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Crystallized in texts such as Natural Capitalism (Hawken, Lovins and Lovins 1999), ‘reformist’ environmentalism has appeared to be the default position of the environmentalist movement since the nineties. Reformist environmentalism, also known as ‘ecological modernisation theory’, has claimed that capitalist societies can be regulated to achieve environmental goals. Given the right tweaking by government policy, capitalists will cut resource use and markets will reward the more efficient producers. The end effect will be a shift to renew technologies and infrastructure along sustainable lines. Key to this analysis has been the certainty that economic growth can continue so long as production concentrates on goods that do not damage the environment – a ‘de-materialization’ of the economy.
Marxists have argued that this kind of environmentalism does not go far enough. Instead they stress the inherent features of capitalism that drive environmental destruction – competitive ownership of the means of production fosters technological innovation and brings about growth. Firms seek to externalise the environmental and social costs of production. The wealth of the capitalist class is mobilized to ensure the political power necessary to back up this arrangement.
In more recent years, the popular environmentalist movement appears to have abandoned ‘reformist’ environmentalism. I will characterize the new tendency as ‘radical reformism’. A proliferation of books and minor movements have announced the ‘end of growth’ and suggested various means by which modern capitalism can be reformed to take this into account (Daly 2007: Gilding 2012; Heinberg 2011; Jackson 2009; Latouche 2009). Typically, much of what is suggested by radical reformists is not that different to what has already been proposed by reformists but there are certainly some important new proposals. This paper wants to consider whether the critiques of reformism made by Marxists also apply to radical reformism and the extent to which the proposals of radical reformism constitute a viable way forward.
What is radical reformism?
A key point of division between radical reformism and ecological modernisation is the issue of growth. Radical reformists argue that an end to growth is both necessary – for environmental reasons – and inevitable – because we have reached the limits to growth. Jackson critiques the view that ‘decoupling’ the economy from resource use is a solution:
… simplistic assumptions that capitalism’s propensity for efficiency will allow us to stabilize the climate or protect against resource scarcity are nothing short of delusional. Those who promote decoupling as an escape route from the dilemma of growth need to take a closer look at the historical evidence – and at the basic arithmetic of growth. (2009: 86)
Gilding’s explanation begins with the Global Footprint calculation that we are currently running the planet at 140 per cent of its environmental capacity. At the same time, we are expecting a growth in population to at least 9 billion by 2050 and a growth in the economy of at least 2.5 per cent a year. These two factors together would drive the economy to between 500 and 700 per cent of capacity by 2050. We can then factor in efficiency measures, which have been increasing resource use efficiency by 1.2 per cent per annum over the last thirty years. If we assume a similar growth in resource efficiency to 2050, we would be using resources 38 per cent more efficiently by then. However the outcome would still be an economy running at 300 to 400 per cent of the planet’s capacity – in other words an impossibility and something that could not be attempted without disastrous environmental damage (Gilding 2009: 50-51). Gilding maintains that the first phase of recognition of these realities will be an awareness of the failure of growth, to be followed by “the recognition that the end of growth is being caused by hitting the planet’s physical limits” (2009: 185; see also Heinberg 2011; for similar arguments from Marxist environmentalists as far back as 1985 see Trainer 1985; 2007; 2010).
The explanation for capitalism’s propensity for growth is often remarkably similar to that of Marxists. Jackson (2009) explains at some length the pressures on firms to compete and make technological innovations and to expand markets. Latouche states baldly that the goal of exponential growth is “promoted by nothing other than a quest for profits on the part of the owners of capital” (2009: 8). Like Marxists, radical reformists suggest that nothing less than structural change is necessary to create an economy that does not depend on growth:
… it is entirely fanciful to suppose that ‘deep’ emission and resource cuts can be achieved without confronting the structure of market economies. (Jackson 2009: 86)
At the same time, radical reformists make some claims about this that are not so likely to be made by Marxists. One is a leitmotif of radical reformism as with earlier varieties of reformism. It is what Marxists characterise as ‘idealism’; the view that ideas are central in driving social structures. Growth is characterised as a foundational <i
>idea of this society. For example Gilding writes:
Our addiction to growth is a complex phenomenon, one that can’t be blamed on a single economic model or philosophy. It is not the fault of capitalism or Western democracy, and it is not a conspiracy of the global corporate sector or the rich … Growth goes to the core of the society we have built because it is the result of who we are and what we have decided to value. (Gilding 2009: 66)
This is more important than it may appear, as radical reformism proposes to leave many of the central structures of capitalism intact – for example markets and private ownership – while also claiming that a change in context will nullify the current effects of these structures. This change in context consists of changes in government policy along with a change in motivation, ideology and everyday cultural norms. For example Latouche:
We can immediately see which values must take precedence over the dominant values (or absence of values of the day). Altruism should replace egotism, and unbridled competition should give way to cooperation. The pleasure of leisure and the ethos of play should replace the obsession with work. The importance of social life should take precedence over endless consumerism … (2009:34)
A steady state economy
A good way to think about radical reformism is to begin with its goals for a future steady state (no growth) economy and to see its various policy proposals as means by which modern capitalism can be reformed to bring about this condition. Radical reformism owes a lot to the work of the American economist Herman Daly who has promoted the idea of the steady state economy for many decades. Daly defines a steady state economy as one which permits qualitative improvement but does not allow quantitative growth – in either population or capital stock (producer and consumer goods).
… we might define a SSE as an economy with constant population and constant stock of capital, maintained by a low rate of throughput that is within the regenerative and assimilative capacities of the ecosystem. (Daly 2008:3)
To implement this steady state he suggests the economy must operate according to three principles:
1. Limit use of all resources to rates that ultimately result in levels of waste that can be absorbed by the ecosystem.
2. Exploit renewable resources at rates that do not exceed the ability of the ecosystem to regenerate the resources.
3. Deplete non-renewable resources at rates that, as far as possible, do not exceed the rate of development of renewable substitutes. (2007: 14)
Daly is often referred to by radical reformists as the originator of basic parameters for their analysis and concrete visions of the steady state economy follow him closely. (for example Heinberg 2011:246)
What separates the logic of radical reformism from Marxist environmentalism is not this goal of a steady state (Trainer 2007; Trainer 2010). Marxists begin from the premise that deep structural features of capitalism cause growth and environmental damage. They argue from this that undoing these structural features is the first step necessary to prevent environmental disaster. The second step is to set up a process whereby the population at large can consider environmental issues in making decisions about production. Given this, they are confident that these decisions will allow something like a steady state to evolve. By contrast radical reformists begin with this ideal of the steady state and reason back to establish what may be necessary to reform capitalism to achieve it.
One puzzle to consider with steady state capitalism is the question of interest paid on investments. Heinberg suggests that in current capitalism the source of all these interest payments is actually continual economic growth. People borrow more than they have, but the economy expands to provide the extra which can then be paid back as interest:
As long as the economy is growing … people buy more goods, businesses take out more loans, and interest on existing loans can be repaid. But if the economy is not growing … interest on existing loans cannot be paid. (Heinberg 2011: 6)
In this analysis, if the economy is not growing, and interest cannot be repaid, then why would capitalists be motivated to invest? Surely the economy would not just reach a steady state but grind to a halt? Daly argues that in a steady state economy, qualitative improvement that does not increase the use of materials can create growth (2007:15) but he does not expect much growth from this de-materialization. He acknowledges that the absence of growth would cause interest rates to fall. However there would still be investment for replacement (Daly 2007: 72).
