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By Simone Maddison, Undergraduate Student, Department of History and Department of Government and International Relations

"Man lives on nature 鈥� nature is his body, with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die."

- Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (1932), p. 31

"Part of what it means to love someone else is precisely to be committed to protecting them from violence and suffering. In this finality of violent death you have to face your failure."

- Danielle Celermajer, Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future (2021), p. 86

Together, the above words communicate failure: to feel the natural world鈥檚 destruction as one鈥檚 own; to change in the face of an existential threat we have created; and to realise that these are failures at all. Following recent findings that of global heating have already been surpassed, the connection between ecological collapse and capitalistic exploitation has never been more striking. Our feelings of collective responsibility, tempered by individual grief and overwhelming helplessness, necessitate a shift beyond the solutions offered by Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the School Strikes 4 Climate movement (SS4C). Reflected most urgently by the , this system of what Professor Danielle Celermajer calls 鈥渙mnicide鈥� instead demands the radical panaceas of eco-Marxism and Multispecies Justice (MSJ).¹ Yet despite their similarities, it is only through the latter that may not be reversed, but at least channelled, towards more-than-human solidarity.²

Cracks in contemporary climate action

While understanding the anthropocentric causes of climate change is important, the Romantic narratives of decline, or total salvation, of a once-beautiful natural world in contemporary activist discourses are often counterproductive.³听The paradox within and its subsequent lack of meaningful impact, represents the tension between accountability and inertia stifling environmental justice.^4听To be sure, XR鈥檚 flexibility from hosting a to stayed true to its rejection of 鈥榮ilver-bullet鈥� climate solutions.⁵听But XR鈥檚 ethos to move 鈥渂eyond politics鈥� signifies an exception to, rather than a transformation of, the status quo.^6听The issue, then, is not that XR evades a simple climate solution; it is XR鈥檚 ignorance to the systems of governance, trade and sociability which climate change with capitalism鈥檚 obsessions with over-production, profit and mass pollution.

Filling the gaps: overlaps between eco-Marxism and MSJ

This junction between delusion and doom is ripe for intervention by the similarities between eco-Marxism and MSJ. Both approaches begin with relationality between the human and nonhuman worlds.⁷听Drawing on historical materialism, Marx saw natural systems functioning in a metabolic exchange of energy with human society.⁸听When disrupted by industry, however, a metabolic rift replaces 鈥渦nity鈥� with 鈥渟truggle鈥�.⁹听This is a matter of sustainability in MSJ, forcing visual, embodied, ethical and political reckonings with the 鈥渇ace鈥� of the Unknown Other.¹⁰听As well as establishing a responsibility to lives beyond the self, both theories confront the ethics of situational connections alienating socialised man 鈥渦nder collective control鈥� and neglecting the whole experience of being.¹¹听Therefore, capitalism remains听exploitative as long as it is predicated on power inequality, either in a bourgeois hegemony or the exclusionary anthropocentric identity politics.¹²

By overhauling the assumptions legitimising environmental crisis under capitalism, these tenets present eco-Marxism as a workable framework for MSJ鈥檚 mission of 鈥渓iveability, survivability and justice鈥�.¹³听It was not a failure of liberal democracy which caused the Black Summer Fires, but rather that violence is capitalism鈥檚 desired outcome. Cool, slow and controlled fires have long played an integral role in the health of Australian bushland.¹⁴听But the metabolic rift created by the made it impossible to bequeath soil in 鈥渁n improved state to succeeding generations鈥� as Marx intended.¹⁵听Likewise, the NSW Berejiklian government鈥檚 alienated workers and activists from collaborative prevention programs.¹⁶听The transcorporeal toxicity of Australia鈥檚 smoke is perhaps the most pungent reminder of the need for MSJ.¹⁷听The embodied experience of breathing in and choking on dead bodies facilitates an intimate encounter with the Other, dismissing a priori distinctions between polluters and the climate itself.¹⁸听This cycle will never feel 鈥榥ormal鈥� because it is a condition of killing.

Climate change vs. systematic revolution vs. epistemological transformation

Yet despite its value, eco-Marxism diverges significantly from MSJ in its ontological and epistemological approaches to nonhuman lives. construction of a heterogenous yet common identity can easily be read as an eco-Marxist movement, reinserting the future working class into the metabolism of 鈥減lace-thought鈥� rather than 鈥渘ature as commodity鈥�.¹⁹听As young people resisting older elites, corporate control and hegemonic institutions, Australian activists like 听have contributed to a more grassroots vision of democracy. Yet however noble and valuable as a restoration of working-class politics in climate justice, the structural changes advocated for by eco-Marxism are only radical insofar as they encourage divestment and reforestation.

While capitalism is a means to an end for eco-Marxists, MSJ takes it as a starting point to dissect divides in capitalist systems which exceptionalise and universalise human experiences.²⁰听The metabolic rift is only relevant to the extent that it robs the worker, and the worker is only alienated by wealth or Malthusian population crises.²¹听Taking the category of 鈥榤an鈥� as more important than all other species also leads to the false conclusion that he has suddenly landed in this dystopic Anthropocene, denying him responsibility and falsely painting ecological disaster as a tragedy.²²听If communism makes the division of labour obsolete, it does not abolish society鈥檚 productive and recreational activities; animal oppression is accepted and expected.²³听Environmentalism, then, is as much about returning land to the worker as it is about relinquishing hegemony altogether.

Evaluating our extinction

These critiques return us to the merits of MSJ in addressing the crux of climate justice: that failure is not inevitable. But this claim is not without qualifications for MSJ鈥檚 future. MSJ may at first appear to advocate for a consideration of the individual characteristics of a threatened being, rather than its species, to combat anthropocentrism.²⁴听While this exposes the 鈥渨rongness of killing鈥�, it ultimately reinforces what MSJ theorists call the fictitious idea that humans are 鈥渋solated, unattached and unencumbered鈥�.²⁵听An ethos of care 鈥渂eyond鈥� a human centre alone cannot stop the processes of harm necessary for life, nor should it overpower Indigenous and subaltern praxes.²⁶ Celermajer鈥檚 struggle of 鈥渢rying to do ecological prevention鈥� instead forces a reckoning with the risk of retaining hierarchies in new systems, and not completing this transformation in time.²⁷

When the torrential rains drain and the smoky ash settle, we humans are left with a reality of fear, both of and for ourselves. Given the immutable connection between global warming and capitalism, the intersections between eco-Marxism and MSJ appear as the antidote to a structural transformation of neoliberal political economy and a revolution in diverse ways of being. But while the former is rooted in poisonous anthropocentrism, MSJ provides a more useful roadmap for justice across the powerful inlets of speciesism, racism, sexism, and classism. No change will occur as quickly as the climate will 鈥� but the alternative is a death of our own making.

This article is part of the SEI Student Series on Climate Futures.

Simone Maddison is a second-year undergraduate student in the Department of History and Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Her research interests include interrogating and constructing new ways to embody feminist, intersectional and postcolonial justice in social, political and environmental discourses in student life.

Header image: Dawn in the Jungfrau Region by Christian Cueni via Unsplash.