In the context of the 21st century levels of climate and ecological understanding can Anthropocentric focussed concerns ever produce truly revolutionary solutions? The answer is of course not without a revolutionary overthrow of anthropocentric focussed thinking.itself. When the actual real world context in which the revolutionary ideas of one century address has changed sufficiently to make those ideas no longer relevant to the new context, then in fact those ideas can become diversionary or even reactionsry. The test of ideas lies in their relationship to reality not in their relationship to history. In other words, if the reality which those ideas were intending to change has changed in any number of ways and the ideas have stayed essentially the same, then the possibility of them becoming irrelevant or even reactionary can become a probability.

In this regard, it is obvious that the central concerns of the revolutionary anti-capitalist ideas produced in 19th century Europe were developed in opposition to the extreme forms of human alienation and exploitation that existed during that 18th and 19th century period of industrialised capitalism. And of course these revolutionary ideas were formulated within a specific 19th and 20th century ecological, climatic and intellectual context. Whilst many of those important human focussed concerns are still relevant in the 21st century, the ecological, biological, climatic and intellectual context has changed radically. It also needs to be recognised that the revolutionary ideas of the 18th and 19th century were addressed from within a firmly held anthropocentric paradigm, and that deeply held paradigm has operated throughout most of recorded history.

That anthropocentric intellectual paradigm held that humanity was the central and most important species of life on earth and that all other species – no matter how complex they were individually – were no more than natural resources to be used as the most influential members of human societies saw fit. This anthropocentric and patriarchal way of thinking about life on earth first emerged in antiquity on the basis of the practical organisation of ancient hierarchical mass societies and has remained embodied within mainstream thinking ever since. The structural socio-economic practices of hierarchical mass societies were based primarily upon humanity interfering with and extracting from nature, everything that could be imaginatively used in order to benefit the ruling elites within those hierarchies, and capitalism has merely changed the form of this exploitation not its content.

Consequently, those economic practices gave rise to a broad range of rival secular and religiously based anthropocentric ideas and ideologies and these in turn became embedded within the institutional political structures of all types of elite governance. Monotheistic religion and elite philosophical discourse became the ideological mediums through which these rival anthropocentric intellectual concerns were disseminated among all citizens. Life on earth, as a phenomenon, became defined on the practical basis of what each warring elite patriarchy could and could not do, with the organic and inorganic material it had become able (due to its hierarchical mass society form) to control. It is important to understand that the period from which the recorded history of hierarchical mass societies began and therefore the period from when these rival anthropocentric ideologies were first established and consolidated was a period of relative climate stability; limited ecological destruction; and of only localised environmental pollution.

Apart from occasional volcanic eruptions, seasonal weather patterns, occasional violent storms and exceptional floods, the planetary biosphere was clearly biologically and climatically dynamic and diverse. Nevertheless, throughout most of history, that dynamism and diversity took place a within relatively stable atmospheric and within manageable ecological parameters. In terms of the intellectual development of humanity, it went through different stages but it is clear that the central concern and defining characteristic of the 19th century intellectuals who produced the conservative, liberal reformist and anti-capitalist ideas and proposals, were in anthropocentric essence the same as many previous generations of elite thinkers, leaders and critics since those of ancient times. The central and overriding concern for multiple generations has primarily been with regard to the internal situation of hierarchically organised humanity itself.

The rest of the planet in terms of its biology, its, topography and ecology, was treated as a separate, interesting and potentially useful, self-replicating given. Moreover, it was a ‘given’ which was considered everlasting. Consequently, in dominant anthropocentric explanations, this ‘given’ was guaranteed either by the chosen ‘lord god’ or because ‘natural selection’ (19th century generations could then take their pick) made it so. This is why the then current and future condition of nature (i.e. the rest of the interconnected network of planetary life forms) did not directly feature in those 19th century revolutionary concerns. This anthropocentric way of thinking about life on earth has so permiated humanity – as a whole – that few thinkers have managed to break free from its intellectual hold. Reality and thinking from within this anthropocentric paradigm saw that the only thing problematic with ancient and modern hierarchical mass societies, were those internally produced by the rival internal and external social relationships between human communities.

Thus the human devised class system, oppression, discrimination, unequal wealth distribution within them were seen as either natural, inevitable and sensible by some privileged citizens or alternatively as unnatural and problematic by some less or underprivileged citizens. From the left secular anthropocentric viewpoint, which emerged in 19th century Europe, it was the latter problems experienced by the underprivileged bulk of humanity which needed radically solving. Therefore, the political concepts of elite championed conservatism and elite championed reformism or elite championed revolution was to maintain or remove these historic problems for humanity. These were the philosophical and political boundaries to which anthropocentric thinking was confined. These limits represented three competing social, intellectual and political responses to the problems of hierarchical mass society living.

The hierarchical mass society form itself (flatteringly conceived as ‘civilisation’) was never seen as fundamentally problematic from within the religious, secular and political sectors of the anthropocentric paradigm. Indeed hierarchical mass societies, once they had been retrospectively re-branded as ‘civilisation’ were viewed on the left, right and centre (and still are) as the solution to humanities problems, once they were governed differently. Interestingly, even the most critical thinkers in history have been firmly held in an intellectual orbit circulating around one or other of humanities own centres of self-obsessed attraction. Take for example the following extract from a critical appraisal of human society by Karl Marx.

