Green Socialism

Green Socialism
By Kurt Schulz

The ability of mankind to build a livelihood that can maintain its survival can only be done through the extraction and use of the resources that the earth offers. These resources, whether renewable or non-renewable, must be managed effectively lest they become depleted. These include trees, fossil fuels, minerals, water and even air to name a few. A free capitalist market cannot be counted on to do so because the profit motive is based on what can be done in the present. For the future of the environment upon which human survival is dependant a new economic system must replace it that emphasizes human needs and goes beyond that only in the framework of environmental sustainability.
The question of how capitalism has treated the earth is fundamental in understanding why reformation is not the answer and why replacing the capitalist system is the best solution. The very nature of capitalism sets the stage for environmental exploitation, not least because capitalism shows no inhibition about exploiting human beings. The primary tenet of capitalism is the drive for profit, which can only be extracted from the resources offered by the earth. Everything produced in human history has been a result of manipulating raw materials from the natural environment. When the Industrial Revolution occurred and capitalism arose the first examples of the capitalist class abandoning the good of the environment in favour of their own wealth were witnessed.
Such a trend continues to this day, where the possessor class moves about the earth arrogantly extorting the globe’s communities of their natural resources. This is why generations are familiar with such concepts as the bulldozing of rainforests to mine what lies beneath the surface, recklessly overfishing using trawling nets and the like, and smog from factories and automobiles. Regardless of whether any of the environmental catastrophes that are a consequence of such actions could be avoided by minimizing consumption never occurs to the possessor class. This is because the system is not based on satisfying human needs, which can be done and then some with only a fraction of the consumption, but the drive for profit, and restraining resource extraction is simply not as profitable. The same applies for consuming the products of capitalism, like driving a car. Automobiles can be produced that use far less fossil fuels – some don’t even use fossil fuels! – but they cost more to produce, and because the possessor class needs to maintain their profits only a wealthy few can afford these automobiles. This condemns the urban working class to smog alerts because they cannot afford cars with better mileage. Simply put, the concept of green capitalism is a myth because any restrictions on the capitalist system ultimately harm either the system itself for the workers who must suffer a pay slash to compensate. This does not mean that there is something wrong with restricting consumption, but that it is not feasible in a capitalist system.
Conversely, many pundits of the possessor class point to the environmental degradation of the Soviet bloc and recently in China as evidence that socialism indeed is worse for the environment than capitalism. It is undeniable that the so-called Communist countries did wreak greater havoc on their environments, but the central issue to understanding this is whether or not these countries were ever indeed socialist in the first place. Socialism is a matter of local planning by the workers and the communities on economic matters in partnership with each other on a federal level. What existed in the Soviet Union, and the Stalinist People’s Republic of China that followed, was central planning by a bureaucratic state for the benefit of the state so that it could both maintain a high standard of living for Party members (nomenklatura) and fund their enormous military machines. These characteristics – the drive for profit, militarism, bureaucratic control, labourless income – are in fact more akin to capitalism than to socialism. As such, the Soviet and Chinese governments can only be described as “state capitalist” and not socialist. The state came to replace the individual capitalist, not to replace their system. The environmental damage in the former USSR and today in China is a result of the state capitalists doing what all capitalists do, which is pursue profit regardless of the environmental and subsequent human health damage.
What must arise and replace the capitalist system is one of community-democracy and socialism (community socialism) where those with power (the people) feel the effects of attacks on the environment. Economic planning can be done that harmonizes resource extraction and industrial processing with the environment. Furthermore, technological advancements have made it possible to have clean fuels, an absolutely necessary component of the entire industrial engine and the use of which will ensure clean air and water. By planning the economy based around what is needed and what modest luxuries can be provided waste is minimized and resource depletion is no longer a danger. Those working to produce the products and those living in the surrounding communities must form a partnership in the planning process. Of course, of vital concern to most people is whether or not jobs can be available with minimized production. However, it is important to not forget that the wealth produced under the capitalist system goes well above and beyond human needs but goes straight into the hands of the possessor class. This means that is the possessor class were no longer the owners of the means of production the wealth that they have, which reaches into the billions for just one person, would go into the hands of the employed. The essence of the system is only requiring from every person what work is necessary to ensure everybody’s needs plus luxuries and extras for the hardest working. This in fact means less work and easier work for the individual. To demonstrate this, suppose that a factory employs one thousand workers and pays each of them twenty dollars an hour. This is an expense of twenty thousand dollars every hour. Meanwhile, each worker produces eighty dollars worth of goods in one hour. This means that sixty dollars of what the individual worker produces is absent from their pay. If the worker labours for eight hours, he or she makes a grand total of one hundred sixty dollars every day. If the possessor class were not holding onto sixty dollars worth of wealth from the workers’ labour, the individual worker would only need to work two hours a day for the same amount. If that were enough but more work needed to be done, then the remaining six hours could be divided among three more workers, which means that employment could be eradicated by minimizing the burden on the individual worker. The has the dual benefit of reducing overproduction which damages the environment as well as reducing the burden and stress of the working day in the capitalist system for the average worker of any sector, be it blue-collar labour or white-collar office work.
All people have an interest in protecting the environment, but the capitalist system is not set up to allow this to happen. Only an economy that is planned democratically by all citizens on a local level, which carries up to a federal level, is a viable solution to environmental degradation. All humans need breathable air, drinkable water and edible food, which are all available if the current system is recognized for the dangers that it inflicts on humanity.