What Happens After Capitalism?

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In this Our Changing Climate climate change essay, I examine what ecosocialism might look like in the future. From zero-carbon, accessible, and free public transit, to low-cost housing, all the way to a planned economy, an ecosocialist future would seek to bring better well-being to all people and the planet.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

In this time of uncertainty where fascists are seizing power and climate chaos supercharges disasters, killing thousands and displacing millions, where a whole world is content watching cellular colonial genocide unfold, it can feel hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. It feels like the future is grim. But all is not lost. The future can be beautiful and bright. A future where our needs are met, our communities and our environments thrive, and we all feel fulfilled in our daily life. But to bring about that world, we need to escape the confines of capitalism. Imagining and then building a world free of capitalist exploitation and destruction. An eco-socialist world. Today we dive into that vision of the future. What does it mean? What would an eco-socialist world actually look like? And why giving shape to that world in our imaginations is crucial for building radical movements in the here and now. It feels like hope is a dwindling flame in the dark, that change is impossible. But we can and must rid ourselves of that notion. We need to light a spark under that dwindling flame and imagine a better world for ourselves and our communities. We can't just surrender to the exploitation and destruction of capitalism. Indeed, as educator Ashley C. Ford writes, the goal of oppressors is to limit your imagination about what is possible without them. So you might never imagine more for yourself and the world you live in. As I covered extensively in this video, hope must not be just a feeling. It's a revolutionary act. It's a tool that gives us a North Star, a heading from which we might chart a course to a more liberatory and just world outside the depravities of capitalism. Because to transform and topple our current system of fossil capitalism, to build movements, we need as much world building as we do critique. We need to envision what a zero-carbon liberatory world might look like so that we have something to fight for, not just against. As environmental historian and author of Half-Earth Socialism Troy Vitesse argues in a conversation I had with him a while back that having this utopia, this end goal is very useful because that actually glues together your coalition.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

That actually binds you together.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Luckily, there are so many beautiful visions of a future based on the needs of the people and the planet. From video games like Terranil or all the varied visions of Solarpunk or even the Pan-African eco-tech utopia of Wakanda. Unfortunately, these pieces of art often lack political direction and insight, which is why we must define and give shape to the political systems that might actually produce those visions. And that system is eco-socialism. For Candace Dixon, working at an Amazon fulfillment facility meant risking injury every single day. And that day eventually came as she threw out her back and then was made to go back to work quickly for fear of losing her job. Unfortunately, Candace Dixon is not alone. Amazon's workplace injury rate is almost double that of the industry average, as workers are forced to labor at speed to bring profits to the likes of Jeff Bezos. And there are so many more and worse life-threatening industries that prioritize profits over life and the planet. This is life under capitalism, a system based on the accumulation of profits and capital. We need a vision of a world that runs wholly counter to this. We need eco-socialism, a system based on the needs of both the people and the planet. While there will not be and cannot be one singular vision of how eco-socialism might work, there are a number of different through lines that run through the manifestos and agendas of leftists. And books like The Red Deal, A People's Green New Deal, Half-Earth Socialism, The Future is Degrowth, and so many more point the way. To sum up, many of these visions, in their own way, seek to wrestle free from the oppressive shackles of capitalism, the shackles of worker exploitation, the shackles of racism, the shackles of colonialism, the shackles of patriarchy, the shackles of ableism, and the shackles of ecological destruction. To do so, however, requires a radically different mode of production, one where workers own, control, and decide what gets made and when. That mode could be eco-socialism, an economic and political system that calls for a worker and peasant-led revolution that rips ownership of production away from the elite and puts decision-making power into the hands of the masses. Unlike capitalism, which prioritizes decisions based on the endless creation of products to sell for more profit, eco-socialism advocates for an economy that makes decisions based on the well-being of all people and the planet. Because one of the foundational tenets of eco-socialism must be that the fruits of everyone's labor aren't funneled into the coffers of a single capitalist, but instead distributed according to people's needs. In the famous words of Karl Marx, from each according to their ability to each according to their needs. But what would that actually entail? What kind of world could foster a good life for all and a harmonious connection with the natural world? To start, any ego-socialist project would need to build out a robust system of free, universal, basic services. An eco-socialist world must supply what capitalist systems are loath to provide for fear of workers no longer needing to deflate their wages just to live. Free goods and services required for a good life.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

