hydrarchist writes:
Because of its length, the following article has been divided into two parts. The second part can be found here. All foototes to the essay can be found at the end of the second installment. The work was initially published in 1988 in the founding issue of the innovative journal Capitalism, Nature and Socialism. Other work produced by them can be found here.

"Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
A Theoretical Introduction*

By James O'Connor

"Those who insist that [environmental destruction] has
nothing to do with Marxism merely ensure that what they
choose to call Marxism will have nothing to do with what
happens in the world."-- Aiden Foster-Carter

Summary

This article expounds the traditional Marxist theory of the
contradiction between forces and relations of production, over-
production of capital and economic crisis, and the process of
crisis-induced restructuring of productive forces and production
relations into more transparently social, hence potentially
socialist, forms. This exposition provides a point of departure
for an "ecological Marxist" theory of the contradiction between
capitalist production relations and forces and the conditions of
production, under-production of capital and economic crisis, and
the process of crisis-induced restructuring of production
conditions and the social relations thereof also into more
transparently social, hence potentially socialist, forms. In
short, there may be not one but two paths to socialism in
late capitalist society.

While the two processes of capital over-production
and under-production are by no means mutually exclusive,
they may offset or compensate for one another in ways which
create the appearance of relatively stable processes of
capitalist development. Study of the combination of the two
processes in the contemporary world may throw light on the
decline of traditional labor and socialist movements and the rise
of "new social movements" as agencies of social
transformation. In similar ways that traditional Marxism
illuminates the practises of traditional labor movements, it may be that "ecological
Marxism" throws light on the practices of new social movements.
Although ecology and nature; the politics of the body,
feminism, and the family; and urban movements and related
topics are usually discussed in post-Marxist terms, the rhetoric
deployed in this article is self-consciously Marxist and
designed to appeal to Marxist theorists and fellow travelers
whose work remains within a "scientific" discourse
hence those who are least likely to be convinced by post-Marxist discussions of the problem of capital's use and abuse of nature (including human nature) in the
modern world. However, the emphasis in this article on a
political economic "scientific" discourse is tactical, not
strategic. In reality, more or less autonomous social
relationships, often non-capitalist or anti-capitalist,
constitute "civil society," which needs to be addressed on its
own practical and theoretical terms. In other words, social and
collective action is not meant to be construed merely as
derivative of systemic forces, as the last section of the article
hopefully will make clear.

1. Introduction

In 1944, Karl Polanyi published his masterpiece, The Great
Transformation, which discussed the ways in which the growth of
the capitalist market impaired or destroyed its own social and
environmental conditions.[1] Despite the fact that this book is
alive with insights into the problem of economic development and
the social and natural environment, it was widely forgotten. The
subject of the ecological limits to economic growth and the
interrelationships between development and environment was
reintroduced into Western bourgeois thought in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. The results have been mixed and highly dubious.
Polanyi's work remains a shining light in a heaven filled with
dying stars and black holes of bourgeois naturalism, neo-
Malthusianism, Club of Rome technocratism, romantic deep
ecologyism, and United Nations one-worldism.[2] Class
exploitation, capitalist crisis, uneven and combined capitalist
development, national independence struggles, and so on are
missing from these kinds of accounts. The results of these and
most other modern efforts to discuss the problem of capitalism,
nature, and socialism wither on the vine because they fail to
focus on the nature of specifically capitalist scarcity, that is,
the process whereby capital is its own barrier or limit because
of its self-destructive forms of proletarianization of human
nature and appropriation of labor and capitalization of external
nature.[3] The usual approaches to the problem -- the
identification of "limits to growth" in terms of "resource
scarcity," "ecological fragility," "harmful industrial
technology," "destructive cultural values," "tragedy of the
commons," "over-population," "wasteful consumption," "production
treadmill," etc., either ignore or mangle Marx's theories of
historically produced forms of nature and capitalist accumulation
and development.

