11

Living in an Ecological Society

The absence of a vision for the future, of a project, of a radical alternative cripples and paralyzes the potential movement from below and may divert it in dangerous directions.

—DANIEL SINGER1

THERE’S AN OLD SAYING that’s as true for society as it is for individuals: the two most important things to know are where you come from and where you’re going. For the last few hundred years we’ve been locked into a capitalist economy and worldview based on cutthroat competition and deep structural inequity. Its history has made it abundantly clear that differences in wealth lead to differences in power. Private wealth accumulation is the enemy of political and social equality.

In this system we don’t decide where factories are located, who gets jobs, how much time we work, how our energy is produced, or other such economic decisions that affect our lives.

What we need now is a vision of a very different society—one that is organized cooperatively, equitably, and democratically from the bottom up. In this society and its communities all humans are treated equally and natural systems with their processes and cycles are allowed to function in a healthy and sustaining manner.

The only way such a society is possible is through the conscious and rational management of human interactions with the rest of the natural world. We need to build healthy ecosystems while preserving renewable and nonrenewable resources for future generations. The way the economy functions—how humans relate to one another to obtain the things we need to flourish collectively—should promote the goals of equity, justice, and ecological health. Economic and social relations must encourage and facilitate the development and expression of everyone’s full potential in ways that keep the world in which we are embedded functioning and healthy over the long term.

This means that we need an economy designed to be at the service of humanity, regenerating and maintaining the health of the biosphere, upon which we and other species depend, an economy without the compulsion for exponential growth, able to function well while constantly evolving. This is an ecological society. Because it will be under democratic social control instead of in private hands and must encompass substantive equality to be sustainable, it can also be described as a socialist one. Ecosocialism has come into wide use as a term for this vision to stress the importance of considering ecological approaches to human interactions with the rest of the natural world alongside equitable social relations. In other words, our concept of an “ecological society” is synonymous with “socialist” and “ecosocialist” ones—democratic and equitable, with production processes and facilities under the control of the people who do the work, and with the purpose of production to supply everyone with their needs in ecologically sound ways.

The values of a society reflect its economic and social organization. In order for an ecological society to thrive, people need to embrace a way of thinking similar to the Quechua peoples’ social philosophy of buen vivir, meaning “living well.” This refers to a life in which: our basic material needs are satisfied, but also through our activities and relationships and spiritual, mental, and artistic development are diverse and fulfilling, and we are “in harmony with nature.” Our gains are measured socially rather than through an aggregation of material goods.

According to the Uruguayan scholar Eduardo Gudynas, the phrase buen vivir:

includes the classical ideas of quality of life, but with the specific idea that well-being is only possible within a community. Furthermore, in most approaches the community concept is understood in an expanded sense, to include Nature. Buen vivir therefore embraces the broad notion of well-being and cohabitation with others and Nature. In this regard, the concept is also plural, as there are many different interpretations depending on cultural, historical and ecological setting.2

The concept of buen vivir implies that everyone would live a good life while living and working in harmony with nature. It is sometimes contrasted with the concept or phrase of “living better,” which implies ever-increasing quantities and qualities of goods and services.

The people who will bring about an ecological society, on a global scale, must work out the details through a process of revolutionary change. There can be no preordained grand design. The ideas outlined here are put forward with humility for the purpose of stimulating thought and discussion. However, we must emphasize that they are not proposed as a grab bag of possibilities to pick and choose from. We view the various parts as needing each other in a mutually reinforcing and self-perpetuating fashion for the economy and society to function as desired.

Below, we describe characteristics and features for a world society and its economy based on buen vivir’s principles of social-ecological cooperation and communal well-being. In other words, a view of how a future ecological society might function.

EQUALITY AND DEMOCRATIC DECISION MAKING

The creation of an ecological society requires a society free of class divisions, in which people are treated equally and participate feely in society with equal access to resources and opportunities. There is nothing in our history, genetics, or so-called human nature that prevents such a future from becoming reality. “The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all,” is how Marx and Engels described the concept. When the goal is for all members of society to have equal access to resources and opportunities needed for buen vivir, individual freedom is achieved within the social context.

