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<title>D.4 What is the relationship between capitalism and the ecological crisis?
</title>
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<h1>D.4 What is the relationship between capitalism and the ecological crisis?</h1>
<p>
Environmental damage has reached alarming proportions. Almost daily there
are new upwardly revised estimates of the severity of global warming,
ozone destruction, topsoil loss, oxygen depletion from the clearing of
rain forests, acid rain, toxic wastes and pesticide residues in food and
water, the accelerating extinction rate of natural species, etc., etc.
Almost all scientists now recognise that global warming may soon become
irreversible, with devastating results for humanity. Those few who reject
this consensus are usually paid by corporations with a vested interest in
denying the reality of what their companies are doing to the planet
(such as oil companies). That sections of the ruling class have become
aware of the damage inflicted on the planet's eco-systems suggests that
we have only a few decades before they irreparably damaged.
</p><p>
Most anarchists see the ecological crisis as rooted in the psychology of
domination, which emerged with the rise of hierarchy (including patriarchy,
classes, and the first primitive states) during the Late Neolithic. Murray
Bookchin, one of the pioneers of eco-anarchism, points out that <i>"[t]he
hierarchies, classes, propertied forms, and statist institutions that
emerged with social domination were carried over conceptually into
humanity's relationship with nature. Nature too became increasingly
regarded as a mere resource, an object, a raw material to be exploited as
ruthlessly as slaves on a latifundium."</i> [<b>Toward an Ecological Society</b>
p. 41] In his view, without uprooting the psychology of domination,
all attempts to stave off ecological catastrophe are likely to be
mere palliatives and so doomed to failure.
</p><p>
Bookchin argues that <i>"the conflict between humanity and nature is an
extension of the conflict between human and human. Unless the ecology
movement encompasses the problem of domination in all its aspects, it
will contribute <b>nothing</b> toward eliminating the root causes of the
ecological crisis of our time. If the ecology movement stops at
mere reformism in pollution and conservation control - at mere
'environmentalism' - without dealing radically with the need for an
expanded concept of revolution, it will merely serve as a safety
value for the existing system of natural and human exploitation."</i>
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 43] Since capitalism is the vehicle through which the
psychology of domination finds its most ecologically destructive
outlet, most eco-anarchists give the highest priority to dismantling
it:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Literally, the system in its endless devouring of nature will reduce the
entire biosphere to the fragile simplicity of our desert and arctic
biomes. We will be reversing the process of organic evolution which has
differentiated flora and fauna into increasingly complex forms and
relationships, thereby creating a simpler and less stable world of life.
The consequences of this appalling regression are predictable enough in
the long run -- the biosphere will become so fragile that it will
eventually collapse from the standpoint human survival needs and remove
the organic preconditions for human life. That this will eventuate from a
society based on production for the sake of production is . . . merely a
matter of time, although when it will occur is impossible to predict."</i>
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 68]
</blockquote></p><p>
This is not to say that ecological destruction did not exist before
the rise of capitalism. This is not the case. Social problems, and
the environmental destruction they create, <i>"lie not only in the
conflict between wage labour and capital"</i> they also <i>"lie in the
conflicts between age-groups and sexes within the family, hierarchical
modes of instruction in the schools, the bureaucratic usurpation of
power within the city, and ethnic divisions within society. Ultimately,
they stem from a hierarchical sensibility of command and obedience
that begins with the family and merely reaches its most visible social
form in the factory, bureaucracy and military. I cannot emphasise too
strongly that these problems emerged long before capitalism."</i> However,
capitalism is the dominant economic form today and so the <i>"modern urban
crisis largely reflects the divisions that capitalism has produced
between society and nature."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 29 and p. 28]
</p><p>
Capitalism, unlike previous class and hierarchical systems, has an
expansionist nature which makes it incompatible with the planet's ecology.
