Check their Ecosocialism and the Fight Against Global Warming interview with editor Ian Angus.

Ecosocialism has grown out of two parallel political trends — the spread of Marxist ideas in the green movement and the spread of ecological ideas in the Marxist left. The result is a set of social and political goals, a growing body of ideas, and a global movement.

As a body of ideas, ecosocialism argues that ecological destruction is not an accidental feature of capitalism, it is built into the system’s DNA. The system’s insatiable need to increase profits — what’s been called “the ecological tyranny of the bottom line” — cannot be reformed away.

Incidentally, Ian emailed me and asked if he could use the theme for Polizeros as a template for the relaunch. I said sure, and sent it along, he tweaked it considerably, and the result looks great. I got the theme for free from here, modified it, now Ian has done the same. No money changed hands nor did it need to. Which is kind of a socialist process when you think about it!

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Derek Wall, Principal Male Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales, has an excellent overview of ecosocialism and its increasing relevance and importance to the Left in Britain and Europe.

Many European Green Parties, in my view have moved to the centre ground and need an injection of ecosocialism if they are to be relevant, more positively the Latin American left as shown by the reaction of Cuba to oil shortages, to Chavez’s condemnation of the great car economy to Morales speech to the UN, to the participation of Hugo Blanco in the ecosocialist network to the work of the green socialist in Brazil…shows that ecosocialism is making modest waves.

It’s relevant here in the States too of course. But the ignorance of and hostility to socialism here means you generally have to wade through all the knee-jerk So You Love Stalin garbage before people start to understand that socialism is multi-faceted and genuinely relevant.

What’s generally absent from US political discourse is any discussion of class, and that’s precisely what socialism brings, 150 years of analysis and understanding of how class is inherent in our political and economic systems - something the ruling class has always understood quite perfectly. Activism and determination is also something socialism brings, as the desire for social change is in its DNA. In most any movement for social justice, you’ll generally find socialists organizing, often long after others have given up too. Like I said, it’s in the DNA. Plus, the experience of 150 years of organizing has been written down and documented and thus offers a huge body of experience on which to draw.

The joining of the environmental movement with socialism into ecosocialism, with its criticism of capitalism as a primary driver of environmental degradation and exploitation, shows the relevance of socialism as we deal with global warming and peak oil.

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“When we look at the real history of the emergence of ecological thinking and science, there can be little doubt that Marxists and socialists were forerunners of it. They were many of the principal figures in the development of ecological thought and science. So the notion that socialists came to this field late is completely mistaken - it’s almost the exact opposite of the true history.”

More: Who said Marx wasn’t green?

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From an interview with Derek Hall, writer, economist, and Principal Male Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales.

Capitalism is based on infinite economic growth, that is ecologically impossible and social injust. So if we are to tackle ecological crisis we need socialism, capitalism is totalitarian, everything ends up being based on the need to expand profit, even education is about providing a willing work force. So the future has to be red-green.

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An Ecosocialist Manifesto

Climate and Capitalism Ian Angus blogs extensively on ecosocialism

Another Green World From Derek Wall, Principal Male Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales.

Marxsite. Ecosocialism Lots of linksGreen Socialist magazine (UK)

Capitalism Nature Socialism magazine

Green Left (Australia)

Green Lefts, Left Greens (Australia)

Ecosocialism.blogspot.com good stuff, but hasn’t posted in a awhile.

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From the Ecosocialist manifesto

The capitalist world system is historically bankrupt. It has become an empire unable to adapt, whose very gigantism exposes its underlying weakness. It is, in the language of ecology, profoundly unsustainable, and must be changed fundamentally, nay, replaced, if there is to be a future worth living.

Capitalism, by its nature, isn’t concerned with sustainability, but rather with maximizing short-term profit. To stop global warming, long-term goals and objectives are needed. But implementing them means cutting into short-term profits. Which is one reason why capitalism is ill-suited to take action against global warming and a new system based on socialist principles is.

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The generalization of ecological production under socialist conditions can provide the ground for the overcoming of the present crises. A society of freely associated producers does not stop at its own democratization. It must, rather, insist on the freeing of all beings as its ground and goal. It overcomes thereby the imperialist impulse both subjectively and objectively.

