globalization versus localization, homogenization versus diversity, exploitation versus conservation of nature and validity versus reliability in measuring outcomes. This theoretical perspective can be applied to the development of transition policy in moving from the dominance of capitalist economic relationships to the dominance of ecologically sustainable relationships between people and with the rest of nature. 

With respect to culture, matters stand differently. The choices are moral ones and should be contested in that sphere. One pole in each of several opposites represents green social democratic (ecosocialist) choices for culture. Our argument here is that we cannot achieve too much of one pole, nor too little of the other. Of the many dichotomous variables that might apply to culture, we single out for discussion here: nonviolence versus violence, science versus irrationality, imaginationversus dogmatism, and education versus ignorance.     

Historically, in relation to feudalism, capitalism paved the way for science, imagination and education to develop, but limits their development. The formal achievement of an ecologically sustainable (ecosocialist) society corresponds to the removal of legal impediments to their unlimited development, including removal of the legal right to use economic power to influence decision-making, removal of the right of unrestricted use of property, removal of the legal right to substitute religious education for scientific education, removal of laws restricting freedom of thought and expression, removal of laws that create barriers to cooperation, and removal of legal obstacles to educational access at any level.

Achieving a society in which these elements are characteristic will necessarily be a process, not an event. It includes making these the distinguishing characteristics of those working towards an ecologically sustainable society. That is, as Tolstoy claimed to be true of all desired changes in human behavior, this change begins with ourselves. Such self-development occurs in the process of our engagement in making these the cultural practices of the society we participate in constructing. Cultural changes take place in the process of the struggle.

Perpetual war and the culture of war or an alternative course?

The main obstacle to achieving an ecologically sustainable global community is war and the culture associated with war, a reality understood by autocrats world-wide. War and preparation for war means military organization and psychology (hierarchy, autocracy, dictatorship, authoritarianism). It favors obedience, conformity, secrecy, and blind loyalty. It provides cover for chauvinism, racism, jingoism, xenophobia, and sociopathic behavior, particularly, but not exclusively, in relation to the “enemy”. It also means wastefulness in the extreme. In other words, it means destruction of people and nature and puts up barriers to science, education, imagination, solidarity, and democracy.

A culture exemplified by fear of the “enemy” greases the wheels of war-profiteering, enhancing the super-profits to be made by the defense and security industries when the public can be persuaded to squander natural and human resources on preparations for war, making war and addressing the consequences of prior wars. War and war preparations beget more war and more war preparations, displacing the attention needed to address poverty, hunger, disease, inequality and environmental destruction and for a just, sustainable future, built on investments in education, healthy people, a healthy environment and global human solidarity.  

A peaceful alternative culture is enabled by a peace movement built upon a foundation of education, science, imagination, human solidarity and democracy. Such an alternative is enhanced as it becomes clear to the decisive majority in all regions of the world that further war-making carries a growing potential for the mutual destruction of the contending parties and an environmental certainty of reduced possibilities for our common future. 

Commercial advertising and consumerism as culture

Surplus value created in the process of capitalist production is only realized upon the sale of the goods and services produced. The profit motive, therefore, is the primary cause of consumerism as a disease, that is, consumption for the primary purpose of satisfying the capitalists’ need for realizing the profit it makes off labor, not for the primary purpose of satisfying the consumption needs of people. 

The monopoly capitalist practice of planned obsolescence of the products that must be sold for capitalist profits to be realized translates into the simultaneous production of an ever-expanding consumer culture and environmental devastation.

The primary weapon at the disposal of for-profit production and sales is the misapplication of the science of psychology. Instead of putting this science to the service of human health and well-being, it is employed through commercial advertising to divert people from satisfying their real needs. Contrary to the neo-liberal claim that the capitalist market serves to meet human needs, the domination within most sectors of that market by small numbers of supersized corporations has another result.  

Commercial advertising is used by them to falsely associate the satisfaction of real human needs with the purchase of the goods and services they need to sell. The disease of consumerism is the result. The cultural fight against consumerism, when directed against its lethal source in monopolistic capitalism, is an integral part the struggle for an ecologically sustainable society in a natural environment not only far less burdened by waste, but unburdened by the further production of waste that cannot be recycled, reused, repaired or stored without irreparable harm to the environment and human health.

Whereas today the power over our lives of for-profit corporations is everywhere evident by their virtually unfettered right to dominate and pollute our cultural landscape with their omnipresent, misleading for-profit advertising, the achievement of an ecological civilization will be most evident by the replacement of in-your-face advertising by scientifically validated information accessible, if people insist on this, only on request by the consumer, not by imposition of the advertiser. This will occur as consumer advocates bring for-profit advertising under stringent regulation, including the requirements that:

– an advertiser’s claims – explicit or implicit – be based on and include the best, relevant, available science needed by the consumer to make a rational decision in their own interest,

– the advertiser is fully liable for damage to the consumer that results from any message contained in the advertisement – explicit or implicit – that is misleading, incomplete or false, and 

– the producers of commercially available products are required by law to provide the information consumers need for a rational choice at point of sale.

Make science, art and information technology public!

Nothing better defines the boundary between the rule of capital and people power in an ecologically sustainable society than the ownership of ideas. On the one side, authoritarianism, secrecy, copyrights, patents, that is, private ownership of the products of science and imagination are the rule.  On the other, democracy and the free flow of ideas, including free access to information, knowledge, and education are the alternative.   

Only by the green social democratic (ecosocialist) route can the promise of the revolution in digital storage and communication technology be fully realized. Capitalism is incompatible with the revolution in information technology. Only an ecologically sustainable civilization can liberate humankind from the barriers placed by for-profit economic activity to the realization of the full promise of information technology. 

The need for an expanding role for creative cultural activity, including work in the arts, sciences and technology, can best be met on the scale required when the creators of intellectual products and services no longer need the protection of intellectual property rights in order to live and work as intellectuals. Only in this changed circumstance can all intellectual products and services be freely shared.  

The expansion of non-market activity in the transition to an ecologically sustainable civilization would open the door to unprecedented opportunities for intellectual activity, including creative work in the arts, sciences and technologies. With increasing free time and public support, the door would be open to every person to contribute and participate actively in the cultural and intellectual life of the community.  

