Manifesto
Planetary Sustainability by the People
Confined to the logic of commodity exchange, all reformist attempts to mitigate or adapt to ongoing environmental changes such as global warming, ocean acidification, land degradation, freshwater depletion, and loss of biological diversity, are doomed to failure. If biogeochemical indicators could scream, they would. For if it is the commodification of everything that is the real problem of our time – empirical support for this claim has been accumulating over the last two hundred years – market-based mitigation and market-based adaptation are extremely dangerous games to play. It is rather simple: a crisis cannot be solved by the same motive, rules, and social system that caused the crisis. In other words, sustainability strategies and measures are deceptive, counterproductive, and threaten our survival, unless they address the root cause of the planetary crisis: the capitalist social system.
No matter how many times a lie is repeated, it is still untrue. The inconvenient, ever more concerning truth is that capitalism is incompatible with sustainable human development. Terms such as “ecological modernization” and “green capitalism” are abound, but the failure of the system is an historical fact. Or, to put it another way, what is it that makes capitalism the preferred social system, considering its lack of substantive equality and ecological sustainability? The long history of capitalist crimes against humanity and the Earth is well-documented and includes, but is not limited to, the use of slave and slave-like labor; extraction and burning of coal and other fossil fuels; soil erosion, deforestation, and habitat destruction associated with large-scale monocultural agriculture; systematic coercion and surveillance of workers; and the extensive, both fragmenting and monopolizing, automobilization of society. And it does not stop there. Today, we know that capital accumulation has nothing to do with social and ecological responsibility. Today, we can rightly claim that all efforts to eternalize the present are efforts to preserve the established order whatever the consequences. The long history of propaganda and censorship is revealing: it tells us that those who control the means of production and consumption detest alternative conceptions of society, indeed, always fight radical social changes. Authentic experiences of capitalist crimes are not allowed to become new historical openings, and must either be suppressed or reframed, making everything from supermarkets to the petroleum industry seem like naturally occurring things, devoid of any traces of exploitation, expropriation, or waste production. Regardless of whether the truth is distorted, attacked, or met with deadly silence or indifference, our conclusion remains the same: these efforts to control our social reality are contradictory, always possible to prevent and counter. What we can learn from history is that, whatever their origin or justification, social changes are neither inevitable nor inescapable.
The constantly evolving reification of ever more disruptive capitalist relations is normalizing the expropriative and exploitative, but this process alone does not prevent us from challenging the combined efforts to defend the dominant social system. The highly institutionalized legitimation of market-solutions only makes it more urgent to reveal how commodity relations are replacing genuine human relations, more necessary to understand the logic that makes the irrational seem rational. Advertising and other forms of corporate propaganda have become common practice, while state policies have become openly corporatist. However, what really matters is not hidden from us: society is deeply unequal, racist, and sexist; the ecological rifts between humanity and the rest of nature are widening. Viewed against the background of rapidly changing conditions for life on Earth, it is not an overstatement to say that we are heading in the wrong direction. On the contrary, there is reason to fear that the mid-twentieth century push into the Anthropocene – a new geological epoch defined by human impact and characterized by the crossing of planetary boundaries – will have far-reaching and dire consequences. Hence it is crucial to acknowledge that the loss of planetary integrity also is the loss of human integrity, the inevitable disintegration of the complex relations that keep us alive. The increasing destruction of nature and the intensified exploitation of human and non-human beings, by all accounts, a robbery of our common future, must therefore come to an end. The fact that the established order is militantly defended by a denialist, ultra-rich, and powerful elite, does not make it more desirable – should not deter us from starting a revolution. The future is in the making, and no one, not even the children and grandchildren of the capitalists, can thrive without clean water and well-functioning ecosystems. It is time to learn from history and time to realize what we depend upon for our existence. The truth is that it is possible to leave the highway of mass extinction.
