Todd Archer wrote:
>
> >
> >One of the reasons I posted the piece is that the problems it describes
> >are going to be with us even if capitalism ended today.
>
> Well, yes, strictly speaking, big messes created yesterday would still be
> around should capitalism go today. But how much of those sorts of problems
> are a "result" of capitalism? I'd imagine a fair amount even though there
> are other possible reasons for them. So once capitalism goes, I'd imagine
> so would the reasons for new problems dependant on it. That's a pretty
> simplistic summation, granted, but how can we tell that won't be the case?
If I were to become infected with AIDS today, it would not help me if the conditions generating AIDS were removed tomorrow. If global warming has progressed to the point where (even if the initiating causes are eliminated 50 years from now) there are going to be catastrophic global changes, then that's certainly a 'problem' for everyone for several centuries at any rate.
I still think Ian's challenge (if it was that) is pointless, however, because I would argue that _nothing_ is going to be done about the major ecological threats until capitalism has been smashed on a worldwide scale. That doesn't mean thinking about such problems shouldn't go on, but it is utopian to expect such thinking to be of practical concern under capitalism.
Socialism doesn't in itself solve much of anything. It merely creates a terrain on which it becomes possible to work at "solving problems." (I don't like the language of the elementary school arithmetic text book -- "problems," "solving" -- hence the scare quotes.)
The theory we need is primarily theory which will aid in marshalling forces that can destroy capitalism, and only secondarily and derivatively do we need theories of what we might or might not accomplish afterwards.
Carrol