Another Deal

 “A People’s Green New Deal,” by Max Aji, 2021

This book deals with various versions of the “Green New Deal” from a left perspective.  How left seems to be the question.  It rejects a Pol Pot-like barracks’ socialist response or an anti-industrial Deep Ecology response.  It attempts to analyze the various GND proposals put out by capitalist think tanks, the main Social Democratic plan introduced by AOC/Markey, and short mentions of others’ plans – Sanders, Chomsky, etc.  Aji proposes his own ‘eco-socialist’ version - a Peoples’ Green New Deal, whose main focus, in a table-pounding and repetitive way, is on technology transfers and restitution for the global ‘South’ and secondarily, on a new/old paradigm for agriculture – agro-ecologic, small-holder agriculture. 

In the process Aji paints a picture of an Edenic eco-socialism that is very much a modern version of utopian socialist William Morris’ “News From Nowhere.” (Reviewed below)  It also pictures the transition to eco-socialism somewhat like Social-Democracy on steroids – rejecting DSA electoralism and Naomi Klein’s ‘movementism’ in favor of … good ideas and good plans?  In other words, how do we get there from here?

Aji challenges the capitalist versions of the GND, as all the talk about ‘carbon neutral’, carbon capture, carbon trading, carbon offsets, net zero, zero emissions, carbon taxes, etc. actually have a prerequisite of maintaining capital.  This means swapping out carbon sources for wood, biomass, nuclear, wind, solar and hydroelectric power.  This can mainly be seen in the present massive move to electric cars and trucks.  The bourgeois assumption is that ‘growth’ and commodity consumption will stay the same due to new technology – this is the real goal of green capitalism.  What the techno-optimists do not note is that there are not enough minerals - lithium, cobalt, tantalum, etc. -  to replace all vehicles, homes, ships, planes, scooters with electric batteries and storage units, even with asteroid mining.  Aji understands that the proletariat and small farmers actually have to ‘degrowth’ society, providing all the necessary basics but not the frills.  This is rare among socialists.  Green capitalism will actually wreck the world while claiming otherwise. 

Aji’s analysis of the AOC/Markey GND is more brief than it has to be.  He does highlight how their GND addresses nationalist military and ‘security’ issues.  This is something the Pentagon is also dealing with, as imperial rule is not stupid.  The simple domestic impression of their GND is as a ‘green jobs bill’ – while leaving everything but the carbon sector in place in the U.S.  This clash with the carbon sector is actually one of the main economic sources of the faction fight between the capitalists in the Republican Party and those in the Democratic one.  

CENTER/PERIPHERY

Aji’s basic reference is Samir Amin’s ‘center-periphery’ analysis that Amin proposed almost 50 years ago.  He also uses ‘3rd World’ and ‘North-South’ as terms.  The problem is that since Amin proffered this view, world-wide capitalism has somewhat changed.  The G20 is one of the most powerful institutions in the capitalist world and it doesn’t just include the imperial center countries that are English-speaking, in the EU or Japan - it also includes the BRICs, (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia and South Korea.  China especially is no longer a ‘periphery’ – nor are these smaller economies completely peripheral.  Saudi Arabia controls the world oil price; South Korea is a fully-developed manufacturing center; India has become one of the largest economies in the world; Turkey has imported products and built buildings from the core, and is now dealing with inflation and debt. The development of more sophisticated capitalist sectors and a larger middle class go hand-in-hand with these developments in each nation.  Only this year did the G20 finally address climate change.  Aji’s basic framework, while still true as to the strongest imperialists, is a relic of the past.  The ‘center’ has recruited allies in the global 'South.'   

AGRO-ECOLOGY

Aji makes a case for a planned agro-ecologic agriculture, based on small farmers, pastoralists and secondarily, on cooperatives.  No mention of the word ‘commune’ or of socialized or nationalized land is made.  He praises Cuba as a leading practitioner, although my guess is most land is still owned by the state in Cuba.  He does call for breaking up big farms and ranches, as well as urban farming and local sources of food instead of an export model.  

