green syndicalism

By Graham Jones - Red Pepper, December 2016

Editor's Note: socialism here is inclusive of Marxian and other forms of socialism (including anarchism).

2016 has been a chaotic year. Twice in the space of 6 months, we have been left reeling by a political event of global significance, with both the Brexit vote in June and the election of Trump in November. In both cases, we knew of the dates in advance, and the possibility of the outcome. And yet in neither case has the left been fully prepared for these moments. We are, as always, on the back foot.

In the weeks following Trump's victory, many arguments have broken out over what is the best way for the left to move forward. Do we put all our energies into supporting radical electoral candidates like Jeremy Corbyn, or is the rise of fascism the final nail in the social democratic coffin? Do we focus on building egalitarian economic alternatives in the cracks, or smashing the state head-on? Or maybe we just ride it out, just try our best to build a culture of care for each other, to help us survive in this terrifying world before a better one comes along.

These various ways of approaching social change tend to correspond to broad divisions on the left. For some, like certain revolutionary socialists, direct action to disrupt or destroy systems is the way. Others stay away from the state, creating their own economic alternatives which aim to take over in the future – in workers cooperatives, Transition towns, or creating the 'digital commons'. A more interpersonal approach is taken in the formation of communities of care, such as among LGBT people, disabled people and people of colour, to try to create spaces and practices which enable marginalised people to survive in the here and now. And of course there's the electoral route, currently en vogue among the radical left in Britain, aiming to support a social democratic candidate to take power through mainstream electoral means and reform its way to socialism. Drawing on and altering Erik Olin Wright's typology of strategic logics, we might refer to these as Smashing, Building, Healing and Taming. Whilst these rarely occur in complete isolation from each other, the categories are useful for focusing our minds on the pros and cons of different approaches.

Taken alone, all of these strategies have failed. But all of them have also had their successes. An alternative is to combine their strengths and weaknesses into a coherent meta-strategy, aiming to unify the left around a common strategic framework whilst maintaining the autonomy of groups within it. This is not simply a vague 'diversity of tactics', but an analysis of how those different tactics and broader strategies can feed into one another. What follows is a proposal for such a framework; not a blueprint to be dogmatically followed, but an initial idea to be tried, tested, and adapted.

The vehicle for this meta-strategy is an ‘ecology of organisations’.

By Gordon Peters - Climate and Capitalism, November 29, 2016

In this short paper I am taking as a starting point the ecological rift, or metabolic rift in Marx’s own phrase, at the heart of the way in which capitalism appropriates the natural world and alienates humanity from its species being and from nature in the process. This is elaborated at considerable length by John Bellamy Foster and Brent Clark (but not exclusively by them) and what I hope to do here is while accepting their recovery of ecological balance and its disturbance in Marx, give an overview of an ecological praxis related to that theorization. What does restoring ecological value look like?

In their article in Monthly Review, Bellamy Foster and Clark mention—although they do not explore—two useful concepts to challenge the metabolic rift and the separation of humanity from nature, accelerating as it is with capital accumulation and reproduction.[1]  One is metabolic restoration and the other is sustainable co-evolutionary ecology. I think it is worth exploring the social and political interventions which are called for by these concepts. To do so we need to see clearly what is happening, what processes are taking place, what is irreversible, what can be refused, what can be overcome.

I want to look at four important tendencies in modern capitalism and what can constitute ecological challenges which are not themselves already determined by capitalist relations, or are likely to be re-shaped in managing capitalism to maintain its power or hold.  These are:

1. Automation and precarity
2. Despoliation and species reduction
3. Commodification and fetishism –reification
4. Ecological debt and unequal exchange

They are discussed only in broad outline as there is vast empirical evidence now in many places, and the point here is to orientate a praxis.

By Nick Engelfried - Waging Nonviolence, November 22, 2016

The climate movement woke on Nov. 9 to a new reality few of us had expected to be faced with: the specter of a Trump presidency and perhaps the most anti-environment administration and Congress in U.S. history. Suddenly our job of stopping new oil pipelines and fracking wells, preventing the construction of fossil fuel plants and shutting down existing fossil fuel infrastructure felt much harder.

