Gindin in this essay gives far too much credit to Naomi Klein's views as expressed in her recently published book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. Gindin has had a long career as an academic who frequently writes in left-wing publications about socialism. He is currently the Packer Chair in Social Justice at York University, a major university in Toronto. Having a career as a leftist academic in both the US and Canada means that you have to be careful about how far you go in attacking capitalism. Gindin like many others has been careful. He is also careful in criticizing Klein's views as expressed in her book.
For example, he marvels at Klein's ability to get mainstream media coverage:
Who else on the Left gets a sympathetic interview on the evening news of Canada’s publicly owned television broadcaster before the release of her latest book? And who else, as a preview of that book, is immediately given a chance to explain to a national audience why, from the perspective of the environment, capitalism is “the main enemy?”Only later on in the essay he mildly chides her for providing "wiggle room" in her critique of capitalism--which, of course, is precisely why she gets exposure in capitalist media.
Klein’s writings and talks have provided “the movement” with needed context and coherence, and served as a conduit and catalyst for discussions, contributing to its recruitment and growth. ....
This shift centers on both her assessment of the movement — more than ever before, Klein expresses frustrations with the movement she is part of and still sees as fundamental to social change — and her deeper appreciation of capitalism “as the main enemy.”
Klein deserves enormous credit for putting capitalism in the dock. Yet she leaves too much wiggle room for capitalism to escape a definitive condemnation. There is already great confusion and division among social activists over what “anti-capitalism” means. For many if not most, it is not the capitalist system that is at issue but particular sub-categories of villains: big business, banks, foreign companies, multinationals.So, is she really anti-capitalist? The implication of her views is clearly that there is an acceptable capitalism.
Klein is contradictory on this score. She seems clear enough in the analysis that pervades the book that it is capitalism, yet she repeatedly qualifies this position by decrying “the kind of capitalism we now have,” “neoliberal” capitalism, “deregulated” capitalism, “unfettered” capitalism, “predatory” capitalism, “extractive” capitalism, and so on.