How could investment for replacement make a profit and so yield interest, motivating the private economy? To take an example, we can think about replacing a loaf of bread that has been eaten. Materials needed to produce a loaf of bread are less useful than the assembled loaf of bread. In terms of money, the loaf of bread is worth more. The capitalist buys inputs to production (materials used in production, the maintenance and replacement of machinery, the hours of labour necessary for the production) at one price and sells the products at a higher price – Marx’s surplus value. In the current economy, the surplus is split two ways. One part goes to the capitalist as personal wealth and one part goes to investment in the expansion of production. In a zero growth economy, none could go to expanding production. Ultimately, goods would be produced to be consumed, using materials which can be drawn from nature without constant expansion of resource use. The distribution of those goods would continue to favour the owners of the means of production. To ensure their cut in the production process, capitalists would invest in production, put people to work and pay wages. They would also lend money, being paid back interest as part of the surplus value realized in the sale of produced goods. So in this analysis, capitalism does not require expansion to create interest and thereby investment. Instead, expansion comes from other processes within the capitalist economy – which both radical reformists and Marxist environmentalists describe.
Measures proposed by radical reformists
In many ways it is surprising how extreme are the measures proposed by radical reformists to enable a steady state economy.
Redistribution of wealth
Wealth redistribution is very often nominated by radical reformists as an essential part of a steady state economy and various proposals are suggested to bring this about. Why this should be a necessary part of a steady state economy is not immediately obvious.
One reason often given is the necessity to reduce consumer spending. It is argued that consumerism feeds on status anxiety, which is in turn occasioned by income inequality. So income inequality must be reduced. Jackson notes:
Better recognition for those engaged in child-care, care for the elderly or disabled and volunteer work would shift the balance of incentives away from status competition and towards a more cooperative, and more altruistic society. (2009: 155)
He suggests such measures as taxing the wealthy, minimum income levels and government funding for education. Latouche similarly suggests that redistribution of wealth will “remove incentives to conspicuous consumption driven by desire to emulate those above us” (Latouche 2009: 36). He suggests a global wealth tax to remove tax havens for the very rich.
Other accounts of the rationale for redistribution focus on the failure of present defences of inequality to make sense within a steady state economy. There is no point in promising the poor that their lot will improve or that their children will live a life of affluent luxury. Gilding points out that if we had to grow the economy over a forty year period to raise the standard of living of the global poor to that of typical EU residents today, we would end up with an economy fifteen times as big as the present one – clearly an impossibility within a steady state economy:
If the amount of wealth overall can’t increase, you can improve your wealth only by taking away from someone else. The American Dream is dead. The only way to lift the bottom is to drop the top. Ouch. (Gilding 2009: 219)
Gilding suggests a ceiling on wages, so that the highest paid are earning no more than 100 times the lowest paid. He implies a government regulation of the incomes of the rich. Daly likewise argues for a minimum and maximum income, to be achieved through taxation of the rich and government funding for those on low wages (2007:4).
Radical reformists frequently allude to the necessity for rich countries to fund the environmental reform of the poor countries. Gilding believes that the ultimate effect of this will be to rewrite the balance of power internationally:
The scale of investment in new technology required will be such that the costs of renewable energy will inevitably fall dramatically, providing even poorer countries with access to abundant, locally generated electricity. This will certainly require funding from rich countries initially, but this is widely accepted in the politics of climate change. (Gilding 2009: 117)
Daly argues that the usual justifications for global inequality do not apply once environmental resources are taken into account. The idea that products belong to those who have added value to resources does not take into account the fact that resources are owned by the whole globe and that the resources themselves are a key contributor of value.
So there are two arguments linking wealth redistribution to the steady state economy. The first one is that consumerism comes out of inequality, which must therefore be reduced. The second is that the rationale for inequality that is currently given will not be applicable in a steady state economy. Neither of these arguments are particularly convincing. It is hard to see a 100:1 ratio between rich and poor eliminating status anxiety and competitive consumption. Why not demand a rough equality of condition as socialists argue for? The second argument is really a moral argument. Inequality cannot be justified under the conditions of a steady state economy. What makes this a problem? In due course, this paper will suggest that radical reformists put such an emphasis on redistribution for reasons that are quite different from those given here.
To understand why radical reformists put limits on redistribution, it is important to realize that they see some degree of inequality as necessary to run the kind of capitalism that they envisage in a steady state economy. They accept some part of the meritocratic (functionalist) argument that inequality creates competitive efficiency which benefits all – they just believe that at present this has gone too far with untoward side effects. Gilding writes that a certain amount of inequality is “the right level of differentiated reward to motivate individuals to make an effort and to innovate” (Gilding 2009: 225).
Guaranteed adequate income
The concept of a guaranteed adequate income (Gorz 1982; Wacquant 2008) has sometimes been adopted by environmentalists to explain how issues of employment and unemployment are to be handled in a steady state economy. With growing efficiency and reduced throughput one might expect unemployment to be a problem in such an economy. As Daly puts it: “Can a sustainable economy maintain full employment? A tough question and the answer is probably not” (Daly 2007:22). One solution is that those without a job would be paid a guaranteed adequate income; enough to live on comfortably without working. This would alleviate the presssure on government to find everyone a job.
Daly suggests a variant of this idea. There is to be a negative tax (a government pay out) to those below a certain income threshold. Jackson (2009) also refers to the option of a guaranteed adequate income. By and large, however, radical reformism is not deeply troubled by this issue, arguing, as we shall see, that the answer is to shorten working hours by government mandate, ensuring that all get equal shares of the reduced working hours and the reduced income that goes with that.
Reduced working hours
The way to avoid problems of unemployment, according to radical reformists is by sharing out the working hours that are available:
If labour productivity increases overall, then the only way to stabilize output is for the total hours worked by the labour force to fall. In a recession this typically leads to unemployment. But there is another possibility here. We could also systematically set about sharing out the available work more evenly across the population. Essentially, this means reduced working hours, a shorter working week and increased leisure time. (Jackson 2009: 134)
This measure is expected to bring various benefits:
… the leisure to do one’s duty as a citizen, the pleasure of the freedom to engage in freely chosen arts and crafts activities, the sensation of having found time to play, contemplate, meditate, enjoy conversations or quite simply to enjoy being alive. (Latouche 2009: 40)
Whether this measure is to be imposed by government fiat or is to be achieved by voluntary choice is not always entirely clear. While Jackson and Latouche clearly envisage a government decision to cut working hours, Gilding seems to suppose that ‘encouraging’ this trend will have the same effects:
How about a global movement to have employers agree to cut working hours and income by 10 percent for those employees who want to join a program helping them to cut their consumption by 10 percent? (Gilding 2011: 238)
How any of this is meant to work without extensive regulation and surveillance is a puzzle when people now scramble to be fully employed, holding down a number of jobs to maintain their income. Clearly a change in consciousness would be absolutely necessary.
