--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com> wrote:
But if the price of transportation isn't adequately reflecting the 
costs of environmental damage, their choices are based on false 
information. Of course, I know you think there's no such thing as 
environmental damage. But most scientists disagree.

 Cheap mass transportation means that working class people have more use
 values.  If you distort market pricing to represent a guesstimate of
 the 'costs of environmental damage' then you will price certain
 consumer goods out of the reach of the working class. Regardless of
 the merits of the environmentalist case, raising prices is not
 progressive, and it implies that the problem is that consumers just
 don't get it.

 If their choices do not reflect higher consciousness about
 environmental issues, go tell them. That message will be clearer than
 taxing working class consumption.  And it will give them the
 opportunity to assess the message, and (like me) conclude that the
 case is not overwhelming, and not change their lifestyle.

 Similarly,Martin writes, "Assuring that everyone has what they need is
 the core value that I've been associating with socialism.", arguing
 against James Heartfield for his outlandish suggestion that socialism
 is about giving people what they want.  But this is the worst
 caricature of Stalinism. 'From each according to their ability, to
 each according to their need' was not qualified as 'to each according
 to their reasonable needs, in so far as those needs do not conflict
 with environmental priorities'.


 I'm a socialist of the 'give the people what they want' tendency.

 James Greenstein