[lbo-talk] Urbanization, Industrialization, and Feminism (was incentive to have big families)

[JBrown72073 at cs.com]

Yoshie writes:
>Under capitalism, feminism and environmentalism may be at odds with
>each other: urbanization and industrialization usually are necessary
>conditions for the development of feminism (beyond the elite) and
>gender equality; but urbanization and industrialization tend to bring
>more energy-intensive lives and push up per capita energy use.  It may
>be possible to urbanize and industrialize without wrecking the
>environment under another mode of production; but it must be noted
>that historical socialist records on the environment are on the whole
>unpromising.  

You could equally argue that education (beyond the elite) is at odds with the 
environment under capitalism, because it too generally requires urbanization 
and industrialization.  But then, under capitalism, humanity is at odds with 
itself, which seems to be much more of an environmental hazard than feminism or 
public education.  

Also, urbanization turns out to be much less anti-nature than rural 
development at least as practiced in the U.S., and let's face it, what's practiced in 
the U.S. is at least 50% of the problem, globally.  And you'd have to make a 
convincing case that _lack_ of industrialization is so all-fired great for the 
environment under capitalism, since enclosure means displaced people go cut 
down the nearby woods to farm there until the soil washes away.  Capitalism 
underdevelops and de-develops plenty, so there are lots of examples of 
non-industrialized capitalism we could draw on that don't seem to be all that great for 
the environment, and I don't think we can fairly say they are outside the 
capitalist mode of production.

Jenny Brown