rease in global temperatures, Britain could experience a dramatic fall in temperature, much colder than at present . The reason is simple: the Gulf stream, the current of warm water from the Caribbean that keeps the British Isles warm, could be diverted due to melt water from the Arctic. What better confirmation could there be of the dialectical “mutual penetration of polar opposites?” In order to successfully combat climate change, it is vital that we understand how it functions. Marxist theory, best describes this process. Given this, it would be utterly incorrect to characterize Marxism as irrelevant to issues of environmental justice.
In the third volume of Capital, published in 1894 after Marx’s death in 1883, Marx describes capitalism as a break with the natural laws of life: “On the other hand, large landed property reduces the agricultural population to a constantly falling minimum, and confronts it with a constantly growing industrial population crowded together in large cities. It thereby creates conditions which cause an irreparable break in the coherence of social interchange prescribed by the natural laws of life” .
Based on a discussion about the long-term degradation of the soil following the use of chemical fertilisers in agriculture, Marx wrote that “all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the laborer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility” . Contrary to popular belief, Marx was not only concerned with the horrors capitalism inflicts upon the working class. His analysis also dealt with the planet itself. As such, claims that Marx had nothing to say on the issue of environmental justice are unsound.
Marx warned that capitalism’s constant modernisation would increase “this process of destruction” . Marx predicted the atrocities capitalism would inflict on the environment over one hundred years ago. How, then, can we call his thought irrelevant?
Marxism does not just diagnose problems with capitalism. It also provides solutions, new approaches moving forward. Engels summarized the dependence on, and need to learn from, nature: “Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside of nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage of all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly” . This stands directly opposed to the capitalist method of dealing with nature, in which the planet is treated like a slave to be beaten and exhausted. Those who are interested in achieving justice for the environment must also dedicate themselves to the struggle against this attitude, and therefore capitalism as a whole.
It all boils down to the class struggle that Marx and Engels saw as the lever for social change. The class with the least to lose under capitalism is the working class. The harsh conditions of capitalist decay are forcing our class to rethink everything, discard any prejudices they have been taught and embrace new forms of struggle.
Without a revolutionary perspective, the prospect seems too bleak to contemplate. Most of the “solutions” being offered are to go back to small-scale economies, co-ops, family farms, etc . While well-intentioned, this strategy is nothing but a pipe dream. The forces of production have centralized to such a degree that decentralization is all but impossible on the scale needed to combat climate change. Small-scale farms may offer a way out for some people, but those who live in deteriorating cities near boarded-up factories will be left in the dust.
Right now, we need a strategy that is applicable to the whole working class, not just those in very specific and insular situations. Decentralization, a “scaling down,” simply cannot offer that. Marxism, with its emphasis on the unificat