Sounds like the open source movement, doesn’t it. “Freely associated” groups come together to learn and share with each other, adopting the common core for their own needs, then giving it back to all without undue concern for the narrow self-interest of the profit motive. Would this not be a vastly saner and more sustainable economic system?

Before you say, well, that’s unworkable, consider this. The vast bulk of web servers on the planet already run open source software (Apache, MySQL, php, etc.) as does this blog (WordPress,) and I’d say they do a far better job of it than proprietary for-profit software.

Imagine if open source became the model for all business. You bet we could solve global warming quickly.

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Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy presented the Ecosocialist Manifesto in 2001 as a socialist response to the environmental degradation of the planet.

We believe that the present capitalist system cannot regulate, much less overcome, the crises it has set going. It cannot solve the ecological crisis because to do so requires setting limits upon accumulation—an unacceptable option for a system predicated upon the rule: Grow or Die!

Among their key points is that environmental problems such as global warming are inextricably linked to imperialism, with its constant invasions of other countries (and inevitable blowback via terrorism.) It’s the same amoral grow-or-die ethos, a continual need for more resources, markets, and cheap labor to exploit. A capitalist does it with businesses, an imperialist with armies. They are simply different facets of the same omnivorous system that is not capable of managed growth, yet such limits are precisely what is needed to stop global warming.

[Ecosocialism respects' "limits on growth" essential for the sustainability of society. These are embraced, not however, in the sense of imposing scarcity, hardship and repression. The goal, rather, is a transformation of needs, and a profound shift toward the qualitative dimension and away from the quantitative.

Instead of Ford making trucks and SUVs that get terrible mileage because doing so temporarily benefits their profit margin, in a socialist world that respected limits, they’d be making EVs and hybrids exclusively. And power companies would be producing power primarily from renewable resources. That Ford (and GM) have effectively bankrupted themselves by short-sighted capitalist greed simply demonstrates yet another ‘contradiction of capitalism.’

In a socialist world, with a more managed economy, such changes would be encouraged and quite possibly mandated by the government. No, you can’t build Hummers or produce power from coal. Period.

The Ecosocialism Manifesto is aware of failures of socialism in the twentieth century but says the ideas still stand, and should be used.

However beaten down and unrealized, the notion of socialism still stands for the supersession of capital. If capital is to be overcome, a task now given the urgency of the survival of civilization itself, the outcome will perforce be “socialist, for that is the term which signifies the breakthrough into a post-capitalist society.

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Bob’s post, “Ecosocialism or collapse,” got me thinking about the challenge of global climate change in a new light. In the post, he quotes Richard A. Smith on “three principles for an ecosocialist economy to save us from collapse.” These can be summarized as (1) economy of stasis, (2) production for need (as opposed to excess), and (3) shift in focus toward the common good.

To these, Bob responds:

“Absolutely. But how do we get there? These three proposals all assume the existence of a powerful state (or international governing body) that can mandate such changes. We don’t have that now nor is there any real possibility of there being one.”

Which started my gears turning. Where have I seen such a complex and seemingly insurmountable problem before? Ah: the civil war in Sri Lanka. And the three categories of obstacles are much the same.

The challenge of global warming is not just economic, nor is it just political. Smith also brings up a third area of challenge that is neither economic nor political: “Replace the profit motive with concern for the common good.” This is a problem of thinking, or consciousness.

In seeking solutions to the Sri Lankan conflict, we found it useful to view the challenges as occurring in three overlapping spheres of Politics, Economics, and Consciousness. In order to be successful, a solution must address all three spheres. Any solution that addresses only one or two of the spheres is doomed to fail. And consciousness is key but easily overlooked: in the case of ending a conflict, there must be a transformation from viewing the other as enemy to viewing everyone as part of the same nation.

The problem of global climate change is similar. The discussion here on Polizeros has focused primarily on economic (socialist vs. capitalist) and political (enforcement vs. encouragement) solutions. There are of course technical challenges as well. But until Bob’s post, no one had yet brought up the problem of consciousness. How do we convince people to put the greater good above their own selfish desires?

One answer is through what is often referred to as a spiritual approach, though it might also be considered ethical for those not inclined toward spirituality. In Sri Lanka it meant not converting people from their current religion, but rethinking their current religion. Buddhist extremism, for example, is used as justification for killing non-Buddhists, while Hinduism is strongly associated with caste (and economic) stratification. Christians, who are in a unique position for mediation, instead keep to themselves. Yet all of these religions contain the teachings necessary to overcome self-centeredness and put aside violence.