In the transition to an ecologically sustainable civilization, the enormous amount of human intellectual talent and associated material resources wasted in the capitalist market place on false advertising and other intellectual means of propping up a private-for-profit system becomes available for intellectual activity in the service of a culturally rich and environmentally sustainable society. Governments from the local community level to the national one would have the political and economic power to re-allocate these resources to support for voluntary cultural activity in the expanding non-market sector and paid activity in the market sector. Cultural activity could then be as diverse and rich as the decision-making process is democratic and healthy.     

A green social democratic society could thus give to everyone with sufficiently strong motivation and ability what a class divided society provides primarily to its wealthier members:  the opportunity to work as creative scientists, artists, writers, technologists and inventors.   

Parenthetically, a further comment on so-called “intellectual property rights”, corresponding to capitalism, may be in order here. Contrary to a popular misconception, the main beneficiaries of such “rights” are usually not the average intellectual engaged in creating intellectual products.  Like other workers, most intellectual workers are obliged to give their work to their employer as a condition of employment. But not all intellectuals, of course. Some work at least for part of their time as free-lance creators of intellectual products, often supported by other forms of employment, frequently teaching. In the same way that many small businesses work as suppliers of services and physical goods to larger corporations, many free-lance intellectuals supply intellectual products to these corporations. 

The principal financial beneficiaries are usually those with the capital to employ the intellectual products, and not the independent intellectuals who create and may nominally hold or share the copyrighted and patented intellectual work. The supplying intellectuals, just like many small businesses, generally provide their products at a cost that is cheaper than the cost of their direct employment by the corporations that capitalize on the products of their intellectual labor. In essence, free-lance intellectuals, like many small businesses, function as employees, not as capitalists, intellectual property rights notwithstanding.  

Concurrent economic and cultural revolutions

The defining economic and cultural characteristics of an ecologically sustainable civilization are essential to each other, that is, together they define a qualitatively distinct form of society. As such, each becomes a reasonably full and stable characteristic of the society when the others are also achieved. A corollary is that none of the essential economic or cultural characteristics of an ecologically sustainable civilization can be fully and securely achieved in isolation from each other and so long as a capitalist market economy remains dominant.   

An ecologically sustainable society, as we have argued in prior articles, would necessarily be characterized by a non-market economy. Its achievement, however, is likely to take the time needed for a mutually supporting economic and cultural revolution. 

In the process of transition, all economic units would be obliged to report and carry out the will of the people’s popular assemblies. The achievement of rule by these assemblies would mark the transition from dominance by a capitalist market economy to dominance by an ecologically sustainable non-market economy. During this transition period all economic units, whether participating in the remaining market economy or in the non-market economy based on reciprocity and sharing, would be responsible to the people’s assemblies for carrying out their policy decisions, right up to the complete replacement of market activity by non-market activity if that is what the people decide. 

The characteristics of this revolutionary transition period would thus necessarily include:    

• economic and social policy established by democratically formed governing bodies, in a bottom-up form of democracy in which the highest authority would be the community in which a given economic unit is located or is licensed to operate; 
• conflict of interest legislation that would prohibit privately owned economic units, including their owners and managers, from participation and influence over democratic decision-making, reserving that right to the individuals who comprise the community, one-person-one-voice-and-vote, with violations punishable by loss of the continuing right to own or manage capital and with financial liability for any resulting harm; and 
• the limitation of stewardship of resources – private or public – to optimal scale through the right of communal government to require the break-up of privately or publicly owned economic units or the merger of two or more such units in order to achieve an optimum combination of maximum social benefit and minimum waste of human and natural resources.    

In our next article we will consider further several of the major elements of a green social democratic (ecosocialist) culture and their relationships to one another.

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden

Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

www.greensocialdemocracy.org

apcamcfadden@aol.com

“Capitalism’s War on the Earth”: The existential challenge of a moribund socio-economic system

“…capitalism has remained essentially … what it was from the beginning: an enormous engine for the ceaseless accumulation of capital, propelled by the competitive drive of individuals and groups seeking their own self-interest in the form of private gain. Such a system recognizes no absolute limits to its own advance. The race to accumulate, the real meaning of economic growth under capitalism, is endless.” – John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York (2010, Monthly Review Press) The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, p28

Corresponding to the ecological critique of capitalism is a critique through the lens of its financial system. This sub-system of contemporary capitalism preceded the emergence of capitalism as the dominant form of social relations. From this perspective, capitalism is a system based on credit. But credit, as well as its flipside debt, grows at a compound rate of interest while real, physical wealth (based on the Earth and its resources) does not. Debt is a claim by creditors against future production. Infinite debt (the logically ultimate outcome of compound interest) would equate to the infinite enslavement of the indebted to their creditors and an infinite claim against Earth, a finite source of resources. 

A human-created ecological system which necessitates financial credit, such as capitalism, is therefore in an irreconcilable contradiction with the aim of the conservation of nature and of the people who inhabit nature. In a finite human-created ecological system, capitalism – and any other market based economic system – is ultimately unsustainable. Such is our distillation of the arguments to be found in the introductory chapters of Philip B. Smith & Manfred Max-Neef’s (2011, Green Books) Economics Unmasked: From power and greed to compassion and the common good.  

After centuries in which this inherent contradiction at the heart of capitalism has played out, the system has reached its ultimate, ecological crisis. As John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff warned in connection with the 2008 economic crisis (2009, Monthly Review Press, The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences), “there is no possibility that the enormous surplus capital that has fed the financial explosion can be absorbed by productive investment under the present system at this stage in its history and with the existing structure of inequality.”     

Human society, enmeshed in capitalist economic relationships, has reached the stage of unprecedented economic, social, political and environmental crisis and a corresponding final opportunity to change course. This is evident in the rise of democratic popular movements worldwide. Capitalism, now universally characterized by monopolistic private-for-profit corporations, dominated by the cancerous growth of its now megalithic financial sector, has outlived the period of its relative social usefulness. 

Far from being the efficient engine of production and distribution of goods and services envisioned in utopian capitalist theorizing and far from being a partner in achieving a more democratic society, capitalism has turned into the principal barrier to a sustainable, just system of use and distribution of natural resources and has become the main threat to democracy. Its principal characteristics have become an extreme inequality in income and wealth distribution, a wasteful system for using the resources of a finite planet, a growing supremacy of corporate over popular rule and consequent economic and social instability. It has become the principal cause of a potential collapse of human civilization, including encouragement by its most dangerous representatives of racist violence and other expressions of neofascism.

The nature of capitalism: Misconceptions and scientific conceptions

Serving as barriers to addressing the systemic nature of the present crisis are misconceptions about capitalism promoted by its defenders. Here we briefly identify a couple of these misconceptions.  

