Thought group: In the fourth wave of the national survey of values and attitudes of Iranians, only 6% of people consider water shortage as a problem. This attitude means that the water crisis will soon enter people’s homes, then people will understand what is the matter? In Iran’s development plans, the issue of water and environment has always been the last priority. This is also primarily related to the lack of environmental vision in the country’s development among the planners. According to the news agency Online news This story is not only in the field of social and internal planning, which turns water and environment into a luxury issue. In the international field, where strong environmental movements are active, the environment still does not have a strong position in economic, social, cultural and political liberal development, as it should in the current world. In the liberal view, the development of human beings and the environment is still a priority, it is in the second row after the accumulation and concentration of capital, and this means that in the global sphere, with the gradual but rapid warming of the earth, we must wait for global disasters such as water The melting of polar ice and the submergence of people’s lands. This is a process that started dominantly with Bacon’s theory of domination over nature four centuries ago. But what is the solution to deal with such a vision? In the following article, the author deals with the solutions of reconciliation between nature, man and technology from a theoretical point of view.
Fighting and overcoming nature as the only way of development
No idea was important in the 17th century except the science of development, in other words, the science of development was known only to modern science, and this science went so far as to conquer and dominate nature. Until the rise of the ecological movement in the late 20th century, the conquest of nature was considered a global governance, often equated with progress in capitalism (and sometimes socialism). As Francis Bacon, the pioneer of this idea, wrote: “It is only by obeying nature that one can overcome her.” Therefore, only by following the laws of nature, we can conquer it.
Despite the intelligence of nature, capitalism can never fully transcend the material limitations of nature that constantly present themselves. In this way, production occurs in contradictions that are constantly overcome, but are always faced with bigger and newer conflicts.
Challenge the logic of dependence of earth and humanity for profit
A decisive challenge to the concept of class dominance in the second half of the 20th century, especially after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, gave rise to the ecological movement. Here, the criticism of ecological destruction caused by modern science and technology and unrestrained industrialism, together with a simplistic conception of human progress with regard to economic expansion, simply leads to an emphasis on the substitution of stability, harmony and solidarity that ecology was a sign of.. It has been said that science has been misused due to the violation of its natural laws and has finally caused a threat to human survival. Through the development of the concept of the biosphere and the emergence of the Earth system perspective, science became increasingly associated with a more holistic and dialectical vision that embraced radical new dimensions and challenged the logic of the Earth’s and humanity’s dependence on profit.
The current dangerous stage of victory over nature
In recent years, these issues with the climate crisis and the introduction of the Anthropocene (Anthropocene is the era in which human activities have threatened the ability of the planet to order itself) As a scientific classification, it has connected the change of human relationship with the planet earth. The Anthropocene is usually defined in science as a new geological period following the Holocene. Holocene (holocene) is the name of the last geological period that started at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to this day) which is defined in the last 12,000 years, which explains the changes marked by the “human explosion” in the Earth system after the Second World War. The mentioned scientific teachings support the theory that after centuries, scientific understanding was established to win over nature, now we have undoubtedly reached a qualitative and dangerous stage, which is faced with the emergence of nuclear weapons and climate change, which historians like Thompson call “extremism, the last It is called the stage of imperialism.
permanent revolution; Creative communication with the earth based on equality and sustainability in society
From an ecological perspective, the Anthropocene, not only for the climate crisis but rooted in planetary boundaries in general, shows the need for creative, constructive and harmonious connections with the Earth. In theory Ecosocialism, this need to rebuild society and in general should be based on equality and sustainability. A long and continuous environmental revolution is necessary, necessarily occurring in stages, decades and centuries. But considering the threats that we have as a human place for the earth, it is clear that climate change, ocean acidification, species extinction, loss of fresh water, deforestation, toxic pollution, etc. We need an immediate change in the accumulation regime. This means opposing the logic of capitalism, which seeks the “creative destruction” of the planet anytime and anywhere.. Such a reconstruction of society in a large way cannot be merely technological, but must be related to the metabolism of man and nature through production, thus turning the entire realm of production into social metabolism.
Priority of capital accumulation before or after people and planet
A revolutionary movement does not exist in a vacuum; And it is always faced with counter-revolutionary doctrines that were meant to defend the status quo. We are under the influence of capitalist ecomodernism, the growth of a premodernist ideology that faced natural limits from the very beginning of the concept of economic growth. If ecosocialism insists that a long environmental revolution is important for restoring a sustainable human relationship with the earth, it needs to strike at the heart of the capitalist system of accumulation, and this is only possible with a more socially responsible social relationship in harmony with the earth, which economists argue is precisely the opposite. They promise Environmental contradictions, according to this ideology, can continue with the use of technological solutions and rapid growth of production and exist without fundamental changes in the structure of our economy or society. The dominant liberal approach to environmental problems, including climate change, has long placed capital accumulation before people and the planet.. Through new technologies, demographic changes (such as population control), and “global” free market mechanisms, the existing system has proven to be able to successfully address the enormous environmental challenges before us.. In short, the solution to environmental crises produced by capitalism still lies in capitalist accumulation. At the same time, we are rapidly approaching the “climate cliff” (i.e., breaking the carbon budget), with nearly 100 million tons of carbon released into the atmosphere now compared to less than twenty years ago..
