My central concern in this book is to demonstrate how hopelessly archaic capitalism has become in its attempts to deal with the multiplying and deepening crises that humanity faces. 1 Indeed, these are crises that for the most part have been caused by some combination of ecological change and capitalism . Perhaps they can be most effectively approached in the long run by moving towards a post-capitalist and eco-socialist world. Of course, capitalism and ecological change are not some kind of super-primal source of causes of all and every crisis, but I will argue that there are no other causal forces stronger than these two when it comes to many of the most overlapping and threatening crises, crises that will require radical changes if the future of life on earth is to become reasonably healthy, lasting, and flourishing . For example, consider the capitalist crisis of 2008 , which caused massive homelessness and indebtedness. How long will it be before we have to face another capitalist crisis? Or consider the record breaking heat waves that circled the globe in the summer of 2018. Unless we find ways of lowering the increasing dependence on fossil fuels , the heat waves of 2018 will be minor compared to the blasts of heat awaiting us in the future.
There are many instances in which capitalism causes ecological crises or ecological crises cause capitalist crises. The most obvious is the burning of fossil fuels which provides energy for many products the sale of which is highly profitable for capitalism (cars, military weaponry of all sorts, airplanes, the generation of electricity, etc.), and, of course, the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming. Here is a clear case in which the capitalist profit motive drives production that could ultimately be destructive to life on earth.
On the one hand, I use the term âlong run â to underline the necessity of thinking much further into the future than has been typical up to now. And it is not just thinking about the future, but specifically action that is guided by clarifying the kind of future we want. The global dimensions of spatial thinking have become more developed than forward temporal thinking because spatial thinking is spurred on by the continual search for capitalist profits around the world. Indeed, even short temporal steps into the future are all too often nullified by backward steps, while spatial capitalist steps around the earth simply aim to increase profits no matter what the social costs .
Starting out with the concepts âtimeâ and âspaceâ may seem too Einsteinian, but at a very fundamental and general level we need to start to rethink our relations to both time and space. We can no longer afford to have our conception of time shaped primarily by the short-term profit orientations of capitalism that are blind to social costs. In terms of time, we need to think about what we need to do to make the earth at least inhabitable if not flourishing far into the future, and in terms of space we need to focus our attention on what it takes to achieve egalitarian conditions of life spatially around the world. While there are many cultural differences to how people think about time, capitalism has had and still has an enormous impact on both our thinking of time and of space . Spatial territories of the earth are continually fought over, shortening human beings lifetime on earth, and failure to think far into the future about ecological and social justice issues has drastically reduced the likelihood of the future flourishing of human life. So far we have been more than short-sighted when it comes to applying our rational and ethical powers to deal with the severe and worsening ecological crises that we face. It is therefore not surprising to find that the most hegemonic capitalist power in the world, The United States , is most in denial about the central role that capitalist and ecological crises have played and are playing in the unfolding of mutually exacerbating crises as they deepen at all levels from local to global , and from the present to the future .
There is now a rapidly expanding publication of books and articles dealing with particular crises or sets of crises, but there is a need for more focus on the interaction of expanding crises far into the future and globally as well as on practical changes that may alleviate them here and now or at least in the relatively near future (particularly the burning of fossil fuels ). 2
How will our actions or inactions now affect life on the planet in 200 years? Familial concerns about the future usually weaken to almost nothing within three generations or at most four assuming one becomes a great grandmother or great grandfather. Is 200 years such a long time to care for the future of humans? For some indigenous people who are ahead of us, it is not. But long-term caring that extends hundreds of years into the future is for most of us something new. Of course it can be written off by saying we canât possibly have knowledge about a future that is so far off from the present. But there are degrees of knowledge that enable us to have a rough picture of the future if certain very powerful trends continue. For example, if all of the ice in the world melts due to global warming (a real possibility), we know that the oceans may rise approximately 200 feet above current sea levels. We do not now have the ability to predict whether oceans will rise by 180 or 220 feet, or exactly how fast they will rise, but we do know within a general range the impact of a total loss of ice around the world on ocean levels. Similarly, assuming that a certain rate of increase of green house gases continues until the average global temperature reaches 6 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, we can predict within a range that the acidification of the oceans will increase significantly, causing a considerable die off of sea life (a major source of food for humans and animals). Desertification will increase substantially, and as much as one-third of the planet will become too hot for humans to live in. There will be large species die off, and we will not be able to produce enough food to support anything like the current population of the globe, and climate change alone will generate heat and storms that can kill.
