Capitalism and the End of History

Environmental crisis has once again forced the possibility of human extinction back into our collective political imagination. The manner in which we interact with nature points to the possibility that we may one day undercut the very basis of that interaction. This is not the first time that we have been faced with this possibility – the two World Wars and the threat of nuclear annihilation which loomed so large in the Cold War that followed, even accidents like Chernobyl posed the question – but this time is different. Before, extinction was seen as the possible result of disaster, a cataclysm breaking violently into regular working of society; now, for the first time this threat is being posed not by some millenarian convulsion but by the normal humdrum of the system. For the far left, Global Warming and environmental destruction confirms what we already knew about capitalism – that it is not merely a crisis prone system, but rather one whose very existence is permanent and chronic disaster. But we are also faced with a new frustration: perhaps the most serious and constant threat to our existence has been illuminated and it is boring.

It is not actually clear that the rate of environmental destruction which we see today is sufficient to cause human extinction in the near future. Professor Frank Fenner of the Australian National University recently predicted that we would be extinct within the century¹ but his almost entirely Malthusian reasons for this (to say nothing of his willingness to be published in 'The Australian') put his opinion under considerable suspicion. A somewhat more sober estimation is that a quarter of the plant and animal species on Earth will be extinct due to Global Warming alone by 2050, but the list does not include Homo sapiens². Not counting 'climate change deniers', the consensus is that our prospects are pretty grim:

today, climate change is already responsible for forcing some fifty million additional people to go hungry and driving over ten million additional people into extreme poverty. Between one-fifth and one-third of Official Development Assistance is in climate sensitive sectors and thereby highly exposed to climate risks. ³

The same report quoted above claims that:

An estimated 26 million of the 350 million displaced worldwide are considered climate displaced people. Of these, 1 million each year are estimated to be displaced by weather- related disasters brought on by climate change. These populations are mostly temporarily forced displacement within national borders, but also include temporarily forced and voluntary displacement across international borders.⁴

It goes on to explain that in 2030 the “number of Climate Displaced People could more than triple”⁵ and that the annual death toll from climate change could could rise to 500,000⁶.
These numbers cannot account for the number of deaths and displacements that could occur if violent conflicts arise from these desperate circumstances. And while the report notes that more people will “live under the continuous threat of potential conflict and institutional break down due to migration, weather-related disaster and water scarcity ”⁷ it does not mention the possibility that the resulting conflicts might have an impact on the international balance of power resulting in renewed and open aggression between the rival imperialist powers – i.e.: international war.⁸
It is capitalism which has posed this problem, but capitalism has entirely refused to address it. At the same time, the revolutionary left is quite possibly at the weakest it has ever been – in terms of numbers and organisation, but not, I think, in terms of theoretical clarity – since the Russian Revolution. This situation is related dialectically to another important factor: the lack of interest for Marxism and the generally reformist consciousness of the working class. It is almost as if we are starting from scratch; it looks as though the working class shall have – once again – to go through all the errors of class collaboration, and (hopefully) to draw the correct conclusions from this. Meanwhile, Marxist intellectuals holding out for the possibility of engaging with a significant vanguard of the proletariat experience all the old petty-bourgeois degenerations and flights of maddens that come from the inability to take root in the heart of the class struggle.
The very few left reformists watching us can see that we are fighting an uphill battle and accuse us starry eyed idealism. But Marxism is not an idealism (in the moral sense of the word), but the most hard nosed and stubborn practicality. We have identified a goal: an end to war and poverty and the continued survival of the human species. And we know that there is only one way to achieve that goal: socialism. Left reformists look at capitalism and our battle against it and conclude that capitalism will not be beat; their alternative is to stick to strategies that cannot work in the name of pragmatism. In reality it is nothing but cowardice and stupidity.

1Cheryl Jones. “Frank Fenner Sees No Hope for Humans” The Australian 16 June 2010. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/frank-fenner-sees-no-hope-for-humans/story-e6frgcjx-1225880091722

2Brian Handwerk. “Global Warming Could Cause Mass Extinctions by 2050, Study Says” National Geographic News 12 April 2006. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0412_060412_global_warming.html

3Forum 2009: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis . p. 4

4Ibid. p. 48 (footnotes removed)

5Ibid. p. 49

6Ibid. p. 14 Figure 2

7Ibid. P. 22

8It is important, geopolitically speaking, that the effects of Global Warming should be making themselves felt at a time when America's military omnipotence is beginning to crack and both Russia and China (and to a lesser extent certain sections of the EU) have shown a clear desire to buck once again against that hegemony.