Capitalism and Environment

[BobKKKindle$]

Recently many Marxists and other Revolutionary Socialists have begun to suggest that there exists an additional 'contradiction' within Capitalism in the form of the environmental destruction and damage that Capitalism brings through the development of the forces of production which will limit the system's existence in the long term.

I am somewhat hesistant to place emphasis on the issue of the Environment in my politics because I feel that despite the 'failures' of Capitalism it is a system that is able to adapt in order to preserve the interests of the Bourgeoisie, and one of the ways in which Capitalism (or rather, the State) does this is through the introduction of environmental legislation that forces the internalisation of externalities etc. However - can a 'real' solution be found within the confines of Capitalism>

I would be interested to hear your opinion on this - is revolutionary change required to prevent the breakdown of ecosystems and to ensure the long term survival of the Human Race? Also - does Bio-Diversity and the beauty of the natural environment have an inherent value beyond benefit to humans?

[Janus]

We've discussed this quite a bit in Science & Environment.

Moved.

[jaycee]

their is no solution to the environmental crisis within capitalism. One of the main reasons for this is the existence of competing nation states. Global warming etc needs a global response but capitalisms seperation of the woprld into nation states prevents this, most of the moves towards environmental legislature are thus turned into attempts to weaken rival economies, therefore countries like America refuse to obey any legislature because it is counter to their imperailist aims.

In order to prevent global warming massive structural change and massive changes in the conomy are also necessary, capitalism simply cannot afford to act out these changes, as the world economy is fragile enough as it is, surviving increasingly on debt and state intervention.

[Sentinel]

Capitalism clearly needs to be overthrown in order to prevent an environmental change with varying results for different parts of the globe. The sooner the better as some of these results could be quite negative from a proletarian, and in some cases from the entire humanity's point of view.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that only class struggle followed by a revolution and the building of communism can permanently change the course of development in a positive direction from our perspective. The emphasis on class struggle is what makes the difference between a determined, rational environmentalist with a good prospect, and someone wasting his/her life on fighting a loosing battle for something impossible.

There can be no true sustainability under capitalism.

[BobKKKindle$]

However, surely in the past nation states (or the Bourgeoisie within each seperate country, rather) have been able to put aside their differences and undertake collective action in order to preserve their interests even if in the short term this can yield problems and additional production costs - for example, also relating to the environment, reduction in the use of chlorofluorocarbons? Although cooperation on an international scale is always difficult to accomplish, can we say with absolute conviction that this cannot be achieved for more serious environmental problems such as global warming?

In addition, is it not possible for consumers to change the production processes of firms through using their purchasing power as a way of expressing their political views - through purchasing only from firms that produce their goods in environmentally sound conditions, for example? If this were to occur, in order to maintain their profits firms would be forced to change the way they produce their commodities. It may even be possible for the production of environmental technology - for example, electrostatic percipitators - to become an important and highly profitable industry which provides the bourgeosie with additonal oppurtunities.

[socialistfuture]

no boycotts have limited effect (some one is welcome to prove me wrong) look at coke who murders Colombian trade unionists and causes wells to dry up in india - there is a boycott called against them and even a lot of lefties i know still drink it (and that is from vegans who are staunch with a lot of things). Or with Shell who killed nigerians (tho there is a current campaign against them in ireland).

consumer actions are sumthing but not enough. you cant wait for a revolution when things are craping out now.

[jaycee]

first of all reducing the use of chlorofluorocarbons was no where near as difficult as reducing carbon emisions. This is because pretty much everything in the capitalist economy involves the use of fossil fuels. This goes right to the heart of the capitalist system and for many countries changing to environmentally friendly fuels would be economic and imperial suicide. The only real time the bougeoisie has really acted in a unified way across national bouderies was during the Russian Revolution in which they all put aside the war effort to crush the revolution.

The idea of consumer power is in no way an answer to this problem, first of all most workers simply can't afford to be so picky on what they buy. Also from a capitalist perspective these businesses can only be successful by charging much higher prices, therefore the problem of affordability is impossible to get round.

Their are certainly examples of the bourgeoisie using the environmental crisis to make a bit more money out of 'green' products. But as we've seen in one example, the bio fuels being sold now, this has involved massive destruction of forsets and plants and has driven away both the wild life and has increased the chances of starvation among the poor people in such areas. This is similar to the government in countries like Britain who's only answers seem to be state survielence of your rubbish and other repressive measures, this is another way tellling people that they areto blame for being 'too well off' rather than blaming the system itself.

All this shows that capitalism cannot act in an environmentally friendly way any more than it can stop being a system based on exploitation and imperialism.

[socialistfuture]

prehaps it also cuts deeply into the notion of economics and growth - regardless of whether capitalist or another.

