What Overpopulation?

 

Overpopulation is blamed for the destruction of the planet, yet have we ever thought of pointing fingers at the unsustainable practices WE continue to perform in the name of “profit” despite the many existing alternatives?

It is not a question of the number of people inhabiting our planet, it is a question of the laws of capitalism. The truth is, if we all shifted towards an earth-friendly lifestyle and designed sustainable cities that would allow for self-sufficiency and collaboration for the good of all, we would no longer be considered a threat to the planet. We would work with nature and not against it. We are a part of nature after all and it is about time we stop feeling guilty for existing. What we should be critical of are our actions and the destructive system we continue to uphold – not our species itself – which can all be changed if we stop pretending we are separate from nature and each other.

Overpopulation describes a situation where the number of people exhausts the resources in a closed environment such that it can no longer support that population. Our over-crowded cities or poor developing countries are not closed environments. The economic laws of capitalism prevent food from being transported to where it is needed, or distributed to those who are hungry, “overpopulation” is not to blame. Hunger is a problem in many parts of the world, but it is not caused by the number of people. Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world’s current food supply. Enough grain is produced to provide every human being with 3,500 calories per day – 1,500 more calories per day than recommended by the Food and Drug Administration.

The world currently produces enough food to feed 10 billion people, and there is not even 8 billion of us. With 8 billion human brains at work, we produce enough food for 10 billion human bodies. Imagine how much food we can produce with 3 billion extra pairs of hands and 3 billion more minds

There is no reason to think that we are running out of human ingenuity.  If anything, a larger population means more opportunities for the kind of scientific collaboration and increased specialisation that results in such scientific leaps forward. Human knowledge can be passed on through the written and spoken word in ways that evolutionary or biological advantages can’t be.

 If we built this world, what makes us believe we cannot build something different? As of now, we use most of our creativity and intelligence to develop weapons of war, unsustainable technologies and meaningless products. We mostly unite in coalitions for military action. We waste incredible human potential for tasks that could be automated, or that serve no purpose.

What if we used all of our power for the betterment of all life instead of using it solely to empower the few at the top? What if we united not for war and destruction, but for peace and prosperity? What if we instead used this same potential to create sustainable technologies, beneficial products and harmonious systems that would allow humanity and the earth to thrive?

Imagine if we united as a people, stopped complying with capitalist laws and created a more beautiful world—not because of some piece of paper we would get in return but because it only makes sense.

We are growing, but definitely not at an exponential rate. In fact, our rates of growth are declining. Between 1950 and 2000, the world population grew at a rate of 1.76%. Between 2000 and 2050, it is expected to grow by 0.77 percent. So yes, because 0.77 is greater than zero, it is a positive growth rate, and the world population will continue to grow because of something called population momentum. Most of this growth will be in undeveloped countries—their life expectancies are expected to rise in the next 50 years, contributing to their population growth. But the African continent has the potential to counteract the consequences.

Europe’s falling numbers is something to worry about. A UN report titled “World Population to 2300” paints a picture of Europe’s future if European fertility rates don’t rise above current levels:

“The European Union, which has recently expanded to encompass 452-455 million people (according to 2000-2005 figures) would fall by 2300 to only 59 million. About half the countries of Europe would lose 95 per cent or more of their population, and such countries as the Russian Federation and Italy would have only 1 per cent of their population left.” 

In other words, the French, German, Italians and British will virtually cease to exist. Almost half of the European people live in a country with below-replacement fertility.

Every man, woman, and child on earth could each have 5 acres of land. Every man, woman, and child on earth could each have a half-acre of arable land. If we wanted to squeeze close, everyone in the world could stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the island of Zanzibar. Many believe that overpopulation is a question of lack of space. It isn’t. Today, there is approximately 7,268,730,000 people on earth. The landmass of Texas is 268,820 square miles (7,494,271,488,000 square feet). If we divide 7,494,271,488,000 square feet by 7,268,730,000 people, we get 1031 square feet per person. This is enough space for everyone on earth to live in a townhouse while altogether fitting on a landmass the size of Texas. And we’re not even accounting for the average four-person family who would most likely share a home! We’re not saying that creating such a massive subdivision would be a smart, sustainable or practical thing to do. Cramming together a population that continues to over-consume, waste and poison the environment the way we currently do would be a recipe for disaster. This is just to give an idea of how it isn’t space itself that is lacking.