True political democracy, where everyone has a meaningful voice, is only possible when there is economic equality and free access to information and education among all people. Through open and free debate, humanity will collectively decide what constitutes the essentials of living well, how to come up with the most appropriate plans and enact them, and how to evaluate their successes and failures.

Needless to say, the active and equal involvement of everyone on the planet will require the eradication of unequal power relationships among people based on social class (or caste), race, gender, and sexuality. Instead everyone will have equal access to the necessities, including resources, technology, education, meaningful work, and leisure time. This will be the most immediate task in an economy based on equality, sharing, cooperation, and bottom-up democracy. Another essential and urgent issue will be how to transition different regions to create more balanced economies. Capital has dictated that less developed countries concentrate their economies where they supposedly have “comparative advantage” in the marketplace, condemning many to focus on extracting resources and the sale of raw commodities such as foodstuffs and metal ores, while sustainable industries remain largely underdeveloped.

Full Participation

A goal of an ecological society will be to ensure that everyone can participate as fully as possible, and on an equal basis, regardless of age, level of ability, or health; many more social resources will be allocated to make this possible. People with disabilities will decide how they can best participate in the economic, political, and social life and society will be obligated to facilitate their decisions. Accommodation will be made for people who are unable to work. At the same time, the elderly will not be shunted off into social exclusion once their so-called productive life has ended.

The principle of encouraging the rotation of positions in all levels of society is an important tool for human growth and it guards against the development of a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. To allow for continuity of programs and institutional memory, past leaders will be expected to offer their services and knowledge as advisers to new leadership. To ensure that corruption does not creep in, there can be no extra perks or payment for these roles, nor will elected representatives be able to handpick new teams of advisers to stack the system. Term limits are often advocated in existing capitalist societies as a way to overcome the entrenchment of politicians, but they could actually undermine direct democracy by forcing unwanted or untimely changes in leadership. Instead of term limits, people elected to any role will be subject to instant recall votes whenever the electorate desires.

Providing for a Full Life

Economic rationing based on wealth will disappear. Therefore, we need to decide what goods and services everyone should have access to and how they will be provided. This includes at a minimum high-quality, nutritious, and varied food, potable drinking water, clothing, housing, communication, transportation, access to energy and technology, heating and cooling, education, healthcare, and sanitation facilities, recreation and cultural opportunities, access to parks, outdoor activities and travel, and a clean and healthy local, regional, and global environment. The vast majority of the world’s people will have many more goods, services, and life opportunities than under capitalism. Those previously in the upper middle class and the very wealthy will have less, but enough to meet all their essential and multifaceted needs, the same as everyone else.

What should be available in each home and what can be available communally needs to be reconceived. Most of the things we take for granted as essential in today’s developed countries—such as power tools, washing machines, and even cars—are rarely used on a daily basis. These items can be easily shared through many community centers.

The production and provision of goods and services will be managed by the population and apportioned with respect to minimizing adverse environmental effects over the long term. Instead of the market and an individual’s income determining how much one has, no one will go without. When everyone has enough for personal and communal needs, attempts to acquire more than others will be socially unacceptable and viewed as antisocial behavior.

We will not be able to do or have anything we might please, nor will we be free of pain and suffering. We will, however, be able live a full life while still recognizing that there are limits. Living well is not just an issue of universal access to basic goods and services, it is also a matter of cultivating and giving ample opportunities to enhance social relations of cooperation, sharing, and exploration of cultural or other activities. There is an incentive for society to strive to reduce the time spent working on productive activities: “The less time society requires to produce corn, livestock, etc., the more time it wins for other production, material or spiritual.”3

To create a social human means to expand the senses, rather than a society in which “the dealer in minerals sees only the commercial value but not the beauty and the specific character of the mineral: he has no mineralogical sense,” a new society calls for the all-around development of our senses to appreciate nature and the world in all its manifestations and beauty.⁴

Individuals, communities, and regions will follow their interests and tastes as they pursue cultural activities, allowing a diverse human culture to flourish, rather than the globalized cultural monoculture foisted on us by transnational corporations, producing and selling the same products. We will develop what Marx calls “a totality of the manifestations of life” as a central feature of the new society.