This should not be surprising since Marx wrote little
pertaining to the ways that capital limits itself by impairing
its own social and environmental conditions hence increasing the
costs and expenses of capital, thereby threatening capitals'
ability to produce profits, i.e., threatening economic crisis.
More, he wrote little or nothing about the effects of social
struggles organized around the provision of the conditions of
production on the costs and expenses and variability of capital.
Nor did he theorize the relationship between social and material
dimensions of production conditions, excepting his extended
discussion of ground rent (i.e., social relation between landed
and industrial capital and material and economic relation between
raw materials and industrial production). Marx was, however,
convinced of at least three things. The first was that
deficiencies of production conditions or "natural conditions"
("bad harvests") may take the form of economic crisis.[4] Second,
he was convinced of the more general proposition that some
barriers to production are truly external to the mode of
production ("the productiveness of labour is fettered by physical
conditions")[5] but that in capitalism these barriers assume the
form of economic crisis.[6] Put another way, some barriers are
"general" not "specific" to capitalism. What is specific is the
way these barriers assume the form of crisis. Third, Marx
believed that capitalist agriculture and silviculture are
harmful to nature, as well as that capitalist exploitation is
harmful to human laborpower.

In sum, Marx believed that capitalist farming (for example)
ruined soil quality. He was also clear that bad harvests take
the form of economic crisis. However, (although he did state
that a rational agriculture is incompatible with capitalism)[7]
he never considered the possibility that ecologically destructive
methods of agriculture might raise the costs of the elements of
capital, which, in turn, might threaten economic crisis of a
particular type, namely, underproduction of capital.[8] Put
another way, Marx never put two and two together to argue that
"natural barriers" may be capitalistically produced barriers,
i.e., a "second" capitalized nature.[9] In other words, there may
exist a contradiction of capitalism which leads to an
"ecological" theory of crisis and social transformation.

2. Two Kinds of Crisis Theory

The point of departure of the traditional Marxist theory of
economic crisis and the transition to socialism is the
contradiction between capitalist productive forces and production
relations.[10] The specific form of this contradiction is between
the production and realization of value and surplus value, or
between the production and circulation of capital. The agency of
socialist revolution is the working class. Capitalist production
relations constitute the immediate object of social
transformation. The site of transformation is politics and the
state and the process of production and exchange.
By contrast, the point of departure of an "ecological
Marxist"[11] theory of economic crisis and transition to
socialism is the contradiction between capitalist production
relations (and productive forces) and the conditions of
capitalist production, or "capitalist relations and forces of
social reproduction."[12]

Marx defined three kinds of production conditions. The
first is "external physical conditions"[13] or the natural
elements entering into constant and variable capital. Second,
the "laborpower" of workers was defined as the "personal
conditions of production." Third, Marx referred to "the communal,
general conditions of social production, e.g., "means of
communication."[14]

Today "external physical conditions" are discussed in terms
of the viability of eco-systems, the adequacy of atmospheric
ozone levels, the stability of coastlines and watersheds; soil,
air and water quality; and so on. "Laborpower" is discussed in
terms of the physical and mental well-being of workers; the kind
and degree of socialization; toxicity of work relations and the
workers' ability to cope; and human beings as social productive
forces and biological organisms generally. "Communal conditions"
are discussed in terms of "social capital," "infrastructure," and
so on. Implied in the concepts of "external physical
conditions," "laborpower," and "communal conditions" are the
concepts of space and "social environment." We include as a
production condition, therefore, "urban space" ("urban
capitalized nature") and other forms of space which structures
and is structured by the relationship between people and
"environment,"[15] which in turn helps to produce social
environments. In short, production conditions include
commodified or capitalized materiality and sociality excluding
commodity production, distribution, and exchange themselves.
The specific form of the contradiction between capitalist
production relations (and forces) and production conditions is
also between the production and realization of value and surplus
value. The agency of social transformation is "new social
movements" or new social struggles including struggles within
production over workplace health and safety, toxic waste
production and disposal, and so on. The social relationships of
reproduction of the conditions of production (e.g., state and
family as structures of social relations and also the relations
of production themselves in so far as "new struggles" occur
within capitalist production) constitute the immediate object of
social transformation. The immediate site of transformation is
the material process of reproduction of production conditions
(e.g., division of labor within the family, land use patterns,
education, etc.) and the production process itself, again in so
far as new struggles occur within the capitalist workplace.
In traditional Marxist theory, the contradiction between
production and realization of value and economic crisis takes the
form of a "realization crisis," or over-production of capital.
In ecological Marxist theory, economic crisis assumes the form of
a "liquidity crisis," or under-production of capital. In
traditional theory, economic crisis is the cauldron in which
capital restructures productive forces and production relations
in ways which make both more transparently social in form and
content, e.g., indicative planning, nationalization, profit-
sharing, etc. In ecological Marxism, economic crisis is the
cauldron in which capital restructures the conditions of
production also in ways which make them more transparently social
in form and content, e.g., permanent yield forests, land
reclamation, regional land use and/or resource planning,
population policy, health policy, labor market regulation, toxic
waste disposal planning, etc.

