Hi Gar,
I thought your reply raised some notable points.
* One issue is the motivation of activists. I don't believe that most
environmental activists or even establishment scientists consciously intend
to screw the working class. I do believe that the environmental movement is
bogged down in neo-liberal economics. This isn't because they rub their hands
in glee at the prospect of ravaging the working class, but the effect of neo-
liberals projects will in fact harm the working class and the environment.
* You point out the popularity of, essentially, market-based solutions
in the environmental movement. I agree with what you say on this. but I think
this is the one of the main causes of the weakness of the movement. If the
environmental movement is to make progress, if it is to accomplish real work
and not satisfy itself with pretenses, and if it is to strengthen itself
among the masses, it must overcome neo-liberalism. Yet both carbon-trading
and the carbon tax are advocated, in part, as a way to have a market solution
and to bring over the bourgeoisie. This doesn't mean that most of its
advocates are evil, but it does mean that they are still in thrall to the
economic ideas of neo-liberalism.
* In my view, it's crucial to try to develop a clear-eyed and militant
environmentalism that draws class lines with corporate and establishment
environmentalism. This isn't a matter of simply talking about socialism. It's
a matter of showing how the next necessary steps of environmental protection
require breaking through neo-liberalism; it involves bringing the question of
ownership to the fore when dealing with environmental problems' it involves
showing how the direct regulation of production is needed to deal with global
warming and other environmental problems; it means shows how mass
participation is necessary to ensure that measures taken in the name of
environmentalism really get carried out in that way; it means showing how
measures to protect mass welfare must be part of environmental planning; etc.
Such a struggle will help bring people closer to socialism, but this is not
necessarily a question of whether one uses the term socialist -- most forces
who talk of socialism today in fact identify it with a mild reformist
capitalism--but mainly with whether one helps develop an independent motion
of the working class on the issue of environmentalism.
* You say that carbon pricing might be regressive, but "that is true of
regulation too". Not necessarily. It depends on the regulation. The carbon
tax is inherently regressive by its nature; the regulation of production is
not, although individual regulations may be.
* You say, and I strongly agree, that "Any greenhouse policy which just
looks at lowering emission[s] without paying attention to social effects will
be costly to the working class. ....most of the cost of reducing emissions
will be borne by the working class unless deliberate effort is made to
prevent it from happening."
True, but I would add that it is unlikely that any such greenhouse
policy would actually lower carbon emissions sufficiently. It is the working
class which has the class interest to oppose the various entrenched
capitalist interests -- the industrial, financial, military, real estate and
other interests -- that oppose effective carbon emission lowering efforts.
Any policy which ignored the need to oppose these interests, and ignored the
need to use mass support against these interests, isn't likely to get far
enough, fast enough, to deal properly with the threat of global warming.
* An important issue raised by your note concerns planning. We seem
to have a somewhat different ideas about what planning is. I think that the
type planning that we need must include the direct regulation of production.
True, all sorts of things can be called planning, and really are planning *in
some sense or other*. No doubt various environmentalists talk of "planning",
and yet mean some very neo-liberal types of things. Relying mainly on
subsidies to industry, setting up a cap and trade market, setting the price
for a carbon tax, are all planning of a sort. But they are alternatives to
the direct regulation of production, and they are often set forward as
alternatives to overall environmental planning and the regulation of
production, something which Prof. Timothy Flannery -- despite the fact that
he is a naturalist who is worried about the environment, has written some
fine things about it -- regards with horror as a "carbon dictatorship".
Moreover, not only does the the type planning we need include the
direct regulation of production, it is not just any direct regulation of
production that we need. The bourgeoisie can use "regulated capitalism" in
its own interest, just as it can use free markets. I stress in my articles
that workers and activists should not regard regulated capitailsm as
socialism, but should maintain a skeptical and critical attitude to
regulations, and seek to influence them. We must not only be free of neo-
liberalism, but free of the idea that state regulation is socialism.
Nevertheless, only some type of regulation of production can provide
environmental solutions.
