Some Problems of Environmentalist Reformism

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Published in People and Physical Environment Research No: 46, 1994 pp 3-13

 

ABSTRACT

The stand off between environmentalists and popular economists is good press. However as a matter of fact environmentalist reformism is a long way from any intention to ruin the economy. Focusing on two representative texts, I propose instead that environmental reformists underestimate the economic crisis that would be generated by a serious attempt to deal with even the most basic and pressing environmental problems. As well, they are unable to come to grips with the political and cultural problems that environmentalism faces.

Attacks on the environmental movement by supporters of the "free market" are common enough. Gerard Henderson, executive director of a "privately funded think-tank" puts the position in a typical fashion. Identifying the environmentalist movement as "theological" in its opposition to materialism, he castigates its representatives for hypocrisy, traveling by car and plane, the beneficiaries of middle class affluence while recommending zero economic growth. Accordingly he takes up cudgels for the working class saying that "the lower-income groups in Australia do not want an on-going severe recession imposed on them by guilt-driven middle class radical greens" (Henderson 1990, 13).

Such bitter comments are not restricted to the anti-environmentalist camp as pro-environmentalists inveigh against the evils of the free market and conventional economic wisdom. Gordon and Suzuki are trenchant, attacking both the market economy and the values that underly it. In all countries of the world, " … economics runs our lives. We live in fear of recessions and depressions" (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 158). Recommending a zero growth rate they refer approvingly to Nader’s suggestion that our corporate class should should be reined in, on the "lowest rung" of the social ladder, as was the case in Mandarin China (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 181). In their most extreme statement they announce themselves as economic revolutionaries wanting to destroy industrialism:

Reading all this one can understand what Henderson and the economic rationalists are worried about. However in this paper I want to take the Worldwatch Report State of the World 1990 and Gordon and Suzuki’s A Matter of Survival (1990) as examples of environmentalist reformism. It is in fact quite misleading to see the authors of these texts as economic revolutionaries looking forward to a speedy end to the capitalist mode of production. The detail of their position suggests another scenario altogether. In terms of a current taxonomy of political programs what they are advocating is, at most, the program of left social democracy.

The argument of this paper is in three parts. Firstly I seek to demonstrate that environmentalist reformism is just that; that it is by no means as radical as is often suggested by conservative commentators on the environmental movement. In doing this I will also be spelling out some of the most basic programs and proposals of environmentalist reformism. In the second part of the discussion I shall be considering whether these environmental reforms could really be implemented in the context of capitalism and representative democracy that is presupposed within a reformist program. Briefly, I shall be arguing that the continued operation of the political, economic and cultural structures of capitalist society in the first world would make it extremely unlikely that a reformist program of the type envisaged by environmentalist reformists could be implemented. The point of this analysis is not to suggest that environmentalism is a doomed and self defeating political movement, but that the necessary programs of environmentalism require a profound and thoroughgoing restructuring of the economy, politics and culture, a restructuring much more drastic than that envisaged within environmentalist reformism. The third part of the paper considers these issues.

THE PROGRAMS OF ENVIRONMENTALIST REFORMISM

Taking the State of the World report first, we can examine the way in which this text presupposes and advocates the continued dominance of the basic structures of capitalism and representative democracy, seeking merely to transform the operation of these structures so as to secure environmental goals. Adherence to the capitalist mode of production and representative democracy is manifested both in broad programmatic statements and also as underlying assumptions in the text. For instance in the concluding chapter of the collection Brown, Flavin and Postel state that a world energy system based in renewable resources would be in fact "more conducive to market principles and democratic political systems" than the current energy system (Brown et al 1990, 179).

A number of suggestions are made as to how to achieve desired ecological goals within the structure of capitalist democracy. Broadly, these are of two types. The first is that various activities that are now permitted will come to be forbidden by legislation. For example the best way to achieve waste reduction is suggested to be strict regulation of waste disposal. The effect would be to force up the price of waste disposal, requiring companies to reduce waste production to save money (Brown et al, 1990, 114).

However by and large this sort of direct regulation is not the focus of attention. Instead the government is called upon to adjust the playing field in which the market operates. The way this is put often suggests that such adjustments are thoroughly in tune with market principles:

What could be more pro-capitalist than encouraging investments and bringing us to an era of solid and stable economic management to boot?

A good example of the way such a proposal would operate is the proposed carbon tax, which would "allow market economies to consider the global environmental damage of fossil fuel combustion"(Brown et al 1990, 28). Carbon fuels would be taxed, for example the price of petrol in the U.S. might rise by 17c a gallon and the price of electricity produced by burning coal might rise by 28%. The money raised in this way could fund improvements in energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy supplies.

