James Gustave (Gus) Speth, in The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability
Les Leopold, in The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi
“In the late 1980s, Tony was arguing that global warming might force us to fundamentally alter capitalism. He believed that the struggle against nature was the irreconcilable contradiction that would force systemic change.”
— Les Leopold, in The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi
James Gustave Speth
co-founder and senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, with President Jimmy Carter’s Council on Environmental Quality, as founder and president of the World Resources Institute, as Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and, since 1999, as Dean of the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Tony Mazzocchi, following service in the army during World War II, was completely immersed in the world of the U.S. labor movement. He rose from the ranks to become a national leader of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, and he was the founder and leader of the Labor Party.
But as these two fascinating books make clear, their distinct life experiences led them both to believe that the capitalist system which now dominates most of the world is the ultimate problem humanity must face up to and deal with if we are to survive and if
Tony Mazzocchi died in 2002.
Mazzocchi was likely the first labor leader, if not one of the first labor activists, to get it on global warming. 20 years ago, in 1988, he organized the first U.S. union conference on global warming, and he was responsible for the publication and circulation of Global Warming Watch, by the Labor Institute’s Mike Merrill, “certainly the first publication on the implications of climate change for American workers.”
Mazzocchi’s commitment to linking worker’s rights and environmental issues was deeply-grounded. As the legislative director of OCAW he played a major role in 1973 when 4,000 OCAW members who worked for Shell Oil Company went on strike at eight plants and refineries around the country. In part because of Mazzocchi, the health and safety of the workers, at risk because of high amounts of asbestos in their workplaces, was the primary issue of the strike.
Due to Mazzocchi’s leadership, a blue-green alliance developed around this struggle. Major environmental groups supported the strike and built support for a nationwide boycott of Shell products. Four months after it began, the strike was settled. Historian Robert Gordon, writing 25 years later, wrote of OCAW’s …
… remarkable progress. Almost all of the union’s contracts with other oil companies were renewed with the strict health and safety clause. . . In addition, OCAW’s efforts heightened public awareness of health hazards confronting millions of American workers. . . Perhaps most importantly, the Shell strike solidified the tentative labor-environmental alliance. [p. 308]
It is no small thing when someone with Speth’s background and connections writes, “my conclusion, after much searching and considerable reluctance, is that most environmental deterioration is a result of systemic failures of the capitalism that we have today and that long-term solutions must seek transformative change in the key features of this contemporary capitalism.” [p. 9] Or this more stark formulation: “Capitalism as we know it today is incapable of sustaining the environment.” [p. 63]
On the other hand, Speth makes clear that he’s no socialist, a difference with Mazzocchi, who liked the basic idea even though he was critical of much of “actually existing socialism” and much of the organized socialist and communist Left in the U.S.
Speth writes approvingly of a government-regulated market economy, one in which environmental impacts and the “polluter pays” principle would be paramount, essentially a form of environmental social democracy.
Speth calls for a rejection of the necessity of constant economic growth — a central tenet of capitalism. He calls, instead, for policies that “strengthen families and communities,” “measures that guarantee good, well-paying jobs,” “measures that give us more time for leisure, informal education, the arts, music, drama, sports, hobbies, volunteering, community work, outdoor work,” “measures that give everyone a good education,” and more. [p. 145]
He rejects “consumerism and commercialism.” Instead:
Confront consumerism. Practice sufficiency. Work less. Reclaim your time — it’s all you have. Turn off technology. Join No Shopping Day. Buy nothing … Simplify your life. Shed possessions. Downshift. (p. 163)
He supports “ownership by workers, public ownership, and public and private enterprises that do not seek traditional profits. They offer opportunities for greater local control, more sensitivity to employee, public, and consumer interests, and heightened environmental performance.
– from gristmill