Abdullah Öcalan uses the concept of eco-economy as the most essential pillar of the commune organisation. He emphasises that, against the economic mentality of capitalist modernity, the economic dimension of the new era’s understanding of socialism must be an eco-economy that takes nature itself as the basis. He also states that this system will stand against the mindset of capitalist modernity, which plunders the world.
Capitalist modernity sees human beings, nature and all living things as slaves and instruments that will sustain its own system. Its economic mentality is built on this basis, and it imposes on the world an economic model constructed upon destruction and annihilation.
Abdullah Öcalan, against the devastation created by capitalism under the name of industrialism, proposes the eco-economy model and insists that this must be the foundation of ‘Democratic Nation Socialism’ and the commune system.
Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) Parliamentary Group Deputy Chair Sezai Temelli spoke to ANF about why the attacks of industrialism are happening and the importance of eco-economy in standing against them.
Capitalist modernity is the most systematic destruction in human history
Sezai Temelli stated that the capitalist system is a system of destruction and that exploitation lies at its core, and he continued: “Capitalist modernity, the system that we also call the ‘regime of capital accumulation’, is a system that accumulates for the sake of accumulation, shapes its path of growth through a strategy of ‘creative destruction’ and ‘technological development’ for expanded reproduction, and drags all sociality, even life itself, into this cycle.
This system, which denies the entire accumulation of history and carries relations of domination into politics in line with the interests of capital through the capitalist state, also contains within itself a dead-end crisis on the plane of political economy. The capitalist system is a system of crises, and every exit from a crisis is another moment of destruction. Capitalism, as a system of great wars, conflicts, collapses, and misery, is a world order in which disaster is reproduced again and again for the sake of the glitter on the visible tip of the iceberg.
The global capitalist system, or capitalist modernity, as Abdullah Öcalan defines it, is the most systematic destruction period human history has ever witnessed. It is possible to see that all the developments capitalism claims to offer on behalf of humanity are in fact nothing but the digging of humanity’s own grave, when we follow the history of industrial developments.
What we call ‘growth’ and ‘development’ is not for the sake of a better world, but for the stability of capital accumulation; for the journey of dead labour; and it is a hell for humanity!”
Industrialism exploits nature and labour
Sezai Temelli stated that the history of capitalism is a history of exploitation and that it is a system which creates the unity of fascist nation-states and capitalist nation-states. Temelli said:
“From the Dutch cycle, where the long twentieth century began, to today’s post-neoliberal period, the 400-year history of capitalist modernity is an age of permanent crises on behalf of humanity. Even when we only look at the short twentieth century, especially the two great wars of division and the subsequent continuity of local wars; a system protected by global bureaucracy, which enables the coexistence of increasingly authoritarian nation-states that are reconciled with every colour of fascism and capitalist nation-states, is now preparing for the greatest destruction at this final threshold it has reached.
Today, the climate crisis, in a broader sense, the ecological crisis, stems from the fact that the gigantic black hole created by the surplus value produced through the exploitation of nature and labour under the accumulation regime can no longer be satisfied. The crisis dynamics that develop in connection with the surplus value relations that the system carries in its core have now opened nature to levels of exploitation that are considered ‘destroyable’, due to the inability to reach a capacity that could enable the system to overcome its own crisis despite all forms of domination. Starting from rare elements, the need for resources to supply the technology that will feed the Fifth Industrial Age has turned every area of life into a target.
Capitalism, with its industrialism frenzy, now exploits nature and labour excessively. The plundering of nature through the unlimited greed for profit has become one of the most fundamental mechanisms of capitalism. Therefore, the exploitation regime of the system essentially operates in two directions: by commodifying labour power and exploiting labour, and by commodifying forests, rivers, soil, mountains, plains, seas, the entire ecosystem as a whole and exploiting nature.”
Eco-economy is an authentic response to the capitalist exploitation system
Temelli stated that the attacks of capitalism, which are based on industrialism, have pushed the world to the brink of extinction, and that the concept of eco-economy emerged with the claim that “another life is possible” against this system built entirely on the exploitation of the world.
Temelli said: “This understanding of eco-economy, which creates the hope that ‘another life is possible’ against this system of crisis and destruction, is one of the most genuine responses to the capitalist exploitation system.
Capitalism is a system built on the exploitation of labour. The class system analysis that classical Marxism developed through the relations between labour and capital, in light of all these developments today, needs a new interpretation that encompasses Marxism in order to analyse exploitation and domination. A perspective that does not look from inside the age of modernity but sees all its crises and relations and which includes all social and natural formations into its analysis can open a third way against this decayed system.
Eco-economy rises on this consciousness. Eco-economy is a democratic economic model that does not accept the destructive logic that incites human beings against nature; that rejects the dogma of vulgar economics of ‘unlimited needs versus limited resources’; that rejects human-centred hierarchy; and that foresees the harmony of subsistence activities, production and consumption with nature.
Humanity’s salvation from this great catastrophe, from being destroyed under this ‘creative destruction’, depends on the destruction of capitalism.”
Temelli also underlined that Abdullah Öcalan’s eco-economy model is an alternative and a paradigm of liberation against industrialism and said: “Eco-economy is one of the most important pillars of a liberation paradigm. The terrible place that capitalist modernity has dragged nature to is obvious. We are in the middle of a great ecological crisis.
The unlimited greed for profit is producing consequences that can turn the world into a place that is no longer livable for living beings. The level reached by greenhouse gas emissions caused by fossil fuels, the plastic pollution caused by microplastics, habitat loss, water pollution and scarcity, is frightening.
Therefore, eco-economy is not only an alternative, it is a necessity. There is no other way out of this great climate and ecological crisis created by capitalism.”
