On 8/24/06, Louis Proyect wrote:
I am not sure whether it is possible to extrapolate "lessons" about
environmental destruction from aeons past as Diamond does ...<
we can't learn from the past? also, he does more than study various cases. He does comparative analysis.
I have been especially troubled not just by Diamond's tendency to do this, but references to the Mayan collapse ...
The big problem with Diamond's book is that he does not have a
critique of capitalism.< right.
We have no way of going back in a time machine to resolve the problems of Easter Island, but we should be able to deal with the problems of today.<
the argument against deforestation makes sense, while Diamond suggests that some countries (e.g., imperial China) were able to address these issues. It's true that Diamond generally ignores the phenomenon of class in society, but he does not ignore class completely. His story of Easter Island involves the upper classes (or does he call them "elites"?) competing with each other in a way that promoted environmental destruction. On the other hand, he talks about environmental control from below in New Guinea, and how that was relatively successful. Of course, the environmental control from above in imperial China was akin to central planning. I think one of his points is that if neither of these operate, environmental destruction is more likely. Easter Island is an example of that. Diamond doesn't mention it, but I believe that European imperialist disruption and later destruction of the imperial Chinese system also disrupted their efforts to fight deforestation. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
With that in mind, writing apologetics for Chevron does not make very much sense. <
his apologetics for Chevron do seem to be based on them doing good things because of public pressure on them. Despite his overly sunny perspective on Chevron, the emphasis on public pressure is correct (though not expressed with enough intensity). (He says he doesn't blame corporations but instead the public -- since the public should control the corporations.) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