Rights and Responsibilities

A basic set of economic, political, and social rights, responsibilities, and laws will need to be democratically developed and upheld by popularly elected local, regional, and multiregional councils that will eventually become networked across the globe. New ways of behaving—completely different from the idea of individual rights under capitalism—will be designed and upheld by mass participation.

With the vast expansion of the Internet and possibilities for instant communication on every geographical and community level, it will be easy for every person to take part in discussions and vote on all manner of economic decisions that have implications for resource use, methods and quantities of production, infrastructure, and every other decision taken by society. Electronic communications will not replace community and regional meetings, however, because this is where issues will be thrashed out and debated before important decisions are made.

To provide equality in treatment, access to resources, and opportunity for all people, the historical injustices of racism and colonial oppression will need to be addressed. Justly resolving claims of indigenous and other historically oppressed communities will be given priority, with resources provided for these communities to develop economically and socially.

In an early effort, massive amounts of resources and technological know-how will need to flow to poor regions and countries to eradicate centuries of inequality, imperialism, and racism. Until industries are transformed (or eliminated) so they can’t pollute the biosphere, they will have to be located equitably, so there is no more environmental racism. More schools and hospitals will need to be built to provide everyone with the best education and high-quality healthcare, and more teachers, doctors, and nurses will be trained to work in them.

THE ECONOMY

The aims, location, and control of production need to be decided and then organized so that the economy functions to serve society’s needs. These cannot happen in haphazard ways, but must be discussed and decided by the people. A framework needs to be developed to help organize the changes and assist the continued functioning of the economy. As a new society is developed, experimentation needs to be an integral feature as new methods and techniques are tried. Freedom is needed for people to make mistakes and learn from them.

Planning for People and the Environment

An economy that has a social purpose—one that by its nature includes ecological considerations—must involve considerable active democratic management. In the transition from a capitalist economy to an ecological economy, production workers, scientists, engineers, and planners will need to develop environmentally and socially sound ways of working together to manage resources used to produce needed goods and services.

Because of the bureaucratic, top-down state planning characterized by the USSR and other countries claiming the mantle of Marx, the idea of economic planning has an understandably poor reputation.5 Conversely, neoliberal capitalism has put its own negative ideological spin on the issue by denying the potential effectiveness of any government planning for the public good.⁶

Yet even capitalist states opt for the increased role of government in the economy during wartime. Wars require mobilizations of people, resources, and production facilities. During World War I and II, for example, the war effort required the wholesale mobilization of the economy. Planning to supply war needs was essential because market forces could not be relied upon to efficiently allocate limited resources. There was too much competition among the various military services and between the needs of the military and the civilian population for resources, so to mitigate this, private civilian use was rationed. Without planning, there was no way to ensure that a particular part would arrive at the right factory at the right time to produce a tank or that there would be sufficient food supplies.

In an ecological society, however, planning becomes a process for ensuring democratic control of the economy. Once an economy has a social purpose, it is not possible to operate without a lot more coordination and planning than occurs under capitalism. Without a planned democratic system of production and distribution, there is no way to ensure buen vivir for all people. It is not possible for markets to allocate resources effectively, equitably, and sustainably—from either a social or an environmental viewpoint. Nor is it possible to price goods in an ecologically and socially responsible manner.

Planning for short-term and long-term social needs begins at the community level as has happened in a limited way with the over 30,000 community councils of Venezuela, though they are still subject to overall capitalist economic relations. The system of councils must be intertwined and coordinated with other communities in a regional plan. Regional plans need to be intertwined with multiregional plans that are, eventually, coordinated across the whole world, with attention and sensitivity to local environmental and climatological conditions, natural resource constraints, and cultural desires and differences. For example, we cannot hope to solve global climate change without a coordinated plan that involves the whole of human society.

