Importance Score: 78 / 100 🔴
Examining Paths Through the Planetary Crisis in “What’s Left”
Political analyst Malcolm Harris presents a compelling, albeit unsettling, exploration of potential solutions to the escalating planetary crisis in his book, What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis. Rejecting apathy, Harris passionately argues against the inevitability of societal decay amidst global warming. He asserts the necessity of identifying a viable “reasonable alternative to boiling ourselves alive,” urging a shift away from current unsustainable practices.
The Entrenched System
Harris contends that incremental adjustments are insufficient. He posits that humanity is ensnared within a “noxious social metabolism,” a self-perpetuating system that relentlessly exploits resources and labor, generating ever-increasing “value.” This system, he argues, cannot simply be halted or reformed through minor changes in consumption habits or recycling efforts. A systemic transformation on a global scale is required to address this deeply ingrained planetary issue.
Expanding on this, Harris provocatively states, “If oil is valuable, and if value is the principle by which we organize life on earth, then oil is life, even if its continued extraction and combustion also assuredly means death.” This stark pronouncement underscores the deeply entrenched nature of fossil fuels within the current global economic and social structure.
Three-pronged Approach to Environmental Destruction
Despite the grim diagnosis, Harris outlines a multi-faceted strategy to combat environmental destruction, encompassing a spectrum of approaches from market-based incentives to centralized economic planning. He optimistically, yet cautiously, suggests that the solutions are readily available, but are stymied by powerful forces resisting change. His proposed coalition is structured around three key pillars:
Market-Based Solutions: “Marketcrafters”
The first approach centers on “marketcrafters,” aligning with liberal policies that advocate for mechanisms such as subsidies for electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure, akin to initiatives within the Green New Deal and aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act. Proponents of this strategy, as Harris outlines, believe that strategic implementation of tax incentives, governmental funding, and targeted regulations can incentivize a transition away from fossil fuels. The aim is to create an environment where clean energy becomes economically dominant, effectively marginalizing the fossil fuel industry through market forces, and compelling capitalists toward self-reform by making oil economically unviable.
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Government Intervention: Public Power
Recognizing the limitations of purely market-driven solutions, Harris’s second pillar emphasizes robust government intervention. This involves direct governmental control over utilities, mandating a transition to renewable energy sources like hydro and solar power. The concept entails government-operated renewable energy plants feeding artificially inexpensive energy into the grid, directly undercutting fossil fuels. The resulting cost savings, Harris suggests, could be redirected towards essential public services. This approach is based on the premise that governmental action, due to its capacity for large-scale, long-term planning, is essential to effectively mitigate atmospheric carbon emissions, a scope beyond the typical short-sightedness of capitalist interests.
Radical Transformation: Communist Revolution
The book culminates in a more radical proposition: a call for communist revolution. Drawing inspiration from Indigenous land stewardship models, migrant support networks, and acts of property destruction aimed at disrupting the fossil fuel industry, Harris advocates for a fundamental re-evaluation of societal values. The aim is to prioritize the inherent “value of life itself,” effectively decoupling it from fossil fuels and the current value chain. This radical proposition essentially advocates for revolutionary mobilization in the pursuit of degrowth, challenging the very foundations of the current economic paradigm.
Interdependence of Approaches
A central tenet of What’s Left is the interconnectedness of these three seemingly disparate approaches. Harris argues that their effectiveness is amplified when implemented in conjunction, not in isolation. “Public power needs the radical threat; communists need bail money; marketcraft needs an organized working-class constituency,” he asserts, highlighting the synergistic potential of a unified, multi-pronged strategy.
Harris’s work invites comparison to liberal thinkers such as Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, authors of Abundance, who also advocate for economic revitalization through clean energy innovation and infrastructure development. While both perspectives acknowledge the need for a broad coalition encompassing liberal and left-leaning ideologies, distinctions emerge. Abundance emphasizes China’s developmental model and prioritizes economic growth, advocating for deregulation to accelerate infrastructure projects. In contrast, What’s Left, while informed by radical political theory, proposes a more comprehensive systemic overhaul.
A Book Out of Time?
However, the review suggests that both books, particularly What’s Left, arrive at a precarious historical juncture. Despite its rational and forward-thinking approach, What’s Left may resonate more with a past era of political discourse. The current global landscape, marked by escalating crises and political fragmentation, presents a starkly different reality. While bold solutions remain necessary, the reviewer questions the feasibility of envisioning large-scale policy debates in a world increasingly defined by immediate dangers and worsening conditions. The book’s academic, seminar-room style analysis might feel detached from the urgent realities of contemporary global challenges, like escalating geopolitical tensions and humanitarian crises, making its proposed solutions seem somewhat distant from the immediate needs of a world in turmoil.
Ultimately, the review positions What’s Left as a product of a specific, perhaps now bygone, moment in American progressive political thought—a moment where debates about policy approaches to global issues, ranging from Biden administration policies to radical revolutionary action, felt relevant and actionable. It questions the enduring applicability of such frameworks in a drastically altered global context, raising concerns about the disconnect between theoretical solutions and the pressing realities of a rapidly changing and increasingly unstable world.
WHAT’S LEFT: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis by Malcolm Harris | Little, Brown | 310 pp. | $30