This post describes capitalism as: an activity, the capitalist system, the phases of capitalism through history and that there are many capitalisms. If we want to get rid of capitalism, first we need to understand what it is.
Jeremy Gilbert, in his recent book Twenty-First Century Socialism, gives a good summary of what capitalism is. Most human societies through history have not experienced capitalism, as it only developed in the last few hundred years. It then spread around the world. Gilbert describes capitalism as:
“a situation in which private individuals or corporations are allowed to use any means available to them – short of openly violent coercion – to accumulate vast profits from the sale of commodities, even if, in the process, they are paying workers very low wages, wrecking the local environment, or forcing people to change their way of life against their will.”
‘Capital’ is the wealth that is available to be invested or lent, with the aim of returning a profit in the form of more capital. A ‘capitalist’ is someone that profits from their ability to invest capital. Gilbert describes capitalism in two ways. The first is a more basic way as describes above; an activity called ‘capital accumulation,’ – which is the investing of capital with the goal of increasing their total amount of capital. The second broader way Gilbert describes capitalism is, “a whole way of ordering society, and to a set of values and beliefs about how society should be ordered.” See the next section for more on this.
Gilbert described how the problems that we face now are the same as in the 1800s: “industrial pollution, urban squalor, growing inequality, social insecurity, a widespread sense that society was falling apart and that nobody knew what to do about it, where a few were getting very rich as a result.”
Gilbert states that the obvious cause of these problems is technological change. But the way technology is used in society depends on how that society is organised – to benefit all or to benefit a few, who become rich and powerful by making and selling things for profit. For most companies and businesses to be successful, they need workers. Those running those companies cannot make significant profits if they pay their workers too much. So, “corporations and their chief executives use new technologies to try to keep down their wage bills, at their own workers’ expense.”
So that this is possible, capitalism organises society in a specific way:
“There had to be a small group of people rich enough to use the new technologies in these ways. There had to be large numbers of people around who had no choice but to work for the wages that they are offered. There had to be a whole legal system in place, and a culture, that treated the accumulation of vast profits by private individuals or corporations as legitimate, legal, and morally acceptable.”
For capitalists who pursue capital accumulation through investment, the main aim of activities is to accumulate capital. Gilbert explains that those that run businesses but use the profits to have a luxurious lifestyle or pay their employees well, are not ‘doing capitalism’. He is clear that an essential part of capitalism and capital accumulation is the need to exploit the labour of workers and pay them the absolute minimum.
Capitalists accumulates capital by exploiting workers to produce commodities for sale. “a commodity is anything that can be bought and sold for profit.” As new commodities have been found and developed since the 1400s, we are now at a point in society where almost everything we engage with is a commodity. In the past, most things in people’s lives were made by someone they know. “Now, we live in a world in which our entire material culture is a productof capitalism.” It looks like all this stuff comes from nowhere but it actually requires a huge amount of cooperation across, “factories, in global distribution networks, in retail outlets and in packing warehouses.”
Capitalists are always looking for new commodities to sell and new people to sell them too. Gilbert describes a brief history of capitalism. In the early days it involved colonisation and imperialism – going to other countries and using violence to take resources, land and people. In Britain, peasants were forced off the land so the rich could farm them. The peasants then had to move to towns and cities to find work in the factories to buy basic commodities to keep themselves alive. In the twentieth century, workers got organised and forced employers to pay them more so their standards of living increased. For capital accumulation to grow, people had to be convinced to buy commodities that they didn’t need. The modern advertising industry developed so now we regularly experience someone trying to sell us something. The late twentieth and twenty-first century has seen the number of commodities increase, but also most parts of our social life are now for sale – healthcare, education, dating, spirituality. This is called ‘commodification’. [1]
The Capitalist Story
Gilbert describes most capitalist as not being manufacturers, instead they get their profits from “speculation on shares, currencies, derivatives and debt instruments, or from retailing, distributing and marketing things that other companies have made, or from renting out property and land”
He explains that the capitalists have to have a convincing story to tell us, governments and themselves to justify the huge wealth and power they have. Gilbert states that this is the same story capitalists have been telling for four hundred years since European merchants expanded across the world:
“Human beings come into the world alone. They may collaborate with others to achieve certain goals or to protect their property, but their basic relationship with other humans is, at root, a competitive one. It is up to every individual to strive as best they can to enrich themselves, by working hard and deploying their unique talents. In a modern commercial society, governments will encourage them to do just this, in the knowledge that by pursuing riches, entrepreneurs will bring improvements to the lives of their many customers (improvements like sugar, tobacco and social media). For such a society to function smoothly, and for entrepreneurs to remain motivated to play their crucial role, the state must make the protection of private property its number one priority. Property and those who hold it must not only be protected from marauding bandits or foreign invaders; it must be protected from any claims that the wider community might try to make on it. Taxation, public spending, the regulation of corporations and markets; these may all be necessary to a degree, but they must be strictly limited if society is not to descend into tyranny. Any society that puts strict limits on the ability of individuals or corporations to enrich themselves would be a tyranny, and tyranny is the worst thing in the world. Because it is wrong to put restrictions on the economic activity of entrepreneurs, decision over things like the price of goods or the value of labour (i.e. wages) must be left up to the market; while individuals and corporations must be allowed to use any means available to them (advertising, media, propaganda, etc.) in order to pursue their commercial interests and protect them from interference by either competitors or the wider public.” [2]
This worldview can also be describe as liberalism.
The Capitalist System
Gilbert describes capitalism as a “particular set of socio-economic practices and the social relations which they engender, reproduce, and come to depend on.” Some theorists call this a ‘capitalist social formation’. He also describes the capitalist system as a social, economic, political and cultural system for the production and distribution of material goods. Marx calls this the ‘capitalist mode of production.’ The practices are important but only a part of the capitalist system. Either way it is the rich or capitalists that have the most power. [3]
Capitalism as a political system uses the power of wealth to apply pressure to governments to implement policies that are beneficial to the rich. They also spread propaganda that is favourable to them and their interests. Capitalists spend millions to lobby governments so they can control media institutions and this gives them significant influences over politics. Gilbert describes how we live in a ‘plutocracy’ – a society ruled by the rich.
Gilbert states that we need to be careful to not assume that capitalism or capitalist society is a “totally integrated and self-enclosed system, which subsumes every element of contemporary life.” Capitalism does have some effect on all of social life and blocks the achievement of many social goals, but there are many things happening that are not capitalist. This gives those in opposition to capitalism, opportunities to explore alternatives and challenge capitalism.
Capitalism can be described as an “abstract system – a kind of impersonal machine that just keeps going without anybody being in charge of it.” Gilbert explains that this is true to a point: “it is a system that would not exist without the continued efforts of capitalists to make themselves wealthy at everyone else’s expense.” New, successful capitalists, like CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos, find ways to change how the capitalist game is played so capitalism can be extended into more parts of social life [4]
– through Amazon we can order almost anything to be delivered to our home and Amazon records all our information and preferences.
