I think I triggered off this "needs" thread by asking Justin a simple
question of why it is a good idea to "create new needs."
Having done that, I've not been able to read most of the posts because
of other things occupying my time. But I want to ask Justin how he got
from my question to his interpretation, that I (or others) mean by that
question that I would tell first world workers that they must
sacrifice? Among the posts that I have read I didn't see anything about
sacrifice. I am quite clear that the "live simply" movement isn't and
can't go anywhere, and I never implied that in my question, though
perhaps Justin made that inference.
I also agreewith Justin and Yoshie that sacrifice on the part of
workers is an idea that should be ridiculed. I'll let Lou sort that
out.
Maybe it will be useful if Justin can parse the distinction between
creating new needs and satisfying old needs in creative ways. The
clothes washing machine didn't create the need to wash clothes. Even
one of the most important new consumer items of the Twentieth century,
the vibrator, didn't create a new need. Or am I making a distinction
without a difference in reference to Justin's phrasing?
Gene Coyle
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Justin wrote:
>
> >I am rather inclined to agree with you, Louis, that a middle-class,
> >suburban American lifestyle is not sustainable for six or ten
> >billion people, and that a sustaianble set of needs will have to be
> >rather different from those we now have. I certainly disagree with
> >Jim H's SUV socialism, a Suburban Assault Vehicle (or two) in every
> >garage. But my point was just that even this is to say something
> >different from saying that we have all the needs we ought, too many
> >in fact, and that we ought to all cut back, live simply, etc.
> >
> >I also think that we will not get anywhere with first world workers
> >telling them that they must sacrifice; rather, the needs that
> >motivate them will have to arise rom a lived experience of common
> >struggle, so that reording of priorities will not be experienced as
> >sacrifice or renunciation of privilege. Workers in the advanced
> >countries don't feel particularly privileged, even if they are
> >better off than workers and peasants in poorer nations, and so
> >guilt-tripping them will produce resentment rather than solidarity
> >with those people in other countries.
>
> I agree with Justin here (for the moment setting aside the question
> of exactly how old & new needs can be satisfied under socialism).
> There are few things that are more politically ridiculous than the
> spectacle of assorted professors & computer programmers on left-wing
> e-lists like PEN-l, LBO-talk, & Lou's list preaching the virtues of
> sacrifice & simple living to American workers who on average enjoy
> much less material comforts than many who post on the lists do. It's
> a job of the Boss Man -- definitely not Marxists' -- to tell workers
> not to be "greedy." A couple of years ago, Lou was much more
> sensible on the subject, and I recall him (rightly) criticizing David
> Harvey for being ambivalent (due to ecological reasons) about
> defending workers protesting automobile manufacturing plant closures:
>
> ***** David Harvey's anomie, part 2
>
> Wed, 29 Apr 1998 11:59:51 -0400
> Louis Proyect ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
>
> I find myself increasingly drawn into the existential-political
> subtext of David Harvey's "Justice, Nature & the Geography of
> Difference."
>
> Although I began reading the book in order to prepare a rebuttal on
> the American Indian/ecology question, I find myself deeply fascinated
> with the self-portrait that is developing. Harvey wears his heart on
> his sleeve and is fetchingly open about his foibles. If only all
> academics maintained this posture, the world would be a better place.
>
> What interests me in particular is his odyssey for a grass roots
> social base which will allow his theorizing to connect to some living
> struggle. He is a prestigious mandarin with enormous feelings of
> insecurity about his ability to make a difference in some mass
> movement. I, on the other hand, have been connected to some mass
> movement or another since 1967 but aspire for the sort of credibility
> he has achieved in academia. I always curse myself for having spent
> much too much time in the Trotskyist movement, when I should have
> been enrolled in some graduate school getting a Ph.D. With the proper
> credentials, I could be writing for Science and Society or Rethinking
> Marxism, couldn't I? But is that what I really want?
