Ian Gilligan - Climate, Clothing & Agriculture in Prehistory

Precisely why humans made the transition to agriculture from their historic hunter-gatherer and forager modes of production is a discussion that is endlessly varied and fascinating, if frequently unsatisfying. So it is refreshing to read a genuinely new and incisive incursion into the debate by Ian Gilligan an academic at Sydney University whose specialism is the study of clothing in historical contexts. Gilligan's book focuses on clothing, but covers diverse ground - from the extinction of the Neanderthals, to the way pre-historic tools were used to make clothing, as well as the evolution of early agriculture.

Gilligan's argument is that the development of clothing in pre-history was a key, unrecognised, part of shaping the transition to agriculture. He also shows how the world's climate historically proved central to this. It is rather obvious that colder climates would encourage inhabitants to cover themselves to gain warmth. But the point that Gilligan makes is that the need to wear clothing is driven by a changing climate, which then has wider consequences. He shows how, through history, different groups of people have responded to the need for clothing, beginning with an overview of the science of clothing and precisely how they warm us. This might seem esoteric, but it allows us to gain deeper understandings of how people acted in particularly historical circumstances. For instance, the earliest covering (simple clothing) is simply a fur or skin draped over the body - a cloak for instance.  But this only gives a certain level of protection. Complex clothing requires more complex tools, and also, Gilligan suggests, further human development:

We also lack any indication that complex clothing was invented before our own species appeared... In the northern hemisphere, early hominins appear to have contracted south-wards during the ice ages... despite the fact that these environments were often quite well-stocked with food resources... By implication, clothing was restricted to simple clothing... and indeed we find an absence of the requisite technologies: we find plenty of scrapers, but few blades and no needles.

Later hominins were able to develop clothing into much more complex arrangements - encasing limbs and so on, and using multiple layers to protect themselves, and presumably exploit resources of colder climates. History however doesn't progress in a series of steps forward. Intriguingly Gilligan points out that clothing was frequently abandoned when no longer required as people preferred being naked. But

at the end of the last ice age: some people were wearing complex cloths. Whereas simple loose clothing does not present such a problem with humidity and perspiration, the full enclosure created by complex clothing prevents moisture from escaping very easily. For those people who wanted to keep on wearing cloth, one option was to change back to simple garments. But dropping clothes altogether was no longer an option, for a couple of reasons - including modesty.

Gilligan can only provide scanty evidence for this transition "from shivering to shame". But there may be some truth in it and there certainly appears to have been a change in terms of materials at this point in pre-history. Gilligan describes the "textile revolution" as humanity moved towards woven clothing at the end of the ice-age which solved the problem of moisture. From this point onward we begin to see direct evidence of clothing in the fossil record and some of these are fascinating.

Gilligan argues that the demands of these new clothing would have been an important imperative towards the transition to agriculture. It is commonly thought that people starting farming because it produced more food. But the reality is different - agriculture can actually have the opposite effect through reducing food to a small number of crops and leaving communities reliant on farming success. It also requires a lot more hard work and many historic societies (and even relatively contemporary communities of hunter-gatherers) resisted the transition on the basis of the amount of labour.

Gilligan shows how much of what we know about early agriculture and animal/plant domestication provides evidence for at least being driven by the need to provide material as opposed to simply food. In many cases (eg rearing of animals) food might have been a happy by-product, or a secondary reason. I think Gilligan makes a compelling case. Not least because today people frequently forget or ignore the way that agriculture was (and is) integral to producing material as well as food.

I was less convinced by his argument that a further by-product of the adoption of clothing was to drive a psychological sense of "enclosure". As he writes:

In the broadest sense, agriculture is a likely development among people who are enclosed psychologically by clothes and whose worldview reflects their enclosure. In relation to ethnography this means that agriculture will have no great appeal to people who remain naked.

Since Gilligan has spent the majority of the book showing how the transition to agriculture arises in part out of a need to solve an environmental issue this feels more like shoehorning a psychological answer into a debate that is essentially about the economics (in a broad sense) of early prehistory. It also neglects some examples of how foraging communities did develop early forms of agriculture - eg the planting of seeds which they returned to later in the year. Such communities were likely, on Gilligan's evidence, to be naked.

This criticism aside, Gilligan's book is a really interesting read. It's aimed at the general reader and is very accessible. I was disappointed with some of the images which looked fascinating but where hard to interpret as they are reproduced very small. But this shouldn't detract interested parties from reading a book that covers a huge amount of ground in debating a crucial aspect of human history.

Related Reviews

Bellwood - First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies
Flannery & Marcus: The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery and Empire
Anthony - The Horse, The Wheel and Language
Reynolds - Ancient Farming

Pryor - Farmers in Prehistoric Britain

Extinction Rebellion - This is Not a Drill

The emergence of radical mass movements demanding action on the environment have, given the scale of the crisis, been a much needed sign of hope. The school student strikes which began in late 2018 and the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement that uses mass civil disobedience as a tool to force action from the UK government have revitalised the environmental movement. Already they have had some impact. The April 2019 actions that lead to 100s being arrested and the shutting down of central London by mass protest forced the British Parliament to declare a “climate emergency”. More action is planned as declaring an emergency does not automatically mean action will follow.

For someone who has been part of the socialist and environmental movement for almost 30 years it has been an exhilarating few months. The Manchester XR group that I’ve been part of since April 2019 has brought together many activists – though the young people far outnumber veterans like me. But what has been most refreshing is that the majority of those activists see the need for radical action because they blame the system itself.

Extinction Rebellion’s book This is Not a Drill tells the story of XR and the environmental crisis. It is designed to inspire people into action and to put across XR’s ideas in an accessible form. Unlike some radical movements of recent years, XR is not an undifferentiated mass of ideas, its leading figures and key activists share a core ideology and are building a movement around them. So This is Not a Drill is an important read. It tells you about XR and offers a way to get involved.

The opening chapters lay out the scale of the crisis. These chapters are not an easy read. Scientists Professor William Ripple and Nicholas Houtman complain that:

We scientists have been frustrated and even in despair over the many years of inaction, but we will continue to speak out, telling the truth about what we all need to do to protect life on planet Earth. 

They call for “evidence-based solutions to the emerging planetary catastrophe”. Other chapters are by indigenous activists, the President of the Maldives and farmers in India who tell how climate change is destroying their communities. Climate change is not something that is far off, but something that is real for millions of people. Action is needed now.

This is Not a Drill is also a guide to action – it lays out XR’s strategy of mass civil disobedience; it also emphasizes key tactics that its leadership focus on, in particularly mass arrests. The final few pages are a detailed guide to how to organise a blockade, emphasising that doing this requires making sure that the protesters do not alienate those caught up in the demonstrations.

One of the great strengths of the book (and XR in general) is that it understands that ordinary people are not the problem. For instance, in his chapter on the Maldives, the country's former President Mohamed Nasheed argues:

Here’s the thing about climate change: we cannot frame it as a war between working people and saving the planet. If we do that, we will stir up the forces that led to the wave of populism that has engulfed the West, and some of the East too. Let us not forget what we owe to decent, working people such as coalminers. The tremendous wealth the world enjoys today, the technological progress, the huge increase in living standards, is due to the work of the people. We should not blame coalminers, or loggers, or oil-rig workers for causing the climate crisis. Instead we should thank them for helping to fuel human civilisation.

Instead, the book aims its fire at the system itself. It is a system “more concerned with profits and the status quo than with the health of people and the planet”. As Farhana Yamin concludes, “we can and must succeed in catalysing a peaceful revolution to end the era of fossil fuels, nature extraction and capitalism. Life on Earth depends on it”.

The book is less clear on what it is about capitalism that makes it so environmentally destructive – other than putting profits before people and planet. This might seem political nit-picking, but I think it means that the authors are less clear on what the alternative might be. One writer, Kate Raworth, argues that “what we need are economies that make us thrive, whether or not they grow.” Later she argues “economic rebels” must “create thriving, regenerative and distributive economies that can meet the needs of all…within the life-supporting systems of… this planet”. These are noble aspirations, but we a more than these generalisations.

