Ecology and Revolution: Global Crisis and the Political Challenge

242 Pages·2012·1.965 MB·English

by  Carl Boggs (auth.)

Environmental Politics
And Theory
Our current environmental crisis cannot be solved by technological
innovationalone.Thepremiseofthisseriesisthattheenvironmental
challenges we face today are, at their root, political crises involving
politicalvalues.
Growing public consciousness of the environmental crisis and its
humanandnonhumanimpactsexemplifiedbytheworldwideurgency
and political activity associated with the consequences of climate
change make it imperative to study and achieve a sustainable and
sociallyjustsociety.
The series collects, extends, and develops ideas from the
burgeoningempiricalandnormativescholarshipspanningmanydisci-
plineswithaglobalperspective.Itaddressestheneedforsocialchange
from the hegemonic, consumer capitalist society in order to realize
environmentalsustainabilityandsocialjustice.
TheserieseditorisJoelJayKassiola,professorofPoliticalScienceand
deanoftheCollegeofBehavioralandSocialSciencesatSanFrancisco
StateUniversity.
China’s Environmental Crisis: Domestic and Global Political Impacts
andResponses
EditedbyJoelJayKassiolaandSujianGuo
EcologyandRevolution:GlobalCrisisandthePoliticalChallenge
ByCarlBoggs
CarlBoggs’PreviousPublications
Gramsci’sMarxism
ThePoliticsofEurocommunism(coauthored)
TheImpasseofEuropeanCommunism
TheTwoRevolutions:AntonioGramsciandtheDilemmasofWesternMarxism
SocialMovementsandPoliticalPower
IntellectualsandtheCrisisofModernity
TheSocialistTradition:FromCrisistoDecline
TheEndofPolitics:CorporatePowerandDeclineofthePublicSphere
AWorldinChaos:SocialCrisisandtheRiseofPostmodernCinema
(coauthored)
MastersofWar
ImperialDelusions:AmericanMilitarismandEndlessWar
TheHollywoodWarMachine:U.S.MilitarismandPopularCulture
(coauthored)
TheCrimesofEmpire
Empirevs.Democracy
PhantomDemocracy:CorporateInterestsandPoliticalPowerinAmerica
Ecology and Revolution
Global Crisis and the Political
Challenge
Carl Boggs
ECOLOGYANDREVOLUTION
Copyright©CarlBoggs,2012.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-1-349-44284-3
Allrightsreserved.
Firstpublishedin2012by
PALGRAVEMACMILLAN®
intheUnitedStates—adivisionofSt.Martin’sPressLLC,
175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010.
WherethisbookisdistributedintheUK,Europeandtherestofthe
World,thisisbyPalgraveMacmillan,adivisionofMacmillanPublishers
Limited,registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,of
Houndmills,Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS.
PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabove
companiesandhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld.
Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnited
States,theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries.
ISBN 978-1-349-44284-3 ISBN 978-1-137-28226-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137282262
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Boggs,Carl.
Ecologyandrevolution:globalcrisisandthepoliticalchallenge/
CarlBoggs.
p. cm.—(Environmentalpoliticsandtheory)
ISBN978–1–137–26403–9(hardback)
1. Politicalecology. 2. Environmentalism—Politicalaspects.
3. Environmentalism—Economicaspects. 4. Environmental
policy—Politicalaspects. 5. Environmentalpolicy—Economic
aspects. 6. Globalenvironmentalchange—Politicalaspects.
I. Title.
JA75.8.B642012
363.7—dc23 2012011143
AcataloguerecordofthebookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
DesignbyIntegraSoftwareServices
Firstedition:September2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword vii
MichaelParenti
SeriesEditorPreface xi
JoelJayKassiola
Preface xvii
1 TheRadicalImperative 1
2 TheGlobalCrisisWorsens 23
3 ThePoliticalImpasse 57
4 LiberalDelusions 97
5 StruggleForanEcologicalPolitics 121
6 AGlobalEcologicalRevolution? 153
Conclusion:AGreenPolitics? 191
Postscript:EcologyandPopulation 197
Notes 209
Index 223
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Foreword
When the environmental movement burgeoned in the 1960s, it
showed itself remarkably indifferent to questions of political influ-
ence and moneyed power. Most of the environmentalists of that day
embraced New Age nostrums rather than radical political ideologies.
It was their view that “pollution” was the core environmental prob-
lem, and that the task ahead was to clean up the rivers, lakes, and
lands. This would be accomplished when we learned to produce and
consume in ways that brought greater self-sufficiency and caused as
littledamageaspossibletoMotherNature.
Some few of us, however, saw a troubling and even strangulating
link between environmental devastation and the corporate pursuit of
profit. I, for one, maintained that capitalism and ecology were on a
collision course, and that people who wanted to save the environ-
mentwouldeventuallyhavetoconfrontthebigcorporationsandthe
system that sustains the plutocracy. When I uttered such pronounce-
ments in the classroom, several of my students who were active in
the environmental movement were not too receptive. They had an
