资本主义已经途穷，前路通往何方？（三）

美国社会主义杂志《每月评论》网站2月1日刊登俄勒冈大学社会学教授约翰·贝拉米·福斯特文章《资本主义失败了，接下来呢？》，由于篇幅较长分为三部分，今天推送第三部分：“路在何方？”

点击此处阅读第一部分

点击此处阅读第二部分：资本主义的失败与新自由主义

文：John Bellamy Foster

译：由冠群

马克思主义历史学家艾瑞克·霍布斯鲍姆在他的《极端的年代：1914～1991》一书中指出，有理由担心，在新世纪人类面临的威胁可能比之前的“极端的年代”更大。20世纪爆发了两次世界大战，帝国主义冲突不断，经济萧条接二连三，人类头一遭面临着自我毁灭的危险。然而，霍布斯鲍姆在展望未来时总结道，新世纪（和新千年）将带来更大的危机。

霍布斯鲍姆在1994年评论道：

“资本主义发展主导了过去两三个世纪，随之而来的经济和科技巨大进步颠覆和改造了我们所生活的世界。我们知道，或者至少可以合理的假设：资本主义不能无穷无尽地发展下去。未来不会仅仅是过去的延续，外部和内部迹象都显示，我们已经达到了历史性危机的临界点。科技经济所产生的力量现在足以破坏我们生存的环境，摧毁人类生存的物质基础。我们正在继承了前人对社会的侵蚀，即将破坏人类社会本身的结构，甚至包括资本主义经济赖以存在的一些社会基础。我们的世界既有外爆的危险，也有内爆的危险（译注：外爆是一种现代性过程，指商品生产、科学技术、国家疆界、资本等不断扩张，以及社会、话语和价值的不断分化；内爆则是消除所有的界限，地域区隔或差异的后现代性过程）。这种状况必须改变。

“我们不知道要去往何方，只知道把历史把我们带到了当前的节点上，以及——如果你认同本书观点的话——为什么会走到这个地步。然而，有一件事是显而易见的。如果人类要走向清晰可辨的未来，就不能只是延续过去或现在。如果我们试图在现有基础上建设第三个千年，那我们终将失败。而失败的代价，即维持社会一成不变的后果，是黑暗的深渊。”

霍布斯鲍姆毫不含糊地指出目前的主要危险是“对市场经济的神学信仰，坚信在无限竞争的条件下，全部资源都应由完全不受限制的市场分配”，而分配行为的主体则是越来越集中化的大型企业。这个制度最大的风险是“可能对这个星球的自然环境，包括属于自然环境一部分的人类种群，造成不可逆转的灾难性后果。”

霍布斯鲍姆的立场在当时受到了严厉批评，即便许多左翼人士也不赞同他的观点，认为他对资本主义发展进程过于“悲观”。然而今天看来，很明显他的评论切中了要害，因为他当时担忧的情况今天更加明显。饶是如此，富裕国家的左派知识分子仍然很少能够以如此现实的态度直面资本主义制度的失败——哪怕经过新自由主义数十年肆虐，经济停滞、金融化、不平等加剧和环境恶化等种种恶果早已显露出来。一种常见的回应是搬出波兰尼的“双重运动”理论，即一个神话般的能自我调节的市场化社会将不可避免地引发防御性运动来保护社会和环境。这使人们把希望寄托于钟摆向回摆动，产生一个更积极的自由主义或社会民主主义社会。这种理论使人产生一种信念，即通过回归受管制的资本主义（regulated capitalism）可以弥补不受管制的资本主义（unregulated capitalism）的失败，也就是进入新的凯恩斯主义时代——在这些人眼里，历史仿佛是停滞的。

寄希望于这种双重运动的人，实际上是在四个方面否认现实。首先，只有在西方受到社会主义社会的威胁并且工会力量持续施压时，社会民主才得以出现和存续，一旦前两者消失，社会民主便立刻褪色。第二，今天的新自由主义高度内嵌于资本主义制度，已经进入垄断-金融资本主义阶段，工业-资本占主导地位的早期资本主义阶段已经一去不复返了，而那却是凯恩斯经济学的基础。第三，西方社会民主在实践中依赖于帝国主义体系，而后者践踏了人类绝大多数成员的利益。第四，自由主义民主国家与所谓开明的、愿意与劳工阶层达成社会协议的主导型工业资产阶级，在很大程度上已经成为一种历史陈迹，其社会结构基础现在几乎已经消失殆尽。

