Brown Stuff

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Aug 10 10:23:00 PDT 1999


Carl Remick wrote:


>We should beware of false dichotomies -- the idea that we are destined
>to be dependent on exploited stoop labor OR on environmentally
>dangerous GM technology. There has to be a way of reducing the scale
>and adverse environmental impact of high-productivity modern farming
>without simply reverting to subsistence farming.

Yes there must be, and that's what I wanted to hear about. I hear too much of "we can't go on this way" without hearing much about how we should go on. And too much dismissal, Aronowitz-style, of technology in itself, without making any distinction between humane uses of science and capitalist uses of science.

But a sociologist who was doing a diss on the organization of organic farming told me it requires lots more stoop labor than the inorganic kind. Maybe it can be done a different way.

Doug



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