The Environmental Movement And Class Struggle
international |
environment |
debate
Tuesday August 16, 2005 20:49 by Prole cat and Arthur J Millar - NAF
How Do They Intersect?
A debate on how anarchist communists should address environmental issues. Should we work within an existing movement or seek to build a new one. But why should poor and working people always make the sacrifices for middle-class environmental solutions?
Introducing a Working Class Sensibility to the
Environmental Movement - letter from prole cat,
I read the inaugural issue of Unfinished Business with great
pleasure. The fact of the NAF's formation and ongoing constructive
work was cause enough for celebration. But as an anarchist communist
who has long worked within an Earth First! collective, I was
especially gratified to note that the Federation's Perspectives
prominently address the "massive ecological catastrophe that is on
our doorstep".
In addition to the Perspectives article, Arthur J. Miller's essay
Developing
Working Class Environmentalism contained some valid criticisms of
the ecology movement. However, after detailing several of that
movement's more glaring weaknesses (and also commenting on humans as
integral to ecosystems, and the greed of bosses as the source of
despoliation) he prescribes a solution that involves building "our
own form of environmentalism" based on the interests of "the working
class and other oppressed groups." He seems to be calling for an
as-yet-to-be-created movement, a new thing apart from the existing
movement. Why this, rather than agitate within the existing
structures to introduce a working class sensibility?
The point of contention regarding whether to work within an
existing movement or seek to build a new one, mirrors a long running
debate within anarchism regarding unions. There has been a long and
rich debate within anarchist circles as to whether we should restrict
our activities to working within revolutionary unions (the purist
position), or whether we should also agitate within the business
unions.
I lean towards the latter position. I think we should agitate
within the business unions, because "that is where the workers are."
And, that we should work within the existing environmental movement,
because that is where the people most acutely aware of the impending
ecological catastrophe are. If the interests of oppressed communities
are not being addressed, or if workers are being bullied by middle
class elements within these organizations, we should be there (as
elsewhere) demanding freedom and equality.
But the problem seems to be, not so much that middle class people
and interests tend to dominate within green circles (as elsewhere),
but these green circles tend mostly to consist of middle class types.
(Not the bourgeoisie, mind you, who reap windfall dividends from
profit-focused extraction, production and consumption. Instead I am
referring to college- educated folks, who are not filthy-rich.)
Just as the richest layers of society are not found among the
ranks of the greens, so too there has not been a lot of worker
participation within this movement. Whose fault is that, that workers
have not found their way into these circles? We can blame the elitist
behavior of well-heeled greens, to be sure, but what does that
accomplish? Our task is to fight such domination, not to complain
about it.
There are many reasons why workers tend not to join environmental
groups, aside from the behavior of middle-class people. Our work
schedules often don't allow it, for one thing. And, people with less
education tend to be more easily bamboozled by the lies of the
government and the corporate media. When workers do see through these
lies, it tends to follow from personal experience, rather than from
analysis or having read a book. For that reason, workers are more apt
to be involved in workplace or community struggles which immediately
affect them, rather than in ecological campaigns. Though they are
impacted by environmental degradation, it is a less direct impact.
(At least for now!) How would new, explicitly working-class
environmental organizations change any of these factors?
Does all this mean that we should abandon the environmental
movement as hopelessly compromised, to sneer at it as so much petty
bourgeois self- indulgence? I think not. Rather, I think the
aforementioned scarcity of working class participants in the movement
for ecology is just a hurdle that we have to be aware of, and either
change or adapt to. No one ever said being a revolutionary was going
to be easy!
I contend that the ills of the environmental movement follow from
the fact that workers have not participated in it. And I contend that
the failure of class struggle anarchists to bring our theory and
practice into the modern era by taking account of ecological
concerns, has contributed to this dearth of workers in green ranks.
What should we, as anarchist communists be doing to bring a
working class perspective (and more working class participants) into
the environmental movement? That, I think, is the question to be
addressed. Before we strike out in search of answers, it is crucial
that we frame the question correctly.
Profit is the exact point at which worker exploitation and
environmental degradation intersect. The green faction of the middle
class has a common enemy with ourselves, the corporate owners.
Certainly we should recognize and oppose the hierarchal nature of the
green movement from within, even as we do within the business unions.
But we should support the larger aims of that social movement, even
as we do the larger aims of the workers organizations, the unions and
grassroots community groups.
prole cat,
The Capital Terminus Collective, Atlanta, GA (in personal capacity)
Response from Arthur J. Miller
First let me say I have been a working class environmentalist for
over 35 years and I have tried many times to work within
environmental groups. The only such groups I ever found that I could
work in were smaller community based groups made up of people in a
community that was faced with some type of direct threat. In most of
the mainstream and even more radical groups I found that the classism
and class privilege were such that I could not do anything but be a
camp follower. A few examples.
I lived for a while in a town where development of undeveloped
land was a big issue. I agreed that such development should be slowed
or stopped altogether so I went to a meeting. I expressed the point
of view that such movements need to be concerned about the effects
they have on oppressed and exploited people because that was the only
way such a movement could make a real difference. In this case the
problem for poor and working people was that if development stopped
in undeveloped areas then the capitalists would turn to poor
neighborhoods to redevelop homes and condos for rich and middle class
people. So along with a campaign against development of undeveloped
areas there needed to be a part of that campaign that worked to
protect poor and working people's communities. I was told very
strongly that those issues could not be combined. I asked why poor
and working people had to always make the sacrifices for middle-class
environmental solutions? It should be noted that all the
organizations of people of color in that town came out against the
campaign.