What kind of cut of working hours and economies is envisaged by radical reformists? While Gilding here refers to a cut in working hours by ten per cent, this is not an indication of the extent of the changes that are envisaged in the long term. Jackson, for example, suggests that a scientifically advisable carbon budget would mean that at present rates of carbon intensity (per unit of GDP), economies in rich countries would have to contract to a quarter their present size, with a proportional cut in working hours (Jackson 2009: 197). This is a very defensible figure and gives a good indication of how drastic a change is envisaged.
Debt moratorium
Heinberg argues that the current international economic crisis is fundamentally a crisis of debt. It is caused by the fact that spending has continued well beyond the capacity of the environment to deliver the promised repayments. To stabilize economies to allow a more permanent restructuring to a steady state it will be necessary to reduce indebtedness. He suggests a government edict to reduce all debt by between 75 and 90 per cent. Investment and savings account would also lose their value proportionally. There would be a let out clause for people whose savings only amounted to $25,000 or less. As he points out the effect would be that a “wealthy person who had gained $5 billion through investing in hedge funds would now have only $500 million” (Heinberg 2011: 238).
Resource taxes
Daly argues that resource taxes are the best way to ensure resource conservation and a steady state. The tax burden should be shifted away from labour and capital and moved instead to the “natural resource flow yielded by natural capital” (Daly 2007: 76). He regards the most effective method as a cap and trade auction system:
… a limit is placed on the total amount of throughput allowed, in conformity with the capacity of the environment to regenerate resources or absorb pollution. (Daly 2007:17)
According to Daly, this policy enacts an appropriate division between the role of markets and the government. The markets allocate resources efficiently but government is required to stipulate the size of the economy relative to resources and a just distribution of resources. These ideas have been broadly taken up by all versions of radical reformism. For example Gilding suggests raising 2.5 trillion dollars by means of a global carbon tax and using that income to “compensate the poor, reduce disruption, and create the new industries and employment required” (Gilding 2011: 141; see also Latouche 2009; Jackson 2009).
Regulation of industry
It may be wondered whether a cap and trade system is really the best method to ensure a rapid transition out of carbon fuels to sustainable alternatives. If rich countries are to cut up to 90% of emissions very quickly, and poor countries are to complete their development with alternative energy, something more robust than a tax on fossil fuels seems likely. Radical reformists usually propose regulations and government funding as a necessary adjunct to resource taxes. Gilding’s prescriptions are the most interesting because he attempts to envisage a transition away from fossil fuels in some detail. His “One Degree War” is a proposal to reduce emissions by 50% over a five year period. It is replete with recommendations for government intervention:
Close down a sufficient number of the world’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from power production by one third. (Gilding 2011: 136)
Install CCS capacity on one thousand of the remaining power plants. This huge investment would be much simpler through international standardization. (Gilding 2011: 137)
Launch a massive renewable energy program … the initial focus will need to be on those areas with most short-term potential for mass rollout, with finance supported by global agreement. (Gilding 2011:137)
Gilding does not say much about the kind of government intervention required for all this. The first proposal suggests an international agreement and a government directive in each country. The second suggests international planning and government funding of the whole exercise. The third proposal implies that loans from private individuals to government will be on terms agreed internationally. One should not think that calls for such intensive government intervention are unusual in this literature. Latouche mentions the need to “phase out” the use of pesticides and the need to “cut energy wastage” by a factor of four (Latouche 2009: 69). As Jackson remarks, this is capitalism but “not as we know it” (Jackson 2009:202)!
Regulation of international trade
While Daly is quite explicit about the need for tariffs and protection, more recent radical reformist perspectives do not mention it. In Daly’s case, the rationale for tariffs is to protect a steady state economy from rivals who are still pursuing a policy of growth and environmental destruction. Writers such as Gilding and Jackson assume that the necessity for environmental reform must and will become a global agenda. Latouche urges the de-growth society as one in which localized self sufficiency will become the norm. Daly and Latouche also propose taxes on international financial transactions.
Government controls over money and banking
Heinberg (2009) sees government control over money as the means by which to get the economy moving and to fund environmental restructuring. The government could issue debt free money and pay off its own debts. It could also give this money to citizens who would then be able to pay off their debts. The money could also be used to initiate social welfare programs and to pay for environmental restructuring. The effect would be to reduce the value of money but Heinberg does not see this as a problem – the measure would “increase demand in an economy with high unemployment and unused productive capacity” (Heinberg 2011: 240).
A common suggestion of radical reformists is that government should take a more firm hold on the money supply. At present, banks create money as they offer loans. This arrangement depends on banks being permitted to lend beyond their assets. If instead, the government required banks to have a 100 per cent reserve system, they could not do this (Jackson 2009: 178). Government itself would issue loans and create money as needed.
If there were a 100 percent reserve requirement for banks, this would get them out of the business of creating money; meanwhile government could award lump sums to new entrants into the economy (every 18-year-old would receive enough to pay for a college education) and lend money into existence at zero percent interest for socially worthwhile projects. (Heinberg 2011: 242)
It is difficult to assess such a surprising proposal. At the present time, banks make the decisions on investment which shape the economy. They do this by assessing the chances of their loan and interest being re-paid. The decision is based on profitability. If government was to take over this role and create money accordingly, it would be unlikely that profitability would be the only consideration. According to radical reformists, this would be a vast improvement. In effect these decisions would become “politicised”, with governments taking a range of factors into account.
Cooperative ownership and ethical investment
As Marxists have always pointed out, the externalisation of environmental impacts is an effect of competitive profit seeking by firms that have to maintain the value of their capital to retain investors. Radical reformists propose two measures which could be argued to loosen this causal chain. Heinberg looks to a revival of the cooperative movement to ameliorate the impact of ownership of social resources by corporations:
Cooperatives have the potential to avert overuse of resources by placing other values, including the interests of future generations, ahead of profit. (Heinberg 2011:253)
Gilding backs this with a discussion of a Swedish forestry company owned by 52,000 people as a cooperative. As the members are forest owners, they “think in longer time frames than listed company shareholders” (Gilding 2011:245). In none of these discussions is there anything proposed to mandate cooperative ownership. It is all about encouragement, a change in cultural norms.
The second proposal is to suggest a change in the behaviour of owners of capital. Owners of capital would no longer seek the highest profit on their shares but instead the highest profit compatible with social and environmental values. Initially, this new approach would be implemented by special companies set up to direct investments ethically, offering their services to the few members of the capitalist class who were ethically motivated. In the long run, what is hoped for is a sea change in the values motivating investors. Gilding explains this suggestion:
These kinds of active investing are now firmly in the mainstream. Where we need to be, though, and will certainly get to, is where there are no special screened funds because all investors consider environmental and social criteria when making decisions, because they realize that these issues are core business questions with significant financial impacts. (Gilding 2011: 239)
He mentions some businesses working along these lines and suggests that in ten to fifteen years time, companies like this will dominate the financial sector. The financial impacts that Gilding refers to here could be of two kinds. Investors will realize that other investors will be concerned about environmental issues – even if they are not themselves. It will be a bad business choice to invest if other investors are not likely to be interested. As well, consumers and the public will be concerned about environmental issues and will penalize businesses that do not take this into account. What is supposed is a shift in culture which has an impact on how the marketplace behaves.
