Were the Nazis radical environmentalists?

Jim heartfield Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk
Mon May 11 16:20:20 PDT 1998


In message <19980511.180705.12270.1.farmelantj at juno.com>, James Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> writes
>Justin's post shows us how useful an analytical philosopher can
>be at times. Clearly Jim Heartfield's arguments presuppose the kinds
>of fallacious syllogisms that Justin sketched out for us.
Clear to you, but not to me. I posted to the effect that Louis was right that the cult of nature preceded fascism in Germany, only quibbling that the author's he mentioned did not make the eror he attributed to them.

I further indicated that Marx had rejected the cult of nature in this earlier incarnation. No moral drawn, except by you.

My only view is that people should argue for or against growth on their own terms, and that it was particularly fruitless to try to dragoon Marx into the debate. Clearly he was in his own times, in favour of a great expansion of the social forces of production, as he argued on many occasions. Whether Marx's views are right for today is another question.
>
>The real issue behind this debate between 'brown' and 'green' Marxists
>seems to be to what extent is Marxism committed to a productivist model.
There is not strictly speaking a debate between two 'marxisms', but a debate between environmentalism and its critics, that is projected onto Marxism.
>It seems to be Jim Heartfield's position that Marx was a full-blown
>productivist
On the contrary. To my mind it is a caricature of Marxism to say that it is productivist (as say Baudrillard and Shanin argue). Marx never saw production for production's sake as an unalloyed good (as for example in his points against Ricardo). Rather he saw the enlargement of industry and technology as a human good, that, by abbreviating the labour process, could, given the right social organisation, enlarge the realm of freedom. That is technology for Marx is never a good in its own right, but only a means to enlarging human freedom. Similarly he would have rejected any idea that nature was a good in its own right, but only a good for man.
> and that Marxism must by its essence remain committed
>to a full-blown productivism.
Yes, some analytical fluency would help, here. False premise. False conclusion.
> Proyect and Jones as I understand them
>seem to be denying this thesis.
That is, they are knocking down a straw man.


>If we are to regard Marx as a
>productivist
>then it seems evident that was at most a relative or a critical
>productivist
>not the kind of radical productivst that Jim Heartfield would make him
>out to be.

To which I can only say that I don't make him out to be anything other than what he said he was - amongst other things 'no Marxist'. -- Jim heartfield



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