{"id":795,"date":"2019-03-05T15:38:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T15:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=795"},"modified":"2019-10-20T13:05:03","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T12:05:03","slug":"eco-socialism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/eco-socialism\/","title":{"rendered":"Eco-socialism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is an extract from <\/strong>Ecology and Socialism<\/strong><\/em>, published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in April 1990. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Ecological Perspective<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Current methods of production cause may undeniably be damaging the world’s eco-systems\n\nin many ways, as shown elsewhere in this Environment section. Still, the question remains\n\nas to whether human productive activity, transforming materials originating from nature\n\ninto goods suitable for human use, is inevitably damaging in an ecological sense. The\n\nmassive scale of human productive activity certainly has immense implications for ecology\n\nand some radical greens argue that human activity on such a scale is incompatible with a\n\nharmonious relationship with the rest of nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In considering what we mean by ‘ecological damage,’ it is important to remember that\n\nthese ecosystems are evolving. The biosphere as a whole, which consists of millions of\n\nmutually interdependent life forms, might be thought of as one single ecosystem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet it is still possible to distinguish various sub-systems, or ‘biomes’ within it, on\n\nthe basis of the different climatic and physical conditions that exist in different parts\n\nof the world. These range from the tundra of the Arctic, through the coniferous and\n\ndeciduous forests and steppes, to the savannah and tropical rain forests of the regions\n\nnear the equator. To each of these physical and climatic conditions there corresponds a\n\nstable ecosystem which evolves to its ‘climax,’ through a series of successive stages.\n\nThis stable climax will be the situation where the amount of food produced by the plant\n\nlife is sufficient, after taking account of the plants’ own respiration needs, to\n\nsustainably meet the food energy requirements of all the animal life-forms within the\n\nsystem. It will be, in fact, the situation which makes optimum use, in terms of sustaining\n\nall the life-forms within the system, of the sun’s light rays falling on the area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ecological climax is defined in terms of the existing physical and climatic\n\nconditions. It is clear that if these latter change, as they have done relatively\n\nfrequently in the course of the thousands of millions of years life has existed – through\n\nsuch things as the sea level, and the coming and going of the ice ages – then the\n\npreviously existing balance will be upset. A new one will then tend to develop in\n\naccordance with the new physical and climatic conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The break-up of an old ecosystem plunges the different species and varieties of\n\nlife-forms into a state of competition. In the case of plants, the competition would be to\n\ncapture the sun’s light rays. In the case of animals, it would be to recover the food\n\nenergy produced by plants. The species and the individuals proving to be best adapted to\n\nthe new conditions (“the fittest” as Darwin put it) would survive and flourish.\n\nEventually a new stable ecosystem, with a different “climax”, appropriate to the\n\nnew geophysical conditions, would evolve. At such times biological evolution would have\n\ntended to speed up as whole. Species could disappear leaving the ecological niche they\n\noccupied to be filled by newcomers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world’s eco-systems are continually evolving and hence there is no one ‘original,’\n\n‘natural’ state of the planet. After all, humans are both a product and part of nature and\n\nnot something outside of it. There is no reason to regard an ecosystem in which humans,\n\nlike other animals, live in limited numbers as “hunter gatherers” in the forest\n\nas any more “natural” than one in which there is a greater number of trees and\n\nforest plants. There is no basis in ecology for saying that trees should be the main\n\nlife-form, nor even that the natural human condition is hunting and gathering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ecology and Socialism<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The materials humans take from nature can be divided into two categories, according to\n\nwhether they are renewable or non-renewable. Nearly everything of organic nature is\n\nrenewable (since more of it can be grown in a relatively short period of time), as are\n\ncertain natural forces which humans use as instruments of labour (rivers, waterfalls,\n\nwind, the sun’s rays etc). Non-renewable resources on the other hand – such as mineral\n\nores, coal, oil, clay, sand – are so called because they do not form part of some natural\n\ncycle that reproduces them, at least not with a timescale relevant for humans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agriculture<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The most obvious way in which humans extract renewable materials from the biosphere is\n\nthrough agriculture. Agriculture involves, by definition, a fundamental change in the\n\nexisting eco-system. The introduction of agriculture to Europe involved cutting most of\n\nthe deciduous forest. This deciduous forest had represented a stable ecological climax for\n\nmost of Europe. The land was used to grow plants which humans found useful, to the\n\ndetriment of both the trees and other plants that had flourished in the forest.\n\nAgriculture involves deliberately preventing an ecosystem from developing towards a\n\nclimax. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an ecosystem involving agriculture to be a stable one requires deliberate action on\n\nthe part of humans. This involves not only planting fields and keeping them clear of other\n\nplants which might grow there (‘weeds’), but also to maintain the fertility of the soil\n\nwhich, without agriculture, would spontaneously renew itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things go wrong when humans ignore the ecological consequences of their actions, for\n\ninstance, by permitting overgrazing by their domesticated animals or by taking out of the\n\nsoil without restoring the minerals and organic materials that are essential to normal\n\nplant growth. However, if humans observe these rules, then, as a number of historical\n\nexamples testify, an ecosystem in which humans practice agriculture can be as stable as\n\none from which humans are absent, or one in which they practice hunting and gathering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was understood and practiced in the relatively self-sufficient agriculture\n\ncommunities which existed up until the coming of capitalism, where what was produced was\n\nlargely consumed on the spot. The human waste resulting from consumption, together with\n\nanimal waste and those parts of plants and animals that were not used for food and other\n\npurposes, were restored to the soil where they were decomposed by insects, fungi and\n\nbacteria into the elements that sustain the soil’s fertility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When, however, the