Introduction
This is the first part of a series of criticisms of a recently published pamphlet on climate change and class, titled Climate Change is a Class Issue (2024), written by Sarah Glynn, a radical activist and writer located in the United Kingdom, and John Clarke, a radical activist located in Toronto. I do not yet know how many parts it will have since I still have to identify the number of relevant issues that need to be addressed critically.
The pamphlet consists of three chapters, the first two of which was written by Glynn and the last chapter by Clarke. The titles of the first two chapters are “Climate Is a Class Issue” and “A Manifesto for Change,” respectively. The title of the third chapter is “Climate and Class Struggle.”
Clarke also participated briefly in a discussion on climate change in a video titled Labour Unions, Climate Action, and Just Transition (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efcgjo8ijTE&t=1973s).
I am not going to follow many review structures, with a summary of each chapter followed by a critique of the content, nor am I going to review the video in its entirety. Rather, I will engage in what I consider the flaws in their presentation.
Although Glynn and Clarke write separate chapters in the pamphlet, I do not distinguish between what they write, but rather criticize what I take to be one pamphlet.
I had already drafted some critical remarks about the identification of capitalist exploitation of the natural world and the capitlist exploitation of workers when Clarke pointed out two new reviews of the pamphlet on his Facebook page.
The first review (see https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/climate-and-class?fbclid=IwY2xjawG4vXdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHR1l07x0qfcXqJsfuQr1g5IyCpsBQiRnw2_lEitOEGE4rTsdMzioCPnLBg_aem_ldsYnm7ivczBmlRSdvkJSQ) is full of eulogies and quite useless since it lacks any critical component whatsoever. Clarke prefaces his reference to this review with the following:
Green Left in Australia has written this positive and helpful review of the little book on climate and the class struggle that Sarah Glynn and I have put together.
The Unsubstantiated Identification of Class Exploitation and, in Relation to Climate Change, the Exploitation of Nature
The second review is found on a blog from Resolute Reader (see https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2024/11/sarah-glynn-john-clarke-climate-change.html?m=1&fbclid=IwY2xjawG4vGRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHYOwlmbmutDfQfsE2oBUrVcgFDZBbImzDhZgndsM4z9gMnTllceCVUNt0A_aem_ZafCWeyf0wtZlSxWVeJbIw); this review is a little more criticial, but contradictory and ultimately very misleading.
Resolute Reader quotes from the pamphlet and makes a comment:
The authors argue, “Capitalism exploits nature in the same way that capitalism exploits the working class. How both are treated depends only on their potential to make money.”
It is true that natural resources are embedded within the capitalist production process, but this is only in as much as they are tied to the capital-worker relationship. This is not Marxist nit-picking, but important [my emphasis] if we are to understand precisely why workers do have the power to overthrow capitalism.
It is certainly important to understand why workers do have the power to overthrow capitalism–but it is important in other ways that the blogger does not discuss.
Resolute Reader comments earlier:
I also thought the authors’ formulation of nature as being “exploited” by capitalism unhelpful. For Marxists “exploitation” has as specific meaning, that refers to the way that workers under capitalism sell their labour power to enable the bosses to extract surplus value. This is not the way capitalist production relates to nature.
He subsequently comments:
These minor criticisms aside… [my emphasis]
This is not a minor criticism. Glynn and Clarke’s identification of the exploitation of the natural world and the exploitation of workers is not justified at all but assumed. This assumption makes it possible to consider climate change to be not only a class issue (which it is), but the class issue.
Clarke frequently refers to deniers of climate change on his Facebook page. For example, in a recent post, he wrote:
I just found out that I was on FB with an elaborate pseudo scientific climate denier whose page ‘proves’ there is no global heating and that weather patterns are perfectly normal. I might tolerate a flat earth theorist or two but he was too much to put up with.
I hardly deny the reality of climate change. However, the issue of how climate change links to class is inadequately developed in the pamphlet. Indeed, they seem to identify the exploitation of the natural world and the exploitation of workers. I wish to argue against such an identification.
In a sense, of course, both are the same to the extent that the capitalist obtains use values from much of the natural world “free of charge” just as it obtains a surplus of value free of charge from workers. Other than such a general consideration (which applies to other kinds of systems of exploitation, such as feudal exploitation and slave exploitation), how they are the same would have to be argued and more clearly specified or described.
It would have to be argued rather than asserted that class exploitation in a capitalist context, where workers are exploited by a class of employers, is the same as the exploitation of the natural world. They do not argue their case for such an identity. Quite to the contrary. They assume it.
Let us look at more closely at the issue by looking at one theme that seems to connect up Marx’s theory to their pamphlet: the theme of exploitation, and then linking this theme, eventually, to the problem of climate change.
As I indicated above, Glynn and Clarke identify the exploitation of the working class and the exploitation of the natural word or nature. Let me first provide evidence for their identification of capitalist class exploitation of the working class and capitalist class exploitation of the natural world.
