[lbo-talk] 35-cent ice cream and anarchist theory

James Heartfield Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
Fri May 1 12:58:31 PDT 2009


Joseph Catron: "mainstream ecology would hold that the Earth cannot support anything close to six billion people with lifestyles remotely approaching that of the average Western worker"

Yes, it is convenient that science keeps coming up with reason why non-Europeans must be kept in poverty. In 1845 political economists told us that the Irish famine was a natural necessity; in 1932 the International Eugenic Conference assured us that it made sense to curb the non-white races; in the 1960s development theory assured us that third world economies would reach their "take off" some time soon; in the 1970s the computer scientists working for the Club of Rome assured us that oil and other minerals would run out by 1992 at current growth rates; around the same time Kissinger's National Security Memo said that curbing population in the third world was a strategic interest of the US; in the 1980s it was the turn of the neoclassical economists to explain that third world states should sell of their assets and float their currencies; and today the "global footprint" people are arguing once again that it is impossible for third world peoples to raise their consumption. Funny that the scientific explanations keep changing, but the conclusion always remains the same.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list