Thomas Friedman -- la moustache de la sagesse -- has a column up (NYT $elect; reprinted in full here) suggesting that his "geo-green" shtick would be a good basis for a third party presidential candidacy. God love The Mustache for bringing energy issues to a broad audience, but this column is dopey.
Let's start with this:
What might a Geo-Green third party platform look like?
Its centerpiece would be a $1 a gallon gasoline tax, called "The Patriot Tax," which would be phased in over a year. People earning less than $50,000 a year, and those with unusual driving needs, would get a reduction on their payroll taxes as an offset.
Putting aside the rather paltry size of the tax and the difficulty of determining "unusual driving needs," this seems sensible enough, though a broad carbon tax would be preferable. But:
The billions of dollars raised by the Patriot Tax would go first to shore up Social Security, second to subsidize clean mass transit in and between every major American city, third to reduce the deficit, and fourth to massively increase energy research by the National Science Foundation and the Energy and Defense Departments' research arms.
What a bizarre list. Social Security is fine. If it's deficit-killing expenditures you're after, why not start with healthcare? And I'm all for mass transit, but is it more important than getting alternate sources of energy online? If reducing the deficit is so important, why does Friedman -- and virtually every other pundit -- insist that a gas tax be revenue neutral?
This, however, may be the most extravagant claim:
By stimulating all these alternatives to oil, we would gradually bring down the price, possibly as low as $25 to $30 a barrel. That, better than anything else, would force regimes like those in Iran, Sudan, Egypt, Angola, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to open up.
A $1 gas tax would reduce oil prices by more than half and stimulate reform across the Middle East, huh? That's quite a campaign promise.
By far the most annoying bit, and my whole reason for writing this post, is this:
Frankly, I wish we did not need a third party. I wish the Democrats would adopt a Geo-Green agenda as their own. (Republicans never would.) But if not, I hope it will become the soul of a third party.
Frankly, I wish pundits would pull their heads out of their asses. Why don't the Democrats adopt the geo-green agenda? Friedman doesn't speculate. He's just bemused. Probably because they're just not as clever as The Mustache, right?
Oh, or wait. Maybe it's because if Democrats so much as breathed a hint of a gas tax, Republicans would immediately attack and vilify them, ensuring an electoral catastrophe.
And guess what? Republicans would do that to a third party, too.
The primary impediment to good energy policy is the domination of America's ruling party by corporate interests with a financial stake in the status quo. Republican corporatism serves those wealthy interests at the expense of the larger public. Period.
Saying that would no doubt get Friedman tagged "shrill" and damage his carefully cultivated reputation as a centrist, which requires him to play along with the fiction that both parties are equally culpable for our current situation. But it would have the advantage of not being written with an air of children's pretend, carefully ignoring the elephant in the room.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: We don't need a third party. We need the obstructionist party to get out of the way.
City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks
Oil: enough energy to melt glaciers!
Comments
View as Flat
GRLCowan Posted 4:03 am
20 Jun 2006
Workers in gas-tax-funded alternative energy would similarly know their pay is contingent on nonperformance. Maybe no alternative energy source can really dethrone gasoline, but this way, we can be sure.
Insisting such a tax be revenue-neutral in its onset, through reduction of other taxes, may be an attempt to solve this conflict-of-interest problem, but if so it is a doomed one. Suppose the public tries to get out from under the new fossil fuel tax by burning less, and is successful. Are the other, formerly reduced taxes now raised again? Are those fat on public money about to get leaner? Or are they going to do everything they deniably can to punish fossil thrift, even more than they do now?
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: fire without exhaust gas
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gchq Posted 4:46 am
20 Jun 2006
As for 'patriot' tax - what's patriotic about handing over you heard earned dollars for someone else to decide how to squander it? It's just a sentimental use of a word, like the 'patriot' act that belies its true intent!
Qui me amat, amet et canem meum
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LegumeSam Posted 5:41 am
20 Jun 2006
Oh, or wait. Maybe it's because if Democrats so much as breathed a hint of a gas tax, Republicans would immediately attack and vilify them, ensuring an electoral catastrophe.
And guess what? Republicans would do that to a third party, too. The Republicans attack and vilify the Democrats anyway, conjuring up trivial reasons (e.g. "Swift Boat veterans") if serious ones do not support the Republican Party case. To say that the Democrats shy away from serious politics because they fear Republicans is to suppose that anything would be meaningfully different about the Republican response if the Democrats were to advocate serious politics. I see no evidence favoring such a supposition.
I don't think fear of Republican attack justifies Democrat politics. Researchers on political communication have known, since 1986 at any rate (and '86 was the heyday of attack advertising) that attack ads reduce the size of overall voter turnout for both sides, but mostly they reduce voter turnout for the side which is being attacked the most. So politicians can be expected to run attack ads regardless of what the spread of issues happens to be. They will just have to be endured.
A third and/or fourth political party in the US would diversify the spread of political ideas on the table, and it would further militate for a greater use of instant runoff voting and other such democratizing schemes.
And, as for the Democrats, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the Democrats do not recommend a gas tax because for the most part, they believe what the Republicans believe. This is why the Democrats can't be bothered to call for a pullout of troops from Iraq. There is a business-elite political consensus in America -- it's called the Washington Consensus, and both political parties believe devoutly in it. If there is any difference between the two parties ruling America, it's that the Democrats have to work harder to marginalize their "progressive" constituencies than do the Republicans. But marginalized they are.
American urban infrastructure is based on the perpetuation of cheap gas prices. This is why the US built a monstrosity like southern California, with endless networks of snarling freeways. Or even worse, Phoenix, with endless boulevards instead of freeways. Higher gas taxes will hurt the financial situations of lower-income Americans who have to use those infrastructural monstrosities to get to and from work. Before we call for higher gas taxes, let's show we've thought about them, those folks who today have to drive old gas-guzzlers on freeways to work because they can afford little else.
And thisWe don't need a third party. We need the obstructionist party to get out of the way tactic? It's a recipe for more of the same. Both parties are the obstructionist party. JOin the Green Party -- stop pursuing a "political career" and make a real difference.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:20 am
20 Jun 2006
Friedman has been the only big-time columnist I know who has been talking about these subjects. The fact that he's putting energy & foreign policy in the public eye is more significant than the details of his proposal.
I think I agree with him about a gas or carbon tax being revenue neutral. It is more important to get the idea introduced, and side-step the question of raising the general tax burden. The comments of poster gchq are only a mild taste of the opposition we would get without revenue-neutrality.
The other problem with using a gas/carbon tax to increase revenue is that the tax is generally regressive. A better place to push for raising revenue is rescinding Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.
I thought about your comment:
I'm all for mass transit, but is it more important than getting alternate sources of energy online? My conclusion is that mass transite IS more important, much more important. The reason is that energy of all sorts is becoming more expensive. Nothing on the horizon looks as cheap or as easy to exploit as petroleum and natural gas. All energy sources have side-effects. Therefore high priority should go to decreasing energy use - it's cheaper and more sustainable.
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David Roberts Posted 6:21 am
20 Jun 2006
Perot didn't get his issues on the national agenda -- he just assured that Clinton would win. Nader didn't get his issues on the national agenda -- he just assured that Bush would win. And neither candidacy did anything to militate for voting reforms that I agree are worthwhile. In short, third-party proponents seem to be operating entirely on faith and against considerable evidence.
The "Washington Consensus" is primarily about economic issues, particularly globalization. It's got nothing to do with the Iraq war. Several Democrats have called for pullout, but no unified Democratic statement has been made on the issue because Dems suffer from an image of weakness on foreign policy and, for better or worse, Republicans have effectively exploited it for electoral gains. That's how they've won every election since 2000.
There is something of an elite consensus forming around energy issues, too. What's blocking it from being made into practical policy is the influence of large corporations that are largely aligned with the Republican party. The Democratic party is the only countervailing force that makes any difference. Thems the breaks. You think Republicans wouldn't dance with glee if 5% of Dems bailed to join the Green party? It would be like Christmas for them.
It may make lefties, which seem to have learned nothing from the Nader disaster, feel good about themselves to condemn everything in the real-world political realm as hopelessly compromised. It's the same style of moral vanity shared by so-called centrists in the Beltway bubble and hard-core righties that are now condemning Bush for not being conservative enough.
But moral vanity, however satisfying, is inert and ineffectual. In the real world, changing things means participating, with all the compromises, coalition building, and grubby nose-to-the-grindstone organizing that entails.
www.grist.org
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sunflower Posted 7:07 am
20 Jun 2006
A fossil carbon tax will give us some time to adjust to the end of fossil fuels.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I hate politics. I will keep an empty stomach around Democrats and do what I can to start a revenue-neutral fossil carbon tax, not against the consumer at the pumps but rather at the mines and oil & gas fields. This tax should continue to escalate until nobody can afford to burn fossil carbon (unless exempted for CO2 sequestration or for some very critical isolated need).
When gross profits of 100% exist for renewables (as they do now for Alberta tar sands) then big money from existing institutions will supply the capital and organization needed for global renewable energy supply. A carbon tax will supply the tipping point for that carbon-neutral energy transition.
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David Roberts Posted 7:54 am
20 Jun 2006
www.grist.org
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amazingdrx Posted 7:56 am
20 Jun 2006
A party that is not about politics, instead it would feature solutions both sides could support to cure the problems all related to fossil and nuclear powered civilization.
War, terrorism, global climate disaster, economic devestation. Forget socialism versus capitalism, forget all the red herring issues this time around, these enerfy related problems trump those issues that will never be agreed upon anyway.
Gay rights, abortion, separation of church and state, issues like these that Rove keeps using to pander to the worst fears. For once set this stuff aside and admit this emergency ought to be the main focus until real solutions are actually implemented, not just talked about.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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David Roberts Posted 8:33 am
20 Jun 2006
What are these mythical solutions that people think will transcend politics? Advocates for third parties are always gesturing at them -- referring to them as "common sense" -- but never telling us what they are. Please tell me a policy that would a) drastically reduce CO2 emissions, and b) be supported by the industries that profit by emitting CO2.
www.grist.org
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LegumeSam Posted 8:35 am
20 Jun 2006
Perot didn't have a real agenda. Nader did not assure Bush's "victory" (if you can call rigged elections victories) in either election.
The "Washington Consensus" is primarily about economic issues, particularly globalization. It's got nothing to do with the Iraq war. I don't think so. The invasion of Iraq is about imposing a neoliberal model, which Klein misnames "neoconservative," upon Iraq. The "Washington Consensus" is also about maintaining "security" in the Middle East, and moving US troops from Saudi Arabia to Iraq was necessary for political stability in Saudi Arabia, to shut the "Muslim Brother" revivalists (often misnamed "Wahhabis") up.
