What is the Courageous Response to Climate Chaos? Not eco-authoritarianism.

Are you hearing more people talk about needing to do “whatever it takes to save the planet”? Have you heard people blame democracy as the reason for our intractable problems, including persistent poverty, extreme inequality, and the unaffordable cost of living, or environmental damage and breakdown? I have been hearing variations of that perspective, particularly from people rightly dreading the impacts of climate chaos. Over three decades of work on the topic, I witnessed authoritarian musings of frustrated environmentalists being expressed in private. But now I hear them articulated in public. One person who has brought this topic into the open is the environmental academic John Foster. Writing at the Greenhouse Think Tank, he argues: “the intelligent and informed who do recognise the urgency of transformation must organise themselves for a vanguard seizure of power…” He has a new book out this year, which reminded me I hadn’t responded to his critique of my arguments against such eco-authoritarianism. As John’s Lifeworld book will go deeper into his philosophical justification for authoritarian rule by an ecologically-minded elite, I think it is a good time to rejoin the conversation. If you are interested in the future of politics in a metacrisis, where societies experience environmental breakdown, then I hope this long-form essay will provide some stimuli for your own political opinions and campaigning. 

Due to the worrying data on the state of the planet, and the myriad difficulties and disruptions people experience, accompanied by avoidant political leadership, it’s understandable that some people wonder whether authoritarians would do a better job. I have heard friends casually say that our last and only hope now is a great leader, or an ethical billionaire, or an artificial super intelligence, or even a benevolent extra-terrestrial. When I hear such comments, I typically respond that such a view doesn’t seem to empower themselves, or anyone else. Instead, wishing for authoritarian salvation from a predicament can undermine our potential to engage in meaningful change – from the local to global. Imagining a dictatorial answer to the metacrisis invites the majority of us to become spectators of change. Such visions might also ‘soften us up’ to accept excuses from the authorities when they ignore both complexity and multiple opinions, and then suppress anyone who disputes their policies. We risk forgetting that authoritarians always come to regard the maintenance of their power as the primary goal, which means their achievement of any wider espoused goals (which we might agree with) can fade from view.

Not only does authoritarian imagination reduce our potential involvement and ignore the known downsides, I think it also misdiagnoses the problem. It is not human rights and freedoms, or the principle of democratic rule, that are at fault for the environmental predicament. Rather, it is the capture of our ‘pseudo-democracy’ by the money-power, where an expansionist monetary system shapes all our lives and the policy-possibilities of political movements and governments. I explain this in detail in Chapter 10 of my book Breaking Together. I explain that if we recognise those systemic causes of ecological destruction and social dislocation, we see that the cause is not too much personal and collective freedom, but our manipulation and coercion by dominant economic systems. From that analysis, I offer a non-authoritarian perspective for how to act upon our difficult emotions in the face of metacrisis and collapse. It is one where we aspire to liberate ourselves and our communities to find more harmony with each other and our environments. This ‘eco-libertarianism’ is not a new idea, as it draws upon the centuries of thought and initiative in the field of left libertarianism. I made it a central message in my book because I concluded the tension between eco-libertarianism and eco-authoritarianism will become a central one for the future of the environmental movement and profession, when it finally stops pretending that a managed transition to sustainable industrial consumer societies, globally, is possible. 

With that in mind, John Foster’s critique is important to consider. He asked me, along with others who share my eco-libertarian view, to respond to five questions. I will answer them in this essay, before putting my own questions for John and others who are drawn towards the belief that eco-authoritarianism is now the best hope.  After answering his questions, I will explain the benefit of maintaining a wider dialogue about the many responses to both the violence of global capitalism and the breakdown of modern societies. I believe that if we can find the courage to set aside authoritarian imaginaries that falsely alleviate our anxiety, dread and grief at the predicament, we can begin an important conversation about political strategies: of resistance, reclamation and even revolution. 

Replying to the questions from philosopher John Foster

1. Does Professor Bendell think that he himself knows more about the climate and ecological emergency, and about what might still be done to avert its worst consequences, than (say) the average reader of the Daily Mail? 

Yes, I do, while also realising that my views are provisional, contextual, socially conditioned, and evolving. (For those who don’t know: The Daily Mail is a popular right wing newspaper in the UK). 