place of production and the place of consumption are separated, this\n\ncycle tends to break down. The result is that the fertility of the soil diminishes. If an\n\narea specialises in the production of a crop for export, i.e. for consumption elsewhere,\n\nthis means that some of the mineral and organic matter incorporated into the crop will\n\nleave that area for ever and not be restored to the soil. The same applies to animal\n\nrearing. Animals require large amounts of calcium for their bones, as well as other\n\nminerals such as phosphorus, iron and magnesium, which also come from the soil, via the\n\nplants on which they feed. If these animals are exported, whether dead or alive, and\n\nconsumed elsewhere, then the minerals they contain are lost to the soil of the area where\n\nthey were raised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A complementary problem arises at the other end, at the point of consumption: what to\n\ndo with the human waste which, when the points of production and consumption were the\n\nsame, was automatically restored to the soil and recycled by nature? Releasing it into the\n\nsea or into rivers or sewers means that it is lost to agriculture, even if not,\n\nunfortunately, to the biosphere (this contributes to water pollution by encouraging the\n\nproliferation of some life-forms – for example, algae and bacteria – to the detriment of\n\nothers which the water normally supports.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘solution’ that has been found under capitalism, because it is the cheapest in\n\nterms of the labour content of the products, has been to use artificial fertilisers –\n\nnitrates and phosphates that have been manufactured in chemical plants. This works in the\n\nsense of allowing the land to go on producing the same amount, or more, of the same crop\n\nor animal, but at a price in terms of polluting the water in the region concerned.\n\nArtificial fertilisers, not being held by the soil in the same way that organic waste is,\n\ntend to be leached off by rain into waterways where they cause pollution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ecological solution to the problem is to find some way of restoring to the soil the\n\norganic waste resulting from human consumption in urban areas. Barry Commoner suggested\n\nthat this might be done by means of pipelines linking the town and the countryside. A\n\nlonger term solution would be that envisaged by those early socialists who looked forward\n\nto agriculture and manufacturing industry being combined, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable\n\n distribution of the population over the country.(1) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Non-Renewable Materials<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Concern has been expressed that non-renewable resources will eventually run out. Still,\n\ndespite some wild predictions that were made in the recent past, depletion of\n\nnon-renewable resources is not an immediate problem. One advantage non-renewable materials\n\nhave over most renewable ones is that they can normally be used more than once. With the\n\nimportant exceptions of coal, oil and natural gas when burned, they can be recycled. A\n\nproportion of some metals is lost through corrosion but all metals can in principle be\n\nrecovered and re-used. It has been suggested, for instance, that most of the gold mined\n\nsince Ancient times is still in use. Much of the iron, copper, tin and other metals mined\n\nsince the same time is still around somewhere even if not still used as gold is. Resources\n\ncan be conserved by making instruments of production easier to repair and by manufacturing\n\ngoods of all kinds to last rather than to break down or become unusable after a carefully\n\ncalculated period of time, as is common practice under capitalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-renewable resources can be replaced in many cases by renewable ones. Electricity generation is a case in point (Energy Production)<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-Polluting Technology<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The techniques employed to transform materials must, if they are to avoid upsetting\n\nnatural cycles which are fundamental to nature, avoid releasing into the biosphere or\n\nleaving as waste products, toxic substances or substances that cannot be assimilated by\n\nnature. In other words, a non-polluting technology should be applied. This is quite\n\nfeasible from a technical point of view since non-polluting transformation techniques are\n\nknown in all fields of production. However, they are not employed on any wide scale today\n\nbecause they would add to production costs and so are ruled out by the economic laws of\n\ncapitalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The underlying principle behind the changes in the materials and productive methods\n\nused, which is demanded by the need to take proper account of the ecological dimension, is\n\nthat the productive system as a whole should be sustainable for the rest of nature. In\n\nother words, what humans take from nature, the amount and the rhythm at which they do so,\n\nas well as the way they use these materials and dispose of them after use, should all be\n\ndone in such a way as to leave nature in a position to go on supplying and reabsorbing the\n\nrequired materials for use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the long run this implies stable or only slowly rising consumption and production\n\nlevels, though it does not rule out carefully planned rapid growth over a period to reach\n\na level at which consumption and production could then platform off. A society in which\n\nproduction, consumption and population levels are stable has been called a\n\n“steady-state economy” where production would be geared simply to meeting needs\n\nand to replacing and repairing the stock of means of production (raw materials and\n\ninstruments of production) required for this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is obvious that today human needs are far from being met on a world scale and that\n\nfairly rapid growth in the production of food, housing and other basic amenities would\n\nstill be needed for some years even if production ceased to be governed by the economic\n\nlaws of capitalism. However it should not be forgotten that a “steady-state\n\neconomy” would be a much more normal situation than an economy geared to blindly\n\naccumulating more and more means of production. After all, the only rational reason for\n\naccumulating means of production is to eventually be in a position to satisfy all\n\nreasonable consumption needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the stock of means of production has reached this level, in a society with this\n\ngoal, accumulation, or the further expansion of the stock of means of production, can stop\n\nand production levels be stabilised. Logically, this point would eventually be reached,\n\nsince the consumption needs of a given population are finite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if human society is to be able to organize its production in an ecologically\n\nacceptable way, then it must abolish the capitalist economic mechanism of capital\n\naccumulation and gear production instead to the direct satisfaction of needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author: Adam Buick \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Please email your comments about this article to feedback@worldsocialism.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n