A House Divided

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden, February 2022

Preface

The outbreak of war involving nation states with nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, the deepening ecological crisis, the growth of wealth and income inequality and the corresponding chasm between the political power of the billionaire class and the rest of us, and a continuing global pandemic all have a common cause, the drive for private profit on a planet with finite natural resources and exploitable human labor.

The electoral systems in which we engage in the struggle for an exit from these crises were designed by the capitalist class for the perpetuation of the social system that privileges that class. It is an arena of struggle in which economic power translates into political power.

Nevertheless, while a modicum of democracy exists within the capitalist electoral arena, we need to use it to develop public knowledge and capacity for struggle. We also need to create parallel, more democratic forums for developing public consensus around desired policies and for organizing struggles to advance those policies.

To exit from the multiple existential crises humanity now faces, we are likely to need the democratic forums we create as alternate institutions to those through which the billionaire class uses its economic power to maintain its political dominance. Unless the capitalist governing institutions can be transformed into fully democratic ones by public pressure, the alternate forums of the people will need to be made the governing ones.

The following argument addresses the internal contradictions within the political party to which the authors belong. Those in other political parties will readily be able to find similar contradictions in these. So long as a modicum of democracy exists within capitalist created electoral politics, we should use those openings as an arena for political struggle and development of public political consciousness.

Argument

The Green Party of Canada (GPC) is faced with an unresolved internal contradiction. If left unresolved, the GPC will have little possibility of realizing its electoral potential or living up to its professed core values. Taken literally, ecocapitalism and ecosocialism are incompatible. Unless the GPC makes a clear choice between these political directions, it will remain a marginal political movement within Canada. The forthcoming leadership race provides an opportunity to resolve this contradiction.

Ecocapitalism is itself an oxymoron, that is, an inherently incompatible combination of capitalism (production for private profit) with ecological sanity (an ecologically sustainable relationship between humanity and the rest of nature). As a political direction, ecocapitalism finds its principal support within the GPC from some of the small business owners who identify themselves with capitalism because they employ labor, and middle level managers of capitalism (accountants, supervisors, corporate lawyers, and the like).

Only ecosocialism can in practice represent an internally consistent political direction. It must, though, first include as its definition of socialism the achievement of a classless society, one whose aims include an ecologically sustainable relationship between humanity and the rest of nature.

But there is a serious obstacle to the development of a genuinely ecosocialist political alternative in Canada. Capitalist class economic and political power and dominance has never been greater. Those who elect genuine ecosocialism as their political direction put themselves at risk of loss of social prestige, employment opportunities, and even physical destruction under capitalist rule.

But there is a silver lining to this harsh reality. So rapid is the destruction of the natural environment and social relations by capitalist rule, increasing numbers from the younger generations recognize that there is no future for them within this system. The risks of working for an ecosocialist alternative pale in comparison with the future they can expect without such a political movement becoming the dominant one.

The only conceivable reconciliation between ecocapitalism and ecosocialism within the Green Party could be no more than a short term one, namely shared hypocrisy, the abandonment in practice of the values that constitutionally define Greens. The ecocapitalist Greens would need to claim, against all the evidence to the contrary, that ecological sustainability is compatible with capitalism. The false ecosocialists would have to claim, against all the historical evidence to the contrary, that capitalism can be tamed by modest welfare and environmental reforms.

Without elaborating further on the pitfalls of a Green house divided, a few further words are needed on the political alternatives some may believe we have. The false alternatives arise from the misguided belief that the class struggle and its social and ecological consequences can be resolved for any historically significant period of time by the absolute rule of one of the contending classes.

Capitalism is defined by the existence of both a capitalist and a working class, with middle classes occupying the diminishing space between these two opposing classes. It can function durably only with both a capitalist and a working class, and middle classes to mediate between them. Neither of the opposing classes can function for any period of time without the other. But the present ecological crisis marks the end of capitalism as a durable system. To exit from capitalism requires a transition to a non-class society, one in which economic decision making is democratic, with those engaged in economic activity taking over the decision-making responsibility from the capitalist class. The culture that reproduces capitalism is the one that “frees” the working class from decision-making responsibility and “gives” the capitalist class the exclusive right to economic decision-making and the lion’s share of the surplus from productive activity.

No class society has ever been replaced by the absolute victory of one of the classes that define it. Slavery was replaced by the class of landholders (who became feudal lords), not by the slaves. Feudalism was replaced by the bourgeoisie (who became the capitalist class), not by the serfs. If capitalism is to be replaced, it will be by the action of all those who recognize that their principal vested interest is in an ecologically sustainable society, one in which economic decision-making and the results of labor will be shared equally be all. A priority of that decision-making will be the commitment of the people to a sustainable relationship with the rest of nature, as opposed to the race to the bottom in environmental standards and labor rights engendered by capitalism.

A movement for ecosocialism, and only genuine ecosocialism, not modest reforms of capitalism, can resolve the consequences of continuing inequality between colonial settlers and the indigenous peoples, racial injustice, ethnic conflict, oppression based on differences in sexual orientation, and patriarchy. Ecosocialism means the restoration of the communal system which prevailed throughout the many millennia of human existence, and which survived as the glue which enabled class-divided societies to survive during the Holocene era.

Class division in history arose under conditions favorable to the production of surplus goods beyond the requirements for immediate consumption. Those charged with making decisions over allocation of these surpluses evolved into the parasitic ruling classes of class-divided societies, namely, patriarchy, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. Notwithstanding the false claims of our present capitalist rulers, the surpluses that enabled class societies to exist have now disappeared. Humanity now consumes far more from nature than can be replaced. Our only course for achieving a more sustainable relationship with the rest of nature is to better manage the diminished resources remaining, while working to recreate a more sustainable relationship between humanity and the rest of the biosphere. This means creating an historically new social system, ecosocialism.

For an elaboration of these arguments, see our argument for “Achieving an ecological civilization” at https://www.greensocialdemocracy.org.