Capital & Class 1996 Strange 81 102

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In this article GerardStrange examinesGorzs development

of political ecologyaround the notionsof self-limitation andautonomy. Whileendorsing hishumanist articulationof political ecology,Strange criticisesGorzs advocacy ofwhat is identified as

a productivist modelof transition fromcapitalism to post-industrial socialism.The productivistmodel is contradic-tory since it breakswith the Greenimperative and alien-ates increasinglyimportant non-

productivist interestsand the new socialmovements.

Gerard Strange

Which Path to Paradise?Andre Gorz, Political Ecology

and the Green Movement

Andre Gorz has gained a reputation in the labour movementas something of a heretic. His early work, as Sayers (1991) haspointed out, challenged the then dominant socialist thinking on

the efficacy of full employment, pointing instead to thedisadvantages of full employment policy and the work ethic interms of lost human freedom and autonomy as well as in relationto nature and the destruction of the environment. Gorzs emphasison the notion of liberation fromrather than throughwork wasalways presented dialectically and in the context of other socialpolicy imperatives, such as a basic non-work income, but for hiscritics Gorzs suggestion almost seemed to be that people should

welcome unemployment(Sayers 1991: 16). Gorzs rejection of theclassical Marxist analysis of class in Farewell to the Working Class(1982) helped to confirm his reputation as a heretic. Gorz arguedthat the form and direction of capital accumulation and the classstruggle had so distorted working class consciousness thatliberation and autonomy were no longer core proletarian values(Whitbread 1985: 129). Gorz developed a critique of the Marxistnotion of the organised working class as the revolutionary agent,arguing that the politics of social change had grown in complexity

with the development of accumulation and with changing classand social structure. This had led to the emergence of a newhistorical subjectprovocatively labelled by Gorz the non-class of

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82 Capital & Class59

post-industrial proletarians(Gorz 1982: 6674). Critics, such asHyman (1983: 2868) and Byrne (1984), interpreted Gorzsanalysis as a dismissal of traditional working class politics,organisation and aspirations, although Gorz later insisted that this

had not been his intention and that his purpose had been toreconceptualise the role of traditional working class organisationin terms of broader, more universal, interests and demands.

Yet such critical labour movement responses to Gorz havenever been universal. Others on the left have been much moreappreciative of his work, recognising that it builds on alternativeleft traditions, mainly originating in continental and Mediter-ranean Europe, which have grown in popularity and relevance inrecent years. The greater currency Gorzs work and ideas have

begun to enjoy on the left is also, no-doubt, a consequence of thecrises encountered by more traditionally dominant socialismsfollowing the collapse of Soviet and Eastern bloc Communismand the marginalisation of social democratic state forms in

Western Capitalism. These developments have helped to facilitatea re-evaluation of Marxism which has led among other thingsto a rediscovery of the humanist and existentialist traditions, of

which Gorz has long been a leading exponent (Shorthose 1994;Lodziak 1995; Maycroft 1996). Gorzs work has thus been highly

important in sustaining and developing in practical ways a Marxisttradition which, though marginalised in many ways in the decadesafter the second world war, has arguably proved to be morelastingly relevant than other Marxist traditions.

Perhaps the main reason for the growing recognition andinfluence of Gorzs work among socialists has been its practicaland political relevance. The relevance of Gorzs work has beenmost marked, for socialists, in relation to understanding the un-employment crisis which has proved to be a permanent feature ofmost advanced capitalist nations since the mid 1970s and whichin recent years has begun to look dangerously unmanageable.Gorzs work, which has consistently emphasised the need todemocratically redistribute the declining amount of necessary

working time, so as to secure the dual objectives of social inclusionand the extension of autonomy, offers a novel and progressivesolution to the unemployment crisis which governments andother corporate actors of both left and right, notably in Europe,

have begun to take seriously.It is not surprising that Gorzs work has also been significant ininforming the theoretical and practical discourses of the Green


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Which Path to Paradise? 83

movement and political ecology. Indeed it is arguably withinpolitical ecology that Gorzs most theoretically coherent anddistinctive contributions can be located. Central to Gorzs effortsin this respect has been the attempt to utilise principles drawn

from a humanist Marxism for an articulation of a radical ecologybased, ultimately, on self-limitation. As Finn Bowring has noted,Gorzs main concern in recent years has been to show that thedefence of nature and the defence of human autonomy against theever greater encroachments of economic, or capitalist, rationalityare inextricably linked (Bowring 1995: 68). Yet Gorzs continuingdesire to distance himself from the Green movement, a desire thathas been reciprocated by some leading left Greens (Dobson 1990;Lipietz 1995) provides an important indication of the controversial

nature of Gorzs contributions to political ecology.The main purpose of this article is to offer a review and critical