In his article, the Labour MP Clive Lewis argues that neo-liberalism is the problem. Now it is important to highlight that XR says it is “beyond politics” and includes contributions from Clive Lewis and Green MP Caroline Lucas to demonstrate the way that some politicians are thinking, not because it endorses them. But I feel that Clive Lewis’ argument is what lies behind some of the writers’ vision of a sustainable world. In effect they are pushing for a greener, more sustainable, more regulated capitalism in which fossil fuels have been driven to the margins. That in itself is a worthy aim – but I’m not sure it’s practical as a solution to the crisis we face.

Capitalism is a system where blocks of capital (firms, companies, corporations) are driven to accumulate wealth because they are in a system of competitive production. It’s thus a system where growth is inevitable, and which can only see the natural world as a source of material for production or a dumping ground for waste. Capitalism cannot operate in any other way – it is wasteful, inefficient and damaging precisely because of its nature. Hopes that a Green New Deal will change that are an illusion, even if it might be a good starting point.

Socialists, in contrast, argue that we must fight for green reforms today – such as the One Million Climate Jobs campaign – but that we also need to use that struggle as a bridge to build a movement to end capitalism and create a new way of organising society. But a society that rationally manages its interaction with nature will be one where production is democratically planned, and which will arise out of the mass movements that overthrow the capitalists. This process will also transform those making the revolution – something I think is essential in transforming our conception of our social relationship with nature. It is the working class – whose labour keeps capitalism functioning – who are the only force capable of making that change.

But these ideas are not a million miles away from the thinking of many XR activists. In his chapter, Roger Hallam, one of XR’s key founders, says that:

The key lesson about all structural political change is that disruption works. Without disruption there is no economic cost, and without economic cost the guys running this world really don’t care. That’s why labour strikes are so effective against companies and why closing down a capital city is so effective against governments.

I’d go further and point out that strikes also change workers’ perceptions of their own power and their understanding of capitalism itself. For this reason, I think Hallam (and XR in general) are wrong when they say that fundamental change can happen with a movement of only a few tens of thousands.  Nor do I believe that the focus on mass arrest is a viable strategy. I think you need the vast majority of ordinary people’s involvement to effect fundamental change – particularly in the face of the wealth and power of the capitalist state. History has shown how any fundamental challenge to the status quo will be met with mass violence and repression.

The involvement of workers in the movement is crucial and so from personal experience I’m really pleased that XR is taking outreach to the trade union movement seriously.

This is Not a Drill has some really important arguments. One of the things that is great about the new movements is that they are full of discussion and debate. XR in particular is a place where people can get involved and contribute whatever they feel they are able to. The debates will have to continue – in particular I think we need to discuss through the type of movement that we need. But I do highly recommend the book. It is an inspiring, if frightening, call to arms. Some of the chapters left me depressed, others cheered me. But it is the product of a living, growing radical movement that everyone should get involved in. Reading This is Not a Drill is a good first step.

Support radical book-selling. Purchase This is Not a Drill from Bookmarks, the Socialist Bookshop.

Readers of this book review may also enjoy a new book I edited System Change not Climate Change: A Revolutionary Response to Environmental Crisis.

Related Reviews

Angus - Facing the Anthropocene
Malm - Fossil Capital
Harman - Revolution in the 21st Century
Dawson - Extinction: A Radical History
Klein - This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate
Choonara & Kimber - Arguments for Revolution

Brian Aldiss - Greybeard

*** Warning Spoilers ***

Brian Aldiss' 1964 book Greybeard sits alongside John Wyndam's The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes and John Christopher's The Death of Grass in what might be described as classic English novels about the end of the world portrayed through the collapse of the British state. As we face environmental Armageddon I'm finding such  doom-laden science fiction novels both attractive and terrifying, and Aldiss' book is no exception.

Set years after atomic weapon tests have sterilised all of humanity and most mammals, the book looks at how civilisation has fallen and how humanity has survived. The story follows the eponymous Greybeard as he, with his wife and other friends, travel down the River Thames with the aim of reaching the coast. Having left the relative safety of a small village where they'd lived for decades, we follow the group's adventures which allows Aldiss to tell us how the world is coping as the youngest generation reaches their 50s. In flashback we learn what happened in the aftermath of the last baby being born.

This is where it is interesting for contemporary readers. How will civilisation proceed if we see global environmental breakdown? We are unlikely to live through a gradual breakdown of society. Aldiss' describes how, as fewer and fewer children are alive, the world erupts into global conflict as states try and secure young people as future assets. Greybeard takes part in some of these wars, which are brutal - frequently killing the young who they are trying to capture. As economies collapse (people simply stop working as there is no future) states' breakdown and local dictators arise to control and protect local populations in a gross parody of feudalism. Readers familiar with Wyndam's work will recognise similar themes from the end of his Triffid novel. Eventually plague defeats these dictators and humanity survives in tiny villages, fearing outsiders and growing ever older.

Greybeard is a compelling read. I fear it has a lot to tell us about how climate chaos will likely lead to extremes of violence locally and internationally as states try to maintain their existence, though perhaps it under-estimates even that. The novel itself is well-written and compelling, even though I found the ending a little too positive and predictable.

I read Greybeard alongside the new book by Extinction Rebellion which I'll review shortly. The joint experience didn't leave me feeling particularly positive. But at least we have the chance of stopping environmental disaster through radical, mass political action. But the time is short, and in the real world it is the children who will suffer the most.

Related Reviews

Wyndham - The Kraken Wakes
Christopher - The Death of Grass
Morrow - Is this the Way the World Ends?
Robinson - New York 2140

Barry Commoner - The Closing Circle

Imagine a book that is written by a left wing scientist who is actively engaged in work with non-scientists to challenge environmental degradation. Imagine it is written in an engaging style, that explains complex ecological arguments clearly. The book highlights the impact of our economic system on the environment and how that then impacts negatively back on us. It challenges other popular explanations for environmental destruction - over-population and consumerism for instance, because it emphasises the way that the profit motive and the blind accumulation of wealth under capitalism destroys our ecosystems. This book offers a radical, but straightforward solution to contemporary environmental problems, but warns that without rapid and urgent action to transform the economy, humanity will find itself in a dangerous place. Its a book written to inspire collective action and social change through informed, politically engaged, social movements of citizens.

Its a book that could have been written today, but here I'm referring to a book first published in 1971 by Barry Commoner. In the 1970s The Closing Circle was a radical antidote to much of what passed for comment on what we now see as the first wave of environmental concern. But in finishing it I was filled with an, albeit brief, feeling of despair. For almost fifty years we've understood how capitalism is destroying our ecological systems and many people (Commoner's book was a best-seller at the time) understood exactly what was needed; but the environment is still being destroyed in the name of short-term profit.

Commoner begins with an overview of the science of ecology. He argues that one of the problems in trying to understand environmental destruction is that most scientists approach the issue in a reductionist way. Reductionism he explains, is "the view that effective understanding of a complex system can be achieved by investigating the properties of its isolated parts", but this is "not an effective means of analysing the vast natural systems that are threatened by degradation".

In contrast, and in possibly his most famous contribution, Commoner offers the reader four laws of Ecology. His first law, everything is connected to everything else, immediately shows why a reductionist approach is wrong. The second, everything must go somewhere is almost a restatement of the first law of thermodynamics, but applied to substances, rather than energy it points out how everything put into a system has an effect. His third law, nature knows best, is in my opinion his weakest argument. Commoner says himself it's the one that will get the most "resistance" because it "contradict[s] a deeply held idea about he unique competence of human beings". For me this isn't the problem - the real issue is that nature doesn't "know" anything. It operates and acts, but not in any conscious way. To be fair to Commoner he is making a wider point that biological entities and systems are the result of millennia of evolution, and that outside changes effect them negatively. Finally there is no such thing as a free lunch is both a return to thermodynamics and the obvious point that additions to systems are required for changes. Commoner puts it better than me:

Because the global ecosystem is a connected whole, in which nothing can be gained or lost and which is not subject to over-all improvement, anything extracted from it by human effort must be replaced. Payment of the price cannot be avoided; it can only delayed.