The pamphlet refers to capitalism many times and to working-class exploitation, but there is really no explanation of what this means nor the specific form that exploitation assumes in a capitalist society. For example, we read (quoting Ken Loach) (the bold are my emphases):
Those who exploit the labour of others for profit also exploit the earth’s precious resources for the same reason.
The same reason is–profit. This same reason or goal blurs essential distinctions required to understand the specific nature of capitalist exploitation of workers. In other words, their view is reductionist by overlooking essential distinctions.
Here is a compilation of quotes from the pamphlet referring to the terms “exploit” and “exploitation” in relation to workers in the pamphlet:
On top of this, those in power are using the crisis to further exploit the people who are least responsible for causing it…
But because the system that exploits the planet to destruction is the same that depends on class exploitation: the system that sees everything in terms of profit – which is what capitalism is.
Capitalism exploits nature in the same way that capitalism exploits the working class.
While the changes needed to bring our world back from the precipice are the same that would end this class exploitation: an economy of the people by the people and for the people – which is what socialism should be.
We are not supposed to question what freedoms are threatened – the freedom to make the world uninhabitable, for example, or the freedom to exploit others.
Inequality, and capitalism’s dependence on private businesses to meet basic needs, have enabled a relatively small number of people to exploit both the rest of the population and our shared natural resources.
The exploitation of both people and nature needs to be replaced by an understanding of human society as part of a natural ecosystem that has to be nurtured.
The capitalist forces that are threatening indigenous land and lives are the same as those exploiting workers and the natural world in the heart of ‘developed’ economies.
It is true (with qualifications) that the same capitalist system is responsible for the exploitation of workers and the plundering of natural resources; the conclusion that they are both exploited in the same way remains to be determined. They provide no explanation of why they identify the two.
No Distinction Between Capitalist Exploitation of Workers and Capitalist Oppression of Workers
But let us first stop and consider the lack of characterization of the nature of exploitation of workers by the authors. Nowhere do they actually explain what they mean by exploitation of workers. Indeed, we could substitute the word “oppression” for “exploitation,” and the meaning of what they say would not change (as far as the characterization of workers goes):
On top of this, those in power are using the crisis to further oppress the people who are least responsible for causing it…
But because the system that exploits the planet to destruction is the same that depends on class oppression: the system that sees everything in terms of profit – which is what capitalism is.
Capitalism exploits nature in the same way that capitalism oppresses the working class.
While the changes needed to bring our world back from the precipice are the same that would end this class oppression: an economy of the people by the people and for the people – which is what socialism should be.
We are not supposed to question what freedoms are threatened – the freedom to make the world uninhabitable, for example, or the freedom to oppress others.
Inequality, and capitalism’s dependence on private businesses to meet basic needs, have enabled a relatively small number of people to oppress both the rest of the population and exploit our shared natural resources.
The oppression of both people and nature needs to be replaced by an understanding of human society as part of a natural ecosystem that has to be nurtured.
The capitalist forces that are threatening indigenous land and lives are the same as those oppressing workers and the natural world in the heart of ‘developed’ economies.
It is true that the verb “to oppress” would be inappropriate in relation to the inanimate part of the world (although it certainly could apply to the animate part). However, there is no indication of what exploitation of workers involves in the pamphlet, both in general and in terms of specifically capitalist relations at work.
Alex Callinicos (2002), in his article “History, Exploitation and Oppression,” in pages 129-162, Historical Materialism and Social Evolution, takes issue with the identification of human exploitation and human oppression. Page 147:
Exploitation and oppression
Exploitation in the Marxist tradition is, as we have seen, the appropriation of surplus labour; it thus involves a relationship where the direct producers are compelled, whether by direct coercion or other means, to work to support not merely themselves and their dependants but also some other non-labouring group whose claim to a share of the fruits of the producers’ toil derives entirely from the control they exercise over the productive forces (including, in pre-capitalist class societies, the direct producers themselves). ‘Oppression’, by contrast, has come to serve as a kind of residual category referring to forms of social division other than exploitation. It may be defined very roughly as any state of affairs where a particular group of persons are denied equal treatment on
the grounds of some characteristic which they are held to share in common. Racism, the subordination of women, discrimination on the grounds of nationality or sexual orientation are among the more obvious instances of oppression thus defined.
The use of the term “exploitation” by Glynn and Clarke seems to have little to do with the performance of surplus labour. Indeed, its function seems to be moral and purely negative: Capitalism is bad because it exploits (oppresses) workers (just as it exploits the natural world). In relation to the working class, their use of the term has no analytic value at all but only a moral one.
They seem to think that if both the exploitation of workers (whatever that is) and the exploitation of nature have the same cause (capitalism), workers will automatically have an interest in addressing climate change. I definitely deny that–because of the nature of capitalist exploitation of workers.
The Initial Stage of Capitalist Exploitation–Exchange Between Workers and Employers–Hides the Nature of Capitalist Exploitation
The process of the exploitation of workers occurs initially by way of the exchange relations between workers and employers (see The Money Circuit of Capital). This exchange process tends to hide the relation of exploitation (a relation of inequality of power over labour, wealth and, more generally, the human life process of reproducing its own life) (Capital, Volume 1, page 675:
On the surface of bourgeois society the worker’s wage appears as the price of labour, as a certain quantity of money that is paid for a certain quantity of labour. Thus people speak of the value of labour, and call its expression in money its necessary or natural price.
