Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Class struggle won't solve the problem of global warming in the near
> future (supposing the near future to be the next couple of decades),
> & nothing else will for that matter. However, without class
> struggle, the working class won't be *even* in a position to
> seriously consider changing its pattern of consumption (unless change
> in consumption Mark is asking for can be achieved by merely
> individual belt-tightening, which I doubt). Take cars for example.
> The way the USA's social geography is organized today, cars are
> *necessities* for most Americans -- necessary to go to work, shop,
> etc. This social geography won't change (and we are talking about
> *large-scale* transformation, reversing suburbanization &
> repopulating cities) as long as the collective power of the working
> class is weaker than that of the auto & related industries.
>
> Yoshie
I agree that individual belt tightening won't do it. As you say, the US is built
for cars. Taking away somebody's car there is like kneecapping them, which is why I
don't expect that it is something that would be done by an empowered working class.
Reversing suburbanization would be a truly massive project, in so many senses
(material, social, and not trivially the structure of government which gives
jealously guarded land use planning powers to local government). I think that it is
a tremendously optimistic view that the collective power of the American working
class would be used to do this.
I gather that the climate change models are predicting that the US will be one of
the last to feel real damage from global warming. This being the case the only
things I can see threatening the US's high consumption status quo are a sustained
rise in the price of oil, and/or something that produces a collapse of the US's
ability to harvest income from intellectual property and arms. But if that happens,
the change will not be happy, since the same circumstances that put the US high
consumption system under pressure would also lead to a severe capital shortage
there (because the crisis would be caused by what are essentially high operating
costs for the existing system), while measures to substantially cut US carbon
emissions without a big drop in the material standard of living, would require
massive capital investment.
Fred
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