Using this framework, Commoner examines how post-war society destroyed the environment. He makes the same point that any serious observer of the capitalist economy highlights: "all modern economic systems are designed to grow by means of such self-generated expansion". While not a Marxist he was clearly aware of Marx's writings and in several places like this has either borrowed or independently come to similar conclusions. Writing about agriculture he argues that "once removed from this [ecological] cycle, for example to a city... bodily wastes are not returned to the soil but to surface water, the human population is separated from the ecosystem of which it was original a part". Marx, famously, used exactly this to develop his idea of a metabolic rift between society and nature in his own work.

Several contemporary environmental issues take up some space here - the question of smog, air and water-pollution and potential consequences of sonic booms from supersonic aircraft. In each case he demonstrates how these arise (and exponentially grow) out of the particular changes to the US Economy in the post-war period. I was, here, reminded on several occasions of discussions around the Anthropocene and locating its start in the same period. But what was special about this period according to Commoner. Firstly he makes his position clear:

I believe that the [environmental] crisis is not the outcome of a natural catastrophe or of the misdirected force of human biological activists. The earth is polluted neither because man is some kind of especially dirty animal nor because there are too many of us. The fault lies with human society - with the ways in which society has elected to win, distribute and use the wealth that has been extracted by human labour from the planet's resources.

The quest for profit, in Commoner's view, leads to the adoption of technologies that maximise profit and usually do so, he argues, at the expense of the environment: "There is evidence that a high rate of profit is associated with practices hat are particularly stressful toward the environment and that when these practices are restricted, profits decline."

While Commoner associates socialism with countries like the USSR, and notes their own environmental problems, he does also argue that a planned economy would allow societies to deal with the consequences of environmental destruction far better than an anarchic capitalist one. More importantly Commoner notes that Marx's theory (the ideology behind socialism as he says) certainly does envisage a society in balance with the natural world. Commoner's own solutions are based around fiddling with the economy to make environmental consequences part of the costs of production. But Commoner is very clear that it is the specific nature of capitalism as it stands that is the problem. Solving the issue, he says, does not mean

the people of industrialised nations will need to give up their 'affluence' as judged by conventional measures... is itself an illusion. To a considerable extent it reflects ecologically faulty, socially wasteful types of production rather than the actual welfare of individual human beings. Therefore, the needed productive reforms can be carried out without seriously reducing the present level of useful goods available to the individual.

He continues:

There are, however certain luxuries which the environmental crisis... will I believe force us to give up. These are the political luxuries which have so long been enjoyed by those who can benefit from them: the luxury of allowing the wealth of the natural to serve preferentially the interests of so few of its citizens... etc.

It is thus a specifically revolutionary alternative Commoner is offering, as it is one that challenges the very dynamics of the capitalist system. Commoner is clear on the need for an informed mass environmental movement. In fact some of the most interesting historical bits of The Closing Circle are those that show how scientists like Commoner and citizen movements have won real environmental changes.

Reading Barry Commoner's book I wished I had read it years ago. For many of those reading it in the 1970s it must have been inspiring. By rooting his understanding of the contemporary environmental crisis in both ecological science and a radical critique of capitalist society his work is inspiring. He also makes it clear that solving the problem required an urgent struggle for change. Sadly that did not happen, and fifty years later the environmental crisis has reached an acute point. One that Barry Commoner warned us would raise the very survival of humanity. It isn't too late to act, though time is now very short, and works like The Closing Circle remain an important contribution to our understanding of the struggle we need.

Related Reviews

Carson - Silent Spring
Angus - Facing the Anthropocene
Angus - A Redder Shade of Green
Burkett - Marx and Nature

Foster - Marx's Ecology
Wallis - Red Green Revolution

Danny Dorling - Population 10 Billion

Far too many books on population are filled with fearful predictions about what will happen if the world's population continues to grow. So it is refreshing to read Danny Dorling's much more sober study that argues for a more nuanced discussion of the subject. It is also entertaining, something that can rarely be said about demographic studies. Dorling sets his case out early on. In the opening introductory chapter titled "Stop Worrying" he argues that he problem is not over-population, or population growth, but a world that prevents people having what they need. Talking of 2011/2012 when population was predicted to reach 9.1 billion by 2100 he writes:

The main reason for the scare stories of 2011 and 2012 was that some demographers had been influenced by those with other agendas, people who were becoming interested in demography because they believed there were too many people already. Projections that indicate a 'soft landing' of human population growth do not help the agenda of those who want to cry wolf. As the world economy faltered in 2008, there were groups that wanted to put the blame for the fact there would be too little to go round in future on there being too many people, rather than not enough sharing.

As I've noted in other recent reviews on books about demography, there is a close association between the growth of global capitalism and population expansion. Dorling shows 1851 as the start of the "population explosion" but he argues that 1971 (ironically the year when Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb was first published in the UK) as being the point when population when "global population acceleration... ended". In keeping with the "Stop Worrying" theme, Dorling argues:

The latest UN projections suggest that in the 14 years following 2011, we will increase in number from seven to eight billion humans. What king of world can we expect to live in by 2025?... Look at the graphs in this book of where population growth is forecast to occur - almost all the extra people are to be born where pollution by humans is least. And notice the deceleration. It is going to take longer, another 14 years, to add this extra billion as compared to the billion that came before. This is the first time we have ever seen an increase in the number of years it has taken to hit the next billion.

Dorling puts an firm case against those who argue that population growth is the problem and that we need to take drastic action to lower population. Instead, Dorling argues, the problem is inequality in wealth distribution: "There is suddenly a very obvious solution to a rich world plagued with greed and obesity and a poor world suffering oppression and starvation, a solution that is only possible because we are not going to have additional billions to be fed decade after decade.

He also argues that population growth will decline quicker if we "tackle gross economic inequalities". He also skewers those on the right who rail against immigration and migration. Rather than this being a problem, it is enormously  important for ageing populations in the developed world, and, he notes, encourages global population to decline because immigrants to rich countries have smaller families.

This facts are important because they contradict those on the right who argue population is inevitably growing to the detriment of the plant. It also gives anti-racists further arguments to defend migrants, immigrants and asylum seekers. But I'm not sure it's the best way to approach the debate because it gives some ground to the idea that population is an issue. Here, in my criticism I should reiterate how much I agree with 99 percent of Dorling's book. He says, for instance, "Children are not a cost to the planet". This is a fundamental point, those who argue that population is a problem forget that each life matters to our world, their friends and family etc. They are part of a solution, not a problem.

But I think what Dorling fails to do is really show how the problem is the capitalist economy which is driving environmental destruction and producing hunger, poverty and unemployment. For instance, Dorling concludes:

The "problem" with global population - if there is one - is too many rich people consuming too much, not too many poor people. There are not that many rich people on the world, but there are a few rich people who consume a huge amount of our collective resources.

I disagree. I think the problem is we have a system which gives a tiny minority vast wealth because it is based on the blind accumulation of wealth for profit. It's that economic organisation that destroys the planet. Its those multinationals that burn the oil and fossil fuels and encourage more consumption and production. It's not the consumption of the rich, (nor the consumption of the masses) but the system that puts profit before anything else. And, as a by-product, it is capitalism that also produces the inequality that Dorling rightly rages against.

But this criticism aside, Danny Dorling's book is a well written powerful destruction of the "over-population" argument. It stands out for its focus on inequality and his discussion of class in this context. Written in an accessible, entertaining style but not one that omits the crucial facts and figures. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to understand population debates particularly those from the environmental movement.

