Is green growth possible?
Planning Green Growth
By Pete Dickenson
CWI Publications & Socialist Books
January 2003
£3 (€5, $5)
Reviewed by Manny Thain
CAPITALISM IS LEADING humanity to disaster. This
profit-driven system is using natural resources at a faster rate than they are
being replenished. Our atmosphere, land and water are being filled with poisons
that are choking the lifeblood out of the planet and its peoples.
Does that mean that we are all doomed? Maybe. But not
necessarily. This pamphlet is, after all, published by the Committee for a
Workers’ International, which puts forward a coherent global alternative to
‘free market’ mayhem. The point is that it is not enough to understand the
world, we have also to change it.
In Planning Green Growth, Pete Dickenson, a long-standing
Socialist Party member and contributor to this magazine, outlines a socialist
alternative to this environmental devastation.
After explaining the scale of the problem, Pete lists three
widely-accepted ways to reduce ‘environmental intensity’ – the amount of
pollution produced per unit of consumption. A case could be made for simplifying
some of the terms used. For example, "changing the composition of output"
includes promoting an integrated public transport system, thus cutting down on
pollution. And the other two ways of reducing environmental intensity –
switching from fossil fuels to renewable sources in the production of energy and
commodities, and the development of new, environmentally-friendly technology –
merge into one another.
Pete attempts to quantify the immensity of the problem: "It
has been calculated that the impact on the environment resulting from all
sources of pollution must be reduced by 50% to ensure sustainable growth. This
means that environmental intensity must be reduced by more than ten times if it
[is] assumed that consumption and population increase significantly". The
calculations to support this are provided in the back of the pamphlet. They are
unavoidably based on assumptions. Nonetheless, they act as a sobering reminder
that even a dynamic, democratic socialist society, employing the best, most
environmentally-friendly techniques, will have to strive might and main to turn
the situation around.
Pete goes through some of the measures being implemented
today, explaining the rationale and shortcomings of property rights, the
tradable permits promoted at Kyoto in 1997, and eco-taxes such as congestion
charges, amongst others.
Throughout the pamphlet runs Karl Marx’s analysis of
capitalism. This theory, worked out around 150 years ago, is still the best
guide to the workings of capitalism. It explains how it is a system based on
profit-driven production. That capitalists are compelled to seek out new markets
in their search for profits. How this leads to international competition between
corporations, and fierce rivalry and conflict between the nation states in which
they are based. It explains how periods of worldwide economic expansion are
intersected by times of retrenchment and protectionism, cycles of boom and bust.
Under these shifting conditions, international agreements –
whether they be trading pacts, single currency deals or environmental controls –
are temporary, limited to the boom times when there is plenty to share around.
Pete takes up some of the main alternatives put forward by
environmentalists, while warning that there are many shades of opinion in the
‘green movement’. As with many ‘green ideas’ they contain a superficial
attractiveness: if production was limited to what people needed there would be
less waste, resources could be shared more evenly, and we could all live
simpler, sustainable lives.
It is not adequate for socialists to dismiss these ideas out
of hand. They can be presented attractively, not least to those involved in
anti-globalisation and anti-capitalist campaigns. We have to explain why we do
not believe that they can solve humanity’s problems.
To varying degrees, all ‘market-based’ approaches attempt to
impose controls on the capitalist system. These include restrictions on
international transactions, such as the Tobin tax which has featured prominently
in anti-globalisation debates. But the multi-national corporations, which wield
immense economic power, are backed by the military might of the capitalist
states they are based in. So how could they be enforced?
It is ironic that many Greens have a genuinely
internationalist outlook and yet espouse measures which would result in a siege
economy, a boost to nationalism. Ultimately, they would cut across sustainable
production and leave the neo-colonial world stranded and destitute.
There has to be an anti-capitalist solution. Eco-socialists
reject ‘the market’ and believe that economic planning is essential – a point of
view shared by the Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers’
International.
Taking the ‘steady-state’ (or a drastically-reduced) economy
to its logical conclusion, however, leads some eco-socialists to the horrifying
conclusion that a totalitarian police-state would be required. How else to
coerce people to give up a high standard of living or force corporations into
small-scale production? Pete correctly characterises this approach as
‘eco-Stalinism’ and explains the strict limits of this pessimistic
post-apocalyptic vision: "Ironically, this nightmare regime would probably not
even have sufficient resources to operate the apparatus of the police state
necessary to maintain itself in power".
Eco-socialists often denounce Marx, claiming that he did not
factor in environmental destruction. Yet Marx did explain capitalism’s need for
permanent growth in the inexorable drive for profit. This implies an ecological
crisis at some point. And Marx wrote that societies do not own the earth, "they
are only its occupants, its beneficiaries, and… have to leave it in an improved
condition for succeeding generations". He also forewarned of the clash between
agribusiness and people’s needs: "The whole spirit of capitalist production,
which is directed towards the immediate gain of money, contradicts agriculture,
which has to minister to the entire range of permanent necessities of life
required by a network of human generations". (Capital, Volume III)
Clearly, this was a lot less obvious in the 19th century –
at the beginning of the modern global economy – than it is today. In any case,
Marxism is not dogmatic. It must be applied to existing conditions. The need for
humanity to deal with the ecological destruction wrought by capitalism is one of
the foremost challenges facing us. This issue actually reinforces the validity
of a Marxist approach. Environmental destruction is an inevitable consequence of
the capitalist system.
In the second half of the pamphlet Pete outlines a socialist
programme for the environment: "Most greens argue that any growth is
unsustainable, never mind the amount needed to completely remove scarcity and
want throughout the world. Marxists put the argument round the other way: that
it is impossible to tackle environmental problems without effective
international planning, a prerequisite for which is eliminating the conflict
that results from scarcity".
Marxists aim to raise the living standards of the poorest
workers in the world to those of the rich nations. That does not mean rampant
growth that pays no attention to environmental and other considerations.
Firstly, it is not true that people would always clamour for more. We want a
decent, stimulating life for ourselves and the generations after us. Consumption
would tend to stabilise once a certain level had been reached. The same is true
for population growth. It is poverty which promotes large families: to overcome
high infant mortality rates and to provide a level of support where social
services are practically non-existent. A frequently hidden logic of many green
alternatives, in fact, is some form of compulsory population control, which we
totally reject.
Pete’s ‘fourth way’ of reducing environmental intensity goes
to the heart of planning green growth: the transformation of capitalism, which
is based on private property, to a democratic, socialist system based on common
ownership.
From the local to national and international levels,
democratic and accountable bodies would discuss and plan production. Advanced
production techniques and aspects of planning already employed by multi-national
corporations, market research and internet communication would all help develop
a modern socialist society. Production would respond to the needs of society and
resources would be allocated accordingly. Sustainable development would be a top
priority.
In response to the destruction of our planet by a voracious,
marauding capitalist system, this pamphlet puts the case for socialism. It is a
timely contribution to a debate of global importance. Recommended reading.
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