A Dominant Capitalism or a Sustainable Environment? Why we can't have both.

A review and recommendation by Karen Doris Howell McFadden and Charles Posa McFadden of Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster (2011, Monthly Review Press) What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism: A citizen's guide to capitalism and the environment.

From Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: "I'm not sure who needs to read this relentlessly persuasive book more: environmentalists who imagine we can solve the ecological crisis without confronting capitalism, or leftists who have yet to recognize the ecological crisis as the highest expression of the capitalist threat. How about both, and then some. Indispensable."

To tantalize the reader, the following are among the ideas further developed by the authors of this citizen's guide:

Preface:

"Ecological economist Herman Daly is well known for emphasizing what he has called the 'Impossibility Theorem' of unlimited economic growth in a limited environment….In this book we are concerned with extending Daly's Impossibility Theorem by introducing what we regard to be its most important corollary: the continuation for any length of time of capitalism, as a grow-or-die system dedicated to unlimited capital accumulation, is itself a flat impossibility." p7

The Planetary Ecological Crisis

"The principal cause of ecological degradation, insisted Rachel Carson, author of the classic work Silent Spring, … is a society that worships 'the gods of speed and quantity, and the quick and easy profit, and out of this idolatry monstrous evils have arisen.'" p25

Business as Usual: The Road to Planetary Destruction

"This kind of inequality – which gives the rich and the super-rich in a country such as the United States ecological footprints sometimes a hundred or a thousand times more than those at the bottom – is only magnified at the global level. It is in fact the drive for greater, and more disproportionate, income and wealth on the part of those at the top of the system by means of ever-greater capital accumulation that keeps the entire economy going under capitalism. To reach a steady-state economy therefore requires going against not only power and wealth, but against the basic logic of capitalism as a system." p35

The Growth Imperative of Capitalism

Referring to the large multinational corporations that dominate the economy, the authors argue "that owners of capital will, as long as such ownership relationships remain, do what they can within their power to maximize the amount of profits they accrue. A stationary state, or steady-state, capitalist economy is only conceivable if separated from the reality of the social, economic, and power relations of capitalism itself." p56

The Environment and Capitalism

"…In this economic system people are forced to take the jobs capitalist choose to provide. This frequently places the need for jobs in opposition to the need for a clean environment…" p62

"Capitalism leads to a loss of connection with nature, fellow humans, and community." p77

"The system actually pumps wealth endlessly up to those at the top of society who do their best to keep it coming at a faster and faster pace, while preventing any downward trickle." p83

"There is nothing in the nature of the current system, therefore, that will allow it to pull back before it is too late. To do that, other forces, from the bottom of society – thinking and acting in ways that transcend the logic of the system – will be required." p93

Can Capitalism Go Green?

"As David Harvey has said: 'If capitalism is forced to internalize' all of the social and environmental costs it generates 'it will go out of business. This is the simple truth.'" p97

"The market under capitalism represents the rule of capital, by capital, and for capital." p99

"The reality is that none of the proposals for reforming capitalism deal with the essential issue, the bottom line of net gain or profit. For the sake of the environment and our future as a species, the economy cannot keep growing forever with more and more goods and services (green or not) consumed per person." p107

"Increased efficiency in the use of energy and resources tends, as we have seen, to result in the expansion of the capitalist economic system as a whole, negating any reductions in energy and resource use per unit of output." p111

"The fact that accumulation is the single drumbeat of capitalist society means that ecological systems, and the biological-health systems of species, are stretched to the limits, leading to ever-increasing risk. … Toxic chemicals, radiation, and other hazards pervade our environment and our bodies, with no attempt to discern the full effects – or even to test most of the chemicals, despite their frequent carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic effects. It is enough for the system that such technologies are useful in expanding the economy at low cost to business. … In a society organized in this way it is natural enough to respond to the threat to the planet represented by global warming by turning to riskier and riskier technologies, continually upping the general level of risk." pp111-112

"'Green capitalism' … offers no way out of a system that must expand exponentially and thus, continue to ratchet up its use of natural resources, its chemical pollution, its contaminated sewage sludge, its garbage, and its other toxic substances." p120

"The reality is that the major environmental problems we face today – of which climate change is only one – cannot be solved by means of technological or market-based solutions while keeping existing social relations intact. Rather, what is needed most is a transformation of social relations: in community, culture, and economy, in how we relate to each other as human beings, and how we relate to the planet." P122

An Ecological Revolution Is Not Just Possible – It's Essential

After addressing in detail what can be done now, and in turning their attention to long-range solutions, the authors then state: "None of the immediate goals proposed above is feasible, even in the short run, unless the demands are part of a massive movement that is not afraid to do what needs to be done, and refuses to let the bottom line of the profit system determine the future of earth and humanity." p133

Magdoff and Foster then conclude their citizen's guide with an outline of the main features of the ecological revolution that is not only possible but essential. As Naomi Klein has said, this book is indispensable to all who seek to better understand the connection between capitalism and the environment. We are all fortunate that two of the leading academic researchers in the fields of agricultural economics and environmental sociology have taken the time to present their conclusions in a form that can be readily understood by those of us immersed in the environmental and social justice movements.