Related Reviews

Bacci - Our Shrinking Planet
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Meek (ed) - Marx and Engels on the Population Bomb

Malthus - An Essay on the Principle of Population

Timothy A. Wise - Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food

Industrial capitalist agriculture is not sustainable. It produces lots of food, or plants that could be food if they weren't burnt as biofuels, but it does so in a way that generates huge amounts of greenhouse gases, destroys biodiversity and leads to unhealthy diets. It is also enormously profitable for a few multinationals which produce fertilisers, seeds and then package and distribute the food. Those who grow the food, and those who eat it, benefit little from this process. So what sort of agriculture can be both environmentally sustainable and benefit those who work the land?

Timothy Wise's fantastic book goes a long way toward answering that question. Based on his trips to food producing areas of the world, he talks to academics, scientists and politicians, but above all farmers, labourers and those organising among the agricultural communities to discover what practices are actually working for soil and people. The answers will surprise those who have been brought up on a diet of corporate propaganda that tells us the only way to feed the world is through giant, monocropped fields full of crops covered in pesticides.

Wise begins in Malawi, an area that is historically heavily dependent on maize, and which has recently seen a battle by multinational seed corporations such as Monsanto to introduce specific hybrid white maize. This maize is excellent for the corporations because it makes lots of money and farmers have to return year on year to get seeds, and also it has the potential for higher yields if watered and fertilised properly. But the reality is very different. Wise describes the situation as a "high-input treadmill" where:

The farmers are subsidized by the government to use imported inorganic fertilisers and hybrid seeds from outside companies like Monsanto. Sometimes they get higher yields - but not always, not if they can't afford extra fertiliser, which the seeds require. If the subsidies run out, the farmers can't afford the seeds or the fertiliser.... Farmers run hard mostly to stay in place.

Wise goes on to show how traditional seeds, combined with "intercropping" - the mixing of different crops, can produce higher, healthier yields, at lower costs and more sustainably:

Native orange maize, intercropped with out healthy food crops is a Malawian natural resource. It appears to be drought-tolerant in a changing climate, high-yielding even without imported fertiliser, well suited to intercropped systems design to restore soil fertility and offers nutritional qualities desperately needed by the population.

So why isn't it used? The answer lies in the privatisation of the seed system which has empowered multinationals to profit from and shape the country's agricultural system. Interestingly Wise shows how organisation based on giving farmers and producers access to proper seeds and local knowledge has been successful in spreading the word about more sustainable and better practices. Here, like his other descriptions, from the field really gives a sense of how a better agriculture is possible. In Malawi Wise describes a local co-operative that produces a variety of crops, healthy food and feeds families through the difficult dry season as well as producing plenty of food to sell at the market. With government subsidies that helped build the irrigation systems, "small can still be beautiful, with public support" Wise argues. Its a compelling vision. The problem was that most governments are doing the opposite. As Wise explains:

The peril, as I saw in Mozambique and other parts of Southern Africa, was that when foreign capital landed with both feet it was usually on land already occupied and cultivated by farming communities. And the wave of modernization didn't usually carry peasant farmers forward with a rush, it buried them along with their crops and communities.

Time and again, in the developing world and the developed world we see the same process repeated. Big corporations buying up land, imposing agricultural practices and damaging the environment in the name of profit and the farmers and their families being displaced. Government policy, and the "international community" promote these practices that undermine rural communities and our food supply. The advance of capitalism into farming has, since the enclosure of land in Britain from the 17th century onward, driven people off the land and usually into poverty. The process continues today as peasant agriculture is destroyed in the interest of making money.

One other aspect of modern agriculture that Wise explores is the limitations of the Green Revolution. This, he points out, was supposed to feed the world, but is based on the idea that more food feeds more people. The problem is, as Wise shows, that hunger is caused by poverty not lack of food. Despite this the Revolution is being exported to Africa where it tends to be even less successful. In places like Malawi, the high-intensive farming strategy used in Asia fails and leaves in its wake decimation of people and agriculture.

One final part of the techno-fix agriculture proposed is genetically modified crops. Here Wise uses the case study of Mexico to great affect to show how GM is driven by a desire to maximise profits, even at the expense of destroying the historic centres of maize - with a myriad of different versions. One of the most eye-opening parts of the book is when Wise is invited to a meeting to discuss GM crops with unusually candid Monsanto representatives - they happily spill the beans, confident that their methods and ambitions are correct. In contrast, again Wise argues that a "pro-poor investment in small-scale farming" is a viable alternative:

We estimated that within 10-15 years Mexico could increase annual production on current lands from 23-33 million tons. That would eliminate the need for imports from the United States which currently cover the country's annual shortfall of about 10 million tons, the imports costing more than $4 billion in 2008. Additional public investment in irrigation and infrastructure projects in the southern part of ten country, where water is plentiful and rural poverty is the most prevalent, could allow producers to grow another 24 million tons per year... more than enough to meet Mexico's growing demand for maize.

Throughout the book Wise emphasises the self-organisation of those who work the land and their families. As he points out "the pro-corporate agenda" blinds policy makers and it is social movements that can, and have, transformed the situation. Creating a food system that can feed the world will require more than simply having a few successful farming co-operatives. It will ultimately require challenging and then breaking up the multinational corporations that are only interested in profit. Already countless women and men are part of that process and it is a great strength of this book that Wise gives voice to them. This excellent book shows that the alternative agriculture that we need, in the developed and developing world, is both possible and practical. The real challenge is the struggle to get it.

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Holt-Giménez - A Foodie's Guide to Capitalism
Magdoff & Tokar - Agriculture and Food in Crisis
McMahon - Feeding Frenzy
Lymbery - Farmageddon
GRAIN - The Great Climate Robbery

Penny McCall Howard - Environment, Labour & Capitalism at Sea: 'Working the Ground' in Scotland

Working at sea in the fishing industry is 115 time more dangerous than the UK average. It' i a startling statistic, that is usually explained by the idea that the sea is "dangerous". But Penny McCall Howard's important book is a detailed examination of why this is an incorrect explanation. More than that, it is a brilliant anthropological study of the lives of those on the west coast of Scotland who making a living from the sea. Howard shows how human labour is part of shaping an ecology which is far wider than just the "prawn monoculture" they fish.

Many of the classic works of anthropology are written by observers who maximise their distance from their subject. In his classic studies of the Nuer people of Southern Sudan, E.E.Evans-Pritchard wrote detailed accounts of his subject's lives, but always remained an observer. Howard too is an outsider, but she doesn't remain aloof from the fisher communities that she is writing about. An accomplished sailor she works with the men (they are all men), joining their small fishing boats or working on trawlers. As such, this is an intimate account of labour at sea, and how it is shaped by wider environment and economy. Howard explains her framework:

I focus on people's labour as what ties environments, people and tools together as they work to make dishing grounds productive. I take a phenomenological approach that focuses on people's experience of their own labour, including the results of that labour, and the aspirations and hopes that they pour into it. As a result, this book challenges the popular conception of the sea as a hostile wilderness...I explore the more complicated reasons why human-environmental relations at sea are fraught with ruptures, tensions and contradictions, tragedy, unfulfilled hope and even desperation.

Howard says that in the communities she studied, fishers feel in "a state of siege".  One fisher told her that "if you are trawler-man you think everyone is out to get you". This should be of no surprise - one of the consequence of heightened environmental awareness in the general population is an understanding that we are facing a biodiversity crisis and this is commonly understood to be particularly an issue for sea-life. Indeed the week I write this review the Guardian carries an article by George Monbiot which has the unfortunate headline "Stop eating fish. It’s the only way to save the life in our seas". It's hard to see any of those who Howard writes about here as seeing this as anything else as an assault on their livelihoods.

Howard begins with the nature of labour at sea, tracing it's impact on the environment, the process of shaping the "grounds" themselves and how wider, social relations, transform that experience. In one anecdote, she notes how an experienced fisher complains about having to go to the toilet at sea in a bucket, while the owner has spent tens of thousands on new navigation equipment to improve his chance at a profit.