Along with such proposals the State of the World report is accompanied by continual suggestions that these reforms will not damage the economy and in fact may be seen as good housekeeping, merely putting the market economy on a sounder footing. This reassurance is embodied in constant reminders that their proposals will cost less in the long run and that consequently it would make good economic sense to adopt them.

The proposals for change aired in Gordon and Suzuki’s book are much the same as those in the Worldwatch report. Whereas the Worldwatch Report actually extols the free market, Gordon and Suzuki’s book is full of warnings that their proposals will be resisted by big business which seeks profits at any environmental expense. However there is no hint of a suggestion that their proposals might be incompatible with the continuation of current economic and political systems.

Specific proposals are similar to those suggested by the Worldwatch report. The authors favour a carbon tax to be used to fund public transport, proposals to increases costs of fuel, ownership and parking of private cars (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 30, 203). They propose grants in aid and debt reduction to assist Third World countries to curb population, preserve forests and establish environmentally benign energy systems. In comparison with the Worldwatch report, Gordon and Suzuki focus much more attention on the "mandatory restraints" that should be imposed on environmentally damaging behaviour (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 214). Like the Worldwatch report they tend to emphasize the small cost of saving the environment and the longer term economic benefits of doing so.

It is appropriate to see the policies proposed in these two books as structurally analogous to the program of left social democracy. Representative democracy is envisaged as a continuing political order. Capitalism, the market and wage labour are to continue to be the basis for the economy. Capitalist companies are to be regulated rather than abolished. Wage earners and businesses are to be subject to new taxes which will provide funds for the environmental interventions of governments. Goods and services will continue to be bought and sold on the market. Although the authors of these texts acknowledge that such measures may go against the grain of current economic thinking and offend some vested interests, they argue that the economic consequences of these policies are not to be feared. What is needed is not deep structural change but a change in values accompanied by some appropriate legislation.

IS THIS SCENARIO POSSIBLE ?

There seem to be good reasons for doubting whether this scenario of environmental reform is really possible. In other words, I am arguing that it is very doubtful whether such environmental reforms could actually be implemented within the context of capitalist economic structures and representative democracy that these authors also presuppose.

Economic considerations

Looking at economic issues to begin with, I will suggest that the cost of these proposals is such that their implementation would undermine the private economy to the point of major recession. Among other things this would mean that public spending on environmental programs could not be funded from taxes levied on employers and employees within the private economy. Unemployment and consequent demands on government welfare spending would also present major problems. If the program was to be implemented in some countries and not others, there would be an exodus of capital from the more environmentally sound nations.

Costing the environmental proposals within these books is a difficult matter. One way to attempt this is to construct a minimal shopping list for the environmental movement; these are reforms that would have to be implemented in order to prevent large scale famine in the wealthy countries in the foreseeable future and to stave off the possibility of making the planet uninhabitable. A speedy end to the destruction of the ozone layer must come first on this list, shortly followed by the curtailment of the greenhouse effect and an end to desertification.

Ending the destruction of the ozone layer is not particularly costly as it involves only the replacement of chlorofluorocarbons with other chemicals. In view of the disastrous consequences that seem likely, what is amazing is that it has taken so long to get something done and that even now the phasing out of these chemicals is being allowed to drag on till the next century.

Curtailing global warming is a much more costly endeavour. If we assumed that the current world growth rate in carbon emissions were to continue at 3% p.a. we could expect atmospheric carbon levels to have doubled by 2010 and tripled by 2025 (Brown et al 1990, 21). By the year 2040 such a policy would be likely to lead to a rise in global temperature of more than two degrees centigrade with associated disastrous consequences (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 16; Brown et al 1990, 17).

Current international proposals on global warming are designed to cut CO2 emissions by 20% from present levels by the year 2005. Even these limited measures are a long way from being accepted or implemented. However to actually stabilize levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and stop global warming there would have to be a cut of carbon emissions between 50% and 80% from their present levels (Brown et al 1990, 20). This indicates that in the long term quite drastic cuts in CO2 emissions will be required.

As an interim measure the Worldwatch report advocates a cut of 12% in global emissions by the year 2000. They suggest that countries that produce the vast bulk of carbon emissions, such as the United States and Soviet Union, should cut by 35% while some nations with little energy production might be able to increase emissions slightly. Their guidelines are also framed to severely restrict the growth of fossil fuel use in the Third World. Indicating the necessity of such measures Gordon and Suzuki point out that at the present time China intends to triple its coal fired energy production by 2030 . If India was to do the same the output of greenhouse gases would be twice what it is today (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 143).

