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A People’s Green New Deal
An urgent demand for a People's Green New Deal, foregrounding global agricultural transformation and climate justice for the Global South
The idea of a Green New Deal was launched into popular consciousness by US Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. It has become a watchword in the current era of global climate crisis. But what - and for whom - is the Green New Deal?
In this concise and urgent book, Max Ajl provides an overview of the various mainstream Green New Deals. Critically engaging with their proponents, ideological underpinnings and limitations, he goes on to sketch out a radical alternative: a 'People's Green New Deal' committed to decommodification, working-class power, anti-imperialism and agro-ecology.
Ajl diagnoses the roots of the current socio-ecological crisis as emerging from a world-system dominated by the logics of capitalism and imperialism. Resolving this crisis, he argues, requires nothing less than an infrastructural and agricultural transformation in the Global North, and the industrial convergence between North and South. As the climate crisis deepens and the literature on the subject grows, A People's Green New Deal contributes a distinctive perspective to the debate.
The idea of a Green New Deal was launched into popular consciousness by US Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. It has become a watchword in the current era of global climate crisis. But what - and for whom - is the Green New Deal?
In this concise and urgent book, Max Ajl provides an overview of the various mainstream Green New Deals. Critically engaging with their proponents, ideological underpinnings and limitations, he goes on to sketch out a radical alternative: a 'People's Green New Deal' committed to decommodification, working-class power, anti-imperialism and agro-ecology.
Ajl diagnoses the roots of the current socio-ecological crisis as emerging from a world-system dominated by the logics of capitalism and imperialism. Resolving this crisis, he argues, requires nothing less than an infrastructural and agricultural transformation in the Global North, and the industrial convergence between North and South. As the climate crisis deepens and the literature on the subject grows, A People's Green New Deal contributes a distinctive perspective to the debate.
220 pages, Hardcover
First published May 20, 2021
34 people are currently reading
2075 people want to read
About the author
Max Ajl
2 books18 followersMax Ajl is an associated researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment and a postdoctoral fellow with the Rural Sociology Group at Wageningen University. He has written for Monthly Review, Jacobin and Viewpoint. He has contributed to a number of journals, including the Journal of Peasant Studies, Review of African Political Economy and Globalizations, and is an associate editor at Agrarian South & Journal of Labor and Society.
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January 5, 2024
What would the Green New Deal look like if the Global South mattered?
Preamble:
--2021 was a year of growing urgency; formally studying/working in public health and seeing global capitalism’s abysmal handling of the pandemic further emphasized how unprepared our political economic system (my “extracurricular” study) is to much-greater ecological crises. Given the lack of social imagination around me (work/university/life), I’m further prioritizing social research.
--I checked off several must-reads in 2021, including :
-Marx's Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1
-Hudson's The Bubble and Beyond and Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
-Utsa Patnaik's The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
-an unexpected gem was Hickel’s synthesis of degrowth + decolonization in Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
...So, to start 2022 strong, let’s pair this with Ajl’s synthesis of Green New Deal + decolonization:
Highlights:
1) Global North’s Green New Deal:
--Let’s start with the easy part: exposing the imperialist technocracy behind Western “progressives”:
a) Add “green” to business-as-usual: the fine-print of mainstream/some “progressive” Green New Deals (including AOC/Markey) is green capital/markets. This is the “creative destruction” of capitalism, shedding contradictions of ossifying capital (ironically, fossil capital in this case) and stimulating the idle savings of wealth hoarders to expand the capitalist logic: private accumulation via commodification. This entails private enclosures of social property/value to enforce market exchange (now: carbon markets, ecosystem services pricing), financed by externalizing risks/costs onto society while rewards are privatized (State insurance getting bailout-savvy Wall Street on board).
…what this political economy jargon means in the real world is green = the new business (World Economic Forum), so the global poor (who have no market value in a money-based market society) need to be cleared off the greenery (suddenly valuable in green capitalism: biofuel, carbon off-setting for corporations via monoculture forest conservation, financial speculation, etc.) they reside on (the new “Enclosures”).
b) Such private enclosures require violence, thus a green military (ex. snake Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s Department of Defense Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act).
c) If green capitalism still seems too abstract, consider the raw materials costs of a green transition while Global South demands for sovereignty and trade justice are pushed to the margins.
…Western ivory-tower dreams of “Half-Earth” (Edward O. Wilson)… where half the earth is reserved for conservation), decoupling capitalist growth from material use, Green Revolution technocracy/lab meat (Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto), etc. have clearly spent little efforts engaging with Global South realities.
--For activists, the more interesting part is debating “pragmatism” with Western radicals like Naomi Klein (On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal) and Noam Chomsky/economist Robert Pollin (The Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet) who are clearly aware of Global South realities, but see enough in “progressive” Green New Deals to support them strategically.
--Regarding socdem (social democratic, i.e. “democratic” politics + capitalist economics), Ajl distinguishes socdem policies vs. socdem as a historical phenomenon. The former can have its uses, but we need to review the latter to evaluate strategic “pragmatism”. Socdem’s shining achievement was the post-WWII Western welfare state; this was not the handout from Enlightened liberal capitalism (indeed, FDR could never expand his New Deals to sufficiently resolve the Great Depression since his fellow capitalists would rather adopt fascism and/or profit from WWII); the welfare state was a forced compromise to prevent the challenge of global Communism. Today, the capitalist class derailed Bernie/Corbyn; where is the external challenge?
2) Global South’s Environmental Justice:
--A key responsibility of radical intellectuals is to expand the social imagination of their audiences, in this case the Global North censored from Global South realities (we can start with Chomsky’s own Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies and take the next step with Vijay Prashad on imperialist ideological censorship: https://youtu.be/6jKcsHv3c74 )
--So, my main issue with the cited Klein/Chomsky presentations of the Green New Deal is their failure to center today’s external challenge: Global South decolonization in the age of growing multi-polarity (decaying Western casino capitalism while China builds). Much like how the Global South were innovating expansive human rights during 20th century decolonization (obscured by the Global North “Cold War” framing; co-opted by liberal “human rights”: The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World), this decolonization process once again is miles ahead in terms of innovating a path towards a global ecological society (Environmental Justice movements).
--Thus, Ajl centers the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba (as well as the The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth and on-the-ground experiments):
a) Climate debt/reparations + Rights of Mother Earth: mealy-mouthed liberals have no problem in token “recognition” of oppression. The Global South are pushing for concrete actions; these are not siloed in academia either, as the Global South has led Environmental Justice movements since the 1990s to organize summits to plan/popularize/enact where possible these concepts: debt owed by Global North states for colonizing the atmosphere + burdening the South’s opportunities for development and adaptation to climate disasters, common-but-differentiated responsibility for global states, Rights of Mother Earth, recognizing migration rights, technological transfers and dismantling Western monopolization of intellectual property, etc. If you need an intro on the economics of imperialism, see: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.
b) Agrarian Question + food sovereignty: the aforementioned Global North technocracy is steeped in eco-modernism, thus assuming away the monstrosity of industrial agriculture: biodiversity cleared for energy-intensive (chemical fertilizers + pesticides + vast machinery) monocrops eroding soil fertility, used to feed mass-torture “livestock” or biofuels or simply wasted on the capitalist market to ensure profitable prices. Global capitalist production is the glorious system of destructive overproduction amidst starvation. Global North monopolizes food staples while Global South are forced (through “free trade” “comparative advantage”) to export exotic cash crops. Thus, food sovereignty is a centerpiece in decolonization (The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry), with the re-localization of food as part of agroecology experiments (native ecological food production experience + scientific experimentation, re-imaging our social life’s relationship with the land rather than simply romanticizing historical petty production).
c) National Question + anti-militarism: the US military itself is not just a key polluter; imperialism’s boot actively prevents decolonization (Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations). It does not help that “progressives” like AOC concede to imperialism right when Global South states are terrorized by imperialist-sponsored coups (“what Venezuela really needs right now is more democracy”) or downplaying the difficulties of anti-imperialist development (“petro-populism” labels). The empire’s domestic poor are weary of being recruited for endless wars while returning to rust belts and opioid crises; let’s not forget socdem hero Obama extinguished the Bush-era anti-war movement while even con artist Trump campaigned with anti-war rhetoric.
