Tom,
I ask the following question toward the end of my reply, but I copy it at the top here
to see if this is the "bottomline" of what you are saying:
Does everything you say reduce to the solution of zero human population growth ( even
negative population growth), with special emergency measures to save all endangered
species ?
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/05/00 07:38PM >>>
Writes Charles:
> CB: The part of the environmental crisis that Marx addresses is key role
of the mad dash for surplus-value in it.
>
Tom:
Well this is my understanding of it also. However I am hoping to find
agreement from you that these specific environmental developments must be
addressed, regardless, and addressed by marxists too. What has made me so
antagonistic toward the marxist position of late is not that the specific
developments are not addressed by Marx, but that *because* the developments
are not addressed marxists tend to remain either in denial or resort to
pejorative attacks on those who are "screaming" the warning signs, as Carrol
puts it. More better to approach it as Mark has been doing: which is to draw
general directions from Marx and then formulate propositions to address the
specific environmental developments. Too often this is seen as heresy by
others ... others in denial, IMO.
(((((((((((((((
CB: My impression is that Marxists have a range of opinions on this issue. But as
compared with the average, Marxists would be more likely to believe the warnings of
ecological catastrophe just because Marxists are more receptive to any idea that
capitalism is doing in humanity.
The science of global warming or oil depletion is pretty technical, so that cuts down
on the numbers of people who can say with certainty "the sky is falling", whether
Marxists or not. I don't say this is a good thing, but it is a factor.
(((((((((((((
CB> I'm not sure what you are getting at. Are you saying that the process of
pursuing surplus-value, certainly in the books I listed, which I therefore
assume you read , is not a key factor in today's environmental crisis ?
No. I am saying it is not THE key factor! The primary factor in today's
environmental crisis is our delinkage from perception of the consequences.
All else is important, but secondary, and necessarily follows from this
factor. The concentration upon capitalism alone obscures this, and that's
why those who "hide" inside marxist dogma (not you Charles) need to be
awakened.
(((((((((((((
CB: Let me try to link up with perception of the consequences. It will be rather crude
and proabably off some , but let me see if I understand you.
The earth will run out of oil within the next 50 years at its current rate of usage.
Therefore , regardless of the human social system on earth, even if we have universal,
global communism next year, we must do ..... what ?
(((((((((
CB:
That you don't get the theory on pursuit of surplus-value ? What ?
Tom:
Nah, I get it. I just ain't married to it, is all. There are also other
pursuits than economic hegemony on the agenda of global capitalism,
imperialism and enviro-rapers, but another time for *that* can o' worms!
((((((((((
CB: I don't see how you aren't married to the idea that if we don't stop the pursuit
of surplus value as the main motive force of human economy, there is no hope of
avoiding the catastrophic environmental consequences that you , rightly , focus on.
You cannot achieve the goal of avoiding environmental catastrophe, if you do not
achieve the goal of ending capitalism.
Even if there is not an "official" worldwide socialist revolution, if you do not stop
the capitalists from continuing to act like capitalists, in some sense, oil will be
depleted.
Ending capitalist unfettered pursuit of surplus value is just as necessary to saving
us from environmental catastrophe as are what ever techno-economic-energy
revolutionary change you propose for that purpose.
((((((((((((
> Question: Do you remember where Marx exhibits a perception of the need for
> population control?
>
> ((((((((((((
>
> CB: No.
>
> Main thing relevant to environmental crisis that Marx exhibits a
perception of the need for is overthrowing the drive for maximum profit as
the number one driving force of human society.
Tom:
Well we have here a fundamental difference of opinion. Almost every person
active in the environmental discussion rates the population bomb as the
problem that must be dealt with before the others can be solved. I do not
require you (or Marx) to accept this position, only to be cognizant of its
importance. Surely it is at *least* as important as hairsplitting over the
differences between "use" value and "exchange" value?
((((((((((((((
CB: Assume the population bomb explodes. Doesn't the population problem then go away
? What exactly do you mean by the population "bomb" ?
How specifically is it that the problem of stopping the drive for maximum profits as
the number one driving force of human society cannot be solved before the population
bomb problem is dealt with ? What is it about the population bomb that prevents
socialist revolution ? Why can't both problems be solved simultaneously ?
((((((((((((((((
> CB: If I follow you, you seem to be saying that pre- and non- capitalist
forms of society have generated and generate environmental crisis. So,
focussing on capitalism's role in generating environmental crisis is
inadequate.[snip for brevity only] ... so focusing on the capitalist
mechanism for causing enviro crisis addresses some of the cause (the main
one ) of enviro crisis TODAY. ... your statements to the effect that
reading the above books doesn't give you anything addressing today's enviro
crisis is not entirely accurate.
