The global climate crisis is real, even if the worst consequences are still decades away. The world does need to transition away from fossil fuels as rapidly as possible. But Macron’s fiasco with higher diesel and gas taxes in France goes to show that capitalism can make this happen – if at all – only at the expense of the working class.
Macron campaigned heavily around a program of implementing the Paris Climate Accord by reducing carbon emissions by 75%. The “yellow vests” forced him to back down from the taxes that were supposed to help do that.
Are the “yellow vests” climate-deniers and anti-environmentalists? No! They targeted the fuel tax because it hit low-income workers the hardest, further reducing their standard of living. At that, it would barely put a dent in the problem compared with carbon emissions from industrial production and the military.
Capitalist economics seeks “efficient market solutions” like carbon taxes. These raise the cost of pollution and therefore supposedly drive down demand. Will corporations absorb those costs and accept lower profits? They can’t!
For well over a century, finance capital has dominated the global economy. Its basic inner drive is to maximize profits. So higher carbon costs are passed along to workers as a lower standard of living.
We – the masses – are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Our short-term survival needs are in contradiction with our long-term survival needs. Only communist revolution can get us out of this trap.
Communism has no markets. We won’t exchange things for money or anything else. Instead we will SHARE according to need. Communism’s inner drive is to maximize the satisfaction of our NEEDS – including our need for a livable planet.
Yes, we’ll have to make some hard choices. But we will make them together, taking everyone’s needs into account. Our International Communist Workers’ Party will organize as many people as possible—eventually, everyone—into an interconnected network of collectives to make these decisions, carry them out and evaluate the results.
In communism, everyone will benefit but no one will profit.
Is this possible? Hell yeah! Human beings lived in communistic societies for tens of thousands of years. Some lived that way well into the 20th century.
Class society arose relatively recently, about eight thousand years ago. It has gone through major changes. Feudalism superseded slavery. Capitalism superseded feudalism. The disappearance of the “middle class” today is the culmination of an increasing polarization of the world into the masses of exploited and the handful of exploiters.
Communist revolution won’t simply change the form of class society. It will abolish classes altogether.
The “yellow vests” are showing the power of the masses in motion. This is the power – when mobilized for communism – that will save our lives on earth.