--If we return to “pragmatism”, it should be clear that socdem parties (US Democratic Party, UK Labour Party, etc.) are a major obstacle and far behind the internationalist capacity of even the Global North public (Vietnam Syndrome, anti-nuclear weapons, anti-WTO Battle of Seattle, anti-war on Iraq, etc.). The problem with concessions as a strategy is sooner or later you concede everything.
Next Steps:
--Author Max Ajl and Jason Hickel were recently interviewed by DiEM25; I wish they discussed DiEM25's progressive Green New Deal for Europe with Yanis Varoufakis. Lots to unpack regarding “pragmatism” given Varoufakis is on the council of Progressive International with Naomi Klein, Vijay Prashad (anti-imperialist communist: Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism) and Nick Estes (Red Nation: The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth).
--I'll continue to look for more materialist analysis of global energy use, Earth Systems limits, infrastructure, waste, etc., to better compare/prioritize solutions (ex. with agroecology), but I must admit it is exhausting how research is dominated by undiagnosed liberalism (ex. Limits to Growth, EROI, etc., despite some of their useful technical tools: Thinking in Systems: A Primer). This pathology manifests in flare-ups of salivary frothing of the mouth with repeated utterances of the word “overpopulation” when triggered by social policy application. For a full diagnosis, see: Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
--With a clearer centering on what we should be fighting for, we can return to “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will” and consider the various scenarios we might confront. To me, this is a better use of “pragmatism”. So, I’m looking into war-time economies in anticipation of nationalist crisis management. Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (I'll eventually stop trashing that book) seems less relevant than the escalation of crises forcing radicalization (both Right and Left)…
Preamble:
--2021 was a year of growing urgency; formally studying/working in public health and seeing global capitalism’s abysmal handling of the pandemic further emphasized how unprepared our political economic system (my “extracurricular” study) is to much-greater ecological crises. Given the lack of social imagination around me (work/university/life), I’m further prioritizing social research.
--I checked off several must-reads in 2021, including :
-Marx's Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1
-Hudson's The Bubble and Beyond and Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
-Utsa Patnaik's The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
-an unexpected gem was Hickel’s synthesis of degrowth + decolonization in Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
...So, to start 2022 strong, let’s pair this with Ajl’s synthesis of Green New Deal + decolonization:
Highlights:
1) Global North’s Green New Deal:
--Let’s start with the easy part: exposing the imperialist technocracy behind Western “progressives”:
a) Add “green” to business-as-usual: the fine-print of mainstream/some “progressive” Green New Deals (including AOC/Markey) is green capital/markets. This is the “creative destruction” of capitalism, shedding contradictions of ossifying capital (ironically, fossil capital in this case) and stimulating the idle savings of wealth hoarders to expand the capitalist logic: private accumulation via commodification. This entails private enclosures of social property/value to enforce market exchange (now: carbon markets, ecosystem services pricing), financed by externalizing risks/costs onto society while rewards are privatized (State insurance getting bailout-savvy Wall Street on board).
…what this political economy jargon means in the real world is green = the new business (World Economic Forum), so the global poor (who have no market value in a money-based market society) need to be cleared off the greenery (suddenly valuable in green capitalism: biofuel, carbon off-setting for corporations via monoculture forest conservation, financial speculation, etc.) they reside on (the new “Enclosures”).
b) Such private enclosures require violence, thus a green military (ex. snake Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s Department of Defense Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act).
c) If green capitalism still seems too abstract, consider the raw materials costs of a green transition while Global South demands for sovereignty and trade justice are pushed to the margins.
…Western ivory-tower dreams of “Half-Earth” (Edward O. Wilson)… where half the earth is reserved for conservation), decoupling capitalist growth from material use, Green Revolution technocracy/lab meat (Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto), etc. have clearly spent little efforts engaging with Global South realities.
--For activists, the more interesting part is debating “pragmatism” with Western radicals like Naomi Klein (On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal) and Noam Chomsky/economist Robert Pollin (The Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet) who are clearly aware of Global South realities, but see enough in “progressive” Green New Deals to support them strategically.
--Regarding socdem (social democratic, i.e. “democratic” politics + capitalist economics), Ajl distinguishes socdem policies vs. socdem as a historical phenomenon. The former can have its uses, but we need to review the latter to evaluate strategic “pragmatism”. Socdem’s shining achievement was the post-WWII Western welfare state; this was not the handout from Enlightened liberal capitalism (indeed, FDR could never expand his New Deals to sufficiently resolve the Great Depression since his fellow capitalists would rather adopt fascism and/or profit from WWII); the welfare state was a forced compromise to prevent the challenge of global Communism. Today, the capitalist class derailed Bernie/Corbyn; where is the external challenge?
2) Global South’s Environmental Justice:
--A key responsibility of radical intellectuals is to expand the social imagination of their audiences, in this case the Global North censored from Global South realities (we can start with Chomsky’s own Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies and take the next step with Vijay Prashad on imperialist ideological censorship: https://youtu.be/6jKcsHv3c74 )
--So, my main issue with the cited Klein/Chomsky presentations of the Green New Deal is their failure to center today’s external challenge: Global South decolonization in the age of growing multi-polarity (decaying Western casino capitalism while China builds). Much like how the Global South were innovating expansive human rights during 20th century decolonization (obscured by the Global North “Cold War” framing; co-opted by liberal “human rights”: The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World), this decolonization process once again is miles ahead in terms of innovating a path towards a global ecological society (Environmental Justice movements).
--Thus, Ajl centers the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba (as well as the The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth and on-the-ground experiments):
a) Climate debt/reparations + Rights of Mother Earth: mealy-mouthed liberals have no problem in token “recognition” of oppression. The Global South are pushing for concrete actions; these are not siloed in academia either, as the Global South has led Environmental Justice movements since the 1990s to organize summits to plan/popularize/enact where possible these concepts: debt owed by Global North states for colonizing the atmosphere + burdening the South’s opportunities for development and adaptation to climate disasters, common-but-differentiated responsibility for global states, Rights of Mother Earth, recognizing migration rights, technological transfers and dismantling Western monopolization of intellectual property, etc. If you need an intro on the economics of imperialism, see: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.
b) Agrarian Question + food sovereignty: the aforementioned Global North technocracy is steeped in eco-modernism, thus assuming away the monstrosity of industrial agriculture: biodiversity cleared for energy-intensive (chemical fertilizers + pesticides + vast machinery) monocrops eroding soil fertility, used to feed mass-torture “livestock” or biofuels or simply wasted on the capitalist market to ensure profitable prices. Global capitalist production is the glorious system of destructive overproduction amidst starvation. Global North monopolizes food staples while Global South are forced (through “free trade” “comparative advantage”) to export exotic cash crops. Thus, food sovereignty is a centerpiece in decolonization (The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry), with the re-localization of food as part of agroecology experiments (native ecological food production experience + scientific experimentation, re-imaging our social life’s relationship with the land rather than simply romanticizing historical petty production).
c) National Question + anti-militarism: the US military itself is not just a key polluter; imperialism’s boot actively prevents decolonization (Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations). It does not help that “progressives” like AOC concede to imperialism right when Global South states are terrorized by imperialist-sponsored coups (“what Venezuela really needs right now is more democracy”) or downplaying the difficulties of anti-imperialist development (“petro-populism” labels). The empire’s domestic poor are weary of being recruited for endless wars while returning to rust belts and opioid crises; let’s not forget socdem hero Obama extinguished the Bush-era anti-war movement while even con artist Trump campaigned with anti-war rhetoric.
--If we return to “pragmatism”, it should be clear that socdem parties (US Democratic Party, UK Labour Party, etc.) are a major obstacle and far behind the internationalist capacity of even the Global North public (Vietnam Syndrome, anti-nuclear weapons, anti-WTO Battle of Seattle, anti-war on Iraq, etc.). The problem with concessions as a strategy is sooner or later you concede everything.
Next Steps:
--Author Max Ajl and Jason Hickel were recently interviewed by DiEM25; I wish they discussed DiEM25's progressive Green New Deal for Europe with Yanis Varoufakis. Lots to unpack regarding “pragmatism” given Varoufakis is on the council of Progressive International with Naomi Klein, Vijay Prashad (anti-imperialist communist: Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism) and Nick Estes (Red Nation: The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth).
