Extinction Rebellion
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It appears that the scientific think-tanks are still on our side, though.
While capitalism offers quick financial fixes
The bigger picture from the Institute for Public Policy Research says “A new model is needed to rapidly create societies that are more sustainable, just and prepared: bringing human activity to within environmentally sustainable limits while narrowing inequality, improving quality of life, and becoming better prepared for the accelerating consequences of environmental breakdown,”
For sure they mention the need for sustainability laws, Laurie Laybourn-Langton, the lead author of the report, acknowledges that the current trend in global politics is in the opposite direction, towards a nationalist race to run-down what is left of the world’s resources… Running down what we have leads to a horrendous, suicidal, self defeating spiral. A good life is where we benefit from a strong commons and not destroy those common resources.”
XR may be naive or fear using the word “capitalism”, but it doesn’t mean they will necessarily refuse to cooperate if offered viable solutions (such as demanding degrowth, etc). I am sure they will get on board once real crisis hits, but before that it would be wise to get them on our side, to start the conversation. They claim that they are decentralized and evidence-based, and I personally saw a lot of genuinely interested people who agree that something must be done ASAP but they don’t know what. We need to work on the propositions and build bridges to create a network of well-informed people. It’s easy to criticize the XR movement, but IMHO it’s counter-productive, if we really want to achieve something, and not just sit in the “smart” corner and find pretexts why it’s never going to happen.
I am sure you are right that, when the socialist movement takes off, the sort of people attracted by XR will join in, but I don’t see this as a reason for not criticising the strategy of XR’s leaders and theorists.
Both capitalism and socialism (properly understood) have to be brought into the picture. Capitalism, because of its built-in competitive pursuit of short-term profits, is both the cause of global overwarming and an impediment to its solution. And socialism, with its common ownership of the world’s resources and production directly to satisfy human needs, provides the only framework within which the problem can be rationally tackled.
However, socialism can only be established when a majority want it and understand what it involves and take political action to bring it about on a world-wide basis. XR’s current strategy is based on civil disobedience by a minority to put pressure on existing, capitalist government’s to do something more about climate change. They don’t think that, to achieve this, a majority is required — they have calculated that a minority of (I think) 23 percent would be sufficient. Civil disobedience on that scale might well be enough to bring down a government and bring about a new one with a different policy but, since that new government would be governing in the context of capitalism, it would not be capable of tackling the problem of climate change rationally. It might intend to do this, but it wouldn’t work.
Once again it comes back to the fact that what is needed is socialism and that this is what we should be urgently working for. I know that the XR leaders will reply (as their spokesperson told the Guardian) that capitalism or socialism won’t be an issue unless climate change is tackled first. But this begs the question by assuming that the problem could be rationally solved without the common ownership of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources, i.e under capitalism.
I completely agree with you on all points but one:
- yes, criticism of the strategy of XR’s leaders and theorists must be done (but importantly not put forward as the pretext why we shouldn’t work with them);
- yes, capitalism itself is responsible for climate catastrophe, and this is starting to be discussed more broadly in press now, which is amazing and should be taken advantage of;
- yes, only a shift towards a money-less society with resource-based economy can swiftly bring about the necessary change to safe environment;
- having participated in XR meeting, I can say that it’s not even 23% you mentioned, but an astonishing 3.5% (!) of population mobilization they quote as sufficient to prompt change in the society, and yes I agree that this is just plain wrong;
However, I must ask you this question: given all the propaganda success of capitalism in the last 30 years, what is it exactly that makes you think that large scale societal support for socialism is even remotely realistic?
I may write more on the subject later, but for now let me just state the idea briefly. I would argue that capitalism is a more “natural”, and as such more primitive system of social self-organization. When given freedom, society spontaneously self-organizes into wild capitalist structure with its propensity for ever increasing inequality and capital accumulation. Self-preservation mechanisms from time to time install government-induced limits on capitalists’ voracious appetites, but in the absence of crises the system slips again onto the path of deregulation. Socialism is a more advanced form of social self-organization, that can only be stable when the vast majority of the population have sufficient levels of education. At present, wage slavery and ever more sophisticated propaganda machine serving capitalist interests do not allow people to have time and resources necessary to attain such levels of education.
