Yoshie:
>I'm not presenting Cuba as a model, however attractive & promising
>its combination of organic agriculture & genetic engineering may be.
>I'm simply saying that one-dimensional opposition to genetic
>engineering (& science in general) is counter-productive. Genetic
>engineering can be a very useful tool in socialist hands, whereas in
>corporate hands it will be mainly used to further corporate monopoly
>of intellectual properties.
We have different assessment about the value of industrial farming
techniques. Genetic engineering, along with pesticides, irrigation,
chemical fertilizers and all the rest can not be simply appropriated by
socialists. The reason they are counter-productive is that they go against
the basic principles of soil chemistry, which is a branch of science. This
is not about "gaia". It is about overcoming the "metabolic rift", one of
Marx's main preoccupations.
>More generally, the transition from capitalism to socialism (when
>such transition is possible) will not take place according to a
>blueprint of how to reconcile town & countryside: "What we have to
>deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its
>own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from
>capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically,
>morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the
>old society from whose womb it emerges" (at
><http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/marx/Archive/1875-Gotha/>).
I have no idea what this has to do with my original point. Marx's concerns
with soil fertility did not lead to activism. Your quote above has to do
with the transition from socialism to communism, not how to make a punchy
leaflet.
>For instance, from the points of view that focus on impacts on health
>& environment, it would have been correct for socialists not to
>develop any nuclear power at all, much less nuclear weapons; however,
>nuclear weapons did probably help to defend socialist states while
>they lasted, though the burden of military production & conscription
>-- & more importantly social control that went with them --
>contributed to their eventual downfall, in addition to economic
>difficulties.
I am mortified to hear this. As anybody knows, a principled Marxist
position would have been for the USSR to use bow and arrows.
Louis Proyect
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