Part V
SYMPOSIUM
THE SECOND CONTRADICTION
OF CAPITALISM
Contributions to the debate on the thesis of the "second
contradiction of capitalism" by John Bellamy Foster, Samir Amin,
Victor Toledo, Kamal Nayan Kabra, Michael Lebowitz, Martin
O'Connor, Enrique Leff, Sunil Ray, Andriana Vlachou, and Albert
Recio appeared in the last three issues of CNS.
Marxism, Ecology, and Political Movements
By Enzo Mingione
James O'Connor's essays, "Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A
Theoretical Introduction" (CNS Issue One, Fall, 1988) and "A
Political Strategy for Ecological Movements" (CNS 3,1, Issue
Nine, March, 1992), are useful starting points for interpreting
and analyzing the ecology movement's political experiences in
various social and cultural contexts vis-a-vis the experiences of
working class and leftist organizations. O'Connor's overall
thinking naturally reflects the particular influence of the
American experience, where the labor movement's political
organization is weak, characterized as it is by ethnic and
immigrant fragmentation and the persistence of a kind of left-
wing populism that involves a peculiarly American understanding
of the theoretical Marxist tradition. Transferring O'Connor's
critical reflections to the European scene necessitates pondering
the compatibility, both theoretical and analytical, of the varied
histories of European nations.
I would like to begin with a consideration of the
theoretical status of what might be called "ecological
sensitivity" in the Marxist approach. I will then follow this
theme via some remarks on the development of "strong" labor
1
organizations in Europe. I finish with some observations
regarding the present coexistence of "reds" and "greens."
The foundation of Marx's theory is the centrality of the
relationship between the means of production and the distribution
of resources typical of industrialized capitalist societies.
This relationship is based on the accumulation of capital and the
exploitation of those who produce to the advantage of those who
control the means of production. The relationship between the
mode of industrial development and the exploitation of nature is
not directly discussed -- at least not in Marx's later works,
which have had the most influence in the theoretical orientation
of the socialist movement. Marx believed capitalism to be a
necessary step -- however painful, unjust and disruptive -- in
the historical development of human society. He did not see much
room for argument on this point, and regarded the organization of
human relations and the relations between humans and nature as
quite rigid in the capitalist mode of production. From this
sprang a social critique which formed the basis for political
movements and trade unions and focused on the producers'
overturning the exploitive relationships between capital and
labor. This whole process was associated with the necessity of
developing the forces of production along industrial lines, both
quantitatively and qualitatively. (Thus Lenin's admiration of
Taylorism; the policy of forced industrialization by socialist
regimes; union and labor parties support for the strategy of
uncontrolled industrial growth -- all these are points of
continuity and confirm the "redistributive" character of the
Marxist tradition.)
Polanyi's criticism of Marx shows (far in advance with
respect to today's problems) how difficult it is to reconcile
this development of Marxism with an approach that seriously
considers the question of "nature."[1] It also demonstrates how
forms of "resistance" -- starting with traditional cultures and
the adaptation of environments based on subsistence or autarkic
economies -- can be an innovative, anti-capitalistic force, and
are not merely regressive and reactionary. Though Polanyi did
not pursue his argument in great depth, he criticizes Marx for
_________________________
[1] Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1944).
2
placing a nearly exclusive importance on the commodification of
labor, which then overshadows not only the fictitious
commodification of land but also the complex and devastating
impact this combination has on the social structure. Here the
self-defensive reaction of society does not limit itself only to
the development of a labor movement, but instead takes on various
other kinds of complicated and contradictory expressions.
The fact that the Marxist critique, Polanyi's approach, and,
later, ecology, all constitute a critique of the development of
capitalism does not mean that they are theoretically compatible
or politically coherent. It is necessary to discuss the
conditions under which such diverse criticisms can be compatible
and coherent.
Once this premise has been made, it is possible to agree
with O'Connor that from a strictly theoretical point of view the
Marxist approach is, in fact, richer and more flexible than it
seems in the specific developments it has undergone in terms of
intellectual debate, and even more so in terms of the political
tradition of the labor movement. It is then necessary to
question the reasons for these developments instead of other
developments more sensitive and compatible with contemporary
community and ecological awareness. This is, in fact, the core
of the current split between various critiques of capitalism and
various types of political movements and organizations.
