Green Gaffs for All

Written by Nicole McCarthy & Des Hennelly and first published at Rupture

The industrial revolution in Britain was the inception of the world of commodification under capitalism that we know today. Factories equipped with machines, first powered by water, then the steam engine and coal, began to mass-produce products. People’s labour time was now directly translated into an hourly fee and companies were learning how to squeeze the most productivity out of their labour force. But before anything else, factory owners needed to attract workers.

In Fossil Capital, Andreas Malm explains how “[t]he water mill called forth the regime of factory discipline, which was, when it first appeared, intensely repugnant to most.” Additionally, the mills were placed near water and away from city centres which had more people free to labour. To solve the issue, factory owners ‘financed the construction of hundreds of housing units – many with attached allotment gardens – a market, a public house and other essential components of a settlement where workers would be willing to live and stay.’[1]

In Dublin in the early 20th century, Guinness built hundreds of flats to house their workers as well as ‘public baths, a market, a public park for workers (the Iveagh Gardens) and sports and childcare functions’.[2] At the time Dublin had some of the worst housing in Europe which created conditions for cholera and other diseases to rapidly spread. Providing housing as well as public baths was a way for Guinness to guarantee workers had sanitary living conditions which would ensure their ability to work day in and day out to make profits for the company. These houses and amenities made working in Guinness a very attractive option, but it also meant that workers  were less likely to strike or disrupt production because their housing was dependent on their job. 

The housing situation is now so bad - not just here but also in other countries like the US, Germany, and Spain - that nearly a century later, employers are once again stepping into the housing market to secure their workforce. The owners of Educate.ie funded the building of 20 not-for-profit houses to allow them to be sold to employees for below market value. Google and Facebook are planning to build affordable housing for their employees in Silicon Valley.[3] 

While it might seem as if Google and Co. are stepping up to cover the gap and helping workers, in reality, companies providing housing or assisting workers with acquiring housing leaves us dependent on our employers for our homes. It would mean workers are likely to feel that they must stay in a job longer than they might want because it’s their only means of accessing affordable housing. We can’t leave it to the “good graces” of individual companies to provide us with quality housing, but neither can we rely on “the market” where housing is built and sold as a commodity for profit, not an investment in people, community and society.

Hot commodity

We hear the term ‘commodification’ being thrown around to describe the (evil) process that occurs when capitalism gets its hands on something - like the commodification of water or even fresh air[4] - but what does it actually mean? It’s quite simple really. It’s when goods, services, ideas, and even people who have to work for a living are produced or manipulated as objects of trade, something you make or invest in solely to sell for profit. 

In the case of people it is our labour-power, our ability to work, what kind of work we can do, our ‘skillset’, that is moulded and geared towards what the market needs. And we generally accept that’s okay, with people all the time saying things like, “why did you study Art History in college, sure what job could you get?" 

This production for exchange value rather than need, creates a market where builders are looking to use the cheapest possible materials and developers are looking to buy at the cheapest price and turn over the largest profit possible. We end up with inflated house prices and sky-high rents, as well as MICA and pyrite disasters. Not to mention that all too often we may get houses, but end up with no vital community structures like shops, schools, public transport or creches.

It is genuinely quite absurd when you stop to consider what the situation actually is. Capitalism has made something as fundamental as shelter an exclusive virtue that is only accessible to those who can afford it. With one of us knocking on the age of 30, still living at home, it is so easy to see examples of how the housing market is failing nearly half a million[5] ‘young’ people who are in the same boat. 

Where did it all go wrong?

In a nutshell, the state stopped building council homes, also known as social housing. Council homes were constructed by local councils with rents based on income, not the market. From the early 1930s to the mid-50s, 55 percent of all new houses built were social housing. By 1961, almost 20 percent of the population was living in a council house.[6] 

Unfortunately, unlike some other countries in Western Europe like Austria, Ireland stopped building council homes, so they declined in availability and quality to the desperate proportions we see today, with 61,880 households on the social housing waiting list as of November 2020.[7] Instead of investing in social housing, the Irish government, like the Thatcher government in Britain, went neoliberal and began relying more and more on the private sector, meaning private, for-profit developers and builders, to deliver housing. This has had all the predictable consequences of skyrocketing rents and increased homelessness. 

Meanwhile, instead of building social housing which would deliver secure housing for families, the government is funnelling money to private landlords through the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP). Through this scheme, the government pays rent to over 57,000 private landlords who continue to control the property and have the right to evict families.[8]

Without the option of council homes, more and more people are pushed into the commodified housing market, where the rich get richer and the poor work themselves to the bone, trying to avoid becoming homeless. Landlords hold the reins of power, charging astronomical rents, evicting families at the drop of a hat and hoarding land till they can make bigger profits on their investments. Workers are not only held to ransom financially but suffer from the stress and worry of losing their home. 

Vacant homes

With all the demands to ‘build more housing’ out there and long council housing waiting lists, you would imagine there’s some shortage of housing. But, actually, there isn’t a shortage of homes per se. There’s a huge number of vacant houses - around 183,000, not including the over 60,000 holiday homes that sit empty for months on end.[9] In fact, Ireland has the 10th highest number of vacant properties in the world based on the size of our population.[10] 

On paper it appears we already have enough housing for everyone in the state. However, it’s probably the case that much of the housing is not suitable as is. Beyond the fact that it’s privately owned and controlled, much of the vacant and unused housing is also either too expensive, is of poor standard and needs refurbishing, is too big or small for the needs of the residents, or not in the area where families need to live to be near to their family and friends. There is, undoubtedly, a shortage of habitable homes in Dublin and other cities. The anarchy of the market means there is an oversupply of homes in some areas where there is little demand for them and an undersupply of affordable homes in cities.

There have been (pathetic) attempts to address this issue in government housing plan after government housing plan. In 2015 there was the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act which saw the introduction of the vacant site levy. To discourage land hoarding, owners were charged a 3% levy in 2018 which rose to 7% for 2019. However, less than a third of the money owed was paid to local authorities in 2019 and in 2020 less than one percent of the money due was paid! Clearly, people have realised that nothing is being done to enforce it.[11] 

The government has again tried to address the issue in their budget plans for 2022 the Zoned Land Tax will replace the Vacant Site Levy in the next two years. This imposes charges on land that is zoned for housing that remains undeveloped and will have a three percent tariff by January 2022, if zoned after that date, there will be a charge after 3 years. The big difference with this tax is that the responsibility for collection lies with Revenue. The previous levy collected just €21,000 of €11.8 million deemed to be owed to local authorities.[12] The Vacant Site Levy has been such a disaster that whatever happens with the Zoned Land Tax is probably going to seem like a huge success in comparison. 

