Jenseits der Austeritätsökologie: Einführung in eine Umweltpolitik von unten

Eco-politics takes place in a context of drastic social inequality. For the most part, the sustainability discourse systematically ignores this inequality, though it cannot escape it. On the contrary, sustainability has become an important component of current inequality relations: On the cultural level, sustainable lifestyles essentially fulfill the function of social capital for the middle class. On the political level, sustainability becomes the justification for new austerity policies that seek to save the environment simply by excluding poorer strata from access to it. Against this backdrop, the article sketches the alternative of an "ecopolitics from below," consisting of three central elements that aim to combine workers' interests with an adequate response to the ecological crisis: first, a stark reduction in working hours (a short-term demand); second, economic democracy (a long-term demand); third, the political strike (as a powerful means to achieve those goals).