Eco-socialism or eco-capitalism?

Saral Sarhar, Zed Books, 296 pages, hardback £45.00, paperback £15.99

The author begins by discussing why the Soviet bureaucratic model of socialism failed, and argues that the basic cause was that it ran up against environmental and resource limits to growth quite early. He then maintains that our present free-market capitalist economy will eventually suffer a similar fate, because it has a compulsive orientation towards growth inherent in its logic. There is also in its logic no place for justice, equality, solidarity or morality. Only under socialism with public ownership of natural resources and means of production, together with democratic planning, would it be possible to have a peaceful transition to an ecological economy.

The book argues that to achieve sustainability industrialised economies must contract, accepting a lower standard of living (but not of happiness) than today. The retreat must be planned and could not be done without equality. A moral economy and society is also necessary to achieve sustainability. For all these reasons, forms of eco-socialism are needed by all peoples in the world, both in the South and in the North.

This book is well argued throughout and needs to be considered seriously by all those who think that a sustainable capitalism is possible, even though the author's brand of eco-socialism may be felt to be too austere.