On Apr 16, 2010, at 6:32 PM, Richard Seymour wrote:
> On 16/04/2010 20:58, Doug Henwood wrote:
>> I think I have taken you up on it. I don't agree. I like change.
>
> Surely it is pointless to enthuse about 'change' in the abstract. The
> invasion of Iraq was change. Pinochet was change. Katrina was
> change.
> Repossession is change. No child left behind was change. This small
> sample of capitalism's celerity is probably more representative of the
> general state of things than any more positive example you could cite.
> Most of what passes for 'change' under capitalism is seriously
> damaging,
> sometimes devastating, to the majority of human beings on the planet.
I dunno, the fact that we are typing at each other seems like a pretty major, and mostly good, change. The fact that people live longer than they used to is another. All that good stuff early in the Manifesto is too. Of course the invasion of Iraq and natural disasters are awful changes. I'm not celebrating change in the abstract. I think that technological change has many good aspects, as does the division of labor.
> I really doubt that this is the explanation. The truth is that the
> Left
> has been forced by its weakness into a conservative position of
> protecting things worth conserving - ecology, the welfare state, civil
> liberties - from the revolutionary energy of capitalism.
Problem is we now have almost nothing positive to offer. We've become something of a party of "No," and that's not good. Over the long term, not having at least a utopian possibility on offer is a serious problem.
I'm not sure what defending ecology means here. If it's some sort of Vandana Shiva-like rooted tending of the lentils I'd have to vote no. If we want to combine complex production with the protection of nature, that's something I can endorse with enthusiasm. There's a lot to admire in the Cuban combination of biotech and organic farming.
Doug