Let me add another major category of stuff I'm looking for re the annotated bibliography noted in previous message--FEMINIST structural visions of life beyond capitalism (some of this overlaps with utopian fiction, of course, like perhaps these Mars books...) Thad At 01:23 PM 10/20/96 -0700, Blair Sandler wrote: >Anyone else red I mean read the sci-fi trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, RED >MARS, GREEN MARS, BLUE MARS? I just finished the first book, RED MARS, and >it's very good: politics, economics, ecology, and revolution. Here are a >couple of brief passages folks might find interesting, all excerpted from >one large discussion occupying a few pages sequentially: > >[DISCLAIMER: the following excerpts represent passages I thought of >interest, but not necessarily my opinions.] > > >"This usually led to considerations of ecology, and its deformed offshoot >economics...." > >"Anyway that's a large part of what economics is -- people arbitrarily, or >as a matter of taste, assigning numerical values to non-numerical things. >And then pretending that they haven't just made the numbers up, which they >have. Economics is like astrology in that sense, except that economics >serves to justify the current power structure, and so it has a lot of >fervent believers among the powerful." > >"Everyone should make their living, so to speak, based on a calculation of >their real contribution to the human ecoloyg. Everyone can increase their >ecological efficiency by efforts to reduce how many kilocalories they use >-- this is the old Southern argument against the energy consumption of the >Northern industrial nations. There was a real ecologic basis to that >objection, because no matter how much the industrial nations produced, in >the larger equation they could not be as efficient as the South." > >"They were predators on the South.... And like all predators their >efficiency is low." > >"It should be the law that people are rewarded in proportion to their >contribution to the system." > >Dmitri, coming in the lab, said, "From each according to his capacities, to >each according to his needs!" > >"No, that's not the same," Vlad said. "What it means is, You get what you >pay for!" > >"But that's already true," John said. "How is this different from the >economics that already exists?" > >They all scoffed at once.... "There's all kinds of phantom work! Unreal >values assigned to most of the jobs on Earth! The entire transnational >executive class does nothing a computer couldn't do, and there are whole >categories of parasitical jobs that add nothing to the system by an >ecologic accounting. Advertising, stock brokerage, the whole apparatus for >making money only from the manipulation of money -- that is not only >wasteful but corrupting, as all meaningful money values get distorted in >such manipulation." > >"But all of these are subjective judgement!" John exclaimed. "How have you >actually assigned caloric values to such a variety of activities?" > >"Well, we have done our best to calculate what they contribute back to the >system in terms of well-being measured as a physical thing. What does the >activity equal in terms of food, or water, or shelter, or clothing, or >medical aid, or education, or free time?" > > >Later, there is a separate discussion with Sufis (on Mars: this is sci-fi, >remember :) > >"Whole cultures were built around the idea of the gift.... Whatever you >were given, you did not expect to keep, but gave it back again in your >turn, hopefully with interest. You worked to be able to give more than you >received. Now we think that this can be the basis for a reverent economics." > > >Separate passage: > >"He gave them advice in media relations and arbitration technique, he told >them how to organize cells and committees, to elect leaders. They were so >ignorant! Young men and women, educated very carefully to be apolitical, to >be technicians who thought they disliked politics, making them putty in the >hands of their rulers, just like always." > > >And one more, in the heat of the insurrection: > >"Horrible how the revolution was being portrayed on Earth: extremists, >communists, vandals, saboteurs, reds, terrorists. Never the words *rebel* >or *revolutionary*, words of which half the Earth (at least) might approve. >No, they were isolated groups of insane, destructive terrorists." > > >Okay, that's all. I'm interested in comments from others who have (or >haven't) read this work. > >Blair > > > > >Blair Sandler >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Thad Williamson National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (Washington)/ Union Theological Seminary (New York) 212-531-1935 http://www.northcarolina.com/thad