Prior to 2018, my earnest belief, which shaped my whole adult life, was that there was the possibility for incremental change in global capitalism towards a sufficiently fair and environmentally sustainable situation. Over time, that belief changed massively, leading up to the publication of the Deep Adaptation paper. Concluding that it’s too late for a managed transition, and there will be societal breakdowns, has major implications for policies on how to change economies and societies, as well as how to prepare for future disruptions. In addition, prior to 2022, I thought that carbon emissions were the main issue to address to give us a chance of reducing planetary heating within decades. Since then, I have learned more about how the recent global ocean and air temperatures can’t be explained without appreciating the greater importance of bio-hydrological cycles than is the norm in mainstream climatology. That has major implications for any policies on carbon, versus policies on conserving large forests, reforesting large areas, and cleaning up the world’s oceans, so they can return to better seeding climate-cooling clouds. 

If I had been advising an overt or clandestine national or international dictatorial committee in 2017, or in 2021, then my recommendations at each moment would have included significant mistakes. In addition, other experts, more mainstream within their ‘epistemic community’ of climate science than myself, would not have challenged that with a more advanced understanding. That is because we developed our ideas in the context of our social conditioning as people who ‘do’ climate science and policy, which includes many institutional factors that aren’t purely about inquiring into the truth of climate change. 

The personal implication from that insight is that right now, my insight remains provisional, as I described above. I cannot know all my blind spots. A philosophical implication of that is to remember that intellectual endeavour on any aspect of the human experience, including the climate situation, is about inquiry through sharing and questioning information and ideas, in dialogue with others. The political implication from that is there needs to be the free flowing of information and ideas, a diverse and mixed economy of science and media institutions, and systems for the accountability of experts and the bureaucrats and politicians who act (or not) on their advice. 

2. Whether or not he claims membership of this cohort, does he believe that people in such an advantaged cognitive position belong to a comparatively small minority in our kind of society?

No, I do not regard there to be a generic ‘advantaged cognitive position’ defined by one form of knowing or, within that, one set of knowledge, on any matter, including climate change. In John Foster’s new book he calls for an ecological ‘epistocracy’ – rule by the environmentally “knowledgeable”. In practice that would almost certainly privilege forms of knowledge already favoured by existing systems of power. Knowledge is neither singular nor neutral, especially on matters of social organisation. Various models that distinguish multiple forms of knowing (such as propositional or scientific knowledge, technical or practical skills, experiential knowledge, relational and moral knowledge, cultural-symbolic knowledge, and contemplative or embodied wisdom) have demonstrated how different people and communities develop depth in different domains. Indigenous farmers may possess ecological-experiential knowledge; care workers often possess relational and moral knowledge; while engineers and economists are trained in technical and abstract forms. An ‘epistocracy’ would implicitly (or even explicitly) rank these forms, typically elevating abstract, formalised, and credentialed knowledge.

Power shapes this ranking. An ‘epistemic community’ on any subject area does not emerge organically; they are socially constructed through institutions, funding structures, educational systems, and professional gatekeeping. Paradigms define what counts as “common sense,” which questions are legitimate, and which methods are authoritative. As Kuhn and later sociologists of knowledge observed, dominant paradigms marginalise alternative ways of knowing, not necessarily because they are less accurate, but because they are less compatible with prevailing interests, including those of capital. An epistocracy might formalise this process by embedding dominant paradigms into governance itself. 

Power also shapes how issues like climate change are framed. Any social problem can be understood either as a technical problem, requiring expert optimisation within existing structures, or as a political and cultural problem, involving the airing and contestation of values, power relations, and ways of life. Sociological research has demonstrated, for decades, that those with higher economic status within the current order are more likely to favour technical framings, as these preserve their advantages while appearing neutral and rational. We see that with climate change, as it has come to be regarded as a problem of carbon emissions that requires innovation and entrepreneurship, thereby sidelining deeper questions about political economy. As someone with Marxist sympathies, I realise John Foster knows of this tendency for the mainstream environmental movement and profession to ignore the deeper critiques of capitalism. I think he might therefore join me in a concern that an epistocracy would risk narrowing environmental governance to what can be modelled, measured, and managed — while excluding the lived, moral, cultural, economic and political knowledge essential for genuinely transformative responses. If so, then the dynamics of Imperial Modernity that have captured our current pseudo-democracies would not be overcome by an epistocracy. 

My own experience highlights this situation. Increasingly, I do not regard myself as part of the same epistemic community on climate change as the people who work on it full time. For instance, I reject the fake green fairytale of a managed transition to industrial consumer societies run on renewable energy. I now reject the carbon-centrism of mainstream climate policy as both unscientific and undermining the chance for urgent efforts to save large forests and restore ocean health, which might offer some rapid climate cooling. I am convinced that we must look deeper at the expansionist monetary systems that require the growth of consumption and the commodification of our life world. I am painfully aware of the amount of damage underway and soon to come, and therefore promote action on transformative and deep adaptation to inevitable future changes in weather worldwide. None of these views are aspects of the mainstream on climate and thus not part of any likely ‘epistocratic’ agenda. 

