Preserve Capitalism or Conserve the Planet?

 

The Socialist Party is for general emancipation, i.e. for a class-free society. But such emancipation presupposes the abolition of private property, of commodity production and of the market economy, as well as of competition and the private enrichment

The realisation of these goals is only possible when the socialist struggle for them is merged with the real struggle of a class that is materially interested in it, intellectually prepared for it, and socially inclined to it. This means a class that is potentially capable of bringing all wheels to a standstill if it so wishes; a class that, organised into the associated producers, is capable of taking over the organisation of production. The overthrow of capitalism, the transition to a class-free society, the replacement of domination by a free association of producers can emerge from the self-organisation and inevitable, the elementary class struggle of working people.

The educational and organisational activity, the stimulating of class consciousness and class organisation shall be the task of the Socialist Party and companion parties within the World Socialist Movement to build a society without private property, production of goods, money, enrichment, competition and nation-state. The practical task of abolishing the bondage of humanity thus becomes the practical politics of our organisation. Our case is one of the total renunciations of compromises. Such methods are unrealistic and impossible in our view and even if it means facing our opponents with our hands tied we make a principled stand. Endless scheming, unlimited willingness to make concessions, dishonest manoeuvres and total exclusion of self-activity, initiative and action of one’s own class leads to nothing and brings us no closer to the goal. Realpolitik and Machiavellianism can never be the strategy of the socialists because the emancipatory goal is not small but huge: to overturn all conditions in which people are degraded and enslaved. The unique nature of the socialist revolution is that it can only be realised by a conscious majority. To this end, it must conquer political power. The goal can only be achieved through the self-organisation and self-activity of working people.

Capitalists cannot exist without workers, but workers can exist without capitalists. As it is workers who actually do the producing, they are quite capable of undertaking this activity in their own interests. This cannot be accomplished unless workers are aware of their objective interests and are organised to achieve this goal. The socialist movement without a working-class is impossible. But a working-class which does not have the necessary knowledge to effect its transformation will not spontaneously evolve into a revolutionary force. For this to occur, workers in large enough numbers must develop sufficient knowledge concerning the nature of capitalist society, the nature of the state and the necessity of revolution to “change the world”.

In a democratically planned and ecologically rational society, many of the lifestyle changes that individualist environmentalism points to as necessary would occur, but as part of a social process of liberation, not as a forced sacrifice or moralistic principle. Work would be structured in ways that allow people to feel a closer connection with the production of food and resources. Overall, a socialist society would give us the freedom to live fulfilling lives less centred around consumption. The level of individual consumption will naturally decrease, without anyone forcing workers to lower their standard of living. Certainly, there would be changes in what people consume in a sustainable society — an ecologically sound agricultural system would probably supply less meat and less out-of-season produce — but this would occur because of a change in production in the context of revolutionary liberation leading to a better life (overall, such an agricultural system would supply healthier, cheaper and better-tasting food), so it would not be experienced as a sacrifice. All this being said, environmentalists must face the reality that much of the world does need higher levels of consumption — more stuff.

Billions of people in the world need, in order to live fulfilling lives, secure food and water, better transportation and communications infrastructure, and medical services. Under a democratic, planned programme of development, these resources could be produced in different, more efficient and ecologically sound ways, paid for by reparations from imperialist capital for its centuries of exploitation, and in concert with reducing the ecological footprint of the developed countries. If people have no secure means of subsistence to live, they will survive as best they can use what means are available to them, which tend to be highly ecologically destructive. Poverty is a major part of the reason there is so much deforestation. Renewable energy provision for the entire planet — and the eradication of poverty — would have to be part of any move to living sustainably with the Earth. The only way to both develop human potential around the world and regenerate a healthy biosphere is through the development of the productive forces of society.

 

 A democratically planned and ecologically rational society will be able to overcome the ways in which capitalism is holding us back from producing more efficiently and sustainably. In an economy designed to meet human needs, there would be many opportunities to eliminate waste: for example, by eliminating product packaging, by eliminating planned obsolescence so that electronic equipment and machines (e.g. laptops and mobile phones) will last longer, by reducing transportation through producing locally when most efficient, and by eliminating many industries — the financial services, and the military — that will be largely useless in a socialist society.

 

Further, the technological basis of society could be transformed. We could adopt a power system based around solar, wind, geothermal and tidal energy. We could redesign urban areas based on walking, bicycling and public transit. And we could transform our agricultural methods, drawing from organic agriculture and permaculture techniques.

All these transformations in production and social allocation of resources are possible with technologies that exist now, but capitalism’s drive for private profit holds us back from implementing them. An ecologically rational society is incompatible with capitalism. Ecology need not be treated as a separate concern that must be brought into other movements. Because all aspects of society are involved in the relation to nature, all struggles have an ecological dimension; and because a sustainable society and a socialist society are inseparable as the aspiration ecological demands belong in all struggles.

Our choice is to preserve capitalism or to conserve our planet.

Denial and delusion

 

On Saturday the streets of Glasgow were filled by 100,000 people wishing to protect the planet from the ravages of the climate crisis. Similar marches seeking to defend the environment took place across the globe.