appraisal of some of the key aspects of Andre Gorzs contributionto left thinking in political ecology. The article divides into threeparts. The first part begins by examining the distinction drawn byGorz between environmentalism and political ecology; it then goeson to explore the relationship between political ecology andhumanist socialism and the importance Gorz attaches to theprinciple of self-limitation in determining a humanist model of

sustainable development. The second part of the article looks atGorzs relationship to the Green movement. This part of theanalysis is structured around an examination of two alternativemodels of transition from capitalism to post-industrial socialismpresented by Gorz in his recent book Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology(1994). Despite his commitment to ecology, Gorz adopts aproductivist model of transition in preference to the zero/negativegrowth models of the Green movement. Gorzs specification of andpreference for the productivist model is explored in some detail.This section concludes by considering the alternative transitionarymodel rejected by Gorz and developed most comprehensively by

Alain Lipietz and the French Green Party. Finally, the third partof the article provides a critical analysis of Gorzs assessment of thepolitical constraints faced by the transition from capitalism to post-industrial socialism. It is argued that Gorzs negative account of thepolitical feasibility of the Green model of transition is over-pessimistic. Gorzs subsequent adoption of the productivist model

creates a contradiction in his work between its commitment toproductivism and its commitment to ecology and sustainabledevelopment.


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I. ENVIRONMENTALISM ANDPOLITICALECOLOGY

Gorzs work makes a fundamental distinction betweenenvironmentalism and political ecology (Gorz 1993; 1994: 945).

Environmentalism or scientific ecologyhas sought to address therelationship between the growth of material output and theexploitation of material resources under industrialisation and thedestruction of the natural environment. The main objective ofenvironmentalism has been to persuade governments and othergroups in positions of power of the need to arrest or at least limitecological destruction by introducing policies which place quantit-ative and qualitative constraints and regulations on materialproduction and consumption. In Ecology as Politics(1980),1 Gorz

criticises environmentalism for not distinguishing sufficientlybetween industrialisation as a general mode of resource utilisationand the historically specific dynamics of industrialisation undercapitalism. The consequence, Gorz argues, is that environmental-ism fails to either historicise or politicise adequately the process ofenvironmental destruction. In particular, it fails to identifydestructive patterns of resource exploitation with the historicalprocess of capitalist development and a specific logic of materialgrowth rooted in the requirements of capital accumulation.

For this reason environmentalism tends to be underdevelopedpolitically. In terms of environmental policy environmentalismrecommends that technical constraints should be placed on thesystem of production and that the behaviour of individuals andgroups should be subject to abstract controls and manipulation

what Gorz describes as fiscal and monetary hetero-regulation(Gorz 1993: 56) to ensure that production, consumption andsocial action is made consistent with the ecological imperative.

Gorz argues that while such regulations have the effect of alteringthe environment in which capital accumulation takes place they donot alter the consciousness of individuals and groups subject tohetero-regulation or fundamentally challenge or transcend theparadigm of accumulation (Gorz 1994: 945). For Gorz thisindicates the contradictions and limits of environmentalism aspolitics. Capitalism is able to adapt to, and turn to its own advantageby commercialisation, the regulations and constraints on productionand consumption required by stricter environmental standards. But

the general consequence of such regulations will be higher costs andprices and subsequently growing material inequalities. Underenvironmentalism, Gorz argues, groups of commodities and patterns


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of consumption which were once available to all at low pricesbecome high cost, high price, luxury products whose consumption,by definition, is restricted to a social elite (Gorz 1994: 94).Environmentalism therefore reverses the trend towards the

democratisation of consumption strictly limited and contradictorythough this was achieved under affluent society, and raisesinstead the spectre of what Gorz has termed eco-fascism(Gorz1980 [1974]: 39, [1973]: 7791; 1993: 59). By this Gorz meansthe totalising expansion of bureaucratic control into the sphere ofconsumption where previously a modicum of democratic choiceand individual autonomy remained.

In contrast to environmentalism, political ecology begins byidentifying the ecological crisis with the historical development of

capitalism and the logic and requirements of capital accumulation.Gorz argues that tendencies leading towards unsustainabledevelopment and the destruction of the environment can be bestunderstood historically, in terms of the responses of multinationalmonopoly capital to overaccumulation crises (Gorz 1980: 21). Inorder to counter such crises and reverse the associated tendency forthe rate of profit to fall capitalist enterprise must expand thequantity of consumer goods sold and/or increase the exchangevalue of existing categories of goods so as to increase the efficiency

of valorisation. The general manner in which this strategic responseis realised is through the systematic generation of false needs. Thisis achieved by greatly expanded investment in advertising, by theintroduction of symbolic differentiations into the design of existingcommodities (over-designing) and by designing new products withbuilt in physical and/or social obsolescence (Gorz 1980: 234). Inthis way exchange value can be expanded without a genuineexpansion of use value or need satisfaction (Gorz 1980: 23). Gorzthus illustrates how an increase in the output and the price ofconsumer goods does not necessarily increase economic welfare butcan instead involve the one-sided, destructive, use of materialresources (cf Hirsh 1977). The logic of this process is thusexclusively to re-establish and maintain the valorisation of capital.

