Liquidation Sale! (was Replacement costs)

[Dace]

>>Ted wrote:
>>
>>>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."
>>
>Rakesh wrote:
>
>>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)?
>
>
Wojtek wrote:


>Rakesh, phleeeez, be serious.  There is a whole spectrum between stalinist
>"dictatorship of the proletariat" and the executive committee of the
>bourgeoisie a.k.a. United States government.  Like social democracy, for
>example.  Most Western European countries fall into neither extreme - they
>have sensible land use and transportation policies without banning private
>ownership of the means of production.
>

I don't know...  Social democracy is still capitalism.  Still the same
contradictions.  As James O'Connor says, "...there is no state agency or
corporatist-type planning mechanism in any developed capitalist country that
engages in overall ecological, urban, and social planning.  The idea of an
ecological capitalism, or a sustainable capitalism, has not even been
coherently theorized, not to speak of becoming embodied in an institutional
infrastructure.  Where is the state that has a rational environmental plan?
Intraurban and interurban planning?  Health and education planning
organically linked to environmental and urban planning?  Nowhere.  Instead,
there are piecemeal approaches, fragments of regional planning at best, and
irrational political spoils allotment systems at worst."  (Is Capitalism
Sustainable? Pg. 168.)

Even social democracies would require an authoritarian solution to the
nature-capitalism contradiction.  To avoid this, the people of Western
Europe would face the same challenges in bringing about true socialism as we
would.


>I understand that US leftists blame their political impotence on iron laws
>of capitalism - but in reality there is no such thing as capitalism - only
>different interest groups having different political clout.  In some
>countries, like Sweden, the working class had enough clout to make the
>government pursue policies favorable to its intersts.  In the US, however,
>government sucks up to business big time and does not give a shit about the
>workers.  But that is the problem of the US political system, not the
>abstaction a.k.a capitalism.
>
"US political system" is as much an abstraction as "capitalism."  They're
both real insofar as any abstraction can accurately describe reality.
"Different interest groups having different political clout" is a roundabout
way of saying "Liberal Democracy."  Capitalism is an economic system.
Liberal Democracy is the chief political expression of that system.
Economic orientations include pro-capitalist and pro-socialist.  If you're
liberal or conservative, that means you favor capitalism.  If you're
anarchist or communist, that means you favor socialism.  (At least that's
how I've come to think of it lately.)

Ted