In traditional theory, the development of more social forms
of productive forces and production relations is regarded as a
necessary but not sufficient condition for the transition to
socialism. In ecological Marxism, the development of more social
forms of the provision of the conditions of production also may
be regarded as a necessary but not sufficient condition for
socialism. It should be quickly added that an "ecological
socialism" would be different than that imagined by traditional
Marxism, first, because from the perspective of the "conditions
of production" most struggles have strong, particularistic
"romantic anti-capitalist" dimensions, i.e., are "defensive"
rather than "offensive," and, second, because it has become
obvious that much capitalist technology, forms of work, etc.,
including the ideology of material progress, have become part of
the problem not the solution. In sum, there may be not one but
two paths to socialism, or, to be more accurate, two tendencies
which together lead to increased (albeit historically reversible)
socialization of productive forces, production relations,
conditions of production and social relations of reproduction of
these conditions.

3. The Traditional Marxist Account
of Capitalism as a Crisis-Ridden System

In traditional Marxism, the contradiction between the
production and circulation of capital is "internal" to capitalism
because capitalist production is not only commodity production
but also production of surplus value (i.e., exploitation of
labor). It is a valorization process in which capitalists
extract not only socially necessary labor (labor required to
reproduce constant and variable capital) but also surplus labor
from the working class. Everything else being the same,[16] any
given amount of surplus value produced and/or any given rate of
exploitation will have the effect of creating a particular
shortfall of commodity demand at market prices. Or, put the
opposite way, any particular shortage of commodity demand
presupposes a given amount of surplus value produced and/or a
given rate of exploitation. Further, the greater the amount of
surplus value produced and/or the higher the rate of
exploitation, the greater the difficulty of realizing value and
surplus value in the market. Thus, the basic problem of
capitalism is, where does the extra commodity demand which is
required to buy the product of surplus labor originate? Time
honored answers include capitalist class consumption; capital
investment which is made independently of changes in wage
advances and consumer demand; markets created by these new
investments; new investment, consumption, or government spending
financed by expanded business, consumer or government credit; the
theft of markets of other capitals and/or capitals in other
countries; and so on. However, these "solutions" to the problem
of value realization (that of maintaining a level of aggregate
demand for commodities which is sufficient to maintain a given
rate of profit without threatening economic crisis and the
devaluation of fixed capital) turn into other kinds of potential
"problems" of capitalism. Capitalist consumption constitutes an
unproductive use of surplus value, as does the utilization of
capital in the sphere of circulation with the aim of selling
commodities faster. New capital investment may expand faster
than, or independently of, new consumer demand with the result of
increasing chances of a more severe realization crisis in the
future. While a well-developed credit system can provide the
wherewithal to expand commodity demand independent of increases
in wages and salaries, the expansion of consumer demand based on
increases in consumer or mortgage credit greater than increases
in wages and salaries threatens to transform a potential crisis
of capital over-production into a crisis of capital under-
production. Moreover, any expansion of credit creates debt (as
well as assets) and financial speculation, instabilities in
financial structures, thus threatens a crisis in the financial
system. The theft of markets from other capitals implies the
concentration and/or centralization of capital hence a worsening
of the problem of realization of value in the future and/or
social unrest arising from the destruction of weaker capitals,
political instability, bitter international rivalries,
protectionism, even war. And so on. In sum, economic crisis can
assume varied forms besides the traditional "realization crisis,"
including liquidity crisis, financial crisis or collapse, fiscal
crisis of the state, and social and political crisis tendencies.
However, whatever the specific forms of historical crises (the
list above is meant to be suggestive not exhaustive), and
whatever the specific course of their development and resolution,
most if not all Marxists accept the premise based on the real
conditions of capitalist exploitation that capitalism is a
crisis-ridden system.