All workers become intimate with their environments - whether it is a computer network, a phone call centre, the fields an agricultural workers frequents or fishers who "work the ground". The word "ground" is important. Howard says that she has noted more than 80 uses of the word - which means far more than, say, the sea-bed. Instead "what linked these places was the productive labour that took place in them. The ground was a place that afforded fishermen better catches and where they found their work to be productive. The affordances of grounds were not static and they were historically inextricably connected to the labour expended there."

Crucially, she continues, "fishermen re-shaped the affordances of grounds through their work and developed new tools in order to further develop the affordances of grounds." It brought to mind Marx's statement that "Labour is, first of all, a process between man and nature, a process by which man, through his own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between himself and nature".

Howard shows how fishers have a complex relationship with the grounds they work. To understand their labour as simply bringing fish on-board a ship in a net is to misunderstand the intimate relationship with the sea. This is not a romanticised view of life on-board ships, rather its the way that years of experience allow the fishers to develop very clear understanding of the sea, its tides, its depth and the seabed. Using this information (often obtained through careful watching of equipment screens, but also through feeling the vibrations of the boat and its equipment) workers are able to make decisions about how, where and when to fish. Some areas might bring a bigger catch, but be risky for expensive equipment, other places might bring smaller fish in bigger quantities which require more labour to prepare. All of these decisions take place in the context of the wider, capitalist, market which might mean a fish that was extremely valuable one week is almost worthless the next. Grounds then, "are places where affordances are intentionally developed in particular social and economic context, and through often improvised actions with particular conditions of satisfaction."

Howard draws on the work of environmental geographer Neil Smith who argued that humans "create nature". Howard shows how fisher's labour transforms the environment. For instance, she quotes one fisher saying "if you come across a piece of ground with a lot of skate, first you have to fish them off, and that's when you will find you start to get a good fishing of prawns." Howard continues: "Trawler skippers saw themselves as intervening in ecosystems to make them more productive of the prawns or crabs they fished for."

Thus those critics who might simply see the fishing industry as exploiting a pristine environment are incorrect. Fishers are part and parcel of shaping the ecology that they labour in. In fact, fishers almost always see their labour as making a positive contribution. That is not to suggest that the consequences might not be destructive, but to show how the actual catching of prawns is the result of wider social interactions. This was drawn out for me by Howard's discussion of the working practice of the skippers of the boats she worked on. They would often keep up a constant radio and 'phone chatter with other skippers, sharing information with others. So the work was intensely co-operative - a "community of practice" as Howard puts it. But skippers could also conceal and hide information. They might be fearful that someone else would undermine their catch at the market, or get fish that they might want. So wider capitalist social relations shape the relations between the working boats and their crew. Something also seen in Howard's brilliant discussion of technology - as alluded to earlier, technology at sea is usually about maximising profits, not improving the lives of those who work there. I don't have space to draw this out further, but Howard's conclusion is important. Technology, she explains, arises out of and then shapes, the industry:

The effects of technologies must be examine din the context of the transformation of sea creatures into valuable commodities with a variable price in faraway markets, and the alienation of fishing crew from any ownership relation with a boat and from the sea as a source of reliable livelihood.

This is also true of the relations between workers. Technology allows the better exploitation of the environment. But it also means that the job becomes more deskilled, and boat owners can employ cheaper labour. The final chapters of the book look at what this has meant for communities and crew, particularly through the hiring of immigrant workers on very low wages. Class differences have, as Howard is careful to emphasise, always existed in the fishing industry. So the system of shares that determines pay rates on many boats doesn't arise out of some historical communal system, but out of a system of multiple ownership of boats. Today that means that crew will often receive low pay for long hard work, and sometimes get nothing if the trip itself is not profitable. It is a system open to exploitation, but one where it is difficult for workers to organise collectively.

This returns me to my starting point. The horrifically high level of deaths and injury in the fishing industry is not the result of accidents. It is a consequence of the job "as currently organised" where boat owners cut corners on maintenance and safety to maximise profits, or crew must risk going to sea in a extreme conditions in order to make enough money to pay rent or loans. Returning to the work of Neil Smith, Howard shows how the "ideology of nature" means that the natural world is seen as outside the lived reality of people - something to be used and exploited. But capitalism makes the sea more dangerous for workers. As Howard points out the idea of a "hostile and dangerous sea naturalises the deaths of those working on it, no matter what the real cause." Deaths are seen as a result of the sea itself, not the system that exploits those who work it in the quest for profits.

Howard's book is a remarkable piece of work. It's a first rate piece of Marxist anthropology that puts human labour at the centre of a discussion about ecology. It shows how the biodiversity crisis in the oceans is related to wider social relations, and emphasises again how the fight to prevent environmental destruction requires challenging the priorities of the system - not just changes to our diet. For radical environmentalists and Marxist ecologists this should be a required read, and I'm pleased to see that a cheap paperback is to be published soon.

Related Reviews

Smith - Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space
Carson - Under the Sea Wind
Clare - Down to the Sea in Ships
Rediker - Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Lymbery - Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were

Alan Thornett - Facing the Apocalypse: Arguments for Ecosocialism

I've known Alan Thornett for many years, most recently through work in the environmental movement as part of the Campaign Against Climate Change's trade union group. Alan Thornett is a longstanding socialist, a committed anti-racist and fighter for women's rights. We have, over the years, engaged in various debates over some of the subjects in this, his latest book, and he wrote a friendly but very critical review of my book Land and Labour. I highlight this because in this review of Thornett's book I will take issue with many of his arguments and suggest that he has a wrong approach for a socialist towards dealing with environmental disaster. These are, however, arguments between people who want to see an end to environmental destruction and to see society move towards a socialist model. They are part of clarifying our mutual understanding of our politics and our strategies.

Thornett begins by arguing that "breaking with the legacy of the 20th century will require big changes organisational and political... it means a serious re-examination of the strategic conceptions that the left has being applying to the ecological struggle for the last three decades". Thornett shows how historically the left has not taken environmental issues seriously, except in a few individual cases and he rightly argues that this is in part a legacy of those regimes that labelled themselves socialist, but acted in a way that copied the capitalist states. However Thornett's main ambition in this book is not just to highlight historical errors of the left, but to argue that key strategies and politics of the contemporary left are mistaken. It would be fair to say that I am one of the people he disagrees with here. In the introduction to the book Thornett writes:

Since modern humans migrated out of Africa about 180,000 years ago, we have had a disproportionate impact on other species. We destroyed the planet's large animals... in what was a major global extinction event... More recently, as human maritime capability developed along with colonial expansion, sailors ate their way through vulnerable species... In the 18th century [I think Thornett really means the 19th century when the majority of the bison where killed] between 30 and 60 million bison roamed North America's great plains. The construction of the railroad network and accelerated human settlement led to a remarkable mass slaughter of the bison, taking it close to extinction... We are the only species to have invaded every habitat on earth and capable of destroying the planet many times over... If we ignore the impact we are having on the planet, we will destroy all other species that live on it and ultimately ourselves.

There are, I suggest, two problems with this approach. Firstly Thornett repeatedly uses the word "we", suggesting the human society today is the same as it was in the 18th century and 180,000 years ago. He also ignores the different historical contexts of these events - hunter-gatherer communities killed megafauna as part of their livelihoods which is not the same as the systematic destruction of bison as part of a genocidal approach to the indigenous population of the United States. However I am particularly concerned with the use of "we" as it implies that all humans are equally to blame for today's environmental crisis, just as they were all to blame for megafauna extinction. For instance, the hunting to extinction, of megafauna in Australia by bands of hunter-gatherers, is in no way the same as the contemporary "Sixth Extinction" caused by capitalism - for example as a result of industrial agriculture.