Marketization of personal services
An economy that is not based on the constant expansion of material production will end up with a problem of unemployment. Productivity will increase without an increase in the market for consumer goods. While none of these authors believe that expanding employment in services can allow growth to continue, some argue that a move into services is one of the factors which will allow full employment to continue, even if growth in material output is curtailed. Jackson is the most clear cut on these options:
And whatever the new economy looks like, low-carbon economic activities that employ people in ways that contribute meaningfully to human flourishing have to be the basis for it. That much is clear. In fact, the seeds for such an economy may already exist in local or community-based social enterprises: community energy projects, local farmers’ markets, slow food cooperatives, sports clubs, libraries, community health and fitness centres, local repair and maintenance services, craft workshops, writing centres, water sports, community music and drama, local training and skills. And yes, maybe even yoga (or martial arts or meditation), hairdressing and gardening. (Jackson 2009: 130)
This solution is not generally favoured by radical reformists who instead hope that working hours will be cut in order to spread employment, rather than new jobs appearing in services. Most radical reformists would see a lot of the activities that Jackson talks about being taken on by voluntary workers spending some of their free time in community activities. Latouche is quite scathing about the marketization of personal services and writes that this proposed means of providing employment “creates, in other words, a new servant class, or a new serfdom” (Latouche 2009: 88).
Let us examine the jobs that Jackson talks about to see how most radical reformists would place them in the new economy. Some of these (for example local repair and maintenance services) are new jobs that are made necessary and profitable as a result of the regulation of resource use – driving up the price of new consumer goods. Other jobs are more likely to be voluntary work made available to people as working hours are reduced – for example jobs in community drama. What is apparent in either of these scenarios is that much of the new economy is envisaged to be in “community” hands rather than run as private businesses.
Government ownership of the economy
Radical reformists never propose the social ownership of production as their goal. The necessity to maintain private ownership and market processes to ensure efficiency is central to radical reformism. As Daly writes, “properly functioning markets allocate resources efficiently” (2007: 18). On the other hand, there is much in their program that seems to suggest more and more de facto government ownership.
Heinberg surveys the economic crash of 2008 and the response of governments to bail out banks and important companies to save the economy. As he points out, this is an effective nationalisation of parts of the productive apparatus of society, with governments making political decisions about what companies are to be bailed out, and funding them accordingly, with conditions attached. He foresees this process continuing, as the basic problem is that debt has been taken out which can never be repaid, given the contraction of the economy occasioned by resources shortages.
… as growth fails to revive, one intervention after another will be required — propping up major banks, guaranteeing hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of mortgages, or bailing out “too-big-to-fail” businesses. The result will be an incremental government takeover of large swaths of national economies, with central banks assuming more of the functions of commercial banking, and national governments underwriting production and even consumption. (Heinberg 2011:233)
He does not recommend this option, but instead sees it as inevitable until the point when more permanent solutions are arrived at. But, as we have seen, these more permanent solutions undermine private capital even further (through a debt moratorium) and elevate the role of government even more (through debt free loans to government to initiate and fund government projects).
Jackson is more systematic about this and gives a sense of what functions of the economy will come to be taken over by government in the radical reformist vision. He argues first that many things which will be necessary to be done to reform the economy to become sustainable will not be profitable for private investors. Consequently government should take over these operations and reap any profits that ultimately accrue “… there is likely to be a substantially enhanced role for public sector investment and asset ownership” (Jackson 2009: 140). The extent of this is unclear but he goes onto mention some kinds of government investment which could pay off in the long run if government owns the assets – “forestry, renewable technologies, local amenities, natural resources” (Jackson 2009: 201). Depending on how this is interpreted, this could be a very substantial part of the economy, especially as non-renewable technologies will be banned by government edict or taxed out of existence. It might include the whole energy production sector, as well as transport and all natural resources – agricultural land, forests, minerals – along with all public facilities such as libraries, swimming pools, schools, and hospitals.
As social democratic parties abandoned their initial programs of nationalization in the post war years, they moved to pledges to control the “commanding heights” of the economy. Radical reformist proposals revive this goal, whether theorized as an inevitable development or a goal to be pursued.
The rationale for radical reformism
To really understand the rationale for radical reformism we have to go outside of the writings of radical reformists themselves. Paul Cardan (1974, later Castoriadis) describes the political compromise at the heart of capitalism in rich countries. Constantly rising standards of living have been secured through a century of working class struggle – “the constant pressure exercised by the workers in every country and at all times” (Cardan 1974: 25). Increases in productivity have allowed real wages to rise continuously while the division of the social product remains more or less the same. This arrangment has become entrenched within capitalist economies:
Capital accumulation would be impossible in the increasingly important sectors producing such commodities if it were not for a regular extension of the mass demand for consumer goods, including those formerly considered luxury items. (Cardan 1974: 26)
This deal is a compromise because the working class has given up any hope of taking control of the means of production. Workers are alienated. Employees have no control over their work process, no control over the distribution of the product and no control over the economy as a whole and their place in it. Workers’ organizations have ceased to demand workers’ control of production:
… the ‘ideal tendency’ of bureaucratic capitalism is the construction of a totally hierarchic society in constant expansion, a sort of monstrous bureaucratic pyramid where the increasing alienation of men [sic] in labour will be ‘compensated’ by a steady rise in the standard of living, all initiative remaining in the hands of the organizers. (Cardan 1974: 16)
Or as he puts it more succinctly, the ultimate objective of the ruling classes is:
… to make the revolt of the exploited fail by diverting it into a personal pursuit of the standard of living. (Cardan 1974: 16)
As both Marxists and radical reformists understand, this deal is no longer an option. Economic growth fails – either because environmental controls dampen the economy or because environmental limits have the same impact by increasing the price of resources. The effect will be to reduce employment and incomes for the working class. If Cardan is right, the political impact of this will be huge. While capitalism now governs by consent, this is very unlikely if a long term downturn in growth undermines the deal struck between workers and capitalists.
Radical reformism is proposed to offer a way to avoid one of the more likely outcomes of this context. That is, a consolidation of capitalist elite power as undemocratic dictatorship; a feudalization of capitalism. At the same time, it aims to maintain the support of the capitalist class by retaining some version of capitalism. The basic aim is to effect a transition to sustainability without class conflict or a change in the mode of production. The measures proposed by radical reformists are of two kinds. One kind is to reform capitalism through regulations and incentives so that it becomes sustainable (and stops growing). The other is to secure political support for this process by buying off the working class (and the poor of the developing world) with a new deal. To ameliorate the downturn in employment, working hours are reduced, so everyone will retain some access to income. The inevitable contraction in income is partly compensated for by an increase in leisure, backed up by a change in values. The other form of compensation is a partial redistribution of the social product – to buy off those most likely to be badly affected by a downturn in the global economy.
This rationale is often quite patent and I will mention a few examples. Starting with Daly. If we must stop growth for environmental reasons, how do we deal with poverty? By redistribution.
