Ecosocialism

Summary, part 1

Ecosocialism: A radical alternative to capitalist catastrophe is a book that outlines what ecosocialism is and values. The book also contains appendices of important ecosocialist literature. To best understand ecosocialism, this study guide summarizes the appendices first and then a summary of Löwy’s writings second.

Appendix 1: International Ecosocialist Manifesto

The International Ecosocialist Manifesto is an outline of ecosocialists’ central beliefs. Like socialism, ecosocialism is both a way of understanding the world and a proposed alternative for what a better world might look like. 

Ecosocialists are concerned with the crises of ecology and the breakdown of society, which they view as interrelated and coming from similar structural forces. The ecological crisis is “rampant industrialization that overwhelms the earth’s capacity to buffer and contain ecological devastation”  (p. 77).

Societal breakdown stems from imperialism and globalization, which fuel the world capitalist system. Combined, the ecological and societal crises have deteriorated humanity.

Humanity requires self-determination (i.e., the process in which one controls their life), community, and meaningful existence. The capitalist system, which is built on the idea that we must have unsustainable growth, deteriorates the human experience. 

• Capital (i.e., wealth) forces people to see themselves as labor power (which is counter to self-determination);

• The global culture of consumerism and depoliticization destroys feelings of community;

• Wealth and power disparities become larger and larger, with undue power given to Western countries and the United States; and

• Under capitalism, society is run by one philosophy: Grow or Die!

The alternative to capitalism must be socialism. Socialism “stands for the suppression of capital” and can overcome the crises created by capitalism (p. 79). If socialisms in the past have not worked, it is our responsibility to build one that succeeds.

Socialism, however, must factor in the ecological crisis, bringing us ecosocialism.

Like past socialisms, ecosocialism builds on the idea that capital has objectified everything. Ecosocialism is grounded in the goal of free development of all producers with a “separation of the producers from the means of production” (p. 80).

Ecosocialism rejects “reformist aims of social democracy and the productivist structures of the bureaucratic variations of socialism” and instead insists upon limitations to growth (p. 81). It envisions a society that is “posited in a degree of ecological harmony with nature unthinkable under present conditions” (p. 81).

This world looks like one that is not dependent on fossil fuels, and where land subjugated by the pursuit of oil profit is returned to the people.

Appendix 2: The Belém Declaration

The Belém Declaration was made at the Paris Ecosocialist Conference of 2007 and then distributed at the World Social Forum in Belém, Brazil, in January 2009. Over 400 activists from 34 countries signed it.

The world can choose between ecosocialism or barbarism. Capitalism, our current system, is barbaric. It creates unnecessary products, squanders the environment’s limited resources, and its only measure of success is how much is sold.

It is directly harmful to humans and the environment. Capitalism’s need to continually expand in search of cheap labor, resources to exploit, and new markets to sell to is imperialistic.

We are at a tipping point, the edge of disaster.

Even the slightest amount of global warming will lead to famine, displacement, unpredictable extreme weather events, epidemics, and poisoned water and air and soil. Throughout all of this, the poorest will be the most vulnerable.

Capitalism’s profit-oriented production prioritizes short-term goals and infinite economic expansion, which is “incompatible with finite and fragile ecosystems” p. (85).

If capitalism remains the “dominant social order,” the best-case scenario is an unbearable climate and intensification of social crises (p. 86). The worst-case scenario is the extinction of the human race.

Capitalist Strategies for Change

To address the ecological crises, capitalists will recommend capitalist strategies that depend on economic mechanisms. Capitalist strategies are not good enough because “they are devised by and on behalf of the dominant global system: capitalism” (p. 86).

The capitalist reforms we have seen have all been failures. 

For example, the Kyoto Protocols in 1997 wanted to limit global carbon emissions. Still, the world produced three times the limit within the first four years of the 21st century.

The Kyoto Protocol recommends ‘cap and trade’ and ‘clean development mechanisms,’ which rely on market mechanisms and make carbon dioxide a commodity to be bought and sold. This compels polluters not to reduce their emissions, but to control the carbon market.

The Ecosocialist Alternative

The goal of ecosocialism is to “stop and reverse the disastrous process of global warming in particular and of capitalist ecocide in general, and to construct a radical and practical alternative to the capitalist system” (p. 88).

Ecosocialism wants to see a world with non-monetary measures of success, social justice, and ecological balance. To attain these goals, ecosocialism depends on an ecological and democratic framework.

This framework will involve revolutionary social transformation, the limitation of growth, and moving our value system away from economic criteria for success and towards use value (how useful something is to humanity).

Ecosocialism looks like…

• Rethinking the nature and goals of production;

• Viewing householding, child-rearing, care, education, and the arts as essential values;

• Making clean air, water, and  soil, as well as universal access to healthy food and non-polluting renewable energy, rights to all;

• Collective policy-making on all government levels;

• A world with the freedom of decision and communal freedom and responsibility;

• The suppression of entire sectors (e.g., industry, agriculture); and

• Employment for all.

Ecosocialism is impossible without “collective control of the means of production and democratic planning of production and exchange” and without “active support, by the majority of the population, of an ecosocialist platform” (p. 90).

Ecosocialism proposes radical transformations in...

• Energy system (replace CO2 dependent energy with community-controlled clean power: solar most important, but also wind, geothermal, wave);

• Transportation system (replace private vehicles with free public transportation);

• Patterns of production and consumption (replace with sustainable and recyclable goods, green architecture); and

• Food production and distribution (replace with local food sovereignty, eliminate industrial agriculture, care for the natural environment).

Ecosocialism acknowledges that we must pursue urgent reforms without believing in ‘clean capitalism,’ which includes policies that will...

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions;

• Develop clean energy;

• Provide free public transportation;

• Replace trucks with trains;

• Institute pollution clean-up programs; and

• Eliminate nuclear energy and war spending.

Ecological and capitalist crises cannot be stopped in conference rooms alone, “only mass action can make a difference” (p. 92).

Urban and rural workers, people of the global South, and Indigenous people are at the forefront of this struggle. To attain ecosocialism, “we must further these social-environmental movements and build solidarity between anticapitalist ecological mobilizations in the North and the South” (p. 92).

Appendix 3: Copenhagen 2049

This comic depicts a conversation between a grandparent and their child in Copenhagen in 2049. They go to the beach on a nice cool day (42ºC), and the child asks what used to be where the ocean is. The grandparent responds: the city of Copenhagen. The child asks why it is underwater. The grandparent tells them about how society failed to come together to fight against capitalist interest, which inevitably allowed climate change to destroy the planet.

Appendix 4: The Lima Ecosocialist Declaration

The Declaration begins with a quote that summarizes the essence of ecosocialism: “Our lives are worth more than their profits!” (p. 101). The Declaration acknowledges that slight changes in the climate can cause a catastrophe. It says that the world must figure out who is causing this ecological catastrophe, but in doing so, must avoid attempts to blame all of humanity.

Instead, we must focus on the historical dynamics that have led to global warming and the logic of capitalism, which is sustained by the private sector’s search for profit.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP), which are annual conferences where countries come together to discuss climate change, are actually empty events that produce no effective solutions. In fact, the solutions posed at COPs move the world backward. For example, green funds just allow people to profit from pollution. 

There are examples of resistance to these faulty solutions, such as in the Campesinos of Peru and the Yasuní National Park protests.