The Corporate Watch publication, Capitalism, What is it and how can we destroy it? Describes the characteristics of capitalist economic and cultural systems. The key features of capitalist economic systems are:
“markets play a central role in making decisions
property rights set out who can use and trade goods, and so have economic power
things, animals, and people are made into commodities – objects that can be owned and traded
the state acts as an enforcer of the economic system, and helps it spread concentrations of wealth, of capital, to channel power into the hands of capitalist elites
the profit motive drives capitalists to continually expand markets
in modern industrial capitalism, profit very largely involves the exploitation of people who are forced to work” [5]
The Corporate Watch publication explains that capitalism is a culture: “a complex web of desires, values, norms, conscious and unconscious rules, practices, behaviours, attitudes, that are shared and spread in the social groups in which we are born, raised, and live our lives.” Capitalism would not be able to function unless everyone learns:
“the rules of markets, how to act as buyers and sellers
to respect property
to see animals, the natural world, other people, and even ourselves, as ‘objects’ to be bought and sold, owned and managed
to respect and fear the state, its laws, police, judges and teachers
to accept gross inequalities of power and wealth
to believe that accumulating ‘stuff ’ is the key to happiness
There have been a number of phases of capitalism through time. This is a brief overview of the phases of capitalism. I’ll go into more detail about the phases in futures posts.
Mercantile Capitalism, 14th-18th centuries
Capitalism was, at that time, a system of trading goods at local markets to increase profits for traders. Early forms of the corporation were developed, and the first stock exchanges and banks were created.
Classical/Industrial Capitalism, 19th century
This came about because of an enormous reorganization of society was taking place. “The bourgeoisie class, owners of the means of production, rose to power within newly formed nation-states, and a vast class of workers left rural lives to staff the factories that were now producing goods in a mechanized way.” [7]
Keynesianism or New Deal Capitalism, 20th century
The stock market crash of 1929 resulted in the core principles of free-market ideology being abandoned by governments, banks and corporations. Governments responded by intervening in the economy to protect national industries from foreign competition. The expansion of national corporations was encouraged by investing in social welfare programs and infrastructure. [8]
There are two further phases.
Finance Capitalism/Neoliberalism, late 20th century
‘Finance capitalism,’ or ‘financial capitalism’ is the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system. Neoliberalism is the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism and free market capitalism.
Twenty-first Century Capitalism
This is the current phase we are in, and it started with the economic crisis of 2008, which delegitimised capitalism and neoliberalism. It has a number of the characteristics of Finance Capitalism and Neoliberalism. It also includes government austerity programs in many countries to reduce government budget deficits by implementing spending cuts on public services and social welfare programs. It has seen the election of authoritarian governments and huge government spending since the start of Covid 19 crisis. This phase is still evolving, so its form is not yet clear.
Many Capitalisms
The Corporate Watch publication points out that there are many types or forms of capitalisms at any one time. Capitalism also varies in different places. There is no correct definition of capitalism:
“Capitalism is not an all-powerful ‘monolith’. Capitalist systems co-exist, incorporate, work with or fight against other systems, cultures and forms of life. For example, with older feudal or tribal institutions, or with movements to create different ways of living.
In whatever form it takes, capitalism is not ‘natural’ or eternal. It is constantly changing, being re-made by human beings, and by the bigger worlds around them. The history of capitalism is a history of invention and creativity, and of destruction, exploitation, domination, bloodshed and terror. And also of resistance and rebellion and struggles for freedom.” [9]
Endnotes
Twenty-First Century Socialism, Jeremy Gilbert, 2020, page 5-17
Twenty-First Century Socialism, page 24-5
Twenty-First Century Socialism, page 17-18 and Anticapitalism and Culture: Radical Theory and Popular Politics, Jeremy Gilbert, 2008 page 76-7
This post lists 9 Revolutionary moments and periods in Britain since 1381. This is a broad overview so I will look at the details and patterns of these moments and periods in future posts.
Following on from the previous post about learning from history, there has been a long tradition of the working class struggling to transform society. Several things are now different such as 40 years of neoliberalism, the atomisation of workforces with the large scale de-industrialisation of Britain, a heavily weakened labour movement, and a general lack of class consciousness for most of the working class. Class struggle in the 21st century is clearly going to be different as so much has changed. But there is much to learn from this history that I will go into in future posts. There are clear patterns through history in how different groups of actors operate during class struggles: the ruling class and state, the leadership of the trade unions, and the working class. Understanding these patterns is essential when thinking about class struggle going forwards.
In The Road Not Taken: How Britain Narrowly Missed a Revolution 1381-1926, Frank McLynn identifies seven occasions when Britain came close to revolution. These are the Peasants Revolt 1381, Jack Cade’s Rebellion 1450, the Pilgrimage of Grace 1536, the English Civil Wars 1642-51, the Jacobite Rising of 1745-6, the Chartist Movement of 1838-48, and the General Strike of 1926. McLynn includes the Great Unrest of 1910-1914 and near revolution in 1919, as leading up to the General Strike of 1926.
Rob Sewell has written an excellent radical history of the British labour movement called In Cause of Labour: History of British Trade Unionism. Sewell writes from a Lenin, Trotsky, and Russian Revolution tradition. He identifies 4 Revolutionary moments and periods of the labour movement: early radical labour movement in the late 1820s and 1830s; The Chartist Movement; The Great Unrest 1910-14, near revolution between 1919-26; and class struggle from the late 1960s to mid-1980s.
I have also added the Long 1968 – from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s.
The Peasants Revolt 1381
This was triggered by tax collection in Essex in May 1381. This resulted in rioting and protests that spread across the country. The rebels’ demands were tax reduction, the ending of serfdom and the removal of the King’s senior officials and law courts. The revolt was repressed by the end of June, including a battle in Norfolk.
Jack Cade’s Rebellion 1450
This revolt took place between April and July 1450. The grievances included corruption, abuse of power by the king’s advisers and military loses in France during the Hundred Years’ War. It was a southeastern uprising led by Jack Cade. The rebels looted London and were forced out of the city. The rebels were issues pardons by the King and told to return home.
The Pilgrimage of Grace 1536-7
This uprising began in Yorkshire and spread to other parts of northern England, in protest against Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the policies of the King’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell. The King said he would consider their demands so they returned home. Another uprising took place in January 1537 and Henry VIII considered this a breach of the amnesty so rounded up all the original leaders and had then hung.
“The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (“Roundheads”) and Royalists (“Cavaliers”) principally over the manner of England’s governance. The first (1642–1646) and second (1648–1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.