--I'll continue to look for more materialist analysis of global energy use, Earth Systems limits, infrastructure, waste, etc., to better compare/prioritize solutions (ex. with agroecology), but I must admit it is exhausting how research is dominated by undiagnosed liberalism (ex. Limits to Growth, EROI, etc., despite some of their useful technical tools: Thinking in Systems: A Primer). This pathology manifests in flare-ups of salivary frothing of the mouth with repeated utterances of the word “overpopulation” when triggered by social policy application. For a full diagnosis, see: Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
--With a clearer centering on what we should be fighting for, we can return to “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will” and consider the various scenarios we might confront. To me, this is a better use of “pragmatism”. So, I’m looking into war-time economies in anticipation of nationalist crisis management. Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (I'll eventually stop trashing that book) seems less relevant than the escalation of crises forcing radicalization (both Right and Left)…
October 25, 2021
This is, hands down, the best book on the climate/ecological crisis that I've read.
Using the AOC Green New Deal as a reference point, he provides an extremely level-headed critique from an internationalist/anti-imperialist perspective. It had just the right balance of science, statistics, history, and politics. The section on the national question as it relates to climate debt was extremely clarifying to me and was in great conversation not only with Lenin and Stalin but also Fanon, Rodney, and Cabral.
Can't recommend this enough!
Using the AOC Green New Deal as a reference point, he provides an extremely level-headed critique from an internationalist/anti-imperialist perspective. It had just the right balance of science, statistics, history, and politics. The section on the national question as it relates to climate debt was extremely clarifying to me and was in great conversation not only with Lenin and Stalin but also Fanon, Rodney, and Cabral.
Can't recommend this enough!
June 13, 2021
this book is a compelling intervention into debates concerning a potential Green New Deal that primarily focuses on two largely absent elements in other such plans: agroecology and north-south climate debts. Ajl persuasively calls for these to not just be added on but centralized in any such GND, with a focus on the implications this has for how social life must change in the imperial core. the division between critique and proposal means that some questions of politics-who and how-are still somewhat abstract, and there are a few spots where i would disagree with the author's assessment (namely concerning whether the national question is best/only to be addressed through the nation-state form). but this is a polemical book which rests on the foundation that "clarity comes through disagreement and conversation", and its clarification of stakes is not only needed but quite useful.
October 31, 2021
Check out the interview I did with Max on his book here: https://youtu.be/vXiPJxnjhh0?t=23204
Incredibly important, most certainly the most important book on the climate I've seen. An absolute must-read for anyone who cares about the climate but also considers themself an anti-imperialist (let's be real, that should be everyone). Pick it up NOW.
Incredibly important, most certainly the most important book on the climate I've seen. An absolute must-read for anyone who cares about the climate but also considers themself an anti-imperialist (let's be real, that should be everyone). Pick it up NOW.
September 3, 2021
This fascinating book critiques the limits of the GND as articulated by its bourgeois proponents and presents the need for an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and agro-ecological solution to the global ecological crisis.
The book has lots of interesting stuff based on the incorporation of the environmental aspect into the analysis of the relation of exploitation between a few core states and their Global South dependencies and neo-colonies via the concept of environmentally uneven exchange (EUE). I especially like Ajl's critique of First World social democracy and its green variations (like AOC and Sander's Green New Deal) as non-solutions to global climate crisis, being still based on the environmentally destructive plunder of surplus-value produced in the peripheries. Ajl's reiteration on the way social democratic compromises in the imperialist core where historically bound to the ruling classes' need to accommodate popular classes as a buffer against the threat of Marxist revolutionary movements (hence, it's impossibility today) is spot on.
The People's Green New Deal outlined by Ajl in broad strokes call for controlled industrialization, alternative technologies, a planned world economy, and agrarian revolution transitioning away from environmentally destructive logic of capitalist-imperialist accumulation. At the core of the People's Green New Deal is the call for an anti-imperialist resolution of the agrarian and national questions as the primary articulations of the class struggle in the Third World. Ending imperialism is the only real way to resolve the ecological crisis.
The book has lots of interesting stuff based on the incorporation of the environmental aspect into the analysis of the relation of exploitation between a few core states and their Global South dependencies and neo-colonies via the concept of environmentally uneven exchange (EUE). I especially like Ajl's critique of First World social democracy and its green variations (like AOC and Sander's Green New Deal) as non-solutions to global climate crisis, being still based on the environmentally destructive plunder of surplus-value produced in the peripheries. Ajl's reiteration on the way social democratic compromises in the imperialist core where historically bound to the ruling classes' need to accommodate popular classes as a buffer against the threat of Marxist revolutionary movements (hence, it's impossibility today) is spot on.
The People's Green New Deal outlined by Ajl in broad strokes call for controlled industrialization, alternative technologies, a planned world economy, and agrarian revolution transitioning away from environmentally destructive logic of capitalist-imperialist accumulation. At the core of the People's Green New Deal is the call for an anti-imperialist resolution of the agrarian and national questions as the primary articulations of the class struggle in the Third World. Ending imperialism is the only real way to resolve the ecological crisis.
August 2, 2021
Max Ajl outlines an inspiring and incisive criticism in ‘A People’s Green
New Deal’. Part 1 of the book identifies and contends with the
competing visions for GNDs: the liberal and social-democratic, first
worldist forms. The concept of ‘climate debt’, as theorized at
Cochabamba, is critical in distinguishing first-worldist visions that
would entrench imperialism from truly progressive visions.
Part II of the book is Ajl’s vision for the necessary social and economic changes that
could fight climate change while dismantling capitalism. Ajl stresses
that any dilution in advance, to aim low because one dares not to
hope for ‘unrealistic’ change, is an unscientific attitude. It is
one thing to reason from the historical evidence and choose a
realistic strategy; it is another thing to foreclose on political
opportunities before they have been tested by practice.
Perhaps my greatest question concerns this idea: the relationship between being and
consciousness
From Ajl:
“Being has a
tendency to determine consciousness. Northern beings tend to be less
oppressed than southern beings, because northern societies are far
wealthier on average, and also have substantial middle classes
accustomed to an imperial mode of living. **For that reason, it is
an Olympian task to detangle northern social democracy from
imperialism.** As a result, many choose to avoid the difficult and
focus on the pragmatic. Pragmatism appears as a recurring tendency in
northern climate politics and left politics more broadly to not take
on the anti-imperialist burden of transformation. They kick climate
debt payments down the road. And anti-imperialism – committed
opposition to Western wars and sanctions – is weak or non-existent
in contemporary left climate politics. This tableau is not
inevitable.”
If this tableau is not inevitable, but instead contingent, then which elements are
vulnerable to action? This appears to be a “chicken and the egg”
problem. Until one remembers that “the chicken and the egg” is not actually a paradox
though, and is easily resolved by a dialectical science [evolutionary
theory]. The people whose beings best equip them with the consciousness to lead these struggles are not hard to identify: listen to the demands of the global south, indigenous peoples, oppressed nations.
It is easy to see that conditions are changing: socialism is no longer a dirty word,
few labor aristocrats are convinced in ‘the end of history’
anymore. It doesn’t take a weatherman to feel which way the wind is
blowing. What are the immediate
and emerging opportunities to exert leverage, to nudge our first-world neighbors
into stronger formations?
New Deal’. Part 1 of the book identifies and contends with the
competing visions for GNDs: the liberal and social-democratic, first
worldist forms. The concept of ‘climate debt’, as theorized at
Cochabamba, is critical in distinguishing first-worldist visions that
would entrench imperialism from truly progressive visions.
Part II of the book is Ajl’s vision for the necessary social and economic changes that
could fight climate change while dismantling capitalism. Ajl stresses
that any dilution in advance, to aim low because one dares not to
hope for ‘unrealistic’ change, is an unscientific attitude. It is
one thing to reason from the historical evidence and choose a
realistic strategy; it is another thing to foreclose on political
opportunities before they have been tested by practice.
Perhaps my greatest question concerns this idea: the relationship between being and
consciousness
From Ajl:
“Being has a
tendency to determine consciousness. Northern beings tend to be less
oppressed than southern beings, because northern societies are far
wealthier on average, and also have substantial middle classes
accustomed to an imperial mode of living. **For that reason, it is
an Olympian task to detangle northern social democracy from
imperialism.** As a result, many choose to avoid the difficult and
focus on the pragmatic. Pragmatism appears as a recurring tendency in
northern climate politics and left politics more broadly to not take
on the anti-imperialist burden of transformation. They kick climate
debt payments down the road. And anti-imperialism – committed
opposition to Western wars and sanctions – is weak or non-existent
in contemporary left climate politics. This tableau is not
inevitable.”