Ah, I guess I am busted here! Yes, the above books contain "something"
addressing the crisis. I think I accept that better than some of the
marxists on this list who are afraid to venture into those waters at all ...
<g>
CB
> Second, given the dominance of capitalism over Masai type pastoralism in
the world economies today ( we're talking overfuckingwhelming dominance
here), the explanations of capitalist cause of enviro crisis are a million
times more important than explanations of Masai type pastoralist cause of
enviro crisis.
True. Unfortunately the Masai-type actions (and not just them, let's not
pick on them or let them stand for all 3rd world enviro-destruction.) are
more critical than you realize, since by and large these folks are located
where the interface with the environment is more critical than, say,
downtown New York. And yes the capitalist cause coming out of New York is at
the root of the overwhelming majority of environmental destruction. But the
capitalist cause is not what's killing the last 30 desert leopards in
Russia, nor the last 300 chimpanzees in Zaire. We need to keep that in mind.
((((((((((((((
CB: I need you to give me the way that you define critical interface with the
environment. Isn't the environment around New York just as much "the environment" as
the environment in Africa ?
I suppose I'm a crass humanist, but my understanding from Darwin and others is that
during the course of the earth's natural history, before homo sapiens sapiens even
existed, thousands and tens of thousands of plant and animal species went extinct.
Extinction is part of the natural processes, critical to the origin of new species,
etc., etc.Hasn't Nature exterminated more species than humans ?
The word "environment" means surroundings. Surrounding what ? Surrounding humans. I
define ecological catastrophe as destruction of the human ecological system or
environment or supporting surroundings. I can't quite understand the whole theory of
"environmentalism" that seems to have as its number one criterion maximization of the
number and variety of species - except to the extent that maximum variety and number
of other species is most favorable to the life of we humans.
Having said that , I am in favor of preserving the leopards and chimps you mention.
But that project does not, for me, define the critical human ecological interface.
Global warming and oil depletion would be more like the critical ecological interfaces
today.
CB
> Third, given all the environmental crises that did NOT take place in the
course of human history during non-capitalists modes of production, you seem
to be leaving out the evidence that many of those modes were not
ecologically unwise.
Tom:
The following belongs to another discussion for later: the sad record of
human history is a record where many more environmental crises have been
covered up than have been reported to us. I suspect you discount this a bit
too much. (example: do you know about pre-Inca irrigation practices and
their effect upon that civilization?)
(((((((((((
CB: Actually, I did study some Inca and pre-Inca archaeology, but I cannot remember
exactly what you are talking about. I remember guano, sea gull shit for fertilizer.
Terracing farms up the mountain.
However, the Inca were not pastoralists , like the Masai. The Inca had agriculture and
a level of technical development that was greater than most of the peoples in the
Andes for most of the time that people were in the Andes. The vast majority of
societies that were in the Andes through its history didn't have evironmental crises.
Anthropologists are debating whether ecological problem contributed to the Mayan
collapse too.
Also, most of the indigenous cosmologies, Inca, Aztec, Mayan, etc., do have several
phases of world destroying catastrophe in their mythical histories. The Aztec Tizoc
stone cosmological monolith is divided up according to about four ends of the world.
So, I am not so sure there has been as much coverup of disaster as you say.
But again, the victims of pre-Incan environmental crisis were pre-Incan homo sapiens,
not other species, no ? The definition of an environmental crisis is that it does harm
to people.
I guess what you are calling environmental disaster seems to reduce to the fact that
the history of our species has been a struggle for existence, which struggles various
groups of humans have lost from time to time, and sometimes it was humans' own
practices of survival that have backfired on them. But we already know that the best
laid plans of mice and men often go astray. That's not a new lesson for us. Trial and
error cannot be avoided, and sometimes errors are disasters.
CB:
And it is not at all clear or demonstrated by you or the evidence of human
ecological history that all cultures have de-linked
> humans from perceptions of the consequences of exploiting nature, as you
put it. Not to mention that many cultures explicitly express ecologically
consciousness.
Not "all" ... but "most". And that evidence is very clear and well
documented. (again, read Daniel Quinn or Arne Naess -- or even Tragedy of
the Commons for the required demonstration.)
((((((((((((((
CB: I don't think the "most" can be proven. We don't have records of MOST of the time
of human existence. Archaeology doesn't have evidence of most of the time of human
existence.
But even of what we do have, there is lots of evidence of consciousness of the impact
of human conduct on their environments. Most religion is based in a consciousness
that what humans do can impact their environments and trying to stay in harmony with
nature in that conduct.