Eventually the expansion of destructive consumptioncomesup against physical limits as environmental resources and rawmaterials become absolutely scarce. Capitalism is then faced witha crisis of reproduction(Gorz 1980: 247). Additional capital

must be invested merely to recycle pollutedresources which canonly then be utilised for output production. While the organiccomposition of capital thereby increases, there is no corresponding


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increase in the volume of consumer merchandise. Hence theimmediate consequence of the crisis of reproduction is the needto use more resources to satisfy a given volume of use valueproduction. The initial crisis of over-accumulation is thus

aggravated by the crisis of reproduction. (Gorz 1980: 27)Further economic growth can only reproduce and reinforce thetendency towards unsustainable development and environmentaldestruction. The ecological crisis can therefore only be resolved bythe inversion of the logic of capitalism itself(Gorz 1980: 27).This means replacing the capitalist logic of production forvalorisation with the ecological and humanist logic of productionfor use. Ecology is thus intimately associated with a system whereuse value production dominates over production for exchange.

Political ecology is therefore inextricably bound up with theachievement of socialist society.

The Norm of Sufficiency and Self-limitation

Gorzs historical approach to political ecology has also examinedthe relationship between human beings and the natural environ-ment in pre-capitalist society. This provides Gorz with a basis foridentifying the principles which might govern a post-capitalist

society based on sustainable development. The historical approachto political ecology is developed through the central concept ofnorm of sufficiencyand the related notion of self-limitation(Gorz 1993).

The concept norm of sufficiency refers to the historicalpropensity (and future potential) for human beings to regulate therelationship between production and consumption in a way thatbrings it into line with the dialectic between the expenditure ofeffort and the satisfaction of material needs (Gorz 1993: 61). Theoperation of a norm of sufficiency implies the self-limitationbyproducers and society of needs (satisfaction gained directly andindirectly from work) and effort (the intensity and duration ofproductive activity) in line with socially determined norms and/orthe natural-rational predisposition of autonomous human beings.Such self-limitation has operated historically (see below) andaccording to Gorz (following Marx) will govern the humanmetabolism with naturein a future society of associated producers

(Gorz 1993: 60).Gorz points out that in pre-capitalist societies production andconsumption was constrained culturally and institutionally by


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agreement between merchants and artisans and through theoperation of guild monopolies. These set strict limits on outputand price levels and regulated remuneration in line with theculturally and historically defined needs of the artisans. These

regulations enabled the guilds to determine for themselves theintensity and duration of their labour and thus defend a distinctrealm of freedom and autonomy from encroachment bycompetition (Gorz 1993: 61). In a similar way the predispositionof the associated producers under communism would be to defineneeds dialectically by reference to both the sphere of necessity, andthe sphere of true freedom. Production would be organisedaccordingly so that the satisfaction of needs is accomplished,rationally, with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions

most worthy and appropriate for their human nature (Marx1978: 959; quoted by Gorz 1993: 60). In other words, rationalcontrol over production and consumption enables the associatedproducers to balance their basic material needs, associated withthe realm of necessity, against their wider existential needs,associated with the realm of freedom, and, moreover, to criticallydefine the former by reference to the latter. Historically, such abalancing of material and existential needs is conditioned by thenorm of sufficiency but is possible only where the worker can

exercise a genuine choice between levels of material satisfaction andthe amount of time sacrificed and effort required to obtain it.

By contrast, capitalist production production for exchangeand profit must break with the norm of sufficiency and theprinciple of self-limitation since its defining logic is thecompetitive valorisation of capital. This means that capitalistproduction must maximise output and effort and expandunnecessarysurplus production. As a condition of valorisationcapitalist production must therefore break with the principle ofself-limitation so that the sphere of consumption can bedominated by the requirements of capital. This is achieved, first,by eliminating the power of the direct producers over and inproduction (Gorz 1993: 63). In this way the needs of theproducer can no longer be defined directly by the producerthrough his or her control over and direct relationship to theproduction process. Historically, the separation of producers fromcontrol over the production process has taken the form of, first,

depriving workers of ownership of the means of production andsecond, of the degradation of the workers work through de-skilling and bureaucratic management (Braverman 1974).


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marginalisation of autonomy (see 1980: 2032; 1994: 94). Theloss of time and energy to waged labour in the sphere ofheteronomyencourages the commodification of the sphere ofautonomy and thus the further capitalization of consumption.