4. The Traditional Marxist Account of Capitalism as a
Crisis-Dependent System and the Transition to Socialism


In traditional Marxism, capitalism is not only crisis-ridden
but also crisis-dependent. Capital accumulates through crisis,
which functions as an economic disciplinary mechanism. Crisis is
the occasion which capital seizes to restructure and rationalize
itself in order to restore its capacity to exploit labor and
accumulate. There are two general, interdependent ways in which
capital changes itself to weather the crisis and resolve it in
capital's own favor. One is changes in the productive forces, the
second is changes in the production relations. Changes in either
typically presuppose or require new forms of direct and indirect
cooperation within and between individual capitals and/or within
the state and/or between capital and the state. More cooperation
or planning has the effect of making production more
transparently social, meanwhile subverting commodity and capital
fetishism, or the apparent "naturalness" of capitalist economy.
The telos of crisis is thus to create the possibility of
imagining a transition to socialism.

Crisis-induced changes in productive forces by capitals
seeking to defend or restore profits (and exemplified by
technological changes which lower unit costs, increase
flexibility in production, and so on) have the systematic effect
of lowering the costs of reproducing the work force; making raw
materials available more cheaply or their utilization more
efficient; reducing the period of production and/or circulation,
etc. Whatever the immediate sources of the crisis, restructuring
productive forces with the aim of raising profits is a foregone
conclusion. More, crisis-induced changes in productive forces
imply or presuppose more social forms of production
relationships, e.g., more direct forms of cooperation within
production.[17] Examples of changes in productive forces today,
and associated changes in production relationships, include
computerized, flexible manufacturing systems and robotics, which
are associated with the development of "creative team play" and
other forms of cooperation in the work place, profit sharing,
etc. And, of course, the greatest productive force is human
cooperation, and science or the social production of practical
knowledge has become an almost completely cooperative
enterprise[18] partly as a result of cumulative historical
economic, social and political crises.

The second way that capital restructures itself is crisis-
induced changes in production relations within and between
capital, within the state, and/or between the state and capital
which are introduced with the aim of exercising more control of
production, markets, and so on, i.e., more planning.
Historically, planning has taken many forms, e.g.,
nationalization, fiscal policy, indicative planning, etc.,
including, at the political level, fascism, new dealism, and
social democracy. Whatever the immediate sources of crisis, the
restructuring of production relations with the aim of developing
more control of labor, raw material supplies, etc. is a foregone
conclusion. More, crisis-induced changes in production relations
imply or presuppose more social forms of productive forces, e.g.,
more direct forms of cooperation. Examples of changes in
production relations today are "strategic agreements" between
high tech capitals; massive state intervention in financial
markets; and centralization of capital via take-overs and
mergers. These changes imply sharing or socialization of high
tech secrets and technical personnel; new forms of financial
controls; and restructuring of management and production systems,
respectively.

To sum up, crisis forcibly causes capital to lower costs and
increase flexibility and to exercise more control or planning
over production and circulation. Crisis causes new forms of
flexible planning and planned flexibility (even at the level of
state-organized production), which increases the tensions between
a more flexible capitalism (usually market-created) and a more
planned capitalism (usually state-created). Crisis forcibly
makes capital confront its own basic contradiction which is
subsequently displaced to the spheres of the state, corporate
management, etc. when there is introduced more social forms of
productive forces and production relations, which imply or
presuppose one another meanwhile developing independently of one
another. In this way, capital itself creates some of the
technical and social preconditions for the transition to
socialism. However, whether we start from the productive force or
production relation side, it is clear that technology and power
embody one another hence that new forms of cooperation hold out
only tenuous and ambiguous promises for the possibilities of
socialism. For example, state capitalism, political capitalism,
and so on contain within them socialist forms, but highly
distorted ones, which in the course of the class struggle may be
politically appropriated to develop less distorted social forms
of material and social life. But this is a highly charged
political and ideological question. Only in a limited sense can
it be said that socialism is imminent in crisis-induced changes
in productive forces and production relations. Whether or not
these new social forms are imminently socialist forms depends on
the ideological and political terrain, degree of popular
mobilization and organization, national traditions, etc.,
including and especially the particular world conjuncture. The
same cautionary warning applies to the specific forms of
cooperation in the workplace which emerge from the crisis, which
may or may not preclude other forms which would lend themselves
better to socialist practice, which cannot be regarded as some
fixed trajectory but itself an object of struggle, and defined
only through struggle.

