REVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY: BIOCENTRISM & DEEP ECOLOGY
JUDI BARI

I was a social justice activist for many years before I ever heard of Earth First! So it came as a surprise to me, when I joined Earth First! in the 1980s, to find that the radical movement paid little attention to the social causes of ecological destruction. Similarly, the urban-based social justice movement seems to have a hard time admitting the importance of biological issues, often dismissing all but "environmental racism" as trivial. Yet in order to effectively respond to the crises of today, I believe we must merge these two issues. Starting from the very reasonable but unfortunately revolutionary concept that social practices which threaten the continuation of life on Earth must be changed, we need a theory of revolutionary ecology that will encompass social and biological issues, class struggle, and a recognition of the role of global corporate capitalism in the oppression of peoples and the destruction of nature. I believe we already have such a theory. It is called *deep ecology*, and it is the core belief of the radical environmental movement. The problem is that, in the early stages of this debate, deep ecology was falsely associated with such right-wing notions as sealing the borders, applauding AIDS as a population control mechanism, and encouraging Ethiopians to starve. This sent the social ecologists justifiably scurrying to dissociate. And I believe it has muddied the waters of our movement's attempt to define itself and unite behind a common philosophy. So in this article, I will try to explain, from my perspective as an unabashed leftist, why I think deep ecology is a revolutionary world view. I am not trying to proclaim that my ideas are the Absolute Truth, or even that they represent a finished thought process in my own mind. These are just some ideas I have on the subject, and I hope that by airing them, it will spark more debate and advance the discussion. BIOCENTRISM Deep Ecology, or biocentrism, is the belief that nature does not exist to serve humans. Rather, humans are a part of nature, one species among many. All species have a right to exist for their own sake, regardless of their usefulness to humans. And biodiversity is a value in itself, essential for the flourishing of both human and non-human life. These principles, I believe, are not just another political theory. Biocentrism is a law of nature that exists independently of whether humans recognise it or not. It doesn't matter whether we view the world in a human-centred way. Nature still operates in a biocentric way. And the failure of modern society to acknowledge this - as we attempt to subordinate all of nature to human use - has led us to the brink of collapse of the Earth's life support systems. Biocentrism is not a new theory, and it wasn't invented by Dave Foreman or Arne Naess. It is ancient native wisdom, expressed in such sayings as "The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth." But in the context of today's industrial society, biocentrism is profoundly revolutionary, challenging the system to its core. BIOCENTRISM CONTRADICTS CAPITALISM The capitalist system is in direct conflict with the natural laws of biocentrism. Capitalism, first of all, is based on the principle of private property - of certain humans "owning" the Earth for the purpose of exploiting it for profit. At an earlier stage, capitalists even believed they could own other humans. But just as slavery has been discredited in the mores of today's dominant world view, so do the principles of biocentrism discredit the concept that humans can own the Earth. How can corporate raider Charles Hurwitz claim to "own" the 2000-year-old redwoods of Headwaters Forest, just because he signed a few papers to trade them for a junk bond debt? This concept is absurd. Hurwitz is a mere blip in the lives of these ancient trees. Although he may have the power to destroy them, he does not have the right. One of the best weapons of US environmentalists in our battle to save places like Headwaters Forest is the (now itself endangered) Endangered Species Act. This law, and other laws that recognise public trust values such as clean air, clean water, and protection of threatened species, are essentially admissions that the laws of private property do not correspond to the laws of nature. You cannot do whatever you want on your own property without affecting surrounding areas, because the Earth is interconnected, and nature does not recognise human boundaries. Even beyond private property, though, capitalism conflicts with biocentrism around the very concept of profit. Profit consists of taking out more than you put in. This is certainly contradictory to the fertility cycles of nature, which depend on a balance of give and take. But more important is the question of where this profit is actually taken from. According to Marxist theory, profit is stolen from the workers when the capitalists pay them less than the value of what they produce. The portion of the value of the product that the capitalist keeps, rather than pays to the workers, is called surplus value. The amount of surplus value that the capitalist can keep varies with the organisation of the workers, and with their level of privilege within the world labour pool. But the working class can never be paid the full value of their labour under capitalism, because the capitalist class exists by extracting surplus value from the products of their labour. Although I basically agree with this analysis, I think there is one big thing missing. I believe that part of the value of a product comes not just from the labour put into it, but also from the natural resources used to make the product. And I believe that surplus value (i.e., profit) is not just stolen from the workers, but also from the Earth itself. A clearcut is a perfect example