And on page 680, we read:
We see, further: the value of 3 shillings, which represents the paid portion of the working day, i.e. 6 hours of labour, appears as the value or price of the whole working day of 12 hours, which thus includes 6 hours which have not been paid for. The wage-form thus extinguishes every trace of the division of the working day into necessary labour and surplus labour, into paid labour and unpaid labour. All labour appears as paid labour.
Secondly, the process of exploitation also involves the illusion of freedom by means of the contractual form and the shifting of workers from one employer to another (an illusion which undobutedly is partially true for many capitalist countries, where workers are not tied to a particular employer). Page 719:
Individual consumption provides, on the one hand, the means for the workers’ maintenance and reproduction; on the other hand, by the constant annihilation of the
means of subsistence, it provides for their continued re-appearance on the labour-market. … the wage-labourer is bound to his owner by invisible threads. The appearance of independence is maintained by a constant change in the person of the individual employer, and by the legal fiction of a contract.
The exploitation of the natural world in general and climate change in particular may well be hidden from most workers, citizens, immigrants and migrant workers, but if so, the way in which it is hidden needs to spelled out. The authors do not such thing. Is climate change difficult to fathom in the same way that worker exploitation is? We would never know from their pamphlet.
Political Implications
Exaggeration of the Centrality of Climate Change for the Working Class
On page 1, they write:
Climate change is our biggest and most imminent danger, but our world crisis goes beyond even that. By treating the planet as a limitless resource, our modern society is destroying the environment everywhere. That is a class issue too, and part of this discussion.
The destruction of the natural world’s life system (not its physical system) is certainly a class issue. However, the issue is whether workers will actually be motivated to challenge capitalism due to “climate change” or their becoming conscious of their exploitation and seeking to eliminate it.
On page 42, they claim the following:
The climate issue will be placed at the heart of the class struggle in country after country.
Here, ironically, the identity of the exploitation of workers and the exploitation of the natural world breaks down in a sense since it is not exploitation of workers that is to be the focus of criticism and action but climate change. In fact, they take climate change to be more important than the exploitation of workers. Indeed, the exploitation of workers is not really taken seriously–neither its nature in general (as the performance of surplus labour that generates the income of the ruling class) nor its specific nature as a surplus in the form of value.
What are their reasons for prioritzing climate change over the exploitation of workers? Mainly because climate change has had devastating effects on the working class, and such effects will only become worse. Pages 41-2:
First of all, it is already abundantly clear that, just like the spread of the Covid pandemic, the impacts of climate change will play out along fault lines of social, racial, and global inequality. Even in wealthy countries, the destruction and devastation caused by extreme weather, wildfires, rising sea levels, and other climate effects will threaten people and communities who have the fewest resources and the most limited options to a much greater degree. In the Global South in particular, it is already horribly clear that the results of climate change mean catastrophic suffering.
As climate impacts intensify, those who face the worst consequences and who are being abandoned in the face of them will have to struggle to survive. They will have to advance demands and develop strategies and forms of organisation to confront those with economic and political power.
Note the complete lack of consideration of the daily impact of exploitation (and oppression) of workers at work (and the associated oppresion of the unemployed, etc.). Indeed, Clarke seems to justify focusing on climate change rather than exploitation due to the catastrophic nature of climate change that will demand workers to engage in radical actions just to “survive” and to reduce “catastrophic suffering.”
If workers are not motivated to challenge the power of their particular employer at work and the class of employers in general when they are used as means to employers’ ends (see The Money Circuit of Capital), why would they be motivated to engage in such a challenge of climate change? And how are they going to challenge climate change unless they challenge the class power of employers and their associated economic, political and social structures? Workers cannot address climate change without addressing the class power of employers, and the class power of employers will not be challenged unless the workers become conscious of their own exploitation and fight to eliminate it.
Do these authors show at all how workers are going to be enlightened about their exploitation through “developments on the ground?” They provide no evidence to that effect. We readers are supposed to take their word on faith. Frankly, consciousness of exploitation requires, perhaps not theoretical debate, but at least debate about what it means, how it is measured and how unfair it is as a class phenonmenon. Workers will often seek solutions that do not address exploitation as such but only their own particular exploitative situation–by quitting, for example.
Conclusion
Glynn and Clarke provide no justification of their identification of capitalist exploitation of workers and the exploitation of the natural world. They do not inquire into the specific nature of capitalist exploitation and how the exchange process hides capitalist exploitation. Their focus on climate change and their lack of focus on capitalist exploitation indicates an unrealistic view of large-scale social change since it will require substantial ideological struggle (and not just “activism”)–and theoretical development of the working class as well.
In a future post, I will elaborate on the limitations of their approach, perhaps by continuing with an explanation of the specificity of capitalist exploitation both in terms of a surplus and in terms of the form that surplus assumes–value.
The Abolitionary 