At 11:49 AM -0400 6/25/01, Louis Proyect wrote:
>The questions we are dealing with exist on an overarching basis and
>have little to do with organizing people.
The environmental questions had better be posed with a view to
organizing people & pushing for socialism. It appears, btw, that
South Africa has gone out of the window in this thread, despite the
subject line. Poor Comrade Bond is on his own again. :->
At 11:49 AM -0400 6/25/01, Louis Proyect wrote:
> >Mark should stop putting the question as an oft-thwarted attempt at a
>>prediction -- e.g., "will energy be available at current requirement
>>projections at environmental costs most people can stand and at
>>market prices compatible with those particular requirements within a
>>capitalist context?" That's a perspective of a political spectator.
>
>No more so than Marx reading and writing about the soil fertility crisis of
>the 19th century. His answer to this was not activism in the narrow sense
>but a "maximalist" call in the Communist Manifesto for the reconcilement of
>city and countryside.
***** The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by
degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all
instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the
proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total
productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means
of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions
of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which
appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the
course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further
inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of
entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be
pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land
to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a
national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he
hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the
state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the
improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial
armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more
equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of
children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of
education with industrial production, etc.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have
disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of
a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose
its political character. Political power, properly so called, is
merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If
the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled,
by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by
means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as
such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it
will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for
the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will
thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class
antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free
development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
<http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/marx/Archive/1848-CM/cm.html> ****
Evidently, Marx & Engels even in 1848 didn't think that "the
abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more
equable distribution of the populace over the country" could be
brought about overnight. Cuba, even with its turn to urban gardens &
organic agriculture (compelled by the collapse of the Eastern bloc &
the US embargo), is still a heavily urbanized country, probably with
only 20% or less of the population living in the countryside. While
the production of vegetables improved much due to the reorganization
of agriculture in Cuba, it has yet to become able to move beyond
rationing, & many Cubans depend upon access to dollars for
necessities. In fact, it is probably very difficult for any one
nation to reconcile town & country, since the division between town &
country has an international dimension.
And let's not forget that Marx also argued for "[e]xtension of
factories and instruments of production owned by the state," whether
you like it or not.
At 11:49 AM -0400 6/25/01, Louis Proyect wrote:
>There are important theoretical questions that have to be sorted out. Not
>only do you have David Harvey's peculiar take on the question--stating
>blandly that there is nothing you can do to destroy the planet through
>pollution, etc.--but you also have Jim O'Connor's "second contradiction"
>thesis which has been attacked by Burkett and Foster.
We can't destroy the planet but we can destroy our habitat -- through
war & pollution -- enough to make it largely inhabitable for humans.
I'm not familiar with Burkett's & Foster's "attacks" upon Jim
O'Connor's idea of "second contradiction." You might discuss it here.
At 11:49 AM -0400 6/25/01, Louis Proyect wrote:
>In general the most probing analyses of the environmental crisis
>comes from organizations like the Worldwatch Institute.
Some of their work puts out useful info, but their political outlook
isn't compatible with Marxists':
***** Worldwatch News Release
"An Environmental Revolution"
HOLD FOR RELEASE
February 25, 1999
12 PM Noon EST
WORLD MAY BE ON EDGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL REVOLUTION
As we approach the new millennium, there are growing signs that the
world may be on the edge of an environmental revolution comparable to
the political revolution that swept Eastern Europe, reports Lester
Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute, in an article in the
March/April issue of World Watch. If you fill out Worldwatch's
registration form, you can download the full text in electronic (PDF)
format for free.
The social revolution in Eastern Europe led to a restructuring of the
region's political systems. This global revolution could lead to an
environmentally driven restructuring of the global economy.
"Not all environmentalists will agree with me," said author Lester
Brown, "but I believe that there are now some clear signs that the
world is in the early stages of a major shift in environmental
consciousness. What is not clear to me is whether we will cross this
threshold in time to avoid the disruption of global economic
progress."...
<http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/990225.html> *****
Yoshie
