Socialist Action /December 1999
As I write this article, the demonstrations against the global crimes
of capitalism are taking place in Seattle. One thing is clear as we approach
a new millennium-the future of humanity is in doubt.
Even the best estimates project that the catastrophic effects of global
warming will occur within 50 years. Fifty years till the ice caps melt and
the rise in sea level destroys most cities and most of the industrial infrastructure.
The current increasing rate of worldwide pollution of the land, sea,
and the air is another threat to humanity's future.
War has been a constant aspect of capitalist society. AIDS is still a
worldwide epidemic, and starvation is found throughout the world. Capitalism
has gone throughout the world like the four horsemen of the apocalypse bringing
war, famine, pestilence, and death.
Some are projecting the need for a kinder, gentler, "natural,"
and moral capitalism to stem the present course of environmental destruction.
They are hoping for capitalism to reform itself. But it must be understood
that the destruction of the environment is "natural" capitalism.
To stop the erosion of a sustainable environment for humanity will require
the elimination of capitalist competition, an elimination of the profit
motive.
In the industrialized countries, laws have been won to regulate some
of the abuses of capitalism in its natural drive for profits. For example,
in the United States, child labor was finally stopped after the rise of
the CIO in the 1930s and the civil rights movement in the '60s. That has
not stopped the newly "moral" United States corporations from
using children for profit anywhere else in the world or paying a living
wage to the world's workers and farmers.
Imperialism, in this period, is trying to completely conquer (globalize)
the world. Globalization means that the conditions of the world masses and
the environment will eventually also become the conditions of the workers
and farmers in the imperialist countries. In this country and the rest of
the world the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
The basic argument for "natural capitalism" is that it will
have to become humane or it will no longer exist. The problem is that capitalism
always is unnatural and inhumane.
Capitalism came into existence on an inhumane basis. Karl Marx wrote
about the "genesis of the industrial capitalist" in "Capital,"
Volume One, Part VIII, Chapter 31:
"....The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation,
enslavement, and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning
of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into
a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy
dawn of the era of capitalist production.
"If money ... comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain
on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore,
with blood and dirt."
Simply put, a leopard does not change its spots. Environmental destruction
has become globally intertwined within our society, and the globalization
of capitalism has speeded up the destruction of the planet. Under the conditions
of global capitalist competition, it is not economically "feasible"
to invest the capital necessary to reverse this destruction.
In the present world, the rights of the capitalists to make a profit
are in direct conflict with our basic rights. In this sense, the capitalist
system has become a threat to humanity.
Since environmental illness and destruction are a global concern, it
requires all of humanity to act collectively, in our overall interests for
our survival as a species, to correct the problem and to remove the obstacle
of capitalism. It requires a society where humanity has social, economic,
and political control over the entire environment.
Such a society, a socialist society, is needed to ensure that all decisions
affecting the environment are under the democratic control of humankind
so that the production of goods will be done for the needs and survival
of humanity instead of the production and the destruction of humanity and
other species for profit.
With common ownership of the means of production, common control, and
common protection of all property and wealth, science and society will be
in harmony with the ecosystem and humanity's future.
Socialist Action /December 1999 |