Eco-Swaraj
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World socialists should always be aware of the diversity of the cultures and customs of the planet and that how socialism is administered will be as diverse as its peoples traditions.
“Swaraj is loosely defined as self-rule but it actually goes much deeper,” says Kothari, who has written extensively on swaraj and the ecological crisis. “It means my own autonomy, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, my independence, both as an individual and as a community. But it’s not the American notion of individualism that I can do what I want.”
Rather, it is a collective kind of autonomy that recognizes our reliance on, and responsibility to, other human beings and other species. As such, living harmoniously with nature is central to swaraj, Kothari says. “One has to be respectful of nature and recognize that other species and Earth as a whole also have rights in their own entity, not just because they’re useful for human beings.”
“One of the fundamental tenets of eco-swaraj is radical democracy, which means power at the level of ordinary people,” Kothari says. “It’s not about a government laying down policies. It’s really about everybody. Every person in a village builds the capacity to be centrally part of decision making.”
Kothari says eco swaraj also has strong parallels in other parts of the world, such as the concepts of Ubuntu (“I am because we are”) in Africa, Buen Vivir (“good living”) in South America, the Zapatista Autonomy movement in Mexico, and Abwicklung des Nordens (“Undeveloping the North”) in Germany.
“Before the sanghams, they were alone, they were individuals,” says Jayasri Cherukuri, co-director of the DDS. “Now, when they are doing things collectively, they get more courage to speak about the issues they are facing.” Cherukuri says women who were afraid to confront their landlords are now demanding a place on local government committees. And it isn’t only rural communities speaking up on decisions that affect their environment.
Collectives are coordinated by Homes in the City, an NGO that has been working with slum-dwellers in Bhuj for the last decade. “Before, citizens were limited to voting for elected officials and thinking that they will take decisions about the city,” says Aseem Mishra, program director for Homes in the City. “We are trying to change citizens’ mentality that you are part and parcel of city development.”
One of the advantages of localized, grassroots initiatives over top-down organization is that it is shaped by local traditions, and local ecology.
“Every region and every culture has its own tradition and understanding of nature,” says Brototi Roy, a PhD candidate researching environmental justice movements at The Autonomous University of Barcelona. Eco-swaraj recognizes that this diversity means adapting to local contexts rather than imposing one-size-fits-all solutions. “When we consider people and planet over profits, resources are managed by local participation and we can get to an ecologically benign way of living,” she says.
Activists like Kothari are using the idea to frame alternatives to “the tendency of ‘modernity’ and ‘developmentalism’ to shape the whole world in a homogenous western, consumerist, materialist frame,”
“Abwicklung des Nordens (“Undeveloping the North”) in Germany.”
What nonsense is that?
This sort of nonsense.
https://www.convivialthinking.org/index.php/2019/09/14/undeveloping-the-north/
I got that from this search.
Thanks AJ and Matt, some very interesting info and ideas on those links. Looking outward rather than inward.
Yes crackpots who want us to abandon the material basis for socialism that has been built up under capitalism. Anyway it could only happen on the basis of the common ownership of the means of life ( it’ll never happen under capitalism) but I can’t see people in socialist society wanting to go back to using stage coaches and bullock carts.
Like the Amish in the USA
https://www.history101.com/amish-facts///www.history101.com/amish-facts/
I don’t know how we jumped to horse-drawn buggies
There is a debate on the over-consumption of goods in one part of the world and the deprivation effecting the reduced consumption in other parts. There does exist an unequal carbon foot-print between the developed world and the undeveloped one.
We have a throwaway consumerism contributing to the excessive use of resources and an increasing amount of waste, much that is not capable of being recycled or reused.
Then we have many people who cannot access even the most basic necessities of a decent life. We can divert the resources expended in the military and other purely capitalist industries but is that going to be suffice to level up much of the world…without some levelling down…such as different diets, less changes in clothes fashions, and dare i say it, less need for electronic gadgets.
There is a debate on economies of scale and localism, that cannot be fully decided in advance.
The link Matt provided doesn’t call for the rejection of technology. But even if it did, there is a good case against the personal ownership of cars and for public transport. As we say, to those who argue what if i want a yacht … only if the community permits its construction and time-sharing one is a lot more logical. Some things people just won’t get.
