turning their backs on the old trade unions... They remain indifferent to the inner struggle within the reformist organisations — as if one could win the masses without intervening in their daily strife!'
It's a pity that so many self-proclaimed revolutionaries in Britain have not taken this advice, and have found themselves on the sidelines of so much strife in the labour movement in recent years.
Dave Packer All quotes are from The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, New Park publications. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 10 November 1988
Marxism on green terrain With Margaret Thatcher pronouncing herself the newest and most surprising convert to the cause of "Green' politics, should marxists shy away from the political fight to defend our living and working environment? In this article, reprinted from New Zealand Monthly Review, JURRIAN BENDIAN argues that, on the contrary, only marxist analysis offers an explanation and a solution to the
N D Capitalism wreaks havoc on the environment ACCORDING to a persistent myth, Marx was an uncritical admirer of capitalist technology and applauded all economic growth unreservedly. He is also supposed to have viewed technological development as a 'neutral' process unaffected by social forces.
By accepting Victorian concepts such as the 'conquest of nature'. , so the argument goes, he fell victim to the industrialist ideologies of his time. As a result, marxists are congenitally unable to account for ecological problems in a critical and scientific way. The pursuit of 'production for production's sake' and serious ecological problems in the so-called socialist countries are often cited as evidence for this view.
In reality, almost the exact opposite is true. By identifying labour as the central nexus between society and nature, Marx's theory of value made possible a balanced view of the relationship SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 10 November 1988
E P H
REFLEX ecological crisis.
between them for the first time.
The liberating potential of economic growth For Marx, the supreme goal of humanity is humanity itself,
and not some or another super-human principle like 'economic
growth', 'inevitable progress', 'the meaning of history' or 'cos-
mic consciousness'. If our species has a goal, it is the maximum
realisation of its potential; human wealth is wealth in human rela-
tions.
For that reason marxism attaches great importance to
economic growth, and rejects 'zero growth society' as a reaction-
ary utopia. Without a solid material infrastructure, the kind of
'rich social individuality' and individual freedom central to the
marxist vision of socialism cannot develop.
Page 21
in the environment in which they happen to be born, and deprives them of the means to develop their knowledge and needs to the full. The real issue is not whether economic growth is desirable, but what kind. economic growth boils down to) creates the possibility of a twofold liberation: liberation of people from coercion by nature and liberation from coercion by society. In human history, this liberation has taken place in an uneven and contradictory way. tained, social coercion took its place - a paradox which has preoc- cupied philosophers through the ages. marised as follows: when labour productivity increases to the point where a large and permanent surplus product exists, a sec- tion of society can be freed from the necessity to produce means of sub- sistence. This paves the way for a division between mental and manual labour. Increasing specialisation al- lows artisans, engineers, scientists and technicians to devote themsel- ves full time to finding ways to economise labour and raise its productivity. But so long as the so- cial surplus product remains insuf- ficient in quantity and quality, it cannot be shared in an egalitarian way. Class divisions and social in- equality are inevitable. Along with a growing division of productive labour, we conse- quently also see the emergence of slave-drivers, professional sol- diers, tax collectors, ruling classes who appropriated the surplus product, ideologists justifying this exploitation, and all the other phenomena of social alienation bound up with class society. Marxism accordingly formu- lates the liberating potential of economic growth as follows: when a sufficient level of material wealth pulsion to perform exhausting, demeaning and boring work. participate in managing society's affairs. technology. Page 22
N The communism of poverty stunts human beings, traps them Increasing the productivity of human labour (which is what In the measure that freedom from natural constraints was atThe gist of the marxist explanation of this paradox can be sumhas been attained, the divisions between producers and managers, mental and manual labour, ruling class and working class, and between town and country are no longer inevitable or necessary. All individuals can at that point be progressively freed from the com-
The rule of the majority by a minority can then be replaced by a system in which all citizens have the time and opportunity to
Marx's main thesis was that, by giving a tremendous boost to human productivity, capitalism would make this a realistic prospect for the first time. But it never occurred to him to see economic growth as anything more than a means to an end. Nor did he envisage the communism of abundance, which modern technology makes possible, as the automatic outgrowth of this
In fact. Marx concludes his analysis of machinery with the statement that 'capitalist production... only develops the techniques and the degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the worker.' (Capital, Vol 1, Penguin,
DEPT H p. 638).
From the moment that a high level of labour productivity has been reached, the critical obstacle for human progress becomes primarily a social, and not a technological one: the radical transformation of the social structure and social consciousness, socialist revolution. Because - as Marx puts it elsewhere: stage when productive forces and means of intercourse are brought into being which, under the existing relations, only cause mischief, and are no longer productive but destructive forces (machinery and money)...' (Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, Moscow ed. p. 60). mode of production is unable to achieve the maximum - let alone the optimum - development of the productive forces. A system based on private property and profit-maximisation also means
demand, taking into account the 'multiplier effect').
maximisation.
social needs at all.
