Ecosocialism Versus Degrowth: A False Dilemma

By Giacomo D’Alisa

Republished from Undisciplined Environments.

In a recent article Michael Lowy ponders if the ecological left has to embrace the ecosocialist or the degrowth ‘flag’; a concern that is not totally new. Lowy is a French-Brazilian Marxist scholar and a prominent ecosocialist. Together with Joel Kovel, an American social scientist and psychiatrist, in 2001 he wrote An ecosocialist manifesto, a foundational document for several political organizations worldwide. Thus, entering into a discussion with Lowy is not a simple academic whim, but a demand that many politically-engaged people of the ecological left are wondering about.

Recently, members of an ecosocialist group within Catalonia en Comù, part of Unida Podemos (itself part of the centre-left coalition governing Spain), invited me to debate about the end of the economic growth paradigm. This hints that ecosocialists are interested in degrowth vision and proposals. On the other hand, during talks, speeches and discussions I have participated in, I also have noted that ecosocialist projects intrigue and inspire many degrowthers. Indeed, people on both sides feel they are sister movements. The following reflection is a first and humble contribution to making the two come closer.

In the above-quoted article, Lowy supports an alliance between ecosocialists and degrowthers, and I cannot but agree with this conclusion. However, before justifying this strategic endeavour, he feels the necessity to argue why degrowth falls short as a political vision. He narrows down his critical assessment to three issues. First, Lowy maintains, degrowth as a concept is inadequate to express clearly an alternative programme. Second, degrowthers and their discourses are not explicitly anti-capitalist. Finally, for him, degrowthers are not able to distinguish between those activities that need to be reduced and those that can keep flourishing.

Concerning the first critique, Lowy maintains that the word: “degrowth” is not convincing; it does not convey the progressive and emancipatory project of societal transformation that it is needed; this remark echoes with an old and unsolved debate for many. A discussion that Lowy should know, as well as those that have followed the last decade of degrowth debate. Sophisticated criticism has mobilized the American cognitive linguist and philosopher George Lakoff’s study about framing. Kate Rowarth, for example, suggested to degrowthers to learn from Lakoff that no one can win a political struggle or election if they keep using their opponent’s frame; and degrowth has in itself its antagonic vision: growth. Ecological economists supported the same argument in a more articulated way, suggesting that for this reason, degrowth backfires.

On the contrary, my intellectual companion Giorgos Kallis, back in 2015, gave nine clear reasons why degrowth is a compelling word. I want to complement them with one more. Looking at the search trends in Google, after ten years, degrowth keeps drawing higher levels of attention worldwide than ecosocialism. Perhaps ecosocialism can result clearer at a glance. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the populace will be immediately convinced. Indeed, the ecosocialist concept also has similar and possibly worse problems of framing, given the post-Soviet aversion to “socialism”, but this cannot mean we should abandon the term. The recent upsurge of popularity in the U.S. of “democratic socialism” suggests that the negative association of a term can be overcome.

Ecosocialists, as degrowthers, must keep explaining the actual content of their political dream, the label is not sufficient to explain it all. Our mission is un-accomplished; granted, in some contexts, ecosocialism will result in a more straightforward message, but in other degrowth could result more convincing. For the ecological left, more frames could be more effective than just one; and, using the most appropriate in different contexts and geographies is very probably the best strategy.

Noteworthy is that these different frames share core arguments and strategies. So let me move to Lowy’s second criticism, the supposed discrepancy between ecosocialists and degrowthers about capitalism. According to Lowy, degrowthers are not sufficiently or explicitly anti-capitalist. I cannot deny that not all degrowthers self-define as anti-capitalists and that for some of them stating it is not a priority. However, as Kallis already clarified, degrowth scholars are increasingly grounding their research and policies in a critique of capital forces and relations. Furthermore, Dennis and Schmelzer have shown that degrowthers widely share the belief that a degrowth society is incompatible with capitalism. And Stefania Barca has delineated how articulating ‘degrowth and labour politics toward an ecological class consciousness’ is the way forward for an ecosocialist degrowth society.

To these arguments, I want to add an observation. In their 2001 ecosocialist manifesto, Lowy and Kovel affirmed that in order to solve the ecological problem, it is necessary to set limits upon accumulation. They go on clarifying that this is not possible while capitalism keeps ruling the world. Indeed, as they and other prominent ecosocialists affirm, capitalism needs to grow or die. This effective slogan is probably the most explicit anti-capitalist sentence written in the ecosocialist manifesto, and I can maintain that most of the degrowthers would undersign this statement without hesitation –even more in pandemic times, when the existing capitalist system seems to be predicated upon the slogan: we (the capitalists) grow and you die! Indeed, it is ever-more evident that inequality is increasing dramatically during this period. If these observations are accurate, then degrowthers and ecosocialists agree more than disagree, and together with many others in the ecological left camp, share the same common sense: a healthy ecological and social system beyond the pandemic is not compatible with capitalism.

Lowy’s last criticism is that degrowthers cannot differentiate between the quantitative and the qualitative characteristics of growth. At first sight, it seems a step back to the lively discussion in the 1980s about the difference between growth and development. However, I am sure that Lowy and other ecosocialists are well aware of the critical assessment many Latin America thinkers have done of development and its colonial legacy (see here and here, for example). So, I will interpret this criticism in a more general term: it is essential to be selective about growth, and clarify what sectors need to grow and which need to degrow or even disappear. Nothing new under the sun, I could say. Peter Victor in 2012, when he was developing no-growth scenarios for facing the threat of climate change, discussed the selective growth scenario showing its modest and short-term effects for mitigating climate change. Serge Latouche, in his 2009 book Farewell to growth, argued that the decision about selective degrowth cannot be left to market forces. And Kallis explained that growth is a complex and integrated process, and thus it is mistaken to think in terms of what has to increase and what has to decrease.

