Rethinking structure and change in environmental politics
Terry Leahy’s essay shows how the environmental movement’s emphasis on cultural transformation without structural reform reproduces the very “social games” of capitalism we oppose. Changing hearts or changing systems is a false choice — we need both to rewrite society’s rules. From tree-sits to policy shifts, diversity is our strength when burnout tempts some of us to retreat to our permaculture plots.
I have been making some podcasts on influencers popular in Australian de-growth circles. Trevor, a member of my degrowth group responded to a comment of mine that these influencers tend to emphasize cultural change. They avoid talking about changes in economic and political structures. Trevor talked about their own response to this.
For many years Trevor has been involved in activism of a clearly political nature. Attempts to make a difference to political and economic structures. Activism related to gay politics – the marriage bill. More recently the campaign to block the proposed third runway for Melbourne. He has become disillusioned with this activism. Political leaders have failed to follow the lead of the activists. He is committed now to cultural change. To being the change you want to see in the world. He is attracted by the phrase used by the influencer Nate Hagens. Be the ‘rock in the river’ as collapse unfolds. He has bought a rural property in the Northern Rivers district of NSW and is beginning to set up self-sufficient food provision.
I was struck by the more general relevance of these issues to environmental politics. The stand-off and mutual influence of clearly ‘political’ campaigns and ‘grassroots activism’ that informs the Greens party and the environmentalist movement in general. This led me to some of the more political philosophy and social theory issues that inform such discussions.
Please be reassured that I will bring this back to questions of more immediate concern for environmentalists. The social theory here is original as far as I know. I am not aware of anyone else writing about modes of production as games. But clearly my thinking on this owes a fair bit to Cornelius Castoriadis. Castoriadis is a French social theorist. He was associated with a new left grouping in the sixties and later went on to look at society from a psychoanalytic perspective. He says that human societies are imagined inventions. There is a set of fictions that each particular social regime lives by. These fictions are often ideas that we keep in the subconscious. In other words, something more foundational than everyday ideologies that get into news media.
The political philosophy of the culture / structure distinction
In this first section of my discussion, I will be setting out my own views of how social structures and cultures relate to each other. This will provide a backdrop for what is going on in the environment and left movements where these issues come up.
The prime object of social analysis must be the ‘social game’. These social games are human inventions that inform a social regime. What Marx calls ‘modes of production’. Like feudalism, ancient Incas, capitalism, the Yarralin society of the Northern Territory.
A social game is located in a set of instructions for the game. A kind of constitution of the game. These instructions are recipes on how to play the game. We should do it like this. Also, beliefs about how particular acts relate to the game constitution. That is a ‘foul’ that is a ‘forward pass’. This is a ‘theft of private property’. In other words, factual claims based on interpretations of the game and its implications.
Because these instructions are values and beliefs about the way the world is they are an aspect of culture. In other words, values, what we should do, and beliefs, what we think is the case.
Implications for structure
Social structures are relatively permanent features of social life. Repeated acts and events. The repetition and sameness of these events indicates that some governing social force is causing them to happen again and again. That governing force is the social adoption of a particular social game. Note here that while culture is all about what should happen and beliefs about what is happening, a structure is something that is just happening. These structural events are events that are really taking place in the social world. Even in cases where people are deluded in their beliefs about them.
Like any game, social games imply structures. For example, in AFL that the two teams are opposing each other across the field, with one team trying to move the ball to the left and the other trying to move it to the right. This is a repeated pattern. It constitutes a social structure that is like a ‘machine’ in operation. So, in League matches there are five tackles allowed and the team with the ball tries to move up the field, passing the ball between their players. A structure. This structure makes society like a machine. Like a clock. What you see in the League example is repeated drives by each team moving up the field and being tackled by the opposing team members. Just like in a clock what you see is one gear repeatedly moving another in a structured pattern.
In all games, structures have force, they are backed by various kinds of incentives that bind players to implement those structures. In a case where players radically defy these structural requirements, the game is over, you are playing a different social game. For example, if in an AFL match, one team started to help the other team by consistently moving the ball in the same direction as the opposing team and consistently scoring ‘own goals’, we would have to say that we were not playing AFL anymore. That game would have been abandoned. Similarly, if we have a capitalist market economy and all the players stopped buying cheap and selling dear, we would be ending the market social game. For example, everyone might be giving stuff away for no money at all. The market economy would have ceased to dominate society as a social game.