Although an ecological epistocracy, brought to us by a ‘vanguard elite’ is unlikely, the belief that there is an epistemic elite who know exactly what is happening with the climate and what to do about it, whose influence is under threat from false analysis, can lead to authoritarian policy agendas even within the current pseudo-democratic systems. For instance, despite being woefully wrong on his claims that climate change is not accelerating, and condemning some of us who had a different view, this April the climatology Professor Michael Mann is speaking at a summit on countering disinformation. Having studied there for undergrad and visited over the years, I know that being hosted at the University of Cambridge means it will attract influential people, with the aim of guiding policy making. How to promote a healthy information ecology in an era of collapsing budgets and trust in legacy media, newly influential bloggers, and tech platforms that manipulate our perceptions and defy regulations, is an important issue (and one I’ve offered a view on before). I don’t think Professor Mann should be censored for being wrong about some aspects of climate science, but I don’t think corporations or governments should censor those who have turned out to be more accurate than him or other senior mainstream voices. This isn’t theoretical: I have been censored by Twitter and Facebook in the past, both times when my content became popular.

3. Does he believe that this minority has any chance whatsoever, before irreversibly   catastrophic tipping-points kick in, of bringing the wider population through solely democratic means to understand and act on our plight?

No, I do not believe that either a minority or a majority can avert many of the catastrophic tipping points from kicking in, as many appear to be tipping already. I remember John Foster himself pointing to that predicament in the book After Sustainability, ten years ago. Therefore, I value the aim of attempting to lessen the likelihood of more tipping points, the aim of reducing harm from the catastrophic changes to come, and the myriad other aims of human existence beyond survival. I think that participatory democratic means, in a truer sense of the concept, are the way to respond to the second and third of those aims. But I do not see solely democratic means as the way of attempting to lessen the likelihood of more tipping points. Instead, they are one option, while authoritarian action is another option. However, the failures of one approach doesn’t validate another approach. Authoritarian responses involve so many contradictions and counter-productives, as I mentioned at the start, and will explore further in a moment. 

4. Does he think that preserving any particular political system is more important than averting climate and ecological catastrophe, followed by the collapse of civilisation and the effective extinction of humanity?

No, I don’t, but I see incorrect assumptions in this question. First, equating the collapse of modern societies with the extinction of humanity is incorrect. It obscures the distinction, which means that people might use the justification of saving humanity for what is actually trying to preserve their own way of life for longer. The primary aim of any globally-dictatorial elite in relation to metacrisis and collapse would not be without philosophical and moral challenge. Would they be primarily interested in reducing the likelihood of the loss of their power, the collapse of civilisation, mass starvation, or biodiversity loss, or human extinction? Each goal, separate from the other goals, could lead to very different agendas, some of which would seem psychopathic. In any case, as elites tend to have their own ideas, might they be more interested in preserving specific cultures, converting humans to their beliefs, or perhaps even populating the universe with artificial intelligence? On the spectrum from the TechBros to the religious fundamentalists, there are some beliefs on how to respond to our metacrisis that can seem deranged to non-believers. Elites of any kind typically don’t put the interests of the masses first. 

Second, there is an implicit assumption in the question that a different political system might  give humanity a better chance, when that is actually mere conjecture. Recognising it is conjecture, means we can be curious about the variety of options for different political systems and how we might get there, rather than speculatively claim that one particular version – an authoritarian epistocracy, would work. In such a discussion of ideal types of governance, and the strategies for reaching them, we could openly discuss the various values we wish to uphold, which for some of us includes the dignity of every person. To regard principles like human dignity, freedom, care for the weak, and tolerance of difference, as historically specific forms tends to involve an ignorance of non-Western origins of such ideas (in Buddhism, Taoism and elsewhere). Instead, they can be considered as aims within any political system, not only the pseudo-democracies we experience today. 

5. Does he acquiesce in catastrophe? After encountering some of his later writings and publicities on Deep Adaptation, I am actually unsure how Bendell himself would answer this… I know how anyone with intellectual honesty, a genuine concern for humanity and a modicum of guts ought to answer it. 

Do I give up and accept catastrophe? No, I accept some elements of catastrophe as having already begun and others being inevitable, but do not give up trying to be positive and useful in that context. I continue to try to reduce harm, enable joy, and find meaning, in various ways within my means and circles of influence. That is the most basic message in the Deep Adaptation writings of myself and others, as well as the many communities that have emerged around that proposition. Key for many of us is accepting catastrophic damage is likely, inevitable, or already underway, and still seek to help, while also not being attached to the outcome in justifying our efforts. Other people, including those who criticise us, are the ones who abandon their moral imagination if there is not a certainty for long lasting impact from the actions they believe in. 