Nothing can be said a priori about "socialist imminence"
except at the highest levels of abstraction. The key point is
that capitalism tends to self-destruct or subvert itself when it
switches to more social forms of production relations and forces.
The premise of this argument is that any given set of capitalist
technologies, work relations, etc. is consistent with more than
one set of production relations and that any given set of
production relations is consistent with more than one set of
technologies, etc. The "fit" between relations and forces is
thus assumed to be quite loose and flexible. In the crisis,
there is a kind of two-sided struggle to fit new productive
forces into new production relations and vice versa in more
social forms without, however, any "natural" tendency for
capitalism to transform itself to socialism. Nationalization of
industry, for example, may or may not be a step toward socialism.
It is certainly a step toward more social forms of production and
a more specifically political form of appropriation and
utilization of surplus value. On the other side, quality
circles, work teams, technology sharing, etc. may or may not be a
step toward socialism. They are certainly steps toward more
social forms of productive forces.

5. Toward an Ecological Marxist Account
of Capitalism as a Crisis-Ridden System

The point of departure of "ecological Marxism" is the
contradiction between capitalist production relations and
productive forces and conditions of production. Neither human
laborpower nor external nature nor infrastructures including
their space/time dimensions are produced capitalistically,
although capital treats these conditions of production as if they
are commodities or commodity capital. Precisely because they are
not produced and reproduced capitalistically, yet are bought and
sold and utilized as if they were commodities, the conditions of
supply (quantity and quality, place and time) must be regulated
by the state or capitals acting as if they are the state.
Although the capitalization of nature implies the increased
penetration of capital into the conditions of production (e.g.,
trees produced on plantations, genetically altered species,
private postal services, voucher education, etc.), the state
places itself between capital and nature, or mediates capital and
nature, with the immediate result that the conditions of
capitalist production are politicized. This means that whether or
not raw materials and labor force and useful spatial and
infrastructural configurations are available to capital in
requisite quantities and qualities and at the right time and
place depends on the political power of capital, the power of
social movements which challenge particular capitalist forms of
production conditions (e.g., struggles over land as means of
production versus means of consumption), state structures which
mediate or screen struggles over the definition and use of
production conditions (e.g., zoning boards), and so on.[19]
Excepting the branches of the state regulating money and certain
aspects of foreign relations (those which do not have any obvious
relation to accessing foreign sources of raw materials,
laborpower, etc.), every state agency and political party agenda
may be regarded as a kind of interface between capital and nature
(including human beings and space). In sum, whether or not
capital faces "external barriers" to accumulation, including
external barriers in the form of new social struggles over the
definition and use of production conditions (i.e., "social
barriers" which mediate between internal or specific and external
or general barriers);[20] whether or not these "external
barriers" take the form of economic crisis; and whether or not
economic crisis is resolved in favor of or against capital are
political and ideological questions first and foremost, economic
questions only secondarily. This is so because production
conditions are by definition politicized (unlike production
itself) and also because the whole corpus of Marx's work
privileges laborpower as a production condition; access to nature
is mediated by struggles while external nature has no
subjectivity of its own.[21] Laborpower alone struggles around
the conditions of its own well-being and social environment
broadly defined.

