Review – Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World by Ståle Holgersen
Amongst the most overused terms in politics and journalism, ‘crisis’ must be a strong contender for the top spot. A quick glance at today’s news headlines reveals – amongst others – a nightlife crisis, a tariff crisis, a cholera crisis, a housing crisis, and – heaven forbid – an injury crisis at a leading football club! More specifically, for the Marxist left, the notion of ‘the capitalist crisis’ has played an important role in our collective political imaginary. How many times have we heard something to the effect that “as the crisis deepens”, the working class will shed its illusions and in due course will rally to the socialist cause? Stale Holgersen recent book, Against the Crisis, takes issue with both the conceptual confusion surrounding the concept of crisis and, more importantly, at the notion that capitalist crises should be conceived as opportunities for the left.
In relation to the first point, Holgersen proposes a working definition of crisis which comprises three essential elements, as he writes, “Crises are events that 1) come relatively quickly, 2) are embedded in underlying structures and processes, and 3) have negative effects on people or nature” (p.5) Thus, as a consequence, he is sceptical about the concept of a ‘permacrisis’ (the Financial Times’ word of the year 2022). As to the second, he stresses the role that crises play in sustaining the system and the political difficulties that they pose for the left:
“While crises can – in theory – help us to reveal and expose capitalism’s weaknesses and problems, they are also – in the actual political economy – central to the reproduction of capitalism. Crises are a good starting point for criticising capitalism, but they also make it harder to actually overthrow the system”; (p.10) moreover,
“If opportunities – as defined in textbooks – are occasions or situations that make it possible to do something you want or have to do, and if opportunities – as conventionally understood – entail moments of excitement, optimism and hopefulness, and chances for advancement, then we must refrain from referring to crises as opportunities for the working class, the environmental movement or the political left” (p.16).
‘Make the Rich Pay for the Crisis!’ may be an attractive slogan but, as Holgersen points out, it is rarely the case that they ever actually do.
Against the Crisis focusses on the nature of the recurrent economic crises under capitalism and on the overarching issue of the ecological crisis. One of the main strengths of the book is how it analyses the specifics of each of these, their similarities and differences, and the complex relationship between them. Holgersen takes issue with the (reassuring?) view that the ecological crisis, in itself, poses a threat to the continued existence of capitalism. Paraphrasing Lenin he wryly observes, “[It] is more likely … that the last capitalist will sell a jug of gasoline to his last customer in a world on fire; or that the last capitalist will order workers to use the latest technology to produce even more survival kits” (p.106).
In attempting to understand these economic and ecological crises, Holgersen applies an approach which combines both empirical data and structural analysis by way of a series ‘abstractions’. Thus crises, Holgersen argues, need to be understood simultaneously (1) at the ‘surface level’ (e.g. a financial crisis), which is in turn related to (2) the concrete organisation of nature/capitalism (e.g. ‘neo-liberalism’), rooted in (3) the crisis tendencies of the system (e.g. the increase in the ‘organic composition of capital’) which are finally associated with (4) the profit-driven nature of the system and (5) ultimately, with the underlying contradiction between use-value and exchange value which characterises the capitalist system as a whole. It is at these, more fundamental levels of abstraction, that both the economic and the ecological crises – despite their specificities and important differences – can be conceptualised as different manifestations of the same systemic imperatives and contradictions.
Holgersen applies this overall framework to a number of specific issues associated with crises under capitalism. Above all, he underlines the essential class dimensions of such crises. Far from us all being in the ‘same boat’, crises are caused by one class but typically paid for by another. More broadly he writes,
“[t}hat class struggle intensifies during crises of capitalism may sound like a dream to the left, who might be more than happy to welcome some extra class struggle. But most of this is nothing to cheer about. This is class struggle from above, subtly and quietly, often with murderous efficiency” (p.142).
Against the Crisis also includes a very useful discussion of the relationship between racism, fascism and capitalist crises. For Holgersen racism is a permanent feature of such crises, a predictable response “within a capitalism built for centuries on colonialism and imperialism”, but “[w]here racism is the rule, fascism is the exception; if racism is the eternal answer to crisis, fascism is the exceptional solution” (p.187) and “[f]ascism is a solution when it seems that the crises will not be able to reproduce capitalism. In other words, fascism becomes a possibility when the basic hypothesis of this book is challenged. Fascism is the shock therapy when capitalism really needs to change in order to survive” (p.194).
