The Dark Side

We, in the Socialist Party, are optimists. We believe in the future, in progress, that things will get better, eventually. That in spite of its relentless propaganda the idea that capitalism is the ‘end of history’ is ludicrous. There is a future beyond capitalism, conditional of course, that we come together to fight for it, as there’s nothing inevitable about it. Our members have always been optimistic, that in the future, eventually things would get better and we would move beyond capitalism to a sane society. We believe in a better future, better than this miserable present.

But as things stand, there may well not be a future. The harm inflicted on the planet by 200 years of industrial capitalism may be irreversible, and that no matter how much remedial action we take, it is already too late to halt, let alone reverse the catastrophic climate change. The capitalist class are deluded into thinking that with their money, power, technology, and weapons they can sit out the coming chaos. Capitalists have no problem sacrificing vast swathes of humanity, the vulnerable and the defenceless to preserve their pursuit of profit and the rule of capital. A vast reserve army of surplus labour are maintained for the interests of privileged few. Unless stopped, the ruling class, those oligarchs, and plutocrats around the world, threaten to bring about an environmental apocalypse. Can green lobbyist organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth force the capitalists to reverse this suicidal trajectory? Not until they confront capitalism itself.  

Rather than “feel good” lifestyle changes e.g., not buying stuff in plastic bottles real change can only come through collective actions, as a class that collectively opposes capitalism and furthermore advocates an alternative economic system. There are no other alternative socialism. As always, the people and the planet pay the price for the capitalist, profit-driven production. Instead of being ‘responsible’ consumers by recycling this and that, it is time to be tackling the issue at its root, by challenging capitalism as a system. This is a qualitatively different struggle that requires not individual choice at the market-place but organised, collective action to transform the way we make our living; our economic mode of production. We will decide how we want to live our lives. Yes, ultimately, it’s the economic system, capitalism that’s doing the damage but surely it’s time we also accept responsibility for our role in maintaining an unsustainable economic system by voting for pro-capitalist parties or accepting compromises and concessions rather than insist upon genuine change.

 There is no time to delay. The world will need to reduce the existing build-up of hothouse gases in the atmosphere. Such changes will require restructuring the world’s energy and transportation systems. Such changes require massive investment and represent a threat to existing capitalist industries, their growth, and profits. Capitalism requires profit and economic growth to survive. Capitalists want their profits now. The future has little meaning in a profit-driven society. Environmental reform by legislation and regulation are not the answer. If the future is not to be plagued by the floods, droughts and other catastrophes predicted related to climate change, the political and economic system of capitalism must end.

The Socialist Party urges all or fellow-workers to organise to abolish capitalism and institute socialist production for use. Workers must realise their latent economic and political power by forming an integrating integrated into one mass movement for the goal of building a new society with completely different motives for production—human needs and wants instead of profit—and to organise their own political party to challenge the political power of the capitalists, express their mandate for change at the ballot box and dismantle the state altogether. The new society must be one in which society itself, not a wealthy few, would own the industries and services, and the workers themselves would control them democratically through their own organisations based in their communities and workplaces. In such a society, the people themselves make decisions about administering the economy.

Such a society — a socialist cooperative commonwealth - is what is needed to solve the environmental crisis. By eliminating capitalist control and the profit motive in favour of a system in which people produce to meet their own needs and wants, the necessary resources and labour could be devoted to halting global warming, employing the renewable resources we now have available and develop new ones, and clean up the damage already done. The environmental crisis is fundamentally an economic and class issue. Its cause lies in the nature of the capitalist economic system. Pollution and environmental is not an inevitable by-product of modern industry. Methods exist or can readily be developed to safely neutralise, recycle or contain most industrial wastes. Less polluting forms of transportation and energy can be built. Adequate supplies of food can be grown without deadly pesticides. The problem is that, under capitalism, the majority of people have no power to make these kinds of decisions about production. Under the capitalist system, production decisions are made by the small, wealthy minority that owns and controls the industries and services—the capitalist class. And the capitalists who make up that class make their decisions to serve, first and foremost, one goal—that of maximising profit for themselves. That is where the environmental crisis begins. Socially harmful decisions are made because, in one way or another, they serve the profit interests of the capitalist class. Capitalist-class rule over the economy also explains why government regulation is so ineffective: under capitalism, government itself is essentially a tool of the capitalist class. Politicians may be elected “democratically,” but because they are financed, supported and decisively influenced by the economic power of the capitalist class, democratic forms are reduced to a farce.

The capitalist class and its government will never be able to solve the environmental crisis. They and their system are the problems. It is up to the working class, the majority of people who actually produce society’s goods and services and daily operate its industries, to end this crisis.