Ehrlich

Louis Proyect lnp3 at panix.com
Thu May 14 15:20:03 PDT 1998


James Heartfield:
>Well first off I would say that it is more accurate to say that
>reactionary politics tend to the environmental. Let me be clear. When I
>say reactionary, that's what I mean: the politics of reaction first
>reared their head in response to the Enlightenment, and to the
>democratic revolutions of 1776-1815.

It is important to understand that in James's peculiar blend of libertarianism and Marxism, the late Julian Simon and Ron Arnold of the "Wise Use" movement are not reactionaries. They are both outspoken defenders of capitalist progress, which is really a contradiction in terms. James's group has simply taken some of Marx and Engels ideas about the need to defend a revolutionary bourgeoisie against the feudal aristocracy and universalized it. When you take these ideas out of their historical context, you end up with a mess. Ron Arnold is a tool of the logging companies, while Simon's Cato Institute defends a libertarianism that includes an all-out assault on the welfare state. If you read James's magazine, you will discover that they are about to make a qualititative shift. They have begun to rail against the British health system in terms not that different from the Tories. Also, one of their leaders has an odd article about the problem of protecting one's children against sex offenders, whose title is something to the effect of "The quandary of a libertarian parent." This magazine no longer uses the word socialist to describe its politics, and my guess is that "libertarian" will become more prominent fairly soon.

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



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