ABSTRACT: The politics of ecology clearly shows what the Radicals have been saying for years: the left does not and has never had an economic programme of its own, and for them the height of realism is to aid the stability of the present production and consumption structures. On the other hand the French "ecological constellation" has shown that French ecologists are in a crisis due to not having wanted to "dirty their hands with politics". They believed it was possible to go from the phase of being a movement to that of presenting themselves in the elections without having first passed through an immediate organisational phase, that is, the phase of being a "party", and thus they did not succeed in creating political antagonism. Is it possible to hope that this will occur in Italy? This discussion may seem like exploitation and opportunism, but it comes from the conviction that certain errors can be avoided by taking the Radical experience as a point of reference, its organisational model and its methods

of struggle. For the party too it could be a precious opportunity to affirm its own image by winning again, not only in Italy but in Europe.

(NOTIZIE RADICALI No. 123, October 18, 1978)

Like the referendums and civil rights, ecology has always been considered a luxury, a marginal problem in comparison to "bread and work". The result is there for all to see: we live in a country which is in the permanent grip of calamities (officially called "natural" without this definition being able to disguise their indubitable "political" origin) together with constantly less work and less well being.

For the left too a nice refinery is always more gratifying than the fight against floods and landslides and pollution levels. And in the last analysis, more than preventing a Vajont

or a Seveso [respectively the sites of a dam break and a chemical disaster, ed.] or even a nuclear disaster. In all the important decisions the trade union movement prefers to take the side of the big bosses, of the poisoners, of the destroyers of resources and never the side of the ecologists. If anything, against the ecologists. No one on the left makes the simple calculation that investments of twenty or thirty thousand billion lire in thirty years for revamping the country's water system would mean hundreds of thousands of jobs. This is quite another matter from special laws for youth, or bio-proteins or nuclear plants.

Thus the politics of ecology clearly shows what the Radicals have been saying for years: the left does not and has never had an economic programme of its own, and for them the height of

realism is to aid the stability of the present production and consumption structures. The historic imbalances of our economy they judge to be immutable and at most they plan for adjustments that leave the mechanism intact or else the possibility of change is removed so far off in time as not to allow for any evaluation or initiative in practical forms or time spans.

In this field there is substantial agreement between left and right, an agreement put into effect - long before the launching of the "grand coalition" - by means of the daily coexistence woven into the texture of institutional life (see the Parliament) or in the coporatist concerted actions on which the regime is based.

But in the last two years something has changed. The turning point came in 1976 with Montalto di Castro's [a Tuscan town, ed.] protest over the nuclear plant which came shortly after Seveso. Here there was triggered off in Italy for the first time the politicising of ecology which for years had already been occurring abroad.

What was new and special about Montalto? On the one hand there was the "fear" of nuclear risks - an impulse so new and real that it managed to overcome the traditional [people's] proxy delegated to the parties in the name of having to "see clearly". On the other hand, for the parties there was the discovery of being "isolated" in a way that could not be dismissed as being due to "qualunquismo" (2); a town, a community of voters who joined together against the system of their own parties; a new isolation, well-founded and "realistic" and infectious: the first dress rehearsal for the Trieste crisis which broke out as it happens on the "ecological" question of Osimo.

The reply of the parties was harsh. They answered fears with the lie of the absolute security of nuclear technology; they countered the demands for local autonomy with "the greater national needs". But this unleashed another liberating factor: people began to stick their noses into the reasons for the economic choices of the nuclear project. Thus the reactionary myth was damaged (only for a moment, of course) of a science and technology that are neutral, always good, always capable of resolving all the problems of development. Out came the implications of every technical or economic choice and it was discovered that to choose a certain type of energy meant to find oneself living in a certain kind of society rather than another. Now there began to be talk of a "development model" in the streets, the fields, the villages and not only in the alienating reservations of official programmers. And this may be the greatest contribution that ecology has made to political and civil struggles.

Why has all this happened? It is obvious: the politics of ecology allows for an approach to the problems of the economy, the society and the government which is based on perceptible interests susceptible to evaluation (such as health and the destiny of one's own town or city) and supported by a global analytic model. Methods and schemes which have been distorted and set on their heads by sectarianism if not by the irrationalities of science, politics and economics, have been set aright and made understandable also to ordinary people. Concrete experiences and innovative theorisings have by now come a long way in denouncing the social "counter-productiveness" of current technologies with their ability to tyrannise over the autonomy of the individual and the community, and even to spoil the great popular traditions of parties which today have become more and more estranged from the people, their interests and their needs. These are the first hints of a "soft" road to Socialism which consciously counterpose

s itself to the "hard" and violent policies of both capitalism and Jacobin Communism.

Nevertheless there is no lack of negative tendencies in the labyrinth of ecology. First of all, there are those who take refuge in a political neutrality that reflects the same faults as the political system against which they are rebelling. Not all ecology is "soft". On the contrary, if it is not linked to a choice that is rigorously libertarian and alternative, it can in the long run even ratify recourse to "hard" technologies for the control of pollution, thus aggravating the general mechanisms of exploitation and alienation. And let us not consider, at least for the moment, the technocratic thesis of "eco-Fascism".

