Beyond the environmental politics of resistance
The growing resistance against fossil fuel companies over recent years is characteristic of a new strategy in the environmental movement centered on people-powered and grassroot-led fossil fuel divestment campaigns around the world. The publication of Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything in 2014 acted as a rallying call for every wannabe environmental activist to aspire to a movement led by frontline communities affected by climate change and the fossil fuel extractivist projects imposed upon them. In her book, she gives a very powerful account of those groups rising against the social and environmental destruction they are facing, which she believes, has the potential to foster an inter-connected movement of strengthened communities. We can witness this strong call for resistance in the everyday struggles against new pipelines being built, the tearing down of the overall social welfare system, the disastrous impact of austerity policies and countless other forms of oppression imposed on people. Whilst neoliberal ideology is a common thread behind all these issues, their resistance remains still rather disconnected and localised. This is what Srnicek and Williams refer to as “folk politics” in their book about post-capitalism, implying that today’s progressive left movements are by nature rooted in their local context and do not aim to build a global counter-movement against neoliberal orthodoxy. While this broad description may lack nuance, overall it seems to reflect the way most movements are proceeding by subscribing to the idea that changes must be context-driven and decentralised as opposed to the global policies driven by the neoliberal consensus.
The problem with such a strategy is that it will never be powerful enough to dismantle a global system that relies on a powerful network of interconnected institutions and states. Besides, there is a lack of direct counter-projects proposed to the ones that are being fought against. This can be regarded as a potential failure to supplant the ingrained neoliberal mantra that “there is no alternative”.
The movement against TTIP, an international trade deal which was to be negotiated between the EU and the US, is the perfect example of a movement lacking an alternative project to neoliberal policies. The anti-TTIP coalition which rallied countless organisations across a wide range of interests — social, environmental, health and consumer rights — to coordinate their strategies against this trade deal turned out to be one of the largest opposition movements over the last decades. However, while the main message delivered by trade activists was mainly about rejecting this deal altogether, there was significantly less attention spent on what should be an alternative to international trade. As a result, when Trump got elected as president of the United States, this deal was immediately thrown out of the window and with it years of mass mobilisation and countless efforts from NGOs, activists, and various associations of citizens created for this purpose. It might be an overstatement to say that the movement was a failure after all, as it succeeded in bringing people together to discuss trade policies and get engaged politically, but it certainly wasn’t successful in keeping the movement together to build a powerful agenda against neoliberal trade policies in general.
The current epidemic of burn-out in activist circles, NGOs and charities is another problematic aspect of a movement driven by a constant fight against the politico-economic order and its affiliated policies, which physically and morally cannot be sustainable in the long run.
A change of strategy seems imperative if we are to build a powerful counter-alternative to neoliberalism in times of profound overlapping crises. It might indeed be what Naomi Klein alludes to in her “No is not enough” which refers to the post-Trump election climate where she argues that mere resistance is not working anymore. A few socially and environmentally motivated groups have realised the need to get to grips with the flawed economic narrative, which perpetuates the current neoliberal capitalist order if we are to really build another system based upon values of prosperity, sustainability and wellbeing. This could signal a recent shift from taking over the streets — in protests and acts of resistance — to the act of reclaiming our socio-economic institutions by creating a radical blueprint for the future.
This is not to say that resistance is not needed anymore. It is indeed fundamental that people rise up against all forms of injustice and repression they are facing. However this resistance must be connected at the same time with an alternative vision from the current economic paradigm. Economist Kate Raworth outlines such a proposal for a new economy through her “doughnut” which is a clear visual for how to bring humanity back into a socially & ecologically sustainable pathway.
We are currently not lacking “solutions” to the socio-ecological crises we witness, as we have many alternatives to another energy, food or economic system that would benefit both people and the planet. What we need, on the other hand, is to find those leverage points — as proposed by environmental scientist Donella Meadows — within the current system to implement such changes and eventually shift the system towards an entirely new paradigm. As long as the neoliberal capitalist agenda and its profit seeking imperative rules, projects that destroy the climate and are detrimental to communities will keep being implemented. If we do not work towards changing the economic “rules of the game”, we might indeed never see this social-ecological transformation take place.
