Editor's Note: David Schwartzman — advocate of solar communism, DC statehood, and a million social justice causes in-between — died on July 1, appropriately in the midst of a thunderstorm. (David was proud to tell everyone, everywhere, that he was born nine-months to the day after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad.) This article finished editorial rounds just prior to David's death.
"TO CONFRONT THE CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE SECURITY WE MUST REPLACE CAPITALISM WITH SOCIALISM."
Many on the socialist or communist left share this position, but this is not a strategy; rather a rhetorical goal. The actual struggle for climate security—specifically to still have a chance to avoid much worse climate catastrophes than now witnessed, to fulfill our commitment for a future for all the world’s children—must begin under the present dominant capitalist global system. Author Malcolm Harris’ new book, What’s Left, argues emphatically that, yes, there is an imperative need to map out a strategy to confront the planetary crisis centered on the climate crisis. His very well documented book does just that in a way that should inspire a lot more thinking and concrete action.
Harris argues for a metastrategy, starting with marketcraft (e.g., the Inflation Reduction Act, (IRA), then creating public power (with the Tennessee Valley Authority, the TVA, an historic example) followed by his version of communism (e.g., agroecological coops in Cuba). Harris’ metastrategy happens to be consistent with what I proposed in my 2019 book The Earth is Not for Sale and in the Journal of World Systems Research earlier this year. Realizing this implied progression is contingent on both national and global class struggle guided by an ecosocialist agenda.
Harris defines marketcraft as the political practice of “accomplish[ing] the subordination of the market to society in practice” (p. 35). In this argument, Harris recognizes both the positive and negative impacts of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. But he also includes the important victory in establishing public power through the “Build Public Renewables Act” (BPRA) in New York (p.101–102), which was led by the socialists of the NYC DSA chapter. This is example shows the nonlinearity of the three stages, which are to be taken as a guide to progressively build ecosocialist capacity to challenge the hegemony of capital. Harris emphasizes the critical role of organized labor, with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) history of class solidarity being an instructive example (p.247–248), with pro-union provisions of the IRA being a recent example (p. 245). The potential positive role of green capital is recognized as a counterweight to fossil capital (p. 246) and whose defeat is arguably the critical goal in the near future (something I argued for in my aforementioned Journal of World Systems Research article). As Harris emphasizes, “National marketcraft does not always have a great answer, and there is no such thing as decarbonization in one country” (p. 61). The imperialist world system with its extreme inequalities, in particular the extractivist agenda of green capital, must be challenged in the struggle for climate security, with Harris citing the seminal work of researcher Max Ajl in A People's Green New Deal.
Socialist or Marxist political economy is necessary but not sufficient in itself to advance a vision of 21st Century socialism. This vision must fully engage the natural, physical and informational sciences—in particular, climatology, ecology, biogeochemistry, and thermodynamics—as well as take full account of the wisdom derived from the experience of thousands of years of indigenous peoples’ agriculture and culture. This will inform the technologies of renewable energy, green production, and agroecologies, whose infrastructure are to replace the present unsustainable forms. Especially in the stage of communism, Harris points to indigenous communities as a critically important ally of global organized labor: “Part of this Indigenization of Marxism is the reclamation of an indigenous place in the Eurocentric history of resistance to capitalism and alternative models of communal life.” (p. 151). In the consideration of communist and anarchist resistance (Harris often lumps the two together), he digs into the valuable experiences in Venezuela and Cuba, focusing on agroecologies created by local cooperatives, developing connections between rural producers and urban consumers.
The positive examples coming from China are also discussed starting with a marketcraft approach (p.65) with Belt and Road initiatives, culminating in socialist-oriented development building a “health-enhancing society” (p. 245).
The Green New Deal is mentioned, but its implementation especially in urban communities is not discussed. There is one brief mention of public banking (p. 234), but this initiative for “more socialism, less capitalism” deserves a fuller discussion. For example, in DC, the establishment of a public bank receiving revenue instead of Wall Street banks could significantly promote the creation of social housing (e.g., the DC Public Banking Center).
On p. 73 of Harris’ book, Enrico Mariutti's essay “The Dirty Secret Of The Photovoltaic Industry” is cited uncritically. I challenge Mariutti’s pessimistic assessment on two counts.
First, of course in the current energy regime dominated by fossil fuels, the energy used to create the solar technology will have a significant greenhouse gas footprint. As renewables replace fossil fuels this impact will be reduced as renewable (wind or solar) infrastructure reproduces itself. China is already showing the way forward. Of course, the phaseout of fossil fuels must accelerate globally to have a chance for climate security.