An ecological Marxist account of capitalism as a crisis-
ridden system focuses on the way that the combined power of
capitalist production relations and productive forces self-
destruct by impairing or destroying rather than reproducing their
own conditions ("conditions" defined in terms of both their
social and material dimensions). Such an account stresses the
process of exploitation of labor and self-expanding capital;
state regulation of the provision of production conditions; and
social struggles organized around capital's use and abuse of
these conditions. The main question -- does capital create its
own barriers or limits by destroying its own production
conditions? -- needs to be asked in terms of specific use values,
as well as exchange value. This is so because conditions of
production are not produced as commodities, hence problems
pertaining to them are "site specific," including the individual
body as a unique "site." The question -- why does capital impair
its own conditions? -- needs to be asked in terms of the theory
of self-expanding capital, its universalizing tendencies which
tend to negate principles of site specificity, its lack of
ownership of laborpower, external nature, and space, hence
(without state or monopolistic capitalist planning) capital's
inability to prevent itself from impairing its own conditions.
The question -- why do social struggles against the destruction
of production conditions (which resist the capitalization of
nature, for example, environmental, public health, occupational
health and safety, urban, and other movements) potentially impair
capital flexibility and variability? -- needs to be asked in
terms of conflicts over conditions defined both as use values and
exchange values.

Examples of capitalist accumulation impairing or destroying
capital's own conditions hence threatening its own profits and
capacity to produce and accumulate more capital are well-known.
The warming of the atmosphere will inevitably destroy people,
places, and profits, not to speak of other species life. Acid
rain destroys forests and lakes and buildings and profits alike.
Salinization of water tables, toxic wastes, soil erosion, etc.
impair nature and profitability. The pesticide treadmill
destroys profits as well as nature. Urban capital running on an
"urban renewal treadmill" impairs its own conditions hence
profits, e.g., congestion costs, high rents, etc.[22] The
decrepit state of the physical infrastructure in this country may
be mentioned in this connection. There is also an "education
treadmill," "welfare treadmill," "technological fix treadmill"
"health care treadmill," etc.[23] This line of thinking also
applies to the "personal conditions of production . . .
laborpower" in connection with capital's destruction of
traditionalist family life as well as the introduction of work
relations which impair coping skills, and the presently toxic
social environment generally. In these ways, we can safely
introduce "scarcity" into the theory of economic crisis in a
Marxist, not neo-Malthusian, way. We can also introduce the
possibility of capital underproduction once we add up the rising
costs of reproducing the conditions of production. Examples
include the health bill necessitated by capitalist work and
family relations; the drug and drug rehabilitation bill; the vast
sums expended as a result of the deterioration of the social
environment (e.g., police and divorce bill); the enormous
revenues expended to prevent further environmental destruction
and clean-up or repair the legacy of ecological destruction from
the past; monies required to invent and develop and produce
synthetics and "natural" substitutes as means and objects of
production and consumption; the huge sums required to pay off oil
sheiks and energy companies, e.g., ground rent, monopoly profit,
etc.; the garbage disposal bill; the extra costs of congested
urban space; the costs falling on governments and peasants and
workers in the Third World as a result of the twin crises of
ecology and development. And so on. No one has estimated the
total revenues required to compensate for impaired or lost
production conditions and/or to restore these conditions and
develop substitutes. It is conceivable that total revenues
allocated to protecting or restoring production conditions may
amount to one-half or more of the total social product -- all
unproductive expenses from the standpoint of self-expanding
capital. Is it possible to link these unproductive expenditures
(and those anticipated in the future) to the vast credit and debt
system in the world today? To the growth of fictitious capital?
To the fiscal crisis of the state? To the internationalization
of production? The traditional Marxist theory of crisis
interprets credit/debt structures as the result of capital
overproduction. Ecological Marxism would interpret the same
phenomena as the result of capital underproduction and
unproductive use of capital produced. Do these tendencies
reinforce or offset one another? Without prejudging the answer,
the question clearly needs to be on the agenda of Marxist theory.

