Class-divided society breeds pollution (1985-6)

From the Winter 1985-6 issue of the World Socialist

In world capitalism, goods and services take the form of commodities, i.e., goods produced primarily for profit. They must be sold to realise dividends for private shareholders, interest for owners of government bonds and an income for members of the capitalist class generally. The unearned wealth that accrues to the owners and controllers of capital, whether private or state, comes in the form of unpaid or stolen labor. Wages only supply workers with the cost of maintenance and renewal of the abilities they sell. Wages are far less than the monetary value of the things workers produce. Investment only occurs when the workers can be fleeced in this manner. No profit, no production. To compete successfully for markets industries must minimize costs. They must produce cheaply to get buyers. One of the ways of doing this is to produce without concern for the environment and to avoid neutralizing the wastes even if they are dangerous to humanity.

Pollution and class-divided social systems co-exist, they form two sides of an equation. Exploitation by a dominant class of a subject class leads to despoiliation of the natural environment. No social interest exists, because of the absence of social cohesion in the interests of all individuals who make up the organised group.

On the other hand, in the classless phase of social evolution known as tribal or primitive society, humans were in harmony with the nature that they so urgently depended upon. With a sparse knowledge of the world, mankind was compelled to utilize every bit of vegetable and mineral substance he could apprehend. It was a food-gathering, not a money-gathering culture. Man lived in reverence of the material-elemental source of survival. And co-operation for the individual-common good was mandatory.

Environmental destruction began when this social unity for the good of all broke up into antagonistic classes of masters and slaves around 7 to 10 thousand years ago. With a ruling class, responsible only to itself in its quest for riches out of the surplus labor of its slaves, there was little concern for making resources sustainable or extensible.

The two pre-capitalist property systems, chattel slavery and feudalism, brought about deforestation, erosion, soil exhaustion, flooding, air pollution, wild-life extinction and disease. (Hughs, Ecology in Ancient Civilizations). With the coming of industrial production, in the form of capital and wage-labor, in the 18th and 19th centuries and the expansion of production this brought about, the defilement of nature increased proportionately. Vast areas of England and Europe were blackened by soot. Millions of wage slaves there and in the US suffered lung diseases, cancers, and died from industrial pollution and degraded tainted food.

Pollution control: legalizing levels of pollution

Since the wages-prices-profit system is perceived as being unchangeable, so despoilment of nature is viewed as being physically necessary or inevitable. The system's reaction is to deal with the symptoms. For instance, as birth defects double every 20 years (Toronto Star, 19/5/84), governments pay for special homes, and educational facilities for the growing number of mentally retarded, handicapped children. As the North American cancer rate rises to 18 per cent of deaths (Epstein, Politics of Cancer), which according to the World Health Organization (WHO) is 75 to 80 per cent environmentally caused, governments and industry finance medical research and care to fight the disease. Obviously, after divesting workers of the fruits of their labor and polluting their bodies, profits are healthy enough for the employing class to transfer a portion toward band-aids for social sores and propaganda about governments being oriented around the interests of all.

Pollution controls have been enacted by governments in various countries, but these are the minimum levels thought to be necessary to protect the profits of the owning class, not the health of the population. Pollution control has nothing more to do with health than war has to do with saving lives.

The Ecologist, (Nov/Dec 1979) points out that acceptable levels of potentially dangerous chemicals released ". . . are simply the minimum levels that can be achieved without compromising economic priorities". (Their emphasis, "economic" being a popular euphemism to downplay profits). It also showed that WHO's minimum standard of mercury poison in food of 0.2 to 0.5 ppm catered to the average cost of profitable production of most countries. Costs in Swedish fisheries during the 1960's for example, were higher than WHO's average. Sweden had to allow 1.00 ppm of mercury poison or else 45 per cent of its fisheries would have had to shut down. Another example from the Ecologist: "When WHO recently raised (the acceptable level of lead in drinking water) from 50 micrograms to 100 micrograms per litre, this was not the result of the sudden discovery that man was less sensitive to lead poisoning than previously thought, but to the fact that few water authorities could provide water to this standard" (their italics).

A legalized level of pollution, to make working class exploitation possible, while being biologically harmful to the useful class, is not a rigid boundary line which cannot be transgressed. The anarchy of market competition makes control merely a goal. Laws against gross desecration are about as effective as laws against bank robbery.

A small percentage of violators are caught, and fined lightly. Much of the contamination is unknown to regulatory authorities. Some businesses do not even know if their wastes are toxic. Others refuse to reveal the nature of their disposal matter for fear of imparting information to their competitors. In the US state of New Jersey, crime kings have moved into the disposal of hazardous waste business (Times/ Colonist, 17/12/80). It is very lucrative, surreptitiously dumping the stuff without neutralizing it. Up to 1979 there were thousands of dangerous dumps in the US, with no laws or funds to deal with them (New Scientist, 21/6/79).   Many   more   were   unknown,   with   businesses   sneaking truckloads of toxic effluvium, at high speed, nocturnally, to secret destinations. Oil spills are generally uncontrollable as they are incurred between national boundaries.

There are more unknown factors. Several million pollutants have been introduced into the global environment. How many break down or decay into new compounds, and what they are, is unknown. The synergic effects, where destructive chemicals, acting upon one another, combining to increase the sum of their individual potency hundreds of times more than when in isolation, is mostly unknown. The US Environmental Protection Agency studied that country's drinking water and discovered that "there may be a myriad of organic chemicals, not yet isolated and identified" (Ecologist, November/December 1979). There is the so-called safe level of poisoning for the average person* but most people are not average. And so on.

Pollution control means governments issuing permits to industries to sell "safe" pesticides, food additives and to dump toxic chemical wastes harmlessly, then, after 10 or so years of public exposure to them, banning them after discovering through further research, that they are harmful after all. Control also means governments issuing permits to pollute. Amax of Canada, Ltd, for example, sat down with the federal government and helped to write its own permit to dump toxic mine tailings into a northern British Columbia ocean inlet, which the local Nishga Indians depended on for their fish supplies (Times/Colonist, 1/3/ 83).

Control also means a Canadian government without enough money to conduct its own tests on new pesticides and additives coming on the market. Instead it accepts the reports on tests done by the manufacturers themselves. This is like sending the fox to guard the chicken coop. Consequently, one testing firm, Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, Inc. of Northbrook, 111., falsified health tests on pesticides and drugs for 7 years, to save money (Times/Colonist, 23/6/81). Control means the Canadian government health department knowingly allowing Canada Housing, a mortgage corporation, to use carcinogenic urea formaldehyde foam insulation for government subsidized home insulation for workers (Times/Colonist, 5/9/81).

Under state capitalism too

The words "Communist," "Socialist" or "Marxist," are pseudonyms which conceal the state capitalism which exists in all "iron curtain" countries. It should come as no surprise therefore, that production for sale-profit social conditions under rigid, one-party police states degrade the environment as they do in the rest of the world.

Poland, for example, is likely the most polluted country in the world (New Scientist, 22/10/81). In Russia, the massive surface coal mining complexes ". . . are witness to the environmental devastation that has been caused. Vast tracts of forest and agricultural land have been torn up, and the pollution of local streams and rivers has been drastic." Deforestation has resulted in serious land erosion (Ecologist, June/78). The 5-year plan, rapid capital expansion (high profits) development of the USSR has left little regard for ecological conservation.

China has been desecrating its own land surface by deforesting 24 per cent of its treed area for pulp and paper profits during the 1940's (Toronto Star, 19/5/84). At this time, only 12 per cent of China has trees. The scenery along the Yellow River is a bald moonscape, and a brown smog chokes Peking, to the extent of eating the wood and stone ballustrades of the ancient imperial palace (Toronto Star, 24/5/84). That country's capitalist political dictators fear that "ultimate . . . ecological disaster" could threaten their "modernization (= more efficient exploitation of the workers) plans." China too, has begun to tinker with effects, by choking the political atmosphere with bureaucratic institutions, such as the Municipal Bureau for Preserving Cultural Relics, and laws, in a vain attempt to curb pollution.

