Five Principles of a Socialist Climate Politics
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1655 ... August 24, 2018
______________________________________________________________
Five Principles of a Socialist Climate Politics
Matthew Huber
Democratic socialism is in the air. Since Bernie Sanders’s miraculous 2016 primary run -- garnering 13.2 million votes and 23 state victories -- the politics of democratic socialism has grown in popularity. I believe this popularity is based on its capacity to articulate clear and simple principles. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (now famously) said on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, "I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live." Who disagrees with that? It’s becoming clear that climate politics needs to catch up with these developments.
Many have recognized the need to articulate a "Medicare-for-all"-like strategy on climate change, where people could see how... solving climate change could deliver direct improvements to their lives. But, at a more basic level, what does a socialist politics of climate change look like? This is obviously a debate (and I won’t claim to have definitive answers), but the following essay is an attempt to lay out five basic principles of a socialist climate politics. A core theme across all five is that a socialist climate politics is dramatically different than the ‘third way’ technocratic policy approaches that have dominated climate politics over the last three decades. I should first say, however, that obviously 20th Century socialism leaves much to be desired for ecological politics (although many see positive developments in Cuba once they were delinked from the oil of the Soviet bloc). This movement must put both democracy and ecology at the center of a 21st Century democratic ecosocialism.