There is something of an elite consensus forming around energy issues, too. What's blocking it from being made into practical policy is the influence of large corporations that are largely aligned with the Republican party. Can you trace the money on this one? The heads of the large corporations are the elitists.
The Democratic party is the only countervailing force that makes any difference. Thems the breaks. You think Republicans wouldn't dance with glee if 5% of Dems bailed to join the Green party? It would be like Christmas for them. If that were true, they wouldn't have given 100 times more money to Kerry than they gave to Nader. And tell me about John Kerry as a countervailing force -- or, rather, tell me something Noah Belikoff (see previous link) hasn't already said.
But moral vanity, however satisfying, is inert and ineffectual. In the real world, changing things means participating, with all the compromises, coalition building, and grubby nose-to-the-grindstone organizing that entails. I'm sure that "participating" has saved the world from global warming, the "tragedy of the commons" in the oceans, or the general global attack upon biodiversity. And you can see the wonders that "participating" has done to stem the collapse in value of the US dollar. The Democrats have "participated" for the last thirty years -- and lost power in practically every election.
It isn't me who has distanced himself from real-world politics. I've only pushed away the career ladder the Two-Party System offers its junior members.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:37 am
20 Jun 2006
Al Gore is a good example. Other examples from the past are civil rights and the social programs of the 30s. Many of the things we take for granted (e.g. 8-hour-day, Social Security) were originally proposed by the parties of the left.
The truth in what David is saying is that winning elections is critical and in our 2-party system that means working through the parties.
One strategy that makes sense to me is a political grouping that is a combination of think tank and pressure group.
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bookerly Posted 8:51 am
20 Jun 2006
The Democrats and Republicans face the same problem, an election system that favors money. Both parties are prisoners of the bribe/donation system that currently exists. Republicans have done a better job of adding a right wing social agenda to go with their support for corporate America (which doesn't care about anything except money).
There are two problems with the idea that Democrats will do the right thing if " the obstructionist party ... get(s) out of the way."
First, of all, it will never do so. Why should it? It is getting paid (well) to obstruct.
Secondly, during the many years when they were in power, the DEMOCRATS were equally obstructionist towards environmental issues. Remember, it was Clinton/Gore who allowed SUV's to be treated as business vehicles, thus not subject to mileage and emission controls. The DEMOCRATS did this.
Nor has there been any serious push among DEMOCRATS to support Kyoto.
I voted for them for many years, but stopped because we were making no progress.
Forget Friedman. Nader was a joke (I never liked him, and voted for him only reluctantly).
There are many one-party districts all over the country. A Green Party might begin by becoming the opposition in those districts. So, Pelosi (who has no real Republican opposition) gets a Green challenger as does Hasert (who has no real Democratic opposition).
This begins to provide a forum for framing the debate the way we want to, rather than ending up discussing the framing of folks like Friedman.
Personally, I don't feel good that everything in American politics is hopelessly corrupt, it makes me sick to my stomach. I am not looking for moral high ground, I am looking for a way to move the system. The Democrats aren't providing it.
From a left perspective, it seems to me that it is the centrists who are unrealistic dreamers (grin, back at ya!).
If the Republicans disappeared overnight, the corporate powers would just buy the Democrats, they did before, and nothing would change.
Look at the places in the country that are reliably Democratic. How are their environmental policies? How are they really different from places that are reliably Republican?
FWIW, I spent over ten years busting my ass in the trenches of the Democratic Party, only to watch it consistently betray everyone but the rich. Been there, done that, won't get fooled again.
(It is interesting to see people who are part of the MEM attack "lefties". Republicans never attack "righties", they regard them as allies.)
One reason that some of us are against the two parties, is that we don't see any signs of real change coming from them. None.
Historically, the center shifts to the left when there is a large and thriving left. We need such a left in America to move the country (and before people say that the environment is not a "left" issues, you should listen to right wing commentators for a while. They think it is, and will not change that position.)
It is certainly true we need to get out in the streets and organize! Only the massed power of the people will counter balance the money of the few. And apparently the few have decided that they can survive global warming quite nicely, so to Hell with the rest of us.
The Green Party should not be involved in national races as it's main focus. It should be working in one-party districts to become the second party, the opposition. It should be using that role to frame and put forward a progressive Green agenda. Then we might begin to see some progress!
patrick
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Bart Anderson Posted 9:19 am
20 Jun 2006
Two new forms of organizing seem to hold promise:
Online networking through blogs, discussion boards and news sites. As a mechanism for spreading and discussing ideas, it can't be beat. It's much more effective than the old days of mimeos. Daily Kos is the premier example.
Informal community organizing. Local food, local stores, local environmental groups, gardening, permaculture, etc. These interests provide a social network stronger than political organizations in the past.
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David Roberts Posted 9:37 am
20 Jun 2006
If third-party advocates were serious, they'd start at the lowest level, trying to win city council seats, mayorships, etc. They would not make it their goal to "spoil" presidential elections -- that is, like Nader's run, purest vanity.
One reason that some of us are against the two parties, is that we don't see any signs of real change coming from them. None.
I hear this a lot, but it's just nonsense. The political landscape has changed drastically since 2000. It hasn't changed in the direction I might have wanted, or on the issues I'd most like to see changed, but it's definitely changed.
All this strikes me as (largely justified) anger that the Democrats are so ineffectual. But the way our political system is constructed, the only thing to do about that is make them effectual. All else is self-gratifying symbolism, a high-minded version of taking your toys and going home.
We're running out of time. I just want to do what works, and it seems fairly obvious at this point that third parties don't work -- or in fact they work to the detriment of the very positions they claim to champion.
www.grist.org
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bookerly Posted 9:37 am
20 Jun 2006
Hi Bart,
To some extent, I agree with you. After all, here I am..
But, we should always remember that the internet does not reach all Americans. And when we look at folks like Daily Kos, they look awful white and male to me (I am one myself). Which is not reflective of America.
Effective organizing will get us out away from the net, into communities, where we can reach everyone (or larger numbers). Poor people, who suffer the quickest from environmental degradation, are our natural allies. But we often don't reach them.
I absolutely agree with you about local networks based on local organizations.
But, also, (for urbanites), we should consider block parties, places where we can talk to all of our neighbors (and listen). We need to build new communities with what we have, which includes the folks next door.
It will take time, but I believe it is one of the most effective means of organizing available.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 9:53 am
20 Jun 2006
This is basically untrue...
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 9:59 am
20 Jun 2006
We can see the difference in perspective here, David believes that being involved in the two party system "works", I believe it doesn't.
I could do without the insults, I am not in favor of "self gratifying symbolism" nor have I "taken my toys and run home".
I stand corrected, real change has occurred. Both parties have gotten more corrupt, and the system has become less democratic.
An interesting thing (to former Democrats like myself) is that I feel more anger from Democrats to wards the left than towards Republicans! If only Democrats would attack Republicans the way they attack Greens! Wow, how wonderful that would be (grin). Oh, wait, Republicans have money. Greens don't. Ah well, sling away!
The Democrates controlled both houses of the United States Congress until 1994. And during that time, they did nothing about global warming (which many people saw coming for a long time!).
David says "We're running out of time. I just want to do what works, and it seems fairly obvious at this point that third parties don't work -- or in fact they work to the detriment of the very positions they claim to champion."
Funny, I would change "third parties" to "the two major parties" and make the same statement.
Is it possible for us to explore this "gap" in understanding, or are we too inflexible?
Why are our views of the situation so different, given that we want the same results?
patrick
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David Roberts Posted 10:14 am
20 Jun 2006
It seems to me that saying "both parties" do XYZ has become an intellectual tic, more a habit than a real analysis. It's not an accurate representation of recent political history. The story of the last 20 or 30 years has been the absolute radicalization of the Republican party -- a story told well in a book called Off Center, by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. That's the story. That's what has to be countered or overcome.
Saying "a pox on both their houses" is easy, but it obscures more than it reveals.
www.grist.org
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LegumeSam Posted 10:49 am
20 Jun 2006
Then Belikoff's devastating resume of Kerry's vote followed, with the conclusion that that "A rigorous statistical analysis of Kerry's entire voting record in the 108th Congress reveals, however, that he falls right in the middle of an increasingly conservative Democratic Party -- tied with Joseph Lieberman, and only slightly more moderate than the conservative Dianne Feinstein" (This is a "real time" rating. At the time Belikoff did his survey, Kerry was tied with Lieberman. But a subsequent vote moved him into a pairing--perhaps prophetic--with Hilary Clinton, who's not that far from Lieberman on all the essentials anyway.):
S J Res 45. Amendment to Iraq war authorization to require president to go through the U.N.: authority for war could be authorized only in the event of Iraq's noncompliance with new U.N. resolution; a separate grant of authority would be required if the president wanted to act unilaterally. Oct 10, 2002. NO
S J Res 45. Vote to Reaffirm Congress's Constitutional Power to Declare War: use of force not connected to an imminent threat (preemption) would require additional grant of authority from Congress. (Resolution Authorizing the Use of Force in Iraq) Oct 10, 2002. NO
S 257. Vote to deploy a National Missile Defense system capable of defending against limited ballistic missile attack as soon as it is technologically possible. Mar 17, 1999 YES
S 517. Vote to establish a new automobile fuel efficiency standard that would encourage increased use of alternative-fueled and hybrid vehicles. Mar 13, 2002. NO
HR 4775. Vote to Exempt the U.S. from Following Directives of the International Criminal Court and Will of International Community. Jun 06, 2002. YES
HR 3009. Enable the President to Place International Trade Agreements Above Worker and Environmental Protections with No Changes Permitted by Congress. Aug 01, 2002. YES
S. Con. Res. 23. Vote to Eliminate Bush Tax Cuts to Reduce Deficit Spending and Protect Domestic Spending Priorities. Mar 21, 2003. NO
HR 622. Economic Stimulus/Amendment to Provide Tax Breaks to Corporations. Jan 29, 2002. YES
HR 3734. Welfare Reform/Vote limiting previous rights of children, immigrants, the poor, and the elderly; limiting free speech rights of not-for-profit organizations; establishing national identification database. YES
S 254. Juvenile Justice/Vote for Tough on Crime__ Measures: children as young as 14 to be tried in adult federal court; opens some juvenile records to schools and employers. 1999 YES
S. 1956. Government Funding of Religious Institutions/Vote to require state governments to contract with religious institutions to provide taxpayer-funded social services, proselytizing permitted. YES
HR 3103. Health Care Reform/Vote to give government and businesses access to confidential medical information about individuals without their consent; establish a national patient identification system. YES
HR 2202. Immigration Reform/Vote to limit rights of new immigrants; shield INS abuses from judicial sanction; erect substantial barriers to those seeking asylum. YES
S. 1664. National Identity Card/Vote to establish a national identification system employing computer databases to keep track of all Americans. YES
S 1510, HR 3694 and others. Facilitation of Wiretapping/Votes to increase FBI wiretap authority; permit law enforcement agencies to use "roving" (indiscriminate) wiretaps; increase authorization for "emergency" wiretaps without the prerequisite of a court order. 1995-9 YES
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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sunflower Posted 1:53 pm
20 Jun 2006
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rabbey Posted 1:58 pm
20 Jun 2006
One, it's basically a carbon tax (thus, a good thing) limited to transportation.
