Re: My looniness
I could not answer any better than Ken did. I was also thinking of farmers in Latin America being booted off their lands and then farming on the hills. Am I blaming the peasants? Of course not. I was only making the point that increasing their ability to survive would decrease the pressure that makes them do environmentally destructive things. I don't mind if someone accuses me of something stupid. Surely I have contributed my share of stupidity/looniness to the list and to others -- but why are we so quick to ascribe racism, sexism, . to anything that seems to sound as if it does not say what is expected. Ken Hanly wrote: No doubt I am deluded or ignorant or stupid or some other appropriate boo word but I fail to see how the statement that extreme poverty makes people do environmentally damaging actions implies that Michael is blaming the poor for the energy crisis or any specific environmental damages. You don't mention what Michael is supposed to be blaming the poor for. The rape of forests by international timber giants in Borneo, Belize, and other places? Surely it does not imply this. Anyone who thinks that it does must be deluded, ignorant, perverse or pick your appropraite self-designating boo word. Do you mean some general enegy shortage or crisis? Surely it does not imply that either.I took Michael to be making the point that for the poor concern for the environment must often take second place to immediate survival. The poor women of the Chipko movement were not interested in saving the forests. They wanted their share of the wood. That is why they hugged the trees so that they would not be cut. And is that so stupid? Only in Shiva's dream and after the movement was hijacked was it primarily an ecological movement. The peasants wanted the wood for fuel and to make farm implements. Although I appreciate Jim Devine's argument for higher gas prices there is a definite income bias involved. The relatively well off can continue to drive their SUV's etc. while the lower middle classes will be priced right out of the automobile market. This saves oil but in a totally unfair way. THe large group of drivers who now enjoy relatively cheap gas can hardly be blamed for opposing a more progressive energy pricing policy if it threatens to end or curtail their enjoyment of automobiles while those well off continue as before. Why not ration gasoline as was done in wartime? Rationing by the market is rationing for the rich. Cheers, Ken Hanly Mark Jones wrote: For once, I agree with Doug, who is right: it took you exaclty five minutes in this debate, to begin YOURSELF to start blaming the (over-breeding?) poor in neocolonial countries. How are the new Nike's BTW? Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: 27 June 2000 21:46 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20766] My looniness I am always appreciative of superlatives. If you had merely said, it was stupid, I would be hurt. I was merely trying to make 2 points. 1. The the rich to whom Brad referred were rarely from the ranks of the poor. 2. That extreme poverty makes people take environmentally damaging actions. Mark Jones wrote: How often do the poor become rich? The environment would be helped if the very poor became better off -- Michael, this is really and truly the looniest thing I've read all day, no, all week. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: Re: Re: energy crises
Nordhaus knows more math than the freshman. Eugene Coyle wrote: What's the difference between Nordhaus' theory and Freshman NC econ -- "the market will solve the problem"? Gene Coyle Michael Perelman wrote: Nordhaus assumed that there would always be an available "backstop" technology. I think that he had nukes in mind at the time. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: GM crops and reduced pesticide use
Ken, could it be that in the short run that the herbicide knows out more of the habitat that harbored pests. Wouldn't we have to wait to see what sort of pests adapt to the environment and then make the determination about the pesticide use? Ken Hanly wrote: Some opponents of GM seeds claim that there is no reduced pesticide use with GM crops. For example Shiva makes this claim as does John Warnock in a recent Dimension article. Here are a few studies collected by Doug Powell. Powell is pro-GM seeds but nevertheless gives some useful data. THe "facts" on Roundup should be taken with a grain of Bt. Monsanto's independent research will require even more dilution. Nevertheless, I agree with Powell's conclusion that farmers must look to their own specific conditions. It is noteworthy that Monsanto's recent propaganda pamphlet for its particular brand of Roundup Ready canola uses independent data from the Canola Growers Association and gives results for different growing regions comparing its own canola with others. This is the sort of thing that makes sense to farmers. In fact around here at least farmers have data re yields on the basis of regions of the province so that they can see which variety looks to do best in their own region. . . CHeers, Ken Hanly http://www.plant.uoguelph.ca/safefood/gmo/ge-crops-red-pesticide-fct-sheet.htm Genetically Engineered Crops and Reduced Pesticide Use Created: March 16, 2000 Last updated: May 2, 2000 Agri-food Risk Management and Communications Project Fact Sheet Contact: Douglas Powell, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The use of genetically engineered crops with input traits for pest management -- primarily herbicide and insect resistance derived from naturally-occurring soil bacteria -- has risen dramatically since their introduction in the mid-1990's (USDA/ERS 1999). Varieties with herbicide-tolerant traits account for the majority of transgenic crops and have shown the most rapid adoption by North American producers, followed by insect-resistant varieties. The rapid adoption of herbicide-tolerant crops is mainly due to the introduction of Roundup Ready crops in 1996 which allowed the use of glycophosate (Roundup) as a postemergence herbicide at any stage of growth. (Capenter and Gianessi, 1999). The popularity of Roundup Ready crops (eg. soybeans and cotton) has been attributed to the increased flexibility and simplicity of weed control program (Carpenter and Gianessi, 1999). Other benefits include increased productivity, cost reduction and environmental benefits through reduction in the use of conventional pesticides (James, 1998). A survey of farmers in the U.S. found the top two reasons for adoption of both herbicide- and insect-resistant crops were increased yields through improved pest control, and decreased pesticide input costs (USDA, 1999). The high adoption rates reflect increasing grower satisfaction with these products. Chemical inputs are usually still required on herbicide-resistant crops, however, they are used at a lower application rate, require fewer applications, and are more benign than traditional herbicides (USDA, 1999). Several media accounts have alleged that Roundup Ready and other herbicide resistant varieties require the use of more, if not the same, amount of chemical inputs, and have therefore not delivered the anticipated environmental and economic benefits. Comparisons between herbicide use for conventional and transgenic varieties should consider the amount of active ingredient used per acre, not the total amount of herbicide per acre, as well as toxicity and persistence in the environment. For example, while newer, low-dose materials or the use of STS soybeans (soybeans resistant to sufonylurea) can reduce herbicide use to less than one-tenth of a pound of active ingredient per acre in contrast to 0.75 or 1.5 pounds per acre of Roundup (Benbrook, 1999), these other herbicides, including sulfonylurea, can persist in the environment with the potential for deleterious consequences. Glycophosate, the active ingredient in Roundup affects only those crops on which it is sprayed and is deactivated once it contacts soil thus reducing risk of leaching or runoff into ground water (Agcare factsheet). Glycophosate is also known for its low toxicity to human and animal populations. There is evidence that in many areas, the use of herbicide-resistant and Roundup Ready crops has led to a reduction in chemical pesticide use. During 1996 and 1997, Roundup Ready soybeans delivered a 9-39 per cent drop in herbicide use, mainly by replacing soil-incorporated herbicides with Roundup (James, 1998). And although other data indicate that the total amount of herbicide used from has changed little since the introduction of Roundup Ready varieties (Carpenter and Gianessi, 2000), the data does show a 8% decrease in number of applications from 1995 - 1998 which translates into fewer active ingredients used and fewer trips over the field (Carpenter and Gianessi, 2000).
Growth (fwd)
Be very careful. The population of the rich grows in two ways: (i) the rich have lots of children, and (ii) the poor become rich... do you know that african american women are sterilized at a significantly higher rate than white women? (according to our sociologist friend,Andy Austin, 3-4 times) doesn't it also bother you that the US elite(particulary the new right) celebrate the decline in black fertility rates? What bothers you actually? Mine That worry about "overpopulation" soon turns into an action planaimed at making sure that the poor people of the world--and theirdescendants--stay poor... Brad Delong Brad, why don't you have a look at how IMF deals with population control, poverty reduction and debt relief in the third world? It looks like an excellent agenda of making the poor rich. I am sure some other defenders of Bartlett will find the piece quite appealing too... Mine From: Robert Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [stop-imf] IMF explains its role in poverty reduction This is one of the clearer explanations, from the IMF's point of view, of the new and improved, kinder, gentler IMF. Robert Weissman Essential Information | Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2000/061500.htm Strengthening the Focus on Poverty Reduction Remarks by Mr. Eduardo Aninat Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund At the Development Policy Forum Berlin, June 15, 2000 Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to open this international policy dialogue on poverty reduction and debt relief. We all know the problem, one of the greatest faced by mankind today: 1.2billion people worldwide living on less than $1 per day, a number that has held roughly unchanged over the past decade and threatens to rise in the years ahead. What we need is a solution, and here, perhaps we can draw inspiration from the famous inventor, Benjamin Franklin. For it was on this day, in 1752, that he is said to have tossed a kite into the sky with a key tied to its string and proved that lightning contained electricity. It was a small step, achieved with simple means, but it was catalytic enough so as to transform our very existence. So what step can we, the international community, take to transform the existence of the world's poor? I would like to suggest that perhaps we, together, have started that step by last September adopting a new approach to poverty reductionone that builds on decisive good practices in countries and in donor agencies. The emphasis now will be more on the poor countries themselves taking the lead in setting their own priorities and defining their own programs through participatory processes, with the full involvement of the international community. What is really different in this approach? Why should it deliver better results than old, past efforts? And how will debt relief tie in? I will try to answer these questions in my remarks today, but first a little background on why we are even headed down this road. Origin of stronger poverty focus Quite frankly, the old approaches were not yielding the hoped-for results in most parts of the world, including Africa and much of Asia. In1995, the international community formally pledged to reduce by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by2015, achieve universal primary education in all countries, reduce infant mortality rates, and improve a number of other social and environmental indicators. But a few years later, despite important progress on many fronts, it was clear that the chances of meeting these pledges were becoming slimmer. The regional variations have been great, with East Asia and the Pacific ahead of schedule, particularly on poverty reduction, but the other regions behind schedule. Another influence was the greater recognition of the mutually reinforcing nature of growth and poverty reduction. We had long known that sound macroeconomic policies favor growth. We had also long known that sound macroeconomic policies and growth-enhancing structural reforms favor the poor, since growth is the single most important source of poverty reduction and an important source of financing for targeted social outlays. For instance, in Chile during the1990s, four-fifths of the achieved 50percent increase in real per capita social expenditure emanated from accelerated growth. But there now is greater acceptance that causation also runs in the other direction. Poverty reduction and social equity feed back positively into growth. Without poverty reduction, it is difficult to sustain sound macro policies and structural reforms long enough to eradicate inflation and increase the growth ratethere is unlikely to be the political support to persevere. Indeed, for countries with a high proportion of the population in poverty, it is difficult to increase growth without tackling poverty directly. Also, policies that help the poor directly, such as investing in primary education
Re: Re: My looniness
I began by mentioning the need to control the rich. Brad suggested, if I understood him correctly, that I might mean that I would like to see the poor remain poor to minimize the impact of the rich. Then I responded about the environmental problems associated with extreme poverty. I absolutely agree about the SUV's, which was my original point. I do not blame deforestation on the poor. They tend to take small amounts of wood off marginal land, which is harmful nonetheless. Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: extreme poverty makes people take environmentally damaging actions. But nothing compared to us car-driving, air-conditioned people. You sound like the World Bank here, blaming deforestation on poor indigenes rather than rapacious corporate loggers. Do you really mean this? Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Malthus revisited (fwd)
Louis Proyect wrote: Mark Jones' alleged raising of the overpopulation question leads us once again into a discussion of the Marxist critique of Malthus. I would refer PEN-L'ers to Michael Perelman's "Marx's Crises Theory: Scarcity, Labor and Finance", Lou, I agree with the rest of your post. I should, however, open a small paranthesis that I don't frankly think that comrade Mark has Marx's critique of Malthus in his mind when he defends Bartlett, since Bartlett, is not a Marxist. What we should instead try to address here is the urgent necessity of preserving Marx from the intrusions of social darwinist theories of over-population. so the issue here is *not* to refuse to see _overpopulation as an aspect of capitalism_ but rather to refuse to see it as part of the _solution_ to capitalism's energy crisis actually, it is interesting to see below how Malthus' ideas are linked to a particular religious world view. I have always wondered about how social darwinism and religion meet at some point,although they seem exact opposites in the first place. here is Marx's reply. Marx (Volume 1) pp.766-767: " the principle of population slowly worked out in the 18th century, and then, in the midst of a great social crisis, proclaimed with drums and trumpets as the infallible antitode to the doctrines of Condorcet, etc., was greated jubilantly by the English oligarchy as the great destroyer of all hankerings after a progressive development of humanityLet us note incidentally that although Malthus was a parson of the Church of England he had taken the monastic view of celibacyThe circumstances favourably distinguishes Malthus from other protestant parsons, who have flung off the Catholic requirement of the celibacy of the priesthood, and taken "be fruitfull and multiply" as their special Biblical missionto such an extend that they generally contribute to the increase of population to a really unbecoming extent, while at the same time preaching the principle of population to workers. ... With the exception of the Venetical monk Ortes, an original and clever writer,most of the population theorists are Protestant clerics. For instance Bruckner's Theorie du systeme animal (Leyden 1767) in which the the whole of the modern theory of population is exhaustively terated , using ideas furnished by the passing dispute between Quesnay and his pupil, the elder Mirabeau, then Parson Wallace,Parson Townsend, Parson Malthus and his pupil, the arch Parson Thomas Chalmers, to say nothing of lesser reverend scribblers in this line" Mine, SUNY/Albany
Re: Re: Aimless blather on dialectics, method,history and revolution
How do you mean self-institutionalising? Just that most Marxists seem to agree that the development of a class for itself would have to occur outside extant institutions. The theory being that those extant institutions (including unions) are complicit in the perpetuation of capitalist hegemony, and that any policy to advance social revolution through such institutions would be led off the rails - a domestication of dissent, if you like. Organising through, say, soviets and the odd extra-parliamentary party would be an example of social rebellion institutionalising itself. Because just maybe we're already undergoing that social revolution? Well, as Heilbroner said, capitalism is a hard beast to define. It's always in flux, and it ain't today what it was yesterday. I'm wondering, and I don't pretend to know, whether some of its defining relations are undergoing transformation so profound that we are entering a social phase worthy of altogether another moniker. What of a world in which employees become outnumbered by subcontractors and/or owners by managers? Where the bourgeoisie is transnanational and what's left of the proletariat is not? Where worker's do not bond on the shop-floor, but compete by tender? Where at least a tidy lump of workers have a direct interest in firms through stock-holding? Where the reserve army (decisively rendered invisible by geography) becomes the universalised other of the social order rather than the class of producers?Where the consolidation of capital is such that we have a de facto planning cartel? Where those planners need the share-holding and sub-contracting complicity of the class of producers to facilitate some business certainty in an otherwise volatile and contradictory condition of chaotic complexity? Where the expectations of first world populations can be met by utilising their own labour, but the physical resources of the third world? In other words, where what is currently the first-world proletariat is bought/appropriated/integrated/dissolved? And where the effectively jettisoned (but still disciplined) 'third world' is slowly exterminated by our corportate central planners and kept quiet by a military characterised by peerless remote technologies? All disgusting beyond the reach of adjectives, I admit. And maybe waaay far-fetched. But the seeds of each one of these circumstances can be gleaned from trends apparent today, don't you think? If you do, then I reckon you'd be agreeing that a social revolution is in train. Just not the one we had in mind - being as how it'd be constituted by elements of capitalism, socialism and barbarism all. All very speculative, but suggestive of a need for rethinking our short-term political assumptions and strategies in light of an incipience political economy meaningfully different from the one Marx wrote about in 1859. All speculative blather, as I said, and maybe entirely deserving of the wall of silence it elicited, but that lot is pretty well what I was getting at. Cheers, Rob.
