An Inconvenient Question - Socialism and the Environment

[JimN]

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/images/socandenvironth.jpg

In recent years the environment has become a major political issue. And rightly so, because a serious environmental crisis really does exist. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat have all become contaminated to a greater or lesser extent. Ecology – the branch of biology that studies the relationships of living organisms to their environment – is important, as it is concerned with explaining exactly what has been happening and what is likely to happen if present trends continue.

Since the publication of our Ecology and Socialism pamphlet of 1990 environmental problems facing the planet have got much worse. We said then that attempts to solve those problems within capitalism would meet with failure, and that is precisely what has happened. Recent research on increasing environmental degradation has painted an alarming picture of the likely future if the profit system continues to hold sway. Voices claiming that the proper use of market forces will solve the problem can still be heard, but as time goes on the emerging facts of what is happening serve only to contradict those voices.

In this pamphlet we start with a brief review of the development of Earth and of humankind’s progress on it so far. We then examine the mounting evidence that the planet is now under threat of a worsening, dangerous environment for human and other forms of life. The motor of capitalism is money profit for the minority capitalist class to add to their capital, or capital accumulation. Environmental concerns, if considered at all, always come a poor second. The waste of human and other resources used in the market system is prodigious, adding to the problems and standing in the way of their solution.

Earth Summits over the last few decades show a consistent record of failure – unjustifiably high hopes and pitifully poor results sum them up. The Green Party and other environmental bodies propose reforms of capitalism that haven’t worked or have made very little real difference in the past. Socialists can see no reason why it should be any different in the future. Finally we discuss the need, with respect to the ecology of the planet, for a revolution that is both based on socialist principles of common ownership and production solely for needs, and environmental principles of conserving – not destroying – the wealth and amenities of the planet.

You can read the whole pamphlet published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain here. (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/ECO.html)

[Philzer]

It is very interesting to see, that here in this forum, like in the most Left-forums, is less interest for the future of mankind.
Sometimes it seams that the majority of the left are only looser in the capitalist race of maximum waste of environment for their own wealth.
Ok, Marx self had not so much written about this, but I think question of mankind will not be to finish the exploitation of human being by other human being only, furthermore it will be to find a general finish of every kind of exploitation. The planet is near the end and the human race doesn’t hold on to increase themselves more and more and also the consumption per head is in a exorbitant increase.
In summary I mean, the ethic must follow the recognition of the human spirit.
The majority of the real existing individuals in present don’t have the required conscious.
By myself I don’t believe that is possible to get this by education, you can teach them as much as you want. The only what they want is more and more of all. This is really the the same aim as the bourgeois. That’s exactly how works the dialectic unit between people and their rulers.

We said then that attempts to solve those problems within capitalism would meet with failure...

This is logical. Capitalism is an opportunistic social order, like all the other before.

The motor of capitalism is money profit for the minority capitalist class

Ok, this is the engine, but you shouldn't forget the beneficial peoples of the western democratic countries. These are the modern global wage-slave-holder of today by exploitation of nations and resources in Asia and Africa. For example the fuel for there environment-destroyer, called offroader or SUV's.

Who knows how to leave this vicious circle?

Good night

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thank you JimN,

It's terrible that the environmental movement has been co-opted by liberals... and now even by major corporations themselves. A revolutionary corrective to many of the "common sense" answers to environmental problems is desperately needed - both in order to effectively take on man-made environmental problems, but to also to create a movement that speaks to working class environmental concerns.

Where I live, West Oakland in predominantly poor and African American... and also smells like a sewage treatment plant during the hot summers... well because there is a sewage treatment center and major pollution from the shipyards. In nearby Richmond, another working class area, there are oil refineries and major health-problems, but since the company basically owns the town, they can get away with slowly poisoning the bay and all of its neighbors.

It's a crime that all this happens in most poor or working class areas and it's also a crime that the environmental movement is so tied to liberal and bourgeois politics that they have no interest in actually reaching out to working class people and building a broader movement that could take on environmental racism along with everything else.


It is very interesting to see, that here in this forum, like in the most Left-forums, is less interest for the future of mankind.Nothing could be further from the truth.


Sometimes it seams that the majority of the left are only looser in the capitalist race of maximum waste of environment for their own wealth. Yes, I think if workign people ran society, then we would be interested in using natural wealth to make life better for ourselves - just as people have done for millenniums. Native people in North America took from the land, but also were very careful to try and not over-fish, over-hunt etc because they wanted to make sure there would be future crops and fish. Capitalist's don't give a shit because the profit motive is very near-sighted. A fishing company will gladly depopulate fish levels and move onto the next lake or stream or bay... meahnwhile the workers and native people are now stuck living next to a broken ecosystem and ruined livelihoods.


