Ecological Authoritarianism

November 5, 2018 Tim Goodacre Leave a comment

Herman Daly, in his seminal work of environmental economics Steady State Economics (1991), argues that “there must be limits to inequality” and that “social justice is a precondition for ecological balance for all but totalitarian societies” [my italics] (p. 168). Since he wrote these words in 1977, too little has been said about the relationship been social justice and environmentalism. But nearly nothing at all has been said about the how totalitarian (or authoritarian) societies might deal with ecological constraints. Daly himself said nothing more on the matter. It is, therefore, this idea of “ecological authoritarianism” (as I shall call it) that I explore here. I start by asserting the case for environmentalism. I briefly revisit an earlier article in which I argued for “Ecological Social Democracy”. I then present two scenarios in which ecological limits are addressed by authoritarian government, and then examine some challenges to their plausibility. I conclude by assessing the relevance of this discussion to the world today.

I take environmental degradation, climate change, and the human role in promoting these as settled matters. Of course, this is “controversial”. But it is controversial only in the weak sense where one person asserts a claim and another person denies it – this is “pub talk”. It is not controversial in the strong sense where two people who understand the matter and take it seriously disagree: science is clear on the matter, nearly as clear as it is on sunrise and apples falling. The confusion owes largely to vested interests presenting the matter as though it were controversial in the second, strong sense: the current anti-scientific campaigns, coupled with the large-scale lack of general social trust which neoliberalism has bred, ensure that this confusion is maintained.

In addition to environmental degradation being real, I take the matter to be independent on how one feels about it. One need not be a lover of the great outdoors, nor feel any great affinity to nature (for myself, I prefer coffee in Paris) to recognise that non-renewable resources exhausted today, for increasingly frivolous purposes, are unavailable to future generations, that they effectively constitute an intergenerational transfer of possibilities from the future to the present, and might be considered theft; nor that we depend for our continuity on the natural ecosystem within which we live; and that by destroying these we threaten our own existence as well of that of future human generations (intergenerational murder, if you like).

The question then is what to do to address these environmental degradation and ecological limits. Any plausible answer will involve significant changes and sacrifices from all people. Decades of neoliberal rule have massively increased inequality while promoting economic insecurity for most people. This has diminished social trust while promoting more punitive and socially insular attitudes. In short, the neoliberal period has heightened self-centeredness and narrowed our moral horizons. These consequences greatly restrict the political will to address environmental concerns, and have resulted in considerable distrust of attempts to do so. If we are going to gain any traction on dealing with environmental issues we must first address these barriers to progress by promoting economic and social equality (as emphasised by Daly) and by building institutions for equitably sharing and distributing social and economic risks. In a previous article, I argued that we can begin to do this by pursuing what I call “Ecological Social Democracy”. There, I argued that the modern Scandinavian social democratic states provide the best available model for such a foundation (with some small caveats), and that we should use this as a starting point for taking ecological reform seriously – at least if we wish it to be equitable.

Of course, there are other approaches we can take which are not equitable. By looking at ecological authoritarianism – an authoritarian society which uses the state apparatus to remedy environmental issues inequitably – we can get a sense of how these might work. I will examine two cases. In each case, practices that are ecologically unsustainable if pursued by all people are made sustainable for a few by pushing the burden onto another group of people.

In the first case, an authoritarian government uses its power to force some people to live in deprived conditions so that others are not forced to make any sacrifice. Perhaps they are kept like slaves to do menial, dangerous, or unpleasant work with all the rewards (in terms of ecologically impacting lifestyles) going to some other group: the übermenschen live large at the expense of a politically marginalised class, such that the aggregate ecological impact is sustainable.

In the second case, an authoritarian government uses its power to reduce the population size such that each surviving member can continue to pursue lifestyles that would have been ecologically unsustainable for the original population size. The aggregate ecological footprint is reduced by the simple expedient of reducing the number of actual footprints. Where Malthus thought that populations would be kept within a sustainable boundary through the attritions of famine and pestilence, the ecological authoritarian state directly takes on the responsibility of the apocalyptic horsemen. Following the time-honoured tradition of authoritarian states, they would identify certain groups as being foreign to society’s soul and would then expunge them from its body.