The urban population is on the rise. Since 2008, more than half of humanity has become urbanised. The reason is that there are more opportunities to make money in the city than in the countryside. A city is crowded because people come from miles and miles away to move there, not because of reckless reproduction and overpopulation.

The world has an abundance of resources and could provide for everyone’s needs, yet every year the richer countries waste million of tons of food. All the world’s nearly one billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe.

Meanwhile, the poor still starve to death – not because resources are scarce, but because they don’t have the money or have access to enough private land. In those countries where the poorest 20 % of the population earned a smaller percentage of a nation’s total income, they had less to eat. In other words, poverty and inequality cause hunger, not overpopulation.

 Africa has enormous still unexploited potential to grow food, with theoretical grain yields 25 to 35% higher than maximum potential yields in Europe or North America. Beyond yield potential, ample arable land awaits future use. In Chad, for example, only 10% of the farmland rated as having no serious production constraints is actually farmed. In countries notorious for famines like Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Mali, the area of unused good quality farmland is many times greater than the area actually farmed.

Don’t believe people starve because the world is overpopulated. The world isn’t overpopulated at all. It’s just very badly managed.

It is easy to blame some so-called “natural” phenomena that require artificial measures such as GMOs to “solve world hunger” or family planning for population reduction, but how about criticising the actual values behind our system and ways in which it promotes inequality for the benefit of the few? How about questioning the belief that opportunities and abundance can only exist where money flows when we live on a spacious planet that could provide for everyone if we were to use it intelligently?

Alternatives to unsustainable agricultural practices do exist. The success of new methods of agroecology gives an idea of the possibilities of overcoming food crises through self-reliance and sustainable, virtually pesticide-free agriculture. Environmentally sound agricultural alternatives can be more productive than environmentally destructive ones. Permaculture is a great example.

Instead of simply pointing fingers at a growing population city planners could develop sensible housing with recycling sanitation. The options are endless. Sustainable housing and city planning is not only a great idea for the planet, it would solve all hunger problems we face today. For example, every home is outfitted with one or two greenhouses that grow crops year-round, no matter the climate. This means that people can feed themselves with only the plants growing inside their own house. A fish pond and a chicken coop can also be built for each house if vegetarianism isn’t adopted by everybody.

Hunger is NOT just an “inevitable” part of life.

Global crises need world answers

 

Politicians, UN officials, NGO members, and thousands of environmental activists from across the world are debating how to address environmental degradation what governments do. They all seem to agree on and accept the need for each country to interpret the concept of a green economy according to national priorities that leaves it up to each country to define what is meant by a green economy. Discussions have so far been focused on new financial markets to be developed and opened up. But the destruction of ecosystems and the capitalist exchange economy are inseparable parts of the same problem. The capitalist system depends upon growth and accumulation to sustain itself.

Instead many are touting a mythical economy of the Green New Deal which they say will solve all our climate challenges. Under the rhetoric of “green economy”, capitalists are actually attempting to use nature as capital, proposing unconvincingly that the only way to preserve natural elements such as water and forests is through capitalist investment. For capitalists, nature is mainly an object to possess, exploit, transform and especially to profit from. This will open the door to the development of a new speculative market. This will allow some banks, corporations, brokers and intermediaries to make a lot of profit for a number of years until their financial bubble explodes, as can be seen with past speculative markets. While still ill-defined, they're generally referring to a model of economic growth based on massive private investment in clean energy, climate-resistant agriculture, and ecosystem services - like the ability of a wetland to filter water. Under this new concept, Wall Street gets to reap profits from a whole new line of business, and governments get to spend less protecting the environment.

Nature cannot be submitted to the will of the market. Putting a price on things like water or biodiversity as a way of managing their use turn them into commodities and risk having basic needs and services fall victim to speculators who make money off volatile prices. Does it make sense to put the future of our remaining common resources - forests, genes, the atmosphere, food - into the hands of people who treated our economy like a casino? Powerful transnational corporations and international businesses councils have successfully pressed for ‘marketisation’ which will amount to a dramatic expansion of the commercialisation and commodification of the natural environment and its life services. In effect, genuine sustainable development has therefore been denuded of meaning and is not supported by concrete measures to move away from the logic of capitalist growth that destroys irreplaceable ecological resources.