Re: Re: RE: My looniness
Ken Hanly wrote: Although I appreciate Jim Devine's argument for higher gas prices there is a definite income bias involved. The relatively well off can continue to drive their SUV's etc. while the lower middle classes will be priced right out of the automobile market. This saves oil but in a totally unfair way. This is what *really* makes me wonder. When you are faced with the catastrophe of global warming and the terminal catastrophe for capitalism (and us) of exhaustion of its huge energetics base, you start talking about tax-offsets and equity in gasoline prices. If you were on the Titanic you'd be discussing whether rent being charged for a lifeboat seat was absolute or only differential. Hopeless, completely hopeless. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
Re: Re: Reply to Carrol Cox
- Original Message - From: "Carrol Cox" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 2:09 AM Subject: [PEN-L:20795] Re: Reply to Carrol Cox Yes I agree the house is on fire. So what do we do? stop discussing rock music, waterfalls and brand imagery. Mark
Re: Re: Re: We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
Unfortunately Rod does not understand what Yoshie is saying. It is simply wrong to say "the problem is with the social system not with the technical feasibility." The problem is precisely with technical feasibility and it is mystification to argue anything else. If you think another social system would miraculously find vast new undiscovered deposits of fossil fuels, or work out how to make cold fusion work, or how to run bulldozers with light-bulb power PV's, then you are simply and wholly wrong about the elementary facts of the case. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList - Original Message - From: "Rod Hay" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 2:01 AM Subject: [PEN-L:20794] Re: Re: "We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000 I agree Yoshie. But the problem is with the social system not with the technical feasibility. Rod Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: There is no shortage of energy! Nor of any other resource. The environmental problem we have to solve is how to get rid of our garbage without fouling our environment to such an extent that it is inhospitable for human life. Rod I agree that waste management is an urgent problem, but the reason why there is "no shortage of energy nor of any other resources" is that the market rations their use. Econ 101 says that any shortage can be cured by an appropriately higher price, so it seems there is no point in celebrating an absence of shortage. The poor in poor countries have no access to electricity, clean water, reliable transportation, household appliances, and other goods that consume oil and other resources in their production, because they can't afford them. If everyone in the world were to live according to the standards set by rich nations, wouldn't there be a problem (though capitalism does prevent this particular problem from ever arising, since the majority are doomed to poverty)? Yoshie -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: energy crises
Brad deLong wrote: Ummm Brad, you may end being known as the man who put the 'um' in 'dumb'. Do you suppose Simon's bet with Ehrlich is safe ground for you to stand on? You too, simply have no idea what the issue is. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
Re: Re: RE: RE: RE: Re: energy crises
Max Sawicky wrote: I just don't believe it. When fossil fuels become sufficiently expensive, massive efforts will go into developing alternatives. There will be a lot of money to be made, coordination problems aside. To me that's more likely than green consciousness leading to revolution No, there will be no such massive efforts as you suppose because the material basis for making such efforts will have disappeared. No, there will be no money to be made, but there will be signs of severe social and historical stresses in all countries including the overpopulated, third-worldised US whose Ogallala aquifer will just be running out when the population hits its first half billion. Your hopes are false. The time to do something is obviously now, not later. You should make this the central issue of your work and life because the fact of this crisis simplify falsifies and empties of worth the kinds of worthy but now pointless social policy things you do do. It's hard to accept, I know, and much easier to make a flip joke about barbecues, turn your back on the problem and get on with your life while you can; but this option is already not as easy as it was, because there is so much more evidence now than there was even two years ago, when I last rattled the pen-L bars, and Doug produced a tame petroleum economist to prove me wrong (where he, Doug? Changed specialty?). And in 2 years time when the evidence is incontrovertible enough to be finally getting thru even to economists, self-appointed wonks and marginal pundits, a moment will come when you will all be talking about nothing else, but in reality nothing will change because you will still be being led by the ideological nose thru the wastelands of broadsheet and NGO 'policy analysis' and CNN gibberish about 'the energy crisis'. The results will be to amplify dsaster, and to set a minus sign against your life's work. You want that Max? The US state and polity cannot be saved, it will be destroyed, and the question is only what comes after. Hiding from the clear evidence of energy crisis and whistling in the dark that you 'just don't believe it' does not show manly scepticism, only undimmed ability to avoid the real nitty-gritty. Mark
Re: Re: Re: Re: We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
London (1830) Economic pundit X: If the economy continues to grow at its present rate, in fifty years we will all be buried in ten feet of horse shit. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Aimless blather on dialectics, method,history and revolution
Hi Rob, Just that most Marxists seem to agree that the development of a class for itself would have to occur outside extant institutions. The theory being that those extant institutions (including unions) are complicit in the perpetuation of capitalist hegemony, and that any policy to advance social revolution through such institutions would be led off the rails - a domestication of dissent, if you like. Organising through, say, soviets and the odd extra-parliamentary party would be an example of social rebellion institutionalising itself. I guess the assumption is that dissenting movements (or is that effective dissenting movements) must work within an institution of some sort, they can't happen outside institutions. Because just maybe we're already undergoing that social revolution? "Because" -- ? Curious! Well, as Heilbroner said, capitalism is a hard beast to define. It's always in flux, and it ain't today what it was yesterday. I'm wondering, and I don't pretend to know, whether some of its defining relations are undergoing transformation so profound that we are entering a social phase worthy of altogether another moniker. I suppose you mean a moniker other than "capitalist". Informationalist, perhaps. What of a world in which employees become outnumbered by subcontractors and/or owners by managers? Where the bourgeoisie is transnanational and what's left of the proletariat is not? Where worker's do not bond on the shop-floor, but compete by tender? Where at least a tidy lump of workers have a direct interest in firms through stock-holding? Where the reserve army (decisively rendered invisible by geography) becomes the universalised other of the social order rather than the class of producers?Where the consolidation of capital is such that we have a de facto planning cartel? Where those planners need the share-holding and sub-contracting complicity of the class of producers to facilitate some business certainty in an otherwise volatile and contradictory condition of chaotic complexity? Where the expectations of first world populations can be met by utilising their own labour, but the physical resources of the third world? In other words, where what is currently the first-world proletariat is bought/appropriated/integrated/dissolved? And where the effectively jettisoned (but still disciplined) 'third world' is slowly exterminated by our corportate central planners and kept quiet by a military characterised by peerless remote technologies? ...a world in which information is the legal tender? As increasingly it seems to be...perhaps a necessary aspect of the complicity in planning that you speak of. All disgusting beyond the reach of adjectives, I admit. And maybe waaay far-fetched. Doesn't sound wildly far fetched, to me. But the seeds of each one of these circumstances can be gleaned from trends apparent today, don't you think? If you do, then I reckon you'd be agreeing that a social revolution is in train. Just not the one we had in mind - being as how it'd be constituted by elements of capitalism, socialism and barbarism all. (interesting to consider barbarism as a form of political economy) All very speculative, but suggestive of a need for rethinking our short-term political assumptions and strategies in light of an incipience political economy meaningfully different from the one Marx wrote about in 1859. I see. So, in the following, "that" social revolution is not the one we had in mind, but the Pandora's box you've just now cracked open. Maybe business's 'search for certainty' is going to have to create a system not a million miles from socialist planning - maybe it's already unconsciously doing it - maybe more along the lines of, say, a prosaic Schumpetarian/Galbraithian vision at first - where the tyranny of the market might be giving way to that of the unaccountable technocrat - but that would, I think, ultimately be a moment necessitating merely a political revolution rather than a social one. Because just maybe we're already undergoing that social revolution? ...which is a system/revolution (now I see that "that...revolution" referred to the "system" in the previous paragraph) not so different from socialist planning, you say. I would guess that the similarity lies in part in the requirement for certainty as a base of operations -- something capitalism, come to think of it, was supposed to be able to get along without. And perhaps it's because capitalism seems less and less tolerant of uncertainty that you're inclined to call the new, the apparently developing, system something else. Informationalism sounds way too tame. All speculative blather, as I said, and maybe entirely deserving of the wall of silence it elicited, but that lot is pretty well what I was getting at. Yes, well, it may also be simply that your ellipses left your readers gasping in your wake, comrade. Unless of course I'm the only one who was confused. cheers, Joanna
Re: Re: Malthus revisited (fwd)
Mine: Lou, I agree with the rest of your post. I should, however, open a small paranthesis that I don't frankly think that comrade Mark has Marx's critique of Malthus in his mind when he defends Bartlett, since Bartlett, is not a Marxist. The problem is that most, if not all, of the empirical research being done on dwindling resources and irrational use of those that remain is by neo-Malthusians of one sort or another. For example, the Worldwatch Institute is the premier think-tank for producing facts about various aspects of the ecosphere. It is run by Lester Brown, an advocate of closed borders, who is "not one of us". By the same token, it is utterly necessary for ecosocialists to be engaged with their research: I especially recommend the Worldwatch Institute 1998 edition of the "State of the World: a Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society." The Institute is a mainstream environmentalist organization that gets funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and Pew Charitable Trust. The executive director is Lester R. Brown, who has held posts at the UN and the Department of Agriculture. The best way to describe the report is as an expert, high-level briefing on capitalism's ecological contradictions. It proposes solutions that fall squarely within the capitalist system. For those of us who believe that these contradictions can only be resolved through a socialist transformation, the information is particularly valuable. Proof that the ruling class wanted the straight poop from the Worldwatch Institute researchers can be found in the radical credentials of a few of them, including Michael Klare, a frequent contributor to the Nation magazine and Phyllis Bennis, Pacifica's UN reporter and an ex-leader of a defunct Maoist group called Line of March. I found two items of particular interest. One deals with declining fish stocks. The other deals with water pollution produced by the modern capital-intensive livestock industry. Although the report does not come out and say it, the only conclusion one can draw is that these problems are rooted in the anarchy of the capitalist mode of production itself. The report states that according to the Food and Agriculture Administration (FAO), a US agency, the present capacity of the world's fishing fleets is 200% of the world's available fisheries. Over the past 50 years, technological breakthroughs in the fishing industry have far exceeded nature's ability to reproduce itself. The biggest change has been the introduction of sonar, a wartime innovation. Many of the first new fishing trawlers were actually converted WWII submarine hunters. In the early 1950s, new ships were built from the ground up that could catch 500 tons of fish a day. Huge trawl nets brought the catch on the deck and dumped it into onboard processing and freezing facilities. In the past, ships had to return to port quickly before the fish spoiled. Now equipped with freezers they could spend months at sea, sweeping up vast quantities of fish. They roamed the planet in search of profits. In 1970 the tonnage of all fishing boats was 13,616. In 1992 it was 25,994, a 91% increase. Capital simply flowed to the profitable fishing industry with little regard to the long-term consequences. One of the consequences of the industrial trawling model is that large-scale production techniques generate huge amounts of waste. The nets draw unwanted species that are simply discarded. The FAO estimates that discarded fish total 27 million tons each year, about 1/3 of the total catch. This includes sea mammals, seabirds and turtles. While Greenpeace activists fight for the life of the unfortunate porpoise, many other species are disappearing without fanfare. The loss is serious since all of these species interact with each other in the marine ecosystem and make natural reproduction possible. A similar sort of contradiction occurs in the livestock industry where technological breakthroughs accelerate production but at huge and possibly fatal costs to the environment. The Worldwatch Institute identifies fertilizer and cheap transportation as the main culprits. Cheap transportation makes it possible to separate the ranch and the feed supply from each other across huge distances, even overseas. This means that while it can be profitable to locate a cattle ranch, poultry or hog farm near large metropolitan markets, the organic waste the animals produce is not easily recyclable. Most of these animals are not raised on the open range, but in huge buildings where excreta flows from the pens into drains that lead to rivers or underground water supplies. In Europe, for example, the livestock industry purchases feed from Brazil, Thailand or the USA. But the industry has outgrown the capacity of nearby lands to absorb the manure. The Netherlands was home to a 40 million ton mountain of cowshit earlier in the decade. Coupled with heavy fertilizer use, the end result has been a serious pollution problem. The
Re: Re: Re: Re:We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
M A Jones wrote: Unfortunately Rod does not understand what Yoshie is saying. It is simply wrong to say "the problem is with the social system not with the technical feasibility." The problem is precisely with technical feasibility and it is mystification to argue anything else. Then do we a) Forget about it? b) Petition the capitalist class to save us, though they can't? c) Or what the hell is your proposal for action? It really seems to me Mark that you and Lou are no longer interested in socialist action but merely in presenting poetic images of our end. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: Re: Dogmatism, and homosexuality
Greetings Economists, Chris Burfurd made an interesting reply. During the week I work. When a good reply comes along I can't get to it as fast as I would like. However, I will respond in a few days or less. If I had my druthers, I think Chris is someone I think who could make something more substantial out of the whole business surrounding "dogmatism". So I am hoping this thread can develop in depth. I will respond in a day or two. thanks, Doyle Saylor
The Political Issue(s), was Re: We used 10 times...
Rod Hay wrote:
London (1830)
Economic pundit X: If the economy continues to grow at its present rate, in
fifty years we will all be buried in ten feet of horse shit.
Look, I've made pretty clear that I think *politically* Lou and Mark are
following a course of mere despair and political inaction. And that despair
leads them to grab any bit of ammunition in sight, including "creepy"
material from the population freaks. But I think it equally stupid to be
flippant about their technical material *as* technical material. There
is a high probability of their being right. They seem a bit over confident
as to the precise features of their projected future, but even allowing
for considerable error in the details, their basic argument would remain
sound, and has been made by many in less pretentious terms.
And Mark I think is also correct in denying that a new social system will
dissolve the physical and technological facts. But I *think* (Mark and
Lou stubbornly refuse even to enter into discussion on this) that a "new"
social system *is* a precondition for even any serious struggle to
confront the "natural" limits or barriers to growth they describe. So
they do pose (even though they refuse to discuss) a serious question
of how or whether the socialist movement can make their material
a significant part of a political program.
Another way to put it: Will people in any significant numbers take to
the streets or barricades even if convince that unless they do the
world as we know it will end in the next generation? Can "long range"
("long range here being anything more than about 10 years in the
future) concerns fuel mass political action?
My own very provisional answer to this is that such concerns cannot
*iniate* a movement but that "properly handled" (which means not
making it occasion merely for handwringing and oratory as Lou and
Mark do) those concerns could add immense weight to an ongoing
movement having its sources in other concerns. I could be wrong in
many ways here, including even the way I word the question -- but I
think the question is very real, and that references to past failures
(real or imaginative) of prediction do not constitute an adequate
response.
One thing -- ignoring the Frankfurters, I suspect that Lou's other
three categories of marxists (and other leftists) can indeed find
political unity *without* resolving the theoretical issues that Lou
claims divide them. One reason I say "Pish" to Lou's aguments on
this point is that I simply don't believe the theoretical issues he
poses can be resolved in merely theoretical terms: they can only
be resolved within a movement unified on other grounds.