Even among us here in Italy dangerous symptoms are peering out that have the nostalgic-Utopian predilections of several groups for non-polluting "happy islands" rather than day-to-day struggles and confrontations. Or else there is the often-compromising protectionism of the WWF [World Wildlife Fund] with its ecological crusades entrusted to the Navy; or, finally, the abstractness of wanting to preach "austerity" and "zero growth", just enough in theory, but which risk ending us up in more poverty, more unhappiness and more injustice when bound to the imbalances, the injustices and the exploitation of this society.

Perhaps it would be better to speak less of "pollution", and "resources" and more about "polluters", "exploiters", "oil companies" and "pro-nuclearists". Resources are limited, exploiters are not. And if petroleum is not eternal, the oil companies threaten to become so. Even today they are 50% into atoms and 10% into solar energy. This is to say that ecology should not become a fetish, that no ecological problem is to be resolved "technologically" in a neutral and painless way. Thus ecologists must be able to impose an alternative political project in a libertarian and Socialist perspective that can be managed here and now by the people starting from the point of their needs.

Perhaps it is for lack of clarity on this point that the ecological movement has known its worst defeats. In other places, other countries, but with the risk of negative echoes and repercussions here too. We are referring primarily to France where the ecological movement has grown like a "nebula" (in the words of Brice Lalonde) and has always preferred an activist approach to a technical effort. When the nebula tried to overcome its limitations as a movement and directly enter the elections, it had to pocket a substantial defeat after its initial successes.

From a certain point of view this defeat might appear to be a mystery: for years the struggle of the French ecologists has been lively and widely organised; they have involved whole populations, have been given enormous space in the news too. And lastly - apart from the token candidacy of René Dumont in the 1974 presidential elections - they have had remarkable success in the municipal elections. But, in the end, there was the collapse in the 1978 national elections and today the decision to not enter the next European elections. How is that? What went wrong?

The "green nebula" grew in France due to the chance convergence of diverse lines, of the new Marxist left and liberation movements: pacifists, pro-naturists, and sporadically the feminist and homosexual movements. But no one has investigated the reasons for this convergence, there has never been the effort to create a synthesis, to make a strong and unified "political project" that would surpass the phase of a casual convergence and express the great alternative interests which would truly constitute a majority (as Brice Lalonde again writes). Thus the parabola of the ecologists ends by presenting surprising analogies with the many local lists of candidates that have come out yesterday and today and are destined to become constantly more numerous in a short time in Italy too, a typical example being the Melone list in Trieste [for an Italian-Yugoslavian free zone, ed.].

It is no accident, especially at the beginning, that things went well in the municipal elections. But the choice was not enough to support the movement in the ambit of a broader and harsher confrontation on general political issues. In short, one can say that things went badly for the French ecologists not because they dirtied their hands with politics, as they seem to think, but because they did not deal enough (and so dealt badly) with politics. They thought it was possible to jump directly from the nebula phase to that most radically political act which is an election competition without having gone through the intermediate phase of planning and organising which is, in a word, the "party". And for now at least they have not managed to become the political "antagonist".

The "greens" would reject such a suggestion with horror. But the truth is that on the very ground of criticising the parties and politics they have fallen into ideological and moralising attitudes. They have done this not only by rejecting politics and the organisational models of existing parties, but by theoretically rejecting absolutely all possible party projects, even the most libertarian. Thus they presume to oppose the great apparatuses with the nebula composed of a thousand rivulets, tendencies, and ideologies.

That is well and good as long as it is a matter of experimenting with "parallel society" whose hopes and presages are essentially the food of practical everyday ecology. Only that the "parallel society" and its new culture, if it doesn't want to be consigned to a ghetto, must overcome moralistic rejection and confront the adventure of experimenting with new ways of making politics - with new methods and models of organisation, certainly. They must, in short, become a "party" which fights on specific issues but with a total and alternative scheme. And so it presents itself as the political antagonist of the traditional parties as a "governing" force as well (and by this, it is clear, we do not mean "becoming" the government). If it is true what Brice says, that ecology has a majority mission which differentiates it radically from the Marxist leftist minorities, this should be enabled to grow by winning battles, rallying all the various "sideliners" of the nebula for united goals. For the moment it is im

probable that this will happen in France. Is it possible to hope and work so that it may evolve in this way in Italy?

This idea may seem like exploitation and opportunism, but it comes from the conviction that certain errors can be avoided by taking the Radical [party] experience as a point of reference, its organisational model and its methods of struggle. For the Party too it could be a precious opportunity to affirm its own image by winning again, not only in Italy but in Europe.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Amici della Terra - Friends of the Earth, an ecological organisation.

2) Qualunquismo - An oft-used pejorative term in Italian political parlance describing an attitude of mistrust in political parties and in the party system generally.