Socialism does NOT address environmental needs!

[ComradeGrant]

Cool story bro. I think we all care about the environment at least a little bit.

[Magón]

Go live in your yurt, you Primitivist! Just kidding.

Seriously though, besides doing Class Struggle work with groups and such, I've done plenty of Environmental work too. There are plenty of Socialists out there that care about Environmental issues.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Socialists understand that environmental issues cannot be resolved without smashing capitalism.

[Rusty Shackleford]

socialism is about sustainability. not rapid growth.


meeting needs, not profit margins.


with all of that comes a concern for the well being of the climate, ecosystems, and the environment at large. How can humanity survive if the world is toxic to us?

[Buttress]

Socialism says,
"No, I do not have an official position on GMO, carbon emmissions or pesticides, but I like to think such issues can be easier dealt with after the exploitative, profit-hungry menace that is capitalism is wrung out of existence."

[NewLeft]

There's plenty of great resources on the green-left. Check out Ecosocialism Or Barbarism. It addresses every question that you asked. Of course the socialism of the 19th century was not focused on the environment, no one would have predicted the existant or severity of the environmental crisis..

[Welshy]

Where does socialism stand on GMO? Where does socialism stand on carbon emissions? Where does socialism stand on pesticides? Socialism has no stance on any of these key issues of the 21st century! We need solutions to problems NOT ideology!

Why did you come here if you only intended to make broad damning statement like that? Now what you should have done was ask us what our position on various environmental issues are. The environment is one of the things that I've noticed the left taking a fairly strong stance on. If you don't think that socialist haven't been providing answers then you obviously haven't been looking hard enough, we have been doing nothing but try to provide solutions with out getting into utopian territory for a long time now, we just don't think that the issues can be solved under capitalism.

[ZeroNowhere]

Objection!

[Le Socialiste]

Not that Marx and Engels were the sole authorities on socialism, but:

"Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations."

- Marx

"At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside of nature...we have the advantage of all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly."

- Engels

While issues like global warming, melting ice caps, deforestation and the destruction of basic, natural resources weren't in full swing during their lifetimes, Marx and Engels both understood the importance of maintaining the environment in a sustainable, equitable fashion.

[CommunityBeliever]

We need solutions to problems NOT ideology!

The only real problem is convincing unregulated profit driven corporations to adopt solutions to problems that have been know for decades. Good luck at that.

[thefinalmarch]

Socialism has no stance on any of these key issues of the 21st century!
Communism is just a scientific method we use to analyse and critique capitalism. It doesn't need a stance on, of all things, pesticides.

In our capacity as communists and workers, our aim is simply the abolition of value.

Being a communist can help to understand why environmental issues are largely ignored under capitalism, but environmentalism is not integral to the emancipation of the working class.

[Solar Storm]

How can we live in a world that is toxic? Capitalists are dirtying our land our earth,so they can make profit out of it ( cutting millions of hectare of forest, importing rear animals from outher countries,....)
If we acomplish socialism we MUST be in harmony with nature!

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

environmentalism is not integral to the emancipation of the working class.
If the working class doesn't emancipate itself before capitalism destroys the environment on a massive scale, there won't be any emancipation.

[CynicalIdealist]

Where does socialism stand on GMO? Where does socialism stand on carbon emissions? Where does socialism stand on pesticides? Socialism has no stance on any of these key issues of the 21st century! We need solutions to problems NOT ideology!

We stand for democratic planning of the economy. Hence, as opposed to solutions to the environment degrading being impossible, they will be possible under socialism.

[Baseball]

How can we live in a world that is toxic? Capitalists are dirtying our land our earth,so they can make profit out of it ( cutting millions of hectare of forest, importing rear animals from outher countries,....)
If we acomplish socialism we MUST be in harmony with nature!


Yet again, it remains mysterious why people in a socialist community would suddenly no longer need wood, or why they would choose to raise their own "rear animals" (whatever they are) at the COST of not producing items they previously were.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Since it doesn't look like we're going to be reversing climate change any time soon, I think it's all the more important for us to work on GM crops. Things like growing seasons, rainfall, and so on are changing quicker and further than crops can naturally adapt to or be crossbred. Genetic modification is a powerful set of tools that will allow us to make the more significant changes needed to ensure that our crops continue growing in the changing climate.