Ok, this is the engine, but you shouldn't forget the beneficial peoples of the western democratic countries. These are the modern global wage-slave-holder of today.Maybe there is a language problem here, but if I get what you are saying... I'm a slave-holder. I live paycheck to paycheck, have been in debt, own no property, have lived out of a car after being fired and not making rent. I will probably never own a home, or have financial stability. But I'm a slave-holder? I benefit from capitalism?

[Philzer]

Hi Jimmie Higgins!

In first, please note :

But I'm a slave-holder? I benefit from capitalism?

I don’t mean you as a person, what I mean is the relation between the nations in first and third world. This is the cement for all modern democracy. This is what called globalisation.
Yes, my first definition of democracy is:

Democracy is material corruption of the crowd (mass), which is participated of the exploitation of other mass (peoples).

Native people in North America took from the land, but also were very careful to try and not over-fish, over-hunt etc because they wanted to make sure there would be future crops and fish....

Is a little too much at once. (sorry, my english is poor, I hope to learn more :) )
The opportunism of the native people in north America was only a lower grade of opportunism, depending on there productive resources.

Every time if the produktiv resources are increased to a new level, the religion must change to a higher level too ( Marx: the snakeskin must exchange): from polytheism to monotheism and today to the modern pantheism of the capitalism. And every new religion has a higher level in opportunism than the old one. This alone is the guarantor for success in the low consciousness mass. The pantheism of capitalism is the highest level of three-dimensional freedom (ignore the dimension of time), the maximum opportunism.

At the time of start killing the native people in North America, it was not a capitalism, I think it was feudalism?

Kind regards

[bcbm]

At the time of start killing the native people in North America, it was not a capitalism, I think it was feudalism?

colonial expansion from the 15th century onwards was part of a larger transition to capitalism, marked by genocide and slavery in the "new" world and enclosure, criminalization of the poor and mass murder in the old.

[Sendo]

Reading Minqi Li, James O'Connor, John Bellamy Foster, and even the metabolic rifts (nutrient anti-recycling done with food exports to foreign lands and to cities that dump sewage in the sea) that Marx mentions in Capital, were plenty to reconcile my liberal environmentalism with communism.

The things they never show, is that the solution for our natural desire for clean air and water and an inhabitable planet is not solved with demonizing third world polluters and green consumerism and fantasies....the environmental crisis is solved by SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION. Capitalism is simply unsustainable and is geared towards private profit and exponential growth. 'Nuff said.

I'm glad to see a Socialist getting on this. The environmental movement was born out of socialists and socialist-minded scientists. Liebig, Rachel Carson, Einstein, all the greats were anti-capitalist.

[Jimmie Higgins]

But I'm a slave-holder? I benefit from capitalism?

I don’t mean you as a person, what I mean is the relation between the nations in first and third world. This is the cement for all modern democracy. This is what called globalisation.In what ways, concretely, does imperialism benifit working class people in the west? By slashing social spending to build the military? By increasing the power and wealth of the ruling class so it is more able to smash unions?

The last 30 years of imperialism have increased the wealth of the rich to unkheard of levels while at the same time, the US ruling class (and those of Europe) have been attacking working class gains and living standards.



Yes, my first definition of democracy is:

Democracy is material corruption of the crowd (mass), which is participated of the exploitation of other mass (peoples).:confused: You mean bourgeois democracy - or imperialism perhaps?


Native people in North America took from the land, but also were very careful to try and not over-fish, over-hunt etc because they wanted to make sure there would be future crops and fish....

Is a little too much at once. (sorry, my english is poor, I hope to learn more :) )
The opportunism of the native people in north America was only a lower grade of opportunism, depending on there productive resources.

Every time if the produktiv resources are increased to a new level, the religion must change to a higher level too ( Marx: the snakeskin must exchange): from polytheism to monotheism and today to the modern pantheism of the capitalism. And every new religion has a higher level in opportunism than the old one. This alone is the guarantor for success in the low consciousness mass. The pantheism of capitalism is the highest level of three-dimensional freedom (ignore the dimension of time), the maximum opportunism.I made a very concrete example of how without the profit motive, people do not have an incentive to strip the environment to the point of uselessness since even in their own interests, they would want to preserve their ability to continue to produce the things they need. And I don't really know what to make of your response.