Over population

This approach characterises Thornett's wider approach which is to argue that over-population is a key problem for the environment and for the left. He argues that the left has failed to understand and respond to the environmental situation: "major issues remained to be resolved for Marxism and the ecological struggle, in terms of both analysis and response". Thornett begins by criticising those on the left who argue that the solution to capitalism's destruction of the planet is the struggle for socialism.

The standard 'solution'; advanced by most on the radical left in this regard, is the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism - by implication within the next 12 years because that is how long we have to do it. It is what I call 'one solution revolution'.... Capitalism is the problem and its overturn is the solution - and not just as a long-term perspective, which is a different matter - but as an immediate solution to global warming. Such an approach is maximalist, leftist and useless. We can all, as socialists, vote to abolish capitalism with both hands, and this is indeed our long-term objective. But as an answer to global warming within the next 12 years it makes no sense.

It is true that some on the left, and some socialist organisations, do have a position similar to that Thornett describes here. But in my extensive experience, those are organisations that have the least involvement with environmental politics, and the least developed understanding of Marxism and ecology. Thornett caricatures the whole left (excluding himself) as having this position. He writes, "The practical upshot of a maximalist approach of this kind is to deprioritise the struggle for changes in the here and now, and so demobilise the left".

But this is plainly not true. For instance, Socialist Worker placards on climate demonstrations often say "System Change not Climate Change" and, as Thornett explicitly notes "One Solution Revolution". But they also call for One Million Climate jobs and other reforms. Thornett has closely worked with socialists from a number of different traditions (including the SWP) to develop these strategies to deal with climate change under capitalism; so his argument here is a mis-characterisation of much of the radical left.

By downplaying slogans that highlight the need for a socialist alternative to capitalism Thornett makes a error about how socialists should approach the struggle to deal with ecological disaster. The starting point must be that capitalism is the problem, not, as Thornett implies the existence of humans or the use of industry and technology. Global environmental crisis is the result of the development of a system of generalised commodity production based on the accumulation of wealth for the sake of accumulation. Despite Thornett noting the work of Marxists like Paul Burkett and John Bellamy Foster, his own book fails to emphasis this aspect of capitalism. The reader could be left with the impression that Thornett believes that the problem is simply the existence of human society (of whichever form).

In my view, socialists who reject, as utopian, the slogan 'System Change not Climate Change' for the environmental movement fail to see that the demand is not simply about the result, but also a strategy for getting a sustainable world. This isn't simply about whether or not socialism is the solution to the environmental crisis. Understanding that capitalism is the problem helps orient the movement. To argue anything else is to give ground to the idea that capitalism can solve the crisis - and if the last 40 years have taught us anything, it is that it can't and won't. It is only mass action that can force through reforms on the scale we require. Thornett's alternative - to eat less meat, to take individual responsibility for our personal footprint (which socialists don't worry about this?) and so on are thus fundamentally inadequate. Even Thornett's preferred strategy - the use of taxation against oil companies to "bring down carbon emissions rapidly" would fail unless it is backed up by powerful forces that can make the oil companies obey. The tragic lessons of experiments in radical reformism over the years has been that the capitalists are prepared to use the full power of their state to restrict any attempts to stop the accumulation of capital. 

Capitalism

This brings me to another key difference - the question of population. Thornett argues that the a key problem is the growing population and its environmental footprint. He notes that the footprint of people is different depending on where they are in the world, but writes that "African faces the most dangerous situation". He argues that strategies need to be developed that will reduce population growth and encourage smaller families. Again he implies, perhaps inadvertently, that others on the left wouldn't agree. For instance he says that "policies that involve lifting women out of poverty in the poorest parts of the globe and enabling the to control their own fertility through the provision of contraception and abortion services, need to be supported". But I don't know anyone on the left who would disagree. The problem is that this won't stop environmental destruction.  

Later Thornett writes, "how can rising population and women's reproduction be separated? One determines the other." But this ignores the question of social context. Women have children based on all sorts of factors - but most importantly the number of children they have is linked to wealth. But whether a society can support a particular population is determined by the nature of that society. It's a point made well by Karl Marx:

overpopulation is…a historically determined relation, in no way determined by abstract numbers or by the absolute limit of the productivity of the necessaries of life, but by the limits posited rather by specific conditions of production…. How small do the numbers which meant overpopulation for the Athenians appear to us!

When we look at the causes of environmental disaster we have to point out that the problem is simply not caused by population growth in Africa (and to do this, as Thornett does, is to open the door to racist arguments about the developing world). Thornett does write:

I am not arguing that rising population is the root cause of the ecological crisis... That is the fault of the capitalist system of production and the commodification of the planet - although pre-capitalist systems of agriculture were already degrading the ecology and the biodiversity before capitalism arrived. What I am arguing is that rising population is a major contributory factor. 

But if this is the case, the starting point is not population, but the nature of capitalism. The structures of capitalism and the nature of accumulation mean that population growth in the developing world is not the problem. But Thornett moves further into dangerous territory when he argues that

The question is not simply whether capitalism is ecologically destructive, but whether the ecological crisis can be reduced to capitalism.... If the problem is simply capitalism, this implies (in reverse) that its removal would resolve - partially at least - the ecological crisis. But there is no evidence that this would be the case. In fact, major existential challenges would continue to exist, and the ecological struggle would have to continue long after capitalism had left the scene.

Clearly there will be ecological issues to resolve once capitalism has been defeated, but that will require a system being put in place that is capable of dealing with the disaster. In other words a society that is not based on the competitive accumulation of capital. But here Thornett appears to suggest the problem cannot be reduced to capitalism, in which case you can never prevent ecological crisis, which is a very strange conclusion to draw for a Marxist.

In other sections of the book Thornett deals with other issues such as transport and jobs, as well as a discussion of the relative weaknesses of the British trade union movement on ecological issues. In the section on food he argues that we need a transition to a lower meat diet. I've dealt elsewhere at length with this question, and won't repeat those arguments here. But I do want to note that Thornett's figures are incorrect. On page 176 he argues that GHG emissions from meat production "are greater than the emissions generated by the entire world-wide transportation system". But this is not true, as the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation [FAO] has pointed out here. Readers might suggest that Thornett is correct not to rely on figures from the UN which might have a vested interest in denying this, but Thornett does rely on FAO figures on the previous page. Similarly Thornett quotes the figure of 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions being due to livestock production, but this figure comes from a report that the FAO admitted was flawed and the correct figure is nearer 14.5 percent. Thornett does then use this figure a few pages later (p186) but attributes it to "meat production" which is incorrect as it is from the whole "livestock sector" which includes more than meat production. More worryingly Thornett uses the infamous figure from the film Cowspiracy that 51 percent of all worldwide CO2 emissions comes from livestock. But this figure has been widely discredited, as Danny Chivers, author and lead external carbon analyst for Christian Aid and ActionAid has written:

The 51 percent number comes from a single non-peer-reviewed report by two researchers—a report littered with statistical errors. This study counts the climate impact of methane from animals as being more than three times more powerful as methane from other sources, adds in an inappropriate chunk of extra land use emissions and incorrectly includes all the carbon dioxide that livestock breathe out.

I highlight these inaccuracies because if the left is to win an argument around the environment we must be absolutely rigorous in our use of evidence, or risk undermining our own arguments.

In his conclusion Thornett writes that the left cannot reduce its arguments around environmental disaster to propaganda for socialism. That is true but no serious ecological Marxist makes this error. But the environmental crisis is an existential threat to humanity caused directly by the nature of capitalism. Unfortunately Alan Thornett's book undermines the struggle for a sustainable world because it obscures the real problem.

