>If we were to "green" the economy in various ways, such as subsidizing
>organic agriculture, banning cars in downtowns in favor of public
>transportation, and replacing destructive products with
>environmentally-friendly alternatives, etc., the result would be new
>opportunities for economic growth and long-term lowering of the costs of
>production. But since this would occur at the expense of short-term profit,
>the impetus has to come from the state. Unfortunately, "In liberal
>democratic states the normal political logic of pluralism and compromise
>prevents the development of overall environmental, urban, and social
>planning."
Ted, this makes it seem as if you are arguing for a more authoritarian, centralized state (a Leninist dictatorship of the proletariat?) freed from democratic pressure as it takes form in liberalism? Ah, that outstanding problem of the relationship between democracy and communism. Are Marx's and Lenin's ideas the same (Hal Draper, Paul Mattick, Richard Hunt, Paul Thomas, John Ehrenberg all give different answers)?
Perhaps a Samuel Brittain would argue as well that only an authoritarian state could embark safely on a Keynesian depression program because it will remain insulated from pressure to continue to use such instrumentalities, under the pressure of interest groups, after the crisis has subsided? For example, Schumpeter did not deny the effectiveness of Keynesian programs but argued that it would be dangerous in the long term to widen the state's capacity given the pressures that interest groups would then continuously exert on it in pluralist democracy (no doubt this is one of the reasons he was attracted by the Nazis).
But it seems that a certain kind of authoritarianism is understood as necessary to overcome crisis, whether of an ecological or economic type?
At any rate, the advocacy of what kind of state form is implicit in this argument?
>I think there's a more likely outcome of acute ecological crisis under
>capitalism. Back to O'Connor, on the first contradiction: "The main type of
>crisis inherent in capitalism, however, is a 'realization crisis.' Marxists
>regard capitalism as 'crisis-ridden.' But the system is also
>'crisis-dependent' in the sense that economic crises force cost cutting,
>'restructuring,' layoffs, and other changes that make the system more
>'efficient,' that is, more profitable.
As I asked Charles, wouldn't such cost cutting compound the realization problem taken to be the effective cause of crisis? If this cost-cutting, layoffs, etc are the way out, then underconsumption or realization difficulty couldn't be the cause of the crisis in the first place.
Yours, Rakesh