 

 COP 26 is said to be a pivotal world-changing moment in history because we may be approaching an ecological catastrophe and the COP26 attendees claim they will be able to provide remedies to the climate crises with agreed cures. Many at COP26 believe they are humanity’s last best hope. Yet if truth be told, they are found wanting for solutions. We will concede that climate change indeed presents a potentially revolutionary moment if we dare to take action.

 

There’s no techno-fixes and no stock market answers to global-warming. A shift to clean, green renewable energy sources could reduce fossil fuel emissions but more growth, more production, more consumption of resources, will still mean we are headed deeper into the climate crisis to be confronted by a possible civilisation collapse. Since cutting economic growth is unacceptable to businesses and governments, any such suggested approach is quickly abandoned. If there’s no capitalist solution to ending the plunder of the planet then the only other alternative is to replace capitalism.

 

This doesn’t mean we go back to pre-industrial times, that we discard all the material progress made over the last few centuries. But it does mean closing down wasteful and polluting industries. Much of the commercial world is socially unnecessary, the military and the armament manufacturers, the banking and financial sectors. We have fast junk-food instead of healthy, nutritious, fresh “slow food. We wear “fast fashion” clothes destined to landfill after a few outings. We have shelves upon shelves of disposable products with built-in obsolescence with superfluous packaging just to hook us into a purchase. We can completely redesign the production of appliances, electronics,  furniture and so on to be as durable and repairable. Homes can be constructed to last for centuries, to be energy efficient, to be shared by generations by being family-friendly. All these changes are simple, self-evident, no great technical challenge. They just require a completely different kind of economy, an economy geared to producing what we need while conserving resources. 

 

The question is this: will you stand by and protect the profit system rather than protect the planet? Our alternative is a pragmatic and practical vision of world socialism because it’s the only answer.

 

Business-as-usual with its various attempts to make climate action as compatible with the market (carbon trading, carbon offsets, monetising/commodifying nature) is driving us straight toward civilisation-threatening tipping points. Capitalism is all about ideology, it’s about class and class power which we need to abolish in order to get rid of capitalism. Common ownership and the cooperative commonwealth is what we have to build.

 

 It’s not magical thinking. Mitigation strategies such as consumerist lifestyle changes are half-measures, in themselves worthy aspirations but insufficient and ineffective to fully resolve our environment crisis.

 

Procrastinating over market-based policies or speculative geo-engineering schemes merely postpone the inevitable onset of extreme weather events. The system of capitalist production and the necessity of accumulation is fundamentally incompatible with any sustainable relationship between humanity and the environment. A supposedly tamed capitalism cannot salvage the planet from the savage ravages of the profit system.

 

Corporations cannot be co-opted to act as the green saviours of the Earth in the never-never land of “benevolent” capitalism. There are no “good” capitalists even if Bill Gates tries to canonise himself as a saint. None of the philanthropists fundamentally alter the economic system that is the problem and that is the problem.

 

Climate emergency for everyone, everywhere

 In Glasgow today, in cities across the UK and around the world, protests are taking place to demand action on the global warming crises that humanity is facing. Yesterday in Glasgow, the Friday for Future demonstration showed that the younger generation is fighting for their future. 

The Socialist Party is also concerned with the destruction of our environment and it is because we are so concerned that we ask questions about it. The only answer that makes sense is that it is because of the way society is ordered. Couldn’t the solution be the Earth as the common storehouse of all humanity; the production of wealth solely for use not sale or profit; a world without weaponry — is this an unrealistic Utopia? Not at all. It is the only logical and rational way to run the world given the present high stage of development of the forces of production. Because a solution is so simple and obvious does not mean that it won’t work. We don’t see why humanity has to wait till capitalism has nearly destroyed the planet to establish this. It could be instituted now, so avoiding not only the environmental degradation that will occur if capitalism continues  but also all the wars and the destruction and misery they bring that will occur during this period too

Already for millions the misery and suffering of climate change is a reality.  The human cost of climate change is here and now. It is increasing poverty, political instability and the displacement of people. It is fuelling tensions and competition over dwindling resources and those who least contribute to the high levels of carbon emissions are suffering the most. For politicians in the wealthier countries, it is a distant problem in distant lands. It suits politicians to make sympathetic noises about environmental issues, but after the COP summit is over the same politicians can usually find "pragmatic reasons" that make them have "re-appraise" earlier "policy pledges". There are numerous accountancy tricks that help countries reach their net-zero commitments, without them actually reducing their very own emissions.  CO2 is suddenly a commodity to be bought and sold on the world market, a market in which the underdeveloped countries are duped by the richer ones and their corporate elites. The overall aim is to make biodiversity a commodity just as carbon became one a few short years ago. To commodify biodiversity means to own the back garden of someone who lives half a world away, to control another’s fishing ground or grazing land. Carbon trading and off-setting should raise alarm bells for millions living in or near forests, mountains, coastline, estuaries, steppe, savannah, marginal land, meadow, farmland.