So it is important to stress that capitalism must be <b>eliminated</b> because it
<b>cannot</b> reform itself so as to become "environment friendly," contrary to
the claims of so-called "green" capitalists. This is because <i>"[c]apitalism
not only validates precapitalist notions of the domination of nature, . . .
it turns the plunder of nature into society's law of life. To quibble with
this kind of system about its values, to try to frighten it with visions
about the consequences of growth is to quarrel with its very metabolism.
One might more easily persuade a green plant to desist from photosynthesis
than to ask the bourgeois economy to desist from capital accumulation."</i>
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 66]
</p><p>
Thus capitalism causes ecological destruction because it is based
upon domination (of human over human and so humanity over nature) and
continual, endless growth (for without growth, capitalism would die).
This can be seen from the fact that industrial production has increased
fifty fold between 1950 and the 1990s. Obviously such expansion in a
finite environment cannot go on indefinitely without disastrous
consequences. Yet it is impossible <b>in principle</b> for capitalism to
kick its addiction to growth. It is important to understand why.
</p><p>
Capitalism is based on production for profit. In order to stay
profitable, a firm needs to make a profit. In other words, money
must become more money. This can be done in two ways. Firstly, a
firm can produce new goods, either in response to an existing need
or (by means of advertising) by creating a new one. Secondly, by
producing a new good more cheaply than other firms in the same
industry in order to successfully compete. If one firm increases
its productivity (as all firms must try to do), it will be able to
produce more cheaply, thus undercutting its competition and capturing
more market share (until eventually it forces less profitable firms
into bankruptcy). Hence, constantly increasing productivity is
essential for survival.
</p><p>
There are two ways to increase productivity, either by passing on
costs to third parties (externalities) or by investing in new
means of production. The former involves, for example, polluting
the surrounding environment or increasing the exploitation of
workers (e.g. longer hours and/or more intense work for the same
amount of pay). The latter involves introducing new technologies
that reduce the amount of labour necessary to produce the same
product or service. Due to the struggle of workers to prevent
increases in the level of their exploitation and by citizens to
stop pollution, new technologies are usually the main way that
productivity is increased under capitalism (though of course
capitalists are always looking for ways to avoid regulations
and to increase the exploitation of workers on a given technology
by other means as well).
</p><p>
But new technologies are expensive, which means that in order to pay
for continuous upgrades, a firm must continually sell <b>more</b> of what
it produces, and so must keep expanding its capital. To stay in the
same place under capitalism is to tempt crisis -- thus a firm must
always strive for more profits and thus must always expand and invest.
In order to survive, a firm must constantly expand and upgrade its
capital and production levels so it can sell enough to <b>keep</b>
expanding and upgrading its capital -- i.e. "grow or die," or
<i>"production for the sake of production"</i> (to user Marx's term). This
means that the accumulation of capital is at the heart of the system
and so it is impossible in principle for capitalism to solve the
ecological crisis, because "grow or die" is inherent in its nature:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"To speak of 'limits to growth' under a capitalistic market economy is as
meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The
moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists,
are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative.
Capitalism can no more be 'persuaded' to limit growth than a human being
can be 'persuaded' to stop breathing. Attempts to 'green' capitalism, to
make it 'ecological', are doomed by the very nature of the system as a
system of endless growth."</i> [Bookchin, <b>Remaking Society</b>, pp. 93-94]
</blockquote></p><p>
As long as capitalism exists, it will <b>necessarily</b> continue its <i>"endless
devouring of nature,"</i> until it removes the <i>"organic preconditions for human
life."</i> For this reason there can be no compromise with capitalism: We must
destroy it before it destroys us. And time is running out.
</p><p>
Capitalists, of course, do not accept this conclusion. Many simply ignore
the evidence or view the situation through rose-coloured spectacles,
maintaining that ecological problems are not as serious as they seem or
that science will find a way to solve them before it's too late. Some are
aware of the problem, but they fail to understand its roots and, as such,
advocate reforms which are based on either regulation or (more usually
in these neo-liberal days) on "market" based solutions. In <a href="secEcon.html">section E</a> we
will show why these arguments are unsound and why libertarian socialism
is our best hope for preventing ecological catastrophe.
</p>
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