If we refrain from consuming natural capital then the resulting sustainable flow of consumption will for some time be less than we are currently used to. This will make more urgent (1) sharing; (2) population control; (3) development in the qualitative sense of improving efficiency of resource use. (Daly 2007: 79)
But we must make sure that this redistribution is palatable to all concerned. If we tax capital and labour this will cause resentment. People will feel that something that they have earned through their work has been taken away. However resource taxes will not work like this:
Taxing away value that no one added, scarcity rents on nature’s contribution, does not create resentment. (Daly 2007: 46)
So, sharing is necessary as consumption is reduced. To achieve this, a system of taxation is proposed that is intended to soften political conflict. In terms of how Daly proposes to use these taxes on resources:
The necessary price of scarcity rent … should be used to alleviate poverty and finance the provision of other public goods. (Daly 2007:46)
What this suggests is that a middle band of the community will work reduced hours and experience increased leisure with a lower income and with taxes imposed on the resources they use. Then there will be the poor whose absolute scarcity and reduced opportunity to increase their meagre income will be compensated by government welfare payments.
Gilding is quite open about the political meaning of this crisis and of the measures proposed by radical reformists to handle it:
… a failed growth economy, with rising unemployment and many other social and economic challenges, poses a serious threat to social and political stability and could lead to considerable suffering … a steady-state economy can be designed to avoid this, but it must be just that – designed to do so, including the transition to it. (Gilding 2011: 196)
… pressure in the system will build up until it explodes, unless we take drastic action. (Gilding 2011: 218)
We would see failed states with nuclear arms and countless other weapons being taken over by dictators and terrorists. We would see refugees by the hundreds of millions, if not billions. (Gilding 2011:219)
While there is no mention of revolution here, other authors are quite explicit about this and reject that option on account of the dangers of violent social change:
There are those for whom revolution appears to be the answer. Or if not the answer, then at least the inevitable consequence of continued social and ecological dysfunction. Let’s end capitalism. Let’s reject globalization. Let’s undermine corporate power and overthrow corrupt governments. Let’s dismantle the old institutions and start afresh. But there are risks here too. The spectre of a new barbarism lurks in the wings. A world constrained for resources, threatened with climate change, struggling for economic stability: how long could we maintain civil society in such a world if we have already torn down every institutional structure we can lay our hands on? (Jackson 2009: 172)
… eliminating capitalists, outlawing private ownership of the means of production, and abolishing the wage relationship or doing away with money. Doing so would plunge society into chaos, and could not be done without using terror on a vast scale. And it would not be enough to abolish the capitalist imaginary. On the contrary. (Latouche 2009: 91)
These arguments are a key to the rationale for radical reformism. They go back to Edmund Burke. If the Parliament of 1640 had been deterred by such concerns, we would have never ended up with representative democracy. In fact, “revolutionary” changes in the mode of production can take place without major violence, so long as there is no strong force defending the old order of things – witness the recent fall of the Soviet Union.
Is this capitalism?
Radical reformist authors are not of one mind on this topic. Latouche treats capitalism as a discursive construction. It is not primarily a set of “structures” enforced by legally binding rules of property ownership and money. It is all this but animated by what he refers to as the “logic” of capitalism. Without this logic, these structures could be used to a quite different effect:
Getting beyond development, the economy and growth therefore does not imply abandoning all the social institutions that the economy has annexed; it means embedding them in a different logic. (Latouche 2009: 92)
Accordingly, he regards the reforms he proposes as instituting a new mode of production entirely. De-growth is “fundamentally anti-capitalist” because it challenges “the imaginary foundations of a market society, namely excess and unbridled (pseudo-) domination” (Latouche 2009:91). A good example to explicate this concept is the idea of ethical investment. The spirit or logic of capitalism is that investors are motivated to invest to get the maximum profit. This is in fact laid down in economic textbooks as part of the definition of capitalism. Yet there is no legal compulsion on them to behave this way. In ethical investment they do not behave this way but instead seek profitable investments that are also “ethical”.
Jackson responds to this issue quite differently, arguing that what he is proposing is a major change but not the abolition of capitalism. He notes that the new society will include a lot more public ownership of resources than is currently the case but argues that capitalist economies exist on a range of options as far as that is concerned – they are never purely owned privately. Zero growth capitalisms are quite possible, even if present examples are not organized well to maintain public well being. Consequently he concludes:
Is it still capitalism? Does it really matter? For those for whom it does matter, perhaps we could just paraphrase Star Trek’s Spock and agree that it’s ‘capitalism, Jim. But not as we know it.’ (Jackson 2009: 202)
This issue seems to be a matter of definition only but perhaps it is more significant. The political defence of radical reformism as intending a peaceful transition is based on the claim that what is proposed is a “reform” of capitalist institutions which will not be seen (and opposed) as a revolutionary overthrow of the current order. At the same time, radical reformists are promoting the radical difference between what they propose and current political options. This is a hard line to draw.
The Marxist critique
The Marxist environmentalist critique of capitalism is also a critique of environmentalist reformism. In so far as environmental reformists aim to maintain capitalism, they are not getting to the heart of the problem, which is the deep structure of the capitalist economy. It is this which produces environmental damage. It cannot be reformed but must be replaced. Whether these critiques apply to radical reformist proposals is an interesting and tricky question. Marxists tend to assume that all green reformism is the same and suffers from the same inadequacies. As Kovel puts it:
… there is no compromising with capital, no schema of reformism that will clean up its act by making it behave more greenly or efficiently. (Kovel 2007: 153)
As Foster suggests, with state and market regulations, tradable pollution permits, new green technologies and digital dematerialization of the economy, there is one thing that stays the same:
… the fundamental character of business-as-usual is hardly changed at all. (Foster 2009: 47)
Competition drives growth
McLaughlin gives an excellent description of the process by which capitalism produces growth:
… if those who manage centers of material production fail to maximize profit, they may be unable to attract investors. As a result, they may be unable to modernize their systems of production. This makes them less able to compete successfully with other producers. They then lose their position in the market. (McLaughlin 1993:29)
In other words, their products will arrive at the market costing more than those of their competitors and eventually no one will buy them, leading to a loss of capital, unemployment for staff and other “unpleasant consequences” (McLaughlin 1993: 29). To avoid this, managers will attempt to maximize profits. They will do this by attempting to lower the price of their products to extend markets. In order to this they will use more elaborate machinery to produce more with less labour. But to realize the full value of their capital with these new technologies, they will need more consumers, who will be attracted by a lower price:
This cycle, in which an increased productivity on the part of labor requires increased consumption of the rest of nature, repeats itself again and again. (McLaughlin 1993: 41)
This process is an “integral part” of capitalism and could only be changed by a transition to another kind of economy. As Kovel puts it:
Growth is simply equated with survival as a capitalist, for anyone who fails to grow will simply disappear, his assets acquired by another. (Kovel 2007: 43)
Let us look at how radical reformists might respond to this critique. It is true that radical reformists envisage a society in which owners of private capital control a dominant part of the means of production. It is also true that they envisage a competitive market mechanism. The motivations of individual managers of capitalist enterprise could well be just as specified in the Marxist account. However at the end of the day, radical reformists intend that interventions by government would prevent these competitive options from being taken up in any way that would allow growth of resource use. The effect is in fact to end growth, since there is no way to grow economies without a growth in resource use – de-materialization is a fiction. Broadly, we can divide the radical reformist approach into two strategies. One is to tax resource use to the point where environmental damage is curtailed. Growth ceases because without growing use of resources it cannot take place. The other is to legislate to end damaging technologies and intervene with government funded replacement technologies where necessary. Growth ceases because new technologies operate within the constraints of sustainable use of resources and cannot provide a growth in production.
