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CB: What's your definition of Malthusianism ? As I understand
Malthus, he
claimed that food supply increases arithmetically and human population increases geometrically. This concept does not appear in anything you have written here. Malthus doesn't use the term "carrying capacity". Referring to modern ecological scientists' concepts as "Malthusian" is to make a gratuitous insult. It is based on the vague idea that any discussion of "overpopulation" is Malthusian. Comment
I beg to differ in as much as I simply replied to you introducing
"Malthusianism" in comments concerning a writer who question the notion of
over population as it has been presented. I did state directly that if
anything I would label the current conception of the carrying capacity of the
earth as "neo-neo-Malthusianism" because it failed to identify the origin and
genesis of a set of needs peculiar to the bourgeois property relations as
reproduction. Here is what was written:
<<<< Well, the problem is right in front of us and it is not
overpopulation by any stretch of the imagination. I would not call this
"Malthusianism" but neo-neo-"Malthusianism." This is so because the fundamental
problem is the bourgeois social relations and the apparent problem is the
bourgeois property relations and an estimate of the dynamics of the energy
regimes mean first of all beginning with the energy demand of every item
produced and ascertaining why it is produced and the origin of
needs.>>>
This was stated after declaring that I generally dislike using the concept
"social relations" when trying to describe the substances and energy tag of what
is actually produced. The issue as I wrote of it was not "modern ecological scientists' concepts"
as such but the specific shape of the market pattern as reproduction of a
universe of needs - commodities, that runs counter to the metabolic process of
the human organism and the earth. This universe of especially eatable products
run counter to our metabolic process because of their substances as properties.
This means we should not be eating anything eatable.
Again . . . it was you . . . not I, that introduced "Malthusianism" - in
quotes.
******
>>CB: What do you mean socialism thrown in for good measure ? If you
are not saying that socialist transformation of the technological and energy
regimes and economy, can support the given population by , then what are you
saying ?
When you say the problem is bourgeois property relations, you are saying the solution is socialism "thrown in for good measure." <<< Comment
Actually, this is not what is being stated because I do not write from the
standpoint that socialism can solves any of our fundamental problems, because my
particular standpoint is that socialism is a political form of a property
relations and at base a transition to something else.
This is what is being stated:
1) the current world and mass - universe, of commodities produced on earth
is by definition unsustainable for a complex of reasons. In my view 90% of
everything we eat in society is not food but eatable stuff, that inherently
causes and widens the metabolic breach in the human organism.
First of all there is no need to continue the reproduction process of
potato chips, candy, 90% of all cereals, pop corn, soda pop, tobacco products;
90% of all household cleaning products, soaps, individual air conditioning and
heating units; sustaining 520 million vehicles on earth with the US counting for
132 million (with the US having 1.9 million trucks, 715 million buses and 21,000
locomotives). There are roughly 11,000 commercial aircraft, 28,070 and 1.2
million fishing boats in the world, all powered by oil.
These things are not produced to meet human needs but rather are produced
as needs peculiar to bourgeois production.
2. I am not saying "that socialist transformation of the technological and
energy regimes and economy, can support the given population," because the
problem is one of the bourgeois inheritance of a given set of needs and then a
unique set of needs being created as the inner production logic of bourgeois
property. The solution is not a socialist car or a socialist truck or a
socialist bowl of cereal or a socialist bottle of Coke Cola.
The solution is science not technology and the overhaul of human needs.
Technology pays a role in shaping the solution. In the case of Coke it owes its
origin as a narcotic. This narcotic arose as a response to a metabolic problem
afflicting man or the human organism. Coke became a need on the basis of
bourgeois reproduction or its "need" and "worth" as an item of exchange for
money. Technology and a socialist Coke is not the answer.
3. Actually, all one has to do is make an accounting of the energy
demand of each individual commodity produced and justify its need as an
authentic human need. This does not mean automobiles will be abolished but their
deployment and use - the shape of the market pattern, is to be changed. There is
no rational reason for 520 million vehicles on earth and America consuming 17
million new vehicles a year other than private property and the self
perpetuating cycles of bourgeois reproduction.
Socialism in itself does not change the historically specific shape of the
market patten. Gray matter has to be deployed to ascertain the metabolic
properties of everything. The problem is that Comrade Jones, to my knowledge did
not have time - perhaps, to write about and describe how the bourgeois property
relations are embedded in production/reproduction as needs. Some time ago I
wrote an outline about how the automobile shaped our market pattern and
consumption.
No where in the material in question has anyone even raised the issue of
the origin of needs and the historically specific shape of the market pattern.
You, me and everyone else eat what we eat as a product of bourgeois
need - not human need, and not the metabolic process of the human organism
or we would not eat what we eat.
