Environmentalism and class

[GracchusBabeuf]

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[Dr Mindbender]

i think theres different forms of environmentalism.

Environmentalism that encourages voluntary scarcity, by making us feel bad about consuming is reactionary because it ignores the root problem of environmental damage which is bourgeoisie activity.

Socialism could be regarded as environmentally progressive because it acknowledges this problem without making the working class feel bad about its own consumption.

[khad]

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/ecology/ussr_ecology.htm (http://www.columbia.edu/%7Elnp3/mydocs/ecology/ussr_ecology.htm)


The Communist Party issued a decree "On Land" in 1918. It declared all forests, waters, and minerals to be the property of the state, a prerequisite to rational use. When the journal "Forests of the Republic" complained that trees were being chopped down wantonly, the Soviet government issued a stern decree "On Forests" at a meeting chaired by Lenin in May of 1918. From then on, forests would be divided into an exploitable sector and a protected one. The purpose of the protected zones would specifically be to control erosion, protect water basins and the "preservation of monuments of nature." This last stipulation is very interesting when you compare it to the damage that is about to take place in China as a result of the Yangtze dam. The beautiful landscapes which inspired Chinese artists and poets for millennia is about to disappear, all in the name of heightened "productiveness."

What's surprising is that the Soviet government was just as protective of game animals as the forests, this despite the revenue-earning possibilities of fur. The decree "On Hunting Seasons and the Right to Possess Hunting Weapons" was approved by Lenin in May 1919. It banned the hunting of moose and wild goats and brought the open seasons in spring and summer to an end. These were some of the main demands of the conservationists prior to the revolution and the Communists satisfied them completely. The rules over hunting were considered so important to Lenin that he took time out from deliberations over how to stop the White Armies in order to meet with the agronomist Podiapolski.

Podialpolski urged the creation of "zapovedniki", roughly translatable as "nature preserves." Russian conservationists had pressed this long before the revolution. In such places, there would be no shooting, clearing, harvesting, mowing, sowing or even the gathering of fruit. The argument was that nature must be left alone. These were not even intended to be tourist meccas. They were intended as ecological havens where all species, flora and fauna would maintain the "natural equilibrium [that] is a crucial factor in the life of nature."
Podiapolski recalls the outcome of the meeting with Lenin:

"Having asked me some questions about the military and political situation in the Astrakhan' region, Vladimir Ilich expressed his approval for all of our initiatives and in particular the one concerning the project for the zapovednik. He stated that the cause of conservation was important not only for the Astrakhan krai, but for the whole republic as well."

Podiapolski sat down and drafted a resolution that eventually was approved by the Soviet government in September 1921 with the title "On the Protection of Nature, Gardens, and Parks." A commission was established to oversee implementation of the new laws. It included a geographer-anthropologist, a mineralogist, two zoologists, an ecologist. Heading it was Vagran Ter-Oganesov, a Bolshevik astronomer who enjoyed great prestige.

The commission first established a forest zapovednik in Astrakhan, according to Podiapolski's desires Next it created the Ilmenski zapovednik, a region which included precious minerals. Despite this, the Soviet government thought that Miass deposits located there were much more valuable for what they could teach scientists about geological processes. Scientific understanding took priority over the accumulation of capital. The proposal was endorsed by Lenin himself who thought that pure scientific research had to be encouraged. And this was at a time when the Soviet Union was desperate for foreign currency.

In my next post, I will cover the period of the NEP.

Under Lenin, the USSR stood for the most audacious approach to nature conservancy in the 20th century. Soviet agencies set aside vast portions of the country where commercial development, including tourism, would be banned. These "zapovedniki", or natural preserves, were intended for nothing but ecological study. Scientists sought to understand natural biological processes better through these living laboratories. This would serve pure science and it would also have some ultimate value for Soviet society's ability to interact with nature in a rational manner. For example, natural pest elimination processes could be adapted to agriculture.

After Lenin's death, there were all sorts of pressures on the Soviet Union to adapt to the norms of the capitalist system that surrounded and hounded it and produce for profit rather than human need. This would have included measures to remove the protected status of the zapovedniki. Surprisingly, the Soviet agencies responsible for them withstood such pressures and even extended their acreage through the 1920s.

One of the crown jewels was the Askania-Nova zapovednik in the Ukranian steppes. The scientists in charge successfully resisted repeated bids by local commissars to extend agriculture into the area through the end of the 1920s. Scientists still enjoyed a lot of prestige in the Soviet republic, despite a growing move to make science cost-justify itself. Although pure science would eventually be considered "bourgeois", the way it was in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it could stand on its own for the time being.