We are not born spectators of history, lacking the ability to challenge the power structures of capitalism, be they military or financial, overt or covert. It is self-deceptive, therefore, to think of ourselves as borrowers, consumers, employees, competitors, nationals, or any other category that serves to distract, disempower, or divide us. It is worth repeating that a radical reorientation of human aspirations must do away with all power-preserving categories, socially and ecologically devastating historical constructions such as private property and wage labor. As conscious human beings, we are not bound to follow any dictate of the supposedly free market, nor do we have to adapt to unsustainable living conditions. We do not have to accept the unacceptable or give up our right to resist, because our lives are not for sale; our future is not a commodity. It takes certain kinds of experiences to act differently, but if we act as if capital had lost its influence on us, it is more likely that our actions will create the necessary conditions for our own emancipation.
What is necessary is a new normality, new values, and a fundamental shift in power – more specifically, a society freed from plutocratic practices, party politics, and military interventions. Removed from the governing of society, financial institutions would not be allowed to dictate our lives. Trapped within paywalls, corporate media would not be allowed to influence our sense of urgency and possibility. In a democracy built on substantive equality, no one is tracking our movements, collecting and selling user data, let alone hijacking our brains for the purpose of profit; armed forces are not used to undermine the right of citizens to assemble; and corrupt politicians are not in a position to legislate. The list can be made longer. Capitalism has lost much of its popular legitimacy, but this does not mean that our struggle against state and corporate power has become less relevant, nor does it signal the end of history. The complete failure of capitalism to build a better world, rather marks the beginning of a long socioecological revolution. The lesson to be learned is that power comes from below, from each of us.
We already know that accumulation of capital and concentration of power go hand in hand with human humiliation and planetary degradation. The converse is also true: social trust and an even distribution of empowering power are keys to a better world. Although not without its own challenges, the necessary transformation of society can only be radically democratic and radically creative, which literally means more power to change and more control over our lives. Ideally, democracy would go from being representative and intermittent to becoming direct and practiced on a daily basis, deeply concerned with the common good, countering all forms of oppression and violence. What and how we create together would be framed by new rules of social interaction, providing us with non-alienating alternatives to wage labor and monopoly markets, to shopping and sweatshops. What must emerge is a social order that is incompatible with institutionalized inequality and has power to cut the ideological roots of planetary unsustainability.
Unless we act now and act everywhere, the prospects for humanity will rapidly detoriate. Hence there is good reason to use our collective power to create a new social order, free of oppression and free of violence, full of sustainable paths to follow. Or, to put it in other terms, as more and more people are pulled or pushed into urban areas, it becomes increasingly important to explore the patterns, processes, and possibilities of these densely populated areas. The city as a catalyst for social change is nothing new, but the scale has changed considerably during the last decades; mega-cities and urban sprawl have rapidly become global phenomena. It is now apparent, more clearly than ever, that cities must become sites of popular power and collective creativity, that we think of them, whatever scale we consider, as socially and technologically interconnected spaces of solidarity, imagination, and collaboration. For if we are to change the world for the better, we need cities and other human settlements that unite us, give voice to the oppressed and excluded, and allow us to transform ourselves and our common habitat in a sustainable direction. This is a long and winding path, and we have just begun to walk together.
Our goal is not only to occupy space. As united citizens striving for another society, we must bring democracy and creativity back to the human scale, away from the alienating anonymity of multiple-lane highways and global supply chains, away from military bases and financial centers. No matter who we are or where we live, whether we are fleeing a war or risk being incarcerated for being poor: the formation of popular assemblies and institutions that protect our right to associate, our right to shape our common future, always begins in the neighborhood; a participatory society can only be built from below, from the ground up.
As ecological revolutionaries restoring the human scale to our lives, we must strive for a planetary solidarity that challanges the existing boundaries of solidarity, constructed and upheld by the ruling elite. The question, then, is how neighborhoods of all shapes and sizes, firmly rooted in a solidarity that transcends the artificial barriers between urban and rural areas, goes beyond local and regional scales, and includes other species, can contribute to a more equal and sustainable society. How do we replace value chains with solidarity chains? How do we facilitate a citizen-led transformation of social and ecological relations?
