The Question is "How?"

Naomi Klein’s welcome new book, This Changes Everything, identifies the capitalist economic system as the chief obstacle to addressing the threat posed by anthropogenic climate change, but also as the main roadblock to addressing so many other seemingly intractable problems facing humanity—poverty, economic inequality, austerity, shredded civil liberties, endless war, racism and injustice in its many forms.  She’s right. 

Of course, some have been arguing this very point for generations.  It’s not as if human civilization was rational and equitable before climate change reared its head.  But each of us reaches the point of epiphany in our own way, and if official inaction on climate change helps you to see the big picture, so much the better.

As difficult as it may be to reach consensus on the need to move beyond capitalism, that’s actually the easy part.  The real difficulty lies in how.  Thanks to Klein’s book, many more people will be wondering exactly how we get from here to there.

What is meant by Ending Capitalism?

And where is “there” exactly?  What do you call a system that has moved beyond the golden rule: “He who has the gold rules”?  What is the proper label for an economy where industry and resources are owned publicly and managed democratically?  What name should we use for a post-capitalist system that prioritizes human needs over private profit?  There’s no need to come up with a new appellation; we already have a perfectly suitable one.  It’s called socialism.

What makes a country capitalist is that natural resources and major industries are owned privately and managed for private profit.  Moreover, it is the legal exploitation of labor, whereby working stiffs are paid a fraction of the value that their efforts produce, while the rest—called profit—accrues to the capitalist to be used however he likes.

So, ending capitalism and all its associated ills means instituting public ownership and democratic management of all banks, natural resources, infrastructure and major industries.  It means democratic decision making throughout the economy—from the shop floor, to the enterprise level, to the allocation of resources and priorities nationally and globally.  It means democratic control by working people of all of the wealth they collectively produce.

Help From History

Okay.  So far so good.  This gives us an idea of where we’re trying to go and what we’re hoping to leave behind.  But how do we effect this transition?  Could we bring it about by reforming the current institutions, chipping away at the edges until our current Tyrannosaurus of a system is somehow tamed and transformed?  Might we be able to hold a national referendum and settle it that way?  History has something to say on this point.

The question of how to move from capitalism to socialism was much debated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Those debates were played out in real life, on the world stage.  The Russian Revolution of 1917 really did change everything, despite its subsequent degeneration and demise.  For the first time, replacing capitalism was proven possible in practice.  Attempts to overthrow capitalist governments in Germany (1918), Hungary (1919), France (1968), Chile (1973), Nicaragua (1978) and elsewhere failed.  Cuba, on the other hand, offers another example of a nation that successfully upended capitalism (1959) and has been struggling, under the most hostile conditions, to build socialism ever since.  In order to save the planet and put our own stamp on history, it’s essential to consider anti-capitalist movements of the past and try to understand what worked, what didn’t and why.

Avoiding Pitfalls

Then there is the question of Stalinism.  This looms large for obvious reasons.  Defenders of the status quo—many of the same intellectuals, pundits and think tanks who would council us to ignore climate change—have long argued that, like the melted wings of Icarus who flew too close to the sun, Stalinism is the inevitable consequence of thinking beyond capitalism.  Even some in left-liberal circles echo this false correlation when seeking to justify their belief in the efficacy of gradual vs. revolutionary change.  Gradual reform can be managed, they argue, but revolutionary change can only lead to totalitarianism.

Precious few labor or climate activists are aware that one of the central leaders of the Russian revolution, Leon Trotsky, led a world-wide fight against Stalinism.  Communist parties in the US and the world over split in the 1920s along pro- and anti-Stalinist lines, and descendant organizations of both sides of that split exist today.  In his pivotal work, The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky analyzed the phenomenon of Stalinism and explored the particular conditions in Russia before, during and after the revolution that lead to its Stalinist degeneration.  This work is must reading for all who would hope to end capitalism, as is Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution, a work of immense literary as well as historical significance.  What one learns from this examination is that Stalinism is far from inevitable; that like every other harvest that’s been reaped, there were seeds that were first sown.  And it turns out that a great many of the seeds that brought about the conditions for the Stalinist betrayal were planted by the very lovers of capitalism, whose counterparts today would have us believe that beyond capitalism lies nothing but ruin and despair.

As it happens, the actual transition of political power from the capitalists to the workers and farmers in Russia was accomplished rather peacefully.  But violence ensued when twenty-one nations including the US sent an invasion force, attempting to roll back the popular will.  The resulting civil war lasted for nearly three years and, following on the heels of WWI, led to a degree of devastation that helped create the conditions for Stalin’s eventual takeover.

But we in the US today have a big advantage.  If the vast majority of North Americans, here in the very belly of the beast, decide to jettison capitalism, an invasion by foreign imperial armies seeking to veto our popular will is improbable.  It’s far more likely that the overturn of capitalism in the US would lead to world-wide euphoria and to working people in other nations quickly rising up to follow our example.

Reform or Revolution?

And what of the question of gradual vs. revolutionary change?  That debate is encapsulated in Rosa Luxemburg’s short pamphlet, Reform or Revolution.  Written in 1900 and couched in the polemical language of the time, Luxemburg’s essay challenges the belief of social democratic reformers—personified by their contemporary German champion, Eduard Bernstein—that socialism could be achieved by gradually reforming capitalism.  The success of the Russian and the failure of the German revolution a decade and a half later added powerful weight to Luxemburg’s argument.

In attempting to figure these things out, we don’t have to start from scratch.  Nor do we have the luxury of doing so if the predicted timescale of pending climate catastrophe is to be taken seriously. Every climate activist turned opponent of capitalism should add some crucial items to their reading list.  Besides Luxemburg’s and Trotsky’s writings cited above, here are some further recommendations.  This list just scratches the surface.  By all means, be encouraged to delve deeper and read more:

The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

Wage Labor and Capital, by Karl Marx

Value, Price and Profit, by Karl Marx

An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory, Ernest Mandel

State and Revolution, by V. I. Lenin

History Will Absolve Me, by Fidel Castro

Socialism on Trial, by James P Canon