Take carbon emissions as an example. If Jackson is right, to prevent dangerous climate change, carbon emissions would have to be capped at a level which would imply that only a quarter of current GDP in the rich countries could be produced. Latouche has an essentially similar estimate for France – that the economy would have to contract by two thirds to meet environmental goals (Latouche 2009:3).
If this contraction were to be achieved by a cap on emissions and an auction of permits, the effect would be that a large number of firms would fold as it became impossible for them to afford to use energy generated from fossil fuels, with increasing unemployment. The government would then step in and reduce working hours to perhaps a quarter of what they are now, so that the remaining profitable firms would have to employ all the working population, but only for a ten hour week. Under this regime the wages of some would go down below the poverty line. These people would get a welfare top up for their income with the money sourced from resource taxes. These taxes would also be used to fund new energy alternatives, to be owned by government.
My sense is that it would be inviting economic chaos to proceed in this way. You could never know in advance what the effect of such drastic resource taxes would be In any case, government would be called on to mop up after the event. I am not sure that the political will to continue on this path could be maintained in view of the uncertainty created by this approach.
Perhaps a more feasible way to do this would be to make use of some of the other suggestions from radical reformism. Government would progressively ban the use of fossil fuels and invest in replacements. These replacements would cost more, leading to a contraction of economic growth. The funds to replace fossil fuels through a structural transformation of energy and transport would come from loans to government or the government would issue debt free money to initiate these changes. As in the previous example, the contraction of the economy due to increasing energy prices would produce unemployment, which would be handled by reducing working hours and funding the poor.
Now we have a more detailed understanding of how radical reformists plan to curtail growth while retaining capitalism. What could Marxists say about this? In both the scenarios described above, government would in practice take over more and more of the means of production – whether to rescue firms from bankruptcy or to initiate structural reforms of energy and transport. Firms would be rescued or allowed to fail through a political process. This is essentially a form of socialism in that decisions about the uses and development of the means of production are not being made by private capitalists in pursuit of profit but by governments assessing the total situation – employment, environmental effects, wage levels, social impacts and so on. It is hard to get a sense of how far this takeover would go. The main point is that a substantial move in this direction would vitiate the claim of radical reformists that their strategy is essentially different from that of more common or garden socialists.
Marxists would also remain dubious about the possibility of restraining the profit seeking activities of private business to the extent necessary to prevent growth. At least as presented by radical reformism, most of the economy is controlled by private firms where managers still seek to maintain profitability to maintain investor support in competition with other firms. Yet systems of government intervention and regulation ensure that this competition does not produce growth as an outcome. This assertion strains credulity. There are too many examples of governments that have tried and failed to control various activities which are deeply entrenched in society and supported by informal cultural norms. Prohibition in the United States is the often cited example.
In reply, radical reformists do not believe that the competitive and profit seeking culture of capitalism will be retained. In other words, they suppose that both capitalists and consumers will accept the negative consequences of a failure to operate to maximize market success where environmental issues are concerned. This cultural change will be so widespread as to negate a lot of these market sanctions. They suggest various alternative modes of behaviour, that nevertheless operate within the legal forms of private ownership. I will come back to this.
Externalisation of environmental costs
Marxists argue that the capitalist firm is forced to externalise environmental and social costs to maintain its competitive advantage in relation to other firms. In other words, if there is a cheaper way to produce something which has, as a side effect, some kind of environmental or social cost, the firm will pursue this method in order to stay in competition with other firms, under the same pressures. They can do this because they are not forced to pay for the costs of this “external” damage. Kovel gives the example of the Bhopal disaster in India. The ultimate cause of the disaster was a system which was putting pressure on the company to cut costs, in order to survive.
As prices will tend to be held down by the competition endemic to the system, in practice cutting costs becomes a paramount concern of capitalists. (Kovel 2007: 40)
To the extent the capital relation, with its unrelenting competitive drive to realize profit, prevails, it is a certainty that the conditions of production at some point or other will be degraded, which is to say, natural ecosystems will be destabilized and broken apart. (Kovel 2007: 41)
Similar points are made by Marxists in a variety of ways. McLaughlin (1993) begins with the fact that commodities are produced if they will sell on the market. Effectively a social decision to use a part of nature for productive purposes is being made based on prices in the market place. The ecological impacts are not an issue. Foster makes a related point with his concept of “metabolic rift” (Foster 2009). Human beings, taken as a species, organize their relationship with nature. In capitalism this relationship is broken down as decisions about the natural world are based on private profitability and there is no process of decision making that involves the whole community. Quoting Marx, he argues that what is necessary is a socialist economy in which “the associated producers govern the human metabolism with nature” (Foster 2009:51).
It should be noted that radical reformists are equally aware of externalisation as problem of current capitalist economies. As Heinberg explains this:
The damage to ecosystems that occurs from logging and mining is an externality if it isn’t figured into the price of lumber or coal. … Corporations keep the profit and leave society as a whole to clean up the mess. (Heinberg 2011: 41)
Clearly, the issue here is not that different to that with growth. It is private ownership and competitive marketplace pressures which drive the externalisation of environmental damage. Radical reformists propose to deal with this problem by political control and regulation achieved through government. Daly marks out the appropriate roles for the market and government:
Properly functioning markets allocate resources efficiently, but they cannot determine a sustainable scale or a just distribution; those can be achieved only by government policy. (Daly 2007: 17)
They expect a sea change in views on these issues to affect even members of the capitalist class itself. Gilding foresees a turnaround as people wake up to the fact that the economy will crash from the impact of climate change:
… in fact, at this point there will be powerful political forces, in business, the military, and the community more broadly, demanding urgent and dramatic action. This demand will be sufficient to overcome the vested interests’ fight for protection of their economic wealth. (Gilding 2009: 126)
The established power elites will see climate change as the cause of the crisis and as a threat to their ongoing power and influence because it puts the whole model of progress into question. They will then act swiftly to address the problem … (Gilding 2009: 185)
Gilding admits that this initial push to reign in climate change will not be sufficient to deal with the issue of growth, taken in the long term. For the longer term he sees the capitalist class and society as a whole gradually getting to the realization that growth is incompatible with environmental limits and restricting firms through a combination of government controls and cultural pressures.
For this argument, the Marxist reply must be similar to that given on the issue of growth. It strains credibility to believe that government regulation and community pressure can stem the drive for externalisation coming out of market place competition between privately owned firms. One would expect every regulation to be politically contested and subverted. Alternatively, if the cultural change expected by radical reformists was to take place and ensure that at every local point of decision, environmental considerations came before profits, one would wonder why people would want to retain the economic form of the capitalist market place and private ownership. At the very least, it seems possible that even if the radical reformist program was to be initiated as a first move, propelled into existence by a widespread change in consciousness, that it would very shortly be swept aside as circumstances suggested a more simple economic arrangement to pursue these same goals – redistribution; political control over environmentally important decisions about production; conviviality and social ownership; increased leisure and a fall in material standards of living.
