We cover this week a lot of ground, but keeping the essence of this blog posts, will go to the point and share key ideas, that probably disrupt mainstream history and systems thinking. Let's get started!
Environmental justice and racism, two sides of the same coin
It is all too frequent that we separate in modules and isolated parts complex topics. For many, environmental justice has to do with a fair distribution of the costs of 'development', with little relantionship with racism and systemic poverty. To the contrary, they are very related, as there is a disproportionate part of the waste dumps and extractivist projects taking place where certain social, ethnics and race groups reside.
Those places that are empoverished and lack economic opportunities are normally more open to be employed in any type of jobs, including those that are dangerous and eliminate their commons. It is no coincidence that the allocation of the costs of growth are on socially and economically marginalized areas, the lossers of "progress".
To overcome that, activists of different focused on different "causes" should unite to ensure there is environmental and economic justice. Traditionally, groups that has been marginalized by their race or economic status considered the environment a matter of intellectuals and citizens of comfortable economic standards.
Progressively, this is no longer the case, and black and indegenous communities understand that their claims for economic democracy, fair work, public services ... are tight with the protection of the natural environment they live close to.
Capitalism perpetuates injustice, via colonialism, coups and debt
Capitalism seeks the expansion to grow its surplus, and its surplus needs even cheaper inputs.
There is nothing cheaper than something free, and colonialism basically allows that, cheap labor and abundant raw materials to allow for the industrialization of the Western world. The latter was able to manufacture expensive goods back to the South, while the South sells very cheaply its commons.
Since the 1960's the South start raising to remove the colonize order, improving their trade terms, nationalizing back commons and seeing their wellfare finally growing.
The first tactic by imperial forces was to support coups on the old colonies by regimes supporting the economic interest of US, Europe and other countries. With the false claim of fighting the risk of an expansion of communism, the liberalization of the colonies was brutally stopped.
The South organized and resists decades, creating international organizations to stablish global justice and better terms with the north, such as import substitution and the expansion of public services previously eraded by the neo liberar order.
As the sensibility towards the South increase in society, and the threat of the communist regime becomes less credible, other strategies were required. The Volcker shock was an economic attack first starting with high interest rates, follow by inflation and end with restructuring programms.
Many countries in the south were squezed and push to take debt as their terms of trade erade with oil price increases, provided by elitist institutions like the IMF and the WB, under the condition to cut public spending for the service of debt. The South was again crashed, this time without direct
violence or coups, only economic violence was needed.
Which environmentalism is consistent with social justice and degrowth
We reviewed three types of environmentalism, the first wants
to create national parks and leave a small portion of nature pristine, with
little mention of the communities already living there. The second considers
the environmental crisis a technological one, which could be solve applying the
correct technology and policy mechanisms. The last one, called the
environmentalism of the poor, protects the environment as it depends directly
on the close ecosystems to thrive, and it has a relationship with nature that
is not dual but rather integrated with culture and the sense of belonging.
The cult of wilderness, the first environmentalism type,
have a dual relationship with nature that considers monumental, recreational…separated
with the human territory, tradition and local communities. The protection of
wilderness is of a prior condition that the respect for millennial societies
that did live in harmony with those spaces. While rewilding is a remarkable
goal it cannot be made by expulsing and degrading local groups that know really what sustainability means.
The gospel for environmental efficiency and techno optimism,
the second type, considers nature something to dominate and focuses of a few
kpis to optimize. If we only can reduce co2 emissions... normally overlooking
side impacts of “clean” technologies like rare minerals extraction, water use,
food conflicts… inherent in trying to
keep up with growth and reducing carbon emissions. It normally does not defend
the democratization of economic decision, nor recognizes the social dimensions
of the crisis.
The last type, the environmentalism of the poor, raises from
the realization, mainly from the South, that there are class, ethnic, socioeconomic
considerations to the unequal distribution of environmental impacts in the
world. With that in mind, and seeing their millennial integrated economies to
be under risk, organize to defend their territory, and avoid the monetization
of each environmental decision, normally supported by the other two environmentalism
via cost benefit analysis as a “neutral” tool for decision making. Putting the
recognition and participation of the local communities at the core, the
environmentalism of the poor demands the local participation as an essential
requirement for any project lead in the name of “development”.
Environmentalism should defend the right for all to live
in a livable space, whether urban or rural
In both the rural and the urban world, the expansion of
capitalism and the profit motive means more commons are under danger, and the
poor as pushed away from green spaces and send into residual dumps of suburbs
without basic services,
The displacement of the poor and the working class it at the
core of the environmental movement of the poor, which defends the right to stay
in healthy environments.
While there are possibilities to unite forces between
movements, the little friction of the first two movements with capitalism is
not a bug for them, rather a feature that make them comfortable enough to keep up with
the discriminatory violence of the hegemony of growth.
Bringing Degrowth further than the economic critique, degrowth a la French
Many french scholars like Latousche scape the economistic trap that many ecological economists are into. Degrowth proposes a scape from the economy, recognizing its abstract nature and lack of physical laws, despite the efforts of economists to create the laws of the market and money.
Degrowth liberates the imaginery, and it is expressed as a radical democratization of our social systems. Instead of being push externally due to planetary boundaries, degrowth is a voluntary celebration of a frugal life, the demonetization of the commons and the revitalization of the community.
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