Socialist Viewpoint

The world summit on sustainable development confronts an impossible task: That is, gathering the representatives of 180 countries (179 of which are capitalist countries or in the process of reverting to capitalist economies) to resolve humanity’s most pressing problems, all of which are compounded, if not actually created, by the capitalist system itself.

The conference and others like it do well in naming and exposing the tragic consequences of global warming, war, diminishing water supplies, deforestation, species extinction, despoiling of the soil, water, and air on the planet’s surface, and poverty which consigns a majority of the earth’s people to shortened lives of misery.

The fact that the pressing problems that were diagnosed at the preceding conference ten years ago in Rio de Janeiro—global warming, environmental degradation, poverty—have worsened since then indicates quite clearly that this conference does not provide the mechanism for tackling such problems. Why? How is it possible that we can know what the problems are, and that humanity has the knowledge and technology to tackle them, but conditions worsen instead and the earth is in greater danger now than ten years ago, and there is greater suffering among the world’s peoples than before?

The answer is simple. The very principles of sustainable development—the guarantee that the world we pass to future generations will be no worse than it is now—conflict with the social system that governs the entire world economy and politics.

Take the precautionary principle. This principle says that humanity must prevent environmental degradation as a matter of course, rather than remediation after the fact. This principle conflicts outright with capitalism, which flows wherever there is a profit to be made. Decisions of how to produce and what to produce are made according to where immediate profits can be realized, despite any harm done in the process. By this principle—profitability—crops have been sprayed with poisons, animals pumped up with harmful hormones, deadly toxic waste has leaked and leeched into ground water, rain forests have been chopped down to create grazing lands for beef (to hell with oxygen production), radioactive nuclear materials and wastes are produced (that cannot be safely disposed of or stored), untested chemicals and plastics permeate the environment contributing to epidemics of diseases that used to be rare such as asthma, cancer, diabetes, and the war industry is a major field of human productivity despite the fact that its products and processes kill and maim people and poison the land.

Take the principle of human solidarity between all the world’s people and between people alive today and future generations. The capitalism system of production for profit undermines human solidarity at every level, especially through its wars. In the last ten years since the sustainability conference in Brazil, warfare has reached new levels of ferocity and new levels of capitalist unity of wealthy against poor nations. The United Nations itself, acting on behalf of the U.S. ruling rich, was the entity used to carry out the Gulf War on Iraq and sanctions responsible for the deaths of over half a million Iraqi civilians—children! The U.S. and the European countries of NATO united in a vicious war against Yugoslavia. Britain and other countries have united with the U.S. to make war on one of the world’s very poorest countries—Afghanistan. And now the U.S. is trying to drum up international support for another war against Iraq. These wars have not only killed thousands of poor soldiers and civilians but have left toxic mines and depleted uranium waste behind to poison more people and future generations. How can human solidarity develop and bear the fruit of world peace without disarming the war makers?

Another example of the conflict of capitalism with human solidarity is the water crisis. Over a billion people world over lack clean drinking water. What is the capitalist solution? Privatization of water. Scarcity is an opportunity for the capitalists to move in and make a profit off of a human necessity. But why is fresh, clean water scarce? There is a complex web of factors fouling the world’s fresh water, including global warming. A major factor is industrial and agricultural pollution of fresh water resources. Technology exists to prevent this, but the capitalist solution is to expropriate scarce water sources (by forcing financially strapped governments in debt to the imperialist countries to sell water exploitation rights) and transporting and selling water to people. Next we’ll be wearing oxygen tanks on our backs and paying oxygen tank companies for clean air. Clean soil, air, and water are human rights to which all the species of the earth, including us humans are heir. The capitalists must be prevented by any means necessary from owning them.

Take the principle of people participating in decision-making—democracy. Capitalism presupposes that democracy is only for the capitalist class. The United States government considers itself to be the most democratic of all countries in the world and yet the capitalist class rules alone. It has a monopoly on political power through its two political parties (Democrats and Republicans) and its absolute control of the mass media. Even its occasional alternative political parties, such as the Green Party, do not challenge the capitalists’ right to rule. And, in countries where people manage to elect even reform-minded populists to office, the United States uses every means at its disposal—legal and extra-legal, including financing paramilitary forces and coups d’etats— to unseat them.

In other words, the principles of sustainable development conflict with the capitalist system on all counts. The world conference on sustainable development will not be able to come to grips with this fact because most of the representatives there represent capitalist countries and pro-capitalist entities such as most non-governmental organizations. The task for those of us who actually believe in these principles, who actually want to solve the problems of humankind and the planet that supports our lives, is to get rid of the profit system. International workers power—socialism—is the beginning of sustainable development, production for human needs, and protection of the earth.