It is an error to use degrowth as synonymous of decrease (as Timothée Parrique discussed extensively), and to think that what is considered ‘good’ things (hospitals, renewable energy, bicycles, etc.) need to increase without limits as the growth imaginary commands. Those that perpetuate this logic, as Lowy seems to do, stay in the growth camp. Doing so, Lowy did not follow his suggestion of paying more attention to a qualitative transformation.

In an ecosocialist society, orienting production towards more hospitals and public transport, as Lowy suggests, does not imply overcoming the growth logic and its predicaments. A degrowth society, with a healthier lifestyle and more ecological care, probably would not need so many more hospitals. Indeed, as Luzzati and colleagues found, the increase in per-capita income correlates significantly with the increase in cancer morbidity and mortality. In a degrowth society, people would fly very much less, and this could help to diminish the speed of pandemic contagions. Agro-ecological systems will encroach fewer habitats; both these qualitative changes in societal arrangement could imply less necessity to increase the number of intensive care units.

On the other hand, increasing more and more of a ‘good thing’ such as bikes in a city is not entirely positive: as in the case of Amsterdam, where walkers felt lack of space because of the enormous number of bikes in public spaces; or China , where tens of thousands of bike have been dumped because the growth-led prospect of the shared bike in cities resulted socially and ecologically problematic, the city counsellor decided to cap bike growth and regulate the share sectors. In sum, the idea of selective (de)growth does not help to unlearn the growth logic that still persists amongst many in the ecological left camp. What is needed is, indeed, a qualitative change in our mind, in our logic and our performative acts.

Ecosocialists and degrowthers are less far apart than Lowy’s article hints. Both visions are moving forward along the same path, learning from each other in the process. Discussing some thesis or policies that one or the other is proposing will help to improve and clarify their visions, and make them less questionable at the eyes of the sceptics and indifferent people. A meaningful dialogue will help us to make our arguments and practices widely commonsensical. Ecological leftists have not to decide which is the best and the most comprehensive discourse between ecosocialism and degrowth. These visions, I tried to argue above, indeed share core arguments, and both contribute to building persuasive discourse and performative actions.

On the contrary, creating a false dilemma is not very useful for our everyday struggles. In 2015, with some colleagues, we suggested exploring the redundancy of six different frameworks (Degrowth, Sustainable Community Movement Organizations, Territorialism, Commons, Social Resilience and Direct Social Actions) for relaunching more robust and comprehensive initiatives against the continuous expansion of capitalism and environmental injustices. We concluded that fostering redundancy more than nuance should motivate the promoters of these approaches if the general aim is to effectively relaunch robust and less aleatory alternatives to capitalism. In other words, we call for focusing on the consolidation of what all these approaches have in common, not just what they diverge on. This suggestion is also valid for ecosocialists and degrowthers.

It is undoubtedly crucial that both ecosocialists and degrowthers continue refining their discourses, practices and policies for advancing toward an ecologically-sound and socially-fair world free from patriarchal, racial and colonial legacy. Nevertheless, it is equally important that they map the redundancies of their views to improve the effectiveness of their shared struggle at various scales.

Giacomo D’Alisa is a FCT postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, where is part of the Ecology and Society Working Group. D’Alisa is founding member of the Research & Degrowth collective in Barcelona, Spain.

Marx, Nature, and Political Morality

By Ben Stahnke

Republished from Peace, Land, and Bread: A Scholarly Journal of Revolutionary Theory and Practice

“It is singular that all of the political economists of England have overlooked the fact that man is a mere borrower from the earth, and that when he does not pay his debts, she does as do all other creditors, that is, she expels him from his holding.” [1]

It is not trope, nor is it particularly controversial, to assert that global environmental change and climate change are among the most pressing issues for the earth and its biotic communities. Climate change—inclusive of its present anthropogenic drivers—is, by no small stretch, not only the most important environmental issue facing human communities to date, it is overwhelmingly accepted as fact by international ecological, geological, and climatological experts. The primary anthropogenic drivers of such change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are demographic, economic, sociopolitical, and technological in nature. Such drivers can only be intimately connected to the ways in which extant societies produce and reproduce their material existences.

As the climate continues to warm, negative impacts not only reach towards biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, sea-level rise, glacier-mass balance, sea-ice thickness, and snow cover, but towards the behaviors of biological systems as well. On the human scale—exacerbated by violent conflicts—climate change negatively impacts agricultural production, development processes, health, wellness, and water resources; often affecting poor and subaltern communities in disproportionately impactful ways.

As the climate continues to warm—a warming which now may be measured during the span of a single human lifetime [2]—ideas regarding the degree to which human impact has affected natural climate variability have become increasingly politicized. When environmental regulations have the ability to both impact and curtail human industrial activities, and where industrial activities—under the capitalist mode of production—largely control political policymaking processes through extensive lobbying, regressive politicking, and the appointment of partisan industry heads into regulatory positions, the hope for effective policies diminishes to a hopelessness.

Under capitalism, and especially in the United States, business enjoys a “special relationship with government.” [3] And, according to Yale political scientist Charles Lindblom: “government officials know this. They know that widespread failure of business […] will bring down the government. […] Consequently, government policy makers show constant concern about business performance.” [4] As such, under U.S. capitalism, ad hoc regulations not only fall sway to the back-and-forth of the two-party structure; regulation remains, ultimately, subservient to business itself.