“Capital, in so far as it represents the universal form of wealth — money — is the tendency without limits or measure to exceed its own limit. Any limit can only be limited for it. Otherwise, it would cease to be capital: money in so far as it produces itself.[…] It is the perpetual movement that tends always to create more.” (Marx. Grundrisse)

The first part to be fully accurate in the 21st century, should now read ‘Capital, in so far as it represents a general form of social wealth‘ among modern humans – money’ – etc. Marx writing in the 19th century was still orbiting within the anthropocentric focussed circuit of intellectual discourse. Prior to and outside of the capitalist mode of production, capital is not a general or universal form of anything and certainly not of wealth. It can only ‘appear’ to be ‘universal’ or ‘perpetual’ or ‘wealth’, from within a paradigm of anthropocentric thinking which is dominated by the capitalist mode of production. Marx of course knew that, but nevertheless he was still operating from within the paradigm of anthropocentric thinking. Humanity was still being viewed as the most important species within the evolution of bio-chemical diversity of organic matter we now class as ‘life on earth’.

If we ask ourselves why Karl Marx, one of the most profound critics of the human way of life taking place during capitalist and pro-capitalist modes of production, whilst acknowledging the origins of humanity as ‘natural’, (as a product of nature), only mentions other species of life on earth rarely and only in passing, the answer will not long escape us. The then 19th century paradigm of anthropocentric science based thinking did not include a full understanding of two crucial aspects of life on earth. First, a) the minute bio-chemical cellular structure of all multicellular life on earth, was not sufficiently understood, and second, b) The integrated and inter-dependent reliance of all forms of life for breathing and nutrition on the entire bio-chemical web of species life on earth was not realised. The latter concern, despite the efforts of Humboldt and others, was still perceived as a nerdy and largely an impractical distraction from technical and scientific ‘progress’.

Therefore, until the late 20th and early 21st centuries the fact that the physical ability of the combined productive forces of humanity could be such – that if not radically altered – would eventually lead to widespread destruction and extermination of much of the earth’s natural self-replicating biological suport resources, was actually unthinkable. At least it was from a rational bourgeois and petite-bourgeois perspective. The 19th century thinkers in general and the 19th and 20th century revolutionary thinkers in particular, cannot be blamed for this lack of empirical evidence based understanding and thus for gaps in their knowledge. Having limited knowledge is a problem for each generation of thinkers about life on earth. Prior to the 21st century, the evidence to indicate that sufficient numbers of key life support species (e.g. insects, soil and sea based photosynthetic microorganisms, large and small) were being sufficiently reduced in quantity and quality to possibly trigger extinction level collapses of life on earth in general, was simply not available. However, that is no longer the case.

Further evidence accruing in the 21st century has now transformed the basis of that projected extinction possibility into a projected probability. Sufficient evidence is now so emphatically available that to continue to minimise its implications or to ignore them is nothing short of incredible. Therefore, 21st century revolutionary thinkers who fail to fully incorporate modern ecological understandings centrally into their analyses or proposals cannot escape blame for such obvious failures or for failing to remind their readers of the unavoidable as well as the avoidable limitations imposed upon the 19th and 20th century revolutionary minded intellectuals. The 21st century dissemination of this probable extinction scenario linked to production and consumption is now widely publicised, so much so that it has been received as a profound shock to the social and emotional psychology of many people. The greatest shocks have been felt by those who are directly involved in the numerous economic activities of mass production, mass distribution and mass consumption which are the root cause of climate instability, ecological degradation and environmental pollution.

It has been so much of a shock that many are still in denial about its possibility or probability. This shock has been all the more intense and general because throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the increasing efficiency, and increasing rate and volume of human productive capacity was overehelmingly viewed as an entirely positive attribute of the socio-economic system of capitalism. Even my own particular anti-capitalist hero, Kal Marx, in Das Capital viewed industrialised levels of productivity as largely and potentially positive. Human scientific and technological ingenuity and application in the production processes were seen generally as ‘positive progress’ by humanity – at it’s most intelligent! The application of science and technology to production was viewed as fundamental to the essence of what it is to be human. Furthermore, that is still the dominant viewpoint of the majority of the human population, including many anti-capitalists.

According to 20th century pro-capitalist ideology, to be fully satisfied as a 20th century human being was to fully consume both objects and experiences as frequently as possible. Indeed this, anthropocentric obsession has continued to be the dominating ideology of 21st century capitalist promoted consumerism and as such permeates much left thinking. The only differences between some on the left and those on the right are over whether everyone or just some privileged individuals should be able to fully consume to their hearts content. Earning the ‘right to consume by working hard to produce’ has become something of a general anthropocentric cliche but which overlooks the shocking fact that working hard and consuming are both polluting and ecologically destructive activities; they are two sides of the same self-destructive hierarchical mass society process.