Holgersen applies a variety of theoretical frameworks to help illuminate the nature of capitalist crises, drawing on both the Trotskyist tradition, especially the work of Ernest Mandel and Daniel Bensaid, and on the ‘left eurocommunism’ of Nicos Poulantzas, and specifically, on the latter’s concept of the ‘relative autonomy’ of the capitalist state. This represents a potentially innovative fusion of traditions that have traditionally between somewhat remote and indeed hostile to each other; the resumption of a dialogue that briefly took place in the late 1970’s and was subsequently lost to history, not least by the virtual disappearance of the ‘left eurocommunism’ perspective by the early 1980’s[i].
However, whilst Holgersen’s book is theoretically rich and stimulating, in a refreshing contrast with much current leftwing theorising, it also focusses on the practical responses which capitalist crises demand of the left. Paralleling the analytical abstractions that he employs to understand the nature of crises; he distinguishes between three ‘levels’ around which the left should formulate such a response. In particular, he distinguishes between (1) crisis management (2) crisis policy and (3) crisis critique and argues convincingly that then left needs all of the above. In fact, it is the weakness of the left at the level of crisis management/policy, in contrast to its relative sophistication at the level of crisis critique, which leaves us vulnerable to collapsing into essentially ‘Keynesian’ solutions to when the crisis actually hits. Holgersen rightly stresses the urgent need for the left to develop its own distinctive and credible crisis policies and proposes several possible sources for these; including a renewed programme of ‘transitional demands’, the advocacy of anti-capitalist ‘structural reforms’ and a strategy which operates simultaneously ‘in and against’ the capitalist state. As he notes:
“Crisis and its causes are something we must fight against. Rather than opportunities we look forward to exploring, or moments when the fight for socialism is put on hold, the crises are problems we must solve” (p.19).
Overall, Against the Crisis is a fascinating and rewarding read providing useful material on a host of topics. If I have one reservation about the book it would be that whilst correctly stressing the ‘destructive functionality’ of cyclical crises under capitalism and their essential role in ensuring the reproduction of the system, it is not at all at clear that similar considerations apply to the more long-term ‘organic’ downturns of the system which can and do span numerous cyclical ‘booms’ and ‘bursts’. It is not of course that Holgersen is unaware of the distinction here and in fact discusses it at various points, but perhaps the relationship between these different ‘crises’ (indeed whether the latter is correctly regarded as a ‘crisis’ in the sense that Holgersen defines the term) could have been explored more thoroughly. The ‘functionality’ of capitalism’s cyclical undulations makes much more intuitive sense than those of its ‘long downturns’, especially when the latter – for example in the case of the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1920’s and 30’s – required a cataclysmic world war to finally resolve. In a similar vein, whilst there is no guarantee that any particular crisis will be the ‘final’ crisis of capitalism, it doesn’t follow that we can’t or shouldn’t talk in terms of an overall systemic decline.
Notwithstanding this, Holgersen’s overall thesis is thoughtful, important, and timely. We can’t rely on the crisis of capitalism to deliver the transition to socialism; on the contrary, it is only by finding the political resources to struggle effectively ‘against the crisis’ that we will find our way to a better society. Although crises typically and paradoxically strengthen the system, the ultimate challenge is, as Holgersen concludes, to definitively ‘falsify’ this very thesis.
[i] See ‘L’État et la transition au socialisme. Interview de Nicos Poulantzas par Henri Weber’, Critique communiste (the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire journal), no. 16, June 1977 translated to English as ‘The State and the Transition to Socialism’, in The Poulantzas Reader, ed by James Martin (Verso, 2008) pp. 334-360
Reviewed by Iain Gault, Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World is published by Verso and is available here
There is a Scotonomics You Tube interview with Holgersen which outlines the main themes of the book and which is well worth a look. It can be accessed here
Ståle Holgersen is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Stockholm University, Sweden. He is a member of two research collectives: the Zetkin Collective (ecosocialist group working on political ecologies of the far right) published White Skin, Black Fuel on Verso in 2021 and Fundament (a housing research collective) published Kris i Bostadsfrågan on Daidalos in 2023.