If one presidential administration can simply retract and withdraw the environmental protections set in place by prior administrations, the policymaking processes of U.S. federalism as such appear in a futile and circular—if not regressive—light. Lacking a central vision, and without the effective extra-partisan regulatory mechanisms in place to enact progressive, long-term, and sustainable environmental protections, U.S. capitalism as a mode of production thus sets itself against the earth.

However, capitalist production, as Karl Marx observed in Capital, also “creates the material conditions for a new and higher synthesis, a union of agriculture and industry on the basis of the forms that have developed during the period of their antagonistic isolation.” [5] In other words, capitalism, for its failings, is not only an historical, social, and evolutionary improvement upon the feudal-manorial socio-economy which it replaced, it also contains within itself—as a mode of production—the seeds of a future, socialized mode of production; waiting only for an historical actualization. As Antonio Gramsci noted, “it contains in itself the principle through which [it] can be superseded.” [6]

The failings, as well as the dangers, of the present mode of production lie bound up not only within its endemic social exploitation, nor within its environmental exploitation; but within the rift which has occurred between human society and the earth at large. Well known for his insightful work on Marx’s theory of the metabolic rift, political scientist and sociologist John Bellamy Foster observed that:

“Marx employed the concept of a ‘rift’ in the metabolic relation between human beings and the earth to capture the material estrangement of human beings within capitalist society from the natural conditions which formed the basis for their existence—what he called ‘the everlasting nature-imposed condition[s] of human existence.’” [7]

Such a rift in the relationship between the human species and the earth has not only led to a capitalist mode of production which—following directly on the heels of the plundering of the Americas and of Africa by European imperial powers—continues to destroy ecosystems and human populations in the quest for profit; it continues to drive regressive environmental policymaking in ways which only act to reproduce extant social relationships of production and power, as well as the economic means of production and distribution.

Following the waves of Inclosure and Commons Acts which dispossessed peoples from common lands towards the coasts and towards increasingly populated city centers, and driven by changing economic and social pressures, capitalist production has, as Marx observed, done two things:

1. it has “concentrated the historical motive power of society” [8] away from the manors to the towns, thus creating the sociopolitical conditions for a new hierarchical stratification, with the emergent bourgeoisies on top; and

2. it “disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and earth, i.e. it prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing.” [9]

On a finite world, with essentially finite material resources, and in light of a productive mode predicated upon a logic of profit and growth at all costs, Marx saw the rift in the metabolism between human organism and land—as well as the endemic alienation from the productive activities entailed by mankind’s species nature upon the earth—as not only a primary failing of the capitalist productive mode, but also the mechanism through which capitalism may be superseded.

Such a rift, for Marx, was not biologically nor economically sustainable and as such would lead to its own demise, as well as to its transcendence—towards a new ecological and economic sustainability. Such a sustainability was, for Marx, possible only through a socialization of polity, policymaking, and governance. On this, Marx noted that:

“Freedom, in this sphere, can consist only in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature.” [10]

Such a socialized governance not only entails materially oriented policies and political structures, but also necessitates an ideological structure focused upon such goals as ecological sustainability, human harmony with the Earth System, and a deconstruction of the logic of profit which presently guides human political interest.

That the earth itself is “a single system within which the biosphere is an active, essential component” [11] should be a primary focus for political and environmental policymaking. The variegated and numerous communities of the earth’s species interact via biotic, abiotic, chemical, physical, and climatological factors within and with the biosphere and, as such, operate metabolically with the earth itself, where metabolism—in both the Aristotelian and the contemporary sense—denotes both change and a circulation of matter. For Karl Marx, the metabolic interdependence and interconnectivity of the human organism and the earth was, as noted in Capital:

“a process between man and nature, a process by which man, through his own actions, mediates, regulates, and controls the metabolism between himself and nature … Through this movement he acts upon external nature and changes it, and in this way he simultaneously changes his own nature.” [12]

Such a metabolism—the circulation of matter for the production and reproduction of human species-existence—was, for Marx, not an abstract idea but one which was grounded in a material conception of the identity between organism and environment. For example, “The German word ‘Stoffwechsel,’” Foster noted, “directly sets out in its elements the notion of ‘material exchange’ that underlies the notion of structured processes of biological growth and decay captured in the term ‘metabolism.’” [13] Such a conception, for Marx, was implicitly dialectical: a “unity and struggle of opposites.” [14]

The striving towards a positive-dialectical and sustainable metabolism between the human species and the earth was thus, for Marx, a central focus of the entire theory of political communism—a theory which “differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production … [and which] turns existing conditions into conditions of unity.” [15]

Such conditions are inherently communitarian, for only a community-oriented humanity can collectively respond to the dangers and impacts of a rapidly changing world; guided, as they are, by direct, lived knowledge of community needs and requirements. Effective policy creation thus requires community involvement; further, it requires not only socialized command and control (CAC) regulation guided by a singular vision of sustainability, but a dialectic of CAC thus unified with (and struggling for) bottom-up community input.

A changing world evolves not in the presence of a static humanity; rather, a changing world both impacts and modifies its inhabitor-species. The Holocene Extinction, presently underway, evidences that in light of a changing world, species either adapt progressively or perish en masse. With regard to environmental policy, political inquiry, and socialized governance, theorists and policymakers should turn their attention towards the articulation of policy built upon a conception of the world which is radically different from the present, capitalist conception of the world as both separated and static; a world which, for the capitalist, exists as naught but a collection of resources exploitable for the profit of a dominant class.

