Education, Not Ideology
A lot of anti-Capitalist revolutionaries today are trying to find some sort of ideology to unite them into a cohesive political force. But that raises the inevitable questions: Who is supposed to think up that ideology? And what are all the people who don’t agree with it supposed to do? When you have to ask questions like that, your cohesive political ideology has already broken down before it even began.
Political ideology is inherently not cohesive on a global scale. Political ideology is, after all, just an idea. Since people all over the world live in different conditions, there is no way that an idea that works well in one part of the world would work well in every part of the world. The Communists tried that already, and it didn’t work.
We could all use a completely organic political system, which consisted of a simple agreement to be ourselves and get along with each other. A lot of Anarchists are trying that, but unfortunately, that’s not working either. We are all being conquered by the Capitalists individually. Before we can agree to be ourselves and get along with each other, we have to figure out how to work together to make the Capitalists stop trying to conquer us. But now we’re back the original question: Whose ideas are we supposed to use to unite us as an effective revolutionary political force?
Luckily, if you stop thinking about ideology, there’s a much simpler solution. What anti-Capitalist revolutionaries need is not ideology, but education. What the Capitalists desperately need is education too.
What I have to tell you about is no secret. Everything I have to tell you about is available on the internet and at any public library in America. The only reason Capitalism still exists is because not enough people know the right books to read or what they all mean.
By now, we know enough about how the world works that we have the choice whether to make the global environment work in a way that can keep everyone alive, or to make it work in a way that can’t keep everyone alive. Right now, it’s working in a way that can’t keep everyone alive, and it’s only going to get worse.
Making the world work in a way that can keep everyone alive necessarily means environmental sustainability. But environmental sustainability means a lot more than buying fluorescent light bulbs and riding the bus more often. It means getting rid of all the political and economic structures that make matter and energy move through the world in a way that isn’t environmentally sustainable. Capitalism and corrupt government are inherent parts of our system of environmental unsustainability.
Environmental sustainability depends on our building political and economic systems that make it possible for everyone to feel satisfied with their lives. Capitalism doesn’t do that, because people who feel satisfied with their lives don’t buy as much. An economic system based on the pursuit of profits can’t function in a society where everyone already feels satisfied with their lives.
Manufacturing things for people to buy depends on extracting natural resources from the environment. The impact humanity is having on the environment right now is about 20% more than the environment can withstand indefinitely. That means environmental sustainability depends on our extracting less resources from the environment. Continuing to extract more resources is global suicide.
When you put all the science together in one place, it shows that environmental sustainability will depend on:
Everyone having enough to live—and not just in terms of material possessions.
Education, because understanding what environmental sustainability is and how it works is going to be the hardest thing anyone has ever had to learn. Everyone is going to have to learn to be happy living within the physical limitations of the Earth. When I talk about using science to teach people to be happy, people always accuse me of trying to be Chairman Mao. But just because a politician couldn’t do it doesn’t prove it isn’t possible. First scientists had to figure out what the physical limitations of the Earth are, then figure out what people perceive themselves to need, and then figure out why people perceive themselves to need those things. Profound happiness depends on emotional health. Emotional health depends on people being able to provide for themselves within their living situation. So really, teaching people to be happy is simply a matter of teaching people what is and isn’t possible within the physical limitations of the Earth.
A central decision-making structure, kind of like the United Nations, to coordinate the transition to global environmental sustainability—because making the transition will depend on global coordination. It is human decisions that are causing global environmental unsustainability in the first place, and it will be because of human decisions that we either make, or don’t make, the transition to environmental sustainability. This necessarily depends on the people in the central decision-making structure knowing what the hell they’re doing, which currently doesn’t include any world political leaders or American politicians.
Another global social structure, for everyone else to belong to. Making the transition to environmental sustainability will depend on everyone’s input and participation, because the global environment affects everyone. Political inequality is a part of global environmental unsustainability. Everyone in the world needs to be able to work together independently of government. They also have to be able to replace the central decision-making structure if necessary. The World Social Forum is a good beginning at all of this. The biggest thing they’re missing is knowing how to recognize whether or not the people in the central decision making structure are doing their jobs. And that’s what this book is about.
Over the past 40 years, scientists have studied more and more about physics, chemistry, and biology, to see how matter and energy will need to move through the world to make global environmental sustainability possible. That includes human decision-making processes, and why our current decision-making structures aren’t working. Basically, the world’s greatest scientists started out studying chemistry, and they ended up discovering Green Anarcho-Socialism, all on their own.
If you’re an Anarchist, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but abolishing government altogether isn’t physically possible. Monkeys in the wild live in hierarchal societies, and we inherited our social instincts from them. There is no action you can take to erase the idea of government from existence. However, a dual power system is easy. Democracy depends on people having choices, which incudes the choice to replace their old government with a new government at any time. If the people can’t do that, their government is not democratic, no matter what anyone calls it. I already know that politicians are going to try to co-opt my work, which is why I wrote an extended version of this book specifically for Anarchists. The only form of government that can ever serve the interests of its people is a form of government that’s under constant, direct threat by Anarchists. Any politician who claims that isn’t true automatically disqualifies himself from his job, because he’s claiming to know something about science that scientists have never discovered, and he’s obviously opposed to democracy. In a democracy, the people are the government. Democracy depends on an effective balance of power. Democracy can’t survive without an effective Anarchist movement—and by that I mean a much more effective Anarchist movement than we have now. So if anyone ever claims to found a government on my work who perceives Anarchism to be a threat to the government, shoot the worthless son of a bitch, because he’s no follower of mine.
Every anti-Capitalist revolutionary knows that Capitalism isn’t consistent with democracy. But thanks to all this science and what it means, now it’s unmistakable that Capitalism isn’t even compatible with the words secular government of, by, and for the people. If you’re the sort of activist who actually is interested in the fact that the United States has a Constitution, eleven yes or no questions is all it takes to prove that Capitalism is unconstitutional.
Capitalism will not survive the 21st century. Proving that is no longer an obstacle to the revolution. All there is left to do is to make the Capitalists understand that they’ve lost.
By the way, if you are a politician or a Capitalist who thinks you can get away with meddling in science, and who thinks the laws of physics are just one more commodity you can exploit to help you amass money and power, you’re about to learn the hard way why you never, ever get into a global war against Albert Einstein. I don’t even need to bother building a military for this show-down. I’m the spokesperson for destructive forces that are completely invincible to mortal humans, and that you have no idea how to control. By extension, that makes me a spokesperson for all the rebels who are trying to figure out how to get on the side that’s guaranteed to win. If any 16-year-old in America who has a library card and a MySpace account can smash your ideology, we’ll just see who’s playing who.