Environmentalism: Hijacked by Capitalism

[poster_child]

Why is it that we are allowing our green movement to be hijacked by capitalists? People have been so brainwashed that they believe buying a cloth bag with the words "this is not a plastic bag" written on it, for $20, sewed by slave labour, think this is the solution to our environmental woes.

The solution is to have state enterprise that takes the environmental impact into account when producing. The state should especially have a monopoly on sectors that are traditionally polluting, such as mining, oil and gas, farming, etc. and have high standards on regulation!

This is an inherent problem of capitalism. Buying an energy efficient light bulb (which has dangerous chemicals inside no less), a cloth bag, or an energy efficient car is not the answer. Consuming something else is not the answer. We need to change our consumer culture and produce what we need. Stop over producing shitty goods that people don't even need anyway! Stop telling us to buy, spend and consume!

Change only happens under capitalism when its profitable. It's time for socialists to take the environmental movement and show that real change isn't possible under capitalism.

Any thoughts/ideas?

[*Red*Alert]

They're good at diffusing environmentalism and turning it into another market for them to sell, once they infiltrated the Green Movement with plenty of trendy Liberals.

[Muzk]

I wonder if they ever thought about how this shit will go on. They seriously WANT their people to revolt.

[FreeFocus]

Why is it that we are allowing our green movement to be hijacked by capitalists? People have been so brainwashed that they believe buying a cloth bag with the words "this is not a plastic bag" written on it, for $20, sewed by slave labour, think this is the solution to our environmental woes.

The solution is to have state enterprise that takes the environmental impact into account when producing. The state should especially have a monopoly on sectors that are traditionally polluting, such as mining, oil and gas, farming, etc. and have high standards on regulation!

This is an inherent problem of capitalism. Buying an energy efficient light bulb (which has dangerous chemicals inside no less), a cloth bag, or an energy efficient car is not the answer. Consuming something else is not the answer. We need to change our consumer culture and produce what we need. Stop over producing shitty goods that people don't even need anyway! Stop telling us to buy, spend and consume!

Change only happens under capitalism when its profitable. It's time for socialists to take the environmental movement and show that real change isn't possible under capitalism.

Any thoughts/ideas?

I mostly agree, but I feel that the solution lies in smashing capitalism and decentralization (putting everything in the hands of the state..really? :closedeyes:). We produce plenty enough for everyone to have comfort. For most of the world, it's a problem of distribution, not too little being produced.

[Raúl Duke]

Why is it that we are allowing our green movement to be hijacked by capitalists? People have been so brainwashed that they believe buying a cloth bag with the words "this is not a plastic bag" written on it, for $20, sewed by slave labour, think this is the solution to our environmental woes.

The solution is to have state enterprise that takes the environmental impact into account when producing. The state should especially have a monopoly on sectors that are traditionally polluting, such as mining, oil and gas, farming, etc. and have high standards on regulation!

This is an inherent problem of capitalism. Buying an energy efficient light bulb (which has dangerous chemicals inside no less), a cloth bag, or an energy efficient car is not the answer. Consuming something else is not the answer. We need to change our consumer culture and produce what we need. Stop over producing shitty goods that people don't even need anyway! Stop telling us to buy, spend and consume!

Change only happens under capitalism when its profitable. It's time for socialists to take the environmental movement and show that real change isn't possible under capitalism.

Any thoughts/ideas?

It's not exactly that we (or environmentalist in general) allow something like this to happen...it's just something that occurs.

Perhaps the situationist (if they thought this up, not exactly sure) are right in that certain social movements, ideas, etc like environmentalism can be "co-opted" into the general capitalist framework and be made into something profitable and/or safe for capitalist society. In fact, the movement didn't "allow" anything as far to my knowledge...

What seemed to occur is that stores began to hype things up as "green", "environmentally friendly", etc as a marketing ploy and thus certain kinds of people fell for the hype. In a sense, the system just created a "emulation" of environmentalism (an imitation that could "compete", potentially marginalize,etc the actual environmentalism/environmentalist movement) that would suit its needs.

[poster_child]

Well, I think essential things such as oil and gas, mining, etc, should be controlled by the state because no matter what the market may be for the item, people are always having access to this item.

Decentralization is an option; however this could be under a different governmental model, such as federalism. If there is a federal system then provincial, state, territorial or even local (depending on the type of federalism) could control it.

I think the part of the problem is also people want to do something but don't know what. Buying is all people know and it's easy! You don't have to change anything other than what you bring up to the till. Forget changing your eating habits, working habits, level of consumption, etc, let's just buy the slightly more expensive product that says "green" on it and I'm free of all other obligations! Weee!

