Tahir, this was the post I've been waiting for someone to write. You have
expressed clearly what I have been unable to. Thank you.
Regards, Aaron.
>
>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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