It is difficult to imagine a sustainable society without literate, responsible, self-critical people, difficult to imagine sustainable neighborhood transformation without conscious social interactions; we are social beings, and as such curious, communicative, and collaborative, born to share our lives with others. The ongoing commodification of public health and public education – everything held in common – has made it a matter of survival to be in charge of our social reality, in short, to create, connect, and protect independent, viable alternatives. Given that they are based on equality and mutually beneficial practices, these alternatives can aptly be termed social commons. They are not necessarily local, but centered around human needs in contrast to the prevailing systems of domination and subordination that tend to be profit-centered and controlled by the few. By all accounts, this implies a radical change of focus, moving our conscious actions in a new direction, putting the health of people and the planet before profit.
If these commons are to become widely adopted, they must become real alternatives for all people, substituting Earth-destroying institutions with Earth-restoring ones, while also replacing money as we know it, that is, as a measure of abstract value and as a means of exchange. The corrupting power of money and the ongoing subordination of the entire planet to capital makes this a most urgent issue, impossible to avoid even in the short term. We cannot break free from currency markets and global value-chains, unless we take control of the mediation of social relations, begin to adopt more egalitarian and spatially rooted forms of human interaction, undermining the centrality of money as a means of mediation of human relations. Put differently, if we are to end the monopolization and concentration of power, these commons have to be designed and governed in a way that does not allow the few to destroy for the many, including future generations. Still, neighborhood-integrated social systems decoupled from capitalist processes must have certain properties that make it possible to agree upon and contribute to their further development, be reasonably easy to adapt to a variety of local and regional conditions, and, consequently, build on social trust. From a survival perspective, it makes sense to experiment with a variety of alternatives.
The creation of revolutionary commons is as much about reshaping democracy and materializing new social systems as it is about the historical-geographical process of forming a decommodified, long-term sustainable relation to nature. Despite being perceived and treated as a free gift to capitalists or the private property of individuals, or, no less contradictory, as if it was unnecessary for our survival, nature has never been an externality, something separate from us. The commodification and destruction of nature has turned out to be a dead end for humanity, but it is still a profitable one. It is still legal to pollute the atmosphere and the oceans, to use biocides that are harmful to soil and water organisms, and to keep animals in captivity – all for the sake of profit. Past ignorance is a tragic historical fact, not a good excuse for continuing destruction. On the contrary, if it is our relation to nature that ultimately defines what humanity is and can become, delimiting what kind of society we can create, we can do a lot better. If nature-inspired social change is what we need to survive, it is definitely time to reconnect.
What is to be done can only be done together. Indeed, it is high time to create the next society, the right moment to realize what might be termed Earth socialism. For as long as life on Earth is conditioned by a life-destroying system, we have nothing to lose but worsening conditions and a disastrous future. What unites us is the prospect of replacing an undemocratic and unsustainable system with something radically better. Instead of ignoring or trying to escape the planetary crisis, we have good reason to translate our anger and frustration into collective action, a human responsibility to bring about radical change. No matter what awaits us, it is time to act as if it was possible to solve the crisis, possible to create a social system that allows us to live well within the planetary boundaries – needless to say, not without redefining what it means to live well, not without questioning what is given. The transformation to a democratically governed and ecologically literate society requires nothing less than a global revolution, and it is time to seize the moment.
From a survival perspective, it is obvious that we need new, decommodified social and ecological relations, manifested through new forms of democracy and creativity, but also through a scientifically based and democratically controlled system for the preservation of our only planet, designed by the people and justified as a collective effort to put an end to the state-sanctioned, corporate-led crimes against the biosphere. At the local level, the root level of socioecological reproduction, we need to adopt a variety of practices that contribute to the health of the planet and its species.
Another social order is not only possible, it is within reach. By rejecting the reified capitalist version of reality, by adopting property rights and work relations that serve the common good, and by rebuilding our neighborhoods with equality and sustainability in mind, rethinking everything from water use to public health from a commons perspective, we are not trying to reverse history; we are using our creativity for the benefit of all. The choice is still ours. The choice has to be ours. Today, it is obvious that long-term sustainability is impossible without substantive equality and a radical reimagination of what it means to be a human being on this planet, which, in turn, points to the crying need to move towards Earth socialism.