Clearly a tiny tax that the state doesn’t really enforce won’t do it. We need compulsory acquisition and refurbishment of vacant units, reduction of rents to actually affordable levels - with affordability defined as a percentage of income - and ultimately, we’ll need to expropriate corporate landlords that are sitting on empty luxury apartments biding their time while people are literally dying in the streets.  

Additionally, population growth will mean that even if we seized all the vacant properties tomorrow, we’d still need around 35,000 new homes a year. But, left to “the market” this housing will continue to be priced out of reach for the majority of people. It’s also likely to continue the trend of build cheap and sell dear, regardless of what people need, including rapid reductions in emissions and ecosystem destruction. 

Concrete emissions

So what is the environmental cost of a new house? Well, that depends on how the homes are built, with what materials, how far those materials have to be transported, in what manner are they built (one off or by the thousands), and whether they are near or far from public transport. All of these factors will determine the environmental impact not only during construction, but also for our overall society. 

Let’s start with materials used to build the home. In Ireland, most homes are made of concrete. Concrete, if you didn’t know, produces a lot of carbon emissions. Globally, more than four billion tonnes of cement are created annually, which produces about eight per cent of global CO2 emissions.[13] If the cement industry were a country, they would be the third-biggest CO2 polluter in the world with up to 2.8bn tonnes. 

A huge amount of attention has been raised about the problems with plastic which is, of course, good. At least in the way plastic is talked about nowadays, you could nearly say there’s a war on plastic. However, the cement industry creates more carbon emissions every two years than the eight billion tonnes of plastic bags created over the last 60 years. So, why is there no war on cement? Why are we not hearing about the pollution it causes and how society should avoid it? 

Cement is responsible for a tenth of the world’s industrial water use. It creates extremely hot cities and exacerbates respiratory diseases.[14] An abundance of concrete also prevents the soil from absorbing rainfall, creating toxic runoff into our rivers and streams and eventually into our oceans. To top it off, “[i]t also puts a crushing weight on the ecosystems that are essential for human wellbeing.”[15] Why in the world are we still using it to build houses?!

The Irish Green Building Association warned that “Ireland’s new home construction programme will result in huge ‘embodied carbon’ emissions if we continue to build houses in the way we currently do.” These ‘embodied carbon’ emissions are those emanating ‘...from mining, quarrying, transporting and manufacturing building materials, in addition to the construction activities created’.[16] 

There are several other options on offer that are far more sustainable than concrete. For example recycled plastics, hempcrete (hemp fibres mixed with lime and water create a concrete-like material), bamboo, clay and ashcrete (ash is a by-product of coal combustion that is otherwise discarded into landfills) to name a few.[17] Although these methods are more eco-friendly than traditional cement, their widespread use is blocked by a system focused on profit and cutting costs wherever it can. 

The most eco-friendly way to tackle the housing crisis is to reuse and repurpose as many existing materials as possible, but builders will rely on new concrete because it is cheaper and easier to use. In other words, we can’t just leave it to the market, to the developers and builders who seek profit above all else, to decide. 

Suburban sprawl

We also can’t rely on developers to build communities in a way that reduces our overall carbon emissions and environmental impact. Neither can we expect people to not build a home until the state steps in and actually plans community development. Spatial planning - where homes are built, how close they are to shops, workplaces, and public transport - affects community building and it largely determines household and transport emissions. 

Don't get us wrong. It is common to hear of those who have this escape plan from capitalism in the back of their minds - a small plot of land, an eco-friendly dwelling and a little vegetable patch.This is a dream for lots of people who want to disengage from our profit driven society eating away at our souls and our precious environment. 

It’s not just the housing we want and need. As human beings we have social needs too. We want to be part of a community, a group of like minded individuals that we can share our space and resources with. And that’s the thing. It’s really hard to build a community with proper services if people are living spread out, building on whatever land they can afford in a one-off dwelling or living in one of Dublin’s sprawling American-style suburbs because that’s what was cheapest for the developer. 

Every community needs public transport, libraries, shops, post deliveries, community centres, parks, schools and doctors surgeries. We can’t achieve that, nor the urgent reductions in emissions we so desperately need under the current system of build where you can in whatever way is cheapest and letting “the market” dominate.  We also have to demand the rapid phasing out of concrete and for better spatial planning that fosters small village style community development and the withering away of car dependence. 

Traveller accommodation

Let’s also remember that not all who live in Ireland want a “traditional” home. The material and cultural needs of the Traveller community must be planned for as well, including the importance of horse ownership and space for larger families.[18] 

Shamefully, six years after the Carrickmines tragedy, councils have still completely failed to provide Traveller-specific housing. Two thirds of the money allocated for Traveller housing between 2008 and 2018 wasn’t even used.[19] The excuses are many, but none of them change the reality that councils are criminally failing a minority community that is all too often on the receiving end of racism and discrimination. 

Just to give a recent and horrific example, in Limerick racist messages were spray painted onto a house a Traveller family was due to move into. This family was then faced with potential homlessness and the constant fear for their lives as locals threatened to burn the house down if the Traveller family moved in. Unfortunately, Travellers rights activists explain that this is not an isolated incident. Traveller families are often on the receiving end of hate crimes.[20]

Every single person needs a home. We cannot allow Travellers to fight alone for their specific housing needs nor allow the councils off the hook for failing to meet them. We demand housing for all who live here and specific for each community’s cultural needs.

What about cost rental?

Vienna is one of the most affordable major cities in the world and also ranks high in terms of quality of life surveys.[21] To ensure there is plenty of quality housing, the city builds at least 7,000 council homes a year.[22] Over 60% of the population live in state-built accommodation. They utilise a cost rental scheme whereby housing is rented out based on covering the cost of building and maintenance, not private profits for the developers and individualised gains for landlords. Rent in Vienna for one of these social houses is individually assessed, based on your income. No one pays more than a third of their income for housing.[23] 

Looking at Vienna’s cost-rental model, Dublin County councils have plans for 440 cost-rental dwellings to be built in the coming months, due to grow to 2,000 by 2023.[24] The aim is to use cost-rental schemes to provide housing to those who are just above the threshold for social housing but are unable to obtain a mortgage. 