I can understand being upset at agricultural corporations using GM to pull con tricks on unsuspecting farmers, but I fail to see how that consitutes a condemnation of GM crops in general, rather than greedy corporations and the socioeconomic system that enables them to thrive.

[Ocean Seal]

Socialism has the official position of benefiting the vast majority, and yes that includes taking care of the environment to make it suitable for future generations.

[IndependentCitizen]

Well, considering most carbon emissions are emitted in large quantities because of over production. Socialism isn't about over production, therefore emissions are smaller.

So go back to your capitalist-reformist circle jerk.

[28350]

if everything is nature and man's exploitation of nature
then maybe it will take ecological collapse, that is when we can no longer exploit nature, to bring about socialism
when we're left with the trash of capitalism, we're forced to communize to survive?
i think this is what salvagepunk's about

[Comrade Gwydion]

Socialism says,
"No, I do not have an official position on GMO, carbon emmissions or pesticides, but I like to think such issues can be easier dealt with after the exploitative, profit-hungry menace that is capitalism is wrung out of existence."

This.


Yes, 'green politics' aren't essential to socialism. And there are socialists who don't care about climate. But that's beside the point: the point is that without socialism, environmental problems will never be fixed. Capitalism can't survive without growing profits, and with the general decline of profit, there are only two ways to get cheaper goods: Cheaper labour (Aka Screw human rights) or cheaper process/resources (Aka Screw the environment).

Green Capitalism can't survive. If you want green, you need socialism.

[danyboy27]

Where does socialism stand on GMO? Where does socialism stand on carbon emissions? Where does socialism stand on pesticides? Socialism has no stance on any of these key issues of the 21st century! We need solutions to problems NOT ideology!

Socialism or communism are not magic pills, all it would do is resolve the contradictions existing within the current system. what we would do with this improved economical system would be ultimately up to us. We could either be green or screw it up and polute more, we dont know beccause we are not there yet.

But, just saying, being a socialist and being green are not mutually exclusive, just like being capitalist and green arnt mutually exclusive.

[NGNM85]

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/BookchinCW.html

[Ele'ill]

Where does socialism stand on GMO? Where does socialism stand on carbon emissions? Where does socialism stand on pesticides? Socialism has no stance on any of these key issues of the 21st century! We need solutions to problems NOT ideology!

One thing at a time. We're never going to liberate those industries from irresponsibility unless we ourselves as workers are liberated and we have control over our own work places and living environment. Currently every aspect of industry is geared towards profit. We don't want that- we want to know how GMO can be used responsibly to help manage crisis situations around the world- you know? Alternative energies and alternative methods to using fossil fuels when and if appropriate. It's the same thing. I don't see revolutionary socialism's approach to environmental issues as being any different than its approach to poverty or any other issue.

[o well this is ok I guess]

"As long as there is Man and Environment, the police will be there between them."

[Prometheus]

Where does socialism stand on GMO? Where does socialism stand on carbon emissions? Where does socialism stand on pesticides? Socialism has no stance on any of these key issues of the 21st century! We need solutions to problems NOT ideology!

Ideologies are not like party programmes.

Party programmes are often seen as if they require yes-or-no answers for every single topic. You could buck them off as you go down the list. Pretty two-dimensional and mechanistic.

Ideologies are more stating a thing about values regarding how society should work and why it should work in that manner, as well as how to reach normative results. Some ideologies also provides definitions for reality (natural rights, materialistic determinism or eternal struggle are all examples of this).

Ideologies which try to press every single issue into a doctrinarian answer tend to get very small.

If an ideology should be big, it must be broad and sometimes vague enough to appeal to people, and it must also of course have some resonance with the interests of people.

The problem with combining party programmes with ideologies is that they eventually would kill the ideology, either by parliamentarian compromise or by totalitarian dogma.

I see the problem with socialism and environment as well, but I think the root problem is the dialectal materialist focus on productive forces, which has a normative inclination that favours industrial progress at all costs, as typical for the 19th century.

What is needed is not to - as most leftist parties do - tweak some environmentalist talking points into socialist party programmes, but rather to try to form a new ideology based on the knowledge we have today and the challenges we know we're going to face tomorrow.