Nonviolence versus capitalism

Opponents prevented the creation of a massive fleet of supersonic transport aircraft, limiting production to a few Concordes.

Campaigns have shut down most of the world’s whaling industry.

Forestry campaigners have opposed unsustainable and damaging forestry operations across the globe.

Anti-freeway protesters have challenged the expansion of road systems.

Opponents of nuclear power have stopped the nuclear industry across the world.

Campaigners have pushed for controls on production of carbon dioxide emissions to prevent global warming.

Local citizens have stopped innumerable commercial developments.

What is called the “environmental movement” is a complex and varied set of activists, sympathisers, organisations, campaigns and ideas, and might be better described in the plural as “environmental movements.” There are powerful international groups such as Greenpeace, numerous national environmental organisations and a host of local groups. There are full-time activists, occasional participants, financial supporters and passive sympathisers. There are individuals and groups that try to live lifestyles with low environmental impact. There is an enormous range of viewpoints among environmental campaigners.

Nonviolent action is widely used by environmentalists. This includes rallies, street theatre, symbolic actions such as dumping nonrecyclable containers on the steps of the manufacturer, blockading shipments of rainforest timbers, sitting in front of bulldozers and occupying development sites. More conventional techniques are also used by environmentalists, including writing letters, giving talks, preparing teaching materials, lobbying, advertising, drafting legislation, making submissions, and suing polluters through the courts. A few environmentalists use sabotage, such as putting spikes in trees that are a target of logging, but always with a strong commitment to avoid harm to humans.

In the immense diversity within the environmental movement, there are some anticapitalist aspects, quite a few that provide no threat to capitalism and some that support capitalism. In the early years of the modern movement, environmental concerns were often portrayed as a middle-class preoccupation, for example to stop a factory or road that would disturb the lifestyle of affluent suburbanites. Left-wing analysts and parties at first derided environmentalism as contrary to the interests of the working class: industry and jobs were considered more important than the side-effects of industrial development.[5] Belching smokestacks were once seen as a sign of progress. As the years passed, through, left-wing groups joined the environmental bandwagon, seeing it as a means to challenge capitalism. However, as noted earlier, socialist industrialism is not necessarily any better environmentally.

Unlike a traditional left approach, a nonviolence strategy cannot rely on the power of the state to challenge capital, and likewise it cannot rely on state power to solve environmental problems. In order to assess environmental campaigns from a nonviolence perspective, it is helpful to focus on particular environmental issues. Here, three areas are examined: pesticides, nuclear power and local antidevelopment campaigns.

Pesticides

Rachel Carson’s famous book Silent Spring, published in 1962, alerted the world to the dangers of pesticides and was a key stimulus for the formation of the environmental movement.[6]

Pesticides are chemicals designed to kill insects, plants, fungi, and other life that is considered to be undesirable for human purposes, especially agriculture and public health. Supporters argue that pesticides are essential for these purposes whereas critics argue that many uses of pesticides are unnecessary or harmful to the environment and human health. The debate covers issues such as health risks, costs and alternatives.

Manufacture and sale of pesticides is a very large industry. A number of giant multinational chemical corporations, such as Monsanto, produce the bulk of pesticides used worldwide. To greatly reduce pesticide use would be to reduce profits. Hence campaigns against pesticides are definitely a challenge to a significant fraction of capital.

Critics of pesticides, or of their excessive and inappropriate use, have used a variety of methods, including investigation, education, publicity, lobbying, law suits, meetings and promotion of alternatives. Although actions such as strikes and occupations have not been as prominent as on some other environmental issues, a full range of nonviolent actions can readily be used to oppose pesticides and promote alternatives.[7] A nonviolent campaign against pesticides can be assessed using the check list.

1. Does the campaign help to

undermine the violent underpinnings of capitalism, or

undermine the legitimacy of capitalism, or