However, the cost rental they’re proposing is different from Vienna’s in one significant way. Rents are not based on cost alone nor income. Government rules mandate that rent must be least 25% below market prices,[25] which still maintains rent as a function of the market, not the cost of building and maintenance nor your income

What are we fighting for?

Imagine that you, and all of your loved ones, have access to a home that will never cost more than one third of your income, regardless of what you earn. This home is near local forest-parks filled to the brim with native trees, bees, birds of all kinds, foxes, badgers, red squirrels, and pine martens. It’s connected to a network of forest-parks across the country, so sometimes we see wolves and wild boar. 

Shops with beautifully crafted products are within walking distance; so are the schools and creches, with ample spaces for all of the local children. Libraries, shared work spaces, and a community centre with activities that suit all age groups are also nearby. A community kitchen with nutritious and free food available to all is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The small farms nearby supply it with fresh vegetables and fruit, and the fishers come once a month to bring mussels. Work isn’t too far away. You can get there using the cycling network or hop on the 24-hour free, frequent and fast public transport powered by solar energy. 

All of this sounds like a dream, a utopia. But it’s possible if workers, Travellers, small farmers and fishers were in control of planning our housing and our communities. 

More than six out of ten Irish people believe that the right to housing should be in the Constitution, with more than 80% agreeing that housing is a basic human right. However, a constitutional right to housing alone would not solve the current crisis and probably wouldn’t force the government’s hand to build more publicly owned social housing. We need to consider the bigger picture and demand more than a right to housing on paper. Decommodifying and democratising housing is a vital demand for any housing movement that wants to see long-term, meaningful, and ecologically sustainable change.

“Not My Home”

The housing crisis pushed me to live in the countryside. I, like most others, could not afford the rate at which rental prices were increasing. I was lucky to find a nice property to rent in a beautiful location but it is hundreds of kilometres from my family and closest friends. This means I have increased fuel and car maintenance costs and additional emissions as there are simply no public transport options available. 

I have no choice but to drive everywhere, even to get milk. I do love it here but it is not my home, it is someone else’s and would not be suitable for a partner and child to live in with me. It is a place where I feel I have dignity and privacy, in a city I know I would likely be sharing a place with much less space and of much, much lower quality. 

At my age, I would feel uncomfortable living as I did as a student but I count myself extremely lucky given the unconscionable conditions students have been forced to live in during the last decade. It is hugely disheartening to see so many abandoned properties, both domestic and commercial, often being left roofless for perverse taxation benefits. 

It is equally disheartening to see very large modern properties spring up in the landscape as those with significant wealth build more empty holiday homes. The community spirit, the ability to get to know your neighbours and the ability for my generation and those coming after me to put down roots is being lost here.

Notes

1. Andreas Malm, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (London, 2016).

2.  Mark Keenan, ‘Home truth: Philanthropic housing has long been used to control working classes’, Irish Independent, September 20 2019, https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/home-truth-philanthropic-housing-has-long-been-used-to-control-working-classes-38516036.html

3.  Sarah Kieran, ‘Building homes for employees: what we can learn from an old idea’, RTE News, Tuesday, 19 Jan 2021, https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2021/0119/1190626-building-homes-for-employees-what-we-can-learn-from-an-old-idea/ 

4.  Vikram Barhat, ‘The entrepreneurs making money out of thin air’, BBC News, 16th May 2017, https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170515-the-entrepreneurs-making-money-out-of-thin-air

5.  Michelle Hennessy, ‘Factfind: How many adults under 30 are still living at home with their parents’, The Journal, Feb 2nd 2020, https://www.thejournal.ie/factfind-under-living-with-parents-4981426-Feb2020/

6.  Social Justice Ireland, ‘MORE THAN 1 IN 4 HAP TENANCIES NOT SUSTAINABLE WHILE REAL SOCIAL HOUSING NEED UP 33%’, 16 June 2021,

7.  Ibid

8.  Central Statistics Office, ‘Social Housing in Ireland 2019 - Analysis of Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) Scheme’, 18 November 2020, https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-hhwl/socialhousinginireland2019-analysisofhousingassistancepaymenthapscheme/

9.  Central Statistics Office, ‘Census of Population 2016 - Preliminary Results’, https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpr/censusofpopulation2016-preliminaryresults/housing/ 

10.  Eoin Burke-Kennedy, ‘Research shows 183,312 of State’s housing stock are classified as vacant’, The Irish Times, Oct 25, 2021, Ireland has 10th highest rate of vacant homes in the world, study finds (irishtimes.com)

11.  Cormac Fitzgerald, ‘What is - and isn't - being done about Ireland's 180,000 vacant and derelict buildings’, The Journal, Jun 28th 2021, 

12.  John Kilraine, ‘New tax on land hoarding to replace Vacant Site levy’ RTE News, 12th Oct 2021, https://www.rte.ie/news/budget-2022/2021/1012/1253227-housing/

13.  Johanna Lehne & Felix Preston, ‘Making Concrete Change: Innovation in Low-carbon Cement and Concrete’, Chatham House Report, 13th JUNE 2018, 

14.  Jonathan Watts, ‘Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth’, The Guardian, 25th February 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth

15.  Ibid

16.  ‘Irish Green Building Council call for immediate, drastic action on climate change’, Irish Construction News, 10th August 2021, https://constructionnews.ie/2021/08/10/irish-green-building-council-call-for-immediate-drastic-action-on-climate-change/

17.  Ayushi Desai, ‘5 Green substitutes for concrete’, Rethinking the Future, https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/rtf-fresh-perspectives/a1825-5-green-substitutes-for-concrete/

18.  Ailbhe Conneely, ‘Reports find €58m allocated for Traveller accommodation not drawn down’, RTE News, 14th Jul 2021,

19.  Ibid

20.  Ryan O’ Rourke, ‘Activists say Travellers face violence and threats all over the country’, Irish Examiner, 12th October 2021, https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-40719279.html

21.  ‘Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All’, Bloomberg Quicktake,17 September 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41VJudBdYXY

22.  Ibid

23.  Conor @TILT, ‘Vienna, the City of Social Housing. Cost Rental in Ireland.’, Affinity, 30th October 2021, https://www.tiltaffinity.com/blog/social-housing-cost-rental-ireland/

24.  Jane Moore, ‘Explainer: Ireland got its first cost-rental homes today - but how exactly do they work?’, The Journal, Jul 7th 2021, https://www.thejournal.ie/what-is-cost-rental-model-housing-5487974-Jul2021/

25. Jack Horgan-Jones, ‘Cost-rental scheme to be open to households earning up to €82,000’, The Irish Times, August 16th 2021, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/cost-rental-scheme-to-be-open-to-households-earning-up-to-82-000-1.4647836

Ecosocialism - A Vital Synthesis

Written by Michael Löwy and first published at The Great Transition Initiative

Abstract: The capitalist system, driven at its core by the maximization of profit, regardless of social and ecological costs, is incompatible with a just and sustainable future. Ecosocialism offers a radical alternative that puts social and ecological well-being first. Attuned to the links between the exploitation of labor and the exploitation of the environment, ecosocialism stands against both reformist “market ecology” and “productivist socialism.” 