 Capitalism, a system based on the drive to accumulate more and more (endless and unlimited growth) – is at the root of these crises. Capitalism cannot be green.  We champion green socialism that focuses on production for need only and common ownership of the world’s wealth. 

 Ecological sound socialism is the necessary transformation to an environmentally sustainable economy. In order to avoid catastrophic and irreversible environmental destruction, world socialism will establish global sustainability strategies, based on science. The principles for sustainable development will be translated into practice. The world has never needed socialism as much as today. When crises occur, we come together very effectively and very quickly. During a war, during natural disasters, the best is often brought out in people. We survive and flourish because we look after each other. The bigger the crisis, the better we behave (although it is not always universal, of course.) It is surprisingly easy and fast how we could achieve real change. We can dramatically transform our production methods with existing proven technology. The only thing we really need to change is how we think. We need to recognise that spending more time helping each other, more time learning, more time involved in the community are the behaviours that actually bring a better quality of life.

The ideas of the ruling class have hoodwinked us! Carefully crafted propaganda convince us that a society based upon individual greed, exploitation and inequality is normal, natural and desirable. What kind of system is capitalism? This kind: If there are wars, it benefits the arms traders. If the disease spreads that is good for the pharmaceutical industry. If hurricanes and earthquakes reap destruction upon communities, that is beneficial for the construction industry.

Such are the realities of the cold-blooded economics by which the people of the world have been organised for hundreds of years. Many of us starve for lack of food while others go on diets because they eat too much. Many of us sleep in doorways and on the streets, yet pampered pets have their own beds in warm homes. The idea of keeping people healthy, safe, secure and alive is reduced to doing so only if they are able to create profits for those selling health, safety, security and life itself to the highest bidder in the market.

Men and women of all lands, in co-operation with one another, shall take charge and take responsibility for their daily lives through a network of inter-linked decentralised democratically-controlled committees, based on local neighbourhoods and places of work, rising to regional and then worldwide administrations, which will decide production and distribution requirements of society, based not on the ability to pay - but upon need. The abolition of money. The abolition of prices and wages. The abolition of private and State property. A world of free access.

Selfish Capitalism v Sane Socialism

 

Many people tend to associate green campaigners with tree-hugging liberals but sadly there are few on the fringes of the environment movement determined to use the climate change crisis by blaming over-population as its cause to promote xenophobia and anti-immigration. Nor is it a new development but one that can trace its roots to the ‘blood and soil’ nationalism of Nazism.

What does "overpopulation" mean? It is not a simple question of numbers. It would be absurd to suggest that the uninhabitable Arctic regions are under-populated as compared with, say, the U.S.A., obviously natural factors must be taken into account. It is equally obvious that the same natural resources in succeeding ages with improved means of wealth production can support larger populations. Again, it is true that, as the industry is organised today, it will be found generally that dense populations can more conveniently be maintained in industrial areas than in agricultural areas.

The workers are not poor because of over-population, or low-wage immigrants, or foreign competition from high or low-waged nations, or because America bars further immigration, or because of protection or free trade, or because they don't work hard enough, or because they work too hard, or because raw materials are monopolised by certain capitalist groups.

 The workers are poor because they are workers. They live in a capitalist world, where private property in the means of life means wealth, and being propertyless means the necessity of working and the accompaniment of economic subjection and poverty. The conditions of work and of the worker's standard of living are set by the capitalist system. Ending exploitation, utilising existing powers of production to the full, eliminating waste, are all dependent on the solution of the political problem of the conquest of political power.

Many environmentalists dismiss the contention that Nature is sufficiently bountiful for our needs. They ignore that more than half of the working population are not engaged in producing wealth at all, but are either idle or are carrying on purely wasteful services called into being by the capitalist system. There obviously are problems of population, but the problem of working-class poverty is not one of these. 