6. Towards an Ecological Marxist Account of Capitalism as
a Crisis-Ridden System and the Transition to Socialism

Neither Marx nor any Marxists have developed a theory of the
relationship between crisis-induced changes in the conditions of
production and the establishment of the conditions of socialism.
In traditional Marxism, crisis-induced changes in productive
forces and relations are determined by the need to cut costs,
restructure capital, etc. Forces and relations are transformed
into more transparently social forms. In ecological Marxism,
like traditional Marxism, capitalism is also not only crisis-
ridden but also crisis-dependent. Crisis-induced changes in
production conditions (whether crisis itself originates in
capital overproduction or underproduction) are also determined by
the need to cut costs, reduce ground rent, increase flexibility,
etc. and to restructure conditions themselves, e.g., expand
preventive health, reforestation, reorganization of urban space,
etc.

There are two general, interdependent ways in which capital
(helped by the state) changes its own conditions to weather the
crisis and to resolve it in capital's favor. One is changes in
conditions defined as productive forces. The other is changes in
the social relations of reproduction of conditions. Changes in
either typically presuppose or require new forms of cooperation
between and within capitals and/or between capital and the state
and/or within the state, or more social forms of the "regulation
of the metabolism between humankind and nature" as well as the
"metabolism" between the individual and the physical and social
environment. More cooperation has the effect of making
production conditions (already politicized) more transparently
political, thereby subverting further the apparent "naturalness"
of capital existence. The telos of crisis is thus to create the
possibility of imagining more clearly a transition to socialism.
Crisis-induced changes in conditions as productive forces
with the purpose of defending or restoring profit (exemplified by
technological changes which lower congestion costs, increase
flexibility in the utilization of raw materials, etc.) have the
systemic effect of lowering the costs of reproducing the work
force; making raw materials available more cheaply, etc.
Whatever the immediate sources of the crisis, restructuring
production conditions with the aim of raising profits is a
foregone conclusion. More, crisis-induced changes in production
conditions imply or presuppose more social forms of the social
relations of reproduction of production conditions, e.g., more
direct forms of cooperation within the sphere of production
conditions. An example of a change in production conditions
today, and the associated change in the social relations of
reproduction of production conditions, is integrated pest
management which presupposes not only more coordination of
farmers' efforts but also more coordination of training and
education programs.[24] Another example is preventative health
technology in relation to AIDS and associated changes in
community relations in a more cooperative direction.
The second form of restructuring is crisis-induced changes
in the social relations of reproduction of production conditions
introduced with the aim of exercising more control of production
conditions, i.e., more planning. Historically, planning has taken
many forms, e.g., urban and regional transportation and health
planning, natural resource planning, etc.[25] Whatever the
immediate sources of crisis, the restructuring of these social
relations with the aim of developing more control of production
conditions is also a foregone conclusion. More, crisis-induced
changes in the social relations of reproduction of production
condition imply or presuppose more social forms of production
conditions defined as productive forces. An example of such a
change today is "planning" to deal with urban smog which
presupposes coalitions of associations and groups, i.e.,
political cooperation, to legitimate tough yet cooperative smog-
reduction measures.[26] Another example is the proposed
restructuring of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation which new
technical changes in water policy presuppose.[27]
To sum up, crisis forcibly causes capital and state to
exercise more control or planning over production conditions (as
well as over production and circulation of capital itself).
Crisis brings into being new forms of flexible planning and
planned flexibility, which increases tensions between a more
flexible capitalism and a more planned capitalism -- more so than
in the traditional Marxist account of the restructuring of
production and circulation because of the key role of the state
bureaucracy in the provision of production conditions. Crisis
forcibly makes capital and state confront their own basic
contradictions which are subsequently displaced to the political
and ideological spheres (twice removed from direct production and
circulation) where there is introduced more social forms of
production conditions defined both materially and socially, e.g.,
the dominance of political bipartisanship in relation to urban
redevelopment, educational reform, environmental planning, and
other forms of provision of production conditions which exemplify
new and significant forms of class compromise. However, it is
clear that technology and power embody one another at the level
of conditions as well as production itself hence that new forms
of political cooperation hold out only tenuous promises of
socialism. Again, nothing can be said a priori about "socialist
imminence" excepting at a high level of abstraction. The key
point is that capitalism tends to self-destruct or subvert itself
when it switches to more social forms of the provision of
production conditions via politics and ideology. The premise of
this argument (like the argument of the present interpretation of
traditional Marxism) is that any given set of production
condition technologies, work relations, etc. is consistent with
more than one set of social relations of reproduction of these
conditions and that any given set of these social relations is
consistent with more than one set of production condition
technologies, work relations, etc. The "fit" between social
relations and forces of reproduction of production conditions is
thus assumed to be quite loose and flexible. In the crisis (in
which the future is unknowable), there is a kind of two-sided
struggle to fit new production conditions defined as forces into
new production conditions defined as relations, and vice versa,
into more social forms without, however, any "natural" tendency
for capitalism to transform itself into socialism. Urban and
regional planning mechanisms, for example, may or may not be a
step toward socialism. They are certainly a step toward more
social forms of the provision of production conditions hence
making socialism at least more imaginable. On the other side,
regional transportation networks and health care services and
bioregional water distribution (for example) may or may not be a
step towards socialism. They are certainly a step toward more
social forms of the provision of production conditions.
In the modern world, the list of new social and political
forms of reproduction of production conditions is endless. It
seems highly significant, and also theoretically understated
within Marxism, that the world crisis today appears to result in
more, and require many additional, social forms not only of
productive forces and relations but also production conditions,
although the institutional and ideological aspects of these forms
are confusing and often contradictory, and although these forms
should not be regarded as irreversible (e.g., reprivatization,
deregulation, etc.). Yet it is conceivable that we are engaging
in a long process in which there occurs different yet parallel
paths to socialism, hence that Marx was not so much wrong as he
was half-right. It may be that the traditional process of
"socialist construction" is giving way to a new process of
"socialist reconstruction," or the reconstruction of the
relationship between human beings and production conditions
including the social environment. It is at least plausible that
in the "first world" socialist reconstruction will be seen as,
first, desirable, and second, necessary; in the "second world" as
equally desirable and necessary; and in the "third world" as,
first, necessary, and second, desirable. It is more plausible
that atmospheric warming, acid rain, and pollution of the seas
will make highly social forms of reconstruction of material and
social life absolutely indispensable.