The seemingly obvious alternative would be negotiating production decisions through a transparently political process in which social costs, community needs, resource and labour efficiency, environmental considerations and issues of livelihood were all laid on the table, without money coming into the picture (Leahy 2011: Nelson & Timmerman 2011). At the very least, the claim that economic efficiency is to be realized through market place competition would be constantly undermined in the radical reformist utopia, with firms and consumers, as well as government bodies, taking decisions that were based on environmental, social or personal considerations, rather than strict business profitability.
Capitalist hegemony
McLaughlin raises an issue which is very relevant to this discussion. As noted, capitalist owners and managers have an interest in pursuing profits even at the expense of environmental considerations. Although we may think that political regulation might control these processes, McLaughlin argues that there is little possibility of political regulation being pursued effectively. The capitalist class, through its ownership of the means of production, has the wealth necessary to dominate the political process:
Political restrictions on markets are created through a process that works from a baseline assumption that individuals own pieces of nature and can do whatever they want with them. All restrictions that are placed on this ‘right’ must fight an uphill battle against the presumption of private property, and the hill is significantly steepened by the influence of accumulated wealth on the political process. (McLaughlin 1993: 36)
In other words, unless this power over wealth is undone, we cannot expect the political process to regularly act against the interests of the capitalist class.
As we have seen, the basic argument of radical reformists in relation to this question is to suppose a ground swell of change in political sentiment. This affects even the ruling class itself and is hegemonic within the subordinate classes. The crisis of global warming decisively tips the political balance in favour of environmental measures and against the maintenance of the growth economy. Radical reformism supposes that this will happen and that decisive structural change in the way the economy works will cement this arrangement.
Of course, Marxists can point to the fact that this change in sentiment from the capitalist class seems unlikely given the present views of ruling elites. Yet the criticism can be turned by pointing out that there is no current support for a socialist revolution from the subordinate classes. In other words, both scenarios suppose a ground swell of political change in relation to a changed set of circumstances.
While all this makes sense, it leaves radical reformists open to a critique based in the following dilemma. The radical reformist scenario is preferred to socialism because it is supposed to be less politically disruptive and not to risk a violent and coercive revolutionary takeover, made necessary by the entrenched opposition of the capitalist class. Yet how could we possibly suppose that the capitalist class would not resist radical reformism when it is intended to attack every part of their current power base? For example how many capitalists would not be damaged by a debt moratorium cutting the value of their investments by 75% (Heinberg 2011) or by a two thirds (Latouche 2009) or three quarters (Jackson 2009) contraction of the economy? Why prefer radical reformism to socialism on the grounds that radical reformism will occasion a less trenchant resistance when it is proposing all this? Or alternatively, if the capitalist class does become amenable to such massive inroads on their profitability, why stop at that? How inconceivable is it that a large section of the capitalist class would put their energies behind a new mode of production to deal more transparently with environmental and social problems.
Wrapped up with these issues are the radical reformist proposals for cooperatives and ethical investment. As explained, these ideas are promoted as ways in which privately owned capital can act outside of narrow market considerations to bring about an environmentally sustainable capitalism. As ethical investors replace your typically selfish investors, managers of firms would not be rewarded for profitability and expansion but for managing to turn a profit without harming the environment or throwing people into poverty. In other words, the new marketplace of radical reformism would not behave like the old market place described by Marxists to explain growth.
There are two kinds of answers to this coming from Marxists. One is to note that ethical investment and cooperatives have yet to become dominant within capitalism. It may be that a cultural change will drive things in this direction but there is nothing to guarantee this. As Foster, Clark and York put it, this is a “voluntaristic perspective” which envisages individuals withdrawing themselves from the capitalist economy rather than a mass based structural change transforming “the entire structure of production” (2010: 396).
The second objection is more fundamental. Investment is always to make money and the intention of investment is always to end up with more money than you started with. Ethical investment is no different in this respect. What happens to this profit after it is received? It could go anywhere, and is just as likely to be spent on things that do not look after the environment. As Kovel discusses this:
For green capital (or ‘socially/ecologically responsible investing’) exists, by its very capital-nature, essentially to create more value, and this leaches away from the concretely green location to join the great pool, and follows its force field into zones of greater concentration, expanded profitability – and greater eco-destruction. (Kovel 2007: 154)
McLaughlin gives an example from the West Coast of the USA (McLaughlin 1993: 39-40). Pacific Lumber was a small timber company which husbanded their timber resources and saved a lot of old growth timber while still turning a modest profit. Another big company purchased Pacific Lumber using the value of the Pacific Lumber forest to acquire a loan to buy them out. The new company, Maxxam 40, had to pay back their loan and did so by cutting the old growth timber. In other words, ethical investors and cooperatives cannot protect their part of the means of production from appropriation by others, who will follow the logic of the marketplace and maximize profitability.
Radical reformists suggest a number of ways out of this logic. One is that the firm needs to protect itself from being bought out by shareholders by becoming a cooperative and only admitting investors who are sympathetic to the goals of the green corporation. Yet the logic of the Marxist critique can also be applied to cooperatives:
… the internal cooperation of freely associated labor is forever hemmed in and compromised by the force field of value expansion embodied in the market, whether this be expressed in dealings with banks or an unending pressure to exploit labour to stay afloat, or through hierarchies or bureaucracies, or any of hundreds of mediations. (Kovel 2007: 181)
In other words, as far as environmental matters are concerned, a cooperative is under pressure to cut costs to remain in the market place with other firms which are not cooperatives. These other firms are not squeamish about cutting environmental corners and ultimately the cooperative either does likewise or does not survive market pressure.
Yet, radical reformists in fact suppose that the capitalist class as a whole has changed its spots and resists alternatives that are environmentally damaging. This behaviour is reinforced by the consumer choices of a public that is concerned about environmental issues and is backed up by government legislation which prohibits environmentally damaging ways of making money. Profits from a green corporation cannot be invested in environmentally damaging production because such production is not possible in the cultural and legal context being envisaged. In this context, cooperatives are just one means by which environmental values are upheld. Where timber is concerned, it would be supposed that no one (in the world) would buy timber if it was not certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council. No one would be prepared to buy old growth timber from Maxxam 40 and the owners of Maxxam 40 would know this in making decisions about getting a loan to acquire Pacific Lumber. To argue this, radical reformists are assuming a sea change in the behaviour of consumers (who will prefer environmentally sound products) and investors (who will want to join cooperatives in which environmental and social values are protected). However implausible this may seem at the moment, it is not actually impossible. What is supposed is the conversion of the whole population, including the capitalist class, to an ethic of generous cooperation and environmentalist concern.
But in that case, one wonders why the legal structures of capitalism are necessary or appropriate, designed as they are to defend private property against the community at large. Or we could see these structures as very rapidly undone by such a change in attitude. Capitalists would just give away their fortunes (over and above a comfortable security) to the poor or to other good causes and, far from being replaced by others with a more ruthless ethic, other capitalists would step into the breach keen to emulate their generosity and gain status within their class. The money that they distributed would be used by others for egalitarian distribution (looking after the needs of all) and environmental repair. In the firms that capitalists owned, they would cede control progressively to the workers and gradually move production to the goods and services that their workforce were keen on providing. Money would cease to operate to constrain options as no one would really be making decisions on that basis. Very shortly, it would be easier to operate without it; the utopia of the gift economy or non market socialism (Leahy 2011: Nelson and Timmerman 2011).