Both in his early ideas as well as in his theory of
commodity fetishism, Marx was aware that one of the constitutive
foundations of capitalist society was the progressive detachment
between the modality of the maturation of needs and the immediate
ability to satisfy such needs within different pre-industrial
social contexts that were not very dynamic and rather poor in
resources, yet were socially and culturally compact and cohesive.
This separation takes away a society's ability to control such
needs, not to hand them over to "liberated" individuals, but to
consign them to capitalist-industrialist mechanisms of
accumulation in a growth vortex no longer socially controllable
-- at least in those ways that would avoid major social
inequalities, increasing wastefulness, and environmental dangers
and disasters.
This alienation is not only the concern of workers but of
all social subjects, in all the aspects that industrial societies
have so far assumed. The European leftist movement, for the most
3
part under Marx's inspiration, has taken up very little of this
discussion, as Sayer and Walker mention in a recent
publication.[2] The criticism of consumerism and wastefulness has
been part of the tradition of the labor movement's political
organizations as a basis for contesting the process of the
redistribution of resources, without questioning the basis of
industrial expansion. It is important to realize that until the
1960s there was no serious discussion of the defense industry nor
of environmentally high-risk industrial plants, from nuclear
power plants to chemical and pharmaceutical factories. Nor did
the general awareness regarding workers' health in industrial
plants translate into a higher sensitivity in society at large
regarding preventive health care. Nowadays, though in a more
complex situation involving varied circumstances in which labor's
hard-line stance of the past decades no longer works, some labor
actions to protect jobs and wage levels have been on a collision
path with ecological interests (for example, the overwhelming
majority of laborers voted against the anti-hunting referendum in
the province of Brescia, where most of Italy's arms factories are
concentrated). In other words, and perhaps somewhat caricature-
like, the protection of income, working conditions, and seniority
has not shown itself historically compatible with a vigorous
criticism of the other dangerous and devastating characteristics
which industrial societies have assumed.
From another perspective, however, the maturation of
theoretical criticism and ecological movements has demonstrated
some exact and important speculative limits in trying to
understand, and (if possible) to overcome this incompatibility.
Ecological sensitivity has grown among social groups and in
environments, both locally and globally, which are relatively
better off due to the process of redistribution that historically
has been led by labor. Both ecological critiques and green
politics inevitably have given the question of redistribution a
secondary position, without really integrating it into a
theoretical stance or in the platforms of political
organizations. There are some exceptions in the intellectual
debate and in actual politics, especially in Germany, which
_________________________
[2] Andrew Sayer and Richard Walker, The New Social Economy
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), p. 250, and fn.
4
confirm the rule. The social geography of ballot-box victories
and the ability to mobilize ecological movements is too
systematic a confirmation of this point to disregard it. By
contrast, an ecological consciousness is not only weak in less
developed countries, but also in regions and among social groups
that are disadvantaged. The history of ecological movements in
Europe and in Italy confirms this correlation, almost without
exception. It is my impression that also in the United States
ethnic groups and disadvantaged social groups are (or have been,
until recently) less sensitive to environmental arguments. It
seems as though the qualitative criticism of the relationship
between capitalist processes of development and nature is part of
the world-view of those who already have enough resources to
afford it, while others demand access to resources via the only
system proven to be capable of producing them: industrial
expansion regardless of the environmental risks. If anything,
those who demand access to resources are questioning a capitalist
redistribution system that still penalizes some vast geographical
and social areas. Although the way that these areas are damaged
may be changing, the fact that they are penalized is not.
The incompatibility of environmental criticism and the
mechanisms of resource redistribution is more a political
question than an abstract theoretical one. But this fact alone
takes on an unavoidable theoretical importance.
Polanyi's criticism of capitalism included an attempt at
theoretical synthesis, which showed the whole interaction between
the desocializing impact of industrial development and various
kinds of reactions which were actively trying to reconstruct the
defensive web of sociability. For reasons of space, I will not
discuss the methodological incongruities of Polanyi's approach
that I have taken up elsewhere.[3] In working out his synthetic
analysis, Polanyi refused, and rightly so, to dichotomize
politically (as most Marxist theoreticians have ended up doing)
the typology of reactions between progressive (such as the
consolidation of the labor movement) and conservative/reactionary
(the defense of traditional communities).