If I can maybe cut to the chase - I gather you are some kind of misanthrope who views the problems in society to not be from capitalism or particular material reasons, but from people themselves? People are somehow inherently evil?



At the time of start killing the native people in North America, it was not a capitalism, I think it was feudalism?What's your point, I was not talking about the genocide of native people in the Americas. Capitalism is a historically progressive step compared to feudalism and ancient slave societies, no argument there. Besides, the extraction of resources from the Americas and labor from Africa was not strictly a feudal enterprise even though it began under feudal monarchies. It was what Marx described as the accumulation phase that allowed capitalism to develop.

[Philzer]

Hi bcbm!

colonial expansion from the 15th century onwards was part of a larger transition to capitalism

I´m afraid this is a unscientific view of history. Its summarised to the conclusion all bad development of the human history do causing by capitalism.
I say to you, and i hope in directly following to Marx, in this case I do so, but not in all, :
Capitalism is nothing else, than “the relation of production follows the productive resources”, as Marx says.

Not more. Like in all other opportunistic social orders before, and may be in after, if human spirit dont work better.
The opportunism in the human behavior is only very strong increased, in following the increasing of the productive resources .

marked by genocide and slavery in the "new" world and enclosure, criminalization of the poor and mass murder in the old.

All this behaviour isn’t new! Its only more concentrated caused by the higher population, and I think also the genocide is nothing else as a modern kind of war between concurrent individuals in the more and more density of population.

For to prevent mistake: yes we must overcame capitalism, but for to realize this, we must overcame the three-dimensional ethic of the human race. Otherwise its will be ending like the sovietunion.

Kind regards.

[bcbm]

hi!



colonial expansion from the 15th century onwards was part of a larger transition to capitalism

I´m afraid this is a unscientific view of history. Its summarised to the conclusion all bad development of the human history do causing by capitalism.
I say to you, and i hope in directly following to Marx, in this case I do so, but not in all, :
Capitalism is nothing else, than “the relation of production follows the productive resources”, as Marx says.

i don't think it is unscientific. marx refers to primitive accumulation as a stage in the development of capitalism. this refers to the period from the 16th to the 18th century where the material base for capitalism was established. gold from the new world fueled imperial and economic expansion in europe, africans were enslaved to pick cotton in the new world that went to the textiles in england and eventually led to the industrial revolution and the birth of capitalism outright. all of this was accompanied in both europe and the new world by attacks on native populations, workers and the poor.

i don't think any of it is new behavior, but i think it should be noted as a part of history.


For to prevent mistake: yes we must overcame capitalism, but for to realize this, we must overcame the three-dimensional ethic of the human race. Otherwise its will be ending like the sovietunion.

could you elaborate on this?


Kind regards.

likewise

[Sam Da Communist]

Socialism would help improve sciences to help humanity and the world's ecosystem.

Perhaps we need to continue to always alter the world to sustain our life in it, be it altering to fix or to destroy. If we mess it up, we can pretty much clean it up.

Take for example, hydroelectric damns, you basically fuck up a ecosystem to provide humans with water and CLEAN electricity.

We humans are greedy collectively, so pollution will always occur. we need to control our births, and sustain our lives as well. We also need to be productive to maintain humanity's greed, which always involves altering the ecosystem.

I am not a Nihilist or a primitivist, i'm afraid altering the nature is always going to persist. capitalism is messy, perhaps socialism will be much less messy, but still messy on the environment.

Are there any primitivists here?

[Philzer]

Hi bcbm!


i don't think it is unscientific. marx refers to primitive accumulation as a stage in the development of capitalism. this refers to the period from the 16th to the 18th century where the material base for capitalism was established. .........
i don't think any of it is new behavior, but i think it should be noted as a part of history....

Ok. If you see it as a part of history. What I mean is no all problems of our species shift to capitalism.

Capitalism is nothing else than a product of the average conscious of all individuals, of course!

( this is the dialectic counterpart to Marx´ slogan: the individual is the ensemble (summary) of the society terms )

In 20.century the people of the world has say: No, no, spirit in society is not necessary, communism is not free enough, we want to destroy the world with biggest cars (for example) and all what we can get and eat. After me may be the Flood.
(american way of life)

This is what I call opportunism, a three dimensional ethic. The same ethic like the animals, but they have not the human creativity ( creativity is fourdimensional spirit -->> and so we need a fourdimensional ethic for to come in balance! ), and so they life in a blind force balance with their environment. For example the Dinosaurier around 150 million years!

