Jon Goodbun: On the Possibility of an Ecological Dialogue (original) (raw)

The critical intersection of environmental and social justice: a commentary

Globalization and Health, 2021

The global crises of ecological degradation and social injustice are mutually reinforcing products of the same flawed systems. Dominant human culture is morally obliged to challenge and reconstruct these systems in order to mitigate future planetary harm. In this commentary, we argue that doing so requires a critical examination of the values and narratives which underlie systems of oppression and power. We argue for the moral necessity of a socially just approach to the ecological crisis.

Meeting Human Need Under Ecological Constraints: Justice As A Radical Challenge

British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2019

Reflecting on Henry Shue's seminal discussion of subsistence vs luxury emissions, this paper argues that pursuing his idea successfully may require more radical change than he discusses. Shue is acutely aware that economic forces in the world are not, on the whole, pushing in the right direction regarding climate change, and yet he does find some reasons to be hopeful. In particular, he notes: 'the prices of renewable energy have declined far more rapidly than anyone expected … and the alternative technologies are growing significantly in sophistication while dropping in price.' This sounds like good news, and something potentially to build on as an exit strategy from climate disaster. Unfortunately, I suggest, we may need to be cautious even about this apparent good news.

The Coming Ecological Revolution: The Principles and Politics of a Social and Moral Ecology

2011

THE COMING ECOLOGICAL REVOLUTION This book has now been published and is available for purchase. Abstract Part 1 The Emerging Ecological Consciousness This part connects the contemporary environmental crisis with the wider societal crisis. The environmental crisis is considered to be the product of a wider system failure. The perspective taken is that one civilisation is in the process of decay and another in the process of emerging. A fundamental critical self-examination of ourselves and our communities of struggle is necessary to locate and situate the choices, possibilities and strategies with respect to the circumscribed options within the system and the feasible alternatives to that system. This part examines the nature of the environmental crisis, paying particular attention to climate change and global poverty and inequality. Social and environmental justice are shown to be mutually supportive, the low-carbon economy which is a condition of the survival of civilised life also being socially just, egalitarian and democratic. The emergence of an ecological consciousness is shown to be part of the process of revolutionizing society, restructuring power, changing culture and emphasising the quality of individual lives over the quantity of material accumulation and possession. Part 2 The Coming Revolution in Economic Thought The environmental crisis is related to the crisis in economic thought and practice. The crisis in vision in economics is related to the economic system in general. This part exposes economics to be an ideology in the critical sense, that is, as not knowledge as such but a distorted knowledge concerning appearances which serves to conceal contradictions, material interests and power relations to the benefit of the dominant class. Conventional economics treats ‘the economy’ as an abstraction which functions independently of the political, social, moral and ecological context. This part restores economics to its true status as a means. Part of dealing with the future orientated problem of ecology involves examining in what direction economic thought must go in order to once more become relevant to human beings. The ecological problem is related to the globalisation of economic relations and the ‘free market’ economy. A distinction is made between price and value to reassert use value embedded in communities to the exchange value pursued on the market. The question of morality within market societies is addressed in terms of the need to secure the building blocks of a viable civilisation. The view is taken that the individual of Anglo-American liberalism an abstraction of market relations, a fictional person who exists only in the figure of homo economicus. Real individuals are shown to exist and flourish within a social matrix of reciprocal relations and trust. Part 3 Society as a Learning Mechanism Notions of knowledge and social transformation need to be reworked to take account of genuine change as a process rather than as event. It is a process because the new society only functions and flourishes if the individuals constituting it have developed their moral, political, intellectual and organisational capacities. In this sense, a social and ecological praxis is a form of capacity building which develops the know-how required to constitute the new social order. The argument draws upon the emergence of grass roots organisations and community organisations across the world and seeks to value the contributions that social movements can make not only to social provision but to urban governance. This part is organised around concerns for community, communication and the common good. Part 4 Political Philosophy and Ethics This part examines the emancipatory potentialities of reason and freedom to constitute the good life for human beings. The argument considers politics as creative human self-realisation to possess an ineliminable normative dimension concerning the appropriate regiment for the good. Green political theory is analysed in the context of a philosophical concept of ‘rational freedom’ drawn from the work of Aristotle, Plato, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel. Part 5 Ecological Praxis This part goes from principles to practice to examine how the emerging ecological consciousness can be embedded in social practices and institutions. This is a question not only of how the ecological society can be created, but governed and made to work. This part looks at critical political issues and constructive models, identifies key tasks in organising for political change. Particular attention is paid to the political boundaries of change and the changing boundaries of politics. Part 6 Environmentalism as Politics This part argues that realising the potential for a new ecological modus vivendi requires a new set of political practices and institutions. These practices and institutions affirm the co-construction of nature and culture through the practical reappropriation of the human powers alienated to the state and capital and the common control and comprehension of these powers as social powers. This creates the foundation for a renewal of public agency within public life and for popular identification with environmental and related public policies. This part pays particular attention to the notion of community self-regulation. To keep the above and the below in an interactive, organic fusion means going back to the grassroots and tapping into the social and human and natural roots that feed a genuinely Green politics. This requires that Greens start organising, campaigning and talking face to face, door to door, street to street, building a Green social identity neighbourhood by neighbourhood, community by community. A functioning social order requires extensive public spaces for social learning and cognitive praxis. A public life worthy of the name creates opportunities for citizen discourse and interaction, a civic solidarity in which citizens share social knowledge, discussing freely and critically the issues of common concern, the problems that confront all individuals collectively within communities and societies. Effective political engagement on the part of new and environmental movements is also an involvement in a public life on the part of individuals who have an "ecological consciousness". To nurture this ecological sensibility so that it contributes to cultural transformation requires a number of supportive conditions and social innovations generated by ecological praxis.

