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Andreas Malm's new book on Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency War Communism in the Twenty-First Century is out tomorrow with @VersoBooks and Im kinda excited to engage with it.
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3704-corona-climate-chronic-emergency
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3704-corona-climate-chronic-emergency
He gave an interview to @jacobinmag a while back in which he laid out some of the arguments. https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/andreas-malm-coronavirus-covid-climate-change
Wars are clearly a key moment for thinking about the possibilities of modern political economy and Malm's argument appears to pivot on the WWII (GND) v. War Communism (climate Leninism) axis.
Malm (slight) skepticism regarding WWII as an appropriate jumping-off point for radical climate politics is spot on. Coming from a vastly different political place than Malm, Ive always found it disconcerting that it should serve as a model. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/15/climate-socialism-supercharged-left-green-new-deal/
Ive always felt that it overstates US - aka arsenal of democracy's - contribution to eventual victory and misunderstands the complex and politically ambiguous alliance with Stalinist Soviet Union/Brit Empire that actually won the war.
But even taken at face value: US war effort in WWII was an absolutely classic demonstration of the power of state-led, capitalist-driven, carbon-intensive economic growth. North American emissions surged 1939-1944 from 481,133,000 metric tons of C to 704,364,000.
It was a war won by oil and capped in the aftermath by the consolidation of what you might call the "energy state".
It was out of WWII-Cold War era that US global oil strategy anchored on MIddle East emerged with implications for development of both W Europe and Japan.
Its a hugely complex legacy in which we are still entangled today. And yet what gets celebrated, again and again, are the productivist triumphs.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21349200/climate-change-fossil-fuels-rewiring-america-electrify
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21349200/climate-change-fossil-fuels-rewiring-america-electrify
I get the attraction of New Deal & WWII as a touchstone for democratic mobilization, role of the state, socially transformative vision etc. But we need to handle its history with care. Is war communism the best counter balance? Malm is always good to read.
An early review by @Gareth_Dale who knows his Lenin! https://mronline.org/2020/08/06/a-review-of-andreas-malms-corona-climate-chronic-emergency-war-communism-in-the-twenty-first-century/
This was my first thread. I could get used to this!