How is this all relevant to XR? Climate crisis and worsening economic conditions lead to the situation when just the right kinds of people start to get together: a little better educated, a little under-financed, with some free time to dedicate to the cause. They come to these XR meetings with questions, and many of those questions remain unanswered (for the reasons you already rightly outlined in your criticism). If we could provide the answers we might be able to give these people direction and in the end have them on our side. It will then be more realistic that the word of mouth will finish the job once a real crisis hits .
“…They come to these XR meetings with questions, and many of those questions remain unanswered (for the reasons you already rightly outlined in your criticism). If we could provide the answers we might be able to give these people direction and in the end have them on our side…”
If we aren’t present, nobody is ever going to hear our case.
If we aren’t there, the questions are going to be wrongly answered by the wrong people.
We have a HO that can be offered to XR as a free meeting hall to bring them to us.
They can not stand alone, and we should not be stand-offish.
XR is a generation which are on a learning curve that the Socialist Party completed a long time ago, so we should be educating them. Teachers are not leaders.
And we have a history of experience to share to avoid others from making the same mistakes of the past.
We are open about our ideology. We aren’t trying to subvert and control.
The main message is in
“having participated in XR meeting, I can say that it’s not even 23% you mentioned, but an astonishing 3.5% (!) of population mobilization they quote as sufficient to prompt change in the society, and yes I agree that this is just plain wrong”
Yes, I do seem to have over-stated the number but I knew there was a 3 in it somewhere.
Found this here:
“Less than 1 percent of Americans actively took part in the Civil Rights Movement and indeed most successful movements for social change involve between 1 and 5 percent of people. The theory of change suggests how ideas spread through cultures, beginning with innovators (2.5%) and then early adopters (13.5%). Whilst civil disobedience may seem extreme to some and the narrative in this website alien, the path to change is tread by innovators and early adopters. When ideas become mainstream, huge power is unleashed, however even before then change is possible with just a few % willing to make a stance.”
Actually, this “theory of change” may well be how ideas spread and could apply to the socialist movement too, but it success depends on the change sought as some changes under capitalism are not possible however many people might be in favour of it. Certainly, socialism cannot be achieved by minority action, whether violent or non-violent, but requires widespread majority support and participation.
Schekn Itrch- You state “When given freedom, society spontaneously self-organises into wild capitalist structure with its propensity for ever increasing inequality and capital accumulation.”
This is a sweeping statement, with huge implication, yet you provide nothing to back it up. When has society ever been given freedom? From a Socialist viewpoint freedom can only come when the ownership of the means of production have been socialised and have become common property. I can think of no instant in history where this has happened.
You also put forward the idea that there is something Natural about capitalism. Considering the fact that anatomically modern humans began to emerge around 100,000 years ago and that capitalism began at the earliest in the late 15th Century (a very early estimate)m can you explain why this “natural” proclivity of humans took so long to emerge. It sounds to me like you are talking about a rehash of the long debunked theory of “human nature” as a barrier to Socialism.
🙂 Thank you for the comments, Bijou Drains!
I might have stated my points too vaguely to save time, and they have been misunderstood. Yes, many of the things I say are not exactly long established truth. Please allow me to make my point. First of all, no, I do not think that human nature is in any way preventing us from building socialism. I am aware of the fact and completely agree with you that for most of the human history biologically modern humans lived in very equal small groups and are even biologically hard-wired to have fare and equal treatment, which was in fact also shown in other primates to be true.
What I am talking about is self-organization of very large groups of people in context of modern agriculture and technology. The “natural” way I ascribed to capitalism stems from the way first human groups started forming very similarly looking groups with tribal leaders and division of labor in very culturally different societies of the world (see Guns, Germs, and Steel for detailed description), and then very similar cities with armies. Marx wrote a lot about capitalism “naturally” replacing feudalism because capital-owning forces became de facto more powerful than land-owners. He predicted that workers would replace capitalists but underestimated the power of brainwashing and other technology. For workers to really become more powerful than modern Media-Banking complex it would take a giant leap in education and the ability to self-organize and act together, which is totally lacking at the moment.
Apologies if this is a bit chaotic, I do try to be logical and consistent, and base most of what I write on literature. Please do ask me for references and explanations if you have questions.