John’s fifth question brings up deeper questions about forms of love and courage and how that shapes what we think we know about ourselves and the world. That inner world is so important to how we develop and articulate our ideas, and yet it is overlooked by most researchers, educators and commentators. Therefore, I will take a few moments to explore the love-courage-knowledge nexus, and its implications for our political imaginations in an era of collapse. 

In the last decade I have been learning of the love and courage required to recognise my own ‘experiential avoidance’ where I would prefer stories of myself and the world that would avoid difficult emotions, like confusion, grief, and fear. There is emotional pain from concluding that there is no escape from processes already underway and catastrophic change to come. That involves forms of dread, grief, trauma and moral injury (as explained in a recent guest essay). Naturally, many of us want to avoid feeling such emotions, and therefore choose to believe analyses and ideas which seems to provide an escape from them. The belief in some kind of salvation from climate chaos through authoritarian action could be a form of experiential avoidance. Psychologists explain that experiential avoidance can drive a denial of reality that is maladaptive, so we don’t respond well. In addition, suppression of difficult emotions can lead to the eruption of other emotions, specifically anger, which is most often directed outwards, but can be inwards. Such eruptions can occur in relation to materially less concerning situations, as they provide a release and distraction. Thus we see hysteria and aggression over lesser problems than societal collapse due to environmental breakdown, or when there are disagreements about how to respond to that harrowing predicament. I have often referred back to my 2021 paper in a psychotherapy journal on this issue, but still need to remind myself of this pattern when I am criticised (or even abused) with fabricated reasons by people or groups who espouse a gentler or more just collapse.

Over the last decade I have also been learning of the love and courage required to recognise the acculturation of my own identity and worldview, within a culture of patriarchy, secular-Christendom and Imperial Modernity. By patriarchy, I mean a culture where attributes framed as masculine are assumed to be both normal and favourable within public life. By secular-Christendom, I mean the contemporary secular cultures that inherit some aspects of Christian assumptions, values and institutions. By Imperial Modernity, I mean “the interlocking set of political, economic, and cultural systems that shape our everyday lives to favour the accumulation of power by elites.” It can be destabilising to recognise how a variety of our assumptions are given to us by our culture. However, our love of humanity and wider nature means that we are called to excavate those assumptions, for how they influence ourselves, others and wider life. 

Within the cultural contexts I’ve just described, since childhood we were taught the trope of the need and effectiveness of a ‘strong leader’ in enforcing change on reluctant people, for their own good. That trope is found in stories about history, politics, management and business. Psychologists explain how such deep frames from childhood make these attitudes seem like ‘common sense’ in adulthood. However, the field of ‘critical leadership studies’ has shown how this is an ideology without empirical basis. I document that in my paper on sustainable leadership. Over time I have also come to understand that deep concepts in secular-Christendom — such as ‘original sin’ — help to underpin this idea that we can’t trust each of us to perceive what is good for our neighbour and wider society and behave in prosocial ways. Other traditions, such as Buddhism and Taoism, have different views on the essential nature of human beings, prior to any emotional injury from either culture or personal difficulties. Freed from some of the assumptions derived from our acculturation, we can discover an instinctively more curious, deliberative and collaborative approach to social change.

For those of us who have felt motivated to work for improving the world, on whatever issue and scale, then it can also involve love and courage to notice how our craving for agency relates to our ego. If we assume our identity as the helper, the leader, or the saviour, then we can become trapped in that in ways that prevent us from being curious and collaborative. In particular, we cover up our own vulnerabilities and uncertainties, and thus don’t allow for a mutual flow of solidarity with those we have framed as needing our help or leadership. If we don’t recognise this craving for agency, and how it relates to a perceived need to matter in the world, then when we begin to perceive little to no agency on what we focused on, then things can turn really sour. That happens in a variety of ways, two of which are worth mentioning here. First, people can find solace in the story that at least they are better than others and better than the mess. That becomes a form of numbness and alienation which can lead, outwardly, to antisocial behaviours and, inwardly, to depression. Second, psychologists point to the seeking of agency in performative and destructive ways, where actions to punish or destroy ‘the perpetrators’ are regarded as being on behalf of the oppressed or needy (human or not), even if no one benefits. In such psychological spirals, there can be a conceptual pathologising of other humans, and groups of humans, which can manifest subtly with concepts such as humanity being ‘addicted’ to consumption, or ‘hypnotised’ by fear, or requiring salvation from sin. Such concepts reframe people as less sovereign than the one’s doing that reframing, and thus can prepare the conceptual ground for violence. 