There may be markets in an ecological society for the purpose of trading materials, as there have been since long before the existence of capitalism. In an economy of substantive equality where basic needs are met, perhaps markets may provide some information to planners, certainly immediately after the demise of capitalism. As Harry Magdoff notes:

It would be necessary first to reorder the social relations within the society, achieve equitable terms between the nations that buy and sell raw materials, start on the road to equality and the abolition of classes, and provide plenty of latitude for the creation and use of a healthy surplus for nonmarket activities. Then, perhaps, the resultant price schedules might assist in guiding the economy.7

The point is not whether there are markets, or even whether money or some money equivalent is used. What is important is that relations among humans will be non-exploitative, people will be valued equally, and market relations will not control decisions about what basic needs are required for everyone and how to produce and distribute for those needs. In the event that an item is scarce, temporary rationing will ensure that everyone has a fair share.⁸

Once socially determined material and nonmaterial human needs are equally met across the world, the economy will stop growing. An ecological society has no built-in need for growth. Instead it will evolve in new ways as we come to a better understanding of how to function in concert with natural processes and laws. Capitalism is compelled toward exponential growth because of its drive to obtain increased profits without end in a competitive system. Even if populations decrease, as they currently are in Japan and most of Europe, the GDP of a capitalist economy must continually increase or the country is in economic crisis. However, there is no such problem in an economy based on satisfying human needs instead of profits.

Research and development will have goals that are compatible with an ecological society and will involve many more human minds than are currently brought to bear. Citizen-scientists will work with those who have more formal training. Some of the results will help us better manage our interactions with resources, while other findings will expand our knowledge in ways that might not have practical implications. Rather than an end to innovation in science, it will be a new beginning of far more creative innovation.

Production Aims

In chapter 10 we presented a variety of concepts about ecological approaches to production. Energy would come from renewable sources and, whenever possible, used near where it is produced. Because much of the world lives in energy poverty, reductions in energy use in one region, or by the previously more affluent within one country, will be offset by increases in consumption elsewhere in order to bring everyone up to an equivalent level of comfort.

Also discussed were approaches to food production based on ecological principles, with greater integration of animal and crop farming. Ecologically sound and productive agriculture will be an essential facet of the economy. This may mean smaller farms with more people working on them, rather than the labor-efficient factory-size operations currently promoted by the capitalist agribusiness. These farmers should be able to produce high yields per acre but will have lower output per hour of labor.

Naturally, ways will be explored to lessen the burden of onerous jobs and redesign them using technology. However, the drive to replace labor with machines—integral to an economic system driven by the profit motive—will not play the same role. New machines will be invented, but their purpose will be to make working more enjoyable, to mitigate the time and human labor required for production, and to minimize the ecological impact of production.

Production will not be designed to foster even more production. There will be no more need for capitalism’s built-in obsolescence and drive for profits. Houses and goods will be built and designed to serve their purposes as effectively as possible, incorporating entirely new forms of artistry. The new society will need many more architects, artists, designers, and engineers drawn from a wide range of technical and artistic backgrounds. Aesthetically, culturally, and ecologically pleasing buildings of a wide variety of designs will no longer be the exception, but the norm.

Methods and aims of industrial production and building construction will be such that goods and buildings will have a long life and be easily repaired, repurposed, and recycled.9 Wherever practical, leftover materials from production of one item will become inputs for another. Regular maintenance of manufactured items and buildings will drastically reduce the need to build replacements. When improvements are made or when products reach the end of their lifetime, people will be able to return items to distribution centers for replacement.

Nonrenewable resources will be used sparingly and recycled efficiently, and renewable replacements will be sought out and developed. Buildings will be as energy-efficient as possible. In general, all forms of production will aim for neutral or positive side effects for society as energy, resource use, labor time, and waste are minimized.

Location of Production

The more a community, town, city, or region can rely on its own or nearby resources, the better it is able to avoid potential problems with providing its inhabitants with the basics of life, and the better it can withstand problems that do arise. To the extent that it makes ecological and social sense, each community and region will strive for self-sufficiency of basic needs by relying on locally available resources for water, energy, food, housing, and healthcare.

