<<Okay, let's discuss food. Industrial fishing techniques have brought us to the brink of extinction of the bluefin tuna and other large "Class-A" species. Do Marxists believe that we can simply appropriate these capitalist means of production and use them for society as a whole?>>
No of course not. But while the reasons Lou gives are correct, they are also irrelevant. The relevant reason is that by the time marxists (the working class) has any say in the matter those means of production are no longer going to be there to appropriate. If they still *were* going to be there, then Lou's argument against the productivists would be relevant, because then marxists would have a choice in the matter, and the various false marxisms Lou attacks would be a real menace to making the correct choice re those destructive means of production.
When we think seriously and neither in productivist nor in mystical terms about the organization of human life under socialism we have to think about what the world will be like after
(A) About 50 more years of unhampered bourgeois destruction of natural resources
and
(B) About another 30 years or so of vicious civil wars around the globe, which will have done serious damage even to those productive capacities which could (hypothetically) be seized by the working class and turned to social use.
I have intermittently indicated ever since I first posted to these lists that, in a fundamental way, I am pessimistic about the future, that I think of the alternatives Marx and Luxemburg offer us (socialism vs. the mutual destruction of the contending classes; socialism vs. barbarianism) the latter alternative is more likely. Part of that pessimism has always been based on the premise that most probably socialist victory and the beginnings of reconstruction could not be achieved in time to avert the destructiveness to the environment of late capitalism. All, *so far*, Louis and Mark's arguments have done is to strengthen this conviction.
<<Unless we understand these questions on a more profound level, we will not have anything to distinguish us from the bourgeoisie. The problem is that 20th century socialism has tended to view nature as a faucet and a sink. When Trotsky developed his critique of Stalin, he paid scant attention to these aspects of Soviet society which were visible to the naked eye. Instead, Trotsky was preoccupied with the tendency of capitalism to act as "straightjacket" on the means of production. It is no accident that both Frank Furedi and Lyndon Larouche received their training in the Trotskyist movement. It is no accident that the Spartacist League vigorously promotes nuclear power and floated the rumor that Earth Day 1970 was cooked up by Richard Nixon. As far as the Stalinists are concerned, they are no better. They have held state power, so their ecological abuses are more obvious.>>
Even when we *do* understand these questions at a more profound level we will *still* not have anything to distinguishs us from the bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie say: follow our theory (that is, give us the unhampered power) and we will take care of saving the earth.
The marxists say: follow our theory (that is give "us" power) and we will take care of saving the earth.
So I agree completely with Mark and Lou. Without major, fundamental changes in the way in which resources are exploited and industry is organized, all our human plans (marxis or bourgeois) will be crushed by nature.
Moreover, I am *not* a "classic" marxist. I agree that if capitalism continues long enough (and I won't quibble about the year Lou and Mark want to choose here: 2025, 2050, 2075, what have you--I accept it in advance) it will destroy the natural foundations of any sort of decent human life. And since I grant this (already--even before I ever knew Mark or Lou existed), anything further that Lou or Mark says to "prove" the point will begin to sound like Hugh's endless tautologies.
So let me give a crude formulation of the "problem" as I see it: (1) What theory of political action can forestall in time that inevitable destruction of the natural foundations of human society? (2) What actions, *under present social/conditions*, are *within* our reach to contribute to the implementation of that theory? (3) Since, as Lou P has repeatedly and correctly iterated, maillists are necessarily abstracted from practice, what kind of posts, what kind of thinking in abstraction from practice, can we carry out on this maillist which will contribute to the development of (1) and (2)?
<<On the question of food, it is important to understand that the "classic" Marxist position on this was that Malthus was wrong, because he did not anticipate the revolutions in food-production made possible by chemical fertilizers, dam irrigation, pesticides, etc. This argument was made in the pamphlet "Too Many Babies" that the SWP published in the 1950s, a challenge to Malthusians. The problem is that this analysis does not go deep enough. Modern agriculture, based on the factory farm model, may deliver sufficient quantities of wheat, milk and beef in the short run, but in the LONG RUN it will destroy the possibilities for food production. You can not really find much discussion of this in Marxist ranks, but have to look elsewhere such as Francis Ford Lappe's Food First Foundation. The one Marxist who has grappled with these problems is Michael Perelman, who is on this mailing list and who was described by Harvey as conceding too much to bourgeois ideology. His "FARMING FOR PROFIT IN A HUNGRY WORLD CAPITAL AND THE CRISIS IN AGRICULTURE" is on my to-read queue, as soon as I am finished with the other manuscripts he has sent me.>>
I am anxious to get a grasp of at least the elements of Perelman's arguments. But before reading them, one or two points are obvious. One is that farming for profit is a human disaster, so I'm not immediately interested in having that tautology repeated. A second question would be, what, under capitalism, can we do to limit the disaster of farming for profit. In other words, any description of disaster, acknowledged, immediately becomes a question of how power can be generated to handle the actual or potential disaster.
Again, I plead with Lou and Mark. We agree. Heartfield and what you call "classical" marxism are failures. Please do not waste your time or ours in proving this point over and over again.
I don't ask "What should we do?" I do ask "Where to begin?"
Carrol