It's been a while since I've made a video just on Ecosocialism here, and, though I give some courses about it, and even started to give introductory courses - This semester I will give them at least two more times- I never really made an introductory video about ecosocialist theory here. So, the video today is for those who want to know about the marxist basis of ecossocialism. it's also a video to disprove two things that I've been hearing: one is a misunderstanding by people thinking that ecossocialism is simply leftist environmentalism and the other is by more orthodox folks, who accuse ecosocialism of being revisionist, but who probably haven't read even a basic text on this subject.
So, let's go, because I'm an ecosocialist, and it's very important for me, and for us, to make these things clear. For you there who like to watch this channel with a notebook to take notes, this is one of those videos. But you can rest assured, because I'm going to explain everything for you, ok?
By the middle of the 70's, the Green Theory started to stablish itself more strongly. In the Video that I did here in the channel about pesticides, for example, I told you about the book of Rachel Carson, "Silent Spring", and how this book inspired a series of debates at it's time. So, the Green Theory includes many aspects of Environmentalism, as the Conservationism, that already existed, including in the USRR, there is the preservationism, the Deep Ecology, there is the Sustainable Development, Sustentability itself, etc.
. . So we are going to name these things as "aspects of environmentalism".
In the vídeo that I did about feminism, "Many feminisms", you saw that aspects are lines of thought inside a field of knowelege, that aproach this field on different ways, and identifies the problem defferently. So, they are aspects of the environmental movement. So, although an environmental debate appeared here and there in the socialists discussions, specially in the XX Century, they where very restricted.
When, in the second half of the XX Century, the environmentalism itself started to being consolidated as a movement with all these aspects, what we see? There is these aspects appearing everywhere, and socialists activists groups, see this situation and start to think how to approach these "green" discussions according to socialism. This moment, located mainly in the 80's and the 90's, it's what we call first stage, or first phase of ecosocialism.
And what defines this first stage? I like to say that this is the moment when we try to "add Green to the Red" it's the socialists that look to the environmentalism, and start to make an analysis and get involved in this subject. And why?