agendathatdidnotincludesocialism.Theypointedoutthatenviron-
mental degradation could be found in communist countries as well
as capitalist ones, hence, the Reds had nothing to teach us on this
subject.
Other New Left communitarians argued that political radicals
should not try to hijack a social and cultural issue in order to rally
support for their own quixotic goal of vanquishing capitalism, a
crusade that was deemed not all that relevant to the problem of
environmentalism. What was needed, they said, were improved liv-
inghabitsandmoreinventiveandcommunitarianwaysofproduction
andconsumption.
We political progressives would have done much better back in
the sixties had we possessed a book such as the one by Carl Boggs,
now in the reader’s hands. In those days we felt that, while new
ways of consuming and producing certainly were needed, there also
wasanotherwholepolitico-economicdimensiontotheenvironmental
viii Foreword
problem. Indeed, with the benefit of hindsight we now know that it
is not merely a “problem” we face, it is a catastrophe of global mag-
nitude.Anditinvolvesanall-consumingdemocraticpoliticalstruggle
ofrevolutionarydimensions,justasBoggssays.
The core process of global corporate capitalism is to transform
living nature into commodities and commodities into dead capital—
through the accumulation of profits. A central but mostly unspoken
notion behind this ever-expanding investment process is the assump-
tion that nature’s reserves are inexhaustible. But running out of
natural resources—such as oil—is not the central problem we face.
Immense oil reserves are being discovered every year from the Arc-
tic to Canada to Africa. The real danger comes when the planet’s
overall ecology can no longer sustain a livable dynamic. Well before
we run out of oil and coal, we are likely to run out of fresh air,
drinkablewater,serviceabletopsoil,livablecoastlinesfreeofincreas-
ingly destructive floods, and face various other unendurable weather
aberrations connected with global warming. We now realize that the
Earth’s capacity to absorb heat from energy consumption is not lim-
itless and the long-range effects can be horrendous. As Boggs puts
it, we face a future that portends “outcomes too nightmarish to
imagine.”
And this future is not so far off. Much of it is already upon us.
Ecologicalaberrationsaregrowinginscopeandmagnitudeataspeed
considerablyswifterthanwehadfeared.Itisnot“ourgrandchildren”
who will be affected (sweet little things that they might be). Disas-
ter will not come upon us at “the end of this century” when over
90 percent of the people now alive will be dead. Disaster is hap-
pening right now in our own lives as the planet loses all its ice caps
andfrozentundra,andasthegulfstreamsthatcreatetemporalzones
slow down under the weight of massive ice meltdowns. The oceans
are dying and if the oceans die, so do we, for they provide most of
ouroxygen.Indeed,thereisacontinuallossofoxygenintheairand
water,anddangerousincreasesinoceanfloodlevels.Onecouldgoon.
ToquoteBoggs,globalwarming“islikelytoreachcataclysmiclevels
in just a few decades—a specter eliciting denials and stonewalling at
thesummitsofpower.”
Boggsmakesclearthatwerethevastprivatetreasuresofthesuper-
rich more equitably distributed and rationally utilized—not for the
purposeofstillmorecapitalaccumulationbutforhousing,jobs,mass
transit, energy alternatives, environmental protection, and human
services—then a soundly based prosperity would be at hand, as
measured not by private profit maximization but by human needs
Foreword ix
and environmental betterment (see Chapter 5, “A Global Ecological
Revolution?”).AsBoggsputsit:
By stripping away the (false) relationship between corporate-defined
“growth”andsocialwell-being,anecologicaloutlookpointstowardheight-
ened living standards while also dramatically reducing GDP and, with it,
negative human footprints on the global habitat. The reality is that existing
measures of “growth” conceal untold amounts of waste and destruction in
the resources consumed by corporate superprofits, a lopsided emphasis on
“private”over“collective”formsofconsumption,agrosslyinefficientenergy
system,amilitarizedeconomy,ameat-basedagricultureandfast-foodsystem,
andatop-heavyfinancecapitalism.
What is called “growth” in today’s transnational corporate world
means ever-expanding, multi-trillion-dollar accumulations for the 1%
along with social impoverishment and environmental devastation for
the 99% of us. What is needed are not apolitical environmental half-
measuresbutarevolutionarytransformationofourpolitico-economic
life,anempowermentofourdemocracyofakindneverseenbefore.
Thisbooktakesusintoforbiddenrealities.By“forbidden”Imean
the realities about wealth and politico-economic power that are sel-
domifeverhonestlyentertainedinmainstreammediaorconventional
politics. Prepare yourself for a commanding and revelatory inves-
tigation of politics, plutocracy, ideology, and ecology in all their
challenginganddisturbinglyinterrelateddimensions.
—MichaelParenti
www.michaelparenti.org