* You ask "How do we reduce industrial emissions without a carbon
price? I suspect any answer will either ge a back door carbon price or will
have huge inefficiencies."
Well, take the generation of electrical power. It is possible to
directly regulate which power plants are allowable, and what methods they are
allowed to use. It is far easier to do this directly, then it is to do it via
financial incentives of any type. (And it is not even clear that a carbon tax
would be much of a financial incentive, because the electric utility would
pass along the price to its consumers, just as it passes along the price of
other supplies to its customers.)
* Is direct regulation inefficient? According to "Carbon Trading: a
critical dialogue", the old-style environmental controls were more efficient
than the subsequent neo-liberal systems of emissions trading or other market
measures.
Of course, the bourgeoisie will seek to corrupt any system of
regulation. It has long experience in corrupting all government agencies, as
well as of companies getting around regulations or perverting them to their
aims.. But there is no way forward except away from neo-liberalism and
through the direct regulation of production. We must thus fight for mass
participation and supervision in planning. Obviously, there are strict limits
to how much of this the working class can achieve under capitalism. But the
struggle for this will be an important part of environmentalism, and
something that arises, not because of anyone's idea or any group's program,
but because it will raise naturally out of environmental and economic
necessities. And it will be our task to help make this into a class
struggle.
* You say that the biofuel fiasco is a result, not of the market
measures, but of poor planning. I don't agree. It is actually a prime example
of the lack of a system of overall environmental planning. No one was really
responsible for examining the overall consequences, either to the land or the
fod markets, of the rapid expansion of biofuels. Instead biofuels are an
example of "green industry". People were supposed to help the environment by
producing biofeul for profit. More and more and more, guided by the famous
"invisible hand"..
So biofuels are now supported by various capitalists and politicians as
a matter of profit. Take corn ethanol in the US. It wasn't simply a plan of
environmentalists, who misestimated some things. No, it was promoted by
various capitalists interests. One of its major backers was no-longer-
President Bush, who is certainly no environmentalist, and another was his
brother Jeb Bush. So are various agricultural interests. So are various other
bourgeois politicians who have a much more serious interest in the
environment, but who support neo-liberalism, and thus champion a path that
isn't going to lead anywhere.
In this regard, I wrote of Al Gore, in the article "Al Gore's Nobel Peace
Prize and the fiascos of corporate environemntalism" in the following words:
"... the Nobel committee, in its statement awarding the Peace Prize for
2007, said that Al Gore 'is probably the single individual who has done most
to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be
adopted.' That is precisely what he is not. Yes, he has dramatized the
dangers of global warming, especially in his book and film 'An Inconvenient
Truth', but he advocates marketplace measures that can pave the way to our
doom. Gore, both while vice-president and afterwards, has been an
enthusiastic advocate of replacing necessary regulations with bribery of the
corporations to do good.
"By awarding the prize to Al Gore, the Nobel committee is helping to usher
in an era of stepped-up 'corporate environmentalism', in which the same
capitalist interests that have been devastating the environment will be
hailed as the defenders of the earth. Corporations are hiring advertising
firms to demonstrate how green they are. And establishment environmentalists,
following the course recommended by Gore, are seeking partnership with
corporations in the name of realism. It will be an era where neo-liberal
market methods get taken to their ultimate absurdity, as the bourgeoisie,
hoping that the 'invisible hand' of Adam Smith will solve everything,
continues along the path from the Kyoto Protocol of creating environmental
'markets'." (www.communistvoice.org/41cAlGore.html)
In this article, I go into a long discussion of the biofuel fiasco. In
it, I seek to demonstrate that it is precisely the lack of overall planning
that turned biofuels from something that might be a positive good, even if a
small one, into a major threat. This is what happened to "first-generation"
biofuels. And the same thing is likely to happen to "second-generation"
biofuels, if they are pushed with the same lack of overall plan as the first-
generation.
So those are some points that, I hope, help deal with the points of
prniciple that you raise in your note.
