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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Capitalism cannot cope

The world is heading for rapid, possibly irreversible change. Clean water, clean air, clean living conditions are all in short supply. According to the BBC more than 100 science academies around the world have called on world leaders to take action on population and consumption at the Rio+20 summit. They say past failures on these issues threaten the natural world and prospects for future generations. If the billion poorest people are to have adequate access to food, water and energy, the academies say, developed countries will have to reduce their own consumption of natural resources.

What stands in the way of an agreement at the upcoming world meeting Rio+20 is big business, their lobbyists, and their backers in the financial corporations, all with revolving door access to lackey governments. SOYMB can safely predict that once again a forum meant to save the world and its peoples from the ravages of pollution and climate change will end being business as usual. We must understand the unequal struggle for what it is – them against us; the power of vested interests against the interests of common people and it will ever be so unless we all recognise that no amount of tinkering through reforms or regulations will change the status quo. Capitalism’s priority is to protect business enterprises not the environment. Capitalism simply does not provide a framework for the rational solution of the problem of climate change. Human and environmental needs come a poor second whenever the needs of capital dictate. Countries are reluctant to promote more environmentally friendly methods of technology because their governments prefer to bow with suppliant knee to the oil and chemical industry lobbies, rather than acknowledge that ecologically we are rapidly approaching the point of no return.

Surely, by now,  the history of earlier summits and conferences, those sincere but nevertheless failed attempts must lead to the conclusion that a new type of society should be tried. Yet in spite of this evidence, in face of the insanity of the system we live in, regardless of its lack of response to the vast human tragedies which can so easily be solved scientists and experts still retreat from the most important question: are you with us or against us? Capitalism promotes the processes, relationships, and outcomes that are precisely the opposite of those needed for an ecologically sound society. Capitalism, in its very essence, is anti-sustainability and anti-ecology.

Eonomists claim we are living beyond our means. We are told of the need to tighten their belts. Austerity is being enforced to "cut the waste" in workplaces where we are told people have been taking too much - retiring too early, expecting too much pension and healthcare from employers. There is no doubt that many of the earth's resources are being used to create unnecessary products for high-consumption lifestyles in much of the world. Environmentalists claim the world suffers from over-consumption. The problem, however, is that the environmentalists has the matter up-side-down. Capitalist societies are producing simply for the sake of making profit, not for need. It is the average poverty-stricken peasant's desperate search for the bare necessities that have caused the maximum environmental damage. Forests have been cut mostly because those who live near them are too poor to buy fuel. Rivers and other water bodies have been polluted because cities and towns along their banks are either too poor (or too corrupt) to afford to treat sewage before it is poured into them. People find themselves preoccupied with the more pressing and immediate task of coping in a world  reeling from the financial crisis. The environment threat may be grave, but does anybody have the time to worry? Few people  believe any more that grand political summits make a difference.

Rational solutions to any problem depend upon a realistic analysis and diagnosis as to what is causing it to occur. When such analysis is lacking substance the proposed “solutions” will most likely be useless. If certain environmentalists are fixated by “overpopulation”, then they will propose as a “solution,” the rapid “de-growth” of the world’s population and institute programmes that provide contraceptives or sterilisation to women in poor countries as a tool to solving the global ecological problem instead of debating the economic system that is so destructive to the environment. The radical ecologist Murray Bookchin once compared populationism to a phoenix, the mythical bird that periodically burns up and is reborn from its own ashes. No matter how often the “too many people” argument is refuted, it always returns, making the same claim that people are breeding too much and consuming too much, devouring the earth like a plague of locusts Even the way that capitalism itself requires population growth as part of its overall expansion is ignored. The overwhelming majority of the earth’s environmental problems are caused by a system of capital accumulation. Social scierntits fixated on promoting birth control in poor countries get nowhere near to even beginning to address the real problem. When people are poor, they don’t have the luxury of worrying about environmental issues. If your family is freezing, you will cut down the last tree for fuel; if they are starving, you will raze the forest to farm. With little certainty about the future, you will insure yourself by having more children to care for you. The biggest environmental problem is poverty. But, this is not what you will hear from the small army of environmentalists and  government officials who will be at the UN summit in Rio. What we will hear from them are mostly the usual buzzwords that so litter the discourse on environmental protection. The media will absorb all the babble that will be spouted as if it were original ideas. All will be forgotten till the next international conference where they will turn up to repeat the same performance. At none of these conferences, will you hear talk about capitalism and poverty being the worst environmental pollutant in the world.

Over-population, ie exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet is seen as the main culprit and the solution is therefore to reduce the population of the earth as quickly as possible some environmentals pronounce. Some will see it as a moral issue and say the problem is because we are inherently greedy and acquisitive. But with a few admirable exceptions, the discussions on the environment neglects to even look at the characteristics and workings of capitalism, let alone examine them at any depth.  Too many scientists are  looking at things from the narrow confines of their profession specialisation. It’s similar to Maslow’s law of the instrument: “if the only tool you have is a hammer, it’s tempting to treat all problems as nails.”  Too many scientists are so embedded in the system that they assume that capitalism is the only choice and any other type of economic system is simply inconceivable. Because they focus narrowly on the breeding habits of the 99%, many fail to see the qualitatively more destructive effects of the 1%'s power and profit. Their approach leads them to blame the world's poor for their own poverty, while ignoring the colonial powers, global corporations and corrupt dictatorships that have grown rich by stealing the world's wealth.

Environmentalists tell us that if the environment is destroyed all the rest won't matter. That is indeed the unpleasant truth.  But where is the indications that the huge, well-funded environmental movement is making any meaningful headway? Capitalism has been tweaked so many times and in so many different ways and still it continues to progressively worsen the environment. The world is being destroyed as faster as before. It is not lack of understanding that militate against capitalism taking serious steps to limit global warming. It’s the central role of the profit motive. Capitalism is a blind process of profit accumulation. It doesn't understand moral appeals. It is this social system that is predicated on endless expansion and the blind, unplanned drive to accumulate that is the hallmark of capitalist production – the profit motive – which has created the problem of climate change, not individuals. Accumulation without end means using ever greater quantities of resources without end. Because of the motive force of capitalism and the procedures and practices embedded within it, there is no way to reform or modify the system to accomplish the goals of sustainability, harmony, or ecological civilization. People starve because the rich take too much. 2% of the world’s  individuals have more than 50% of the global household wealth, with the richest 1 percent accounting for 40% of total global assets; while the bottom 50% of the world’s population has barely 1%. For all their impassioned speeches and sincere declarations, many environmental activists are never going to challenge the thing they most believe in,  which is the buying and selling system of capitalism. Until they do, the plant and animal life will continue to die off and the rivers and oceans will carry on being poisoned and the world will keep on warming up and cook.

We can live in harmony with Nature civilization when socialism, a political and  economical system where social control will mean the democratic control by the people controlling their factories, farms, and all other workplaces, operating with the goal of producing goods and services that will fulfill basic human needs, while protecting the environment.

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