'In the development of the productive forces there comes a It was part and parcel of Marx's critique of capitalism that this tremendous waste of material and human resources. A growing mass of unproductive labour; mass unemployment and mass starvation; over-production crises; imperialist wars and the 'development underdevelopment'; a permanent arms economy; the deliberate destruction of agrarian "surplus" - all this shows clearly that capitalist growth is light years away from what science and technology would make possible within the framework of a rationally planned economy. Capitalism makes profitability the primary criterion of investment decisions. But profit only quantifies in money that which has a price and abstracts from everything that hasn't. It expresses the aim of realising a maximum difference between production costs and income of private firms, without regard for the effects on the community as a whole. - This has very peculiar results. For example, increasing private profits A. MOORE/REFLEX can reduce the total national income - a saving of (say) £1 million achieved through rationalisation and redundancies can cause a loss of £2 million to the national economy (unemployment benefits and reduced aggregate Bourgeois cost-benefit analyses which impute an imaginary price to social and environmental costs (so-called "externalities') rest on the assumption that human life is but a means to profit- On the other side, the laws of the market do not balance "supply' and human physical or psychological demand: they only balance supply and 'effective demand' - disposable purchasing power. Effective consumer demand - itself distributed very une- qually under capitalism - does not necessarily match human or The building industry (say) can suffer a slump, because the market for luxury appartments has caved in, while tens of thousands of low-income families live in sub-standard rented ac- commodation. Effective demand is also subject to irrational in- fluences from advertising and fashions, which are far more power- ful than any 'environmental ethic propagated by nature lovers. Market society necessarily remains imprisoned in bourgeois SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 10 November 1988
N How contaminated was your dinner? C.GUARITA/REFLEX ideological prejudices because its very structure gives preference to individual over collective expenditures.
Pollution and market forces
There is an obvious connection between this general Marxist critique of market economy and environmental pollution. Market economy (of which capitalism is merely the most developed form) tends to plunder natural resources insofar as they have no price or a very low price.
Tis expensive, because its fertility has been produced by millions of labour hours, commercialised agriculture treats it with great respect. But where the price is low or nominal, it creates monstrous waste and irreparable damage (erosion, deforestation and so on; nineteenth century New Zealand offers particularly graphic illustrations).
Rivers that remain public property and have no price are turned into factory sewers. Clean air, again without price, is fouled up by chimney smoke and exhaust gases. And so on, ad nauseam.
Another result of the logic of market economy is the strictly limited time-frame in which the investment decisions are made. A private firm strives for maximum profits in a limited period.
This creates a logic of 'apres nous le deluge'. [Loosely, 'who cares what happens later', ed.]
When the invested capital has been written off, and profits realised and productively or unproductively consumed, the reproduction cycle of capitalism is closed. But nature makes demands which do not recognise the laws of profit or effective demand, such as recycling waste products and restoring the ecological balance. Often it becomes clear only decades after a particular production process is introduced that its social costs outweigh by far the private wealth it generated.
Apologists for capitalist 'market forces' will often agree that SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 10 November 1988
DEPTH the system has inbuilt tendencies towards eco-destruction. But, they argue, these can be reduced to a minimum through state intervention. This is a poor argument.
It is exactly in the period from the 1930s, when state intervention in the west increased massively, that the biggest increases in environmental pollution have occurred. Capitalist politics follows capitalist economics.
The concept of the state as a 'neutral instrument' is a technocratic fantasy. In a capitalist society the state is a means for organising the common affairs of the capitalists.
Legal penalties and prohibitions compatible with these common affairs are typically put in place only after production processes and products have proved harmful. Typically this means after the damage has been done. And when the choice is between the ecologically or socially harmful production and unemployment, most workers will not willingly vote themselves out of a job.
These points 'indicate straight away why a socialist planned economy is in principle superior to a market economy from an ecological standpoint. It guarantees full employment and allows for resource allocation according to 'non-economic' criteria.
On the basis of democratically-centralised planning, the social costs and benefits flowing from alternative investment plans can be assessed in advance. The long-term effects for society and the biosphere can be taken into account.
This is possible because we are no longer dealing with thousands of competing private company budgets which remain "business secrets' but with a single social budget which allocates resources on the basis of public and democratic discussion.
Technology and market forces
The famous report of the Club of Rome (1972) singled out three main ecological threats to uncontrolled growth: pollution; depletion of natural resources; and over-population. The flaw in these and subsequent alarmist documents is their narrowly bour-
All their extrapolations are based on currently existing tendencies. They set out from the premise that our contemporary technology and society are the only possible ones. Writers like Barry Commoner have exposed the mythical nature of this assumption.
The technology developed by capitalist civilisation is not inherently and inevitably directed towards eco-destruction. Major technological innovations in some instances reduce overall pollution (replacement of fossil fuels by electric power, and so on).
The progress of the exact sciences has created a wide range of technological alternatives, Some options were chosen over others without proper regard for the environmental consequences, because the deciding criterion was the profitability of private firms.
