Greenred - Criticisms of Eco-socialism

Criticisms of Eco-socialism

While in many ways the criticisms of eco-socialism combine the traditional criticisms of both socialism and Green politics, there are unique critiques of eco-socialism, which are largely from within the traditional Socialist or Green movements themselves, along with conservative criticisms.

Some socialists are critical of the word 'eco-socialism'. David Reilly, who questions whether his argument is improved by the use of an "exotic word", argues instead that the "real socialism" is "also a green or 'eco'" one that you get to "by dint of struggle". Other socialists, like Paul Hampton of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty (a British third camp socialist party), see eco-socialism as "classless ecology", wherein eco-socialists have "given up on the working class" as the privileged agent of struggle by "borrowing bits from Marx but missing the locus of Marxist politics".

Writing in Capitalism Nature Socialism, Doug Boucher, Peter Caplan, David Schwartzman and Jane Zara criticise eco-socialists in general (and Joel Kovel in particular) for a deterministic "catastrophism" that overlooks "the countervailing tendencies of both popular struggles and the efforts of capitalist governments to rationalize the system" and the "accomplishments of the labor movement" that "demonstrate that despite the interests and desires of capitalists, progress toward social justice is possible". They argue that an ecological socialism must be "built on hope, not fear".

Conservatives have criticised the perceived opportunism of left-wing groups who have increased their focus on green issues since the fall of Communism. Fred L. Smith Jr., President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute think-tank, exemplifies the conservative critique of left Greens, attacking the "pantheism" of the Green movement and conflating "eco-paganism" with eco-socialism. Like many conservative critics, Smith uses the term 'eco-socialism' to attack non-socialist environmentalists for advocating restrictions on the free market, although he does recognise and condemn the influence of socialist ideals on many in the Green movement who reject private property, and instead advocates market-based solutions to ecological problems. He nevertheless wrongly claims that eco-socialists endorse "the Malthusian view of the relationship between man and nature", and states that Al Gore, a former Democratic Party Vice President of the United States and now a climate change campaigner, is an eco-socialist, despite the fact that Gore has never used this term and is not recognised as a such by other followers of either Green politics or socialism.

Some environmentalists and conservationists have criticised eco-socialism from within the Green movement. In a review of Joel Kovel's The Enemy of Nature, David M. Johns criticises eco-socialism for not offering "suggestions about near term conservation policy" and focusing exclusively on long-term societal transformation. Johns believes that species extinction "started much earlier" than capitalism and suggests that eco-socialism neglects the fact that an ecological society will need to transcend the destructiveness found in "all large-scale societies". the very tendency that Kovel himself attacks among capitalists and traditional leftists who attempt to reduce nature to "linear" human models. Johns questions whether non-hierarchical social systems can provide for billions of people, and criticises eco-socialists for neglecting issues of population pressure. Furthermore, Johns describes Kovel's argument that human hierarchy is founded on raiding to steal women as "archaic".