Ecology movements trapped by the economic system

The average crusader against ecological degradation sees the private and state property system, with its money, wages and profits, as basically a static arrangement which can be improved for the masses through a gradual process of reform for the common good. Ecologists are generally unaware of the class-divided world social structure, and of their own existence as workers as part of the lower, exploited one of two antagonistic classes.

Environmentalists could be included as members of "his majesty's loyal opposition". Some of their groups receive grants from governments who are funded through taxes from some industries which are extreme polluters. The movements function, in part, as watchdogs to try to see that the system's masochistic excesses don't get out of hand and threaten, in some areas, the exploitive apple cart. Many of their victories undoubtedly meet with the approval of the polluting industries' shareholders, who may not quite make the connection between the earth's degradation and their dividends. These manipulated successes are enough to motivate the tinkerers onward. It is encouraging that they protest the debauchery of the planet, but not so happy that they are failing to stop it.

Ecologists are ill-equipped, have no answer for such defenses from the spokesmen of the owning class that more pollution should be allowed during a depression, to help to "create" jobs; or to cut costs so that "our" industries can compete on foreign markets.

If they ever came to power the ecologists would be trapped by the economics of the system. There are not as many ecological organizations as there are toxic elements and other threats to the natural surroundings, but it is likely that many reformers would favor such a state, to hopefully make their efforts effective. Advice on scrubbing unwashed vegetables and fruits to reduce pesticide residues, and ingest vitamin and mineral supplements to neutralize environmental poisons, are within the band-aid sphere of the ecology movements.

Being generally and unconsciously mired in capitalist ideology, ecology groups embrace the political "spectrum" parties, from extreme "left" to the "right" with most tending toward liberal left. Some, such as the Green Party of West Germany, Canada and the US and the Ecology Party of Britain, have organised separate parties. They too aim for a clean earth, in contradiction to the conventional thinking which they share with the rest of the working class.

A world free of pollution

Once the realities of the present sick society are perceived, putting a stop to environmental degradation and regenerating the planet becomes a matter of the conscious majority, the world's workers, taking political action to replace it with common ownership and democratic control of the means of life. Which means voluntarily co-operative production and distribution for the free consumption of all according to each individual's requirements.

There is no technological barrier to a pollution-free earth, but there is a political one, at present. Some scientists are aware that no such technological barrier exists, including chemistry Nobel prize winner Sir Derek Barton of London's Imperial College. In a lecture to the Vancouver Institute, University of B.C., he said: "The problem of pollution does not exist. We already have the knowledge to correct pollution when we find it. World problems of energy, pollution, hunger . . . and the economy are all artificial. . . crises" (Vancouver Sun, 31/10/77). He is supported by Dr Lee A. Dubridge of CalTech: "We now have enough technical knowledge to solve most of mankind's problems .. . The air of all cities would be free of all forms of man-made pollution'." (New York Herald Tribune, 25/10/ 61). (If the restrictions of the financial yardstick were out of the way). And from another source; during the observation of environment day, Environment Canada said: "We can have development without pollution. We have the technology — all we need is the will." (CFMS Radio, 5/6/80).

When mankind is in control of its social forces, the circumstances point to the human species identifying its interests with the earth on which it depends for its well-being. The ending of military competition between blocks of capital in nations, vying for markets and materials, will eliminate a large proportion of global contamination. Probably the first anti-pollution goal of the classless world democracy will be: (1) finding and neutralizing the deadly dumps of the past, and cleaning the poisonous air, water and soil; (2) modifying, as well as expanding productive and distributive processes, so that all can be provided for, with no pollution.

Free society will use scientific and technical potential that is possible today for these purposes, but which the present divided, competitive system has no call for. A few instances. Agriculture can be revolutionized to maintain fertile soil, health and strength of plants and their natural immunization against insects and disease. Insects have been used to control harmful insects; bacteria to control other bacteria and harmful insects; bacteria to break down sewage for natural fertilizer; some plants can protect other plants from insect pests; some useful plants can repel weeds, chemically, some pesticides have been developed which are harmful only to the insects which need to be controlled, and to no other biological species.

There are some small farmers in Canada's prairie provinces, who make a living with large yields of high quality grain, preserving fertile soil, using no artificial fertilizers or pesticides. Some small beef producers are raising cattle at low cost, with no feed supplements, no artificial vitamins, or drugs, even under the handicaps of present-day society. And this is only scratching the surface, in the area of agriculture alone.

The fractions of people, which is what wage-slaves are, will be transformed into enlightened somebodies. Socialist society will have something that capitalism forbids, the creative and productive potential that every human is born with. People will participate in a society of their choosing, free to express the natural urge to solve problems, express self-interest in co-operative harmony with all others, for maximum enjoyment of life.

Humanity in control of its affairs will never do what capitalism does—defecate on its doorstep.

George Jenkins

(Canada)

Pathfinders: Crisis? Which Crisis? (2008)

The Pathfinders Column from the November 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

A recent EU study headed by a Deutsche bank economist reveals that global economic loss through deforestation is vastly greater than economic loss through the current crisis in the world’s banks (Nature loss ‘dwarfs bank crisis’, BBC Online, 10 October). The study puts the estimated annual loss at between 2 and $5 trillion.

Graphs of consumption or growth trends almost all follow a hockey-stick trend, largely flat for a thousand years until 1900 and thereafter rising rapidly to nearly vertical today. These trends include consumption of water, paper, rainforest, ozone, fisheries, and increases of motor car production, population, CO2 and global temperature, and species extinction. Not surprisingly, the trend for GDP follows the same pattern.

This is capitalism’s normal modus operandi, regardless of banking crises. This relentless consumer-driven growth goes on year in year out, without respite, and the trends climb higher and higher with no end in sight. The world is burning itself out in an apparently unstoppable quest for economic growth, and nobody seems able to do anything about it.

Scientists can only do so much by reporting the facts. For instance, they can show that the Earth can sustainably support just 200 million people in a North American lifestyle, a figure which is not even large to account for North America’s present population. In answer to the much-loved argument that growth is the only way to lift the poor out of poverty, they can point to the fact that, during the 1990’s, the poor’s share of this growth was just 0.6 percent. According to this argument, for the poor to be even marginally better off, the rich have to become stupendously richer, so that “to get the poorest onto an income of just $3 per day would require an impossible 15 planets’ worth of bio-capacity” (New Scientist, 18 October).

Governments of course are very good at ignoring facts they don’t like. One scientist, Tim Jackson, professor of sustainable development at Surrey University, was accused by a UK treasury official of ‘wanting to go back and live in caves’. Herman Daly, formerly senior economist for the World Bank, describes how the first draft of its 1992 World Development Report contained a diagram showing the economy as a simple rectangle, with an arrow going into it, labelled ‘inputs’ and another coming out labelled ‘outputs’. When he pointed out that this implied that the inputs (resources etc) appeared to be coming from nowhere and the outputs (including waste) going nowhere, thus suggesting that the environment had infinite productive and absorptive capacities, the diagram was simply removed altogether from the draft. He remarks dryly that ‘mainstream economists are mostly concerned with the [economic] organism’s circulatory system … while tending to ignore its digestive system.” (New Scientist, ibid).

The problem is that when scientists, for all the right reasons, try to get political, they don’t seem to realise that they are in serious danger of reinventing wheels and using them to cycle over old ground. Worryingly, they show under-informed prejudices that any socialist can hear any night down their local boozer, to wit, that a global revolution against capitalism is utterly out of the question, and that even if it wasn’t, it would be utterly undesirable. Here’s Susan George on wealth ownership: 

“Must we organise world revolution … to save Earth? Is there a single point of attack? If so, tell me the name of the tsar… Nor would anyone welcome the political systems that shrouded those vast areas where revolution did occur. Somehow… we need a third way between red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism and a worldwide uprising as unlikely as it is utopian.” 