在这种情况下，即使是社会民主主义政党掌权并承诺在资本主义制度框架内进行改造，使资本主义更仁慈、更温和，他们也会不可避免的受制于资本主义当前阶段的运行规律。正如迈克尔·耶茨在资本主义失败的背景下所写的：“工会和政党曾经取得了一番经济和政治成就，但今天我们实在无法相信社会还能朝那个方向哪怕迈出一小步。”

在所谓的自由主义左派当中，某些人采取了一种宽泛的技术-现代化方式来看待问题，在很大程度上忽视了社会关系。在他们看来，数字技术、社会工程和明智的自由化管理将主导一切，这是一种隐晦的技术决定论。这些思想家认为，新自由主义的资本主义绝对论确实会导致无尽的灾难，但资本主义是可以被改造的，它可能会从顶层以自上而下的方式进行改造以适应任何紧急情况，甚至会放弃利润和资本积累来顺应当前的技术必要性。这种观点认为，资本主义制度最终只会剩下由企业和市场组成的骨骼，再也没有任何阶级或者贪念，从而成为提高效率的引擎。

长篇报告《增长的极限》作者之一乔尔根·兰德斯在他2012年预测未来40年的《2052年》一书中提出，本世纪中叶出现的“改良资本主义（modified capitalism）”将是“一个把集体福祉置于个人获益之上的制度”。改良资本主义将获得由技术官僚主持的“明智政府”的指导，其特征是“民主和市场自由的成分较少”。尽管兰德斯预计主要经济大国将经历40年的经济停滞，而“其余国家”将继续陷于贫穷，但他不肯直接承认资本主义制度的失败，而是认为此类问题与他心目中2052年的世界没有什么关系。他预测，未来最可能出现的情况是当代资本主义世界的升级版，它或许会有更多现实限制，但会变得更高效和更可持续。

然而，在此书付梓仅七年之后，已经可以看出兰德斯的预测在各个方面都是错误的。当今世界面临的形势在性质上比2012年更为严峻，当时甚至许多左翼人士都认为可以采取渐进式的、技术官僚式的办法解决气候变化问题，而且当时自由民主国家显得非常稳定。今天，在气候变化加剧、经济持续停滞、政治动荡和地缘政治日益失稳的时代背景下，世界面临的挑战显然比兰德斯等进步主义生态现代化论者预期的更具有灾难性和划时代意义。我们现在面临的抉择要艰难的多。

实际上，任何言之凿凿的预言，尤其是那些仅仅延伸当前趋势，却不把人类社会大多数成员和他们的斗争考虑在未来之内的预言，统统会遭到历史的嘲笑。因此，采用辩证法看待问题才显得如此重要。历史发展的实际路线是无法预测的。在历史变迁当中，唯一确定的事是斗争的存在，是它驱动着历史前进并保持其间断性特点。内爆和外爆最终都会不可避免地成为现实，使新一代人继承的世界不同于旧一代人。历史上曾有过很多社会制度，其社会关系的适应能力达到了极限，无法合理且可持续地利用发展中的生产力。因此人类历史不乏社会倒退时期，继之而起的则是席卷一切的革命性加速。正如19世纪保守主义历史学家雅各布·布克哈特所宣称的那样，“当一场危机触及社会的方方面面，牵涉到整个时代以及同一个文明内部的所有人或很多人时，便会造成历史性危机。”历史进程以一种可怕的方式突然加速。原本需要几百年才能完成的过程如同幽灵般在几个月或者几周的时间内便一掠而过。布克哈特将这个现象称作“历史进程的加速”。

布克哈特主要考虑的是社会革命，比如1789年的法国大革命。根据法国现代历史学家乔治·勒费弗尔的阐释，法国大革命是对历史的加速，它最初是一系列以骇人速度变异，并不断扩大的革命，从贵族革命到资产阶级革命，再到大众革命，再到农民革命，最终呈现出历史性的“集团、单一体”特征，仿佛无法征服。法国大革命极大改写了世界历史。

21世纪能否迎来一场规模远比法国大革命还要宏大的革命性历史加速？世界帝国主义体系中霸权国家的大多数建制派评论员都会根据自己狭隘的经验和有限的历史观来否认这一可能。然而，革命持续在世界体系边缘爆发，至今只是暂时受到帝国主义经济、政治和军事干预行为的镇压。当下资本主义在全球范围内的失败威胁着我们认识中的全部文明和生命。如果不进行重大改变，全球温度将在本世纪内较前工业时代上升4至6摄氏度，这将会危及全人类的生存条件。同时，现在的极端资本主义正试图征用和圈占物质存在的一切基础，吸干几乎全部的社会净盈余，为极少数人的直接利益而对自然环境进行掠夺。