Polanyi failed to recognize, however, that over capitalism's
_________________________
[3] Enzo Mingione, Fragmented Societies (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1991), pp. 21-32.
5
long historical development systematic and persistent
disagreements between forms of exposure to market opportunities
and different reactions of society end up creating dramatic
processes of polarization in living conditions and in the access
to the resources needed for survival. In an updated version, the
same problem presents itself in the theory of ecologist Wolfgang
Sachs.[4] The importance of defending the values of peripheral
societies and cultures with respect to the devastating impact of
global capitalism, and the need to reorient economic mechanisms
toward neg-etropic, anti-consumerist objectives that are more
oriented toward community solutions, is a strategy of great value
for the contemporary leftist movement. But this strategy does
not attack the crucial problem of the abysmal economic imbalances
in today's world, which then reflect themselves inevitably in
direct forms of political mobilization. The unemployed want to
find work as soon as possible, the slum dweller wants to improve
her living conditions, the farmer in Sahel struggles to fend off
starvation, the Polish worker wants to gain a standard of living
similar to his Western colleagues. These "rights," "desires,"
and "interests" form the basis of potential political action and
are relatively indifferent to any ecological equilibrium (however
defined) and to a criticism of the capitalist development model.
Either the ecological leftist movement must find a political
mediation to demonstrate that it constitutes an efficacious
alternative, even in the short-run and also among disadvantaged
persons and areas, or else people who are not drawn to the
movement will be correct in asking: "Why should I stay
unemployed, why must I live in miserable conditions, why should I
die of hunger, or why should I save the world from an ecological
catastrophe by not aspiring to a car."
Beyond these areas of incompatibility, it is important to
ponder the significance of an ecological awareness, the
ecological movement, and, in some cases, the ecological political
organizations within the Left in industrialized countries. The
empirical panorama in Europe is complicated and varied, despite
some basic uniformities: the social map which I referred to
earlier, where the intensity of an ecological consciousness seems
_________________________
[4] "La natura come sistema: per una critica dell'ecologia,"
Linea d'Ombra, 61, 1991.
6
related to a certain standard of living; the fact that ecological
movements (after a rapid initial growth) remain confined to a
limited base (the recent success at the polls in France must be
seen in light of the importance of the negative vote for the
Socialist party); and the fact that ecological sensitivity
involves in different ways the intellectual and political Left in
its complexity, even though the above-mentioned dissonance has
not by any means been overcome.
On this latter point I want to raise some final
considerations. Above all, it is necessary to see to what extent
the Left in industrialized countries will be able to mobilize the
political system in defense and in favor of complex systems of
social and institutional regulation, oriented not only toward
correcting the redistributive processes in favor of ever vaster,
more heterogeneous areas, but also of the problems of social
exclusion, the newly poor, the unemployed and underemployed,
immigrants, workers with little job protection, discrimination
in, or penalized use of, the welfare services, and so on. There
must also be a reorientation in the quality of production and
consumption to minimize waste and to prevent ecological
devastation. All of this cannot leave out of consideration the
global system in which we live, whether it concerns the processes
of redistribution (the new waves of migration put under sharp
critical scrutiny any ideal model oriented toward a "strong"
protection of the disadvantaged classes on a local scale when we
live in a global economy devastated by a growing impact of
underdevelopment and of poverty in the periphery) or whether it
concerns the control of the ecological equilibrium of the
production system (where the setting up of "green" islands does
not make any sense, since they only externalize toward the
periphery the most devastating effects of production and "dirty"
consumption).
