Environmental Crisis And The Pandemic Of Capitalism

Sonal Agarwal

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a crisis in the contemporary capitalist world. The basic premises of our social world order has been challenged and all kinds of human activities have been ‘quarantined’. Though the pandemic continues to sow disaster all over the globe, especially on the most exploited classes, paradoxically, it has come with a silver lining: a radical reduction of environmental degradation. However, this momentary reduction in the rate of environmental exploitation at the cost of ‘quarantining’ of human activity implies no solution and no relief to the contemporary environmental crisis. In this essay, I attempt to locate the current ecological crisis in relation with the commodifying logic of capital and advocate for radical change in human-nature interaction from the standpoint of eco-socialism as a way out of the alarming crisis of environmental degradation. 

Man is the smartest creature on earth, who has learnt the art of turning everything available in the environment into something more usable and productive. Capitalism is what governs the world today. With its advent, the will to be more advanced and ahead of others has become the major driving force for most countries. Environment has always served the needs of humans; this human-nature interaction would never have become a problem if the resources available to us were utilised wisely and judiciously. The problem started when the capitalist world, with its characteristic greediness, used the environment in the most irresponsible and ruthless manner, for its own profit, which in turn, has created an imbalance in the ecosystem. From deforestation, extensive mining, to over exploitation of resources and to dumping industrial wastes in water bodies, there is an endless number of human activities that have majorly contributed to climate change, environmental issues and also, some major global crises. 

Talking about capitalism and ecology, John Bellamy Foster believes that industrial technology and demographic factors are not the major causes of the environmental destruction around us. While certainly real, these material forces are intimately rooted in the social relations of production, i.e. the institution of capital and its ever expanding drive for accumulation. The needs and interests of capital are simple: the ever greater accumulation of more capital, or more simply, profit. Capitalism is a world-wide system with both peripheral and core nations. Because capitalism is based on growth, there is a drive to expand and intensify markets, to commodify all goods and services, to create new “needs” and luxuries, and to stimulate ever greater levels of consumption. Due to this drive, nations have a tremendous consumption rate of raw materials and energy. Under the rule of capital, human societies have grown in both population and in the power of their technology. This growth has led to the intensive mining of raw materials and energy from the earth, and consequently to the accelerated depletion and pollution of the planet. Growth is not inherent in industrial production, which simply consists of rational technologies and social practices to exploit the environment for human use. Rather, the commitment to economic growth stems from the nature of capitalism itself. The objective of capitalism is to maximise the rate of profit as quickly and efficiently as possible; it is a system of economic accumulation. Those who control the economic institutions in society are inextricably committed to economic growth, and through their power and influence, it has become an unquestioned goal of social life. However, serious environmental problems are simply not due to our numbers and consequent increase in consumption and waste. The type of technologies used to manufacture goods, the type of agriculture used to grow and process food, the type of transport used for goods, and people are also factors responsible for the phenomenon. The drive for profit has led capitalists to integrate science into the industrial production process — integration that, true to form, pays little attention to environmental consequences. Within the system of capitalism, nature rarely enters into the equation. Raw materials are commodities and only their exchange value matters. The environment as a whole has little value. Profit making has become the sole link between human beings, and between human beings and nature. This means that while we can envision more sustainable forms of technology, that would solve much of the environmental problems, the development and implementation of these technologies is blocked by the relations of production — by capitalism and capitalists.

Not only this, capitalism-led competition has also created inequalities, not only amongst nations but also within them. Also, environmental problems have given a boost to the inequalities that already persist worldwide. “Our results show that most of the poorest countries on Earth are considerably poorer than they would have been without global warming, and at the same time, the majority of rich countries are richer than they would have been,” says Stanford University’s Noah Deffenbaugh, lead author of a study published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study found that, from 1961 to 2010, global warming decreased the wealth per person in the world’s poorest countries by 17 to 30 percent. Meanwhile, the gap between the group of nations with the highest and lowest economic output per person is now approximately 25 percent larger than it would have been without climate change.