If this tableau is not inevitable, but instead contingent, then which elements are
vulnerable to action? This appears to be a “chicken and the egg”
problem. Until one remembers that “the chicken and the egg” is not actually a paradox
though, and is easily resolved by a dialectical science [evolutionary
theory]. The people whose beings best equip them with the consciousness to lead these struggles are not hard to identify: listen to the demands of the global south, indigenous peoples, oppressed nations.
It is easy to see that conditions are changing: socialism is no longer a dirty word,
few labor aristocrats are convinced in ‘the end of history’
anymore. It doesn’t take a weatherman to feel which way the wind is
blowing. What are the immediate
and emerging opportunities to exert leverage, to nudge our first-world neighbors
into stronger formations?
September 5, 2021
A People's Green New Deal will be one of the most important books you will ever read.
August 10, 2023
This is the closest anyone has ever come to tangibly outlining what good socialism would look like. This has outlined the bases for what I would consider an urban utopia.
The focus is not the literal New Green Deal in the US, rather using it as a framework for why general ecomodernist/centre left environmentalism is harmful and has a million gaps in equitable logic. It views true eco socialism from a Marxist core/periphery perspective.
I’ve found a lot green literatures focus on critiquing right wing ideology as opposed to the centre left tenants of climate care. This is the most complete and comprehensive piece of climate theory I’ve read that focuses on climate but is also intersectional and true new/socialist.
I literally do not have a single critique for this book. It was so dense and has taken me months to sort through and absorb and is probably the best piece of theory I have read. Everytime I picked up this book and read even a page or two I would have a crazy liberal arts clarity epiphany moment. Would point blank sell a piece of my soul to sit in one of ajl’s classes.
If you have any interest in theory at all please read this
The focus is not the literal New Green Deal in the US, rather using it as a framework for why general ecomodernist/centre left environmentalism is harmful and has a million gaps in equitable logic. It views true eco socialism from a Marxist core/periphery perspective.
I’ve found a lot green literatures focus on critiquing right wing ideology as opposed to the centre left tenants of climate care. This is the most complete and comprehensive piece of climate theory I’ve read that focuses on climate but is also intersectional and true new/socialist.
I literally do not have a single critique for this book. It was so dense and has taken me months to sort through and absorb and is probably the best piece of theory I have read. Everytime I picked up this book and read even a page or two I would have a crazy liberal arts clarity epiphany moment. Would point blank sell a piece of my soul to sit in one of ajl’s classes.
If you have any interest in theory at all please read this
January 30, 2022
Wanted to like this book, the topic is certainly urgent. But, the author struggles to focus the critique. He hits a lot of targets, but fails to penetrate any of them to sufficient depth. It reads like a digest of debates among the ecological left, with Max adding his (overall correct) perspective along the way as rejoinders to popular politics. If you are already convinced of the necessity of degrowth political economy, dismantling imperialism, empowering indigenous peoples, and respecting sovereignty of oppressed nationalities, you will agree with what Max has to say. But if that's the case, you don't really need to be convinced by his performance of righteously slaying eco-journalist celebrities or Jacobin's dumbest. We need a succinct articulation of the powerful politics of degrowth, anti-imperialism, and ecological society. But, we don't find that here, as much as a hero's quest against the wrong ideas of the popular imagination.
June 29, 2021
Extremely important book that focuses on the main issues with current social democratic gnd proposals. Mainly being that they do not address the lives of people living in the global south or accommodate their demands for reparations, land back, and the end to us imperialism. This book highlights that it is impossible to stop climate change without dealing with the primary contradiction of us imperialism
August 5, 2021
this ruled. the introduction to climate injustice is both accessible and enraging, with a great read on the flaws with neoliberal and social democratic attempts to grapple with climate collapse. every prescription is well thought out and meaningful - the return of ruminants to the wild and gardens to cities - with evidence from global south cities! - is a moving and attainable world worth fighting for.
June 13, 2024
Good critical analysis of the green new deal and climate politics from an internationalist, eco-socialist perspective. The first part focuses on critiquing the dominant narrative, which he does fairly well, even critiquing other leftist critiques of the GND. Then, in part two, he lays out his vision of an internationalist eco-socialist possibility. He draws heavily from solar punk visions, although he doesn't name it as such. His vision is mostly good, although I feel like he leans too heavily on a centralized state to facilitate climate reparations to the periphery. He also seems vague or contradictory in his call for decentralized worker control, each industry adapting to be more sustainable but also having a centralized state and centralized planning. He doesn't really discuss the strategies to get to his vision, but I read four interrelated prongs. 1) we need to change everything - wherever you are, whatever you do, do it in an eco-socialist way. In other words, we need to change all industries, and the workers in those industries are in the best position to facilitate this process. However, capitalism is in the way leading to 2) strong autonomous social movements, which, among other actions, 3) pressure the government to enact certain policies such as decommodifying the means of subsistence, and shifting wealth so that working-class people can experiment with other ways of doing their work. All of these actions are predicated on 4) for lack of a better phrase, political education, such that people know what's wrong with their industries and how to do it better, have an analysis of capitalism and can take action towards change. Fundamentally, all of these are entangled and interrelated and they are all needed all at once as a united front if his vision, which again I think is mostly good, is to become reality.
August 25, 2021
The Good
- written for an audience in the core, PGND is at its best as an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, degrowth, agroecological critique of leading 'progressive' GNDs which, through intentional or unintentional omission, fail to adequately deal with land (there is no 'open land') and climate debt
- a People's GND is one that respects South sovereignty, does not cheat on the question of land, and repays ecological debt - that is, a GND that implies justice for all
- for Northern actors seeking climate justice, concrete acts of solidarity with local and global colonized peoples and peasant movements should be the starting point - look to the Cochabamba People's Agreement, La Via Campesina, movements for Black liberation and Land Back
- great intro to the many flavors of green politics currently in existence: from ecomodernism left (Bastani, surprised Leigh Phillips doesn't make an appearance here) and right, green social democracy/'domestic growth-oriented anti-racist green Keynesianism' (AOC, Klein, Aldana-Cohen, Pollin) what is it, how was it won in the past, and how do the answers to the previous 2 questions inform strategy in the present?), to degrowth (Kallis, Hickel)
- Ajl does not specifically write this but would likely agree that while it is useful to think of the dollar value of reparations (quoting Warlenius, using 2008 figures for emissions stocks and carbon prices, 'the value of the historical carbon* debt would have been around $37.325 trillion', whereas the GNP of the OECD was $54 trillion in 2019), reparations/reconciliation can also be conceived as an end to relations of domination and the establishment of reciprocal, respectful relations among human and non-human nature
The Missing
- as Kai points out, the laser focus on the nation state as the only plausible mechanism for resolving the national question leaves me hanging
- similarly, would've appreciated further argumentation to justify the idea that a 'socially just non-capitalist planning period' is the logical next step from the critique in the first half
Quotes
- written for an audience in the core, PGND is at its best as an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, degrowth, agroecological critique of leading 'progressive' GNDs which, through intentional or unintentional omission, fail to adequately deal with land (there is no 'open land') and climate debt
- a People's GND is one that respects South sovereignty, does not cheat on the question of land, and repays ecological debt - that is, a GND that implies justice for all
- for Northern actors seeking climate justice, concrete acts of solidarity with local and global colonized peoples and peasant movements should be the starting point - look to the Cochabamba People's Agreement, La Via Campesina, movements for Black liberation and Land Back
- great intro to the many flavors of green politics currently in existence: from ecomodernism left (Bastani, surprised Leigh Phillips doesn't make an appearance here) and right, green social democracy/'domestic growth-oriented anti-racist green Keynesianism' (AOC, Klein, Aldana-Cohen, Pollin) what is it, how was it won in the past, and how do the answers to the previous 2 questions inform strategy in the present?), to degrowth (Kallis, Hickel)
- Ajl does not specifically write this but would likely agree that while it is useful to think of the dollar value of reparations (quoting Warlenius, using 2008 figures for emissions stocks and carbon prices, 'the value of the historical carbon* debt would have been around $37.325 trillion', whereas the GNP of the OECD was $54 trillion in 2019), reparations/reconciliation can also be conceived as an end to relations of domination and the establishment of reciprocal, respectful relations among human and non-human nature
The Missing
- as Kai points out, the laser focus on the nation state as the only plausible mechanism for resolving the national question leaves me hanging
- similarly, would've appreciated further argumentation to justify the idea that a 'socially just non-capitalist planning period' is the logical next step from the critique in the first half
Quotes
"Different paths for CO2 reduction concern how much harm will be inflicted on the planet and its poorest inhabitants. They pose two explicit questions to people in the North: one, how much are we willing to change our lives to ensure justice for all of humanity? And two, are we willing to change our lives and attack a system of accumulation which will without question lead to the hammer of climate change clanging down hardest on the world’s poorest? They pose a third, implicit question: are we capable of seeing the latent fascism even in halcyon social democratic models which leave open the possibility of intervention, exploitation, or extirpation of the Third World, and by leaving capitalism alive there, give it safe haven for attacking middle classes in the core itself – the phenomenon often called neoliberalism?"