Showing a similar knee-jerk horror of what he imagines socialism to be, Yale environmentalist Gus Speth: 

“I’m not advocating state socialism, but I am advocating a non-socialist alternative to today’s capitalism”, while Daly maintains that “shifting from growth to development doesn’t have to mean freezing in the dark under communist tyranny.” (New Scientist, ibid).

So, having written off as utopia or tyranny any possibility of an alternative to the capitalist system, they are driven of course to consider how best to modify the system from within.  What they are left with is a mishmash of reforms which have either been tried in the past (Keynesian inflationary investment), are even more utopian than the ‘utopians’ (scientists as technocrats dispensing orders to the wealth class), or contradict the internal boom-slump logic of capitalism (zero-growth ‘steady state’ capitalism), or would bankrupt by capital flight any country which first introduced them (various taxes). At best, the reforms wouldn’t work. At worst, they could accelerate armageddon. If capitalism really could be run more equitably and sustainably, don’t they imagine that it would already be running that way? No, they don’t. They just seem to think that the correct solutions have somehow eluded the rest of us because we’re not as smart as they are.

Still, all in all, it is undoubtedly a good thing that scientists are turning their attention to the question of free-market capitalism. They do at least have more credibility than politicians, priests or pop-idols, and one can only hope they don’t squander it by failing to sort through their various ill-conceived assumptions and prejudices. After all, that’s what the scientific method is supposed to be all about. The worst and most absurd assumption of all was always that science was somehow above politics, and that seems to be changing. What scientists need to do now however is recognise that they are latecomers to the political and economic debate, and that it is unhelpful to cloud the issues with careless ignorance of genuine socialist ideas, or to promote unworkable and possibly dangerous solutions which ignore capitalism’s known behaviour. Most of all, they would do well to recognise the importance of class in the debate, and their own class position as workers. If they don’t do that, they are always going to be so far behind other workers that they think they’re in the lead.

Paddy Shannon

Post-capitalist farming (2023)

From the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

We continue our series on farming under capitalism and in a post-capitalist society of common ownership.

Link to Part 1 

Compared to the capitalist mode of production, a post-capitalist society of common ownership would be able to exercise a significantly greater degree of flexibility and choice when it comes to selecting a particular productive technique or approach to farming. Freed from the imperative of having to seek a profit through the sale of commodities, decisions can be made that would be prudently adapted to the actual physical circumstances that farmers face as opposed to the socially contingent conditions imposed on them by market competition.

Such flexibility might very well take the form of a more eclectic approach to farming, combining the best elements of one farming model with that of another. For instance, while there is a lot to recommend the traditional farming model in terms of its environment-friendly practices there is no reason why this could not be coupled with state-of-the-art modern technology such as genetic engineering, so called ‘smart farming’ and computerised irrigation systems, to boost output – providing, of course, that adequate safeguards can be built in to protect both human health and biological diversity. In that regard, a post-capitalist society would not be forced into taking rash impromptu decisions by sheer commercial pressures.

Those ‘actual physical circumstances’ referred to above that future farming would face would include, of course, the extent to which human labour was available as an agricultural input alongside other inputs. There is a tendency in capitalism, driven by market competition, to increase productivity by reducing unit costs in order for businesses – in this case, farming units – to compete more effectively and capture a larger market share. This results in increasing capital intensity and the shedding of human labour. The large scale, modern, commercial farm with its highly industrialised farming techniques is the consummate expression – or, if you like, culmination of – this tendency. Very few workers are employed on very large farms that are many hundreds or even thousands of hectares in size, using big bulky machines.

This is not a particularly healthy state of affairs – either for farming or for society as a whole. It tends to commit farmers to a set of techniques that are damaging to the environment and not sustainable in the long run. The rate of soil erosion is a clear indication of just how unsustainable such techniques are – particularly deep ploughing with heavy machinery which, over time, destroys the microscopic life in the soil and undermines soil structure as well as stimulating weed growth. Loss of topsoil translates into declining crop yields. That, in turn, tends to make farmers more reliant on synthetic fertilisers with all that this entails for the environment.

There can be no better illustration of the sheer irrationality – not to say, insanity – of a capitalist mindset with respect to farming than that provided by the Amazon forests. The Amazon is the most biologically diverse region in the world. It contains ‘tens of thousands of plant species, including countless medicinal plants, over 2.5 million insect species, 1,300 kinds of birds, 430 mammals, over 3,000 fish species, hundreds of different amphibians and reptiles. Numerous species are discovered every year, and many have yet to even be been seen by us humans’ (Amazon: Abundant rainforests, useless soils – bit.ly/3jDeJUr).

Ironically, this prolific diversity is rooted in a soil that is quite nutrient-poor and infertile. It contains little or no humus unlike the soils of more temperate climates such as the United States. Dead plant material is rapidly decomposed in the hot and humid conditions of the Amazon and nutrients are absorbed back into the plants and trees. These, in turn, provide protection for the soil from the heavy rain and ensure it is not washed away.

The removal of forests to make way for cattle ranching (to provide meat for burgers amongst other things) is nothing short of ecological madness. Once this tree cover is removed it cannot be replaced. The soil is fully exposed to the elements and simply washes way, leaving a more or less barren environment. The removal of tree cover also makes the land drier and more vulnerable to devastating wildfires that, as well as releasing millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, result in even more loss of tree cover and the heightened risk of devastating floods. All this might mean increased profits for farmers in the short term – Brazil is currently the largest exporter of beef in the world and cattle ranching accounts for up to 80 percent of Amazonian deforestation – but in the long run it is simply not sustainable.

Here we have a perfect example of how the pressure of unrelenting capitalist accumulation systemically works against the goal of sustainable development and good farming. Market competition induces economic agents to expand output regardless of the (very obvious) consequences.

It is argued that governments themselves need to generate foreign exchange somehow and Brazil’s opening up of the Amazon to economic exploitation is one way of doing this. But that is precisely the point. This need to ‘earn a living’ or generate government revenues only arises in – or presupposes – a society in which the goods and services take the form of commodities and your access to these commodities is governed by how much money you have. You would not need to generate a ‘revenue stream’ or ‘earn a living’ in a free society in which the market as an institution, and money as a means of market exchange, ceased to exist.

Robin Cox

Next month: more on the possibilities of post-capitalist food production.

The Amazon revisited (2022)

From the November 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard 

In the July 2020 Socialist Standard, we discussed the Yanomami indigenous people in the Amazon. Over the decades they have suffered enormously from diseases brought in by outsiders, who have also committed killings as a way of gaining access to resources such as gold. Earlier this year, a report ‘Yanomami Under Attack’ was published (socioambiental.medium.com). This details the further destruction of their land by mining.

The price of gold has increased, making mining it even more profitable, and in 2021 the extent of wildcat mining increased by almost half on the previous year. Over half the Yanomami population have been directly affected by this mining, and this involves both violence and the spreading of diseases such as malaria. More than 3,000 hectares of land has been destroyed by mining, to say nothing of land adversely impacted, much of it in close proximity to Yanomami villages. The Brazilian government under Bolsonaro is essentially on the side of the mining companies, expressing very negative and dismissive attitudes to indigenous peoples. He is a climate change denier who supports profit-making and has no regard for protection of the Amazon rainforest.

One of the most appalling aspects of the invasion by miners is their behaviour to young Yanomami women. They regard the women as ‘rewards’ for giving food to the indigenous families. One miner is quoted as saying, ‘If you have a daughter and give her to me, I will bring a large amount of food that you will eat! You will eat!’