It has also taken me some years to learn that there is love and courage in evolving one’s own ideas, privately and then publicly. It was my love of humanity, wider nature, and being alive that kept me asking questions of what was happening in the world and why. That took me beyond specific intellectual disciplines and professional sectors, and beyond familiar cultural contexts and belief systems. That journey meant I sometimes unlearned my past assumptions and passions. For instance, despite decades of effort and sacrifices along the way, in 2018 the data reaching me meant I had to ditch my belief in corporate sustainability and the possibility of a managed transition for humanity. In 2022, the data on recent climate change and the importance of biohydrological cycles meant I had to ditch my confidence in mainstream climatology being correct to regard carbon emissions as the key to recent years of anthropogenic global heating (rather than a contributing factor). On both occasions, I knew that many of my friends and past colleagues would be shocked and angry in response, and then speculate on my character and intellect – sometimes publicly. Even though I knew it was coming, it was painful whenever it came, more so from people I thought were friends. 

It is for unconditional love and commitment to inquiry, that I am refusing to acquiesce to what I perceive as a catastrophe in the ways that privileged people are interpreting the environmental predicament and what to do about it. Therefore, I will encourage us to maintain an open-hearted and open-minded dialogue about the many ways to respond. 

The blindspots of eco-authoritarian dreams

John Foster explained in his article that the most logical, ethical and brave answers to the five questions he posed me would be the following:  Yes, I know best; Yes, more people like me know best; No, we can’t persuade the majority in time;  No, a political system isn’t more important than the planet and; No, we must not give in to catastrophe. 

The implications he derives from those answers are that a ‘vanguard elite’ need a plan to take charge, globally, self-justified by the theory that an ecological epistocracy is the only system that can save the world. I have explained some of why I think that is not a likely scenario or a useful one to promote. One of the key issues is the bias of any self-authorised elites. This was illustrated in John Foster’s own writing when he argued that not acquiescing to catastrophe: “would mean, at a minimum, authoritatively (that is, not just by asking nicely) rationing carbon and meat, severely limiting recreational flying, commandeering cultivable land as a basis for local resilience, and bringing in a citizens’ income to ensure that no-one in the ensuing shake-out starved.” In his proposals we see an example of the problem of experts moving from believing that they know what’s important on a topic, to then being comfortable with ruining lives or even killing people to impose their views (aka “not just by asking nicely”). His focus on carbon is shaped by the influence of a multi-trillion dollar faction of capital and the internal dynamics of a profession. Would it mean ignoring the rights and value of small holders and their small scale meat production? Would it mean preventing the poor from heating their homes? And why no mention of the expansionist monetary system? It is OK for John to focus on what he focuses on, and that be subject to discussion, but to move from that to authoritarian imposition is another matter. 

Foster’s dreams don’t seem plausible. Authoritarianism inevitably requires the support of a country’s military. Immediately we must face the fact that not many of the world’s many militaries are into ecologism. Then we must face the fact that those militaries which do perceive ecological threat approach the topic from their particular framework, and are even imagining going to war to secure access to key materials to maintain their capacity for combat. In a world with hundreds of armed countries, we do not want to see that kind of foreign policy plunge the world into perpetual war. This conundrum might lead some to imagine the need for a global coup, where policies could be imposed on countries without having the ability to resist. That type of coup would only be possible in alliance with banking and tech elites, and siding with at least one of the great powers of the USA or China. Apart from the problems of riding roughshod over hard-fought post-colonial freedoms, due to the alliances keeping it in power, an ‘epistocratic elite’ would be unlikely to be much different from the bureaucratic elite that is already in power, within and across many countries. 

In recent years, the bureaucratic elite in both governments and international organisations has been ‘bolting on’ environmental concerns to the existing global capitalist system. Not only has that been ineffective, such as with carbon permits and trading, but it has been alienating huge swathes of the population. As these elites begin to explore enforcement of behaviour change to reduce carbon footprints, we increasingly see critics conflate environmental concerns with elite hypocrisy and authoritarianism. Although global rule by an environmentally-minded elite ranges from extremely unlikely to impossible, just by imagining it one can undermine wider support for positive action on the environment. 