Carrol
Crappy message blocked
Should we call the help desk in London ? CB Please be aware that the Company's electronic mail (email) system has a built-in content checking system designed to prevent inappropriate email traffic between Robert Fleming and the public mail network. An email issued with the subject Re: [PEN-L:20748] Crappy Organizers sent by you has been blocked by the vetting system because it contains unacceptable words or phrases, e.g. jokes or profanities. It should be noted that the vetting system operates automatically and, despite careful testing, there remains a small possibility that an acceptable message may be blocked. If you believe that your blocked message is a valid business correspondence and should be released, please contact the Robert Fleming London Helpdesk on 0207 814 2000 x, quoting Sender Name, Recipient Name, Subject line of the message and date sent. Robert Fleming London Messaging Team
Re: We used 10 times as much energy in the20thcentury as in the 1,000
Rod had said: There is no shortage of energy! )) CB: Right now. But surely not all energies are infinite. How long will there be no shortage ? Don't we have responsibility to think long term for our species ? If the shortage will only arise in 100 or 200 years should we be indifferent to that ? ___ Nor of any other resource. The environmental problem we have to solve is how to get rid of our garbage without fouling our environment to such an extent that it is inhospitable for human life. Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/27/00 06:31PM I agree that waste management is an urgent problem, but the reason why there is "no shortage of energy nor of any other resources" is that the market rations their use. Econ 101 says that any shortage can be cured by an appropriately higher price, so it seems there is no point in celebrating an absence of shortage. The poor in poor countries have no access to electricity, clean water, reliable transportation, household appliances, and other goods that consume oil and other resources in their production, because they can't afford them. If everyone in the world were to live according to the standards set by rich nations, wouldn't there be a problem (though capitalism does prevent this particular problem from ever arising, since the majority are doomed to poverty)? Yoshie
Re: Re: RE: My looniness
At 09:41 PM 06/27/2000 -0500, you wrote: Although I appreciate Jim Devine's argument for higher gas prices there is a definite income bias involved. The relatively well off can continue to drive their SUV's etc. while the lower middle classes will be priced right out of the automobile market. This saves oil but in a totally unfair way. THe large group of drivers who now enjoy relatively cheap gas can hardly be blamed for opposing a more progressive energy pricing policy if it threatens to end or curtail their enjoyment of automobiles while those well off continue as before. Why not ration gasoline as was done in wartime? Rationing by the market is rationing for the rich. Rationing is only a defensive maneuver, one that eventually gets weak as the rich use their political connections and their ability to afford high illegal-market prices. Though it worked during WW 2 in the US, how long could it have lasted? Instead, the government should deal with the problem by increasing the amount and quality of public mass transit drastically, including getting many more of these natural-gas-driven wheelchair-friendly busses. Much of the expense can be covered by the gas tax. In general, the idea is to move toward the best W. European model. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Dematerialization, decarbonation, post-capitalism and the entropy liberation front
... convert us from tree huggers to tree planters; since a lot of the old trees take decades or centuries to grow (and because the forestry industry favors quick-growing trees), there's a need to hug the existing trees _and_ plant new ones. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: RE: My looniness
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 10:46AM Instead, the government should deal with the problem by increasing the amount and quality of public mass transit drastically, including getting many more of these natural-gas-driven wheelchair-friendly busses. Much of the expense can be covered by the gas tax. In general, the idea is to move toward the best W. European model. _ CB: Yes, and what about electric powered vehicles ? Do they depend on fosssil fuels ultimately ?
Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
I wrote: Instead, the government should deal with the problem by increasing the amount and quality of public mass transit drastically, including getting many more of these natural-gas-driven wheelchair-friendly busses. Much of the expense can be covered by the gas tax. In general, the idea is to move toward the best W. European model. Charles writes: Yes, and what about electric powered vehicles ? Do they depend on fosssil fuels ultimately ? Of course, electricity can be generated by solar power, wind power, tidal power, etc. But the discussion on pen-l concerning this issue strongly suggests that it's not fossil fuels (and their limited supply) _per se_ that are the problem. Rather, it's the pollution that's the problem. Some fossil fuels -- e.g., natural gas -- seem to pollute less (though I'd like to hear an expert on this issue). BTW, I think we should move toward the best European model -- and beyond. There's no need to be limited by what's already been done. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
krugman
There is a good piece on Krugman by Edward Herman in the most recent issue of "Z Magazine." Herman thrashes Krugman's own trashing of left-liberal economists. Especially interesting was Krugman's reliance on social security "expert," Martin Feldstein. Feldstein's research, as I am sure most of you know, on the effects of social security on private savings and capital formation was proven to be false long ago. Michael Yates
Re: Re: Malthus revisited (fwd)
At 08:07 AM 28/06/00 -0400, Louis wrote: Can the capitalist system resolve these [ecological] problems? This is a theoretical question that has challenged a wide variety of thinkers. David Harvey's new book "Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference" argues that it can. Harvey does NOT argue capitalism can resolve ecological problems. Did you read the book? Bill Burgrss
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
From your database of 1, you produced a profound sample, no? Now, however, let's talk about fossil carbon and what it means and what it does, or else stop wasting our time. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList - Original Message - From: "Rod Hay" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 12:32 PM Subject: [PEN-L:20818] Re: Re: Re: Re: "We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000 London (1830) Economic pundit X: If the economy continues to grow at its present rate, in fifty years we will all be buried in ten feet of horse shit. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dogmatism, and homosexuality
Doyle Saylor wrote: Greetings Economists, Doyle, I don't think you should speak of/to the disabled like this. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
Carrol, you keep asking what to do, I'd suggest superglue, go to a power station in a state of elation, stick yourself to a chimney, then we'll see, if it's a nuke you stay till you're blue, if it's coal you stay till your ole, if you wanne be eco n' even more ego, tape yourself to a windmill, whaddya say? Quixote, you'll soon be green, but at least you'll be seen Alternatively, help us ORGANISE. Help us fucking organise, man. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList - Original Message - From: "Carrol Cox" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 1:26 PM Subject: [PEN-L:20821] Re: Re: Re: Re:"We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000 M A Jones wrote: Unfortunately Rod does not understand what Yoshie is saying. It is simply wrong to say "the problem is with the social system not with the technical feasibility." The problem is precisely with technical feasibility and it is mystification to argue anything else. Then do we a) Forget about it? b) Petition the capitalist class to save us, though they can't? c) Or what the hell is your proposal for action? It really seems to me Mark that you and Lou are no longer interested in socialist action but merely in presenting poetic images of our end. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: Re: Reply to Carrol Cox
Carrol Cox wrote: you and Mark, so far as I can tell, have actually persuaded just one person -- Me! You haven't had the tiniest effect on anyone else as far as I can see. So what are you going to do with your one single solitary convert -- you are going to swear at him for saying, let's see how we can do something about it. Well, we reserve the right to cuss you in all circs. But you are wrong to say we didn't change anyone else. Even the 5 cats in my house are now deeply aware of what means an eco-footprint. You should see the way they tiptoe around me when I'm reading Brad's posts for eg. BTW, you were a weatherman? Interesting? Mark 'Sisyphus' Jones
Re: Dematerialization, decarbonation, post-capitalism and the entropy liberation front
- Original Message - From: "Lisa Ian Murray" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 4:26 AM Subject: [PEN-L:20801] Dematerialization, decarbonation, post-capitalism and the entropy liberation front to make the larger point that energy markets are already planned--just undemocratically. Care to expand? (seriously) Mark D H 'last time I hugged a tree it came' Lawrence-Jones
Re: Re: We used 10 times as much energy in the20thcentury as in the 1,000
Charles. The shortage will arise in one million years by which time there will be no human species as we know it. I say let them fend for themselves. Rod Charles Brown wrote: Rod had said: There is no shortage of energy! )) CB: Right now. But surely not all energies are infinite. How long will there be no shortage ? Don't we have responsibility to think long term for our species ? If the shortage will only arise in 100 or 200 years should we be indifferent to that ? ___ Nor of any other resource. The environmental problem we have to solve is how to get rid of our garbage without fouling our environment to such an extent that it is inhospitable for human life. Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/27/00 06:31PM I agree that waste management is an urgent problem, but the reason why there is "no shortage of energy nor of any other resources" is that the market rations their use. Econ 101 says that any shortage can be cured by an appropriately higher price, so it seems there is no point in celebrating an absence of shortage. The poor in poor countries have no access to electricity, clean water, reliable transportation, household appliances, and other goods that consume oil and other resources in their production, because they can't afford them. If everyone in the world were to live according to the standards set by rich nations, wouldn't there be a problem (though capitalism does prevent this particular problem from ever arising, since the majority are doomed to poverty)? Yoshie -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
At 04:36 PM 6/28/00 +0100, you wrote: Jim, you are such a disappointment to me. "wheelchair-friendly busses"? Gimme a break. There won't be these kinds of kindly options. hey, we've got them in Culver City, where I live. The engine is on top of the bus, so that the passenger compartment is much lower. The surrounding city of Los Angeles is buying a bunch of them, too (after MASSIVE popular criticism from all directions of the plan to continue buying diesel busses). The W European model is not gas its flatus, please get your nose off the deck and look at the global problem, man. You have *SO MUCH* to contribute. Get with the fucking program. I find your e-missives to be useless. Therefore, I've instructed the Eudora program to automatically transfer them to the trash bin. I recommend that others do so, too. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: We used 10 times as much energy inthe20thcentury as in the 1,000
How do you know it will take that long ? (By the way, how do you know there will be no human species in one million years ?) CB [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 12:13PM Charles. The shortage will arise in one million years by which time there will be no human species as we know it. I say let them fend for themselves. Rod Charles Brown wrote: Rod had said: There is no shortage of energy! )) CB: Right now. But surely not all energies are infinite. How long will there be no shortage ? Don't we have responsibility to think long term for our species ? If the shortage will only arise in 100 or 200 years should we be indifferent to that ? ___ Nor of any other resource. The environmental problem we have to solve is how to get rid of our garbage without fouling our environment to such an extent that it is inhospitable for human life. Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/27/00 06:31PM I agree that waste management is an urgent problem, but the reason why there is "no shortage of energy nor of any other resources" is that the market rations their use. Econ 101 says that any shortage can be cured by an appropriately higher price, so it seems there is no point in celebrating an absence of shortage. The poor in poor countries have no access to electricity, clean water, reliable transportation, household appliances, and other goods that consume oil and other resources in their production, because they can't afford them. If everyone in the world were to live according to the standards set by rich nations, wouldn't there be a problem (though capitalism does prevent this particular problem from ever arising, since the majority are doomed to poverty)? Yoshie -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
My looniness
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 11:38AM Charles writes: Yes, and what about electric powered vehicles ? Do they depend on fosssil fuels ultimately ? Of course, electricity can be generated by solar power, wind power, tidal power, etc. But the discussion on pen-l concerning this issue strongly suggests that it's not fossil fuels (and their limited supply) _per se_ that are the problem. Rather, it's the pollution that's the problem. __ CB: I agree that there is the pollution problem. However, I have not been persuaded by PEN-L discussion that limited supply of fossil fuels is not a second problem along with pollution, global warming and otherwise. We have two big problems: pollution and depletion. Right now I am focussing on the latter. I don't see anybody clearly disproving Mark Jones and Lou Proyect's arguments that running out of fossil fuels IN MUCH , MUCH LESS THAN A MILLION YEARS, like at most a century or two, is a big problem as well as pollution. Some fossil fuels -- e.g., natural gas -- seem to pollute less (though I'd like to hear an expert on this issue). BTW, I think we should move toward the best European model -- and beyond. There's no need to be limited by what's already been done. _ CB: Definitely. Agree. As you and I said, what about solar ?
Re: krugman
It was not proven false to Feldstein, who keeps writing about the same stuff. Michael Yates wrote: There is a good piece on Krugman by Edward Herman in the most recent issue of "Z Magazine." Herman thrashes Krugman's own trashing of left-liberal economists. Especially interesting was Krugman's reliance on social security "expert," Martin Feldstein. Feldstein's research, as I am sure most of you know, on the effects of social security on private savings and capital formation was proven to be false long ago. Michael Yates -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: Re: My looniness
I began by mentioning the need to control the rich. Brad suggested, if I understood him correctly, that I might mean that I would like to see the poor remain poor to minimize the impact of the rich. No. I said that one has to be very careful deploying that kind of argument because it does run the risk of sliding toward the position that the poor need to remain poor for ecological reasons--not that you had already slid to that position.
Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 10:46AM Instead, the government should deal with the problem by increasing the amount and quality of public mass transit drastically, including getting many more of these natural-gas-driven wheelchair-friendly busses. Much of the expense can be covered by the gas tax. In general, the idea is to move toward the best W. European model. _ CB: Yes, and what about electric powered vehicles ? Do they depend on fosssil fuels ultimately ? Yes, but the power plants that generate electricity are roughly twice as efficient in pollution terms as internal combustion engines.
Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness (fwd)
Mark, I have been watching your sarcasmic criticisms with enthusiasm for two days. You F many on the list left and right. What can I say? I really admire your sense of humor. Marxists are generally known to be cool people. You are truly sarcastic! sarcastically, Mine
Re: :We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
M A Jones wrote: Carrol, you keep asking what to do, I'd suggest superglue, go to a power station in a state of elation, stick yourself to a chimney, then we'll see, if it's a nuke you stay till you're blue, if it's coal you stay till your ole, if you wanne be eco n' even more ego, tape yourself to a windmill, whaddya say? Quixote, you'll soon be green, but at least you'll be seen Alternatively, help us ORGANISE. Help us fucking organise, man. MA Jones seems to be changing his position. On the one hand he says we are running out of oil and there is nothing anyone can do about it. So What's to organize? The other change is more interesting and perhaps reflects Ellen Frank's post, with which I agree. Now Mark has added global warming to his list of things to organize around. Good. But he never mentioned it before. During WW II in the war in the Pacific, one of the most horrendous battles was fought over the island of Tarawa. Death in great numbers came to both sides. Tarawa is now beneath the Pacific ocean, a casualty of global warming. So, Mark, what is it you want to ORGANISE around, the end of oil or global warming? And just what is the message you would convey to those you intend to organize? Gene Coyle
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
Well if you can't beat them, I guess the next best thing is to become a Marxist Jeremiah. By the way if socialists should get their skates on, as Mark Jones proclaims ex cathedra, won't they be skating on thin ice given global warming? Actually the results of global warming are imaginable. Most of the discussion aside from extrapolation of statistics is imaginings. Prediction is much more difficult. I imagine being able to grow tomatoes from seed instead of having trasplants freeze in June, and Alaska as being the new agricultural giant. If California becomes completely desert no doubt this will spawn myriads of new spiritual movements including Marxist collective hermits no doubt. Cheers, Ken Hanly Carrol Cox wrote: M A Jones wrote: Unfortunately Rod does not understand what Yoshie is saying. It is simply wrong to say "the problem is with the social system not with the technical feasibility." The problem is precisely with technical feasibility and it is mystification to argue anything else. Then do we a) Forget about it? b) Petition the capitalist class to save us, though they can't? c) Or what the hell is your proposal for action? It really seems to me Mark that you and Lou are no longer interested in socialist action but merely in presenting poetic images of our end. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: Re: Dogmatism, and homosexuality
At 12:20 AM 6/28/00 +0100, you wrote: Jim's 5 year old essay on Aspergers Syndrome is a very personal examination. The biggest qualification that could be made to it, I think, is the need for a social context. What many members of the intelligentsia struggle over internally are the internalised experiences of the processes of selection that make them members of the intelligentsia. It is a vital layer of modern capitalist society, and riddled with social contradictions. Not all of them are the fault of the intellectuals. A degree of obsessionality is both a handicap and also a strength in certain areas. A lot of what Jim describes is no more than that. IMHO. It is clearly part of a self-regulatory system that is alive and well from what he described here. According to the experts on this stuff, Asperger's syndrome is more than "obsessionality," though it involves having obsessions. It's also different from obsessive-compulsive disorder. As I understand AS, it involves a poor connection between the individual and his or her social environment, typically associated with a poor mind/body connection. For example, telling people over and over again about one's current obsessive topic (UFOs, railroad schedules, Star Wars, dinosaurs, or whatever) is closely connected with being unable to tell that others have already gotten the point or are bored with the topic or simply don't like being lectured to all the time. Also, it seems that the focus of an individual's mental resources is biased toward internal processing (thinking) as opposed to understanding other peoples' emotions and other mental states. This means that he or she can understand the topic extremely deeply or with surprising originality (Einstein, Bill Gates) or has a extremely great grasp of detail (the guys who know all the train schedules, called "trainspotters" in England). Hans Asperger himself pointed to the importance of both the problems associated with what is now called AS (lack of social connection, unhappiness, etc.) and the benefits of the syndrome (ability to concentrate on a single topic for a long time, etc.) He did so because he wrote in Nazi Austria and knew that if he didn't mention how folks with AS "helped the fatherland," they would likely be shipped to camps and/or offed. But this balanced perspective has recently become more generalized among the shrinks, so that many look for the positive side of all patients. I agree that the social context is highly relevant and that my little essay would be improved by adding it. (I rewrote it recently, but the editor insisted that it be shortened drastically, so I didn't do so.) I think there's a connection between one kind of societal alienation and Asperger's syndrome, since those people with AS are likely to look at the world differently than others and are so likely to be pushed into marginal occupations (including academia). This idea needs to be developed. I think that most of the intelligentsia probably don't have AS, but society encourages them to emulate AS behavior in many ways. Here "society" includes those with AS, who seem to dominate research-oriented universities and think-tanks like RAND or Los Alamos. An AS-type culture develops, just as a sociopathic culture develops in some lines of business. However, there's also a biological component, as is clear with my son's condition. Contrary to Freudians like Bruno Bettelheim, there is no reasonable theory for blaming Asperger's syndrome on the immediate social environment (the family). Writing in the 1940s and 1950s when he could get away with such nonsense, he blamed the "refrigerator" mother for driving kids into autism and has been repeatedly shown to be wrong. (I think that latter-day Freudians should become aware of people like Bettelheim and how they have abused their master's theory.) It is possible that class plays a role in biology, since environmental pollution hits the poor and working classes hardest and there seems to be a connection between pollution and autism (and thus between pollution and Asperger's, a milder version of autism). This is seen in concentrations of autism in New Jersey, where pollution is pretty high. Some think that childhood vaccines may cause autism, but there's no class dimension there that I can think of, except that people higher up the scale are _more_ likely to get childhood vaccinations. Those most likely to refuse the vaccines for their children are those most distrustful of the established power structure (and justly so). Though there's a lot of counter-culturalism in the middle classes, the ones refusing the vaccines seem concentrated at the bottom of the class system. So, ironically, the incidence of childhood diseases is likely to become even more concentrated among the poor and the working poor than it is already. So class is playing a strange role. I do think that the vaccine/autism connection should be
Re: My looniness
Instead, the government should deal with the problem by increasing the amount and quality of public mass transit drastically, including getting many more of these natural-gas-driven wheelchair-friendly busses. Much of the expense can be covered by the gas tax. In general, the idea is to move toward the best W. European model. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine You can't have W. European-style mass transport without W. European social geography temporality of work, residence, consumption, though. Short of socialism, it seems impossible to stop suburban exurban sprawl in the USA. As long as people live in one place, work at another place, and shop have fun in yet other places, all inconveniently spread apart, and do so at all kinds of hour; further, as long as workplaces are wildly scattered about, it appears futile to ask them to abandon cars and get on the bus. The problem, in other words, is not susceptible to tinkering here and there. Yoshie
Re: Re: :We used 10 times as much energy in the20thcentury as in the 1,000
During WW II in the war in the Pacific, one of the most horrendous battles was fought over the island of Tarawa. Death in great numbers came to both sides. Tarawa is now beneath the Pacific ocean, a casualty of global warming. Gene Coyle 30,000 people live on Tarawa. The expected high today is 86 degrees. The high point on Tarawa is 260 feet above sea level. Where do people pick up such misinformation? Brad DeLong -- Professor J. Bradford DeLong Department of Economics, #3880 University of California at Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 voice (510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 fax http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/
Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
If there really is an emergency and people are convinced of that I don't see why rationing would not work. While I agree that public transportation should be supported, as long as the rich don't use it they will use their influence and power to sabotage attempts to subsidize a system they do not use. You are right of course about the growth of grey markets and black markets that still afford the well off superior treatment under rationing. THe same thing happens with our medicare system where doctors, and politicians jump queues or travel to the US but the system nevertheless works reasonably well--and would work much better if properly funded. If the rich are part of the rationing system then they have a stake in it and will be interested in seeing to it that it works. At least you show concern for the relative impact of policies on different income groups. Mark Jones apparently thinks this is fiddling while Rome burns. Jim Devine wrote: At 09:41 PM 06/27/2000 -0500, you wrote: Although I appreciate Jim Devine's argument for higher gas prices there is a definite income bias involved. The relatively well off can continue to drive their SUV's etc. while the lower middle classes will be priced right out of the automobile market. This saves oil but in a totally unfair way. THe large group of drivers who now enjoy relatively cheap gas can hardly be blamed for opposing a more progressive energy pricing policy if it threatens to end or curtail their enjoyment of automobiles while those well off continue as before. Why not ration gasoline as was done in wartime? Rationing by the market is rationing for the rich. Rationing is only a defensive maneuver, one that eventually gets weak as the rich use their political connections and their ability to afford high illegal-market prices. Though it worked during WW 2 in the US, how long could it have lasted? Instead, the government should deal with the problem by increasing the amount and quality of public mass transit drastically, including getting many more of these natural-gas-driven wheelchair-friendly busses. Much of the expense can be covered by the gas tax. In general, the idea is to move toward the best W. European model. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: My looniness (fwd)
Oh Carrol get with the programme. You are to organize all the True Believers and take them off to Jonestown -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Reply to Carrol Cox
Louis Proyect wrote: In any case, until Marxism has debated out and resolved these questions, it will not be able to maximize its influence on the intelligentsia. I want to stress the importance, by the way, of who our target audience is. It is not the working-class at this point. It is a rather broad milieu of scientists and students in various fields who are deeply distressed by the state of the world. We are trying to win them to Marxism. Unless they understand that the ecological crisis is rooted in the capitalist system, they will continue to encounter frustration. This is wholly arbitrary. Until the working class is in motion, the intelligentsia in any numbers simply do not even recognize the existence of marxists, so you can hardly be having much influence on an audience consisting of empty chairs. Carrol Short of mass working-class movements, the way to go, if we are to attract the intelligentsia to Marxism, seems to me to make debates exciting without resolving any questions. Intellectuals enjoy disagreeing with other intellectuals, and already resolved questions hold no interest for them (and I say this without any value judgment). Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
Ken In addition, it might be useful to ban auto traffic in high density areas. It would be difficult, but worth a debate in our major cities. My local paper this morning predicts 60 to 70 extra deaths this summer (in a city of about half a million) due to air pollution. Properly handled this should at least generate some public discussion. Rod Ken Hanly wrote: If there really is an emergency and people are convinced of that I don't see why rationing would not work. While I agree that public transportation should be supported, as long as the rich don't use it they will use their influence and power to sabotage attempts to subsidize a system they do not use. You are right of course about the growth of grey markets and black markets that still afford the well off superior treatment under rationing. THe same thing happens with our medicare system where doctors, and politicians jump queues or travel to the US but the system nevertheless works reasonably well--and would work much better if properly funded. If the rich are part of the rationing system then they have a stake in it and will be interested in seeing to it that it works. At least you show concern for the relative impact of policies on different income groups. Mark Jones apparently thinks this is fiddling while Rome burns. Jim Devine wrote: At 09:41 PM 06/27/2000 -0500, you wrote: Although I appreciate Jim Devine's argument for higher gas prices there is a definite income bias involved. The relatively well off can continue to drive their SUV's etc. while the lower middle classes will be priced right out of the automobile market. This saves oil but in a totally unfair way. THe large group of drivers who now enjoy relatively cheap gas can hardly be blamed for opposing a more progressive energy pricing policy if it threatens to end or curtail their enjoyment of automobiles while those well off continue as before. Why not ration gasoline as was done in wartime? Rationing by the market is rationing for the rich. Rationing is only a defensive maneuver, one that eventually gets weak as the rich use their political connections and their ability to afford high illegal-market prices. Though it worked during WW 2 in the US, how long could it have lasted? Instead, the government should deal with the problem by increasing the amount and quality of public mass transit drastically, including getting many more of these natural-gas-driven wheelchair-friendly busses. Much of the expense can be covered by the gas tax. In general, the idea is to move toward the best W. European model. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reply to Carrol Cox
Doug wrote: What I'm not clear on is what exactly this socialist revolution would mean for industrial and agricultural practice, energy sources, the transformation of the built environment, living arrangements, etc. This is exactly the issue. The point is not to be original, the point is to be a kind if selfless subeditor and assembel and collate the stuff that's already been done, and spread it around. But you have to be directional to do it. You ARE directional, but in politically solipsistic ways. It would be so easy for you to lead debate in these directions, just as it would be easy fro Jim Devine to facilitate the discussion. But neither of you do it. You each prefer to be a primum diva in your chosen circle, and Michaelus Maximus is angry with me for pointing it out. Shame on all 3 of you. Mark
RE: Re: :We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
Eugene Coyle wrote: MA Jones seems to be changing his position. On the one hand he says we are running out of oil and there is nothing anyone can do about it. So What's to organize? What does this mean? That you prefer to inhabit a world of illusion on condition that illusory organising remains an option? It is necessary to start from reality, however grim, and quit wishful thinking. Of course, there is nothing that you and I can do as individuals about the behemoth of late capitalism that is running over the world. But equally of course, we should do what we can to deal with results of that disaster, and not hide from them. Now Mark has added global warming to his list of things to organize around. Good. But he never mentioned it before. You obviously don't read what I write. But that's your problem, not mine. Mark
RE: Energy Crisis: Summing up
Michael Perelman wrote: We do not have the infrastructure in place to produce enough solar or wind yet. We never will, either. There is no alternative to the petroleum economy and it is irresponsible fantasising to suggest that there is. Mark
Re: Re: Re: Re:We used 10 times as much energyin the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 08:26AM M A Jones wrote: Unfortunately Rod does not understand what Yoshie is saying. It is simply wrong to say "the problem is with the social system not with the technical feasibility." The problem is precisely with technical feasibility and it is mystification to argue anything else. Then do we a) Forget about it? b) Petition the capitalist class to save us, though they can't? c) Or what the hell is your proposal for action? It really seems to me Mark that you and Lou are no longer interested in socialist action but merely in presenting poetic images of our end. ) CB: Myself, I am still very interested in socialist action. But I don't see Mark and Lou's theses as in contradiction with socialist action. It seems to me that they are just giving a new , potent reason that we must overthrow capitalism. Along with all the old problems that capitalism causes, now we have the problems of catastrophic pollution and depletion of resources. Only a world socialist system is capable of devising and implementing a humanie solution to catastrophic pollution and depletion. So, Mark and Lou are adding urgency to the need for socialist , political action.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
I wrote: I find your e-missives to be useless. Therefore, I've instructed the Eudora program to automatically transfer them to the trash bin. I recommend that others do so, too. Doug writes: Hmm, not very promising for "ORGANISING"! It's kind of hard to organize people around catastrophe. With few exceptions, most people don't want to hear about the imminent heat death of the earth. They'll just shrug their shoulders ignore you - or, to quote A.R. Ammons, who wouldn't turn up the voltage when you know the lights are going out? At least apocalyptic religions offer the tease of redemption and eternal life. Good luck organizing, Mark. In addition to the content, we should be conscious of the style used in preaching. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http:/bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
Actually, the 'cadre' of the Seattle demonstrators were organized in response to what they see as a looming catastrophe. Mark, John Foster and I are trying to develop a theoretical alternative to the kind of deep ecology beliefs that moved them into action. It boils down to Marxism versus Zerzan's nihilism. It's kind of hard to organize people around catastrophe. With few exceptions, most people don't want to hear about the imminent heat death of the earth. They'll just shrug their shoulders ignore you - or, to quote A.R. Ammons, who wouldn't turn up the voltage when you know the lights are going out? At least apocalyptic religions offer the tease of redemption and eternal life. Good luck organizing, Mark. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Reply to Carrol Cox
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 02:06PM Carrol Cox wrote: You have a really fine political mind -- but you are almost deliberately trashing it. Anyone who takes you and Mark really seriously can only conclude that further political theorizing or organizing is pointless. The world is over. Forget it. Let's go to the movies. That's not fair. As far as I can tell, Lou thinks that we need a socialist revolution; I'm not sure what Mark thinks these days. What I'm not clear on is what exactly this socialist revolution would mean for industrial and agricultural practice, energy sources, the transformation of the built environment, living arrangements, etc. )) CB: To derive these answers, lets start with Marx's species-being, and the fundamentals of historical materialism. Roughly, humans before anything else must eat, sleep and fulfill basic physiological needs. Given that, and given the claims being raised about threats to human survival by the current mode of production, an imperative of world socialist revolution today must be concentrating enormous intellectual and engineering resources in modifying the world's mode of production, relations of production and technique, to solve the problems of pollution and resource depletion. This includes the entire plan of classical communism to abolish private property, but must add more drastic modifications of some elements of capitalist technique than classical Marxism anticipated. Continuingly and especially central is the abolition of the private profiteering as the determining motive of the whole mode of production.
