This session of BuxMont DSA’s Theory Series will introduce attendees to the perspectives of ecosocialism and its approaches to climate change. Fundamentally, ecosocialists believe that capitalism exploits both people and planet - and that capitalism is the origin and primary driver of the climate crisis. The threat of this crisis to life on earth leads to an existential choice: ecosocialism or extinction. We will discuss the Marxist theory of “metabolic rift,” in which the capitalist system ruptures a reciprocal relationship between human labor and the natural processes of the earth, leading to resource depletion and environmental degradation. We will discuss the necessity for a just transition away from both fossil fuels and capitalism–and the centrality of worker power, indigenous sovereignty, decolonization, and universal caretaking to this project. We will discuss the uncertain fortunes of the Green New Deal, a flagship campaign of DSA that fights for a federal jobs guarantee to transition to renewable energy, update American infrastructure, expand public transit, build social housing, and develop democratic control over the economy. Finally, we will discuss the debate between left “eco-modernists,” who emphasize abundance under a system of clean energy and technological progress, and supporters of “degrowth,” who call on societies of the Global North to greatly scale back their production and consumption to meet ecological limits.

Core Reading:

• Michael Löwy - "Why Ecosocialism: For a Red-Green Future"
• Tara Olivetree - “Power, Workers, and the Fight for Climate Justice”
• Nick Estes - “A Red Deal”

Further Reading:

• John Bellamy Foster - “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology” (excerpted, pp. 378-390)
• Thomas Meaney - “Fortunes of the Green New Deal”
• Ståle Holgersen - “Neither Productivism nor Degrowth: Thoughts on Ecosocialism”