Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, eds. Coming to Terms with Nature: Socialist Register 2007.(Book review)

Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, eds. Coming to Terms with Nature: Socialist Register 2007 (London: Merlin; New York: Monthly Review Press; Halifax: Fernwood Publishing)

IN THEIR CHARACTERISTICALLY dense and succinct preface to the 2007 edition of the Socialist Register, the editors make two important observations. The first is that socialist theorists have, until recently, not recognized environmental problems as being urgent, potentially irreversible, and "integral" to the socialist project. The second observation is that "mainstream environmentalists" continue to look to a kind of"market ecology" for solutions, "as if markets and technocracy can solve ecological problems without reference to politics and democracy." (xiv) These observations speak to a failure of communication between critical political theorists and the practitioners of ecological science that continues to hobble both political leadership and active citizenship. While the reasons for this failure are complex (and not the primary concern of this collection), socialists can contribute to ecological praxis by improving their own understanding of the relationships between contemporary capitalism and ecological crises. An important aspect of this undertaking is to more clearly conceptualize "the kind of politics that could lead to an ecologically sustainable as well as a democratic socialism." (ix)

Overall, the collection very admirably achieves its objectives. The chapters by Neil Smith, Elmar Altvater, Daniel Buck, and Philip McMichael, in particular, go a long way toward fulfilling the collection's aim of providing a "better ecosocialist understanding of contemporary capitalism." (ix) Smith describes the ways in which nature is increasingly being commodified, socially produced, and financialized. Drawing on Marx, and on the work of the French School of Regulation, he argues that a real subsumption of nature to capital is taking place (like the earlier real subsumption of labour to capital in the intensive regime of accumulation). Nature is now not only being appropriated by capitalism, but also produced by capitalism, in the form of new technologies - in particular, biotechnologies. The eco-Marxist theorist, lames O'Connor, drew attention to the same phenomena, albeit using different terms, in work published in 1988 and 1998. O'Connor viewed capital's drive to "remake nature" as a response to the "liquidity crisis" generated by its own consumption of resources, and as requiring, also, the remaking of science and technology in its own image. Thus, monoculture forests or GMOS could be understood as capitalist attempts to speed up nature's rates of regeneration or to transform nature into new commodity forms. This more intensive exploitation of nature, O'Connor argued, resembles the transformations of labour processes aimed at increasing relative surplus value. Interestingly, Smith seems to take up where O'Connor left off, affirming with the benefit of greater hindsight the trends that were becoming apparent in the mid-1980s. From this vantage point, Smith emphasizes the ways in which the social creation and financialization of nature (e.g., 6MOS and carbon credits, respectively) constitute new accumulation strategies.

Elmar Altvater, focusing on "fossil capitalism," argues that the historical "congruence of capitalism, fossil energy, rationalism and industrialism" was both unique and "perfect" for the requirements of capitalist accumulation, and that fossil energy "fits into capitalism's societal relation to nature." (41-2) Fossil fuels did bring about a radical acceleration and spatial expansion of industrial capitalism. However, Altvater argues, the profound crisis of capitalism today is that a continued reliance upon fossil-fuelled growth risks ecological destruction, and at the same time, no economy based on renewable energy sources will be able to "power the machine of capitalist accumulation and growth." (45) In particular, a solar revolution will require "a radical transformation of the patterns of production and consumption, life and work, gender relations, and the spatial and temporal organization of social life." (54) In Altvater's view, these new directions will necessarily be non-capitalist.

Altvater is not alone, of course, in associating "soft energy" alternatives such as solar energy with transition to decentralized (more democratic) control over energy production, less globalized (and more self-reliant) economic circuits, and less consumption-driven societies. While it is tempting to cling to the hope offered by this prediction of capitalism's inevitable demise (beginning in about four decades, with the end of oil), there remain compelling grounds for skepticism and uncertainty about the dependence of capitalist social relations upon a specific energy regime. Indeed, many environmental thinkers have promoted ecological modernization precisely on the grounds that it is compatible with capitalism. Nuclear power,--which is not discussed in any detail by any of the authors--while not a renewable source of energy (because of limited reserves of uranium), could extend the life of capitalism for a very long time, with some risks mitigated by small-scale reactors. Nuclear, indeed, is enjoying a "renaissance" of credibility, thanks to the promotional efforts of the nuclear industry and supportive governments --also some environmentalists, such as James Lovelock and Patrick Moore--who have identified nuclear power as a solution to global warming.

