"There are none so fit to break the chains as those who wear them' James Connolly, Irish socialist and republican, once said. Apply that wise adage to the Earth Summit and few, if any, of the Rio delegates would be allowed to attend. SAM INMAN argues that it is high time the left worked out its vision of a socialist strategy to defend the planet we live on. IGNORE THE HYPE, this month's events in Rio are just a very expensive charade, masking the real causes and effects of the world's social and environmental crises.
If anything constructive comes out of the sumnas, we u be seens the trater ing of porcine wings in our parched polluted skies this summer.
No-one on the left should deny the enormity of the world's ecological problems. Over the past weeks the media have been full of stories about EC energy taxes, global warming population control, deforestation, and 'third world' debt.
Anyone who saw John Pilger's excel lent TV documentary in May - War By knows ecological destruction in the developing 'third' world is related to the imperialist plundering of these countries' economies.
This is precisely the reason why the US, Japanese and EC governments haveused their clout in the UN to water down the Earth Summit's agenda to the point where it is now virtually mangiess.
$1.3 trillion Many of these powerful governments are facing very difficult domestic problems. The last thing they need is to arrive on the world stage at Rio, ready to argue that 'third world' countries should stop cutting down their rainforests (which is just about the only ecological point of agreement between them) only to be reminded very publicStabilising pollution emissions at current levels is not enough Bush: supporting the drive for megaprofits ly of the $1.3 trillion that has flowed from 'third world' to "first' over the last In Pilger's documentary, Susan George pointed out the strong correlation existing between those "third world' countries that are the top deforesters, and those that are the top debtors.
Only a fraction of the forests are cleared by landless peasants seeking to scratch meagre short-term subsistance from poor-quality forest soils.
Most are cleared for industrial development, to build factories under trans. national corporate control that utilise the cheap labour and natural resources of the 'third world'.
Productive agricultural land is also sing swallowed up by the same pro • the merciless drive for mege profits.
No matter how 'green' they claim to be, this is the reality of World Bank/IMF/western government 'develop ment strategies. Poverty The consequences are therefor everyone to see massive poverty. population drift to overcrowded and underresourced cities, home Lessn ess dire, the list in end dis famine, disThere is only one answer to this - the complete and unconditional cancelling of the debt plus reparations for Cancelling the debt plus reparations is the only way to break the vicious circle of hunger and poverty the parasitic leeching of literally bilions by the imperialist While many on the left could be ac cused of ignoring the problems before, the spectacular success of the british Green Party in the 1989 Euro-clections nsured that the politics of ecolog ere placed on the left's agend.
There have been two false ap proaches on the left.
One is to deny that there is anything unecological about traditional socialist programmes for change. The left frequently criticises the Greens for arguing that there are limits to economic growth (and sometimes even con sumerism).
a ne ofer is to condemn all previous socialist practice as inherently anti-eco logical. This response is entirely within the framework of sost-class radical solitics and dovetails neatly with the obsessional search, on the part of an increasing number of left intellectuals, to find a Red-Green-DemocraticCitizens'-Alternative.
Sustainable
These false approaches need to be combatted by outlining an ecologically sustainable socialist alternative.
While there may not be theoretical limits to economic production in an abstract sense - depending on the nature of that production - there are certainly real material limits to unfettered industrialisation.
There needs to be massive global investment made into detailed ecological researen to ascertain exacuy wnar Inese limits are. This information should be freely available for public scrutiny - an ecological as well as financial opening of the books.
Any sort of democratic ecological planning requires this sort of know!edge. But, of course, there are some hings we know already Weknow, for example, tha polluting lone, but a prin rincipally carbon need to be massively cut back. Even the most radical of bourgeois proposals promise only to stabilise emissions at current Emission cutbacks need to loudest voices from the green movement only call for 'energy taxes or for 'abolishing the private car' Socialists would be all in favour of heavily penalising industries that churned out enormous quantities of poison every year.
But al the proposals about 'energy taxes' that I've ever read about woule result in the costs being handed on to the vast majority of working class people - it's currently fashionable to call these 'consumers'.
Abolishing the car would not be a problem if we had an extensive, cheap, accessible and ecologically safe public transport system.
Utopian
But this we certainly do not have today. It is utopian to call for this now, friends among carworkers- whose jobs ana avunooas are aireddy being mass ively decimated - unless a positive alternative is presented whereby no-one loses their means of survival.
What both of these examples show, and there are plenty more besides, is that you cannot successfully challenge the very nature of capitalist industrial production without at the same time offering those exploited by the system an alternative - you cannot talk about changing the system, without also looking at who owns and controls it.
It should be no surprise to anyone, that this Earth Summit will not produce anything other than yet more hot air. There is no solution to the world's enormous problems within a capitalist and In its ruthless and systematic drive for profit. 'free market cipitalism y waging war not only venchen misses nitha warmh also against the complex ecological support system that humankind is an intricate part of.
Immediate measures
Even if we do not know all the answers to an ecologically-sustainable socialism, there are urgent measures which could be taken to immediately tackle global warming, the destruction of the ozone layer and world poverty.
The Earth Summit will not even try, because solving these problems hits immediately at the interests of world capiaction on these questions, and working out detailed proposals for a sustainable socialist society, must be put on the left's agenda. • Socialist Outlook will carry further articles discussing the challenges and problems of green politics. What should socialists make of calls for population control? Is there a future for nuclear power? What sort of workers' control should there be for ecological sustainability? Watch out for future issues.
No. 22 May 30, 1992
Letters Socialist