Second, the low Energy Return/Energy Invested ratios (EROI) cited by Mariutti are based on old data. See my challenge in the journal of Capitalism Nature Socialism (Volume 36) on the Energy Return Over Energy Invested (EROI) of Energy Technologies.
In the communism stage, the potential role of a global Subject challenging transnational capital, with coordination by ecosocialist and communist parties should be considered (see my 2022 entry in Science & Society, cowritten with Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro). Wagar’s World Party introduced this role in his science fiction novel A Short History of the Future and my 1992 article on the World Party in the spring issue of Ecosocialist Review. Inspired by Wagar, I wrote the following:
The World Party does not form a separate party opposed to other progressive parties. It has no interests separate and apart from those of humanity as a whole. It does not set up sectarian principles of its own, by which to shape and mold the movement for a sustainable global economy in a healthy planetary environment. The World Party is distinguished from other progressive parties by this only: 1) In the national struggles of progressives in different countries, it points out and brings to the front the common interests of all of humanity, independently of all nationality. 2) In the various stages of development which the struggle for global sustainability has to pass through, it always and everywhere represents the interests of the movement as a whole (after The Communist Manifesto, with apologies to K. Marx and W. Warren Wagar). (Schwartzman, 1992, 5.)
All these initiatives and challenges are profoundly interconnected with defeating the imperial agenda of fossil capital, ending ongoing wars, and moving forward to a demilitarized world.
Climate science should inform our political practice. Therefore, we should not yet accept defeat on the challenge to effectively keep warming at no more than the 1.5 degree C target. The near-term defeat of fossil capital and its political instruments can still avoid dangerous climate tipping points. See my article “Overshoot and the 1.5 degree c. warming target” (Historical Materialism 6, Jan 2025). The Israeli war on the people of Gaza is not mentioned in Harris’ book, but he does recognize this ongoing genocide in his Baffler article review of Abundance which cites my 2011 article, so I quote from my HM blog piece noted above:
In conclusion, meeting the goal of defeating fossil capital requires, in the very near future, organising a transnational movement strong enough to demilitarise the global economy, with the dissolution of the Military Industrial (Fossil Fuels Nuclear State Terror) Complex. This will be a key objective in the implementation of a Global Green New Deal, increasingly guided by an ecosocialist agenda. So little time, such a formidable challenge, but dare to struggle, dare to win!
We owe this commitment to the children of the world. My optimism (or wishful thinking) is informed by the global upsurge of the movement to end Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, with growing ties to the climate justice struggles and organised labour. In 2011, I wrote an article entitled “The Path to Climate Justice Passes through Gaza” [p.38], i.e., climate security for humankind will only be achieved with the end of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, termination of Israeli apartheid regime, and the full realisation of the individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people.” Little did I know then how powerfully this connection would burst into reality.”
Thus, I anticipate an illuminating followup article by Harris that confronts the implications of ongoing wars, now Israel’s conflict with Iran, to his metastrategy presented in this book. The time required to defeat fossil capital is getting shorter every day!
This review was the result of Harris recently highlighting my work in his Baffler article, a review of Abundance. He did not interview me for this article, so I was very pleasantly surprised when it was brought to my attention. We corresponded and he got the publisher to send me his book for review.
Ajl, Max. 2021. A People’s Green New Deal. London: Pluto Press.
Schwartzman, David. 1992. “A World Party. Vehicle of Global Green Left.” Ecosocialist Review, Spring, 4–5.
Schwartzman, David. 2025a: “My Response to Roos and Hornborg’s Reply”, Capitalism Nature Socialism, DOI: 10.1080/10455752.2025.2450211.
Schwartzman, David. 2025b. “A Science-Based Ecosocialist Strategy for Climate Security.” Journal of World Systems Research 30(1): 108-135. https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/view/1323/1668. (Errata link: http://www.theearthisnotforsale.org/errata_dschwartzman_2025.pdf)
Schwartzman, David and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro. 2022. “Prefiguration and the Emergence of the Global Subject.” Science & Society 86(4): 564-583.
Schwartzman, Peter and David Schwartzman. 2019. The Earth is Not for Sale: A Path Out of Fossil Capitalism to the Other World That is Still Possible, Singapore: World Scientific.
Wagar, W. Warren. 1989. A Short History of the Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wagar, W. Warren. 2001. Memoirs of the Future. Global Academic Publishing: SUNY Press.
