I am all in favour of socialism. I should be, having been a socialist all my life and having written several books advocating socialism. What I am not remotely in favour of is experts and elites of all kinds laying claim to the general interest and preparing to equip the state and other top-down bodies to engineer the new social order. Of course, it’s all in our own interests. It’s just that in being so, it is for we the people, the interested parties, to be actively involved not merely in giving consent to pre-determined positions but to have an active role in determining those positions.
Marching for Capital, 2019 | Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC at Climate Week NYC, 2014
This short video (03:17) features Christiana Figueres speaking at Climate Week NYC in her role as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Figueres is the co-author of "The Future We Choose." That title is grossly misleading, giving an actively democratic gloss to a future that has been planned and is being engineered by a select group of people. There is no ‘we’ and these people know that. Their reference to ‘we’ is plainly ideological, claiming a democratic assent that their positions so singularly lack. The past decade and more has seen extensive social engineering to give the impression of broad support whilst organising consent for pre-determined positions. In this video, Figueres makes the following comment. The words used should be studied carefully:
"The long term target – not from me – from science – means that we have to reach global peaking over the next ten years. That means, go from where we are now, 400 ppm, increasing every year our emissions, get to global peaking over the next ten years, and then radically reduce or emissions – to the point where we will get to zero net or climate neutrality, whatever you want to call it, over the next 50 years. This is not about slicing up the pie of burden. This is about the most extraordinary opportunity we've ever had to actually grow the pie of growth and grow the pie of opportunity... We cannot afford one billion people who do not have access to energy – because they're out of the market! In addition to the moral consequence of that ... Collectively we are writing a business plan for the world...Yesterday, 310,000 people [People's Climate March]. Civil society is there. Private sector is here. Government tomorrow. Collectively we are writing a business plan for the world. The feasibility study stage has finished... it is high time to execute."
The bitter irony of the title "The Future We Choose" becomes apparent when set alongside these comments. The reference to ‘we’ is plainly ideological, claiming a democratic assent that those 'writing a business plan for the world' so singularly lack. Of course, they have been involved in mobilizing a passive 'we'. Note the use of 'science' as an authority - it not us who are saying this, it is 'science' - and note the world 'execute.' It's the end of politics, there is no room for debate, deliberation, for creative citizen agency.
This is not socialism. The only relation it has to socialism as the radical transformation of social relations is to notions of elites and experts drawn from science, technology, and industry using knowledge and know-how for the common good, Saint Simonian notions of an industrial labour state, or Veblen’s ‘revolt of the engineers.’ Such views are the very antithesis of socialism and its notions of social self-mediation and working class associationalism. What confuses the issue for people brought up on specious liberal antitheses between individualism and collectivism, the individual and government, is the use of the state as the agency of engineering. Too many are still inclined to consider ‘government’ as such as socialism. This is errant nonsense. Which government? The state and capital rose together as twin alien powers and exist in symbiotic relation. The state in the context of capitalist relations is an integral part of a regime of accumulation.
The accumulative dynamic is apparent in Figueres’ statement above.
Let us unpack that statement:
"The long term target – not from me – from science – [the target is set not politically but by an unarguable, unquestionable ‘science.’ This is the use of ‘science’ as an authoritative and imperative voice overruling any contrary view] means that we have to reach global peaking over the next ten years. [imperative voice, no debate, no deliberation, no dissensus – the end is given and non-negotiable.] That means, go from where we are now, 400 ppm, increasing every year our emissions, get to global peaking over the next ten years, and then radically reduce or emissions – to the point where we will get to zero net or climate neutrality, whatever you want to call it, over the next 50 years. [once the ends are given, there is nothing for people and politics debate except the means to those ends. Except that, if we read on, the means are already determined, too. The only active role for the individuals composing the demos is to give assent to positions that have already been developed.]
This is not about slicing up the pie of burden. This is about the most extraordinary opportunity we've ever had to actually grow the pie of growth and grow the pie of opportunity... We cannot afford one billion people who do not have access to energy – because they're out of the market! [that word ‘grow’ is a healthy euphemism for “accumulation.” This statement entails a commitment to expand the great Climate pie-in-the-sky] In addition to the moral consequence of that ... [science as authority is now aligned with a moral imperative, even though the position is lacking in moral status. All that there appears to be is a consequentialism, act the way we plan or else catastrophic consequences will follow] Collectively we are writing a business plan for the world... [that collective we is clearly a specific group claiming to act for the general good] Yesterday, 310,000 people [People's Climate March, the engineering and mobilisation of a passive mass in support of a pre-established and pre-determined ‘business plan for the world;]. Civil society is there. Private sector is here. Government tomorrow. [the state aim is capture of government and the use of public agency to implement a plan for the world – and the people in it]. Collectively we are writing a business plan for the world. The feasibility study stage has finished... it is high time to execute." [execute, as in implement, but expressing much more clearly the unanswerable finality of it all]
The endorsements make it plain that we are not talking about socialism as radical social transformation but social engineering through governmental agency. An austerian environmental regime using claims of environmental necessity backed by science as authority to implement a new accumulation regime.