Alienation and capitalist ownership
As has been made clear, one of the key questions facing radical reformism is that much of what they are supposing implies a more radical change in social structure than the one that they envisage. This is nowhere more evident than where labour is concerned. A sine qua non for capitalists to make profits is control over the labour force; people’s willingness to accept discipline at work is essential if capitalists are to get profits from their investments. As Cardan (1974) has argued, this acceptance of alienated labour is part of the negotiated settlement between capitalists and the working class. The working class puts up with alienated labour at work so long as there are increasing compensations in consumer goods.
As Cardan also suggests, this is far from uncontested. The capitalist class actually relies upon people actively participating at work and to that extent sharing control over production. Without that, the complex technological arrangements characteristic of modern industrial society could not be sustained. At the same time, it cannot cede full control to the workers without losing its ownership of the means of production and its control of surplus product. There is a constant contestation of control at work, with minor forms of insurrection such as avoiding work, getting around regulations, pilfering and the like. These derelictions are being constantly monitored and surveyed as technology changes and options for avoiding compulsory work shift. Along with this, attempts are constantly made to remove apathy and secure involvement by allowing minor kinds of control to the work force.
As stated above, the whole program of radical reformism (and in fact the environmental crisis however it is handled) throws this negotiated deal into the air – the compensations for alienated labour are drastically and permanently reduced. What is proposed by radical reformism to deal with this is in two basic parts. One part is a reduction of hours of compulsory labour and a massive intensification in hours of voluntary community work, as part of leisure. The second part is various kinds of redistribution that allocate funds to people regardless of whether they have worked to earn them – these are the guaranteed adequate income and the social wage as well as the massive funding allocated to developing countries to establish their energy and transport industries along sustainable lines. Both of these two parts compensate the subordinate classes for the failure of growth and the contraction associated with environmental policies.
Yet neither of these measures comes without problems for the capitalist class. As Foster puts this:
… to question the structure underpinning the exploitation of labor (both of which would be threatened by a sharp reduction of working hours and substantial income guarantees) is to raise questions of system change. (Foster 2011: 31)
In particular, workers in their leisure hours operate production of community assets as volunteers, combining in democratic groups to organize their production. This gives people a daily experience of working without the discipline imposed in the capitalist workplace. This is very likely to undermine the options for discipline exercised in the remaining hours of forced labour working for a private capitalist or government agency. The absolute superfluity of labour discipline from the point of view of productive efficacy, along with the possibility of handling work democratically, becomes an everyday experience. This undermining is abetted by schemes to ensure that the poor are supported through government payments. Why work for a boss if there is an option to live comfortably without work? The disintegration of work discipline is massively supported by the new ethic which radical reformism presupposes as necessary for its environmental measures to be supported. This is an ethic of cooperation rather than competition, of voluntary austerity and of egalitarian support. All of this suggests the difficulty of imposing work discipline when people can be supported by community generosity, as well as by government hand outs, when their material needs are few and when much of what they need is produced in their local community through voluntary community processes – such as community gardens, recycling, local repair shops and community arts groups.
Review of radical reformism
It has been argued here that some of the Marxist critiques of reformism do not readily apply to radical reformism. At the same time, the replies to Marxism which fit with the radical reformist position bring their own problems.
One challenge to radical reformism is that its proposals imply such a drastic break with current capitalism that it is on a par with revolutionary socialism and anarchism as a divisive and contentious proposal – of the kind that might engender a violent and turbulent response. The restrictions on the power of the capitalist class proposed by radical reformism are extremely drastic. If capitalists were to continue to behave as they do now, then these moves would be opposed with every political option. If, as radical reformists suppose, this will not happen because of a ground swell of change in viewpoint, extending to the capitalist class itself, then another set of objections comes into play. The change in the political landscape supposed by radical reformists is so extreme as to create a scenario in which a variety of drastic proposals might be entertained. To imagine that in this context radical reformism would seem the preferable option is a matter of faith.
A second challenge to radical reformism is that the proposals of radical reformism, were they to be implemented, would in fact throw the commanding part of the economy into the hands of government. In effect, most key decisions about production would have to be handled politically because the private economy would have been heavily compromised by environmental and social regulations. In this case it is a moot point whether radical reformism actually constitutes an alternative to socialism, as its proponents argue.
This leads to a third challenge. Even if the proposals argued for by radical reformism were to be initiated without an initial change away from capitalism, they would start a process which would make this change inevitable. The key example here is the question of labour discipline. Radical reformism would undermine labour discipline to the point where a de facto cooperative control over work and the process of distribution would have to take place.
So is radical reformism completely without merit? My view is that radical reformists, like other environmentalist reformists, point to the kind of strategies which can work now in the context of a capitalist economy. They outline strategies which can prefigure a more suitable mode of production and ameliorate some of the problems that we now face. The problem with Marxist critique is that it can lead to a fatalism in which the only correct political work is to announce and promote the socialist revolution. As Gibson-Graham (2006) point out, this is very debilitating. It does little to build experience of more socialist ways of operating and to build support for an alternative society.
Radical reformists are correct to point out that many useful things can be done in capitalist society as it is now, making use of the structures of capitalism to bring about alternative outcomes. They are correct in arguing that capitalism is not just a set of economic structures and legislative procedures but is animated by a cultural logic which can be opposed and replaced even within the structural constraints of capitalism today. Such things as ethical investment, ethical consumption, cooperatives, donations to the developing countries, government interventions to restrain environmental damage, voluntary community work, new environmental technologies, are all options which make sense now and are worth effort.
The problem with radical reformism is that it supposes that all these sensible proposals for action in the current capitalist context can be stitched together to make a new kind of society and that we should work towards a political coalition to enact this. I have tried to show why this is a problematic vision. It seems likely that modes of production are governed by an imaginary as Castoriadis (1987) argues, a subconscious framework that animates them in toto. Another way to think of them is as a game with certain agreed rules (Leahy, Bowden and Threadgold 2011). Radical reformism correctly apprehends the cultural logic of capitalism and what is necessary to break with this. It then goes on to imagine that a new cultural hegemony with an alternative logic will retain and re-use the economic and political structures that have been built up to realize the capitalist imaginary. It is much more likely that a set of economic and political forms will be worked out that cohere more closely with the cultural changes that radical reformists see as necessary.
It is vital to realize the importance of radical reformism in the environmentalist movement today and to understand that it is not just ecological modernisation in new clothing. It represents a new acknowledgement within the environmentalist movement of the impossibility of growth and the necessity for a radically different economic order. In that, it has much in common with Marxist environmentalism despite the differences. The analysis it makes of the drivers of growth, and of the externalisation of environmental damage in capitalism is also similar to what Marxists have been saying for a long time. The fruits of this approach in practice cannot necessarily be predicted from its shortcomings as analysis. Nevertheless, Marxists will continue to prefer a more straightforward attempt to replace capitalism.
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