From the point of view of capitalism, there is little concern about the future beyond maximizing short-term profits , expanding Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or increasing per-capita incomes (while remaining oblivious to how these incomes are spread across particular populations and the world). In fact capitalism is not only oriented to the present, but to a very narrow take on the present. Most fundamentally, it always wants to increase profits and this is often closely connected to a âgetting and spendingâ ideology that increasingly ignores many global needs except those of the rich.
While capitalism is very interested in time and space in so far as speeding up the rate of production usually increases profits as does so-called âjust-in-time productionâ or 24/7 high speed production. Getting workers to work faster, more intensively, longer hours, more productively and with less concern for health and safety conditions, generally involves time and productivity considerations that are good for profits. Furthermore, speeding up work tends to speed up the pace of life generally such that workers pack more into their waking hours while they reduce their hours of sleep . This may injure health, but capitalists as capitalists are not prone to be concerned with this as long as those that are sick can be replaced and the rate of profit can be increased. Indeed, a recent study of college students shows that the average student sleeps six hours per night. This is not enough sleep for most of us.
Spatial considerations are also fundamental in maximizing capitalist rates of profit. For example, moving production to a poor country can cut the wage bill or lessen the resistance of workers who are desperate to make enough money to survive. Often in poor countries there is less enforcement of laws against pollution, child labour, health and safety in the workplace, hours of work, lack of holidays, low wages, all of which can increase profit rates. And one could go on and on listing all the damages that can be created by a narrow profit orientation, particularly in a world such as ours that has huge and increasing negative externalities associated with global warming .
Eco-Socialism
Capitalism began its growth starting as far back as the sixteenth century, a growth that would eventually turn it into the hegemonic global economy. Its fundamental differentiation from other economies was from the beginning its single-minded focus on using money to make more money, or in other words to maximize profits through mercantile trade, manufacturing, rent, and interest even if doing so resulted in significant social costs . Some of these costs, to mention a few, might include: exploitation, oppression, imperialism, child labour, poverty, pollution, ecological damage, slums, homelessness, malnutrition, war, and shortened life spans.
While there were important socialist thinkers before and after Marx , arguably no one has had anywhere near as much impact on socialist thought and action. Marx was concerned about the ecological problems associated with capitalism, problems that he was able to become aware of and explore during his lifetime (1815â1883), but he never coined the word âeco-socialism .â Marxâs most important contribution to eco-socialist thought is a very clear and powerful theory of capitalâs inner logic (see the 3 volumes of Capital ). 3 There he makes crystal clear exactly what we are up against, why it is powerful, and what its weak points are. He advocates anti-capitalist revolutions, but what exactly might be involved in such revolutions is very different today than it was in the mid-nineteenth century. I would add, however, that capitalism is now moving into a phase of development that will increasingly reveal its contradictions and weaknesses. It is moving into a phase of transition away from capitalism.
The earliest usage of âeco-socialismâ that I have been able to find is the 1980 publication Eco-Socialism in a Nutshell published in England by âThe Socialist Environment and Resources Association.â 4 The writers of this pamphlet have a simple definition: âEco-Socialism is the fusion of ecology and socialism, seen by many people as the only hope for saving the world.â In the thirty-seven years since the publication of this pamphlet, âeco-socialismâ has come to be seen by large numbers of people as the theoretical and action concept most appropriate for mobilizing against capitalism in the twenty-first century. While the âRed-Green Study Group â published a pamphlet in 1995 that seems to me to be a manifestation of eco-socialism, they do not actually use this term. The Study Groupâs latest publication is entitled: Environment, Energy and Culture: A Greener Britain, and was submitted to the Labour Party National Policy Forum consultation 19 June, 2018. However, I am less interested in the evolution of the concept âeco-socialismâ per se than I am with its widespread use today as a concept that has the power to mobilize large masses of people into anti-capitalist, pro-socialist, and pro-ecology movements .
There are some in the Marxist tradition taken broadly who think that the working class is the only really revolutionary force in a wor...