Although the possibility of a Trump presidency had loomed for months, polls consistently showing Hillary Clinton in the lead made it seem remote. Many climate organizations laid their plans based on the presumption that they would most likely be dealing with a Clinton administration. “Assuming that as a nation we’ve managed to elect Hillary Clinton,” 350.org founder Bill McKibben wrote in an Election Day email to supporters, “we’ll need to start pressuring her from the earliest moments of her presidency.”

What the polls failed to account for was unexpectedly low voter turnout, caused in part by voter disaffection with both presidential candidates and a growing nationwide frustration with the existing political system. Despite Clinton winning the popular vote, low progressive turnout in key swing states granted Trump enough Electoral College votes to claim the presidency.

“We at The Climate Mobilization were not expecting a President Trump,” wrote leaders of The Climate Mobilization, a group that advocates for a Word War II-scale deployment of clean energy to fight climate change. “His election shows us that this country is desperate for change, but is still deeply in denial about the truth of the climate emergency.”

If there is any silver lining from the Trump victory, it would seem to be the evidence that vast numbers of people are hungry for a radical shift in politics. But Trump wants to take us in the opposite direction of progress on climate change. During his campaign, he pledged to scrap the Paris climate deal and the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. He promised to re-start approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and resurrect a dying coal industry. And his suite of potential cabinet nominees include climate science deniers and oil drilling proponents.

To many activists, the coming Trump presidency calls to mind the darkest days of the George W. Bush administration, when fossil fuel industries were basically invited to write national policy. But much has changed in the U.S. climate movement since the days of Bush. The last six years have seen the birth of climate campaigns that are bigger, bolder and more direct-action oriented than any environmental movement in decades.

Although this recent movement growth occurred during the Obama administration, its origins can be traced to a time when the climate movement was reeling from a series of shocking defeats. Obama’s campaign promises in 2008 had caused mainstream environmental groups to welcome his administration with the expectation of unprecedented progress. But this dream soon faded.

By Deborah S. Rogers - Common Dreams, November 23, 2016

Many have issued clarion calls for resistance against the neofascist headed for the White House, his odious henchmen in tow. Few, however, have outlined all the steps needed to block Trump’s repugnant agenda and build a united movement that can upend the power dynamic in this country. Here’s my list: two popular suggestions, and four that take us well outside our comfort zone.

First, we need to have each other’s backs. Yes, I know, many have already said this. Now we need to make it concrete. We need hotlines, safe houses, support groups, and community meetings to share experiences and identify needs. Some will need body guards. We need methods of networking that exclude informants. We need to define a new ethic of intervention in public spaces when we see something that needs to be stopped. We need to exchange information across identity lines so we know what’s happening to others, and can ask for or offer help. We need an early warning system.

Second, we need to resist everything Trump, whether executive, legislative, judicial, national, local, corporate or social. Resistance can’t just be a catchy slogan; we need to actually do what it takes. Block it. Tie it up in court. Do an end run around it. Defund it. Walk out. Strike. Don’t cooperate. Refuse to comply. Gene Sharp, the famous non-violent resistance theorist, has written books on how ordinary people can make it impossible for governments to act against the public interest by withdrawing their consent and cooperation.

We need to get involved in decision-making at every level. By the time a national-level candidate is running, all the important decisions were made long ago. Join (or create) a political party at the local level. Run for mayor, city council, county commissioner or school board. Get involved at the state level – run for office or intervene in meetings of the public utilities commission, water permitting board, or legislative committees. Economic decision-making may be even more important. Join or create a workers’ or consumers’ cooperative. Push to set up a community or state bank. Establish a neighborhood small-scale renewable energy grid. If enough of us get involved at the local level, together we can change the political and economic equation throughout the entire nation.