资本主义社会关系的直接结果是，人类现在面临的物质挑战比以往任何时候都要大，这意味着随着资本的积累，灾难也在积累。在这种情况下，几亿人被迫与这个制度展开斗争，为世界范围内一场全新的社会主义运动奠定了基础。耶茨在《工人阶级能改变世界吗？》一书中这样回答道：“是的，它可以”。但要改变世界，工人和人民必须团结起来，为真正的社会主义事业而共同奋斗。有人可能会反对，说社会主义道路已经被尝试过了，走不通，因此不再是一种可选方案。但正如中世纪晚期某些最早尝试资本主义的意大利城邦一样，它们还没有强大到足以在封建社会的包围下生存。同样，社会主义最初试验的失败也说明不了什么，经过检讨和吸取教训，社会主义最终会以一种新的、更具革命性的、更具普适性的形式重生。即使历史上社会主义遭遇了失败，它有一点仍然比资本主义有优势：它的动机来自对“一般自由”的需求，这种需求根植于实质性平等和人类可持续发展，它准确反映了集体性社会关系，承载着历史必然性以及人类对自由的不懈斗争，对我们这个时代的人类生存至关重要。

伟大的保守主义经济学家约瑟夫·熊彼特是奥地利“红色维也纳”时期的财政部长，他一度与社会主义政府结盟却发现自己面临来自各方的攻击，他曾写道，资本主义灭亡的原因不来自“经济失败的重压”，而来自它在追求狭隘经济利益时的“异常成功”，因为这种成功会破坏其赖以存在的社会学基础。熊彼特惊呼，资本主义“不可避免地创造了一些条件，而这些条件将使它无法生存，并鲜明地指向社会主义作为其接班人。”事实证明，熊彼特在许多方面说对了，尽管事情并没有完全按他预期的方式发生。垄断资本主义和经济金融化在全球的蔓延是以新自由主义为先导的，新自由主义的诞生最初是对战间期“红色维也纳”（当时熊彼特曾扮演过重要角色）的反革命回应，如今它破坏着资本主义本身乃至全球社会和生态环境的物质基础。其结果是导致当前社会的主流秩序遭到“几乎普遍的敌视”，尽管在目前混乱的语境下，这种敌视与其说是针对资本主义，不如说是针对新自由主义。

资本主义破坏了人类生存的基础，最终迫使全世界的工人和人民寻找新的前进道路。本世纪一场全纳的（inclusive）、以阶级为基础的社会主义运动将为全新的发展带来可能性。这是以垄断竞争、极端不平等和制度化贪婪为特征的资本主义-市场社会造成的无政府状态所不能提供的。这一运动还包括发展社会主义技术，无论是技术的形式还是它要达到的目的都是为全社会服务的，而不是为了个人和阶级谋取私利。它有希望让社会各阶层参与进行长期民主规划，跳出金钱关系的逻辑进行决策和分配。最彻底的社会主义要实现实质平等、社群团结，以及生态可持续性；其目的是劳动合作，而不是简单的劳动分工。

一旦以可持续的人类发展（sustainable human development）——即不根据交换价值，而是以使用价值和人类真实需要为基础——来衡量历史进步，现在看似封闭的未来就以无数种方式重新开放，产生全新的、更重质量的和集体的发展形式。这体现在人类可以采取的各种必要的切实措施当中，但在当前的生产方式下它们被完全排除在外。现在导致我们无法民主地控制投资，所有人的基本需要——包括清洁的空气和水、食品、衣物、住房、教育、医疗、交通和有用的工作——无法得到满足的原因，不是客观条件不允许，或者经济没有盈余（其实大部分财富都被浪费掉了）。导致我们无法在生态上迈出必要的一步、向可持续能源转型的原因，不是我们缺少技术诀窍或物质手段。导致我们无法组建属于工人和人民的“新的英特耐雄耐尔”，并依靠它与资本主义、帝国主义和战争作斗争的原因，不是人性存在固有的分歧。所有这一切都在我们力所能及的范围内，但需要我们采用与资本主义背道而驰的逻辑。

