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The Left doesn’t need to go green:to save the planet and the people on it, it needs to go red
Toward Cyborg SocialismThe first Earth Day was April 22, 1970. It was also Lenin’s hundredth birthday. The coincidence was not intentional.
In fact, part of the point of Earth Day was to distance the nascent environmentalist movement from New Left critiques of consumer society, suburban development, and nuclear waste. In an attempt to avoid charges of “watermelon” politics — green on the outside, red on the inside — the message of the early environmental movement, as one Greenpeace slogan explicitly stated, was “I’m not a Red, I’m a Green.” As environmentalism went mainstream, green nonprofits grew rich and powerful on corporate donations and adopted conciliatory strategies aimed at greening the world one brand name at a time.
These days, environmentalism can rival the Left’s big-tent eclecticism: rugged wilderness fantasies, New Age mysticism, and middle-class romanticism exist side-by-side with indigenous anti-nuclear protests, campaigns against urban smog, back-to-the-land agrarian nostalgia, and entrepreneurial green tech. But lately, militant environmentalism is staging a comeback — as are state crackdowns. And even the most mainstream varieties of environmentalism are inching leftward. Climate change in particular has radicalizing potential, as more and more people are beginning to question the prevailing economic system’s destructive effect on the environment. But mainstream environmental groups aren’t going to offer a coherent critique of capitalism’s ecological consequences or do the work of theorizing alternatives.
In fact, part of the point of Earth Day was to distance the nascent environmentalist movement from New Left critiques of consumer society, suburban development, and nuclear waste. In an attempt to avoid charges of “watermelon” politics — green on the outside, red on the inside — the message of the early environmental movement, as one Greenpeace slogan explicitly stated, was “I’m not a Red, I’m a Green.” As environmentalism went mainstream, green nonprofits grew rich and powerful on corporate donations and adopted conciliatory strategies aimed at greening the world one brand name at a time.
These days, environmentalism can rival the Left’s big-tent eclecticism: rugged wilderness fantasies, New Age mysticism, and middle-class romanticism exist side-by-side with indigenous anti-nuclear protests, campaigns against urban smog, back-to-the-land agrarian nostalgia, and entrepreneurial green tech. But lately, militant environmentalism is staging a comeback — as are state crackdowns. And even the most mainstream varieties of environmentalism are inching leftward. Climate change in particular has radicalizing potential, as more and more people are beginning to question the prevailing economic system’s destructive effect on the environment. But mainstream environmental groups aren’t going to offer a coherent critique of capitalism’s ecological consequences or do the work of theorizing alternatives.
snip...
It’s not that we need to come up with a series of five-year plans for the environment. The exigencies of the climate crisis mean that we’re not going to get the chance to build an ecotopia from scratch. Our situation requires a struggle for non-reformist reforms — projects that buy time and allow societies to adapt to climate change and meet immediate needs, while also setting us on the path to more fundamental transformations. Without a vision and a set of concrete ideas for how to get there, we’re liable to end up with the the kind of bright-green centrism that favors both bike lanes and budget cuts, solar-powered drones and microgrid-powered jails — that is, something reminiscent of Germany’s Green Party, a once inspiring effort now described by a disillusioned co-founder as “neoliberals on bikes.” We’ve already got plenty of those.
And forget socialism in one country — ecosocialism in one country is even less feasible. The fact that ecological problems don’t respect national or institutional borders is often used as an excuse for inaction, leading to the chronic breakdown of global climate negotiations. But that interdependence should be an impetus to reinvigorate the international left — a reminder that sustainability will come only through global solidarity.
The rest (in proper context) at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/toward-cyborg-socialism/
And forget socialism in one country — ecosocialism in one country is even less feasible. The fact that ecological problems don’t respect national or institutional borders is often used as an excuse for inaction, leading to the chronic breakdown of global climate negotiations. But that interdependence should be an impetus to reinvigorate the international left — a reminder that sustainability will come only through global solidarity.
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The way I see it, much to chagrin of today's western culture, we are faced with 2 choices: devolve into a war ravaged eco-dystopia within our grand children's times, or start having a meaningful dialog beyond regional transitioning to cleaner energy, but rather how to transition from capitalistic societies to global socialism with the eventual goal being near-communism with our planet.
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