The outcome of the war was threefold: the trial and execution of Charles I (1649); the exile of his son, Charles II (1651); and the replacement of English monarchy with, at first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and then the Protectorate under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658) and briefly his son Richard (1658–1659). In England, the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship was ended, while in Ireland the victors consolidated the established Protestant Ascendancy. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament’s consent, although the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty was only legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.”
The Jacobite Rising of 1745-6
This was an attempt by Charles Stuart to regain the British throne for his father James Stuart, from George II. Most of the British army were fighting in Europe. This was the last in a series of uprisings between 1689 and 1746. Charles landed in Scotland in August 1745, gaining Scottish support and won the Battle of Prestonpans. They reached as far south as Manchester before turned back in December. Battles were won on the retreat to Scotland and Charles escaped to Europe.
Early radical labour movement late 1820’s and 1830’s
Trade unions were legalised in 1824 resulting in the huge growth in the number of trade unions and their memberships. There was open class struggle between the workers against the government and employers. Strikes took place all over the country. In 1830-1 rural agricultural uprising took place led by the fictional ‘Captain Swing’.
The Merthry Rising took place in 1831 in Wales, where coal and steelworkers protested about wages and unemployment. This spread to nearby towns and villages. In June 1831 the red flag was raised in Merthyr Tydfil.
The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union was set up in 1834 to abolish capitalist rule and the revolutionary transformation of society. This had explosive growth with 500,000 members. Strikes across the country increased with demands over wages, recognition, and the eight-hour day. Repression increased with an example made of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, who were sent to Australia for attempting to set up an agriculture labours union. Repression resulted in many trade unions ceasing to function.
The Chartist Movement of 1837-48
Chartism was a national working-class protest movement for political reform with strong support in the North, Midlands and South Wales. Support was greatest in 1839, 42, 48. It presented petitions with millions of signatures to parliament, combined with mass meetings with the aim of putting pressure on politicians.
The People’s Charter called for six reforms to make the political system more democratic:
A vote for every man twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for a crime.
The secret ballot to protect the elector in the exercise of his vote.
No property qualification for Members of Parliament in order to allow the constituencies to return the man of their choice.
Payment of Members, enabling tradesmen, working men, or other persons of modest means to leave or interrupt their livelihood to attend to the interests of the nation.
Equal constituencies, securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors, instead of allowing less populous constituencies to have as much or more weight than larger ones.
Annual Parliamentary elections, thus presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation, since no purse could buy a constituency under a system of universal manhood suffrage in each twelve-month period.
Chartism did not directly achieve any reforms but put huge pressure on the ruling class and generated significant working class solidarity and class consciousness. In 1867 urban working men were given the vote, but it was not until 1918 that full manhood suffrage was achieved.
The Great Unrest 1910-1914 to the General Strike 1926
The Great Unrest from 1910-14 saw a massive national increase in union membership and strikes in response to employers’ attempts to reduce wages and intensify the exploitation of workers. The main sectors included miners, transport workers, and dockers. The government responded with warships, troops and police using violence to intimidate workers. Syndicalism was an important part of the struggle in this period.
This period also saw the Suffragette movement use militant tactics in their struggles for the vote for women.
There were mass strikes again in 1921 in response to wage decreases and increasing unemployment. The Minority Movement was launched in 1924 with 200,000 trade union members in the major sectors. Its aim was to overthrow capitalism, the emancipation of workers from oppression and exploitation and to set up a socialist commonwealth. Miners strikes continued in 1925 and the government backed down because it was not ready for a confrontation with the labour movement.
The General Strike of 1926 lasted for nine days in May. It was called by the Trade Union Congress to force the government to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for 1.2 million coal miners. 1.7 million workers went on strike: miners, transport and dockers, printers, ironworkers and steelworkers. The strike was defeated.
Long 1968
During the Culture Power Politics session on 1968, Jeremy Gilbert describes the ‘short 68’ and ‘long 68’. The short 68 is the events that happen in the year 1968. Gilbert describes the long 68 as a global revolt against colonialism and its legacies, against various forms of oppression that are typical of advanced industrial capitalism. He describes how the long 68 starts in the 1950s and ends with the global defeat of the left in the mid-1980s.
The social movements from this period include the women’s liberation movement, the gay liberation movement, green movement, disabled people’s movement, anti-racism and anti-fascism, and the peace/anti-war and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The period from 1970 to 1984 saw an open class struggle between the state and the labour movement. There were a large number of strikes during this period. The 1972 miners’ strike over pay spread to sectors so the Tory government had to back down and the miners got increased pay and benefits. In 1973 oil prices quadrupled due to war in the Middle East and the miners introduced an overtime ban. The Heath government introduced the three day week in early 1974 and then called a general election in February 1974 but failed to get a majority of MPs so the Labour Party formed a minority government. The Grunwick dispute was a strike between 1976-78 for trade union recognition at Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in London. It was not successful. The Winter of Discontent 1978-9 saw widespread strikes by public sector trade unions demanding larger pay rises, following the ongoing pay caps of the Labour Party. The government gave in to the demands.
The election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 saw a new aggressive approach to break the strength of the labour movement. There was a national miners strike in 1984 against the planned closure of 20 pits, resulting in the loss of 20,000 jobs. The Battle of Orgreave was a significant defeat for the miners following intense police violence. The miners’ strike ended in March 1985 with defeat. The Thatcher government closed over 100 pits and 100,000 miners lost their jobs. The 1980s also saw a number of radical socialist councils challenging Thatcher – the Great London Council, Liverpool City Council, Sheffield City Council and others – in what is known as the rate-capping rebellion.
A: Mainstream media is the set of media companies that dominate mass mediums. Also known as corporate/mass/monopoly media, mainstream media consists of cable news channels, major periodicals, film studios, and the like. The corporate press is the subset of mainstream media companies that deal in news. Mainstream media has a monopoly on the information and symbols that get disseminated widely to the public, as alternative media only reaches small audiences of niche consumers. Five companies control 90 percent of US media.
Q: What’s the problem with mainstream media?
A: Mainstream media outlets are (subsidiaries of) for-profit corporations acting in the system of capitalism. Therefore, their central objective is to maximize quarterly gain for their shareholders, the majority of which are multibillion-dollar financial institutions. Because corporations are responsible to stockowners first, capitalist accumulation comes at the expense of workers and the environment, as businesses exploit cheap labor and extract resources in the most efficient manner, no matter how ecologically devastating that may be, in an effort to increase surplus value for the owning class.
Mainstream news sources rely on advertising to generate revenue, meaning they need to sell marketing opportunities to other corporations. Because of this arrangement, mainstream media cannot sincerely critique corporate capitalism, as it would be self-sabotage to challenge the very system on which their business model depends.
Q: Mainstream sources don’t criticize capitalism, so what?