However, policy makers and political theorists cannot make progress through a changing of ideas and conceptions alone; such change must coexist with a radical political-economic restructuring:

“by the action of individuals in again subjecting these material powers to themselves and abolishing the division of labour. This is not possible without the community. Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible.” [16]

Policy makers and political theorists inside of the U.S. should seek to look towards extra-national polities who successfully deal, and who have dealt, with rapid changes in climate; polities who have successfully utilized CAC to confront climate change, such as China and Cuba. In the midst of not only a rapidly changing world, but a world with a great extinction underway, national rivalries and ideological patriotisms in the political-environmental fields only work to undo and to thwart progress.

We must—as philosophers, scientists, and researchers of politics, economics, and policy—work towards a greater goal; indeed, no less than the greatest goal—the adaptation and progressive response to a world undergoing quick change, so that we might secure a sustainable existence for the children of humanity for as long as the earth will have us.

To end with the words of the late Marxist political philosopher Scott Warren, “We must be involved in nothing less than the discovery and creation of a world worthy of the human spirit to inhabit, as well as the discovery and creation of a human spirit worthy of the world.” [17]

NOTES

[1] Henry Carey, The Slave Trade Domestic and Foreign (1853), quoted in John Bellamy Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 152.

[2] Lee Hannah, Thomas Lovejoy, and Stephen Schneider, “Biodiversity and Climate Change in Context,” in Climate Change and Biodiversity, eds. Thomas Lovejoy and Lee Hannah (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 4.

[3] Charles Lindblom and Edward Woodhouse, The Policy-Making Process: 3rd Edition (Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 1993), 90.

[4] Charles Lindblom, The Policy-Making Process: 2nd Edition, (Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 1993), 73.

[5] Karl Marx, Capital: Volume I , 637.

[6] Antonio Gramsci, Selections From the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1999), 371.

[7] John Bellamy Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 163.

[8] Karl Marx, Capital: Volume I, 637.

[9] Ibid., 637.

[10] Karl Marx, Capital: Volume III (London: Penguin Classics, 1991), 959.

[11] Will Steffen, et al., Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure, (Berlin: Springer, 2005), 1.

[12] Karl Marx, Capital: Volume I, 283.

[13] John Bellamy Foster, Marx’s Ecology, 157.

[14] Eftichios Bitsakis, “Complementarity: Dialectics or Formal Logic,” in Nature, Society, and Thought: A Journal of Dialectical and Historical Materialism, (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis, 2002), 276.

[15] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology: Parts I and III, (Mansfield Centre: Martino Publishing, 2011), 70.

[16] Ibid., 74.

[17] Scott Warren, The Emergence of Dialectical Theory: Philosophy and Political Inquiry, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 198.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Beaud, Michel. A History of Capitalism: 1500-2000. Translated by Tom Dickman and Any Lefebvre. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001.

Foster, John Bellamy. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.

Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Translated and edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York: International Publishers, 1999.

Warren, Scott. The Emergence of Dialectical Theory: Philosophy and Political Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984.

On Consumerism, Capitalism, and Ecosocialism

By Sebastian Livingston

This piece is intended to be an introduction to an ecosocialist approach to production and consumption. What we have today is a hegemonic obsession with mass production that is catastrophic to the evolutionary processes which allow the biosphere to uphold life as we know it. Capitalist modes of production based upon endless economic expansion and mass consumption disrupt the equilibrium of ecosystems by reshaping the metabolism of nature which regulates earth systems. Within this article I will discuss some issues that I see as problematic in achieving an ecological society and address possible solutions. This is not intended to provide a critique of consumers, my aim is to develop an assault on the hegemonic creation of consumer culture and its devastating impact in maintaining the status quo. This is not an outline for revolution, it is merely my attempt to put forth issues as I see them and contribute to the discussion about the construction of consumer culture as a barrier to achieving social transformation.

"Once upon a time the working class had nothing to lose but its chains; but now it has been absorbed within capitalism, is a prisoner of consumerism, and its articles of consumption own and consume it." -Michael A. Lebowitz

We have the productive means to fulfil our material needs and to liberate ourselves from alienated labor. However this idea is incompatible with capital which does not aim to address real human needs beyond what is required to reproduce itself. Rather capitalism is contingent upon the realization of wealth accumulation, an endless expansion that is based upon the production and consumption of alienated products. This mass production is a fundamental problem that restricts our ability to create an ecological society by being the unshakable cause of most of the environmental problems we face today.

In order to mobilize and attack expansive production, consumer culture must be attacked. This entails attacking the hegemonic institutions that spread consumerism, develop our identification with material goods, and enforce the association between goods and freedom. Capitalist forces expend great resources to ensure that we are socialized to identify ourselves with what we consume far more than with what and how we produce which creates a barrier between us and critical revolution. In fact, Americans are subjected to over 20 times the global average of targeted advertisements. We are made to identify so strongly with commodities that a rejection of capitalism will equate to a rejection of self and require a redefinition of freedom that will demand a revolution that stems beyond the workplace. Within advanced capitalism consumer culture serves as a counter revolutionary safeguard, a sedative. And as we come to identify with the products of our alienated labor rather than realize our alienation within the process of production we sink deeper into the veins of capital, becoming the reproductive organs of the beast.

The working class as a revolutionary subject is the force by which the world will be changed. However, change will only happen if the will to do so exists. The American social contract, which states that what we can achieve given our rights as free and equal people to ascend the social economic ladder with no barriers but our own determination, is a pacifier based upon dishonest assumptions. It enables the institutionalized ignorance of systemic oppression, inequality, and environmental exploitation while generating the individualism needed to ignore the roots of the problem. We need to change the course of the struggle away from a struggle for upward mobility, which is at the heart of the capitalist conflict, to one of economic sufficiency and cultural sustainability.

