The Greens Have It Right: An Ecological Society is The Alternative to the Madness of Capitalism [1]

In response to reading David Harvey (2018, Oxford University Press) Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason

Charles Posa McFadden The Green Social Democrat, Fall 2018

Among the evident intents and accomplishments of Karl Marx’s meticulous 19th century examination of Capital was to reveal

• the exploitation of labor in the production of commodities as the source of profit within capitalism, with the profits shared among the capitalists operating in the essential sectors of a capitalist economy, [2]
• internal contradictions within the political economy of Capital as causal of economic crises, and
• the long-term tendencies of the capitalist system, including the impoverishment of the working class relative to the capitalist class, decline in the rate of profit from investment in the productive economy, concentration and centralization of wealth over time, and deterioration of nature’s capacity to sustain humanity, among others.

Like all scientists, Marx’s study of Capital, including what to look at, how to look at it, and what to expect, was shaped by his theoretical perspective, including dialectical materialist philosophy and historical materialism as a theory of human societal evolution, both developed by Marx prior to his in-depth study of Capital. Central to his application of this perspective to the study of Capital was the view that communism was the alternative to capitalism and that the industrial working class was the principal instrument for bringing this transformation about.

The Manifesto of the Communist Party, co-authored by 29 year old Karl Marx and 27 year old Frederick Engels in late 1847 and first published in 1848, declares within its first paragraphs that “the history of all hitherto society is the history of class struggles” and one third of the way through, as part of the conclusion of its review of the development of capitalism, concludes, “Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a genuinely revolutionary class.” [3]

Indeed, whenever and wherever detachments of the working class have risen in such numbers as are sufficient to challenge the continuing rule of the capitalist class, they have inspired belief that the working class might, in its own collective self-interest, be the instrument for moving beyond capitalism, taking the lead in building an alternative to capitalism. But that result, so far, has not been the case in any enduring sense.

Capitalism has so far maintained its global dominance, notwithstanding temporarily successful revolutions, varying in spatial extent from the Paris Commune of 1871 to the post World War II global alliance of Communist Party-led states, and in duration from several weeks in Paris in 1871 to over seventy years in the case of the USSR.

In each instance, capitalism retained its dominance, at first regionally and ultimately globally, based largely on genocide of the First Nations, the slave labour of Africans and others of colour, and the wage-labour of the working class (wage and debt slavery). The principal ideological strategy of the ruling capitalist class has been divide-and-rule of the working class within and between countries. The continuing success of the capitalist class in the face of recurring economic crises and environmental degradations owes largely to the latter. Capitalism is now reliant on its accelerating exploitation of nature to bribe current generations of working people at the expense of future generations. For this reason alone, the environmental crisis cannot be addressed successfully while capitalism prevails.

Part of the failure of the revolutionaries of the 20th century to achieve enduring post-capitalist societies can arguably be traced back to Marx’s analytical focus on industrial production. Marx’s intent (and arguably a principal accomplishment) was to trace the creation of surplus value (and therefore also of profits) to the exploitation of workers engaged in the production of commodities. As part of this analysis, Marx made a distinction between “productive” and “unproductive” workers. By “productive” he meant productive of surplus value (profits), rather than the more common connotation of “useful” products and services. The confusion between these two connotations, however, appears to have been consequential.

This first order approximation in the analysis of capitalism made eminent sense in 19th century England, which Marx used as his laboratory for conducting his analysis. Workers engaged directly in the industrial production of goods were more easily organized and far out-numbered wage workers engaged in providing public and private services essential to goods production (including, for example, education and science). Marxian revolutionaries achieved their initial successes by focussing on the political organization of industrial workers, based on several strategic grounds, including the socially cooperative nature of their work, their recruitment from that part of the population most likely to be without independent means of subsistence, the large numbers of industrial workers assembled in single locations and the disruptive consequences for profit generation of industrial work stoppages.

But continuing along this same path has become a principal source of weakness of the labor movement, particularly in the more developed countries, where otherwise the necessary conditions for moving beyond capitalism (such as labor productivity, literacy and numeracy levels, and digital communication) are over-ripe. Instead, in self-defense, the ruling elites who benefit most from capitalism have decentralized the essential elements of a productive economy across political boundaries and sectors of the economy, including allocation of roles between public and private sectors and between the production of goods and the provision of services upon which goods production is dependent. The intended result is a race to the bottom in the rights of workers and environmental regulations, within and between countries. Only through a corresponding organization of the working class across these barriers can a successful struggle be waged, one capable of reversing the current spiral downwards for humanity and a life-supporting natural environment on Earth.