Even if the unlikely occurred, and there was a global eco-authoritarianism that wasn’t allied to specific factions of capital, or the interests of one ‘great power’, then the very nature of authoritarianism means that the necessary diversity of responses to local situations would be undermined. History gives us many examples of that. The Russian experience is particularly relevant here, as John Foster explained he might like to see a “Leninist flank” to the climate movement. He wrote that Vladimir “Lenin consolidated and led a vanguard party to a revolution which changed history for the, at least, arguably better…” I disagree. The Soviets claimed to be guided by science, but were in fact guided by politicised agricultural pseudo-science like Lysenkoism. Their own ‘epistocracy’ used that ‘science’ as a justification for farm collectivisation. That led to the seizure of small farms and the death of millions of small farmers (e.g. the Kulaks). The collectivised farms were dependent on machinery, chemical inputs, and monocrops, so were an ecological disaster. The small farmers were torn from their traditions and cultures, which supported their more sustainable life ways. Nevertheless, some estimates are that the small farm (dacha) system provided Russians about 50% of their food when the Soviet Union collapsed, which points to the importance of locally-controlled practices for softening societal breakdowns. 

It is worth noting here that Vladimir Lenin and his team were ideologically not enthusiastic about cooperatives and resources managed in the commons by their local communities, and adopted many policies which effectively destroyed that aspect of Russia’s economy and society. His essay “On Cooperation” (1923) argued that cooperatives under a proletarian state could be a path to socialism, but only if led by the Communist Party and gradually merged with state interests. Land reform removed private property, even if owned by cooperative arrangements. Larger cooperatives firms were nationalised during the first world war, and there were central impositions, such as grain ‘requisitioning.’ 

Furthermore, the extensive network of credit cooperatives and mutual savings societies throughout pre-revolutionary Russia was ended by the Soviets by 1920. From an environmental perspective, it is important to note that by imposing a fiat-money system where money was issued from nothing and loaned to companies and individuals at interest, the Soviets imposed an economic logic which required perpetual growth, which required evermore utilisation of natural resources. More dramatically, it was a centralisation of monetary power that meant the bureaucratic few would decide how people and resources would be governed. That paved the way for the more violent approach of Joseph Stalin and his government, which caused the death of millions. The history of Soviet Russia is therefore a warning about the centralisation of power, including the money power, whatever the espoused values of the authoritarians. Instead, if we look at the history of cooperatives and the commons, worldwide, Michel Bauwens has noted that when societies are fracturing and the role of both government and private enterprises are not meeting people’s needs, there is often a ‘pulsation of the commons’ as people come together in mutual aid. Therefore support for such forms of citizen ownership makes good sense in this era of metacrisis and collapse. 

Setting aside that awful history, let’s look at the situation that an imaginary global eco-dictatorship would face today and the ‘ecological’ ideas that are being promoted which they might enforce. Let’s stick with agriculture for an example. A leading environmental commentator, advisor and activist in the Western world, George Monbiot has called for a “farmfree” future. He defines that as ending all farming of animals, even on small organic farms, and replacing all proteins from animals with proteins grown in factories. I discussed the debate about that idea in Breaking Together. I concluded that the new technologies should not be banned, but need careful regulation and testing, to assess any health risks. If they prove to be safe and if people want the product, they might reduce the overall demand for meat and that might have positive implications for animal welfare and the environment. However, that is different from imagining the ending of animal farming, at any scale, which could not be achieved without heavy-handed measures, even if those were taxes and fines. One can only imagine what a ‘vanguard elite’  invested with absolute power might do to bring about a “farmfree” scenario, but the history I mentioned above provides us with warnings. We can learn from the coerced transition from small farms to large-scale/chemical-intensive/industrial farms that has taken place around the world under the guise of science and efficiency, resulting in ecological devastation, disempowerment and gross inequality. 

This example of agriculture immediately brings up the question of what an imaginary eco-dictatorship might prioritise in their policy programme. If they had utilitarian ethics and considered survival of the human species as being key, then the peoples who consume the most and pollute the most would be the ones they would seek to constrain the most. That would be the people in the richer countries of the world. Countries like the UK depend on the rest of the world for food, fuel and more. The current migration to the West is only attractive while the systems of world trade can continue. Once those supply chains are (further) disrupted, both the standard of living and life expectancy of British people would fall. So although anxious British environmentalists might look at their granddaughters and think they would do anything to save some future for them, including supporting violence towards the non-compliant, perhaps they don’t realise that their analysis and ethics, applied effectively, would mean the life of their granddaughter might be the collateral damage deemed acceptable by a global ‘vanguard elite’. And if one global elite assessed that humanity is in an era needing the ‘triage’ of decreasing resources, and decided to prioritise the lives of their favoured nationalities, faiths or ethnicities, then that would not be an ‘ecological epistocracy’ and would be contested by other competing ‘vanguard elites’ around the world, inevitably leading to conflict. To ignore all such issues would require a parochialism and lack of awareness of contemporary geopolitics. 