By embracing a new model of robustly democratic planning, society can take control of the means of production and its own destiny. Shorter work hours and a focus on authentic needs over consumerism can facilitate the elevation of “being” over “having,” and the achievement of a deeper sense of freedom for all. To realize this vision, however, environmentalists and socialists will need to recognize their common struggle and how that connects with the broader “movement of movements” seeking a Great Transition. 

Introduction 

Contemporary capitalist civilization is in crisis. The unlimited accumulation of capital, commodification of everything, ruthless exploitation of labor and nature, and attendant brutal competition undermine the bases of a sustainable future, thereby putting the very survival of the human species at risk. The deep, systemic threat we face demands a deep, systemic change: a Great Transition. 

In synthesizing the basic tenets of ecology and the Marxist critique of political economy, ecosocialism offers a radical alternative to an unsustainable status quo. Rejecting a capitalist definition of “progress” based on market growth and quantitative expansion (which, as Marx shows, is a destructive progress), it advocates policies founded on non-monetary criteria, such as social needs, individual well-being, and ecological equilibrium. Ecosocialism proffers a critique of both mainstream “market ecology,” which does not challenge the capitalist system, and “productivist socialism,” which ignores natural limits. 

As people increasingly realize how the economic and ecological crises intertwine, ecosocialism has been gaining adherents. Ecosocialism, as a movement, is relatively new, but some of its basic arguments date back to the writings of Marx and Engels. Now, intellectuals and activists are recovering this legacy and seeking a radical restructuring of the economy according to the principles of democratic ecological planning, putting human and planetary needs first and foremost. 

The “actually existing socialisms” of the twentieth century, with their often environmentally oblivious bureaucracies, do not offer an attractive model for today’s ecosocialists. Rather, we must chart a new path forward, one that links with the myriad movements around the globe that share the conviction that a better world is not only possible, but also necessary. 

Democratic Ecological Planning 

The core of ecosocialism is the concept of democratic ecological planning, wherein the population itself, not “the market” or a Politburo, make the main decisions about the economy. Early in the Great Transition to this new way of life, with its new mode of production and consumption, some sectors of the economy must be suppressed (e.g., the extraction of fossil fuels implicated in the climate crisis) or restructured, while new sectors are developed. Economic transformation must be accompanied by active pursuit of full employment with equal conditions of work and wages. This egalitarian vision is essential both for building a just society and for engaging the support of the working class for the structural transformation of the productive forces. 

Ultimately, such a vision is irreconcilable with private control of the means of production and of the planning process. In particular, for investments and technological innovation to serve the common good, decision-making must be taken away from the banks and capitalist enterprises that currently dominate, and put in the public domain. Then, society itself, and neither a small oligarchy of property owners nor an elite of techno-bureaucrats, will democratically decide which productive lines are to be privileged, and how resources are to be invested in education, health, or culture. Major decisions on investment priorities—such as terminating all coal-fired facilities or directing agricultural subsidies to organic production—would be taken by direct popular vote. Other, less important decisions would be taken by elected bodies, on the relevant national, regional, or local scale.   

Although conservatives fearmonger about “central planning,” democratic ecological planning ultimately supports more freedom, not less, for several reasons. First, it offers liberation from the reified “economic laws” of the capitalist system that shackle individuals in what Max Weber called an “iron cage.” Prices of goods would not be left to the “laws of supply and demand,” but would, instead, reflect social and political priorities, with the use of taxes and subsidies to incentivize social goods and disincentivize social ills. Ideally, as the ecosocialist transition moves forward, more products and services critical for meeting fundamental human needs would be freely distributed, according to the will of the citizens. 

Second, ecosocialism heralds a substantial increase in free time. Planning and the reduction of labor time are the two decisive steps towards what Marx called “the kingdom of freedom.” A significant increase of free time is, in fact, a condition for the participation of working people in the democratic discussion and management of economy and of society. 

Last, democratic ecological planning represents a whole society’s exercise of its freedom to control the decisions that affect its destiny. If the democratic ideal would not grant political decision-making power to a small elite, why should the same principle not apply to economic decisions? Under capitalism, use-value—the worth of a product or service to well-being—exists only in the service of exchange-value, or value on the market. Thus, many products in contemporary society are socially useless, or designed for rapid turnover (“planned obsolescence”). By contrast, in a planned ecosocialist economy, use-value would be the only criteria for the production of goods and services, with far-reaching economic, social, and ecological consequences.[1] 

Planning would focus on large-scale economic decisions, not the small-scale ones that might affect local restaurants, groceries, small shops, or artisan enterprises. Importantly, such planning is consistent with workers’ self-management of their productive units. The decision, for example, to transform a plant from producing automobiles to producing buses and trams would be taken by society as a whole, but the internal organization and functioning of the enterprise would be democratically managed by its workers. 

There has been much discussion about the “centralized” or “decentralized” character of planning, but most important is democratic control at all levels—local, regional, national, continental, or international. For example, planetary ecological issues such as global warming must be dealt with on a global scale, and thereby require some form of global democratic planning. This nested, democratic decision-making is quite the opposite of what is usually described, often dismissively, as “central planning,” since decisions are not taken by any “center,” but democratically decided by the affected population at the appropriate scale. 

Democratic and pluralist debate would occur at all levels. Through parties, platforms, or other political movements, varied propositions would be submitted to the people, and delegates would be elected accordingly. However, representative democracy must be complemented—and corrected—by Internet-enabled direct democracy, through which people choose—at the local, national, and, later, global level—among major social and ecological options. Should public transportation be free? Should the owners of private cars pay special taxes to subsidize public transportation? Should solar energy be subsidized in order to compete with fossil energy? Should the work week be reduced to 30 hours, 25, or less, with the attendant reduction of production? 