"There are four problems with green social democracy. First, it is not achievable through current strategies. Two, even if it were possible, it would be imperialist and rest on devastating the South. Third, it is being marketed as something it is not: namely, eco-socialism, or the conversion of the core and the world to non-commodified and non-hierarchical self-managed social and economic relations, with convergence between the core and the periphery, and permanently sustainable scientific management of the environment. Four, it limits our political imaginations."
"The most basic agricultural elements of a People’s Green New Deal are:
1) The dismantling or nationalization and retooling of the large corporations involved in agriculture, like ArcherDanielsMidland and Monsanto. They should become worker-owned laboratories for agroecological innovation and appropriate-scale mechanization.
2) Large-scale agrarian reform, breaking huge farms into units which can be tended by families using agroecological methods, or lassoed into cooperatives.
3) Parity pricing, so that farmers do not need to overproduce, and so that prices give a good return to labor, so that people have excellent lives in the countryside, and so that the ecological benefits of non-industrial farming are fully reflected in the pricing system.
4) Abolition of the subsidies which support industrial agriculture, including those which support monocultures, and even more those monocultures used for biofuels and animal feed.
5) Massive investment in a green transition to get farmers “over the hump” of a transition to agroecological production.
6) Public investment in all the needed infrastructure to re-localize food systems, including local processing, abattoirs, and other needed physical plant. Such a move would also empower local non-farming labor."
"... those who are not included and their programs accepted as non-negotiables will suffer the costs of northern reformism and opportunism. If capital is under pressure from social movements or political parties and needs to find a way to give something away to domestic middle classes,
that something has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere will be those not included in the social and political struggles: in other words, the South. This warning is not a hypothetical. The exclusion of climate debt repayment from northern Green New Deal talk already shows that some
northern leftists are preparing programs that will exclude the most fundamental and unified demands from the South: the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba."
The numbers in the Bolivian proposal are staggering – and probably deliberately so. They are compatible neither with capitalism nor with a polarized and highly unequal world-system. They are the arithmetic proof of the need for worldwide ecological and socialist revolution, and a revolution in North–South relations. Indeed, climate debt has been described as a “bomb.” The violence of the metaphor is appropriate because it is very hard to imagine a world system based on polarization between the South and the North enduring amidst massive debt payments going from North
to South. And because these numbers cannot be argued with or dismissed, the North has generally ignored them, or tried to muffle and stifle them through the most effective way possible, a coup d’état. If the South has no strong and sovereign states, but merely neo-colonies, climate debt loses
some of its most powerful champions and social agents."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 1, 2023
A highly interesting and thought-provoking book that succinctly analyzes what the current Green New Deals have and are lacking, while laying out what a People's Green New Deal incorporating an eco-socialist framework should focus on. The author deals with a multitude of sectors and aspects of life such as industrial production, agriculture, renewable energy, food production, climate change and resulting catastrophes, biodiversity loss and land degradation, among others, while centering an explicitly anti-imperialist perspective which is a key element of the proposed People's Green New Deal. Some of the elements in this book can be quite technical such as agroecological farming methods, crop yields, and natural resource management. Overall, it's a valuable addition for the 'what is to be done?' question for a sustainable and equitable future. It's a short book, but the author's writing style packs tons of information in it.
January 10, 2023
This text is wide in range despite its short page count. The first half of the book is dedicated to critiquing popular tends within the environmental movement in the US. While i agree with his criticisms, i think the sheer number of critiques he makes in a short number of pages limits how deep these critiques can go. Though Ajl makes passing remarks on the workings of the world financial system, i think his critiques would be easier to grasp if one has prior knowledge of such systems. The second half of the book lays out the groundwork on how ecological degradation must be combated. He does a great job of showing that it is possible to build systems which combat ecological degradation. My main critique of the book is he does not offer practical organizing advice for socialists in the US seeking to bring about these systems. Despite this, i agree almost entirely with the claims made in this book and if you are someone concerned about climactic crisis and looking for what makes a plan worth supporting and what efforts should be avoided, this is a great book.
December 19, 2024
First book on the climate that i've read ! So refreshing to read something so deeply anti-imperialist. As an outsider to the climate movement, the liberalism looks stifling!
April 26, 2023
everybody should read this immediately.
January 10, 2024
The Ecosocialist manifesto. Probably the best book I have read on the climate crisis and its possible solutions. Ajl summarises and analyses the current debate on how to address the climate crisis, demonstrates the flaws inherent in multiple approaches, and presents his own alternative vision for the future which seems appealing and reasonably achievable. I think that Ajl's academic background as an Agronomist brings a refreshing perspective, because most of what I have read on the subject is works by academics, economists, journalists and whatnot, who I now think might lack some essential knowledge and understanding of how to work with nature.
The book clearly sets out Ecosocialist principals, and demonstrates why other forms of the Green New Deal being pushed by people on the Western Left are actually fundamentally Liberal or Social Democratic in their politics, and why this means they cannot possibly work. Ajl writes from a Marxist, and Third Worldist, Anti-Imperialist perspective. He shows that many versions of the GND are written from a Global North perspective and don't incorporate the ideas, demands or expertise that the Global South is trying to offer.
Finally, I was pleasantly surprised by what an excellent prose stylist Ajl is. This book is superbly written. When I read works of non-fiction more often than not I pay no attention to the prose as I'm just trying to engage with the ideas, but with this book after reading it for a while and seeing a few beautifully turned phrases it struck me that it's a great piece of writing.
This book has changed my perspective and informed my thinking. Highly recommended.
The book clearly sets out Ecosocialist principals, and demonstrates why other forms of the Green New Deal being pushed by people on the Western Left are actually fundamentally Liberal or Social Democratic in their politics, and why this means they cannot possibly work. Ajl writes from a Marxist, and Third Worldist, Anti-Imperialist perspective. He shows that many versions of the GND are written from a Global North perspective and don't incorporate the ideas, demands or expertise that the Global South is trying to offer.
Finally, I was pleasantly surprised by what an excellent prose stylist Ajl is. This book is superbly written. When I read works of non-fiction more often than not I pay no attention to the prose as I'm just trying to engage with the ideas, but with this book after reading it for a while and seeing a few beautifully turned phrases it struck me that it's a great piece of writing.
This book has changed my perspective and informed my thinking. Highly recommended.
May 2, 2022
Sven Linderot beskrev hur tidningen Stormklockan försökte staka ut fast mark att gå på "mellan anarkismens svaveldimmor och reformismens dypölar" under de politiskt osäkra åren runt 1917. Samma känsla av fast mark under fötterna får jag när jag läser Max Ajls A People’s Green New Deal. Här finns en orienteringspunkt som hjälper mig att skärpa och definiera min egen position.
Stora ord om en tämligen kort bok och ett begränsat ämne, en genomgång av olika förslag på hur en Green New Deal skulle kunna se ut, men här formuleras ett ekosocialistiskt program för klimaträttvisa grundat i den revolutionära anti-imperialistiska traditionen, en grön marxism med den agrara och den nationella frågan i centrum. Det är skärningspunkten mellan Samir Amin och William Morris.
Bokens inledande del ägnas åt att kritisera existerande förslag på hur klimatkrisen ska mötas.
