A Good War outlines a path for Canada to successfully respond to the climate emergency, and in the process tackle poverty and inequality. The title refers to World War II, when all of Canada’s resources, money and labour was mobilized for victory.
By way of disclosure, I know the author, Seth Klein. I’ve worked with him on campaigns, he is committed to making real change and I consider him a friend.
Climate Crisis is Political not Technical
Klein correctly argues that “tackling the climate crisis is not a technical or policy problem” but the challenge is a “political one.” He locates the problem with the “new climate denialism,” politicians and businesses that claim they understand the science but do not act or act far too slowly. However, “there is no bargaining with the laws of nature and nature is telling us something fierce.”
The new climate deniers say they can’t move faster because the public won’t support the necessary actions. To test this, Klein commissioned a major opinion poll. Overall, the findings show high levels of concern about climate and strong desire for real action that includes justice. Overwhelmingly, people see climate as a major threat to their children – 49 percent strongly and 32 percent agree. Eighty percent support a shift to clean, renewable energy. When action is combined with justice there is powerful support. If the government provided support for low- and modest-income households in a transition, 79 percent are supportive. If the rich and corporations had to pay more, support is 78 percent and if there was a good jobs guarantee, 73 percent support a shift to clean, renewable energy. The poll defined a “Green New Deal” as cutting carbon emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030, linked to tackling inequality and providing millions of good jobs. Across Canada this has 72 percent support and, even in Alberta, 56 percent supported this policy.
The book outlines a set of useful actions to convert the economy from fossil fuel dependency to renewable energy with policies that tackle inequality and provide good jobs. Core to the actions is government planning of the economy. This is where Klein uses the war comparison, when the full strength of the government was used to direct resources and production, capping profits and using publicly owned organizations for production and allocation of resources. The Canadian economy was totally transformed. Before the war Canada built 40 airplanes a year; during the war over 4,000 airplanes a year were build. Food production increased 50%. By the war’s end Canada was the fourth largest manufacturing country in the world.
Klein presents a powerful case that shows it is possible to redirect the Canadian economy to clean energy, good jobs, reduced inequality and good public services. The book is useful in outlining what could be done to change Canada. And the public is not the barrier.
He discusses who the enemy is and names the new climate deniers, who still use a neoliberal framework and seek to find a halfway house between the science and the interests of big business; the oil and gas industries sector; and the corporations such as automakers and the big banks that support and rely on fossil fuels. He quotes BC’s NDP Environment Minister Heyman, who does understand the science yet argues the government wants industry to say the plan “is credible; we want to work with the government.” Former NDP MP, Libby Davies, says government continues to “appease” big business or perhaps fear the corporations. The reality is that the oil companies knew about climate change over forty years ago and have done everything to deny and becloud the science, and block action, as they put their short-term profits before the needs of humanity.
The former Conservative Prime Minister Kim Campbell wrote in 2019, “the oil companies have committed CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY! Nuremburg worthy!” (Her capitals). No presently elected politicians say such things, instead they seek a compromise with the equivalent of war criminals. The Canadian Liberals talk about a climate emergency and spend $16.6 billion to build a pipeline. The NDP in BC say it is a climate crisis and is spending billions to subsidize fracked gas.
This failure to act is at the core of Klein’s argument. He points to World War II when the government, business, workers, and the media all pulled together for victory. He claims the same should and could happen now to deal with the climate emergency. It is true there was a high degree of cooperation during the war, but Klein assumes it came from a common aim and interest, in particular to defend democracy from fascism and militarism.
This is a highly debatable view, and many examples are in the book to contradict this and there are more not in the book.
Challenging the Narrative of World War II
Japan conquered northern China, Manchuria, in 1932. Over the next five years, Japan expanded further into China until in 1937 the imperialist forces conquered Shanghai and then Nanjing (rape of Nanjing). The major “democracies”: Britain, US, France and Canada did nothing. Only in 1941 when Japan conquered the British and French colonies in Southeast Asia and bombed Pearl Harbour, did the “democracies” really resist Japanese imperialism. Until then, US companies were selling scrap metal and oil to Japan. The Soviet Union did give support to both the Communist and Nationalist Chinese resistance.
In Europe, there was a similar pattern. None of the “democracies” cried foul when Mussolini seized power in 1922; in fact, many admired him. In 1923 Mussolini conquered Corfu from Greece, in the early 1930s waged genocidal repression against Libyans, and in 1935-6 conquered Ethiopia and, in the occupation, killed 7 percent of the population. The “democracies” did nothing but mildly protested. In April 1939 Italy conquered Albania: still no response.
There were also no protests in 1933 when Hitler seized power and proceeded to murder the communists, socialists and the trade unionists, and the Jews, Roma, LGBTQ and people with many disabilities. Most governments appeased the Nazis, doing nothing when they annexed Austria in 1938 and Czechoslovakia in 1939. While Nazi Germany and fascist Italy aided Franco in crushing the workers and peasants in the Spanish revolution in the 1930s, Britain, Canada and France were neutral.
Most of the governments of the “democracies” were more anti-communist than anti-fascist; many saw the fascists and Nazis as useful in crushing the communists and saw Hitler as a bulwark against their main enemy, the Soviet Union and its planned economy. Many hoped that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union would both be weakened by a war and that western imperialism could pick over the spoils.
The Canadian government also did nothing about Japanese, German or Italian imperialism. There was no outcry against fascism or the Nazis. Prime Minister Mackenzie King visited Hitler in 1937 and his diary is full of praise, describing Hitler as “one who truly loves his fellow man.”
