Socialism & Ecology in Japan (was Re: Reply to Carrol Cox)

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Jun 28 15:56:08 PDT 2000



>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>Socialism will collapse in a few years, or else, in an even more
>>unlikely event of the Japanese victory, the battered socialist
>>government will have to build everything back up from scratch
>>amidst ruins, _who knows how_.
>>
>>And this if America doesn't bomb Red Japan back to the Stone Age
>>from the get-go.
>
>Damn, I give up. Only I think I'm too old to sell out, and the
>dot.com's aren't hiring anymore. Now I really give up.
>
>Doug

Pessimism of intellect, optimism of will, Doug! You'd have to admit, anyhow, that my fictional portrait is quite realistic, since it is based upon real historical experiences of many countries & movements. And that is the reason why I don't worry about coming up with a blueprint for eco-socialism (nor about a future environmental catastrophe, for that matter). Any successful socialist revolution has to make the best of what is available, under conditions of wars, embargoes, etc.; and under such circumstances, even the best blueprint can't apply. Only the working class in the USA would theoretically have a better chance, in an unlikely event that they get something like socialism going. Unfortunately, the American working class are even less likely than the Japanese one to get around to expropriating the expropriators, but if it can't happen here, it can't happen anywhere (and even if it does, it is not likely to last very long, since American leftists are not likely to be able to stop their ruling class from destroying socialism elsewhere economically or militarily). I say this not to discourage anyone -- it is just a matter of fact.

Yoshie



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list