Looking at the way such a proposal might affect the economies of wealthy first world countries it is useful to consider a number of factors. It seems likely that a 20% reduction from present levels might be achievable through energy efficiency alone. However this is in itself expensive. The Canadian study cited in the Worldwatch report claimed that the government would have to pay out $108 billion for such a program of energy efficiency (Brown et al 1990, 27). The money would have to be raised by the government through borrowing or taxes. Neither of these methods would be likely to be well received by "the market" or in other words by shareholders – who are most likely to remove capital from countries that take this path. Nor would these proposals be well received by voters who would be worried about increases in taxation or about the effects on the economy of government debt. In any case in the short term the proposal would take $108 billion out of the private economy and put it into the public economy, reducing the overall tax base available to the government accordingly.

A number of studies have attempted to assess the economic effects of policies to reduce CO2 emissions in first world countries. In Australia the Industry Commission’s report Costs and Benefits of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions (1992) has considered the effects of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2005. They argue that the long term cost to the Australian economy would be a 1.5 per cent decline in economic output. However the short term cost would be higher because of the unemployment caused by the contraction of industries that create greenhouse gases. Another study considered the cost of freezing CO2 emissions at the levels reached in the year 2000 in Norway. In the year 2010 it was estimated that the cost to the GNP would be 0.8%. This estimate was made after generously factoring in all the likely benefits of reduced burning of carbon fuels – reduced traffic congestion, acid rain, health improvements and so on (Pearce 1991, 21). Accordingly it seems reasonable to argue that the direct cost of a 20% reduction in CO2 in first world countries might range from one to two per cent of GNP in the next few decades.

So far this discussion has concerned the costs of a 20% reduction of CO2 within first world countries. However, as we have seen, the Worldwatch report makes a good case that first world countries should restrict emissions by 35%, achieving a global goal of 12% by allowing some flexibility to third world countries. This means that in first world countries another 15% of reductions would have to be achieved above and beyond those possible through energy conservation measures. To achieve this would imply either that less energy would be available – with a consequent and considerable restriction of the economy – or that alternative energy generation would be put in place to replace coal fired plants. The fuel and operating cost of a coal fired coal plant are about 2c per kilowatt hour. Even the cheapest alternative energies, such as Solar Thermal, run currently at 5c per kilowatt hour (Earth Garden 1992, 42) and some are considerably more expensive (Brown et al 1990, 27). What is also worth remembering is that these figures represent the ongoing costs of producing electricity by these alternative methods. However the initial capital outlay to set up plants is crucial in this instance. It is this cost that would have to be paid out in the next decade, not just the increased energy costs of these alternative energy sources on a daily use basis.

Of course this is just the next ten years. After that all energy efficiencies would have been achieved and further reduction would have to come through reduced consumption of energy or through capital investment in alternative energy plant. At the present time fossil fuels account for 78% of world energy use (Brown et al 1990, 22) and we also know that emissions would have to be reduced by 50% to 80% to halt global warming. Clearly in the long term the costs of this exercize would escalate considerably.

However this is only one part of the bill that wealthy first world countries would have to pay to deal with the Greenhouse effect. They would also have to fund the difference in cost between fossil fuel power stations and alternative systems to be put in place in the third world. Clearly the cost of this would be considerable and would probably dwarf the cost of the reductions in the wealthy first world world. However without such support it seems unlikely that these third world countries would restrict fossil fuel. They will of course compare their situation to that of countries that already enjoy a high standard of living thanks to the use of energy from fossil fuels; the wealthy first world in which one quarter of the world’s population currently accounts for 70% of carbon emissions (Brown et al 1990, 21).

As well, it seems likely that it would be necessary to give tied aid or debt reduction to third world countries to halt deforestation. As a result of deforestation Brazil is the world’s fourth largest carbon emitter. Many other tropical third world countries are also producing the greatest portion of their emissions through deforestation (Brown et al 1990, 21). Approximately one quarter of current emissions of carbon are produced by deforestation (Brown et al 1990, 21,36). Here again, a remedy for these problems would require substantial payments of tied aid or debt reduction.

One can also wonder whether there is any simple solution to these problems in payments or debt reduction to third world governments. Deforestation of the third world is also timber or agricultural production for the wealthy first world. An end to deforestation would therefore have repercussions on the economies of the first world world. In addition deforestation is partly the effect of land hunger amongst the poor of the third world, driven off profitable agricultural land by local elites supplying cash crops to the wealthy first world. As Trainer and others have pointed out, the economies of the wealthy first world world are sustained by a social structure in the third world that produces deforestation as an inevitable outcome (Trainer 1985). Looking at these issues, the cost to wealthy first world economies becomes difficult to calculate.

