******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
I keep coming back to Richard Smith's "Six Theses..." as an uncompromising ecosocialist framework for these discussions. It is long past time for socialists to forgo and critique "productionist," "Promethean," or "accelerationist" approaches to overcoming the planetary crisis. http://thenextsystem.org/six-theses-on-saving-the-planet/ Thesis 2 (for example) - "We would have to 'contract and converge' production around a globally sustainable and hopefully happy average that can provide a dignified living standard for all the world’s peoples. To effect such a balance, we would have to slam the brakes on out-of-control growth in the Global North. We would need to retrench or shut down unnecessary, resource-hogging, wasteful, polluting industries like fossil fuels, autos, aircraft and airlines, shipping, chemicals, bottled water, processed foods, pharmaceuticals, and so on. We would have to discontinue harmful processes like industrial agriculture, fishing, and logging. We would have to close down many services–the banking industry, Wall Street, the credit card, retail, public relations, and advertising 'industries' — built to underwrite and promote overconsumption. We would have to abolish the military-surveillance-police state industrial complex, and all its manufacturers, as this is just a total waste that’s only purpose is global domination, state terrorism, destruction abroad, and repression at home. We can’t build decent societies anywhere when so much of social surplus is squandered on such waste. "At the same time, we would be obliged to redirect considerable resources to ramping up sustainable development in the Global South. We, in the North, have a responsibility to help the South build basic infrastructure, electrification, sanitation systems, public schools, health care, and so on. We would help their citizens achieve a comfortable material standard of living without repeating all the disastrous wastes of capitalist consumerism in the North. After all, we owe them a huge debt: much of the poverty of the South is the result of decades and centuries of the industrialized North looting their resources. If we just stop this, the South can use its natural resource wealth for its own sustainable development. ..." _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