Related Reviews

Angus - Facing the Anthropocene
Angus - A Redder Shade of Green
Wallis - Red Green Revolution
Burkett - Marx and Nature
Foster - Marx's Ecology
Malm - The Progress of This Storm

Nick Estes - Our History is the Future

In 2016 a protest encampment at Standing Rock in the US state of North Dakota became a symbol of resistance to fossil capitalism. The camp, which arose out of indigenous peoples' movements, became a focus, in the dying days of the Obama administration, of bottom-up organisation against the expansion of oil pipelines. Quickly it gathered support and brought together disparate groups of people - from the indigenous communities to environmental activists, NGOs and even former members of the US military. The camp saw down brutal repression to become, at least in the short term, victorious. Perhaps just as importantly the "water protectors" helped inspire other campaigners across the globe. I remember speaking at a protest march against fracking at Barton Moss in Salford in the UK and a great cheer went up when I mentioned Standing Rock - a cheer that celebrated their struggle, not my speech!

Nick Estes' new book is subtitled "Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance" which neatly sums up his central argument: the protests that took place at Standing Rock are part of a long continuity of indigenous resistance towards a settler state that has sought to exploit the US's natural resources and people in the interest of profit and, to do this, has needed to destroy the indigenous peoples. This saw a genocidal war against the Native Americans, culminating in them being forced into smaller and smaller reservations, together with laws that codified their oppression. All this was justified through racism. Estes' book is a history of all this, which is at times difficult to read as well as inspirational.

I won't dwell here on Estes' account of the military repression of the indigenous people. Instead I want to highlight Estes' argument about the way that the US state made the repression and attempted destruction of the Native American way of life a central part of its approach towards those communities. He explains:

The design and development of the carceral reservation world was well under way by the time Cheyennes, Lakotas, and Arapahos made Custer and his Seventh Cavalry famous. In 1876 Indian Commissioner John Q. Smith envisioned US Indian policy as having three central goals: to concentrate remaining Indigenous peoples onto fewer reservations, to allot remaining lands, and to expand US laws and courts' jurisdiction over reservations... the latter two goals were achieved through the disintegration of political and social structure, and the carving up of the remaining communally held lands. The fur trade may have introduced the capitalist market, but it never made the Oceti Sakowin [this is the correct name for the people commonly called the Sioux] truly individualistic, and communal land practices and social customs still prevailed. This was the final frontier.

He continues that "reservations thus became sites where social engineering was used to break communal organisation".

While the use of military force against the indigenous people declined it never disappeared and there were other ways of destroying communities. The creation of dams is a case in point, which Estes shows were frequently built to generate energy, and often located in land or reservations that historically was of importance to indigenous people. Take the Garrison Dam which "inundated the For Berthold Reservation" drowning 152,360 acres of land belonging to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara nations. But the dam was modified by the Army Corp of Engineers to ensure that the "majority-white border town of Williston, North Dakota" lost no land. The dams location was chosen to avoid damage to other towns whose residents were mainly non-indigenous. No such care was taken for Native American people, and these dams, which were part of the "Pick-Sloan" project of the late 1940s where described by one historian as destroying "more Indian land than any single public workers project in the United States".

The question of land could not be separated from wider social questions - poverty, racism, unemployment and lack of decent housing. Este thus describes as succession of social movements that arose where indigenous people fought back for justice - in the late 1960s these took a more radical turn as a new generation of young people challenged both their elders and put forward more powerful demands from the government. To me, at least, here is a forgotten history of those who, alongside the black, gay and women's movements of the 1960s, created a revolutionary "Red Power" movement, which is remarkably inspiring. But the struggle is by no means over. Estes points out:

Anti-Indianism has also been reinforced under neoliberalism - the restructuring of politics and economy towards privatisation...But the role of the US state in reproducing anti-Indianism has also increased since the mid-twentieth century, including through the expansion of the military and prisons... Native inmates [in South Dakota] make up 30 percent of the total [prison] population while only constituting about 9 percent of the state's population. The rise in incarceration rates directly correlates with increased Native political activity in the 1970s.

Estes is clear that justice for indigenous people will not be solved via the US government in its current form. Clearly there needs to be more funding for schools, hospitals, housing and so on. But at the heart of US society there is a great injustice - the creation of the US state required, and requires, the systematic oppression of the indigenous population. Capitalism will not be able to fix this, as it will require challenging the very nature of the US state. This is also true of many other countries who built their wealth through colonialism and imperialism, and the systematic oppression (and decimation) of people in Africa, Asia, South America and Australasia. Estes details the strong internationalism of the indigenous communities, who have created international movements (eg solidarity between Palestinians and Native Americans) to fight for justice.

Real justice will arise when society can accept that indigenous peoples must have the right to solve problems in their own way. Estes notes that one vision for this was Lenin's argument for the "right of colonised nations to secede and declare independence from their colonial masters" but he cautions, while it is a view that has been taken up  by many in the "Asian, African and South American contexts" it is "entirely absent in North America, except among radical Indigenous, Black, Asian, Caribbean and Chicanx national liberation movements".

The logic of capitalism means the destruction of natural resources and people in the interests of wealth accumulation. One barrier to the continued search for profit has always been, and remains, the resistance of indigenous people. As Standing Rock showed these struggles can ignite further alliances, and such unity raises the potential for a radical challenge to capitalism. I hope that occurs, for otherwise we will not see, what Estes calls "the emancipation of earth from capital".

Nick Estes' book is a powerful read. I learnt a great deal from it - not just about the history of indigenous people in what is called "Turtle Island", but also about what liberation means for them. These struggles, in the face of the most brutal, racialised repression from the US state, are inspirational, but also hold up hope that a better world is possible.

Related Reviews

Tully - Crooked Deals and Broken Treaties
Cronon - Changes in the Land
McMillan & Yellowhorn - First Peoples in Canada
Leacock - Myths of Male Dominance
Fagan - The First North Americans

Okbazghi Yohannes - The Biofuels Deception

On March 15 2019 up to 1.5 million students walked out of class to demand action in the face of looming environmental catastrophe. In the UK one of the most popular slogans was "System Change not Climate Change" reflecting the protesters' feelings that capitalism and its politicians had failed them. As Marxist writers like John Bellamy Foster and Ian Angus have shown, capitalism is at heart, a system that puts the accumulation of wealth above the general interests of people and planet. In the face of this, the capitalists have to find alternative ways of continuing to make their profits and, one of these is the use of biofuels.

Biofuels have been marketed by multinationals, governments and corporate think-tanks as a green way of producing energy. Because they are plants, the argument goes, they are effectively carbon neutral, sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then releasing the same amount back when they are burnt. Biofuels could produce electricity, propel cars and aeroplanes and essentially continue to allow the system to do what it has always done, without the climate catastrophe.

However, in this closely argued book, Okbazghi Yohannes argues that it is a desire to continue the system of accumulation that lies behind the drive for biofuels, not an interest in saving the planet from catastrophe. Yohannes explains:

The underlying motivation of those who call for biofuels is not to solve energy and food shortages or reduce climate change. Rather, the goal is to resolve the anarchy of agricultural production in the Global North, brought about by the green revolution and the consequence transformation of agriculture into a food-manufacturing system during the second half of the twentieth century - a transformation made possible by integration with the petroleum industry.

The Green Revolution produced a surplus of grain for the agricultural and grain trading corporations and it was these, rather than the oil companies that initially pushed the idea of biofuels. Yohannes continues by arguing that the contemporary capitalist state has become a proponent for biofuels through the influence of the food and fossil fuel multinationals. Both the US and the EU, together with other international organisations are pushing biofuels as a solution to climate and food scarcity, and encouraging policies that will facilitate further production of these crops.

The problem is, as the majority of Yohannes books is devoted to explaining, that biofuels are not a solution to hunger, environmental disaster or anything else. In fact they are likely to make these things worse. In part, the issue is the limitation of bourgeois economics:

The call by ecological economists to redesign capitalism in such ways as to establish a thermodynamic balance between what is bio-physically possible and what is ethically, socially and psychically desirable smacks of romantic petty-bourgeois utopianism.