The head administrator of Askania-Nova was Vladimir Stanchinksi, a biologist who sought to make the study of ecology an exact science through the use of quantitative methods, including mathematics and statistics. He identified with scientists in the West who had been studying predator-prey and parasite-host relationships with laws drawn from physics and chemistry. (In this he was actually displaying an affinity with Karl Marx, who also devoted a number of years to the study of agriculture using the latest theoretical breakthroughs in the physical sciences and agronomy. Marx's study led him to believe that capitalist agriculture is detrimental to sound agricultural practices.)

Stanchinski adopted a novel approach to ecology. He thought that "the quantity of living matter in the biosphere is directly dependent on the amount of solar energy that is transformed by autotrophic plants." Such plants were the "economic base of the living world." He invoked the Second Law of Thermodynamics to explain the variations in mass between flora and fauna at the top, middle and bottom of the biosphere. Energy was lost as each rung in the ladder was scaled, since more and more work was necessary to procure food.

The whole purpose of the Askania-Nova was to allow scientists to observe such processes without interference from politicians or commerce. Unfortunately, there were already powerful forces being unleashed in Russian politics that would undermine these efforts.

They came from two sources which tended to reinforce one another. One was the sheer need to compete in a hostile capitalist world. This meant that everything was ultimately judged on whether it could be bought or sold. The other hostile force was the Soviet science establishment itself that Stalin was reorienting toward a more "utilitarian" view of nature.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I think as Leftists we all want to see a kinder world. Therefore I feel that all of us care about the environment to an extent.

[Ol' Dirty]

Protection of the environment crosses ideological boundaries to a great extent; the US right has been jumping on the environmental wagon more and more, and corporate entities (Nestle, Poland Springs) have been greenwashing their products, even thoush bottled water is horrible for the environment.

[Vanguard1917]

Because I'm a Trotskyist, I'll show you what Trotsky wrote.
Trotsky put across the socialist view brilliantly in his book Literature and Revolution:

"Through the machine, man in Socialist society will command nature in its entirety, with its grouse and its sturgeons. He will point out places for mountains and for passes. He will change the course of the rivers, and he will lay down rules for the oceans. The idealist simpletons may say that this will be a bore, but that is why they are simpletons. Of course this does not mean that the entire globe will be marked off into boxes, that the forests will be turned into parks and gardens. Most likely, thickets and forests and grouse and tigers will remain, but only where man commands them to remain. And man will do it so well that the tiger won’t even notice the machine, or feel the change, but will live as he lived in primeval times. The machine is not in opposition to the earth. The machine is the instrument of modern man in every field of life. The present-day city is transient. But it will not be dissolved back again into the old village. On the contrary, the village will rise in fundamentals to the plane of the city. Here lies the principal task. The city is transient, but it points to the future, and indicates the road. The present village is entirely of the past."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lit_revo/ch08.htm

[bellyscratch]

Environmentalism is not ideologically specific to any particular class but can be incorporated in to any of them really depending on how you look at it.

[FreeFocus]

Environmentalism that doesn't identify capitalism as a problem is reactionary. As we see from comments by people on this forum, sadly, socialism (more precisely, certain tendencies within the socialist movement) doesn't guarantee sustainability, which to some extent is disingenuous even.

Moreover, obviously, this whole trend of individual choices is a joke to boost sales for companies that abuse the environment in other ways (e.g., they produce a "green" product, but the shit is still manufactured abroad using sweatshop labor or stolen resources, is shipped in gas-guzzling trucks, etc). There's no such thing as a "green" company, capitalism, or city (under capitalism, at least) for that matter.

Nonetheless, I don't sympathize with assholes who find it necessary to litter for example.

Personally, I'm only interested in driving a hybrid or electric (it's cheaper at face value and in the long run too), always recycling, buying efficient things, etc. I'm under no illusions that my choices will "change" the world; however, many of these choices are safer and healthier.

Environmentalism is an integral part of any form of socialism worth respecting and working towards.

[Revy]

My kind of environmentalism is revolutionary. The Earth is our only planet right now. Environmentalism must be radical and anti-capitalist in order to be effective.

There are other kinds of environmentalism, which tells people to buy a hybrid or use a certain kind of lightbulb. But that's individual changes on a very small scale and it's not going to bring forth the real changes that need to happen so that our climate and our environment can be stable and not threatening to the ecosystem. Humans are animals too! We need the ecosystem as much as all the endangered species.

[cyu]

I see the environment as a tool - the purpose of this tool is to aid human survival. If we are doing stupid things to the environment that will hurt human survival down the line, then we should stop doing those stupid things.

However, if we are preserving the environment just for its own sake, at the cost of human lives that could be saved by using the environment, then the people who advocate the environment over human lives are enemies of humanity.

Of course, there are gray areas. For example, if human survival is already guaranteed, should we be using the environment to satisfy the culture of consumerism? Well, if there will truly be no damage down the line to the chances of human survival, then it doesn't matter to me, but if there will be, then I think it is the culture of consumerism that needs to be changed - starting with the overthrow of capitalism of course, since consumerism / advertising is an integral part of capitalism.