A struggle for upward mobility is a conservative struggle. It will aim to reform until reforms have returned the working class to a state of equilibrium within capitalist society or one of equally distressing productivism. The world cannot survive our economic system. We have an environmental crisis that requires complete recognition however such recognition will require a cultural revolution, one that rejects the products of alienated labor. In order to survive, capital must expand therefore it must synthesize needs and implement planned obsolescence in order to produce and maintain a market for its growth. A systematic manufacture of discontent places commodities as an affordable means of social achievement therefore contentment by upholding an understanding that has elevated capitalism to a position synonymous with freedom by the mere fact that it provisions the goods. This paves the way for a consumer culture that is impervious to systematic change.

Commodity accumulation leads people to not only identify with the means of destruction but it also paralyzes their ability to mobilize action against the ecological crisis. The resistance to capital must be built in communities most affected by modes of exploitation, those closest to the realization of capitals limits of sufficiency. Poor communities and communities of color are an ecosocialist revolutionary force and the movement must take root in these areas. We must aim to disintegrate links in the chain of capital reproduction by building community sovereignty which will enable the active thinking required to liberate humanity from our impoverished condition. We must acknowledge the multi-faceted struggle for ecosocialism as one encompassing the total impoverishment of humanity which entails not only the patriarchal plundering of earth's environment but also the systemic theft of our self-governing, self-realizing, debt free value.

It is widely recognized that the profit motivated consumer fueled industrial waste and pollution is a broad and time sensitive issue which must be addressed to prevent absolute ecological catastrophe. However, capital cannot provide a fix without dissolving itself. The climate issue is in a stage of terra incognito so the global environmental crisis will be positioned to fall onto the consumers and a new "green" market will conjure the illusion of ethical mass consumption and market growth (see Jevon's Paradox). Consumer culture identifies the free market with freedom in general which is a landmark of success for a system that must perpetuate itself through alienated production and identification with the products of alienated labor in order to avoid overthrow. In light of the urgency of our current ecological situation there is no alternative route to developing an ecosocialist bloc and dismantling advanced capitalism that does not entail the targeted dismantling of social identity with consumer goods. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

The continued existence of the biosphere as we know it depends upon the reduction of the human industrial impact. This stands in contrast to capital's need to portray the false idea that human needs are unlimited and that the earth and its natural limits are capable of accommodating such an absurd reality. It is implanted into the growth strategy to enforce such a notion, for once actual needs are fulfilled the market will stop growing so the system must manufacture discontent to raise demand. This demand situates society in a state of derangement which merges desires and needs while denying that consumption is culturally manufactured and that our culture is the stimulus for environmental instability.

In order to liberate mankind and do so in a way that enables a cultural symbiosis with nature we must seek a social model that distances itself from accumulation. This entails establishing the preexisting condition for revolution which is a class based insurrection against mass self-recognition in commodities. The ability to distain capital commodities will enable the induction into common knowledge the absolute limits of capital production. We must reinvent a human identity that is aligned with our place in nature as actors within an ecosystem. This in practice is counter hegemonic against the conservative forces surrounding capital exploitation of nature. We must see the impact of our consumption in disrupting the metabolism of nature, but we must recognize it as systemic and not limited to individual lifestyle politics. We must see the reality behind our identity with these alien products as a defining attribute of capitalism's incompatible relationship with the natural world and its alienating impact on human consciousness. We must recognize consumer culture as a coercive socializing agent of capital not simply a lifestyle choice made between masses of individuals.

Ecological society is made possible by limiting production to fulfill actual needs and to do so by means of maximizing use value. This will eliminate profit by redistributing surplus time back into society by means of reduced working hours and allocating surplus towards human and ecological development. A true cultural revolution will entail human efforts being aimed toward human liberation and ecological harmony. In order to achieve this the dominant social value system must be replace with one not dependent upon material haves and have nots. We can no longer define the pinnacle of achievement as the output capacity of our civilization and a person's ability to obtain a suite of commodities in a private wealth generating system. A new understanding of surplus will be developed to recognize the creative output of humankind as a common heritage made possible through historical efforts and the reshaping of natural environments, raising a new understanding of ourselves in nature history.

The obsession with production has generated circumstances which require an active assault on our cultural understanding of productivity. Productivism must be understood as an enemy to ecological and social balance. A new society will not arise like a phoenix from fire and ashes it will be built on the foundations of history which is entwined with social injustice, oppression, exploitation, and environmentally destructive forces. In building a socialist society we will be forced to deal with the inevitable cultural reproduction of capitalist ideals and do so in part by abolishing the emphasis on productivism. The socialist world view that maintains a possessive relationship between humanity and nature will be condemned to the same toxic existence as its capitalist predecessor.

In the construction of a new world there must exist the preconditions to harness the new order. A transformation from our current alienated world will not be carried out by a seizure of the means of production alone but must entail a seizure of our identity from the clench of alienated goods. The contentment with this capitalist arrangement of society will last until problems arise that cannot be diverted by means of it, such as the crossing of planetary boundaries and the global displacement of entire populations, an approaching inevitability of our economic model. A revolutionary condition is looming and a force beyond our timeless socioeconomic conflict is a driving element. Natural contingencies will arise which will push aside humankind's ability to negate systemic collapse. The readiness to adapt to and seize the state of nature and the state apparatus may not be present in the common stock of knowledge. The revolution may be ready for us, but we may not be ready for the revolution.

Ecosocialist Participatory Economy

Ecosocialist economies are not contingent upon growth, they are oriented toward the development of human potential which means that they do not aim towards commodity production as an end but as a limited means towards the fulfillment of human needs. Contrary to capital's logic human needs are not unlimited so as to develop an entire economic system around that premise is counter intuitive in its limited potential for human enrichment and its paradoxical existence in a world of finite resources. In ecosocialist society economic value will be transformed, prioritizing use value. Whereas in capitalist society economic exchange value dominates all forms of social worth, placing all other achievement in subordination to it.

