Western liberalism and the harsh reality of climate change

Capitalism’s unrestricted access to political influence, land and labor is beginning to cannibalize the consumer market it needs to exist, he writes Yuki Lindley.

WITH OUR SOCIAL MEDIA feeds brimming with images of death and destruction, whether from the live-streamed genocide in Gaza or scientists’ urgent warnings of ecological collapse and planetary tipping points being crossed, it is becoming clearer that all is not well with Western liberalism to those who have long been shielded from the true costs of Western “civilization.”

This bitter truth has never been hidden from the global majority; those whose ancestors were colonized, enslaved and subjected to genocide by the relentless advance of modernity, liberalism and global capitalism.

But with a cult-like leader in the Oval Office who openly embraces fascism, the façade of Western exceptionalism is beginning to crumble. Now that the capitalist class is over-exploiting the land and people of the countries on the periphery (poorer, mostly formerly colonized countries), the driving force for exploitation comes from the center (those in the rich, industrialized countries).

Capitalism has historically relied on the exploitation of surrounding formally colonized nations; International laws and economic systems designed by powerful colonial states reinforce poverty in order to maintain the supply of cheap labor and raw materials to maintain the prosperity of those in the centre.

However, with the ecological collapse extending beyond national borders and the depletion of natural resources in the surrounding area, these dynamics began to be felt in the center as well. With increasing austerity, labor insecurity, privatization of public services and the destruction of our planet, the exploitation on which capitalism was built is returning to ordinary people living in rich countries who can no longer see an endless curve of prosperity for their future.

Western liberalism emerged to provide political and philosophical justification for the emerging social order that capitalism was creating. Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and Jeremy Bentham helped shape the ideological framework within which capitalism could expand, without restriction on colonizing new lands and peoples in search of cheap labor, and across endless vast territories from which wealth could be extracted.

Through a narrative of individual freedom, private ownership of property, reason, and the endless drive for progress and economic productivity, Enlightenment thinkers heralded the age of Western liberalism, which later spread throughout the world through a brutal regime of colonization. When Spanish colonists stole large amounts of Andean and Central American gold and silver from the Americas, this immense wealth circulated in the financial centers of Europe to finance their banking and credit systems; this allowed for the rapid expansion of the global market system, leading to early financial capitalism.

Trying to escape the dark ages of religious dogmatism, Enlightenment thinkers decided that rationality was the highest form of human evolution, and they easily saw in themselves (the rich, educated Western European man) the pinnacle of this process: the modern man. This, of course, required everyone to fall somewhere behind them on the scale of human evolution; Not only women (who were too emotional to be rational), but all other races who were unfortunately evolutionarily lagging behind, so the burden fell on the white man to go forward and civilize them to the point of bringing them into the modern age of reason.

This civilizing mission, known as the white man’s burden, spread white terror and genocide throughout the world; Historians estimate that at their peak, Western European powers (and their settler colonies) dominated approximately 85 percent of the world’s landmass, representing the consolidation of the Western, global, capitalist order. The fact that a large portion of these evolutionarily backward peoples would perish was seen as natural, and if their destruction was aided by the well-oiled machinery of genocidal colonial practices, this would simply be aiding nature in the process of ensuring the survival of the fittest (which also means the whitest).

Thus, Western colonialism spread liberalism throughout the world, heralding a new dawn of global capitalism developing along racial lines. New global structures were developed by powerful colonial states to consolidate their advantage through economic and international legal systems; This was often at the expense of formerly colonized nations that were reeling from the trauma and destruction of their societies, peoples, and lands. Of course, these legal frameworks have always been unevenly applied; Powerful nations have largely ignored their own rules when they conflict with their economic or political interests.

As Henry Reynolds has pointed out, British colonization of Australia, as it was in the late 18th century, was illegal under international law. It was clear that the lands were residential, so they could not be legally claimed. soil nullius (a land without a people) and so sovereignty could only be achieved by treaty or declaration of war; None of the British chose to do this.

Paradoxically, during the period of colonial terrorism around the world, a human rights-based discourse was developing in Western Europe that proudly declared that all people are equal and are born with inalienable rights. Of course, it can be assumed that in reality only a minority of the population (Western European men) are male and therefore have rights worth protecting. This transparent hypocrisy within Western ball was obvious to anyone who existed on the margins and could not be considered part of humanity; but strong and clear criticisms of the colonized were rendered incomprehensible to many in the West because they could not see them as equally humane, and so these criticisms were cast aside, allowing the arrogance of Western liberalism to proceed.

Now that actually existing capitalism (contrary to economic theory) has passed its peak with its unrestricted access to political influence, indigenous lands, and slave labor, it begins to cannibalize the things it needs to exist; a stable planetary system, social labor providing unpaid care, and a politically stable consumer market. A frightening new era of monofascists heralds the twilight of a dying empire long past its peak of economic prosperity and dominance, clinging desperately to its military might as its last remaining source of power.

The institutional power that has long been entrenched in our public institutions has cast aside any semblance of distinction and is brazenly stepping forward to assert itself as the true ruler of liberal democracies. The techno-fascists in the White House have little respect for those they see as unnecessary to capitalism; They believe that through digital mass surveillance, their control over the flow of information (through platform monopolization), and their control of state security apparatuses to suppress dissent, they can usher in a new dawn of AI-powered efficiency and progress.

Of course, there is nothing new in these worldviews; they are the product of Western liberalism and its fundamental disregard for certain lives in its relentless pursuit of progress and profit.

Gaza is where Western liberalism is unmasked and reveals its true face, which has never been hidden from the global majority. Western liberalism was built on the genocides of many of the world’s truly democratic, anti-authoritarian civilizations; He showed one face to those he considered human, and the other to those whose lives he deemed unmournable.

If we have to grapple with its material history, the true face of Western liberalism is racial and gendered domination, which sees the lands and bodies of Indigenous peoples merely as a resource from which to derive infinite wealth, and which renders women’s unpaid labor invisible.

He believed in the ability of rational modern man to understand the natural world in order to dominate it; a conceit that the natural world is on track to deal a crushing blow. The West has long viewed itself as above the laws it helped create; But there are also older laws regarding land that are well understood by Indigenous peoples that do not care about the demands of Western exceptionalism; Because there are some laws that strong men cannot overcome, and the consequences of those laws are coming for us all.