[lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy

[Carl Remick]

>From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>>
>Marvin Gandall wrote:
> >
> >
> > But I just saw James write (the part you neglected to quote): "The 
>question
> > of which technologies are you for or against is absurd. Technology is 
>not
> > political, its application is. The question of whether to use a pulley 
>or a
> > lever has no political consequences. The social relations between the 
>users
> > and the owners of the levers and pulleys do."
>
>For the forseeeable future "technology" _means_ "capitalist technology,"
>and therefore technical questions are _always_ political questions from
>the git-go.

Yes, I think it's naive to see technology as anything but beholden to 
capitalist priorities in the existing world order.  And capitalism is 
famously unwilling to factor the cost of negative externalities into 
anything introduced to the marketplace.  I don't think that business's 
current dream of tort "reform" will make the outlook any rosier.

Carl