RE: Re: Re:We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000
Carrol, There is no split between me and Jose Perez. As for astrology guides as alternatives to bus timetables, that may not be irrational. In parts of the UK, you could get arrested for loitering if you stood around at a bus stop waiting for a bus, after Mrs Thatcher privatised public transport. As I understand your msgs, I am in danger of losing people's attention because you think they are mostly too stupid and prole to understand abstract issues like global warming. This argument is crap. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Carrol Cox Sent: 28 June 2000 19:30 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20861] Re: Re:"We used 10 times as much energy in the 20thcentury as in the 1,000 M A Jones wrote: Alternatively, help us ORGANISE. Help us fucking organise, man. Of course. There's an old throwaway line that catches the point nicely: Workers of the world -- unite. I have argued for years that our perspective should be grounded neither in the desirability nor the possibility of socialism but in its necessity. Arguments or agitation based on the former demand the powers of prophecy, while the latter refers only to what we know. Ordinary understanding of capitalist reality (including knowledge shared by all four of Lou's "schools") establishes that necessity. Leaving aside Lou's claim for the *necessity* of a theoretical revolution inside Marxism, all you seem to want to add is an increased sense of urgency -- which has always been a disaster in revolutionary politics. In this case, for example, your urgency drives a wholly unnecessary split between you and Jose Perez (and I emphasize that that split is unnecessary *even* if you are correct and Jose is wrong on the technical issues). You and Lou on this topic are increasingly developing the tone which I associate with the collapse of the movement of the '60s -- that of the Weatherman faction of SDS. They projected what was then (and now) an empirically accurate analysis of the U.S. (white) working class into an eternal barrier to working class as crippled by racism into an eternal barrier to working-class revolution. As I was told by an extremely bright and committed young woman (who I myself had recruited into SDS and socialism only a year before), socialism could be achieved in the U.S. only under occupation by the P.L.A. Her sense of urgency then drove her completely out of the movement, and the last time I saw her she was consulting an astrology guide to determine her bus schedule out of town. This may be apocryphal, but a friend once quoted Lenin as saying there were three revolutionary virtues -- Patience, Patience, Patience. And incidentally, some recent discussion of "organizing" on this list would have profited from distinguishing organizing from agitation. Your own recognition of the abstract urgency of global warming blinds you to the probably weakness of global warming as an agitational issue -- even though it almost certainly could add enormously to the power of a working class in movement (and could do so without accepting your and Lou's metaphysical assertion of it). You are right -- and your sense of your rightness is leading you to shoot yourself in the foot. You become a contributor to global waming by being unable to think clearly about the principles in terms of which it can become part of the socialist struggle. Carrol
Socialism Ecology in Japan (was Re: Reply to Carrol Cox)
Carrol Cox wrote: You have a really fine political mind -- but you are almost deliberately trashing it. Anyone who takes you and Mark really seriously can only conclude that further political theorizing or organizing is pointless. The world is over. Forget it. Let's go to the movies. That's not fair. As far as I can tell, Lou thinks that we need a socialist revolution; I'm not sure what Mark thinks these days. What I'm not clear on is what exactly this socialist revolution would mean for industrial and agricultural practice, energy sources, the transformation of the built environment, living arrangements, etc. Doug Let's suppose an unlikely event: the Japanese working class rise up make a socialist revolution (of some kind). What would it mean to energy sources, agricultural practice, built environment, etc.? Well, Japan got no domestic energy source to speak of, and it has become accustomed to importing much of its food (except maybe rice some fresh vegetables a little fish). The rest of the imperial world, condemning the expropriation of Japanese other expropriators, swiftly puts an embargo on Japan to restore freedom and democracy. Cities darken and industries begin to collapse due to severe rationing of oil, electricity, etc.; busses trains, alas, do not run on time any longer, and bikes are no substitutes; Cubans sympathize but can't help the Japanese much -- they got little oil themselves -- so they send cigars instead. The socialist government of Japan tries to form an alliance with Iraq to get oil, and then leftists in America collectively denounce the Japanese government for not denouncing the absence of freedom democracy in Iraq. Russia, Venezuela, and sundry other governments try to circumvent the embargo, but their oil gets confiscated by the U.S. Navy, and they give up. In desperation, the socialist government of Japan tries to move urban children off to the countryside (as the Japanese did during the World War II) to prevent starvation and to resuscitate dead agricultural villages of yore. American leftists once again collectively denounce Japanese socialists for taking a page from Pol Pot. The Japanese populace become discontent too, and many intellectuals emigrate to America, Canada, and elsewhere, creating a shortage of experts in Japan; and encouraged by the CIA, etc. some of the Japanese will organize armed insurrections. The USA will then aid freedom fighters with military experts, weapons, food, and other necessities. The civil war rages on -- sooner or later, American troops (already conveniently stationed in Japan, South Korea, etc.) must openly join the war (with or without a Congressional vote), and much of the country gets laid to waste. Socialism will collapse in a few years, or else, in an even more unlikely event of the Japanese victory, the battered socialist government will have to build everything back up from scratch amidst ruins, _who knows how_. And this if America doesn't bomb Red Japan back to the Stone Age from the get-go. Yoshie
Review Article: World Resources Institute. (fwd)
A mainstream source on environmental regulation.. Mine Volume 2, Review 1, 1996 http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html ISSN 1076-156X World Resources Institute. WORLD RESOURCES 1994-95: A GUIDE TO THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. xii+400 pp. ISBN 0-19-521044-1, $35.00 (hardcover); ISBN 0-19-521045-X, $21.95 (paper). Reviewed by Brad Bullock, Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, Virginia, USA v. 8/12/96 Scholars familiar with the difficulties of finding good sources of comparable, international statistics will appreciate the stated purpose of the WORLD RESOURCES series: "to meet the critical need for accessible, accurate information on environment and development" (p. ix). The volumes are published biennially by the World Resources Institute (WRI), an independent, not-for-profit corporation, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the related United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The 1994-95 report, sixth in the series, examines the relationship between people and the environment and emphasizes global resource consumption, population growth, and the roles of women -- especially how women will figure into efforts to protect or manage environmental resources. The structure and style of WORLD RESOURCES will remind you of the UNDP's HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT, or perhaps even more the World Bank's WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT -- a particular theme is presented in analytical overview, complete with multitudinous color graphics and all the boxed inserts one could possibly want. A distinguishing feature here is the tradition of examining, in painstaking detail, the volume's thematic issues for a particular region (in this volume China and India, the world's two most populous nations and those facing the most serious resource challenges). For research and teaching, this series excels in its conscious focus on the environment and who actually uses the world's resources. WRI claims, validly, that their organizational status allows them to take a more independent stance on [Page 1] Journal of World-Systems Research development issues. The ongoing project of data gathering is guided by the premise that sustainable development requires wise resource management that "puts people first." Clearly stated, "sustainable development is based on the recognition that a nation cannot reach its economic goals without also achieving environmental and social goals -- that is, universal education and employment opportunity, universal health and reproductive care, equitable access to and distribution of resources, stable populations, and a sustained natural resource base" (p. 43). By now scholars generally appreciate the growing interdependency of environmental and development issues, as socioeconomic facts about the consequences of resource depletion and degradation continue to pile up. This resource book, however, stands out for how thoroughly it explores related conditions and trends. The sheer breadth of the topics covered is impressive -- e.g., there are whole chapters devoted to forest and rangelands, biodiversity, atmospheric pollution and climate, and the structure of national and local policies. I found particularly impressive the chapters on food and agriculture and on energy. It should not surprise us that such a careful look at trends in resource consumption or patterns of trade, while confirming some of our worst suspicions, also challenges conventional wisdom. For example, the resources most in danger of depletion are the renewable, rather than the nonrenewable ones, and manufactured exports from developing countries are growing considerably more rapidly than are raw material exports. This volume is also commendable for acknowledging as primary, rather than secondary, the roles of women in achieving sustainable development. At least since Ester Boserups' A ROLE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (1970), a growing literature has criticized traditional schemes for marginalizing women, and more recent works (e.g., Gita Sen and Caren Grown, DEVELOPMENT, CRISES, AND ALTERNATIVE VISIONS, 1987) stress that the reigning development models themselves are flawed and must be redrawn to fully utilize the potential of women in development. The present work [Page 2] Journal of World-Systems Research emphasizes that "women have greater influence than men on rates of population growth and infant and child mortality, on health and nutrition, on children's education, and on natural resource management . . . inequalities that are detrimental to them . . . are detrimental as well to society at large and to the environment" (p. 43). The data tables and technical notes presented in the back of the publication are extensive and, generally, the country data is fairly complete. Among interesting tables of note: Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Industrial
Re: My looniness
At 03:44 PM 6/28/00 -0400, you wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 03:10PM In addition to the content, we should be conscious of the style used in preaching. __ CB: But if you were convinced of all the content of what Mark is saying, do you mean you would not support him in this discussion because he has a had a poor style in saying it ? the style and the substance mesh well in this case. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
My looniness
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 03:10PM In addition to the content, we should be conscious of the style used in preaching. __ CB: But if you were convinced of all the content of what Mark is saying, do you mean you would not support him in this discussion because he has a had a poor style in saying it ? Really, just about everybody currently on this list has said something that annoyed just about everybody else on this list at sometime even just since I have been here. But we are still talking to each other. Brad D. and I are almost old war buddies like Roosevelt and Stalin. If we can talk to each other still, flaming and bad style are losing their fire. The other thing is that the content of what Mark is saying dictates that he use urgent , agitational style. If you agree with his content, his style is logical.
My looniness
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 02:57PM Jim Devine wrote: I find your e-missives to be useless. Therefore, I've instructed the Eudora program to automatically transfer them to the trash bin. I recommend that others do so, too. Hmm, not very promising for "ORGANISING"! It's kind of hard to organize people around catastrophe. With few exceptions, most people don't want to hear about the imminent heat death of the earth. __ CB: I'm not disagreeing with Doug's thought on the psychology of persuasion and organizing, but it is not the death of the earth, but rather some level of catastrophe for the human species. The earth would still be here sans most humans , I believe. I have perhaps missed some of Mark's message, but to avoid the problem Doug raises, the pitch would have to be that the catastrophe is not inevitable, that it can be avoided if we make drastic changes ___ They'll just shrug their shoulders ignore you - or, to quote A.R. Ammons, who wouldn't turn up the voltage when you know the lights are going out? At least apocalyptic religions offer the tease of redemption and eternal life. Good luck organizing, Mark. Doug
World-system Studies of the Environment (fwd)
Journal of World-Systems Research Volume 3, Number 3 (Fall 1997) http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html ISSN 1076-156X World-system Studies of the Environment by Tim Bartley Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 [EMAIL PROTECTED] and Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cite: Bartley, Tim, and Albert Bergesen. (1997). "World-system Studies of the Environment." Journal of World-Systems Research (http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html) 3: 369 - 380. ABSTRACT: The world-system idea has been used to explain a great deal about national institutional life, from rates of economic growth to changing patterns of schooling. One of the newer areas of interest is the environment. In the following review we examine scholarship that deals with environmental problems from a distinctly world systemic perspective. © 1997 Tim Bartley Albert Bergesen. [Page 369] Journal of World-Systems Research 1. Environmental Degradation 1.1 Deforestation Several quantitative studies have shown that the semiperiphery is the site of the most intense deforestation (Burns, Kick, Murray, and Murray 1994; Kick, Burns, Davis, Murray, and Murray 1996). First, there is a long history of exploitation of peripheral and semiperipheral forests by core countries, and as Chew (1996) notes there is an historical association between colonialism and deforestation in Southeast Asia. Spain and Portugal, Holland, Britain, and the U.S. have all exploited Asian forests during their periods of dominance in the world-system. When a country is rapidly developing and rising to a hegemonic status its level of timber consumption rises. Japan for instance has recently experienced a dramatic increase in wood and timber consumption, with as much as 50% of log imports and 98% of plywood imports coming from southeast Asia. Second, while population growth leads to deforestation in all sectors of the world-system, its effects are exacerbated in the semiperiphery, as population growth necessitates the production of more lumber and thus leads to deforestation (Kick et al. 1996). Yet Burns et al. (1994) and Kick et al. (1996) find that for semiperipheral countries, rural population growth is a better predictor of deforestation than is total population growth, arguing that urban concentration in the semiperiphery causes landless people to migrate out of the city into forested areas--what is called the process of rural encroachment. Since these migrants possess little knowledge of agricultural practices they end up contributing to deforestation. Much more deforestation is attributable to 'slash and burn' activity by landless migrant poor people, conversion of forests to pasture land, and over-harvesting of fuel wood, than it is to commercial logging (Burns et al. 1994:225). Although the process of rural encroachment occurs within a society, the urbanization that leads to out-migration is a consequence of rapid uneven development of semiperipheral countries in the world-system. In addition, semiperipheral countries deforest more than others because of their position of potential upward mobility in the world-system, which leads them to place more weight on industrialization than on environmental protection.1 Smith (1994) notes that Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) tend to have lax environmental regulations. Because of their potential for economic development, semiperipheral countries are more eager to reap the economic benefits of forest exploitation than are developed countries. Further, semiperipheral countries have a greater technological capability to deforest than do peripheral countries (Burns et al. 1994; Kick et al. 1996). Such semiperipheral states have historically allowed or even encouraged deforestation in attempting to economically develop. Chew (1996) provides an example in his analysis of post-colonial southeast Asia. He argues that attempts to build export-led economies and Western-style states have secured the cooperation of political elites and transnational corporations in exploiting forests. Nazmi (1991), though not espousing a world-system perspective, offers a similar example for the case of Brazil, noting that government incentives for cattle ranching have increased deforestation; badly defined property rights have encouraged small-scale, destructive agriculture; and an emphasis on pig iron
Socialism Ecology in Japan
This is like the history of the Soviet Union, deja vu. CB Workers of the West, it's our turn. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/28/00 03:18PM Let's suppose an unlikely event: the Japanese working class rise up make a socialist revolution (of some kind). What would it mean to energy sources, agricultural practice, built environment, etc.? Well, Japan got no domestic energy source to speak of, and it has become accustomed to importing much of its food (except maybe rice some fresh vegetables a little fish). The rest of the imperial world, condemning the expropriation of Japanese other expropriators, swiftly puts an embargo on Japan to restore freedom and democracy. Cities darken and industries begin to collapse due to severe rationing of oil, electricity, etc.; busses trains, alas, do not run on time any longer, and bikes are no substitutes; Cubans sympathize but can't help the Japanese much -- they got little oil themselves -- so they send cigars instead. The socialist government of Japan tries to form an alliance with Iraq to get oil, and then leftists in America collectively denounce the Japanese government for not denouncing the absence of freedom democracy in Iraq. Russia, Venezuela, and sundry other governments try to circumvent the embargo, but their oil gets confiscated by the U.S. Navy, and they give up. In desperation, the socialist government of Japan tries to move urban children off to the countryside (as the Japanese did during the World War II) to prevent starvation and to resuscitate dead agricultural villages of yore. American leftists once again collectively denounce Japanese socialists for taking a page from Pol Pot. The Japanese populace become discontent too, and many intellectuals emigrate to America, Canada, and elsewhere, creating a shortage of experts in Japan; and encouraged by the CIA, etc. some of the Japanese will organize armed insurrections. The USA will then aid freedom fighters with military experts, weapons, food, and other necessities. The civil war rages on -- sooner or later, American troops (already conveniently stationed in Japan, South Korea, etc.) must openly join the war (with or without a Congressional vote), and much of the country gets laid to waste. Socialism will collapse in a few years, or else, in an even more unlikely event of the Japanese victory, the battered socialist government will have to build everything back up from scratch amidst ruins, _who knows how_. And this if America doesn't bomb Red Japan back to the Stone Age from the get-go. Yoshie
ILO REPORT SAYS GLOBALIZATION CAUSES JOB LOSSES
From the World Bank's Development News, June 21, 2000 ILO REPORT SAYS GLOBALIZATION CAUSES JOB LOSSES Increasing trade liberalization and the effects of globalization have resulted in job losses and less secure work arrangements, the International Labor Organization said in a study released yesterday. Some 75% of the world's 150 million jobless have no unemployment benefits and the vast majority of populations in many developing countries has no social protection whatsoever, the report added. According to the ILO's "World Labor Report 2000," most industrialized countries have reduced unemployment insurance, limiting eligibility and cutting benefits in the past decade. Among the countries providing less worker benefits and belonging to a second-tier position globally were Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Many European countries over the past 10 years have lead in assuring unemployment benefits, even though European governments have reduced their assistance programs. Critics of unemployment programs and other social protection schemes have argued that countries with high levels of benefits, like those in Europe, are so burdened with social costs that they cannot compete with economies providing less assistance. The report's chief author, Roger Beattie, called such criticism "naive," arguing that countries can simultaneously protect their workers and expand their economies. "Countries can increase social security spending, and it will take out only 20% of future real increases in earnings," he said (Elizabeth Olson, International Herald Tribune, 21 June). The study warns of the dangers of reducing or eliminating jobless benefits. "Alarmist rhetoric notwithstanding, social protection, even in the supposedly expensive forms to be found in most advanced countries, is affordable in the long term," says ILO Director-General Juan Somavia in the report's introduction. "It is affordable because it is essential for people, but also because it is productive in the longer term. Societies which do not pay enough attention to security, especially the security of their weaker members, eventually suffer a destructive backlash," he said (ILO release, 21 June). The report also takes into account underemployed and informal sector workers, noting that these people "earn very low incomes and have an extremely limited capacity to contribute to social protection schemes." For these workers, the ILO study suggests that governments should provide assistance by employing them in labor-intensive infrastructure programs, such as road construction or land reclamation. The report notes India's Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and Maharashtra Government's Employment Scheme as examples of employment guarantee programs (Chennai Hindu, 20 June). The report highlights several trends and issues affecting social protection services today: The number of people living in extreme poverty has risen by 200 million in the past five years, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. 850 million people earn less than a living wage or work less than they want. Poverty is a major factor in driving 250 million children into the labor force, jeopardizing their education. In several developed countries, divorce rates have increased up to 500% over the past 30 years, creating more single-parent households. In many of these same countries, births to unmarried women jumped up to six times in the same 20-year period, creating even more single-parent households. Poverty rates for households headed by a single mother are at least three times higher than for two-parent households in a number of developed countries. Social security spending as a percentage of gross domestic product has risen in most countries from 1975-1992, with several exceptions, mainly in Africa and Latin America. Changes in family structures, as well as rising unemployment and income inequality, have caused an increase in child poverty rates between the 1960s and the 1990s. Due to falling fertility rates worldwide, more women are able to enter the work force. The drop in fertility has also created a population that is rapidly aging, reducing the ratio of workers to retired individuals. The report outlines measures for improving income security for women: * Programs such as maternity benefits, child care facilities and parental leave, that allow men and women to combine employment and child rearing as well as improving women's access to work. * The extension of social security to all employees, including those in categories in which women are heavily represented -- domestic and part-time workers. * Recognition of unpaid child rearing work through the endowment of credits via contributory systems or by providing universal benefits (ILO release). This summary is prepared by the External Affairs Department of the World Bank. All material is
Re: Socialism Ecology in Japan (was Re: Reply toCarrol Cox)
On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Let's suppose an unlikely event: the Japanese working class rise up make a socialist revolution (of some kind). The rest of the imperial world, condemning the expropriation of Japanese other expropriators, swiftly puts an embargo on Japan to restore freedom and democracy. An embargo which is lifted approximately one millisecond after Japan threatens to call in the 150 billion euros of the US current account deficit it's been funding for well over a decade, thus pulling the plug on the Wall Street Bubble. The rest of Asia quickly falls into line, after being offered low-interest aid packages worth 3-5% of GDP over the next twenty years, guaranteed. Finally, Japan and the EU sign a mutual defense and security pact to prevent those rascal Americans from defaulting on their 2 trillion euro debt. Southeast Asia booms; the EU shifts to solar energy; proletarians everywhere begin to throw out neocolonial elites. Bring on that embargo, I say! -- Dennis
energy
Charles It is not a matter of faith. It is a simple calculation. Amount of energy available minus amount used by humans in the course of their history. The result if a very large positive number. We are not going to run out of energy. Alternatives to internal combustion engines are technological infants, but they are available and will soon be economic. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
RE: Socialism Ecology in Japan (was Re: Reply to Carrol Cox)
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: the Japanese working class rise up make a socialist revolution (of some kind). ... The US... The Japs would bomb NY with MIRV'ed Citizen watches and other precision objects until the Yanks gave up, surely, which is more or less what's happening anyway. The question really is what will happen when the lights go out everywhere, not just Japan? Japan is peculiarly interdependent, spent +$50bn on imported energy alone last year. What will happen, more specifically, when there is a struggle for control of Caspian oil, between Japan/China and EuroAmerica? Think it won't happen? It will. It is. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
RE: Re: Dematerialization...