The sources of wealth?

Scientific conception (classical and Marxian political economy):  nature and human labor are the sources of all wealth.

Misconception (vulgar and neoclassical economics, especially the neo-liberal world view): the claim by capitalists that their additional contribution is the capital consumed in the process of producing goods and services. Rather, this part of capital can be traced to nature and to the expenditure of human labor power, purchased but not created by capitalists. The “work” of capitalists in the process of producing and selling goods and services is to add to their own bank accounts some of the proceeds. The short-changed accounts are those of nature and the people who have provided their labor. 

For a comprehensive correction of this misconception about the sources of wealth, see Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume I. 

Distribution of income from the sale of goods and services?

Scientific conceptions (Marxian political economic theory): (1) After all the expenses of production and distribution of goods and services are paid, including the wages and salaries due to the workers and the replacement costs of used up materials and tools, the remainder of the income from the sale of the commodities and services (“surplus value”) is split between personal consumption expenses of the capitalists, their investment in expansion and their savings for later investment.  (2) The part retained by workers is less than the value of the labor power they have expended in the production process; the surplus is added to the income, savings and investment accounts of the capitalists (“exploitation of labor”.)     

Misconceptions (neo-classical and vulgar economics, neo-liberal view): (1) Workers and capitalists participate as equals in the market place, the workers selling their labor power and the capitalists purchasing that labor power; (2) The part of the income retained by the capitalists is equal to their contribution in the forms of their own capital and labor.

Social and environmental outcomes of capitalist markets?

Scientific conceptions (most serious academic economists): (1) a characteristic of capitalism is the continual expansion of capital, driven by incessant competition which sees those groups of capitalists who have been less successful in expanding the capital under their control being eaten up by other groups of capitalists who have been more successful; (2) the development of capitalism is in the direction of monopolistic capitalism, facilitating collusion between the smaller number of competing capitalists to the disadvantage of smaller capital formations, relegated to the role of exploited suppliers to the more monopolistic ones; (3) the distribution of capital between its various branches (such as the production and sales of consumer goods and services, production and sales of the tools and services needed for production, savings and investment of money capital, and purchase and sale of real estate) tends to move away from equilibrium, resulting in periodic economic crises; (4)  given the inherent priority, reinforced by law in the societies dominated politically by capitalists, of profits over environment and human development, the conservation of nature and the development of human beings are underserved; (5) results, in part, of these  tendencies are periodic social and environmental crises, increasing in severity over time.  

Misconceptions (promoted by corporate sponsored right-wing think-tanks and neo-liberal politicians): (1) capitalist competition in a free capitalist market results in ever-increasing economic growth and development by replacing poorly functioning businesses with those that do a better job of meeting human need; (2) increased competition would be the result of capitalist markets freed of government “interference”; (3) a capitalist market freed of government “interference”would naturally restore equilibrium, reducing if not eliminating the periodic crises that have occurred throughout the history of capitalism; (4) when freed of excess government “interference“, capitalist corporations acting in their own self-interest would serve to protect nature and enhance human welfare and development; (5) social crises and environmental degradation have always been with us, evidence that the causes are other than the natural behavior of a capitalist economic system when it is left free of government regulation.   

For an understanding of the tendency of capitalism towards crisis, including a well-documented analysis of the 2008 crisis, see: David Harvey (2010, Oxford University Press) The Enigma of Capital. For an identification and explanation of Marx’s three laws of capitalism (value, accumulation and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall) and their application to prediction and explanation of capitalist economic crises, see Michael Roberts (2018, Lulu.com) Marx 200: A Review of Marx’s Economics 200 Years After His Birth and Michael Roberts (2016, Haymarket Books) The Long Depression: How It Happened, Why It Happened, and What Happens Next)

Capitalism must die if people are to live

We offer the following outline, based on Karl Marx Capital, Vol. 1 for those who prefer symbolic representation.     

A capitalist market economy can be considered analytically by first assuming that all goods and services created in the process of capitalist production (that is production for profit) are sold.    

It goes without saying that everything not provided for free from nature is created by human labor, utilizing goods and services from nature, where human labor is self-evidently also a natural process.

Implicit in Volume 1 of Marx’s Capital is that the exchange of goods and services occur in the absence of capitalists large enough in relation to their competitors to control the prices paid for goods and services. Marx considered the likely effect of monopolistic practices in later volumes of Capital and in his then unpublished research notes.  

Marxian analysis after Marx has largely focussed on monopoly capital, that is, capital in its contemporary stage, rather than the idealized versions of capitalism still fed to the public by its proponents. But the core of capitalism was already revealed in Volume 1 of Marx’s Capital.

On the assumptions made by Marx in Volume 1 of Capital, and with all the following variables as functions of the time, t, during which a capitalist productive process takes place:

We have the Value Equation:

V = c + v + s   which can be rewritten as   s = V – c – v

where V is the total exchange value (sale price) of the goods and services produced, 

c is the cost of depreciation of the means of production (for example, tools, machines, buildings) and the cost of the materials consumed (also means of production). 

v is the cost of living labor required during the process of production, sold by the employed workers to the employing capitalists. 

s is the surplus value, created by living labor in the capitalist productive process and appropriated by the capitalist class.

The Value Equation, of course, only applies to the total exchanges that occur in a capitalist economy taken as a whole. Each of V, c, v, s is an average value in relation to the total of exchanges that take place in a capitalist economy, and then only under idealized conditions where everything produced is instantaneously purchased. No real market economy can run this smoothly, as evident in the numerous cyclical crises that characterize real capitalist market economies. 

Comments:

1. People usually buy goods and services for the use they can make of them, that is, their use value. However, what they pay for is their exchange value, expressed in the form of money.  This exchange value is represented in the formula above by the capital letter, V. It is the value of all the labor that has been expended in the chain from the extraction of materials and services from nature through to the sale of the produced goods and services. 

2. The cost to the employer for producing a certain value of goods and services includes the amount of past labor, for example in the form of the wear and tear of buildings and machines (measured as depreciation) and the cost of the extraction, reworking and transportation to the employers of the materials consumed in the process of producing new goods and services. Marx called the sum of this the cost of “dead labor” or fixed capital, represented above by the small letter c.  

3. The cost to the employing capitalist(s) also includes the cost of the labor power purchased from the employed worker(s). Marx called this variable capital, represented above by the letter v.  Presumably this would include any necessary contribution to the laboring process made by the employers, although this is sometimes mistakenly included, especially by small businesses, in their declared “profits”.