A recent documentary film, The Territory, directed by Alex Pritz, deals with the Uru-eu-wau-wau people in a different area of the Amazon, further south. There are only just over a hundred of them now, and they are being confronted not by miners but by would-be settlers who have grandiose plans for building new towns in places they have claimed. The settlers are depicted in a not unsympathetic way in the film, as men who want to work on their own land rather than toiling away for a pittance on land belonging to others. The trouble is that this means clearing land used by the Uru-eu-wau-wau; drone photography is used to show the extent of the deforestation. The settlers have little understanding of the society they are attacking.

Ari, a man involved in surveillance of the invaders, is found murdered (his death is still unsolved). The Uru-eu-wau-wau fight back by destroying temporary homes built by the settlers, who react by saying that every time a building is destroyed, they will rebuild it. There are threats of violence against a non-indigenous woman who tries to defend the locals.

The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest, and its gradual reduction in size has very serious implications for environmental issues such as biodiversity and global heating. The demand for profit risks not just the communities and lives of its indigenous inhabitants but the wellbeing of the planet and its people more generally.

Paul Bennett

Latin America: poverty and pollution (1993)

From the August 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Latin America has provided many of the striking images of ecological devastation which have fuelled debate on the environment in recent years. Few have been left unmoved by the relentless deforestation of the Amazon Basin or the mercury-polluted moonscapes left by gold prospectors still searching for the mythical Eldorado.

Reactions to the crisis vary. Some view the problems as intractable; the result of overpopulation and a flawed human nature. They retreat into defeatism—mouthing prophesies of the eco-Apocalypse as they go. Others retain their faith in the tired arguments of the reformists; there’s no environmental problem that couldn't be solved with a few more laws, a change of leader, some nature reserves and a little more charity. Socialists, however, reject both reformism and defeatism, recognizing that the roots of environmental destruction lie in the capitalist system and its uncontrollable production for profit, a system incapable of incorporating the rational and democratic decision-making process which will be necessary to ensure an ecologically- sustainable future.

How then has capitalism developed in Latin America, and what have been the consequences for the environment?

Precious metals

Following colonization by European powers in the 15th and 16th centuries Central and South America and the Caribbean were forcibly subjected to the priorities and demands of the fledgling capitalist world market. The new social system imposed on the Americas gradually swept away the technologies, agricultural techniques and cultures of centuries and replaced them with an economic system geared solely to capital accumulation for the few based on the exploitation of the many.

Greed for precious metals led the colonists all over Central and South America. The resultant human misery and environmental degradation was catastrophic. Open-cast mining left wastelands from Mexico to Bolivia, and the timber extracted for mineshafts accelerated deforestation. As the richest seams were exhausted the colonists used mercury from the Peruvian Andes to separate metals from the crushed ore of poorer seams. The waste was just dumped, and poisoned workers and polluted ecosystems bore witness to the new exploitative social system which saw no need to worry about environmental conditions.

The introduction of sugar-cane plantations early in the 16th century, first in the Caribbean and later on the mainland provided the basis for the exploitation of further wealth. However, owing to the genocidal effect of colonization on the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas the ruling class needed a further source of labour.

The African slave trade developed and millions were transported to work on the plantations. The triangular trade routes which flourished between Europe, Africa and the Americas not only strengthened the emerging capitalist class, and left a bitter legacy of racism but led to wholesale deforestation and soil erosion in the plantation areas. The irrigation systems of the plantations also facilitated the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria.

Cash crops

The political map of the continent was reshaped by the nationalist independence movements of the 19th century as local élites freed themselves from the remaining shackles imposed on them from Europe. However, the workers and peasants remained shackled with a class society organized around their exploitation. Environmental problems escalated as new cash-crops such as coffee, bananas and cotton were introduced. By the late 19th century much of the fertile arable land had been taken over by commercial plantations. Cattle ranching and deforestation developed apace.

Those displaced by the plantations and huge estates were forced to find new land on which to grow food. They found it on steep hillsides where rain washed away the topsoil, leading to serious erosion. New land was also found as more and more forest was cleared. The monocultures, deforestation and soil erosion affected the hydrology of many parts of Latin America. Topsoil washed into lakes and rivers causing silting problems and ultimately affecting delicately balanced marine ecosystems. For example, the coastal mangrove swamps of El Salvador were reduced from 300,000 to 6,800 acres and local fish populations dwindled.

As ecologically unsustainable monocultures bled the soil dry and were plagued by pests the owners turned to fertilizers and pesticides to bolster production. Again, it was the workers and the environment who suffered the consequences. Harmful pesticides were, and still are, used with abandon. In many parts of Central America cotton workers are sprayed along with the crop, while their children bathe in and drink polluted water. Mother's milk in parts of Nicaragua reportedly carrries the world’s highest levels of DDT. On the extensive banana plantations on the Atlantic coast of Central America thousands of workers have been sterilized by pesticide poisoning.

Debt crisis

The large-scale borrowing from Western banks made by Latin American governments and private companies during the 1970s and the ensuing debt-crisis have had profound effects on worker and environment alike. With the falling prices of cash-crop and raw material exports such as coffee, bananas, tin etc and the rising prices of essential imports, e.g. machinery and oil. Latin American economies faced serious balance of payments crises. Following the advice of those in power in Western countries many Latin American governments sought to boost their own industrial base in a vain attempt to compete on more equal terms with the more highly developed capitalist economies. Huge amounts were also borrowed to fund the military forces necessary to maintain the status-quo within their borders.

The Western banks were only too keen to lend the “petro-dollars” deposited with them by the oil-producing countries as a result of the OPEC price rises in the early 1970s. The industrial developments financed by the borrowing were often totally inappropriate to local conditions, and incredibly environmentally destructive. For example, huge hydro-electric power schemes in Amazonia necessitated the damming of many rivers flooding vast forested areas occupied by indigenous groups and poor farmers. The dams affected the regional hydrology causing silting problems and the proliferation of floating weeds. Malarial parasites also spread in the artificial lakes.

The Latin American economies borrowed at floating interest rates, so that as interest rates rose in the early 1980s a debt crisis developed when they were unable to keep up with the interest payments. They were also hit by contemporaneous further falls in the prices of their essential exports, and a world slump. Fearing the consequences of large-scale defaulting to the international banking system, the World Bank and the IMF negotiated Structural Adjustment Programmes for those Latin American countries troubled by debt. All the Structural Adjustment Programmes included the slashing of public expenditure, and the boosting of cash-crop exports in order to provide governments with extra revenue for debt repayments.

The benefits to the capitalist class of the IMF and World Bank plans are clear: the stabilization of their economic system. The victims, as ever, are the propertyless majority. The slashing of public expenditure has led to redundancies, wage-cuts, less social services, and less environmental protection. Boosting cash-crop production has led to further deforestation, soil erosion and the increased use of fertilizers and pesticides.

As the region has been progressively immiserated by debt, unemployment and worsening environmental conditions thousands more have flocked to the urban squalour of Latin America’s shanty-towns. The poor sanitation, over-crowding, pollution and disease suffered there is a direct result of a social system which organizes all production around the prospects of profitability for the owning few.

What is the way out of this intolerable state of affairs? As ever reformists offer national solutions, piecemeal reforms and schemes to preserve nature in isolation from humans. What they fail to recognize is that the environmental problems faced are not new or isolated phenomena but intricately linked with the rise to dominance of world capitalism over the last 500 years. It is the uncontrollable nature and ecological unaccountability of capitalist production which must be abolished to rid Latin America and the world of environmental destruction and of working-class poverty. Socialists work to replace a divided world governed by capital with a stateless, moneyless commonwealth under the democratic control of a socialist majority.

Peter Owen

Material World: COP26 cop-out (2022)

The Material World column from the April 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

When COP26 took place last November, we warned our audience about the optimistic sound bites of the politicians and to be wary of the promises they make. Of course, we were not alone in our scepticism for any success in solving the climate crises. Many environmentalists shared our doubts that COP26 would produce either sufficient or effective policies. However, we identified the problem as not being one of political will but arising from economic necessity because of the inherent rules of capitalism – priority will always be for the accumulation of profit and people’s and the planet’s well-being shall be merely a secondary consideration.

Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment fund management firm with about £7.4tn in assets, said pushing climate policies was about profits:

‘Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics. It is not a social or ideological agenda. It is not ‘woke’ We focus on sustainability not because we’re environmentalists, but because we are capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients.’

The Glasgow conference was full of ‘net zero pledges.’ There were many, from India’s desire to be carbon neutral by 2070, China’s by 2060, to the EU’s goal of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by the year 2030, to US commitments to cut emissions by 50 percent by the same year. These are all illusory climate action measures. ‘Net zero emissions’ does not actually mean bringing emissions down to zero. Rather it refers to policies that aim to compensate continued emissions with projects that absorb carbon elsewhere. These policies are supposed to help remove the extra emissions from the atmosphere through measures like tree planting, enhanced forest protection (ie, preventing deforestation), and costly carbon capture and storage technologies.

Less than 6 months after COP26, countries and corporations have back-tracked or broken their pledges. The compromises and concessions have led to accusations of ‘greenwashing’ once the finalised COP26 statement was published. Given the division of the world into competing capitalist states with different economic interests, it’s surprising that there was any agreement.

Just three months after the event even the UK MP who chaired the summit, Alok Sharma, accepted that there is a danger that the vital pledges made will ‘wither on the vine…We will have mitigated no risks. Seized no opportunities. We will have fractured the trust built between nations. And 1.5 degrees will slip from our grasp.’

Meanwhile China’s President Xi Jinping said that low-carbon goals should not come at the expense of ‘normal life’, and that ‘Reducing emissions is not about reducing productivity, and it is not about not emitting at all’. His American counterpart, Joe Biden, has conducted one of the largest oil drilling lease auction in recent times.

The case for fossil fuels to begin to be phased out, such as reliance on coal-burning power stations, was the earliest to be reneged upon with very little change on the use and subsidies to coal as an energy source. Coal production has reached record levels in a number of countries.

Reducing deforestation was another key element in climate-friendly policies yet these too were sacrificed to the altar of capital. Barely was the ink dry on Indonesia’s signature, along with more than 100 countries, on a plan to stop cutting down trees on an industrial scale in under a decade, than Siti Nurbaya Bakar, its environment minister, was saying ‘forcing Indonesia to zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair’ and that any deal could not halt economic growth.

Climate nationalism in the name of ‘national interest’ has resulted in so many loopholes in all the promises, pledges and policies to reach the 1.5C of the Paris Agreement, it has turned into a sieve. For all the language of it being a global problem, and requiring world action, we heard very little about doing away with the nation-state.

Previously, our detractors saw socialism as an answer for the far-off future and the reform of capitalism as realistic. They squabbled among themselves for what is the ‘better’ strategy but socialism simply did not appear on their radar. The Socialist Party’s message is utterly drowned out by continual capitalist media propaganda.

The second instalment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sixth assessment report compiled by 270 scientists who assessed over 34,000 studies is described by Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC, as ‘a dire warning about the consequences of inaction.’

The final sentence of the IPCC report reads: ‘The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.’

Socialism, which our critics customarily presented as an unrealistic, utopian pipedream, can now begin to be acknowledged as the only alternative to the possible collapse of human civilisation. We need to stop centring attention on the false ‘solutions’ the wealthy and powerful are offering. Anything less than socialism is distracting smoke and mirrors.

ALJO

See also:

• Countdown to COP26 - Part 1 (August 2021 Socialist Standard)
• Countdown to COP26 – Part 2 (September 2021 Socialist Standard)
• Countdown to COP26 – Part 3 (October 2021 Socialist Standard)

The Beef Chain: A useful investigation (2021)

From the August 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Cattle ranches are destroying the rainforest enabled by giant beef companies while their US, EU (and UK) international financiers made flawed assessments.’

Above is a statement on the destruction and deforestation of large parts of the Amazon, both legal and illegal, taken from a lengthy 2020 investigation by Global Witness entitled Banks, Beef and the Brazilian Amazon (tinyurl.com/4y3bmcd6). It covers all aspects along the supply chain from cattle ranchers, beef traders, international financiers, supermarkets, fast-food chains and the governments which regulate them.

The numbers are staggering, whether those of cattle on ranches, size of forest cleared or the increased speed of the devastation in recent years. The investigation finished at the end of 2020 when there were approximately 390,000 beef ranches in Brazil, 40 percent of them in the Amazon. About 70 percent of cleared land in the Amazon is populated by cattle, and there are more cows than people in the country. Starting with ranches the chain continues with the beef dealers, including three Brazilian giants, which mostly control the slaughterhouses and sell on the beef. These three beef companies slaughtered more than 18 million cattle in 2017, equivalent to 40 percent of Amazon beef. These same multi-billion-dollar beef companies sell 64 percent of the total Brazilian beef exports to the EU, US and China. Next in the chain come the intermediaries who finance all aspects. These are the banks and big finance companies: the World Bank, Blackrock, ING, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Santander, Deutsche Bank, BHP Paris, HSBC. Nearing the end of the chain retailers and fast-food outlets include Walmart, Carrefour, Nestle, Burger King, Sainsburys, Subway and McDonalds.

Beef production in Brazil is the number one cause of deforestation emissions across Latin America. According to the World Resources Institute more than 20 million hectares of Brazil’s Amazon primary tropical forest were lost between 2002-2018. Year on year forest fires driven by deforestation increasingly devastate more of the Amazon, all for the sake of profit while the planet shows all the signs of being out of control. In the years 2005-2013, before Bolsonaro became president, state interventions helped to bring about a 70 percent drop in Amazon deforestation. Bolsonaro, as president, has attacked safeguards and agencies protecting the Amazon and the situation has now become critical. Ranches fall into one of several categories depending on the age of the cattle. First are the ranches for breeding, from which the animals are moved on to rearing ranches and then to fattening ranches. When the time comes for slaughter they are moved once again, this time to the traders’ slaughterhouse facilities.

All traders are obliged to have no-deforestation pledges and to monitor the supply chain of beef to check both non-compliance with forest destruction laws and human rights abuses. Whilst the numbers are staggering a few of the examples mentioned here give some idea of the scale of this whole beef production topic. One of the three biggest beef traders briefly mentioned above, Marfrig, describes itself as the world’s second largest beef producer with a work force of over 30,000 employees. Gross profit in 2019 – over $1 billion. Marfrig claims to have met the Greenpeace agreement regarding protection of the Amazon rainforest and no illegal deforestation nor any human rights abuses for the previous five years. Another of the ‘big three’, JBS, had audits carried out by the DNV-GL company on behalf of Greenpeace and the Pará state prosecutor. The auditor’s Code of Conduct states that it must avoid ‘any combination of roles and services that could be perceived as representing a threat to the impartiality and independence of its services. We do not classify, certify or verify our own work.’ Their audits for the Greenpeace agreement claimed that JBS’s cattle purchases were 99.99 percent compliant (2016) – but its audits for the Pará prosecutor’s agreement the same year showed almost 20 percent of JBS’s purchases were not compliant.

Similar improper situations occurred with banks claiming to be compliant with laws and agreements relating to illegal deforestation. Such examples as a leaked document seen by Global Witness from HSBC to the JBS company heavily criticising them for giving no clear information or statement regarding the sources of cattle and for having ‘no vision, action plan, timeline, technology or solution.’ Then, in the same document, HSBC recommends that investors buy shares in JBS. Other examples reveal complicity in human rights abuses of workers and those forced from their land by threats and even murder. Some perpetrators have received heavy fines or prison terms, but most escape punishment.

The top ten countries importing from the three biggest beef suppliers include China 34.4 percent, EU 10.9 percent, Russia 6.65 percent, US 3.51 percent and UK 2.89 percent. The major retailers listed earlier tend to sign up to various treaties such as threatening to boycott produce if further land grabbing or deforestation continues but when contacted by Global Research with questions on progress or results there is often no reply.

