Profit or the environment? (1999)

From the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1992 sixteen hundred scientists warned that humanity was on course for a collision with nature. They predicted an environmental crisis by the year 2020 unless humankind could achieve a change in the nature of its “stewardship” of the environment. While there is much uncertainty about the extent to which humans are “irretrievably mutilating” the Earth, as these scientists claimed, it is clear that radical change is needed.

At present “stewardship” over the Earth is in the hands of a small minority of the world population. Their interests often prove to be irreconcilable with the need to protect the environment from pollution and degradation. Awareness of the damage being done has increased markedly over the last two decades. A growth of pressure groups, non-governmental organisations and international conferences, reports and legislation have at least provided us with ever more information, if little else. Indeed, ever since the first international conference on the environment in Stockholm 1971, there has been no shortage of well-intentioned statements of principle from governments. For example, the Stockholm Declaration stated that:

“Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being.”

In 1987 the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, called for the development of productive activities to become “‘sustainable’, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It goes without saying that most of us would favour these goals of protecting the Earth’s resources for future generations and preserving the quality of our environment. The question is whether they have any chance of being achieved within a social system where profits come first.

Documents such as the 1987 Brundtland Report and 1992 Agenda 21 which followed the highly publicised Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro do not acknowledge that there is any necessary conflict between making profit and protecting the environment. The goal of “sustainable development” is seen as achievable within the market system. There is no acknowledgement of any conflict between the two supposedly complementary goals.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation have stated that: “The objective is to create an economic environment in which it is more profitable to conserve resources than destroy them” (Long Term Strategy for the Food and Agricultural Sector, FAO Publications).

Again, conservation and profitability are seen as being compatible. Yet experience has shown time and again that these two gaols are incompatible. Only by replacing the profit system with truly democratic organisation can we give the environment the priority it deserves.

Dan Greenwood