Capitalism is running out of time

Should we really be surprised that the BBC news website did not prominently feature XR's attempted blockade of New Broadcasting House, its London headquarters. In a statement XR said:

“We’re here today to demand that the BBC respond to the emergency in the way they responded to World War Two i.e. devoting the entire professional management structure to getting the message out to the British public.We’re here because the BBC has refused to declare a climate emergency. We’re also here today because the BBC continues to normalise high-carbon lifestyles with programmes like Top Gear promoting flying and driving.”

A spokesperson for XR called “on the BBC to meet its crucial moral duty to tell the full truth on the climate and ecological emergency”.

If you want really clear explanations of how greenhouse gases and global warming, of the carbon emission and how it’s disrupting the climate patterns, you’ll find them on numerous websites across the internet. However, less mentioned is the root cause of this environmental crisis. The starting point for any examination of the climate crisis is the role of capitalism. At all those international conferences and summit meetings we’re not supposed to question capitalism, and this is why it’s always off the table. Even for many scientists, capitalism is something more or less eternal, associated in the fundamental way we run the world. Not surprisingly, there is so little discussion of capitalism within the discourse that most people are left with only a vague understanding of what we’re talking about when we say without eliminating capitalism, we can't halt the consequences of climate change. Campaigner and activists Naomi Klein gives an accurate definition of what the capitalist system entails:

“Capitalism is an economic and social system in which the means of production are privately owned. The owners, or capitalists, appropriate the surplus product created by the workers. This appropriation leads to the accumulation of more capital, the amassing of wealth, further investment, and thus the expansion of capitalism. Commodities are produced for the purpose of generating profit and promoting accumulation. Within the capitalist system, individuals pursue their self interests against competition and impersonal forces of the market.”

She argues that debates within the capitalist class over which is more effective mitigating policies boil down to tensions between finance capital (favouring carbon trading) and industrial capital (favouring carbon taxes). In either case, she adds, “corporations will not allow governments to curtail profits,” and when profits are threatened by a particular policy that policy is repealed or a loophole found. Klein shows how the capitalist system is so addicted to fossil fuels that nothing short of a revolution can wean it away from their use. Here we part ways with Naomi who advocates radical reforms, but reforms none the less.

The dilemma for business is that that chaos of climate change must be avoided but not at the cost of reducing profitability and being out-competed by commercial rivals. The capitalists seek solutions within the framework of “business-as-usual” – applying fiscal policies and modifying technologies – so as not to detrimentally effect the dividends of their shareholders. But there’s no win-win under capitalist economic laws. The logic of capitalist competition ensures that profits are paramount, with the environment treated secondary as an “externality”. Businesses must compete to survive, while their government servants must protect their masters interests. If remedies required to reduce global warming undermine a company or state’s competitive position, the pressure to resist change is immense, strengthened by the powerful lobbying by the corporations. Ultimately, any measures taken by states and corporations ostensibly to mitigate climate change are cosmetic, designed to placate public opinion. Some solutions to mitigate climate change are in reality to serve vested interests such as the expansion of subsidies for biofuels to multinational agribusiness and industrialised farmers. Capitalist CEOs and governments claim to be tackling the climate crisis but they are invariably doing too little, too late.

To quote Lenin, for once, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” It appears with the mounting number of protests by environmentalists and their increasing campaigns, the inertia of people in the past is disappearing and there is a rising consciousness and understanding about the relationships between the health of the planet and the wealth of the rich. The grip that capitalist ideology had over people's minds is loosening and system change is being seen as more feasible than to rely upon the stock-market and to construct elaborate geoengineering schemes for answers. More and more people are coming to realise that capitalism has simply proven incapable of stopping or limiting the climate crisis. Many eco-activists who can’t figure out why capitalism can’t control carbon emissions are now beginning to understand that the socialist analysis of the capitalism system might bring them that knowledge.