Consequently, the shock of linking existing human production and consumption to pollution and extinction has produced two basic sets of responses. A) denials of the evidence, or denials of the probability, or denials of the inevitability, together with denials of responsibility. B) schemes for limiting, reducing and managing the polluting and ecologically destroying effects of the mass consumption of natural resources, that currently feed and fuel the mass production and distribution industries around the globe. Yet a serious reality check reveals that none of the schemes implemented or proposed are (or will be) effective in reducing the knock on effects of the mass production levels which are geared to the needs and desires of the leaders and populations of the current hierarchical mass society structures. This has led to further suggestions by those who are not entirely in denial about the possibilitites and probabilities of serious extinction events. For example in considering the alternative of a degrowth Communist perspective to a capitalist one, one group asks;

“What would this alternative look like? How do we end mass production and mass consumption without reducing living standards? What do we need to do to redress global inequality without accelerating the rate at which the planet burns?”

In the 21st century, living standards for human beings and redressing global inequality (also primarily for human beings) are still the main concern for those still with their minds and consciousness anthropocentrically and hierarchically focussed. Most of these suggestions advocate that there needs to be an equal entitlement to consume and these proposals are still coming from within some sections of the anti-capitalist left. The problem as I see it is that these suggestions (e.g. growth or de-growth within hierarchical mass societies) from the left is that in essence they are based upon the same historic anthropocentric hierarchical mass society human-centred viewpoint as previous generations with regard to future production levels.

We therefore, have the spectacle that even the most radical opponents of the current hierarchical mass society mode of production (ie. anti-capitalists) are only projecting a slightly more ecologically sustainable use of natural resources in the future and a more egalitarian distribution of the results of that industrialised and automated method of social production. For example a recent anti-capitalist internet post ended with the following conclusion.

“The wreckage of people’s lives caused by capitalism now extends widely. The venue of capitalism is global, by its nature. Political support for workers and their political formations in the Global South hits at the essence of capitalist power. The promise of basic change lies in that direction, and that’s so too with alternatives to the capitalist system. Those struggles for social justice and equality that are confined to the world’s industrial centers do target aspects of capitalism, but without far-reaching expectations. The full effort consists of: pushing for reforms that ease burdens placed upon working people, building mass opposition, and – crucially – advancing the international solidarity movement.”

Solidarity for what? For its own sake? The first two sentences are still reasonably relevant, but support for political formations no matter where and ‘pushing for reforms to ease burdens upon working people’ only are still based upon 19th and 20th century anthropocentric considerations of ‘reforming’ – not overthrowing the entire mode of production! In other words these were formulated when significant climate change, significant pollution of soil, sea and air, and significant species extinctions, were unknown. Therefore, in the 21st century, we now have an international phenomena of intellects on the left advocating the dusting off of social formulas and intellectual thought processes which were advocated one, or in some cases even almost two centuries ago.

Lets be clear. The essence of the above anti-capitalist conclusion is to go no further than to support; “Political formations, struggles for social, justice and equality; pushing for reforms that ease the burden placed upon working people and advancing the international solidarity movement” These suggestion are almost identical to the 19th and 20th century left proposals with no recognition of the global climate, pollution and ecological problems that have been revealed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Easing the anthropocentric based extractive burden upon the rest of our natural support resources – nature – is nowhere mentioned. It is clear that far too many on the anti-capitalist left have remained (intellectually at least) in the 19th and early 20th century anthropocentric obsession of hierarchical mass societies own making. Consequently there is currently also a resurgence in recommendations by left commentators that people in the 21st century should uncritically and seriously address the intellectual works of previous 19th and 20th century revolutionary minded intellectuals such as, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Gramsci, Luxembourg, Castro etc.

As noted earlier, the fact that some of these intellectuals were ahead of their time in one or more senses, however, does not of course mean they were not individuals who had largely been influenced and limited by the assumptions, and evidence sources they had available to them at the time and which was further mediated by their declared and undeclared personal hope’s and dreams, also emanating from within the prevalent anthropocentric paradigm they shared with everyone else at the time. Revolutionary ideas for the present and future need to address the full range of problems that have emerged in the 21st century not simply regurgitate those rooted firmly in the 18th and 19th century past.

Therefore, trying to uncritically reactivate and reinstate these 19th and 20th century concerns and ideas as central to problems faced in the 21st century, simply because they were once considered ‘revolutionary’ amounts in fact to nothing more than a thoroughly ‘conservative’ and even reactionary type impulse. It detracts and deflects those with limited time and resources into delving into historical cul-de-sacs rather than pursuing real time practices based upon limiting the negative effects of human economic and leisure activities upon the rest of our life support species who share and sustain what remains of our healthy environments. Only such practical actions can now count as revolutionary – not the dogmatic preservation of the entire ethos and ideas developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 21st century global context only those proposals which include an overthrow of Anthropocentric based thinking and their resulting practices can be considered as manifestations of revolutionary creativity, emanating from within humanity, but focussed on life on earth as a whole. In view of the abscence of such a general perspective it is hard not to conclude that the future of life on earth is not one which will have a recognisable basis from the evolutionary past.

Roy Ratcliffe ( September 2024)