Two, politically it may be easier to accomplish than a general carbon tax. That is because In addition to combating global warming it ties into energy independence and long-term national security issues.
Three, it will be easier to administer than a general carbon tax. We know who's selling the gas - in fact, we already tax them - so it will be a simple matter. As opposed to the (more-) complex policy issues and the new bureaucracy that will be needed to administer a carbon tax (eg, energy accountants, emissions inspectors, tax evasion investigators).
Four, it can be transparently revenue-neutral (again, easier to sell to the voters). Here I disagree with Friedman. Don't pitch it as a fix for social security or anything else. Make it real simple, and just return all the taxes collected to citizens on a per capita basis (similar to Alaska's permanent dividend fund). This will address G. R. L. Cowan's concern (above) too. Each individual will have an incentive to reduce their fuel consumption (the price mechanism at work) and thus increase their "profit" from the per capita payout.
I especially like the per capita refund, because it makes it crystal clear that this is not an additional tax. Could the Republicans really argue against this? (Okay, fine, include interest in the refund amount, so that the govt. isn't denying people the time value of their money.)
The per capita refund may also address the regressive tax concern. I say "may" because it depends on whether poor folks have more or less ability to alter their fuel usage in the face of higher prices. (More philosophically, all taxes on necessities are regressive to some degree. We need to decide pretty quickly whether we're really willing to accept continuous global warming - the impact of which is itself highly regressive - in exchange for avoiding regressive taxes.)
Finally, as a registered Green, I would love to see a strong third party emerge based on this issue. That's not what Friedman is really hoping for, however - he's just raising the specter of a Nader-type spoiler to force the Dems to grab this issue first.
Ross
p.s. NPR's Car Talk guys have started calling for a similar (graduated) gas tax: http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/gastax/index.html
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sunflower Posted 3:02 pm
20 Jun 2006
We need a declaration of independence from corporate oligarchy.
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rabbey Posted 3:17 pm
20 Jun 2006
I still like the gas tax, however, as a significant first step towards a more broad-based carbon tax. In politics, trying to get where we need to be in a single leap can often lead to getting nowhere.
Take the Montreal Protocol (the single most successful international environmental treaty to date) as a model - it didn't outlaw all CFCs straight-away. It initially called for only modest reductions, in order to get buy-in and counteract the interested voices who wrongly claimed that CFC phase-out would "cost too much." Then, once countries were involved in the process and relationships had been form, it was much easier to ratchet up the emissions reductions.
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GRLCowan Posted 3:19 pm
20 Jun 2006
That seems good. I proposed it to Paul Martin, and he didn't run with it, and now he's out of office. How about that.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: fire without exhaust gas
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amazingdrx Posted 3:24 pm
20 Jun 2006
Can the majority organize behind simple solutions to tell the special interest groups of both parties that their clients need to lose their huge government subsidies?
And these subsidies need to be targeted towards consumers to adopt non CO 2 emmitting alternatives.
Gasoline would go up another 50 cents because of the lost corporate welfare, passing the losses onto US. Would consumers blame eco-green advocates or corporatistas?
As Al Gore said on "Countdown", a group of evangelical conservative congregations has joined the fight against global climate change.
People who don't agree on anything else can see the gas prices going up, storms getting worse, amd wars and terrorism getting wider.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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LegumeSam Posted 3:28 pm
20 Jun 2006
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:18 pm
20 Jun 2006
Assuming this is so, what productive things can we do in the meantime? How can people of both persuasions work together?
In fact (and this gets back to the original Friedman column), how can people with VERY different outlooks work together? Some ideas:
Note differences but don't dwell on them.
Look for common ground and work together when we can.
One essay that deeply affected me was "Politics of Survival" by environmentalist Kurt Cobb: What we are witnessing is the collapse of the politics of left and right and the replacement of those politics with what I call the politics of survival. Those who come to understand the gravity of our energy situation quickly abandon their previous political views and instead focus pragmatically on how we can make a successful energy transition. They do so because they know the cost of failure is too high a price to pay for ideology. In the politics of survival ideology counts for almost nothing. Pragmatic plans count for everything.
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David Roberts Posted 3:08 am
21 Jun 2006
But that description seems woefully inaccurate to me. It's a fairy tale. Republicans spout an ideology, but it has little connection with what they do. What they do is battle furiously on behalf of the interests of large corporate donors.
Democrats basically have no ideology at this point. The party is confused and diffuse and completely unable to counter the story Republicans tell about them.
In short, nobody is clinging to ideology. It's big, powerful, well-coordinated interests against dispersed, ineffectual, poorly coordinated public interests -- the oldest story in the book. The only way to deal with the situation is to organize the dispersed interests, unite them behind a couple of simple reforms, and use some media savvy to change the established narratives. There are glimmers of this happening in the Democratic party. I have heard no remotely plausible story about how it might happen around a third party.
www.grist.org
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LegumeSam Posted 4:09 am
21 Jun 2006
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 11:36 am
21 Jun 2006
We are all concerned about Global Warming. We still haven't got it figured out in a practical sense (as Americans).
David is correct that the Democrats don't believe in anything (I would say they do believe in collecting money) and the Republicans are scary.
I agree with Bart, I will work with anybody on this issue (if they are sincere about DOING something).
And I think that most of the postings here have been correct, even if they are not in agreement.
There is no need, really, for those who favor a third party to give it up. Nor for those who want to work within the Democratic Party to continue to do so. We should declare an environmentalist 10th commandment.
"Though shall not speak ill of other environmentalists"
Let's focus our fire on those who are attacking the idea of global warming. Let's admit that none of us has all the answers, but that all of us may have some of the answers. Let's continue with a multi=pronged offensive. Let's listen as much as we argue.
As Ben Franklin is reputed to have said "If we don't hang together, we'll all hang seperately."
Which is not to suggest that we don't sharply debate and criticize ideas, but that we remember we are arguing among friends and allies.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 4:07 pm
21 Jun 2006
So let's do a thought experiment in the politics of survival, to see how the above ideology plays itself out.
Imagine we're in Guyana in 1978, in Jonestown, and Jim Jones is rehearsing mass murder/ suicide with the People's Temple cultists. We, like everyone else, are about to die. What should we do?
One thing we could do would be to persuade our leader, Jones himself, to put more Valium in the cyanide-Koolaid mix so that we'll be sleepier when we all die. Such an option would not disturb the cult that set up Jones as leader of the People's Temple, and of Jonestown, but it would make life better for those about to die an agonizing death due to cyanide poisoning.
Would that be "pragmatism"?
Another option would be to kill Jones and attempt to de-program the cult members, much as I would like to de-program the human race of the spell cast upon them by capitalist social relations. A lot of people would survive, but that would amount to a programmatic, and ideological, rejection of the People's Temple cult itself.
Would that be "ideology"?
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:49 am
22 Jun 2006
In the meantime, let me say that I enjoyed & mostly agreed with what David and patrick wrote. I can sympathize with LegumeSam, but I'm afraid that black/white thinking traps us in inflexible responses. His Jonestown metaphor shows the importance of choosing the appropriate frame. To me, a more apt metaphor is that of World War II, in which nations & classes co-operated and shared sacrifices for the common good.
My experience in the Peak Oil blogosphere has made me realize that worthwhile insights & actions are coming from all over the political spectrum (with the exception of the Bush administration and the right-wing machine). The people who voted for Bush are a diverse group, from cultural conservatives, to libertarians, to the corporate elite, to people concerned with national security, etc. Many of these groups are amenable to rational arguments. Some of them are ahead of most environmentalists on energy and the importance of conservation & efficiency.
I just watched several short videos of Friedman on the "Addicted to Oil" website (has background material for his 1-hr documentary on Discovery channel this Sunday) and I'm impressed.
Friedman has an uncanny ability to reach out to the Center. Look at his phrase: Green is the new Red, White and Blue. A magnificent piece of framing.
He also "gets" the connection between global warming, economic success, national security and the end of cheap oil. So even though his politics are not my politics, he and his "geo-greens" are people I can work with.
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LegumeSam Posted 9:49 am
22 Jun 2006
Why is World War II an "appropriate" frame?
First of all, it's difficult for me to imagine that global warming, ecosystemic collapse, the "tragedy of the commons" in the oceans, peak oil, etc. are all phenomena that can be attributed the modern equivalents of Hitler, Tojo, or Mussolini, i.e. the problems that caused World War II. The problem today isn't some enemy nation that is attacking us -- it's the huge ecological footprint of human activity as a whole, to be attributed proportionally more to the high-consumption lifestyles of the wealthiest people in the exploiter nations. The Chinese who ride bicycles create much less of a footprint per person than the jet-set crowd, for instance.
Why must "classes" "co-operate and share sacrifices for the common good"? It isn't the poorest half of humanity, the half that lives on two bucks a day, that is benefitting from the high-consumption economy that is dismantling the Earth's ecosystems. Are they the ones who have to "share sacrifices"? How do we envision this occurring? I imagine Bill Gates "sharing sacrifices" with a Bangladeshi peasant -- the peasant gives up her cow, and starves to death, and Bill Gates gives up a couple of million dollars, and loses only a tiny portion of his total wealth. The poor have already given up past and present -- shall we demand the future from them too?
And what kind of "flexible" response do you see emerging as regards, say, global warming? Are we supposed to be "flexible" enough to, for instance, try to solve the global warming while keeping the current economic system going? I use this as an example because this is precisely what the Kyoto Protocol is about -- in fact, the Kyoto Protocol sides with the "Washington Consensus," in marketizing the public's perception of the problem by creating a "carbon credits" exchange. (Never mind the whole flawed ideology of "carbon pollution." Is that what I do when I exhale, "carbon pollution"?)
