Class trends in the environmental movement
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 9:56 pm
Class trends in the environmental movement
Not all that glitters is green
by Joseph Green in Communist Voice #45, November 2010
Today it's become fashionable for politicians and corporations speak in the name of the environment. How infuriating it is to see the worst corporate polluters put out "green" ads! Even the infamous oil company BP takes part in this game, and likes to present itself as "Beyond Petroleum".
So it's important that some activists have put out a chart Know Who You're Dealing with...(a Continuum of Types of Organizations Affecting Environmental Matters), which is reprinted here on page 33 with their permission (but they are not responsible for any of my views). ... at one end, there's the corporate polluters and their front groups, and at the other end are the "funded, but generally uncompromised" environmental groups and "largely unfunded, grassroots" group, on the other. (There are also totally unfunded groups based on the working class, such as ourselves, but the chart leaves these out, probably in order to avoid dealing directly with political issues.) ...
Not many people will be surprised that the oil companies and other corporate liars, no matter what they say in commercials, are ravaging the environment. So what's especially important in this chart are the categories in the middle. It refers to "corporate controlled environmental groups" and "highly" or "moderately" compromised environmental groups. Many of these groups have big names and are touted by the establishment press as the real voices of environmentalism, and the chart characterizes them as either "corporate controlled", or "compromised" by their connections with the polluters. ...
So the time is long past when, no matter what solution one advocated, by simply talking about the need to be green one could make a contribution to saving the planet's biosphere. A large part of the bourgeoisie has learned to talk green. ...
But direct funding is only one of the ways in which the compromised environmental groups are bound to the polluters. Some of the compromised groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, won't take funds directly from the corporations. But the EDF seeks common ground with the environmental criminals as far as legislation and lobbying; this is supposedly the way to get things done. mmm
The establishment environment groups think that this is realistic politics, but who's using who? ...
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
There are also activist groups which are quite different from the stuffy bourgeois establishment organizations. But they face a good deal of pressure to keep them in line. . . .
The result is a struggle between the push from a mass of activists for serious change in the economy, and the restraints of bourgeois environmentalism. ... aside from funding, some activist groups end up compromised because they are influenced by the general bourgeois standpoint. They may oppose neo-liberalism, but think that all it takes to overcome neo-liberalism is to have more government spending on certain programs. They may oppose cap and trade, but support the carbon tax, which is simply a different type of market measure. A certain section of the activist movement says directly it opposes market measures, but yet it does not see the carbon tax as a market measure, and it believes believe that "true cost pricing" is a radical departure from the market. ...
Build a working class environmental movement
The only force that can provide a consistent counterweight to the corporations, and to the government run by the bourgeoisie, is the working class. But for this to be so, the working class has to provide not just numbers for the environmental movement, but also a working-class standpoint for the movement. ...
A radical environmental movement shouldn't simply be more militant than the establishment groups, but it should fight for a more effective environmental strategy. It shouldn't fight for the same market measures as the establishment groups, but avoiding their compromises. It shouldn't, say, fight for a cap and trade bill, albeit one unwatered down by the many compromises with the corporations which appeared in the last congressional bills. Instead it should put forward a better, truly effective, environmental strategy; it should oppose the futile cap and trade and carbon tax proposals; and it should put forward the need for comprehensive environmental regulation and planning. ...
A serious working class environmental movement doesn't mean one organized around the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy which leads the present-day American union movement, but around rank-and-file workers. It would be good, of course, if unions took a serious interest in environmental matters, but this would require an upsurge of rank-and-file pressure to transform the present situation in the unions. Today's union bureaucracy, insofar as it considers environmental issues at all, is linked up with bourgeois environmentalism and trying to find common interests with business leaders.
Today there are militant activists that are looking for a real fight against environmental devastation. There are groups that are not compromised by ties to the large corporations. But these groups don't yet have a class viewpoint towards the differences in the movement. And, as can be seen by the example of Greenpeace, it isn't sufficient to have militant actions against the polluters in order to be free from corporate seduction. It is necessary to go further and see the class issues involved in the movement.
Full text at http://www.communistvoice.org/45cClassTrends.html.
