The latter under capitalism. As I assume that a society under the control of an association of producers will be rational enough to plan production so that we can live "in harmony with the Earth", I would speculate that such a society would come to endorse population goals which would enhance living in harmony with Nature. The complete transition out of the mess which the wages system has left us will take some time to accomplish. Birth control will be part of that democratically planned transition, IMO.
[WS:] Frankly, I do not see how collective ownership per se is going to solve the problems of externalities (pollution, etc.) as well as population growth. Most of "capitalist" (if this term is appropriate here) societies outside the US have already achieved zero population growth and are heading towards a "harmony with nature" (albeit it will be a while before they start reversing some of the mess we are in.) Environmentalism is a big thing in EU mainstream thinking - including corporations (see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility, http://www.csr.gov.uk/, http://www.csreurope.org/, http://www.bsr.org/CSRResources/index.cfm ). Only the US is an obstructionist - so clearly the problem is not with capitalism in general, but with the "peculiar institutional nature" of the US economy, politics, and society.
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Common ownership and control of the means of production and the governing structures of society is more democratic than capitalist control of same. If we assume that those who control the means of production act in their interests, then we can assume that "a free association of producers where the conditon for the freedom of one is the condition for the freedom of all" will not be pursuing (to give one example) greenhouse gas emitting fuel as a means of propelling their transport in an age when it is glaringly apparent that to continue to do so is tantamount to shitting in one's nest.
********************************************************************** (WS) Outside Western Europe and North America, the only country that achieved a reasonable population growth rate control is China - and did so by means that are far from collective ownership. They did so by a rather authoritarian top-down bureaucratic control. In most other countries, there is no effective population control, except in the most crude and barbaric forms - by disease, poverty, overexploitation of natural resources, starvation, and warfare.
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(MB)
Agreed. Population levels off in the already industrialized countries and the capitalist class produces profits from exploiting both at home and abroad. The interest of the population and the Earth take a back seat to the profit motive and this is because their is no "association of producers" in control of the means of production.
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An argument can be made that decentralized ownership of the means of production is likely to contribute to negative externalities and population growth, as the individual producer units will have an incentive to increase their own workforce and export pollution and waste outside their own boundaries to optimize their output and competitive advantage over other units.
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(MB)
Agreed. Decentralizing into "individual producer units" with each unit in a war with all for its own profit would be pointless and destructive. But common ownership of the means of production is not this, it is grassroots democratic control of the totality of productive means. "...the condition of each....the conditon of all..." **************************
To summarize - In my view the EU style "mixed economy" (which I think is avmore appropriate descriptor than "capitalism") is probably our best hope for achieving a "harmony with nature" without sacrificing modern amenities and life style. Only the US model of economy and society is a problem here .
Wojtek
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I applaud every leftist baby step which can be taken towards funneling more of the wealth (and by extension) power to control the social product of our collective labour back to the workers themselves--ah Sweden. But where there is wage labour, their is capital. Wage labourers have no ownership over the social product of their labour--even at SAAB. The politicians in a bourgeois democracy must cater to the owners of the means of production. At best, wage labourers can choose which politician to vote for, but as has been pointed out on this list countless times, politicians, most especially, the officially legitimized politicians of the "major" parties, are first selected by the bourgeois power brokers before they are offered up for "sale" to the "masses" in the "marketplace of ideas" i.e. at the polls.
Best,
Mike B)
Read "Penguins in Bondage": http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
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