In short, are we supposed to solve the global warming problem while at the same time promoting the unhindered marketization of human social relations around the globe, as enforced by the neoliberal "Washington Consensus"? Do you think it will have a shred of a chance of working? As Paul Prew says:Although capitalism must expand both extensively and intensively, our earthly biosphere is finite. There must be centers of accumulation and regions of extraction. The flow of energy and materials tends to occur geographically from the peripheries to the core, while the waste tends to be concentrated in the peripheral regions. This flow tends to create a division between town and country, but the expansion of capitalism, necessary to its logic, poses limits to the development of these polar relationships. The peripheries develop complexity at the same time that values are depleted, but peripheral regions must develop complexity in a certain fashion to serve the needs of the core. So called "development" is not possible for all regions of the world because of the nature of global world-system and the very logic of capitalism.
The question to be asked, really, is whether we proceed with capitalism until we reach an ecological bifurcation point that leaves the habitability of the earth in question for the vast majority of the population, or we reach a social bifurcation point that leads us to a social system of production that is dissipative, nonetheless, but does not threaten the flowing balance of nature.
Should our response to capitalism's ecological crisis should be "flexible" enough to permit of any discussion of alternatives to capitalism?
One of the reasons I chose Jim Jones' Jonestown as a metaphor for the eco-destruction that is going on now, was because fleshing out the analogy of Jonestown illustrates the difficulties that arise when we propose a black-and-white distinction between "pragmatism" and "ideology." "Pragmatism" is an ideology. And our problem, the problem of the global environmental crisis, is ideological. Capitalist businesses have an ideology that ensures their allegiance to profit as a priority. If, coincidentally, they happen to agree with the environmentalists who propose government regulation as regards the environment (at some point in time), we should investigate to see whether said businesses stand to gain increased market share from the new regulatory environment. No business prioritizes any force that will threaten it with bankruptcy, and that's ideologically so.
Here's what I'm proposing: let's try not to imagine that we can escape ideological problems by hiding in some imagined "pragmatism" that will do away with them.
Or, more daringly: just for a moment, let's imagine ourselves suppressing the reflex that makes us provide ideological cover for those who don't want to do what it takes. What happens then?
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 10:34 am
22 Jun 2006
When the ship is sinking, do we ask who's hand is pulling us into the lifeboat? No, at least not in the movies. There we can all join hands and work together. In real life, it is less likely to be a millioniare's hand pulling a garbage sorting peasant into the lifeboat (they are sitting up top, and their boat is full, umm, the millionaire, not the peasant).
One of the curious things about global warming is the lack of immediacy in addressing it on the parts of the developed countries "well off" classes. I have been thinking about this lately, and it occured to me that what I see as a disaster, they may not. It is quite possible that folks running large corporations (some of them) and wealthy campaign donors (unknown percent) believe that they can survive global warming nicely, thank you.
And maybe even prosper.
So, while some of us feel an urgency to solve the problem, other people honestly (and wrongly, I believe) think that it really won't affect them so much.
This is one of the places where ideology specifically becomes part of the problem. If your ideology is "individualism" (me first), and you have plenty of money, then you may feel like global warming is not something YOU need to care about, even if it gets very bad for that poor peasant somewhere.
So, the danger of the pragmatists approach is that some forces in society have decideded "pragmatically" that this is not really their problem. While the WWII metaphor is certainly a hoped for one, we should realize that it might not apply here.
(And we should not forget that certain large corporations and capitalists in the West worked with their "national" enemies for the sake of profit even as their poorer countrymen were preparing to die on the battlefield.)
Pragmatically do I welcome anyone who wants to work to stop global warming? You betcha!
But when I look at who is doing so in the developing world, there is generally a large silence coming from the well off. The companies that are concerned are those who have "pragmatically" decided that this will cost them money, while those who believe that there is no serious impact to their bottom line, don't care.
It is one of the basic problems with western capitalism (being an especially short term thinking, bottom line driven variation of the genre). The lack of social responsibility built into the part of society that makes most of the decisions is having some serious negative results.
What does this have to do with the two vs. three party systems?
Simply, both parties are controlled by campaign donations, and therefore various sectors of capital. The Republicans have, in addition, developed an extremely anti-environmental virulent social philosophy. The Democrats are interested in greed alone, without ideology.
Some people feel that the Democrats will adopt an environmental platform because they feel the pressure from their constituents (and if you are out of office, the money dries up).
Others feel that the lure of immediate money will keep them from ever actually "doing" anything (while promising to study and consider (stall) forever).
Green party advocates believe that a new cleaner party can replace the old corrupt one (as has happened in the past) and at least stay clean long enough to get us through the global warming crisis. Many of us also believe that the existance of a vibrant left party will help us find a place to stand and frame the terms of debate.
(Currently, we have no voice in politics (except Al Gore, and we should never rely on one person) for doing so.)
What is the ultimate need and goal of all of this? For some people it is what they call economic democracy, for others it is something called sustainable developement, for others it may be market socialism, for still others, perhaps a kind of gentler technologically clean capitalism.
I can't see the future that clearly, but I can see that we need to take major steps towards solving global warming, even as we continue ideological debate.
I don't believe that I am ever going to convince people who are deeply wedded to the Democrats to join a third party.
I do believe that if enough environmentalists got out and talked to enough people about the problems and possible choices (in which ever forum appeals to them), then the people might move and then make these ultimate decisions (my voice maybe being heard along with everyone else's amongst the cacaphony).
I support the idea of a leftward Green Party, but I welcome any signs of Democrats (or even Republicans, though that party as such is so rotten that it seems beyond hope to me) moving in the correct direction.
Victor Canning said in his novel "The Great Affair", "The great affair is to move." We need to move.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 11:21 am
22 Jun 2006
When the ship is sinking, do we ask who's hand is pulling us into the lifeboat? No, at least not in the movies. There we can all join hands and work together. In real life, it is less likely to be a millioniare's hand pulling a garbage sorting peasant into the lifeboat (they are sitting up top, and their boat is full, umm, the millionaire, not the peasant). The identity of the helping hand is likely to have been pre-determined ideologically: thus for instance the disaster in New Orleans, where on the one side you had the advocates of "mutual aid" ideologies such as Common Ground and Food Not Bombs, and on the other hand you had the advocates of bureaucratic ideologies such as FEMA and Blackwater.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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amazingdrx Posted 8:24 pm
22 Jun 2006
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 3:22 am
23 Jun 2006
But really, this has been an especially good conversation, in which Bart, LSam and Patrick have written some praiseworthy things, on "third parties" and on pragmatism vs. ideology. LSam's "pragmatism IS an ideology" is excellent.
Patrick, in one of his more bilious moods, writes from his bike in Beijing:
<< Simply, both parties are controlled by campaign donations, and therefore various sectors of capital. The Republicans have, in addition, developed an extremely anti-environmental virulent social philosophy. The Democrats are interested in greed alone, without ideology.>>
I do indeed agree that money more than anything determines what politicians say and do. And so, I do not believe that Republicans are anti-environmental through-and-through. They are de-facto anti-environmental, i.e. opposed to regulation, in favor of development, because that is the way their bread is buttered. But as soon as it becomes profitable to be pro-environmental -- as some Northeastern Republicans have realized, and as Jeb Bush and Schwarzenegger are always considering -- , they will make the switch.
And that is because the "virulent social philosophy" part is very true. For the same reason, the big energy corporations will never allow renewable energy technology to go forward unless and until they are sure they will come out on top. (And I think LSam and I talked about that in another thread.)
As for the Democrats: sure, many of them are greedy, perhaps most of them. But I cannot agree that they have no ideology, and that their greed is all that matters to them. Early on in their careers, they had to decide for themselves where they stood politically, with which party; and if making lots of money were all that mattered to them, chances are they would not have chosen to commit themselves to the Democrats -- unless they were very naive and foolish, or in Massachusetts.
I sorely regret, though, poor Patrick's sorry experiences with Democrats. And as I wrote on another occasion, I really really want him to write up his memoirs.
On third parties: It looks quite reasonable to say that third-party candidates in presidential elections have for the most part been spoilers (certainly true of Nader; less fair though to accuse Perot of that in 1992, given that for some time in the Spring and early Summer he was polling ahead of both Bush and Clinton), and therefore that kind of political movement on that level does not yet deserve much commitment. On the other hand, it makes great sense to invigorate and define the Green Party on the local level.
It looks like Eliot Spitzer, Democrat and NY attorney general, is going to be elected governor in November. Well, worse things could happen, I guess. He seems to be in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, which is very good (though of course that would have crazily bad repercussions nationally). But on the other hand he seems to be in favor of re-instituting the death penalty, which is hideously evil. So I am getting set to vote for the Green candidate, whoever that is.
On NY Times columnists: Tom Friedman, "Don Bigote," is less and less interesting, and I never read him anymore; and it rather surprises me that David Roberts continues to give him a fair amount of attention. Much much preferable, morally, are Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof.
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LegumeSam Posted 9:21 am
23 Jun 2006
The Ralph Nader for President campaign had no effect upon the outcome of either the 2000 or 2004 elections. In 2000, Al Gore won Florida, and the election; it was Republican maneuvering in the middle of the vote count that made the current Presidency possible. And in 2004, Kerry won Ohio, and the election; it was voting-machine hacking, with the blessings of the (Republican) Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, that created the result in the Electoral College.
The Democrats do not raise a fuss about either result, and this is so for many reasons, but one of them is that one point of running the representatives of two right-wing parties in every US election is to keep the Left from re-emerging in America. If there is a political office somewhere in America, representatives of the Duopoly will regard it as a career niche.
The whole "spoiler" line is routinely used by elite Democrats to justify silencing the Left. Remember all of those anti-war Kerry delegates at the convention in Boston two years ago? History will not remember that they had convictions. The "spoiler" logic fails on three counts. Firstly, candidates who tell the public that "as bad as I am, you have to vote for me to avoid electing the other person" do not deserve my vote, since their "appeal" to the voters is nothing more than blackmail. Can you trust a candidate who blackmails you? Secondly, candidates who are truly despicable, such as Bush, will resort to extra-legal means of winning elections. Why should we trust bourgeois democracy to keep them out of power? Thirdly, if in election after election we are faced with candidates who care not at all for the popular will, and who harbor an increasingly irrational devotion to capital in an era of mounting crisis, we may just have to endure a few spoiled elections before a third-party candidate (e.g. Abe Lincoln, Hugo Chavez) emerges from the ruins of the old system. There's no substitute for dedication. At any rate, there is plenty to suggest that Bush, and not Kerry, was the lesser of two evils.