Of course, the primary explanation for the failure of revolutionary movements to achieve enduring social transformation during the 20th century cannot be ascribed to limitations in Marx’s 19th century analysis. Marx is responsible neither for the success of capitalism in the 20th century nor for misinterpretations of his work. Capitalism proved more enduring than he might have imagined, and revolutionary theory and practice has remained less developed than is apparently needed. Re-examining the past considering Marx’s historical materialist theory serves to remind us of the logical possibilities for the future, including:

• reform within the existing mode of production,
• for class societies, societal collapse through the mutual destruction of the contending classes,
• return to prior modes of production, especially under deteriorating environmental circumstances in the absence of new, adaptive technology, and
• replacement of the existing mode of production by a new one better able to take advantage of new technology and otherwise adapt to changed environmental circumstances.

There is some evidence for each of these possibilities within recorded history, for example:

• the transition from competitive capitalism in the 18th century to monopolistic capitalism in the 20th and, arguably, a current transition from nation-state bound capitalism to the increasing power of transnational Capital able to escape effective control by nation-state governments, [4] 
• collapses of early agricultural societies in the face of environmental exhaustion, as in the many examples in the history of advanced civilizations in meso-America,
• the current turn of capitalism to a reliance on debt slavery and militarisation of society, which suggests at least a powerful tendency towards the return to pre-capitalist forms of class society, namely slavery and feudalism, and
• of course, the transformation of feudalism, characterized by the antagonism between feudal lords and feudal serfs, replaced by capitalism, led by the then emerging bourgeoisie, a new class, not essential to feudalism.

As Marx and Engels became better acquainted with the existence of communal societies of ancient origin (particularly in Russia and America), they began to amend some of their early arguments (see my third footnote), but unfortunately not in a manner that caught the attention of successive generations of revolutionaries inspired by their writing. Marx’s adherents have in the main clung to the concept of the working class as both the revolutionary force and the source of the revolutionary vision that would bring into existence a communal alternative to capitalism. While the former remains self-evidently true (given that the vast majority of the people in all countries today depend on income from wage labor), the latter is not so evidently the case.

Instead of working class struggle per se, it is the continuing struggle of the indigenous peoples for their right to communal practices and relationships with nature and our common shared communal heritage, reflected in the role of language and even in our DNA, that is today providing a vision for the alternative to capitalism and its excessive exploitation, unequal distribution and misuse of the free gifts of human nature and the natural environment. This heritage also includes a profound historical precedent for a bottom-up, radical form of democracy within a globally networked economy. Indeed, it can only be the people themselves, divested of pro-capitalist illusions, acting in solidarity with all others oppressed within the present globalized capitalist system, who can overcome the existential threat capitalism now poses to humanity and bring into existence a globalized classless ecological civilization, one at peace with nature, enabling cooperative relations to prevail. [5]

So, why do so many Marxists appear to be slow in getting this right, the present author included?

Perhaps more than the other evolutionary theories advanced during Marx’s lifetime, including those in biology and geology, Marx’s evolutionary theory of human society (historical materialism) and his philosophical perspective (dialectical materialism) have encountered ferocious resistance from those whose material wealth, social position or belief systems were challenged by these ideas. The adherents of Marxism have had to spend more time on the preservation and defense of his theoretical work than on its development.

A necessary focus on defense has resulted in less than adequate attention by Marx’s adherents to careful examination of his work in the context in which it was developed. This focus has also meant insufficient attention to systemic variables that became more prominent in their effects during the century and one half after Marx’s lifetime. Among these are such variables of capitalist re-production as the role of

• government (the state) and scientific knowledge,
• services in relation to goods production,
• concentration of ownership to a level that permits price-fixing by tacit accord among the dominant enterprises in a given field,
• the role of finance capital within capitalism,
• internationalization to the level of transnational corporations able to subordinate nation-states to a race to the bottom in environmental regulation and enforcement of human rights, and
• the finite nature of the Earth’s biosphere as a home for humanity. [6]

Believing that all prior societies were characterized by class struggle, Marx, in his analysis of Capital, treated the commons (nature, including human nature) as a gift to capital, rather than the remaining resource base for a co-existing, but politically subordinate, communal mode of production. [7] Instead of examining Capital in relation to its opposite, the communal mode of production, Marx engaged his readers in looking at capitalism through the eyes of a capitalist, one inclined to be more objective about the system than the more typical pro-capitalist. The approach Marx took to Capital, emphasizing labor exploitation at the point of production within the industrial production of goods, may in small part help to explain the results Marxists obtained when forming governments. [8]

An alternative emphasis on the relationship of capitalism to the totality of nature leads more directly to the defense and expansion of the commons, that is to a fully communal mode of production as the alternative to capitalism. This emphasis makes Greens candidates for playing leading roles in the transition to a system beyond capitalism. [9]