Sri Lanka is a small country, yet an end to the war there remains elusive. On a global scale, the application of solutions in these three spheres would be even more complex. But they are necessary. If we are to find an answer to global warming (short of climate-imposed population and technological reduction), we must begin to think in terms of comprehensive approaches.

It may also be true that no single entity or organization can fully address more than one (or even one) of these spheres. That means cooperative thinking in a way humanity has been reluctant to undertake so far. Either-or, black-and-white approaches are easy to embrace and make it easy to spot our “enemy”— but these approaches, insofar as they prevent us from working together, may in fact be the enemy.

(A modified version of this post appears on www.AsymptoticLife.com.)

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“Confronting the climate change crisis” details how socialism can provide answers to global warming.

A radical movement against climate change can be built around demands such as these:

Establish and enforce rapid mandatory reductions in CO2 emissions: real reductions, not phony trading plans.

Make the corporations that produce greenhouse gases pay the full cost of cutting emissions.

End all subsidies to fossil fuel producers.

Redirect the billions now being spent on wars and debt into public transit, into retrofitting homes and offices for energy efficiency, and into renewable energy projects.

Obviously these quite sane proposals will require new forms of government and economic systems. Short-term profit can no longer be allowed to be the supreme value. Instead, the long-term good of the planet and its people needs to be come first. This means that for global warming to be stopped, that capitalism has to be replaced by a system that is capable of doing so. Why? Because capitalism isn’t capable (or even particularly interested) is doing so. The inherent structure of capitalism, with its fixation on short-term profit, prevents it from doing so.

Humanity’s choice in the 21st Century is EcoSocialism or Barbarism.

There is no third way.

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More from “Confronting the climate change crisis”

There are three major barriers against capitalism achieving the goal of reducing co2 emissions.

Changing from fossil fuels to other energy sources will require massive spending.

Such spending will not increase profits and thus will be anathema to most businesses. They will only do it when forced to by conditions or governments.

The CO2 reductions must be global.

If the reductions aren’t global, mandated, and enforceable, then little progress will be made, as companies will just move to whatever country has the most lax rules. Shutting down a few coal-burning plants in the US will have little effect if China build 500 new ones.

The change must be all-encompassing.

This is the kicker. Huge restructuring will be needed. Entire industries will vanish, to be replaced by new ones. You think the coal industry will go away quietly? Not a chance.

The problem is rooted in the very nature of capitalist society, which is made up of thousands of corporations, all competing for investment and for profits. There is no “social interest” in capitalism — only thousands of separate interests that compete with each other.

That’s the real problem. Under the predatory nature of capitalism, cooperation doesn’t exist, and cooperation on a global scale is precisely what is needed to stop global warming.

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I don’t usually post on environmental issues, not because I’m not interested but mainly because it’s not a subject I feel particularly knowledgeable about. Usually I prefer to read and learn but I do enjoy a challenge so this post is largely me thinking aloud.

For me, the merits of eco-socialism largely depend upon what it’s up against. When offered as an alternative to Bush-like capitalism with all its vested interests, then there’s no contest, but what if it’s pitched against eco-capitalism (if there is such a thing)? That might be a more interesting discussion. While both capitalism and socialism have been around for generations, the ecological concerns are relatively new and are forcing proponents of both ideologies to stop and think. Socialism on its own isn’t particularly green and some environmentally disastrous policies have been passed by socialist governments which often put social goals above ecological ones. Equally, capitalism by its very nature is always more concerned with the bottom line and the need for expanding markets and won’t act ecologically unless there is a profit in it (or a loss in not acting). But just as both ideologies can be environmentally bad, they can both offer different solutions, or rather, different ways of bringing about change.