There are, indeed, economic and political reasons why the two major US political parties have become so much alike. Mostly they derive from the narrowing political maneuvering-room that capital has placed upon the American political system as a whole. Demands for capitalist profit are moving further and further upward while the global growth rate has slowed significantly since 1970. Harry Shutt's The Trouble With Capitalism describes this situation succinctly. Indeed, there is a likelihood that a third party, or a Nader candidacy, would have to follow the same logic if it were eager to grab the brass ring of success and win the next election. Even the Green Party could fall into this trap. This is why any meaningful alternative to the Two-Party System must be accompanied by a mass movement to change the system as a whole. At any rate, the Democrats do not deserve our support precisely because they have turned their backs upon mass movements in general and have developed an efficient apparatus for shutting them down.
As ecologists with an understanding of economic logic, we ought to be demanding an end to the whole "grow or die" logic of the system, for eventually the "grow or die" system will demand that every ecosystem on the planet be "placed into production." Incrementalism will not move fast enough to save us from this outcome. Are we supposed to fight for a better world only on the weekends, and grab the brass rings during the workweek?
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:37 pm
23 Jun 2006
The question is how to reduce the ecological footprint? The old IPAT formula gives some hints:Impact equals Population times Affluence times Technology. [I = PAT]
Which is to say, the damage we do to the earth can be figured as the number of people there are, multiplied by the amount of stuff each person uses, multiplied by the amount of pollution or waste involved in making and using each piece of stuff.
Donella Meadows Each of these factors must be dealt with, and the work will be complicated - not reducible to a formula like "free markets" or "classless society". (See the link to the Meadows article for an excellent critique of IPAT, from the point of view of social justice.)
Promising work is being done in a multitude of places, under a variety of banners: "permaculture," "food security," "re-localization," "simple living." Communist Cuba took a dramatic turn to sustainable farming after the fall of the USSR. Capitalist Sweden has promised to abandon the use of oil within decades. A group of British corporations has demanded that the Labour government come up with firm regulations on CO2 emissions.
I run across mind-blowing items like this (Eugene Register-Guard):You wouldn't have thought it possible: a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency drawing a standing ovation from a room full of left-leaning environmentalists right here in Eugene.
But that's exactly what happened at the University of Oregon's Public Interest Environmental Law Conference Saturday afternoon as R. James Woolsey - the nation's chief "spook" under President Bill Clinton from 1993-1995 - spoke passionately about the need to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.
"There is a moral dimension to this," Woolsey said. "We should be good custodians of the Earth.
And if that means creating an unlikely alliance between national security hawks, American farmers, Christian evangelicals, liberal do-gooders and tree-hugging environmentalists, Woolsey said, that's just fine with him.
"All these groups are starting to come around on this set of issues," he said.
Does this mean that I agree with Woolsey and Friedman on their other politics? Not at all. But for effective political work, one has to enter into alliances - co-operating where possible, disagreeing or leaving when necessary. Caroline Casey, the "Visionary Activist," has a wonderful spiel on "how to be a good ally."
LS: Why must "classes" "co-operate and share sacrifices for the common good"? Because this is a general problem facing humanity. If we don't solve global warming & energy problems, the brunt will be borne by the poor. It is not fair.
The supreme unfairness is that the industrialized countries have used cheap fossil fuels to achive their supremacy and lifestyles. Newly developing countries like China and India will not have that advantage.
For these and many other reasons, those who have the most should be asked to do the most.
For me, the most important task is developing a low-energy, low-carbon way of life that is satisfying and meaningful.
LS: Are we supposed to be "flexible" enough to, for instance, try to solve the global warming while keeping the current economic system going? Yes. James Hansen estimates that we have 10 years to deal with global warming. Capitalism will not be abolished in those 10 years.
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LegumeSam Posted 2:06 am
24 Jun 2006
The supreme unfairness is that the industrialized countries have used cheap fossil fuels to achive their supremacy and lifestyles. Newly developing countries like China and India will not have that advantage. And the rest of the world will deny neither China nor India that advantage, not without a radical change in the framework of global economic competition. Once again, we are not talking about "working together for the common good," nor of "mutual sacrifice," but rather of denying others advantages we ourselves enjoy within the context of the existing system. (Granted, those others are elite others, i.e. the beneficiaries of capitalism in the "developing nations" context, but the contradiction remains.)
To re-emphasize an earlier point, this is why I do not think the World War II model carries any traction today. The IMF and the World Bank have held the "resource sink" nations to a capitalist model of progress for the past 20 years or so, imposing structural adjustment programs upon their economies as conditions of financial solvency. Is the proposal here that the elites are supposed to turn "eco-friendly" and screw the "resource sink" nations out of the capitalist ideals they were required to adhere to, while maintaining the existing system intact? Something has to give. I say that the thing that has to give is the system based on exploitation.
Now, of course it is worthwhile to see the good in gestures like Capitalist Sweden has promised to abandon the use of oil within decades. but there is a disjoint in time-frame here. It is also argued in the same breath that James Hansen estimates that we have 10 years to deal with global warming. How does the first gesture mean anything in terms of the second? There is also the matter of contextualizing Sweden's proposal in the context of the "transnational world order." As Jerry Harris puts it: The transnational system is characterized by cross border mergers and acquisitions, foreign direct investment, cross border flows of capital, global production chains, foreign affiliates, outsourcing labor, multilateral trade agreements, the creation of a common global regulatory structure for finance, trade and investment, and using the state to rearrange national structures to serve the global economy. Now, it's nice that Sweden wants to become less fossil-fuel dependent, but don't the corporations just outsource their fossil-fuel bills elsewhere?
And the question of "Why must 'classes' "co-operate and share sacrifices for the common good" was phrased not in terms of our own perceptions of a "general problem facing humanity" (to which the common answer will be "don't tell me what my problems are") but rather in terms of what the classes have to sacrifice. We can not discuss social classes without also discussing what divides humanity into social classes. Labor is not capital insofar as it does not own the means of production within a system of private ownership for profit, and must therefore work for capital's profit. Asking labor to "sacrifice" must be seen in the context of capital's exploitation of labor. Dare we open our eyes to this?
The bottom line is one of what counts as "effective political work." As the editors of the Monthly Review suggest: The truth is that addressing the global warming threat to any appreciable degree would require at the very least a chipping away at the base of the system. The scientific consensus on global warming suggests that what is needed is a 60-80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels in the next few decades in order to avoid catastrophic environmental effects by the end of this century--if not sooner. The threatening nature of such reductions for capitalist economies is apparent in the rather hopeless state at present of the Kyoto Protocol, which required the rich industrial countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The United States, which had steadily increased its carbon dioxide emissions since 1990 despite its repeated promises to limit its emissions, pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 on the grounds that it was too costly. Yet, the Kyoto Protocol was never meant to be anything but the first, small, in itself totally inadequate step to curtail emissions. The really big cuts were to follow.
If the existing system is not going to change, radically, in the next ten years, then neither is its 85-million-barrel-a-day oil consumption habit. Count on it.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Storm Dragon Posted 4:41 am
24 Jun 2006
In my opinion, we need to push for serious election reforms, including instant run-off voting, proportional representation, and campaign finance reform. In a true democracy, no one should ever feel compelled to vote for "the lesser of two evils" as opposed to the canidate they really like.
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bookerly Posted 8:12 am
25 Jun 2006
Dear LegumeSam,
Your basic critiques are correct in some ways. But you seem to be (and please correct me with more information) assuming that the only (not just the basic) divisions are class.
While from an "ideal" Marxist critique, this is true, history has shown that national, religious, and even tribal allegiances can trump class.
It is just as likely that these divisions (national, religious and tribal) will sharpen and become part of the equation as that a class basic economic democracy will form.
We see this trend somewhat in the movement against US Imperialism in parts of the Middle East. Instead of a progressive class based critque of American Imperialism, we get a regressive religious/national based critique.
This is also true in the United States, where we see a growing religious/national based critique of the present system (the far right Christian/anti-immigrant trend (which I know I am lumping together)).
It is certainly true that "something" has to give in the present system of doing things.
The most likely to give is that the current energy producers will be sacrificed and replaced by solar/wind/other monopolies. They won't go without a fight, but they may indeed go.
One of the problems with essentially marxist critiques of society is that they fail to recoqnize the resilience of capital. The folks at the top are willing to compromise and change as much as required to hold on to power. So far, they have been successful.
While it is great to insist that without economic democracy, there can be no sustainable economy, the tie is not clear to the majority of workers, nor to anyone else. It is perhaps the least likely thing to happen.
The worst case is national/religious/tribal conflict over resources that keeps the problems from being solved.
For Americans (who are mostly seperated from the means of production, at least as classically defined), the question is what needs to be done to change the American pattern of energy/resouce consumption and pollution production.
America shipped most of it's dirtiest production overseas (or across borders) and the pollution that went with it. Yet, at the same it moved towards a service economy, it managed to do so without reducing either emissions or energy usage (an amazing feat!).
One of the questions about global warming is whether it is first a technical/political issue. By this, I mean, is it truly possible to continue the status quo only by changing our means of energy production (and depending on the change made, our CO2 and other emissions)?
If this is the case, then perhaps what is needed is a populist campaign against the evil oil companies demanding greater investment in renewables.
If this is the case, then the sharing technology part of Kyoto will be what allows the developing economies of the world to continue without adding to the burden imposed by the developed economies.
There are some issues (of course) to be resolved.
One. At the very least, large sums of money must be involved world wide in technological developement, then in developement of infastructure to change the nature of energy production (emission production). Where is this money going to come from?
It is unrealistic to expect poor people and nations to spend it, they don't have it. (It is worth noting that China is investing a fair amount anyway, because they see the need, but keep in mind the Chinese per capita income is still less then 10% of America's).
Two. Population is going to increase by about 50% (a bit less, but not so much as you or I would notice (smile)). This means that we need an infastructure that will support this increase. And we need to pay attention to where we build the infastructure. (If we build it in the developed nations only, it is reasonable to expect people to follow the infastructure.)
Three. We also face other resource issues such as the depletion of the oceans, the threats to biodiversity, and the problems of water. All of these may require further changes in lifestyle.
The issue of water is likely to require massive investments of money. See Issue One.
The best solution to the ocean's problems is that those who can (excluding the poor who live near the oceans), should stop eating fish from the oceans until they have time to recover.
