> CB: Thanks for hanging in there. I urge you to read some of the basic
texts of Marxism and Marxist political economy - _The Manifesto of the
Communist Party_, first chapters of _Capital_, _Value, Price and Profit_,
_The Teachings of Karl Marx_ by Lenin, in conjunction with the presentations
on this list, which are probably not enough in themselves to fully
understand the ideas.
>
Tom:
Apparently the volumes aren't either, since I have read them (and re-read
parts since joining Crashlist <g>). You do better, CB, to point to the
specific passages where you think Marx addresses the issues and ideas of
enviromental crisis. (You can start with Hanson, Naess, and maybe Hardin if
you need to do any reading about this end of the issue. Mark's pretty good
too.)
Question: Do you remember where Marx exhibits a perception of the need for
population control?
CB:
> In a few words, the Marxist theory addresses the problem of the
environmental crisis and oil crunch by its demonstration that capitalism's
first law is the production of surplus-value, and that this is pursued to
the "ends of the earth", literally and insanely, regardless of even the fact
that it harms our living environment to the extent of catastrophic crisis.
Marxism is unique in teaching that the very most important premise to
stopping the problem of human generated environmental crisis is ending
capitalism, i.e. slaying the God , Surplus-Value.
Tom:
Well, this supports Tahir's Point #1 and speaks to one of my objections of
that point. You see, the environmental crisis is not so neatly sewn up into
blaming capitalism for all the sins of 6 billion people eating the planet.
The idea of replacing (watch it, ... here comes the "S" word) sustainability
with exploitation is a far older "premise" than capitalism. (You can read
Daniel Quinn for a profound but simplistic overview of this) The de-linkage
of man from perceptions of the consequences of exploiting nature is embedded
into our cultures so deeply that it taints marxism as well as other economic
philosophies. Much of the world practices neither capitalism nor communism
in its daily activity, yet precipitates "human generated environmental
crisis" by routinely ignoring the consequences of economic activity and
attempting to exploit and control the biosystem. (think of Masai overgrazing
their patures to feed hungry children, think of the world's non-response to
3 million AIDS orphans in subsahara Africa)
The above in /no way/ excuses the mega-rape of the planet by global
capitalism. (I agree it must go!) But if capitalism went away today, our
civilization would still be on the road to the abyss, albeit at a slower
speed. (think of the current killing of the last primates in Africa for
"bushmeat")
Once the Surplus-Value God is slain, how do we go about sustaining
"ordinary" value among 6 billion hungry souls?
CB:
> Marxism also has a theory of the periodic economic crisis, boom-bust cycle
of capitalism. It is rather complicated, requiring some of the reading
mentioned above. I will try to sketch it out if you want, but the
"bottomline" is that economic crisis is linked to the exploitation of
workers, because ultimately they are the mass of consumers , and when
exploited , they don't have enough money to buy everything , or most of
what, is produced. This causes profits to fall, and the capitalists start
laying people off.
Well, the next time the cycle "busts" due to oil depletion, there won't be
much of a boom following. If you wish to detail where you think Marx's
theory will hold past the Hubbert Peak, I will read your very carefully and
eagerly, and welcome your response. It's the kind of thing we want to see on
Crashlist. It may not be as complicated as you think, .. and I have done
some of the reading mentioned above.
You see, it's not just that people don't have "enough money to buy
everything" Fresh air, pure water, available fish, clean land, -- and the
byproducts derived from them -- are not as readily available to be bought,
even if the mass of consumers have bulging pockets. Why? Because the
original exploited worker who produced the value in those goods seems not to
be forthcoming by producing more under our current economic systems, be they
marxist, capitalist or totalitarian. There's your worldwide revolution ...
happening today.
BTW, thanks very much, Charles for taking my questions seriously enough to
pursue them fairly. I know that you run the risk of being attacked any time
you assert that "Marx said .." or present your interpretation of one of his
theories.
Tom
(off to read Mark's Freeman website)
"If everywhere the survival of "just one more" species continues to be held
in balance with some local economic advantage, we'll have more and more of
what we already had. Conservation of biodiversity is in the interests of
everyone." -- Julien Pierrehumbert
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