Eco-socialism: Capitalism Off The Rails

By Meg Morrigan

“What rolls through on those trucks is of more value than the lives of the residents in this community.”

With this quote, a resident of East Palestine, Ohio perfectly sums up the causes and response to the deadly train derailment that occurred in the tiny town.

A Totally Avoidable Disaster Unfolds

The derailment was caused by an overheated wheel bearing. Despite track-side alarm systems and a quick response from the engineer, by the time the train was stopped and the crew able to deboard to investigate, there were already signs of derailment and fire. This calls into question all manner of safety standards and operation procedures of Norfolk Southern and railroad companies in general, from the efficacy of track-side monitors and other safety equipment to the corporate policies that railroads have been pushing.

Policies like allowing dispatchers to ignore alarms (described in ProPublica), pushing for 1-person crews, cutting staffing, using longer trains and running on a tight schedule, are all in use by rail companies like Norfolk Southern to cut costs and increase profits. As the saying goes among railway workers, “Safety is fine until it costs a dime”. (Kansas Star, December 12, 2022)

Workers Warned of the Dangers

In the 2022 contract negotiations of railroad workers, the lack of sick days got the most media attention. However, these types of safety issues were among the rail workers’ unions’ pressing concerns that led to them threatening an economy-halting strike. It is damning but not surprising that just months after Congress and President Biden voted to block the strike and force a contract on rail workers we are seeing deadly consequences.

Disgracefully, three out of four DSA representatives in Congress also voted to impose the contract, flagrantly disregarding the values of worker power and democratic socialism that they were elected on.

The decision to block the rail strike and the degradation of the environment in East Palestine are part of the same process: decades of deregulation and disempowering railway workers. This is a clear illustration of the government-corporate ruling-class alliance implementing pro-profit decisions at the expense of the working class. Railway Workers United, a reform caucus pushing for change within the railway unions, has demanded public ownership of the railways, a demand DSA should support (railroadworkersunited.org/public-ownership-of-the-railroads).

Democratic worker control cannot prevent all train derailments, but certainly they will only increase in number and intensity for as long as railroad companies are allowed to ruthlessly pursue higher profits at every turn.

A Profit-First Response

The crash and subsequent fire led a tanker of volatile vinyl chloride to increase in temperature and threaten to explode, potentially not just releasing the hazardous chemical but also projecting metal shrapnel. To avoid such destruction, officials opted for a “controlled explosion” to release the gas without the debris, spilling 115,580 gallons of toxic material into the air, water, and soil – including dioxins, a known carcinogen. Throughout this crisis, the EPA and national and local governments have taken a back seat, allowing the culprit of the disaster – Norfolk Southern – to make the major decisions, evaluate safety, and perform their own tests.

For weeks, the EPA resisted testing the soil for dioxins, but they finally bowed under pressure and on March 3 asked Norfolk Southern to do the tests. In the meantime, the state of Indiana tested two soil samples from near the crash site and found dioxin levels at 700 parts per trillion (ppt). Federal rules trigger a cleanup at 1,000 ppt, so an EPA official celebrated these “very low” levels during March 9 congressional testimony as “good news.” This is despite the fact that the EPA’s own research in 2010 found that cancer risk starts at 3.7 ppt and advocated lowering the threshold for cleanup to 72 ppt, guidelines that were shut down by the Obama Administration.

What’s happened in East Palestine shows just how far supposedly “neutral” bodies like the EPA will go to sacrifice public health for political expediency.

So, were this “controlled explosion” and its deadly consequences really worth it? Critics have said the decision was more about reopening the railway and keeping profits flowing than about public safety. Indeed, residents have reported the railway is even busier than usual, with train cars double-stacked with profitable cargo, while those living nearby haven’t been offered any meaningful compensation for their health concerns or decimated home values.

Evacuated residents in a one-by-two mile area that crossed the Pennsylvania border were told it was safe to return after just a few days. Norfolk Southern has been ordered to clean up the mess, but despite the efforts so far, and the insistence of local, state, and federal authorities that tests indicate safe levels of contaminants, the people of East Palestine have been reporting various health issues. Skin rashes, respiratory problems, burning eyes and throats, nausea and stomach pain are among the ills reported, as well as the death and disease of animals. The environmental impact is certainly catastrophic. By February 23, the animal death toll had already been estimated at over 43,700 according to CBS News, and the long-term impacts are not yet known.

Inconsistent and sensational reporting around the event makes it difficult to see the full picture. Norfolk Southern has been tight-lipped about the details of their investigations while sensational headlines comparing the derailment to Chernobyl make waves on social media. One outlet reported that the chemicals haven’t contaminated waterways while another published an article about the plume of chemicals traveling the Ohio river. One journalist was even arrested while reporting on the disaster, though the charges against him were dropped. But even with the best assumptions, it is nothing short of a disaster that working people will pay for with their health and livelihood.

A Failure of Both Parties

This disaster highlights the failures of both parties of big business and the power of the railway lobby. Although Obama, after a series of high-profile train derailments, instituted safety reforms such as requiring electronic braking systems, the rules weren’t to take effect until 2023. The Trump administration then killed the regulations. And where has the Biden administration been? The president made a trip to Ukraine to pursue his proxy war against Russia but has yet to visit or make a statement about East Palestine as of the writing of this article.

Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s Transportation Secretary, took 17 days to visit the town and has done virtually nothing to help the people struggling with the health and economic impacts of the disaster. Even the public health clinic that was set up offers only advice and no real medical services. Despite his potential role in creating the disaster, Trump is capitalizing on this failure, delivering “Trump water” in a visit to the besieged town.

The residents of East Palestine and other poor and working-class victims of corporate-manufactured environmental catastrophes deserve much more than to be political pawns. They deserve a real clean-up effort, monetary compensation for their decimated home values – including relocation fees if they choose – and lifelong, free medical care to cover any unforeseen health outcomes of this disaster. But these steps don’t line the pockets of big businesses, nor do they win elections for corporate-friendly politicians. Without massive backlash from regular people and an upsurge in environmentalist organizing, this is another disaster that will be swept under the rug as we continue to rush towards environmental devastation.

An Eco-socialist Approach Needed

The daisy chain of failures surrounding this disaster illuminate just how inadequate global capitalism is at cleaning up its own messes, much less proactively taking steps to heal the environment. Even as the planet hurdles closer and closer to climate catastrophe, the ruling class not only goes on with business as usual but even continues to look for new ways to cut corners and increase their profits, leading to escalating environmental calamities. Some will be explosive, such as train accidents or oil rig failures, but many others are more steady, constant streams of degradation such as the millions of tons of plastic waste created by capitalism every year.

A rational system would look at the disaster in East Palestine and pause to question the wisdom of corporate-controlled railways. But a new oil railroad is being built next to the Colorado River, a vital water source for 40 million people including 30 tribal nations. Despite the Biden administration’s claim to want to reduce emissions, according to The Guardian, March 9, 2023, this railway would enable an additional 350,000 barrels of oil extraction a day. Clearly, the fight to curb the power of the railway lobby and the fight against climate change are linked.

Weak governmental reforms and public pressure are not enough to coerce the ruling class to act in ways that benefit the global majority – there is no kinder, safer, greener future under capitalism. We need a decisive rupture with capitalism, ending the profit motive and bringing the biggest companies and industries, like the railroads, under public ownership, planned and controlled at the national level, and run democratically by the workers with direct input from users and communities. A railway led this way would actually be empowered to put the health and safety of the workers and people who live in rail-side communities first.