[socialistfuture]

i would add there wld likely be a counter revolution is the new powers that be decided to continue unsustainable practices. in venezuela so far i understant indigenous groups have said dont destroy our homes/mine our land - we support you but not the mining. tho they are planning a massive road deep into the amazon... which means a repeat of what happens in brasil..

i think its real good having all these debates. theres often a lot of distrust between green/enviromentalists/sumtimes indigenous groups and unions/workers. not that either have to be exclusive.

[socialistfuture]

i know the local climate change group where i live has a slogan 'system change not climate change' and they protested al gore saying he was corporate and all about 'greenwash'.

the rising tide groups are generally anti capitalist as are many of the climate camp crew in the UK.

[pedro san pedro]

the group you are talking about also manages to achieve nothing positive for the environment, but does manage to go a long way towards helping make environmentalists look like feral hippies with no idea of reality, strategy or hygiene.

as for boycotts, for the large i would have to agree with you. my understanding was thought that the 'get the shell out of nigeria' campaign did have a noticable effect and, as a kiwi, you must be aware of sucesses within ge-free campaigns where brand damage has been used effectively to win campaigns.

capitalism and the environment? for a capitalist system to 'work' it requires growth, so i guess the question is whether or not growth can be sustainable

[socialistfuture]

i would agree the auckland group isnt massiely effective,
tho 1) it is quite new 2) it doesnt have a massive membership and 3) there arent many other groups of its type over here.

what do you suggest instead.
btw what part of aotearoa are you in?
NFA was unsuccessful, greenpeace have won some campaigns and are pretty popular (random trivia - did u know one of the french secret agents that blow up the rainbow warrior is now an arms dealer living in america) - GE is an ongoing thing - so the successes are still to be tested.

neither risingtide or earthfirst! have properly started up here - a lot of unions and some socialist groups are talking about global warming and environmental topics now and some were involved in anti GE stuff.

I think ure end question is the key one.

[pedro san pedro]

i'm in auckland atm, but a change in my own circumstances has meant that i am probably leaving nz for a bit soon.

in terms of what i would suggest instead, i'ld say that a lot of climactions actions are just actions - they have no immediate goal in sight or strategy behind them. their attempted hijacking of the recent public transport forum being a good example - they tried to sidetrack someone else's campaign when it was in it's late stages at a forum they had not organised, made themselves look really uneducated on the issues and distanced themselves from a room of potential allies in the process.

the auckland transport groups recent apparent victory or greenpeace's recent beating of the marsden b project are much better examples of focused campaigning. climation needs to develop goals such as these groups have and to build strategies for achieving them.

i think that events like the recent students conference in wellington, which led to the formation of SANE and this coming weekends save happy valley hui are among the most important things happening within green campaigning at a grassroots level in NZ at the moment - they provide an excellent chance for networking, the sharing of ideas and mentoring of new activists.

i just really hope the the recent revelations of corporate spying and infiltration of activist groups is not going to damage what momentum there currently is here :(



sustainable growth? is it an oxymoron? labour was throwing about the goal of 4% growth as being sustainable in nz a couple years back - but how long until our economy doubles under that growth? until we are consuming twice as much? until we are producing twice as much waste?

[socialistfuture]

i think the dominant ppl in climaction were supporting RAM who are campaigning for free buses in auckland and will run in local elections, personally i think transport is one issue and there needs to be more studying and hopefuly gaining support of local experts on climate (happy valley has some because it has good ties to some uni's).

i think climaction started as an activist thing and didnt get beyond that enough. you need the numbers, the strat and so on.

i dont think the spying will do much damage here - its not of the level that america and europe etc get it. i heard one of the animal rights groups is bringing a ALF spokesperson soon. ppl carry on regardless of survelience.

[pedro san pedro]

i hope not, but you could almost believe that solid energy was caught on purpose as a means of sowing distrust of new members and making recruitment and delegation harder for the coalition

[socialistfuture]

theres been sum investigations into solid energy and their spy buddies thompson and clark, dont wanna go into details really - but they want activist to attack Sold energy so they can discredit the enviromental and activist movements here and say they act against the law. dont wanna go into a lengthy discussion here.

can provide links to newspaper articles.

[socialistfuture]

the state here has also spied on NFA (native forest action activists in the past) and on anti springbok protests who were acting against racist sports teams from apartheid south africa coming to Aotearoa. And they have spied on greenpeace, animal rights groups, peace groups and the anti bases campaign (for sorry bad gramma with heaps of 'and'(s)

i think nz is rather close to australia and the USA these days, it still retains some autonomy (such as its anti nuclear stance and policy). neway this is going into politics, not environment.

tho capitalism is a political system that ravages the enviroment, and those who live in it.