Many unresolved problems have surfaced in this area, both
concerning the contradictions between the modalities of
redistribution and production, and the incoherence between the
local scale of politics and the global effects of politics. The
political debate and the experiences of red/green governments,
especially locally, have already caused some of these problems
to surface, but it is easy to assume that this will be the
central point of the political challenge in the near future. The
restructuring of the production and consumption system toward
7
objectives of greater equilibrium and fewer environmental risks
must be made compatible with redistribution processes which do
not further penalize marginal and excluded social groups, which
in a market economy is a very difficult goal to realize. The
impact of de-industrialization, neo-liberalism and its consequent
restructuring of welfare programs, and a complex phase of post-
Fordist redesigning of urban spaces (even if we only want to
consider the highly industrialized countries) have been
devastating both in terms of redistribution and in terms of
environmental equilibrium. Only on a very limited local scale
has the red/green coalition been able to thwart these negative
effects. The theoretical and practical challenge for the
European Left is on a much higher level and so far has not found
areas for governmental experience. It can be assumed, however,
that this will imply the necessity to redefine quickly the whole
map of identity and political behavior toward a progressive
overcoming of the rigid dichotomization between the attention
given to redistributive processes and that given to environmental
quality of the production/consumption system. The Marxist
critique of capitalism may very well be, as O'Connor points out,
a starting point, but only if its rigid development in favor of
production and labor espoused by the labor movement tradition is
dismissed through careful and conscientious critical revision.
The Politics of the Second Contradiction
By Martin Spence
James O'Connor's work on the "second contradiction" is of
enormous value to socialists and greens. He has given us the
essential framework for a materialist theory of ecological
crisis, an ecological Marxism. The value of this approach is
that it presents us with an understanding of ecological crisis as
intrinsic to capitalism, rather than something which is added as
an awkward afterthought to a "classical" Marxist analysis. It
gives us back an historical and a class perspective on the great
crisis of our time. It also gives us a new perspective on
previous, non-capitalist ecological crises.1 More work, however,
_________________________
CNS, 4 (2), June, 1993 8
needs to be done on the practical politics of the second
contradiction.
1. The Second Contradiction
O'Connor defines the second contradiction by analogy with
the first, or "classical," contradiction between the forces of
production and the social relations of production. This first
contradiction is very familiar; it was analyzed extensively by
Marx, and in its different forms -- some crude and deterministic,
others more sophisticated -- it has provided the foundation for
Marxist theoretical and political thought ever since.
In the second contradiction, both the forces of production
and the social relations of production are still present, but are
now united on the same side of the equation. They now run up
against the conditions of production -- by which is meant
external nature; urban space and infrastructure; and human
laborpower itself.2
The concept of the second contradiction is developed by
analogy with the first contradiction on three levels. Firstly,
they are compared in terms of their respective manifestations --
as a crisis of realization in the first contradiction, and as a
crisis of liquidity in the second.3 Secondly, they are compared
in terms of the different social agencies of change which they
call into existence -- the organized labor movement in the first
case, the "new social movements" in the second.4 And thirdly,
they are compared in terms of the "crisis induced changes" which
they provoke, changes which, according to O'Connor, lead to "more
_________________________
1 Donald J. Hughes, Ecology in Ancient Civilizations
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975); Clive
Ponting, A Green History of the World (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1991).
2 James O'Connor, "Capitalism Nature Socialism: A Theoretical
Introduction," CNS, 1, Fall, 1988, p. 23; James O'Connor, "A
Political Strategy for Ecology Movements," CNS, 3 (1), March,
1992, p. 2.
3 O'Connor, 1988, op. cit., p. 18.
4 Ibid., p. 17; James O'Connor, "Socialism and Ecology," CNS,
2 (3), October, 1991, p. 108; O'Connor, 1992, op. cit., p. 3.
CNS, 4 (2), June, 1993 9
transparently social, hence potentially socialist, forms."5
The fundamental idea of a second capitalist contradiction is
enormously rich, generating new insights and providing a fertile
framework for further work. Moreover, it was probably inevitable
that it would be developed by analogy with the more familiar
first contradiction. However, a serious problem arises here,
because there are real weaknesses in O'Connor's concept of crisis
induced change stemming from the first contradiction. This poses
the danger that these weaknesses are carried over, by analogy,
into his discussion of the second.
2. Crisis Induced Change
O'Connor's notion of the outcome of crisis induced change is
central to his discussion of political process, and his argument
is quite unambiguous. He presents us with a version of
"traditional Marxism" in which capital, in confronting first-
contradiction crisis, is forced to introduce "more social forms
of productive forces and productive relations" and thus "create
some of the technical and social preconditions for the transition
to socialism."6 He then goes on to develop his concept of
second-contradiction crisis by direct analogy, even to the point
of repeating sentence structures and phrases, e.g., "The telos of
crisis is thus to create the possibility of imagining (more
clearly) the transition to socialism."7 To his credit, he backs
up the abstract argument with concrete examples of "more social
forms" which have emerged from crisis induced change -- but the
problem is that his examples are at best ambiguous, and at worst
demonstrate the opposite of what he is trying to prove.
