So, I want to think here of totality of a capitalist social order. And that totality is made
up of these, let's call them, seven distinctive moments, or activity spheres, or elements or
whatever else you want to call it, which actually make up the whole- in the same way that a human
body has many functions going on inside of it, so society has many functions going on inside of it.
And technology, relation to nature, social relations, production structures,
and mental conceptions of the world, and administrative and social structures- all of
those elements are part of the totality of what a capitalist society is about. So that is the,
if you like, the simplification which we're going to make about historical materialism. Politically
at that point you say to yourself, 'Okay, what kinds of changes would we require to deal with
climate change problems?' And you kind of go actually at this point... it's interesting to
go around those seven elements and ask which one of those is important and what kinds of changes
will be needed. What kinds of changes would be needed in production processes, for example,
to solve the climate change problem? Well, industrial capitalism is the center of it and
agrarian agricultural capitalism is in the center of a lot of this, and there has to be radical
reconfigurations of the way in which industrial capitalism and agricultural capitalism is working.
But it wouldn't be in itself sufficient, actually. So, you would then say, "Okay, what kind of
then..." Somebody said to me the other day when I was talking about this, "You are imagining there's
going to be a great change of heart, great change of mind on the part of the population addressed
with that. And I'm kind of going, "Yeah, mental conceptions have to change, but if you think that
mental conceptions are just going to do it all and that therefore all we have to do is to have
everybody agree mentally that climate change is an issue, that needs to be dealt with."
But nevertheless, there are other changes than mental conceptions that are required.
Technologies. Those are the great emphasis right now. "The solution is technological". Well,
I don't think the solution is technological, but there's no question that the technological moment
is terribly important. And it's terribly important to mobilize it, if you like, in the cause of
dealing with climate change. But then you find also that it's not only your technology, but that
what we need to do is change social relations, that indeed social relations need need to shift.
It's unlikely that a world which is dominated by an oligarchy that is largely organizing the
world to preserve its own privileges and power, it's very unlikely that that social relation is
going to be able to address the climate change problem. And then there is the administrative
and legal and social structure. In many ways, I would argue that one of the biggest barriers
to dealing with climate change right now is the interstate structure or the interstate system. I
mean supposedly the United Nations is supposed to take care of all this, but all you get from
the United Nations is a lot of hot air and no possibility and power to do anything. So,
what you have then is if you ask the question, "How will we deal with climate change?"
It's not simply a matter of oh well you can deal with it in isolation. You have to deal with it
by taking care of all of these other elements, and each one of the elements has to shift and
be realigned around this idea that, well, somehow or other we are going to change the way in which
we use the environment and change it in such a way that the question of climate change is dealt with,
managed properly. So this is, if you like, the way in which I think Marxist historical materialism is
working. It would say "You want to find an answer to this question of climate change? You want to
be able to better manage it? Well, you've got to start thinking about dismantling the interstate
system or somehow other superseding the interstate system. It has to be also such that the power
structures in society are no longer disoriented towards the though that of an oligarchy and
autarchy." What this would say is, "Okay, let's all agree that climate change is a priority. What
do we need to change in order to get there? Do we need to change our mental conceptions?" Answer:
yes but what into exactly? Big debate. We need to change our social relations. Yes,
indeed we do, but what into? Big debate. We need to change our production apparatus. Yes
indeed. We need to change our technologies. Yes indeed. We need to change all of these elements.
So, the theory of historical materialism would say, "Historically, Capital has evolved through
an interaction between these seven elements." And as I say, I'm just choosing seven because
that's a good number to work with. So if we want to look back historically, we'll look at the way
of which all of those elements have been working together. And if we want to look to some way of
managing the current dilemmas, then we have to look to how to change all of the elements and
how to get a kind of political process in motion. So this part starts to change a little bit in such
a way that that part is facilitated to change but change which allows that part to change. So that,
this is the sort of politics that comes out of Marxist historical materialism.