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The People review Joel Kovel's THE ENEMY OF NATURE: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? by Joel Kovel [Zed Books] Note: From time to time, Cyrano features "people's reviews" of books, movies and other cultural artifacts. In our opinion, the quality of these citizens' reviews—articles and comment submitted freely to blogs and social commentary websites—is often superior to those filed by professionals. TAKE No. 1 "An Ecosocialist Manifesto," September 26, 2002 Reviewer: Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - Joel Kovel's "The Enemy of Nature" offers a powerful and unflinching eco-Marxist critique of the capitalist system. Concluding that the path of accumulation must inevitably lead to a world wide ecological crisis, the author theorizes about the type of "ecosocialist" system that must supplant capitalism in order to ensure humanity's survival. Kovel is part of a growing "Red/Green" movement that also includes the outstanding Marxist scholar James O'Connor. Kovel's arguments seem to build upon and indeed are closely aligned with many of the ideas in O'Connor's excellent book "Natural Causes," but I personally find Kovel's writing to be a bit more accessible than O'Connor's. Perhaps this pragmatism can be attributed to Kovel's political sensibilities, as he was a candidate for the Green Party Presidential nomination in 2000. Kovel believes that various forms of so-called "Green economics" are doomed to failure because they do not address what he sees as the root problem driving the ecological crisis: namely, capital's need to continuously expand. He points out that whatever gains might be realized from the introduction of environmentally-friendly technology will be quickly outweighed by the expansion of the economy. For example, fuel cells might be less harmful than internal combustion engines, but if the technology merely enables the manufacture of hundreds of millions of new automobiles, the planet will ultimately be much worse off. But Kovel acknowledges that the current Green movement is in fact helping to lay the groundwork for what is yet to come. The Green's emphasis on local democratic control of the means of production will help free labor from its bondage with capital, which is essential for socialism to succeed. Of course, Kovel devotes a section to readers who may need to be reminded that really existing socialism as practiced in the Soviet Union and elsewhere was NOT what Marx intended. Kovel shows that these countries actually substituted the state for the market, in the end merely proving that markets were superior to centralized planning. The ruined environments left behind by the Communist states were testaments to a failed attempt at accumulation, in much the same way that the West is currently degrading the air, land and sea in its ongoing frenzy of accumulation. The main sign of capitalism's irrationality is that it posits incessant economic growth as the predominant yardstick for "success" in a finite planet. By definition, capitalism is at loggerheads with nature. Kovel speculates on how collapse might occur in the capitalist nations. He understands that a breakdown of the financial system could easily lead to fascism, or possibly "ecofascism", as capital seeks to hold on to power. But Kovel thinks it may be plausible that the pockets of production growing outside the bounds of capital may be strong enough to resist the counter-revolution. Indeed, Kovel points out that up to 20 percent of the world economy already exists in the "informal" sector, although most of this is comprised of criminal activity and much less of the positive kind (such as the Bruderhof communities of the U.S.). This latter part of Kovel's analysis bears similarity to Nick Dyer-Witheford's "Cyber-Marx", although Kovel does not appear to be aware of this book nor is it referenced in his bibliography. In short, Dyer-Witheford theorizes that technophiles will appropriate the means of production in order to empower a society that eventually achieves autonomy by existing outside the bounds of capitalist control. Like Kovel, Dyer-Witheford envisions that the post-capitalist society will choose to apply its surplus value to the cause of freeing labor and restoring its ravaged social, physical and natural environments. In my view, the convergence of these two authors' thoughts -- albeit arrived at from different angles, but perhaps more compelling because of this -- bolsters both of their arguments and suggests that the possibility of radical change may not be as elusive as one might suppose. I strongly recommend Kovel's book for anyone who may be concerned about the future of our society or for those who may be contemplating how a more humane world might come about. TAKE No. 2: "The Eco-socialist Idea - from William Morris to Joel Kovel," Reviewer: Walter R. Sheasby (Sierra Madre, CA USA) - "I feel sure," William Morris told his fellow socialists gathered at Kelmscott House in 1884, "that the time will come when people will find it difficult to believe that a rich community such as ours, having such command over external Nature, could have submitted to live with a mean, shabby, dirty life as we do." One hundred eighteen years ago Morris was imagining a time "when no one was allowed to injure the public by defiling the natural beauty of the earth." As Joel Kovel spells out in this book, we are further from that goal today than when the dedicated radical penned his novel of the future, News from Nowhere, perhaps the first ecosocialist vision. The world today is far shabbier and the public injured far more than when Morris wrote, and Kovel is dealing with a level of ecodestruction many magnitudes worse. In fact, given the trajectory he outlines, the biosphere itself, not simply the appearance of the human habitat, is what is threatened: "Put more formally, the current stage of history can be characterized by structural forces that systematically degrade and finally exceed the buffering capacity of nature with respect to humman production, thereby setting into motion an unpredictable yet interacting and expanding set of ecosystemic breakdowns." Kovel's task in The Enemy of Nature is to "understand the social dynamics of the crisis, and to see whether anything can be done about them" (p. 21). Part of that task involves learning the emprirical dimensions of the ecological crisis, and how the various perils and problems that come to public attention in a very fragmentary way are actually part of one process of ecodestruction with one cancerous dynamic driving it: the Grow or Die logic of capital accumulation. Another aspect of this work is the articulation of the ecosocialist idea in a way that has only been forshadowed in the past. Like William Morris, Joel Kovel is a close student of Karl Marx's 1867 classic, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Morris desired to be also a "practical socialist" and not "a mere railer against 'progress'." Likewise, Kovel