Che <[email protected]> wrote: The unstated -- but ever-present -- premise of such hopes for a brave new, > cheap/abundant, 'clean' fuel source, is a fervently-hoped-for salvation of > this decadent, dead-end Capitalist order from itself. >
It is unstated because few people see it that way anymore. Capitalism may be in crisis, but most people are unaware of that. > Us marxists never kid ourselves about this (not-so-well) hidden agenda -- > or the most-likely real outcome of such pious pipe dreaming. > Still, things are a lot better than they used to be. Life is easier for everyone. Since 1960, extreme poverty worldwide has been reduced from 55% to 10%. It has declined in both percent and in absolute numbers. See: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/declining-global-poverty-share-1820-2015 As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1818: Indeed, we need look back half a century, to times which many now living remember well, and see the wonderful advances in the sciences and arts which have been made within that period. Some of these have rendered the elements themselves subservient to the purposes of man, have harnessed them to the yoke of his labors, and effected the great blessings of moderating his own, of accomplishing what was beyond his feeble force, and extending the comforts of life to a much enlarged circle, to those who had before known its necessaries only. That these are not the vain dreams of sanguine hope, we have before our eyes real and living examples. So much for your "pipe dream" pipe dreams. - Jed