If we look at the position of consumers, those at the end of the chain, in this case buyers of beef from Brazil and particularly from the Amazon, this report suggests that most will only have information from those they are buying from, that is supermarkets and fast-food chains. They will know where the beef was sourced but will be unaware of the various steps in the chain. If they were aware of, for instance, the global banks and their investors, plus the multinational beef traders funded by these banks, perhaps they would have second thoughts about their purchases. Over years many consumers have become aware of the harm done in other countries by the pension fund they are personally linked to and have protested to stop it. Many indigenous people in regions of the Amazon have been forced from their traditional lands, have been threatened and even killed for protesting, and continue to suffer threats and violence while trying to protect the forests which are their home.

Regarding the final section of the report which is related to what should be done, as is to be expected it is very detailed but also filled with unreal expectations of capitalism. All is tied up with law, the responsibility of traders, auditors, banks, financial actors, importers, supermarkets, federal environmental prosecutors and the Brazilian government. Having said this the PDF is well worth reading for the sheer amount of detail it offers on any and all of these important aspects, facts and figures, plus some mention of the loss of and risk to the many varied and endangered life forms, a topic from which too many are distant or ill informed. Diagrams and photographs give some added understanding of the enormity of the problem.

This global system of capitalism which thrusts separate countries into constant competition with other nations and forces many smaller states into positions of subservience to the more powerful is absolutely the opposite of what is urgently required if the planet is to remain a safe place for all life. Surely no one can be ignorant of the fact that we are one world and that all areas affect and are affected by others, whether as the result of mining for fossil fuels on land or in the sea, from emissions of global trade practices or, as we have here, massive destruction of the lungs of the world in order to raise more beef for sale on the world market.

Janet Surman

Tiny Tips (2009)

The Tiny Tips column from the July 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

A collection of more than 3,000 inverted stamps has sold at auction in New York for more than $5 million:

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

One billion people throughout the world suffer from hunger, a figure which has increased by 100 million because of the global financial crisis, says the UN:

[Link.]

#    #    #    #

Cancer is a silent disease in Africa and in the developing world. World Health Organization (WHO) statistics shows that cancer kills more people in Africa than HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria combined. This is not a well-known fact, and a very disturbing one, especially since cancer diagnostics and treatment are of very poor standard in most African countries. Take for example Ghana – a country with more than 23 million people. They only have four oncologists to diagnose and treat cancer patients. WHO estimates that if we don’t take act now, more than 11 million Africans may die of cancer in 2020:

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

One in four men in South Africa have admitted to rape and many confess to attacking more than one victim, according to a study that exposes the country’s endemic culture of sexual violence

[Link.]

#    #    #    #

The Dalai Lama has encouraged Tibetans in exile to embrace the democratic system of electing a leader, saying it was essential to keep step with the larger world and to ensure the continuity of their government:

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

Uganda has lost nearly a third of its forest cover since 1990 due to expanding farmlands, a rapidly growing human population and increased urbanisation, a government report said

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2½ centuries of slavery

[Link.]

#    #    #    #

Nearly twice as many US army soldiers today are either alcoholic or engage in damaging behaviour such as binge drinking than six years ago, and experts blame the rise on repeated tours in war zones:

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

President Hugo Chavez is standing by his man in the Middle East, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians took to the streets Wednesday for the fifth straight day to protest his claim to a landslide reelection

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

Zimbabwe is suffering “persistent and serious” human rights violations despite the formation of a unity government four months ago, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khansaid

[Dead Link.]

Air Pressure (2021)

Beijing (Greenpeace)

From the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the middle of March a sandstorm resulted in orange skies and incredibly unhealthy air quality measurements in Beijing. Sand had blown in from western desert areas in amounts far higher than usual, and this was at least partly due to large-scale deforestation. Meanwhile in the UK, legal limits on toxic air pollution have been broken for a decade, and over nine-tenths of the country (including a quarter of homes) is affected by pollution from roads, much of which consists of tiny particles from brakes, tyres and the burning of fossil fuels; this affects human health and also the wellbeing of wildlife.

These are specific examples of air pollution, discussed more fully in a report State of Global Air 2020 produced by the Health Effects Institute in Boston, US (see www.stateofglobalair.org). It states: ‘Air pollution was the 4th leading risk factor for early death worldwide in 2019, surpassed only by high blood pressure, tobacco use, and poor diet.’ Women who are exposed to particulate air pollution are more likely to have babies who are born premature or have low birth weight, both of which may lead to health problems for the children.

Over ninety percent of the world’s population experience concentrations of ambient fine particle air pollution (PM2.5) above the WHO Air Quality Guidelines, the highest being in India, Nepal and Niger. Rates are fairly low in North America and most of Europe, and levels have declined in some regions, but not in those which are most polluted. Ozone pollution, which can be caused by and contribute to climate change and mainly results from the burning of fossil fuels, has also been steadily increasing over the last decade, despite decreases in some places, such as China and Russia. It affects food crops as well as human health. Household air pollution results from burning fuels such as coal for heating or cooking; the extent of this has been much reduced, but half the world’s population remains exposed, primarily in the least-developed countries, and it particularly affects babies.

Long-term exposure to air pollution contributes to increased risk of illness and death from heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, and so on, with children and the elderly the worst affected. The estimate is that in 2019 it contributed to 6.67 million deaths, largely in Africa and Asia, including half a million deaths among infants who did not survive their first month. Compare the nine million or so who die each year from hunger and just under three million who die from obesity.

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in cleaner and clearer skies in many locations, but it will take a lot more to restore clean air to as much of the planet as possible. Establishing a society that puts human well-being and the health of the planet first would be a major step in the right direction.

Paul Bennett

Externalities and British Chicken (2021)

From the March 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Externality – a consequence of an economic activity which affects other parties without this being reflected in market prices (Oxford Concise English Dictionary)

British chicken – annually the UK slaughters a billion chickens, about fifteen per person per annum. (Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

In effect an externality means acquiring something at a price lower than necessary if negative effects were to be avoided or compensated for. A few common examples include such acts as taking occupied land for other uses without agreement or full compensation; poisoning air, water or food of local inhabitants near mines, factories and industrial agricultural sites; habitat destruction for industrial use; carbon offsets by which companies in the richer countries pay for CO2 pollution caused by them by funding reforestation and similar green projects in other countries. So let’s look here at just one aspect of the UK’s involvement with some of these externalities connected to the rearing of these millions of chickens in Britain recently highlighted by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The link begins between the giant corporation Cargill and a little heard of, but vast area, the Cerrado in Brazil which is being deforested at an alarming rate for the mass production of soya beans. Some 100,000 tonnes of these soya beans are used to feed those millions of British chickens each year. The Cerrado is a vast tropical savannah hugely significant for its capacity to store carbon dioxide. It is a crucial part of South America’s water system and home to many indigenous communities and endangered animals. It is an area smaller than the Amazon but has far weaker protections. Between 2008 and 2012 the rate of forest loss in the Amazon slowed by 67 percent whilst the Cerrado forest continued to disappear at an alarming rate. There, in the decade to 2018, 95,000 sq km of land was lost, 66 percent more than the Amazon which is three times its size. It now has only half of its original cover. The Cerrado region is estimated to account for 90 percent of soya-driven deforestation in Brazil. Covering more than 20 percent of Brazil’s land size it is a huge carbon sink, critical for eight of Brazil’s twelve river basins and is integral to the hydroelectric power plants producing 80 percent of Brazil’s electricity.

A Dutch NGO ‘Aidenveronment’ has confirmed vast deforestation and fires on land used or owned by Cargill suppliers in the Cerrado, and that the already huge area of monoculture soya is growing rapidly alongside land-grabs and violence.