An absolute requirement of local and regional self-sufficiency makes little sense for many reasons: after all, ecosystems with little human disturbance frequently rely on resources from outside the local area. Even if it were possible to do so, complete self-sufficiency would work against the benefits of a globally integrated and cooperative human society able to apply the full range of resources to provide for everyone’s needs equally.

Most durable goods, such as railcars, refrigerators, or computers, will be produce in relatively few locations, but will require resources and/or components from across large distances, requiring extensive cooperation and coordination. And though local and regional farmers will produced some staple foods, others such as tropical fruits will need to be grown where the appropriate climate, soils, and topography exist.

It makes environmental and common sense to produce certain goods and have certain services only in selected locations—not in every town or city. Small communities will rely on health clinics, but large, fully staffed hospitals ready to deal with a wide range of medical issues should be within reasonable distance and available to everyone.

The approach of stressing local production of basic goods and services based on the utilization of local resources, when it makes social and ecological sense to do so, helps to create resilient communities. It also minimizes the use of energy in transportation and provides for a more direct and simpler path to reach the public. For some locations, decentralized power supply, sewage systems to recycle nutrients, and water provision will make a region more resilient, use fewer resources, and be more sustainable. On the other hand, in some locations it will make more sense to move electricity longer distances through a grid from a solar farm located in a desert region and have cities connected up to more centralized water and sewage treatment systems. Details of appropriate locations for the production of goods and provision of services will need to be worked out in practice rather than according to a preexisting plan.

Given the diverse climate conditions and geographic areas that humans inhabit, as well as what resources are available in particular locations, the degree of self-sufficiency will differ greatly from region to region. We are not advocating that certain regions of the planet be abandoned because they require more outside resources than other regions, rather, we propose that the needs of different areas can be taken care of locally and by interaction and solidarity with the rest of society.

Some excess capacity for production at different geographic locations is important for resilience. People with similar skills are needed in any community; so is redundancy in critical production facilities for coping with unforeseen events. Should there be an extreme weather event causing local or regional disruption, the resources of the entire society will be mobilized to minimize harm and disturbance to people’s lives and repair the damage in the shortest possible time. This will be a radical departure from our current system. Human society will be much more globally and locally interconnected, promoting a new social and ecological resiliency.

Worker and Community Control of Workplaces and Resources

The local population—those who work and run the factories, shops of varying kinds, mines, fisheries, and farms—know their workplaces better than anyone. They also know that the decisions they make regarding their interactions with resources in the production process will have direct consequences for themselves, the environment, their communities, children, and future generations. They are in the best position to regulate metabolic relations with the rest of the natural world in and around their particular location.

Production controlled by workers and carried out for the purpose of satisfying basic needs of the population, instead of production of commodities for sale to make profits, implies enormous changes. With people having a totally different concept of what is important—the goal of buen vivir being to live a full life and develop one’s interests and potentials—a totally different conception of wealth and value will develop, creating new ways of relating to one another and the productive process.

A huge portion of the population currently work in jobs in the wealthy countries of the North that would not be needed in an ecologically-minded society.10 This will create the possibility for people to pursue jobs that are of social value such as teaching and health care and for everyone to work shorter hours, unless labor was needed to produce products for people in other regions of the region or world.

Communities will cooperatively manage resources such as nearby forests and fisheries to restore and perpetuate them for future generations. Conservation of and care for resources will become part of a society-wide land and water ethic. A completely different relationship with resources occurs when exploitation of coastal fisheries by industrial-scale trawlers is replaced with stewardship of nearby coastal fisheries managed by members of a fishing cooperative that works with the health of the environment, their children, and grandchildren in mind.

To continue with the example of how cooperatively managed fisheries will function, the exact size of any given fishing vessel or cooperative is not the dominant consideration. The critical factor is social control and management according to the long-term objectives of society while providing people with fish. Members of the cooperative will decide what methods are used to catch enough fish to satisfy needs without compromising future fish stocks. The best local knowledge combined with the most complete scientific knowledge will determine strategies for fishing that accomplishes the goal of feeding people without undermining long-term sustainability.