As Sean Blackmon from the Party for Socialism and Liberation notes, Under a socialist government, every person would have unrestricted access to food, clothes, shelter, health care, quality education, and gainful employment.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Universal services means a nationalized or even global healthcare system where you no longer have to go deep into debt to get basic or advanced medical care. It means free childcare for those who need it and generous compensation for those who wish to care for their kids full-time. It means extensive and free mental health services as we unpack the traumas of past oppression under capitalism. Free education from pre-kindergarten through college is also a must because critical thinking and curiosity need to blossom in an eco-socialist world. Importantly, all of this work is non-extractive and low carbon. These are inherently green services. But universal services don't just stop at care. Imagine zero-carbon housing that is free or low cost, no longer tied to speculative markets and crushing rent spikes. Low-carbon retrofitted homes and apartment buildings would be affixed with solar and battery storage, and co-housing and co-op living across all ages would be the norm. No longer does the very house we live in distance us from the people we love or destroy the planet. Of course, for those who are uninterested in community living, there would be sustainable single-family homes available too, but they would be a far cry from the McMansions of suburbia that are so popular now. Housing, especially in the United States, would need to degrow an individual side but expand in capacity so that we can assure that no one is living on the streets and everyone is comfortable. People would no longer own multiple homes, and instead, access to vacation homes and resorts would be shared and could be tied to work hours and community contributions. Put enough time in at the solar plant or the farm and get three weeks at the cabin on Lake Michigan. Because all commons, from parks to natural wonders to golf courses, must be decommodified and accessible to all. An eco-socialist society must foster conditions so that places where people can congregate outside of the home flourish and are free. Whether it's neighborhood canteens, free theaters, museums, parks, cafes, or library, living the good life means access to activities within your community. And to get between all those places, this world needs electrified, accessible, and free public transit. Not just intercity trams, buses, and trains accessible to all with disabilities, but also bike sharing programs with e-bike options and extensive walking paths as well. And for those who have specific accessibility needs, electric taxis could bring people from door to door if needed. Zooming out past the urban landscape, Max Eil envisions a web of cities and greenbelts in his book, A People's Green New Deal, wherein he writes, Greenbelts surround all cities as popular planning converts sprawling suburbs into farm swarts. High-speed rails link bigger cities to smaller ones, smaller ones to capillary lines, leading to outlying hamlets. And alongside housing, transit, and care, an eco-socialist economy must transform food systems. Regeneratively grown, tasty, and nutritious food should be available to all. No longer relying on industrial agriculture that guzzles fossil fuels and destroys the soil, food should be distributed via free canteens or local groceries, not locked behind ever-increasing price tags. But all of these free universal services are just the start. To build a better world for all people and the planet, we must dramatically transform not only the way we work, but also why we do it. Under capitalism, we work jobs we're uninterested in for meager wages. Indeed, at the core of the capitalist model is worker exploitation. Very simplistically, this means that during an eight-hour workday, for example, if a laborer is paid $80, a small chunk of a worker's time is actually spent making $80 worth of products. The rest is unpaid or surplus labor. That is where the capitalist makes their profit. The longer capitalists can stretch that time of unpaid work and the more efficient they can make their workers, the more profits roll into their wallets. And the workers are forced into this exploitative situation because if you don't work, you can quickly lose access to a roof over your head and food on the table. This must change. There must be guaranteed green and care jobs for all who want them. And those jobs must pay a generous wage to live with dignity, not just to survive. Or perhaps in the future, jobs won't need to pay a wage at all because all needs are already provided for. The work week would shrink to four days, encouraging everyone to foster recreational and communal hobbies, and in the process recognizing the importance of rest, family, and community life. Crucially, the factories, restaurants, and businesses are not owned and operated by elites or capitalists, but instead by workers themselves. They collectively decide how the workday happens in order to create what is needed for the people. Because ultimately, an eco-socialist world will focus on creating products and services we actually need rather than commodities to sell for a profit. And this means no more bullshit jobs, as anthropologist David Graver puts it, where all you do is create emails to middle management. But it also means an eco-socialist world must create a culture without consumerism. One that bans advertising and fosters a creative commons. One that enshrines the right to repair and rejects throwaway culture. When we build an economy that centers around use rather than profits, the need for marketing to drum up false needs, as I talk about in this video, and the prevalence of planned obsolescence drops dramatically. Imagine a world without incessant ads telling you to buy more at every moment. A world where the creative-minded among us don't need to flock towards marketing agencies to create art for products, but instead are supported enough to explore and make beautiful art. In short, people's creative energy could be poured into making art, movies, and music for all. Art that doesn't need to be behind a paywall or stuck in a museum or behind a movie ticket. Because under eco-socialism, culture becomes a shared public good. And in turn, this new culture informs not only our economies, but also how we relate to each other and the world. All of these services will require a fair amount of energy. But compared to our capitalist system, significantly less power will be needed as energy-intensive commodity production of useless items is scaled down and production is oriented towards real needs and ecological sustainability, aiming to provide a good life for all. And as we shrink the energy demand hole we've dug ourselves into for the last 50 years, we must simultaneously scale up renewable energy at a massive scale while phasing out fossil fuels completely. This means renewable energy supergrids that balance out regional variability when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. It means smaller, community-owned solar and wind microgrids, and it means a mass expansion of battery and storage capabilities with technologies like pumped hydro. Ultimately, all of this agenda must be couched in anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, anti-imperialist, and anti-oppressive agendas.