Ecosocialism focuses on use value as the aim of productive output but use value is not the lens through which we view nature. Capitalism's utilitarian view of nature is divisive, it limits our ability to identify ourselves within the natural world. This is a cause behind capital's inability to see limits to expansive production. The logic behind capital production creates barriers where boundaries should be, making obstacles out of natural limits. It is not an issue of fossil fuels alone which deem our consumption immoral, for once achieved, a renewable energy structure will not erase the exploitative productive systems that capital relies upon. A clean energy source does not prevent the exploitation of nature and people for profit. It is only with the full self-determining power of workers to control their own destiny that we can produce an ecological economy.

The democratization of our entire society is essential in establishing an ecological order that is able to see the abolition of inequality and exploitation. Democracy must be established to a degree in which it allows people to truly control their own heritage. What is a common heritage of society such as the products of labor exist within a social commons therefore must be democratically regulated and distributed. People not profit must decide what is produced and what is consumed while taking into account the impact it will have on ecosystems and workers alike.

The environment is to be considered more than a source of raw materials and by what it generates to accommodate for human life alone. Our economy exists within the biosphere as a social ecosystem, a subcategory that is a part of a self-regulating earth system in which we as organisms alter at great expense to the harmonious flow of life. It is imperative that nature be protected from privatization by enacting democratic laws surrounding the regulation and preservation of environments from human exploitation. With our knowledge of environmental science we can reduce our impact and protect nature and the people who are most vulnerable to environmental instability.

In a democratic economy decisions must be weighed and votes balanced according to the degree in which the measure would affect the voter. Those most impacted will have more say. Worker, producer, and consumer councils are an organization structure that will accommodate for the diverse needs of each system while enabling the preservation of unique ecological limitations per region. A social opportunity cost will be considered in the process of what is produced in relation to its environmental and social exploitative relationship. This is a system in which a true social accountability is accepted and social production becomes normative. Privatization is criminal in a system such as this for it immediately reduces the democratic integrity that a social society operates on.

Major sources of inequality and power such as inheritance must be rejected in this system as it gives disproportionate social influence to people least affected, the deceased, which is then sequestered away from society and funneled into the hands of the few which leads to disparate power structures. Corporate decisions alike would be seen as anti-social however the democratization and worker ownership of the workplace can help eliminate this problem. It is necessary to state however that worker ownership of the enterprise will be a vital element of social society it is not a sure fire way to ensure the integrity of our biosphere is maintained. The bureaucratic development of social means of production can easily assume the same exploitative characteristics of a capital enterprise and it has in the past. Therefore a circulating responsibility structure should be implemented as well as an establishment of democratic council powers and social vetoes to ensure that what is produced is regulated according to the standards of the environmental treaties.

The world will experience a lifestyle shift that will enable a new standard of economic equality to become institutionalized. We will need to decide what people need to live a good life with health and opportunity. Necessities such as access to water, food, shelter, clothing, transportation, communication, education, health care, sanitation, culture, the pursuit of personal development must exist in the new social contract as a standard guaranteed to all. For most of the world's population the conditions of life will be vastly improved, while the minority wealthy classes will experience a neutralizing shift from excessive consumption to sustainable socially conscious living. We must ensure the elevation of impoverished people to an equal global standard while not barring their ability to achieve self-reliance.

In a society not bound by the limitations of economic growth, resources such as labor will be freed up to provide for the continual progress of our human legacy. The divestment of human capital from profit and power driven maintenance of consumer lifestyles will enable a social investment into more culturally enriching productivity. An ecosocialist economy is based upon evolution not expansion and when advancements in productivity sufficiently fuel society we will have achieved surplus time for all.

Environmental consciousness must be emitted into the common procedure of production in that what is taken and produced must be quantified not only by its human value but by the implications such maneuvers will have on the socioecological world. As producers within nature we have an obligation to not only sustain our environment but also improve it. As an eco-conscious society we must strive to enhance our relationship with nature by inventing an economy that produces more than neutral but positive environmental results. This will be achievable with a new productive philosophy and through a new division of labor as humans are liberated from hours spent supplying synthesized needs. Resources then can be redirected towards creative pursuits, science, engineering, and socioecological development motivated by ecological sustainability and social accountability, not economic profitability.

There is no question that capitalism is a self-serving system that has no place in an ecological social organization. The disasters it creates with its monstrous growth principles devour the earth as well as the minds and bodies of all who exist here. We must seek to build a resistance to this oppressive and exploitative system by focusing our efforts away from reform which only strengthens the system. We must establish community sovereignty to allow pre socialist conditions to exist in the hearts and minds of those who are most threatened by capitalist exploitation. The understanding of ourselves as social beings must extend its association to reconnect our society to nature and to do so by liberating ourselves from the shackles of consumer culture. In solidarity.

References

One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse

The Socialist Imperative by Michael A. Lebowitz

Creating an Ecological Society by Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams

Parecon: Life After Capitalism by Michael Albert

Consumer Culture & Modernity by Don Slater

The Enemy of Nature by Joel Kovel

The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, Richard York

Marxism and Nature: The Metabolic Rift

By Rebecca Heyer

This article is intended to be the first in a series that will provide an introduction to some of the concepts that provide the foundation for ecosocialism, a movement that develops and applies socialist solutions to the challenges of climate change and the environment. All of these will be an attempt to introduce the reader to the subject matter.

