Anti-Capitalism

The weakness of the environmental movement today – that is, our inability to deliver meaningful reforms that might make a real difference on issues like climate change – is plain to see. Though we have been successful at extracting vague promises from politicians and “green” marketing gimmicks from corporations, we have been completely unable to secure the kind of social change needed to really grapple with the problems that we face.

Our movement desperately needs to undergo a process of renewal and reinvigoration. But as we rebuild our movement, we need to avoid a whole series of mistakes that have brought us to our current state of ineffectiveness and despair. Too many of us have allowed our analysis to be clouded by apocalyptic scenarios that foster fear and inaction. Too many of our discussions have been mired in debates, fueled by racism and pseudo-scientific “projections,” concerning the alleged “threat” posed by immigration to “affluent” countries. And too many of our most high profile activists and organizations have committed themselves, if not out of cynicism then out of naiveté, to a strategy that looks to corporations and their political representatives as sources of funding and potential converts to a “green agenda.” The result is a movement that is at once massively funded, enormously popular, and largely ineffective. In this time of looming ecological crisis, such mistakes are no longer tolerable. We need a radical overhaul of the politics of our movement: its aims, its analysis, and its strategy.

But where do we begin? Above all we need to learn from the worldwide resistance to neo-liberal globalization, which – by adopting a consistently militant, anti-corporate and internationalist political stance – has begun partially to turn the tide against neo-liberalism, notably in Latin America. The successes of that movement have come in spite of what only a few years ago seemed like impossible odds stacked against the project of progressive change. It is an example that we – having failed at the fundraise-and-lobby strategy that still dominates our movement – need to take very seriously.

What, then, would an environmentalism that learned from the global justice movement look like? The basic principles of such an anti-corporate environmentalism can be summed up in the following six claims.

1. Corporations are the root cause of the environmental crisis. The vast majority of the world’s environmental problems, from climate change to deforestation, from toxic waste to environmental racism, are caused by the blind pursuit of profits by the most powerful institutions in the modern world, transnational corporations. Seeking only private gain, corporations spend billions promoting irrational over-consumption; they choose the cheapest rather than the most sustainable production processes; and they give no thought whatsoever to the public interest, to social justice, or to the ecological impact of their decisions. The result of this irrationality is becoming all too clear as we survey the damage done by big business to our environment, our health, and our quality of life.

2. The problem to be addressed is not simply survival or sustainability, but social and environmental injustice. We need to continually remind each other that the environmental crisis is not some inevitable side-effect of population growth or technological innovation. It is a grave injustice: the cumulative effect of centuries of systematic disregard for the interests of the world’s people. The most dynamic and effective environmental organizing of recent years within North America has been led by activists of colour who have redefined many environmental issues in terms of environmental racism, or more generally in terms of environmental injustice. The result has been the emergence of a current of environmentalism – allied with similar struggles in the global South – that addresses issues such as air quality, toxic waste and climate change in the context of a broader challenge to social inequality and economic exploitation. This points the way forward for “progressive” environmentalists. It also distinguishes our project from all nostalgic or apocalyptic forms of “green” politics.

3. The struggle for environmental justice is an anti-corporate struggle. We have to be honest about the fundamental failure of mainstream environmentalism. Vast quantities of time, effort, good will and money have been expended by a movement that has yielded none of the sweeping social changes that the crisis demands. The reason is clear: our leading organizations have viewed corporations (and their representatives in government) as potential allies and “partners” of the environmental movement. As environmentalists, we must finally reject this dangerous illusion and identify corporations, not as possible “partners” to be won over to our side, but as implacable adversaries that must be opposed at every turn.

4. Only a grassroots movement of popular resistance can effectively challenge corporate power. A realistic strategy for advancing the agenda of global environmental justice must aim to mobilize a powerful alliance of workers, their unions, grassroots environmentalists, advocates for immigrant and refugee rights, anti-racists, feminists, and student activists. Only a strong, active, diverse, and militant alliance of social movement activists and organizations can mobilize the kind of popular resistance needed to counter the power of a corporate elite united in its determination to protect the profit system from the kind of changes that environmental justice demands.

5. There are solutions to the crisis, but they are radical solutions. Effective action will demand far-reaching institutional changes to our economy and our political process. Our society must shift from its present focus on maximizing corporate profits (euphemistically called “economic growth”) to a new focus on building a sustainable economy aimed at meeting genuine human needs. For most of us – all those outside of the investor class – this is a prospect that we should look forward to with hope: an economy whose primary aim would be promotion of the public interest, as constrained by the demands of worldwide social and environmental justice.

6. The struggle for environmental justice is a global struggle. The environmental crisis is global in scope, and the resistance to corporate plunder of the planet’s ecosystems and its peoples must be a global struggle, taking full advantage of the power of international solidarity. Our struggle cannot be confined by borders established and maintained for the benefit of a system that threatens not only our well-being, but our survival. A progressive environmentalism, moreover, can find no common ground with the kind of pseudo-environmentalism that scapegoats immigrants or population growth in the global South for a crisis that originates in the irrationalities of “advanced” capitalism, above all in Europe and North America.

These principles are only starting-points. But they seem to me to be necessary starting-points for a political project that has broad appeal, but that can only succeed if it overcomes the obstacle of powerful corporate interests that – through their direct economic power and their indirect stranglehold on the formation of public policy – will fight tooth and nail to block any meaningful change. We can win, but only if we understand clearly what we’re up against.