The Search for a Mass Ecological Constituency

Abstract

A core requirement for addressing the ecological crisis will be to reverse the expansionist thrust, which is inherent in capitalism. I explore the political conditions for achieving such a reversal, asking specifically on what basis a vast popular movement inspired by this goal may emerge. Because the drive to economic accumulation arises from the class interest of capital, a coherent and effective opposition to it must reflect a class position opposed to capital. In this sense, environmentalism is a class issue. After noting earlier theoretical expressions of this insight, I review (focusing on the US case) key expressions of explicit working-class environmentalism. How can such awareness be extended and amplified? Recognizing the diversity of constituencies that a working-class perspective must embody, I examine environmentalist dimensions of the demands associated with particular sectors (notably, the anti-racist and the feminist movements). It becomes apparent that whereas the legitimacy of such demands has attained wide formal acceptance, the related challenge to concentrated economic power continues to be marginalized and even stigmatized. An important prop to such stigmatization in the United States is the persistent credence accorded, in public discourse, to pseudo-scientific denials of the environmental crisis. But a more insidious obstacle to anti-capitalist mobilization is the contention, on the part of self-proclaimed anti-“catastrophists,” that although radical social change is desirable, advocating it as part of an ecological agenda is counterproductive to the near-term task of promoting environmental reforms within the capitalist setting. I argue, on the contrary, that theorizing and organizing for a socialist alternative is necessary not only for long-term purposes, but also as a basis for identifying immediate steps to be taken. I suggest that a basis for reconciling urgent practical measures with society-wide transformation may be found in the tradition of struggles for worker control.