What we want is for the production of the useful things that people need to live and enjoy life to be taken out of the hands of profit-seeking enterprises altogether. We want the means of production to be owned in common by the whole community as the only basis on which production can be organised to take account of the overall interest of all the members of society. In socialism there won’t be any profit-seeking capitalist enterprises to regulate; just democratically-run productive units producing, in an ecologically and socially acceptable way, what people need. When you consider the future of the planet you are faced with two choices. You can continue to support the defenders of capitalism – they come in many disguises – and acquiesce in the destruction of the environment or stand in their way by joining the struggle for socialism and the destruction of a system that will nonchalantly prioritise profit over not only human well-being but the world we live in.

But don’t wait until you are waist-deep in floodwater to make up your mind. Think hard and now. Capitalism, and with it the worsening of every environmental problem or socialism, a world social system that places control of the Earth in the hands of a global majority who will tend to it with respect and without the barriers profit places in the path of production?

 We in the Socialist Party do not shout for minimum reforms or minor changes to current worldwide production methods in an attempt to mitigate or offset the damage already done. Instead, we believe that the only real solution is an end to the root cause of the problem, that is capitalism itself – nothing more, nothing less. 

Build Socialism Today

Despite the promises made by politicians in their speeches, COP26 will be nothing short of a disappointing failure.

Their realpolitik and Machiavellian statecraft can never be a successful strategy

Our future will be bleak unless we make changes but it is not because of the frailties of our “human nature.”

Socialists, however, are not so easily duped by shallow pledges from the capitalist class.

We are not unique in this scepticism.

It is not automatic that every environmentalist will end up demoralised or disillusioned by COP26.

Others hold doubts in capitalist solutions expressed by the banners and placards that read “System Change, not Climate Change”.

Some understand that a system geared towards accumulating capital can only lead to catastrophe.

It is the capitalist system itself that is the cause. The capitalists sacrifice the environment for the sake of plunder.

The Socialist Party understands the stark reality that the capitalist market cannot end the climate emergencies.

We say the capitalist system’s insatiable rapacious need to increase profits cannot be reformed away.

Sustainable development is unachievable under capitalism because it means obstructing the profit motive and halting the economic expansion which drives production.

Our task ahead is to build a vision that spreads across every sector of citizens and national borders. Love of country, in the form of "patriotism," is a relatively late creation. When we were all serfs we were bound to the baron’s estate but we had no "country". Wars were dynastic between rival kings, princes and dukes and an array of other aristocrats.

Today nor has capital any "country" even though capitalism is the precondition for building a "nation," and advocates "nationalism," and protects  "national market." But we describe business as being part of the “international finance.” Capita expands and pursues the global market, using its own "nationalism" as a springboard. Simply put, nationalism is anything but natural; it is an ideology of capitalism, which serves to produce the conditions for capitalist accumulation and gives it legitimacy. In other words, it is not some kind of natural human phenomenon. It is a social and political construct. Once the country has been created as a sovereign nation-state, patriotism provides the glue by which it maintains itself.  It is an ideology, which requires an identity with, and loyalty to, the nation, which, in turn, gives rise to the "national interest" and political duty and civic obligations it demands from its citizens.

No matter how utopian the quest for world solidarity may appear in today’s world of conflict, no other path is open to escape fratricidal struggles and to attain a rational world society. Socialism will rise again as a global movement or not at all and on the basis of past experience, those interested in the promotion of socialism must stress its internationalism most of all.

While it is impossible for socialists to become a nationalist, we are, nevertheless, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialists. However, being against colonialism does not imply adherence to the principle of national self-determination, but expresses our desire for a non-exploitative socialist society without borders. Socialists cannot identify themselves with national struggles, yet as socialists, we shall oppose both nationalism and imperialism. The World Socialist Movement is indifferent to the national interests of any particular country, including the one we were born in. The thing to which we are not indifferent to is the principles of socialism.

 We advocate a socialist transformation that will be absolutely necessary for the survival of some sort of recognisable civilisation.

Our aim is to overcome and overthrow capitalism, to cease growth for the sake of production for profit and instead create new bonds with the environment we all live in.

All aspects of society are involved in the relation to nature. All struggles have an ecological dimension. Sustainable society and a socialist society are inseparable.

The answer cannot be cutting and curtailing the living standards of the already poor in a sacrifice to save the planet.

We’re talking about universal access to quality food, decent housing and adequate healthcare.

Billions of people in the world to live fulfilling lives require secure food and water, better transportation and medical services. 

If people have no means to live by, they will survive as best they can by using what means are available to them, which tends to be ecologically destructive. 

Poverty is a major part of the reason why is so much deforestation. 

Many of the lifestyle changes environmentalists point towards as necessary will occur, but as part of a social process of liberation, not as a forced imposition. 

The question is this: will you stand by and protect the profit system rather than protect the planet?

The Socialist Party presents a pragmatic and practical vision of world socialism because it’s the only answer.

We are for a class-free society. But such emancipation presupposes the abolition of private property, of the elimination of commodity production and of the end of the exchange economy.