Oddly, he makes weird claims about some “mandatory global veganism” and conflates vegetarianism with ‘lab-grown meat’ and other straw men.  This while admitting that those in the 'core' will probably have to eat less meat.  In a way, veganism and vegetarianism are part of a 'degrowth' pattern.  Aji soft-peddles the carbon impact of present animal agriculture and even methane, making false claims or trying to ignore it.  He does oppose industrial feedlot operations, where the vast majority of U.S. meat comes from.  Feedlots have also spread overseas.  He doesn't mention the amount of corn and soybeans in the U.S. grown for animal feed instead of directly for humans, nor the carbon efficiency of that kind of ag.

Missing from Aji's food analysis is any mention of industrial fishing or the oceans - which are undergoing the same damage that the land is suffering from.  The oceans are also a source of storing carbon even greater than trees. 

While generally correct in a focus on agro-ecology and smaller farms, Aji seems to want a massive revival of the family farm or ranch, i.e. a petit-bourgeois economic form.  Agro-ecology will revitalize land ruined by carbon-based corporate agriculture.  His sections on agro-ecology, permaculture and agro-forestry are extensive and enjoyable.  Organic and agro-ecologic farming will certainly return people to the rural areas, repopulating areas emptied by large capitalist meat, dairy, monocrop and biofuel operations or evicted by capitalist oligopoly.  He does not mention the fact that many large farms in the U.S. are now staffed by rural proletarians.  In fact the numbers are almost equal between farmworkers and farmers.  He is adamantly against all biofuels, as they remove land from food production and lead to deforestation.  But he never mentions hemp, which absorbs more carbon than almost any other crop, while not needing as much water as sugarcane or corn, and can be grown in the most infertile areas – even arid and non-arid cow pastures. It would be an excellent source of bio-fuels for those old motors that still exist, along with many other products.

Not Green Enough

Aji’s last chapter is on the need for some kind of restitution to be paid to poorer nations, whose carbon footprint is light, yet are taking on some of the heaviest consequences of global warming and climate change.  He hopes that, like the jump from hard-wired telephone lines to cell phones, perhaps the poorer parts of the world can leapfrog over oil-based transport, power and heating.  This is also called ‘global climate justice’ – which even the Biden administration has adopted but not followed.  

Aji sees this is all based on the 'national question' for 'periphery' countries with 3 aspects: - 1, climate debt; 2, demilitarization; 3, regaining sovereignty from imperialism.  Technology transfers and government grants are his main methods to deal with the first point. In Aji’s analysis, instead of a social revolution, he seems to think the national state system will remain the same, that the rich countries will give technical and monetary aid to the poorest, that the solution is a global version of social work.  Or that nearly all nations will all pull together, one and all, against imperialism and the vestiges of colonialism.  

The 'national question' has greatly changed since its heyday in the 1960s-1970s, as most countries are now split up by classes and dominated by capitalist groupings, which complicates his simple picture. Above them is a transnational capitalist class, with 147 key transnational corporations, aided by computer technology and transnational state organizations.  These now control the overwhelming majority of finance and production supply chains across the world - something that was only beginning to come into existence in 1973.  The 'national question' has become a different beast all together.      

The biggest gap in this book is the absence of a method to implement this transitional demand - a “People’s” Green New Deal.  After all, the New Deal was Roosevelt’s idea.  Aji seems to have no method.  Certainly the tiny socialist groups in the U.S., or the DSA, or the larger and established Labour/SD/CP groups in Europe do not have the power to do this either right now.  Another problem is how will somewhat left-led countries like Peru and Bolivia that pay attention to the environment break with the imperial system – as they saw what happened to Cuba, Chile and Venezuela?  No one wants to have their economy ‘scream’ and this has limited national defiance.  It is going to take more than rhapsodizing over artisanal manufacture or the periphery to overcome the international capitalist system.  

At any rate, a useful book and you will learn something from it, especially if you are unfamiliar with agro-ecology and how capitalist industrial agriculture needs to be replaced.  (Aji is a post-doctoral fellow in the Netherlands who works on dependency theory, food and agriculture issues and de-colonialization.)

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14 year archive:  “News From Nowhere," "Giants - the Global Power Elite," "Fully Automated Luxury Communism," "Foodies' Guide to Capitalism," "Dead Epidemiologists," "A Redder Shade of Green," "What is the Matter With the Rural U.S.?" "Civilization Critical," "Seaspiracy," "Planet of the Humans," "Climate Emergency" or "John Bellamy Foster" or "Samir Amin."

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

August 8, 2021