Leninism without the working class? The missing subject in Malm's ecological revolution

http://systemchangenotclimatechange.org/article/leninism-without-working-class-missing-subject-malm%E2%80%99s-ecological-revolution
Date Written:  2020-10-30
Publisher:  System Change not Climate Change
Year Published:  2020
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX24321

Although scientists have been publishing on the viral consequences of deforestation for decades, Andreas Malm’s Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency is the first publicly accessible book that connects pandemics, climate change, and capitalism.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Malm goes through the historical examples of child labor, the endless workday, and plantation slavery. These were terminated by decree, not the willing change in patterns of consumption or business behavior. Back in the nineteenth century, these practices were questionable, but not consensually evil practices that deserved abolition. The consensual perception that they are evil followed from state enforcement. Slavery wouldn’t have been declared a universal evil without the American Civil War. War communism, Malm emphasizes, is the only way to save the planet, and it will create more adherents as it becomes entrenched, just like abolition did.

Malm’s arguments against mainstream and localist environmentalism are important. But at the same time, he neglects the consent component of the necessary force. The American bourgeoisie had to build the Republican coalition before it could wage the Civil War. Bolsheviks had to win over the councils before war communism. Today, without the organization of the proletariat (or its equivalent) plus its winning over of many allies, people would experience Malm’s policies as the “rule of experts,” not as a revolution. The Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns, as necessary as they might be, are exactly that: the rule of experts. If the force Malm calls for is not based on consent, we will inevitably be launching ourselves on a downward spiral into bureaucratic dictatorship. Let’s now clarify the “we” I am using here: the intellectuals and activists discussing these issues – that is, similar forces to those who in previous historical instances dragged their societies into dangerous dead-ends.

Subject Headings

• Working Class