Environmental justice, degrowth and post-capitalist futures

Struggles for Environmental Justice, more widespread in the global South, are often framed as traditional societies defending “old ways of life”; while degrowth, a relatively new movement in the global North is seen as striving for a “new ways of life.” I argue that both assert or aspire for other ways of being and belonging to the world and open possibilities for post-capitalist futures. In this Commentary, I focus on ontological continuities between the two movements and the grounds for alliance building. I argue that EJ and degrowth movements need to not only learn from each other, but think with the actual practices on the ground and the epistemologies of the South to foster pluriversal world-making practices. Moreover, dialogues and alliance between the two movements can help to reconceptualize work and care in a post-production, post-growth world.

Capitalism Versus Democracy? Rethinking Politics in the Age of Environmental Crisis

Capitalism Versus Democracy? Rethinking Politics in the Age of Environmental Crisis, 2020

For over 150 years, political strategies and policies have been formed according to whether parties and movements believed that capitalism is either compatible or incompatible with democracy. This book challenges both supporters and opponents of the ‘compatibility’ thesis and calls for a rethink of politics in the age of environmental crisis. It is divided into three parts. Part One critically questions the dominant narratives and assumptions held by many of the broad Left about the origins, causes and alternatives to our present condition. Part Two focuses on how prominent neo-Keynesians and Marxists have explained the crises of the past decade and why they are still operating with essentially pre-environmentalist conceptions of the conflict between ‘capitalism and democracy’. Part Three offers one of the first detailed discussions of what kind of organisational, political economic and cultural issues that advocates of alternative post-carbon or post-capitalist societies will need to confront. In a penetrating critique of how the tensions between ‘democracy and sustainability’ have impacted the old debates over capitalism versus democracy, the author examines proposals and images of the ‘good life’ put forward by social democrats, greens, radical technological utopians, green growth ecological modernisers and degrowthers. Are the broadly held goals of greater social justice, ending poverty and inequality within and between affluent countries and low and middle-income societies possible without transgressing the fragile and damaged biophysical life support boundaries of the earth? Why is it that many who dispute the compatibility or incompatibility of ‘capitalism and democracy’ are yet to fully consider what policies, organisational forms and social changes flow from populations that favour democracy but oppose policies committed to greater environmental sustainability? These and many other issues are discussed in this unsettling new book which aims to stimulate us to rethink how we see our existing societies and future social, economic and political change.