卡尔·马克思写道：“人类始终只提出自己能够解决的任务，因为只要仔细考察就可以发现，任务本身，只有在解决它的物质条件已经存在或者至少是在生成过程中的时候，才会产生。”当今垄断-金融资本主义造成了巨大的浪费和过剩，通讯手段的发展允许人类进行更大规模的协调、规划和民主行动，这表明世界一旦摆脱资本的束缚，将有无数条道路通往一个实质性平等和生态可持续的未来。

我们面临的危机需要用社会的和生态的方法去解决。这就要求人类在联合控制下，对人与自然之间的新陈代谢进行合理的调节，根据整个人类世代发展的需要，重启并维持健康的、地方的、地区的和全球的生态系统（以及物种栖息地）的流动、循环和其他重要过程。历史上人类行动的主要动力来自以斗争争取自由和掌控我们与世界的关系。要实现人类的自由就需要平等和共同体；而要掌控人类与世界的关系，则需要人类发展和可持续性。如果人类还想有未来，我们最终还是要依靠这些以集体进步为目标的斗争。

（全文完，略去原文注释与引用共106条）

Capitalism Has Failed—What Next? (Part III)

What's Next?

In his magisterial The Age of Extremes: A History of the World 1914–1991, Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, viewing the approach of the twenty-first century, indicated that there were reasons to be concerned that the new century might be even more threatening to humanity than the “age of extremes” that had preceded it, a century that had been punctuated by world wars, imperial conflicts, and economic depressions—and in which humanity was confronted for the first time with the possibility of its own self-annihilation. Yet, looking forward, he concluded, the new century (and millennium) offered even greater dangers.

“We live in a world,” Hobsbawm observed in 1994,

uprooted and transformed by the titanic economic and the techno-scientific process of the development of capitalism, which has dominated the past two or three centuries. We know, or at least it is reasonable to suppose, that it cannot go on ad infinitum. The future cannot be a continuation of the past, and there are signs, both externally, and, as it were, internally, that we have reached a point of historic crisis. The forces generated by the techno-scientific economy are now great enough to destroy the environment, that is to say, the material foundations of human life. The structures of human societies themselves, including even some of the social foundations of the capitalist economy, are on the point of being destroyed by the erosion of what we have inherited from the human past. Our world risks both explosion and implosion. It must change.

We do not know where we are going. We only know that history has brought us to this point and—if readers share the argument of this book—why. However, one thing is plain. If humanity is to have a recognizable future, it cannot be by prolonging the past or the present. If we try to build the third millennium on that basis, we shall fail. And the price of failure, that is to say, the alternative to a changed society, is darkness.85

Hobsbawm left little doubt as to what the principal danger was at present, namely “the theological faith in an economy in which resources were allocated entirely by the totally unrestricted market, under conditions of unlimited competition,” carried out by evermore-concentrated corporations. Chief among the dangers of such a system was the likelihood of “irreversible and catastrophic consequences for the natural environment of this planet, including the human race which is part of it.”86

Hobsbawm’s position was roundly criticized at the time, even by many on the left, as overly “pessimistic” with regard to the course of capitalist development.87 Today, however, a quarter-century later, it is clear that he hit the mark, as the concerns that he voiced then are even more evident today. Nevertheless, such realism in approaching the failure of capitalism in our time is still rare on the part of left intellectuals in the wealthy countries, even in the face of decades of neoliberal assault combined with economic stagnation, financialization, growing inequality, and environmental decline. One common response is to refer to Polanyi’s notion of a double movement, in which the recurring myth of a self-regulating market society inevitably gives rise to defensive movements to protect society and the environment.88 This has fed the hope that the pendulum will swing back again, leading to a more affirmative-style liberalism or social democracy. This sustains the belief that the failures of unregulated capitalism can be countered by a return to regulated capitalism, a new Keynesian age—as if history had stood still.

Pinning hopes on a double movement of this kind, however, denies four material realities. First, social democracy came about and persisted only as long as the threat of actually existing socialist societies was present and union strength endured, and faded immediately with the demise of both. Second, neoliberalism today is ingrained in capitalism itself, in the phase of monopoly-financial capital. The earlier age of industrial-capital dominance, on which Keynesian economics was based, is now gone. Third, social democracy was in practice reliant on an imperialist system that was opposed to the interests of the vast majority of humankind. Fourth, the liberal-democratic state and the dominance of a purportedly enlightened industrial-capitalist class willing to engage in a social accord with labor is largely a relic of the past, with its structural bases having all but disappeared.

