In a previous post I was not attempting a review of Shiva's book,
Staying Alive.  It is several years since I read it, and I do not
have it to hand.  From memory, though, the faults which made me
think it the worst book I have ever read were:

1) its astounding repetitiousness
2) appalling style and syntax
3) a disregard for the standard canons of argument (e.g. stacks
   of non-sequiturs, a dearth of evidence for the assertions made,
   etc.)

As regards the question of its content and Shiva's overall position
much more needs to be said.  With this in mind I offer the following
essay, though it deals with more than just objections to Shiva.

Shiva criticizes not just the acknowledged failures and injustices of
Western industrial capitalism but also their alleged 'successes'--growth,
mass consumerism, and rapid technological development.  It is the very
paradigm of advanced industrialism itself which she regards as inimical to
both ecological sustainability, and to meeting the genuine economic needs
of human beings, especially women and the poor of the Third World.

While agreeing that industrialism is an ambiguous phenonomenon with many
a dark aspect, a phenomenon that should certainly not be celebrated in
an unalloyed fashion or uncritical spirit, I cannot share Shiva's overall
position.  For one thing, personally, I basically welcome the advent of
industrialization, Western urban life, rapid technological innovation and
the type of 'Western' science upon which these things are predicated.  My
guess is that most people in the world, including the Third World, welcome
or aspire to these developments too.  For decades millions of people have
been forsaking 'sustenance' form of agriculture and have been only too eager
to abandon traditional economic 'wisdom' for 'Western' lifestyles based on
industrialization and urbanization.  True, millions also suffer miserably in
shanty town squalor as they try to cling, however precariously, to the
urban, consumer economy.  But it is a remarkable fact that after many years
of this kind of poverty and the exploitation and powerless that goes with it,
there is very little sign of mass yearning for a return to pre-industrial forms
of economic organization.

It might be objected that these masses of unfortunates are dupes of an 
imperialistic culture.  It might be objected that they have little alternative
but to assimilate to the logic of industrial capitalism as they are more or 
less driven from their traditional landholdings.  Both of these objections
contain more than a grain of truth.  But it does not follow that these people
would, under less constrained circumstances, really prefer to engage 
permanently in a sustenance economy of the type envisaged by Shiva.  And
when popular revolutions and other movements of mass protest do occur, they
generally do not aim at transforming society in the direction advocated by
Shiva, but rather aim at speeding up the process of industrial economic
development or at capturing a greater share of its benefits for the poor.
<E.g. the Zapatistas wanted electricity, more modern medical care, etc>.
The only modern revolution that I can think of which was clearly
anti-industrial, anti-Western technology, and anti-Western culture in 
orientation was that of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.  Not a very attractive
counter-example, nor one that would conform in other respects with the values
espoused by Vandana Shiva.

The real problem with Shiva's position is this: she fails to understand not
so much the problems created by industrial capitalism, as the nature of its
historical logica and dynamism.  Yes, industrial capitalism *is* ruthless,
exploitative, destructive; yes, it ignores or tramples on vital human values;
yes, it even threatens human and biological survival.  But it is no use
simply lamenting these facts.  They must also be understood.  We need to
understand why, despite all these repellent features, industrial capitalism
has been so successful at extending its dominion over human affairs for so
long.  The ever expanding power of capital and its allies in the state is
no accident of history.  To have become such an enduring and (in its own
terms) successful mode of production, industrial capitalism must have 
performed real functions, it must have served real wants and interests.
Why is it able to extend its tentacles into Mexico and Peru, Indonesia
and Thailand?  Why is it able to destroy subsistence farming and traditional
communities so unfailingly?  Why did it eventually force small-scale
Jeffersonian communities to give way to the the monopoly power of Carnegie,
J. P. Morgan, Ford and Rockefeller?  Why does it now appear as an unstoppable
force in shaping an interdependent global economy through the expansion of
trade, the enhanced mobility of finance-capital, and where need be, the use
of military power.  Shiva laments these phenomena, but she does not, I fear,
understand or adequately account for them.