The connection between a capitalist model built on over-consumption and global warming is clear. The connection between economic democracy and possible solutions (though lovely in principle) is not clear at all.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 4:16 pm
25 Jun 2006
First of all, I'm probably spending a lot of effort on this board addressing a problem that you don't have; the tendency to deal with ecological issues without reference to the political/ economic background of human society.
Secondly, just as capitalism has a resiliency that its detractors miss, so, also, marxism (this time in ecosocialist costume) has a resiliency that its detractors miss as well. It's easy to dismiss Marx, but not so easy to dismiss Alam or van der Pijl or Robinson or Sklair or Kovel or Sarkar or Mies or Freire or McLaren. We shall see, then, whether or not ecosocialism outlasts capitalism or becomes just another intellectual fad like postmodernism was. At any rate, some of your comments deserve a response:
Your basic critiques are correct in some ways. But you seem to be (and please correct me with more information) assuming that the only (not just the basic) divisions are class.
While from an "ideal" Marxist critique, this is true, history has shown that national, religious, and even tribal allegiances can trump class. I am indeed aware that humanity is divided in other ways than class. I am confronted with race/gender divisions every time I log onto Stan Goff's blog.
If it seems as if I overemphasize class divisions here, this is because I see Americans as wishing away the whole matter of class, to the detriment of the world. In American eyes, there is no such thing as social class, and so (according to the reigning mythology's twist on this perspective) we will all "work together" to fight the War on Terrorism or the War on Drugs or maybe someday the War on Global Warming (for this is indeed what the World War II metaphor would make of it), just as we once fought the War on Poverty and the War on Communism (not to mention the Indian Wars).
The idea, of course, is that we start from the premise that white (upper) middle class America stands as a "shining City on a Hill," and that part of the world that does not accept our premises is corrupted and needs to be purified by some (symbolic, at least) form of war. And what are the results? The War on Terrorism is an excuse for imperialism, for Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay; the War on Drugs is an excuse to put more Black people in jail; and I don't even want to think of what will happen with the War on Global Warming. They will probably start by blaming global warming on poor people, just like they blame welfare dependency on the poor, and probably using some twisted neoMalthusian logic of "population."
So, naturally, I shove the matter of social class in American faces. It's not that I don't think other divisions exist; rather, I want the American public to recognize class, rather than using the normative presumption of classlessness as a legitimizing excuse for further oppression.
One of the problems with essentially marxist critiques of society is that they fail to recoqnize the resilience of capital. The folks at the top are willing to compromise and change as much as required to hold on to power. So far, they have been successful. I'm also quite well aware of Marx's/ Lenin's hubris as regards the destructability of the regime of capital.
I do, however, think that the crises facing capital today are of a different quality than those facing Marx's or Lenin's generation. Neither Marx nor Lenin could see how the capitalists would be able to adjourn the class struggle through the creation of a consumer society, first through the old framework in the 1920s, and then after World War II through populist Keynesianism.
Marx and Lenin lived in a period that M. Shahid Alam called "Imperialism I" (see his book Poverty from the Wealth of Nations). "Imperialism I" was capitalism fortified by what Marx called primitive accumulation -- new countries were being conquered and forced into the orbit of European economies, creating new proletarians ripe for revolt. The problem, of course, was that as the world was more and more socialized into capitalism, the proletarians would end up choosing the consumer society that was created for them. This, indeed, is how capital became resilient -- by adopting populist Keynesianism to the extent that everyone in the world could turn on the TV and watch "Dallas" and thereby dream of participation in the great American consumer society.
The current crisis of capitalism is one that won't be solved by re-adopting populist Keynesianism. The world has slipped into a global economic growth rate that is significantly lower than its pre-1973 bonanza, and cannot slip back without serious damage to global ecosystems. In fact the current growth rate is doing unprecedented damage to said ecosystems anyway. Unlike the world of Marx or Lenin, we in this world are drawing close to the full world of Herman Daly's imaginings. (BTW, I have met Herman Daly personally and discussed my view of things with him at length -- he basically agreed with what I had to say. I spent the next week wandering about like a zombie saying "Herman Daly" over and over again.)
There is only so much capitalist discipline the world can take, and the capitalists will not be able to get out of this one by imposing more capitalist discipline upon the world. That, then, is the difference between now and then.
We might expect further resiliency from capitalism -- instead, what the world is seeing today with capitalism is a regression in capitalist methods, toward dictatorship, toward financial fraud, and toward the old style of primitive accumulation. This is what M. Shahid Alam calls "Imperialism II." Thus the quote of Kees van der Pijl I had in an old post connected to this site:
My thesis is that a crisis of exhaustion is threatening a global society held together by capitalist discipline... This crisis can be specified as follows. First, a crisis of exhaustion of the biosphere will most directly compound the ongoing processes of original accumulation-urbanzation in the poorest parts of the world. Second, a crisis will occur of the internationalization of capital, characterized by a regression from international socialization of labour to disjointed circuits of money capital with a strongly speculative bent, undermining the world's productive capacity. Finally, there will come a crisis of the geopolitical expansion of the Lockean heartland (i.e. that part of the world that benefits most centrally from capital accumulation) -- entailing a withering of transnational civil society and a regression to bellicose imperialism.
I rather suspect, like Robert Brenner suspects in The Economics of Global Turbulence, that capital has no answers for the ecological crisis it has created. I further suspect that capital is simply moving in knee-jerk fashion by (among other things) installing and propping up Bush, a megalomaniac leader who will deliver them every item on their wish lists. Indeed, Dumenil and Levy thought that capital had its chance to be "resilient" and choose a better system than neoliberalism back in the '70s, and that this was The Road Not Taken.
The capitalist leadership might be able to maintain their power, of course, through wholesale regression to a pre-capitalist regime, a neo-feudalism for the post-oil era. I do not see why anyone who habitually visits Gristmill should want such a regime.
Just a couple of other things:
One. At the very least, large sums of money must be involved world wide in technological developement, then in developement of infastructure to change the nature of energy production (emission production). Where is this money going to come from?First of all, this suggestion assumes a capitalist mode of production, and specifically one that ruled the world before the current hypertrophy of finance capital. Thus the problem of where the money is going to come from. Why do we habitually assume that money is the only force which will come to the world society's rescue? There are, indeed, other forces in the world than money. Did Chairman Mao instigate the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution, disastrous as they might have been, by spending lots of money? I rather suspect we will have to be even more creative than Mao was in this regard, much more so given that we do not have his powers.
(Never mind the issue represented by Jevons' Paradox, for which the techno-fix fanatics have yet no answer...)
Two. Population is going to increase by about 50% (a bit less, but not so much as you or I would notice (smile)). This means that we need an infastructure that will support this increase. Who is this "we" that needs an infrastructure? Is it that half of the world that lives on two bucks a day? The current infrastructure does not support them -- rather, each individual struggles separately to become part of an infrastructure that supports those who have money to buy their way into it. If there is to be a "we" at all, and not merely a "you" and a "me" (and in this regard Margaret Thatcher, architect of the current stage of capitalism, once told an interviewer: "there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families"), we must first deal with the reality of social class.
The best solution to the ocean's problems is that those who can (excluding the poor who live near the oceans), should stop eating fish from the oceans until they have time to recover. Should the 841 millions who (according to a 2003 source) don't get enough to eat also quit eating fish from the oceans? Once again, without a reckoning with class, there is no "we."
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:04 pm
25 Jun 2006
For most of its history, Marxism has been apathetic or hostile to environmentalism -- both in theory and in practice. In the past, you would have been attacked for neo-Malthusianism, perhaps purged; the fate Murray Bookchin in the 50s is an example. Countries that have been governed by a leftist government (communist, socialist, social-democrat) have not been particularly keen on environmentalism, and many (like the former Eastern bloc countries) were terrible. Cuba only fell into its energy-saving organic-farming role because oil from the Soviet Union was cut off.
In recent years, I've seen a welcome effort by some Marxist thinkers to open up to environmentalism. You mentioned Stan Goff; I like some of the authors at Monthly Review like John Bellamy Foster. The late Mark Jones wrote some breathtaking pieces tying together oil, Marxism and ecological themes. Louis Proyect of Marxmail has written some good readable pieces, like Red-Green Synthesis. One related thinker I'd like to know more about is Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (here is an interview).
So, there are lots of promising starts. In fact, I think the future lies in a combination of ecology + science + non-dogmatic Marxism (which would include some anarchist & libertarian ideas). But right now one cannot say that the field of eco-socialism is flourishing. Where are the movements, the journals, the spokespeople? Potential yes, but no actuality for the time being.
In the meantime, there are frightening environmental & economic challenges that need to be dealt with now -- with the forces and attitudes of the present. Paraphrasing Marx from memory, he said you have to deal with people and things as they are, not beat them over the head because they are far away from the socialist ideals.
Marxism as it has played out in history is a mind-boggling combination of insight and liberation on the one hand, but also narrow-mindedness, self-righteousness and criminality. (Sounds like religion, doesn't it?). I agree with you that Marxism is much more resilient than its critics realize. As economic turmoil approaches, I am sure that it will make a big comeback. I just hope that next time Marxists will learn from the mistakes of the past.
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LegumeSam Posted 7:34 pm
25 Jun 2006
Foster's Marx's Ecology suggests that there was, indeed, a strain of marxism that was from the beginning intensly environmentalist.
Spokespeople? John McMurtry, Joel Kovel, Saral Sarkar, Walt Sheasby before he died, Foster & Proyect as you suggested, Paul Prew... my friend Peter McLaren has gotten on board... there are plenty of folks out there like Herman Daly who would sign on but who still think they can get somewhere in the mainstream... sure, ecosocialism is more of a promise than anything else, but what good is a baby?
Journals? I would like to recommend Green Theory and Praxis and Capitalism Nature Socialism for starters -- of course Foster is the editor of Monthly Review...
Political people? Being purged? I started out in the Green Party and became an ecosocialist only later. I'm still a Green. I'm tight w/ Howie Hawkins, Todd Chretien, the Green Alliance people... Walt Sheasby created my political niche...
Paraphrasing Marx from memory, he said you have to deal with people and things as they are, not beat them over the head because they are far away from the socialist ideals. Yes, but which people, which things? And how? I took my direction on this matter from two books: Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of Hope and Kees van der Pijl's Transnational Classes and International Relations...
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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LegumeSam Posted 12:13 am
26 Jun 2006
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 8:45 am
26 Jun 2006
Thanks to both Bart and Sam for posting so many great links to explore! (Where do you find the time? I am only glad you do!)