of a part of the Earth from which surplus value has been extracted. If human production and consumption are done within the natural limits of the Earth's fertility cycles, then the supply is indeed endless. But this cannot happen under capitalism, because the capitalist class exists by extracting profit not only from the workers, but also the Earth. Modern-day corporations are the very worst manifestation of this sickness. A small business may survive on profits, but at least its basic purpose is to provide sustenance for the owners, who are human beings with a sense of place in their communities. But a corporation has no purpose for its existence, no moral guide to its behaviour, other than to make profits. And today's global corporations are beyond the control of any nation or government. In fact, the government is in the service of the corporations, its armies poised to defend their profits around the world, and its secret police ready to infiltrate and disrupt any serious resistance at home. In other words, this system cannot be reformed. It is based on the destruction of the Earth and the exploitation of the people. There is no such thing as 'green capitalism,' and marketing cutesie rain-forest products will not bring back the ecosystem that capitalism must destroy to make its profits. This is why I believe that serious ecologists must be revolutionaries. BIOCENTRISM CONTRADICTS COMMUNISM As you can probably tell, my background in revolutionary theory comes from Marxism, which I consider to be a brilliant critique of capitalism. But as to what should be implemented in capitalism's place, I don't think that Marxism has shown us the answer. One of the reasons for this, I believe, is that communism, socialism, and all of the other leftist ideologies that I know of, speak only about redistributing the spoils of raping the Earth more evenly among classes of humans. They do not address the relationship of the society to the Earth. Or rather, they assume that it will stay the same as it is under capitalism - that of a gluttonous consumer. And that the purpose of the revolution is to find a more efficient and egalitarian way to produce and distribute consumer goods. This total disregard of nature as a life force, rather than just a source of raw materials, allowed Marxist states to rush to industrialise without even the most meagre environmental safeguards. This has resulted in noted disasters such as the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the oil spill in the Arctic Ocean, and the on-going liquidation of the fragile forest of Siberia. It has left parts of Russia and eastern Europe with such a toxic legacy that even the rate of human fertility has slowed. Marx stated that the primary contradiction in industrial society is the contradiction between capital arid labor. I believe these disasters show that the primary contradiction is between industrial society and the Earth. But even though socialism has so far failed to take ecology into account, I do not think that it is beyond reform, as is capitalism. One of the principles of socialism is "production for use, not for profit." Therefore the imbalance is not built in under socialism as it is under capitalism, and I could envision a form of socialism that would not destroy the Earth. But it would be unlike Marx's industrial model. Ecological socialism, among other things, would have to deal with the issue of centralism. The Marxist idea of a huge body politic related to some central planning authority pre-supposes (1) authoritarianism of some sort, and (2) the use of mass production technologies that are inherently destructive to the Earth and corrosive to the human spirit. Ecological socialism would mean organising human societies in a manner that is compatible with the way that nature is organised. And I believe the natural order of the Earth is bioregionalism, not statism. Modern industrial society robs us of community with each other and community with the Earth. This creates a great longing inside us, which we are taught to fill with consumer goods. But consumer goods, beyond those needed for basic comfort and survival, are not really what we crave. So our appetite is insatiable, and we turn to more and more efficient and dehumanising methods of production to make more and more goods that do not satisfy us. If workers really had control of the factories (and I say this as a former factory worker), they would start by smashing the machines and finding a more human way to decide what we need and how to produce it. So to the credo "production for use, not for profit," ecological socialism would add, "production for need, not for greed." BIOCENTRISM CONTRADICTS PATRIARCHY Patriarchy is one of the deepest and oldest forms of oppression in the world today. It is so deep that we are discouraged from even naming it. You can say you are against apartheid without offending progressive white people. But start talking about the patriarchy and you will run into howls of protest and ridicule from otherwise progressive men. Nonetheless, patriarchy needs to be addressed by any truly revolutionary theory. In fact, the failure to address patriarchy is one of the great shortcomings of Marxism. Ecofeminism points out that there is a parallel between the way this patriarchal society treats nature and the way it treats women. This is reflected in such expressions as "virgin redwoods" and "rape of the Earth". More important, however, ecofeminism holds that one of the reasons for the destruction of the Earth is that only the "masculine" traits of conquering and dominance are valued by this society, while the "feminine" traits of nurturing and life-giving are devalued and suppressed. Both men and women, by the way, possess both masculine and feminine traits. But feminine behaviour is held in lower esteem no matter who is exhibiting it. The relationship between the suppression of women and the