EcoMarxism: You Might Be A Marxist If . . .

Ecomarxism

Ecomarxism is an anthropocentric view which sharply criticizes western capitalism; ecomarxists claim that a capitalist system negatively influences the relation of humans and nature, and that “democratic and capitalist economies are mutually exclusive from the protection of nature.”

In the mind of Marx, the only way to solve the problem of environmental degradation, and the dreadful conditions of the worker, was through liberation from the capitalist system; Marx’s notion of human emancipation was linked to his vision of overcoming humanities isolation from nature through the development of a socialist society.  For humanity to progress beyond alienation, it is necessary ‘to govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way’, a goal only obtainable with the elimination of capitalism.”

Right-winger James Delingpole, writing in the UK Spectator,  found himself in agreement on many topics with Clare Fox, "a core activist of the Revolutionary Communist Party [who] once published a magazine called Living Marxism ".

Not just about schools [‘Why can’t all our schools be like Eton?’] either. On Islamism, on eco-fascist hysteria, on multiculturalism (a disaster), on GM [genetically modified] crops (the dangers much overrated), and on hunting (rescind the ban) ... In fact, about the only areas I can find where we seriously disagree are immigration, the monarchy and the war on terror. [...]

Does this mean I’m not as right-wing as I thought I was? Well perhaps. Earlier this year I published an ‘Is it me?’ A to Z of anti-PC-culture rants called How To Be Right, and was pleasantly surprised by how many of the lefties I’d set out to offend seemed to agree with me.

Delingpole's experience was similar to mine, when I read an exchange on "recycling" between two of the most dangerous leftists in the universe ... a neo-Marxist academic named James O’Connor (who espouses a Marxist theory that links labor and the greenies) and Marxist journalist Alexander Cockburn. In an article for The Nation. entitled "The Dialectics of Revolution... Uh, Recycling," Cockburn recounted his experience at a socialist seminar on recycling.

One panel I eagerly attended, "Recycling Is a Waste of Time," featured a German, Thomas Deichmann, describing the insane recycling regulations now beleaguering the citizenry of Frankfurt. The case for efficient incineration, he asserted, was overwhelming. Most recycling is an utter waste of time, economically unsound and without benefit for the environment. "We should," he counseled urbanely, "be thinking of more interesting things."

Julia Hailes, "sustainability consultant" to companies such as Marks & Spencer and Shell, author of The New Green Consumer Guide, listened tautly, as did Julie Hill, author of A Zero Waste UK, who gazed at Deichmann as though he were a lead battery in a baby's bath. Hailes mimed, with as much enthusiasm, ... the pleasures of tossing foil into one kitchen bin, a metal bottle top into another, plastic into a third. Recycling, she chirped, made her feel good.

They didn't carry the crowd. A man described sorting green, clear and brown glass into three bins, only to see them all dumped into the same truck. A woman seized the microphone: "I go to the dump with my kid each week to take the rubbish there. Then he goes to school and they do their first day trip, and where do they go?" She paused for effect. "To the dump!" The crowd roared. Mind you, this wasn't a mob of hee-haw Limbaugh-type reactionaries, deriding all collective social efforts to improve the planet. In this and other sessions, their indignation stemmed from a sense that along the road from the grand visions of '67 to the pious sustainability mantras and globe- survivalist waffle of our own phase, the vision of human liberation ... lapsed into variants of resource management and nannyism, with irksome rules and protocols, none of which had anything to do with onslaughts on capitalist ownership and control.

In 1989 I did some interviews on environmentalism and socialism for Z Magazine with left economist James O'Connor. Jim described what he'd told a fellow in the newspaper recycling business: "If you set up a recycling project where your outfit helps to create the conditions to organize social relations of production that make sense, that have to do with fraternity, equality, liberty and justice, etc., etc., then I'll recycle my newspapers. Come and tell me when you have done that.

A.C.: What do you do with your old newspapers?

J.O.: Throw them in the trash. What do you do with yours?

A.C.: Throw them in the trash. Back in Ireland with my mother we leave them out for the man from St. Vincent de Paul who takes them away for some charitable purpose, thereby maintaining social relations in the sorry state they are today, imploring the poor to pray for relief from heaven. And, needless to say, the poor people of my hometown are very glad to have St. Vincent de Paul bail them out in their hour of need.

There is indeed a teaching moment that goes with these tales. Setting aside the absolute exorcism of individual liberty, achievement and wealth that constitutes "American Exceptionalism" when and if mindless proletarians should overthrow capitalism, today's workers are both educated and greedy. Indeed they want to live like millionaires without first having earned their million dollars, but they dislike the mundane tasks imposed by a socialistic bureaucracy. Ironically the government bureaucrats cannot understand such thoughts any more than liberals and moderates can truly understand libertarians and conservatives ... or vice-versa.

But "creeping socialism" had its beginnings in America when Communist political views, that emanated from our labor unions and pinhead academics, greatly influenced FDR's depression-ridden government in the 1930s. Gradually our republican-based government of our founders has become a "mobocracy" that becomes more and more a government out-of-control.

Methinks that the new "Pledge to America" is far too little and too late to turn this tide and put our fiscal house in order. Fixing all problems now requires bigger government, bigger debt, so we concentrate on fixing the "unfixable" and attending to non-existent ecological problems in order that politicians can acquire and retain power. Unfortunately, from the leftist viewpoint,  Ecomarxism is just what the doctor ordered ... and that is precisely the agenda that Obama is pursuing.