We need to take back our time and money for political engagement. Public participation used to be commonplace in the US. But now, with worsening economic status and growing material expectations, most of us are working so long and hard that there is virtually no time left for political engagement. The people who can fully engage in politics now are those whose time is paid for as a candidate, consultant, party operative, or within a non-profit. Yet if we depend on corporate wealth and private foundations to make our political engagement possible, we have already lost. The only realistic way for most of us to gain more time is through reduced material consumption and increased collaboration. We need to stop buying excess stuff – donate to independent media or kick-ass political organizing instead! We need to learn how to share jobs, housing, vehicles, entertainment, childcare, eldercare, and all the other things that people think they have to do or enjoy individually. It’s time to break out of the rat race and find time for many more of us to be involved in community, state and national political life.

We need to build bridges with those who think differently from us. The right, despite serving the worst corporate masters, has successfully recruited large numbers of working people who are dissatisfied with the status quo. The Democrats, meanwhile, have abandoned them, while progressives have been unwilling to reach out and establish a dialogue with the white working class in recent years. In low-key conversations, I’ve been repeatedly amazed to find out that my right-leaning neighbors are mad about many of the same economic trends and abuses of power, and wish for many of the same outcomes. Yes, vocal Trump supporters tend to have views that can only be described as hateful. Once you identify common ground, however, you will learn when you can call on them to help fight an important battle. Even more powerful would be organizing to protect their economic survival when Trump throws them under the bus, as he inevitably will. Working toward shared goals can lead to increased tolerance and, eventually, respect. Change is possible.

We need to shift to a politics based on solidarity rather than identity. Wait—don’t we need to take a stand against Trump’s virulently racist, sexist, anti-immigrant and homophobic agenda? Yes. But going along with their divide-and-conquer strategy will only make things worse. We need to focus on building a united front that is strong enough to take on an authoritarian government backed by powerful corporations. If progressives remain Balkanized based on identity and refuse to join forces because of very real, long-standing and legitimate grievances, we are done for. We need to form coalitions, networks, and political parties that unite, not divide. We can take on Trump and address these urgent identity-based grievances in the process, by coming together in solidarity around common agendas. Will there be huge fights about what that common agenda is; what kind of internal decision-making to use; which policies to promote? Of course! It’s incredibly difficult to work through political and social differences. But it’s absolutely essential if we intend to take back power.

A quick fix is neither possible nor desirable in the urgent need to prevent Trump and his ilk from ramming through their devastating agenda. Ultimately, we can succeed only if we unite in solidarity, moving out of the "protest paradigm" and learning to exercise the power we have. Let’s get started now, before it’s too late!

By Bruce Lesnick - Socialist Action, November 23, 2016

On Nov. 18, the Obama administration banned oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans for the next five years, while allowing drilling projects to go forward in the Cook Inlet (southwest of Anchorage, Alaska) and in the Gulf of Mexico. The media have noted the strong possibility that when Donald Trump assumes office, his administration would try to rewrite this blueprint in order to ramp up off-shore oil drilling even more.

The environmental movement points out that if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided, the world’s remaining oil and gas deposits must remain in the ground. Yet the U.S. government, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, has ignored these warnings and continues to feed the oil companies’ hunger for profits. In this article, Bruce Lesnick outlines why and how these companies should be taken out of the hands of the billionaire tycoons and nationalized to be run by working people.

We know that human activities are adversely affecting Earth’s climate. Scientists began to draw our attention to the link between fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, and climate in the 1980s. Since then, the evidence for anthropogenic climate change has become overwhelming. All that’s left to debate is what to do about it.

Under the current setup, energy conglomerates that owe their fortunes to fossil fuels have every incentive to dismiss global warming and to cast aspersions on climate change research. The top five oil companies (BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Shell) reported combined profits of $93 billion for 2013. That’s more than the U.S. budget that year for Education ($71.9 billion) or Housing ($46.3 billion.) It’s more than 10 times the federal budget for environmental protection ($8.9 billion). The more coal, oil, and natural gas that get burned, the more the climate is thrown out of whack, and the more these companies are rewarded financially.