What is annoying is it is a confused analysis of the global economy, given justification for local capitalism to exploit local resources (deforest the Amazon). Evo Morales of Bolivia used similar arguments as does Bolsonaro of Brasil
Not sure what it meant in Point 3 the privileges of formal employment V. informal employment but it is still thinking within the parameters of a capitalist welfare state.
But i think we should focus on the essay’s main point, and the one i was drawing attention to, there are different approaches to get the appropriate fit. We can’t shoe-horn every tradition into the one universal model. There will be local and regional differences and initiatives happening.
I wasn’t objecting to those in the so-called underdeveloped world not wanting capitalism as we know it in “the North” to develop in their part of the world (though they won’t be able to avoid it unless socialism is established).
My objection was to those in the North who say they want to “undevelop” here. Maybe they are only objecting to the consumerism and waste of capitalism but in that case the word “undevelop” is unfortunate as, to most people as well as me, it suggests turning the clock back in some way. The word “degrowth” is even more unfortunate as it suggests a cut in people’s personal consumption.
I don’t think that we as socialists should go along with such talk. Obviously we are not for the endless accumulation of capital (“growth”) that is built-in to capitalism, but we are in favour of using modern technology rationally to satisfy people’s needs. We are not against the productive potential or the transport and communications infrastructure that have been built up under capitalism. So we shouldn’t use language that suggests that we are or might be. What we are against is their misuse under capitalism.
We don’t want to “undevelop” the North but to use what has developed here rationally for the benefit of all.
My objection was to those in the North who say they want to “undevelop” here. Maybe they are only objecting to the consumerism and waste of capitalism but in that case the word “undevelop” is unfortunate as, to most people as well as me, it suggests turning the clock back in some way. The word “degrowth” is even more unfortunate as it suggests a cut in people’s personal consumption.
If “de-growth” suggests a cut in people living standards then presumably “growth” means an increase in living standards . But this does not necessarily follow. For instance “growth” in capitalist terms can mean an increase in economic inequality and, at the same time, static or declining living standards for the majority.
In the literature, “economic growth” simply means an increase in GDP as the summation of the value of all monetised activities occurring within a particular nation state and within a particular time frame. If I employed 1000 labourers to dig a giant hole and then to fill it in again, in practical terms I would have achieved nothing useful but I would nevertheless have contributed to GDP – Gross Domestic Product – and, by extension, to allegedly increasing the living standards of the population (which is measured by dividing GDP by population to arrive at a per capita figure).
However since most economic activity carried on in the formal capitalist economy is completely socially useless from the standpoint of meeting human needs – like our giant hole – and, moreover, is a massive and growing drain on the human and natural resources of the planet, the concept of “growth” and by extension, that of “living standards” is virtually meaningless from a socialist standpoint. We should not encourage the kind of thinking that goes with them
I dont think anyone here would not be in favour of “using modern technology rationally to satisfy people’s needs” but we do need to broaden our conception of needs. We need the exponential increase in the disposal of plastic waste brought about in the name of raising people’s living standards like we need a hole in the head. We should not be reluctant to say this for fear of affronting that holy cow of capitalism – the pursuit of endless growth. We should be much more vigorously unequivocal about opposing capitalist growth and in favour of human-centred approach to development that acknowledges and acts within the constraints of our physical environment
The productivist outlook of Marx and the promethean talk of “increasing the productive forces of society” belongs to the 19th century when it was at least understandable. But the productive potential for socialism has been around for at least century and we should adjust our thinking – and our language – accordingly.
What matters now, increasingly, is the demand side of supply/demand equation and we should not be seen to be inadvertently encouraging, or giving succour to, the consumerist ideology of capitalism and its existentially empty, not to say environmentally irresponsible, quest of consumption for the sake of consumption. Like the proverbial snake eating its own tail, this is not going to get us anywhere
I agree that that’s the issue: hair-shirtism or a world of abundance?
In the 1970s we confidently proclaimed that socialism would be a world of abundance on the basis of modern technology. Since the recent advent of eco-pessimism with Greens and Christians telling us we have been consuming too much even under capitalism we have been less confident about this.
But, as an article in this month’s Socialist Standard explains, popular consumption is a function of capitalist economic growth. So, therefore, is so-called “consumerism” unless you think that this means that workers are paid too much. So, also, less capitalist economic growth (“degrowth” even more so) would mean less popular consumption. We can’t go along with that under capitalism (as its advocates in effect envisage). Of course, that doesn’t mean that we support capitalist economic growth. Our way-out is socialism as the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life.