For example, in discussing first-contradiction crisis, he
says of Quality Circles and Work Teams in industry that they "may
not be a step towards socialism. They are certainly steps
towards more social forms of productive forces."8 This is a
bizarre interpretation. The widespread experience of Quality
Circles and Work Teams is that they are about increased
_________________________
5 O'Connor, 1988, op. cit., p. 11.
6 Ibid., p. 22.
7 Ibid., pp. 21, 28.
8 Ibid., p. 23.
10
management control, breaking independent trade unionism, divide-
and-rule, and shifting the burden of breakdown in "Just in Time"
production systems out of company time and into workers' own
unpaid time. O'Connor seems to be mesmerized by the superficial
cooperativeness of the Work Team concept, so that he is blind to
its underlying class reality. If this is an example of the "more
social forms" which emerge from first-contradiction crisis, then
we've got problems.
Another example, operating at a very different level, is
science, which O'Connor describes as "an almost completely
cooperative enterprise."9 But again, there are capitalist
priorities which increasingly dictate and define the scope of
scientific work, and which determine what ideas get funded and
what ideas don't. And at the other end of the process, once the
work has been done, scientific concepts, procedures, and
processes are jealously defined as private property, hedged
around by patent laws, and fought over in the courts. Again,
this is an unconvincing example of "more social forms."
Viewed overall, O'Connor's vision of crisis induced change
taking "more transparently social, hence potentially socialist,
forms" is both mechanical and overly optimistic. Neither of the
examples quoted above support his argument. They illustrate,
rather, the continuing power of capital to resolve first-
contradiction crisis in its own favor, to find new ways of
asserting its domination over labor and of appropriating human
creativity through new forms of private property.
Crisis induced change cannot therefore be assumed
necessarily to lead to the emergence of more social forms. And
if this is true of first-contradiction crisis, then it is even
more true of the second contradiction. The reason for this is
given by O'Connor himself: second-contradiction crisis is
inescapably political. As he points out, no theory of
accumulation is possible without taking into account the state.10
It is the state in particular which regulates access to the
conditions of production;11 and therefore any resolution of a
crisis of production conditions must be decided primarily in
_________________________
9 Ibid., p. 21.
10 O'Connor, 1992, op. cit., p. 2-3.
11 O'Connor, 1988, op. cit., p. 23.
11
political terms.12 The inevitably political nature of second-
contradiction crisis resolution makes it even more open-ended,
even more dependent on precise historical circumstances and
configurations of class forces, even less tolerant of mechanistic
formulae.
The same point is reinforced from a different angle by
Michael Lebowitz. He points out that whereas crises of the first
contradiction may provoke a response from individual capitals,
crises of the second contradiction inevitably demand a response
at a political level. Individual capitals can only seek to
sidestep a crisis of production conditions by shifting its costs
elsewhere.13 If a response is to be made to the crisis itself, it
has to come from the state -- or from some other social agency
acting as the full or partial equivalent of the state.14
What this means in practice is that if we want to understand
the real process of second-contradiction crisis induced change,
then we have to pay close attention to the nature of state
institutions and to the balance of class power within them.
There is simply no room here for a priori assumptions that crisis
induced change will necessarily lead to "more social forms." The
situation is too complex, fluid, and open-ended, and the outcome
is a matter of historical circumstance, as well as of the
prevailing balance of class forces. Capital can resolve crises
in its own favor -- or, if not ultimately resolve them, then at
least impose settlements favorable to itself which may persist
over decades.
3. Contradictory Relationships:
UK Energy Policy
I next want to build on the argument above, and to develop a
further point: for practical political purposes, crises of the
first and second contradictions are inseparable. An effective
political response therefore has to be based on a keen awareness
_________________________
12 Ibid., p. 24.
13 Michael Lebowitz, "Capitalism: How Many Contradictions?"
CNS, 3 (3), September, 1992.