suppression of nature is particularly clear in Third World nations, where the colonial powers take over the land by forcibly removing peasant and tribal women from their traditional role as keepers of the forest and farmlands. The women's methods of interacting with the Earth are supplanted by men and machines, as logging and agribusiness replace their small-scale farming, ripping off natures fertility rather than nurturing it. This is why Third World environmental movements are often women's mvements, such as those in India, Kenya, and Brazil. As anyone knows who has ever dealt with the Forest Service or the EPA, "science" is the ultimate authority used to justify this system's relentless assault on the Earth. Science is presented to us as neutral and objective, a path to Absolute Truth. But in fact, the type of science endorsed by the industrial patriarchy is not value-free. It is openly described by its founders as a masculine system of knowledge, based on the assumption that nature is separate from man, to he conquered and subdued by him. And, reflecting that separation, its methodology is based on reductionism, or breaking the whole into separate parts in order to study it. Reductionism leads to that incredible compartmentalisation of the brain that allows such conclusions as (and I'm not making this up) clearcutting followed by single-species replanting is the most effective method of forest regeneration because, after five years, clearcut areas have more "stems growing" than select cut areas. Reductionist science has indeed created such wonders as nuclear bombs, plastic shrink-wrap, and twinkies. But it has lot resulted in a true understanding of the world, because nature's parts are not separate, they are interdependent. Thus, as pointed out by ecofeminist philosopher Vandana Shiva, reductionist science has given us antibiotics that create super bacteria and fertilisers that create barren soil. Instead of this masculine system of separation and domination, ecofeminists seek to promote a science of nature. Nature is seen as holistic and interdependent, and humans as part of nature, our fates inseparable. Rather than conquering or subduing, ecofeminist science seeks to live within the pre-existing fertility cycles of nature, enhancing those fertility cycles through our informed interaction, but not interrupting or subverting them. This ecofeminist view of nature is perfectly consistent with biocentrism. In fact, it is another way of saying the same thing. So to embrace biocentrism is to challenge the masculine system of knowledge that underlies the destruction of the Earth. Ecofeminism does not seek to dominate men, as women have been dominated under patriarchy. It seeks only to achieve a balance, as in nature. Of course, in this lopsided culture, achieving a balance would involve a tremendous rise of the feminine - both a rise of individual women and a rise in feminist values among both women and men. But without this balance, society cannot make the changes that we need to survive. WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE MOVEMENT The fact that deep ecology is a revolutionary philosophy is one of the reasons Earth First! was targetted for disruption and annihilation by the FBI. The fact that we did not recognise it as revolutionary is one of the reasons we were so unprepared for the magnitude of the attack. If we are to continue, not only Earth First! but the ecology movement must adjust our tactics to the profound changes that are needed to bring society into balance with nature. One way that we can do this is to broaden our focus. Of course, sacred places must be preserved, and it is entirely appropriate for an ecology movement to centre on protecting irreplaceable wilderness areas. But to define our movement as being concerned with "wilderness only," as Earth First! did in the 1980s, is self-defeating. You cannot seriously address the destruction of wilderness without addressing the society that is destroying it. It's about time for the ecology movement (and I'm not just talking about Earth First! here) to stop considering itself as separate from the social justice movement. The same power that manifests itself as resource extraction in the countryside manifests itself as racism, classism, and human exploitation in the city. The ecology movement must recognise that we are just one front in a long, proud, history of resistance. A revolutionary ecology movement must also organise among poor and working people. With the exception of the toxics movement and the native land rights movement, most US environmentalists are white and privileged. This group is too invested in the system to pose it much of a threat. A revolutionary ideology in the hands of privileged people can indeed bring about some disruption and change in the system. But a revolutionary ideology in the hands of working people can bring the system to a halt. For it is the working people who have their hands on the machinery. And only by stopping the machinery of destruction can we ever hope to stop this madness. How can it be that we have neighbourhood movements focused on the disposal of toxic wastes, for example, but we don't have a workers' movement to stop the production of toxics? It is only when the factory workers refuse to make the stuff, it is only when the loggers refuse to cut ancient trees, that we can ever hope for real and lasting change. This system cannot be stopped by force. It is violent and ruthless beyond the capacity of any people's resistance movement. The only way I can even imagine stopping it is through massive nonco-operation. So let's keep blocking those bulldozers and hugging those trees. And let's focus our campaigns on the global corporations that are really at fault. But we have to begin placing our actions in a larger context. And we must continue this discussion to develop a workable theory of revolutionary ecology.