If we’re serious about addressing climate change, nationalization of the energy industry must become a central organizing demand. Nationalizing the big energy companies would make all the difference to the fight to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Right from the start, it would eliminate profit from the energy calculus and remove a large pool of money that’s used to manipulate government policy. It would make it possible to embark on a plan for a sustainable energy future, which would focus on the needs of the population and the planet as a whole, rather than on the reckless aggrandizement of a few.

But the issue of nationalization does raise many important questions: Is it moral? Is it legal? How would it work? Is it practical? Should the owners of nationalized industries be compensated?

By Alex Randall - Red Pepper, November 2016

The election of Donald Trump reflects the unraveling of the centre-left across the West, and with it a fragile consensus on climate change. For two decades parties of the centre-left have created narratives about climate change that they do not really believe. They have done this to try and convince their fragile coalition of supporters and to try to bring they’re political opponents on the right into the fold. These attempts have failed.

The centre-left long ago abandoned ‘typical' green messaging in the way it talks about climate change. You don’t hear Obama, Clinton or Justin Trudeau talking about polar bears, sinking Pacific Islands or even climate change as a human rights issue. The go-to arguments of the centre-left (and to some extent centre-right politicians like Germany’s Angela Merkel) are these:

• Climate change will create war, terrorism and migration—it’s a national security issue
• The solutions to climate change could create millions of jobs in manufacturing and industry—in areas hit most by industrial decline
• Tackling climate change is an opportunity for economic growth—there is money to be made by entrepreneurs

How did the centre-left end up making these arguments? And why does no one believe them?

By Michelle Chen - In These Times, November 22, 2016

The one election issue tying together populist voices on the right and left was trade—or so it seemed. Donald Trump’s upset win, fueled in part by Rust Belt rage against free trade deals and globalization, could hand liberals an unexpected opportunity to push a fairer set of trade rules, if they can shift the debate away from Trump's reactionary “bull in a China shop” spectacle and toward a concrete movement to advance a people-centered alternative, based on social-justice principles not return-on-investment.

A group of human rights organizations, including the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), has framed a human rights-based trade agenda requiring signatories to “understand, assess, and address their full effects on human rights, with a particular focus on vulnerable and marginalized groups,” such as women and migrants. Core provisions would include the right to a safe and healthy environment, fair access to medicines and respect for labor and indigenous rights.

The group contends that pending trade deals fail on these basic human rights standards. Such deals include the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would link 12 Pacific Rim nations and was panned by both Trump and Bernie Sanders during the campaign, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which would connect Europe and the United States.

One of Trump's first policy announcements was that he would immediately kill the already-stalled TPP negotiations and, instead, seek to negotiate bilateral trade agreements supposedly more beneficial to the United States. But progressive internationalists, who note that the TPP was likely moribund anyway due to widespread public backlash, warn that Trump’s rhetoric is equally short-sighted.

In a broadly-worded memorandum on a 200-day trade agenda, Trump's camp has laid out a program of deregulation and corporate tax breaks as a way to preserve domestic manufacturing jobs. The president-elect plans to sanction China for violating trade rules and promote “America First” by privileging the enrichment of U.S. corporations and workers above those of Mexico.

Despite its populist spin, Trump’s plan centers on growing multinational monopolies, and by extension, aggravating global inequality, critics say.

“This is a guy who has said U.S. workers are overpaid, that climate change is a hoax and that has no problem buddying up with authoritarian regimes,” says Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the fair-trade coalition Citizens Trade Campaign.

Advocates like Stamoulis see Trump as a continuation of previous administrations' neoliberal agendas. Even if he scraps the TPP and similar deals, his whole business persona embodies the predatory multinational investment that underlies free-trade market liberalism. According to IPS associate fellow Manuel Perez-Rocha, despite his populist veneer, the president-elect will likely “expand free trade and corporate-friendly policies but just with other names.”

A structural challenge to the neoliberal order would involve tackling not only trade policy, but also, for example, labor exploitation and dominance of international financial institutions over Global South economies. Rather than Trump's “'them against us approach,” a left trade analysis should, in Perez-Rocha's view, show “all these problems … are interconnected.”