Corona Capitalism

Capitalism and the rapidly moving world have given birth to innumerable problems. As far as the current global crisis COVID-19, declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation — is concerned, it is causing humongous damage to countries all over the world in terms of their people and the economy at large. In an interview, editor of the African Review of Political Economy, Climate & Capitalism, Ian Angus, discusses the environmental crisis, the anthropocene and COVID-19. He argues that new viruses, bacteria and parasites spread from wildlife to humans because capital is bulldosing primary forests, to replace them with profitable monocultures. 

Streets are emptied, factories are shut down, institutions are closed, people are working from home, and the economy is the worst hit in many years. Extreme measures are being taken by governmental authorities in order to stop the virus from spreading further. Although coronavirus is a very serious problem that the world is grappling with and is trying to fight, there seems to be a silver lining in terms of the indirect environmental impact that it’s creating. It has led to a positive impact on the environment and perhaps, climate change, if we look at the broader picture. Since man is the only creature who’s creating an imbalance in the ecosystem, and his daily activities have come to a halt, nature has started regaining itself. With no interference of man with its natural surroundings, nature has got a way to revive itself and thrive.

Be it air, water, flora or fauna, everything that nature consists of seems to have been affected in a rather positive way because of the pandemic. Satellites have found a reduction in air pollutants, nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen drastically, especially in countries like China and Italy, as people are self-quarantining and also due to governmental restrictions.  A reduction in coal and oil related works has led to a fall in carbon footprints. Even in India, the quality of air has improved in many cities, including in the National Capital Region. Further improvement is expected because of the national lockdown. Animals, around the world, have returned to their homes and are roaming freely in places, which were previously occupied by humans. In Singapore, Otters are roaming freely in empty public places. Egyptian geese are spotted crossing the Tarmac in Tel Aviv airport in Israel due to travel restrictions. In Thailand and Japan, mobs of monkeys and deer are roaming on the streets.  Venice’s typically murky waterways have turned clear since the sediment remains on the ground without boat traffic. 

Eco-socialism

Unfortunately, this improvement will not last for a long time! As soon as the world gets rid of coronavirus, our advancing and speeding lives will make us go back to where we started from! Then what’s the solution to all this? Well, this might require a deeper way out. A proper transition from the capitalist system to a ‘socialist system combined with ecology’, i.e. eco-socialism, as proposed by Karl Marx, can turn out to be the most effective solution. Around a hundred companies in the world are responsible for more than 70 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The basic concept is that environmental protection is incompatible with capitalism, as the ultimate goal of capitalism is progress based on market growth and quantitative expansion, while for socialism, it is welfare of the masses. For eco-socialism, however, it is individual well-being and ecological equilibrium at the same time. Eco-socialists start with the premise that environmental degradation and social injustice stem from the same source — a world where profit is the highest goal. However, bringing about a complete change in the prevalent economic system is very difficult to achieve. In advanced capitalist economies, a solution offered to the environmental problem is to shift technology in a more benign direction — more energy-efficient production, cars that get better mileage, replacement of fossil fuels with solar power, and recycling of resources. Other environmental reforms such as reduction in population growth and cuts in consumption are often advocated as well. More environmental summits and conferences should be held regularly. There should be deeper awareness about this amidst all of us. The ultimate goal should be the well-being and upliftment of the entire human population and not profit maximisation by a wealthy few. What is most important is the realisation on the part of the individual to understand how necessary it is for us to live in peace with nature and to acknowledge and respect the coexistence of different species on earth. There’s an implicit meaning to all that is happening around us. Nature is conveying a message to the entire human species to slow down a bit. In this capitalist race, of which unfortunately all of us are a part of, the very essence of life has been forgotten. We have become puppets in the hands of this ever expanding and intensifying capitalist world, which adds nothing meaningful to our lives, and instead, is making us more profit-hungry and barbaric to the very environment essential for our survival and existence. This period can serve as a means of motivation and a lesson to humankind to stop being selfish and thinking about the universe as a whole. Sooner or later, the entire planet could cease to exist due to climate change – if we still don’t prioritise the environment over everything else.

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Sonal Agarwal is a first year student of Journalism Honours at Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi.

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The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the journal.

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