Disgusting.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Perhaps the situationist (if they thought this up, not exactly sure) are right in that certain social movements, ideas, etc like environmentalism can be "co-opted" into the general capitalist framework and be made into something profitable and/or safe for capitalist society.
Yup, this is what they called recuperation.

[Sarah Palin]

It is absolutely disgusting how capitalism has raped and pillaged the environmentalist movement. I was in the library yesterday and they had these books on display that brought tears to my eyes: 10 Great Ways to Go Green!, How to Go Green!, Go Green!, 10 Easy Steps to Saving the Planet, and so on. It was absolutely awful. I looked in one and it was the usual, "Buy cloth shopping bags instead of using the supermarket's..." garbage. But Exxon has really taken it too far with their fucking pretentious ads THAT DON'T FUCKING SAY ANYTHING. OBSERVE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMm2FxfZJ30

"Yes, let's flash a bunch of formulas across the screen and say fancy words like "petrol" that will impress the Americans. We're fixing the world!"
I can't tell you how much I hope every monster at Exxon and all the other companies lying to everyone catch smallpox.

[revolution inaction]

"Yes, let's flash a bunch of formulas across the screen and say fancy words like "petrol" that will impress the Americans. We're fixing the world!"
I can't tell you how much I hope every monster at Exxon and all the other companies lying to everyone catch smallpox.

petrol is not a fancy word its the word we use for what americans call gasoline, it's an advert for the uk not america

[Delirium]

We need to point out that capitalism by nature is unsustainable and anti-environmental. Capitalism is a system based on perpetual economic growth. The goal being each quarter to produce and consume more that the previous.

It doesn't matter if this is socially useful or not, for example we produce huge amounts of weapons which have no value other than to kill. Or we produce goods that are designed to be obsolete within a year or even a few months. We are even persuaded to throw away perfectly good items, so we can buy ones that are more fashionable.

We cant have an economy which is based on infinite growth on a planet with finite resources.

[Sarah Palin]

petrol is not a fancy word its the word we use for what americans call gasoline, it's an advert for the uk not america
Yes, I'm aware. But it is seldom used anywhere in the US, and I think they just used it to make their commercial look more appealing to the arm chair eco- revolutionary.

[Muzk]

We need to point out that capitalism by nature is unsustainable and anti-environmental. Capitalism is a system based on perpetual economic growth. The goal being each quarter to produce and consume more that the previous.

It doesn't matter if this is socially useful or not, for example we produce huge amounts of weapons which have no value other than to kill. Or we produce goods that are designed to be obsolete within a year or even a few months. We are even persuaded to throw away perfectly good items, so we can buy ones that are more fashionable.

We cant have an economy which is based on infinite growth on a planet with finite resources.

That's why we are looking for environmentally friendly alternative energies!

Yes!

BTW, never gonna happen, noone can force all the 1st world countries to stop polluting the environment.

[El Rojo]

"cars today have 90 percent less emmissions than in 1970"

and there must be around 90% percent more cars, so go figure

[Vanguard1917]

Simple answer: there is nothing radical about environmentalist politics which would make it difficult to 'hijack' by conservatives and other defenders of the status quo. In fact, environmentalism has some deeply conservative themes, which is why it can so easily be adopted by establishment politicians. Indeed, if you study the history of environmentalist politics, you will see that its themes were more likely to exist within rightwing thought rather than leftwing politics.

Environmentalism also provides very convenient ideological justification for the lack of economic dynamism in the traditional centres of capitalism -- i.e. countries in the West. Whereas radical leftists and revolutionaries would condemn capitalism for holding back economic development and dynamism, environmentalists say that there is too much economic development and dynamism in the first place and that it needs to be restrained. Many environmentalists even argue that people in general are too wealthy and that levels of mass material wealth need to be reduced. It's not difficult to see why the political representatives of the Western ruling classes would embrace such an outlook, since their system is failing to provide the economic development and wellbeing that humanity requires, and since environmentalism provides perfect apologism for such a state of affairs.


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Incidentally, capitalism's biggest environmental crime is that it stands in the way of humanity properly mastering its environment, both natural and social.

Things will be very different under socialism. The Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky put across the Marxist position very well:

"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."
- Trotsky (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lit_revo/ch08.htm)

[Vanguard1917]

double post

[JohannGE]

"One hundred repetitions three nights a week for four years, thought Bernard Marx, who was a specialist on hypnopædia. Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth. Idiots!"

Aldous Huxley
Brave New World