If fish stocks need temporary replenishing, fishing communities will not be left to fend for themselves and endure unemployment, as they would be today. Assistance and alternative employment and retraining will be available. Society will collectively take care of all social and ecological needs so as to satisfy the goals of social equity and renewable resource longevity.

Workers Rotate Responsibilities

Rotation of jobs and responsibilities within workplaces is as important as the community, regional, and multiregional rotation of leadership. One already existing example of this is the Las Lajitas agricultural cooperative in Monte Verde, Venezuela, which was begun in the 1980s with the help of two liberation theology priests. It is one of the oldest cooperatives in the country and has been a prototype for Venezuela’s cooperative movement. Omar Garcia, one of the eighty-three members of Las Lajitas, describes how the co-op operates, providing a glimpse of what is possible without bosses. Jobs are handled on a rotational basis, agreed to by common consent. This extends to jobs that people don’t want to do as well. As Omar Garcia explains:

Right now we have a fixed time, which is two months, in which each member takes on the accounting and administrative pieces. We have had some difficulty with people who don’t like doing the administrative piece and they say “I can’t do it, I am not going to take on this responsibility,” but I think that each member has to take on this responsibility so that there is transparency so that we are equals.11

Garcia indicates that much has been learned from failings that commonly occur in cooperatives:

The problem with many cooperatives and organizations is when they leave the economic aspect to two or three people, when they leave the economic management up to the president, the secretary and the treasurer; this is what often causes problems. So we are breaking this scheme, so that there is transparency and also so that we are learning as cooperative members, as farmers and as producers.¹²

Because people will obtain fulfillment through their work, there will be no need for bosses or managers, whose primary role under capitalism is to ensure that workers keep working as fast and as efficiently as possible. Production will be collectively self-managed and carried out in a planned manner for socially useful purposes for everyone’s benefit. People will decide how to run their workplaces and determine their conditions and hours of work.

There will be no more mind-numbing, repetitive, pointless work such as that which exists for most people under capitalism. Work will be creative and self-organized by the workers, taking on properties more akin to art. Under capitalism, many people are required to work excessive hours to meet financial needs while others are denied full-time work so that businesses can avoid paying benefits and force workers to compete for low-paying jobs. In an ecological society, no one will be locked into a job for their entire productive life, but will instead be free to experiment with different types of work and get retrained and educated in several different occupations. Indeed, freedom to experiment and personally grow is an innate goal.

Community, Regional, and Inter-Regional Relations

Nation-states and national borders will disappear, to be replaced by regional associations that ignore national borders. Without national antagonisms or the need to think about the geopolitical balance of power, sharing of water, energy, and food across what are now national boundaries will be a normal—not to mention rational—practice, and one of the defining characteristics of the new society.

Each region has climate, water resources, soil, and cultural and historical skills and interests appropriate for particular sets of food types and production. Similarly, metals and minerals are found only at recoverable concentrations in specific geographic locations. So a substantial amount of movement of materials—more a sharing of resources, as opposed to “trade” in the capitalist sense—will continue.

The import and export of goods will no longer be based on the profit-and-loss columns of capitalist accounting and the financial gyrations of stock markets and private and institutional investors. Goods will not be preferentially produced wherever labor is cheapest and environmental regulations the most lax. Production and processing will not be situated next to the poorest communities, those least able to resist corporate malfeasance and racism. Interactions between and among communities and regions will be based on principles of reciprocity, solidarity, and mutual assistance.

CHANGING ETHICS AND BEHAVIOR PATTERNS

A socially equitable ecological-based society requires a value system that emphasizes compassion, cooperation, reciprocity and sharing, an appreciation of nature in all its complexity and beauty, and egalitarianism. This means actively working to create new ethics that govern our relationships to the land, our fellow human beings, our communities, and other species with which we share the planet. That is why it is critically important to develop responsible members of society through both education and active participation in the democratic decision-making process.

