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Title: The Destruction of Nature Author: Anton Pannekoek Date: 10 July 1909 Language: en Topics: libertarian socialism, green, social ecology, council communism, workers' councils, Marxist Source: https://anzacgf.home.blog/2019/07/15/178/
There are numerous complaints in the scientific literature about the
increasing destruction of forests. But it is not only the joy that every
nature-lover feels for forests that should be taken into account. There
are also important material interests, indeed the vital interests of
humanity. With the disappearance of abundant forests, countries known in
Antiquity for their fertility, which were densely populated and famous
as granaries for the great cities, have become stony deserts. Rain
seldom falls there except as devastating diluvian downpours that carry
away the layers of humus which the rain should fertilise. Where the
mountain forests have been destroyed, torrents fed by summer rains cause
enormous masses of stones and sand to roll down, which clog up Alpine
valleys, clearing away forests and devastating villages whose
inhabitants are innocent, “due to the fact that personal interest and
ignorance have destroyed the forest and headwaters in the high valley.”
The authors strongly insist on personal interest and ignorance in their
eloquent description of this miserable situation but they do not look
into its causes. They probably think that emphasising the consequences
is enough to replace ignorance by a better understanding and to undo the
effects. They do not see that this is only a part of the phenomenon, one
of numerous similar effects that capitalism, this mode of production
which is the highest stage of profit-hunting, has on nature.
Why is France a country poor in forests which has to import every year
hundreds of millions of francs worth of wood from abroad and spend much
more to repair through reforestation the disastrous consequences of the
deforestation of the Alps? Under the Ancien Regime there were many state
forests. But the bourgeoisie, who took the helm of the French
Revolution, saw in these only an instrument for private enrichment.
Speculators cleared 3 million hectares to change wood into gold. They
did not think of the future, only of the immediate profit.
For capitalism all natural resources are nothing but gold. The more
quickly it exploits them, the more the flow of gold accelerates. The
private economy results in each individual trying to make the most
profit possible without even thinking for a single moment of the general
interest, that of humanity. As a result, every wild animal having a
monetary value and every wild plant giving rise to profit is immediately
the object of a race to extermination. The elephants of Africa have
almost disappeared, victims of systematic hunting for their ivory. It is
similar for rubber trees, which are the victim of a predatory economy in
which everyone only destroys them without planting new ones. In Siberia,
it has been noted that furred animals are becoming rarer due to
intensive hunting and that the most valuable species could soon
disappear. In Canada, vast virgin forests have been reduced to cinders,
not only by settlers who want to cultivate the soil, but also by
“prospectors” looking for mineral deposits who transform mountain slopes
into bare rock so as to have a better overview of the ground. In New
Guinea, a massacre of birds of paradise was organised to satisfy the
expensive whim of an American woman billionaire. Fashion craziness,
typical of a capitalism wasting surplus value, has already led to the
extermination of rare species; sea birds on the east coast of America
only owe their survival to the strict intervention of the state. Such
examples could be multiplied at will.
But are not plants and animals there to be used by humans for their own
purposes? Here, we completely leave aside the question of the
preservation of nature as it would be without human intervention. We
know that humans are the masters of the Earth and that they completely
transform nature to meet their needs. To live, we are completely
dependent on the forces of nature and on natural resources; we have to
use and consume them. That is not the question here, only the way
capitalism makes use of them.
A rational social order will have to use the available natural resources
in such a way that what is consumed is replaced at the same time, so
that society does not impoverish itself and can become wealthier. A
closed economy which consumes part of its seed corn impoverishes itself
more and more and must inevitably fail. But that is the way capitalism
acts. This is an economy which does not think of the future but lives
only in the immediate present. In today’s economic order, nature does
not serve humanity, but capital. It is not the clothing, food or
cultural needs of humanity that govern production, but capital’s
appetite for profit, for gold.
Natural resources are exploited as if reserves were infinite and
inexhaustible. The harmful consequences of deforestation for agriculture
and the destruction of useful animals and plants expose the finite
character of available reserves and the failure of this type of economy.
Roosevelt recognises this failure when he wants to call an international
conference to review the state of still available natural resources and
to take measures to stop them being wasted.
Of course the plan itself is humbug. The state could do much to stop the
pitiless extermination of rare species. But the capitalist state is in
the end a poor representative of the good of humanity. It must halt in
face of the essential interests of capital.
Capitalism is a headless economy which cannot regulate its acts by an
understanding of their consequences. But its devastating character does
not derive from this fact alone. Over the centuries humans have also
exploited nature in a foolish way, without thinking of the future of
humanity as a whole. But their power was limited. Nature was so vast and
so powerful that with their feeble technical means humans could only
exceptionally damage it. Capitalism, by contrast, has replaced local
needs with world needs, and created modern techniques for exploiting
nature. So it is now a question of enormous masses of matter being
subjected to colossal means of destruction and removed by powerful means
of transportation. Society under capitalism can be compared to a
gigantic unintelligent body; while capitalism develops its power without
limit, it is at the same time senselessly devastating more and more the
environment from which it lives. Only socialism, which can give this
body consciousness and reasoned action, will at the same time replace
the devastation of nature by a rational economy.