Does anybody really believe that if the world’s population was drastically reduced to a few billion, the forest would not be logged to depletion, the pollutants would not be spewed, and greenhouse gas wouldn’t still accumulate in the air? These would just advance at a slower pace, not disappear.

 

The World Socialist Movement (WSM) has always held that a society of abundance for all is possible and can be quickly become a reality. 

Technology has developed to the point where society can produce enough for everybody. What is lacking is the required movement to bring such a society into being.

Some scenarios assume that people love luxury and that they loathe work. 

We suggest that neither of these is fully correct and take their reasoning from projecting into socialism the capitalist ethos.  

Our critics remain fixated on what we can call the ‘Lazy, Greedy Hypothesis’ which simplistically preaches the conventional wisdom about peoples ‘selfishness’ and rejects a system that abolishes money, prices and the whole exchange economy, asserting that a money-free scheme would permit the least socially responsible to ‘win’ out because they would take more and give less.

Are some innately selfish and inherently idle? We say no and don’t share in this pessimistic perspective.

We have always thought we left ‘Original Sin’ to the religious blinkered, not for the progressive-minded to accept.

Human behaviour reflects society. In a dog-eat-dog society such as capitalism, people feel insecure.

Unappreciated and humiliated, there is a tendency for individuals to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions and conspicuous consumption to compensate for low status and low self-esteem.

Capitalism requires consumption, whether it improves our lives or not, and there is a huge industry devoted to persuading us to consume.

Businesses are compelled to produce more in order to maximise profits with the effect that it creates the enormous waste of consumerism. Obsolescence is built into products that are designed to be irreparable and disposable so that customers are trapped in a throwaway cycle of purchasing upgrades and replacements.

The destruction of ecosystems and the capitalist exchange economy are inseparable parts of the same problem. The capitalist system depends upon growth and accumulation to sustain itself.

Policing at the COP

 The occupants of a disused building in Glasgow that was reopened to offer emergency accommodation for climate activists have accused police of trying to break into the site with a battering ram and batons drawn early on Monday morning.

The activists at Baile Hoose, a former homeless shelter in the Tradeston district, said up to 20 officers from the Metropolitan police and Welsh forces mounted the raid at 3am, claiming to be acting under orders from Scottish police.

Police criticised over raid on Glasgow squat housing Cop26 activists | Glasgow | The Guardian

Green New Deal - Same Old Deal

 

There is no question that capitalism is sending humanity towards environmental disasters. Things are only going to get worse, the experts say.

Capitalism doesn’t disappear if it camouflages itself green. Like Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, the Green New Deal aims to rescue capitalism not replace it with a series of legislation and regulation.

Reforms such as carbon trading in CO2 emissions won’t work. Proposing partnerships with “progressive” corporations and providing government subsidies and preferential tax treatment for clean-energy investments won’t work. Nor will insisting all government contracts must be green. The Left places too much of its faith in State plans and incentives offered to industry to de-carbonise, trusting that private business will welcome such state intervention and not be aware of the threat to the privileges of its private investors. The State is not class-neutral but the executive committee of the whole of the capitalist class. Attempting to reform the unpleasant parts of capitalism while production for profit remains can only lead to failure. We need to start producing for human needs in a global way. This means overturning this insane system.

People are deeply concerned about this situation and want to do something about it. Environmental destruction can be stopped but this means confronting capitalism. We need to confront the system as a whole, not simply bits and pieces of it. How much more time is to be wasted before it is accepted that capitalist politicians are not just incompetent but incapable of solving the climate problems? Bandages are not cures. Supposed solutions as only short-term temporary fixes, unable to get us out of the crisis. Geo-engineering remedies are at best a desperate and potentially disastrous measure of last resort. Geo-engineering projects open up all sorts of cans of worms with unintended consequences. There is no capitalist knight in shining armour riding to rescue us, no political hero proclaiming the Green New Deal can save us. Global industry is not organised to serve us; it is organised to generate profits for business.

People have marched and demonstrated against the many institutions of capitalism. However, we must avoid the trap of promoting a series of campaigns that target only the policies of the government and individual corporations. We must use these protests to build an anti-capitalist movement or run the risk of exhausting our energies in a noble but futile effort. We still have time to build such a movement and demand such action, but not much time is left. We need to abolish and get rid of capitalism. 

