On Mon, 28 Mar 2005, tully wrote:
> On Monday 28 March 2005 11:29 am, Miles Jackson wrote:
>> --What we need to change are the social relations of production,
>> not just the widgets that get produced!
>
> If because of the way we produce our widgets, we have all other
> nations gunning for us, or we can't breathe the air or drink the
> water, what can better internal social relations do to help? First
> things first. Are agendas blinding us from an understanding of
> priorities?
>
> --tully
You don't get what I mean by "social relations" here. If we're working together for our mutual benefit, rather than individual profit, we have little or no incentive to befoul our own nest. The problems you point out are not a product of bad decisions by immoral people; they are the perfectly predictable precipitates of a capitalist economic system (individuals and corporations in fact have massive incentives to fuck over others!).
First things first indeed: I don't see how we can buy our way out of this dilemma. --In fact, seeing the solution as buying or not buying stuff only worsens the problem, because it tacitly encourages the belief in "humane" capitalism (a hideous oxymoron!).
Miles