Yoshie:
>Let's forget about fast food as it is merely red herring in this
>thread.
Then why the heck did you and Carrol tell practically argue that opposition
to MacDonalds is anti-working class? Surely you are aware that I read
lbo-talk just as Doug reads the Marxism list archives. I found your
performance around this question deeply troubling.
>Is it possible to provide all human beings with food, clean
>water, sanitation, shelter, energy, medicine, education,
>transportation, etc. that are necessary to meet historically
>developed minimum needs (setting aside other needs & desires for the
>time being) under socialism?
I am pretty sure that we can, but it will require *radical* adjustments
including:
1. overcoming the city-countryside split as called for in the Communist
Manifesto.
2. elimination of the automobile and jet plane except for extraordinary
reasons.
3. promotion of bicycles and trains and other forms of environmentally wise
transportation.
4. drastic reduction in meat eating.
5. sharp cutback in fashion, luxury goods like Rolex watches, Mount Blanc
pens, overseas vacations, fancy restaurants and delicatessens--ie.
everything that goes into a "yuppie" lifestyle. In exchange for a reduction
in these kinds of dubious "goodies" we achieve more free time and a sense
of relief that we are not fucking over the rest of the world.
6. in general, less is more as Mies van der Rohe put it.
> Or is it impossible since we are
>running out of fossil fuels & clean water soon & the population is
>exploding, as Mark says?
Depends on what you mean by "impossible". Sometimes I get the impression
that your vision of socialism has much more in common with Jim Heartfield's
than my own. We have to smash any such illusion that the lifestyle of a
British or US yuppie is a model for the rest of the world, let alone
ourselves.
Louis Proyect
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