Capitalist Setting

First of all, it is important to acknowledge the context of capitalism and a class-society in which CJAs engage. Constant expectations to be productive, effective and energetic have infiltrated every corner of our private and working life, and did not make a halt before political activism. Even if they may pretend to be striving towards a healthier and less violent future, activists have not been untroubled by the subtle manipulation of capitalist organizing.

This becomes strikingly visible in the way activism is done today. In many regards, CJAs reproduce capitalist patterns of exploitation, pressure and a working culture where people push themselves up to the point of exhaustion. Especially within the climate movement, a strong sense of urgency and necessity is present which leads to activists having oftentimes unrealistically high expectations of their own performance and working themselves up on the topics. In a second step, the responsibility and burden of indisposition and being worn down is passed on to the individual instead of confronting the issue and finding solutions in a collective and solidary manner.

In the following paragraph I will discuss the ever-present and unavoidable embeddedness of the CJM in the financial system, which is a key characteristic of capitalism. As jobs within the climate movement are rare and – if existent – not well paid, the majority of activists need to do labour work additionally to their political work in order to earn the necessary money to be able to sustain themselves. How extensive monetary pressures can become for the individual activist was underlined by the following statement of one interviewee (interviewee B) that has been in the movement for over 20 years:

“I think the majority of people I have seen drop out are people who get other jobs or who have kids. I actually think that is the main reason. I mean, yes, some cadre drop out, but …”

Next to the difficulty of having enough time and energy for labour work next to the political work, it can be especially hard to find a decent employment when one strives for a job that is compatible with values that clash with a profit oriented system; for emotional and ethical reasons many well-paid jobs are often out of question. In addition, activist schedules often tend to be already quite packed as they are and leave little time for extra activities. When I asked one interviewee (C) whether he would consider himself a “full-time activist”, his answer made clear how central the activism can become in activists’ lives and how activism itself becomes a sort of “unpaid job”:

“Yes. Well, by now I also have a different job, so I don’t earn money with my activism but the majority of time goes into this. So everything else, job, vacation, I try to build around this.”

On another note it is important to consider the consequences that a live with little financial resources can have on the well-being and health of activists. Living in precarious conditions

and engaging in an unsalaried work that often takes a high emotional toll creates a ground on which it can be hard to undertake the kind of self-care that is needed in order for activists to stay healthy and enduring. It is still a reality today that the majority of mental illnesses are most prevalent in the lowest economic classes where there is the most difficult access to security, resources, appropriate nutrition, shelter and medical care. However, these unjust circumstances are being stabilized through the dominant conception of mental illnesses in the medical sector and in society overall as being a personal problem, rather than a structural one.

The need for activists to have their basic needs secured and their political work towards a liberated life on earth financially valued is thus an essential part of sustainable activism.

The fact that activists’ work is not usually honoured as “real” work does not only come to the fore when focusing on the necessary income that people need in order to pay for food and rent. It also becomes visible in daily confrontations with friends and family members. One friend and project partner of mine told me how she is currently looking for whatever kind of job; not because she was in need of a higher income, but because she had become too tired of justifying why she did not have a “real” job to people to whom climate activism was not a serious pastime.

Two interviewees (A & B) did actually have a paid full-time job in an environmental leftist NGO and addressed the difficulties they were facing with the resulting commingling of personal passion and economic security. Both talked about the peculiar problem of full-time political jobs, where the breaking down of boundaries between work and activism in everyday-life become exacerbated; in this context they explicitly mentioned the difficulty of drawing a line between full-time and voluntary work and ending up with an exclusive network of social contacts that only come from the political sphere. On top of this, when one works for one’s own ideals, regardless of whether this work is paid or not, it is never so easy to let unfinished tasks rest and allow oneself some purely self-focused after-work hours.

Another aspect that was mentioned and that rather refers to the organizational level is the need for funding not only for individuals, but also or especially for bigger NGOs.

One respondent (B) described:

“The more radical movements tend to have strong criticisms of the big green NGOs and their inability to pull their head out of their asses and match practice to rhetoric. Sometimes I feel

like with the big environmental NGOs you’re talking about everything going to shits in the world, but you can’t get yourself to do a little bit of disobedience. And they are like: ‘well, then we don’t get the money and resources and blablabla’.

More institutionalization would create more stability and probably therefore fewer burn-outs and a greater ability to combine activism with other engagement or your work, but at the same time an excessive degree of institutionalization does tend to drain movement of dynamism. Again, because of stuff around funding and recognition. I mean we need a radical movement right now. And when you create big structures, you need funds. And funds don’t always come without strings attached.”

This tension that results from being torn in-between an unpaid job one is passionate about, a paid job where one is often in danger of betraying personal values and pressure from outside social networks that either expect decent conventional labour work or full dedication to the greater cause creates for a constant underlying pressure on CJAs.