to make the larger point that energy markets are already planned--just undemocratically. Care to expand? (seriously) Mark D H 'last time I hugged a tree it came' Lawrence-Jones = This guy did his Ph.D. on oil oligopolies in 1973... http://www.orgs.bucknell.edu/afee/jei/jeiauthm.htm Munkirs, John R Centralized private sector planning: an institutionalist's perspective on the contemporary U.S. economy, John R Munkirs, December 1983, p. 931-67 Oligopolistic cooperation: conceptual and empirical evidence of market structure evolution, John R Munkirs and James I Sturgeon, December 1985, p. 899-921 The dual economy: an empirical analysis, John R Munkirs and Janet T Knoedler, June 1987, p. 803-11 The existence and exercise of corporate power: an opaque fact, John R Munkirs and Janet T Knoedler, December 1987, p. 1679-1706 Petroleum producing and consuming countries: a coalescence of interests, John R Munkirs and Janet T Knoedler, March 1988, p. 17-31 Technological change: disaggregation and overseas production, John R Munkirs, June 1988, p. 469-75 The Dichotomy: views of a fifth generation institutionalist, John R Munkirs, December 1988, p. 1035-44 Economic power: a micro-macro nexus, John R Munkirs, June 1989, p. 617-23 The triadic economy (centrally-planned, non-planned and govt.-directed sectors), John R Munkirs, June 1990, p. 346-54 The automobile industry, political economy, and a new world order, John R Munkirs, June 1993, p. 627-38 Munkir's page @ http://www.uis.edu/~ens/faculty5.html and for those seeking to unite with those who aren't organizationally challenged on this issue... http://www.tao.ca/~no_oil/home.html "By the time Veblen published The Engineers and the Price System in 1921, not only had he explicitly examined, in detail, the elements of the emerging industrial class structure, but he had begun to overtly call for a social and economic revolution against absentee ownership and the vested interests by the nascent professional class, the engineers. Said revolt was to be conducted by a form of sabotage he referred to, following the Wobblies (the IWW), as the "conscientious withdrawal of efficiency." Only this kind of revolution could succeed, Veblen argued, because it was upon the expertise of the engineers that the operation of industry depended. Without the expertise and leadership of the engineers, the working classes alone could never sustain operation of the complex industrial machine process. Any revolution in an existing industrial society that could not keep the wheels of industry turning smoothly and without the serious disruption of production would be doomed to failure." [James I. Sturgeon] Ian
Re: Re: Socialism Ecology in Japan (was Re: Replyto Carrol Cox)
Dennis R Redmond wrote: An embargo which is lifted approximately one millisecond after Japan threatens to call in the 150 billion euros of the US current account deficit it's been funding for well over a decade, thus pulling the plug on the Wall Street Bubble. How do you propose Japan would collect on this demand? They may be the creditor, but the U.S. has all the bombs. Doug
Re: My looniness
and the light became so bright and so blindin' in this layer of paradise that the mind of man was bewildered. (Canto 38) Rod Hay wrote: Ken In addition, it might be useful to ban auto traffic in high density areas. It would be difficult, but worth a debate in our major cities. My local paper this morning predicts 60 to 70 extra deaths this summer (in a city of about half a million) due to air pollution. Properly handled this should at least generate some public discussion. Rod Ken Hanly wrote: If there really is an emergency and people are convinced of that I don't see why rationing would not work. Rod, Ken Here you provide grounds for Mark's and Lou's ultra-leftist despair on this question -- and they could properly respond with the old chestnut about putting bandaids on cancers. It is not only those with Mark's oratorical style who are in essential agreement with the fundamental points Mark and Lou make. Some quite sober, quite unfrenzied people, who do have the technical qualifications to judge in these matters, have made a pretty good case the very real threat global warming represents. Suggesting limiting traffic in cities, by itself, is every bit as much out of touch with political reality as I have argued Mark and Lou are. Carrol And Rod also wrote: Oh Carrol get with the programme. You are to organize all the True Believers and take them off to Jonestown It has occurred to me that in speaking of political activity many of us do not make clearly enough the distinction between agitation and organizing. They are inseparable in practice, but they are distinguishable and should be distinguished in thought. My central concern in reference to the issue of global warming is that I think Mark's and Lou's own intensity has concealed for them that for large masses of people global warming will *not* work as agitational material. People *can* (have been / will be) mobilized around issues most of which demand concern for a future beyond that of those in motion. It's just that as a point of departure global warming will not work. Carrol
RE: Re: Re: We used 10 times as much energy in the20thcentury as in the 1,000
Charles. The shortage will arise in one million years by which time there will be no human species as we know it. I say let them fend for themselves. Rod Quite right. We will have evolved into heads w/o bodies, all subsisting on entirely mechanized production of goods and services, and all wired together into one giant e-mail list. In other words, it will be Hell. mbs
Re: Re: Aimless blather on dialectics, method,history and revolution
Jim Devine wrote: At 12:17 AM 6/28/00 +1000, you wrote: That leaves what I take to be the true dialectician, who is never wrong, because s/he's always content with the useless (by natural scientific standards of proof and prediction). a dialectician might never be wrong in terms of abstract theory, but when that theory is stated as a more concrete model, it could be empirically or logically wrong. It's amusing the way in which some debates get endlessly repeated: *** Historical depiction in the grand style and the summary settlement with genus and type is indeed very convenient for Herr Duhring, inasmuch as this method enables him to neglect all known facts as micrological and equate them to zero, so that instead of proving anything he need only use general phrases, make assertions, and thunder his denunciations. The method has the further advantage that it offers no real foothold to an opponent, who is consequently left with almost no other possibility of reply than to make similar summary assertions in the grand style, to resort to general phrases and finally thunder back denunciations at Herr Duhring -- in a word, as they say, engage in a slanging match, which is not to everyone's taste. We must therefore be grateful to Herr Duhring for occasionally, by way of exception, dropping the higher and noble style, and giving us at least two examples of the unsound Marxian Logos doctrine. "What a comical effect is produced by the references to the confused, hazy Hegelian notion that quantity changes into quality, and that therefore an advance, when it reaches a certain size, becomes capital by this quantitative increase alone." In this "expurgated" presentation by Herr Duhring the effect produced is certainly curious enough. Let us see how it looks in the original, in Marx. On page 313 (2nd edition of *Capital*), Marx, on the basis of his previous examination of constant and variable capital and surplus-value, draws the conclusion that "not every sum of money, or of value, is at pleasure transformable into capital. To effect this transformation, in fact, a certain minimum of money or of exchange-value must be presupposed in the hands of the individual possessor of money or commodities." He takes as an example the case of a labourer in any branch of industry, who works daily eight hours for himself -- that is, in producing the value of his wages -- and the following four hours for the capitalist, in producing surplus-value, which immediately flows into the pocket of the capitalist, In this case, one would have to have at his disposal a sum of values sufficient to enable one to provide two labourers with raw materials, instruments of labour, and wages, in order to pocket enough surplus-value every day to live on as well as one of his labourers. And as the aim of capitalist production is not mere subsistence but the increase of wealth, our man with his two labourers would still not be a capitalist. Now in order that he may live twice as well as an ordinary labourer, and turn half of the surplus-value produced again into capital, he would have to be able to employ eight labourers, that is, he would have to possess four times the the sum of values assumed above. And it is only after this, and in the course of still further explanations elucidating and substantiating the fact that not every petty sum of values is enough to be transformable into capital, but that in this respect each period of development and each branch of industry has its definite minimum sum, that Marx observes: "Here, as in natural science, *is shown* the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his *Logic*) that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes." [Italics by Engels.] And now let the reader admire the higher and nobler style, by virtue of which Herr Duhring attributes to Mark the opposite of what he really said. Marx says: The fact that a sum of values can be transformed into capital only when it has reached a certain size, varying according to the circumstances, but in each case definitem minimum size -- this fact is a *proof of the correctness* of the Hegelian law. Herr Duhring makes him say: *Because*, according to the Hegelian law, quantity changes into quality, "*therefore*" an advance, when it reaches a certain size, becomes capital." That is to say, the very opposite.*** [*Anti Duhring* (Moscow, 1969), pp. 149-50] One can paraphrase this in another way. Duhring claimed that Marx, being an orthodox Hegelian, *therefore* believed that it took a minimum amount of money to constitute a capital. Or, more generally, Duhring over and over again argues that Marx ignores actuality and draws his conclusions only by deducing them from orthodox Hegelianism. And this, Engels notes, in the absence of any concrete instances from Marx's own works, "offers no real foothold to an opponent," and the result is a slanging match, for which I suppose "aimless blather" is
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
. . . Good luck organizing, Mark. Doug Don't sell him short. I think Mark has united PEN-L. mbs
[Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] (fwd)
I have found myself in agreement with Lou's recent post suggesting that the roots of ecological crisis and overpopulation pressures lie in the contradictions of capitalism, and that a socialist revolution is not only necessary but also desirable if we are to have a sustainable ecological system in the future. I have not quite followed where Mark is going with energy crisis, partly because I don't understand his exuberant use of language. Regarding reformist folks who think energy crisis is not inevitable if we use other natural sources in place of oil such as solar energy (or wheel-chair friendly busses in LA), I find their views helpful, but failing to take into account the big *global* picture. Parelman said that Southern citizens do not want California beaches to polluted any longer. Whole protecting the beaches is of great concern to some people, it is EQUALLY important yet urgently necessary to consider human environmental destruction from the perspective of world system analysis, international division of labor, core periphery and "global power dependency relationships". The following article suggests a research agenda along these lines, transcending the limitations of american centric approaches. It is a cross national study on the environmental implications of greenhouse gases. The authors argue that "The United States is the largest global emitter of CO2". Mine
RE: energy
Rod Hay wrote: Charles It is not a matter of faith. It is a simple calculation. Amount of energy available minus amount used by humans in the course of their history. The result if a very large positive number. We are not going to run out of energy. Alternatives to internal combustion engines are technological infants, but they are available and will soon be economic. This is simply nonsense. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
re: energy
Let's stop this thread. All we get from Jones is invective. Not one thread of evidence, except some stupid post that shows what every high school math student knows -- exponential functions get large very quickly. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Position in the World-System and National Emissions of Greenhousegases (fwd)
ops, here is the article... Mine Journal of World-Systems Research Volume 3, Number 3 (Fall 1997) http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html ISSN 1076-156X Position in the World-System and National Emissions of Greenhouse Gases* by Thomas J. Burns Department of Sociology University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Byron L. Davis Department of Sociology University of Utah Edward L. Kick Department of Sociology University of Utah Cite: Burns, Thomas J., Byron L. Davis, and Edward L. Kick. (1997). "Position in the World-System and National Emissions of Greenhouse Gases." Journal of World-Systems Research 3: 432 - ??. *An earlier version of this paper was presented at the National Third World Studies Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, October 1995. © 1997 Thomas J. Burns, Byron L. Davis, and Edward L. Kick. [Page 432] Journal of World-Systems Research INTRODUCTION The "greenhouse effect" is the Earth's trapping of infrared radiation or heat. Physical scientists have linked the greenhouse effect to the emission of two primary sources, or "greenhouse gases"carbon dioxide and methane. While this in itself is a naturallyoccurring phenomenon, the amount of trapped heat has increased substantially along with heightened human production and consumption. In fact, the amount of heat trapped in the earth's atmosphere through the greenhouse effect has risen dramatically in the last thirty years, and has done so in rough proportion to the loss of world carbon sinks (most notably through deforestation) in that same period (Grimes and Roberts 1995; Schneider 1989). Despite the apparent importance of these dynamics, there is relatively little social science theorization and crossnational research on such global environmental issues. There is especially a paucity of crossnational, quantitative research in sociology that focuses on the social antecedents to environmental outcomes (for exceptions, see Burns et al. 1994, 1995; Kick et al. 1996; Grimes and Roberts 1995). We find this condition surprising given the substantial initial work of environmental sociologists (Dunlap and Catton 1978, 1979; Buttel 1987) and the key role social scientists might in principle play in addressing such worldwide problems (Laska 1993). As a consequence, we propose and assess a perspective on the global and national social causes of one environmental dynamic, the greenhouse effect. [Page 433] Journal of World-Systems Research THE NATURE OF GREENHOUSE GASES For present purposes it is sufficient to underscore just a few essentials about the "greenhouse effect." It refers to the atmospheric trapping of heat that, for the most part, emanates from natural compounds (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane), but it is vitally important to recognize that global social life has greatly augmented the concentration of these and other gases. Physical scientists theorize that if this humangenerated trend continues, global climatic changes will occur that have serious, if not catastrophic, longterm effects (e.g. Schneider 1989; CDAC 1983). These effects range from the destruction of agriculture to mammoth flooding as a result of the melting of the polar ice caps. The most important humanproduced greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), which is primarily a product of fossil fuel usage. The United States is the largest global emitter of CO2, followed by the former U.S.S.R., China, India, and Germany. Net amounts of CO2 are also increased through human land use, especially as it involves deforestation. Because forests are the primary locus of CO2oxygen exchange, their depletion reduces the rate of natural CO2 uptake. Large amounts of another greenhouse gas, methane (CH4), similarly result from wet rice agriculture, livestock, uncontrolled coal mine emissions, and petroleum and natural gas leakages (World Resources Institute 1994:199202, 361272). China is the world's leading emitter of methane, followed by India, the United States, Brazil, and Bulgaria. [Page 434] Journal of World-Systems Research It should be emphasized that the social dynamics leading to CO2, CH4 and to environmental degradation generally, may operate quite differently across structural positions in the worldsystem (Olsen 1990; Burns et al. 1994, 1995; Kick et al. 1996; Grimes and Roberts 1993), and that these dynamics themselves depend upon global processes (e.g. Kone 1993; Thiele and Wiebelt
Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and NationalEmissions of] (fwd)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have found myself in agreement with Lou's recent post suggesting that the roots of ecological crisis and overpopulation pressures lie in the contradictions of capitalism, and that a socialist revolution is not only necessary but also desirable if we are to have a sustainable ecological system in the future. Hmm, ok, maybe I can get an answer from you: what changes in industrial and agricultural practices, energy sources, the build environment, living arrangements, etc., will occur under socialism that will avoid the eco-catastrophe capitalism supposedly has in store for us. It's not just a matter of invoking the words "socialist revolution" along the lines of "Presto Change-o," is it? Doug
RE: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
Yeah, hang separately or hang together. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Max Sawicky Sent: 28 June 2000 22:49 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20893] RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness . . . Good luck organizing, Mark. Doug Don't sell him short. I think Mark has united PEN-L. mbs
