Patrick Bond:
> Working through the militant particularisms and
>building a general struggle out of this was, I felt, the general
>thrust of David's new book, and Louis isn't giving this project any
>credit in his haste to ridicule the petty-bourgeois character of the
>1990s academic.
Patrick, the big question for me is not the Rover plant closing, or
Harvey's life-style. It is ecosocialism. I never had a critical word to say
about David Harvey in the past and, as you know, took the trouble to write
up a report on his speech on the Communist Manifesto to the Brecht Forum in
NYC. I never hid the fact that I regarded him, Ellen Meiksins Wood, Perry
Anderson and Jim O'Connor as some of the most important Marxist thinkers
alive.
So why am I now so bugged?
Okay, about six months ago I got into a prolonged ideological dispute with
the LM group of Great Britain around ecological questions. They were
pro-nuclear and attacked Survival International in their press, the group
that fights against the genocide of the Yanomami Indian. Their positions in
the name of Marxism appeared so bizarre and reactionary to me that I
decided to challenge them. On the particular question of the Indian, it has
led to what amounts to a book-length project.
When Monthly Review decided to publish a book on science written by 2 of
LM's leaders, I couldn't believe my eyes. MR had screwed up, as they would
be the first to admit. Pluto Press had published the book in the first
place and MR agreed to pick it up, as part of a fraternal commercial
relation with Pluto, who put out Socialist Register and other worthwhile
books. It was clear to me that there was a problem in the broader Marxist
movement if Pluto decided to publish the book, when they knew of the
contents of LM magazine. MR's excuse was that they hadn't paid attention to
LM and took Pluto's recommendation at face value. It is more Pluto's
problem in judgement than their's, it would seem.
At a certain point in the debate, one of LM's supporters started quoting
huge swaths of prose from Harvey's new book in defense of their anti-green
outlook. I was shocked. This led me to begin thumbing through the book and
page after page seemed completely wrong-headed. I reached identical
conclusions to John Bellamy Foster's whose exchange with Harvey appears in
the latest MR.
I don't care about Harvey's illustrious past. I am deeply concerned about
the ability of Marxism to come up with correct answers to the ecological
crisis, as John Bellamy Foster and Michael Perelman do. (Both are singled
out for attack by Harvey, along with Barry Commoner and Jim O'Conner.) All
are charged with adapting to bourgeois environmentalism and Malthusianism.
I regard this charge as completely unfounded and decided to critique Harvey
on the Internet, long before I discovered that Foster was planning to do it
in print. I had emailed John to tell him about what Harvey was saying. He
said, "I know all about it."
Meanwhile, Patrick, you said that you were going off to a retreat in
Zimbabwe and give these questions proper consideration. You still do not
seem engaged with them. Whatever good Harvey did in the past is part of the
public record. His anti-green diatribe, however, is also part of the record
and that continues to demand our attention.
Louis Proyect