Whoever concretely studies the causes of the rapid escalation of industrial pollution since the second world war will not blame "technology' as such but the choice of particular technologies which, in retrospect, appears totally irresponsible. For example, is the motor car as we know it today the only possible or most efficient form of transport? Given the invention of public transport and cars powered by electricity, gas and steam, the answeris clear-
If Henry Ford & co had not conspired with the oil trusts, if the state had not funded or subsidised the building of motorways, then we would in all probability have ended up with a very different transport system.
Pollution in the post-capitalist world
The Chernobyl disaster has highlighted once again the fact that environmental pollution is very real in the so-called socialist countries. The environmental despoilation workers have to cope
Page 23
D N with there has been detailed by writers like Komarov and Smil. Does this undermine the viability of socialism in the classical marxist sense? It depends. Many self-styled 'marxist- leninists' are committed to defending post-capitalist countries, and the bureaucracies that rule them, through thick and thin as "beacons of socialism'. They obviously have a major ideological problem on their hands. If indeed socialism has been built in a single country - the USSR, China, East Germany or whatever - how can 'socialist pollution' and 'socialist eco- destruction' there be explained away? On the other hand, those marxists who stick with Marx's and Lenin's inter- nationalist concept of socialism - a global society based on workers' self- management and a form of political democracy superior to bourgeois-par- liamentary democracy - do not have the problem. We are at liberty to see so-called socialist societies for what they are - transitional formations, bureaucratised workers' states. We can analyse their achievements and shortcomings using exactly the same critical standards and scien- tific methods that Marx used to analyse capitalist society. Whoever analyses ecological problems in the post-capitalist world in an historical and materialist way will quickly arrive at the conclusion that these problems stem mainly from the interplay of three factors. The first and most obvious one is backwardness. For reasons which Marx and Engels did not foresee, the socialist and world revolution gained its initial victories in backward countries ("backward' as measured by the average level of labour produc- tivity, infant mortality rates and other indices of material culture). This has had very grave consequences for attempts at socialist construction in these countries, not least of which is a heavy reliance on capitalist industrial technologies. Secondly, although the market (in marxist jargon the 'law of value'), no longer dominates the allocation of resources there, it still exerts a major influence on economic life - both in the sense that price mechanisms, profit criteria and commodity production have only been partially abolished, and in the sense of the pres- sures and constraints exerted by the capitalist world market (and, more generally, imperialism). Finally, a host of ecologically insane planning decisions can be blamed directly on bureaucratically-centralised planning and the special interests of the ruling bureaucratic castes in the so- called socialist countries. When the environmental impact of dif- ferent planning options is not given due consideration, it cannot be publicly discussed, or indeed remains a "state secret, mother nature and ordinary working people are bound to suffer. Some conclusions The 'greens' have often criticised marxists and socialists for ignoring ecological issues. A lot of this criticism is justified. But to blame this neglect on Marx or marxism is mistaken and wrong- headed. The marxist analysis of capitalism and class society provides a comprehensive, systemic explanation of the global ecological crisis, which is refreshingly free from moralism and mysticism. Page 24
•E P T H
C. GUARITA/REFLEX
To hold marxism responsible for environmental despoliation in the post-capitalist world is a bit like condemning modern medicine and calling for a return to institutionalised quackery -on the ground that so many patients could not be cured over the last 70 years due to inadequate medical treatment (admittedly official marxist-leninist ideology has much in common with institutionalised quackery - as many Soviet and Chinese marxists will nowadays agree).
The salient points to be made are that socialism cannot be built on rubbish heaps, and that ecological problems cannot wait until the revolution. By implication, socialists cannot afford to leave green politics to the 'greens'
The guerrilla warfare of environmentalists against capitalist polluters and eco-vandals is admirable and often heroic. But unless it is integrated into a socialișt programme it remains limited to resistance. And unless it is linked to a broader anti- capitalist struggle and strategy, the battle for a healthy living and working environment gets bogged down in liberal-technocratic quangos and parliamentary cretinism.
The chief political weakness of green parties is their lack of clarity about what social agency can bring about the radical social-structural changes which the ecological crisis demands. This lack of clarity flows from a deficient analysis of the social system which continues to dominate the globe.
That system is capitalism, and if we analyse its history, the answer to the political question is clear: only the working class has the power and inclination to do away with capitalism and the ability to replace it with an ecologically viable alternative.
That is why a red-green programme is needed which is rooted in the labour movement. The clearer the environmental crimes of the "more market' society are demonstrated, and the more an ecological consciousness grows among ordinary working people, the more the awareness of the need for revolutionary social change will gain ground. Footnote This article was originally published in New Zealand Monthly Review, PO Box 13-483, Armagh, Christchurch, New Zealand.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 10 November 1988
'Policy review' junks the The politics of Socialist Organiser have changed considerably over the last few years, and the issue of
15 September contains the latest major leap.