Even when social democratic parties come to power in these circumstances, promising to work within the system and create a kinder and gentler capitalism, they invariably fall prey to the laws of motion of capitalism in this phase. As Michael Yates writes, in the context of a failed capitalism: “Today, it is impossible to believe that there will be a recovery of even the modest political and economic project that labor unions and political parties once embraced and helped bring to fruition.”89

On the so-called liberal-left, some have adopted a broad technological-modernization approach, largely disregarding social relations. Here, in an implicit technological determinism, digital technology, social engineering, and wise liberal management are expected to reign supreme. It is true, such thinkers argue, that the capitalist absolutism of neoliberalism points to unending disaster. But capitalism can be altered, presumably from above, to fit any exigency, even the sidelining of profits and accumulation, conforming to current technological imperatives. What will remain of the system, in this conception, will be the bare frames of corporations and markets now devoid of any class or acquisitive drive, mere engines of efficiency.

As Jørgen Randers, one of the original Limits to Growth authors, declares in 2052—his forecast (in 2012) of the world society forty years into the future—that the “modified capitalism” that will emerge mid–point in this century “will be a system wherein collective well-being is set above the return of the individual.” Modified capitalism will be subject to the guidance of “wise government,” directed by technocrats, while being characterized by “less democracy and less market freedom.” Rather than directly facing up to the failures of capitalism—though he projects forty years of economic stagnation for the major economic powers and continued poverty in the “rest of the world”—Randers sees such questions as largely irrelevant to his vision of the world in 2052. The dominant reality, he predicts, will be a more efficient and sustainable, if more physically constrained, version of the present-day capitalist world.90

Yet, in the barely seven years since his book was written, it is already clear that Randers’s predictions were wrong in every respect. The situation confronting the world is qualitatively more serious than it was in 2012, at a time when gradualist, technocratic solutions to climate change still seemed feasible to many even among those on the left and when the liberal-democratic state appeared perfectly stable. Today, in the context of accelerated climate change, continuing economic stagnation, political upheaval, and growing geopolitical instability, it is clear that the challenges that the world is facing will be both more cataclysmic and epoch-making than progressive ecological modernizers like Randers envisioned. The choices confronting us are now much harder.

Indeed, history has been unkind to all such attempts to provide detailed forecasts of the future, particularly if they simply extend current trends and leave the bulk of humanity and their struggles out of the picture. It is for this reason that a dialectical view is so important. The actual course of history can never be predicted. The only thing certain about historical change is the existence of the struggles that drive it forward and that guarantee its discontinuous character. Both implosions and explosions inevitably materialize, rendering the world for new generations different than that of the old. History points to numerous social systems that have reached the limits of their ability to adapt their social relations to allow for the rational and sustainable use of developing productive forces. Hence, the human past is dotted by periods of regression, followed by revolutionary accelerations that sweep all before them. As the conservative historian Jacob Burckhardt declared in the nineteenth century, “a historical crisis” occurs when “a crisis in the whole state of things is produced, involving whole epochs and all or many peoples of the same civilization.… The historical process is suddenly accelerated in terrifying fashion. Developments which otherwise take centuries seem to flit by like phantoms in months or weeks, and are fulfilled.” He called this the “acceleration of historical processes.”91

Burckhardt principally had in mind social revolutions, like the French Revolution of 1789. This was an acceleration of history that, as the modern French historian Georges Lefebvre explained, commenced as a series of widening revolutions, mutating with terrifying speed, from an aristocratic revolution to a bourgeois revolution to a popular revolution and then a peasant revolution—finally taking on the character of a historic “bloc, a single thing,” seemingly unconquerable, which reshaped much of world history.92

Could such a revolutionary acceleration of history, though on an incomparably greater scale, happen in the twenty-first century? Most establishment commentators in the hegemonic countries of the world imperialist system would say no, based on their own narrow experience and limited view of history. Nevertheless, revolutions continue to break out in the periphery of the world system and are, even now, only put down by imperialist economic, political, and military interventions. Moreover, the failure of capitalism on a planetary scale today threatens all of civilization and life on the planet as we know it. If drastic changes are not made, global temperature this century will increase by 4° or even 6°C from preindustrial times, leading to conditions that will imperil humankind as a whole. Meanwhile, the extreme capitalism of today seeks to expropriate and enclose all the bases of material existence, siphoning off almost the entire net social surplus and robbing the natural environment for the direct benefit of a miniscule few.