Such democratic planning needs expert input, but its role is educational, to present informed views on alternative outcomes for consideration by popular decision-making processes. What guarantee is there that the people will make ecologically sound decisions? None. Ecosocialism wagers that democratic decisions will become increasingly reasoned and enlightened as culture changes and the grip of commodity fetishism is broken. One cannot imagine such a new society without the population achieving through struggle, self-education, and social experience, a high level of socialist and ecological consciousness. In any case, are not the alternatives—the blind market or an ecological dictatorship of “experts”—much more dangerous? 

The Great Transition from capitalist destructive progress to ecosocialism is a historical process, a permanent revolutionary transformation of society, culture, and mindsets. Enacting this transition leads not only to a new mode of production and an egalitarian and democratic society, but also to an alternative mode of life, a new ecosocialist civilization, beyond the reign of money, beyond consumption habits artificially produced by advertising, and beyond the unlimited production of commodities that are useless and/or harmful to the environment.  

Such a transformative process depends on the active support of the vast majority of the population for an ecosocialist program. The decisive factor in development of socialist consciousness and ecological awareness is the collective experience of struggle, from local and partial confrontations to the radical change of global society as a whole. 

The Growth Question 

The issue of economic growth has divided socialists and environmentalists. Ecosocialism, however, rejects the dualistic frame of growth versus degrowth, development versus anti-development, because both positions share a purely quantitative conception of productive forces. A third position resonates more with the task ahead: the qualitative transformation of development. 

A new development paradigm means putting an end to the egregious waste of resources under capitalism, driven by large-scale production of useless and harmful products. The arms industry is, of course, a dramatic example, but, more generally, the primary purpose of many of the “goods” produced—with their planned obsolescence—is to generate profit for large corporations. The issue is not excessive consumption in the abstract, but the prevalent type of consumption, based as it is on massive waste and the conspicuous and compulsive pursuit of novelties promoted by “fashion.” A new society would orient production towards the satisfaction of authentic needs, including water, food, clothing, housing, and such basic services as health, education, transport, and culture. 

Obviously, the countries of the Global South, where these needs are very far from being satisfied, must pursue greater classical “development”—railroads, hospitals, sewage systems, and other infrastructure. Still, rather than emulate how affluent countries built their productive systems, these countries can pursue development in far more environmentally friendly ways, including the rapid introduction of renewable energy. While many poorer countries will need to expand agricultural production to nourish hungry, growing populations, the ecosocialist solution is to promote agroecology methods rooted in family units, cooperatives, or larger-scale collective farms—not the destructive industrialized agribusiness methods involving intensive inputs of pesticides, chemicals, and GMOs.[2] 

At the same time, the ecosocialist transformation would end the heinous debt system the Global South now confronts the exploitations of its resources by advanced industrial countries as well as rapidly developing countries like China. Instead, we can envision a strong flow of technical and economic assistance from North to South rooted in a robust sense of solidarity and the recognition that planetary problems require planetary solutions. This need not entail that people in affluent countries “reduce their standard of living”—only that they shun the obsessive consumption, induced by the capitalist system, of useless commodities that do not meet real needs or contribute to human well-being and flourishing. 

But how do we distinguish authentic from artificial and counterproductive needs? To a considerable degree, the latter are stimulated by the mental manipulation of advertising. In contemporary capitalist societies, the advertising industry has invaded all spheres of life, shaping everything from the food we eat and the clothes we wear to sports, culture, religion, and politics. Promotional advertising has become ubiquitous, insidiously infesting our streets, landscapes, and traditional and digital media, molding habits of conspicuous and compulsive consumption. 

Moreover, the ad industry itself is a source of considerable waste of natural resources and labor time, ultimately paid by the consumer, for a branch of “production” that lies in direct contradiction with real social-ecological needs. While indispensable to the capitalist market economy, the advertising industry would have no place in a society in transition to ecosocialism; it would be replaced by consumer associations that vet and disseminate information on goods and services. 

While these changes are already happening to some extent, old habits would likely persist for some years, and nobody has the right to dictate peoples’ desires. Altering patterns of consumption is an ongoing educational challenge within a historical process of cultural change. 

A fundamental premise of ecosocialism is that in a society without sharp class divisions and capitalist alienation, “being” will take precedence over “having.” Instead of seeking endless goods, people pursue greater free time, and the personal achievements and meaning it can bring through cultural, athletic, playful, scientific, erotic, artistic, and political activities. There is no evidence that compulsive acquisitiveness stems from intrinsic “human nature,” as conservative rhetoric suggests. 

Rather, it is induced by the commodity fetishism inherent in the capitalist system, by the dominant ideology, and by advertising. Ernest Mandel summarizes this critical point well: “The continual accumulation of more and more goods […] is by no means a universal and even predominant feature of human behavior. The development of talents and inclinations for their own sake; the protection of health and life; care for children; the development of rich social relations […] become major motivations once basic material needs have been satisfied.” [3] 

Of course, even a classless society faces conflict and contradiction. The transition to ecosocialism would confront tensions between the requirements of protecting the environment and meeting social needs; between ecological imperatives and the development of basic infrastructure; between popular consumer habits and the scarcity of resources; between communitarian and cosmopolitan impulses. Struggles among competing desiderata are inevitable. 

Hence, weighing and balancing such interests must become the task of a democratic planning process, liberated from the imperatives of capital and profit-making, to come up with solutions through transparent, plural, and open public discourse. Such participatory democracy at all levels does not mean that there will not be mistakes, but it allows for the self-correction by the members of the social collectivity of its own mistakes. 

Intellectual Roots 

Although ecosocialism is a fairly recent phenomenon, its intellectual roots can be traced back to Marx and Engels. Because environmental issues were not as salient in the nineteenth century as in our era of incipient ecological catastrophe, these concerns did not play a central role in Marx and Engels’s works. Nevertheless, their writings use arguments and concepts vital to the connection between capitalist dynamics and the destruction of the natural environment, and to the development of a socialist and ecological alternative to the prevailing system. 

Some passages in Marx and Engels (and certainly in the dominant Marxist currents that followed) do embrace an uncritical stance toward the productive forces created by capital, treating the “development of productive forces” as the main factor in human progress. However, Marx was radically opposed to what we now call “productivism”— the capitalist logic by which the accumulation of capital, wealth, and commodities becomes an end in itself. 