Similar points can be made in relation to desertification. In the third world, increases in population, land hunger and associated land pressure are major causes of desertification. It seems probable that increased population is a response to poverty and that changes can only come through effective land tenure being given to poor peasants or village communities (Bennett & George 1987). As Trainer points out (1985) such proposals are against the interests of local elites and the first world companies that benefit from cheap cash crops and raw materials sold to the first world.

What I have done so far is to suggest some of the likely costs of a very minimal program of environmental reform, the kind of program that might be necessary to sustain basic conditions for human existence. Looking at this minimum program of environmental reform it seems likely that it would be economically catastrophic. In the current context of capitalism in rich first world countries a 3% growth rate is necessary to even maintain unemployment at its current level and a zero growth rate is recession (Hartcher 1992, 7). To fund the capital development required to move to sustainable energy systems is itself a major expense. Added to this is the increased ongoing costs of energy within such systems. Further to this is the unemployment that might reasonably be expected in industries which are replaced by less energy intensive alternatives. We are also looking at a massive and ecologically required transfer of funds to the third world. It is not too pessimistic to suggest that these proposals would engender a major recession in the rich capitalist economies of the first world. Worse still, the very possibility of this scenario is doubtful insofar as governments would have to rely on the private economy to provide the tax base with which to fund these environmental reforms – at the same time as these reforms drastically undermined the profitability of the private sector (Frankel 1983).

Political problems

If these are some of the economic problems there are also problems that can be considered to be political or social. For example private companies would be likely to respond to such an environmental program in a way that would be both economically rational and politically effective; by withdrawing investment from countries which began to implement such a program and moving investment to those that agreed not to do anything significant.

Politically, the environmental movement is faced with a difficult task; convincing the electorate to forego some of their standard of living now to prevent crises that are predicted to occur in the future. If the economic burdens of this change were to be borne by the rich this would merely intensify the problem of capital flight. If the taxes of the middle class were to be increased this would affect the swinging voters and lead to a storm of outrage in the middle class media. If the working class were asked to shoulder the burdens by suffering increasing threats of unemployment and reduced wages they might well blame middle class environmentalists for their troubles and vote against environmental reforms.

These problems are exacerbated by the social inequality that is at the structural heart of capitalism. To take a representative example, Worldwatch correctly points out that halting overgrazing is necessary to prevent desertification. With increasing population pressure on agricultural land the world’s livestock herd must diminish and the practice of feeding grain to beef cattle for the affluent must cease. They conclude that as "meat becomes more scarce and expensive, the diets of the affluent will move down the food chain" (Brown et al 1990, 185). What they do not consider is the political implications of a mass of such changes in first world countries. The working class will be eating tins of meat substitute while the upper middle class and the rich consume the diets that in previous years were the customary fare of the working class. The rich will be driving cars to work while the working class are forced off the road by carbon taxes. It is hard not to see all this as political dynamite. Quite possibly, this is the likely future of capitalism anyway (Frankel 1983; Trainer 1985; Bahro 1986) but what environmental reformism proposes is the voluntary embrace of such changes well before they are forced by necessity.

Manifestly, environmental reformists are not unaware of such political problems and Gordon and Suzuki often refer to them, arguing that the problem lies with politicians who "measure the future of the world by the length of their political term" (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 178). What the world needs is "tough decisions that may, in the short term, be unpopular" (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 214). It is difficult to know where this new breed of politicians and their tough decisions will come from, since by enacting unpopular policies while in office they would be very likely to be replaced by politicians who promise to overturn environmental reforms and restore the past.

There is another related political problem in the proposals of environmental reformism. The program calls upon the populations of advanced countries to take a voluntary cut in living standards now so as to avoid a more drastic disaster in the next half century. People are required to act and vote responsibly so as to manage the world economy in the long term at the expense of their own short term interests.

One may well wonder whether the populations of advanced countries will find such a call appealing. Most major decisions about the economy are made by capitalist investors. Work, schooling and other public institutions effectively take decisions out of the hands of ordinary people. It seems highly likely that a great number of people believe that the fate of the economy and society is not their problem. Instead people exercize their creativity and limited power in refusing to be responsible, in refusing to act in the ways advocated by various types of middle class expert (Willis, 1974, 1988, Cardan 1974). As Baudrillard argues, it is a real possibility that the unconscious political strategy of the populations of the West is to willingly assist class society to destroy itself through its own excesses (1983).