New ethics and behavior patterns will be forged during the struggle to create a new society out of the remnants of the old. The revolutionary process needs to include modeling of relationships and behavior that reflect the type of society we wish to bring into existence. Therefore it is important to ensure an absolute commitment to equality regardless of gender, race, or other social identifiers and to heed the voices of all participants.

Organizations today striving for system change need to begin modeling the reciprocity, cooperation, and selflessness that will be prominent human characteristics in an ecological society. One example of such an effort is the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil (the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra, MST). The MST has organized occupations that have resulted in settling 300,000 families on their own farms. In their education initiatives and land occupations MST leaders attempt to bring out and reinforce cooperative, nonsexist, and nonracist behavior. Many living in MST settlements have started to reframe their future in terms of “we” and “our,” instead of “I” and “mine.” In the Kurdish regions of Turkey, political organizing has gone to great lengths to transform a oppressive patriarchal culture to one of meaningful equality inside the home and in society. As Meral Dais Bestas, a female member of Parliament, explains: “I can’t say everything is equal inside the home now…. But women are now comfortable saying [to men], ‘If I’m in the kitchen, you should be in the kitchen too.’” And Plein Uces, an international relations student, explains how things have changed at home: “… my father consults me about everything now…. We discuss politics, I can openly confront him and now my family wants us to be more powerful. They tell me, ‘Get a driver’s license so you can stand on your own.’” The Zapatista movement of southern Mexico has also worked to build equality of women into their society as an important part of an overall transformation.13

Unless people are engaged in the struggle—unless they themselves have gone through the process of creating change through collective and individual acts of solidarity, reciprocity, and cooperation—they will not internalize democratic, egalitarian, and ecological values or be convinced of their necessity. New ethics and behavior patterns cannot simply be enacted by decree. Even after a new society has formed, new ethical attitudes will have to be actively reinforced—especially those needed to overcome long-standing discrimination, whether based on previous caste or class affiliation, race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. As Prabhat Patnaik observed about the caste system in India:

We must not fall victims to the illusion that economic factors alone can overcome caste prejudice, caste consciousness and caste oppression. To believe this is tantamount to re-creating the earlier illusion that capitalism would automatically overcome the old caste-based social structure. There has to be a conscious and direct assault on the inherited structure of social inequality which calls for a socio-cultural revolution.¹⁴

The social mores and culture of the general population in a society based on equality will not allow racism, sexism, or other forms of oppression. Ultimately, as people come to grow up and live in a world without class inequality and oppression, treating segments of the population differently based on their gender, race, sexuality, different physical or mental abilities or other attributes will not even make sense; and laws against oppression will become superfluous. Prior to that, an entirely new legal system will need to be democratically enacted. The current police forces and courts will be dismantled, because the existing system is predicated on class rule, racism, and the protection and sanctity of private property, which will no longer exist.

There will be no more prisons! Needless to say, most crime that is punished under capitalism is related to poverty and against private property or driven by the social and psychological pressures created by this social system. This will no longer be relevant in the new society.

The goal in dealing with whatever antisocial or destructive behavior still exists will be to reintegrate the offender into the community as a fully functioning individual. In place of a complex, expensive, and punitive criminal justice system, a system of restorative justice will be organized to include accountability and making amends, education and counseling, and bringing together the offender and victim with other members of the community for reconciliation.15

NEW PATTERNS OF LIVING, WORK, AND LEISURE

Over time, cities will evolve to be more internally cohesive and more interconnected to agricultural areas and other cities via reliable public transportation systems. Cities will be designed to facilitate the meaningful participation of their inhabitants. New cities will be built as a series of connected neighborhoods, with people living near where they work and having easy access to educational and other facilities. In addition to housing, workplaces, and distribution facilities, there will be sufficient space for cultural and recreational centers and significant green spaces.

Rural communities will become more culturally vibrant and active. There will be a greater investment in their infrastructure. All communities will be socially and economically much more diverse. If cars are still necessary in more rural or remote areas and for some specialized purposes, they will be communally owned and shared.