Regards,
Joseph
Gar Lipow wrote:
> Hi Joseph. Thank you for your kind words. Here is an slightly more
> in-depth reply:
>
> I'm going to summarize Joseph's points, because I think it will
> enable, shorter replyies but I'm leaving the whole below so that the
> fairness of my summaries may be judged.
>
> Joseph: We need planning within capitalism as the the primary tool.
>
> Me: Agreed. The way planning (beyond internal corporate planning) is
> done within capitalism is through rule based or standards based
> regulations, public ownership, and public investment.
>
> Joseph: Any carbon price is counter-productive.
>
> Me: Not proven, carbon price (such as a carbon tax) as a substitute
> for planning would almost inevitably fail. But as a supplement it
> would work, and (as we will see below is neccesary).
> Joseph: Biodiesel is an example of how a carbon tax would be
> counterproductive. (In another email Joseph also offer U.S. corn
> ethanol and sugar cane ethanol as examples.)
> Me: Actually all of these are examples of poor planning. The U.S.
> deliberately made a choice to subsidize ethanol to reduce U.S. oil
> use. Brazil made a similar decision. In terms of palm oil biodiesel,
> again not a result of cap-and-trade. Incidentally. Since corn ethanol
> is either a net energy consumer, or a very tiny reducer it would not
> have been encouraged by a carbon tax. The same is true of palm oil of
> you count rain forest destruction. Brazilian ethanol is a very modest
> reducer of greenhouse gases, save about 1/3rd compared to oil, so a
> carbon tax without other subsidies would not have been likely to
> encourage it either. (Actually some studies have suggested it too is a
> net emittor.)(Even though it may be a GHG reducer Brazilian ethanol
> has other problems in terms of water use, and affect on food supply.)
> None of these are good arguments against pricing. Most biofuel demand
> is not a result of "carbon pricing" but of deliberate attempts to
> encourage biofuel demand. It happens that for the most part the
> means to encourage biofuel use has been subsidy and biofuel quotas.
> There has been some exemption from fuel taxes, but these are generally
> oil rather than carbon taxes.
>
> Joseph: Carbon Pricing is unneeded
> Me: A challenge. How do we reduce industrial emissions without a
> carbon price? I suspect any answer will either be a back door carbon
> price or will have huge inefficiencies
>
> Joseph: Carbon Pricing is regressive
> Me: Unmitigated, true enough. But that is true of regulation too.
> Efficiency standards add to costs. You need to mitigate them by
> compensating subsidies to the public just like you do with a carbon
> tax. For that matter public investment can be regressive. For example
> there are huge savings possible by switching from trucks to freight
> rail. That switch requires a large public investment. But that is a
> huge subsidy to railroads (which in the U.S. at least are owned by
> large evil corporations) and to those who ship bulk goods (pretty much
> large evil corporations everywhere). Any greenhouse policy which just
> looks at lowering emission without paying attention to social effects
> will be costly to the working class. Not as costly as not mitigating
> greenhouse emissions, but most of the cost of reducing emissions will
> be borne by the working class unless deliberate effort is made to
> prevent it from happening. That is not unique to pricing.
>
> Joseph: Most of those who support carbon pricing have no intention of
> using it as a supplement to planning, or seriously intend to structure
> for a net benefit to the working class. They intend it as a
> replacement for planning, and at the end of the day will make a deal
> that screws the working class, if screwing the working class is not
> their intent from the beginning.
>
> Me: I think you will find this true of the largest supporters of
> planning under capitalism as well. The EJ movement, and
> environmentalist for whom the interests of working people and people
> of color are a minority. Questioning capitalism is a heresy most
> activists, even most left activists, have stopped committing. Van
> Jones who leads the largest and least radical branch of the EJ
> movement in the U.S. is totally on board for cap-and-trade.
>
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 3:51 AM, Patrick Bond <[email protected]> wrote:
> > THE CARBON TAX:
> > Another futile attempt at
> > a free-market solution to global warming
> >
> > by Joseph Green
> > (CV #42, August 2008)
> >
> > Subheads:
> > The failure of carbon trading and the Kyoto Protocol
>
. . . .
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