A World To Change

The initial elation and enthusiasm of the Paris Agreement has mostly turned to scepticism and cynicism. Fewer seem to view carbon taxes, carbon pricing, carbon trading, or carbon offsetting which allows the market exchange of credits between companies and nations to achieve an overall emissions reduction as a viable way forward. For example, a wealthy corporation can plant trees to reduce deforestation to compensate for its CO2 emissions. There's now plenty of evidence that markets haven't worked well enough, or quickly enough, to protect the planet. Such strategies basically function as a delaying tactic. Time we can ill afford. They have also led to in developing countries land grabs and forced displacements and evictions of indigenous people from their land to make way for forests. Much of the facts of global warming and the threats it poses to us all can no longer be ignored . Sections of the  ruling class have had their eyes opened. However, their “solutions” amount to nothing more than a “green capitalism” that will not fundamentally alter the conditions causing climate change. For environmentalists, the question arises – shall we abolish capitalism and how can we do it?

Again we say the only way to abolish capitalism is through workers’ revolution. By organising and taking control out of the hands of the capitalists we can stop the capitalists destroying the environment and begin active reconstruction of our world. We campaign to open discuss with fellow-workers who want to save the planet, and who don’t want to become human sacrifices. 

Under capitalism, capitalists not only exploit their employees and despoil the environment in the pursuit of profits, but they exercise control over investment decisions. Capitalists decide what gets produced, how it is produced and whereabouts it is produced. They decide this, of course, on the basis of what is most likely to produce a good return on investment. Even those few capitalists who take account of social or environmental criteria necessarily give overriding priority to making a profit. If they don’t, they go broke. To achieve a sustainable planet we’re demanding the abolition of capitalism. With socialism we can reach a point of balance between the capacities to produce, the needs of populations, and the limits of the biosphere. The so-called “population crisis” is an illusion caused by the inefficient, unjust and unsustainable practices of capitalism. While there is a natural limit to the carrying capacity of the planet, this limit is impossible to determine until after capitalism has been abolished and its destructive practices eliminated. 

 Confronted with the issue of limited resources and environmental pollution problems due to human activities, some so-called "neo-Malthusian" current advocate birth control to halt the growth of the world population, or even reduce its size. We can only be in firm opposition to that one part of the population should exercise its domination by seeking to control the rate of reproduction of another part of the population. All current and past applications of birth control policies clearly show unequal, authoritarian or even dictatorial practices. They have taken the guise of large campaigns encouraging contraceptive conducted by the rich countries in the so-called developing countries, the compulsory taking contraceptives, fines for births, but also compulsory sterilisations and forced abortions. 

The underlying ideological reasons were more or less openly racist, ethnic supremacist, theocratic, fascist, or eugenicist. Environmental considerations have served as covers for fears of the identitarian and racist type, with a fear of "invasion" by populations designated as foreign having higher birthrates, whether that be by migration, by wars or by grabbing available resources. Under the guise of limited resources, some governments have implemented ethnicist, religious or social control policies to reduce the demographic growth of targeted minorities or to limit the dangers of political explosion linked to poverty. 

As for the very concept of wanting to reduce the population to reduce resource consumption and pollution, it fails to take into account numerous factors. In fact the level of exploitation of available resources and pollution levels do not depend just on the size of the population, but also modes of consumption, production, processing, transport, agro-industrial pressures. The age structure of the population, its way of occupying space, the territorial distribution of resources are examples of other elements in play. So not only would a decrease in population not result in a systematic reduction of resource usage, but what is more is that no scientific study has ever shown that human population is too large given the planet's resources.  

For us, environmental issues cannot possibly be solved by an authoritarian imposition of any form of birth control. What's more, demographic control is not a solution in its itself, to ecological problems. On the contrary, we thing that the taking direct control by people of the economic and social questions for organising the egalitarian distribution of produced wealth taking into account available resources would provide the answer closest to meeting the needs of all. We know that at the level of the population the birthrate is influenced by the standard of living and quality of social organisation. Under these conditions, we believe that the desire to overcome the ecological crisis is not an obstacle to individual choice to have one, several, or no children at all. If population reduction is called for after the planet's carrying capacity is established, it can be achieved gradually through social consensus and not through eugenics and social engineering.  

Capitalism is a socio-economic system over-producing products for a wealthy minority. Capitalism breeds destructive competition between private owners of production. An exploited workforce makes goods for private companies which are sold in pursuit of profit and perpetual growth. The driving force of capitalism is profit. Companies produce goods to make profit, not to meet the needs of people. Under capitalism, profit comes before efficiency and sustainability. The State governs, on behalf of capitalists, and it is also responsible for today’s extensive environmental destruction. Governments do not protect the environment if doing so will reduce company profits. Many environmental  groups do not question the State, government or companies that exploit social inequality in the pursuit of profit and wreak ecological devastation without fear of consequences. Healing the planet requires a social revolution. The Socialist Party has no faith in being saved by the politicians of the capitalist elite. It is time we take the struggle for a decent future into our own hands. We know that under capitalism, a system based on growth with disregard for the future, climate catastrophe is inevitable. We know that there is only one solution to climate change: Social revolution. We must abolish capitalism, and in its place build an ecological society based on mutual aid and equality. We will never stop climate change under capitalism. Remember that the capitalist system is a system which is totally dependent on perpetual economic growth and that in the case of a decrease in production, the level of profits for capital invested also decreases. This analysis is confirmed by historical facts. Indeed, capitalism's need for increased production and profits has been a key driving force. This need to increase the profitability of this system makes it impossible to reconcile capitalism with the environmental . For us, the solution to these problems can only be found in a complete break with capitalism.

If the capitalist system aims for growth for growth's sake, it is no more pertinent to counter it with an "alternative" consisting of degrowth for degrowth's sake. The challenge is rather to return the level of global production to the renewal rate of natural resources, all while guaranteeing equal access to the goods and services produced. Thus, the fundamental question to ask ourselves to have a hope of overcoming the ecological crisis is to know who decides what is produced, and the way it is produced. The necessary adjusting of the level of production thus imposes on humanity the need to take up the challenge of  democracy, as only people and not private interests in competition with each other, will really have the interest of overcoming the ecological crisis. But this equally involves taking up the challenge of equality as the only way to reduce the level of production without injuring anyone is to cover people's needs in an egalitarian way. Thus, rather than degrowth, we seek the socialisation of production and decision-making power in society to at last rationalise the economy and meet our needs in accordance with available resources.