Thad wrote, >Because, I would argue, if you're a firm operating in a market system on a >for-profit basis, you'll be under pressure to either grow or die in most >instances. You'll also have strong incentive to pass of ecological costs on >to the community. And unless you radically undercut the economic insecurity >characteristic of present-day capitalism, there'll be pressure to grow >politically simply to provide enough jobs, etc. I agree theoretically there >are vast ecological gains that reform-under-capitalism might accomplish, but >don't think that's a very plausible scenario given the way existing power >interests can block meaningful reform. This is certainly the standard eco-Marxist argument (see any of numerous issues of CAPITALISM, NATURE, SOCIALISM, the great journal from Jim O'Connor and Guilford Press). However, for a counter perspective, see my article, "Grow or Die: Marxist Theories of Capitalism and the Environment," in RETHINKING MARXISM 7.2 (Summer 1994), where I argue that the relationship between capitalism and the environment depends upon the "environmental regime," the "complex of natural, cultural, political and economic processes relating to environmentalism that overdetermines class" [class in the sense of surplus labor production, appropriation and distribution]. Better yet, see my Ph.D. dissertation, "Enterprise, Value, Environment: The Economics of Corporate Responses to Environmentalism" (UMI, 1995), which was written after the article and which elaborates the argument in more detail and I think much more persuasively. The argument in my article is contrasted with O'Connor's in the guest introduction to the current special issue of SCIENCE AND SOCIETY on Marxism and Ecology. However, I have to say I don't think the guest editor, David Schwartzman understood the argument as I intended (perhaps the fault of my exposition rather than his reading?): I would by no means say, for example, as he does, that I am "optimistic!" In any case, as Schwartzman does note, like O'Connor, my argument, based on Marxian class analysis, suggests we'll be much better off when communist or communal class processes, rather than capitalist ones, are dominant. While there is no utopianism in my argument (to say the least); it is perhaps a possible basis for a socialist, ecologically sustainable utopian fiction, and maybe even reality. :) >Thanks for some of these refs! In general I don't think ecological writers >are very strong in facing up to power issues and often act as if you can >wish away corporate structures. My preliminary judgement is that serious >thought about what a sustainable society would like institutionally is >underdeveloped but far from nonexistent. On this point, again, I suggest you look at CNS. Lots of great articles about political economy and political ecology (where in my mind politics is about power). Regards, Blair Blair Sandler [EMAIL PROTECTED]