Question: What does Northrop Grumman, Monsanto, Exxon, BHP, George Monbiot & Greta Thunberg, all have in common?
Answer: Conservation International
Question: What does Klaus Schwab, founder and CEO of the World Economic Forum, Extinction Rebellion, We Mean Business, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, the CEOs of each We Mean Business co-founder, Greenpeace, the United Nations (partnered with the WEF) - all have in common?
Answer: They are all endorsers/promoters of "The Future We Choose" authored by Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac. Prior to co-founding Global Optimism, Rivett-Carnac was President & CEO of CDP - a co-founder of We Mean Business. Figueres holds ruling class status with corporate ties/servitude a mile long.
"The Future We Choose" is a future chosen by and for the ruling classes. You may spot your favourite "environmental" "leader" in this company. That should have you asking deeper questions of environmentalism. Class analysis and the critique of political economy has been systematically eliminated from recent politics, paving the way for a social engineering that is politically neutral on key questions of power, control, authority, and resources. The buzzword now is "together," as in all together now, fostering feelings of unity which self-mask realities of subordination. “Together” is a surrogate communism for the woke.
It is at this point were the self-appointed, media anointed environmental "leaders" come to ally with the most powerful business and financial interests on the planet, and solicit support through the pragmatic appeal to get something done. People like me are easily sidelined and silenced as politically motivated ideologues and intellectual idlers. There is a crisis to be solved, and there are agencies out there with the financial and organisational capacity to act effectively. The role of the masses is merely to consent to such action. It is a false prospectus. This is not about ‘saving the planet’ but saving a capital system that is in implosion, even if that requires monetizing, exploiting, and sacrificing all life on Earth. The world's most powerful institutions, corporations and finance are now open allies and agents of a new environmentalism. The World Economic Forum (United Nations), We Mean Business. They do, too, business is precisely what they mean. Natural Capital Solutions has morphed into National Climate Solutions, and environmentalists have jumped on board.
Behind the use of science to create a cult of political authority is a strategic social engineering which is concerned to manufacture a mass consent. The approach creates and employs the power of conformity as a political weapon against democracy. The agents of this transformation are drawn from the ranks of the rich and powerful, the wealthy, those who are comfortable within prevailing relations and power structures. They may use the phrase ‘system change’ but what they mean by that is the preservation of existing institutions, relations, and structures, just their redirection within a new accumulative regime. The ecological crisis cannot be resolved in this way. There can be an attempt to resolve the crisis of capitalism this way, involving massive corporate bailouts – a socialism for the rich through the agency of the state – but not a resolution of the ecological crisis, only its intensification. The ecological crisis cannot be resolved within the same economic system that generated it in the first place.
The loss of class analysis and critique of political economy here is politically debilitating. The crisis in the climate system is not the problem but a manifestation of it – the capital system reaching its socio-economic and ecological limits. This socio-ecological crisis is a class war, but class analysis has been systematically eliminated. That elimination has been deliberate, a matter of political strategy. There is a huge behavioural change strategy in place which is designed to engineer conformity and consensus around the framing/language of "together." That explicit and persistent commitment to “everyone” joining “together” as one is a deliberate and hugely effective erasure of class, class relations, and the realities of class division. That’s political and ideological, employing the language of classless harmony to conceal, entrench and extend class exploitation. Class analysis is critical to the struggle to resolve the socio-ecological crisis that is upon us. Erase class analysis and extinguish class struggle, and we are doomed to failure.
This ideological commitment to “togetherness” in a class divided society is all about identifying the oppressed with the oppressors, the exploited with the exploiters. It’s an attempt to engineer democratic consent. It is an attempt to induce reconciliation in place of resistance, the betrayal of one’s political ideals in place of loyalty. It abandons nature to those who seek to expropriate and exploit.
The capital system can only be preserved in face of its socio-ecological limits by manufacturing the political acquiescence and social obeisance it requires to carry on in its iniquitous and exploitative functioning. This is well understood by the ruling classes. Over thirty years ago now Ralph Miliband warned that if you are not waging class struggle from below, the ruling class will be waging it from above, and daily (Divided Societies 1989). The ruling class is ceaseless in its attempts to preserve the capital system, even in its cancer stage. This is where we are today, and this is what we, and the planet, are being subjected too. We owe it to ourselves and to the planet we love to resist the attempt to corporatize environmentalism and subject nature to the expansionary economic system that is unravelling the planetary ecology.