Joel Kovel (born 27 August 1936) is a US politician, academic, writer, eco-socialist, practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He has published many books on his work in psychiatry, psychoanalysis and political activism and is a member of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Kovel ). Michael Löwy (birn Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1938) is a French-Brazilian Marxist sociologist and philosopher. He is emeritus research director in social sciences at the CNRS (French National Center of Scientific Research) and lectures at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS; Paris, France) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_L%C3%B6wy ). Joel Kovel and Michae; Lowy co-authored “An Ecosocialist Manifesto” (see: http://www.iefd.org/manifestos/ecosocialist_manifesto.php ). \
Joel Kovel and Michael; Löwy, “An Ecosocialist Manifesto” (2001): “The idea for this ecosocialist manifesto was jointly launched by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy, at a September, 2001, workshop on ecology and socialism held at Vincennes, near Paris. We all suffer from a chronic case of Gramsci's paradox, of living in a time whose old order is dying (and taking civilization with it) while the new one does not seem able to be born. But at least it can be announced. The deepest shadow that hangs over us is neither terror, environmental collapse, nor global recession. It is the internalized fatalism that holds there is no possible alternative to capital's world order. And so we wished to set an example of a kind of speech that deliberately negates the current mood of anxious compromise and passive acquiescence… The generalization of ecological production under socialist conditions can provide the ground for the overcoming of the present crises. A society of freely associated producers does not stop at its own democratization. It must, rather, insist on the freeing of all beings as its ground and goal. It overcomes thereby the imperialist impulse both subjectively and objectively. In realizing such a goal, it struggles to overcome all forms of domination, including, especially, those of gender and race. And it surpasses the conditions leading to fundamentalist distortions and their terrorist manifestions. In sum, a world society is posited in a degree of ecological harmony with nature unthinkable under present conditions. A practical outcome of these tendencies would be expressed, for example, in a withering away of the dependency upon fossil fuels integral to industrial capitalism. And this in turn can provide the material point of release of the lands subjugated by oil imperialism, while enabling the containment of global warming, along with other afflictions of the ecological crisis… Our project is neither to lay out every step of this way nor to yield to the adversary because of the preponderance of power he holds. It is, rather, to develop the logic of a sufficient and necessary transformation of the current order, and to begin developing the intermediate steps towards this goal. We do so in order to think more deeply into these possibilities, and at the same moment, begin the work of drawing together with all those of like mind. If there is any merit in these arguments, then it must be the case that similar thoughts, and practices to realize these thoughts, will be coordinatively germinating at innumerable points around the world. Ecosocialism will be international, and universal, or it will be nothing. The crises of our time can and must be seen as revolutionary opportunities, which it is our obligation to affirm and bring into existence.” [1].
[1]. Joel Kovel and Michael; Löwy, “An Ecosocialist Manifesto”, The International Endowment for Democracy (IED), September 2001: http://www.iefd.org/manifestos/ecosocialist_manifesto.php .