is an active leader within Green politics, even to the point of seeking the Party's Presidential nomination in 2000. And as Morris struggled against Fabianism as an inadequate theory of change, Kovel does battle against Populism, the idea that the system can be reformed without disturbing the drive for profit and accumulation. Kovel, however, also brings to the ecosocialist project a long and distinguished career as a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who has made a close study of racism, greed, and other aspects of human alienation. He is no stranger to the natural sciences and is especially well-versed in the life sciences that inform the vast field of ecology. His theoretical depth makes Kovel an excellent critic of many of the fashionable currents that claim a following in the movement, such as Deep Ecology, Bioregionalism, and Natural Capitalism. But he is a fair judge of these rival forms of ecopolitics, and he is careful to avoid any hint of sectarian or dogmatic thinking. The Greens, like other left movements, have been afflicted with sectarianism, sometimes reaching the point of refusing to work together. Kovel, however, is part of a Green alliance that functions more like a caucus within the movement and the party than as a rival. Kovel has been a Professor of Social Studies at Bard College in Annandale, New York, since 1988. He is a prolific writer and is associated with the journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism founded by Santa Cruz economist James O'Connor. Through that journal and conferences and internet discussions he has been working to bring activists and writers together, and he recently published an Ecosocialist Manifesto signed by a number of others who agree with William Morris that a "Great Change" in the way we treat 'nature' is long overdue. In the system of commodity production, Morris once said, people had tried to make 'nature' their slave, "since they thought 'nature' was something outside them." [But] in liberating nature, we are, of course, freeing ourselves. TAKE No. 3 "Nature's Coming Revolution" | By TED DACE For Joel Kovel the revolution is only a matter of time. Marx was right: Capitalism cannot help but prepare the stew in which it will roast. But the old man got one thing wrong. The ultimate antagonist of capital is not labor but nature. If Marx made a fetish of capital's propensity to generate too much wealth to be profitably re-invested, Kovel does the same in regard to planetary ecosystem crackup. Instead of periodic economic downturn catapulting the proletariat into History, it's the shattering of life-essential natural processes that's destined to set off socialist (make that ecosocialist) revolution. Professor Kovel, who ran to the left of Ralph Nader for the Green Party nod in 2000, wastes no time making the case that capitalism, by its very nature, cannot help but destroy the integrity and well-being of what we call "nature." No need for yet another inventory of disturbances in the environment, our bodies, and our psychic balance. The enemy of nature is not oil or pesticides or factories or bulldozers but capital, "that ubiquitous, all-powerful and greatly misunderstood dynamo that drives our society." While traditionally the marketplace is a means of exchanging goods for money so as to purchase other goods, under capitalism it becomes a way of accumulating money. Reversing the natural order, the merchant starts off with money and buys the product of someone else's labor, then turns around and sells it at a markup. As long as the laborer is poor and the buyer rich, the trader makes a profit. What gives a commodity value is not what we do with it, like using bricks to build houses or shoes to walk home in, but the price it commands in trade. In contrast to "use value," a quality that belongs to any given item intrinsically, "exchange value" is an abstraction that must be expressed quantitatively. When you buy a pair of shoes--or better yet, a thousand pairs--only to sell them for profit, their entire value is a number. As the basis of economics becomes the trade itself and not the tangible thing exchanged, money is transformed into an all-consuming monster. No longer bound up with the limitations of actual land, people, and resources, it springs to life, an abstraction with a will of its own. "Pure quantity," says Kovel, "can swell infinitely without reference to the external world." There lies the source of our ecological crisis. Despite its reputation as the very acme of rational economic exchange, capitalism follows its own imperatives, quite apart from the needs of humans and ecosystems. In its compulsion to grow and multiply, capital "constantly tries to violate" whatever limit is set before it. Success means only one thing: surpassing yesterday's mark. No matter how big the beast gets, to cease growing further is to die. Yet the one thing we know for sure is that it can't grow forever. Sooner or later abstraction runs up against reality. So, is capitalism setting the stage for ecosocialist uprising? "If the argument that capital is incorrigibly ecodestructive and expansive proves to be true, then it is only a question of time before the issues raised here achieve explosive urgency." True enough, but that doesn't mean the Revolution is just over the horizon. What Kovel overlooks is the likelihood that worsening environmental conditions will exacerbate the scarcity that already pits us against each other. While the rich compete to survive as rich people, the poor compete to survive, period. If it's the money-driven struggle of all-against-all that's pushing us, inexorably, to the edge of the cliff, shouldn't we expect rising insecurity and the resulting intensification of this struggle to push us right over the edge? Precisely when, between now and doomsday, do the masses finally revolt? As Kovel himself points out, capitalists are perfectly willing to perpetuate eco-destabilization as long as they successfully insulate themselves and perhaps even profit from the meltdown all around them. He cites an article in London's Guardian Weekly purporting to show a shift in elite opinion since the early 70s, when the Club of Rome called for "limits to growth." These days, digging our own grave is the ultimate business opportunity. Taking Kovel to task in the September, 2002 issue of Monthly Review, John Bellamy Foster noted, "We should not underestimate capitalism's capacity to accumulate in the midst of the most blatant ecological destruction, to profit from environmental degradation... and to continue to destroy the earth to the point of no return--both for human society and for most of the world's living species." Times are tough? How about a liquidation sale? Like Marx before him, Kovel finds a silver lining where none exists. There's just no pulling the socialist rabbit out of the capitalist hat. Ted Dace has written for Skeptic, Z Magazine, Make Room for Dada, and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. He can be reached at: |