{"id":13074,"date":"2019-08-26T23:31:32","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T23:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/?p=13074"},"modified":"2019-08-26T23:31:32","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T23:31:32","slug":"book-review-this-is-not-a-drill-is-green-capitalism-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/book-review-this-is-not-a-drill-is-green-capitalism-possible\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: This Is Not A Drill. Is Green Capitalism Possible?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We applaud the mass actions that many young people and activists are taking against the planet\u2019s ecosystem destruction.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By Martin Ralph \u2013 International Socialist League – UK<\/p>\n

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is one such group. It has grown into an international movement, which says as others, \u201cThe Government must tell the truth about Climate\u2026The Government must enact legally binding policy measures to reduce carbon emissions\u2026 A national Citizen\u2019s Assembly must be formed\u2026 as part of creating a democracy \ufb01t for purpose…\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as we mention in the main article, asking the government to defend the environment is akin to asking the hunter to protect the deer. These governments have overseen the environment\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n

The crisis has been building for many decades. Rachel Carson\u2019s Silent Spring<\/em> (1962) warned of the dangers to all natural systems from the misuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT and initiated the contemporary environmental movement. The use of DDT was stopped in the USA but was transported to Africa.<\/p>\n

As Marx and Engels established in 1845, the relation that society has to nature \u201cis determined by the form of society and vice versa.\u201d The destruction today is based on the domination of the planet by the multi-nationals and also by military might. For example, all the imperialist and large capitalist semi-colonial nations develop nuclear power not only for energy but principally for weapons and war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a Drill\u201d was published in 2019 and is called by XR a \u201crebellion handbook\u201d. There are certainly very moving articles by farmers and indigenous peoples from Africa and India and \ufb01re \ufb01ghters in California. There are articles that say XR completely rejects neoliberal economics. But they also say we must redesign human societies based on love and justice in order to restore nature. It seems that imperialist governments can be forced to regulate the immense exploitation and destruction of nature by force of love!<\/p>\n

XT do not say capitalist society needs to be overthrown to stop climate destruction. They include articles in the XR handbook by the reformist Labour party (Clive Lewis) and Green party (Caroline Lucas).<\/p>\n

Lucas calls for electoral reform and unity with capitalist parties, without once mentioning capitalism. \u201cIt is now up to progressives of all stripes \u2013 from the labour movement to liberal democrats\u201d and she calls for \u201cpoliticians to stop arguing among themselves\u201d. She wants a government of national unity that establishes her project of working with all main capitalist parties.<\/p>\n

Whilst Clive Lewis points out with some clarity the role of \ufb01nance capital and that change will have to come from below, he then re-states Jeremy Corby\u2019s regulatory democracy programme that includes working with the Bank of England and the private sector! His programme leaves capitalism intact.<\/p>\n

The scene for all these reformist ideas is at the book\u2019s beginning, in the Forward, Vandana Shiva, an academic, says, \u201cI call Extinction Rebellion \u2018Satyagraha for Life\u2019. Satyagraha, for Gandhi, was non-cooperation based on the force of truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in reality, Gandhi\u2019s peaceful no co-operation was not a force for truth, \u201cGandhi has announced his bargaining terms for a settlement with British imperialism. The most material facts about these terms are that British imperialism is to continue in power in India and Congress is actively (sic) to support the war of the imperialist bandits\u2026\u201d Fourth International, October 1944, Gandhi on the Road to Betrayal.<\/p>\n

Gandhism and peaceful collaboration with the destroyers of our planet can never establish the peace and the end to climate change that billions of people want.<\/p>\n

XR, and the wider environment movement, must move away from the idea that governments can be convinced to change by dialogue.<\/p>\n

The planet will not be saved by convincing those who destroy it to do otherwise. Only through the \ufb01ght of the masses in overturning the system of world capitalist exploitation of workers, people and nature can we achieve this.<\/p>\n

That is why we say either capitalist barbarism or socialism, that means with the participation of masses in workers democratic control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We applaud the mass actions that many young people and activists are taking against the planet\u2019s ecosystem destruction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13075,"menu_order":545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"litci_post_political_author":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[4297],"class_list":["post-13074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-britain-europe","tag-green-capitalism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/UK-Green-Capitalism.jpg?fit=540%2C256&ssl=1","fimg_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/UK-Green-Capitalism.jpg?fit=540%2C256&ssl=1","categories_names":["Britain"],"author_info":{"name":"litci","pic":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c5ccde5393ccb83747702c5ca92f55d8fdaf99be9432d0142571c6d437fbaadb?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"political_author":null,"tagline":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}