Cultural problems

These points lead on to a discussion of what can be considered to be the problems of the cultural program environmentalist reformism. There is no doubt that this type of environmentalism offers cultural change as the main solution to the political problems that I have been considering. Change the culture sufficiently and people will willingly reject the materialist, expansionist and environmentally destructive policies of the present day, vote in politicians who share their views and accept, if not welcome, the economic hardships along the road. What gets left out in these discussions is the intimate connections between the cultural life of society and economic and political structures. To demand or expect cultural change when these structures remain unaltered – and indeed unchallenged – is unrealistic.

Gordon and Suzuki are particularly pungent on the the subject of the "Gucci god"(1990, 193). Discussing consumerism, they point out that products become symbols of identity. The car "has been elevated to the level of fantasy … a symbol of freedom, a symbol of independence, a symbol of self-reliance" and "our identity, our badge of adulthood, our statement to the world of who we are" (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 196, 205). All this materialism has to go, it is a "habit" that we need to get over quickly in view of the dangers posed by the ecological crisis. At the heart of the value problems that these authors specify, the sins of hubris and selfishness or "greed" figure large. While humans once "lived as part of the natural world, we now seek to conscript it in the service of our ends" (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 41). In other words, materialism is a natural consequence of self aggrandizement and the answer is to become more humble and less self centred. The challenge is to "think beyond the practical, beyond our own human self-interest" (Gordon & Suzuki 1990, 130).

While I do not accept this ethical point of view it is not my intention to debate it here. Instead, what needs to be examined is the failure of the Green movement to call up a vast body of popular support in favour of this value change. Why, when the stakes are so high, is materialism so hard to shift? Latterday marxist structural analysis and accompanying ethnographic studies provide a framework for answering this question. The basic premiss of these accounts is that within a capitalist economy labour is "alienated" (Marx 1978a). That is, people do not take creative pleasure in their paid work, what they do at work is ultimately dictated by those who own the company or direct the public body in which they work. They are not engaged in work which they themselves conceive as useful, important or interesting but in work which they are ordered to carry out, regardless of their opinions. As well, they have no control of the product of their labours. Disposal of the goods or services that they produce is in the hands of the company or department. The reason why people work, despite their resentment and resistance to this situation, is to earn money to live. Ultimately this situation rests on the fact that the means by which things are produced, the "means of production" are owned by the small few. To have access to the goods produced, ordinary people, the "proletariat" must sell their labour power (Marx 1978b).

Although this analysis was originally formulated by Marx to apply to capitalist societies much of it is also relevant to the State Socialist economies which are now disintegrating. As in capitalist society, people were forced to work for a wage in order to live and did not express themselves in their work or have any effective control over the work situation or the distribution of the products of work (Cardan 1974, Haraszti 1977).

This structural analysis provides a context for explanations of the cultural dominance of consumerism. As Cardan puts it, the working class has put its political energy into improving its standard of living, in increasing the absolute level of the material goods that it receives for its alienated labour, leaving the issue of the control of the means of production, of alienation as such, basically untouched. These developments are not the result of some kind of capitalist conspiracy but represent an interaction between the working class and capitalists. The capitalist economy has come to depend on the expansion of the market in consumer goods that results from continuous working class pressure on wages (Cardan 1974, see also Ewen 1976, Berger 1972).

Such an analysis sees consumerist materialism as a compensation for the frustrations incurred in alienated labour (Berger 1972, Roberts 1973). People demand material goods in order to have some area of life in which they exercize power and make choices. This analysis is supported by ethnographic studies of the daily culture of first world industrial societies.

Looking at the lifestyles of young people in Britain, Willis (1990) argues that their consumerism is far from mindless and passive. Instead, the creative use of consumer products assists people in developing social contacts, pursuing lifestyle choices formed and spread through friendship and informal association. It is in this realm that people are beginning to develop real alternatives to alienated labour. Using this interview material he argues that in the realm of alienated production, capitalism depends on stifling people’s desires for free creative expression. In this realm the ethic of work and obedience rules, with puritan asceticism promoted by public institutions as the only way to prevent anarchy and chaos. By contrast in the realm of consumption, capitalism succeeds in marketing its goods and services by encouraging free creativity and hedonism in the choice and use of products. As a result consumerism is taken up in opposition to the puritanism associated with work, production and schooling.