A: They propagandize it. Mainstream media’s most consequential accomplishment is the widespread inculcation of unquestioned consumer capitalism. First of all, the corporate press runs ads that instill consumer culture. Far worse, since mainstream broadcasts and publications are the only sources of information that effortlessly reach the masses, and because they perpetually contest, if not ignore, critical analysis of the system of capitalism, they end up prescribing it. The bulk of this propagandization is carried out unconsciously. Mass entertainment media inculcates the images and icons of capitalism.
Corporate newspeople, often having graduated from elite private schools, are hired at major media companies precisely for their uncriticalness towards existing power structures. Thus, mainstream commentators naturally and genuinely downplay, when they don’t ignore, news that reflects unfavorably on the economic status-quo. They do this actively (e.g., by playing “both sides”) and passively (e.g., by reporting systemic consequences as independent events). A serious critic of capitalism would never achieve a position of influence in mainstream media, indeed none have.
Sometimes unorthodox takes are published in unnoticed places, but never enough to gain much attention. Furthermore, news industry editors reserve the right to unilaterally redraft stories before they reach the public. As a result, journalists self-censor, whereby they come to exclude facts and suppress sentiments that they know their editor would disfavor or delete. Editors report to CEOs on boards of directors.
Q: Sure, but I’m free to read and watch what I want right? Why don’t people just find better sources?
A: In theory individuals can engage with whatever news sources they find to be the best. The reality is that quality, alternative publications, although numerous, are for all intents and purposes undiscoverable. Some of the richest and most powerful (media) companies in the world, such as Google, Facebook, household publishers and broadcast networks, broadly control the distribution of information. Anyone can produce anything they want, the challenge lies in finding an audience.
For-profit companies determine what you get, and even more importantly what you don’t get, when you search the web, turn on the television, and so on. This state of affairs is problematic seeing as it would be against the best interest of multibillion-dollar corporations to surface information that calls into question the system of capital growth from which they derive their power.
Furthermore, monopoly media sets the boundaries of acceptable politics in virtue of its ubiquity. Dissenting perspectives are considered “radical”, “unrealistic”, or just plain whacky in popular discourse, however rational or evidenced they might be.
Q: So everything I read in the corporate press is propaganda?
A: No! In fact, on issues that can be covered honestly in the absence of systemic analysis, mainstream news sources can be excellent. Although weak language and out of touch presuppositions abound, that which gets published is not usually problematic. What really matters are the events and opinions that are omitted and marginalized, rather than headlined.
Major news media companies appease their shareholders and advertisers every time they ignore a case of corporate exploitation. When problems brought about by capitalism become too big for mainstream sources to ignore, it’s better for business that they scapegoat foreign countries and domestic minorities. Major media corporations also wield algorithms that facilitate endless entertainment.
Q: What’s the most important thing that mainstream media mistreats?
A: Climate change, taking for granted the understanding that it is the biggest story of our time, if not the most important event in human history. The corporate press has virtually ignored climate change, at best relegating crucial reports to back pages. Examples of incommensurate climate coverage are inexhaustible. Infamously, ABC News spent more time on the Royal Baby in one week than on climate change in all of 2018, the fourth hottest year on record.
In 2019, when atmospheric CO2 levels surpassed 415 parts per million for the first time since the Pliocene Epoch 3 million years ago, no major publications reported the measure, even though Exxon Mobil predicted it decades in advance. Instead, the morning after the climacteric was recorded the front page of the New York Times worried about the economics of “Trump’s Trade War”, the plight of the jobless in “Coal Country”, and the impending “5G Apocalypse”.
Mainstream media hasn’t brought attention to the fact that land surface temperatures in Siberia now exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit annually, threatening the stability of permafrost that stores significantly more carbon than is in the atmosphere. These are not facts that people should have to seek out, given what’s at stake. Twenty percent of all human deaths are caused by fossil fuel emissions. A press that serves the public would track corporate pollution in an effort to safeguard global health. The corporate press, which serves tycoons, tracks the stock market as a measure of “economic health”.
Citizens are also uninformed about inspiring environmental developments, such as the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. Increasingly severe extreme weather events continue to be treated as shocking anomalies in mainstream news, which blames “Humanity” for the overt climate crimes that mass media is an accessory to.Ecocide is not in “Human Nature”. Humans have lived on Earth for hundreds of millennia. Most of us have not fatally robbed or contaminated the planet. Corporations have. Anthropogenic climate change coincides with the ascent of industrial capitalism, which major media protects by maligning Humanity.
Q: But that’s because most people don’t care about climate change and capitalism. Mass media produces content that people want to consume.
A: Vice versa. Corporate media manufactures interests. Things that are marketed and attended to the most in mass media become culturally significant in virtue of the attention they receive. In other words, popular concern is socialized via media coverage. Nevertheless, most people are concerned with climate change, in one way or another, because they experience it.
In fact, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has found that more than 3/4 of US citizens are expressly interested in news stories pertaining to climate change. No matter, a minimally decent media would inform the masses about the state of the climate.
Q: Why does mainstream media ignore climate change if it really poses such a big risk?
A: Never mind the fact that climate change is the greatest known threat to civilization, even if corporate media in theory stood to profit from frequent and honest climate coverage, they couldn’t in reality for one simple reason. Climate change is caused by the very system of capital accumulation that sustains mainstream media companies.
Corporations disharmonize nature when they plunder ecosystems for nonrenewable resources, manufacture unnecessary products, ship them across the world unsustainably, and poison the biosphere with waste. This rapacious activity is executed at incomprehensible speeds and on devastating scales. Corporate capitalism thus affects climate change more than anything else.
Worthwhile analyses of climate change cannot ignore the history of capitalism, and workable solutions must advocate for the end of corporate capitalism as we know it. Therefore, major media companies need to dodge the issue by definition. They aren’t just choosing more lucrative stories to tell. There is no choice for them to make.
Mainstream news sources genuinely could not sustain serious reporting on the issue of climate change, because if they were honest they would connect climate change to capitalism and thereby alienate major advertisers and investors, which would risk revenue, hence the ability to disseminate information to the masses In other words, any news outlet that commits itself to adequate climate coverage consequently forfeits the resources it would need to be mainstream. Under present conditions, if climate change really threatened civilization – as a matter of fact it does – mass media could not inform us. Whether or not they would is a worthless question.
Q: If climate change threatens civilization, it poses a risk to the system of capitalism. Why would the corporate press underplay climate change if it endangered future accumulation?
Due to the principle that returns on investment are better made sooner rather than later, the owning class continues to discount the changing climate to the end of ensuring short-term profit. Crucially, corporations do not merely maximize shareholder wealth. They function explicitly to make stockholders as wealthy as possible, as fast as possible, ad infinitum.