14 Kamal Nayan Kabra, "The Second Contradiction of
Capitalism: Some Reflections," CNS, 3 (3), September, 1992.
12
of the links between the two.
This can be illustrated by a case study. The energy sector
provides perhaps the most striking example of incipient second
contradiction crisis in the UK. It also provides a good point on
which to focus because energy is the single most powerful example
of a "condition of production." In its different manifestations
(food energy, chemical energy, electricity), the energy sector
impacts upon all aspects of human activity; and at its different
moments of transformation (extraction, refining, distribution,
end-use), it dramatically poses all the key issues of resource
depletion and pollution.
Britain has been exceptionally well-endowed with energy
resources. In the early 1980s, it had decades of oil and gas
reserves, centuries of coal, and superb sites for the
exploitation of renewable energy including wind-power, tidal-
power, small-scale hydro, and wave-power. At that time, voices
in the labor and environmental movements were calling for a
"transitional strategy" in energy policy, using fossil fuel
resources as cleanly and efficiently as possible as an "energy
bridge" towards a renewable-based future. Since then, Tory
Government policies have closed this benign option.
The situation that faces us in the early 1990s is that the
most easily accessible oil and gas reserves have already been
squandered, while millions of tons of mineable coal have been
sterilized as mines have been closed on "economic" grounds -- an
example of the under-production which O'Connor identifies as a
symptom of second-contradiction crisis.15 Renewable energy was
shunned as a matter of government policy through most of the
1980s; it is now receiving some support, but not on the scale
that it merits. Nuclear power meanwhile is widely regarded as an
economic disaster, but continues to receive massive government
subsidy in contrast to the market forces to which the rest of the
energy sector has been abandoned. The overall result is that an
intrinsically energy-rich country has become a net importer of
coal, gas, and nuclear-generated electricity.
The UK's casual squandering of potential energy self-
sufficiency is a major step towards second contradiction crisis
within the national economy, and a significant contributor also
_________________________
15 O'Connor, 1988, op. cit., pp. 25-7.
13
to such crisis within Western Europe, since most of the European
Community's coal reserves are -- or were -- in Britain. But what
is important for the present discussion is that the political
roots of this crisis lie squarely in class conflicts around the
first contradiction, conflicts which have been settled -- at
least for the time being -- in favor of capital.
The political priorities of Britain's Tory Governments since
the late 1970s have impacted directly on the energy sector.
Firstly, they set out to create the political conditions for
their own continued electoral success, and cuts in personal
taxation were a key element in this strategy. These cuts were
financed by revenues from North Sea oil and gas; output was
maximized and invaluable energy resources were wasted for short-
term, party political purposes. Tax cuts were also financed by
privatization, the selling off of public assets to individual
investors and private capital. The energy sector has figured
prominently in this. State oil assets were among the earliest
flotations, followed by British Gas and then by the electricity
supply and distribution companies (though private capital wasn't
prepared to take a risk with nuclear power, which is still in the
public sector). British Coal is next in line.
Privatization has proven to be far more than a mere cosmetic
change of owners. It has had an immediate impact on policy
decisions in the energy sector. For instance, private
electricity companies are now required by the market to operate
with a much shorter planning horizon than the old state-owned
electricity generating board. They have therefore responded to
short-term price signals by ordering new gas-fired rather than
coal-fired power stations, thus setting the scene for the pit
closures announced in late 1992.
The Tories also came to power with the aim of inflicting a
strategic historical defeat on the organized labor movement.
They pursued this goal in three ways. First, in the early 1980s
they used monetarist policies to engineer an economic recession
which saw thousands of job losses across much of manufacturing
industry, destroying centers of trade union organization and
rekindling workers' fear of mass unemployment. Second, they
introduced a battery of anti-union legislation, to the point
where trade union rights are now more limited in Britain than in
any other West European country. Third -- and this is where
anti-union policy has impacted on the energy sector -- the Tories
14
set out to provoke a strike in the coal industry and to defeat
the miners' union.
Senior Tory strategists had been planning this for years.