A constrasting ethnographic analysis is based in a study of working class adults in the United States. The people interviewed for that study (Sennett & Cobb 1973) saw their material possessions as proof of their commitment to hard work and thrift. They valued them as signs of personal worth, as indications that they did not deserve the contempt and indignities heaped upon them in a situation where their class position was taken as a sign of failure, unintelligence or sloth. The powerboats, gas guzzlers and houses in the country that environmentalists understandably criticize are taken by these people as proofs of sober and serious industry.

These two analyses suggest two contrasting problems for the cultural program of environmental reformism. In so far as Willis is correct it may be expected that environmentalists’ attacks on consumerism will be heard by many as part and parcel of the culture of puritanism; as the discourse of a fogey establishment trying to maintain social control over alienated labour (Willis 1983 ; Hall et al. 1986). Such consumers will continue to support materialist consumerism as an arena of creativity and pleasure and see environmentalists as fun hating puritans. To make matters worse, the more traditionally minded in the working population, those who embrace the work ethic with enthusiasm, will also resist the crusade against materialism. They will hang on to their affluent lifestyles and ecologically damaging consumer goods as signs of hard work and tokens of dignity. They are most likely to regard environmentalists as backward looking enemies of progress, denying them the fruits of hard work and rational science.

What both these consumerisms have in common is the sense that material consumption is an arena of choice and power that is valued precisely because of the absence of choice, creativity and power in the world of paid work. It is this connection that environmental reformism ignores. The desire to form richer human relationships could only be a successful alternative to consumerism if people’s daily experience of work was cooperative, if they could choose what to do with their creations so as to enrich their relationships with other people, and if the strength of community life was based on real community control of major productive resources. In the present context materialist consumerism successfully offers itself as the main vehicle for enriching social and creative pleasures because other avenues are definitively closed off.

STRATEGIES

My discussion has been concerned with two main issues. Firstly, to suggest that a certain type of environmental strategy presupposes and recommends, as it were, the continued existence of capitalist economies and their associated political structures. Secondly, I have argued that this evironmentalist reformism underestimates the impediments which such economies and their associated political structures place in the road of environmentalist reforms.

One type of conclusion that could be drawn from this analysis rests on the premise that there is no chance of an anti-capitalist political program being successful in the first world in the foreseeable next few decades. One could base this premise on the fact that the real living standards of the population in first world countries have been steadily rising since the middle of the nineteenth century. The small declines that are likely in the next few decades will not drive people to the desperate straits of trying out a totally new economic order. Reluctance to make such drastic changes is also increased by the sorry spectacle of former attempts to revolutionize society and replace capitalism. These have not created a classless society, the end of alienated labour or even a standard of living on a par with capitalist economies. Worse still, the sacrifices in political freedoms that accompanied these failures were considerable. Nor have these state socialist economies produced sound management of the environment (Parkin 1979; Abercrombie, Hill & Turner 1980; Dobson 1990). All this makes it very unlikely that people in the first world would vigorously support an abandonment of capitalism for some untried environmentalist utopia.

If this premise holds, then my argument suggests that environmental policies will not be implemented to a significant degree in the more or less foreseeable next four or five decades. As well, environmentalists are I believe, quite correct in arguing that such a lack of response to environmental problems will produce serious ecological crises by the end of this period. This prediction also implies that in four or five decades these environmental crises will result in a major fall in living standards in the first world. Presumably such an event could trigger a major and terminal disillusionment with capitalism. To contain the environmental crisis capitalism would have to be replaced by some mode of production that did not depend on continued expansion of material consumption and continued environmental destruction.

In this worst case scenario what is the correct strategy for environmentalists to take? To begin with, it may seem sensible for environmentalists to be much more aware of the impediments to their program that are constituted by capitalism and representative democracy. It seems to me that the danger of environmentalist reformism as a grand vision is that many ordinary people realize that it is not practicable within the framework of capitalism. They are aware that environmental policies could not be implemented without massive sacrifices in terms of their own immediate standard of living and economic dislocation on a grand scale. Most usually, when it comes down to an issue of jobs versus the environment, environmentalists are defeated. Worse still, environmentalists are seen to be dishonest in pretending that nothing fundamental is to be changed through their prescriptions. They are suspected of having a hidden agenda – "taking us back to the stone age". The refusal to address the issue of structural change locks environmentalism into a fruitless attempt to change values through an attack on consumerism in terms of greed and hubris.