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As a direct result of capitalist social relations, the material challenges now facing humanity are greater than anything ever seen before, pointing to an accumulation of catastrophe along with the accumulation of capital.93 Hundreds of millions of people under these circumstances are already being drawn into struggles with the system, creating the basis of a new worldwide movement toward socialism. In his book Can the Working Class Change the World? Yates answers yes, it can. But it can only do so through a unifying struggle by workers and peoples aimed at genuine socialism.94

It may be objected that socialism has been tried and has failed and hence no longer exists as an alternative. However, like the earliest attempts at capitalism in the Italian city-states of the late Middle Ages, which were not strong enough to survive amongst the feudal societies that surrounded them, the failure of the first experiments at socialism presage nothing but its eventual rebirth in a new, more revolutionary, more universal form, which examines and learns from the failures.95 Even in failure, socialism has this advantage over capitalism: it is motivated by the demand for “freedom in general,” rooted in substantive equality and sustainable human development—reflecting precisely those collective social relations, borne of historical necessity and the unending struggle for human freedom, crucial to human survival in our time.96

The great conservative economist Joseph Schumpeter, who, as Austrian finance minister in Red Vienna, had allied himself for a time with the socialist government and found himself attacked on all sides, once wrote that capitalism would perish not because of “the weight of economic failure,” but rather because its “very success” in pursuing its narrow economic ends, had undermined the sociological foundations of its existence. Capitalism, Schumpeter exclaimed, “‘inevitably’ creates conditions in which it will not be able to live and which strongly point to socialism as its heir apparent.”97 He was, it turns out, in many ways correct, though not entirely in the way he expected. The global development of monopoly capitalism and financialization spearheaded by the very same counterrevolutionary neoliberalism that first arose in response to Red Vienna in the interwar years—at a time when Schumpeter himself was a major actor—has now undermined the material bases, not so much of capitalism itself, but of global society and planetary ecology. The result has been the emergence of an “atmosphere of almost universal hostility” to the prevailing social order, though, playing out in the confused context of the present, less as opposition to capitalism itself than to neoliberalism.98

It is capitalism’s undermining of the very basis of human existence that will eventually compel the world’s workers and peoples to seek new roads forward. An inclusive, class-based movement toward socialism in this century will open up the possibility of qualitative new developments that the anarchy of the capitalist-market society with its monopolistic competition, extreme inequality, and institutionalized greed cannot possibly offer.99 This includes the development of a socialist technology, in which both the forms of technology utilized and the purposes to which they are put are channeled in social directions, as opposed to individual and class gain.100 It introduces the prospect of long-term democratic planning at all levels of society, allowing decisions to be made and distributions to occur outside the logic of the cash nexus.101 Socialism, in its most radical form, is about substantive equality, community solidarity, and ecological sustainability; it is aimed at the unification—not simply division—of labor.

Once sustainable human development, rooted not in exchange values, but in use values and genuine human needs, comes to define historical advance, the future, which now seems closed, will open up in a myriad ways, allowing for entirely new, more qualitative, and collective forms of development.102 This can be seen in the kinds of needed practical measures that could be taken up, but which are completely excluded under the present mode of production. It is not physical impossibility, or lack of economic surplus, most of which is currently squandered, that stands in the way of the democratic control of investment, or the satisfaction of basic needs—clean air and water, food, clothing, housing, education, health care, transportation, and useful work—for all. It is not the shortage of technological know-how or of material means that prevents the necessary ecological conversion to more sustainable forms of energy.103 It is not some inherent division of humanity that obstructs the construction of a New International of workers and peoples directed against capitalism, imperialism, and war.104 All of this is within our reach, but requires pursuing a logic that runs counter to that of capitalism.

Humanity, Karl Marx wrote, “inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.”105 The very waste and excess of today’s monopoly-finance capitalism, together with the development of new means of communication that allow for greater human coordination, planning, and democratic action than ever before, suggest that there are countless paths forward to a world of substantive equality and ecological sustainability once the world is freed from the fetters of capital.106

The answers to the crises before us are both social and ecological. They require the rational regulation of the metabolism between human beings and nature under the control of associated humanity—regenerating and maintaining the flows, cycles, and other vital processes of healthy, local, regional, and global ecosystems (and species habitats)—in accord with the needs of the entire chain of human generations. The mainsprings of human action throughout history lie in the drive for human freedom and the struggle to master our relation to the world. The first of these ultimately demands equality and community; the second, human development and sustainability. It is on these struggles for collective advancement that we must ultimately rely if humanity is to have a future at all.

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