If current trends continue, this dire, provocative situation will spell another fate for the biosphere, but not entirely surprisingly, some independent socialists are fighting ecomodernists, and are opposed by most ecologists and ecosocialists; bIn general, to deal with climate change and environmental problems, what is needed is the redistribution of resources.. It was also said here that the earth system crisis requires fundamental changes in social relations and human metabolism with nature. Hence, it should be considered by manufacturers as an exciting hurdle to overcome using robust technologies.
Activist groups such as Greenpeace and most ecosocialists have attacked direct action that requires qualitative changes in human relations with the environment as “disasters” or suicidal events; They emphasize The entire issue, with color charts and graphics, contains technological optimism that environmental crises can be solved through a combination of non-carbon energy (including nuclear energy), geodynamic engineering and building a negative greenhouse gas emission loop with energy infrastructure.
If this is a “socialist” position, it is only in the apparently progressive and conventional sense, a combination of technocratic state planning and market regulation with proposals for a more equitable distribution of income. In this view, environmental needs once again depend on concepts of economic and technological development, which are presented as cruel behaviors towards the environment. Nature is not a living system to be defended but an enemy to be conquered. As you criticize this position, The Jacobin Question includes a quote from Leon Trotsky, taken from his Literature and Revolution (1924):
It is promised that a person with faith can move mountains, but technology that does not believe in anything can actually move mountains. So far, this work has been done for industrial purposes (mines) or for railways (tunnels); In the future this will be done on an infinitely larger scale based on an industrial and artistic blueprint. By re-recording the mountains and rivers, man captures them and naturally improves them seriously and repeatedly. Finally, if you recreate the earth in your image, at least according to your taste, the earth will regenerate itself. We are not the least afraid of this bad test.
In the early 1920s, Trotsky single-handedly opposed the promotion of such reckless productivism and could be excused as an individual from these currents at the time. Yet the same mistake continues to be repeated almost a century later, when we are faced with the destabilization of the world’s ecosystems and human civilization itself, and blame the destructive forces. The current attempt to claim the conquest of nature and the development of construction as a “socialist” project is sufficiently dangerous that it needs to be completely violated.
Long-lived health and meeting human needs
So how can we see the necessary ecological and social revolution of our time? In the 19th century, Engels emphasized that society should develop in accordance with nature as the only genuine scientific point of view: “Liberty does not mean independence from natural laws, but the awareness of these laws and the possibility of systematically applying them towards definite goals.” help This is well preserved both in the external laws of nature, and in the laws which govern the physical and mental existence of men themselves—the two classes of laws which we can at best separate, not only in thought, but in reality. Furthermore, there is no way to reduce natural necessity. Engels argued that the application of Bacon’s argument to the conquest of nature—obeying the laws of nature in order to economize in order to increase capital accumulation—would ultimately be disastrous because it ignored the larger consequences of pursuing short-term profit. On the contrary, the goal of “scientific socialism” was not a futile attempt to conquer nature, but the advancement of human freedom in accordance with the conditions imposed by the material world.
Today, the growing awareness of such problems and the undeniable connection of humans with the entire natural world has led scientists to explore various types of sustainable development, such as agro-ecology, biomimicry (made based on nature), and ecological resilience systems. In their new book, Creating an Environmental Society, Fred Magduff and Chris Williams write:The main and overarching goal of an ecological society is to maintain the long-term health of the biosphere while equitably meeting human needs.This is not an impossible task, but requires the development of science at a higher level – one that is not concerned merely with the mechanical manipulation of the earth and its inhabitants for personal gain, but is based on an understanding and concern for the complex set of living systems and human life itself. , has been established. This requires environmental planning, but in turn is only possible if social relations change, freedom based on needs deeper and wider than individual interests in a commodity economy.
This means that we should not engage in the crisis of changing climate patterns—disastrous though the potential consequences may be—in accepting the same attitude toward human relations with the natural world that has created unprecedented threats to human civilization. Doing the work in such a way that we have to seal our fate. We cannot escape the long-term environmental consequences of capitalist development through the Faustian bargain of building more and more nuclear power plants around the world, or by recklessly injecting sulfur particles into the atmosphere, all for the infinite expansion of commodity production and capital accumulation. Beyond their technical and economic permeability, such programs must be countered for the enormous and unpredictable consequences that inevitably result.
Persian sources:
Islamzadeh, Vahid; An introduction to environmental sociology; Hizb-e-Islami Kar Publications, Tehran, 2003
Bellamyfoster, John; Marx’s ecology; Materialism and nature; Translated by Akbar Masoom Beigi; another publication; First edition 2002, Tehran
Bellamy Foster, John; Ecological revolution, peace with the planet; Translation: Mohsen Safari, Charkh Publications; First edition, 1400, Tehran
stuck Aren; Postmodernism and environmental crisis; Translation: Irfan Tabeti; publication of the spring; The first edition of the summer of 1380 Tehran.
Carson. Rachel; silent spring; Translators: Abdul Hossein Wahabzadeh, Alireza Kochchi, Amin Alizadeh; Jihad University Press of Mashhad; Second edition, 1393, Mashhad.
Giddens. Anthony; policies to deal with climate change; Translators: Sadegh Salehi, Shaaban Mohammadi; Publication of advertisement; First edition, 1394, Tehran.
English sources
John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, Richard York, The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, , Publisher: Monthly Review Press (November 1, 2010)
John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, The Robbery of Nature: Capitalism and the Ecological Rift, Publisher: Monthly Review Press (February 24, 2020)
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منبع: www.khabaronline.ir
