[lbo-talk] Cooler Elites - a story of accommodation to the bourgeoisie

Patrick Bond pbond at mail.ngo.za
Fri Apr 20 23:04:27 PDT 2007


Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> [WS:] Not just Americans, all people are very reluctant to change the way of
> life and thinking as they know it. It is human nature. Jared Diamond talks
> about it at length in his book on the subject (_Collapse_) citing examples
> of cultures that went extinct rather than changing their tradition-honored
> life styles. That is why we cannot count on popular movements to address
> the climate change problem. It must come from the top, and it will be very
> unpopular. That feeds right into you final conclusion that we have no other
> choice but to "count" on business interests to do something about the
> climate change.

Wojtek, my friend, you are getting more and more conservative. Bal'mer doesn't suit you. Don't you see that it's not 'the people' who failed to adapt regularly, but their ruling classes? WWII showed that even in the US very dramatic changes in lifestyle could be engineered top-down. The point about climate change is that the accumulation of capital requires this self-destructive process to proceed apace, and hence we won't see any real action from the capitalist class. That's what's tragic about Doug's article - he can't quite bring himself to say that we're all going to hell because these elites simply aren't going to change the accumulation driver underlying climate change (they'll fiddle with carbon trading and offset gimmickry while we all burn). Doug's ambitions are so low now, he's pleased to see a couple of icecubes tossed into the inferno. Doug, you can do better, comrade, especially because we *are* on the verge of building mass movements around the world. Concientization always comes first, and a decent, principled political project invariably follows, amidst the pathetic last-gasp reformers whose mild-mannered palliatives always distract attention instead of contributing to a genuine solution. So leave *that* project behind now, comrade, you've milked it as much as you can.



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