Obviously (what's the Left problem with GM food?)

James Heartfield Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk
Wed Oct 18 16:16:36 PDT 2000


In message <s9edd1f0.025 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes


>CB: Jim, I don't say this sarcastically, and I don't have the stats, but haven't
>a lot of people starved to death in the last 300 years, especially among
>colonially and socially oppressed groups ?

Indeed they have. My point was only that the introduction of GM technology represented no obvious departure from the already established capitalisation of the food chain.

Its also true that capitalistic agriculture supports a world population of some six billion, exponentially greater than the carrying capacity of any previous social organisation. Now, I think, that even that is all to limited.

The question is backwards or forwards? GM technology, in itself, implies no specific relations of production. The problem with capitalistic agriculture is the limitations it places on increased productivity, not the advances it makes.

-- James Heartfield



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