LegumeSam, I am absolutely in agreement with you that Americans ignore class and pretend it doesn't exist. This is a problem that needs to be addressed, and you are certainly correct to include it in your critiques (with which I am generally in agreement).
The danger is that by focusing on it in isolation, we lose sight of the other issues which are also important. Even notice how any attempts to discuss race on this site quickly drop off the list? Race, along with class, is an untouchable issue for most white Americans. Yet, unless we "touch" it, we cannot make progress.
Let me reply to your points. Mao was living in a very well organized society. Americans are not. Who will organize and how will it be done in America? Will it be a resurgent left or a radical-right theocracy? (They have a head start).
Do you have any solutions as to how global warming might be addressed without money? Or outside of the current means of production? If I had some, I would advocate them. If others have any, I would love to discuss them, and if they are practical, will support them.
Otherwise, we are talking about the current means of production and the current system in which we live in the short term (global warming if it is to be addressed, needs to be addressed NOW, otherwise, we are not serious about it.)
So, which comes first, an ecosocialist system, or addressing global warming now? If you say they cannot be seperated, then give me a time frame for ecosocialism to occur and take hold, a roadmap of some sort.
As to the "we" in terms of infastructure to support the population increase, I am referring to you and me and the rest of the world. Or at least to those parts of the world that are trying to do something about population and poverty.
The infastructure I am referring to is that which is needed to provide a decent live for those who will be born. (Planning for the future seems to be an alien concept in America, I will admit, but it certainly can be considered (smile)).
As for the 2 billion people who live on less than 2 dollars a day, this is a lovely, if meaningless figure. For instance, restaurant workers in Beijing may make that or another sixty or seventy cents. But they also get free room, board, electricity, etc. So, they can save most of that money. A similar restaurant worker in the US may get nothing, and despite an income ten times higher (or more) may be struggling and suffering even more. And we haven't even mentioned the American farm workers.
The current infastructure (not sure what you mean by this, so I will use my own meaning) includes things such as education, housing and health care. It does indeed supply this for some of the very poor (varies from developing country to developing country), and needs to be struggled for. Surely, you're not suggesting we do nothing until after the revolution?
As to your comment about my remarks concering eating fish, I can only guess that I was having a "senior moment" when I wrote it, since it seemed clear to me. The remark was that "those who can" should stop eating ocean fish. That is those with the money and ability to find other sources of protein and food. You and Me. And anyone else posting here.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 11:26 am
26 Jun 2006
The other way is to do something about the global environmental crisis through a movement to end the "current means of production." Without this, there will only be a pandering after class power and an environmental movement that will latch on to the nearest ruling-class-in-wait in hopes of getting some tiny shred of its agenda approved, which is what the Democrats have been reduced to. This is the big question of this thread: are we to "work together" with (i.e. pander to) the Thomas Friedmans of this world with their big New York Times soapboxes, or are we to build a movement among working people?
So, which comes first, an ecosocialist system, or addressing global warming now? If you say they cannot be seperated, then give me a time frame for ecosocialism to occur and take hold, a roadmap of some sort. The world has already addressed global warming -- the problem at hand is one of whether the status quo effort to do anything about global warming, in the midst of an open ground war for control of the world's remaining oil reserves, will be effective. The editors of the Monthly Review say it won't. Once again:The truth is that addressing the global warming threat to any appreciable degree would require at the very least a chipping away at the base of the system. The scientific consensus on global warming suggests that what is needed is a 60-80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels in the next few decades in order to avoid catastrophic environmental effects by the end of this century--if not sooner. The threatening nature of such reductions for capitalist economies is apparent in the rather hopeless state at present of the Kyoto Protocol, which required the rich industrial countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The United States, which had steadily increased its carbon dioxide emissions since 1990 despite its repeated promises to limit its emissions, pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 on the grounds that it was too costly. Yet, the Kyoto Protocol was never meant to be anything but the first, small, in itself totally inadequate step to curtail emissions. The really big cuts were to follow. I am suggesting that the patrons of the current system, with all their dependence upon an economy that requires "economic growth," can "address" global warming all they want. They'll probably address it a lot more; who am I to stop them? An effective response to the problem, rather than an attempt to have one's nature and eat it too, will require some kind of movement from below that will create a new global society not dependent upon economic growth. The environmentalists will get nowhere trying to ally themselves with some sort of entrepreneurial class competing for the reins of power -- it just won't work, because the struggle for power through capitalist competition is what keeps the existing system on its destructive course.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 6:18 pm
26 Jun 2006
Dear LegumeSam,
Actually, "we" means whomever the speaker is talking about. You are correct that there is no universal "we" unless the discussion crosses boundaries.
However, neither you nor I is the ultimate arbiter and definer of terms. Communication requires not that one of us imposes definitions, but that the folks attempting to communicate reach an understanding of terms.
Alas, there seems to be little communication going on between "us" (grin). I have no idea why you think I am suggesting "to propose a sort of consumer feudalism, in which the consumer habits of the wealthiest are to be preserved at the cost of the permanent impoverishment of the rest of the world?"
Why would I be interested in the "consumer habits of the wealthiest"? I have no desire to protect them, but I do desire to give poor people the chance to have a decent lifestyle (and no, I am not going to define what that is, they will).
Nor am I in favor of "Exploited nations stay where you are." I would merely like to point out to you, that the developing nations will pick their own models and directions, and that at the moment, your vision of "economic democracy" is not generally under discussion by them.
Once you realize this, if you look at the window of time we have to do something about global warming, then what occurs is likely to occur under the current system. This is not a matter of whether this is my dream scenario, it is what appears the most likely.
If you wish to "end the current means of production", then you should say how, and offer some details of how this would occur, a time frame, a roadmap, something.
And you might suggest what would take it's place. If you want "local production", then who will build the factories and how will raw materials move from one "local" place to another? Or do we give up completely on a society that uses machines (most of which require "non-local" raw materials for manufacture)?
I certainly agree that the current system of American (in particular) consumption is not sustainable. But I see no sign of any movement from below among Americans to change this. And waiting until the East Coast is under water, may be too late.
Do you have any concrete ideas for how we might proceed?
patrick
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caniscandida Posted 6:25 pm
26 Jun 2006
LSam, as usual I love what you have to say, even if you are going a bit faster than I can follow. So perhaps that is why you allowed yourself to commit the teensy sloppiness of "Marx's and Lenin's generation." Of course Lenin (1870-1924; miraculously preserved in a transparent tomb in Red Square, and attended by soldiers with rather miraculous legs) was two or so generations younger than Marx (1818-1883). And Lenin's Russia, which willy-nilly contributed the sickle to the ever-impressive icon of international Communism, was hardly the same as the hard-hammering Germany and England of Marx.
But sure, "Imperialism I" works fine to cover the world between Metternich and the Great War: wealth and glory for England under Victoria and Edward; humiliations one after another for France despite the Suez Canal, Vietnam and West Africa; unification and lots of power, and iron battleships, for Germany (did they get to Tanganyika through the Suez Canal? -- how ironic -- but do not worry, this is not quite the time to bring up either "African Queen" or "Out of Africa"); and both the US and the Japanese stepping onto the world stage for the first time, in which that great (ahem) environmentalist Teddy Roosevelt played a huge part; and poor Russia, where some very good thinking was going on, falling into fecklessness. Por no decir nada de Espan~a; but the Dutch were still big players in South-east Asia, and the Belgians in the Congo. Right, the Rubber Rush! Enrico Caruso singing at the opera house in Manaus! But then China and India: incredible how they could be dominated as they were.
Anyway, the concept of the resilience of capitalism is an important one. It explains lots of things, including the favor with which Thomas Friedman's writings are received by basically well-intentioned people.
And it probably explains a part of the celebration all round over yesterday's headline, that Warren Buffett has decided to dump Big Big Buckets of Bucks into the Bill and Melinda Gates Fund. I do not doubt that the congratulations are fitting, and that they all intend to do very good work which would not be done otherwise. As things are! But why is that the best way to do them, in general? What does it mean, that they are obviously able to call the shots in many areas with a lot of the poorer governments?
And what does the current interest in philanthropy, and celebrity-activism teach us? See the latest Newsweek cover story.
As for ocean fish: Maybe it was a "senior moment" thing, but I do not remember if Grist or Gristmill said anything about Paul Greenberg's essay in the NY Times Magazine of June 18, on "aquaculture," specifically on some new thoughts about cod, with some reflexions on the experience with salmon.
There are lots of environmental problems associated with it, as you know. One of them is that big fish like to eat little fish; so in order to raise big fish, so far, you have to come up with a steady supply of little fish. And therefore a major research project is discovering some other food supply than little fish for big fish.
So I am thinking, like, cockroaches, or mealbugs. But is that vaguely unethical? I do not think so, not until I get a message from a fish saying bug-pellets are crappy.
Indeed, food made from bugs may be the Way of Sustainability (if I may use that curious word). Of course, there is that chasm to cross, how to make it palatable to normal human beings. But that is why we have eager young people majoring in engineering and marketing and product-design. Bug-burgers are surely better than Soylent Green, I should think.
Or are they?
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:32 pm
26 Jun 2006
Thanks for the suggestions on eco-socialist writers, LS. Here are some ideas:
1. There's a need for a site that would be a guide to eco-socialism, with links to online writings. I have more links if you're interested.
>> sure, ecosocialism is more of a promise than anything else, but what good is a baby?
Exactly! And the same thing is true of many other trends. Right now they may not look like much, but they have promise.
2. When you described your political trajectory from Green Party, some of the differences between us began to make sense. I came of age during the late 60s and early 70s when it was a very different ballgame. The events and experiences of that period prompted me to look back to the history of socialism, to see what went wrong.
I found that the same problems crop up again and again.
For example, in "slow" periods like the present, there is a tendency for activists to become theoretical and sectarian. It's frustrating working with an unresponsive public, so people tend to argue the fine points of theory. Much energy is expended attacking people who share 99% of the same beliefs.
Not to be too cynical, but the argument we are having has been going on for 35+ years. Some of the most fire-breathing leftists of my youth are now successful professionals and business people... some of them are prominent neo-conservatives.
I am not very impressed with ideological purity these days. What I admire are people who find some worthwhile activity and keep at it, year after year.
3. There's a reason that I like the World War II metaphor. This was the time of the Popular Front, one of the healthiest and most productive times for the left. There are always debates about how much to co-operate, how much to be critical. But if you reject this strategy entirely, you reject much of the socialist heritage.