Protesters from Extinction Rebellion stopped traffic for seven minutes at a time on the A38 Bristol Street between 08:00 and 09:00
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-49263916
Protester Eve Jones, 50, a teacher, apologised for the disruption. “What we are here to do is force the government to pay attention to the issue of climate change and take urgent and decisive action.” She added: “I have two children and I’m scared for their future.”
Retired plumber Bruford Low, 57, said the group was “only too aware that this sort of action causes anger and upset. But I feel angry and upset about the climate situation,” he said. “I’ve never protested before in my life, but I’ve looked at the science behind this problem and we have a very limited amount of time. If we don’t take action within the next 18 months it may well be too late.”
Jeanne Bouvier, a health care assistant from Edgbaston, said it was important to take part in the protests.”We want the government to act and reduce gas emissions to net zero by 2025,” she added.
There is something worrying about the tactics the leaders of XR (Roger Hallam, etc) are getting well-meaning but naïve people concerned about climate change to engage in, i.e. disrupting the everyday life of other workers. This will inevitably provoke a backlash and so make people not to care about the problem. So, instead of consciousness-raising, it would be consciousness-lowering.
There is also the unrealistic nature of the demands, as expressed by the health care worker from Birmingham. First, the extinction of the human race is not a reasonable worst case scenario (it is only the most worst case scenario imaginable, unless you want to add Earth becoming a fiery inferno like Venus). Second, the government is not going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025; due to competitive pressures it couldn’t even if it wanted to, quite apart from the drastic cut in the standard of living being politically unacceptable. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that, were socialism to be established tomorrow, we wouldn’t be able to achieve that target. With capitalism gone, we’d be able to make quicker progress towards it, but reach it in only five years? Especially when the most immediate problem is going to be to end world poverty and its effects.
I’m sure this reply is one you expected to receive from me. I won’t disappoint.
I’m afraid that disrupting the daily life of workers is exactly what a socialist revolution is going to do, ALB. When we say it will be peaceful, I don’t think we ever intend to say it will be without a certain amount of upheaval.
It seems to me that if society is going to deal effectively with global warming, there will be a certain amount of pain involved.
But if people can’t face protests a little bit more upsetting than the normal day-to-day roadwork disruption to traffic , then so be it…they pay the price. Just as they do by continuing to ignoring our own counsel. If we heeded those who complain about their lives being upset by others taking action, then let’s be blunt…no strike would ever be permitted and certainly not in public transport.
We have already discussed on the forum the level of meat-eating and the case for changing towards a flexitarian diet is only growing stronger
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49238749
People do have choices to make and if they don’t choose the right ones such as the recommendations of scientific consensus then so be it…we’ll all suffer the consequences of complacency.
The end of civilization is very much a feasible scenario. Personally I don’t foresee the extinction of our species because we are adaptive and different regions of the planet will open up for relocation and settlement. But perhaps it will be those called preppers who will be the part of our species that survives.
We have presently only a few examples of failed states but it is not difficult to imagine those multiplying and many other regions suffering the knock-on effects and the destabilization.
The basis of our case for socialism leads us to that possibility because we do not accept that the reforms necessary to mitigate the effects of Greenhouse Gases much less reverse them will be sufficient – too little, too late.
The worse case scenarios are only too likely and I think we have already touched upon the conservativism of the scientific authorities in underestimating the tipping points that will provoke runaway climate change.
Okay, it has become a standing joke of my pessimistic doom and gloom on the forum, but let those who have the optimistic alternative view, explain why capitalism will not lead us towards exceeding 4C as some informed opinions have suggested may well happen.
If capitalism can be believed to halt the climate crisis by reforms, then just why do we oppose those? Why are we critical of XR when it appeals for capitalism to enact legislation and regulation if it is possible to halt climate change by such means?
In the past I have heard the CNDer present their apocalyptic futures and could discount them since nuclear holocaust was not an existential part of capitalism, endless expansion and ceaseless growth, however, are integral to the capitalist system
I know my answer, I do not consider it possible that capitalism can take the required action. Only socialism. And if we are talking of time-frames for socialism being realized, I am afraid I can offer only another bleak despondent prediction.