We have nothing in common with those who say workers are consuming too much today under capitalism. Let’s leave that to Christians and other moralists.
In the 1970s we confidently proclaimed that socialism would be a world of abundance on the basis of modern technology. Since the recent advent of eco-pessimism with Greens and Christians telling us we have been consuming too much even under capitalism we have been less confident about this.
Abundance is a function of both supply and demand. Demand cannot be deemed infinite or unlimited as the economic textbooks would have it because if that were the case, abundance and, by extension, socialism, would be inherently unrealisable. We would be perpetually living in a condition of scarcity which reinforces and rationalises the continuation of capitalism. It therefore follows that as socialists we need to conceptualise demand as something limited and reasonable, a cultural construction informed by such things as concern for the environment as well as the needs of others.
Consumerism is not about workers “consuming too much” or being “paid too much”. God forbid that we should even think this in a world in which tiny handful of billionaires own as much half of the world’s population combined. Obviously I fully support militant working class trade union action to get as much as they can in the way of wages out of a system that screws them over. What they dont get the super rich parasites get in what is, after all, essentially a zero sum game
The ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. Consumerism is an aspect of this ruling class ideology and is bound up with other aspects of this ideology such as our celebrity culture and the pathetic fawning over the lives of the rich and famous in trashy magazines like Hello or celebrity-oriented TV shows. So we have workers fantasising about a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption, an otherworldly existence of luxury yachts and stately homes which they will never get to see let alone savour, except perhaps on a TV screen. How often have we been told that socialism is impossible because “what if everyone wanted their own luxury yacht or Porsche car?”
In this respect consumerism is thoroughly reactionary. It focusses on the individual, not our class, and it encourages us to emotionally identify and bond with – even imitate to the extent that this is possible – the class that exploits us. By all means let us organise to take back some of the fruits of our labour stolen from us but it would be very wrong, I think, to confuse this with consumerism which means something altogether different…
Agreed “consumerism” can be seen as just an ideology but are you sure that the “undevelopers” and the “no-growthers” see it as just that? That they don’t criticise just the profit-seeking corporations that promote it but also people would fall for it? Or that they don’t want people to consume less as individuals (so as, for instance, to reduce their supposed personal “carbon footprint”)?
If we are going to use the word we need to be very careful not to be seen to criticise consumers rather than capitalism (not that capitalism is kept going by what workers spend).
Its a tricky argument and I think one needs to be careful about how one goes about defining terms.
Take the concept of economic growth. As explained earlier, I would argue that this concept is virtually meaningless from the standpoint of meeting human needs. If anything, economic growth detracts from the task of meeting human needs. It diverts vast quantities of human and natural resources away from meeting human needs. And it undermines our ability to sustainably meet these needs in the future because of its destructive impact on our natural environment in the form of climate change, marine pollution etc
I take it as read that all socialists are opposed to economic growth in this sense and to that extent can be called “no-growthers”. But that doesn’t mean we dont want human needs to be adequately met using the technological potential we already possess. On the contrary the argument should be that economic growth defined as increases in national GDP, gets in the way of meeting human needs for the reasons explained.
Therefore we should be very about careful not to unwittingly come across as endorsing the concept of economic growth in critiquing people like the eco-pessimists you refer to who talk about the need for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint. Their problem is that they are not looking at the matter from a social system perspective even if they pay lip service to the idea of attacking “capitalism” in some cases which really just boils down to attacking “greedy corporations” not capitalism as such.
Its not that there is not a need to reduce our carbon footprint at the level of society. For instance, a report has just been released showing that a total of 28 trillion tonnes of ice have disappeared from the surface of the Earth since 1994 which is pretty alarming https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/earth-has-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-of-ice-in-less-than-30-years/ar-BB18gUAh But you cant begin to address the question of society’s carbon footprint unless and until you begin to address the nature of the society we live in. If environmentalists want us to reduce our consumption they should direct their comments to the super-rich, not the ordinary person in the street struggling to make a living
This is where we socialists have a role to play. But it doesn’t help if we alienate environmentalists by using the language of the capitalist growth addicts
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