Many readers find the original works that have helped define the movement to be difficult to follow. Academics such as John Bellamy Foster and Ian Angus are highly respected, but use a language that many socialist organizers find somewhat inaccessible. I highly recommend their writing to anyone who wants to take the time and effort to read and understand them. I will not come close to their rigor and attention to detail here. I hope to inspire all people interested in building a socialist future to investigate further.

Marx's View of the Relationship between Humans and the Environment

Marx and Epicurean Philosophy

Karl Marx spent much of his life considering the relationship between the human race and the world they live in. He excelled in the study of philosophy, history and the natural sciences. Marx's world view was grounded in philosophy, particularly that of the ancient Greeks. The subject of his PhD thesis was a comparison of philosophy of two of the classic Greek scholars, Epicurus and Democritus. Both of them were materialists, in contrast to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle who were idealists. Idealism had dominated western thought for centuries and provided a foundation for much of Christian theology. The Enlightenment marked a revival of the materialist school. Marx saw the relationship between humans and the environment in materialist terms and saw humans as part of the world they live in. Marx's world was not populated by ideal forms. It was made up of matter, time and space. It existed independently of any deity, and humans did not govern it or maintain it as agents of God. They interacted with their environment in a dialectical relationship, with all participants affecting all other participants.

Labor as a Natural Process

Marx saw labor as a process that connected humans with their environment. In Volume I of Capital, Chapter Seven, Section One, he wrote:

" Labor is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labor that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labor-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labor was still in its first instinctive stage. We presuppose labor in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labor-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the laborer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realizes a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman's will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the more close his attention is forced to be."

Labor is a dialectical process where humans impact the environment, but at the same time the changes in the environment made by humans impact humans.

The Metabolic Rift and Fertilizer

Marx and the Soil

Marx recognized the fundamental role of the soil in the labor process. He viewed agriculture as the basis for an economy. He included the following in the section of Capital cited above.

" The soil (and this, economically speaking, includes water) in the virgin state in which it supplies man with necessaries or the means of subsistence ready to hand, exists independently of him, and is the universal subject of human labor. All those things which labor merely separates from immediate connection with their environment, are subjects of labor spontaneously provided by Nature. Such are fish which we catch and take from their element, water, timber which we fell in the virgin forest, and ores which we extract from their veins. If, on the other hand, the subject of labor has, so to say, been filtered through previous labor, we call it raw material; such is ore already extracted and ready for washing. All raw material is the subject of labor, but not every subject of labor is raw material: it can only become so, after it has undergone some alteration by means of labor."

The transition from feudalism to capitalism was marked by a change in the relationship between humans and the soil.

Capitalism in Europe began to develop in the fourteenth century with the rise of capitalist agriculture. Feudal Europe had few cities or towns and agriculture was distributed across a multitude of feudal estates. Most were largely self-sufficient and trade was not a significant factor. As the population grew cities and towns became more important. This led to the practice of tenant farming and the development of markets for agricultural products. In Chapter Twenty-Nine of Capital, Volume I, Marx writes:

" Now that we have considered the forcible creation of a class of outlawed proletarians, the bloody discipline that turned them into wage laborers, the disgraceful action of the State which employed the police to accelerate the accumulation of capital by increasing the degree of exploitation of labor, the question remains: whence came the capitalists originally? For the expropriation of the agricultural population creates, directly, none but the greatest landed proprietors. As far, however, as concerns the genesis of the farmer, we can, so to say, put our hand on it, because it is a slow process evolving through many centuries. The serfs, as well as the free small proprietors, held land under very different tenures, and were therefore emancipated under very different economic conditions. In England the first form of the farmer is the bailiff, himself a serf. His position is similar to that of the old Roman villicus , only in a more limited sphere of action. During the second half of the 14th century he is replaced by a farmer, whom the landlord provided with seed, cattle and implements. His condition is not very different from that of the peasant. Only he exploits more wage labor. Soon he becomes a metayer, a half-farmer. He advances one part of the agricultural stock, the landlord the other. The two divide the total product in proportions determined by contract. This form quickly disappears in England, to give the place to the farmer proper, who makes his own capital breed by employing wage laborers, and pays a part of the surplus-product, in money or in kind, to the landlord as rent. So long, during the 15th century, as the independent peasant and the farm-laborer working for himself as well as for wages, enriched themselves by their own labor, the circumstances of the farmer, and his field of production, were equally mediocre. The agricultural revolution which commenced in the last third of the 15th century, and continued during almost the whole of the 16th (excepting, however, its last decade), enriched him just as speedily as it impoverished the mass of the agricultural people."

The Metabolic Rift

The development of capitalist agricultural alienated farmers, both from the soil, which was the source of their productivity, and their produce, which was the fruit of their labor. Marx did not call this alienation a "metabolic rift" but later writers have used this term to refer to the disruption of the relationship between humans and the environment described in Capital Volume I, Chapter 15, Section 10.

" Capitalist production completely tears asunder the old bond of union which held together agriculture and manufacture in their infancy. But at the same time it creates the material conditions for a higher synthesis in the future, viz., the union of agriculture and industry on the basis of the more perfected forms they have each acquired during their temporary separation. Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centers, and causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population, on the one hand concentrates the historical motive power of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the circulation of matter between man and the soil, i.e., prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to lasting fertility of the soil. By this action it destroys at the same time the health of the town laborer and the intellectual life of the rural laborer. But while upsetting the naturally grown conditions for the maintenance of that circulation of matter, it imperiously calls for its restoration as a system, as a regulating law of social production, and under a form appropriate to the full development of the human race. In agriculture as in manufacture, the transformation of production under the sway of capital, means, at the same time, the martyrdom of the producer; the instrument of labor becomes the means of enslaving, exploiting, and impoverishing the laborer; the social combination and organization of labor-processes is turned into an organized mode of crushing out the workman's individual vitality, freedom, and independence. The dispersion of the rural laborers over larger areas breaks their power of resistance while concentration increases that of the town operatives. In modern agriculture, as in the urban industries, the increased productiveness and quantity of the labor set in motion are bought at the cost of laying waste and consuming by disease labor-power itself. Moreover, all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the laborer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility. The more a country starts its development on the foundation of modern industry, like the United States, for example, the more rapid is this process of destruction. Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the laborer."

