“In
London they can find no better use for the excretion of four and a
half million human beings than to contaminate the Thames with it at
heavy expense" -
"
Karl Marx
The
docility of people has contributed greatly to keeping intact the
rapacious society that is capitalism. Because people believe there is
no alternative to capitalism, it keeps on existing. However we
are increasingly witnessing a challenge to that passivity in recently
with the school-student strikes and the protest blockades of
Extinction Rebellion
Marx was scathing of the capitalist economic notion that the air, rivers, seas and soil can be treated as a "free gift of nature" to business. Marx’s analysis of the environment under capitalism shows how saving the planet is inextricably linked to transforming our society. According to Marx, capitalism is an economic system profoundly at odds with a sustainable planet. The exploitation of nature is as fundamental to the profit system as the exploitation of working people. The market system is incapable of preserving the environment for future generations because it cannot take into account the long-term requirements of people and planet. The competition between individual enterprises and industries to make a profitable return on their investment tends to exclude rational and sustainable planning. Because capitalism promotes the accumulation of capital on a never-ending and always expanding scale it cannot be sustainable. It is very feasible that we can organise society in harmony with nature's limits. But it is impossible unless the profit motive is removed from determining production in human society.
The
problem for many in the climate change protest movement is that they
want to retain the market system. While many of the declared aims of
the environmentalist campaign appear to be desirable these are
contradicted by that fatal flaw They stand for the continuation of
the market system and this means the continuation of the capitalist
system which is the cause of the problems of global warming in the
first place. The market, however, can only function with a constant
pressure to renew its capacity for sales and if it fails to do this,
production breaks down, people are out of employment and suffer a
reduced income. It is a fundamental flaw and an insoluble
contradiction in their argument that they want to retain the market
system at the same time they want a sustainable society with reduced
productive activity. These aims are totally incompatible with each
other. They are firmly wedded to a form of capitalism, holding a
belief that capitalism can be reformed so as to be compatible with
achieving an environmentally sustainable society. Endless growth and
the growing consumption of nature-given materials this involves is
built into capitalism. The ecology activists have never been able to
answer the question which is how it can achieve a zero growth,
sustainable society whilst retaining a market system which includes
an irresistible, built-in pressure to increase sales for profit and
where if sales collapse, society tends to break down in recession,
unemployment and financial crisis.
They
are setting out to impose on capitalism something that is
incompatible with its economic laws. The Socialist Party places
itself unambiguously in the camp of those who argue that capitalism
and a sustainable relationship with the rest of nature is not
compatible. The excessive consumption of both renewal and
non-renewable resources and the release of waste that nature can’t
absorb that currently goes on are not just accidental but an
inevitable result of capitalism’s very essence. The only way in
which climate justice can be achieved is through socialism. Only by
replacing the profit system can we give the environment the priority
it deserves.
If
the environmental crisis is to be solved, this system must go. What
is required is political action - political action aimed at replacing
this system by a new and different one. There can be no
justification, on any grounds whatsoever, for wanting to retain an
exploitative system which robs workers of the products of their
labour, which puts privileged class interests and profit before the
needs of the community, which robs the soil of its fertility,
plunders nature of its resources and destroys the natural systems on
which all our lives depend. Many in environmental movement do realise
that are up against is a well-entrenched economic and social system
based on class privilege and property and governed by the over-riding
economic law of profits first but by no means do they all understand
the situation.
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