The courage to support emergence

After a deep dive into the data, trends, and economic drivers, I concluded that societal systems will continue to break, and so decided to encourage work on what we can do within that context. I see the benefits of helping to build alternative economic and political systems in our spheres of influence, in order to ease our difficulties as the systems we rely upon break, and to experiment with forms of living that could grow in future. Many people are using the term ‘regeneration’ to describe such an approach, though it involves by its very nature, a diverse array of initiatives and organisational forms. I also see a duty and benefit of ongoing resistance to the worst excesses of Imperial Modernity, ranging from war crimes, to ecocide, to unregulated tech firms, and so on…. Sadly the list of what to resist seems to grow. Then there is also the matter of societal transformation, which is ironically more possible as there are increasing fractures in ‘business-as-usual.’

When people awaken to systemic injustice they often speak of a need for ‘revolution’ in the system, and sometimes they work towards that. It is true that political revolutions have occurred throughout history, not always violent, and with an apparent removal of an entire political class and a change in some core aspects of political economy. However, from my engagement in anti-globalisation politics from 1999 to 2002 in the UK, I noticed that in the West, talking about a revolution was not empowering. Some of the radical people sounded categorical about right and wrong, bombastic about consequences, and aggressive about non-believers. They assumed that such tropes were signs of their conviction, when actually more nuance, curiosity, and openness can be signs of conviction. Something I am noticing now is that those speaking of revolution today, such as XR co-founder Roger Hallam, are focusing on recruiting others to an analysis and belief system, about the needed revolution and how to get there, and then identifying opportunities for near term political wins. That can be useful but not if it does not also include doing something useful to change what we can in ways that might then accumulate. In Roger’s case he does mention the need for more acquisition of localised power, but I see the risk of that being deprioritised within the ‘revolutionary’ framing.

Then there is the unethical and counterproductive tolerance for violence that can emerge from revolutionary imaginations. If we look back at the anti-war movements in the US in the 1960s and 1970s, the lack of any signs of progress towards the desired revolution, combined with the false idea that categorical bombastic aggression is laudable, led people to consider turning to violence, with some doing that with counter-productive effects (e.g. the Weather Underground). The ‘explanation’ that we read they used in the 1970s, and I heard from some ‘black bloc’ anarchists in the late 1990s, was that they were helping to disrupt the systems of power. However, by providing an excuse for state repression and turning off the public from engagement, their effects were the opposite, and the psychological motivation of the activists, described above, was the real motivation. The rationale for violence is typically baseless. That was illustrated by the lack of examples of positive social change in the West arising from violent struggle in Malm’s book How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Sadly, many people who reach the point of considering violence as a method to achieve their goals then regard any allies with differences of opinion as their enemies and target them rather than their actual oppressors. That is why violence internal to political and activist movements is such a feature in history. 

In my analysis of the situation, I frame the needed change as a Great Reclamation of our power from the system of Imperial Modernity. I recognise this reclamation as already beginning, as people are responding to a decline in the ability of governmental institutions and big businesses to meet a range of their needs and aspirations, as well as the blatant abuses by those organisations, by reclaiming more power in their lives and communities. That involves finding non-corporate ways to meet needs and aspirations, including food growing, community support, and alternative digital services. A strange upside of societal breakdown is that the alternatives to corporatised provision of products and services will become more welcome. However, within the context of fracturing societal systems, one of the challenges is how to reclaim democracies — locally, nationally and internationally. That means we need to ask what forms of communication, organising and implementation could escape capture by global capital, and then scale to be significant? Presently I am unclear about venues and strategies for such aims. People’s assemblies could help, including those that use sortition (random selection of participants) as well as democratic election. However, the way they are advised is key, as otherwise they can become a camouflage for a bureaucratic/technocratic/epistocratic process. In some countries we have seen militaries seize power with the explicit explanation or excuse that they need to reclaim democratic processes from corrupt elites serving foreign agendas. Before ending this essay I want to turn to that, and the complexities it generates for those of us who are interested in real democracies as a mechanism for good governance. 