In August 2020 a Bureau of Investigative Journalism team tracked a bulk tanker carrying soya beans from Cargill and two other companies in the region from a port near the Cerrado to Cargill’s soya plant in Liverpool. Here the beans were processed at Cargills’s soya crushing plant and from there to Cargill’s poultry feed mills in Hereford and Banbury where a mixture of the soya with wheat and other ingredients is produced. This UK Cargill facility operates under the name of Avara, a joint enterprise with British producer Faccenda. Avara supplies chickens to McDonalds, Asda, Lidl and Nando’s whilst also being the largest fresh chicken supplier to Tesco.

Annually the UK slaughters a billion chickens – about 15 per person, which accounts for about 60 percent of the UK’s imported soya consumption. Probably an externality little known or thought about?

Regarding deforestation it is possible that a UK company may have a declaration of no trade with companies involved in illegal deforestation but in this instance, and as an example, Brazil has widespread legal deforestation. Then, regarding the soya supply chain between Brazil and the UK, Cargill admit that their 2010 commitment to eliminate deforestation by 2020 has not been met, and now extends it to 2030 – which experts say is too late on the global warming agenda.

In 2006 there was a ban imposed by traders and international NGOs on felling trees in the Amazon for soya production, but no such agreement for the Cerrado. As a result, it is now beef production that drives the deforestation of the Amazon, both legal and illegal, whilst soya accounts for the fast-growing deforestation of the Cerrado.

More examples

This is just one example of the spider’s web-like tangle between a commodity and an externality. When looked at in depth it seems the globe is an extensive minefield of externalities. How much effect can just one community of the millions of communities around the world have on their own particular problem? Consider some of the many negatives experienced by local communities in wildly different circumstances and environments from the Arctic to the Sahara, east to west, north to south. Faster melting ice, increasing wild fires, severe weather problems, inundation of low lying farmland and islands, filthy air from excessive traffic, industries and coal burning for electricity causing severe health problems; rivers poisoned by industrial and agricultural waste; overuse of pesticides and herbicides especially in intensive farming causing severe species decline; massive ocean pollution, especially plastics; microplastics, heavy metals and poisonous chemicals found in urine samples in all ages of populations around the world. We are mostly steered away from knowing about such problems, let alone thinking about them, by corporations using enormous amounts of money on advertising to draw us in to the many benefits of buying, using, eating and showing off their products.

The divisions between populations around the world, whether nationalism, racism, politics, or economic status, are not natural events. They have been deliberately forged over long periods of time by the powerful sectors seeking their own interests and profits whilst creating wedges between each country’s workers. Workers forced into competition with each other to keep their share of the market, their share of employment, their chance of a decent wage and subsequently blaming the other for unfairness and inequality. So where does the responsibility lie? Do we stop eating chicken? How many more of the thousands of examples like this could be brought to our attention?

Without widespread understanding of at least some of the myriad connections – agricultural methods, global distribution chains, reporting of international agreements re carbon capture and carbon credits payments, the very structure of the capitalist system – how are all these diverse and far-flung populations supposed to understand that what they are eating, wearing, driving, buying and using could be damaging other populations, environments and the world itself?

What is desperately required is a global solution without all these conflicting and competitive issues. The vast majority of the global population share the brunt of all the basic problems as their interests are not those of the ruling elites and corporations. Those in control of the system continue to keep us in check but we the people have to wake up to the realisation that the future is in our hands.

Janet Surman

What environmentalists are up against (2011)

From the July 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the face of it the environmentalist movement has a lot of things in its favour. It would be difficult to find fault in their concerns about how the planet is being abused. Global warming, deforestation and pollution are real areas of concern for anyone who examines how modern society is developing. Where socialists would differ from environmental activists is in two major areas. Firstly, in their analysis of what causes the problems and, secondly, what is the solution to the problems.

Quite often environmental activists make the assumption that the problems are caused by social ignorance and that the solution can come about by a series of legal enactments that would save the planet from its present dangers. Socialists would repudiate such a simplistic analysis. Let us look at one of the major concerns of environmentalists and socialists alike – the deforestation of the Amazon area.

“Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased almost six-fold since last year despite government promises to reduce the destruction according to data released yesterday. Satellite images obtained by the National Institute for Special Research reveal 595 sq km (230 sq miles) of deforestation in March and April of this year. Figures from the Brazilian government show a 27 per cent increase in deforestation of the world’s largest rain forest from August to April” (Times, 20 May).

This deforestation is not caused by social ignorance. All major governments are aware of the problem, but they are also aware that in order to keep capitalist profits on the rise they must have timber from the Amazon and the clearing of the forest for the growth of crops and the rearing of cattle. “In 30 or so years, we have gone from zero to 400,000 heads of cattle,” boasted Onofre, president of the local ranchers association. Nowadays everybody says we have to preserve the forest. But when we arrived nobody knew we had to protect anything we had to deforest. We chopped the trees down so we could feed our animals, our cattle.”… Back on his ranch, Onofre reflected on his hopes that Brazil’s Congress would approve a controversial bill altering the forest code and reducing the amount of rainforest Amazon landowners had to protect” (Observer, 22 May). 

The local farmers and cattle raisers can heave a sigh of relief at the latest piece of news from their government. “Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies has voted to ease restrictions on the amount of land farmers must preserve as forest. The amendment also grants amnesties for previous deforestation” (BBC News, 25 May).       

The drive for more and more profits make it essential that the Amazon landowners continue their policy of forest clearance. The importers of timber, cattle and agriculture products also cry out for more deforestation. While the profit motive remains, all attempts by the environmental movement to restrict the development of capitalism in the Amazon area is futile. Only the establishment of world socialism can stop this insidious destruction of our planet.

Richard Donnelly

Counter-response (2020)

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website

The following is Stephen Shenfield's counter-response to Paddy Shannon's response to The coronavirus, bats, and deforestation article.

My account of the nature of coronaviruses and their probable origin in bats was based on a number of recent articles by specialists in relevant scientific disciplines, mainly virology and epidemiology. I made the mistake of naming only one such source – Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading. For those who wish to explore the topic further, the other specialists on whom I relied were: Tara C. Smith, who teaches epidemiology at the Kent State University College of Public Health and whose article ‘The Animal Origins of Coronavirus and Flu’ was published in Quanta Magazine on February 25; and two teams of Chinese researchers, mostly from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, whose articles in the March 2019 issue of National Review of Microbiology (here) and in Nature 579 (2/3/20) (here) also provide further references.

The works of William H. McNeill and Jared Diamond do not provide much of an introduction to epidemiology. Neither is a specialist in epidemiology or in any other scientific discipline. They are historians (Diamond may also be considered an anthropologist) with an amateur interest in epidemiology. For a real introduction to epidemiology, see the text by Caroline Macera and her co-authors. 

Turning to substance, there is a process of mutual adaptation of viruses and their animal or human hosts. The danger to the host arises when the virus adapts to the host faster than the host adapts to the virus. This is a temporary situation: the danger passes once the host has caught up, as seems to have happened with Ebola. However, a virus that is new to a specific host can wreak havoc in the period before that host successfully adapts, as shown by the tragic fate of the aboriginal people of the New World. 

As for the argument about the danger inherent in excessively rapid human expansion into hitherto untapped areas of the natural world, I first encountered it years ago in a book by an epidemiologist that I have not managed to track down. I still find it persuasive. 

It is not particularly dangerous if the boundary between tapped and untapped areas shifts gradually, giving people enough time to adapt to the unfamiliar bacteria and viruses encountered in the newly exploited areas. However, if the boundary shifts too fast then humans will indeed be exposed to and defenseless against the ‘new’ pathogens. 

Historical experience is of limited relevance to the current situation because in the past the boundary was relatively stable and now it is not. This partly a result of the capitalist drive for profit, partly also a result of the pressure of rapidly growing human populations (in Africa, for instance).  

I should add that rapid human expansion is not the only likely source of unknown diseases. It may not even be the main such source. I am especially concerned about the reactivation of long-dormant bacteria and viruses from earlier ages frozen in the permafrost as the ice melts. See, for instance, here. 