>
> Returning to the angst-ridden Harvey, we discover in the chapter on
> "Militant Particularism and Global Ambition" that back in 1988 he had
> been invited to participate in a research project in Oxford
> concerning the fate of the local Rover auto plant. The union was
> fighting to keep the factory open in the face of a threat from
> Thatcher to shut it down. This was after a painful series of
> downsizings that had cut the workforce from 27,000 to 5,000. It
> invited Harvey and a number of other left-wing activists to prepare a
> report on the economic impact of a plant closing.
>
> By his own admission, for "personal reasons" Harvey was not "active
> in the campaign" and did not "engage much with the initial research."
>
> A key figure in the research project was Teresa Hayter, who received
> a research fellowship from St. Peter's College in 1989 to put out a
> book on the history of the auto workers' struggle. For purposes of
> "making the book more attractive to prospective publishers," Harvey
> agreed to be co-editor. This is another way of saying that his fame
> could open doors.
>
> Pretty soon Hayter and Harvey began to clash. It reached the point
> where he proposed that the book have two conclusions, one by her and
> one by him. This idea was rejected and an attempt was made to
> synthesize the two points of view, but the political differences were
> intractable. Harvey says, "Matters became extremely tense, difficult,
> and sometimes hostile between Hayter and me..."
>
> What was the problem?
>
> Harvey says that in a showdown with Hayter, she challenged him to
> define his loyalties. "She was very clear about hers. They lay with
> the militant shop-stewards in the plant, who were not only staying on
> and laboring under the most appalling conditions but daily struggling
> to win back control from a reactionary union leadership so as to
> build a better basis for socialism. By contrast, she saw me as a
> free-floating Marxist intellectual who had no particular loyalties to
> anyone. So where did my loyalties lie?"
>
> Harvey admits, "It was a stunning question and I have had to think
> about it a great deal since." I t turned out that Harvey had been
> ambivalent about the whole notion of keeping the plant open. As one
> can imagine, this would have caused strains working in a research
> group dedicated to that task. Harvey found himself scrutinizing and
> analyzing and criticizing every aspect of the struggle. Deteriorating
> working conditions made it hard for him to argue for the preservation
> of "shit-jobs." Perhaps it is a little difficult for a full tenured
> professor making $75,000 a year to appreciate the worth of such
> factory jobs?
>
> He was also worried about the ecological impact of automobiles. This
> was very enlightened of him, needless to say. But what I found
> extremely troubling was his questioning of the need for automobile
> production in a context of overcapacity world-wide. He writes, "I
> found myself arguing for at least a European-wide perspective on
> adjustments in automobile production capacity, but found it hard to
> justify stopping at that scale when pressed."
>
> What a startling formulation! Harvey the great Marxist, author of
> "Limits to Capital" is arguing for a "European-wide perspective?"
> What in god's name can this mean but a perspective based on the
> long-term interests of the bourgeoisie? Workers have completely
> different interests. From the point of view of the capitalist class,
> overcapacity can only be dealt with through downsizing. For the
> affected workers, this means permanent ruin. The only position worth
> defending is one that strengthens the self-confidence of the workers.
> In the face of Thatcher's attack, the only response that made sense
> was keeping the plant open.
>
> Harvey decided to write "Justice, Nature & the Geography of
> Difference" in order to subsume the dubious economic demands of the
> auto-workers into a grand abstraction that addressed injustice on a
> global scale. Oddly enough, the most concrete expression of this
> grand schema is the need to keep a distance between the workers
> movement and issues of sustainable growth and eco-limits, the sort of
> issues posed by Marx himself in V. 3 of Capital. When you combine
> this with poor Harvey's inability to understand the class priority of
> defending the Rover workers unambiguously, one can only conclude that
> there is a deep malaise in academic Marxism.
>
> Louis Proyect
>
> http://csf.colorado.edu/pen-l/apr98/0794.html *****
>
> Whatever has happened to Lou since then? Where is class priority?
>
> Yoshie