4. If the exchange value includes a surplus value, there is only one place it could come from, given that all other labor costs have been accounted for. It must be the difference between what employees are paid and employers retain as surplus value, which they usually call profits.  

5.  So before even considering the current stage of capitalism, dominated by a decreasing number of ever more powerful multinational corporations, the relations between capital, labor and nature are already made clear by Marx’s analysis in Volume 1 of Capital. Capitalism is the system of producing a surplus for the capitalists from the exploitation of people and nature. People are exploited through the surplus value they render to the capitalists. The otherwise free goods and services are provided by nature in the form of the degradation of nature through unsustainable capitalist exploitation of nature’s “free” goods and services. Capitalism’s ultimate gift to people is a degraded natural environment. If people are to survive, then capitalism must be replaced by a more sustainable economic system, one that prioritizes the health of people and nature over private profits.

The Capitalist Justification for Capitalism Owes to Labor Productivity

P = V/t

Where P is the productivity of labour,

            V is the exchange value produced 

t is the labor time expended in the production of this exchange value.

Comments:

1. Labor productivity owes to the accumulated history of human invention.

2. However, unsustainable exploitation of nature can drive up the costs of production, for example the extraction of ever more costly to mine minerals and the additional costs of the damage done by climate change. 

3. Moreover, the employment of productive labor by capital results not only in goods and services needed by people, but also in the production and promotion of goods and services that are unnecessary or designed for rapid obsolescence and replacement, in each case recklessly wasteful of nature and human labor.   

4. The alternative is an economic system that prioritizes human and environmental health over private profit. This will be an economy that focuses on use values, not exchange values.

The “Moral” Intent of a Capitalist Market Economy

M’ = M + S

Where M is the money value of invested capital,

            M’ is the goal of capital investment.  

S is the unsustainable increment stolen by capitalism at the expense of people and nature. 

Comment: A sustainable economy is likely one in which the material throughput declines over time. With increasing labor productivity and declining waste, this would mean a corresponding decline in the total number of working hours in material production and a corresponding decline of Gross Domestic Product (as it is usually measured). While the result could be a continually improving quality of life and a sustainable economy, this could not occur in an economy dominated by capitalism. Capitalism must die for people to live.

The people’s revolutionary aims and practices

The achievement of a society beyond capitalism equates to the end of class divisions within society and therefore also of the need for political parties that represent the contending classes. The aim of a revolutionary movement is not a seat at the governing table of a hierarchically controlled class system. It is the elimination of the violence inherent in all class-based social systems. Its main demands are for radical democracy at work and in the community and for a sustainable relationship with the rest of nature. 

Revolutionary consciousness translates into revolutionary action. The test of revolutionary theory is always revolutionary practice. The place for those who have drawn revolutionary conclusions is with the people in struggle for needed reforms. The development of theory and practice, learning and doing, must be mutual to be socially enduring. It must translate into customary practice and law.  

The ruling classes, of course, would prefer to control all the political parties contending for legislative power, including limiting them to demands that do not challenge the system of class relationships. They have even been known to pass legislation or interpret existing laws to exclude those whose aims go beyond what capitalism can profitably accommodate. The struggle for democracy, including the participation of those whose aims go beyond capitalism, is therefore essential to any possibility of an ecologically sustainable civilization.   

However, any society governed by a political party remains, by definition, a class society, one in which those who manage the means of production, including allocate the results, constitute a different economic class from those who do the producing. The alternative to capitalism, by definition, is a society managed by the people themselves, without owning classes and governing political parties. Although the people need to participate in the political struggle to achieve a just, radically democratic, ecologically sustainable civilization, the aim cannot be long term rule by the political parties that support their aims. The aim must remain a classless society, one in which the people themselves, through a more radical form of democracy, decide on what to produce and how to produce it, while allocating the results equitably. 

Condensing the longer list that concluded our article, “Gaining Revolutionary Perspective” (also published in the online journal, Green Social Thought), the inherent aims of any movement to move beyond the violence of capitalism therefore include:

• Radical democracy, including informed participation in decision-making based on science, imagination and education, eliminating employer – employee, property owner – renter, government official – governed, and all other hierarchical relationships, including the associated management and decision-making rights of employers, property owners, and government officials.
• Ecological stewardship responsibility, based on priority attention to restoring and maintaining a healthy biosphere and healthy ecosystems, including the diversity of species within them.
• Usufruct rights to share the commons, including humanity’s cultural inheritance from current and past generations, free from private-property exclusions, constrained only by the equal right of future generations to make the same conservative use of the material and energy resources available on Earth;
• Equal rights to share the structures built by current and past generations, including shelter, meeting space, and all other human-created infrastructure; and
• Equal right to migration and citizenship, ending the political boundaries now placed on the migration, location and associated citizenship of human beings.         

But there is a qualifying consideration in relation to the achievement of these revolutionary aims. The transition to an ecologically sustainable civilization will necessarily take place over a time during which its advantages are established through learning and experience. A cultural revolution requires time. This transition period will necessarily be a contested one. 

While generosity, sharing and reciprocity are already widely valued and practiced cultural norms, we are all presently enmeshed in capitalist relationships, usually justified by corresponding moral views. To avoid destructive violence and enable all to participate in establishing the new relationships needed for an ecologically sustainable human civilization, we will need time for learning and experimentation with the replacement of private property rights by stewardship responsibilities and usufruct rights. 

From the beginning of the transition period to its successful culmination we need the participation of all in the new economy. All have talents that will be needed and must be honored, regardless of remaining political differences. The patience to practice consensual forms of decision making in which each person has an equal say and an equal responsibility to participate is the path forward. 

In this transition from a predominantly market to a non-market economy, use can be made of taxation policy and social investment, expanding opportunities for family members to render assistance to each other, for voluntary activity on behalf of the common good and in the expansion of free social services, such as the current provision of free educational, medical and other social services.  

The greater the proportion of total goods and services provided outside of market relations, the more this experience is likely to promote its further expansion, particularly in the face of continuing social and environmental violence traceable to past and any continuing capitalist behavior. 

Our descendants may then successfully transform themselves and their relationships with each other into fully cooperative ones in accord with the moral principle “from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs.” For that, the cultural habit of determining one’s needs by a quest for comparative advantage over one’s neighbors would disappear. In its place, a cultural habit would develop that identifies needs with no more than is consistent with equal distribution, constrained by sustainable use of resources. In this event, and only in this event, people could then honestly claim to have achieved a society where the “free development of each” assures “the free development of all.” 

