> This is where you are categorically wrong. The reason you are wrong is you
> do not understand what I am saying when I say capitalism. The Wall Street
> comment demonstrates that. "Capitalism" is liguistic shorthand for a
> thoroughgoing and complex set of realities, for which there are a few very
> simple key mechanisms in operation... sorry at the klutzy prose here. It's
> early. I don't have the time or space here to become didactic about
> historical materialsm, again. People's actions are impelled by a
> combination of material and social circumstances. The social system, not
> just the economic, that we live in, worldwide, is capitalism. It has its
> own inherent motive forces that are inescapable based on things like
> commodity production, property relations, etc. When a Haitian peasant
> scours the deforested hillsides in search of ever smaller trees to make
> charcoal to cook on, and sell, he is not a capitalist... but the
> circumstance is brought about by capitalism. Capitalism overshoots.
> Economically, environmentally, in all ways. That is its nature. It can't
> help it. And we can't escape it without despotic inroads against those at
> the top.
>
I agree with this, too. However the point about saying 'it's not just
capitalism' is that we will have to transition to a human lifeworld which is
not just anti-capitalist but which overcomes and transcends the whole
prehistory of urban societies of accumulation and production.
> Agreed. But I don't know many people outside of net denizens who do a lot
> of that. Not a single activist I know spends much time doing this.
But this is not a reason to base your politics on anything other than the core
truths which ought to define our practice. You say you are involved in various
activist contexts, but they are presumably not about the central issues we are
addressing here, except perhaps indirectly. So what is the point of this
activism? Isn't it just trying to get in front of a crowd of people who are
rushing up a blind alley, or off a cliff?
Mark
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