The fundamental idea of a socialist economy—in contrast to the bureaucratic caricatures that prevailed in the “socialist” experiments of the twentieth century—is to produce use-values, goods that are necessary for the satisfaction of human needs, well-being, and fulfillment. 

The central feature of technical progress for Marx was not the indefinite growth of products (“having”) but the reduction of socially necessary labor and concomitant increase of free time (“being”).[4]  Marx’s emphasis on communist self-development, on free time for artistic, erotic, or intellectual activities—in contrast to the capitalist obsession with the consumption of more and more material goods—implies a decisive reduction of pressure on the natural environment.[5] 

Beyond the presumed benefit for the environment, a key Marxian contribution to socialist ecological thinking is attributing to capitalism a metabolic rift—i.e., a disruption of the material exchange between human societies and the natural environment. The issue is discussed, inter alia, in a well-known passage of Capital:

Capitalist production […] disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth, i.e., prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; hence it hinders the operation of the eternal natural conditions for the lasting fertility of the soil. […] All progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing the soil […]. The more a country […] develops itself on the basis of great industry, the more this process of destruction takes place quickly. Capitalist production […] only develops […] by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the worker. ^[6] 

This important passage clarifies Marx’s dialectical vision of the contradictions of “progress” and its destructive consequences for nature under capitalist conditions. The example, of course, is limited to the loss of fertility by the soil. But on this basis, Marx draws the broad insight that capitalist production embodies a tendency to undermine the “eternal natural conditions.” From a similar vantage, Marx reiterates his more familiar argument that the same predatory logic of capitalism exploits and debases workers.

While most contemporary ecosocialists are inspired by Marx’s insights, ecology has become far more central to their analysis and action. During the 1970s and 1980s in Europe and the US, an ecological socialism began to take shape. Manuel Sacristan, a Spanish dissident-Communist philosopher, founded the ecosocialist and feminist journal Mientras Tanto in 1979, introducing the dialectical concept of “destructive-productive forces.” Raymond Williams, a British socialist and founder of modern cultural studies, became one of the first in Europe to call for an “ecologically conscious socialism” and is often credited with coining the term “ecosocialism” itself. 

André Gorz, a French philosopher and journalist, argued that political ecology must contain a critique of economic thought and called for an ecological and humanist transformation of work. Barry Commoner, an American biologist, argued that the capitalist system and its technology—and not population growth—was responsible for the destruction of the environment, which led him to the conclusion that “some sort of socialism” was the realistic alternative.[7] 

In the 1980s, James O’Connor founded the influential journal Capitalism, Nature and Socialism. The journal was inspired by O’Connor’s idea of the “second contradiction of capitalism.” In this formulation, the first contradiction is the Marxist one between the forces and relations of production; the second contradiction lies between the mode of production and the “conditions of production,” especially, the state of the environment. 

A new generation of eco-Marxists appeared in the 2000s, including John Bellamy Foster and others around the journal Monthly Review, who further developed the Marxian concept of metabolic rift between human societies and the environment. In 2001, Joel Kovel and the present author issued “An Ecosocialist Manifesto,” which was further developed by the same authors, together with Ian Angus, in the 2008 Belem Ecosocialist Manifesto, which was signed by hundreds of people from forty countries and distributed at the World Social Forum in 2009. It has since become an important reference for ecosocialists around the world.[8] 

Why Environmentalists Need to Be Socialists 

As these and other authors have shown, capitalism is incompatible with a sustainable future. The capitalist system, an economic growth machine propelled by fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution, is a primary culprit in climate change and the wider ecological crisis on Earth. Its irrational logic of endless expansion and accumulation, waste of resources, ostentatious consumption, planned obsolescence, and pursuit of profit at any cost is driving the planet to the brink of the abyss. 

Does “green capitalism”—the strategy of reducing environmental impact while maintaining dominant economic institutions—offer a solution? The implausibility of such a Policy Reform scenario is seen most vividly in the failure of a quarter-century of international conferences to effectively address climate change.[9] The political forces committed to the capitalist “market economy” that have created the problem cannot be the source of the solution. 

For example, at the 2015 Paris climate conference, many countries resolved to make serious efforts to keep average global temperature increases below 2^o C (ideally, they agreed, below 1.5^o C). Correspondingly, they volunteered to implement measures to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. 

However, they put no enforcement mechanisms in place nor consequences for noncompliance, hence no guarantee that any country will keep its word. The US, the world’s second-highest emitter of carbon emissions, is now run by a climate denier who pulled the US out of the agreement. Even if all countries did meet their commitments, the global temperature would rise by 3^o C or more, with great risk of dire, irreversible climate change.[10] 

Ultimately, the fatal flaw of green capitalism lies in the conflict between the micro-rationality of the capitalist market, with its short-sighted calculation of profit and loss, and the macro-rationality of collective action for the common good. The blind logic of the market resists a rapid energy transformation away from fossil fuel dependence in intrinsic contradiction of ecological rationality. 

The point is not to indict “bad” ecocidal capitalists, as opposed to “good” green capitalists; the fault lies in a system rooted in ruthless competition and a race for short-term profit that destroys nature’s balance. The environmental challenge—to build an alternative system that reflects the common good in its institutional DNA—becomes inextricably linked to the socialist challenge. 

That challenge requires building what E. P. Thompson termed a “moral economy” founded on non-monetary and extra-economic, social-ecological principles and governed through democratic decision-making processes.[11] 

Far more than incremental reform, what is needed is the emergence of a social and ecological civilization that brings forth a new energy structure and post-consumerist set of values and way of life. Realizing this vision will not be possible without public planning and control over the “means of production,” the physical inputs used to produce economic value, such as facilities, machinery, and infrastructure. 

An ecological politics that works within prevailing institutions and rules of the “market economy” will fall short of meeting the profound environmental challenges before us. Environmentalists who do not recognize how “productivism” flows from the logic of profit are destined to fail—or, worse, to become absorbed by the system. Examples abound. The lack of a coherent anti-capitalist posture led most of the European Green parties—notably, in France, Germany, Italy, and Belgium—to become mere “eco-reformist” partners in the social-liberal management of capitalism by center-left governments. 

Of course, nature did not fare any better under Soviet-style “socialism” than under capitalism. Indeed, that is one of the reasons ecosocialism carries a very different program and vision from the so-called “actually existing socialism” of the past. Since the roots of the ecological problem are systemic, environmentalism needs to challenge the prevailing capitalist system, and that means taking seriously the twenty-first-century synthesis of ecology and socialism—ecosocialism. 