Capitalism, as we know, bases all its decisions on the market. If there is a market for, say, energy efficient light bulbs or hybrid cars then we will very quickly be inundated with these products as we are starting to see. But usually the market has to be there first which means that there needs to be a widespread change in attitudes on a personal level before businesses are prepared to take the risks, either that or a marketing campaign to change attitudes and flog more environmentally sensitive products. Eco-socialism seems to work a different way. Change would be imposed by government rather than the market. Government can help to introduce really big changes like the introduction of alternative power production, schemes to bury greenhouse gasses in old oil fields or legislate to make new buildings more energy efficient. It can introduce legislation or a tax regime to force us to embrace change. Authoritarian though this may seem, it might be necessary if the window of opportunity to lessen the effects of climate change is as small as so many scientists are telling us.

Perhaps, if time is so short, we may need the best elements of eco-socialism and eco-capitalism. Governments can be notoriously slow to act while businesses thrive on the spirit of enterprise. Ideally the two ideologies would work together to produce a positive feed-back loop. Just how likely this is in the current political climate is open to question but we are seeing some early signs of what that co-operation can look like even though what’s being proposed seems fairly ineffective at the moment.

Carbon trading, for example, is something that European governments are pushing for and businesses are implementing and using. In my opinion, it doesn’t seem to be such a great idea and I doubt it will make any real difference the way the scheme works at the moment. Carbon trading is an inherently capitalist idea - to make a profit from global warming by trading carbon credits and to allow polluting businesses to continue polluting by buying credits from less polluting countries or businesses. And governments are happy with it because it looks like they are acting on climate change without actually doing anything. There is also a moral issue about carbon trading which was recently pointed out by the former socialist UK politician, Tony Benn. He compared the need to reduce carbon output with rationing in Britain during the Second World War, the idea being that everyone got their fair share regardless of wealth. He compared Carbon trading with the war-time black market racketeering which allowed those with money to get more than their fair share.

Viewed like this, carbon trading is about as far away from eco-socialism as you can get, nor is it a great credit to capitalists who are trying to do as little as possible and dump their problems on others. However, with nationalisation so out of fashion, large corporations do have a role to play. A large energy company might be persuaded to produce alternative fuels or build a solar power station instead of a coal powered one. These are enterprises that governments are reluctant to do on their own. The motivation would be profit rather than any altruistic concern, but at this stage does that really matter? In Spain, which now has a left wing government, we are seeing the growth in solar power stations. And throughout Europe ecological concerns are moving up the agenda whether it’s recycling or alternative energy. Sometimes it’s driven by government and at other times by private enterprise.

As the problems of climate change become more evident, bigger solutions will be needed. Producing a car which uses a different fuel isn’t really a complete answer when you think of the energy used to produce that car and the roads it will drive on. Capitalists wouldn’t lose much sleep if their fields of biofuel meant starvation for others. This is where eco-capitalist ideas fall down. Eco-socialism would, ideally, recognise that resources are limited and focus more on things like public transport and the need for us to consume less (the antithesis of capitalist ideology) and also bringing in laws which would be unpopular but may be necessary (restricting cheap flights is a prime example). If those governments are voted in democratically by a population that recognised the need for change but also the near impossibility of implementing change by themselves then those governments would have the mandate to impose environmentally sound legislation.

At the end of the day, I don’t think climate change is a matter to be tackled solely by ideologies but by values. Ideologies are limited geographically but climate change doesn’t recognise borders. This fact, of course, implies a need for larger international organisations to play a more forceful role, but after seeing the performance of world leaders at the recent G8 summit, I’m pessimistic about that. Eco-socialism or eco-capitalism, it’s the ‘eco’ that matters most and the challenge is to get governments and the people they represent to recognise that.

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Ian Angus, in “Confronting the climate change crisis,” explains why another favorite solution by capitalism to global warming, taxing greenhouse gas emissions, won’t work.

Another “market-driven” approach proposes levying taxes levied on corporate greenhouse gas emissions. But if the “carbon taxes” are too low, they won’t stop emissions — and if they are high enough, corporations will shift their operations to countries that don’t interfere with business-as-usual. In any event, it is very unlikely that capitalist politicians will actually impose taxes that would force their corporate backers to make real changes.

Given the Starbucks often gets tax credits for opening stores in suburban areas, do you think that small municipalities (and large ones as well) won’t change the rules so a polluter can move in on the cheap? The problem, as always here, is that the atomized structure of capitalism makes it difficult to mandate that businesses (literally) clean up their act. Plus, as Angus mentions, in capitalism, politicians serve the corporations that finance them. They aren’t about to bite the hand that feeds them.

