What Will It Really Take to Prevent Earth's Environmental Collapse
by Orpheus Reed | March 3, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The November-December issue of Adbusters magazine carries a piece written by economic historian Richard Smith called "Sleepwalking to Extinction." Drawn from a larger essay, the article focuses on the impending environmental catastrophe facing Earth's ecosystems and humanity. Adbusters is published by the Adbusters Media Foundation, which describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age." In 2011 Adbusters Media Foundation issued a call for people to "descend on Wall Street," which led to the Occupy movement.
"Sleepwalking to Extinction" vividly presents the extreme situation facing humanity. Smith says we are facing a planetary emergency, as global climate change threatens to "accelerate beyond any human power to contain it." He continues, "Yet despite all the ringing alarm bells, no corporation and no government can oppose growth and, instead, every capitalist government in the world is putting pedal to the metal to accelerate growth, to drive us full throttle off the cliff to collapse."
Smith correctly says that capitalism is "overwhelmingly, the main driver of planetary and ecological collapse" and that "the engine that has powered three centuries of accelerating economic development, revolutionizing technology, science, culture and human life itself is, today, a roaring out-of-control locomotive mowing down continents of forests, sweeping oceans of life, clawing out mountains of minerals, pumping out lakes of fuels, devouring the planet's last accessible natural resources to turn them into 'product,' while destroying fragile global ecologies built up over eons of time."
Smith writes that capitalism is driven to grow in a way that leads to ecological destruction and can do nothing else. He not only exposes how the supposedly "tough" environmental standards put out by Obama are a sham but points to how the calls by Bill McKibben, Jim Hansen, and other environmentalists to make a radical switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy still remain within the confines of capitalism—and so are not a real solution.
In all this, there is much to welcome, unite with, and learn from.
However, Smith sees capitalism's threat to the environment primarily as a result of the requirement of capitalist corporations for continual economic growth in order to avoid economic collapse and "for the benefit of their shareholders." This doesn't get to the fundamental laws of motion and dynamics of global capitalism-imperialism. I'm not able to get into these questions here, but I encourage readers to dig into an important recent piece from Raymond Lotta, "On the 'Driving Force of Anarchy' and the Dynamics of Change. A Sharp Debate and Polemic: The Struggle for a Radically Different World and the Struggle for a Scientific Approach to Reality."
As Lotta points out in that work, "The inability of capitalism to interact with nature in a sustainable way...the devastation capitalism has caused nature...and the acceleration of planet-engulfing and planet-threatening environmental crisis are all rooted in the anarchic interactions of highly organized, private aggregations of capital, facing the compulsion to profitably expand or die—and rivalry at the global level."
In this response, however, I want to focus on how Richard Smith, after correctly pointing to capitalism as the problem, goes entirely off the track in what he argues for as the way out.
Smith writes that "the means to derail this train wreck are in the making as, around the world we are witnessing a near simultaneous global mass democratic 'awakening'—as the Brazilians call it—from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, from Athens to Istanbul to Beijing and beyond such as the world has never seen." Smith does say that these movements haven't yet "clearly and robustly" answered the question of what would be an alternative social order. But, he argues, "They are working on it, and they are for the most part instinctively and radically democratic; in this lies our hope."
In other words, Smith thinks that these mass uprisings will develop into, or that they clearly point to, the big changes that are needed to bring about "an eco-socialist civilization" that will urgently bring about the major, far-reaching transformations in the way the economy and society as a whole is organized and run, which are impossible under capitalism and which are needed in order to avoid ecological catastrophe.
He sums up, "Today we are riding a swelling wave of near simultaneous global mass democratic 'awakening,' an almost global mass uprising. This global insurrection is still in its infancy, still unsure of its future, but its radical democratic instincts are, I believe, humanity's last best hope. Let's make history!"
The Illusion of "Classless" Democracy
The examples of mass uprisings that Smith identifies do indicate some of the intense dissatisfaction and upheaval among broad numbers of people against the horrible inequalities and suffering under capitalism-imperialism. But the "radical democratic instincts" that Smith promotes—which go along with notions of "leaderless movements," "horizontalism," "anti-hierarchy," and so on—will not lead to the radical, thoroughgoing transformations that are required to tackle the roots of the horrors facing humanity, including stopping the environmental catastrophe. The fundamental problem with Smith's view is an unscientific approach to "democracy."
Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, hits at the crux of the question in this statement: "In a world marked by profound class divisions and social inequality, to talk about 'democracy'—without talking about the class nature of that democracy and which class it serves—is meaningless, and worse. So long as society is divided into classes, there can be no 'democracy for all': one class or another will rule, and it will uphold and promote that kind of democracy which serves its interests and goals. The question is: which class will rule and whether its rule, and its system of democracy, will serve the continuation, or the eventual abolition, of class divisions and the corresponding relations of exploitation, oppression and inequality." (BAsics 1:22)
The uprisings Smith sees as the "last best hope" are not an undifferentiated whole—they contain different political trends and programs and a mix of different class forces and interests, reflecting this "world marked by profound class divisions and social inequality." Within them there is tremendous contention over how to understand things and how to act—but all still locked within the existing relations of capitalism-imperialism, without fundamentally challenging that framework. These uprisings have not and cannot, based on their "radical democratic instincts," result in a revolution to defeat and uproot capitalism and build a whole new society and world, which is the only thing that can hope to stop environmental catastrophe.
The mass uprisings in Egypt, one of the examples Smith points to, actually show how the idea that a "leaderless" movement can somehow produce fundamental change is a deadly delusion. Millions struggled heroically to drive out the brutal U.S.-backed thug Mubarak. A new face was put on the regime, but the basic nature of the state did not change—the same military, trained and funded by the U.S., remained in control. When millions took to the streets to protest against the reactionary Islamist Morsi government, they supported the military (or stood on the sidelines), which overthrew Morsi in a U.S.-backed coup. Thousands of Morsi suppoters were slaughtered, and a new brutally repressive regime of essentially the same ruling elements people had risen against in the first place was installed. Caught in illusions about the military and capitalist "democracy," the people were led and used, against their own interests, to back the establishment of yet another horrendous, savage regime. (For more on this, see "Millions of People CAN Be Wrong: The Coup in Egypt Is Not a People's Revolution.")
Or look at Occupy. This movement was positive in its standing up against injustice, inequality and a super-rich elite, and in its basic searching for a world where people relate to each other in a different way. But again, the movement objectively did not break out of the limits and confines of this system. How can what Smith calls "democratic instincts" lead a revolution that can actually overcome the deep divisions within society—not only between the small section at the top that control vast wealth and power and the majority of people, but also the divisions among the people?
What Bob Avakian wrote in relation to Occupy is very much to the point here: "...the idea (or ideal), which at this point has considerable currency among many involved in or supportive of these protests—that a 'horizontal' (as opposed to a 'hierarchal') movement can in itself serve as a means of major social change and perhaps even a model of a different society—this idea (or ideal) does not and cannot measure up to the reality of what is actually required to fundamentally uproot and transform a society, and indeed a world, marked by and grounded in profound inequalities and relations of oppression and exploitation, within every country and in the domination by a handful of powerful, imperial powers over the great majority of countries in the world and the great mass of humanity. To uproot and transform all this requires nothing less than an unprecedented revolution: a radical overturning of the entrenched, and violently repressive, ruling forces and imperial powers who now dominate human social existence, and the deep-seated economic, social and political relations of exploitation and oppression of which they are the embodiment and enforcers. And to achieve such a radical overturning and transforming requires a scientific approach to the strategic orientation, program, and organization that is actually required for the revolution that is really needed."
As Avakian goes on to point out: "This revolution is necessary not only in order to deal with the basic, and antagonistic, relation in which the masses of people are ruled over by an exploiting class representing a small part of society, but also in order to transform the relations between different sections of the people themselves—including the transformation of the contradiction between those who (primarily) engage in physical labor and those who (primarily) engage in intellectual labor (the mental/manual contradiction)—in such a way that these relations no longer involve oppression and no longer contain the seeds of antagonism. Without such a revolution, even very positive developments, such as what is represented, in its main thrust and content, by the 'Occupy' protests, will ultimately run into their limits." (This comes from Bob Avakian's November 2011 statement "A Reflection on the 'Occupy' Movement: An Inspiring Beginning...And the Need to Go Further," which I encourage everyone to study or go back to.)