Position in the World-System and National Emissions of (fwd)
this article is huge. my system does not allow me to send it. here is the web address. I did not attach it to my previous post... Mine Journal of World-Systems Research Volume 3, Number 3 (Fall 1997) http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html ISSN 1076-156X Position in the World-System and National Emissions of Greenhouse Gases* by
Re: Socialism Ecology in Japan (was Re: Reply to Carrol Cox)
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Socialism will collapse in a few years, or else, in an even more unlikely event of the Japanese victory, the battered socialist government will have to build everything back up from scratch amidst ruins, _who knows how_. And this if America doesn't bomb Red Japan back to the Stone Age from the get-go. Damn, I give up. Only I think I'm too old to sell out, and the dot.com's aren't hiring anymore. Now I really give up. Doug Pessimism of intellect, optimism of will, Doug! You'd have to admit, anyhow, that my fictional portrait is quite realistic, since it is based upon real historical experiences of many countries movements. And that is the reason why I don't worry about coming up with a blueprint for eco-socialism (nor about a future environmental catastrophe, for that matter). Any successful socialist revolution has to make the best of what is available, under conditions of wars, embargoes, etc.; and under such circumstances, even the best blueprint can't apply. Only the working class in the USA would theoretically have a better chance, in an unlikely event that they get something like socialism going. Unfortunately, the American working class are even less likely than the Japanese one to get around to expropriating the expropriators, but if it can't happen here, it can't happen anywhere (and even if it does, it is not likely to last very long, since American leftists are not likely to be able to stop their ruling class from destroying socialism elsewhere economically or militarily). I say this not to discourage anyone -- it is just a matter of fact. Yoshie
Position in the World-System and National Emissions of (fwd)
Journal of World-Systems Research Volume 3, Number 3 (Fall 1997) http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html ISSN 1076-156X Position in the World-System and National Emissions of Greenhouse Gases* by Thomas J. Burns Department of Sociology University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Byron L. Davis Department of Sociology University of Utah Edward L. Kick Department of Sociology University of Utah Cite: Burns, Thomas J., Byron L. Davis, and Edward L. Kick. (1997). "Position in the World-System and National Emissions of Greenhouse Gases." Journal of World-Systems Research 3: 432 - ??. *An earlier version of this paper was presented at the National Third World Studies Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, October 1995. © 1997 Thomas J. Burns, Byron L. Davis, and Edward L. Kick. [Page 432] Journal of World-Systems Research INTRODUCTION The "greenhouse effect" is the Earth's trapping of infrared radiation or heat. Physical scientists have linked the greenhouse effect to the emission of two primary sources, or "greenhouse gases"carbon dioxide and methane. While this in itself is a naturallyoccurring phenomenon, the amount of trapped heat has increased substantially along with heightened human production and consumption. In fact, the amount of heat trapped in the earth's atmosphere through the greenhouse effect has risen dramatically in the last thirty years, and has done so in rough proportion to the loss of world carbon sinks (most notably through deforestation) in that same period (Grimes and Roberts 1995; Schneider 1989). Despite the apparent importance of these dynamics, there is relatively little social science theorization and crossnational research on such global environmental issues. There is especially a paucity of crossnational, quantitative research in sociology that focuses on the social antecedents to environmental outcomes (for exceptions, see Burns et al. 1994, 1995; Kick et al. 1996; Grimes and Roberts 1995). We find this condition surprising given the substantial initial work of environmental sociologists (Dunlap and Catton 1978, 1979; Buttel 1987) and the key role social scientists might in principle play in addressing such worldwide problems (Laska 1993). As a consequence, we propose and assess a perspective on the global and national social causes of one environmental dynamic, the greenhouse effect. [Page 433] Journal of World-Systems Research THE NATURE OF GREENHOUSE GASES For present purposes it is sufficient to underscore just a few essentials about the "greenhouse effect." It refers to the atmospheric trapping of heat that, for the most part, emanates from natural compounds (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane), but it is vitally important to recognize that global social life has greatly augmented the concentration of these and other gases. Physical scientists theorize that if this humangenerated trend continues, global climatic changes will occur that have serious, if not catastrophic, longterm effects (e.g. Schneider 1989; CDAC 1983). These effects range from the destruction of agriculture to mammoth flooding as a result of the melting of the polar ice caps. The most important humanproduced greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), which is primarily a product of fossil fuel usage. The United States is the largest global emitter of CO2, followed by the former U.S.S.R., China, India, and Germany. Net amounts of CO2 are also increased through human land use, especially as it involves deforestation. Because forests are the primary locus of CO2oxygen exchange, their depletion reduces the rate of natural CO2 uptake. Large amounts of another greenhouse gas, methane (CH4), similarly result from wet rice agriculture, livestock, uncontrolled coal mine emissions, and petroleum and natural gas leakages (World Resources Institute 1994:199202, 361272). China is the world's leading emitter of methane, followed by India, the United States, Brazil, and Bulgaria. [Page 434] Journal of World-Systems Research It should be emphasized that the social dynamics leading to CO2, CH4 and to environmental degradation generally, may operate quite differently across structural positions in the worldsystem (Olsen 1990; Burns et al. 1994, 1995; Kick et al. 1996; Grimes and Roberts 1993), and that these dynamics themselves depend upon global processes (e.g. Kone 1993; Thiele and Wiebelt 1993; Bunker 1984). It is to
Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] (fwd)
Karl Fred wrote: "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." Compared to many other countries, the U.S. has a version of this, only we call it suburban sprawl. It's ugly, and extremely dependent on fossil fuels. How would the post-revolutionary world be different from suburbia? Louis Proyect wrote: The disappearance of fossil-based fuels is a whole other story. My guess is that a radically different kind of life-style will be necessary in the future for the survival of humanity. I don't think that this will be palatable to many of the people who post regularly to PEN-L, who seem rather committed to the urban, consumerist life-style found in the imperialist centers. For those of us who have read and admired William Morris, these alternative prospects might seem more attractive. I think that people will democratically elect a new life-style based on the premise of greatly expanded leisure time, less regimentation, decreased risks to health and closeness to nature. Of course some socialists will continue to see socialism as an extension of capitalist civilization with the working class at the steering wheel instead of the bourgeoisie. But that's been a problem for Marxism since the 19th century. It's weird to hear this coming from someone who lives works on Manhattan Island, but I'll leave that aside for now, along with my suspicion that a lot of this is the fantasy of an exhausted and alienated urbanite. I don't see how you can achieve a William Morris-y arts crafts lifestyle with a global population of 6 billion people. Maybe I'm wrong. If I'm not wrong, what is the ideal population, and what will happen to all the surplus billions? Doug
Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] (fwd)
Hmm, ok, maybe I can get an answer from you: what changes in industrial and agricultural practices, energy sources, the build environment, living arrangements, etc., will occur under socialism that will avoid the eco-catastrophe capitalism supposedly has in store for us. It's not just a matter of invoking the words "socialist revolution" along the lines of "Presto Change-o," is it? Doug The key concept is "metabolic". Although Marx dwelled on the rift between farming and the natural fertilizers, which had caused a "metabolic rift" responsible for soil sterility, raw sewage in the cities, etc., the concept of metabolism extends to energy consumption and industrial production as well. I have discussed the question of energy and global warming with Foster frequently and he agrees that in order to complete a "unified field" Marxist-ecological analysis initiated by Marx, it would have to include energy consumption as well. The only methdology that can integrate all these questions holistically is a materialism of the kind that Engels took a stab at in "Dialectics of Nature". Further efforts in this direction can be found in Bebel's "Woman Under Socialism" and Bukharin's "Philosophical Arabesques". It is covered in depth in Foster's "Marx's Ecology". Key to solving the ecological crisis is eliminating the town and countryside duality. When I raised this question in the past on PEN-L, it was heartily rejected as I expected it would be. The rejection is based on life-style considerations, but never engaged the science which underpinned Marx's demand in the CM: "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." This is a precondition for resolving the ecological crisis around the questions posed by Marx in V. 3 of Capital, which were also addressed by soil chemist Von Liebeg. This crisis never went away, even after the introduction of chemical fertilizers. They just postponed the day of reckoning. The disappearance of fossil-based fuels is a whole other story. My guess is that a radically different kind of life-style will be necessary in the future for the survival of humanity. I don't think that this will be palatable to many of the people who post regularly to PEN-L, who seem rather committed to the urban, consumerist life-style found in the imperialist centers. For those of us who have read and admired William Morris, these alternative prospects might seem more attractive. I think that people will democratically elect a new life-style based on the premise of greatly expanded leisure time, less regimentation, decreased risks to health and closeness to nature. Of course some socialists will continue to see socialism as an extension of capitalist civilization with the working class at the steering wheel instead of the bourgeoisie. But that's been a problem for Marxism since the 19th century. For an idea of what Cuban Marxists have been experimenting with in this vein, consider the following: The following article appears in the latest issue of Green Left Weekly (http://www.greenleft.org.au), Australia's radical newspaper. * Cubans discuss environmental sustainability What can environmentalists learn from Cuba, a country that still flirts with nuclear power, is besieged by many environmental problems typical of the Third World, and lags behind countries like Denmark and Holland on issues like recycling, green taxes, alternative energy and eco-labelling? During a recent visit to ``the fairest island ever revealed to human eyes'' (as Christopher Columbus described Cuba), I searched for the answer. I wanted to understand the impact of the ``Special Period in Time of Peace'' -- the emergency program to save the socialist revolution after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. After talking to environmental scientists, administrators and activists, and reading recent Cuban writings on ecology, it is clear that there is a lot of debate about how to reverse environmental degradation. It is also obvious that few Third World countries can match the legislative, planning and educational efforts that Cuba is applying in its battle for environmental sustainability. Moreover, few environmental movements can match Cuba's revolutionaries in government, scientific institutions, education system and emerging non-government organisations in their passion and dedication to the environmental cause. For centuries, Cuba's natural resources and beauty were sacrificed to Spanish colonial landowners and, later, US corporations. In the early 1800s, the great Prussian geographer Alexander von Humboldt was already lamenting the destruction of Cuba's native forests. In his book Dialectics of Nature, Frederick Engels -- Karl Marx's collaborator -- could find no better example of the impact of capitalist greed on the ecosphere than the
Re: Socialism Ecology in Japan (was Re: Reply to Carrol Cox)
Think it won't happen? It will. It is. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList While I'm not against thinking about the future, I think it inadvisable for socialists to portray an emergency in the future tense. To paraphrase Walter Benjamin, "The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we may live is not the exception but the rule." Even a cursory examination of the past present, from a Marxist point of view, should give us an enough sense of urgency. Speaking of disasters, what of lack of access to clean water for the poor majority of the world? Wars, malnutrition, deaths caused by preventable diseases? Declines of living standards in Africa, reversal of life expectancy in Russia, etc.? "It" has happened, and "it" is happening now. Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] (fwd)
I just read that NY City is the largest consumer of pesticides in the state. Now that you have that part of the agricultural system, may the rest won't be too hard. Doug Henwood wrote: It's weird to hear this coming from someone who lives works on Manhattan Island, but I'll leave that aside for now, along with my suspicion that a lot of this is the fantasy of an exhausted and alienated urbanite. I don't see how you can achieve a William Morris-y arts crafts lifestyle with a global population of 6 billion people. Maybe I'm wrong. If I'm not wrong, what is the ideal population, and what will happen to all the surplus billions? Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
China and GM food
With scarcely any opposition, GM seed in rapidly making inroads into Chinese agriculture. China, the first country in the world to synthesise insulin, has its own scientists working on GM products. It seems likely the government is strongly backing a process that could make much of Chinese agriculture GM within 15 years. Whatever ecological reservations progressive people may have about this, it is entirely understandable that a country like China needs to make a major push to gain relative advantage in the world. This would release vast amounts of labour power and purchasing power for economic transformation of the east Asian region. Chris Burford London
On Mark to Rod, was Re: Re: re: energy
M A Jones wrote: Rod, I'd be happy to debate you but metaphysical assertions about 'infinite energy' which are easily + demonstrably untrue, are not a basis for debate. So yes, quit this silly non-debate. Mark, I agree with this in substance, but much of my caterwauling at you and Lou both on Pen-L and on Marxism has been aimed at those features of your argument that, themselves tending to be metaphysical, encourage metaphysics in reply. Revolutions (peaceful or violent) have never been really majority affairs -- rather they have represented the majority of the population active (itself usually a minority) at a given time. But if you and Lou are pretty much right in your arguments on global warming and energy (and remember, that has been my premise all along), then the kind of changes necessary are going to require rather more massive public support than is usually needed in the early stages of a revolutionary regime. So unless you really do agree with Hans Ehrbar on the need for an elitist putsch to stop global warming, you had better give some thought to how that mass support can be (beginning now) marshalled -- and my prediction is that without the support of a number of people holding the views you are now attacking rather extravagantly, that movement is not going to come into existence. We don't need Heartfield and the Sparts. We do need Jose and Nestor and, yes, even Rod. Carrol
Re: re: energy
Rod, I don't think that it needs to be stopped, but certainly changed. Mark, Mr. Minimus here thinks that you need to tone down your rhetoric. I think that we all know where you stand. At this point, everything is unprovable -- like global warming. I don't mean that it is wrong. I largely agree with you, but no evidence can be mustered to convince people easily. At the same time, social change is difficult to organze and if you are correct there is much work to do. I don't think that you are merely an agent of despair as some have suggested. Given the organization of society as it now stands, where do we start? I would love to see a socialist rev., but it is not in the cards at this moment. What do we do right now to clean up the mess. No more names or characterizations. Let's just talk specifics for a while. Whether the problem is global warming, pollution or scarcity, what do we do? How do we communicate with an ordinary working class person or a college professor? Specifics? Rod Hay wrote: Let's stop this thread. All we get from Jones is invective. Not one thread of evidence, except some stupid post that shows what every high school math student knows -- exponential functions get large very quickly. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Putin loses key vote