Här finns mer eller mindre halvsmälta förslag om global veganism, massiva trädplanteringar på vad som idag är jordbruks- eller betesmark, ersättande av fossila bränslen med enorma kvantiteter biobränslen eller Half-Earth-strategier som går ut på att driva samman mänskligheten på halva jordens yta och lämna resten åt vildmarken. Den outtalade delen av dessa strategier, som alla formulerats i det globala nord, är vilka småbrukare och pastoralister som ska fördrivas från sina jordar för att de ska realiseras.
Denna typ av gröna ideologi saknar en analys av kapitalismen och imperialismen och fungerar utmärkt tillsammans med former av ekonationalism, neo-malthusianism och kapitalets försök att göra utsläppsrätter till ytterligare en finansiell produkt att spekulera i.
En annan strömning är den ekomodernistiska där techbros ständigt förutspår teknologiska lösningar precis runt hörnet. Denna har också fått en vänsterutformning, kanske framförallt i Aaron Bastanis Fully Automated Luxury Communism, där alla frågor om var vi ska få oändligt med resurser från löses med ett enkelt Alexanderhugg -vi kommer ha gruvbrytning i rymden!
Den tendens som ägnas mest utrymme är, föga förvånande, de ganska olika program som kommit att samlas under rubriken Green New Deal (GND), ett försök att skapa en sorts grön socialdemokrati eller keynesianism där staten tar en ledande roll i att finansiera investeringar i hållbar omställning vilket skapar nya jobb inom gröna sektorer när fosilberoende jobb försvinner.
Ajl kritiserar en tendens hos GND-förespråkare, inneboende i socialdemokratin, att sakna en kritik av den imperialistiska världsordningen. Även försök att formulera radikala GND-program till vänster om socialdemokratin saknar ofta ett internationellt perspektiv och har lite att säga om var naturresurserna som behövs för deras tänkta enorma infrastrukturinvesteringar ska komma från (de kanske ska komma från rymden) eller om utsläppen av klimatgaser som en kolonisering av atmosfären. Denna typ av GND innebär att klimatrörelsen tagit ett steg tillbaks från det tidiga 2000-talets fokus på global klimaträttvisa, kanske tydligast uttryckt i Cochabambadeklarationen som 2010 antogs av över 30 000 representanter för folkrörelser i det globala syd.
Den andra, och intressantaste, delen ägnas åt att formulera ett ekosocialistiskt program rotat i global klimaträttvisa och anti-imperialism. I centrum finns två frågor, den nationella och den agrara, som var centrala för 1900-talets marxister men som idag ofta glömts bort av vänstern och den gröna rörelsen i nord.
Det är en poetisk och vacker vision som målas upp av ett samhälle byggt på klimatkatastrofens ruiner. Varje bostad skulle kunna bli ett konstverk, varenda boende en konstsamlare och varenda hantverkare en konstnär, skriver Ajl i ett stycke som påminner starkt om William Morris. Ibland är han riktigt rolig, som när han diskuterar om det inte kommer bli svårt att få fler arbetare i nord att syssla med fysiskt krävande jordbruksarbete och lakoniskt påpekar att folk verkar gilla att gå på gym.
Jag slutar i en fråga. På sista sidan i boken har jag skrivit "arbetarklassen?". Det är en total omvälvning av den globala världsordningen som Max Ajl föreslår. Kanske är det också den enda realistiska lösning som inte innebär klimatfascism och exterminism. Men vilka sociala krafter skulle kunna genomföra denna gröna revolution? Ajl föreslår i bokens slutord en allians mellan flyktingar, agrikulturforskare, leninister, autonoma, kommunpolitiker och andra. I en annan del av boken använder han en sorts ekomaoistisk formulering om en front bestående av de sektioner av det kapitalistiska samhället som är "mindre beroende av imperialismen för sin sociala reproduktion".
För Mao var vilka som ingick i kategorin folket en politisk fråga. Vilka klasser och sociala krafter kan enas bakom ett politiskt program. Ekosocialismen behöver fortfarande sin Mao.
Stora ord om en tämligen kort bok och ett begränsat ämne, en genomgång av olika förslag på hur en Green New Deal skulle kunna se ut, men här formuleras ett ekosocialistiskt program för klimaträttvisa grundat i den revolutionära anti-imperialistiska traditionen, en grön marxism med den agrara och den nationella frågan i centrum. Det är skärningspunkten mellan Samir Amin och William Morris.
Bokens inledande del ägnas åt att kritisera existerande förslag på hur klimatkrisen ska mötas.
Här finns mer eller mindre halvsmälta förslag om global veganism, massiva trädplanteringar på vad som idag är jordbruks- eller betesmark, ersättande av fossila bränslen med enorma kvantiteter biobränslen eller Half-Earth-strategier som går ut på att driva samman mänskligheten på halva jordens yta och lämna resten åt vildmarken. Den outtalade delen av dessa strategier, som alla formulerats i det globala nord, är vilka småbrukare och pastoralister som ska fördrivas från sina jordar för att de ska realiseras.
Denna typ av gröna ideologi saknar en analys av kapitalismen och imperialismen och fungerar utmärkt tillsammans med former av ekonationalism, neo-malthusianism och kapitalets försök att göra utsläppsrätter till ytterligare en finansiell produkt att spekulera i.
En annan strömning är den ekomodernistiska där techbros ständigt förutspår teknologiska lösningar precis runt hörnet. Denna har också fått en vänsterutformning, kanske framförallt i Aaron Bastanis Fully Automated Luxury Communism, där alla frågor om var vi ska få oändligt med resurser från löses med ett enkelt Alexanderhugg -vi kommer ha gruvbrytning i rymden!
Den tendens som ägnas mest utrymme är, föga förvånande, de ganska olika program som kommit att samlas under rubriken Green New Deal (GND), ett försök att skapa en sorts grön socialdemokrati eller keynesianism där staten tar en ledande roll i att finansiera investeringar i hållbar omställning vilket skapar nya jobb inom gröna sektorer när fosilberoende jobb försvinner.
Ajl kritiserar en tendens hos GND-förespråkare, inneboende i socialdemokratin, att sakna en kritik av den imperialistiska världsordningen. Även försök att formulera radikala GND-program till vänster om socialdemokratin saknar ofta ett internationellt perspektiv och har lite att säga om var naturresurserna som behövs för deras tänkta enorma infrastrukturinvesteringar ska komma från (de kanske ska komma från rymden) eller om utsläppen av klimatgaser som en kolonisering av atmosfären. Denna typ av GND innebär att klimatrörelsen tagit ett steg tillbaks från det tidiga 2000-talets fokus på global klimaträttvisa, kanske tydligast uttryckt i Cochabambadeklarationen som 2010 antogs av över 30 000 representanter för folkrörelser i det globala syd.
Den andra, och intressantaste, delen ägnas åt att formulera ett ekosocialistiskt program rotat i global klimaträttvisa och anti-imperialism. I centrum finns två frågor, den nationella och den agrara, som var centrala för 1900-talets marxister men som idag ofta glömts bort av vänstern och den gröna rörelsen i nord.
Det är en poetisk och vacker vision som målas upp av ett samhälle byggt på klimatkatastrofens ruiner. Varje bostad skulle kunna bli ett konstverk, varenda boende en konstsamlare och varenda hantverkare en konstnär, skriver Ajl i ett stycke som påminner starkt om William Morris. Ibland är han riktigt rolig, som när han diskuterar om det inte kommer bli svårt att få fler arbetare i nord att syssla med fysiskt krävande jordbruksarbete och lakoniskt påpekar att folk verkar gilla att gå på gym.
Jag slutar i en fråga. På sista sidan i boken har jag skrivit "arbetarklassen?". Det är en total omvälvning av den globala världsordningen som Max Ajl föreslår. Kanske är det också den enda realistiska lösning som inte innebär klimatfascism och exterminism. Men vilka sociala krafter skulle kunna genomföra denna gröna revolution? Ajl föreslår i bokens slutord en allians mellan flyktingar, agrikulturforskare, leninister, autonoma, kommunpolitiker och andra. I en annan del av boken använder han en sorts ekomaoistisk formulering om en front bestående av de sektioner av det kapitalistiska samhället som är "mindre beroende av imperialismen för sin sociala reproduktion".