But besides that , most of the time of human existence has been as hunters and
gatherers and gardeners, not agriculturalists. Hunting and gathering didn't result in
much anthropogenic ecological disaster. Agriculture starts about 7,000 years ago.
Human start 200,000 years ago or more. Ergo, it is very unlikely that most humans
caused ecological disasters, rather that most of them did not.
Read some Indigenous American philosophy. Ever heard of Kharma ? "What goes around
comes around " is pretty widely understood in human cultures.
(((((((((((((((
Those that express ecological
consciousness are in retreat or destroyed, by capitalists worldwide,
marxists in China, and totalitarians in Africa, the Middle East, and South
America etc etc ad infinitum.
> By the way, see _Man In Adaptation: The Cultural Past_ , edited by Yehudi
Cohen, which presents evidence of ecological consciousness and practice in
many human societies throughout history.
Thanks, I will add it to my reading list.
> CB:
Since, the rate of capitalist destruction is many times bigger than the
slower ones, we can concentrate all our efforts on capitalism right now, and
cross that bridge when we come to it , if we can get to it.
Tom:
Again, a fundamental difference of opinion.1) Time is critical. If we
concentrate all our efforts on capitalism we lose critical parts of the
ecosystem we cannot afford to lose, heretofore overlooked in the backwaters
of the world. We need marxists to support this effort as well as the assault
on capitalism. All too often since there is little marxist theory about
environmental degradation, marxist activism toward saving critical habitats
is lost, or ganged up on the wrong side.
((((((((((((((((
CB: You have not demonstrated how extermination of leopards is the same order of
catastrophe as oil depletion or global warming.
Weren't sabre tooth tigers exterminated by non-human mechanisms ? What is your
attitude to that ? How do you derive your standard of environmental degradation ? Is
it that all existing species must be preserved ? Isn't that a higher standard than
Nature itself has and has had since the origin of life on earth ?
Environmental degradation has to be defined in terms of "whose" environment you are
talking about.
(((((((((((
2) *some* effort needs to be
expended now and in the future toward eliminating the de-linkage problem I
mention. It seems like small potatoes, I realize, but the attitude *must* be
changed before the effects of the Crash eliminate hope. As someone mentioned
earlier, values change. Richard III had lotsa horses every time except one
when he really needed a horse. The same with ignoring the de-linkage of
perception of environmental consequences. WE run the risk of waking up too
late and realizing we should have acted sooner in this arena.
CB
> Capitalism has destroyed most indigenous culture, so some of what you
describe as non-capitalist, is actually capitalist dominated and distorted.
Tom:
Oh yes, very true. If what I wrote leads to misperceiving this factor, it
was not my intention. Do not miss the point, though: non-capitalist culture
most often reacts in environmentally destructive ways precisely *because* of
the pressures capitalism brings to bear. But this is no reason to avoid
addressing the issue among indigenous cultures. (Think, for example, of the
murder of whales by the Makah, which provides an excuse for the murder of
whales by Japan and Russia.)
((((((((((((((
CB: Oh, oh. Jim Craven can tell you a thing or two.
I don't except at all that Mikah whaling is a culpable cause of capitalist whaling.
(((((((((((((
> CB: Socialist organization of society has already given a good indication
that it can feed everybody by for example, ending hunger in China. The
Soviet Union did not fail to feed everybody or provide ordinary values for
everybody. It's failure was do more to being militarily bludgeoned by
imperialism, from the Cordon Sanitaire , to the Nazi invasion to the Cold
War.
Tom:
This gets back to the "specific, climatic and ecological processes of the
year 2000" and I guess a difference in our perceptions, Charles. By 2025
when there are 8.5 billion souls, *no one* can provide for them adequately.
(oops, my "neo-malthusian" knickers are showing, .. true nonetheless.)
Hunger is not ended in China, just delayed. As is the crisis of virility of
old Chinese men delayed, as they seek to kill the last bears on the planet.
((((((((((((
CB: So, in 2025, when no one can provide for them. do you think that all 8.5 billion
will die ? Or will the population bomb explode and the population be reduced to a
level at which someone can provide for them ? Isn't the population problem inherently
self-solving, even though by a disasterous mechanism. Won't a starving population
automatically stop growing ? Isn't this Nature's way, Nature , which you seem to value
to highly ?
Doesn't China have about the most stringent population controls in the world ? There
are reports of forced abortion. What are you saying the Chinese should do differently
on population control ?
))))))))))))
I would have hoped that Chinese marxism would offer more solutions to that
environmental crisis, although they have taken a great step this week.
