The Environmental and Social Emergency
The global ecosystem is today threatened by climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the poisoning of both soil and water, land development, and deforestation.... The environmental struggle has, in other words, become vital. This struggle will however only makes sense if it is both anticapitalist and antiproductionist.
Capitalism’s very existence depends on the continual growth of production and expanding its influence ever further, leading to the overexploitation of earth resources. In order to optimize production and distribution, vast regions of the globe have been urbanized to form specialized regions, leading to spatial inequalities. This has the effect of continuously furthering the distances between areas of production, and the areas people live, shop and work.
Rather than facing the truth that capitalism is at fault, the dominant classes continue to argue that technology will resolve the environmental crisis. They will fight any measures, even essential ones, that endanger their profits.
Rather than questioning the insane idea of indefinite capital accumulation, they instead promote « green » capitalism, based on opening new markets to partially effective and theoretical technical solutions.
Accepting the capitalist modus operandi leads to at best, a diversity of individual solutions with limited global impact such as « simple living », or at worst, rationing policies for the working classes, who are, and always will be, the first victims of environmental disasters. The capitalists rob the working classes of their ability to choose how they consume, produce, move around etc., forcing them to participate in the destruction of the environment.
In complete contrast, we defend the vision of a world where production satisfies the needs of humanity without endangering the limits of the natural world. Instead of the destructive exploitation of nature, humanity must find a balance with all lifeforms.
Three revolutions are necessary
• A revolution in the way we produce. Handing control of production back to smallhold farmers will spearhead the fight against agribusiness multinationals : ending the agricultural specialization of entire regions : questioning the mass usage of pesticides and chemical fertilizers : abolishing industrial livestock production, industrial slaughterhouses, and largescale industrial fishing...
• A revolution of our lifestyles. We fight for an egalitarian society where the means of production are socialized. A new way of life will be able to emerge. This involves reviewing the organization of cities, rebalancing the relationship between urban and rural areas, managing new forms of housing that encourage the mutualization of goods and facilities — everything could be transformed. A rich convivial social life blending, culture, science, physical activities, festivities... could emerge, where the possession of material goods would no longer play a central role in the lives of human beings. A society where human beings no longer consider themselves superior to other species, and control the environmental impact of their activities, will mean we can live in harmony with the natural world.
• A revolution in the way we trade. In contrast to free-trade, we defend « productive autonomy ». Once countries are no longer dependant on multinationals, every region of the world will be able to produce what it needs freely. By this we don’t mean a return to autarky, but limiting long range trade to necessities only and promoting local supply chains.
Entire branches of the capitalist economy will disappear, particularly the parts linked to the commodification of life, control of the dominated classes, advertizing, excessive packaging, land appropriation and housing control by private interests, to the stock market and the domination of global finance, the luxury industry, the absurd travel times caused by social-spatial segregation, and the exploitation of the Global South’s natural resources…
The use of dangerous raw resources that are difficult to extract and recycle, and which destroy the environment will be severely limited and replaced wherever possible. We fight as much against nuclear power as we do against fossil fuels.
We demand an end to nuclear power, immediately in the civil sector (except for medical uses) and the military sector. Nuclear power is an authoritarian system linked to the military-industrial complex ; it is exceptionally dangerous and as such is heavily dependant on police and security ; the pollution it causes is irreversible, and it is the antithesis of a democratic and decentralized energy model. Energy needs, naturally reduced by new production models and a different way of life, will be satisfied by renewable sources of energy, produced locally and according to needs.
A combat with social environmentalism at its heart
Environmentalism is intimately linked with the fight for a different type of society. It is inseparable from the fight for direct democracy and economic equality, and in this sense, bridging the gap between the two movements so that they may combine, will be the keystone on which the subsequent environmental strategy will be built.
We refuse in advance any form of antidemocratic logic in which experts — who are too often linked to the dominant class — decide in the people’s place.
We neither expect anything from the institutionalized environmental movement, nor environmental policies put forward by institutions. They have no effect, and only serve the interests of the capitalists.
Our will is to bring life to the construction of an environmental struggle that seeks diversity :
- within specifically environmentalist movements, we want to defend the inclusion of the consideration of the working class’ interests and seeking discussion as well as alliances with the social movements.
- within the syndicalist movement and within class struggle organizations fighting on matters like housing, health or else, we want the environmentalist component to be systematically taken into account and the social movements to become forces of the environmentalist mobilizations.
- we intend to take part to the creation of collective tools for production and distribution.
Victories achieved by local resistance movements are important, but they must weaken the grasp of capitalist ideology to truly have an impact. The same goes for alternative-society experiments — when social struggle and the demand for the socialization of the means of production are what defines them — these experiments will allow the ideas of libertarian communism to spread, and support the counter-movement essential to overthrowing capitalism.