What this means is that human population growth is not out running the
ability of the earth to product nutrients, with the aid of science, to meet the
authentic needs of the human organism. What is being produced for exchange and
how it is being produced is called into question. Without question 90% of - not
humanity in general, but people in the imperial centers and America in
particular, could stop eating meat for instance (and meat is not the worst thing
we eat as a society) and all this hysteria about feeding humanity immediate
takes on a new shape.
Where in any of the material - not simply by the late comrade Jones, but
any of the material quoted, is even an awareness that the base issue of "what we
consume and its energy consequence" and how we deploy the productivity
infrastructure to consume what we consume is the bottom line issue? It is not a
question of equality of sharing misery and gluttonous consumption,
IMO.
I call this blindness to the origin of need and a fundamental misconception
of the metabolic process that is the human organism and the actual shape of the
market pattern. Part of my approach is the deployment of the concept "market
pattern," but what else are we to call our specific pattern of consumption
besides "bourgeois." Socialism does not solve this problem by changing the
deployment of technology because the problem is a question of biology and
environment of the human organism and a higher understanding of man's metabolic
process.
The issue of food production in relationship to population growth is not
the question but the appearance form of bourgeois society. What food is one
talking about in the first place? What is actually being produced for exchange?
The first question is "what are the nutrimental requirements of the human
organism?"
Why does society grow carrots or even a million and one varieties of the
potato? This a valid question. Every carrot grown carries an energy tag. Where
did this need originates and why? The carrot as a commodity carries another
energy tag. Socialist carrots are not the solution. Socialist carrots produced
with a different technology is not the solution. What of sugar? Every pound of
sugar carries an energy tag. What is its origin and evolution as a need?
One thing is certain: the American way of life is unsustainable and runs
counter to the metabolic process that is the human organism and the earth.
Further, our historically specific shape of industrial society - with the
property relations within, further exacerbates the problem and is
unsustainable.
*******
>>Your reference to "Spontaneous metabolic processes of the earth" is
too old fashion. Since Marx, there is a lot of learning in the sciences of
biology,
ecology , etc. Marxism develops with the development of the natural sciences. That's the Marxist method. << Comment
You are probably correct. Current science has not presented the cure for
human ailment or something as simple as obesity or AIDS and these diseases are
curable and have been cured by several people. In fact bourgeois science is a
huge violator of the metabolic process of the earth and the individual human
organism because it is geared to a different conception of consumption.
You are correct . . . this is very old fashion, but the works of Arnold
Ehert speaks for themselves. Marxism cannot solve a biology question. Marx
method or standpoint or approach is valid. His approach was applied by Arnold
Ehert, well over 50 years ago. The question remains why do we eat
what we eat and what is the energy tag and its origin as a need? What is
the relationship to what we grow, how we grow it and human population? The issue
IMO is deeper than the bourgeois production of Coke. The Coke itself is called
into question.
Where or what author other than Arnold Ehert has unraveled the metabolic
process that is man and solved the "mechanics" of consumption and give a clear
guild to what any human being on earth can does to heal themselves? I am
familiar with the work "Acid and Alkaline" by Herman Aihara
which describes in easy terms an outline of the specific properties of man as
metabolism on the basis of alkalinity or basically why man evolved in the areas
of his evolution.
Currently Alfredo Bowman (Dr. Sebi) is the fore most applied botanist and
has compelled an impressive record of curing AIDS, MS, Leukemia, Sickle Cell and
get this . . . menstrual cycles and "the so-called change in life." As I
understand matters much of his work is in the process of being gathered and
published. Anyone can punch in these names and get source material.
Actually, what propels man to create history as a category is his metabolic
process and quest for nutrients. Science in the epoch of the
bourgeoisie cannot be deployed to conform to man's most elementary need for
nutrients, not simply substances or anything that is eatable. To be truthful
Marx did not and could not solve this during his era.
In the context of you introducing "Malthusianism" into the discussion, I
think I can authenticate the below:
<<<What the modern students and folks who drift into
"Malthusianism" present
is an equation that examines food production capacity and living requirements (human needs) as energy conversion and resource use and depletion and multiply this by an expanding population. They arrive at the conclusion that there are to many people on earth and the magnitude of people poses a serious problem to the carrying capacity of the earth. >>> To drift into something is a tad bit different than labeling Jones writings
"Malthusianism" - although I as an individual disagree with his theory base
across the board.
We have been here before and I remain on the pivot that is the origin of
needs and the specific properties that give shape to the market pattern. It is
correct to assume I disagree with the proponents of the carrying capacity of the
earth who see an immediate and not so immediate problem in population mass and
density.
The issue is somewhat deeper than social relations and requires unraveling
the carrot and the properties of what we actually eat and consume.
Waistline
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- [PEN-L] Carrying capacity of the earth Waistline2
- [PEN-L] Carrying capacity of the earth Charles Brown
