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Not with a Bang but a Whimper: Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology

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Not with a Bang but a Whimper: Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER: CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM, ECOLOGY The World According to The Economist The centralization of the population in great cities exercises of itself an unfavorable influence. All putrefying vegetable and animal substances give off gases decidedly injurious to health, and if these gases have no free way of escape, they inevitably poison the atmosphere . [The poor] are obliged to throw all offal and garbage, all dirty water, often all disgusting drainage and excrement into the streets, being without other means of disposing of them; they are thus compelled to infect the region of their own dwelling. Thus wrote Friedrich Engels in 1844. Remarkably, this quote was selected by the editors of The Economist--weekly holy writ of the transnational business community and other neoliberal globalizers--to introduce their recent "Survey of Development and the Environment."1 In their view "much of Engel's writing seems irrelevant today, but his description of working-class life in 19th-century London paints an uncannily accurate picture of slum life in developing countries at the end of the 20th century. In the Klong Toey district of Bangkok, the stench from the rotting rubbish and fetid water that collects between the shacks is overpowering. In the north of Mexico City, near Santa Fe, hovels cling to the sides of a steep valley which most days is choked with smog, and streams of untreated sewage run down to the river below. In the Moroccan town of Marrakesh, the smell of rotting cattle flesh surrounds tanneries for miles around." The Economist rightly observes that concern for the environment is not a luxury that only rich nations can afford. The poor are confronted daily with the palpable degradations of their 2 immediate environment: scarce and polluted water, air that is dangerous to breath, non-existent or inadequate sewage systems, trees (and hence firewood) in ever shorter supply, soil depletion, fish stocks dwindling, deteriorating social existence for more and more people who crowd into high- crime, drug-ridden urban slums. Moreover, such effects as global warming, gaping holes in the ozone layer and the destruction of tropical rain forests impact more directly and more severely on poor people than on those better able to insulate themselves from the worst damage. The Economist writers take due note of all of this. It is hard to say which is more depressing, the terrible conditions they document or the utter incommensurability of these conditions with the reforms The Economist supports. These reforms must stay within the bounds of the neoliberal paradigm. Predictably, The Economist contributors single out government as the main culprit, since it is unthinkable within their worldview that free markets or capitalism itself should be at fault. What is to be done? Adopt policies "upholding the rule of law, securing property rights, weeding out corruption and reducing subsidies," policies that will reduce environmental costs, while at the same time "promote economic growth." More concretely, governments are urged to privatize municipal waste services (although it is noted that there aren't many foreign investors interested in such offerings), stop subsidizing water, so that "farmers would have an incentive to invest in technologies that use water more efficiently," and, rather than make public investment in "hugely expensive" treatment plants, simply, when feasible, "pump raw sewage far out into the deep sea." One should not regard The Economist's view of environmental reform as idiosyncratic. The neoliberal paradigm that structures its writers' perceptions of environmental issues (and of how the world works in general) is overwhelmingly dominant in ruling class circles today. It 3 represents the near-consensus view of government and business leaders, the IMF, even (despite policy statements professing environmental concern) the World Bank. We have here the prevailing wisdom of most of the world's ruling elites. The World According to William Greider It should be obvious that to think seriously about the environmental problems confronting our species (and many others), we must go beyond the neoliberal paradigm, which in essence sees government as the problem, and free markets and increased growth as the solution. We also need to go beyond those critics, a minority among mainstream journalists, academics, businessmen and politicians, but increasing in numbers, who are willing to call neoliberalism into question--but not capitalism itself. William Greider is a case in point. His One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism is a brilliant dissection of the global economy. His analysis will not strike those on the Left as particularly novel, but here is an editor of a mass-circulation, youth-oriented magazine who, having travelled to Japan, Germany, China, Poland, Mexico, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to see for himself, and having been granted interviews with a wide assortment of high-placed corporate executives and government officials, pronounces that the current system is out of control. Moveover, his book is praised on its cover by Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Monthly, and Time Magazine. Clearly, Greider is articulating a view that is not confined to the usual suspects. The thesis of the book is suggested by the metaphor with which Greider begins: 4 Imagine a wondrous new machine, strong and supple, that reaps as it destroys. It plows across fields and fence rows with a fierce momentum that is exhilarating to behold and also frightening. As it goes, the machine throws off enormous mows of wealth and bounty while it leaves behind great furrows of wreckage. Imagine that there are skillful hands on board, but no one is at the wheel. In fact, this machine has no wheel nor any internal governor to control the speed and direction. It is sustained by its own forward motion, guided mainly by its own appetites. And it is accelerating. Greider is above all worried about financial collapse, but in the final chapter of his book, he also worries about the ecological limits that this wondrous new machine seems bent on transgressing. China, at present, has 680 people per automobile compared to 1.7 people per car in the United States. Can one imagine a global prosperity in which China's 1.2 billion citizens have the same wherewithal to consume? And if China's ambitious auto policy should fail, there are still India, Brazil and dozens of other nations pursuing similar aspirations. Since he is willing to go beyond the limits of neoliberalism, Greider is willing to propose reforms that would provoke The Economist to editorial apoplexy: 1. A transaction tax on capital (originally proposed by Nobel Laureate James 5 Tobin) and the reimposition of some capital controls--to slow down finance capital's hypermobility. 2. International labor rights, to enable workers in Third World countries to "ratchet up" the bottom, rather than, as at present, allowing global competition to ratchet down the top. (Rising wages, he feels, will generate the demand to absorb the excess supply now evident everywhere.) 3. Tough environmental legislation, coupled with government procurement policies and a changed consumer consciousness to encourage the vast technological skills and resources that are now available to be directed at developing clean, sustainable production processes. Greider refuses to call himself a socialist. He holds out for a much reformed capitalism, although he is pessimistic that anything like the reforms he advocates will be implemented. More probable, he estimates, are "a series of terrible events--wrenching calamities that are economic or social or environmental in nature--before common sense can prevail." It should be clear that even if Greider's reform proposals were implemented, they would be inadequate. In fact they are contradictory. On the one hand, Greider argues that "the larger imperative at hand is redirecting the global system toward a pro-growth regime that overcomes the 'contained depression' in advanced economies and creates the basis for rising prosperity at both ends of the global system, among both rich and poor nations." On the other hand, such pro- growth policies and structures will surely exacerbate, not ameliorate, the ecological destruction he 6 documents. Greider knows that his analysis has come up short. In the end he acknowledges (with considerably more honesty than most well-intentioned reformers) that "nothing in this book has offered any solution to the core problem of capitalism." The market process is, as its advocates proclaim, a source of vast creative energies--the sale-and-profit incentive that leads individuals and enterprises to invent and multiply output. Yet this same mechanism also generates the brutal swings and manic excesses-- the herds of reckless investors, the false hopes of producers, the relentless drive to maximize return--that create so much destruction and human suffering, subordination and insecurity. For Greider, finally, there is only one hope: "Perhaps, in this next age of capitalism, an original thinker will arise somewhere in the world with a new theory that reconciles the market's imperatives with unfulfilled human needs, without having to destroy the marketplace to do so. This would be an intellectual achievement for the ages." Six Theses on Socialism and the Environment The fact of the matter is, no new theory of capitalism is going to save us, nor some brilliant and original new thinker. The fact of the matter is, we know enough now to deal with the problems that are upon us. We know both the proximate causes and deep structures that are intensifying ecological stress, and we can see clearly what changes need to be made if we are 7 going to preserve our planet in its basic integrity. Let me spell out this contention in more detail by formulating it as a series of theses.
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