In subsequent articles, we will consider the transformation of culture as a necessary accompaniment to a successful political and economic transition to an ecologically sustainable civilization.

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden

Fredericton, New Brunswick, CANADA

www.greensocialdemocracy.org

apcamcfadden@aol.com

The newest book by Giorgos Kallis, one of the most prolific degrowth advocates is entitled Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care. It is a short and accessible read which contains some important and unconventional arguments. In what follows, I will first briefly summarize the core arguments of the book, which promises to provoke important discussions on the matter of limits and subjects. Then I will reflect on the fuzziness of the primarily cultural conceptualization of capitalism, and argue that neither self-limitation nor degrowth qualifies as a mode of production, such that they could constitute an alternative to capitalism.

In fact, the political economist Eleanor Ostrom actually won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009 for disproving the long-held belief known as the “tragedy of the commons,” a theory which held that resources held in common by communities would naturally be overused and depleted. Ostrom’s work demonstrated that this assumption is false, and that it is in fact very possible for resources to be managed collectively without privatization.

We begin by way of a conclusion.

The now globally dominant system through which we make our living in nature is capitalism. 

But capitalism is in process of self-destruction, now rapidly undermining the natural and social conditions for its own and humanity’s further existence. If we are not to go down with it, we must construct an ecological alternative – democratic, science-based, imaginative and sustainable. In other words, a system of relations between people and with the rest of nature that is more compatible with our continuing existence. Unlike the limited forms of democracy under capitalism, we need a system that engages us all in the political-economic decisions that shape our relations with each other and with nature. 

We do not have to look far to find an alternative. Outside of the capitalist market economy, we already engage informally in relationships of reciprocity, continuing those practices that define our species as a social one. The moral alternative to globally dominant capitalism, including its customary and legislative commitment to the right of private wealth accumulation, is a moral, and therefore customary and legislative commitment to sustain and expand the commons, including a healthy natural environment and life-affirming social relationships.

This moral and practical alternative necessarily includes much that capitalism’s supporters have long promised, while ultimately delivering the opposite. To engage human capacity for addressing the existential challenge we now face, we need more than ever to enhance

·       Democracy, not oligarchy. 

·       Scientific inquiry, not dogmatism. 

·       Imagination, not mindless bureaucracy and conformity.

The resistance to the life affirming aims of enhancing democracy, scientific inquiry and imagination originates in the attachment to and aspiration for the personal wealth only available on a finite planet to a minority. To prevail over these egoistic aspirations, our main tools for achieving an ecological civilization are education, organization and political action that model and institutionalize ecologically sustainable relationships among people and with nature.  

In the face of barriers erected by a ruling minority, the people have a moral right and today an urgent responsibility to exercise and support peaceful disobedience to the barriers placed in the way of democracy, science, imagination, education and corresponding political action for a more just and ecologically sustainable society.

Arguments for these conclusions and their elaboration constitute the body of this work. It will be the people themselves, organized in political movements and organizations, who will through their experience, learning and action construct an alternative to a moribund capitalism, if there is to be one. Ours is a contribution to this process, drawing from our own experience and what we have so far been able to learn from associated reading and discussion.

What follows in this preface is a brief introduction to the theoretical framework, research methods and communication standards we have adopted for this series of articles. It is likely that some of these will be unfamiliar if not unconventional to many readers. While each of the authors has prior experience writing both scholarly and journalistic work, we have adopted standards here we believe better suited to the needs of those engaged in political action for a more just, democratic and sustainable society, which today, we hope, will ultimately include everyone. 

We offer breadth, rather than depth of analysis. Throughout this effort we refer the reader to some of the more accessible sources of the in-depth presentations of the science upon which we have drawn. We focus here on the forest, even while knowing that practical action also requires knowledge of the relevant details. These latter, however, are specific to the diverse communities in which we live, a reason why bottom-up forms of democracy are essential to achieving an ecologically sustainable global society.

The political challenge

Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979-1990 claimed that “there is no alternative” to a capitalist market economy. She made this argument to buttress her advocacy of neoliberal policies. As noted in her biography, Thatcher’s “political philosophy and economic policies emphasized deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labor markets, the privatization of state-owned companies and reducing the power and influence of trade unions.” Hers was an articulate statement of the aims of the capitalist class globally. The environmentally and socially destructive results are now horrifically evident. 

We began the research and writing that led us to this present argument ten years ago. After a politically tumultuous period since the global economic collapse of 2008, it is easy to forget that as recently as January 2010 there was still very little public doubt within the core capitalist countries about the permanency of capitalism. Not only was capitalism the seeming victor in the Cold War, but there was seemingly no viable alternative social system. 

It was easy to believe that capitalism represented the end of history, given that the “socialisms” of the 20^th Century had apparently proven unworkable. Certainly, it was easy to agree that dogmatism, bureaucracy, conformity and kleptocracy did not represent the kind of outcome wanted and needed by humanity. But what has capitalism delivered in the meantime, if not its own variants of dogmatism, bureaucracy, conformity and kleptocracy? It has also delivered growing wealth and income inequality within and between countries, a global race to the bottom in wages, working conditions and environmental regulations, the greatest global economic crisis since the Great Depression, and rapidly developing global ecological crisis. As if that were not enough, capitalism once again seeks salvation through a resurgent arms race that again includes further development and deployment of nuclear weapons.   

The intellectual challenge

An effort to identify and contribute to the emergence of an alternative was the impetus to our research and writing. We searched from scientific accounts of the origins and development of humankind to the present struggles of the people for a more just, democratic, peaceful and sustainable existence.  

We are of course limited to our own direct personal experience and activity, to the shortfall in the number and diversity of those from whom we have learned, and by our inability to do more than sample a wide range of relevant and burgeoning literature and other forms of recorded knowledge and opinion. It helped that one of us (Karen) has focussed in the arts and humanities, including as a teacher, researcher, artist and poet, and that the other (Charles) has similarly been engaged in research and teaching in both the natural and educational sciences and that as partners, we have collaborated in the student, peace, labor, environmental and other social movements of the people for over fifty years. 

Evidently, our greatest shortfall in relation to the publication of this series of articles is in the social sciences, which has received the lion’s share of our attention over the past decade and will likely continue to do so in our remaining years. 

