> Dunno about LM - I would have thought a more traditional marxist critique
> would have sufficed. A critique (in opposition to the Malthusians) would
> merely point out contradictions at the level of accumulation and not
> overconsumption and waste as the fundamental problems. The side effects you
> describe have always been symptoms of the anarchy of the market and I doubt
> there's much disagreement there (even with LM). The issue would probably be
> where you place your emphasis. The green "critique" (obsession) is of
> (with)
> symptoms, not fundamentals. Their solution is of course that "the other"
> should get their houses in order and practice sustainability, or we shall
> just have to help them to do so for their own good. Speaking of houses - I
> personally wouldn't quote Venturi - he's a lousy architect. Maybe my modern
> movement prejudices are showing here. And speaking from South Africa, most
> people here would certainly not be bored by a darned side MORE in the way of
> modern consumables.
Russell, in the case of the South African 'Green' movement - both 'Green' organisations like Earthlife Africa (ELA) (site of my first serious political involvement - which has now seemingly fragmented, but used to be a significant voice on environmental issues in SA) and in the case of networks like the Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF) - this characterisation is a bit suspect.
Yes, there are people who blame 'the other' for the problem - but at least some 'movement' (as opposed to 'party') Greens (in South Africa at least) sharply define themselves against 'conservationists' who just want a bit of fenced in nature for their own enjoyment, and screw all the rest. In fact the ELA Statement Of Belief (their constitution) starts of by defining Green as being different from conservationism and environmentalism, and states: 'Greens recognise that ecological stress is a logical and inevitable consequence of the economic and social status quo.'
Similarly the concept of 'environmental justice' on which the EJNF was founded includes a very broad definition of the environment - basically everything around you is the environment, and various people involved in the EJNF have argued against emphasising the distinction between 'brown' (social environment) issues and 'green' (natural environment) issues, again on the basis that nature and society are not distinct things.
I am no longer a Green, and I think one of the big problems of the Green approach is that it focusses on environmental damage as *the* indicator of 'badness' (so, e.g. people trawl for info on ill-effects of GM crops or monoculture, rather than focussing on the capitalist structure of capitalism as bad in and of itself). The Green critique is limited (as are most critiques of the state of things) - but it is not, I think, necessarily reactionary (and certainly not necessarily Malthusian). And certainly LM's position - that environmental problems don't matter, that Science is good (and non-ideological) and that the capitalist system, not environmental destruction, is the problem - seems to combine some abstractly correct notions with an overly cynical and fatalist outlook.
Yes, we want more (especially in South Africa) - but when we want more, we don't want it to be created in a manner that is toxic to the people creating it, creates unnecessary waste, etc.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower. - Karl Marx
NOTE: I do not speak for the HGMP or the MRC.