One approach that environmentalists could take would be to argue directly for the overthrow of capitalism as a prerequisite for environmental change. Clearly many environmentalists take this position in one way or another (e.g. Bahro 1986, Trainer 1985; P.M. 1985; Dobson 1990; Mollison 1988; Mellor 1992). In the context of the political scenario analyzed in this paper it is no suprise that this position is at present even more unpopular than that represented by environmental reformists. However the long term advantage of this strategy may be that environmentalism and an associated proposal for a new mode of production will come to seem a more and more reasonable program – decade by decade as the living standards of the affluent first world are increasingly undermined by environmental crises.

Ideally a strategy of this type depends upon providing a model of an alternative mode of production that would be practical, in which environmentally sound policies would be possible and in fact in accord with the social and economic structure that is proposed. As a matter of fact, the above writers do suggest alternatives to capitalism that they spell out in a fair degree of detail, arguing that their preferred alternatives are likely to be in tune with ecological imperatives. However, while having some points in common these proposals are quite different in other respects. I would like to suggest that this is not necessarily a problem. As a matter of fact the practicability of environmentally sound modes of production is in no sense an issue. Both hunting and gathering societies and the stable feudal despotisms of societies such as Ancient China were clearly compatible with environmental sustainability. As well, for the reasons indicated already it seems that capitalism is not compatible with the environment (see also Trainer 1985; Dobson 1990; Mellor 1992). This suggests that the key question is whether it is possible to create a mode of production that would be preferable to feudalism or hunting and gathering on the one hand or to an environmentally devastating continuation of capitalism on the other.

THE GIFT ECONOMY AS A MODE OF PRODUCTION

Although it is not the intention of this paper to address these issues at length I shall conclude by sketching my own preferences. Environmentalists should advocate a decisive end to alienated labour. Instead of engaging in a fruitless struggle against materialism in the context of capitalism they should support an extension of the hedonism and creativity now expressed in popular materialist consumerism – into the sphere of production and work.

My own favoured mode of production would be one in which we had abolished capitalism, state socialism, remnant feudalism, wage labour and money itself. Instead we would have what has been called a "gift economy" (Vaneigem 1983; see also Mauss 1970; Pefanis 1991). Mostly, people would operate according to an ethic of maximizing their own pleasure and giving useful services and products to other people. In a sense all production would be voluntary; it would be organized to satisfy the immediate needs of the producers themselves or would be given away to meet the needs of others. We can envisage it in terms of a vast extension of the voluntary forms of organisation that in Australia are responsible for such services as surf life saving, rescuing whales from beaches or knitting jumpers for relatives.

A gift economy of the type I am proposing would not depend on dividing the population up into self sufficient communes. Instead people would continue to participate in multiple networks of overlapping productive activities. The coordination of these activities would be achieved by voluntary organizations – of office staff, media workers, pollsters and statisticians, advising other voluntary organizations of problems of shortages, waste, future requirements and so forth.

Coordination could not be achieved through a legitimated and democratically controlled central authority, since such an authoritative coordination would be incompatible with voluntarily arranged participation in working life. To be an authoritative coordination it would have to compel people to work according to the decisions of the coordinating body. Even the actions of the coordinating body could not be effective without the possibility of commanding alienated labour. For example, at the very least it would require a police force obedient to the wishes of the democratic central authority, regardless of their own feelings about the issues in question – policing as alienated labour. To presuppose the existence of such a police force would also imply that access to goods and services was achieved through wage labour; otherwise why would anyone continue to work at tasks they considered useless? In other words, within a gift economy decisions about distribution would be taken by a multiplicity of chains of producers and distributors, meaning that access to products could not be an incentive through which labour could be controlled from a central point.

In such a society no policing would be legitimate and authoritative. All control of the activities of other people would be contestable and would depend upon sufficient force being mustered by the offended parties. For such a system to work to produce roughly equal outcomes there would have to be a cultural commitment to equality on the part of most people, but then no democratic system could produce equal outcomes unless this was the case.

To explain why such a system might be more compatible with ecological imperatives than capitalism we can suggest the following points:

1. In the context of such a gift economy useless production would be reduced by the producers themselves – to save effort. It would make no sense to work hard producing useless items that no one else particularly needed and that you did not enjoy making. By contrast in a capitalist society, it makes sense for entrepreneurs to produce any marketable commodity, however unnecessary, to make a profit. Those who produce such commodities have no choice as to the nature of their work, which is dictated by their superiors, and finally the purchase of useless goods comes to seem sensible as a compensation for a life of forced labour.
2. Within a gift economy producers would avoid environmentally damaging production. Having complete control at the point of production and given an understanding of environmental problems they would avoid causing themselves and their communities environmental problems. By contrast, within capitalism it makes sense to produce whatever will generate profits, regardless of environmental costs. These decisions are made by managers who have to worry about the effect of their actions on the decisions of shareholders, not by the communities and producers who have to live with the environmental problems that are created.
3. Producers in a gift economy would be motivated to produce environmentally sensible items and services in order to maximize the social value of their gifts; they would not be rewarded with praise and acclaim if they damaged the environments in which their own and other communities had to live. Planned obsolescence would not be a sensible strategy in so far as the value of one’s gifts to other people would be enhanced if the objects were long lasting, easy to repair and ultimately easy to recycle.