Here Marx is much better.  Roughly and very schematically, industrial
capitalism has these world-historical features because of the role it
plays in enhancing the forces of production.  To oppose the development
of these forces of production is, I believe, ultimately doomed to failure.
But, understood correctly, development of the forces of production is
not at all opposed to the logic and value of sustainability.  To think
otherwise is an error which derives from thinking that what is at stake
in speaking of of the development of the forces of production is the 
quantitative growth of per capita material output.  The key force of 
production is human labor power itself, including all the skill, creativity,
invention, and knowledge characteristically displayed in purposeful
human activity.  The development of *this* force of production, then,
refers to its qualitative enhancement and progressive emancipation from
drudgery.  It involves raising human labor power to new levels of skill,
creativity and knowledge, not the endless churning out of more and more
material goods.  That would be to stay on the same level human labor 
power occupies under capitalism.  Capitalism elevates human labor power's
capacities up to a certain level, but at a point which we may now be
reaching, it thwarts the further development of those capacities by 
insisting that productivity gains be devoted to increasing material outputs
rather than other goods, such as purposeful leisure time, improved human
relations, etc.  So what is intended by marxian notions of enhancing the
forces of production is not, beyond a certain level of material comfort,
producing more and more 'stuff', but a qualitative elevation of the nature
of work.  This in turn is bound up with 'capital' taking on a more human
form, the greater importance of information and knowledge, and a shift
from traditional outputs toward an expanding array of creative personal
services, education, nurturing activities, cultural production, etc, and 
a steady reduction in the working time required for the production of 
life's material necessities.  The key to this is democratizing control 
over capital so that in both the allocation of investment funds, and in 
the workplace, interests which under capitalism take on an exaggeratedly 
consumerist and material form can be expressed and served in a more 
holistic and human manner.  Technological development should thus not be 
eschewed, but rather democratically directed to a more liberated form of human
existence, in which hours of work devoted to producting material goods
are reduced and other non-material outputs are increased.  Productivity
must continue to be improved so that the resulting gains can be used
to serve cultural, social service, and leisure ends instead of those
served under capitalism.  Achieving this goal requires prolonged
anti-capitalist class struggle at various sites.

The anti-industrial alternative advocated by Shiva would certainly
safeguard sustainability (assuming its widespread acceptance and
implementation).  But in fact it is most likely to be rejected by
the mass of humanity on the grounds that it holds out no prospect
for the qualitative development and emancipation of human labor
power.  It would have little place for the characteristically human
propensities to engage in scientific discovery, technological innovation,
organizational creativity, little room to do new things in new ways,
to seek continually the enhancement of our powers, capacities and
knowledge; in short, it would offer little scope to develop new and
preferred ways of living and acting.  A permanent option for anti-industrialism
would not only petrify the nature of work, it would also congeal the
structure of social relations in which work is embedded.  It was for this
reason that Marx, though fully aware of the miseries accompanying the advent
of 'dark, Satanic mills', welcomed the appearance of industrial capitalism
as spelling the death-knell of the age-old 'idiocy of village life' in which
countless human generations had toiled merely to secure the means to 
continue toiling.  He saw clearly that capitalist industrialization contained
within itself the objective material conditions for the popular extension
of education, art, science and culture, which hitherto had of necessity been
restricted to a tiny minority.  It was for this reason that Marx ruled out
alternatives to capitalism that would involve the stagnation of the forces 
of production.  To opt for such alternatives would be to go against
human nature.  This conclusion of Marx is confirmed by experience: it is
apparent that the great majority of the human race regard such alternatives
with evident disfavor.  People everywhere exhibit a powerful desire to
improve their quality of life.  It is true that under capitalist relations
of production they are compelled to express this desire in an exaggeratedly
consumerist form since they do not have control over the composition of 
economic development and are unable to choose how to use improvements in
the productivity of their own labor.  But the answer to this problem lies
in extending social freedom to include the making of these choices, not in
restricting the rights to participate freely in fashioning new historical
structures of social and economic life or to engage in new forms of 
self-chosen, self-developing activity.

This extension of freedom and self- and societal development carries with
it an inevitable risk: the risk that our collective human choices will
turn out to be destructive for ourselves and for the planet.  But at
least under socialist arrangements we would have the capacity and option
to avoid making such destructive choices.  Under capitalism institutions
of private property, wage-labor, and the competitive market allocation
of resources, we would not, since any consequences that eventuated would
be the unintended result of an uncoordinated, atomistic, and anarchic set
of individual decisions inevitably escaping our collective rational control.

Socialism, then, is a necessary condition of sustainability.  But it
is not sufficient.  But though insufficient, I would suggest that in
the absence of something like an environmental police state, we cannot
in any case *guarantee* that we won't finally destroy our environment,
our natural resources, and ourselves.  In fact, even an environmental
police state would not be enough to *guarantee* sustainability, for 
like other police states it could always be overthrown or corrupted.
In any society, whether it be free and democratic or not, there can be 
no ultimate protection from the consequences of folly.

Peter Burns SJ
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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