When a large oil spill from a tanker took place up in Alaska I
went to an environmental meeting of people who wanted to do something
about it. After listening to folk's talk and come up with solutions
based upon a lack of understanding of ships, I spoke up. I have
worked on ships for many years including tankers. I tried to explain
to them what the problems were with tankers and how to make them no
longer be the threat that they were. They advocated the double-bottom
solution and I tried to explain to them that most all tankers leak a
little oil and that without forced ventilation of the double-bottoms
they would be like having bombs at the bottom of a tanker. If you
know anything about tankers you know that it is the fumes that are
the most dangerous and are a greater threat than full tanks and thus
the fumes from the small leakage made double-bottoms very dangerous
if they are not vented out and double-bottoms are not ventilated. I
also pointed out that tankers don't carry spill containment equipment
like booms and have to sit there spilling oil until booms are brought
in from elsewhere. I wanted to tell them about other things that
could be done. But the folks at that meeting did not want to hear
what I had to say; rather they acted like I was the enemy because I
worked on ships.
The point in all this is that in most cases in order for a working
person who is not of the cultural middle-class scene, they most face
a struggle just to be heard. Why go through that? Why not organize
among other working class folks and too hell with those that have
class privilege and use it against them?
One good example of the attitude of class superiority is expressed
in the letter. "people with less education (I believe this person
speaks of the education of the statist schools) tend to be more
easily bamboozled by the lies of the government and the corporate
media." Let me be very clear about this, I am not of the
intelligentsia, I have never gone to college, I never even finished
high school, so I am to the writer one on the "less educated". But
does that mean I don't know what I am talking about? Maybe to the
class supremacy of the intelligentsia I know nothing and must be led
around by my nose by the better people. But in reality I, like many
other working people, have a direct education from the point of
production. Are we more easily bamboozled than the intelligentsia? I
think not. As the writer shows a bamboozling in the thinking that the
intelligentsia is so smart and working people are just sheep even
though the greatest rebellions against the capitalist bosses, both in
history and today, come out of the working class and not the
intelligentsia..
I am a working person, I have worked on ships for near 30 years,
worked on oil rigs, worked in the hard rock mining industry, drove a
long haul truck and worked as an environmental technician. I see the
problems of the threats to the environment first hand at the point
where the problems are created. I am interested in organizing among
others like me. I see no reason why working people need to struggle
in organizations that are based upon class privilege, don't see the
problems and solutions at the point that they exist and will always
rely upon their class privilege by making working people make
sacrifices that they don't have to make. I believe in a working class
environmental movement.
From Unfinished Buisness No2 July 2005: Agitational publication of
the NORTHWEST ANARCHIST FEDERATION - NAF U..B.. B U P.o. Box 112
Portland, O R 97232
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Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2I am disappointed that Arthur J. Miller chose to take a comment of mine out of context, and then attribute to me attitudes that I clearly do not have. It is not an attitude of class superiority to note that literate people with access to sound information, are in a better position to make decisions, than are the many U.S. workers (and others) who are raised on television, and given piss-poor instruction in the 3 R's during those critical early school years (to say nothing of being deprived of a coherent narrative relating to U.S. and world history.) This is true, regardless of the fact that many workers overcome these obstacles (as Arthur says he has.) The public schools reek, because the bosses don't need thinking workers (or at least, not a lot of them). Rather, they need docile followers. So we get standardized testing, rather than good educations that teach critical thinking skills.
Moving ahead. Arthur J. Miller wrote: "The point … is that in most cases… a working person… face(s) a struggle just to be heard. Why go through that?" The obvious answer is, so that there be some slim chance of success with a given campaign. The same reason many of us work with liberals in the anti-war movement. Not to have fun, or avoid being insulted or irritated. To struggle, in an effort to win.
Look, I spent 11 years in a machine shop without windows. Then I rubbed shoulders outside the smoldering autoclaves with Latinos in rug mills, before driving a service truck to hell and back. I can swap bona fides with you. But I usually prefer to skip such silliness. I only bring it up here, to say that I know what a pain middle-class liberals can be, or even middle class "radicals" (kids, usually). I bailed out of an anti-war coalition in Chattanooga, for just such reasons. But, I also swallowed my pride and indignation, and mended fences with certain of the less-arrogant elements there, for all the reasons I have given here.
I know what a pain-in-the-ass these folks can be. Some of them, one just cannot work with. No way. A worker must either follow their lead, or get out. But not all of them. If we are serious about winning some struggles, given the stratification of U.S. society, I think it is crazy to rule out working in coalitions with middle-class people. It is unrealistic to think that we will win many campaigns, acting in such a narrow fashion. I think that with the war, and with environmentalism, sound strategic thinking calls for principled work within coalitions.
i highly doubt arthurs trying to be offensive. he just kind of is that way. i agree with all of your points though, as well as the original letter you sent us.
peace