Realistic analysis of ecological socialist society?

Ecological socialism is a socialist trend of thought that rose in the West in 1970s. Facing the increasingly serious global ecological crisis, ecological socialists have explored the inevitable relationship between ecological crisis and capitalist system by using the analytical method of Marxist historical materialism. They believe that the ecological problem has become the most prominent problem in the contemporary capitalist world, and the ecological crisis has replaced the economic crisis and become the main crisis of capitalism. The fundamental way out of the ecological crisis is to establish a new socialist economic model-ecological socialism, and put forward the idea that developed capitalist countries strive for the transition to the socialist road. Keywords: capitalism; Ecological socialism; Ecological crisis; Alienation 1. Ecological socialists' criticism of capitalism 1. The essential crisis of contemporary capitalism-ecological crisis Through research, ecological socialists believe that in the era when Marx lived, the destruction of industrial production on the ecological environment was not serious, and the restriction of ecological environment on industrial production was not obvious. Therefore, Marx focused his research on the production field, pointing out that only the crisis trend in the production field can lead to the collapse of capitalism. However, with the scientific and technological revolution and the development of western industrial society, Marx's prediction that capitalism will inevitably collapse due to the economic crisis did not appear. Contemporary capitalism has delayed the economic crisis through overproduction and excessive consumption, but it has caused huge waste of natural resources, increasingly serious environmental pollution and serious imbalance of ecosystems. In his Introduction to Western Marxism, Ben argyle mentioned that the Marxist theory of crisis in the production field of industrial capitalism has failed, and the current crisis trend has shifted to the consumption field, that is, the ecological crisis has replaced the economic crisis. He believes that the main crisis in today's capitalist society is the ecological crisis. Andre Goz also thinks in Critique of Economic Reason that the profit motive of capitalism will inevitably destroy the ecological environment, and the crisis of capitalism is essentially an ecological crisis. Under the condition of contemporary capitalism, every process of production has a great influence on nature, and this influence is usually negative. On the one hand, the raw materials for production come from nature. With the rapid development of economy and the continuous expansion of production scale, the demand for natural resources is increasing, and the development and demand for nature are even crazier. On the other hand, pollutants produced in the process of production and consumption should be forcibly discharged into nature. In this way, various forms of ecological problems have been formed, which seriously threaten the survival of mankind and directly restrict capitalist production and social development. Ecological problems have become the most prominent problems in contemporary capitalist society. There is no doubt that ecological problems are everywhere in the world today. The latest scientific research data show that the global carbon dioxide emissions of fossil fuels increased significantly in the early 2000s. Its growth rate is obviously faster than the carbon dioxide emissions predicted by IPCC at the end of11990s. In addition, the average concentration of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere is gradually increasing, and the growth rate has changed significantly every decade. The rapid increase of carbon emissions is particularly obvious in some industrialized countries, such as China, but so far, no country in the world has reduced its energy supply. The global ecosystem is declining. Man-made global warming has led to at least ten environmental consequences: surface temperature, humidity, ocean circulation, atmospheric pressure, precipitation, forest fires, changes in animal and plant species, soil erosion, changes in upper air temperature and changes in world ocean current temperature. Gao Zi, an eco-socialist, has made a concrete analysis of the manifestations of the three major crises in capitalist society and their interrelationships. They are the crisis of excessive accumulation, reproduction and ecology. He believes that the crisis of excessive accumulation comes from the crisis of reproduction, and the solution of the crisis of excessive accumulation depends on the crisis of reproduction, which is based on the consumption and destruction of a large number of natural resources. Therefore, the reproductive crisis can be traced back to the ecological crisis. In summing up the relationship between them, Goz pointed out: "What we are facing is a typical crisis of excessive accumulation, which is aggravated by the crisis of reproduction, which ultimately stems from the lack of natural resources." From this, Goz concluded: "There is no doubt that ecological factors play a decisive and irreplaceable role in today's economic crisis. \"[2] All crises in capitalist society are rooted in the ecological crisis and are aggravated by it. Agel, another eco-socialist, also believes that contemporary capitalism has delayed the economic crisis and the life of capitalism with high production and high consumption. However, the economic crisis has not disappeared, but has become an ecological crisis. Ecological crisis has replaced economic crisis and become the main crisis and important feature of contemporary capitalism. (2) The root of the ecological crisis-the capitalist system ecological Marxists believe that the capitalist relations of production and class directly lead to environmental degradation and ecological crisis. In other words, the capitalist system is the real source of the ecological crisis. David Pepper pointed out in "Ecological Socialism-From Deep Ecology to Socialism" that the cause of ecological crisis is not the growth of productivity and human demand, but the profit-seeking nature of capitalism, and the internal contradiction of capitalist production mode is the fundamental reason of ecological crisis. Specifically, the ecological crisis is not only a matter of simply controlling nature and applying science and technology, but also a concentrated expression of capitalist political and economic crisis. The origin of global ecological crisis is generally attributed to science and technology, industrialization, human selfishness and traditional ideas by western green movement theory. Ecological socialists believe that the root of modern environmental problems is not only the backwardness of people's ideas, or the industrialization, but the capitalist system. They hit the nail on the head and pointed out that the ecological crisis is the inevitable result of the capitalist mode of production and its global expansion. Ecological Marxists also deeply analyzed the relationship between capitalist mode of production and ecological crisis. It is believed that capitalist mode of production has played a great role in progress in history, but the logic of capitalist mode of production is to pursue profit maximization, which determines that capitalism must take a hostile attitude towards nature and regard nature as the object of plunder and profit. While continuously strengthening the exploitation of human beings by capital, it also strengthens the exploitation of nature by capital. This overproduction will inevitably lead to energy shortage, and the earth will naturally "shrink" and eventually lead to an ecological crisis. In the view of eco-Marxists, there is still a trend of "cost externalization" in capitalist production, which means that it is impossible for capitalists to protect the environment at the expense of corporate profits. In order to reduce production costs, capitalists must try their best to push some production costs outside the enterprise. In order to reduce the production cost, capitalists always try their best to externalize this part of the cost or pass it on to the society, such as discharging waste gas into the atmosphere, letting waste water flow into rivers and lakes or passing it on to future generations, so that future generations can pay the cost. So the deprivation of nature by capitalism is a part of capitalist exploitation. Moreover, the logic of capitalism's pursuit of profit must be to constantly improve the level of consumption and maximize the consumption of goods, which leads capitalists to manipulate social consumption and put forward false demands that can never meet the needs of all people. Advocating pride in consumption induces people to take the amount of consumption as a measure of their happiness under the action of market mechanism, so that people can enjoy endless consumption as real satisfaction, thus producing "alienated consumption". This "alienated consumption" in turn * * * "alienated labor", thus forming a vicious circle from unlimited industrial production to "alienated consumption" and from "alienated consumption" to unlimited growth. In the process of this cycle, natural resources are wasted and pollutants are discharged in large quantities, which eventually exceeds the capacity of nature, thus leading to the destruction of natural ecological balance and triggering ecological crisis. Victor Walls, an American scholar, pointed out: "At present, the serious ecological problems in the world are completely caused by the uncontrolled production and consumption of capitalist countries, especially western developed capitalist countries. \"[3] With the global expansion of capitalist mode of production, developed countries use their economic and technological advantages to plunder the limited resources of developing countries, move some high-consumption, high-pollution and labor-intensive enterprises to developing countries, and even regard developing countries as garbage dumps, which directly leads to the global ecological crisis.