Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
It is easy to forget some important facts about the presumed sustainability of planned/communist, historical and current economies. The Soviet block had an immensly polluting industry which paid almost no attention to the environemntal nor human health. Citizen protests, unlike the NGO acitivity inthe West, were banned. The most ecologically destructive economic project recorded so far inthe world - the draining of the Aral Sea was done in the USSR - an entirely planned disaster! Under Mao, Chinese population was subject to periodic starvation and their economy, despite planning efforts was moving in no direction at all. It is after gradually implementing capitalist institutions since Deng Xiaoping reforms that China become second world economic power and lifted at least a couple of hundred of millions from poverty. In the meantime China is destroying its environment - the consequnce of joint impact of wild capitalism and communist planning (Three Gorges Dam project was initiated under Mao but had economic means for realization only under the capitalist institutions). North Corea is starving periodically its population and depend on foreign aid. These former and current communist economies can not be role models for sustainability in any sense. About the quality of life and human rights in former USSR there is a plenty of evidence from those who lived there, and very few of them feel pity for its collapse. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. However, besides planning, which has been very present in the post WWII capitalist economies I do not believe that we can learn much from the former communist systems. The solution may lie in the change of the predominat Western wordview, which is overconfident in technological fixes and dominated by materialist and economic values. Our societies lack substantial environental values and we miss the non-material aspects of the quality of life. This is a legacy of modernity, and a communist ideology pertains to this legacy, and therefore has been equally unfriendly to environemnt. Igor Matutuinovic -Original Message- From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Dr. Shu-Kun Lin Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 4:40 PM To: christian.fu...@uti.at; Christian Fuchs Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Some very quick comments: This is extremely interesting topic. I have this idea also since 2008 when I was reading and considering a lot about sustainability. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated or revised by adding some elements of socialism (Maxism or communism) and planned economy, will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. I understand now why many people (including the father and the brothers of my grandmother from a rich landlord in China) from rich families or capitalist families sacrificed their lives for the revolutionary cause of communism. North Korea people live in a much more sustainable way than other countries. (Democracy and dictatorship are another issue of discussion.) It is a pity that the great Soviet Union was destroyed and China has been actually doing the capitalism not long after the death of Mao. Open Access on the Internet is also actually a socialism movement, in my opinion. On 21.07.2011 11:46, Christian Fuchs wrote: Marx is Back: The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Call for Papers for a Special Issue of tripleC – Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. Edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/CfP_Marx_tripleC.pdf For inquiries, please contact the two editors. In light of the global capitalist crisis, there is renewed interest in Karl Marx’s works and in concepts like class, exploitation and surplus value. Slavoj Žižek argues that the antagonisms of contemporary capitalism in the context of the ecological crisis, the massive expansion of intellectual property, biogenetics, new forms of apartheid and growing world poverty show that we still need the Marxian notion of class. He concludes that there is an urgent need to renew Marxism and to defend its lost causes in order to render problematic capitalism as the only alternative (Žižek 2008, 6) and the new forms of a soft capitalism that promise, and in its rhetoric makes use of, ideals like participation, self-organization, and co-operation, without realizing them. Žižek (2010, chapter 3) argues that the global capitalistcrisis clearly demonstrates the need to return to the critique of political economy. Göran Therborn suggests that the “new constellations of power and new possibilities of resistance” in the 21st century require retaining
Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
Dear Shu-Kun I am afraid that planned/communist + democracy combination is not attainable - a kind of contradiction in itself. Beacuse of their complexity, industrialized economies must have a combination of market and planning to function within socailly acceptable range. Markets are moreover important as a vehicle for economic and technological change and adaptation. Once you have markets, you have a degree of income inequality (not necessarily of the US range), your have property rights, and a degree of economic pressure on all agents (a striking difference from economic administration implied in central planning). All this is not compatible with the basic ideological foundations of communism. Besides, democracy imples that on elections the voters may vote against the very institutions that have the attributes of planned/communist (whatever these mean) - they may vote against socialism. This outcome is not originally intended by communist ideology - the communism being the final stage of historic development - according to Marxist historicism. To be frank, Santiago Carillo, the legendary head of the Communist Party of Spain and the promotor of Eurocommunism in the Seventies, was ready to accept such a democratic challenge (at least in theory). The best Igor -Original Message- From: Dr. Shu-Kun Lin [mailto:l...@mdpi.com] Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 7:41 PM To: Matutinovic, Igor (GfK Croatia) Cc: christian.fu...@uti.at; Christian Fuchs; fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Dear Igor, Dictatorship and democracy is another topic we need to discuss. Maybe there are 4 combinatorial systems: planned/communist + democracy (Is this the most ideal one?) planned/communist + dictatorship (USSR?, North Korea) free market/capitalism + dictatorship (China now?) free market/capitalism + democracy (Most of the Western countries, now) Best regards, Shu-Kun On 21.07.2011 17:54, Matutinovic, Igor (GfK Croatia) wrote: It is easy to forget some important facts about the presumed sustainability of planned/communist, historical and current economies. The Soviet block had an immensly polluting industry which paid almost no attention to the environemntal nor human health. Citizen protests, unlike the NGO acitivity inthe West, were banned. The most ecologically destructive economic project recorded so far inthe world - the draining of the Aral Sea was done in the USSR - an entirely planned disaster! Under Mao, Chinese population was subject to periodic starvation and their economy, despite planning efforts was moving in no direction at all. It is after gradually implementing capitalist institutions since Deng Xiaoping reforms that China become second world economic power and lifted at least a couple of hundred of millions from poverty. In the meantime China is destroying its environment - the consequnce of joint impact of wild capitalism and communist planning (Three Gorges Dam project was initiated under Mao but had economic means for realization only under the capitalist institutions). North Corea is starving periodically its population and depend on foreign aid. These former and current communist economies can not be role models for sustainability in any sense. About the quality of life and human rights in former USSR there is a plenty of evidence from those who lived there, and very few of them feel pity for its collapse. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. However, besides planning, which has been very present in the post WWII capitalist economies I do not believe that we can learn much from the former communist systems. The solution may lie in the change of the predominat Western wordview, which is overconfident in technological fixes and dominated by materialist and economic values. Our societies lack substantial environental values and we miss the non-material aspects of the quality of life. This is a legacy of modernity, and a communist ideology pertains to this legacy, and therefore has been equally unfriendly to environemnt. Igor Matutuinovic -Original Message- From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Dr. Shu-Kun Lin Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 4:40 PM To: christian.fu...@uti.at; Christian Fuchs Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Some very quick comments: This is extremely interesting topic. I have this idea also since 2008 when I was reading and considering a lot about sustainability. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated or revised by adding some elements of socialism (Maxism or communism) and planned economy, will for sure deplete all