Daniel Buck predicts that capitalism will survive the "ecological challenge" (although the future mode of regulation could be more inegalitarian and inhumane), because it is not oil, but technology, that is central to the capitalist mode of production. Buck's argument regarding the potential of capitalists to produce radical technological breakthroughs resembles that of the "Prometheans" of the 1980s, who insisted that "human ingenuity" would find solutions to any ecological limits to economic growth. Much of what is at issue here is our understanding of the necessity of incessant economic growth (in terms of energy and material throughputs) for the continuation of capitalism as a mode of production. Also at issue is how we assess the potential of ecological modernization to reduce throughputs and wastes to an ecologically sustainable level within a capitalist mode of production. Costas Panayotakis argues that technological fixes alone cannot resolve the "third" contradiction of capitalism, which is its inability to provide "a richer and more satisfying life for all human beings." (260) The arguments in this chapter have been advanced before--notably, by Herbert Marcuse--and the author seems pessimistic about the possibility of resistance to capitalist consumer culture. He proposes restrictions on advertising, but it is not evident where the agency for such a reform is likely to come.

The chapters that focus on particular countries or regions illustrate the difficulties of generalization with regard to "the kind of politics that could lead to an ecologically sustainable as well as a democratic socialism." (ix) On the one hand, strategies of collective action need to be rooted in specific local contexts. On the other hand, to advance collective action in the form of international solidarity, we need to identify the linkages among local contexts. Case studies include renewable energy policy in the UK, political responses to Hurricane Katrina in the us, hyper-development in China, the crisis of food production in sub-Saharan Africa, obstacles to the provision of clean, safe water and sanitation to two billion people, the political economy of the Kyoto Protocol, "green capitalism" as a substitute for the reduction of consumption in the usA, and the story of the German Green Party's de-radicalization. In addition to the five chapters described above, chapters by Joan Martinez-Alier, Michael Lowy, and Greg Albo focus on eco-socialist concepts and strategy.

Harris-White and Harris' critique of the UK Labour government's "aspirational" climate change policy is highly instructive for Canadians, whose governments (Liberal and Conservative) have followed the same strategy. This analysis recognizes the complexity of regulatory pressures and interests in the energy policy field, the difficulties of identifying actors' societal interests (given the murkiness of NCO-corporate relations), and the difficulties of documenting the influence of business in secretive policymaking processes. Yet the analysis of policy outcomes yields an uncomplicated explanation for governmental non-action with regard to investment in renewable energy: "a weakened state at the mercy of industrial interests." (84) The authors do not have very hopeful things to say about the social actors that might transform state-society relations in the UK.

The chapter by Wen and Li provides an overview of multiple aspects of China's environmental crisis. However, it does not identify the actors who might bring about a transition to a more egalitarian and ecologically sustainable model of development--and with whom ecosocialists elsewhere might develop solidaristic strategies. Bernstein and Woodhouse provide a complex analysis of the different effects of the intensified commoditization of agriculture on sub-Saharan Africa's "classes of labour," ending their chapter with a list of questions about the possible sources or forms of collective action for a more egalitarian and environmentally sustainable agricultural model. The juxtaposition of the two chapters draws attention to a striking commonality: the relationship of consumption in the Global North to ecological crises in the Global South. In the case of China, both labour and nature are hyper-exploited to produce cheap consumer and industrial goods for export. In sub-Saharan Africa, fisheries and forests are being decimated, and agricultural land reallocated to cash crops for export (including the water-intensive production of flowers for export to Europe), while for the majority of the population, "life is highly unpredictable." (159)

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