1) In cases like Rwanda (let's hope there are not too many), but with famine or near famine generally, averting mass death by starvation via food redistribution from societies with excess food production does nor solve the underlying social conflicts. It fosters dependency and promotes corruption, which does not ultimately benefit the poor. This paradox of global aid and refugee work. If Diamond is right, Rwanda was not, actually, quite at the starvation point and did need serious land reform so large parts of the population were not farming on sub-subsistence slivers. Where there is mass starvation, like in 80s Ethiopia, 70's Bangladesh, 60's Biafra, late 50's China, immediate food relief may be called for but the underlying causation (different in each case) is social. Mike Davis' book Late Victorian Holocausts' is good on this. I am sure Jim will agree with this.
2. Yeah, we need democratic socialism. And more planning to avoid collapse ourselves. See Diamond's chapter on Montana in his book Collapse -- Diamond is a materialist, btw, but obviously not a socialist. Nonetheless, any bets on the likelihood that we will even get more planning, much less socialism, in time to avert, for example, serious effects of global warming? Far as I can see we are headed towards William Gibson's Sprawl or Blade Runner rather than anything else. Also, democratic socialism may not bell that much help if the working class in power votes for an SUV in every garage. But, as I say, I may be just being depressive.
--- Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Justin wrote:
> > Maybe this has been said already in the later
> > discussion, but three points:
> >
> > 1) There are real Malthusian crises, but these are
> the
> > results of the combination of population increase
> and
> > the structure of social organization. Jared
> Diamond
> > gives good examples of these propositions in his
> book
> > Collapse, e.g., the Rwandan disaster, the Mayan
> > empire, several Polynesian societies. Very densely
> > populated societies like Belgium can be very well
> off
> > for almost everyone.
>
> This is correct. Before the rise of (full-scale,
> industrial)
> capitalism, labor productivity in agriculture did
> not rise fast enough
> to avoid "Malthusian" crises. (I use scare quotes
> because Malthus
> simply _assumed_ that labor productivity wouldn't
> grow fast enough,
> without really knowing that he was making the
> assumption.)
>
> Of course, this didn't end population crises, since
> the distribution
> of food is still a problem. The problem in Rwanda
> could (in theory)
> have been solved by redistributing food to Rwanda
> from the over-eating
> Americans, etc. The failure to redistribute is part
> of the institution
> of imperialism.
>
> > 2) Malthus' idea, that population necessarily
> outruns
> > food production, has been overwhelmingly refuted
> by
> > the last 200 years with its vast increase in
> > population and even vaster increase in
> agricultural
> > productivity
>
> right. But capitalism "passes the torch."
>
> While pre-capitalist institutions (modes of
> production) typically
> dealt with falling labor productivity (and revenues
> received by the
> ruling class) by squeezing the agricultural direct
> producers,
> capitalism raises labor productivity. (Eventually,
> the rise of labor
> productivity swamps the effects of the rise of
> population growth rates
> encouraged by capitalism. Urbanization, the welfare
> state, etc.
> eventually end the population surge, in the
> "demographic transition.")
>
> The problem is that under capitalism, labor
> productivity is measured
> wrong. Instead of measuring it as "net benefits" per
> labor input,
> capitalist labor productivity is "net saleable
> commodities" per labor
> input. The difference is that net saleable
> commodities leaves out the
> external costs of production, polluting the air and
> water, wasting
> water and other "common property" resources, etc. In
> fact, as K. Hunt
> points out, the profit motive _implies_ the drive to
> externalize costs
> (and internalize benefits), i.e., to figure out
> _new_ ways to raise
> profits by dumping costs on others and on Nature.
>
> Thus, the torch has been passed, from Malthusian
> crises to ecological
> crises: capitalism creates a new global crisis of
> external costs,
> i.e., global warming, the ozone thinning, etc.
>
> (On the "Malthusian" end, the spread of capitalism
> can also cause
> over-population because (1) it tends to destroy
> pre-capitalist
> societal checks on population growth (infanticide,
> etc.); and (2) can
> raise the number of infants who survive to be adults
> via higher
> nutrition and the like.)
>
> > 3) It seems true that the carrying capacity of the
> > earth ecologically speaking will not support a
> > bourgeois Western lifestyle with two SUVs in every
> > garage, suburban housing with cars, strip malls,
> > individually owned everything, and consumption of
> > energy at current levels. Even if we can generate
> > enough power and do not run out of nonrenewable
> > resources like oil, global warming is a real
> threat.
>
> I don't believe in peak oil, but I guess peak oil
> fears can be a good
> thing if they encourage conservation, i.e.,
> efficiency in energy use.
>
> > But this problem will not be solved by reducing
> > population or reducing the rate of increase of
> > population -- that might slow the effects but we
> are
> > getting the problems right now. We need to change
> our
> > expectations, not necessarily lower them, but
> change
> > them. Use more public transit, rely on
> low-emission
> > renewable resources, concentrate jobs near
> residences,
> > promote communal use of tools like washers and
> dryers
> > (people do this in cities as it stands).
> >
> > The likelihood that any of what is needed will
> happen
> > in time to avert collapse -- not revolutionary
> > transformation, just collapse -- does bot seem
> very
> > high. Or maybe I'm just being depressive.
>
> it seems that now, more than ever, socialism is
> needed. Planning is
> needed to deal with the ecological crisis. And it
> can't be the
> corporate/IMF/World Bank style of planning but a
> democratic kind.
> --
> Jim Devine / "Sanity is a madness put to good use."
> -- George Santayana.
>
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