The main strategic conclusion Gorz draws from this criticalanalysis of commercialised consumption is that political ecologymust, as a priority, seek to rescue the sphere of autonomy from itsdomination by and subordination to the sphere of economicrationality. The means by which this paradigm shift(from massconsumption to less but better) can be achieved is through theimplementation of a social policy combining reduced workinghours with a universal basic income detached from commercialemployment. This is what Gorz views as the imperative of

ecological restructuring(Gorz 1994: 1213 and 945). Thepolicy of reduced working hours and basic income, inconjunction with the state provision of resources designed toencourage community-based use-value production (a third sectorof useful employment), facilitates the subordination of the sphereof commodity exchange and economic rationality to the sphereof autonomy and freedom. This policy provides the foundationsfor the reinstitutionalisation of the principle of self-limitation andthus also provides the basis for a political project aiming to define

a new norm of sufficiency around the ecological imperative (Gorz1993: 647).

II. PRODUCTIVISM VERSUSECOLOGY: GORZ AND THEGREENMOVEMENT

Although Gorz is widely recognised as one of the leading theoristof political ecology currently writing in Europe his work hasnevertheless attracted significant criticism from both academicsocialists and leading members of the Green movement. Thesecriticisms have reflected an apparent contradiction in his workbetween ecology and productivism.3 Thus, while critics from thetraditional left have accused Gorz of anti-productivism andromanticism (Byrne 1985; Sayers 1991: 19) others, from theGreen movement, have argued that Gorzs analysis is anti-Greenand that his later work in particular abandons important

ecological imperatives (Dobson 1990; Lipietz 1995: 154). Thereasons why Gorzs work should give rise to such apparentlycontradictory interpretations will be briefly examined shortly.


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Furthermore, in arguing for shorter hours without loss of payGorz explicitly distances himself from the Green movement

which, he maintains, stand[s] apart by choice from the labourmovement and the leftand whose aim must be to bring about

a negative growth in industrial and commodity production(Gorz1994: 103). Gorz also distances himself from other politicalecologists, notably Alain Lipietz, who have argued that a policyof reduced working hours must from the economic point ofview involve some reduction in purchasing power and that suchlimitations on the potential rate of economic growth are, in anycase, desirable from the ecological viewpoint (Gorz 1994: 103;Lipietz 1994: 349).

The differences Gorz has emphasised between his approach to

political ecology and positions adopted by the Green movementwill be examined in more detail shortly. However, it needs to benoted at this point that Gorzs political ecology also shares muchcommon ground with the humanist left within the Greenmovement and in particular the French Green Party, Les Verts(seeLipietz 1995). There is first a common identification of politicalecology with humanist socialism. This leads to a common emphasison reduced working hours and basic income guarantee as the keycontemporary social policy imperatives (Gorz 1994: 23; Lipietz

1992: 7791). It also means that the French Greens, like Gorz,identify the principle of self limitationthrough the expansion ofautonomy as central to the achievement of sustainable developmentin the long term (Gorz 1993; Lipietz 1995: 424).

From Capitalism to Post-industrial Socialism: Two Models ofTransition

Where Gorzs and the Green movements approaches to politicalecology differ most is in relation to the wider context of demandsfrom which the humanist-socialist policy of reduced workinghours and basic income guarantee is advanced. These differencesof approach and their political consequences are examined byGorz in Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology(pp.102117). In an essayentitled Shorter Hours, Same Pay, which was first published inPartage, the monthly paper of the French unemployed workers

union, Gorz presents and analyses two distinct four year modelsof transition from capitalism to post-industrial socialism. Thesemodels are outlined and examined below; while the empirical


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detail of the two models relate specifically to the French economy,the key propositions of each can be readily applied to anyadvanced capitalist economy.

The first model, which incorporates Gorzs favoured approach,

can be labelled humanist radical productivism or radicalproductivism. This model is productivist in the sense that itpresupposes positive economic growth. National output is alsoassumed to be unconstrained by environmental regulation (at leastduring the initial four year transitional period) and continues togrow at normal rates. Thus, in the four year period, outputincreases by 8% (2% per annum) and productivity increases by12% (3% per annum). The approach can be considered radicalin at least two respects. Firstly, it assumes that workers achieve

significant economic advances on threedistinct fronts: hence,working hours fall (by 9%), average real wages increase (by 3%)and the workforce expands (by 5%) thereby reducing unemploy-ment. Secondly, the model appears to abstract from importanteconomic constraints which would normally be associated withthe bargaining process between labour and capital; in particular,the impact of the model on industrial production costs andprofitability are not explicitly considered. Instead, Gorz choosesto emphasise the technical feasibility of the model which follows

from the assumption of positive growth and significant increasesin productivity (Gorz 1994: 103).