((((((((
CB: You seem to be equating environmental crisis with human population growth crisis
with the crises of endangered species (population dearth crisis) It should be clear
from this thread that they are not all the same thing , and , in fact, contradict each
other in some ways in that the solution for one is not identical with the solution of
the other.
Even more, the human population growth crisis basically means not enough resources to
support the life of the population of the given size. The solution of this problem may
end up exterminating some non-human species.
Or does everything you say reduce to the solution of zero human population growth (
even negative population growth), with special emergency measures to save all
endangered species ?
By the way, I am in favor of exterminating the AIDS virus semi-life form, and other
disease causing life forms.
> CB: The Marxist theory of booms and busts does not claim that any boom
would follow running out of a fundamental energy resource like oil . I
thought you were talking about an ordinary economic crisis.
> How can I say this. The fact that the prospect of running out of oil
creates a new type of crisis not addressed by the Marxist theory of cyclical
economic crisis does not mean that Marxism does not in its other respects
provide a critical understanding for what must be done to save the world
from depletion of oil. Marxism or the like is the only theory sufficiently
critical and honest about capitalism to let us know that capitalism will
sacrifice the species in its pursuit of surplus value. The fact that more
than this classical Marxism is needed to solve the depletion of energy
problems that remain even for a society that stops furiously using oil
indifferent to the depletion problem( because it is no longer controlled by
the pursuit of surplus-value ) doesn't mean that Marxism doesn't solve part
of the problem - the specifically capitalist generated aspect of the
problem. There is no reason for you to poo poo this partial solution,
because we don't have the whole solutoin yet. There is no reason to say
Marxism doesn't help with the environmental crisis at all.
Tom:
I have not said that. I have not said "at all" in this way. I have said that
very little has been put forth by marxists to address environmental concerns
from their perspective. Nor do I poo poo marxist contributions to the
solutions, else I would be long gone from this list. What I have asked
for -- to little avail -- is that the partial solutions be stated and
examined. What I have asked for is that current marxists (not classical
Marx) begin to awaken to the need for marxism to address the issues of the
environment rather than stay in denial by contending that all aspects of the
crises must be neatly shoehorned into classical marxist theory, or else be
ignored. (the "use" value argument seems to me a good example of this at
times.)
(((((((((((((((
CB: Yes, we marxists should do better. I don't think the Marxist record is perfect on
this.
However, of the Marxists I know attention to environmental crisis is part of their
program today. The CPUSA has had the late Virginia Brodine and Prof. Howard Parsons
writing on these issues for years. I am looking right now at Vol. 12, No. 1 of
_Nature, Society and Thought_ a Marxist journal, which has an emphasis on
environmental issues, including articles "Was Marx a Promethean ?" ( answer no) by
Paul Burkett, " Marxism and Sustainable Development: The Ecological Limits of
Capitalism" by Donald Judd, " The Need for a Working Class Environmentalism " by
Virginia Brodine. With all the Marxists and Marxist literature that I have been in
touch with, concern and attention to environmental crisis has been part of the
fundamental agenda ever since I have been a Marxist.
I count the peace movement, opposition to the nuclear arms race and Star Wars as part
of the environmental movement.
Of course, there are contradictions, in that figuring out how to sustain decent living
standards and not burn too much fuel or use it up is a very difficult problem to solve.
Also, as indicated above, my standards of environmentalism are not identical with
yours. But with all due respect , I don't mean by that that mine are lower than yours
rather, that you seem to be sort of "Naturo-centric" . I am human centric. My
definition of political ecology is centered in human ecology. I'm not sure you agree
with that.
(((((((((((((((((((
What I ask is that *whatever* utility marxist theory today or in the past
has in addressing environmental concerns ... that it be brought to the forum
and discussed as a guide for each of us to implement what we can of it. What
I ask is for common ground for marxists and non-marxists on the
environment. What I ask for is solidarity with us "neo-malthusians".
Personally, I ask that if I challenge a marxist position I not be called an
asshole or a "red-baiter" (masturbator will do just fine, Julien.)
((((((((((((((((
CB: Yes, well, you know, e-mail culture.
I agree not to call you an asshole. I haven't followed all the threads , so I don't
know about redbaiting. Have you been redbaiting ?
)))))))))))))
Thanks for the discussion so far, Charles. I hope it is rewarding.
Tom
((((((((((((((
CB: Yes, it has been worthwhile for me. I must say though that I am a People Firster.
Of course, people are Earthly beings, so I am pro-earth, but my love of the earth is
derivative. I'd be interested to hear more on how and why you might give the Earth
priority over the human species.
___________
"We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and
their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam
construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to
wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled
land." -- David Foreman, Earth First!
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