The
environment is not under threat from industrial production as such,
but from this in the service of profit-seeking.
All
forms of vegetable and animal life are part of a network of relations
called an “ecosystem”
in ecology. Normally this system is self-regulating to the extent
that, if an imbalance develops, this is rectified spontaneously,
either by the restoration of the previous balance or by the
establishment of a new balance.
The
problem is that there’s been the
industrial revolution: the pollution of water and the ground due to
the massive disposal of toxic or non-recyclable wastes and to the use
in intensive agriculture of chemical fertilisers, nitrates and
pesticides; the pollution of the oceans due to the increase of
maritime traffic, the flow from polluted rivers, the shipwreck of oil
tankers (70 alone in 1996!), the discharge of toxic, chemical and
radioactive waste, desludging at sea, etc; overfishing; the pollution
of the air due to the massive use of fossil fuels, the development of
the individual motor car, and the clearance by fire of forests
(despite these being the lungs of the planet!); industrial accidents
(Seveso (1996), Bhopal (1984), Chernobyl (1986), Toulouse (2001));
the emission of greenhouse gases (CO2)
by petrol vehicles and factories, deforestation, leading to global
warming and its consequences (rise in the sea level due to the
melting of the icepack and of polar and continental glaciers, floods,
desertification, storms); acid rain; extinction of living species;
introduction of GM organisms; storage of nuclear waste; expansion of
towns (where now more than half the world’s
population live).
And
for a good reason! No State is going to implement legislation which
would penalise the competitiveness of its national enterprises in the
face of foreign competition. States only take into account
environmental questions if they can find an agreement at
international level which will disadvantage none of them. But that’s
the snag because competition for the appropriation of world profits
is one of the bases of the present system. Attempts at international
cooperation have already been made: the League of Nations, then the
UN, for example, were set up to “maintain”
peace. But the 20th century saw the most devastating and
murderous wars in history!
No
agreement to limit the activities of the multinationals in their
relentless quest for profits is possible. Measures in favour of the
environment (and the far-reaching transformation of the productive
apparatus and transport system these imply) come up against the
interests of enterprises (and their shareholders!) because by
increasing costs they decrease profits.
Humans
are capable, whatever the form of production, of integrating
themselves into a stable ecosystem. That was the case of many “primitive”
societies which coexisted in complete harmony with the rest of
nature, and there is nothing whatsoever that prevents this being
possible today on the basis of industrial technology and methods of
production, all the more so that renewable energies exist (wind,
solar, tidal, geothermal, waves, biomass, etc) but, for the
capitalists, these are a “cost”
which penalises them in face of international competition.
So
it’s not production as such (i. e., the
fashioning of nature to meet human needs) which is incompatible with
a stable balance of nature, but the application of certain productive
methods which disregard natural balances or which involve changes
that are too rapid to allow a natural balance to develop.
The
preservation of the environment is a social problem which requires
humanity to establish a viable and stable relationship with the rest
of nature. In practice this implies a society which uses, as far as
possible, renewable energy and raw material resources and which
practises the recycling of non-renewable resources; a society which,
once an appropriate balance with nature has been formed, will tend
towards a stable level of production, indeed towards “zero
growth”. This does not mean that changes
are to be excluded on principle, but that any change will have to
respect the environment by taking place at a pace to which nature can
adapt. But the employment by capitalism of destructive methods of
production has, over two centuries, upset the balance of nature.
Whether
it is called “the market economy”, “economic liberalism”, “free enterprise”
or any other euphemism, the social system under which we live is
capitalism. Under this system the means of the production and
distribution of social wealth – the means
of society’s existence –
are the exclusive property of a dominant parasitic minority –
the holders of capital, or capitalist class –
for whose benefit they are inevitably managed.
As
a system governed by economic laws which impose themselves as
external constraints on human productive activities, and in which
enterprises are in competition with each other to obtain short-term
economic gains, capitalism pushes economic decision-makers to adopt
productive methods which serve profitability rather than concern for
the future.
So
it is not “Man”
but the capitalist economic system itself which is responsible for
ecological problems. In fact, not only have workers no influence over
the decisions taken by enterprises but those who do have the power to
decide - the capitalists - are themselves subject to the laws of
profit and competition.
Of
course capitalism has sooner or later to face up to the ecological
problems caused by the search for profit, but only afterwards, after
the damage has been done. But the ecologists, so critical of “liberal”
capitalism, accept, like all the other varieties of reformism, the
economic dictatorship of the owning minority since they don’t
understand the link that exists between the destruction of the
environment and the private ownership of the means of production.
That is why the Greens were forced to make concessions when, from
1997-2002, they were part of the Jospin government: over the
authorisations given by this government of the “plural”
Left, in November 1997 and July 1998, for transgenetic maize, over
nuclear questions and other matters, not to mention their complicity
over “social”
questions such as the suppression of 3100 jobs with the closure of
the Renault factory at Vilvord or the repression of the occupation of
employment offices by the unemployed in 1997, the closure of the
naval shipyards in Le Havre in 1998, the calling into question of
retirement at age 60 with a full pension, or the suppression of
10,000 hospital beds in the Ile de France in 1999, etc.
Because
by definition capitalism can only function in the interest of the
capitalists, no palliative, no rearrangement, no measure, no reform
can (nor ever will be able to) subordinate capitalist private
property to the general interest. For this reason only the threat of
a socialist movement setting down as the only realistic and immediate
aim the establishment of social property (hence the name socialism)
of society’s means of existence so as to
ensure their management by (and so in the interest of) the whole
community, would be able to force the capitalists to concede reforms
favourable to the workers for fear of losing the whole cake.
So
it is for building such a movement that we launch an appeal to all
workers who understand the opposition and incompatibility of their
interests with those of the capitalists, to all those who, concerned
about the ceaseless attacks of which we are the victims and of the
dangers to which the capitalists are exposing our planet, want not to
patch up but to end existing society. Our numerical superiority
allows all hope.
It
is only after having placed the means of society’s
existence under the control of the community that we will be able to
at last ensure their management, no longer in the selfish interest of
their present owners, but this time really in the general interest.
Only
then will we be in a position to achieve a world in which the present
system of rival States will be replaced by a world community without
frontiers, the rationing of money and the wages system by free access
to the wealth produced, competition by cooperation, and class
antagonism by social equality.
We
can only “cure the planet”
by establishing a society without private productive property or
profit where humans will be freed from the uncontrollable economic
laws of the pursuit of profit and the accumulation of capital. In
short, only a world socialist society, based on the common ownership
and democratic control of natural resources, is compatible with
production that respects the natural environment.
– translated
from a leaflet distributed by socialists in France.