Gorz does reject other political choicesavailable on the basisof the productivist model, such as a 12% wage rise with noreduction in working hours and a 4% reduction in the size of the

workforce (Gorz 1994: 105). This choice clearly needs to berejected because it is inconsistent with the establishment of thehumanist project (reductions in working hours) or with theforging of social alliances and solidarities with those precariouslyemployed or out of work (rising unemployment). However, whatneeds to be noted at this stage is that the immediate relevance ofany version of the productivists model to the new socialmovements and non-productivist interests is unclear since they all(including Gorzs choice) completely abstract from the ecologicalimperative, a point that will be further considered below.

To understand why Gorz chooses the productivist model oftransition it is necessary to look in more detail at his main

criticisms of the Green movement. His principal criticism focuseson the Green movements advocacy of zero growth and theoverriding priority it gives to the ecological imperative relativeto


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other progressive demands. As was noted earlier, Gorz is highlycritical of those in the Green movement the environmentalistswho view the question of sustainable development as a technicalproblem whose solution is primarily a question of scientific

intervention and bureaucratic regulation (Gorz 1993). This wasthe dominant approach spawned by the Club of Rome Report,The Limits to Growth, in the early 1970s. Gorz maintains that,uncoupled from the imperatives of humanist socialism, environ-mentalism becomes anti-democratic, implying the imposition byan expertocracyof a model of sustainable development whichserves the interests of a social elite at the expense of the majority.

Arguing against such a contradictory project, Gorz insists thatthe ecological movement cannot be reduced to the demand that

the environment be protected (in other words, political ecologycannot be reduced to the ecological imperative). If it is, Gorzargues, its demands will end up, sooner or later, being taken onboard by capitalism and nothing will have changed(Gorz1994: 94).

Yet Gorzs critique of the Green movement extends beyondright environmentalism to include much of the Green left. Inparticular, the French Green Party is criticised for incorporatingan explicit programme of environmental regulation into its

broader manifesto for social transformation towards post-industrial socialism (see Lipietz 1995). Gorzs critique of theGreen Partys proposals is based, first, on the subordination of theecological imperative to the imperatives of humanist socialism andsecond, on identifying the environmental policy demands of theGreen Party as a political impediment to the realisation of thehumanist-socialist project.

The key to Gorzs critique can be found in the overridingimportance he attaches to the idea of self-limitation (discussedabove) as the only non-authoritarian, democratic way towards aneco-compatible industrial civilisation (Gorz 1993: 64). Thiscontrasts most evidently with left-Green fundamentalism, asexemplified by the work of Rudolph Bahro (1982; 1984; 1986),

where the imposition of a sustainable model of development isseen to involve massive cuts in material output and consequentlybureaucratic rationing of scarce material resources (a leftauthoritarianism; see Barratt Brown 1985: 110111). But direct

ecological regulation features, to a greater or lesser degree, as adefining imperative throughout the Green movement. The over-riding emphasis Gorz gives to self-limitation thus distinguishes


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his model of sustainable development not only from rightenvironmentalism but also from left-Green fundamentalism andthe humanist radical ecology of the Green Party (discussed below).

Since Gorz also adopts an explicitly productivist model of

transition, the priority he gives to self-limitation in fact requiresthe subordinationof ecology initially, at least to the moreimmediate objectives of the humanist-socialist project. As wasdiscussed earlier, the institutional and social policy foundationsnecessary for the growth of a politics and culture of self-limitationthe expansion of free time and the uncoupling of income from

waged work are absent under capitalism. Hence, self-limitationcan only emerge as a general tendency once the foundations of asustainable society have already been established. As a coherent

political project self-limitation thus pre-supposes an existent post-industrial socialist society where the objective conditions forautonomous development have already been institutionallysecured and considerably extended (see Gorz 1993: 637). InGorzs model such objective conditions include the 32 hour weekand the introduction of the social cheque, uncoupling basicincome from alienated work (Gorz 1994: 10810).

The second transitionary model outlined by Gorz corresponds

closely to the approach of the French Green Party and can belabelled humanist radical ecology or radical ecology. The keydifference in the radical ecology model is that it assumes anexplicit ecological imperative which restricts the expansion ofoutput and increases economic costs. By definition this representsa rejection of productivism. In Gorzs presentation which heclaims corresponds to Lipietzs (Lipietz 1992: 86; 1995: 4950)zero growth of the national economy is assumed. The zerogrowth constraint corresponds to the process of environmentalrestructuringinitiated in the first four year transitionary period.This takes the form of various controls and regulations on capitalaccumulation, for example strict pollution controls, strict healthand safety standards at work, as well as taxes and other penaltiesand restrictions to discourage the production and consumptionof ecologically damaging commodities such as private cars (Lipietz1995: 558). The model assumes that in the first four year periodproductivity increases by 9% (3% less than in the productivist

model). This allows for a 13% cut in working hours (to a 34 hourweek), and an expansion of employment of 4%. However, incontrast with the productivist model, average wages must fall(by


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4%) since the same amount of national wealth has to be sharedout among a (4%) larger workforce.

