The Environmental Justice Movement Harms Prosperity

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "American Marxism" by Mark R. Levin. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Is the environmental justice movement an enemy of capitalism? Does the movement promote real science or just political ideology?

Mark Levin believes that the environmental justice movement threatens prosperity. He argues that the movement uses faulty science to feign a crisis in order to grab more control.

Read more to understand the argument that Levin presents in his book American Marxism.

The Environmental Justice Movement

The second major ideological movement of American Marxism is environmental justice. Levin claims that the environmental justice (EJ) movement attacks the systems that make America great and will thrust the nation into economic ruin if they succeed. In particular, Levin says that the movement opposes free-market capitalism—the system that has made America the greatest country in the world—as well as economic growth itself.

Levin claims that the environmental justice movement promotes anti-capitalism, or what they call “degrowth.” They believe that American capitalism has led to an unsustainable rate of growth through which natural resources are being depleted and carbon emissions are increasingly polluting the atmosphere. They advocate reducing production to a minimum to conserve resources and minimize pollution. As a result, they oppose many of the technological advances that make life better, like cars and modern agriculture.

(Shortform note: Levin argues that the EJ movement is dangerous because they promote degrowth. However, there are numerous environmental justice organizations and sub-movements that aren’t degrowthers. The degrowth movement is a specific branch of the environmental justice movement and doesn’t represent the interests and goals of the movement as a whole.)

While most degrowth organizations are grass-roots, many of their ideas have leaked into mainstream left-wing politics such as the Margarita Declaration on Climate Change and the Green New Deal (GND). Levin describes the GND as a Marxism-inspired bill that, in part, calls for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, meeting America’s entire power demand through renewable energy, overhauling the American transportation system, providing jobs with “family-sustaining wages” to all people in America, and eliminating unfair business competition from monopolies.

Levin says that these goals are outlandish and impossible to accomplish because they undermine American free-market capitalism and private property rights, and they’re astronomically expensive, costing up to $93 trillion over 10 years. This would be yet another step toward Marxist totalitarianism.

Predicted Impacts of the Green New Deal

Levin argues that the GND is dangerous because it’s unaffordable and will undermine American capitalism and private property rights. However, some experts argue that Levin’s cost estimate may not be accurate and provide further details to help us contextualize his argument.

While these experts agree that the GND is expensive, their estimations differ from Levin’s. Costs are estimated to be closer to $50 trillion, not the $93 trillion Levin quotes. However, they elaborate that ultimately, economists don’t have enough data to accurately measure how this cost would affect the economy. Additionally, while implementing the plan would be expensive, the impacts of climate change will be costly, too. This means the GND might even make the economy better in the long run—while it will be a large out-of-pocket expense, some argue that it will avoid long-term climate-induced economic decline, eventually pay for itself through energy sales, and create numerous jobs in the process.

In regard to capitalism, some experts further explain that contrary to Levin’s claims, many supporters of the GND don’t promote degrowth, but rather support “inclusive growth.” While inclusive growth would limit harmful industries like mineral extraction, it would create a more sustainable and stable capitalist economic system through the expansion of the clean energy industry.

And, while Levin doesn’t fully elaborate on how the GND would impact private property rights, experts explain that it may require households to rely more on green energy and make climate-resilient upgrades to minimize their carbon footprint, like installing window shades or painting rooftops with light-reflecting paint.

The Science Behind the Environmental Justice Movement Is Faulty

Levin continues to argue that the “climate science” that the EJ movement is based on isn’t real science but rather political ideology framed as science. Levin argues this point by seeking to debase the two most prominent arguments that point to human-induced climate change—the depletion of natural resources and increasing carbon dioxide emissions.

The Environmental Justice Movement Harms Prosperity