Putin has just overwhelmingly lost a vote in the Federation Council to exclude regional governors of their automatic seats and therefore their automatic immunity from prosecution. This is Putin's first major reversal after his inauguration in the czarist throne room. Russian politics looks increasingly a complicated triangle in which Putin's centralizing (Bonapartist?) tendencies will be shaped as to their real class significance by whether the oligarchs successfully resist them or force him to adopt a semi-modernised bourgeois democracy, dominated by finance capital. Whether the working class has anything to gain in this skirmishing seems doubtful. They are even less likely to win from a strong centralised state than when it was socialist in name. Chris Burford London
Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and NationalEmissions of] (fwd)
Doug, Obviously none of the desirable changes you and I and Mine hope for will happen. But capitalism will collapse anyway. Prove me wrong. Address the issues. And stop whingeing about how awful it will be; we know that. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList - Original Message - From: "Doug Henwood" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 10:59 PM Subject: [PEN-L:20897] Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and NationalEmissions of] (fwd) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have found myself in agreement with Lou's recent post suggesting that the roots of ecological crisis and overpopulation pressures lie in the contradictions of capitalism, and that a socialist revolution is not only necessary but also desirable if we are to have a sustainable ecological system in the future. Hmm, ok, maybe I can get an answer from you: what changes in industrial and agricultural practices, energy sources, the build environment, living arrangements, etc., will occur under socialism that will avoid the eco-catastrophe capitalism supposedly has in store for us. It's not just a matter of invoking the words "socialist revolution" along the lines of "Presto Change-o," is it? Doug
Future Mongering, was Re: Position in the World-System and NationalEmissions of] (fwd)
Doug Henwood wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have found myself in agreement with Lou's recent post suggesting that the roots of ecological crisis and overpopulation pressures lie in the contradictions of capitalism, and that a socialist revolution is not only necessary but also desirable if we are to have a sustainable ecological system in the future. Hmm, ok, maybe I can get an answer from you: what changes in industrial and agricultural practices, energy sources, the build environment, living arrangements, etc., will occur under socialism that will avoid the eco-catastrophe capitalism supposedly has in store for us. It's not just a matter of invoking the words "socialist revolution" along the lines of "Presto Change-o," is it? I'll give the answer I think Mark and Lou should give; whether it will satisfy them I don't know. I also don't know (and neither does anyone else) whether socialism will or can bring about the necessary changes -- and I'm not even sure that in any very useful way we could at present even make a list of the necessary changes. (Heterodox or orthodox, I really don't like basing politics on promises or very detailed visions of the future.) But if Mark and Lou are only partly right -- and I'm assuming they are pretty much on target after one strips away some of the excess rhetoric -- then one can say with some certainty (more certainty than with most attempts at prediction) that *only* socialism will provide a context in which it will be possible to carry out a consistent battle to discover the necessary changes and implement them. I don't have the foggiest idea how that battle will turn out. I'm pretty certain that it won't even occur in any significant way under capitalism. Carrol
Re: re: energy
Rod, I'd be happy to debate you but metaphysical assertions about 'infinite energy' which are easily + demonstrably untrue, are not a basis for debate. So yes, quit this silly non-debate. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList - Original Message - From: "Rod Hay" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Pen-L" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 11:11 PM Subject: [PEN-L:20899] re: energy Let's stop this thread. All we get from Jones is invective. Not one thread of evidence, except some stupid post that shows what every high school math student knows -- exponential functions get large very quickly. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Presto Change-o
Doug Henwood asked: Hmm, ok, maybe I can get an answer from you: what changes in industrial and agricultural practices, energy sources, the build environment, living arrangements, etc., will occur under socialism that will avoid the eco-catastrophe capitalism supposedly has in store for us. It's not just a matter of invoking the words "socialist revolution" along the lines of "Presto Change-o," is it? I'll state positively what Doug's question only insinuates: that a "socialist revolution" isn't necessarily necessary for the changes to take place and conversely a "socialist revolution" may not be sufficient for the changes to take place. On the other hand, it is also possible that the necessary changes may not be permitted to occur under capitalism. My colleague, Anders Hayden discusses the productivist contradictions within actually existing left/progressive polemics in his "Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet: Work Time, Consumption Ecology" published this year by Zed in the U.S. and U.K. and in 1999 by Between the Lines in Canada. Just to give a flavour of Anders' argument, here is an abstract from an earlier paper he presented, under the same title: In response to evident ecological constraints on human activities, exemplified by the threat of global climate change, much emphasis has been placed on increasing the efficiency with which we use nature. However, the gains from an efficiency revolution will be negated if we continue to expand our demands on the environment through attempts to maximize economic growth. The more challenging issue of sufficiency must also be confronted. Could the reduction of work time be a pragmatic starting point for a sufficiency revolution? It will be argued that reduced work time can serve an environmental vision in four principle ways: by providing an ecologically sound response to unemployment, offering an alternative vision of progress based on liberation of time rather than growth in production, giving people the time to think and act as participants in building a more ecologically sustainable society, and by creating new opportunities for "simple living" and the subversion of consumerism. However, there is no guarantee that in practice reduced work time will challenge the productivist vision of infinite economic growth. Some thoughts will be provided on how the ecological merits of this idea can be strengthened and the pitfalls of productivism avoided in pursuit of a green vision of working less, consuming less, and living more. So, you see, even our last best hope is no sure thing. Tom Walker
ILO REPORT SAYS GLOBALIZATION CAUSES JOB LOSSES (fwd)
_World Bank Development_ news summarizes ILO report! Mine -- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 16:53:09 -0700 (PDT) From: David Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: world-system network [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: ILO REPORT SAYS GLOBALIZATION CAUSES JOB LOSSES (fwd) This is probably not big news to most subscribers to this list, but it's interesting that the World Bank/ILO are reporting this... ds -- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 13:39:07 -0700 From: Gilbert G. Gonzalez [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From the World Bank's Development News, June 21, 2000 ILO REPORT SAYS GLOBALIZATION CAUSES JOB LOSSES Increasing trade liberalization and the effects of globalization have resulted in job losses and less secure work arrangements, the International Labor Organization said in a study released yesterday. Some 75% of the world's 150 million jobless have no unemployment benefits and the vast majority of populations in many developing countries has no social protection whatsoever, the report added. According to the ILO's "World Labor Report 2000," most industrialized countries have reduced unemployment insurance, limiting eligibility and cutting benefits in the past decade. Among the countries providing less worker benefits and belonging to a second-tier position globally were Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Many European countries over the past 10 years have lead in assuring unemployment benefits, even though European governments have reduced their assistance programs. Critics of unemployment programs and other social protection schemes have argued that countries with high levels of benefits, like those in Europe, are so burdened with social costs that they cannot compete with economies providing less assistance. The report's chief author, Roger Beattie, called such criticism "naive," arguing that countries can simultaneously protect their workers and expand their economies. "Countries can increase social security spending, and it will take out only 20% of future real increases in earnings," he said (Elizabeth Olson, International Herald Tribune, 21 June). The study warns of the dangers of reducing or eliminating jobless benefits. "Alarmist rhetoric notwithstanding, social protection, even in the supposedly expensive forms to be found in most advanced countries, is affordable in the long term," says ILO Director-General Juan Somavia in the report's introduction. "It is affordable because it is essential for people, but also because it is productive in the longer term. Societies which do not pay enough attention to security, especially the security of their weaker members, eventually suffer a destructive backlash," he said (ILO release, 21 June). The report also takes into account underemployed and informal sector workers, noting that these people "earn very low incomes and have an extremely limited capacity to contribute to social protection schemes." For these workers, the ILO study suggests that governments should provide assistance by employing them in labor-intensive infrastructure programs, such as road construction or land reclamation. The report notes India's Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and Maharashtra Government's Employment Scheme as examples of employment guarantee programs (Chennai Hindu, 20 June). The report highlights several trends and issues affecting social protection services today: The number of people living in extreme poverty has risen by 200 million in the past five years, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. 850 million people earn less than a living wage or work less than they want. Poverty is a major factor in driving 250 million children into the labor force, jeopardizing their education. In several developed countries, divorce rates have increased up to 500% over the past 30 years, creating more single-parent households. In many of these same countries, births to unmarried women jumped up to six times in the same 20-year period, creating even more single-parent households. Poverty rates for households headed by a single mother are at least three times higher than for two-parent households in a number of developed countries. Social security spending as a percentage of gross domestic product has risen in most countries from 1975-1992, with several exceptions, mainly in Africa and Latin America. Changes in family structures, as well as rising unemployment and income inequality, have caused an increase in child poverty rates between the 1960s and the 1990s. Due to falling fertility rates worldwide, more women are able to enter the work force. The drop in fertility has also created a population that is rapidly aging, reducing the ratio of workers to retired individuals. The report outlines measures for improving
Re: Racism and Ecology.
Carrol: brains weighed less than men's brains. An ecological theorist might believe in astronomy or esp and still perform trustworthy work in ecology. I don't know. That astronomy is pretty fishy stuff. The astronomy department at Columbia University is funded--as I understand it--by Shirley McClaine. Just to show you how unscientific it is, I am an Aquarius but my horoscope tells me that I am compatible with a sagittarius. All the Sagittarius women I've ever been with have given me grief. Come to think of it, all women give me grief... Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dogmatism, and homosexuality
Well Hello, Mark Jones gets the point across to me this way, Greetings Economists, Doyle, I don't think you should speak of/to the disabled like this. Mark Jones Doyle You know what, I rather like you. You kind of grow on a person. By the way you wicked provoker, the last two weeks of my life have been the pinnacle of my life. I have found peace of mind in ways that I have never experienced. No magic formula, just felt like I wanted to tell you Mark. It makes me appreciate the conversation here a great deal. Each and every one of you. By the way, I try to be accurate and correct about what someone wants to call themselves, but sometimes I get twisted about writing down someones name. Chris I know your name is Burford. Doyle
Racism and Ecology.
Mark Jones wrote: I think you are missing the point rather. Let me put it this way: did Newton's theories about alchemy disqualify him as a scientist who discovered the laws of gravity? Not an appropriate comparison. Consider rather the way in which Broca the founder of neurology wasted so much of his life and twisted his own scientific discoveries by his attempts to prove that women's brains weighed less than men's brains. An ecological theorist might believe in astronomy or esp and still perform trustworthy work in ecology. But for an ecologist to mess around with population theory as apparently Albert Bartlett did seriously undermines his credibility -- and since arithmetic is empty or a lie without out a trustworthy selection of data *and* a trustworthy selection of the right arithmetic to apply -- I think you ought to look for other sources than Bartlett. Incidentally, there will be no socialist revolution in the United States until 10s of millions of non-whites find reason to trust whites. So messing around with racist figures is again to shoot oneself in the foot politically. Politically racism is more of a threat to human survival than any global warming could be -- since racism is an impenetrable barrier to actually doing anything about global warming. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System andNational Emissions of] (fwd)
what are you trying to prove with your insults Doug? are you implying the impossibility of a socialist agenda? who is fantasizing here? nobody is suggesting a _blue print_ for the future, as far as I can tell. Marx did not suggest either. Politics is a day to day struggle and what we can do is to take advantage of the circumstances in the context of limited resources available to us. In order to do that, once should first understand what the problem with the present system is. with of all its inequalities, declining living standarts, mass consumption, wars, diseases, nuclear power plants, sexism, racism, the system sucks by any human standarts. It is unsustainable from a political as well as a scientific point of view. Capitalism is the most unsustainable system that the world has witnesssed so far. Isn't an alternative system already implicit in the realities of our system and aren't the people have been taking action (and actually TOOK action in the past)? OH but NO socialist revolutions are a bounch of elite conspricies!! as for others too, people have been discussing for hours here whether it is "desirable"? or whether it is "necessary"? or whether it is "imaginable" to talk about socialism. Complete waste of time and pessimism of the intellectual. YES all of them! Too much semantics kills political praxis, and this is one of the reasons why the US left is so messed up, thanks to legacy of american individualism. divide and rule. We folks at least agree on the principles and take the necessary steps to bring about a certain set of agenda.. well, I think, you should read the post once again! and please leave aside your liberal bias for a while.. btw, it does not matter _where_ one lives-- Manhattan, Istanbul, Alaska, Dubai, Virgin Islands-- as long as one is critical of the system. Marxism is not limited to physical location. It is a universal world viewThis sort of red-baiting reminds of the assults directed to third world progressives (Samir, Said, etc...) on the assumption that they can not be critical of US imperialism while living in the US. Mine Louis P wrote: The disappearance of fossil-based fuels is a whole other story. My guess is that a radically different kind of life-style will be necessary in the future for the survival of humanity. I don't think that this will be palatable to many of the people who post regularly to PEN-L, who seem rather committed to the urban, consumerist life-style found in the imperialist centers. For those of us who have read and admired William Morris, these alternative prospects might seem more attractive. I think that people will democratically elect a new life-style based on the premise of greatly expanded leisure time, less regimentation, decreased risks to health and closeness to nature. Of course some socialists will continue to see socialism as an extension of capitalist civilization with the working class at the steering wheel instead of the bourgeoisie. But that's been a problem for Marxism since the 19th century. It's weird to hear this coming from someone who lives works on Manhattan Island, but I'll leave that aside for now, along with my suspicion that a lot of this is the fantasy of an exhausted and alienated urbanite. I don't see how you can achieve a William Morris-y arts crafts lifestyle with a global population of 6 billion people. Maybe I'm wrong. If I'm not wrong, what is the ideal population, and what will happen to all the surplus billions? Doug
Re: China and GM food
Whatever ecological reservations progressive people may have about this, it is entirely understandable that a country like China needs to make a major push to gain relative advantage in the world. This would release vast amounts of labour power and purchasing power for economic transformation of the east Asian region. Chris Burford Economic transformation? You are referring to capitalism in rather neutral terms, it seems. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