Why Socialists Need to Be Environmentalists 

The survival of civilized society, and perhaps much of life on Planet Earth, is at stake. A socialist theory, or movement, that does not integrate ecology as a central element in its program and strategy is anachronistic and irrelevant. 

Climate change represents the most threatening expression of the planetary ecological crisis, posing a challenge without historical precedent. If global temperatures are allowed to exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 2° C, scientists project increasingly dire consequences, such as a rise in the sea level so large that it would risk submerging most maritime towns, from Dacca in Bangladesh to Amsterdam, Venice or New York. 

Large-scale desertification, disturbance of the hydrological cycle and agricultural output, more frequent and extreme weather events, and species loss all loom. We’re already at 1° C. At what temperature increase—5, 6, or 7° C—will we reach a tipping point beyond which the planet cannot support civilized life or even becomes uninhabitable? 

Particularly worrisome is the fact that the impacts of climate change are accumulating at a much faster pace than predicted by climate scientists, who—like almost all scientists—tend to be highly cautious. The ink no sooner dries on an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report when increasing climate impacts make it seem too optimistic. Where once the emphasis was on what will happen in the distant future, attention has turned increasingly to what we face now and in the coming years. 

Some socialists acknowledge the need to incorporate ecology, but object to the term “ecosocialism,” arguing that socialism already includes ecology, feminism, antiracism, and other progressive fronts. However, the term ecosocialism, by suggesting a decisive change in socialist ideas, carries important political significance. 

First, it reflects a new understanding of capitalism as a system based not only on exploitation but also on destruction—the massive destruction of the conditions for life on the planet. Second, ecosocialism extends the meaning of socialist transformation beyond a change in ownership to a civilizational transformation of the productive apparatus, the patterns of consumption, and the whole way of life. Third, the new term underscores the critical view it embraces of the twentieth-century experiments in the name of socialism. 

Twentieth-century socialism, in its dominant tendencies (social democracy and Soviet-style communism), was, at best, inattentive to the human impact on the environment and, at worst, outright dismissive. Governments adopted and adapted the Western capitalist productive apparatus in a headlong effort to “develop,” while largely oblivious of the profound negative costs in the form of environmental degradation. 

The Soviet Union is a perfect example. The first years after the October Revolution saw an ecological current develop, and a number of measures to protect the environment were, in fact, enacted. But by the late 1920s, with the process of Stalinist bureaucratization underway, an environmentally heedless productivism was being imposed in industry and agriculture by totalitarian methods, while ecologists were marginalized or eliminated. The 1986 Chernobyl accident stands as a dramatic emblem of the disastrous long-term consequences. 

Changing who owns property without changing how that property is managed is a dead-end. Socialism must place democratic management and reorganization of the productive system at the heart of the transformation, along with a firm commitment to ecological stewardship. Not socialism or ecology alone, but ecosocialism. 

Ecosocialism and a Great Transition  

The struggle for green socialism in the long term requires fighting for concrete and urgent reforms in the near term. Without illusions about the prospects for a “clean capitalism,” the movement for deep change must try to reduce the risks to people and planet, while buying time to build support for a more fundamental shift. In particular, the battle to force the powers that be to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions remains a key front, along with local efforts to shift toward agroecological methods, cooperative solar energy, and community management of resources. 

Such concrete, immediate struggles are important in and of themselves because partial victories are vital for combatting environmental deterioration and despair about the future. For the longer term, these campaigns can help raise ecological and socialist consciousness and promote activism from below. Both awareness and self-organization are decisive preconditions and foundations for radically transforming the world system. The amplification of thousands of local and partial efforts into an overarching systemic global movement forges the path to a Great Transition: a new society and mode of life. 

This vision infuses the popular idea of a “movement of movements,” which arose out of the global justice movement and the World Social Forums and which for many years has fostered the convergence of social and environmental movements in a common struggle. Ecosocialism is but one current within this larger stream, with no pretense that it is “more important” or “more revolutionary” than others. Such a competitive claim counterproductively breeds polarization when what is needed is unity. 

Rather, ecosocialism aims to contribute to a shared ethos embraced by the various movements for a Great Transition. Ecosocialism sees itself as part of an international movement: since global ecological, economic, and social crises know no borders, the struggle against the systemic forces driving these crises must also be globalized. Many significant intersections are surfacing between ecosocialism and other movements, including efforts to link eco-feminism and ecosocialism as convergent and complementary.[12] 

The climate justice movement brings antiracism and ecosocialism together in the struggle against the destruction of the living conditions of communities suffering discrimination. In indigenous movements, some leaders are ecosocialists, while, in turn, many ecosocialists sees the indigenous way of life, grounded in communitarian solidarity and respect for Mother Nature, as an inspiration for the ecosocialist perspective. Similarly, ecosocialism finds voice within peasant, trade-union, degrowth, and other movements. 

The gathering movement of movements seeks system change, convinced that another world is possible beyond commodification, environmental destruction, exploitation, and oppression. The power of entrenched ruling elites is undeniable, and the forces of radical opposition remain weak. But they are growing, and stand as our hope for halting the catastrophic course of capitalist “growth.” Ecosocialism contributes an important perspective for nurturing understanding and strategy for this movement for a Great Transition. 

Walter Benjamin defined revolutions not as the locomotive of history, à la Marx, but as humanity’s reaching for the emergency brake before the train falls into the abyss. Never have we needed more to reach as one for that lever and lay new track to a different destination. The idea and practice of ecosocialism can help guide this world-historic project.

Notes 

[1] Joel Kovel, Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? (New York, Zed Books, 2002), 215.

[2] Via Campesina, a worldwide network of peasant movements, has long argued for this type of agricultural transformation. See https://viacampesina.org/en/.

[3] Ernest Mandel, Power and Money: A Marxist Theory of Bureaucracy (London, Verso, 1992), 206.

[4] The opposition between “having” and “being” is often discussed in the Manuscripts of 1844. On free time as the foundation of the socialist “Kingdom of Freedom,” see Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume III, Marx-Engels-Werke series, vol. 25 (1884; Berlin: Dietz Verlag Berline, 1981), 828.

[5] Paul Burkett, Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy (Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2009), 329.

[6] Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume 1, Marx-Engels-Werke series, vol. 23 (1867; Berlin: Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1981), 528-530.