Speaking of the problems of environmentalist reformism, I argued that there were good reasons for thinking that moving to an environmentally sound system of production would be quite costly in terms of capital investment, both in the first world and in the third world. I also suggested that this cost would have to be borne by the affluent of the first world in terms of a voluntary reduction of living standards. None of these problems would be miraculously resolved in moving to a gift economy. However there are three facts about a gift economy that would sweeten this pill considerably.

Firstly, I have argued that the populations of the first world are attached to their consumerist materialism because it is the main avenue for power, control and creativity within the framework of alienated labour that the capitalist economy sets up. By contrast, within a gift economy this motivation for consumerism wanes since work itself becomes an important arena for creative and participatory control over daily life. In that situation creating the material infrastructures of the Green economy would itself become a fulfilling and exciting project.

Secondly, the real burdens of a Green gift economy would be borne by all. Within the scenario of Green reformism within capitalism, it would be inevitable that the sacrifices of moving to a Green economy would fall most heavily on the poorest sections of the populace, and I have suggested that this is a key difficulty in moving to a Green economy within the framework of representative democracy and capitalism. In a gift economy it would also be the case that various products which were formerly available became scarce. The former producers would have either curtailed their production to avoid ecologically damaging side effects, would have become engaged with more immediate problems of their own, as in the Third World, or would be preoccupied in setting up new environmentally sound systems of production. However these scarcities would be distributed around fairly evenly with producers of all goods and services attempting to provide for the widest and most useful dispersion of their products to other people.

Finally, moving to a gift economy would actually release a large section of the population to provide goods and services that would to some extent compensate for the sacrifices that moving to a green system of production would entail. Within current first world economies it is not profitable or practicable to employ a vast section of the population – the young, the old, the unemployed. However within a gift economy all sections of the population would be able to contribute and would be encouraged and expected to do so. It is also pertinent to point out that within first world capitalist economies only a small section of the time spent at paid work actually coordinates, produces and physically distributes the wealth to which we as consumers are so attached. Capitalism requires a vast amount of labour time to promote and sell products and to ensure the maintenance of the system of private property. The latter is a truly prodigious task since each individual in terms of their own interest is motivated to get round the system while equally motivated to ensure that that it be ruthlessly enforced upon everyone else. Within a gift economy much of this labour could be released for other more useful purposes.

Clearly, to produce such a generous and egalitarian culture one might expect that some changes would have to take place in socialisation practices. For example Hamilton, studying child rearing among the Australian Anbarra, argues that their generous sociability results from a practice of childrearing that is indulgent in comparison with the puritannical practices that have prevailed in the West (Hamilton, 1981). Chodorow, in a cross cultural analysis of patriarchy argues that the competitiveness of adult men in most societies is tied to inequalities in power between the sexes and the absence of men from daily childcare of infants and young children (Chodorow, 1974). To put it bluntly, I doubt whether human nature is such that it would preclude a gift economy. On the other hand, to make such an economy function well, we would have to amplify and extend changes in socialisation practices that we can already see taking place in first world societies.

POSTSCRIPT

Although this article has been concerned to examine some of the problems of environmental reformism and to suggest an alternative strategy, it is not my intention to deny the importance and good sense of any particular reformist policy at the present time. Clearly, we live in a period when capitalism is still very much the preference of most people in the first world. However incompatible capitalism may be with environmental goals, we have to conduct a defence of the environment in this context. What I am arguing is that environmentalism is in the same position as other political interest groups, such as the welfare lobby, whose aims cannot really be achieved within the context of capitalism but who are compelled to struggle for whatever crumbs can be gleaned at the present time. What I am arguing against is reformism as a grand vision in which a future utopia is envisaged that combines capitalism and the environment in a new and benign fashion. It is this grand reformist vision that is misleading and it is advocating this grand vision which may well be mistaken as a political strategy. It might be more useful to think of environmentalism and environmental struggles as prefigurative of a new mode of production that will actually operate in a way that favours environmental goals.

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