COMMON VOICE ISSUE ONE February-April 2004
Radical Ecology and Class Struggle: A Re-Consideration.
Jeff Shantz
In recent years a variety of social movement and environmental writers have devoted a great deal of energy to efforts which argue the demise of class struggle as a viable force for social change (Eckersley, 1990; Bowles and Gintis, 1987; Bookchin, 1993; 1997). These writers argue that analyses of class struggle are unable to account for the plurality of expressions which hierarchy, domination and oppression take in advanced capitalist or what they prefer to call 'postindustrial' societies (Bookchin, 1980; 1986). They charge that class analyses render a one-dimensional portrayal of social relations. The result of this has been a broad practical and theoretical turn away from questions of class and especially class struggle.
Green Syndicalism: One Alternative Social Ecology
As a corrective to the retreat from class in much anarchist, new social movement and 'radical' thought some activists have tried recently to learn the lessons shown by the history of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or 'Wobblies'). The late Earth First! organizer Judi Bari used her knowledge of IWW organizing work to help build an alliance between timber workers and radical environmentalists in the redwood forests of Northern California. By showing that a radical working class perspective may also contain a radical ecological perspective, Bari contributed much to a deeper understanding of the root causes of ecological destruction and the destruction of logging communities. Moreover her efforts in Northern California provided a sharp and living critique of the common view among environmentalists (Foreman, 1991; Bookchin, 1980; 1986; 1987) that class analyses and class struggle approaches have little to offer in the effort to bring about an ecological society.
This approach has led to the development of syndicalist practice informed by radical ecology: a 'green syndicalism'. Green syndicalists have understood that labor struggles and ecological struggles are not separate (Bari, 2001; Purchase, 1994; 1997a; 1997b). Within green syndicalism this assumption of connectedness between historical radical movements, including labor and ecology, has much significance. These green syndicalist perspectives are important in reminding (or informing) ecology activists and workers alike that there are radical working class histories in addition to the histories of compromise which so preoccupy Bookchin's thinking. 'Historically, it was the IWW who broke the stranglehold of the timber barons on the loggers and millworkers in the nineteen teens' (Bari, 1994: 18). It is precisely this stranglehold which environmentalists are trying to break today. 'Now the companies are back in total control, only this time they're taking down not only the workers but the Earth as well. This, to me, is what the IWW-Earth First! link is really about' (Bari, 1994: 18). In her work, Bari forged real connections between the suffering of timber workers with ecological destruction today. The history of workers' struggles becomes part of the history of ecology.
Significantly, green syndicalists reject the productivist premises of 'old-style' Marxists who often viewed issues such as ecology as external to questions of production, distracting from the task of organizing workers at the point of production. Within green syndicalist perspectives, ecological concerns cannot properly be divorced from questions of production or economics. Rather than representing 'separate worlds', nature, producers or workplace become understood as endlessly contested features in an always shifting terrain. Furthermore these contests, both over materiality and over meanings, contradict notions of unitary or one-dimensional responses. Green syndicalists thus stress the mutuality and interaction of what had been conceptually separated: nature, culture, workers (Bari, 2001).
Through this expanded analysis of class struggles one may come to a more concrete understanding of the dynamic nature of conflict. No longer posited as one-sided or pre-given, it becomes clear that the struggles themselves lead to the emergence of entirely new issues and demands such as the quality of work and ecology.
Green syndicalists insist that overcoming ecological devastation depends on shared responsibilities towards developing convivial ways of living in which relations of affinity, both within our own species and with other species, are nurtured (Bari, 2001). They envision, for example, an association of workers committed to the dismantling of the factory system, its work discipline, hierarchies and regimentation - all of the things which Bookchin identifies (Kaufmann and Ditz, 1992; Purchase, 1994; 1997b). This involves both an actual destruction of some factories and their conversion towards 'soft' forms of small, local production. These shifting priorities express the novelty of green syndicalism, not the discourse of industrial management presented in the caricatures of its detractors.
Within green syndicalism one sees evidence of 'deep green' perspectives which express new visions of relations between industrial workers and radical ecology. Green syndicalist perspectives are suggestive of some tentative synthesis. The emphasis still remains on possibility.
Conclusion
In Remaking Society , Bookchin (1989, p.172) concludes that 'the bases for conflicting interests in society must themselves be confronted and resolved in a revolutionary manner. The earth can no longer be owned; it must be shared.' These statements represent truly crucial aspects of a radical vision for an ecological society. What is perplexing is that Bookchin does not draw the necessary implications out of his own radical conclusions. The questions of ownership and control of the earth are nothing if not questions of class.
As conflicts over nature deepen and the theft represented by property becomes de-legitimized by the further destruction of varied eco-communities, there is the potential for greater mobilizations of people as workers in a diverse but united struggle for communitarian reconstruction. It is from a standpoint of unity-in-diversity (social and ecological) that a newer, richer understanding of class and class struggle must begin. Through open communication and alliance, workers as environmentalists (and indeed environmentalists as workers) will add to this deeper understanding of class struggle.
Jeff Shantz is a member of the North-Eastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists (Toronto). This article first appeared in NorthEastern Anarchist Number 5.