It was partly a matter of revenge -- the miners had contributed
to the Tories' downfall in 1974 -- and partly also a calculation
that a defeat for the miners, the self-styled "shock troops" of
organized labor, would demoralize the trade union movement as a
whole. In fact the Tories' hostility to the miners dictated much
of their energy policy; their enthusiasm for nuclear power in the
late 1970s and early 1980s was openly justified in terms of its
providing a substitute for coal, and thus a safeguard against
industrial action by miners. The long-expected strike finally
came in 1984-85, and the Tories' aims were achieved: the miners
were defeated and the labor movement as a whole was shattered by
the defeat. It is only now starting to recover.
Taken overall, the policies of successive right-wing
governments in Britain have transformed energy options in a way
which contributes very directly to second-contradiction crisis.
But the important point for the present discussion is that the
roots of these policies lie in classical, traditional first-
contradiction class struggle, in the clash between capital and
labor over control of the production process. In Britain, given
the political conditions, the balance of class forces, and the
tactical and strategic mistakes by the labor movement's
leadership, the outcome has been a series of defeats for the
movement.
The result is a growing crisis of production conditions,
which stems precisely from capital's success in tackling the UK's
chronic crisis of the production process: first contradiction and
second contradiction are inextricably intertwined. Of course, in
some grand historical perspective this success may only be
"short-term" -- but it is within this "short-term" that our lives
and struggles are acted out and that practical politics take
place. And only if we can achieve political success within this
short-term, will a long-term and progressive resolution of the
ecological crisis be possible.
4. Conclusions
This analysis carries a number of implications. If first-
contradiction and second-contradiction crises are in practice
15
inseparable, this has immediate implications for political
strategy. It means that it is an absolute priority to bring
together those different social forces associated with the
different points of contradiction -- the organized labor
movement, on the one hand, and the "new social movements," on the
other. The precise form which this takes will vary according to
circumstance. Here in Britain, I would argue that the priority
is to continue with the "greening" and "feminization" of the
Labour Party and trade union movement which is now under way.
Elsewhere it might mean "red-green" coalitions, or other quite
new political formations.
O'Connor is right in identifying workplace health and safety
as a focal point for building alliances. The last few years have
seen the growth of a lively "hazards movement" in the UK and
Europe, bringing together workplace safety reps, environmental
activists, academics, and researchers. A recent hazards movement
conference attracted hundreds of delegates from all over Europe.
It is also significant that health and safety is the one area of
the European Community's much-vaunted "Social Dimension" which
has actually seen some progress; it is also the one area of trade
union influence in Britain which the Tories have (so far) left
alone. Issues of workplace safety rightly carry a moral charge
which we should put to good use.
Flowing from all this is the need for a clearer
understanding of the class identity of the "new social
movements." O'Connor argues that "issues pertaining to
production conditions are class issues, even though they are also
more than class issues,"16 and that they "broaden the class
struggle beyond any self-recognition as such."17 This formulation
is somehow disappointing -- it signals a retreat to a traditional
notion of class, onto which struggles around production
conditions are then superimposed. But to pose the issue of class
in this way is to throw away the opportunity which is opened up
by the concept of the second contradiction. This concept, that
of social struggle around production conditions, gives us a
starting point for rethinking and enriching our whole theory of
class and class conflict. I don't have any preconceptions as to
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16 Ibid., p. 37.
17 Ibid., p. 34.
16
the outcome of this rethinking, but it seems to me that if we
have a new theoretical vehicle then we ought to see where it
goes.
Finally, a battle of ideas is under way. O'Connor's concept
of a second contradiction refers to an observable reality. We
can identify a mounting contradiction between the prevailing
forces and social relations of production, on the one hand, and
the conditions of production, on the other. But there are also
other forces seeking to impose their own interpretation upon the
crisis. In the run-up to the UN Earth Summit in Rio, both GATT
and the World Bank put out densely argued documents making the
case that capitalist free trade is intrinsically environmentally
benign -- arguing, in effect, that the prerequisite for avoiding
ecological crisis is for capital to retain its domination over
labor. At the same time they came up with some clever proposals
which are likely to be very attractive to environmentalists --
such as GATT's idea that countries such as Brazil should be
financially compensated for the global "carbon absorption
services" provided by its rainforests.18
Faced with powerful and sophisticated ideological opponents
such as these, it is vital that the debate initiated by O'Connor
should continue, contributing to the development of a new
ecological Marxism.
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18 Financial Times, December 2, 1992.
17