För Mao var vilka som ingick i kategorin folket en politisk fråga. Vilka klasser och sociala krafter kan enas bakom ett politiskt program. Ekosocialismen behöver fortfarande sin Mao.
Read
October 12, 2022max ajl's vision is a good one and might have consequences beyond merely provoking discussion etc. the structure of the book is well organized and most of the arguments put forward make sense to me and are well supported. it's already really hard to see through greenwashing attempts and practically impossible to sort out manipulations of the energy math and climate finance tricks, but this book went some ways to help me educate myself
February 19, 2025
I found Max Ajl’s unapologetic imagination in A People’s Green New Deal to be incredibly inspiring. I think the biggest problem in the environmental movement is infighting and confusion over our goals. In other words, our target is compromised. Ajl helps us understand why that might be, and imagines a better path forward.
In this book, Ajl breaks down the systemic context of Green New Deal proposals across the political spectrum, and argues for a vision that is serious about global justice issues. Unlike other works, he comes up with ideas for what sorts of groups are actually driving and creating social pressure for the changes he proposes. Ajl paints a picture of a society built on principles of responsible land management and finding just resolution to centuries of global conflict.
I found the writing style to be a bit difficult to read at times, but felt it was worth it for the quality of the ideas.
In this book, Ajl breaks down the systemic context of Green New Deal proposals across the political spectrum, and argues for a vision that is serious about global justice issues. Unlike other works, he comes up with ideas for what sorts of groups are actually driving and creating social pressure for the changes he proposes. Ajl paints a picture of a society built on principles of responsible land management and finding just resolution to centuries of global conflict.
I found the writing style to be a bit difficult to read at times, but felt it was worth it for the quality of the ideas.
December 19, 2021
This is the best analysis of the current climate change movement. Nothing else will do. The book, however, does skimp on tactics to accomplish the goals set out in later chapters. A must read for an Ecosocialist.
March 15, 2022
I found this book to be a great analysis of the limitations of the existing proposals to tackle climate change as well as a good exposition of the necessary components of what it would require to have a just “Green New Deal.” Ajl’s focus on anti-imperialism and application of theories such as dependency theory and unequal exchange with an ecological focus was very interesting and underlined the importance of including the most dispossessed globally in building a vision of the future. I personally am very interested in “third-worldist” and other socialist analysis with a focus on the global south that takes into consideration the set-up of the world system that leads to the dispossession of imperialized countries. Ajl’s analysis of world systems and the positionalities of the global north and south within the western hegemonic capitalist system and the relation this has to climate change and ecology was excellent and provided a holistic analysis that is often missing.
Ajl’s exposition of certain ideological threads in the climate solutions presented by hegemonic power was excellent. Chief of which is modernization theory and its ecological green successor “eco-modernization theory”. The discussions around land use and agriculture were also excellent, presenting a mix of scientific statistics along with political analysis and solutions that were very convincing and coherent. Diving deeper into the agrarian question is something I will have to do thanks to understanding its importance from Ajl’s writing.
Overall a great, short book that does not forget the north is rich because the south is poor and centralizes that dialectical analysis in providing true solutions for global climate cooperation. The book’s brevity prevents Ajl from explaining some concepts in more detailed (a deeper dive into the India’s Green Revolution would’ve been great for example) but that is completely understandable as a short digestible book was achieved.
Ajl’s exposition of certain ideological threads in the climate solutions presented by hegemonic power was excellent. Chief of which is modernization theory and its ecological green successor “eco-modernization theory”. The discussions around land use and agriculture were also excellent, presenting a mix of scientific statistics along with political analysis and solutions that were very convincing and coherent. Diving deeper into the agrarian question is something I will have to do thanks to understanding its importance from Ajl’s writing.
Overall a great, short book that does not forget the north is rich because the south is poor and centralizes that dialectical analysis in providing true solutions for global climate cooperation. The book’s brevity prevents Ajl from explaining some concepts in more detailed (a deeper dive into the India’s Green Revolution would’ve been great for example) but that is completely understandable as a short digestible book was achieved.
October 31, 2021
“This book aims to expand the scope of what is understood to be feasible. In so doing, I take as a point of departure four facts. One, existing GND [Green New Deal] proposals are broadly Eurocentric and rest on continued global inequality. Two, they are not ambitious enough to deal with the broader Earth-system crisis. Three, many people in the core are ready for something more radical. Four, if the GND political debate and mobilisation, which must be explicitly distant from riding any specific legislation, is to be considered an agenda for governing and managing the future, it should ensure that the needs of the most oppressed and exploited are woven into its weft from the beginning.”
I've read 6 or 7 other books about the Green New Deal over the past couple of years and this is the pick of them. Ajl's explicitly ecosocialist vision of a People's GND stands out due to its vivid argument about the centrality of replacing industrial agriculture with decentralised agroecology, its elaboration of the importance of struggles calling for the repayment of the climate debt owned to the Global South, and its commitment to anti-imperialism and internationalism. It also paints an evocative, and at times uplifting, picture of the kinds of transformations ecosocialism could entail.
“What is missing in the First World left is not an abstract commitment to solidarity and partnership but a committed internationalism which takes the anti-systemic struggles of the periphery as the fundamental departure for solidarity.”
December 4, 2021
Quite possibly one of the best dissections of existing capitalist and social democratic climate change policies and proposals, and a thorough and thrilling rundown on what a truly ecosocialist green new deal would look like. I particularly enjoyed the discussions on agroecology, and appreciated Ajl’s attention to climate reparations as owed to both the global south and Indigenous peoples. I would give this a fifth star if the book had been more rigorously edited — I often found certain passages frustrating to parse or follow, and certain things were often repeated while others were glossed over. These are minor complaints though; I would consider this critical reading for anyone even remotely interested in anti-capital, decolonial, and environmental justice.
May 24, 2023
I wanted to like this but while I appreciate the premise of the book, Ajl really needed a more thorough editor to focus and clarify his research. It felt like a Jacobin article, expanded slightly, but never thoroughly dives into dissecting arguments. Again, with a good editor, this could have been a very worthy examination that goes beyond the surface and hype.
August 15, 2021
a must read for anyone interested in the climate crisis and looking for an approach rooted in anti imperialism, anti colonialism and climate justice
January 26, 2024
Max Ajl criticizes AOC’s Green New Deal not only because it is insufficiently ambitious to tackle the climate crisis, but also because it ends up maintaining a global capitalist system predicated on the accumulation of wealth by the few through the violent dispossession of human and non-human natures. In particular, this and other social-democrat transition plans, by appealing to the importance of feasibility and pragmatism, end up following an eco-modernist playbook characterized by a blind trust in technological innovations and market-based solutions. Such schemes protect private capital as sources of “sustainable” investment and plan to mobilize public finance to commodify nature, through carbon markets and ecosystem services for instance. Moreover, such “Great Transition” discourse relies on further introducing technology in the countryside as a way to reduce emissions and enhance food security. In sum, existing GND proposals are Eurocentric by resting on continued global inequality, and they are not ambitious enough to deal with the broader Earth-system’s crisis.
Instead, a People’s Green New Deal needs to be eco-socialist and anti-imperialist. With eco-socialist, Max means that such plans need to be aimed at “the worldwide decommodification of social life and the conscious and conscientious management by the associated producers, or revolutionary humanity, of our relationship with non-human nature so as to ensure its longevity and well-being” [add page]. The author argues that, if the GND political debate and mobilization, which must be explicitly distinct from riding any specific legislation, is to be considered an agenda for governing and managing the future, it should ensure that the needs of the most oppressed and exploited are woven into its weft from the beginning. An eco-socialist plan, however needs to be grounded in the self-determination of each group of people, thus making a systemic list of points to follow to create an ideal ‘eco-socialist’ society impossible to sketch out in the same book by the author. Instead, he offers a few ideas for a practical eco-socially just transition to post-capitalism, for instance control of production surplus by workers and implementation of democracy in the workplace, convivial urban planning, shift from centralized industry to de-centralized localized manufacture, banning planned obsolescence, and care income schemes that tackle the invisibilization of reproductive labor.