I agree that there are many other valid reasons to preserve the rainforest, some of them even more important than the threat of pandemics. But it is not essential for an article devoted to one specific reason to indicate all the others.

All socialists, of course, will agree with Comrade Paddy Shannon’s last paragraph.

Stephen Shenfield

Blogger's Note

See Also:

• The coronavirus, bats, and deforestation (2020)
• Reply to The coronavirus, bats, and deforestation (2020)
• Mystery of the Pig/ Bird / Human Flu Virus (2009)

The coronavirus, bats, and deforestation (2020)

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website

Coronaviruses are not a new phenomenon, nor were they discovered only recently. They were first studied in detail by scientists in the 1960s. The name comes from the ‘corona’ or ‘crown’ of sugary proteins that protrude from the envelope of the virus. Coronaviruses exist in numerous varieties and infect birds and mammals, including bats, pigs, cats, and humans.

The coronavirus responsible for the current epidemic, now labeled COVID-19, is the third to cause a major epidemic in the last two decades.[1] The first, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), emerged in southern China in 2002. Less well known is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Each of these syndromes spread to two or three dozen other countries, both in the region of origin and further afield.     

These three coronaviruses belong to the much wider category of zoonoses – diseases that jump from non-human animals to humans. There are numerous zoonoses, however, and most are caused not by coronaviruses but by other viruses or by bacteria or parasites. They were the source of the Black Death that killed between a third and a half of the population of Europe in the fourteenth century, the bubonic plague that began in 1894, the ‘Spanish’ or ‘Russian’ influenza that spread in the wake of World War One, and the so-called ‘swine flu’ of 2009.[2] Here are a few more zoonoses and species that transmit them:

• anthrax  —  from sheep or cattle
• leptospirosis, rabies  —  from dogs
• Lyme disease  —  from blacklegged ticks
• malaria, dengue, chikungunya  —  from mosquitoes
• influenza  —  from ducks, geese, terns, gulls, or other waterfowl

So many species may transmit diseases to humans, including mammals, birds, and insects. Scientists seem to agree, however, that the ‘natural reservoir’ of all three of the coronaviruses that have caused the major recent epidemics (SARS, MERS, COVID-19) is bats.

Of the many species of bats, those belonging to the family known as ‘horseshoe bats’ carry coronaviruses genetically closest to COVID-19.[3] The species of horseshoe bat extant in China is the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat, which is widely distributed and not protected by law.   

The coronavirus may be transmitted from bats to humans directly or through an intermediate species. The intermediate species for SARS was the civet cat, for MERS the camel. Shen Yongyi and Xiao Lihua of South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou suggest that the intermediate species for COVID-19 is the pangolin – a long-snouted scaly anteater whose parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat skin ailments, menstrual disorders, and arthritis.[4] They found that genetic sequences of viruses isolated from pangolins are 99% similar to COVID-19. 

I myself doubt whether the pangolin was the intermediate species. Many of the people first infected with COVID-19 worked at an open-air market in Wuhan where seafood and animals captured in the wild or their parts were sold. Pangolins were not officially listed as being on sale there. That is not surprising: pangolins are a protected species and selling them is punishable with a prison term of ten years or longer. Illegal trafficking may nonetheless be widespread, but surely it is conducted clandestinely, not in full public view.[5] Direct transmission from bats seems more likely. Bat meat was openly sold at the market (apparently it tastes rather like mutton, but has a texture similar to chicken). It is also possible that some other intermediate species was involved.

Does this mean that consumption of wild animals is dangerous enough to justify its suppression, as many argue (both in and outside China)? This conclusion seems at odds with age-old experience. After all, early humans fed themselves partly by hunting wild game for hundreds of thousands of years. Only in the last couple of centuries have most of us stopped using this source of food. 

However, consumption of wild animals really is dangerous under certain conditions – namely, when the animals come from areas only recently penetrated and exploited by humans and therefore bring with them diseases to which we have not had a chance to develop immunity. This is explained by Greg Gerritt of the Rhode Island Green Party.[6] 

 There have been a number of relatively recent disease outbreaks with novel diseases, diseases that western science had not seen before, and often diseases that the communities where the outbreaks originate had not experienced before. Most of these diseases are also originally transmitted to people from tropical wild animal populations, with bats and primates implicated in some of them. What is happening is that the deforestation process works in a variety of ways, driven by factors like new road construction and the development of plantations. As roads reach new areas, they increase both the cutting of trees and the shooting of wildlife for food. Some of the wildlife is eaten locally and replaces food sources lost as deforestation progresses; some of the hunting takes advantage of the new roads and transports the food to urban markets where there is often a high demand for bushmeat. With the hunting taking place in places where very few people have hunted previously that are now available for exploitation due to new roads, or places where hunters are no longer living isolated communities, hunters are running into novel diseases in the same way that a survey of biodiversity in places that have not been explored and exploited before finds new species of geckos, salamanders, and monkeys. It you are finding new species of animals and plants, then you are running into new microorganisms: some will eventually be used to cure diseases, others will cause new diseases, and most will have little direct effect on humans.   

The climate link is that the protection and maintenance of good health in the global forest, and especially tropical forests, is a critical part of our strategy to prevent the worst effects of climate change. We have to move towards zero carbon emissions rather quickly, but we also have to suck carbon dioxide out of the sky. Trees and soils are the most natural and least energy-intensive ways to do that. The best way to keep the trees and soils healthy is to protect tropical forests. We are already seeing reports of the carbon budget of the tropical forests turning negative. Deforestation is the big driver, but a decent amount of the loss of carbon in tropical forests is a cascade effect. As forest turn silent, as the animals are all hunted out even if it is prior to deforestation, the forest unravels. No animals are eating seeds that need to go through digestive systems to germinate. No animals are depositing seeds in their poop as they move from place to place. Very small pests run amok with predators gone. The ability of the forest to sequester and store carbon falls apart, requiring ever greater efforts to decarbonize and new ways to sequester carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.   

The conclusion is that the process that brings the new diseases to humans, deforestation, and the bushmeat trade are part and parcel of the climate crisis, and to better prevent future novel diseases, we need to do a lot better job of protecting the forests that help keep the climate intact.

That is all well and good. But this immediately raises further questions. Who is endangering the forests? For what purpose? How can the process be stopped? These questions are tackled in another article on this website, where I write:  

  Consider the fires now burning through the forests that serve as our planet’s lungs – in Amazonia but also in other parts of Brazil and in Indonesia. These are not ‘wildfires’: there is good reason to suppose that they are set deliberately in order to clear the land for commercial activities. In Amazonia arson opens up land for the cultivation of soybeans, for cattle ranching, in certain places for mining. In the tourist area around Pinheira in southern Brazil a state park has been set aflame with a view to residential development on what is viewed as prime real estate. In Indonesia most forest fires are set in order to clear land for palm oil plantations. So capitalists in at least five distinct non-energy fields of profit-making enterprise are involved in laying waste these precious forests.

If we are to stop the wanton destruction of our forests and the periodic epidemics associated with this process, we must stop production for profit and the endless expansion of capital. 

Stephen Shenfield  

Notes

 [1] There are another four coronaviruses that cause the common cold. 

 [2] ‘Swine flu’ is a misleading term, inasmuch as the virus seems to be equally at home in pigs, birds, and humans. The outbreak was attributed to unsafe and crowded conditions at a pig ‘factory’ in Mexico. See my article here. 

 [3] According to Ian Jones, professor of virology at the University of Reading, UK. Source here.

 [4] David Cyranoski, Did pangolins spread the China coronavirus to people? Nature, 2/7/20.

 [5] In African countries where the sale of bushmeat is illegal it is nonetheless available, but only through clandestine channels. Transactions occur in private homes, not on the open market. 

 [6] In an e-mail message circulated on March 11, 2020.