Among academics and journalists preoccupied with advancing original formulations that merit claims to personal intellectual property, it has become popular to invent and propose alternative social systems, suggesting that the options in that respect might be as diverse as their authors. This is NOT our intention. Anything in this argument that could be claimed as unique to us should on that account be dismissed. In the first place, ALL ideas are socially constructed, evident in the fact that we each must use socially constructed language to communicate our ideas. Intellectual property rights will have no place in any society that claims to be an advance over capitalism, nor will any other claim to private ownership over the Commons, defined here as the shared heritage of humanity. 

Moreover, we hold to the wisdom that the new invariably emerges out of the womb of the old, a process in which either the old system replicates itself or, in the case of a moribund system, a new one ultimately replaces it. One task of social science research, in our view, is to identify the new system as it emerges from the old. The empirical evidence by which to judge the results of such social science research is convergence in social theory and practice on the features of the new system, leading to the replacement of the old system by the new one. 

We expect to be successful in identifying most, but not likely all the characteristic features of the emergent system. We encourage critical review of each of our arguments. Our aim is no more than to contribute to the process of identification and action towards the replacement of the current, moribund capitalist system. Its successful replacement will be a system which proves itself capable of liberating the latent potential of the people to move past the obstacles created by capitalism to humanity’s continuing existence. There is, of course, no guarantee that capitalism will not be the last human social system on Earth. Time is of the essence.

The principal objective of this contribution to discussion, therefore, is to identify a viable path out of the present existential crisis, a crisis created by the convergence of wealth and income inequality and the destruction of an otherwise supportive natural environment. Such a path necessarily includes a more equitable distribution of resources as part of a more conservative, sustainable relationship with nature. Co-equal objectives are the advance of democracy, education, scientific inquiry and imagination, which we argue constitute the foundation for achieving a healthy human society and a sustainable relationship with nature. Having found a limited role within emergent capitalism, these foundational elements of any society fully committed to the full and free development of the people require vigilant popular development and support in the face of a now moribund, self-destructive capitalism. 

The main premise of this series of essays, argued at some length, is that capitalism, once a relatively progressive system, liberating humanity from the constraints of a moribund feudalism, is today the principal cause of growing wealth and income inequality and of human destruction of an otherwise supportive natural environment. As such, capitalism is itself a moribund system, its defenders increasingly engaged in constraining the development of democracy, education, science and imagination. 

Historical materialist theory

While we rely almost exclusively on the existing consensus within the scientific community on the state of knowledge in most fields of scientific inquiry, we make an exception in the field of social science, where there is no acknowledged scientific consensus on the fundamental issue of the nature and laws of societal evolution.  Here, our theoretical viewpoint must be considered presumptive.   

We subscribe to the Marxian theory of evolution of human society, often identified as historical materialism, thereby emphasizing both its scientific content and the methodology it shares with all other fields of scientific inquiry. Materialism in philosophy acknowledges that the subject material under investigation has an empirical existence independent from our ideas, theories and conjectures about it. Like every other scientific theory, historical materialist theory must be judged by its ability to explain the corresponding empirical evidence. We do not examine that evidence in detail in this work. Rather, we presume the validity of historical materialist theory.  

Marxian historical materialist theory contends that capitalism did not always exist, but rather came into existence historically recently, probably first during the late middle ages, initially confined to mercantile capitalist trading relationships between a few European city-states, but ultimately extending (by the twentieth century) to an international network of capitalist nation-states, dominated by a few whose reach assumed globally imperial dimensions, such as the imperial reach of the United Kingdom and the United States. Only within the past few decades has this international system reached its present global dimension, in which the global marketplace, including supply chains and corresponding international political structures, are now dominated by a network of the largest transnational capitalist corporations, their directors and chief political and academic representatives (the transnational capitalist class).    

According to Marxian historical materialist theory, incompatibility between the “mode” and the “forces” of production drives the struggle for reform or revolution of the social system, the latter corresponding to a qualitative change in the mode of production to enable better utilization of the new technologies and ideas and the creation of corresponding institutions. The change from feudalism to capitalism was an historical precedent for the current struggle within capitalism for socialism. 

The transition from one mode of production to another is characterized both by the development of technology and the associated attempts to reform or replace the relations of production with new ones. These changes can be either historically progressive (the use of more advanced technologies and, in the case of the transition from capitalism to socialism, more cooperative relationships of production, and associated ideas and institutions) or regressive, towards the social relationships and hierarchical ideas associated with feudalism and slavery (the principal other examples of once dominant hierarchical social systems). Increasing personal indebtedness (debt slavery) for securing necessities of life (including education, accommodation, communication, transportation, healthcare, potable water, and food) is evidence of this regressive trend.

We also recognize as an enduring, progressive, but currently subordinate mode of production, the communal mode that characterized most of human history from the time of our origins as a species. This is the cooperative mode of production based on voluntary sharing of resources and non-monetary exchanges of goods and services, commonly found today within families and local communities. If there is to be a social system beyond capitalism, it will, in our view, necessarily correspond to a reversal of the trend towards privatization in the ownership and management of resources and tools of production and distribution and an expansion of the commons. Building on the remaining commons, the new system will correspond to the transformation of most social means of production and distribution into communal property under communal management, decentralized to the extent feasible, that is, into a more just, democratic and sustainable relationship between people and with nature.           

The most recent developments within the capitalist mode of production include the greater mobility of capital, the spatial extent of its dominance – now global, and the transnational character of the dominant capitalist corporations. Imperialist rent continues to be paid, but in the form of a transfer of wealth from a globally distributed working class to a globally distributed owning and managerial class, mainly and increasingly to the oligarchic billionaires within that class. To be enduring, system change will likewise need to be global.   

Contemporary global capitalism and the theory of historical materialism

Capitalism is a dynamic system. As such, its behaviour can be explained and predicted by scientifically discoverable laws. As applicable to capitalism today as they were when Marx articulated them, they nevertheless need to be applied with recognition of the changing historical circumstances and the adaptations that the capitalist ruling class has made to those conditions, especially constraints. These include the spatial dimension over which capitalism operates, the extent of monopolization and financialization of capital, and the removal of nation-state barriers to the mobility of capital while using these barriers to control labor. 

For a contemporary account of capitalism in its now global dimensions, we recommend William I. Robinson (Cambridge University Press, 2014 Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity. For an account of Marx’s laws of value, accumulation and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and their application to the 2008 financial crisis, see Michael Roberts (2018, Lulu.com) Marx 200: A Review of Marx’s Economics 200 Years After His Birth and his (2016, Haymarket Books) The Long Depression: How It Happened, Why It Happened, and What Happens Next.