A people’s GND also needs to be anti-imperialist and internationalist. National Green New Deal proposals that are not globally just leave intact global neo-colonial relations of power such the Ecological Unequal Exchange (EUE), and thus cannot be accepted by any eco-socialist, Ajl argues. GNDs that focus on a transition to renewable energy in the global north without focusing on where the raw materials for such transition come from end up feeding a techno-optimist green-grabbing neoliberal discourse. In contrast, Ajl claims that GNDs can never just concern the Global North, because any decision about resource use in the Global North reverberates through the Global South, regardless of whether such decision is extractive or not. Including anti-imperialist goals and measures in GNDs is essential because the Global North has only arrived at the place it is through colonial exploitation of the rest of the world, so any plan that does not include strategies to remedy such imbalance cannot be successful and survive through time. Ajl points out three elements that should be included in a people’s GND:
//// Climate/ecological debt repayments to enable sovereign and suitable industrialization and ‘popular development’ in the Global South. He recommends following existing proposals such as Bolivia’s demand of repayment equaling 6% of the Global North’s Gross National Product (GNP), which would translate to a repayment by Europe of $3.2 trillion per year.
//// Demilitarization, because of the huge and pointless use of resources and generation of waste by the military complex, on top of its role in maintaining colonial patterns of resource extraction and trade.
////‘Land Back’ schemes, following calls for restitution of land - as well as water, air, sacred sites, etc. - back to Indigenous people throughout the world, such as the Anchorage Declaration.
Max Ajl highlights Bolivia’s demand of repayment equaling 6% of the GN’s GNP. The Cochabamba People’s Process laid out a comprehensive program for a just transition that incorporated plans for climate debt reparations and restorative justice, with 5 main demands:
//// Returning ‘occupied’ atmospheric space
////Debt repayments for lost development opportunities (as the fossil-fueled path is not longer possible for them)
//// Debt repayments for devastation wrought by climate change, including listing migration restrictions
//// Adaptation debt repayments
////Recognition that the climate crisis cannot be separated from the broader socio-ecological crisis, and should be addressed as such
Instead, a People’s Green New Deal needs to be eco-socialist and anti-imperialist. With eco-socialist, Max means that such plans need to be aimed at “the worldwide decommodification of social life and the conscious and conscientious management by the associated producers, or revolutionary humanity, of our relationship with non-human nature so as to ensure its longevity and well-being” [add page]. The author argues that, if the GND political debate and mobilization, which must be explicitly distinct from riding any specific legislation, is to be considered an agenda for governing and managing the future, it should ensure that the needs of the most oppressed and exploited are woven into its weft from the beginning. An eco-socialist plan, however needs to be grounded in the self-determination of each group of people, thus making a systemic list of points to follow to create an ideal ‘eco-socialist’ society impossible to sketch out in the same book by the author. Instead, he offers a few ideas for a practical eco-socially just transition to post-capitalism, for instance control of production surplus by workers and implementation of democracy in the workplace, convivial urban planning, shift from centralized industry to de-centralized localized manufacture, banning planned obsolescence, and care income schemes that tackle the invisibilization of reproductive labor.
A people’s GND also needs to be anti-imperialist and internationalist. National Green New Deal proposals that are not globally just leave intact global neo-colonial relations of power such the Ecological Unequal Exchange (EUE), and thus cannot be accepted by any eco-socialist, Ajl argues. GNDs that focus on a transition to renewable energy in the global north without focusing on where the raw materials for such transition come from end up feeding a techno-optimist green-grabbing neoliberal discourse. In contrast, Ajl claims that GNDs can never just concern the Global North, because any decision about resource use in the Global North reverberates through the Global South, regardless of whether such decision is extractive or not. Including anti-imperialist goals and measures in GNDs is essential because the Global North has only arrived at the place it is through colonial exploitation of the rest of the world, so any plan that does not include strategies to remedy such imbalance cannot be successful and survive through time. Ajl points out three elements that should be included in a people’s GND:
//// Climate/ecological debt repayments to enable sovereign and suitable industrialization and ‘popular development’ in the Global South. He recommends following existing proposals such as Bolivia’s demand of repayment equaling 6% of the Global North’s Gross National Product (GNP), which would translate to a repayment by Europe of $3.2 trillion per year.
//// Demilitarization, because of the huge and pointless use of resources and generation of waste by the military complex, on top of its role in maintaining colonial patterns of resource extraction and trade.
////‘Land Back’ schemes, following calls for restitution of land - as well as water, air, sacred sites, etc. - back to Indigenous people throughout the world, such as the Anchorage Declaration.
Max Ajl highlights Bolivia’s demand of repayment equaling 6% of the GN’s GNP. The Cochabamba People’s Process laid out a comprehensive program for a just transition that incorporated plans for climate debt reparations and restorative justice, with 5 main demands:
//// Returning ‘occupied’ atmospheric space
////Debt repayments for lost development opportunities (as the fossil-fueled path is not longer possible for them)
//// Debt repayments for devastation wrought by climate change, including listing migration restrictions
//// Adaptation debt repayments
////Recognition that the climate crisis cannot be separated from the broader socio-ecological crisis, and should be addressed as such
January 24, 2023
Ajl imagines what a global People's Green New Deal would look like: A "planet of fields" where we've repaired vast ecological damage wrought since the late 1800s, a sort of updated pastoral existence where we've re-peastantized the countryside but now support our taste for modern conveniences like Internet, transportation, grocery shopping, etc with the help of modern renewable grid systems.
In this future, eco-socialist movements have co-opted governments in the North and South and nationalized fossil fuel and agricultural corporations while limiting industrial processes to the bare essentials of what's needed for modern tastes. Capitalist overproduction and inefficiencies are eliminated via bottom-up state planning. We all live a richer communist lifestyle in which we generally work less, have more time for creative pursuits and loved ones, are no longer alienated from the Earth or the fruits of our labor. North-South injustices are corrected via payments of climate/colonial debt and a global rearrangement of worker productivity, so that the material abundances of the North are no longer dependent on the ongoing exploitation of the South's working classes - which Ajl insists can happen while improving standards of living, in part through a gargantuan transfer of wealth from the ultra rich. Oh, and the US military, the biggest emitter of climate pollution, has been abolished in this future.
Is this at all pragmatic or realistic? No, but as Ajl points out, questions of pragmatism are ultimately political assessments - they are matters of struggle and choice. This is what great books do: They remove mental barriers and enable us to imagine. Ajl challenges Ocasio Cortez social democracy style Green New Deals as limited in ambition, even though that proposal, with all its compromises with imperialism and empire, turned out to be a non-starter. He has written a powerfully seductive vision of what a just and thriving human society living in alignment with the planet could look like, and challenges readers to consider the choices and struggles necessary to bring it to fruition.
In this future, eco-socialist movements have co-opted governments in the North and South and nationalized fossil fuel and agricultural corporations while limiting industrial processes to the bare essentials of what's needed for modern tastes. Capitalist overproduction and inefficiencies are eliminated via bottom-up state planning. We all live a richer communist lifestyle in which we generally work less, have more time for creative pursuits and loved ones, are no longer alienated from the Earth or the fruits of our labor. North-South injustices are corrected via payments of climate/colonial debt and a global rearrangement of worker productivity, so that the material abundances of the North are no longer dependent on the ongoing exploitation of the South's working classes - which Ajl insists can happen while improving standards of living, in part through a gargantuan transfer of wealth from the ultra rich. Oh, and the US military, the biggest emitter of climate pollution, has been abolished in this future.
Is this at all pragmatic or realistic? No, but as Ajl points out, questions of pragmatism are ultimately political assessments - they are matters of struggle and choice. This is what great books do: They remove mental barriers and enable us to imagine. Ajl challenges Ocasio Cortez social democracy style Green New Deals as limited in ambition, even though that proposal, with all its compromises with imperialism and empire, turned out to be a non-starter. He has written a powerfully seductive vision of what a just and thriving human society living in alignment with the planet could look like, and challenges readers to consider the choices and struggles necessary to bring it to fruition.
May 6, 2023
this one hits closest to the mark of the last few climate books i've read for class. it honestly deserves 1000 stars for the fact that it's a FREE open access download on JSTOR. amazing wonderful points throughout in a somewhat scattered fashion. starts with heavy engagement with past ideas for green new deals, pointing out key blind spots in popular discourse. then it goes into its vision. this definitely had room for clarification, but the identification of agricultural reform and respect for sovereignty globally were two key developments in the climate discussion. i'm about to write a fire final essay supporting the points in this book, so i will save all my excitement about it for that. Thanks Mr. Ajl :-)
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