-->> But we must produce this balance with our spirit, this is the price of our intelligence, otherwise this species will be not have a evolutionary success.

-> 40 000 years in evolution dimensions are only a second!


could you elaborate on this?

My english is poor, some I have try to explain here:

--> revleft.com/vb/communism-and-religion-t73036/index7.html

Religion is a step of conscious in the history of the anthropogenesis.


Kind regards

[Philzer]

Hi Sendo!


... The environmental movement was born out of socialists and socialist-minded scientists. Liebig, Rachel Carson, Einstein, all the greats were anti-capitalist.

In summary I agree with you.

But instead anticapitalist I would call them unpolitical. Furtherway there is a spread phenomen. Scientists which have invented great things, in afterwards, if they realize that their invention, by the ruthless application by mankind may cause big damage, they want to quiet their conscience.

Kind regards

[Philzer]

Hi Jimmie!

From my point of view is the world of today, nearly complete, the economic range of the capitalistic Empire with the centre in USA and NATO-countries.

They benefit from the exploitation of the rest of world. With their money, printed by themselves, they are buying all what they want.

Let’s try to come to a global view and global understanding of situations in context.

Some details explain this:

- For example China gives big credit to USA since years, with the effect that American people can consume and consume -> you have never seen “dumping goods” in USA- shops as consumer electronics? Even “Apple” prints on their products: “designed in USA and assembled in Malaysia” or somewhere else in Asia

- If you phone a call centre in USA you don’t realize that the person to answer you is sitting in India

- You can buy “colonial goods” until today like cheap bananas, coffee, cacao

- Don’t to forget the mass of fuel for the biggest cars of the world, driven by working class of USA which needs about 5 gallons and more for 100 kilometres highway

Conclusion:

All from USA and other democratic exploitation-nations imported goods would be much more expansive if people who produce it had the same income and living standard as people in USA /West Europe for which they are damned to work for their whole life.

Please note:

You have written that you don’t have a car (I have a little one -> with 69 horsepower and a consumption of 1.1 gallons (4.2 Litres) diesel per 100 kilometres), you aren´t an owner of a house (neither me, I rent a flat) but a little we benefit too from the globalisation by capitalism.

But I think you and I aren’t typical examples. The majority around me here in Germany drive much bigger cars; at the moment they have the illness to get an off-roader, not because they are hunters or foresters, only for fun to destroy the world!

Kind regards and a nice Sunday

[Vanguard1917]

Reading Minqi Li, James O'Connor, John Bellamy Foster, and even the metabolic rifts (nutrient anti-recycling done with food exports to foreign lands and to cities that dump sewage in the sea) that Marx mentions in Capital, were plenty to reconcile my liberal environmentalism with communism.

In reality, of course, while he indeed made one or two references to soil erosion in his multi-volume of work, Marx over and again categorically rejected the ideas of the environmentalists of his day. In response to the nature-worshipping nonsense of Daumer, for example, Marx made his position very clear:

"modern natural science ... with modern industry, has revolutionised the whole of nature and put an end to man's childish attitude towards nature as well as to other forms of childishness ... For the rest, it would be desirable that Bavaria's sluggish peasant economy ... should at last be ploughed up by modern cultivation and modern machines."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/02/daumer.htm

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thank you for your thoughtful response Philzer,

I feel strongly about this issue because in the US, you often hear the right-wing making similar arguments about how US power helps regular Americans - obviously coming from a totally different place than your arguments which are in defense of people in the so-called third world.

Again, I would say that working class people do not benefit for imperialism and need to destroy it in their own interests as well as in solidarity with their working class brothers and sisters in different regions. While there may be high standards of living compared to workers in other places this is due more to conditions of the class struggle and reforms won in the past. Again, US imperialism and US business power has increased dramatically along with inequality in the US. I think CEOs here make something like 250-300x what the average worker in their company makes.

Wasn't the US an imperialist nation rapeing Latin America before WWII? And yet at that point industrial workers had a very low standard of living. While the power and global position of the US after WWII allowed the US ruling class to attempt to "buy" labor peace through policies of cooperation with the mainstream labor unions (in return for red-baiting and removing radicals and militants from leadership positions). But by the late-60s, this period was over and within a decade, the bosses reversed their class-peace policies and attacked labor organizations, wages, living standards, progressive taxation, and so on. This process has continued and US working class living standards have declined while the US ruling class got even more power by becoming the sole imperialist power after the end of the USSR (and their main rival).