According to the impossible logic of capitalism, corporations can go on making next-quarter profits forever, even if they come at the expense of deadly future losses. Business as usual presumes infinite growth on a finite planet. As already set forth, it is not the case that mainstream media downplays climate change by way of focusing on more engaging, and therefore more profitable, subject matter. To the contrary, the climate crisis presents a unique opportunity for awesome and sensational, thus bankable, story telling.
Instead, because capitalist accumulation causes climate change, by downplaying the issue mainstream sources avoid having to call into question the process that generates profit in the first place. In a word, mass media companies do not minimize climate change because they are too busy making short-term profit, but, much more fundamentally, they do so to protect from mass disapproval the whole enterprise of short-term profit making.
Q: What do we do?
A: Consume critically. Read. Study climate science. Explore social science (start with Native American history and graduate to Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift). Peruse not-for-profit publications at their intersect like Climate and Capitalism. Make a list of independent and alternative sources that consistently apply decent moral standards, maintain respectable historical records, and publish global perspectives, especially those that confront tyranny and champion the oppressed. Watch Koyaanisqatsi. Unlearn everything.
Then act. Mostly listen, but talk too. Spreading the word goes much further than people appreciate. Also ride a bike. Garden, share, resist, do what feels right. Another world is possible. Good luck.
George Lawson writes in Anatomies of Revolution about two common but unhelpful ways that revolutions are viewed. Either as everywhere – on the streets in the Middle East, to describe new technology, in films and also to describe political leaders. The second is that they are minor disturbances and “irrelevant to a world in which the big issues of governance and economic development have been settled.” [1]
In Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction, Jack Goldstone describes two perspectives of revolutions. One is heroic, where the downtrodden masses follow their leaders to rise up and overthrow unjust rulers resulting in gaining freedom and dignity. The second is that they are “eruptions of popular anger that produce chaos” and result in the mob using violence with destructive results. He describes how varied the history of revolutions is: “some are nonviolent, whereas others produce bloody civil wars; some have produced democracies and greater liberty whereas others have produced brutal dictatorships.” [2]
I see revolutions as a radical system change or transformation of society to improve the lives of the majority of people. I think Goldstone’s definition of revolutions is useful “both observed mass mobilization and institutional change, and a driving ideology carrying a vision of social justice. Revolution is the forcible overthrow of a government through mass mobilization (whether military or civilian or both) in the name of social justice, to create new political institutions.” [3]
Revolutions also need to be understood in relation to other forms of social change such as rebellions, coups, and civil war. Rebellions are not strong enough to overthrow the state, coups are but replace one elite figurehead with another. Civil war is a situation where the central authority that is managing two or more competing factions demands fails resulting in the factions fighting it out. [4] Hannah Arendt describes in On Revolution the close relationship in history between war and revolution. [5]
Types of revolution
There are three broad categories of revolutions: political revolutions, social revolutions, a broad category including any instance of relatively rapid and significant change. Political revolutions can be described as “any and all instances in which a state or political regime is overthrown and thereby transformed by a popular movement in an irregular, extraconstitutional, and/or violent fashion.” Social or ‘great’ revolutions can be defined as including “not only mass mobilization and regime change, but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic, and/or cultural change during or soon after the struggle for state power.” The third broad definition including any instance of relatively rapid and significant change including the industrial revolution, agricultural revolution, academic revolution, cultural revolution, feminist revolution, technology revolution, etc. [6]
The social or great revolutions include the English, French, Mexican, Russian, Chinese and maybe the Cuban. The rest are political revolutions of one form or another. Marxist or working-class revolution will be covered in a future post.
The history of revolutions
The Revolutions podcast (also on iTunes) describes the major revolutions in good detail.
Socialist revolutions – starting with the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and all the revolutions this inspired
‘Third World’ revolutions – starting with the Cuban Revolution of 1959, resulting in several revolutions ‘against the odds’ which were led by a rural peasantry rather than an urban proletariat. Cuban provided assistance for revolution in Angola, Bolivia, etc
The ‘last great revolution’ – Iran Revolution in 1978/9
‘Colour’ revolutions – between 1989 and 1991, several revolutions removed Soviet control of Eastern and East-Central Europe, culminating in the end of the Cold War itself.
Arab Spring – uprisings and revolutions in 2011 in North Africa and the Middle East
Jack Goldstone in Revolutions: a very short introduction offers another framework:
Revolutions in the ancient world
Revolutions of the Renaissance and Reformation – including revolutions in renaissance Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries, and the English Revolution.
Constitutional revolutions: America, France, Europe (1830 and 1848), and Meiji Japan
Communist revolutions: Russia, China, Cuba
Revolutions against dictators: Mexico, Nicaragua, and Iran
Color revolutions: The Philippines, Eastern Europe and USSR, and Ukraine
The Arab Revolutions of 2011: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria
Revolutionary waves are important historical events. There are a series of revolutions that occur in various locations within a similar period. A revolution or large scale rebellion in one country inspires uprisings and revolutions with similar aims in other counties. See here for a list.
Academic theory
There have been four generations of academic revolutionary theory. The first generation was in the first half of the 20th century and is based on Crane Brinton, who compared the stages of a social or great revolution to the symptoms of a fever. The second generation followed the Second World War and attempted to explain the relationship between modernization and uprisings in the Third World. Modernization led to rising expectations but economic downturns would result in frustration and potentially aggression leading to revolution. In the second half of the 20th century, the third generation developed in critical response to the second generation. This ‘structuralist’ approach argued that revolutions were caused by specific structural developments such as the commercialisation of agriculture, state crisis from international conflict and elite conflict, demographic changes destabilising social order by putting pressure on state finance’s, weakening government legitimacy, resulting in intra-elite competition. The fourth generation developed in the early 21st century and focuses on the factors that challenges state stability including: “how international factors such as dependent trade relations, the transmission of ideas across borders, and the withdrawal of support by a patron, along with elite disunity, insecure standards of living, and ‘unjust’ leadership”. [7]
Revolutionary theory can be broadly divided up into three phases related to how revolutions unfold: the study of the origins or causes of revolution, the process of the revolutionary event, and the outcomes [8]. For now, thinking about what causes revolutions is of most interest to me. Goldstone describes five conditions that can lead to instability in a society: “economic or fiscal strain, alienation and opposition among elites, widespread popular anger at injustice, a persuasive shared narrative of resistance, and favorable international relations.” [9]
Endnotes
Anatomies of Revolution, George Lawson, 2019, page 1
Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, Jack Goldstone, 2014, page 1/2
Revolution: A Very Short Introduction page 4
The Road Not Taken: How Britain Narrowly Missed a Revolution 1381-1926, Frank McLynn, 2013, page 516
On Revolution, Hannah Arendt, 1963, introduction
No Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements 1945-1991, Jeff Goodwin, 2001, page 9
Within and Beyond the ‘Fourth Generation’ of Revolutionary Theory, George Lawson, 2015, page 2-6, download here
Editor’s note: We are very thankful to George Price for his wonderful review of the book Bright Green Lies.