[7] See, for example, Manuel Sacristan, Pacifismo, Ecología y Política Alternativa (Barcelona: Icaria, 1987); Raymond Williams, Socialism and Ecology (London: Socialist Environment and Resources Association, 1982); André Gorz, Ecology as Politics (Boston, South End Press, 1979); Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle: Man, Nature, and Technology (New York: Random House, 1971).

[8] “An Ecosocialist Manifesto,” 2001, http://environment-ecology.com/political-ecology/436-an-ecosocialist-manifesto.html; “Belem Ecosocialist Declaration,” December 16, 2008, http://climateandcapitalism.com/2008/12/16/belem-ecosocialist-declaration-a-call-for-signatures/.

[9] See https://www.greattransition.org/explore/scenarios for an overview of the Policy Reform scenario and other global scenarios.

[10] United Nations Environment Programme, The Emissions Gap Report 2017 (Nairobi: UNEP, 2017). For an overview of the report, see https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/10/569672-un-sees-worrying-gap-between-paris-climate-pledges-and-emissions-cuts-needed.

[11] E. P. Thompson  “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,”

Past & Present,  no. 50 (February 1971): 76-136

[12] See Ariel Salleh’s Ecofeminism as Politics (New York: Zed Books, 1997), or the recent issue of Capitalism, Nature and Socialism (29, no. 1: 2018) on “Ecofeminism against Capitalism,” with essays by Terisa Turner, Ana Isla, and others.

The Struggle for Use-Value – Thoughts About the Ecosocialist Transition

I have recently been reading ‘The Emergence of Ecosocialism,’ a collection of essays written by the now sadly departed Joel Kovel. Edited by Quincy Saul, and published in 2018, the book is reviewed more fully here, here and here on this blog.

In Kovel’s essay which goes by almost the same title as this post, (I've added Ecosocialist for clarity) first published at Capitalism Nature Socialism in 2000, he argues that the expansion of the notion of ‘use-value’ is a prerequisite for establishing an ecosocialist economic and social system to replace capitalism. The task becomes more urgent every day, as the evidence mounts of the acceleration of devastating climate change, wrought by our current, unsustainable, political economy.

In the introduction to the essay Kovel writes:

The chief selling point of capitalism is its phenomenal success at creating wealth in the commodity form. But the same success creates poverty and gathering ecocatastrophe. An ecologically rational society, by contrast, will have to turn away from the entire complex by means of which we have become enslaved by commodities. To do this, ecosocialism, - the name for such a society – will have to redefine the nature of wealth, and the way people under capitalism have come to define self-worth by the accumulation of commodities.

Capitalism sees nature, and humanity, as a field for exploitation to create commodities, which through ‘exchange-value’ is converted into capital, which increases the capacity for further exploitation and further capital extraction, and so on, indefinitely. The capitalist system ensures the efficient regulation of this process, whilst the capitalist state regulates access to the conditions of production, nature (land), humanity (labour) and infrastructure (the built environment).

Within this process, exchange value, which has no value in itself, needs to conjugate, to use Kovel’s term, with use-value to give it value. No one will be interested in things with no use-value, of course, but exchange-value sits like a parasite upon use-value. 

For example, a field can be used to produce food when human labour plants the seeds, water and tend to the crops. The food produced has a clear use-value, we need to eat food to survive, and any farm animals also need to be fed, to produce further food and perhaps animal labour. At which point the produce of the farm attains an exchange-value. People will buy the food, which then produces capital for the land owner as profit, or to use the Marxist term, surplus value.

The use-value of food is obvious, and the capitalist system will seek to produce more of this surplus value, because it needs to grow to survive, which leads to what is referred to as 'efficiencies', the use of machinery for example, reducing labour costs to get even more surplus value from the same patch of land. Fertilisers and pesticides will need to be used also to increase the yield, which in turn degrades the land and the wider environment. Which means more will need to be used, and so on.

With some commodities, like the various gadgets that are continually produced have a less clear ‘use-value,’ but the capitalist system manipulates people’s wants through the fashion and marketing / advertising industries. We all too often have a desire for novelty as a species, and the system exploits this, when often these goods in themselves have very limited use-vale, but become the latest must have thing.

Kovel writes:

For capital, the ideal world would be one in which everything useful – the air, the water we drink, the songs we whistle to ourselves – would in fact be the occasion of a commodity. Air is still largely free, though there is a brisk trade in purification devices and elements of it like oxygen; while water, as we know, has become increasingly commodified and in certain locales costs more than gasoline.at the supermarket. The ecological crisis has created new ground for commodity formation, which is just fine so far as ruling interests are concerned.

What would a prefigurative ecosocialism look like then? To take our example of a field used to grow food. If the farming was of an organic nature, not dispensing fertilisers and pesticides, it would be moving towards ecosocialism. And what if it was run as a cooperative, with equal shares for all in the cooperative and therefore with no surplus value being appropriated? This again would move this type of ensemble towards ecosocialism.

This is far from supplanting exchange-value with use-value but is an example of how things could be run differently, and make the idea less utopian, that it might otherwise be seen, making it more attainable. Kovel says these ways of production can be seen as stepping stones to ecosocialism. These two examples also bridge the issues of land and labour, which can be seen as bringing them together, eco and socialism.

Kovel again:

The restoration of use-values is first of all, no simple atavism, that is, we do not seek to recapture some original goodness of use-value in things before capital subordinated them to exchange value. Use-value is a kind of relationship; it signifies appropriation between humanity and nature, and within humanity as part of nature, and cannot be reduced to any crude or absolute measure of worth.

Kovel adds that this type of working can address what Marx called the alienation of labour, resulting from capitalist productive processes and the extraction of surplus value from the workers. Thus the restoration of the use-value of human labor points toward the emancipation of the worker from capital.

Kovel then turns his attention to the concept of usufruct, quoting by Marx’s now well known amongst ecosocialists words on the matter from Capital Volume 3:

From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man by another. Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuries, and, like bona patres familias, they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition.

Usufruct means the right to use and enjoy. Kovel informs us that the term appeared in the English language in the early seventeenth century but has applied in many historical cultures going back to the Code of Hammurabi. In England, it referred to rights to use common land in the transition toward enclosure of this land. It allowed the common right to use the ‘property’ of someone else for income as well as leisure, while not damaging it in anyway. Could this concept be employed in a reverse transition away from private propety and towards ecosocialism?

I will leave the last word to Kovel:

If ecosocialism can offer a usufructory of the earth, it will be one of employment, the aesthetic dimension and improvement.