The leading exponent of the radical ecology model is theFrench regulation school theorist Alain Lipietz. Lipietz has been

an active member of the French Green Party since the late 1980s.As an ecologist and political economist Lipietz has beenconcerned to examine the relationship between ecological andeconomic imperatives and to consider the implications theseconstraints have for the political articulation of progressive modelsof social and economic of regulation. These related concerns havebeen examined most comprehensively in Towards a NewEconomic Order (1992) subtitled Post-Fordism, Ecology andDemocracyand more recently in Green Hopes(1995) subtitled The

Future of Political Ecology.Lipietzs work has been highly critical of the productivist left

and its demand for a radicalisation of the Fordist compromise.These demands were articulated first in the late 1970s and early1980s, notably by the French Communist union centre, theCGT. However, as in the work of Gorz, radical productivistdemands have resurfaced on the left in more recent years inresponse to the debates on working time which have taken placein Europe in the context of high and long term unemployment.

In France these debates crystallised in the publication of a numberof different proposals for the introduction of a four-day working

week (for a detailed survey and analysis see Bastian 1995). TheCGT has opposed these proposals on the grounds that they

would require unacceptable wage cuts for many workers as wellas the introduction of flexible working practices, notably theextension of shift working. But other union groupings, such asthe French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), havebeen more supportive of bargainedreductions in working time ashave other major European union groupings, notably the GermanDGB and the German metal workers union IG Metall as well asthe Italian union Confederation, CGIL.

Lipietz has argued that the productivist demand for shorterhours without loss of pay fails to confront a whole set ofimportant economic, political and sociological constraints andimperatives which have profoundly affected the real choicesavailable to the labour movements of advanced capitalist societies.

The main economic constraints confronting radical productivismrelate to the supply-side imperatives of global capitalism. To befeasible a policy of reduced working hours must be introduced in


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such a way that it does not undermine competitive accumulation.Lipietz has argued that the parameters of competitiveaccumulation have been greatly conditioned in advanced capitalistsocieties by the crisis of Fordism and the corresponding crisis of

the Keynesian mode of regulation (Lipietz 1992: 123). This crisishas been determined by the growth in the international mobilityof capital and the declining capacity of national governments toregulate and protect the domestic economy and determine thebroader objectives of national policy. In advocating radicalproductivism as part of a broader progressive strategy, Gorz failsto confront these changing economic and political realities andthus fails to break with the Fordist model. Indeed the productivistmodel favoured by Gorz closely approximates to the radicalisation

of Fordism/Keynesianism attempted by the Mitterrandgovernment in the early 1980s and still supported by the FrenchCommunist unions. This collapsed after 1981 following a severenational economic crisis in France caused by capital flight,inflation, balance of payments deficits and monetary instability,

which accompanied successive devaluations of the franc. Lipietzmaintains that the failure of Mitterrands radicalised perfectionof the Fordist compromiseprovides evidence of the bankruptcyof the lefts productivist model and its incompatibility with the

globalisation of capital accumulation (Lipietz 1986: 3; Barbrook1989: 105).

Lipietz further argues that the crisis of the Fordist regime ofaccumulation has important sociological and political implications

which challenge the efficacy of the productivist model. Thesecentre on the impact of the collapse of Keynesianism and govern-ment guaranteed full employment on labour market divisions andthe universe of bargaining constraints faced by the unions and theorganised working class in post-industrial society (see Lipietz 1994;Bastian 1995). The emergence and growth of labour market andsocial division between included and excluded workers, whichfollowed the collapse of Keynesianism, has been entrenched inmany societies notably in Britain and the USA by the politicaldominance of neo-liberalism or what Lipietz terms liberalproductivism(Lipietz 1992: 3047; 1995: 3541). This changein the dominant mode of regulation, which represented a responsefrom the right to the crisis of Fordism, has generated a crisis for the

old Fordist model of unionism. In particular, Fordist unionism canno longer claim to speak for and advance the interests of allworkers because the growth of labour market divisions and most


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dramatically the emergence of a permanent mass of unemployedworkers serves to exclude millions of people from effective unionrepresentation. Under liberal productivism, Lipietz argues, thetraditional aspiration of the trade union movement towards a

universal politics conflicts with a growing reality of interest grouppolitics. Such a crisis of union politics can be seen to correspondwith the contradictory duality within unionism first identified byFlanders in the 1960s and which, in Britain, was exacerbated bythe economic and industrial relations policy of the Thatchergovernment (MacInnes 1987; see also Hardey 1990). Flandersduality thesis distinguished between the role of trade unions asorganisations campaigning for social justice and the moreinstrumentalist role they adopt in the pursuit of vested interests.

