"Capitalism as we know it today is incapable of sustaining the environment."
-- James Gustave (Gus) Speth, in The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability
"In the late 1980s, Tony was arguing that global warming might force us to fundamentally alter capitalism. He believed that the struggle against nature was the irreconcilable contradiction that would force systemic change."
-- Les Leopold, in The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi
I don\'t know if Gus Speth and Tony Mazzocchi knew each other personally. Speth\'s career has been as a co-founder and senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, with President Jimmy Carter\'s Council on Environmental Quality, as founder and president of the World Resources Institute, as Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and, since 1999, as Dean of the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
The late Tony Mazzocchi, on the other hand, following service in the army during World War II, was completely immersed in the world of the U.S. labor movement. He rose from the ranks to become a national leader of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, and he was the founder and leader of the Labor Party.
But as these two fascinating books make clear, their distinct life experiences led them both to believe that the capitalist system which now dominates most of the world is the ultimate problem humanity must face up to and deal with if we are to survive and if, in Tony Mazzocchi\'s words ...
people are [to be] able to enjoy the arts, relaxation, interaction with other people, free time ... You know, there\'s an awful lot of wealth out there. If it was distributed appropriately, everyone could have a fairly decent life -- I think globally. And people could be happy transforming the way we live. Not everyone has to live in a mansion, but everyone can live in a decent environment. It\'s all possible. (pps. 480-481)
Tony Mazzocchi died in 2002. As Les Leopold\'s well-researched book makes clear, Mazzocchi was not your typical U.S. labor leader. He was a visionary, while being practical and "close to the ground" in his political sensibilities. He was a radical in his political beliefs, for sure, in the best sense of radicalism: getting at the root of things.
His brush with heavy manual labor convinced him that the good life required something beyond traditional work. Slowly, that sense would crystallize into a stinging critique of the left\'s obsession with \'jobs, jobs, jobs.\' Mazzocchi would later apply his version of radicalism to anticipate a different kind of contradiction of capitalism: He believed the clash of capital against nature (as in global warming or environmental health) -- not just a clash over economic resources -- would force systemic change. (pps. 76-77)
Mazzocchi was likely the first labor leader, if not one of the first labor activists, to get it on global warming. 20 years ago, in 1988, he organized the first U.S. union conference on global warming, and he was responsible for the publication and circulation of Global Warming Watch, by the Labor Institute's Mike Merrill, "certainly the first publication on the implications of climate change for American workers." (p. 433)
Mazzocchi's commitment to linking worker's rights and environmental issues was deeply-grounded. As the legislative director of OCAW he played a major role in 1973 when 4,000 OCAW members who worked for Shell Oil Company went on strike at eight plants and refineries around the country. In part because of Mazzocchi, the health and safety of the workers, at risk because of high amounts of asbestos in their workplaces, was the primary issue of the strike.
Due to Mazzocchi's leadership, a blue-green alliance developed around this struggle. Major environmental groups supported the strike and built support for a nationwide boycott of Shell products. Four months after it began, the strike was settled. Historian Robert Gordon, writing 25 years later, wrote of OCAW's ...
... remarkable progress. Almost all of the union's contracts with other oil companies were renewed with the strict health and safety clause. . . In addition, OCAW's efforts heightened public awareness of health hazards confronting millions of American workers. . . Perhaps most importantly, the Shell strike solidified the tentative labor-environmental alliance. (p. 308)
Gus Speth appreciates the importance of such alliances if we are to create a just and sustainable society. In the concluding pages of his book, he says that "perhaps above all, the new environmental politics must be broadly inclusive, reaching to embrace union members and working families, minorities and people of color, religious organizations, the women's movement, and other communities of complementary interest and shared fate." (p. 228)
Coming from someone who Time magazine called the "ultimate insider," Speth's well-reasoned call for a new environmental movement, for a new movement in which environmental issues are central, is a welcome and much-needed contribution, particularly for the climate and environmental movements.
It is no small thing when someone with Speth's background and connections writes, "my conclusion, after much searching and considerable reluctance, is that most environmental deterioration is a result of systemic failures of the capitalism that we have today and that long-term solutions must seek transformative change in the key features of this contemporary capitalism." (p. 9) Or this more stark formulation: "Capitalism as we know it today is incapable of sustaining the environment." (p. 63)
On the other hand, Speth makes clear that he's no socialist, a difference with Mazzocchi, who liked the basic idea even though he was critical of much of "actually existing socialism" and much of the organized socialist and communist Left in the U.S.
Speth writes approvingly of a government-regulated market economy, one in which environmental impacts and the "polluter pays" principle would be paramount, essentially a form of environmental social democracy. Included would be ...
