The Cult of Environmentalism and its Political Malleability
British Environmentalism, or more broadly speaking, a concern, expressed in politicised terms, with human mistreatment and degradation of our natural environment, has usually been associated, generally speaking, with left-wing politics (leaving aside for now such supposed anomalies as the BNP and other such nationalist numpties sloganeering in a predictably unsystematic manner about a Green Britain for British People, etc). This is an oversimplification, as many will, I’m sure, line up to tell me. But it seems accurate in terms of what resonates within the popular consciousness, regardless of whether or not it is strictly true, and this, to all intents and purposes, is what matters in many respects. Recently, however, I have been incredibly surprised at the rather sharp divergence of the paths of environmentally-oriented politics and mainstream left-wing social and economic thought, and the lack of furore that has accompanied this ongoing process.
First it was the Tories adopting an excruciatingly embarrassing, impressionistic lefty-looking tree motif as their official party emblem. Then it was guileless former Lib Dem and Green Party supporters declaring that they now supported David Cameron’s party after it made blindly superficial pledges about getting serious about environmental issues to an extent unmatched, in explicit terms at least, by Labour, and given that the parties to whom they had previously pledged allegiance will never have any serious chance of gaining power. The stupidity of supporting a party suddenly displaying a skin-deep, blindingly obviously pragmatic and faux-zeitgeisty epiphany regarding its hitherto non-existent commitment to the environment should be self-evident, especially when one considers that the overriding and timeless ‘appeal’ of the Conservatives has been its pronounced emphasis on cutting red-tape for businesses- undeniably the biggest polluters on a national level- but I digress.
What is noteworthy in all of this is that those on the right and centre-right are progressively hijacking, as part of a historical process of superficial realignment, many of the main tenets of environmentalism as a left-wing entity to simultaneously soften the corners of their staunchly anti-redistributive, anti-social justice agendas with one outstretched hand, and to further them with the other . This is pervasively evident throughout both the Labour Party and the Conservatives, and encompasses such diverse entities as the London congestion charge and the nauseatingly reworked Tory party symbol. Of course, none of this surprising when viewed against a historical backdrop; taking on ‘toothless’, or at the very least, less controversial ‘lefty’ issues than economic structures, wealth redistribution or ownership of the means of production has been a staple of those seeking to project an image of a ‘mixed’ or balanced ideology in order to disguise an otherwise very pointed agenda, with electoral gain in mind. What is significant, however, is the manner in which this is so uncritically received at present. The recently announced £1.34 per mile charge to drive in London has been depicted by many media organs as emblematic of the revamped nature of the Modern Tory Party, along with Boris Johnson’s spirited cycling sessions to work from Finsbury Park and Mile End.
This seems to skit over, whether deliberately or unconsciously, the painfully obvious: such policies are a deliberate and consistent continuation of one of the main tropes of British centre-right politics: the accommodation of the moneyed classes at the expense of the poor. In the same way that the indefensible tobacco tax essentially represents a stealth tax on the poor, the proposed driving tax will clear the streets of 1992 Ford Fiesta drivers taking their children to the local comprehensive to make way for the Mercedes, the BMW, the Jaguar, and the brand new Golf GTI heading out of Notting Hill. Pollution won’t really be alleviated to any significant degree: rather, a more comfortable environment will be generated for those whose place within our plutocratic culture is already secure and this will come at the expense of those already subsisting at the margins. The sheer ideological malleability of the notion of environmentally-focused politics needs to be questioned more carefully, and those who promulgate it loudly need to be subjected to the most rigorous degree of scrutiny. As with the sinister but widely-applauded Labour focus on public health and the employment of the machinery of the state to stop the plebs from harming themselves, and its subsequent deflection of attention away from Labour’s fundamental rejection of redistributive principles, the environment provides fertile ground not only to soften the edges of an otherwise unpleasant manifesto but a means to actually further it via further, non-gradated taxation of those who can least afford it.
Reader Comments
Relevant:
http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/german-greens-align-with-right-in-saarland/
http://shiftmag.co.uk/?p=306
http://neo-jacobins.blogspot.com/2009/03/environmental-correctness-new-religion.html
And also:
http://www.metamute.org/en/manufactured-scarcity-the-profits-of-deindustrialisation
An alternative way of looking at this perennial question is to welcome any steps, however wobbly and weak, taken by other parties in the general direction of a sustainable economy, but to challenge the depth and robustness of their commitment.
If ideology is world view in action, and the Tory world view is indeed still basically individualistic, with a strong bent towards the corporation as an individual in law, with all of the rights but few of the responsibilities of an individual, we can expect little of them. In fact as Political Compass
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
has shown, Labour, Tories and LibDems are all clustering in the individualism/authoritarinism quadrant.
The Green Party has always been founded on the ideology of political ecology, viewing humanity in its biophysical context, rather than as a self-existent being, whether in its individuality or as society. This is a new departure, as big as that which happened with the Enlightenment, and it is no wonder that the old guard are still trying to pretend that we are just a bunch of bunny-huggers. To admit anything else would be to admit to the imminence of their own intellectual demise.
“An alternative way of looking at this perennial question is to welcome any steps, however wobbly and weak, taken by other parties in the general direction of a sustainable economy, but to challenge the depth and robustness of their commitment.”
- A slap in the face is indeed better than a kick in the bollocks…
I don’t see that enviromentalism has to be confined to the political left. It’s an issure that concerns us all, so why shouldn’t people across the political spectrum express an interest in and concern about the environment.
In terms of environmental policies impacting more on the poor, this is quite possible, but it’s worth bearing in mind most taxes currently impinge more on the poor than the rich, so that seems to be more of a systemic problem with the tax regime, rather than something special about environmental taxes. Plus, in a society with unequal income levels, there tend to be an awful lot more of the poor end of the society than the rich end, so more opportunity to make a difference with pollution! And more incentive to go green if financial incentives are put in place, as they will have a bigger marginal effect. That having been said, I would think you’d still get an effort from the drivers of expensive, inefficient cars to change, as they pay more road tax, fuel tax (through iincreased conusmption), insurance, and initial purchase costs. And if the rich didn’t care about saving money, what’s with all the tax avoidance?