SPEAKER_05 12:22

As co-author of the Red Deal, Melanie Yazzi notes, you need to divest from the institutions that cause the greatest harm on behalf of the state, right? Prisons, police, the military, and divesting from those institutions, we must reinvest in the common dignity of all, which means healing our bodies and healing our earth.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

So building an eco-socialist future necessitates degrowing and eventually abolishing violent industries like the police imprisonment system and the military. Weapons of state violence that have long terrorized people of color for centuries, especially in the United States. Fiscally speaking, global military budgets eclipse funding for climate action, health care, and education and are used to carry out settler colonial genocides like the ongoing one in Palestine. One of the monumental tasks of eco-socialism must be to divert our economy away from one of violence and oppression and towards one of care. Instead of punishment and the stick, we must focus on the caret, encouraging care by helping zero carbon communities, social programs, and restorative justice initiatives thrive. But of course, it's not enough to just end police and imperial violence and claim that eco-socialism has rooted out white supremacy and imperialist infections. This will be a long struggle. But as Sean Blackmon suggests, it might start with.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Reparation is being paid to black Americans for the centuries of unpaid labor and super exploitation under enslavement, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and other forms of institutionalized disenfranchisement. All government treaties with Native Americans would be under, and restitution would be made for the blame and resources stolen by the deposed capitalist class.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

In short, an eco-socialist world must have at its core policies of reparations, repayment of climate debt, demilitarization, indigenous sovereign, and land back as a means to start repairing the centuries of racial and colonial capitalist harm. Fundamentally, a market system cannot do any of these tasks. If profit is the driver of invention or production, we will inevitably slide right back to where we are. Indeed, the market economies of today lead to waste and inequality, and they are irrational in their chaos. If we right now already need to heavily regulate markets with elaborate mechanisms to lessen the massive harms just a little bit, why bother with the market in the first place? That's why an eco-socialist economy must be a democratically planned economy. I talk a lot more about how and why planning must be central to any eco-socialist project in this video, but in short, there are many ways in which a planned economy could not only be successful, but also thrive. Troy Vitesse and Drew Pendergrass present a case of a half-earth socialism that sets broad-scale goals like global veganism, energy quotas, and forest rewilding and stewardship under Indigenous control based on linear programming.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

We can imagine feasible ways to use simple algorithms to plan plausible ways of organizing society, and then debate about what those plans look like on various levels.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

That's Drew Pendergrass, co-author of Hafer's Socialism.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

He goes on to add So we kind of imagine a level of federalism where we set broad course goals at a large level and then figure out in detail what that looks like as you go towards the more local level.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

In the context of climate change, socialist planning is crucial because as Fatese argues.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

Then you begin to think, okay, like how many how much energy can we use as a society, or where are we getting our energy from? How much land are we using with animal agriculture? How much of that land could be rewilded? You begin to see these things in their totality, which is difficult to do or impossible to do under capitalism.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

In very simplistic but more concrete terms, a linear programming eco-socialist planning model requires us to plug in a number of desired parameters, like we want to cut emissions by 7.6% every year, rewild 25% more land, and redistribute wealth for a good life for all, all by 2030. And then according to those parameters, the program might spit out a variety of plants, ranging from more lenient energy quotas but faster uptake of vegetarian or vegan production and consumption, or perhaps more aggressive rewilding and afforestation instead, or a more rapid increase in renewable production. On a global scale, Fatese and Pendergrass envision thousands of planners and scientists plugging a massive amount of data into a central mainframe, much like what already happens in climate models, which then charts out various coarse blueprints 5 to 10 or even 25 years into the future, envisioning what it would look like to cut emissions, rewild half the planet, and redistribute wealth at different speeds. Those broad plans are then disseminated, debated, and transformed as they pass through to global, national, and local levels. This is socialist planning in motion. Because for eco-socialist planning to succeed, it must be intensely transparent, accessible, and subject to debate. Plans must come from everyone, be formulated and run through modeling tools, and then sent back to the masses in an endless cycle of construction and exploration. But to get from now to that future, we can't just imagine. We must act. We must build. An eco-socialist future is possible, but it's not inevitable. It will be a long road from the current rise of fossil fascism, settler colonial genocide, and intensifying climate disasters to an eco-socialist future that prioritizes a good life for all. But that work is already in motion. There are already climate and leftist movements fighting to build power within capitalism in order to eventually break away from it. Because it's not enough just to envision what could be possible. Radical hope requires action. That means working towards transitional demands and nonreformist reforms that alleviate the harm of capitalist destruction right now. Those look like defunding the police, moratoria on fossil fuel extraction, closing coal mines, raising wages, shortening work weeks, expanding community-owned renewable grids, ending settler colonial violence, and expanding access to universal services. These goals, these transitional demands, build power by stealing it from the hands of capitalists. Of course, these are part of the end goal, but they are not the end goal. They are just steps on the path towards a future of liberation, where all people can live a good life on a thriving planet. But it will take all of us, with whatever capacity we have, to make that happen. And that starts with you joining a group doing the work in your area, while always imagining and dreaming of what a world outside of capitalism could be.