... policies that promote an environmental revolution in technology ... a wholesale transformation in the technologies that today dominate manufacturing, energy, construction, transportation and agriculture. The twentieth-century technologies that have contributed so abundantly to today's problems should be phased out and replaced with twenty-first-century technologies designed with environmental sustainability and restoration in mind. (p. 113)
Speth calls for a rejection of the necessity of constant economic growth -- a central tenet of capitalism. He calls, instead, for policies that "strengthen families and communities," "measures that guarantee good, well-paying jobs," "measures that give us more time for leisure, informal education, the arts, music, drama, sports, hobbies, volunteering, community work, outdoor work," "measures that give everyone a good education," and more. (p. 145)
He rejects "consumerism and commercialism." Instead:
Confront consumerism. Practice sufficiency. Work less. Reclaim your time -- it's all you have. Turn off technology. Join No Shopping Day. Buy nothing ... Simplify your life. Shed possessions. Downshift. (p. 163)
He is critical of corporations and wants to see the public good come before private profit, with the implications of that for actually existing corporations, especially the huge and powerful ones, left unclear. He supports "ownership by workers, public ownership, and public and private enterprises that do not seek traditional profits. They offer opportunities for greater local control, more sensitivity to employee, public, and consumer interests, and heightened environmental performance. Collectively, they signal the emergence of a new sector -- a public or independent sector -- that has the potential to be a countervailing center of power to today's capitalism." (p. 194) Left unaddressed -- a weakness -- is how this "countervailing center of power" would relate to the military/industrial/fossil fuel complex that dominates our economy and government.
Speth sees the importance of "a new consciousness" and "a new politics" if the change needed is to take place. He appreciates that "government is the principal means available to citizens to collectively exercise their stewardship responsibility to leave the world a better place." (p. 217)
He is particularly supportive of the movement-building that is going on among young people and within the World Social Forum process. He concludes by writing:
Our goal should be to find the spark that can set off a period of rapid change, like the flowering of the domestic environmental agenda in the early 1970s. In the end, we need to trigger a response that in historical terms will come to be seen as revolutionary -- the Environmental Revolution of the twenty-first century. Only such a response is likely to avert huge and even catastrophic environmental losses.
One weakness of Speth's book, highlighted by comparison to the one on Mazzocchi, is that while he supports alliance-building and grassroots movement-building, he says nothing about our corporate-dominated, two-party political system. He doesn't address whether he thinks it will be possible to make the changes necessary through the Democratic Party alone, and how he sees that political animal.
Does he believe that we do -- or don't -- need to transform a political system that pretty much restricts voters' choices to Republicans and Democrats, that makes it extremely difficult for third parties to gain a foothold and grow? What about the role of our propagandistic, corporate-dominated mass media and our 19th-century, winner-take-all, non-proportional electoral system in suppressing popular resistance to capitalism's negative and destructive impacts?
Tony Mazzocchi, experiencing the relative powerlessness of the working class, understood this in his bones, which is why he devoted the last years of his life to efforts to form a U.S. labor party.
A related weakness is a lack of specificity when it comes to the tactics of struggle in the process of making the urgently-needed "Environmental Revolution." The role of direct action and nonviolent civil disobedience ... the centrality of leadership in this new movement from historically disenfranchised constituencies like people of color, working-class people, and women ... the building of thoroughly democratic and transparent organizations and alliances that empower grassroots people and new members ... how to counter the inevitable efforts to divide and repress a growing movement that threatens the obscene wealth and power of those who currently have it: these are very real issues.
Albert Einstein once said, "In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." Thanks to Les Leopold, many people who did not know Tony Mazzocchi will have their spirit rekindled when they read about this 20th century hero of our history.
And we are fortunate that "ultimate insider" Gus Speth will continue to help lead us as we build towards the Environmental Revolution which must occur. May "the spark that can set off a period of rapid change" come soon.
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Comments
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stephanieh Posted 2:25 am
20 May 2008
Stephanie
Cleaning-Green.Net
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jtellerelsberg Posted 3:12 am
20 May 2008
"We have changed the world, and we wonder why things won't stay the same." --Les Lanyon
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enki Posted 3:42 am
20 May 2008
Most of our problems today have evolved from unregulated capitalism. Just like witch burnings, racially motivated "cleansings" and many other examples of bad behavior can evolve from within the framework of religion based on love so can any number of evils evolve from any inherently good system of belief or action.
Capitalism is simply how society works. Consumers will buy products that best meet their needs or wants and make use of services which do the same. The challenge facing people who would like to turn society in a more environmentally friendly/sustainable direction are making this change into something that is perceived as better or more desirable on an individual basis to the consumer.
Build a better mousetrap and they will buy. It is really that simple. Much of the public apathy toward all things green is the lack of personal, immediate benefit. Make it so that going green saves them a lot of money, gets them drunk faster, tastes better or cures erectile dysfunction and consumers will invest billions of dollars into it. Without that personal benefit it just won't work.
Mike Johnston
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lorna salzman Posted 4:44 am
20 May 2008
I find Ted's comment below about the need for a unified movement where environmental issues are CENTRAL to be interesting, inasmuch as I have been critical in the past of of social justice and anti-war campaigns and movements for their superficial lip service to the environment and especially global warming. Ted, like others, had this vision of a unified movement but stopped short of promoting environmental issues as CENTRAL, probably because of his background in leftist politics and a bit of timorousness that he might be criticized by others on the left.