Distinct from the more predominant form of Marxian analysis, however, we neither ignore nor attempt to fully explain capitalist societies by application of Marx’s three laws of capitalism’s behaviour. All social systems are dynamic and interactive, including the continuing existence of communal, slave, feudal and capitalist social relationships. Any attempt to explain and predict the behaviour of a society in which capitalism predominates through the laws governing capitalist behaviour will at best be a first order approximation. While communal, slave and feudal modes of production are no longer dominant over any part of the Earth, they continue to contend within predominantly capitalist societies as subordinated alternatives. 

The crisis within contemporary capitalism has fostered the re-emergence of feudal and slave relationships as means by which the ruling capitalist class and its court jesters endeavour to maintain their class privileges even while the basis for capitalism (the surplus produced by industrial wage labour) rapidly declines as a proportion of capital investment with continuing automation (replacing manual labour with automated machines) and the emergent application of so-called artificial intelligence (replacing learned skills and managerial capacity, that is, need for a substantial capitalist managerial class). 

On the other side of the coin, despite pro-capitalist efforts to privatize everything, there remains the commons shared by all of humanity. Those looking for a model for a society beyond capitalism need look no further than communal behaviour within families, between friends, and in every community.  

Before the onset of more temperate climate conditions characteristic of the Holocene era (the last ten thousand years), non-class societies appear to have prevailed over the inhabited parts of the Earth (that is, for well over 90% of human history). Thankfully, some communally organized societies have survived to the present day, notwithstanding the genocidal behaviour of their class-divided neighbors and invaders. In consequence, the First Nations have much to teach the rest of us about stewardship responsibilities and usufruct rights that portend an ecologically sustainable society beyond capitalism.

Our solar future

While physical laws, notably the second law of thermodynamics, have as a consequence the inevitable devolution and death of all existing forms of the current organization of matter and their replacement by the birth and evolution of new forms, there is nothing inherent in natural processes that dictates such an early demise of life on Earth, including prospectively of human life, as is now associated with the continuing expansion of the capitalist mode of production.  

The complex forms of organization of matter that have given rise to human life and human civilization are a product of the energy that continues to bathe our planet from the Sun (a process expected to continue for billions of years more) and the materials that will continue to be present in the Earth’s biosphere for an indefinite future. A premature end to human civilization on Earth could only be the result of our failure to act as agents for the building of a replacement to capitalism, that is to create a new social system, one in better harmony with nature and human existence. 

Revolutionary voice

The title of an essay by Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” contains the principal lesson to be learned from past failures to move beyond capitalism. Our revolutionary voice is not male, but gender-neutral, not hegemonic, but collaborative, not competitive, but cooperative, not violent, but demonstrably peaceful, not aggressive, but forcefully diplomatic. 

In this work, we identify this effort to find our revolutionary voice with democratic ecosocialism, thereby linking it with those green, social, and democratic movements that envision our future as the extension of what remains of our global commons, the expansion of the global commons at the expense of private property, the growth of the voluntary, non-market exchange of goods and services found within families and local communities at the expense of the capitalist market-place, the practice of democratic decision-making at work and in the community at the expense of management and leadership rights.  

Our voice expresses our task, that of replacing the primacy of private profits with the primacy of the health and welfare of people and nature. Our revolutionary voice is to be found in those who prioritize our cooperative relationships and voluntary exchanges of services and goods over participation in the capitalist marketplace. 

Methods of research and communication

Our methods of research and communication flow from recognition that knowledge, like language itself, is socially created, not the product nor “intellectual property” of individuals, especially not the property of for-profit corporate media. The method of research adopted in the development of Achieving an Ecological Civilization (the first drafts of which were titled Towards a Green Social Democratic Alternative to Capitalism) is iterative, meaning that each draft is for discussion and further development, by either the initial authors or anyone else who wishes, with each new contributor taking responsibility but not credit for their revisions. That is our intention in any case. Constrained by the dominant practice of for-profit publication, we do need to place obstacles in the way of publication of this work as private for-profit property. The result is a Creative Commonwealth license, modified in practice as may be needed by the intent expressed here. 

All significant changes are the work of those who make them. A global democratic ecosocialist alternative to capitalism will necessarily be the work of hundreds of millions. But time is of the essence.

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden

Fredericton, New Brunswick, CANADA

www.greensocialdemocracy.org

apcamcfadden@aol.com

Capitalism not only owns global warming, there’s a big red mitigation arrow pointed at the heart of today’s rampant capitalism, which is eerily similar to the loosie goosie version of the Roaring Twenties, but with a high tech twist. 

After all, somebody’s got to pony-up for climate change/global warming mitigation. Who better than deep pocket capitalists?

For historical perspective:  Today’s brand of capitalism runs circles around the Eisenhower 1950s with its 90% top marginal tax rate amidst harmony and good feelings all across the land, an age of innocence aka Leave It To Beaver.

In sharp contrast to the fifties era of good feelings with its emergence of spanking new suburbia, today’s landscape resembles the film Blade Runner (1982) high-tech, rich, and gleaming in some places but elsewhere (often times right next door) shabby and weakening as America’s middle class fizzles away attached to a ball & chain of indebted servitude.

With increasing frequency as climate mitigation is investigated certain statistics stand out like a throbbing sore thumb: “The top three greenhouse gas emitters— China, the EU and the US—contribute more than half of total global emissions, while the bottom 100 countries only account for 3.5%. Collectively, the top 10 emitters account for nearly three-quarters (75%) of global emissions. The world can’t possibly successfully tackle the climate change challenge without significant action from these top-emitting countries.” (Source: World Resources Institute)

Interestingly enough, the socio-politico-economic genesis of global warming as of nowadaysis known as Late Capitalism, as defined by Ernest Mandel (Late Capitalism, Verso Classics, 1999) or in the parlance: “Increasing commodification and industrialization of more, and more, sectors of human life” as the social fabric splits apart, delineating “haves” versus “have-nots.” 

By definition, that socio/economic paradigm brings in its wake division, and fierce alienation. 

So, Late Capitalism, what does it look like? According to Oxfam International, a confederation of 20 independent charitable orgs founded in 1942, sixty-two (62) of the richest billionaires held as much wealth in 2016 as 50% of the entire world population. That number dropped to 8 billionaires in 2017 controlling as much wealth as the bottom half of the world. That remarkable ratio is: 8 : 3,600,000,000.