Social games imply machine social structures that put particular groups of people into roles in the social machine. In AFL, ruck, back etc. In capitalism, owner of property, capitalist, middle class person, unemployed. Each of these roles is rewarded and sanctioned by society to persuade or enforce participation in the game role. For example, a CEO is paid a huge salary that allows a vast choice of access to the products of other people’s work. These sanctions ultimately work on aspects of human nature. The desire for autonomy (to get what you want), for approval (prestige, status, good company, for self-esteem).
What we can also say is that in a social game (as distinct from a game that is merely play) these sanctions and rewards are usually backed up by coercive force in the long run. If you steal the Rolex of some rich person, the police will use coercive force, and you may end up coercively incarcerated or even killed. The machine structures of the social regime are enforced like this. That kind of force does not apply so much where cultural items are concerned. You may think that the market economy sucks but thinking that is not in itself going to land you in gaol. You may think that the rich do not deserve their privilege but thinking that is not going to land you in gaol. Like in a game, you may think that was a forward pass but that is not going to get you in trouble with the umpire or get you a red card.
Note that as in any game, the social game allows — and indeed requires and expects — players to invent moves that fit within the game rules. This is the sense in which we are looking at a social game not just a social structure. Structures can remain the same even though moves in the game are different. The bishop in chess always moves diagonally, but when a player moves their bishop and where is an invention, a choice. The same applies to social games. Every social game has a history, an effect of the choices of players over time, working within the frameworks of the game. Or also indeed sometimes working to go outside that game framework and undo it. Like the 1968 Paris uprising.
How the rules of the social game inform culture
What Marxists call a ‘dominant ideology’ is a set of cultural values and beliefs that in one way or another validate the rules of a social game. For example, that the rich deserve their wealth because they have worked hard. That God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Thou shall not steal or commit adultery. That the poor of the world have too many children and that is why they are poor. These values and beliefs are deployed in a random and contradictory fashion. Very often they are assumptions that are not conscious but operate nevertheless to inform conduct.
This interacts back
If enough people stop having these dominant values and beliefs, the social game is compromised. It can get to the point where people are not implementing the sanctions and rewards that make the social machine operate as a machine, as a social structure. For example, if it became typical for people to give stuff away for free without expecting monetary payment, then you would end up in a situation where the market did not fully determine people’s access to goods and services. The monetary economy, that social game, would cease to operate or gradually crumble. Like in AFL, if the members of one team decided that they wanted the other team to win that would be a change in culture. If they then operated to defy the rules of the game by operating according to this new system of values and beliefs, then the machine structure implied by the rules of the game would crumble away.
Social games are protected against this kind of attack because each position in a social structure set up by a social game has rewards and sanctions built into it. These rewards and sanctions enforce the social structure. Do not steal that car, the police will arrest you. Do what the boss tells you or you will get the sack. Maximize your profit or another firm will win the market competition. As said, these sanctions and rewards operate on aspects of human nature. For example, if you are a typical Australian you will need money to buy things to live your life and get access to food and housing.
Why environmentalist influencers have a problem with this
We can see from the above discussion that culture and structure are co-determining. You cannot change culture without that change having implications for structure. You cannot change structure without that having implications for culture. The gay marriage bill is a case in point. As a structural change it creates a social machine of repeated events — marriages — and implies a social force that makes this repetition, this machine-like behaviour common. It is backed by coercive force — in the courts determining the division of property or rights in custody of children. At the same time, it implies a change in culture. Gay liaisons legitimated by the state are to be treated as ‘marriages’ and for most people as a ‘good thing’.
…the key problem with a lot of environmentalist work on this is that authors envisage a huge change in culture that has no impact at all on the basic machine structures of the capitalist social game.
This is not necessarily about what the state might do to enforce a social structure. It is not about a difference between ‘political’ action aimed at the state and ‘grassroots’ action aimed at the community. Both these can have coercive aspects. While the state is defined as the body that can beat any other section of the community in coercion, this monopoly can be contested. Either, by changing state policy, as leftists recommend. State coercion goes in a new direction. Or by grassroots direct action that takes over a piece of useful territory or capital illegally. Like a tree sit, or an occupation, or a criminal gang determining the rules for marketing tobacco. In Indigenous societies there is no state, but a social structure is nevertheless enforced, when necessary, by coercion from the community.
To my way of thinking, the key problem with a lot of environmentalist work on this is that authors envisage a huge change in culture that has no impact at all on the basic machine structures of the capitalist social game. We are to have participatory control of the economy, we are to become generous and look after other people, we are to value wildlife and the future of the planet.