Soil Depletion and the Use of Fertilizer

Capitalists often attempt to address problems created by a metabolic rift through technical changes in production methods. Marx was familiar with the attempt to mitigate soil depletion through the use of fertilizer. He was fascinated by the work of organic chemist Justus von Liebig on the subject of nutrients needed by plants. In large part due to Liebig's discoveries, the use of fertilizer in both Europe and America exploded during the nineteenth century.

The best available fertilizer available at the time was guano, the accumulated droppings of sea birds. Islands on the west coast of South America had an abundant supply. Demand for guano from Peru soared during the mid nineteenth century and the major agricultural producers of the time fought to control these resources. This led to the Chincha Islands War of 1864-1866. Marx saw this conflict as an example of the way imperial powers enter into conflict for the control of natural resources.

As is often the case, this metabolic rift led to another, as the capitalist system attempted to correct the problem by using new technology. Guano was carried from Peru to agricultural centers in Europe and North America by clipper ships. About the same time as the Chincha Islands War, shipping technology changed from wind driven vessels to steam driven vessels powered by coal. The mining and shipping of coal created a new, even more serious metabolic rift. Fossil fuels such as coal represent energy that was captured long ago by plants and has been sitting underground for millions of years. Plants use energy from solar radiation to convert carbon dioxide into other carbon compounds. This energy is stored in fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas. The stored energy is released when fossil fuels are burned, but at the same time carbon dioxide is also released. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas which, when released into the atmosphere, causes environmental systems like the oceans to retain heat and become warmer. The current warming trend that is driving global climate change began in the mid-nineteenth century and can be in, at least in part, traced back to the chain of metabolic rifts that was initiated by capitalist agriculture.

The Metabolic Rift Today

Agriculture

The chain of metabolic rifts in agriculture has continued. By the end of the nineteenth century, deposits of nitrates such as guano were becoming depleted. Capitalist agricultural, now dependent on nitrate fertilizer, needed a new technology. In 1909 an artificial way of fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere, called the Haber Process, was discovered. The Haber Process is still the dominate way of producing nitrates, which are used in the production of munitions and explosives as well as fertilizer.

The Haber Process is energy intensive, uses natural gas as a source of hydrogen and consumes three to five percent of the world's production of natural gas. Capitalist agricultural is also heavily dependent on the use of powered equipment, such as tractors, trucks and harvesters, which are also fueled by petroleum products. Although agricultural consumption of petroleum is dwarfed by other economic sectors such as transportation, according to the US Energy Information Administration about half a trillion BTU of petroleum is consumed by agricultural production in this country alone.

Energy

No where is a metabolic rift more apparent than in the capitalist production of energy. Fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and petroleum represent solar radiation received by plants millions of years ago and captured through the process of photosynthesis which converts carbon dioxide and water into other hydrocarbons. Burning fossil fuels releases both energy and carbon dioxide. After almost two hundred years of burning fossil fuels, accelerated by capitalist agriculture and manufacturing processes, the portion of the atmosphere made up by carbon dioxide has gone from less than three hundred parts per million to over 400 parts per million. Changes of this magnitude typically take millions of years.

Manufactured Goods

In the same way that the globalization of agriculture creates metabolic rifts, the globalization of the production of manufactured commodities creates additional rifts. These may not be connected directly to the soil, but they still impact the connection between humans and environmental systems. In a globalized economy the sources of raw materials, the sites of manufacturing facilities and consumers are usually separated by large distances and national borders. The most obvious impact on environmental systems comes from the need to transport huge quantities of commodities and materials. Most of these are moved by cargo ships and most of these ships are powered by a petroleum product known as bunker fuel, the residual that is left after gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil and other lighter distillates are extracted. Bunker fuel is relatively inexpensive, but burning it emits large amounts of carbon dioxide compared to the amount of energy produced. The transportation of goods and materials needed to support a globalized economy contributes heavily to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and thereby to global climate change.

Conclusion

I hope this article has given the reader some idea of the meaning of the term metabolic rift and its place in the Marxian critique of capitalism. Metabolic rift is a key concept within ecosocialism and the understanding of how capitalism is responsible for global climate change.

This article originally appeared on the Socialist Party USA's official publication, The Socialist .

Rebecca Heyer graduated from Rice University with a BA in economics in 1977. Based in Texas, she worked as a systems analyst and consultant for 23 years, specializing in the management of very large data sets. Starting in 2000, she became active in politics, holding a county office in the Green Party and lobbying the Texas Legislature. She relocated to northwest Florida in 2006 where she served on the City of Pensacola Environmental Advisory Board. After the 2016 election she left the Green Party and joined the Socialist Party USA as an at large member. She currently serves on the Ecosocialist Commission. At the age of 62, she still enjoys the punk scene and living on the Gulf Coast.

Sources

Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature by John Bellamy Foster

The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth by John Bellamy Foster, Robert York and Brett Clark

The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophies in General - Karl Marx's Doctoral Thesis

Capital, Volume I by Karl Marx