It is commendable, but in the end not so surprising, that someone like Speth would have expanded his political understanding and analysis during his long career. People who work in groups like NRDC are not stupid. They are extremely knowledgeable. They know a lot more about environmental issues than the general public and the left (which isnt saying much). Recall that during the heated anti nuke battles of the 1970s, numerous scientists and engineers abandoned their jobs and political positions to side with the critics of nuclear power, with the happy result that the construction of new reactors in this country ended. Most of the NRDC people stayed on to reap the benefits of status and influence. Speth moved onward and upward. We owe him a debt of gratitude for taking the environmental arguments to their logical conclusion : that capitalism is to blame.
But let's not give the marxists credit. They railed against capitalism from the beginning...but NOT for the same reasons. Many were the debates I had with leftists and social justice activists when I pointed out that it was economic growth that was the root of the problem, and that both capitalist and socialist economies supported such growth as well as supporting industrial expansion and technology. The left's oppposition to capitalism was rooted in ideology and a utopian dream of "worker control" of the "means of production". The person in this country who most accurately represented this dream was Barry Commoner, who looked to technology and changes in worker relations as salvation, while deriding nature as being unworthy of any respect or deference. He famously declared, at his 80th birthday celebration at Cooper Union, that nature will take care of itself.
This peremptory denigration of not just nature but of the "tree huggers" who purportedly put nature before people, of those fighting for wilderness, endangered species, habitat protection and biodiversity, is still operative. One need only read what Van Jones, leader of the "green growth" movement had to say last year in this respect, as he and his movement put the economy and jobs first and nature hindmost, while blasting environmentalists for ignoring racism and the poor.....as if the fight to preserve the planet and its ecosystems were not a fight for all humanity and survival.
I sincerely hope that Ted will use his own insights to come over to the ecological viewpoint, in which direction he seems pointed if not yet headed, in which these ecological concerns and battles take precedence, because they subsume all the social and economic justice issues of concern. Ted is probably smart enough to recognize that the creation of an ecological paradigm and society necessarily brings about the radical changes, including that of political empowerment, that social justice activists and the left profess to desire. Maybe he can put his talents to use in persuading these other movements of the centrality of ecological principles and objectives.
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AndyFrankGO Posted 8:57 am
20 May 2008
Your offhand analysis of "capitalism" (to be clear I include the authors you review in this stupidity) reeks of intellectual laziness and a fundamental misunderstanding of both history and economics. We have never lived in a pure "capitalist" system just as we have never lived in a pure "communist" or "socialist" system. There is always a role for government and a role for business, and no major problem has ever been confronted without the buy-in of both institutions. The climate problem can only be solved by fundamentally changing both government and business. It's not an either/or question.
Frameworks like the ones you cite and propose actually do harm because they distract from the very real (and hard) work of creating the institutional systems in place that will radically reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. Spouting pseudo-scientific, paranoid theories about replacing the "corporate-dominated, two-party political system" and citing discredited axioms such as "a rejection of the necessity of constant economic growth" are an embarrassment to this otherwise thoughtful blog (and should be to you).
To paraphrase from the movie "Billy Madison": Mr. Glick what you wrote is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent post were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone reading this blog is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:57 pm
20 May 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:31 pm
20 May 2008
The intersection of leftism and environmentalism seems to be getting more populated. I'm particularly interested in the new movements of relocalization, Transition Towns, food sovereignty, etc. I wonder if these might be a way to get around the ruts that older movements had gotten into.
I suspect there may be a sudden, dramatic shift to the left as food and fuel prices continue to escalate, the economy wobbles and the war goes on.
(Alternately, I suppose to the right, with a hunt for scapegoats). I don't think that the environment will be the prime motivating force (as David R. said in another thread), but perhaps this time there can be a better melding of the two movements.
And for those of you who grew up in the very conservative last three decades, be prepared for some surprises.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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Colin Wright Posted 12:47 pm
21 May 2008
You criticize Speth for not addressing the ills of the two-party system. But perhaps unfairly. I link to a great interview with Speth here. Although he doesn't specifically mention third parties, I get the impression he would be open-minded enough to consider anything that could provide a spark to the "environmental revolution". Unless you know otherwise. (Does he know as much as you about multicultural organizing? Probably not.)
I certainly support Green Party activities but I wouldn't bet the house that a third party, even one tied to a dynamic, grassroots movement is going to be our savior. Surely we will need to encourage movement on all fronts (individual, community, municipality, national and international governments, etc.).
Meanwhile, you don't seem to offer any sort of parallel criticism of Mazzochi. What sort of socialist was he? How would he go about organizing the economy differently than Speth? Would he advocate nationalizing or "socializing" industry? Or would he advocate bringing workers and community representatives onto corporate boards, as a transitional strategy (perhaps, not differently than Speth)? What were his views on economic growth and the relation to ecological destruction?
I take it your point is to push Speth more to the left. But I wonder more what each of these men could have learned from the other.
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