Frank Rotering

“You say things are happening … give me an example. Numerous organizations are doing lots of great work – permaculture, relocalization, etc. This is wonderful, and I’m involved in it. But everything measurable is going the wrong way. So whatever we’re doing is not working. … Unless all this community work is linked with a broader political struggle, we’re not really going to get anywhere.”

In order for humankind to resolve its ecological predicament, capitalism must be historically superseded. People who are aware of the system’s growth compulsion and the environmental destruction that results may well suspect that this statement is true. But carrying this train of thought forward is difficult. Why? Because currently the only well-known model for moving beyond capitalism is that of the socialist tradition. This model, however, arose in the context of class struggles rather than overshoot, and in my view it incorporates several grave errors. I therefore believe that an alternative model for the post-capitalist transition must be developed.

In 1989, while attending a rally to save an old-growth forest from the corporate saw, I heard David Suzuki thunderously denounce the world’s economists for their stupidity. He accused them of encouraging economic growth while ignoring ecological limits, thus causing irreversible damage to the environment. I soon put my career on hold, returned to university, and began to study this apparently destructive discipline. My journey to the revolutionary barricades had begun.