The crisis of Fordism has intensified this contradiction because ithas meant that the state can no longer successfully use Keynesiandemand management to secure full employment. The trade uniondefence of the immediate interests of their members thus comesinto conflict with the interests of excluded workers and the pursuitof more universal objectives. At the level of state policy, it becomesincreasingly difficult to meet the economistic demands of Fordistunions while at the same time maintaining relative social unity andsocial inclusion (OConnor 1973; Gough 1980). For Lipietz this

developing contradiction within union politics represents a collapseof the organicismthat was central to the success of the Fordistcompromise as a social project and has created a crisis of solidarity

within the labour movement which has been crucial in sustainingthe anti-organic paradigm of liberal productivism (Lipietz 1994:3415).

For Lipietz the crisis of the Fordist regime of accumulation isthus reflected in the political crisis of the Fordist left and itsessentially productivist demands for Keynsian (demand based) fullemployment, wage increases andcuts in hours worked. Undermodern,post-Fordist, conditions, Lipietz maintains, such demandsmight at best be advanced individually, as alternatives, but notsimultaneously as a realistic programme of advances (Lipietz1992: 802). Instead, what is required is a genuine alternativecompromisewhich seeks to articulate labour advances, throughnegotiated involvement, within the parameters of feasibilityestablished by the crisis of Fordism, the ecological crisis and the

imperatives of new social solidarities. In Lipietzs judgement it isthe radical ecology model outlined above which most coherentlyarticulates the progressive alternative.


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III. SOCIALISM, ECOLOGY AND THE POLITICS OF TRANSITION

While Gorz and the French Green Party thus adopt very differentmodels of transition towards post industrial socialism radical

productivism and radical ecology respectively they neverthelessshare a common ultimate objective. This is a humanist socialismbased on expanded autonomy and self-limitation where, as Gorzputs it, less means better. Given this coincidence of objectives it

would seem that Gorzs rejection of the Green model of transitionhas to be explained, principally, in terms of his negative assessmentof its political feasibility. The key issue here concerns the politicalfeasibility of combining reduced working hours and zero growth.Gorz rejects this policy, arguing that it would alienate both the

employed and the unemployed sections of the workforce. TheGreen Party strategy would be unpopular with currently employedcore workers, Gorz maintains, since they would be required to takesignificant cuts in pay which could only be partially offset bycompensating benefits from the state. This would alienate themost educated and influential fraction of the active, employedpopulationand thus undermine core support for reduced workinghours (Gorz 1994: 103). Gorz also doubts whether those whoinitially benefit most economically from reduced working hours

the unemployed and those currently engaged in unskilled,precarious employment, would continue to support the policy ifeconomic growth was restricted in line with Green Party proposals.This is because the progressive absorption of previously marginalisedgroups into the expanding sector of skilled employment wouldthen go hand in hand with declining wages in that sector. As Gorz(1994: 107) puts it, Can we increase the number of skilled jobsand, at the same time, reduce the level of remuneration for such

jobs? Can we expect the most skilled workers to suffer thedrawbacks of a policy of reduced working hours before they haveeven been able to discover its advantages? I do not believe so.

In making a political judgement about the feasibility of theGreen model Gorz thus implicitly maintains that skilled workers

would be unwilling to accept cuts in their income in return forother benefits, including shorter hours and greater job and incomesecurity, while the unemployed and peripheral workers would be lesssupportive of the expansion and redistribution of skilled employ-

ment if this meant a significant decline in remuneration for suchjobs. The zero growth model is thus rejected by Gorz because hefears that the austerity it requires would make it politically unfeasible.


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Can Gorzs negative assessment of the political feasibility of theGreen model be justified or, alternatively, can it be argued that inarriving at this conclusion Gorzs political judgement is undulypessimistic? One point that should be noted in this respect is that

Gorz makes little attempt to contextualise, sociologically oreconomically, the choices and decisions facing the key economicgroups whose political behaviour he seeks to anticipate. Insteadhe simply asserts that the scope for choice and the possibilities forpolitical and social alliances are greatest under the productivistmodel (Gorz 1994: 75, 107). While this point may possibly beconstrued as formally or technically valid it seems, nevertheless,to be politically contentious. In practice, Gorzs claim in favourof the productivist model cannot be meaningfully evaluated

without first taking into account the complexity of economic andpolitical bargaining constraints which confront different groupsof workers at different historical conjunctures and whichprofoundly affect the choices and decisions available to them.