But the machine structures implied by the social game of capitalism will stay exactly the same as they are now. We will sell our labour power to someone who has the money to buy it. We will get access to goods and services by buying them with the money that we earn in our jobs. While we are at work, we will do what the boss says because otherwise we will get the sack — and be unable to buy stuff that we need. If we are members of a workers’ cooperative, we will have to make something that the market will buy. Otherwise, our workers will be unable to live, unable to buy what they need. Just like the workers for any capitalist boss.
So, there is an awkward pairing of cultural change, while structures remain much the same. Or at least a lot of key structures stay the same. Usually, environmentalists want to heavily regulate the market economy while keeping its key structures intact. Money, some kind of market. Ownership of property by private individuals, market cooperatives or the state. I remember in the early nineties, I used to set my students the Jonathan Cobb and Herman Daly book, For the Common Good (1989) — an exemplar of this approach. The rival interpretation from Marxist critics of capitalism was represented by Ted Trainer’s Abandon Affluence (1985).
Since those days, there is no doubt about which of these approaches is getting more followers. A small sample of authors with this regulate but maintain the market — while changing culture — approach could include Richard Heinberg, Kate Raworth, David Holmgren, Tim Jackson, and Jason Hickel. You can see that the examples take in a wide span of a very diverse social movement — environmentalism. Even people who present themselves as ‘socialists’ have ended up with a version of this approach. For example, Naomi Klein or Boris Frankel. Tendencies that challenge this approach refer to themselves as ‘Eco-socialists’ in most cases. Their writings are a minority taste for sure — for example Hans Baer, Kohei Saito, Anitra Nelson, John Holloway.
For influencers such as Sarah Wilson and Nate Hagens, this program of cultural change without structural change is regarded as low hanging fruit. A practical strategy that might work in a situation where an open challenge to the structures of the capitalist social game will get you nowhere. They believe that there is no point in trying to get the state to change structures through legislation. Legislation that undoes coercive sanctions holding the machine in place. Like the absolute right to use your property to make money any way that works.
That is because the hands of the state are tied by a social game that gives ruling class people control of politics. Through the incentives built into employment structures – working class people need a job and will vote accordingly. Each member of the capitalist class needs to grow their capital and profits. To defeat the competition and maintain their wealth. So, they will use some of that wealth to mount a political campaign if they are worried that the government is going to undo some aspect of their structural situation, their role in the game. By a huge tax or something like that.
Clearly this environmentalist program of changing culture while structures remain the same is untenable. It cannot possibly happen. Either the cultural change gets sidelined and does not have much impact. Or the cultural change is successful, and the current structures implied by the social game of the market economy get wound back one way or another.
Politically, this program of cultural change coming out of environmentalism seems more likely to work than butting your head against a brick wall trying to change social structures. That is what people like the influencers, Nate Hagens and Sarah Wilson think. Links provided at the end of this paper. We just get people to think a bit differently about things and because of that to act differently. We never say we want a new economic structure. That might imply a revolution and the use of coercive violence to smash existing structures. Like a revolutionary land seizure. Occupying and running a farm, growing food and distributing it free of charge. Any such change is beyond the Overton window of current politics. The best thing to do is to change our values to be more generous and implement that generosity as a sideline to behaviour that allows us to survive in the market economy. Having a job in town, using an inheritance to fund a building project, growing and marketing a niche crop of garlic or bamboo. Our sideline in generosity is expressed as actions which are not illegal and do not get stomped on with legal sanctions. Giving away the surplus of the crop to the community free of charge.
Why this gets confusing
Marx is famous for the idea that the (structural) base determines the (cultural) superstructure. Most current Marxists reject this idea and do not think it represents Marx’s thought taken as a whole. However, this idea of Marx’s nevertheless informs the critique of environmentalists coming from leftist parties and from people who think we should be promoting a revolutionary politics to take power.
To abolish the coercive structures of the market economy. For example, by taxing the rich hugely. By giving private businesses to workers’ cooperatives. Coercively changing ownership of firms with the backing of a state police force and army. I generically refer to this position as the Trotskyist viewpoint. But it is also presented by defenders of the ALP — who say that the important thing is to get into government so you can direct coercive power to achieve good outcomes by modifying structures.
A typical trajectory for activists is to start their activist career by making demands on the state. By trying to change social structures and their coercive sanctions and incentives through legislative change. Or at least through actions that demand a legislative response.