Of course, Marx did not have the advantage of hindsight, nor did he live long enough to complete the more thorough study of capitalism that he had planned. Given the daunting complexity of real social systems, he was wise to reduce the number of variables to consider in his first approximation. But unfortunately, his insights into the destructive nature of capitalism are often overlooked by those who can see no alternative. Without a clear view of the alternative, those exploited and oppressed by Capital are left trapped by what today amounts to its sheer madness. Needed above all else is the defense and expansion of the commons as the only route to a future beyond capitalism, that is, to any future at all. [10]

Foremost among those scholars who have kept Marx’s work alive for consideration by current generations of learner-activists is David Harvey. He has done so both through application and extension of Marx’s work to contemporary issues and through examination and teaching of Marx’s writing on Capital. Drawing also upon writing by Marx that has only recently become available and subjecting the total to insightful critique, Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason is Harvey’s consummate achievement in Marxian scholarship. I believe it can be fruitfully read and re-read by both those new to Marx’s writing on economics and those updating or applying Marx’s work to contemporary developments.

Nevertheless, it may be more efficacious for visualizing and thus achieving a future beyond capitalism to view capitalism in relation to its co-existing modes of production, each of which continues to play a role within the now globally dominant capitalist mode of production.

The alternative to all forms of exploitative class relationships is the communal mode of production. Dominant for over 95% of human history, it continues to underwrite all class modes of production that have followed. None of these latter could have survived their own internal contradictions without the continuing role played by the communal mode of production in humanity’s relationship to nature. Its cultural characteristics are generosity, sociality, altruism and self-sacrifice for the common good. [11] The economic realm of this mode of production includes what remains of the commons. It is no coincidence that its distinguishing political color is Green.

The advent and dominance during the Holocene era of slave, feudal and ultimately capitalist relationships over co-existing communal social relations is temporal, corresponding to a technologically accessible surplus of nature’s gifts during the exceptionally generous but brief Holocene geological era. Human population expanded accordingly during this era. But the Holocene is coming to its end, brought about by the over-exploitation of nature that is inevitable under capitalism. The continuation of capitalism therefore equates to an existential crisis for humanity. [12] We will have a future only by expanding the communal mode of production at the expense of capitalism and of all other exploitative social relationships.

For background and further elaboration and development of these arguments see the latest iteration of Towards a Green Social Democratic Alternative to Capitalism cowritten by Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden, posted on their website, www.greensocialdemocracy.org.

Notes:

[1] See Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams (2017, Monthly Review Press) Creating an Ecological Society: Towards a Revolutionary Transformation for a contemporary argument for working toward an ecological civilization.

[2] Depicted by David Harvey (2018, Oxford) Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason, Figure 2, p.6.

[3] This claim with respect to the history of society as one of class struggles was corrected after Marx's death by Engels footnote to the 1988 English edition of The Communist Manifesto, clarifying that the intended reference was to "all written history" and including a summary of the "discovery" of communal societies across Eurasia and America since the Manifesto was written.

[4] For a thorough account of the latter, see: William I. Robinson (2014, Cambridge University Press) Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity.

[5] It is emphasized here that the new society is classless (the negation of capitalism, a mode of production consisting of an exploiting capitalist class and an exploited working class, manifested in an employer - employee relationship in which the former has the decisive decision-making power). A successful transformation to a dominant mode of production can only occur through the agency of the people themselves, in their political majority, not through the representatives of a class bound to capitalism. The communal mode has no employers and no employees.

[6] This isn't to say that there has not been extensive research and writing by Marxists on all these issues. Those new to this discussion are encouraged to see Towards a Green Social Democratic Alternative to Capitalism, www.greensocialdemocracy.org, particularly Chapter 3, and to follow up with the reading recommendations including within the text of this introductory work.

[7] The commons as a gift of nature to capital is represented by Harvey in his Figure 2, p.6.

[8] See Chapter 6 of Towards a Green Social Democratic Alternative to Capitalism, www.greensocialdemocracy.org, for our take on this issue, and the included recommendations for further reading.

[9] See the Charter of the Global Greens (2017) www.globalgreens.org/files/Global%20Greens%20Charter%%202017.pdf

[10] There should be no doubt that Marx examined Capital with a clear vision of the alternative. Those interested in knowing what his vision was, particularly as an antidote to the frequent distortion of that vision from friends and foes alike, should read Peter Hudis (2012, Haymarket Books) Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism.

[11] Helpful references to this history include Chris Harman (1994), Engels and the origins of human society (https://marxists.org/1994/xx/engels.htm) in which Harman fills some of the gap between Frederick Engels' account of human society and more contemporary research and Andrew Shryock and Daniel Lord Smail (Eds., 2011) Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present.

[12] For the geological dimension of this crisis, see Ian Angus (2016, Monthly Review Press) Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil capitalism and the crisis of the earth system.

For those who prefer a word copy of this article, with footnotes at the bottom of the page to which they refer, the author would be happy to oblige: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .