Michael Albert: A Realist's Eco-Socialism
Introduction
In recent years, as an increasing number of activists and scholars view global capitalism and its hybrid growth dynamics as the primary culprit behind the climate crisis, the conceptual landscape of post-capitalist alternatives has deepened. Among these, ecosocialism stands as one of the most significant alternative visions, having evolved into a global movement challenging the hegemonic project of "green capitalism." Ecosocialism comprises multiple branches: some integrate with movements such as "degrowth," ecofeminism, and post-development—which challenge modern progressivist ideologies—advocating for a comprehensive alternative centered on care and conviviality; others embrace a political outlook closer to modernism, aiming to construct a more just and ecologically rational high-tech political economy; still others fall somewhere in between. These movements are essentially committed to promoting a transition from capitalism to ecosocialism through the democratic management of the productive forces, the subordination of markets to more ecologically rational planning, and the prioritization of social use-value and ecocentric production over private interest.
Ecosocialists have demonstrated that capitalism cannot resolve the climate crisis or the broader global systemic crisis in a truly sustainable (let alone just) manner. On the whole, however, ecosocialists have devoted insufficient energy to questions of how the ecosocialist transition might be achieved, what challenges, trade-offs, and risks might be faced, and how ecosocialists and their allies can formulate optimal response strategies. To be sure, many ecosocialists have carried out important work in addressing such questions, and their analyses form the basis of this article. The author contends that ecosocialist theory and practice remain constrained by two problematic tendencies: first, an "abstract utopian" tendency that depicts idealized ecosocialist prospects without thinking deeply about how they emerge; and second, a tendency to overlook the trade-offs and dangers that an ecosocialist polity might face in practice and how to resolve them through deliberation. Contemporary ecosocialists are frequently criticized for this, with critics often invoking Marx and Engels’ critique of utopian socialism to argue that ecosocialists put forward ideals without systematically analyzing the material conditions and dynamics required to turn these ideals into reality. The author advocates for the adoption of a "realist utopian" path. This approach focuses more systematically on the possible forms ecosocialism might take in the future, particularly the roads toward these forms, the conditions for realizing them in countries at the core of the world-system, and the dangers that the ecosocialist movement must anticipate and address in advance.
The Concept of Ecosocialism
Ecosocialist thought is loose and diverse, with no single way to define it. However, it is clear that various schools of ecosocialism likely share the following three principles: first, the priority of use-value over exchange value; second, the shaping and constraining of markets through collective ownership and planning; and third, the "contraction and convergence" of consumption levels between the Global North and the Global South.
First, ecosocialism expects to abolish the capitalist "law of value" or subordinate it to socially determined standards of use-value. Michael Löwy argues that it "seeks to subordinate exchange value to use-value by organizing production as a function of social needs and environmental protection requirements." In this sense, ecosocialist economic agents prioritize and invest in labor, enterprises, and infrastructure projects that are socially useful and conducive to ecological regeneration, regardless of whether they are profitable for capitalists. Ecofeminists emphasize that this would be an economy centered on care and reproductive labor, encompassing ecosystem restoration, education, childcare, eldercare, and other forms of work that help reconstitute healthy communities and ecologies, while simultaneously abolishing the male-dominated division of labor prevalent in contemporary capitalist society.
Second, ecosocialists favor collective ownership of the productive forces and a new type of planning organized for collective purposes. John Bellamy Foster and others depict this as "the rational regulation by the associated producers of the metabolism between humanity and nature based on the needs of themselves and future generations." Many ecosocialists emphasize that planning does not necessarily mean the elimination of markets, provided that markets are constrained by a dominant public sector, the nationalization of large corporations is promoted, and the labor market is abolished (or at least radically transformed). Ecosocialists place greater emphasis on planning; as Richard Smith writes, to justly and effectively redistribute labor and resources to meet human needs while rapidly reducing the pressure on the Earth's carrying capacity, what is required is "a comprehensive global plan, several national or regional plans, and a multitude of local plans." Sam Gindin argues that the primary task is to discover "creative mechanisms for arranging the appropriate place for planning and market systems," rather than simply eliminating markets.
Finally, ecosocialists maintain that planning must be committed to reducing material and energy consumption in the "over-developed" regions of the Global North, while redistributing financial and material resources to the Global South. This controversial principle constitutes a key distinction between ecosocialism and "growth-oriented" socialism. However, calling for "degrowth" in over-developed regions does not mean that living standards must decline. How much the material and energy throughput of wealthy countries should be reduced, and whether global material and energy throughput should decrease or increase, are more contentious issues.
Beyond Utopian Ecosocialism
Ecosocialists’ critiques of capitalism and the systemic alternative principles they provide are compelling. However, research remains insufficient on how ecosocialism emerges and what major challenges it will face.
Many ecosocialists are content to remain at the level of general principles. For example, Smith envisions a future ecosocialist world where democratically managed planning led by workers creates a "relocalized" economy; all polluting industries—from aircraft and automobile manufacturing to shipping, chemicals, and luxury goods—are shut down; the state complex of the military, prisons, and police is discarded; and balanced development between the Global North and the Global South is achieved. They remain at the level of "abstract" utopianism, putting forward thought-provoking but overly advanced claims without a systematic analysis of how to achieve these goals. Formulating a reasonable evolutionary (or revolutionary) program capable of guiding concrete practice is one of the primary tasks facing ecosocialists. This requires more careful consideration to avoid acting rashly in the absence of an understanding of current trends. Those ecosocialists who emphasize the strategic value of "Green New Deal" strategies view them as an effective transitional platform and a near-term achievable goal that may create long-term conditions for a more thorough ecosocialist transition. But they do not explain how we transition from a "Green New Deal" to ecosocialism; it is entirely possible that by responding to green demands through red-green advocacy, redistribution, and accelerated climate action, the "Green New Deal" could become a mechanism for stabilizing global capitalism. Therefore, how to prevent climate change from spiraling out of control within a predetermined timetable while building ecosocialism requires more careful reflection.
This leads to a second related trend: the neglect of strategic questions and the trade-offs and dangers that may arise during and after the ecosocialist transition process. Most ecosocialists ignore such issues entirely, while others handle them lukewarmly. For instance, while Löwy has performed high-quality research in detailing ecosocialist alternatives, he fails to consider the trade-offs that may exist in calling for "democratically managed planning" while emphasizing that consumption must be limited to the biosphere’s carrying capacity. Given the irreconcilability of energy- and emission-intensive consumption practices—especially against the backdrop of the rise of right-wing populism and "fossil fascism" [1]—we should unequivocally strive to overcome the risk of state coercive power required to implement ecosocialist "degrowth" in wealthy countries. On the other hand, if we choose to follow the guidance of democratic will, even if it demands the continuation or expansion of material- and energy-intensive lifestyles, we must manage the impact on the biosphere. Are there trade-offs between the "degrowth" and "non-degrowth" paths to ecosocialism? Does each path have its own challenges and dangers? Ecosocialists have not systematically explored such questions.
In this sense, we can follow the example of Gindin and Erik Olin Wright to develop a "realist" or "realist utopian" path to ecosocialism. This path combines rigorous social and ecological analysis with speculative imagination to study the constraints this utopia might face, how to overcome them, and the challenges, tensions, trade-offs, and dilemmas it might encounter even in the best-case scenario. No one has ever claimed to have all the answers to these questions; given that the future we face is inherently uncertain, "realist" claims are always subject to questioning. Despite the difficulty of exploring realist models of the future and theories of systemic change, we should not ignore their importance but face them with as much rigor as possible.
A Program for Ecosocialist Transition: The Green New Deal and Beyond
Participating in the movements emerging around the "Green New Deal" is one way some ecosocialists envision the transition to ecosocialism. In different nation-state contexts, various Green New Deals are popular, ranging from centrist to radical-left versions. All versions of the Green New Deal look to arrange state-led investment to strengthen "green" technology R&D and create "green jobs" in all economic sectors. The primary differences between centrists and radicals center on the amount of government spending, whether to rely on market mechanisms or legislation to eliminate fossil fuels, and the presence or absence of ambitious social equity and justice goals. Ecosocialist participation in the Green New Deal is often criticized by some, while others justly view it as a promising transitional project capable of rapidly reducing emissions and building a long-term foundation for post-capitalist transformation. Some defend it by arguing that the Green New Deal will lead to a continuation of depression and crisis in global capitalism. Eco-Marxists and proponents of "degrowth" frequently emphasize the critical role of crisis in creating opportunities for systemic change, but they have not systematically focused on how crises will unfold in the coming decades—particularly what kind of crisis might interrupt a growth-based Green New Deal, bringing challenges while providing opportunities for the red-green movement. There are at least three reasons why a Green New Deal would not, in fact, stabilize global capitalism through a new accumulation regime, but would instead be replaced by a period of political-economic upheaval that creates opportunities for post-capitalist transformation.
First is the issue energy scholars call "declining Net Energy." As we increasingly pivot toward renewable energy sources with lower Energy Return on Investment (EROI) [2], collecting and storing these diffuse energy sources will require higher energy expenditures. This implies that, overall, less energy will be available to the global economy. Much will depend on the pace of technological progress. Contrary to the views of "techno-optimists" such as David Schwartzman, there are four reasons why the EROI of renewables might actually decline over time. First, large-scale storage itself adds energy costs. Second, as the optimal sites for solar and wind farms are exhausted, it becomes necessary to move to more dispersed locations and/or construct long-distance smart grids. Third, there is the need to reconstruct a system where "renewables are produced and transmitted by renewables," rather than being "subsidized" by fossil fuels with relatively high EROI. Fourth, the per-unit metal consumption of renewable resources is high compared to fossil fuels, requiring a significant increase in energy-intensive extraction to provide minerals for the energy transition. Even if technological breakthroughs improve the EROI of renewables over time, dynamic EROI suggests that the net energy available to non-energy economic sectors will inevitably decrease in the early stages of transition due to increased upfront energy and mineral demands. This would make any Green New Deal (GND) regime prone to driving up energy prices, leading to mineral bottlenecks and widespread economic inflation (facetiously dubbed "greenflation"). The combination of declining EROI for fossil fuels and limited progress in "next-generation energy" like nuclear and hydrogen could doom a growth-based GND to depression; only a technological breakthrough might allow global capital to overcome these limitations.
Second, the promise of "green jobs" risks being overhyped—a situation likely to emerge after the initial great success of government-led employment provision. Once solar and wind farms are installed, residences and buildings retrofitted, and new public transmission systems are in place, will there still be sufficient opportunities for paid labor? Kate Aronoff and others have realized: "Building solar panels and wind turbines is a transition strategy, not a new economic model. We cannot simply increase 'green' tech production indefinitely." Optimistic views on "green jobs" focus too much on net gains within the energy sector and may overlook the disruption rapid decarbonization causes in other economic sectors. In a more moderate, less disruptive GND, the problem might be minor, though the trend toward automation in solar and wind industries could also constrain green employment.
Third, the GND risks aggravating the private and public debt burdens currently plaguing global capitalism without bringing about the necessary growth to sustain them. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, private and public debt had already reached record levels; following the pandemic, total debt levels in wealthy countries were projected to be as high as 432% of GDP. While the "mountain" of consumer and corporate debt has a more immediate impact on financial stability, sovereign debt—which can theoretically accumulate indefinitely—is also a cause for concern if future conditions change. Therefore, fiscal expansion to create jobs and accelerate the renewable energy transition is absolutely necessary in the short term. However, the view endorsed by centrist and left-wing GND proposals—that "in the long run, it will have a positive impact on economic growth"—may be built on unrealistic expectations regarding future inflation. Conversely, if a decrease in net energy constrains productivity gains and raises food and energy costs across the economy, state spending may fail to promote a corresponding expansion in aggregate demand, economic growth, and tax revenue. Furthermore, the global financial system will face greater "physical" and "transition" risks in the coming decades. On one hand are the extreme weather, food shortages, and supply chain disruptions caused by climate change; on the other is the "carbon bubble" [3] that emerges after halting fossil fuels. At that point, a confluence of stagnant productivity, inflationary shocks, and financial system risks may constrain the GND. In such a scenario, fiscal multipliers will be difficult to achieve, setting the stage for long-term "stagflation."
In short, the GND may merely be a "temporary waystation before a fork of two alternative tracks": one leading toward greater nationalization of banks and key industries, capital controls, redistribution, rationing, job guarantees, and work-sharing to rapidly reduce emissions while ensuring basic needs are met; or a retreat into right-wing "growth at all costs," leaving everyone racing toward ecological collapse. Thus, using the GND of developed Western countries to reform global capitalism—wherein depressions, crises, energy and mineral constraints, and the continuous strengthening of Red-Green movements force governments to socialize production and distribution while reducing material-energy throughput—might unexpectedly lead to the partial realization of ecosocialist "degrowth." Proponents of "degrowth" often distinguish between "voluntary" and "involuntary" degrowth; while necessary to some extent, this can be misleading. In the best-case scenario, it could become an adaptive response to crisis—partly voluntary, partly coerced—that improves collective well-being by guaranteeing economic security for all.
Collective right-wing opposition to this proposal is obvious and likely to form a strategic challenge now and in the near future. Briefly, we must fight to realize the GND in developed Western countries as soon as possible, while simultaneously preparing for the turbulence of the GND and formulating strategies around how to push the "fork" toward more radical ecosocialist principles. In the near term, this requires careful reflection on narrative strategies surrounding the GND: specifically, how to balance improving public support for the GND against the consumption cuts the GND may entail.
The next challenge lies in how to defeat the narrative accusing environmentalists of "implementing a strategy to kill the economy" by promoting a narrative that "the solution is an immediate and total end to the dependence on growth and the creation of a fairer post-capitalist economy."
There is no clear answer other than the need to commit to the long-term process of organizing mass movements and struggles in the political, economic, cultural, and public discourse spheres. The primary task is to form a stronger and more coherent Red-Green alliance to win climate goals that improve people's lives. The secondary task is to shift the GND narrative from the view that it "must bring more growth" toward a different understanding of prosperity and well-being. Therefore, the view of "degrowth" critics like Matt Huber and Robert Pollin—that "we must promise more to win over the working class"—is understandable, but it not only selectively ignores the political difficulties caused by ecological limits, it is itself a proposal with strategic risks. In an era of mixed climate, political-economic, energy, and food crises, growth—while not impossible—is very likely unachievable.
Trade-offs and Managing Risk
The scenario outlined above brings into sharp relief the view that an ecosocialist degrowth transition is most likely to occur against a backdrop of deepening political-economic crisis, expanding climate turbulence, and deteriorating security for the majority. Even in the best-case scenario, a powerful Red-Green movement making trade-offs between capital and power to elect a left-wing party following an ecosocialist program might lead to an ecosocialist regime that institutionalizes a "state of emergency." This is one of the primary challenges facing the transition to ecosocialism.
Quincy Saul and Andreas Malm are among the few ecosocialists to confront this issue directly. Saul argues that "when the expropriators are expropriated, 'emergency rule' must be transformed to fit the requirements of the 21st century; it cannot be discarded or concealed." Malm suggests a transition on the required timeline necessitates:
Wartime management of all industries... centralized decisions on who can consume how much of what goods, punishing violators who jeopardize annual emission targets... [it] can only work under an extraordinary regime responding to an unheard-of emergency.
In other words, against the backdrop of an unprecedented climate-energy-economic crisis, a democratically elected ecosocialist polity might forcibly implement carbon rationing, drive rapid and extensive transformations in land use, break the deadlocks of dysfunctional and polarized legislatures, and defend against the violence and sabotage of capitalist elites and the far-right. Worsening climate and political-economic crises are likely to reinforce ethno-nationalist reactions and political polarization, which exacerbates these risks. Malm and others argue that "the higher the temperature, the sharper the antagonism becomes between a Left ready to take up arms to mitigate the crisis and a Right that, for that very reason, refuses to consider such means." Furthermore, given that a transition to ecosocialism would place most of the bourgeoisie in a "fatal situation," they are likely to ally with the far-right to terminate such a transition and restore bourgeois power "by any means necessary." Therefore, even in the best-case scenario where ecosocialists achieve power in core states, a situation where the far-right joins with global capital in fierce resistance is certain to arise. Such resistance, while not limited to the United States, is particularly severe there.
How to respond to these challenges? On one hand, ecosocialists should more systematically analyze the domestic and international threats a transition-period ecosocialism will face and devise countermeasures, rather than fantasizing about a smooth democratic transition to ecosocialist "degrowth" or avoiding the difficulties and problems of the transition period. On the other hand, if coercive measures are indeed necessary to defend ecosocialism during the transition, strategies must be envisioned to help the ecosocialist polity move past the "emergency" phase and create long-term conditions for "expanding people's democratic oversight of the state and society," rather than irreversibly institutionalizing the state of emergency.
Trade-offs may therefore be unavoidable. Is it better to push wealthy countries onto a "degrowth" path, or to advocate for a GND or growth-oriented socialist politics? Ecosocialists and "degrowth" proponents, along with GND advocates or traditional socialists who ignore ecological risks and other issues, have not systematically reflected on these questions.
Researchers inclined toward the latter path, or who at least consider it more realistic, firmly believe in a large-scale push for the research and development of "negative emissions technologies." For instance, numerous models confirm that as long as we continue on an economic growth path, this is essentially the fastest rate of emission reduction we can expect. In this scenario, to have a chance of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, it is necessary to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 5 to 10 billion tons. This requires the construction of approximately 15,000 carbon sequestration and direct air capture facilities—meaning about 500 should be built each year for the next 30 years. The scale of afforestation and bioenergy crops used for carbon fixation could be "two to three times the land area of India," bringing about issues such as "land use efficiency, competition with food production, carbon neutrality vs. biodiversity loss," not to mention carbon colonialism. A slower emissions reduction path might force a temporary breach of the 2-degree Celsius warming target; thus, when emissions are brought to zero, it might require solar geoengineering to delay positive feedbacks—a scenario often called "peak shaving." This is clearly not an ideal plan. The potential of the "degrowth" perspective lies in the fact that it does not rely on these assumptions and potentially dangerous technologies to prevent climate catastrophe. But if an ecosocialist "degrowth" transition does not begin soon, and emissions are reduced only within the context of maintaining an economic growth path, then we must imagine a transition that, later this century, relies on risky climate engineering interventions to move toward ecosocialism.
Under these circumstances, Green New Deal capitalism would not lead to depression and crisis, but rather to a breach of the 2°C warming limit. A widespread realization of the futility of the Green Capitalist path, coupled with worsening climate chaos and an bolstered "red-green" movement, makes a series of revolutions and democratic transitions following ecosocialist principles possible in the advanced Western nations later this century. This would require global cooperation to scale up the use of negative emissions technologies, reforestation, a global transition to carbon-sequestering agriculture, collective regulation of solar geoengineering, and the fortuitous avoidance of climate tipping points [4]. However, even if this scenario were to materialize, it involves "such a complex 'orchestration' and requires so much luck" that "one finds it to be an impractical utopian dream." This is because insecurity would be amplified by the climate chaos following a 2°C rise in temperature, intensifying calls for emergency management. Meanwhile, the national and international agencies responsible for implementing solar geoengineering would find themselves in a position of supreme power: all of humanity would depend on them to maintain the project to avoid a catastrophic "termination shock." Furthermore, the International Energy Agency estimates that achieving net-zero targets by mid-century implies a continuous increase in demand for lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, and rare earths—with demand in 2050 reaching 42, 25, 21, 19, and 7 times current levels, respectively. Undoubtedly, this will have a devastating impact on land, water, and biodiversity, exacerbating global extractivist conflicts. Ecosocialist regimes will thus be forced to choose between respecting the autonomy of indigenous and rural communal societies in the extractive peripheries and the inability to obtain critical minerals, or adopting neo-imperialist strategies to ensure their "green" infrastructure needs are met. "Degrowth" critics must honestly confront these questions: whether and how non-degrowth ecosocialist states can avoid or at least mitigate these dangers.
In summary, we can infer that at least two distinct forms of ecosocialism could achieve "equilibrium" within the possible space of the future: one is an ecosocialist "degrowth" emerging from the Green New Deal crisis in the relatively near term (between 2030 and 2050); the other is a longer-term ecosocialist transition (between 2050 and 2080), the latter involving mandatory, rapid, and large-scale use of negative emissions technologies, collective management of solar geoengineering, and intensified extractivist conflicts. Undoubtedly, there are many more risks that ecosocialists must overcome. A key task of the "realistic utopia" path is to bring these thorny issues to the surface so that ecosocialists and their allies can clarify strategically how to find practical solutions for them.
Conclusion
Moving beyond simply criticizing capitalism from an ecological perspective or developing utopian narratives, this article calls for ecosocialists and their allies to direct more intellectual energy toward strategic questions regarding the ecosocialist transition. This is not to discount the value of the utopian imagination, but rather to pay greater attention to strategic issues.
Ecosocialists may dislike asking these questions because they repeatedly emphasize the scale of the problems they face and dampen hopes for radical change. However, a more prudent or "realistic utopianism" looks directly at potential risks and emphasizes the limits of what the ecosocialist movement can achieve even under the most ideal circumstances; this may better inspire belief in the possibility of moving toward a new world. We may find it difficult to realize utopian ideals, but we will witness massive changes in one way or another in the coming decades, and conditions will ripen for anti-capitalist movements to increase their membership and organizational strength. It is therefore necessary to anticipate how systemic constraints will evolve in the coming decades so that ecosocialists can formulate strategies accordingly. If we truly believe that ecosocialists and their allies will one day hold state power, then it is necessary to prospectively anticipate and investigate these issues.
( About the Authors: Author: Michael Albert, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London; Translators/Editors: Jin Chengwei, First Research Department of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee; Liu Yu, Institute of Contemporary Socialism, Shandong University )
Web Editor: Tong Xin Source: Foreign Theoretical Trends (Guowai Lilun Dongtai), Issue 2, 2024. Originally published in Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2023, under the title "Ecosocialism for Realists." The translated version has been abridged.