So I believe the view that western workers benifit from imperialism is an outdated argument from the period of 1950-1975 when working class living standards were improving and material goods were more acessable to more western workers. I think this question has been settled by the global developments (reflected in my arguments above) of the last 30 years or so.


If you phone a call centre in USA you don’t realize that the person to answer you is sitting in IndiaActually, this example is frequently used by racists in the US to promote protectionism and "they took our jobs" kind of xenophobia. So even the most nationalistic and racist US workers do not feel this benefits them (for terrible reasons that I do not agree with).


Don’t to forget the mass of fuel for the biggest cars of the world, driven by working class of USA which needs about 5 gallons and more for 100 kilometres highwayI don't think this was a demand made by working class people. In the late 80s or early 90s, automakers found out they did not have to comply to fuel or air quality regulations if they made "sports vehicles" which were not covered by the same laws. In addition, the profit margins of these kinds of vehicles were much higher than for the economy car models that were very popular at the time (mostly made in Japan). So Detroit began making larger and larger cars at inflated prices and the 90s propaganda of "the economy will always go up" along with looser and more widely available credit convinced many workers that they too could have these cars... and why not if you bought into the propaganda. The same is true of the McMansions that were produced because they could be sold at a inflated price along with the myth that housing prices will double every decade or so... a myth propagated from the top... by none other than "financial guru" Alan Greenspan.

Since US workers have the highest level of personal debt since the Great Depression, since at one point last year there were 5 foreclosures on my block alone (in a predominantly working class and immigrant community)... I think we can see how well these "myths" actually benefit ordinary working class people.

[Philzer]

Hi Jimmi and all!

What I´m interested in:

Is there nobody to understand my position of global imperialistic economic?


Wasn't the US an imperialist nation rapeing Latin America before WWII?

Until the midrange of 20 century was the USA in my categories a "national democracy".

I.E. that they needs a big mass inside wich is exclude from democracy.
(I think you should be know this, it was always the same as in the earlier greek democracy) -> so the bundling of the interests of the democratic people comes from the participation of the exploitation of the discriminated people. Its very simple. Like the human race.

It means the rassism in USA was the vital line of this democracy (space of time wich called "autarky") until, after the results of the first and second WW, the USA came in the role of a world-leader and in the following of this, a exorbitant surplusprofit could be obtained from outside the USA.

This was the beginning of a "international democracy", and only this is the true reason for to be in able falldown the rassism inside the USA!

The modern "international democracy" dont need direct-slaves, she is always happy to have wage-slaves arround the world.

Note:

Every democracy in class society for certain to indicate at the differences between the democratic range and the economic range, the differences between the democratic participating people and the economic participating people! No matter if this all inside of one state, or not.


http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html


Kind regards !

PS: if you think like me, that CO2 emission is a god indicator for the wasting of world, and indirect also for the average-richness of the people, pleace take a look at the sticky: "breathing earth" here in sience & environment and look for the position of the USA or NATO-countries.....

http://www.revleft.com/vb/breathing-earth-t58879/index.html

[Dean]

In reality, of course, while he indeed made one or two references to soil erosion in his multi-volume of work, Marx over and again categorically rejected the ideas of the environmentalists of his day. In response to the nature-worshipping nonsense of Daumer, for example, Marx made his position very clear:

"modern natural science ... with modern industry, has revolutionised the whole of nature and put an end to man's childish attitude towards nature as well as to other forms of childishness ... For the rest, it would be desirable that Bavaria's sluggish peasant economy ... should at last be ploughed up by modern cultivation and modern machines."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/02/daumer.htm

Where does this criticism of naturalism relate to (or indeed critique, as you seem to imply here) the striving for the human animal to maintain the ecology of the environment in the furtherance of sustainable human economy?

[Philzer]

Hi!


Where does this criticism of naturalism relate to (or indeed critique, as you seem to imply here) the striving for the human animal to maintain the ecology of the environment in the furtherance of sustainable human economy?

Try to explain:

The most people in present are, it makes no adds if their are aware obout this or not, to infect of the religion of bourgeois.

And the pantheism of capitalism means, in the old knowing form to delegate the sanity to an higher spirit, the development of technology will solve all problems without to change some principles of our endless consume and ravenousness.

I think this unsientific optimism is nothing than the overtake of the rules of unconsciousness life, like the carelessness.

Kind regards


PS:

the unit of religion and opportunism I have tried to explain here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/communism-and-religion-t73036/index7.html