Capitalism operates on the premise that the owner should get more "stuff" than everyone else. If there weren't consumerism, what would be the point of the capitalist getting more "stuff"?

[S.O.I]

when the water we drink, the air we breathe and the animals we eat are poisoned..

who are the ones suffering from it?

ive never met one snobby capitalist pig or ignorant brainwashed bourgeois person that cared about nature.

[STJ]

I am a environmentalist. The reason why is i want to leave my kids a better world.

[Sort It Out Frosty]

I think you're framing the question weirdly. Environmentalism is about preserving the natural environment, e.g. the biosphere which supports all life. It is "proletarian" insofar as capital accumulation and hierarchical power structures (capitalism and the state) are destroying the environment and we are all fucked unless we have a libertarian socialist revolution.

There is also a difference between "environmentalism" and the environmental movement. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, etc. are the liberal fuzzy side who do not challenge capitalism and so cannot be said to get to the root cause of environmental destruction.

[Sort It Out Frosty]

Trotsky put across the socialist view brilliantly in his book Literature and Revolution:

"Through the machine, man in Socialist society will command nature in its entirety, with its grouse and its sturgeons. He will point out places for mountains and for passes. He will change the course of the rivers, and he will lay down rules for the oceans. The idealist simpletons may say that this will be a bore, but that is why they are simpletons. Of course this does not mean that the entire globe will be marked off into boxes, that the forests will be turned into parks and gardens. Most likely, thickets and forests and grouse and tigers will remain, but only where man commands them to remain. And man will do it so well that the tiger won’t even notice the machine, or feel the change, but will live as he lived in primeval times. The machine is not in opposition to the earth. The machine is the instrument of modern man in every field of life. The present-day city is transient. But it will not be dissolved back again into the old village. On the contrary, the village will rise in fundamentals to the plane of the city. Here lies the principal task. The city is transient, but it points to the future, and indicates the road. The present village is entirely of the past."

Thats probably the best summary of what's wrong with the mechanistic, unholistic worldview of capitalism I've ever read. We are part of life on this planet, we should not try to hold ourselves above it or we'll get smacked down fast (like whats happening now actually). This world-view is central to capitalism and to Western bourgeois thought.

[More Fire for the People]

Environmentalism is a big-tent word that includes all kinds of classes ranging from bourgeois eco-warrior wankers to third world farmers.

[Sort It Out Frosty]

Who are these "eco-warrior wankers" then and why are third world farmers better, worse or about the same? In your opinion.

[Red Rebel]

A shitty enviroment is just one of the many problems that capitalism produces. In a society that is built on profit and not humanity it is to be expected. Under a society that puts human needs before profit, naturally the enviroment will be better off.

[Sort It Out Frosty]

A shitty enviroment is just one of the many problems that capitalism produces. In a society that is built on profit and not humanity it is to be expected. Under a society that puts human needs before profit, naturally the enviroment will be better off.

What about a non-capitalist society with a productivist/technophile worldview as outlined in the Trotsky quote above? With a "socialist" belief in infinitely expanding production for infinitely expanding technological success and human power, there is no guarantee we wouldn't chop down the forests, pave over the land and drive animals to extinction. We are currently living in a world that is fundamentally unsustainable. Getting rid of the ruling class and seizing control of the already existing means of production is not enough. Who thinks the whole world can live like many people in the industrialised West do? If you do you've got another thing coming...

We need to fundamentally change the way we exist, not simply change who controls of the means of production but change the means of production itself. For this reason permaculture is extremely important, as some geezer said -- "Revolution disguised as organic gardening."

Unless we change we will die.

[Il Medico]

I don't think environmentalism is a tool of the bourgeois, it hurts their "free markets". Workers should help ensure that the planet can provide for all people, it is in their interest and not in the capitalist.

[Rebel_Serigan]

Prolitarian all the way. They are the exploited work force that has to worry about our future. If the environment fails then we all die, that is obvious, but even more so the prolitarit must face the environmental crisis before the richer classes. We see the gas prices go up because we do not have the money for more gas efficent cars. We see the cost of goods that normaly were cheap go up because we do not have disposable income. It is our job to serve the environment.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

I am an environmentalist. I started as a green nature-loving fellow, and radicalized to the Communist I am now. So yes, environmentalism is, or at least should be, proletarian.

[Sort It Out Frosty]

I am an environmentalist. I started as a green nature-loving fellow, and radicalized to the Communist I am now. So yes, environmentalism is, or at least should be, proletarian.

So you see no clash between mass murdering pyschos (such as, off the top of my head, Stalin & Mao) and respecting life & the planet? Kwl.

[Angry Young Man]

There's only a narrow bond between eco politics and class politics. It isn't per se proletarian or bourgeois, but long-sighted eco regulation goes against the bourgeoisie's desire for infinite plunder; and a planet inhospitable even to cockroaches isn't really the desire of Marxists.