Our goal is the elimination of the economic system based on profit and the creation of a democratic system based on equality, justice and sustainability. The system of capitalist production and the necessity of accumulation is fundamentally incompatible with a sustainable relationship between humanity and the eco-spheres. We put forward a socialist vision of the future that we hope will form the basis of a popular mass movement. We do not propose a series of reforms that will not abolish the market.

Capitalism - Humanity’s Enemy

 It is no longer possible to deny the urgency with which humanity must act to change if civilisation is to survive.  Humanity is at a turning point in history. We face multiple and massive environmental problems which will become irreversible so that the planet will not support the existing global civilisation. The destruction of the environment has reached calamitous proportions. It is a searing indictment of the short-sighted and disastrous policies of the capitalist system. The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ and wanton destruction of the environment is inevitable in a society dominated by blind market forces. The competition of interests makes capitalism absolutely incapable of developing adequate answers or even safeguards.

 

Our previous harmonious relationship with nature is broken; the cause is capitalism. The crisis arises because production is not geared to satisfy needs, but instead to produce profit.

 

Capitalists produce with the hope of gaining as large a share of the market as possible, and in the process, they collectively produce too much. The wastefulness of capitalist production is as much a strain on nature as it is on the fabric of society. Practically everything in this world is determined by profit and the capitalists concern themselves with the ecological problem only insofar as it affects their returns.

 

Capitalism is based on the principle of private property of where a small group of people "own" the Earth for the purpose of exploiting it for profit for their benefit. It is vital to appreciate that the widespread damage to the environment originates from the normal functioning of the system and not from its malfunction. It is not an aberration that can be cured. The ruling class has no good ideas about how to address the climate crises other than through the prism of the market and the stock exchange.

 

The World Socialist Movement says capitalism cannot save the planet from ecological disasters. It questions the ability of capitalism to foster a low carbon-emitting economy. The capitalist system is in direct conflict with nature. Profit consists of taking out more than you put in. This is certainly contrary to the socialist principle of a sustainable steady-state economy, “simple reproduction” as Marx called it, a balance of give and take. 

 

 Left-wing greens’ certainly talk the talk with proposed alternative solutions to environmental crisis which involves social reconstruction including direct grassroots democracy, decentralisation, cooperative enterprises, community ownership of productive resources, and workers control. They call for independent political action, outside the establishment political parties, based on local-rooted activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise, as well as the older more established lobbyist groups, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

 

Those who try to regulate the system, in the end, merely make the road smoother for the corporations, once the vested interests in control of the state, modify, amend and water down their demands to make them more palatable for the capitalists. The market does not operate in abstraction. The political power wielded by corporations will prevent the rationality of human survival from triumphing over the irrationality of capital accumulation.

 

We cannot any longer ignore the accumulating and accelerating number of reports, and studies that have appeared which raise the prospect of serious harm to humanity and the scenario of our planet no longer being capable of supporting a modern civilisation and becoming effectively an unliveable world.

 

The Socialist Party has reached the conclusion that this system cannot be reformed. It is based on the destruction of the earth and the exploitation of the people. There is no such thing as green capitalism, no matter how radical capitalism is framed. Socialism would mean organising human communities in a manner that is compatible with the way that nature thrives. Capitalist society robs us of a healthy relationship with each other, creating rivalry, competition and hatred. If this type of society de-humanises us, we can fully expect to be alienated and estranged from our natural surroundings. Socialists strive towards a survivable society. To accept that many cultures must perish or radically transform the way we relate to one another and to nature is the question humanity has to face.  Failure to address this problem and answer it with solutions will only guarantee immense suffering associated with a societal collapse as ecological ruination comes to pass. The struggle for world socialism remains a necessity. Even if the socialist revolution we will still be in a global environmental crisis. However, the crucial point is that a socialist, democratic  society would not face the corporate and government apparatus of political obstruction and commercial resistance with insistence upon  “business as usual.” Nevertheless, we should be well aware that the longer the procrastination and postponement of the cooperative commonwealth, the more severe will be the consequences and the greater may be the required policies for halting carbon emissions.