Eco-economy should not be perceived as ecological reductionism
Temelli stated that the eco-economy model should not be seen merely as ecological reductionism and emphasised that Abdullah Öcalan’s approach holds an important place in terms of the liberation of labour. Temelli also said: “This approach does not deal with the matter merely through ecological reductionism. By including ecological perspective into the analysis of all relations of domination and exploitation, it brings together a social approach with nature. The possibility for society to transform into an organism that can think not against nature but together with nature, and for all of its dynamics to act in this reconciled way, constitutes one of the most important theses of this intellectual approach.
Against the plane of exploitation that capitalist modernity has expanded more and more for the sake of producing increasing surplus value, the freedom of labour can only be possible through an understanding that encompasses society and nature and this is the most significant feature of this intellectual approach. Labour, through being tied to surplus value production mechanisms, through exploiting nature, and through internalising collectivism as a class dimension, makes possible the forward escapes of the system and the leaps between its crises.
Öcalan’s approach, in this sense, creates an important intellectual path for the liberation of labour from the production wheels of modernity. The understanding of a growth-oriented society of greater production and welfare does not mean anything different from the production of more surplus value. If more surplus value means nothing but widening the field of exploitation, this journey does not mean liberation; it means being complicit in the destruction of life.
Öcalan’s objection is against this. Liberation means being freed from the entire intellectual occupation of capitalist modernity. By placing a life and nature-oriented understanding against the factory-society-centred understanding, he evaluates labour from within this perspective. Of course, today the factories of finance capital materialise on a digital plane; this should not mislead us. The system continues on its path in the world of finance capital with the same logic, only its instruments are changing.
Against this issue, which some thinkers also define as the socialisation of capital, the socialisation of labour and its positioning within a production reconciled and in harmony with nature is of vital importance. Öcalan’s approach, in addressing labour–capital relations within the inclusiveness of domination relations, is in fact a scientifically powerful step towards creating a social option. Production carried out on behalf of society’s needs, and the distribution of surplus value emerging from this production within a mechanism of just sharing, freed from exploitation, is only possible with this communal approach.”
The commune forms the dynamic of a social economy
Temelli stated that the commune mentality, which the Kurdistan Freedom Movement and Abdullah Öcalan position at the foundation of the new era’s understanding of socialism, holds an important place, and that the communal form of organisation is the correct structure for humanity. He continued:
“The commune, within all these discussions, is a very important topic. As we also see in Bookchin, ecology is essentially a matter related to hierarchy. The mindset that first separates human beings from nature and positions them against it, and then places humans atop biological nature, constructs a dialectic of opposition between human and nature by functioning entirely through hierarchical logic.
Therefore, eco-economy, above all else, rejects hierarchy. It organises itself not on a hierarchical plane but on a heterarchical one.
It is, of course, possible for citizens to organise their own economies on the basis of a subsistence economy without creating a bureaucratic stratification. The scale of such an organisation must be communes. Citizens can create their own eco-economy without allowing the displacing attacks of the centralised nation-state apparatus, and the local/global scales shaped by its mentality, to suffocate the local and the living space. It is possible to form the dynamic of a social economy.
We can make possible a life connected to the autonomy of the local, to its self-organisation and self-defence, but which is not isolated. In this sense, when the commune is evaluated as a social formation that recognises the nineteenth-century commune discussions yet is structured according to the realities of today’s world, Öcalan’s new-commune approach provides an important ground for the issues I mentioned above in terms of eco-economy.
As Braudel also points out, the mortal enemy of economic activity is centralised economies and monopolies.
If the financial monopolisation, which is based on the unlimited greed for profit and exploitation over the basic needs of citizens and over subsistence economy, which centres exchange value instead of use value, and which negates the world of needs through the derivative products of the fictitious world, is eliminated, then the liberation of humanity from the exploitation system can be possible through eco-economy organisation on the basis of communes.”
Eco-economy is important in terms of socialism
Sezai Temelli stated that the eco-economy model holds an important place in terms of socialism and that it also responds to the impasses of the Marxist economic paradigm. Temelli said:
“Of course, if socialism is the expression of the social existence of a counter-modernity, for example democratic modernity, then eco-economy must be inherent to that social existence. Eco-economy demonstrates the possibility that the economic paradigm of socialism, of the left, of Marxism, can in fact be positioned separately from the coordinates of capitalist modernity.
Let me say something assertive: Today, any economic paradigm that does not take ecology onto its agenda and to its centre cannot surpass capitalist modernity.
Moreover, there are important passages in the texts of Marx, the founder of modern socialism, which in fact relate to this truth. It is possible to speak of the ecological potential within Marx’s corpus. Marx said that capitalism ruptured the relationship between nature and society. For example, John Bellamy Foster derived the concept of ‘metabolic rift’ from here.”
Socialism operates on a different ideological ground
Sezai Temelli pointed out that the eco-economy model is a necessity and an important foundation of the Third Way Paradigm, and he concluded by saying:
“As I mentioned above, it is beyond being possible, it is necessary. Let me put it the other way around: socialism cannot be treated merely as a model of economic development. Socialism operates on different ideological and political ground.
We defend the Third Way Paradigm because it is not possible to reach socialism through a mentality built as the left wing of capitalist modernity, one that has not been able to sever its ties with industrialism, with the nation-state, with nationalism, with patriarchy, and with positivism.
However, it must be stated with sincerity that for a long time, eco-economy unfortunately did not receive the attention it deserved. The national developmentalist mentality, the factory-centred productionist obsession, modernist progressivism, and even industrialism, were dominant within the left during that period and this had a very significant role in this.
Especially in the second half of the 1980s, ecology was able to come to the fore within Marxism and within the radical tradition of thought. The fact that it is now being discussed again is also related to the ecological crisis making itself felt more and more. Whatever the reason may be, these discussions are truly pleasing and beneficial.”