The 2018 numbers are not yet available, but there’s speculation that the number eight (8) will drop, in time, to two (2) people that control as much wealth as one-half (½) of the world. That’s the absolute epitome, the zenith, of Late Capitalism.

It’s little wonder that wealth disparity, flashed all over the place, has become a target in the context of the climate crisis. In that regard, not many people grasp the issue as well as Kevin Anderson of Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research/UK. Tyndall is one of the world’s most prestigious research institutions, and Anderson has a reputation for telling it like it is.

Recently, he spoke at the Oxford Climate Society.

Accordingly, as discussed by Kevin Anderson, knowing that climate change is a serious (existential) threat… what to do… just for starters: (1) The top 10% carbon polluters in the world must cut their CO2 footprint to the same footprint as members of the EU. (2) The remaining 90% of the world makes no reductions. (3) Ipso facto, global CO2 is cut by one-third.

That’s merely a starter, an appetizer for meeting the 2C temperature guardrail as agreed by the nations of the world at Paris 2015. Interestingly, the top 10% polluters are the heart and soul of effective mitigation, which is defined as an “equitable solution,” meaning those who emit the most carbon must carry the heaviest burden. Yet, an equitable solution has not happened, and there are no signals it will happen.

Getting to the heart of the matter, according to Anderson: “The taboo issue of the asymmetric distribution of wealth underpins the international community’s failure to seriously tackle climate change. Only when we acknowledge this can we move from incrementalism to system-change.”

Believe it or not (of course it is true and believable) 1,500 private jets flew attendees to Davos World Economic Forum to discuss, amongst other issues, climate change. 

According to Kevin Anderson: “It’s about time we called these people out.” 
 

For example, the Davos paradigm, meaning plutocrats taking control is legitimized (in Anderson’s words) by: “The climate Glitterati, such as, M. Bloomberg, L. DiCaprio, N. Stern, C. Figueres, A. Gore, M. Carney. All of these people have huge carbon footprints, and they fly around the world in private jets to inform us what to do about climate change. They are supported by a whole cadre of senior academics promoting offsetting, negative emissions, geo-engineering, CCS, green growth, etc. These are all ‘an evolution within the system.” 

Also, annual COP (Conference of the Parties) has been hijacked by climate glitterati-related influencers (COPs are annual UN Climate Change Conferences held to assess progress).

Well, surprise-surprise, not surprised, Royal Dutch Shell had a hand in shaping the Paris Agreement of 2015, and it influenced certain provisions of the “Rulebook” adopted at COP24 in Katowice 2018. This meddling clearly violates the ethics that only member states of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change can determine “texts and rulebooks.” But, it happens with regularity.

At COP 24 in Katowice at a side event organized by the International Emissions Trading Association (a big time biz lobby) Shell’s chief climate adviser, David Hone, publicly announced that Shell should take some credit for inclusion of Article 6 in the Paris Agreement, which enables countries to trade emissions in carbon markets. 

Not only, Mr. Hone also took a bow and credit for part of the text in the all-important “Rulebook” adopted at Katowice. By all accounts and according to various environmental groups, big corporations are “greenwashing.”

Fossil fuel companies were significant sponsors at COP24 in Katowice. Their logos were ubiquitous. And, at a mind-blowing out of this world event, the Polish Pavilion was stuffed full of actual lumps of black coal, as samplers. 

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda told COP24 delegates: “Using coal is not in contradiction with climate protection in Poland because we can lower the emissions and ensure economic growth at the same time.”  What!!! Who falls for this kind of claptrap?

ExxonMobil pledged to cut its methane emissions and contribute funds for a carbon tax campaign in the U.S. Oh, please, stop it! Pseudo solutions like carbon markets and geo-engineering promises (that don’t work to scale) are pushed by corporate interests to legitimatize their current CO2 emissions. Oh please! It’s a ruse because if you lay claim to geo-engineering technology that fixes CO2 emissions, then you legitimize using as much fossil fuel as your little heart desires. But, the brutal truth is the technology is not perfected.  Not by a long shot. Then what?

Climate change is ultimately a rationing issue. But, so far, forget it: “We’ve had 28 years of abject failure on climate change. It’s not that we haven’t brought emissions down. It’s just that we’ve watched them go up. In fact, since 2000, the rate at which they’ve gone up is even faster than the 1990s.” (Anderson)

According to Anderson, the current CO2 global budget is roughly 700Gt of CO2 maximum to adhere to the Paris Agreement of temps below 2C. Meanwhile, 43Gt of CO2 is emitted per year, which equates to 16 years of current emissions to stay under 2C. Thereafter, and in fact, before then, CO2 emissions must drop to zero. (For the record, this has never happened.)

At the end of the day, the only conceivable way forward to prevent the world from turning into an oven is “system change” via transformation to decarbonized energy supply technologies with deep penetration of efficient technologies and a profound shift in behavior and reframing the value propositions re success and progress, an economic model that fits the purpose of mitigation, like eco economics. 

As for the current economic model of high-end neoliberal capitalism, it must be displaced in favor of eco economics. What are the odds? One hundred percent (100%) it will happen but way too late!

According to Kevin Anderson, “Everything is pointed in the wrong direction… We are guaranteed defeat unless we start to think radically differently.” He concludes: “We have an outside chance of still meeting 2C if society addresses the political, social, and economic implications, as well as the technical ones.” 

But, what if it’s too late?

Postscript:“Winning slowly is basically the same thing as losing outright. In the face of both triumphant denialism and predatory delay, trying to achieve climate action by doing the same things, the same old ways means defeat. It guarantees defeat.” (Alex Steffen – American award-winning futurist, 2017)

Intuitively, it is a stretch to assert that a social system with a wide range of goals of which the development of the productive forces is only one, will surpass a society consumed by the singularity of that goal. The incentive-egalitarian balance highlights that trade-off. And if we accept that the path to socialism will involve sacrifices and choices all along the way, including in its construction, then winning people to the socialist cause and keeping them there will have to be based on their desire for something different rather than the questionable promise of socialism bringing not only more justice, more democracy, more workplace control, but also more growth.

by Paul Burkett

The system of fossil-fueled neoliberal capitalism is indeed moving toward an end of history, but only in the sense of the end of any historical advance of humanity as a productive, political, and cultural species due to the increasingly barbaric socio-economic and environmental conditions the system creates. There is now no alternative to the end of history as we know it. The sustainable development of human society co-evolving with nature including other species now depends on a definite historical break with capitalism as the dominant mode of production.