newbie on Participatory Economics

Louis Proyect lnp3 at panix.com
Tue Jul 21 08:27:59 PDT 1998


Mathew Forstater
>Well, I remember you making some similar comment about Vandana Shiva a
>year or two ago on the femecon list. and Louis Proyect makes some
>similar--though not altogether clear--remark on his web-page, I believe
>in the article on the Rethinking Marxism conference of a couple years ago,
>so that's my guess.

Actually, I have stepped back from my attack on Vandana Shiva on this particular score and have actually quarreled a little with Doug subsequently about the relevance of how she gets around. The problem with green greens is not how they personally live or conduct their business, but their political analysis. Shiva is an anti-Marxist, as is Sale. This is bad news. They are basically utopian in their approach to politics, but of a different sort than Hahnel-Albert. Their utopianism revolves around the notion of bioregionalist or subsistence farming communities that disavow industrialism. When the forces of capital accumulation conspire to overwhelm every pastoral social institution, it seems foolish to prescribe pastoralism as a solution. How she gets around or what restaurants Kirkpatrick Sale dines at seems immaterial in the context of the broader political issues.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)



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