Revolution is not simply a lot of upheaval or mass protest that grows larger and larger, and then somehow leads to the defeat of capitalism and to a whole different way society is organized. Revolution will need to confront and defeat the repressive forces of the capitalist state when the necessary conditions for this come into being. It will need to dismantle capitalist institutions and set up entirely new, liberatory institutions. It will require going up against and defeating attempts by the overthrown exploiters and new exploiters that arise from within socialist society, while supporting revolutions around the world. It will mean approaching socialism not as an end in itself but as a transition to a communist world—to the abolishing of all class distinctions, all the relations of production of which those class distinctions rest, and all social relations that correspond to those relations of production, and to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that stem from those social relations.
All this cannot be accomplished by pinning hopes on things developing linearly from spontaneous uprisings like Tahrir Square or Occupy and an approach of "democratizing" the world order, as Smith advocates. Making revolution requires scientific and visionary communist leadership.
The mass upsurges are a part of the objective basis and raw material for the development of a movement for revolution. Resistance against the system is absolutely critical. In fighting back, people not only resist being crushed but can begin to raise their sights to the struggle that is needed to end exploitation, oppression, and environmental devastation. What Tahrir Square, Occupy, and other movements acutely highlight is the urgent need for a scientific understanding of the problem and solution to be brought to masses of people, and the fact that a movement for revolution does not develop spontaneously out of mass protest movements or even great upheaval involving millions. Revolutionaries need to unite and work with such struggles, but do so as part of building an overall movement for revolution that aims to transform the thinking of large sections of people and to bring forward a revolutionary people with the conscious understanding of what type of change is needed.
In the U.S., in the belly of the imperialist beast, there is a movement for revolution that is being built, right now, with a communist vanguard—the Revolutionary Communist Party—being built at its core. And there exists a developed strategic plan for making revolution in this country. (See the RCP statement On the Strategy for Revolution.)
A Viable Vision for a Radically Different Society
But overthrowing the capitalist-imperialist state, as major a step as that would be, is only the beginning of this revolution. Think about what would be required to overcome the legacy of thousands of years of class and social divisions, and the devastation and suffering caused by capitalism-imperialism in the last few centuries, including environmental destruction! You would need to move decisively away from the irrational, wasteful, and destructive economy of capitalism and create a completely new economy that could organize and coordinate production in a planned and rational way. You would need to dramatically, urgently replace the fossil fuel energy foundation of capitalist society with green, renewable, and sustainable energy sources and struggle to overcome consumer culture. All this can't be accomplished by a "classless" democratic process. To actually break out of the relations of imperialist domination of the world, this revolution must be based on internationalism and put the whole world first, and the socialist state must be a base area for the world revolution. While meeting the needs of the masses of people, this system must be led in a way that puts the preservation of planetary ecosystems before the development of a particular socialist country.
This new society will require leadership to overcome age-old social divisions and inequalities—like the division between a small section of society that has access to working with ideas and privileges based on that, and large sections of people who are shut out from that—and doing so based on not suppressing but encouraging dissent, critical thinking and questioning. This society must mobilize scientists and international teams to combat ecological destruction, while mobilizing the masses of people themselves as the greatest resource to changing the world. This new society must increasingly bring masses of people into administering society themselves and sorting out how to advance society away from class divisions and all inequalities. There will be a need for a unified socialist economy that is coordinating the new economy with a centralized goal and direction, while also developing the utmost grassroots initiative and innovation based on this.
This is the kind of complex all-around process needed to overcome the legacy of capitalism-imperialism, including the trajectory toward planetary environmental doom. And all this will not happen with a "horizontal" form of organization. It will require scientific and far-sighted communist leadership.
I encourage everyone to get into the RCP's concrete and at the same time sweeping vision for socialist society, which appears in the form of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal)—and is based on the new synthesis of communism that has been brought forward by Bob Avakian. And there is the basic orientation for how socialist society can begin to tackle the environmental emergency with an internationalist perspective, "Some Key Principles of Socialist Sustainable Development."
And I urge readers to deeply engage with the points raised in this polemic, spread them broadly among those resisting environmental destruction, and debate out their implications for our collective future. The stakes are no less than the future of humanity and the natural world we live in.
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