The question of what we should be talking about on this list
is perhaps not as simple as it at first seems. I assume that
all we CAN do here is talk, unless someone intends to form a
new political or social movement through the list, which,
given the different orientations, would probably be
difficult. (But in a different sense I think that all of us
who debate on e-lists ARE actually already part of a new
social movement, but OK let that one go for the moment)
At first it seemed that there were two positions on this
question: Firstly there were those who wanted to have
theoretical debates of a greatly abstruse nature, mostly
about capitalism and the failure of the left alternative - I
am personally comfortable with that, but I realise this is
probably not the most appropriate list for it (a subgroup of
this first group consisted of those who wanted to have
detaile ddebates about precise empirical facts of history,
but I think that was mainly one person.)
Secondly there were those who were vehemently opposed to
theoretical debate of any kind and thought that the list
would lead instead to some kind of short term action aimed
at saving the planet. But this position suffers from the
defect that it is quite hard to imagine how an e-list turns
into a pattern of practical activism in and of itself.
But I seem to be detecting a third position in some of the
recent posts which is perhaps more interesting, and which I
think comes closer to what Mark was saying some time ago
already. It says something like "capitalism will fail
anyway, through the energy crisis, the ecological disaster,
basically through the crash, but what replaces it might be
better or infinitely worse." I think especially the latter
possibility should concentrate our minds a little. One
thinks of words like annihilation, barbarism, survivalism,
etc. So the question is not so much about fighting
capitalism then, it is more about organising people for its
demise, not so much about whether socialism in one of its
variants can be made to replace capitalism, but what the
INEVITABILITY OF THE IMPLOSION OF THE CAPITALIST WORLD might
actually mean. And I think in that context the question of
socialism should take on a whole new meaning.
If we are to survive this crash, will it mean, for example,
being locked into our present system of nation states? Will
it mean industrialisation as we know it, with rapid and
incessant innovations of technology? Could it mean an
expanding or even static level of population? If the proper
answer to questions like these is 'no', at least in some
cases, then it means that there is work to be done, and
maybe that IS the work of a list like this.
I would like to suggest that this work might not be
predominantly theoretical or practical at all, but rather
imaginative in nature. If we can't imagine a set of
realities and contingencies that are radically different to
those of our experience, then it seems to me that we either
have no business talking about a crash, or else that the
crash we are talking about is really a rather trivial one in
some people's minds. But then why have a list dedicated to
it? I think the very notion of the crash puts us into the
business of futurology, and that by its very definition
seems to be imaginative in nature.
Tahir
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