But i’ll go on trying…irrational as that might seem to some.
Anyone who thinks that predictions of future collapse of our society is “doom and gloom thinking” is simply uninformed. This is not a matter of opinion or faith. This is the direct and only conclusion one can intelligently make based on the data we currently have. A brief summary is as follows:
- world population is well beyond carrying capacity of the planet. We are using about twice as much resources as can be sustainable. The population is rapidly increasing, and, albeit at a slowing pace, will keep increasing until a collapse point.
- several “peak X” (oil, soil, water, uranium, phosphates, etc) are projected to happen in the very near future. This shortage of resources is bound to have a strong sudden affect on the most vulnerable populations of the planet.
- climate catastrophe / global heating / mass extinction of wildlife are predicted to exacerbate this process.
- with all the recent hype and publicity of “green revolution”/clean technologies, the fact is that greenhouse gas emissions and the use of fossil fuels, deforestation, intensive farming, unsustainable use of water reservoirs are still increasing, which means we haven’t even started to deal with the problem.
- the logic of profit making (capitalism) is in direct contradiction to trying to solve this problem, hence any attempts to tackle it through reforms within the current economic/political system are doomed to fail.
This kind of thinking: “People do have choices to make and if they don’t choose the right ones … then so be it…” is not very helpful. Most people are motivated by what is best for them, and if they choose to not follow the advice of scientific consensus, it is not because they choose badly, it is because they do not understand all of the implications of their choices, and because they feel that they do not have the power to change the situation.
We must critically review the strategy of XR, but this criticism should come with positive propositions. In my opinion, it is may be counterproductive to simply block roads, as increased publicity on the one hand will come at a price of people’s frustration. If, however, blocking roads were to be combined with a large-scale campaign to educate the population about the details of the dire situation we are in, this may turn out to be a more successful strategy.
“world population is well beyond carrying capacity of the planet.”
Ok. So who do you suggest we bump off first?
“…world population is well beyond carrying capacity of the planet…”
I would challenge this assertion. Carrying capacity is a flexible elastic definition, not a fixed one. Too many times I have seen misanthropic – even racist – conclusions reached from those (who claim to be otherwise liberal and progressive) who say population numbers is the primary issue.
Consumption patterns will indeed require to be addressed to achieve a steady-state zero-growth economy which socialism would accomplish but capitalism is incapable of achieving.
I have also never been an adherent for the claim peak this or peak that arguments. These are usually framed within the capitalist paradigm of prices and labour costs of capitalist supply and demand where a product may well be economically scarce.
I think Liebig’s Law of the Minimum is relevant here, that there is always second best and third best options even if it does appear that a particular resource is crucial and insufficient.
Having presented those caveats, schekn, I think, you and I have more in common than clashing.
“…This kind of thinking: “People do have choices to make and if they don’t choose the right ones … then so be it…” is not very helpful…”
Was my response to ALB that there would be a backlash to the XR protests resulting in people not caring and consciousness-lowering.
But once more to return to a point where we are in agreement i.e.
“the logic of profit making (capitalism) is in direct contradiction to trying to solve this problem, hence any attempts to tackle it through reforms within the current economic/political system are doomed to fail.”
Taking into account our agreement with XR of the urgency of the emergency, and so if capitalist solutions cannot resolve the crisis, do you believe that your other position, schekn,
“…Most people are motivated by what is best for them, and if they choose to not follow the advice of scientific consensus, it is not because they choose badly, it is because they do not understand all of the implications of their choices, and because they feel that they do not have the power to change the situation…”
will lead inevitably to the speedily and timely adoption of socialism by first the eco-activists then the population at large as the answer?
Without being a determinist, I see such an outcome as the only hope for civilization’s survival and under-stating the importance and critical nature of global warming cannot be the socialist approach which is as I keep saying “Socialism or Barbarism , if we are lucky”.
I see no benefit in presenting the false comfort and unjustified confidence of capitalism itself being able to solve the climate change problem even if we don’t get socialism.
Without socialism, the consequences will be horrific on a global-scale where those who grumble about a few hours delay in traffic will realise just how myopic their attitude was. It has not fully sunk in on just how tenuous our survival as a society is going to be.
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