Book Review: Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It By Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert
By George Price, originally published on his blog learningearthways.
This book, Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert, will probably be the most important book published anywhere in 2021, on the most important issue facing all Life on Earth—why we must end the prevailing human economic and industrial practices and the anthropocentric cultural worldviews. It will probably also be the most reviled, attacked, suppressed, censored, dismissed, misrepresented, and slandered book published this year, as well, for some of the same reasons that many people virulently attacked and censored the documentary film, “Planet of the Humans,” last year. Why?
The authors answer the question of why these facts are so difficult to hear, and why they are also so difficult for many of us reluctant messengers to tell, at many points throughout their book, including this passage from the chapter on green energy storage:
“We are being sold a story, and we are buying it because we like it. We want it to be true. We want to believe that our lives can go on with all the ease and comfort we accept as our due. How painless to believe that a simple switch of wind for oil and solar for coal and we can go on with our air conditioning and cell phones and suburbs. Every time we hit a trip wire of unsettling facts or basic math, we soothe ourselves with our faith in technology. If all that stands between us and the end of the world is a battery that can store 46 MJ/kg, surely someone is working on it.”
Most modern humans have been taught all of their lives, by most of the voices of their culture, that their own comfort, pleasure, purpose, social standing, legacy, avoidance of pain, and continued survival depend upon the perpetuation of, and their conformity to, western industrial technological capitalist civilization. That teaching has been reinforced within their psyches by a long series of painful and pleasurable personal experiences. Therefore, they do not want to hear convincing, factual arguments which clearly demonstrate that nearly everything that they have been taught to value and have devoted their lives to is intertwined within a path toward the imminent destruction, collapse, and extinction of not only their so-called “way of life,” but also the real, natural world upon which all biological life on Earth depends. Besides that, most humans of this culture and era do not want to hear that there is no viable and actually existing technological “fix” for this predicament—which the authors of Bright Green Lies make painfully clear—and many do not want anybody else to hear or declare that either. In addition to all of that, most modern, capitalist, technophile humans are not (yet) prepared to engage with the solutions offered in this book: ending most industrial technological activities and allowing Nature and the few humans who still have such knowledge to teach us how to live without those destructive entities, by her truly sustainable laws and systems, (like we did for 97% of the time of our species’ existence), thus enabling all that remains of natural Life to heal and continue. Bright Green Lies also asks its readers—especially those who identify themselves as “environmentalists” or “environmental activists”—to face up to the fact that they must choose whether they value and seek to protect what the authors refer to as the “real world” (the natural, life-giving, life-sustaining world), or, instead, protect the human-made civilizations that order and constrain their lives, because, with what the world has now come to, we cannot save both. Is such a potentially life-shattering choice more than most people can deal with, even when presented with an overwhelming preponderance of factual evidence persuading them that the choice is unavoidable?
Putting aside (for now) the human tendencies toward acting on faith, auto-conformity, or the herd mentality, and assuming that when making the most serious, life or death, joy-or-perpetual-misery types of decisions, most people will still place some value in actual facts and bother to do a little research, we should expect such people to proceed with such appropriate caution when determining how to answer the challenges presented in this book. Knowing that, and being acutely familiar with the reactions of many politically moderate/liberal, save-civilization-first (before the natural world) people to their previous publications and to similar publications by others, such as Ozzie Zehner’s Green Illusions, back in 2012, and to Jeff Gibbs’ Planet of the Humans documentary, the authors of Bright Green Lies obviously “did their homework,” while drawing also from their decades of expertise on these topics. Nearly every one of the 478 pages in this illuminating volume contain several footnotes citing a variety of relevant and reliable sources for the multitude of little-known, seldom-mentioned facts about the extent of toxic destruction and ecocide that are routine impacts from our commonly-engaged industrial technologies, as well as from the production of solar panels, wind turbines, lithium batteries and other products that are alleged to be “green” and even “100% renewable!” Beginning with solar power, and moving on from there to wind turbines, “green energy” storage (especially lithium), “efficiency,” recycling, “green” cities, “green” electric grids, hydropower, carbon capture, geoengineering, and several other false and misrepresented “solutions,” Jensen, Keith, and Wilbert repeatedly and clearly assist us in the difficult process of discerning and untangling truth from lies.
Here is a summary outline of some of the more potent revelations (for the not-yet-informed) brought forth in this book:
Promoters of solar, wind and other allegedly “green” technologies have repeatedly and misleadingly conflated the words “energy” and “electricity” when making their claims. The reason that is significant is that electric grid production, which is what solar, wind, hydropower and biofuels are primarily used for, makes up only about 20% (in Germany, the “green” energy technology advocates’ favorite showcase, 15% in the U.S., and ranging between 12 and 35 % elsewhere) of the actual total energy used to power the machinery of modern industrial society. So when they give a figure for how much of Germany’s “energy” is provided by “green renewables,” that figure has to be reduced by 80%–and that still might be too high, due to other falsehoods.
Of the 20% of energy use that goes to electricity (in Germany), only about 14.8% comes from “green renewables,” with wind accounting for 3.5 % and 1.6 % for solar, for a total of 5.1 % between them. (These are 2019 statistics, the most recent available when the book went to press.) Biomass (including logged forests) provides 7.6 % of Germany’s electricity; waste products incinerated along with the biomass provide another 1%; 0.5% comes from geothermal heat pumps; and 0.6% comes from hydro power. In addition to those “renewables,” Germany gets 6.4 % of its electricity from nuclear power. Those are the actual figures for the “green showcase” nation, and the renewable electricity figures are generally lower for the rest of the world. Solar and wind enthusiasts have sometimes claimed that Germany gets as much as 75% of its “energy” from renewables.
Elon Musk, multi-billionaire producer of the Tesla electric car, admitted to a broadcast journalist in July of 2020 that he supported the coup that overthrew Bolivian President Evo Morales in November of 2019. The Tesla car runs on rechargeable lithium batteries and Bolivia has one of the largest lithium deposits on the planet, which many industrialists, including Musk, hope to mine under terms favorable to their interests. Morales is a socialist whose interest is in what is best for his people and their homeland, and who led an international conference in 2010 that produced the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth. Musk told the journalist, “We’ll coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” (TeleSUR English, July 25, 2020 https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/elon-musk-confesses-to-lithium-coup-in-bolivia-20200725-0010.html )
Lithium mining is just one of scores of very toxic industrial activities described in gory detail in this book, along with the names of the chemicals involved in these processes and the various harms and damages that they inflict upon many species of life, human and non-human. The processes involved in producing so-called “green energy” devices, including mining the raw materials, transporting them to factories, refining and forming the materials into more machines and consumable products, transporting it all over the world, clearing the land of the living beings who already live where the devices are to be installed, operation, maintenance, removal after expiration, and replacement, are all just as destructive to Life on Earth as most other modern industrial activities. None of that activity is truly “green” or beneficial to natural ecosystems or living organisms.