Which of these two would be the preference of an authoritarian state is an open question. They are not mutually exclusive: some underclass may be maintained, while another is exterminated. The possibility of productive automation may shift the preference towards extermination (why keep an underclass to do work if you have machines that can do it?). But I leave this an open question.

These are hypothetical scenarios and not (yet) clear and present dangers. How plausible are they? Let’s look at three ways in which they seem implausible.

First, it is more than likely that the degree of sociopathy that underpins such an authoritarian society would rule out any great concern with the environment or the prospects for future humans. But there may come a time where a society simply must face its own environmental limits, and in such a case these sociopathic underpinnings could plausibly manifest in either or both of the above ways.

Second, it is highly unlikely that such an approach would actually work – the methods used in historical authoritarian societies (intense militarisation, for instance) would more than likely nullify any positive ecological effects. (In fact, the doctrines of Nazi Germany contained elements of environmentalism; of course, these were more than negated by their full set of practices). But the point that I am exploring here is not what sort of approach we should take to address environmental concerns, but the potential ways in which societies might respond when they meet inevitable ecological constraints. In a society that is already authoritarian, the ecological response will also be authoritarian.

Third, these may seem implausible in that we just don’t believe that such a thing will come about: these scenarios are scary, sure, but only in the way that a movie is scary (and fun). To this I would respond that until recently the idea of a movement towards conservative authoritarianism was considered unlikely. Today, that movement is very much a reality and it is unclear where it will go. The same consequences of neoliberalism that make enacting environmental reform so difficult – inequality, and individual economic insecurity, with their attendant loss of social trust and rise in hostility – are also fuelling the move to the far-right. The fact that the standard far-right tactic is to identify elements of a society as being undesirable or dispensable should at least give us pause. I repeat the point above that in a society that is already authoritarian, the ecological response will also be authoritarian.

So what can we take away from this?

First, taking environmentalism seriously means taking social justice seriously, and vice versa, at least if we are to avoid taking the authoritarian path. Social justice, just like any economics worthy of the name, operates within ecological boundaries that must be respected; conversely, building political support for environmental action requires addressing social justice concerns in order to build up the necessary levels of social trust. Not all progressive political parties take environmentalism seriously enough, and this is to their detriment. This is particularly true of progressive parties that rely on the broken crutch of continuous exponential GDP growth to avoid the hard questions involved in social justice (and sadly, today that is nearly all of them). Environmental parties are typically better on this front: they do typically emphasise both environmental concerns and embrace social justice issues. But on the whole, they need to be clearer in articulating why both issues matter and how they relate to each other. This may become even more important should they ever have to compete with environmental parties that reject social justice – a growing possibility in the presence of creeping conservative authoritarianism.

Second, hyperbolic conservatives of the right and far-right have long loved to suggest that environmentalism is a crime against freedom, and that environmentalists are worse than Stalin. A Google search for “eco fascist” returns over a million results. The term has been used by conservatives, notably in the US, the UK, and Australia, as a generic pejorative term with which to stain all environmental parties and activist groups. This is, of course, utter nonsense as applied to most environmental groups today. But, given that ecological fascism is a logical possibility and may become a material reality, it is important to clear on what the differences are, and why they matter.

Third, the astute reader might see certain parallels between the hypothetical ecological authoritarian state and current world practices. In the globalised economy wealthy nations currently maintain ecologically unsustainable consumption patterns by pushing the costs onto much poorer states – by, for instance, extracting their resources, or by moving polluting production practices away from the developed world and into developing nations. Here, it is “the market” that determines who benefits and who bears the burdens of current consumption, and not some verse from Mein Kampf. But we should not pretend that this is even remotely equitable or that the invisible hand somehow justifies the outcomes. Taking social justice and the environment seriously doesn’t mean outsourcing the problem. We should be rightly worried about any parallel between this real-world situation and the hypothetical scenarios discussed in this essay.

Finally, if you are reading this you are probably fortunate enough to be living in a democratic nation. Do not take this for granted. If we sit back and do nothing, if we assume that both the environment and social justice are in safe hands, or if we just assume that there is nothing we can do, we can easily bring it about that some form of ecological authoritarianism will be the default option. It is up to us, as it always is.