Since 2020, West Africa has experienced a wave of military coups, notably in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea-Bissau. These events involved little to no violence, which some regard as indicating broad domestic support for these events. In each coup, the military declared an anti-imperialist agenda, denouncing corrupt politicians that served foreign corporate interests, particularly French. The same political sentiments led to the election of an anti-imperialist in Senegal. Although their diagnosis was correct, it is uncertain whether the military leaders will deliver on issues such as land reform, monetary reform, industry nationalisation, anti-corruption, and welfare spending. It is also uncertain whether environmental concerns will be addressed, or whether the countries will be returned to democratic arrangements that can avoid foreign capture, as has been perceived before. In addition, for the reasons described earlier, a lack of accountability can lead to rulers becoming more focused on their power than their espoused agenda. When corporations and foreign agents offer bribes, the interest in power can become interest in personal enrichment. So why do I mention these coups? Because they are recent reminders that in some countries, an anti-imperialist analysis can underpin a political rupture. That can lead to economic changes that redistribute resources in the world to allow for a more equitable decline in the face of ecological breakdown. Therefore, in the West we could accept the correctness of the anti-imperialist sentiments and argue against our government’s efforts to disrupt or co-opt them. And if you are motivated by the idea of advising authoritarians on their environmental policies, you could seek to provide information to them where they are already in charge, rather than promote authoritarianism where it hasn’t taken over. 

In addition to a sense of the political context (metacrisis and collapse), and a political philosophy (ecolibertarianism and a ‘great reclamation’), I also have an idea of a policy programme for a ‘real green revolution’, if any government would take the situation seriously. However, I have not been able to imagine a strategy for achieving such change. That’s why I have welcomed and promoted the work of people exploring the myriad ideas for a solidarity-based politics during collapse (so that was the topic of our first Metacrisis Salon with Richard Hames). Perhaps it is enough for people like me, with knowledge, networks, skills, and experience that emerged from the centre of Imperial Modernity, to simply encourage awareness of humanity needing to experiment with politics in the metacrisis. Perhaps it is enough for people like me to encourage the generation of multiple strategies in different contexts. Perhaps that is the guts to recognise what I don’t know, perhaps can’t know, and shouldn’t be the one to know, and instead to encourage emergence. Guts, because such agnosticism doesn’t feel reassuring for a public intellectual facing catastrophic scenarios. 

With all I have said above, a key issue for me has become where to focus my future efforts on encouraging political awareness and experimentation. As we are within a global predicament, an important question is where leadership might emerge to influence the world rather than just one country. Because of my background, it is sad for me to conclude that we won’t see much future leadership from the West on pre-distributing and redistributing resources around the world to soften disruptions. That doesn’t mean I assume it will emerge from elsewhere with international effect. However, it does mean I’ve become more interested in learning about cultures, trends and opportunities for change in parts of the world I am not familiar with. I now accept that means retreating from the professional, activist and political communities where I’ve knowledge, experience and personal networks, and instead engaging in new networks with humility and patience. 

Questions for eco-authoritarians

To conclude, I pose the following questions for people who believe that there needs to be eco-authoritarian governance (via an ‘environmental epistocracy’ of a vanguard elite) imposing change on all of us for the good of life on Earth (including humanity):

1. Would there be many ‘vanguard elites’ around the world, with different priorities (and rationales for prioritising their communities), which would then clash with each other? If each of them are entirely convinced of their own worldview and need to exert power, and are only answerable to themselves, is that a recipe for brutal disputes?
2. To gain and exert power, would a ‘vanguard elite’ need to ally with the military, BigTech, and global finance, at a minimum, who are not the smartest or most ethical institutions on social and environmental matters, yet bring their own non-ignorable interests and assumptions into such governance? If so, would maintaining the power of the vanguard elite to act become its primary focus, involving the machineries of ecological destruction, rather than the espoused aims of that elite and its allies? 
3. Would an eco-authoritarian government, or globally-coordinated eco-authoritarian elite, by its very nature, limit its ability to learn from the feedback loops that come from free and open communication, and therefore risk making bad mistakes even for its own aims? If so, is the claim that an authoritarian ‘epistocracy’ is a smarter form of governance, not a contradiction in terms?  
4. If acting in a clandestine way to shape behaviours would be the best way to impose rule, might a self-appointed ‘vanguard elite’ already be managing geopolitics and news agendas, globally, perhaps with a plan to depopulate the planet for ecological goals? If so, does someone’s wish for such a phenomenon to exist then render them spectators to geopolitical disruptions and the erosion of democratic accountability of private and public institutions?
5. If the eco-authoritarians decide the world would be better off without you and/or your progeny, would you feel comfortable about having helped them to have attained that power (whether public or clandestine?). What are your thoughts on this matter revealing to you about your values — and what if everyone else has such values?
6. What successful models of authoritarian regimes implementing an ecological epistocracy are there to base theorising and advocacy in favour of them? 

The Greenhouse Thinktank seeks to influence the Green Party in the UK, which is becoming a force in UK politics for the first time since the late 1980s. As it published John Foster’s views and his questions to me, I hope they will publish this essay in response. I will link to it here if they do.