The polycrisis of society, democracy, and environment is interconnected. No government claiming to return things to normal can also claim to be taking the threat of ecological collapse seriously.

Incredible wealth has been produced by turning natural resources into commodities. This has been done with no regard for the rate at which those resources are reproduced, or for the external consequences of their extraction and consumption, because we have been sold a narrow view of society in which the only way to provide a decent standard of living to the worst off is to allow the top tiers of society to consume an astronomical proportion of our resources.

This has produced unaffordable housing, unsustainable agriculture, and uncontrollable climate instability. An obesity crisis in America at the same time as famine in Africa. The erosion of faith in democracy as the wealthy capture more and more of the government apparatus, commodifying every aspect of our lives and selling them back to us via the bizarre athiest Protestantism of hustle culture. The 19th century saw Western governments take the contradictions at the heart of capitalism seriously. In doing so, they removed the boot from the neck of the working class and placed it on the environment. The political revolution of the 20th century will be to get rid of the boot altogether.