To elaborate somewhat, we know that the labor movement
"pushed" capitalism into more social forms of productive forces
and relations, e.g., collective bargaining. Perhaps we can
surmise that feminism, environmental movements, etc. are
"pushing" capital and state into more social forms of the
reproduction of production conditions. As labor exploitation
(the basis of Marxist crisis theory, traditionally defined)
engendered a labor movement which during particular times and
places turned itself into a "social barrier" to capital, nature
exploitation (including exploitation of human biology) engenders
an environmental movement (e.g., environmentalism, public health
movement, occupational health and safety movements, women's
movement organized around the politics of the body, etc.) which
may also constitute a "social barrier" to capital. In a country
such as Nicaragua, the combination of economic and ecological
crisis and political dictatorship in the old regime has
engendered a national liberation movement and eco-development
planning.

Concrete analysis of concrete situations is required before
anything sensible can be said about environmentalism defined in
the broadest sense and capital's short- and long-term prospects.
For example, acid rain causes ecological and economic damage.
The environmental movement demands clean-up and restoration of
environment and protection of nature. This may restore profits
in the long run or reduce government clean-up expenses, which may
or may not be congruent with short- and middle-term needs of
capital. Implied in a systematic program of politically
regulated social environment are kinds of planning which protect
capital against its worst excesses, yet which may or may not be
congruent with capital's needs in particular conjunctures. One
scenario is that "the destruction of the environment can lead to
vast new industries designed to restore it. Imagine, lake
dredging equipment, forest cleaning machines, land revitalizers,
air restorers, acid rain combatants."[28] These kinds of super-
tech solutions would be a huge drain on surplus value, unless
they lowered the reproduction cost of laborpower, yet at the same
time help to "solve" any realization problems arising from
traditional capital over-production. Vast sums of credit money
would be required to restore or rebuild the social environment,
however, which would displace the contradiction into the
financial and fiscal spheres in more or less the same ways that
the traditional contradiction between production and circulation
of capital is displaced into the financial and fiscal spheres
today.

Go to part II"