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Close Hazelwood justly

category indonesia / philippines / australia | environment | opinion / analysis author Friday July 10, 2015 20:19author by MACG - Anarkismoauthor address PO Box 5108 Brunswick North VIC 3056, Australia Report this post to the editors

And so the question arises – who can abolish capitalism and how can we manage to do it? Again we say the only way to abolish capitalism is through workers’ revolution. By organising in the workplace and taking control out of the hands of the capitalists we can stop the capitalists destroying the environment and begin active reconstruction of economic processes. We can use the campaign to close Hazelwood to open discussion with workers who want to save the planet, but don’t want to become human sacrifi ces in the process.
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Now that the East-West Link has been put to bed by the new Labor Government in Victoria, the mainstream environment movement is turning its attention to climate change. In particular, it seeks to achieve something practical by closing Hazelwood power station, the most intensive greenhouse gas polluter in Australia. It’s a worthy objective, but the means used will be crucial to prospects of achieving continuing and timely climate change mitigation in Australia. And given Australia’s position as the most greenhouse gas intensive society in the developed world, failure here would be a setback for prospects globally.

The Old Divide and Rule

Under capitalism, capitalists not only exploit their employees and despoil theenvironment in the pursuit of profi ts, but they exercise control over investment decisions. Capitalists decide what gets produced, how it is produced and whereabouts it is produced. They decide this, of course, on the basis of what is most likely to produce a good return on investment. Even those few capitalists who take account of social or environmental criteria necessarily give overriding priority to making a profi t. If they don’t, they go broke.

When the interests of profi t confl ict with the interests of the environment, the capitalists’ fi rst response is the old divide and rule. Workers in environmentally destructive enterprises are put in the position of defending their livelihoods by defending their bosses’ environmental vandalism. The bosses cry crocodile tears over the prospects of unemployment for their workers and, in large scale cases, the destruction of communities (needless to say, there is a different tune played when these same bosses axe jobs toincrease their profi ts). Capitalist control of the economy pits the short term interests of workers against the environment, to the political benefi t of the capitalists.

The Biggest Climate Vandal

Hazelwood power station in the La Trobe Valley is the biggest threat to the climate in Australia today and its closure is a burning necessity. Effective mitigation of greenhouse emissions in Australia can’t be done otherwise. The current owners, International Power, have been responsible for emitting 16m tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually for 19 years, while they made large profi ts every year. Given that the dangers of climate change were known well before they bought Hazelwood, International Power shouldn’t be compensated – they should be prosecuted.

A Just Transition

There is a conflict between society’s need to avert dangerous climate change and the workers’ need to protect their livelihoods in their Latrobe Valley communities. It can only be resolved in favour of both if it is resolved to the detriment of capital. Only by ripping the economic resources of society out of the hands of the capitalists can communities dependent on environmentally unsustainable activities re-orient to sustainable ones. In the case of Hazelwood, this would mean the confi scation of International Power’s assets in order to fund a just transition. To fund such a transition for the entire Australian economy, however, would require the assets of most of corporate
Australia. We’re effectively asking for the abolition of capitalism.

And so the question arises – who can abolish capitalism and how can we manage to do it? Again we say the only way to abolish capitalism is through workers’ revolution. By organising in the workplace and taking control out of the hands of the capitalists we can stop the capitalists destroying the environment and begin active reconstruction of economic processes. We can use the campaign to close Hazelwood to open discussion with workers who want to save the planet, but don’t want to become human sacrifi ces in the process.

*Article of the latest issue of “The Anvil”, newsletter of Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG). You can download the issue (and all the back issues) from here http://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/

Verwandter Link: http://melbacg.wordpress.com

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textNuclear Waste Dump one step closer for Australia 07:47 Mon 07 Nov by Takver and Alice Action 0 comments

Published in Melbourne Indymedia 3 November 2005

imageEastern Australia on fire Dec 25 by Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG) 0 comments

The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group believes that the School Strike for Climate movement has great potential and that it should be joined wholeheartedly by the unions. School strikes should be turned into workers’ strikes. In Australia, the next global school strike day should be the occasion for mass co-ordinated strikes by workers from as many industries as possible, with the aim of building towards a general strike. The power of capital arises in the workplace and it is only by organising there that workers can wrench that power away from the capitalists and wield it themselves.

imageHow not to tackle climate change Dec 12 by MACG 0 comments

We are talking about a revolution in order to save the planet from runaway climate change and prevent the destruction of technically advanced society. Once we have the power to implement the environmental policies that are scientifically necessary, however, we will have the entire political power in our hands. There will be no reason to hand power back to the capitalists after saving the planet and nothing to stop us abolishing capitalism altogether.

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