Not all that glitters is green
by Joseph Green in Communist Voice #45, November 2010
- Introduction
- The seduction of the movement
- Class differences in the environmental movement
- Build a working class environmental movement
- Notes
Today it's become fashionable for politicians and corporations speak in the name of the environment. How infuriating it is to see the worst corporate polluters put out "green" ads! Even the infamous oil company BP takes part in this game, and likes to present itself as "Beyond Petroleum".
So it's important that some activists have put out a chart Know Who You're Dealing with...(a Continuum of Types of Organizations Affecting Environmental Matters), which is reprinted here on page 33 with their permission (but they are not responsible for any of my views). ... at one end, there's the corporate polluters and their front groups, and at the other end are the "funded, but generally uncompromised" environmental groups and "largely unfunded, grassroots" group, on the other. (There are also totally unfunded groups based on the working class, such as ourselves, but the chart leaves these out, probably in order to avoid dealing directly with political issues.) ...
Not many people will be surprised that the oil companies and other corporate liars, no matter what they say in commercials, are ravaging the environment. So what's especially important in this chart are the categories in the middle. It refers to "corporate controlled environmental groups" and "highly" or "moderately" compromised environmental groups. Many of these groups have big names and are touted by the establishment press as the real voices of environmentalism, and the chart characterizes them as either "corporate controlled", or "compromised" by their connections with the polluters. ...
So the time is long past when, no matter what solution one advocated, by simply talking about the need to be green one could make a contribution to saving the planet's biosphere. A large part of the bourgeoisie has learned to talk green. ...
But direct funding is only one of the ways in which the compromised environmental groups are bound to the polluters. Some of the compromised groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, won't take funds directly from the corporations. But the EDF seeks common ground with the environmental criminals as far as legislation and lobbying; this is supposedly the way to get things done. mmm
The establishment environment groups think that this is realistic politics, but who's using who? ...
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
There are also activist groups which are quite different from the stuffy bourgeois establishment organizations. But they face a good deal of pressure to keep them in line. . . .
The result is a struggle between the push from a mass of activists for serious change in the economy, and the restraints of bourgeois environmentalism. ... aside from funding, some activist groups end up compromised because they are influenced by the general bourgeois standpoint. They may oppose neo-liberalism, but think that all it takes to overcome neo-liberalism is to have more government spending on certain programs. They may oppose cap and trade, but support the carbon tax, which is simply a different type of market measure. A certain section of the activist movement says directly it opposes market measures, but yet it does not see the carbon tax as a market measure, and it believes believe that "true cost pricing" is a radical departure from the market. ...
Build a working class environmental movement
The only force that can provide a consistent counterweight to the corporations, and to the government run by the bourgeoisie, is the working class. But for this to be so, the working class has to provide not just numbers for the environmental movement, but also a working-class standpoint for the movement. ...
A radical environmental movement shouldn't simply be more militant than the establishment groups, but it should fight for a more effective environmental strategy. It shouldn't fight for the same market measures as the establishment groups, but avoiding their compromises. It shouldn't, say, fight for a cap and trade bill, albeit one unwatered down by the many compromises with the corporations which appeared in the last congressional bills. Instead it should put forward a better, truly effective, environmental strategy; it should oppose the futile cap and trade and carbon tax proposals; and it should put forward the need for comprehensive environmental regulation and planning. ...
A serious working class environmental movement doesn't mean one organized around the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy which leads the present-day American union movement, but around rank-and-file workers. It would be good, of course, if unions took a serious interest in environmental matters, but this would require an upsurge of rank-and-file pressure to transform the present situation in the unions. Today's union bureaucracy, insofar as it considers environmental issues at all, is linked up with bourgeois environmentalism and trying to find common interests with business leaders.
Today there are militant activists that are looking for a real fight against environmental devastation. There are groups that are not compromised by ties to the large corporations. But these groups don't yet have a class viewpoint towards the differences in the movement. And, as can be seen by the example of Greenpeace, it isn't sufficient to have militant actions against the polluters in order to be free from corporate seduction. It is necessary to go further and see the class issues involved in the movement.
Full text at http://www.communistvoice.org/45cClassTrends.html.