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From an article by Richard A. Smith, his three principles for an ecosocialist economy to save us from collapse.

Ecosocialist economy of stasis. Massive cutbacks on growth and rationing in the developed world combined with strictly planned growth in the third world.

But under what mechanism could this occur? It would require either complete consensus or a very heavy-handed government indeed. Plus, the political and financial blowback from forced rationing could easily be massive and probably violent. That we need a worldwide planned approach to global warming is a given. The question is - how can this be accomplished without huge blowback,  chaos, and serious dissension?

Restructured economy of production for social need and for use. Stop manufacturing vast amounts of unneeded stuff, including much of consumer electronics, pharmaceuticals, and military arms.

While we certainly need fewer weapons on the planet, this smacks a bit of anarcho-primitivism to me, a desire to back away from technology. Some pharmaceuticals are unquestionably beneficial and posting on websites that we need fewer consumer electronics is contradictory. But then I’m an unapologetic hardcore geek. Phones are good. So is penicillin. And yes, of course way too much junk is being made.

Socialist economic democracy. Replace the profit motive with concern for the common good.

Absolutely. But how do we get there? These three proposals all assume the existence of a powerful state (or international governing body) that can mandate such changes. We don’t have that now nor is there any real possibility of there being one. In fact, things seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

As John Robb points out in Brave New War (we reviewed it on 5/5), the state is increasingly becoming “hollowed-out” and less able to deal with problems effectively, as witness the US response to Hurricane Katrina and the Kansas tornado. But mandating major restructuring on a global level to deal with global warming assumes an entity with the power to do so. That entity doesn’t exist.

If it did, it would need to operate at least largely by agreement that such changes were needed. Otherwise it’ll spend much time being a repressive enforcer, with all the counter-attacks and rebellions that would invariably spawn.

So, how do we create a planetary response to global warming? (And this discussion appliers whether you be ecosocialist or ecocapitalist.)

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More on Ian Angus’ “Confronting the climate change crisis”

The primary capitalist response to global warming has been to institute an unworkable and unenforceable system of pollution credits. Never mind that the system doesn’t work, is open to corruption, fraud and rule-breaking. At core it favors the elites and solves nothing.

George Monbiot has compared [selling pollution credits] to the medieval practice of selling indulgences. If you were rich and you committed murder or incest or whatever, the Church would sell you forgiveness for a fixed price per sin. You didn’t have to stop sinning — so long as you paid the price, the Church would guarantee your admission to heaven.

The emissions trading schemes are actually worse than that. It’s as though the Church just gave every sinner a stack of Get Out Of Hell Free cards — and those who don’t sin enough to use them all could then sell them to others who want to sin more.

So, capitalism, rather than examine itself as a possible cause of global warming, instead creates yet another way for speculators to make money, with a bunch of greenwash about how it will solve global warming.

The biggest most obvious loophole here is that the system is voluntary and not global. Polluting companies don’t have to buy credits if they don’t want to. Nor do all countries have a carbon trading program, nor is it enforceable and mandatory.

So, rather than give a serious response to global warming, capitalism gives a fig leaf of carbon trading that solves little while pretending to be green.

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This is the first of a number of posts on Ian Angus’ seminal “Confronting the Climate Change Crisis” on his blog, Climate and Capitalism.

His primary point is that capitalism, due to its inherent structure, can not and will not be able to solve global warming.

Why? One reason is because greenhouse gas emissions are an externality. They do not affect the businesses that produce them, nor do businesses have to pay for the damage they cause. Instead, that get foisted on the public to pay. Plus, under capitalism, there is little reason for companies to cut down on GHG emission. Worse, especially in the US, a company could conceivably be sued by stockholders for spending money on remediating global warming because it would cut into profits. Short-term greed and self-interest should not be allowed to trump the long-term good, yet under capitalism, that’s precisely what happens - all the time too.

Sure, there are an increasing number of companies trying to do the right thing and be green. But there are also millions of companies that aren’t. They will go to another country that lets them pollute if they need to. Also, to do all this in a coherent manner will require massive planning and the ability to mandate that those changes occur.

That’s why the solutions to global warming need to be worldwide and top down. That can’t happen in the hugely atomized and chaotic system that is capitalism.

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