Environmental destruction is driven by the fundamental contradiction in capitalism – between the forces and relations of production and its relentless drive for profit. Capitalism depends on continued growth, without which it would collapse. Non-exploitative capitalism is a contradiction in terms. There is not a single “human ecology” – every social system has its own ecological dynamic, and capitalism’s is a particularly destructive one.
Just as capitalism, as an economic system, depends on exploiting workers, so too does it depend on exploiting the resources – living and non- living – of our planet. That was something recognized by Marx and Engels with their concept of the “metabolic rift” between humans and nature.
Marx focused on agriculture, the depletion of soil nutrients and the pollution of waterways by run-off and human sewage. He was an early advocate of recycling. Today we recognize that the wider impacts of capitalism threaten the whole planet.
As Barry Commoner, a Marxist ecologist and one of the founders of the modern environmental movement wrote a half-century ago:
“The world is being carried to the brink of ecological disaster, not by a singular fault, which some clever scheme can correct, but by the phalanx of powerful economic, political and social forces that constitute the march of history. Anyone who proposes to cure the environmental crisis undertakes thereby to change the course of history.”
Fifty years later, that observation – both the origins of the environmental crisis and the need to “change the course of history” as part of the cure – has greater force than ever. That is recognized in (for example) the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) which emphasizes that the world is “far off track” in its declared objectives of combating climate change and addressing poverty, inequality, hunger, disease and conflict.
Changing the course of history is of course the objective of all who understand that capitalism is inherently exploitative both of people and of the planet and that the constant drive to accumulate leads inevitably to hardship for the former and disaster for the latter.
That understanding, in turn, raises issues regarding the organization of production and consumption within socialism. An end to the conspicuous and unnecessary consumption. The pursuit of “growth” has become a policy mantra of both right and left.
Gross domestic product as a measure of economic activity makes no distinction between destructive activities and those which are sustainable or which can even improve human and planetary well-being. Its development as a metric in the 1930s accompanied attempts by national governments to compete – and to prepare for military combat. It was never intended to be a measure for societal welfare. This is widely recognized in attempts to develop alternatives such as a Human Development Index, Social Progress Index and Genuine Progress Indicator.
Ultimately the problem is not one of metrics. It is a problem of the inherent drive of capitalism to accumulate.
There is ample evidence that within an economic system focused on production for human need, not profit; on quality, not quantity, with demographic stabilization (which depends crucially on progressive policies including healthcare, education and women’s rights) and if – a big if – climate change (with its disastrous consequences for food production) can be contained, our Earth could provide everyone with personal sufficiency (water, food, energy, clothes, decent housing) and allow all to share and enjoy public luxury – good education, health and social care; public libraries, museums, and community centres; playgrounds, sports centres and swimming pools; a good transport and communications infrastructure, local greenspace and public parks.
That’s a socialist vision; a tall order but it’s a realistic and achievable one. Its realization depends on us. Replacing a society where a few live at the expense of the “many” (both within countries and between them) is an essential element of any socialist transition. It seems clear also, if further privation and suffering of that “many” is to be avoided, that a socialist transition must be a necessary component of degrowth.
Marx’s critique of capitalism included an examination of the way that alienation at the point of production is accompanied by dysfunctional and damaging patterns of consumption. However, it is clear that individual lifestyle choices can at best have only a minor impact on the problems – local and global – that debates around degrowth address.
The majority of the world’s population are not in a position to adopt them, whether in the global South or in the supposedly affluent West. Those who are so privileged should of course avoid excessive and polluting consumption, but this in itself will have little positive impact and, worse, can often be a virtuous self-satisfied cop-out unless accompanied also by recognition of the causes of crisis and a determination to address them at their root.
Increasingly, terms like “ecosocialism” and “degrowth communism” form a focus for debate, both as objectives and as to ways of securing them. One argument is the need for a shift, in the so-called global North to “net zero capital formation” focused on “replacement investment” to deliver qualitative advances in production with reduced environmental impacts. This would need to be coupled with a reversal of dependency and “unequal exchange” whereby the “advanced economies” of capitalism’s metropolitan heartlands rely on a large net appropriation of value (including food, raw materials, and people) from the rest of the world, which currently suffers the worst environmental consequences of capitalist accumulation.
The critical questions, of course, are to do with how that sustainable socialism can be achieved. The chances of this happening without a change in the dominant institutions of state and government – in effect, a revolution – are slim, and such a revolution would involve a decisive shift in class power.
Those shifts, of course, are under way, with setbacks and reversals, in every part of the planet, not least in China which would not survive today in the face of (capitalist) economic and military encirclement if it were not for its determination to “beat the West at its own game” but which is nevertheless progressing in multiple ways to a “greener” future.
A fundamental tenet of any socialist vision is production for human need rather than for profit. This in turn raises the question how production can be best organized – through central planning (a “command economy”?), through some form of “market socialism” or through communal or co-operative production, locally managed but coordinated through information technologies (including AI) which facilitates feedback on those needs and how they can best be met.
In the meantime, it is clear that our Earth’s resources, geological and biological (in particular the equilibrating capacity of biogeochemical cycles) and even physical space are insufficient for everyone to “enjoy” (a curious word) private luxury on the scale of Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. The planet will not support everyone living the wasteful luxury lifestyle of the 1 percent whose wealth is in any case extracted from the labour of the 99 percent. Neither will it support the 99 percent wanting to drive their own cars when good accessible public transport could be available.
Nor – as the current energy crisis demonstrates – will our planet support continued capital accumulation by large corporations and their financial backers, without plunging millions into destitution and misery.
Morning Star (Britain)
Edited slightly for context
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