All people who can work will have a role in the economy. Writing about the meaning of work, Harry Magdoff dispelled the common belief that “people will work only if driven by an economic motive.” He observed:

This notion is refuted by many of the [non-capitalist] societies we know about, where non-economic work incentives predominate: social responsibility, tradition, desire for prestige, and pleasure in craftsmanship. Given the record of past changes in people’s attitudes to the community and to their work, it is reasonable to assume that human nature will adapt, and adapt with enthusiasm, to a social order based on cooperation, elimination of a rigid division of labor, and the opportunity for a fuller development of the individual.16

Labor will always be needed to provide for human needs. When people live in hunter-gatherer communities, this is just a normal part of one’s existence as it is for all other animals. Labor will certainly be needed in a future ecological society. However, necessary work can be more interesting and engaging, encouraging people to think of themselves as multi-talented, conceiving and executing tasks rather than performing as little more than cogs in an economy, doing dull and repetitive tasks.

Overcoming the Urban-Rural Divide

An important societal goal will be to overcome the urban-rural split that is symptomatic of capitalism. Although cities will be made healthier and more pleasant places and there is much that can be accomplished with urban agriculture, it is important to maintain a significant rural population. More farmers will be needed to work the land using ecologically sound practices.

Rural dwellers will have the same opportunities available to those in cities to live a buen vivir. Although farming may remain the primary occupation, other jobs will exist as all communities will be socially and economically much more diverse. There will be new technical and material support for small farms and small-scale light industry—as well as greatly improved housing, clean water, sanitation facilities, access to health care, and educational, recreational, and cultural opportunities.

ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION AND REGENERATION

Cleaning up the toxic messes bequeathed to society by capitalism through the virtually untrammeled production of toxins and their release into the air, water, and soil will be a major long-term project of humanity. It will require the highest levels of global cooperation and coordination of best practices, utilizing our knowledge of bioremediation and other technologies.

The magnitude of the problem can seem overwhelming. Toxic waste sites around the world will require decontamination and remediation. For example, there are an estimated 30,000 abandoned mines on government property in the United States.17 Cleaning up all the polluted soils in China will cost an estimated $1 trillion.¹⁸ Dealing with the tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors and weapons, and rendering harmless the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, will likewise require enormous resources and a long-term, coordinated plan.

The procedures chosen for decontamination and remediation should be those least likely to have negative side effects. A variety of phytoremediation techniques will have to be employed; for instance, planting cover crops that absorb heavy metals or increase soil organic matter, adding organic materials such as composts to stimulate biological activity in soil to break down industrial organic chemicals and so on. Land recently deforested for farming will be evaluated for reforestation to help absorb the excess carbon dioxide put into the air by two hundred years of burning coal, oil, and gas. Other remediation programs will include reforestation of fragile hillsides, stabilization of sand dunes and erosive soils with appropriate vegetation, rewilding of certain zones by reintroduction of animal and plant species native to the region, repair of the damage done to riparian zones so as to allow rivers to flow more freely, and relocation of homes and other such structures out of flood zones.

PRIORITY FOR THE NOBODIES

Even with everyone on the planet contributing, it will be a long process to overcome the toxic contaminants bequeathed to us by capitalism: to the soil, water, and atmosphere, to living creatures, as well as to the cycles of nature.

It will also take a long time to undo capitalism’s social and psychological damage to humanity and create a society that heals the history of systemic exploitation, want, and oppression, and encourages all people to reach their full human potential. A first priority of such a healing society will be to ease the burden on the lives of the poor, the oppressed, the discarded—those whom Franz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth,” and Eduardo Galeano called “nobodies.” The speed and extent to which the new economic and social system improves the lives of those who exist on the fringe of a society that has no need for them—whether in urban slums or rural hovels—will be a critical indicator of the new society’s direction and success.19

The principles, characteristics, and procedures sketched here offer a glimpse of another society—one that prioritizes equally the needs of all people and the requirements for maintaining a healthy biosphere. The difference between our present-day world and this new ecological society will be enormous. But the question remains: how do we get there from here? In chapter 12, we explore how to make the transition to an ecologically healthy and socially just society.