I was on an enviroethics list with some of those guys once. Unbelievable. Ask Foster if Larry Rupp is on the list. If so, he is doomed.
frances
On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, Louis Proyect wrote:
> I just spoke by email to John Bellamy Foster. Do you want me to invite him
> into the discussion? He wrote me about the fucking neo-Malthusians (real
> ones, as opposed to those who lurk in David Harvey's imagination) who have
> taken over the Progressive Population Network mailing-list at CSF and asked
> if I could supply reinforcements. Did you ever see one of those old pirate
> movies with Errol Flynn where he jumps from one ship to another with a
> knife in his mouth. That's what I feel like now.
>
> Lou
>
> At 06:55 PM 12/1/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >Since we have two of the authors Harvey is talking about here - Michael
> >Perelman and Jim O'Connor - how do you plead? Guilty of "a sad capitulation
> >to capitalistic arguments"?
> >
> >Doug
> >
> >----
> >
> >[David Harvey, Justice, Nature, & the Geography of Difference, pp. 146-147]
> >
> >As Grundmann complains, Marx, at times, seems to assume that growth of
> >productive forces implies an increasing power to dominate nature, when
> >"there may be productive forces which do not lead" in that direction "but,
> >rather, to an increasing uncertainty, risk, and uncontrollability as well
> >as to unnecessary oppression in the production process." This does not
> >imply that concern for the natural environment is incompatible with a
> >Promethean view. Indeed, "anthropocentrism and mastery over nature, far
> >from causing ecological problems, are the starting-points from which to
> >address them." Nevertheless, Manes expectation that "science and technology
> >would create an intelligible and controllable world as well as the
> >expectation that only capitalist relations stand in the way" of a rational
> >regulation of our metabolism with nature, have to be questioned. And this
> >implies a challenge to some of the presumptions of historical-geographical
> >materialism.
> >
> >It is in this context that some Marxists have returned to the ecoscarcity
> >and natural limits argument as being in some sense far more fundamental
> >than Marx (or more importantly Marxists) have been prepared to concede.
> >Unfortunately, the manner of that return by Benton (1989, 1992), Perelman
> >(1993), and O'Connor (1988) often appears as a sad capitulation to
> >capitalistic arguments. Not, of course, that any of them would in any way
> >support the class distinctions that Malthus used (and latterday
> >neo-Malthusians continue to use) to such vicious effect. But the
> >universality of "natural limits" and the deeper appeal to "natural law" as
> >inherently limiting to the capacity to meet human desires, is now
> >increasingly treated as an axiomatic limiting condition of human existence.
> >So what, then, would a dialectical-relational formulation of the problem
> >look like?
> >
> >Consider, to begin with, a key term like "natural resources." In what sense
> >can we talk about them as being "limited" and in what ways might we
> >reasonably say they are "scarce?" The definition of these key terms is
> >evidently crucial, if only for the whole science of economics which usually
> >defines itself as "the science of the allocation of scarce resources." So
> >let me offer a relational definition of the term "natural resource" as a
> >"cultural, technical and economic appraisal of elements and processes in
> >nature that can be applied to fulfill social objectives and goals through
> >specific material practices." We can unpack the terms in this definition
> >one by one. "Appraisal" refers to a state of knowledge and a capacity to
> >understand and communicate discursively that varies historically and
> >geographically. The long history of capitalism itself shows that technical
> >and economic appraisals can change rapidly and the addition of the cultural
> >dimension makes for even greater fluidity and variability in the
> >definition. Social objectives and goals can vary greatly depending upon who
> >is doing the desiring about what and how human desires get
> >institutionalized, discursively expressed, and politically organized. And
> >the elements and processes in nature change also, not only because change
> >is always occurring (independent of anything human beings do), but because
> >material practices are always transformative activities engaged in by human
> >beings operating in a variety of modes with all sorts of intended and
> >unintended consequences. What exists "in nature" is in a constant state of
> >transformation. To declare a state of ecoscarcity is in effect to say that
> >we have not the will, wit, or capacity to change our state of knowledge,
> >our social goals, cultural modes, and technological mixes, or our form of
> >economy, and that we are powerless to modify either our material practices
> >or "nature" according to human requirements. To say that scarcity resides
> >in nature and that natural limits exist is to ignore how scarcity is
> >socially produced and how "limits" are a social relation within nature
> >(including human society) rather than some externally imposed necessity.
> >
>
> Louis Proyect
> (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
>