Abuse of power

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Nov 30 07:22:25 PST 1998


Jim heartfield wrote:


>The hostility to 'productivism' (which the greens rightly see in Marxism
>and social democracy alike), is a coded hostility to the productive, ie
>the working classes. The concerns of the environmentalists are anti-
>humanist. They deplore population growth (nasty oiks moving into the
>neighbourhood), working class mobility (too many cars!), working class
>consumption (fast food is cutting down the rain forest), foreigners (too
>many Chinese - with fridges!), unless they are in a state of degradation
>that is called 'authentic culture'; they embrace the kind of organic
>social order that could only mean death for the left; their theories of
>equilibrium between man and nature are only a reworking of equilibrium
>theories in economics, with a wholly apologetic intent - 'sustainable
>development' instead of real development for the third world. Like the
>bourgeois apologists of old, they seek to justify the limits that are
>artificially imposed upon working class consumption by capitalism, as if
>it were a natural limitation, that will necessarily lead to disaster.

So, James, you're not the least bit worried that a chunk of ice the size of Delaware recently broke off the polar icecap? That storms seem to be getting more frequent, destructive, and unpredictable? Just the fantasies of Malthusian misanthropes?

I won't even bring up the fact that most red-greens are as critical of Malthusian misanthropes as you are.

Doug



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