The importance of the changing nature of the bargainingenvironment has been forcefully considered recently by Bastian(1994: 3045) in relation to the responses of European tradeunions to a number of recent proposals for reduced working time.Bastian argues that union leaders have faced considerable

difficulties in coming to terms with such proposals because of theshift this requires from the old and familiar constraints of Fordistbargaining towards a new bargaining environment informed byan explicit assessment of the diversity of working time and incomepreferences of the union rank and file. Such new and relativelyunfamiliar constraints in the bargaining process have beenconditioned, at least in part, by the direct and indirect experiencemany workers have had of the economic uncertainties andinsecurities created by permanent unemployment. Bastianmaintains therefore that the old assumptions of full employmentand continuous economic growth are no longer relevant to thebargaining process. However, to the extent that they arenevertheless maintained by union negotiators, they provide a poorguide to the preferences and needs of the membership.

It is certainly debatable therefore whether or not Gorzspessimistic judgement on the political feasibility of the radicalecology model is justifiable. What in some ways seems far more

puzzling and problematic is that, apparently as a consequence ofthis political judgement, Gorz chooses to abandon the ecologicalimperative as an immediate and urgent political project and instead


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embraces a radicalised version of productivism, maintaining thatthis is the only feasibleroot towards a future society of sustainablesocialism. This position seems, to say the least, contradictory, andas such suggests a number of awkward questions; for example, how

is it possible to advance political ecology by rejecting the ecologicalimperative and Green politics; how can self-limitation beencouraged by demanding higher average wages; how do suchdemands encourage social solidarity and the forging of politicalalliances between the labour movement and the new socialmovements? Gorz provides no clear answers to such questions.Furthermore, Gorzs advocacy of the productivist model seemsclearly to be at odds with his own analysis of the sociology of post-industrial society (see Gorz 1982; Gorz 1994: 8592). This has

emphasised the crisisof productivism, highlighted the politicalimportance of new social movements and recognised the challengesto more traditional left notions of class politics thrown up by themarginalisation of work through technological advance. IndeedGorz has, at times, examined the political crisis of productivism ingreat detail and has emphasised the difficulties this crisis creates forprogressive political movements. Gorz has, for example, identifiedimportant barriers to socialist solidarity created by the crisis ofproductivism and the growing complexity of social divisions under

advanced, post-industrial, capitalism (Gorz 1985: 628; 1989:183190, 227; 1994: 1526). Most significantly in the currentcontext, Gorz has argued that the crisis of productivism requiresa fundamental reconceptualisation of the leadership role of tradeunions and the organised working class away from the old politicsfashioned by Fordism and Keynesianism and towards a newpolitics, involving coalitions and alliances with new socialmovements and with socially excluded groups such as the growingnumber of precariously employed workers in the capitalist servicesector as well as the unemployed. This would all seem to suggestthat the successful development of a new progressive politics mustbegin by recognising the weaknesses of and constraints on thetraditional productivist demands of the old labour movement. Yet,as we have seen, Gorz seems in fact to advocate a radicalisation ofthese traditional demands which explicitly excludes a key aspect ofthe politics of environmentalism and the new social movements,namely, the zero growth imperative.

It must be concluded, therefore, that there exists a contradictionin Gorzs work between the old politics of productivism andproductivist wage demands, and the new politics of post-industrialism


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Acknowledgements

Notes

References

and political ecology. This contradiction is rooted in Gorzs advocacyof a productivist transitional project. It contrasts with the cogencyof the radical ecology advanced by Alain Lipietz and the FrenchGreen Party. This avoids the contradictions of the productivist path

to sustainable socialism by articulating an alternative left politicswithin the parameters of feasibility set by, on the one hand, thecrisis of Fordism and on the other hand, the ecological imperative.

______________________________

I would like to thank Neil Maycroft, Larry Wilde and Peter Clarke forreading and offering useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Ihave also discussed the ideas in the article with Jim Shorthose, AdamBarnard, Karl Haselden and Linda Swinckels. Thanks, also, to them.Finally, I would like to thank the anonymous referees at Capital&Class

for their helpful comments.______________________________

1. Ecology as Politicswas first published in English in 1980. However,it is a collection of articles and essays written in the early 1970s.

2. For Gorz such needs can be considered false in the sense that they areneeds specifically conditioned by the dominance of heteronomy overautonomy. The logical inference is thus that, were things otherwise,that is, if autonomy dominated heteronomy, needs would also bedifferent and would be met in different ways. False also indicates thatthe shift to needs defined by autonomy is progressive.

3. The term productivism is used here to refer to a political economypremised on and committed to positive economic growth. It alsorefers to the articulation of progressive economic demands, forexample, the demand for reduced working hours without loss ofincome or with increased income, which pressuposses positiveeconomic growth as a means. The usage of the term is this article isderived from Lipietz (1992).

______________________________

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