The practice of mutual aid between free and equal beings is necessary to decisively and coherently face capitalist ecocide

~ Octavio Alberola, Le Libertaire

In today’s world, almost nothing is encouraging, almost everything is a source of despair. In addition to wars and genocides, which can lead to a nuclear apocalypse, viral and climate crises can turn the Earth into an uninhabitable planet.

Indeed, never has the survival of humanity been so threatened as today by the madness of war and the excess of capitalist development. A terrible and paradoxical threat; since it is the authoritarian and capitalist model of civilisational life – dominant today in the world and supposed promoter of human well-being – that gave birth to it and continues to promote it. This is to the point that humanity today is faced with the dilemma of changing this model to survive, or continuing to maintain it (even if its survival is threatened) and resigning itself to running this existential risk.  

Whether it is recognised or not, this is the dilemma that all human beings are facing today and to which we, contemporaries, must or should increasingly provide an answer. It is obvious that being aware or not of this threat and adopting the corresponding attitude (whether by survival instinct or by not resigning ourselves to giving up the duty to continue to make humanity), will be decisive for the future of humanity and the world.  

Being aware of what the world is today and recognising it is therefore a categorical ethical and existential imperative. Not only because the truth is a necessity to be able to change reality but also to incite us to fight against despair and what threatens our future and that of humanity. Fight today more than ever and not only for political reasons of social justice, but also for logic and existential dignity!

Moreover, as Camus said in a time as or more somber than today’s, “the taste for truth does not prevent one from taking sides”; for it is “precisely the acceptance of the truth, as it is – even if only in the mind – and as it is, which makes hope not vain”. For “true despair does not come from the confrontation with an increasingly tenacious adversity, nor from the exhaustion of a too unequal struggle, it comes from not knowing the reasons for fighting and whether, precisely, one should do so”.

Hence the need and urgency to continue to maintain today the taste for truth. Not only for the same reasons as Camus and his contemporaries at that time, but also because, besides the reasons for fighting are today as clear and inexcusable as they were then for them, they are even more so today because of the threat that the climate crisis represents for the physical survival of humanity. A crisis caused by the unconsciousness of promoting a civilisational model that, in addition to being absurd and unjust, is ecocide.

A model, capitalism (based on individual appropriation of collective effort and natural resources through competition and plunder), which, in addition to setting us against each other, establishes the division of classes (dominant and dominated, exploiters and exploited) within human societies.

Thus, because Capital is the alpha and omega of this model, capitalist development does not consider life as the priority good and, consequently, this development becomes a threat to all living beings by not respecting any limits in the exploitation of nature’s resources. 

An ethical and existential duty

How can we not consider the maintenance of this model, which makes the only habitable planet in our solar system uninhabitable, as a serious existential threat to humanity, and how can we not denounce the unconscious and criminal responsibility of the promoters and accomplices of this unjust and ecocidal model?

Therefore, denouncing this model and fighting to change it to a model that is both just and eco-sustainable is an ethical duty and a logical decision of existential urgency. Not only because of the terrible environmental and human disasters that climate degradation is already causing, but also because its acceleration is bringing us closer to the point where it will be irreversible and ecocide will be inevitable.

Finding a way to end this existential threat and fighting for human emancipation and the creation of an eco-sustainable world of justice and freedom is today an ethical and existential duty. A duty and an imperative necessity of urgency for all contemporaries who do not resign themselves to being complicit in such an absurd and unworthy perspective: that of the end of the human adventure and the disappearance of life on this planet.  

For anarchists, the struggle for an eco-sustainable world is undoubtedly the logical consequence of their struggle for a world of justice and freedom. A logical consequence because, for them, ethics is inseparable from the existential. That is why today, because life is so threatened, its (our) goal must be a truly ecological and authentically democratic world. Well, if it is not ecological, it will not be sustainable and it is only by being authentically democratic (the decisions taken by each one) that it can be united. Therefore, anarchists must (we must) be resolutely eco-solidarity today.

Eco-solidarity is in reality the widespread practice of mutual support in all forms of human activity and coexistence within a society that, in order to be eco-sustainable, rejects any form of individualistic enrichment and depredation of natural resources. It is necessarily horizontal and non-hierarchical, since eco-solidarity is the practice of mutual aid between free and equal beings, who, in addition to being aware of ecological challenges, act decisively and coherently to face them. 

Eco-solidarity is the true and urgent urgency of humanity; since you will only be able to get out of the ecological impasse in which you find yourself today if you decide to practice it and maintain the bridges between today, yesterday and the day before yesterday to continue to create humanity.

This is why today’s anarchism must be resolute in its eco-solidarity.

At no other time in history has collapse posed such a global threat as it does today. It concerns all human beings. We must all be aware of it and respond accordingly by changing the behaviour that is leading us to it. But, as Chomsky said in 2022, “despite a broad understanding of what steps can reasonably be taken to avert the impending disaster and move toward a better world, there is no major change, and the short-term interests of governments and corporations predominate”. We cannot therefore “trust the power structures and what they will do unless an informed public prefers survival to the short-term profit of the “masters of the universe” and applies pressure”.

Hence the need and urgency to continue raising ecological awareness and to continue building autonomy in the face of the global crisis.