The other issue is simple physics. Growing the quantities of biofuels that are needed to generate the energy and food suggested by their proponents would require enormous deforestation, vast quantities of water and, because the production, processing and transport of biofuels uses lots of energy, contributes significant amounts of carbon to the atmosphere. To take just one of numerous statistical examples, Yohannes points out that:

even after biofuel producers devoted 20 percent of the 2006 [US] corn harvest to ethanol production, it displaced only 3 percent of gasoline consumption. If the entire annual corn grown on 90 million acres is converted to ethanol fuels, the country may be able to displace only 12 percent of its annual gasoline consumption.

Yohannes reports one study as showing that one gallon of [biofuel[ ethanol needs 129,600 BTU of energy to produce, but only has an energy value of 76,000 BTU, so we are effectively wasting energy to produce energy. There are similar shocking statistics about water use, deforestation and environmental destruction associated with biofuel production.

No one could read this book and believe that biofuels are the solution to any of the social problems we face. But Yohannes doesn't simply argue against the biofuel strategy, he also argues for an alternative. It involves a recognition that the biofuel strategy arises out of a need for capitalism to greenwash its continued accumulation of wealth. This has partly been done by the covering up of the impact of biofuel production, for instance, in the aftermath of the food crisis of 2008, George Bush's administration suppressed a World Bank report that "showed the link between the food crisis and ethanol production".

But the state itself is not neutral, it exists, as Yohannes reminds us, to facilitate the accumulation of wealth, and he argues we are seeing a "transformation of the state as a geo-economic agent in the service of the bioproduct industrial complex and the transition to a post-petroleum bioeconomy". I'm not one hundred percent convinced that this is a global phenomena as I think the state is primarily concerned with making sure that the fossil fuel corporations can continue and that biofuels are a part of doing this, but I do agree that increasingly biofuels are seen as a key component for certain nation states and multinationals in terms of future accumulation.

This would be interesting enough, if Yohannes left it there. But the final chapter is devoted to showing how a rational, sustainable agriculture could develop. This, he argues, requires the direct producers taking control of the food system. Problems of hunger, environmental disaster and water shortages are the direct result of the insanity of production under capitalism. The alternative is the "masses of peasants and workers, who together must then begin to create a sustainable world". It's a vision of change that fits well with the demands of the school students.

Okbazghi Yohannes book contains a wealth of statistical data and information. At times this is a little overwhelming, but so is the environmental disaster we face. The information it contains makes a powerful argument, not just against biofuels, but for a new post-capitalist world. The task is for us to get there.

Related Reviews

Huber - Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom and the Force of Capital
Foster - The Ecological Revolution
Malm - Fossil Capital
Burkett - Marx and Nature
Klare - Blood and Oil
Nikiforuk - Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent
Heinberg - Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils our Future
Angus - Facing the Anthropocene

Ashley Dawson - Extreme Cities

The extreme city is, for Ashley Dawson, the supreme example of capitalism self-confidence in the face of almost certain disaster. The environmental crises that have arisen out of capital's insatiable desire for accumulation impact cities in unique ways, but capitalist urbanism creates a particular set of social structures and physical designs that exacerbate the impact of environmental disaster and further encourage it. As Dawson puts it:

If today's cities are one of the major drivers of climate chaos, they are also its principal victims. The storms of climate chaos are already breaking on human shores and the devastation is most apparent in the planet's coastal mega-cities, where vulnerable infrastructure, massive  economic resource, and human populations are concentrated in unprecedented quantities. The city is paradoxically the greatest expression, principal culprit and most endangered artifact of our turbulent times.

Dawson begins with New York. His home city and, in the period covered, the site of two major disasters. The first on 9/11 led to an unprecedented rebuilding, one where urban designers and architects encouraged a siege mentality with protective bollards and CCTV. Dawson was a participant of the second, albeit in a neighbourhood that took far less damage than many others, when Hurricane Sandy devastated the city. The anti-terrorist architecture was useless against the rising waters, high winds and consequent blackouts. Emergency response teams were swamped and miraculously activists from Occupy New York created, seemingly from nowhere an infrastructure of self-mobilised aid to help the poor and vulnerable. Often these activists were the first and sometimes only people to reach victims, helping provide food, medical aid and building a community response.

The problem, Dawson is arguing, is that emergency response, planning and rebuilding are done in the interest of those best served by the capitalist city itself. Thus neo-liberalism has gutted the public services that make sure that the majority of the urban population have access to services both in and out of times of disaster; but neo-liberalism also shapes the design and planning of cities themselves before and after crisis. In Extreme Cities the rebuilding of New York's waterside communities in the aftermath of the decline of the city's industry serve as a class case-study of this. While the wealthy are able to buy their way out of trouble, the poorest end up losing everything. As Dawson comments, "as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy demonstrated all to clearly, it makes little sense to talk about urban resilience in the face of climate change without considering how social inequality renders particular neighbourhoods dramatically more vulnerable than their more well-heeled neighbours."

Globally, some cities, most notably those in the Netherlands have built strong barriers to protect their inhabitants. Dawson contrasts those historical large scale public infrastructure projects with the prevailing economic logic:

To imagine that a Twitter or a Tesla would be capable of such extensive public workers - that capitalist corporations, in other words, would address the threat of flooding on such a massive and systematic scale - is to fundamentally misunderstand the task of building infrastructure... which must be holistic or must fail utterly. The fragmentation and advanced decline of public infrastructure in the US- our collapsing bridges, mass evacuations from unstable dams and highways that are more potholes that roads - is a symptom off the neoliberal doctrines of private affluence and public penury.

Even when some attempt is made to build infrastructure in a more thoughtful and careful way - Dawson gives the example of the Living Breakwater project to protect parts of New York's edge, planners often fail to see wider impacts of their projects or even, in the case of Living Breakwaters, the way that plans to have oyster beds on the breakwaters will be negated by ocean acidification. In the case of this particular plan, Dawson highlights a tendency for protective infrastructure to be associated with a "build it back" vision - a return to a rose-tinted past that is impossible within the context of 21st century environmental chaos. In the case of Living Breakwaters, ambitious plans to build floating barriers covered in oysters as a way of re-stimulating the historic oyster industry seems laudable, but idealist in the context of global catastrophe. At least Living Breakwaters have attempted to engage with local communities and consider the wider ecological impact - something that is not true of other projects that Dawson describes.

The reality is, as Dawson makes clear, that we need a radical approach to building out cities. Some of this will involve "retreat" - some cities, including large parts of New York are not viable in the new environmental context - though it would be political suicide for politicians to admit it. The capitalist solution - large scale, privatised infrastructure projects will, at best, only hold the waters back for a limited period of time. But simply retreating and building again elsewhere on the same model is not the answer either. Dawson argues that the most resilient places are those that put the needs of people and planet first; through community democracy and economic policies not based on profit. That will require an entirely new approach - one that breaks with the prevailing capitalist system. Luckily as Dawson reminds us, the populations of cities are not passive bystanders - they have always been a key part in revolutionary processes:

Cities are the point of greatest vulnerability for the global 1 percent, not just because they possess symbolically resonant rallying sites for the dispossessed... but also because they concentrate the accumulated assets of the world's wealthy in physical form.... As command nodes of the global economy, cities are sites of vulnerability for elites. Revolutionary movements of the past two centuries have almost always had an urban dimension, and sit should be no different in a period of rapid urbanisation.

As Ashley Dawson's excellent book reminds us, the future of the city lies in a new type of political and economic system. Luckily that is not simply wishful dreaming. Whether Paris in 1871, Petrograd in 1917, Cairo in 2011 or in many other examples, urban populations have played a central role in fighting against their exploitation and oppression, as well as creating and recreating their spaces anew. Herein lies the future.

Related Reviews

Dawson - Extinction: A Radical History
Varga - Hell's Kitchen & the Battle for Urban Space
Hollis - Cities are Good for You
Harvey - Rebel Cities
Cronon - Nature's Metropolis
Minton - Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First-Century City
Robbins - There's No Place
Smith - Uneven Development