Biofuel, a renewable energy source that is much more widely in use than wind turbines or solar panels, depends mostly on deforestation and the creation of vast monoculture tree farms that replace biodiverse natural habitat, causing death, misery and extinction for many species of life, just to grow trees that will be burned for fuel. And what are they fueling? Very often it is energy for industrial factories that will produce more machines to make more toxic and unnecessary consumer products. All “green” energy devices will continue to contribute energy to the rest of the industrial infrastructure, by the dictates and customs of the current economic system and culture.
In their chapter questioning the value to life on Earth of “efficiency,” the authors clearly demonstrate how and why efficiency is no incentive for the reduction of CO2 and other harmful by-products of modern industrialism, when carried out within an economic system devoted to unlimited growth and competition (capitalism) and a culture devoted to maximizing convenience and consumption. Using examples based on Jevon’s paradox (basically that efficiency in manufacture and/or use tends to increase the production and consumption of that thing, rather than providing us more time to do other things besides producing and consuming) and on the facts regarding what has actually occurred with the gradual increases in renewable energy devices—not replacing, but, instead, accompanying continued increases in fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions—their point is made clear, as seen in the following chart:
(If you look for charts like this on the internet, you will have a hard time finding ones that end at 2019. Instead, you will see many charts that project beyond, usually up to 2050, showing that somehow the dismal reality portrayed above will magically explode into a dramatic increase in the use of solar and wind technology, even with industrial capitalism remaining intact. They do concede, though, that fossil fuel use—and, of course, CO2 emissions—will still be a considerable part of the picture by then, because of the energy “needs” of industrial capitalism that renewables just cannot provide. That is a difficult fact to admit, but the main reason that it must be faced is found in a combination of basic physics and the capitalist imperative for the maximization of profit. The physics can be summed up in the fact that the average energy density for fossil fuels is 46 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg) and “the best lithium battery can only store 1 MJ/kg.” The authors also report that “a diesel semi-tractor can haul 60,000 pounds of freight 600 miles before refueling. To get a similar range [with an imaginary, not-yet-invented electric semi-truck], that tractor would have to have about 55,000 pounds of batteries.” So, which truck would any capitalist distributor of products who wants to maximize efficiency and profit prefer to use? In addition to all that, many climate scientists now say that still using fossil fuels past 2030 means unstoppable bio-system collapse. But people have to have something they can believe in, right? And they cannot be allowed to believe in an end to capitalism or replacing that system with many local, truly democratic, community economic systems that are based in cooperation with Earth ecosystems and Nature’s laws.)
One of the grandest forms of deception, exposed repeatedly in several parts of Bright Green Lies, especially the chapter titled, “The Green City Lie,” revolves around a practice called “pollution outsourcing” or “carbon footprint outsourcing.” When measuring a country or city’s pollution or CO2 output, it is common practice to only count what is emitted locally, within the city or nation’s boundaries, omitting completely the emissions made in other countries around the world (typically in relatively poor countries outside of Europe and the U.S.) by citizens and corporations residing in the nation or city being measured. Examples include the facts that the U.S. “annually imports about $500 billion worth of products from China,” and Seattle (considered by many to be possibly the “greenest” city in the U.S.) imports “more than 60% of its food” from countries outside the U.S. After describing the horrific amount of pollution and CO2 emissions created by shipping, trucking and train transport, the authors report that when we do “account for imported products and services, cities are responsible for 60 percent higher carbon emissions than previously thought.” The failure to measure the impacts to other ecosystems of this kind of outsourcing, “allows a city to exist without its occupants coming into contact with the land they depend on, building, in essence, a ‘phantom carrying capacity’ based on the consumption of soil, forests, grasslands, water, and so on from other locations.”
The last example of “bright green lying” given in this book that I will mention here (although there are so many more!) involves the horrific potential impacts to life on Earth from attempting to implement green energy technologies at the scale required to run this ever-expanding, long-ago-overshot, capitalist industrial economic system, replacing the use of fossil fuels. The necessary infrastructure creation for that alone is not only mind-boggling and physically impossible, but also clearly ecocidal. For example, “12 percent of the continental United States would have to be covered in windfarms to meet current electricity demands. But electricity is only one-sixth of the nation’s energy consumption. To provide for the U.S.A.’s total energy consumption, fully 72 percent of the continent would have to be devoted to wind farms.” A slightly more conservative estimate is given in a recent report by a pro-green-energy team of researchers, stating that, if we combined wind farms and solar panel installations to replace all fossil fuel electricity production, we would only have to cover 10 % of the surface of the U.S. (The Race to Zero: can America reach net-zero emissions by 2050?, by Oliver Milman, Alvin Chang and Rashida Kamal, The Guardian, March 15, 2021) That figure does not take into account the amount of additional land surface (and habitat destruction) required for all of the necessary increase in transmission lines, which the authors of the Race to Zero… report estimate would be “enough new transmission lines to wrap around Earth 19 times.” (and that’s just for the U.S.!) To put that amount of Earth surface destruction into some familiar perspective, currently about 2% of the surface of the U.S. is covered with asphalt and concrete pavement. We all have some sense of what that much pavement (on roads, sidewalks, parking lots, freeways, etc.) looks like. Imagine then, 10 to 70 times that much ground covered with wind turbines and solar panels, and much more land than that converted to accommodate new power transmission lines. Do you need any more material than that for new nightmares to keep you awake at night? And I didn’t mention all of the resulting dead birds, tortoises, trees and other wildlife, which Jensen, Keith, and Wilbert also describe in painful detail. Who needs horror movies when we have these kinds of visions springing up all around us? Would such a repulsive scenario be worth submitting ourselves to just to preserve a so-called “way of life” for just a little while longer? It would not last long with most of the natural ecosystems and species of life that keep us all alive destroyed or extinct.
I cannot end this book review without mentioning the love for all inter-connected natural Life that is a continual thread throughout its pages and is clearly the supreme motivating force behind the book’s creation. Jensen, Keith, and Wilbert are what I would call “old school” environmentalists—people who put Earth and all of her interconnected Life first, and have no fondness for any human system or culture that must continually harm and even destroy our living world in order to exist. I also appreciate the authors’ acknowledgement, in their “Real Solutions” chapter, that traditional Indigenous peoples have known the answers to our predicament all along. By following the first ways and the guidance of our natural Earth relatives (of all species), we can help the living world to heal all of our interrelated beings. I will close here with a few top quotes from the book:
“So many indigenous people have said that the first and most important thing we must do is decolonize our hearts and minds. We must grow, they’ve told me, to see the dominant culture for what it is: not as the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to human beings, but instead as a way of life that provides conveniences—luxuries—to one set of humans at the expense of everyone else—human and non-human.”