The first fighters against fascism, part of the Spanish International Brigades, were hounded when they returned to Canada after their defeat. The RCMP spied on them; they are not remembered among Canada’s war dead.
Mackenzie King was not bothered about the murder of the Jews in Nazi Germany. He, and his government, were deeply anti-Semitic. In 1939, before the war started, the MS St. Louis, with 900 Jewish refugees, was not allowed to land in the US or Canada and some refugees ended up in the death camps. A Canadian immigration officer is quoted as saying of Jewish refugees, “None is too many.”
There was no effort to defend democracy or fight fascism and imperialism before 1939 by Canada, France, Britain or the US.
Did things change after 1939 and the governments suddenly defend democracy? No. One of the government’s first moves was to enact the War Measures’ Act to restrict democratic rights. Under this law, the Mayor of Montreal, Houde, was confined without trial for four years. The Communist Party (CP) and Trotskyist Socialist Workers League (SWL) were banned. Many were imprisoned, including veterans of the International Brigades. The first arrest, the day after war was declared, was Frank Watson, a member of the SWL, for a speech he gave in Toronto. Later when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the CP was unbanned as the CP was enthusiastically in favour of all out war, including opposing workers going on strike. The SWL, in contrast, was banned throughout the war as it took a principled position, pointing out the imperialist aims of Canada’s capitalist class and supporting workers striking to defend and improve wages and conditions against unscrupulous bosses. Hardly a war to defeat fascism and defend democracy.
In June 1940, the Nazis entered Paris; they also conquered the Netherlands and Belgium and nearly wiped out the British army at Dunkerque. This suddenly jolted the British and Canadian governments awake. German imperialism was going after the wealth and territory of the other major capitalist powers, rather than just attacking the Soviet Union. This, and the capture of colonies in east Asia and the Pacific, drove the US to join the war and transformed the phoney war to an all-out war. A war to defend profits, markets, colonies and territory.
Illusion that Workers and Bosses shared Common Interests
Beginning in 1940 and increasing in 1941, waging all-out war required mobilizing all resources. In this situation King introduced planning, directing industry and resources, and established government owned industries.
But all-out war did not include all-out democracy. The Canadian government declared war on Japan in December 1941. Three months later Japanese Canadians in BC were removed from the coast and interned in concentration camps.
The war effort still had a problem; the patriotic propaganda was not getting a favourable response: it was being ridiculed. The CCF (forerunner of the NDP) was gaining support as was the Communist Party, now legal. The government shifted course, talking of a “people’s war”and promising better times at the war’s end. The government’s shift to reforms was not driven by high ideas, rather it was in response to the growing support for these ideas. One CCF slogan was “Conscript wealth!” A 1943 opinion poll had the CCF with more support than the Liberals or Conservatives.
At work, the class conflict continued. In the Vancouver shipyards, working flat out for the war effort, union activist Bill White said, “these old-time bosses, oh Jesus, they wouldn’t budge an inch on conditions.” Union membership and strikes jumped during the war as workers sought to protect safety and gain from the war time profits.
And the war was profitable. Companies were guaranteed five to ten percent profit on all contracts. No risk, lots of gain.
Canadian businesses and the ruling class waged the war not to defend democracy or fight fascism but for profit and to protect their international economic interests. But unlike in WWI, they dressed this imperialism in the flag of democracy. The improvements for workers were won through struggle, conceded under pressures or agreed to give the appearance that capitalism and workers had common interests.
The working class waged the war on the home and international front to defeat fascism and for democracy and a better life. It is a convenient illusion that workers and bosses had common goals and interests.
Campaign for Climate Justice needs strength of Mass Movements
It would be nice to believe now, as the climate disaster gets worse, that capitalism will have a change of heart at this late hour but, as Klein makes clear, any changes are incremental: too little, and too slow.
Hoping or dreaming of a cross-class alliance of common actions to stop and reverse the climate disaster is not enough. The campaign for climate justice needs to rely on the strength of mass movements, building common struggles uniting environmentalists, Indigenous and union activists. Klein gives inspiring examples from all these groups that are acting now.
In the epilogue written in April 2020 as COVID began to ravage Canada and the world, Klein saw hope in collective action. He talks of manufacture being requisitioned, the homeless being housed and government action being “impressive and bold.” Now – after more than a year of inadequate action with the homeless still homeless, with government incompetence and corporate greed – Klein’s claim that “in times of emergency, it turns out, we are all socialists,” seems tragically over optimistic. It turns out that in an emergency, like in everyday, we are not all in this together.
Klein never directly criticizes capitalism; this is a glaring gap. All Canada’s mainstream politicians see no alternative to capitalism, so they defend it. As Klein clearly explains, the barrier to a just transformation is not the lack of technology, organizational barriers or public opinion. The barrier is that capitalism sees the natural world as apart from humans and so can be exploited, along with workers, for profit. The top priority for the heads of large corporations is maximum profit now, not long-term planning for the the world’s climate.
Capitalism could not control COVID, a relatively straight forward proposition if governments acted decisively early on. It will not deliver the actions needed to stop the climate disaster. That needs international planning and cooperation and putting the needs of people and planet before the greed of a few.
The heat dome that descended on western Canada caused at least 600 additional deaths in BC, the destruction of the town of Lytton, hundreds of forest fires and cooked a billion marine animals. Yet Trudeau and Horgan continue to support plans to pump out more CO2. It is becoming ever clearer that the future is either climate apocalypse or socialism.
A program of a just energy transition based on public ownership, good jobs and respect for Indigenous rights is the core of climate transformation. Klein’s book has many good pointers to those policies; however, he looks in the wrong place in seeking a comparison with World War II.
