Peter Grimes offered an interesting scenario of ecological crisis,
especially an oil crisis, creating a world capitalist crisis of
catastrophic proportions. While I think there are tremendous
ecological problems that demand social action, such as the protection
of habitats or stopping acid rain, I do not see these or other
ecological limits producing limits on the expansion of capitalism.
If one tours the Carter Center here in Atlanta you will see displays
commenting on the major activities of his administration. A section
is dedicated to the oil crisis and Carter's actions to counteract it
- - 55 mph speed limits, promoting an energy-wise consumer ethic
(like wearing sweaters indoors during winter), multi-billion dollar
coal gasification plants, and so on. All of these policies have been
abandoned. This section reminds one of newsreels about rationing
during WWII, sharing the combination of higher national purpose and
irksome red tape and authoritarian social control. Adjusted for
inflation, the price of gasoline, which reflects its supply, is less
now than it was in 1974. There is no oil crisis. There never was an
ecological crisis of supply, but one of international politics.
To be sure, the natural supply of oil has a real finite limit that if
consumption trends continue we might reach in what, a 100 years? But
long before we reached that point, Carter's coal gasification plants
would be profitable again (perhaps once gas reached $5 a gallon) and
there is enough coal to last 400 years. One could also mention that
fuel efficient cars would again become more valued, that electric
cars would become more viable, and so on.
The same basic logic is true, I would argue, for most natural
resources. The electronic information "revolution" means that raw
materials garner an increasingly smaller share of the world economy,
which is one of the reasons for the economic decline of many
peripheral producers (especially in central Africa, but also for
Russia). And, if ecological limits ever do begin to cut supplies and
raise prices, it is easier to substitute alternatives now than was
true of the past. Even in terms of food production, there is plenty
to feed the hungry millions, if only they could afford it.
This is not at all to say that we can ignore the environment or that
ecological crises like acid rain or global warming are unimportant.
They are tremendously important, just like good wages are important.
But low wages or a dirty environment alone do not undermine
capitalism. They make for a meaner, nastier capitalism, of less
democracy and greater inequality, and one that spurs more action for
change. The point is that these and other ecological problems are
solvable, but the solutions are mainly social and political ones
about how to organize the implementation and who will pay for it.
For instance, the most fundamental solution to ecological limits is
to slow or reverse population growth, the most important step in doing
so would be to ban child labor and guarantee women's rights.
In this sense, at the global level, ecological, women's, and labor
movements share point and purpose, and should be one interconnected
world movement. It would be a movement for a better world, one that
supersedes capitalism, not a reaction to a catastrophic collapse of
world capitalism brought on by ecological or any other single
crisis. Waiting for the final contraction or final crisis or other
catastrophe to replace capitalism is to hope for the worst and do
nothing for the better.
Terry Boswell
Department of Sociology
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322