Ian Angus
“A conscious and collective struggle to stop capitalism’s hell-bound train is our only hope for a better world.”
In an interview with the African Review of Political Economy, Climate & Capitalism editor Ian Angus discusses the environmental crisis, the Anthropocene and Covid-19.
He argues that new viruses, bacteria and parasites spread from wildlife to humans because capital is bulldozing primary forests, replacing them with profitable monocultures.
Ecosocialists, Angus says, must patiently explain that permanent solutions will not be possible so long as capital rules the Earth.
“Next to my desk, I have Gramsci’s famous aphorism, Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, because for me it defines what the ecosocialist attitude must be in our time. Capitalism is powerful, and we know that disaster is possible, but we cannot surrender to despair. If we fight, we may lose; if we don’t fight, we will lose. A conscious and collective struggle to stop capitalism’s hell-bound train is our only hope for a better world.”