MORE DEFENSIVE POSTURING (Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!): (2 pages)
A not-always-clearly-articulated subtext of the recent round
of LTV debate between myself and Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell had
to do with the issue of environmental policy under socialism. As
noted recently Soviet policy was a total disaster in this area.
Paul and Allin have argued that this was essentially due to the lack
of democracy in the FSU and also that the FSU did not truly plan
on the basis of the labor theory of value.
I questioned that. I agreed that the democracy issue was (is)
absolutely important, but I was skeptical that a labor theory of
value could properly account for the land/nature/environment/
ecosystem/biosphere. In a sense the esoteric aspect of this boils
down to the nature of "absolute rent", a presumed "pure return to'
land". Viewing that as a stand-in for the "value of nature" must
that be zero under democratic participatorily planned socialism as
they contend, or must it somehow be positive, even after feudalistic
and capitalistic social relations are eliminated? The question really
remains open.
This may have gotten esoteric, but there were real "down-to-earth"
(land, environment) issues driving the debate, even if they were not
always on the surface of the discussion.
Happily counting pinheads on an angel (Are we having fun yet?)
Barkley Rosser
James Madison University