Anarchists may sometimes conceive this kind of politics as going beyond the state. As intentionally avoiding attempts to change state legislation. As in we are making no demands, we are just here to save the forests. On the other hand, the reality is that we will have secured a victory if the state steps in and takes ownership of a private forest by turning it into a national park. Notice here that no amount of ‘declaration’ of a hands-off, we are not trying to change policy, makes any difference to the meanings of the outcomes. We may be aiming just at cultural change, but a successful outcome will have implications for structures. Gay marriage again a case in point. We want people to realize that gays and lesbians have families and are responsible parents. But we will run a dual campaign that tries to implement that cultural package, and also to change structures through state policy. Ultimately backed up by new coercive measures — for example in next of kin situations in hospitals.
Whatever the rationale, this ‘political’ activism is often associated with burnout. A typical reaction to long term work on changing social structures. You need a break. Trevor does not classify his current feelings as being ‘burned out’ by activism that has been ‘political’. It’s more that he feels disillusioned with the current mainstream political leadership in Australia. They are followers not leaders. Activists work to create campaigns and then they do nothing. Consequently, we need to work on the culture of ordinary people so that there is strong community backing for the drastic changes we need. Using news media and getting out on the streets. We need a quantum leap in the efficacy of our tactics, but it is difficult to know how to do that.
In my view, part of the problem is that the left is dominated by a protestant work ethic culture of self-sacrifice to a cause. This becomes very wearing whatever kind of politics you are doing. It may be first experienced in relation to a political campaign. Like against the third runway. But it is equally possible in relation to trying to live the life you want to see in the world, to being a rock in a river.
How much cultural change can you implement and still cope with the structural sanctions that operate in the market economy? Can you go without a job? Can you give away fifty per cent of your garlic crop this year or only five percent? Can you cope with the sartorial implications of always buying from an op shop? Can you live in the country without a car? What are the environmental implications of an EV or solar panels? So, attempts to be a rock in a river can also lead to burnout.
Despite this, a lot of ex-activists (as they see themselves) use this transition to cultural change to jump start a new approach to life. To be kinder to themselves and to have more fun in their life. To stop judging themselves by the yard stick of how much social change they have achieved.
My own view is that protestant self-sacrifice is not always the best political strategy in any case. You are more likely to get impacts when you are enthusiastic because you just love doing that activism. Riff Raff, my radical street band, loves playing music at rallies and we do not really care whether the organisers are trying to change state policy or to change culture. For example, ending sales of weapons to Israel or reminding average punters in the street, and through media publicity, that Muslim Middle Eastern people are not the enemies of an older Anglo-Celtic demographic. The rally can do both. Much of Greens Party activism is also motivated by an enthusiastic embrace of political pressure that aims to change state policy — and through that to change structures. We should not imagine that it is only grass roots community action that can inspire enthusiasm and bypass the trap of self-sacrifice.
Going to live in the country and trying to grow food outside of the market economy is a typical fantasy and reality for leftists — who have been burnt out by activism directed at structures. As I well know from my interviews with a global sample of permaculture participants. It is particularly popular as an ideal for those who have little faith in political action to turn this ship around short of collapse. Sections of the peak oil movement, the degrowth movement, the permaculture movement.
I tend to see these fantasies as useful daydreams to relieve the stress of a very scary reality. When they are realized in home steading and rural re-location I think of them as a part of a suite of activist initiatives. Both cultural and structural. In the words of Alanon, the point of this as a personal response to burn out is to ‘let go and let God’. You are just one person, and the universe is a big place. It is a mistake to think that there is one ‘right strategy’ to make meaningful political change to a sustainable future. History shows just how wrong that view of social change can be. It makes more sense for the environmentalist left to be tolerant and embrace a diversity of activisms — from people who are to a degree on the same page. While attempting to go beyond this base to the whole community.
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Some resources on these topics
- Terry Leahy, The Politics of Permaculture. Pluto Press, 2022 [Open Access].
The Future of Africa? Agro – ecology, permaculture and community development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=133jtdvkLko
Links to the podcasts of Sarah Wilson, Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger:
- Sarah Wilson, Wild: https://sarahwilson.com
- Nate Hagens, The Great Simplification: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com
- Daniel Schmachtenberger, Explorations on the Future of Civilisation: https://civilizationemerging.com
My podcast series on these influencers and other topics
- Terry Leahy, System Change Made Simple: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2014361/episodes
Terry Leahy is now living in Melbourne, having worked in sociology at UNSW and University of Newcastle between 1973 and 2017. Key interests have been food security for rural Africa, the global environmental crisis, and the philosophy of the social sciences. He promotes the gift economy as the long-term solution to current problems. His most recent book is The Politics of Permaculture.
Image Credit. Enchanted Forest by Rich Herrmann (2014) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0