“Because the earth is the source of all life, the health of the earth must be the primary consideration in our decision-making processes.”
“Often people are so shocked by the idea of their lifestyle disappearing completely that they honestly can’t imagine what could come next. They care deeply about the planet, but what they want to know is: ‘Can’t we find a solution that leaves our way of life intact?’”
“’How can we continue to harvest industrial quantities of energy without causing harm?’ is the wrong question. The correct question is: What can we do to help the earth repair the damage caused by this culture?”
“The truth is that we can debunk each and every piece of bright green technology, and ultimately it won’t make a bit of difference to bright greens or anyone else whose loyalty is not to the earth but to the economic and social system that is dismantling the earth.”
“The best way to prepare for this [systemic collapse] is also the best way to prepare to bring about just human societies after collapse: not by leaning even more into industry, but by building communities based on self-sufficiency, biological integrity, and human rights. This is work anyone can support.”
Social movements are important because when collective action spreads across an entire society it leads to a cycle of protest. When such a cycle is organised around opposed or multiple classes or interest groups then this can lead to revolutions [1]. This is simplistic as there are many causes and factors that lead to revolutions, which I’ll attempt to unpack in future posts. This post will focus on describing the characteristics of social movements to frame a future post listing the history of social movements in Britain.
Defining social movements
Many have defined social movements and their characteristics. Here is a consolidated list of those characteristics:
social movements are extremely varied: “historically and cross-culturally, and include movements campaigning for various ‘rights’ (civil, labour, women’s, gay, disability, children and so on); movements campaigning on behalf of the environment, peace, or animals; movements seeking specific political reforms or diffuse cultural and personal change; and movements contesting globalization, corporations, and capitalist social relations.” [2]
social movements are collective/organised enterprises for social change, rather than individual efforts at social change. Some have created formal organizations, others have relied on informal networks, and others have engaged in more spontaneous actions such as riots.
Social movements exist over a ‘period of time’ rather than being ‘one-off’ events- movements follow a temporal trajectory so ‘move’ or change. They might be viewed as temporary from a longer-term perspective.
Social movements challenge ‘the status quo’ – elites, authorities, and opponents. They challenge or defend the existing authority by engaging in a ‘conflictual issue’ with a ‘powerful opponent’. Social movements are typically resisted by forces that favour the status quo, which imparts fundamental contentiousness to movement actions.
Social movements use varied tactics – choose between violent and nonviolent activities, illegal and legal ones, disruption and persuasion, extremism and moderation, reform and revolution.
Social movements use protest – Social movements actively pursue change by employing protest.
Social movements are a source of creativity and create identities, ideas, and ideals – members of a social movement are not just working together, but share a ‘collective identity’.
Social movements occupy public spaces and the public sphere/debate. Social movements are unique because they are guided purposively and strategically by the people who join them.
Social movements mostly operate outside established political and institutional channels.
Social movements, big and small, move history along, sometimes in significant ways. [3]
When did social movements first appear?
Charles Tilly describes in Social Movements 1768-2012 that popular risings in one form or another have been happening for thousands of years. He argues that in the eighteenth century something changed so that social movements in the form we understand them were first created, including leadership, members and resources. For Tilly social movements emerged from an innovative combination of three elements:
a campaign “a sustained, organized public effort making collective claims on target authorities”
social movement repertoire “employment of combinations from among the following forms of political action: creation of special-purpose associations and coalitions, public meetings, solemn processions, vigils, rallies, demonstrations, petition drives, statements to and in public media, and pamphleteering”
WUNC displays “‘participants’ concerted public representations of WUNC: worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment on the part of themselves and/or their constituencies” [4]
Defining British social movement since 1945
There have been two books written about post-war social movements in Britain. They both define social movements for the recent British context so I’ve included their definitions.
In British Social Movements since 1945, Adam Lent describes a more focused concept of British social movements “by post-war social movements I am referring to those grassroots mobilisations which were initiated outside of the established structures and values of the existing polity and which formed around the politics of six key issues and/or social groups: gender and women, sexuality and homosexuals, disability and the disabled, race and the ethnic communities, the pursuit of peace, and the defence of the environment. This is a definition rooted deeply in the historical specificity of post-war British movements.” [5]
The second book is Social Movements in Britain by Paul Byrne. He notes the main characteristics of social movements to be:
Values and identity – people join social movements because they are committed to certain values and are making a statement about themselves.
Structure – social movements are not formally organisations like political parties but are instead ‘networks of interaction’ with political goals.
Outsiders – social movements challenge the existing order and way of doing things.
Tactics – social movements engage in some action outside of the institutional or legal channels of political institutions.
Protest campaigns and social movements – protests do not represent a movement if it does not seek to gain support across the whole of society or even internationally. Social movements aim for societal change, not local change. [6]
Social movements, dynamics of contention and collective action
McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly argue in Dynamics of Contention that different forms of contention result from similar mechanisms and processes in society. The different forms of contention that they list include social movements, revolutions, industrial conflict/strike waves, nationalism, democratisation, war, and interest group politics. McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly define contentious politics to be “episodic, public, collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects when (a) at least one government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claim and (b) the claims would, if realized, affect the interest of at least one of the claimants.” [7]
Other important forms of contention are insurrections, rebellions, revolts, riots, and uprisings. Sometimes they are part of social movements and sometimes not. I will explore these in future posts.
Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani defines collective action as “individuals sharing resources in pursuit of collective goals – i.e., goals that cannot be privatized to any of the members of the collectivity on behalf of which collective action has taken place. Such goals may be produced within movements, but also in many contexts that normally are not associated with movements.” [8] Donatella Della Porta includes social movements, political parties, voluntary organisation, interest groups and religious sects, as collective action. [9] Herbert Blumer identified four forms of collective behaviour: crowds, the public, the mass, and social movements
The structure of social movements
In What is a Social Movement? Hank Johnston explains that there are two basic ways of thinking about how social movements are structured. First, social movements are made up of organisations and groups that integrate people in varying amounts of participation and mobilise them to act. These groups and organisations are large or small, disruptive or engage with political institutions, grassroots or centralised. Second, the complexity of social movements means they are interconnected network structures. The network binds the components (individuals, organisations, groups) together resulting in an overall cohesion. [10]
Charles Tilly makes a useful point that social movement analyists make a common mistake of confusing a movements collective action – the campaigns in which it engages – with the organisations and networks that support the action. Or even simply considering that organisations and networks are the movement. [11] I think its both, the activities (actions, protests, marches/demonstrations, and campaigns) and the structures (organisations, groups, some political parties, and movements of movements).
