Independent Politics and Ecological Socialism:
The Need for Fundamental
Change
1. The Two-Party System of Corporate Rule
We live under a two-party system of corporate rule in the United States
. The corporate elite funds and owns both major parties.
What the corporate elite buys with its ownership of the two-party system
is the so-called “bipartisan consensus.” The bipartisan consensus
in foreign policy means a global US military occupation to protect corporate
investments and access to resources, markets, and cheap labor around
the world. In domestic policy, the bipartisan consensus means policies
that benefit the corporate elite at the expense of working people.
A classic example of how the corporate elite owns both parties was demonstrated
on July 17 when right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch (Fox News, Daily
News, etc.) hosted a fundraiser for 2008 Democratic presidential frontrunner
Hillary Clinton at Fox News headquarters in New York City. Murdoch then
he rushed off to a fundraiser lunch for John McCain, the 2008 Republican
presidential frontrunner, while Clinton rushed off to announce her unqualified
support for Israel's and Bush's war policies at a rally in support of
Israel's military offensive in Lebanon.
While the two corporate parties differ to some degree on some social
policies (abortion, gay rights, guns), they are united on the militaristic
foreign policies and pro-corporate domestic policies of most concern
to the corporate elite.
The two-party system gives us the illusion of choice. Progressives are
too often scared into voting for the Democrats because the Republicans
are even worse on a few social issues. Meanwhile, neither major party
gives us the option of voting against militarism and the domination of
working people by big business.
Progressives Democrats need to ask themselves why their leadership will
not come out against the war in Iraq . Why weren't the Democrats able
to pass the McGovern-Hatfield amendment after Nixon was in office to
end the war in Vietnam ? Nothing has changed in the last 35 years.
Expecting the Democrats to get out of Iraq and challenge the military-industrial
complex is like expecting crack addicts to turn in their dealers. The
Democratic Party is as addicted as the Republican Party to campaign funds
from the corporate elites that want the US military to be a global occupation
force defending their corporate interests. The military contracts that
the Pentagon has strategically placed in every state and congressional
district have created a military-industrial-congressional complex that
under girds a political economy of militarism based on a permanent war
economy.
2. Independent Politics
An effective challenge to militarism and corporate rule can only to
come from an independent political movement. Until the peace movement
declares its independence, its votes will continue to be taken for granted
by the Democrats. The same applies to the labor movement, the environmental
movement, and the justice movements of the people of color, immigrants,
gays, and women. The independence of the people's movements is their
power. Together, they comprise a majority that could replace the corporate
elite with a real democracy. They need a party of their own that is completely
independent of corporate funding and influence.
That is why I am active in the Green Party (see the Green Party's 10
Key Values at http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml ). It is also why I am a
member of the Socialist Party and active in its Syracuse local (see the
Socialist Party's statement of principles at http://sp-usa.org/principles.html).
It is also why I maintain an at-large membership in the Labor Party (see
Labor Party's Call for Economic Justice at http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_progra.html
). I support all efforts to build a broad independent people's party
to break through the two-corporate-party dictatorship, and I support
cooperation between these independent political parties.
3. Ecological Socialism
The problems of injustice, war, and the environment are not going to
be resolved by reforms of the existing social system. The very structure
of capitalism generates social injustice, war, and environmental degradation.
Based on a competitive struggle to survive, businesses must grow bigger
in order to survive the competition. That means they must exploit their
workers as much as they can get away with in order to take in more profits
and reinvest in expansion. That inherent growth dynamic of capitalism
means the capitalist economy grows blindly without any sense of reciprocity
or balance with the ecological systems that sustain it, just like cancer
grows in an organism until it exhausts and kills its host. The competitive
struggle for growth in capitalism also breeds endless wars as capitalist
governments compete with each other on behalf of their own capitalists
for access to resources, markets, and labor.
If we are going to build a society that is ecologically sustainable
and at peace with itself as well as nature, we are going to have to replace
capitalism with a democratic economy that the people own and control
collectively. Traditional democratic socialisms focused on overcoming
the exploitation of workers, the oppression of women and minorities,
and militarism and war. Today, as we face multiple ecological crises
ranging from global warming and mass extinctions to the depletion of
the oil that fuels our economy, we need an ecological socialism that
builds upon the best libertarian and democratic traditions of socialism
to address the ecological crisis.
An ecological socialist economy would democratically plan production
and distribution to use renewable resources on a sustainable yield basis
and to fairly distribute that sustainable production to meet everyone's
basic material needs. It would be a decentralized economy, with a substantial
measure of local and regional self-reliance, in order to make democratic
management transparent and participatory and to integrate and harmonize
production with the unique ecological assets of each bioregion.
An ecological approach to politics links social and ecological problems.
Ecology studies the relationships among organisms and their environment.
Political ecology brings human institutions and ideologies into this
holistic perspective. From that perspective we find historically that
the same institutions and ideas that cause the exploitation and oppression
of humans also cause the degradation and destruction of the environment.
Both are rooted in hierarchical, exploitative, and alienated social systems
that systematically produce human oppression and ecological destruction.
The problem is deeper than capitalism alone. It is rooted in social
hierarchy and domination. The misuse and abuse of people extends into
a domineering regard for nature as well, whether we look at ancient kingdoms
and empires that exploited peasantries, bureaucratic states like the
old Soviet Union or contemporary China , or capitalist states.
That means the fights against racism, sexism, class exploitation, bureaucratic
domination, war, and all other forms of social domination and hierarchy
are central to the movement for an ecologically sustainable society.
In order to harmonize society with nature, we must harmonize human with
human.
Ecological socialism carries forward the traditional values of the Left:
freedom, equality, and solidarity. It seeks to realize the socialist
ideal of a truly democratic society without class exploitation or social
domination. But ecological socialism expands this vision of a classless,
nonhierarchical society that is harmonized with itself to include an
ecological society that is harmonized with nature as well.
We should fight now for every democratic, justice, and environmental
reform that is consistent with the ecological socialist future we seek.
But as we fight for immediate improvements, we must also put forward
the ecological socialist vision and the need for fundamental change to
resolve the problems we face.
Howie Hawkins
Green Party Candidate for US Senate from New York
www.HawkinsForSenate.net |