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bookerly Posted 6:39 pm
26 Jun 2006
Dear CanisCandida,
What about veggie burgers as an alternative to bug burgers? You can even get them at a couple of the vegetarian restaurants in Beijing (and one is at least semi-recognizable (unlike the delicious, but not related burrito I ate one day)).
My point (which I never seem to clearly make) regarding fish, is that the oceans are severely overfished, and we will add another 3 billion people to the world.
For me personally it is a moral choice to sacrifice whatever desire I have for fish, since I have alternate sources of protein (soy and nuts in my case), leaving the remaining fish to those who do not have those alternatives.
And hoping that out of all this, the oceans can somehow survive and recover.
patrick
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bookerly Posted 6:47 pm
26 Jun 2006
Dear Bart,
We are probably around the same age then, I also came of age during the late 60's and early 70's.
Is much of this argument a "generation gap"? How funny it would be!!
In any case, we are generally in agreement (I always qualify such statements from habit, since I am never totally in agreement with anyone, including myself!).
But, please, no peak oil arguements. I am skeptical about the idea, but will definitely admit it that I have no idea if it is for real or not. It doesn't bother me if people act like it is, but I do feel that it is not the same as Global Warming.
Is it possible to be a fire-breathing leftist and a profesional? (grin)
patrick
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Kif Scheuer Posted 11:21 pm
26 Jun 2006
if you look at the window of time we have to do something about global warming, then what occurs is likely to occur under the current system. This is not a matter of whether this is my dream scenario, it is what appears the most likely.
It's not just that this is the system we have so we have to work with it, but to put it bluntly - whose got the guns?
As global warming (and resource issues) stress governments & corporations long entrenched in growth models, I'm guessing we're likely to see more regressive thinking rather than less. If progressives won't work with governments to craft solutions (even flawed ones) what kinds of solutions are going to emerge from the dominant power structures? It's not like the powers-that-be are going to fold up and go away at the first hint of stress.
I'm uncomfortable with this perspective, reading LSam's posts tugs at my idealistic heart, but like Patrick I'm feeling the press of time and the scale of the problem.
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LegumeSam Posted 11:46 pm
26 Jun 2006
I have no idea why you think I am suggesting "to propose a sort of consumer feudalism, in which the consumer habits of the wealthiest are to be preserved at the cost of the permanent impoverishment of the rest of the world?" I don't think you are. I didn't mean to make this a personal thing. But I do, at some point, expect this to be put on the table -- I mean, if the politics of the present day can admit of something as megalomaniacal as "full spectrum dominance," then why not consumer feudalism? I expect consumer feudalism, arrogant as it may sound, to be "placed on the table" at some future point -- how else are the elites to square a "conserver regime" (such as will be necessary to ameliorate global warming) with their own domination? Nor am I in favor of "Exploited nations stay where you are." I would merely like to point out to you, that the developing nations will pick their own models and directions, and that at the moment, your vision of "economic democracy" is not generally under discussion by them. Certainly not by the elites of said "developing" (read: resource-bearing) nations, many of whom got where they are by cozying up to exploiter-nations elites when they all went together to Harvard or Yale for their International Relations degrees. (Or in the case of my friend Tidiane, Ohio State). I don't think that it's out of the question, however, to see an economic-democracy resistance in some of these nations (as indeed has happened in Bolivia and Argentina of recent), nor do I think that nations really "pick their own models," given the ones imposed upon them by the IMF, or thrust upon them by the necessities of (often selective) resistance to economic invasion by foreign capital. Rather, I agree with Jerry Harris that (much of) the world is right in a period of transition to rule by a "transnational capitalist class." I expect the resistance to be transnationalized in tandem with the transnationalization of capital, so that eventually something more like a transnational "we" will take shape.
As for how "we might proceed" toward ecosocialism, well, I expect that ecosocialism will form as a response to the worsening ecological situation. How, exactly, this situation comes about is anyone's guess, but it's predicted in the global warming models, so any blueprint for anything will have to recognize that massive (though unpredictable) interference with capitalist exploitation of the ecosphere will be "in the cards."
Networks of mutual aid will have to anticipate coming developments, and expand to assure their members of daily sustenance. I expect a sort of "Food Not Bombs" revolution in the face of the collapse of the current system against its own ecological limits. I do not expect that capital will be "resilient" enough to deal with the problem of its own ecological limits -- there won't be another order for it to create in response to this crisis.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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LegumeSam Posted 1:49 am
27 Jun 2006
If our models predict a global warming situation spiraling out of control, and if (not yet in our models, but soon to be there) our world is also experiencing several other ecological and economic crises, most notably the currency crisis of the US dollar, then the assumption that tomorrow is going to be like today has to be put into question.
I've already explained, here, why capital was "resilient" in the past. Capital was faced with the crisis it created when it created the consumer society of the 1920s, and said consumer society collapsed under a mound of debt. At some point (and here I am still studying the issue), the capitalists agreed to create the order put into theory by John Maynard Keynes, instituting a more government-coordinated variety of capitalism. A Bretton Woods agreement was ratified, and a new international order put into place. When Bretton Woods collapsed, another form of capitalism, neoliberalism, was set into motion through (most importantly) the IMF and the World Bank (but also through the WEF and the various trade agreements). Neoliberalism rests upon dollar hegemony and the ideology of "free trade." Bu there were many problems with the shift to neoliberalism; chief among them is the problem of a hypertrophied sphere of "finance capital," where movements of enormous quantities of money create "bubbles," arbitrary inflations of investment commodities. Neoliberalism is best characterized as a knee-jerk attempt to preserve the corporate profit rate in the face of a global growth rate that has slowed significantly since the early 1970s -- this is certainly the picture painted in Harry Shutt's The Trouble With Capitalism, and it is a picture of increasing instability as time goes on. In this picture, the elites, paralyzed by their own obsession with domination and profit, raid more and more of the normal economy to prop up the profit rates. The crises thus created are ended by ever more short-term "solutions" as the system is saddled with ever more debt and ever more of an appearance of ecological limits. I see no Keynesian revival saving us from neoliberalism. The world is looking increasingly saddled with capitalist discipline, and more and more as if the capitalist system, having grown as far as it can, is ready for (at some future point) contraction. This is what Immanuel Wallerstein predicted (I forget precisely where); the beginning of the end of capitalism.
If progressives won't work with governments to craft solutions (even flawed ones) what kinds of solutions are going to emerge from the dominant power structures? It's not like the powers-that-be are going to fold up and go away at the first hint of stress. Oh, I'm sure that there will be no shortage of "progressive" professionals to "work with governments to craft solutions." After all, the progressive movement, since its inception in the late 19th century, has been all about professionalizing capitalism. And, besides, the pay is good! The problem is that that sort of power is based upon the maintenance of the status quo, especially as government becomes more and more a treasure-chest for raid by various fractions of increasingly-desperate capital. It is, at core, conservative.
The alternative is to work with ordinary people to create new, more communal, forms of social organization in anticipation of the collapse of the existing order. I have no idea how far it can go; but I don't see any harm in trying.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 10:20 am
27 Jun 2006
Interestingly, both China and India are experiencing fairly large growth rates (China running at around 9-10% a year, India at 6-8% a year).
The developed nations are stagnating, but the developing nations (some) are starting to do better. One of the things that is not visible from the United States (bad media, bad media) is how much regional cooperation is going on.
There is a growing regional economy in Asia, which for many people is more and more important. In some ways it looks almost local (or more local than goods shipped to the US, anyway).
There is also a growing movement towards regional cooperation in South America, including sharing of energy resources. Viva Chavez!
And developing nations are looking to trade with each other, not just with the developed world.
So part of what is happening is "real" globalization, which occurs outside of the control of the few large developed economies.
What this means for the future, or where it goes, I have no idea. I do know that the picture looks very different away from the US.
I am not so sure the current world order will collapse. The idea that it will seems to me to be based on the assumption that people will refuse to change even when disaster is clearly staring them in the face.
There are some signs of change. The question is whether they are enough, and will happen soon enough.
On bad days, I say nay, on good days I say yay.
It rained last night, so I am more optimistic today (grin).
Kif is right, we need to work in the world in which we find ourselves.
As much as I care about global warming, for developing countries, it is only one of a series of problems they face (developement, sustainability, water shortages, population growth, the gap between the rich and the poor).
As much as I admire "Food Not Bombs", it is not a social model. It provides only one resource to a limited number of people (while pointing out the failures of American society).
It is certainly true that the existing American model of heavy consumption driven capitalism is unsustainable. But, it is not the only model. What model is Hugo Chavez practicing? China (market socialism)? India (it's own brand)?
The resilience of capitalism, as such as it is, is that there is no one enduring model. It warps and changes to meet times and needs (or has so far).
Most of the scenarios for it's replacement seem to require it to collapse (with an unspoken codicile that includes the death of many many people, usually not the elites).
The economic stagnation you describe is accurate only if one excludes the developing world and it's people. Looking at statistics that do so, miss a lot of the picture. It tends to be misleading.
But here we are, the current order hasn't collapsed yet. Should we wait for it to happen and the world to be saved through newly emergent economic democracies? (Sounds too much like the ancient Greek Deux-ex-machina to me.)
Or should we do our damndest to demand enough change to mitigate the problem as much as possible?
I am of the second opinion. I am not in favor of waiting for a revolution to do something. Does this make me a reformist? Yes. I am in favor of steps in the right direction. My vision of how we get change includes the idea that as people see that change is possible, they will demand more of it. (And that such often occurs in pre-revolutionary periods, revolution meaning a period of fundamental deep change.)
Back to Green Parties.
Right now, there is a vaccuum on the left in America. We need to fill that vaccuum with something that can attract numbers of people and put pressure on the center to move our way. I happen to believe that a new Green Party (the current one is too white and middle class) could be one of the options for doing so.
In any case, whatever your preference, organize!
patrick
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Kif Scheuer Posted 10:50 am
27 Jun 2006
The alternative is to work with ordinary people to create new, more communal, forms of social organization in anticipation of the collapse of the existing order.
It seems to me that the unspoken assumption behind choosing collapse is that the collapse will
be quick
be relatively painless
leave an open playing field for new forms of govt. to emerge.
I don't think any of these are likely. Collapse may create power vacancies, but those most likely to organize quickly to take over those vacancies are likely to be less desirable than what we have today. Wholesale collapse of our current system will hurt lots of people on the inside and out of the dominant power structures. There's also no telling how long satisfactory systems of governence will take to emerge from the chaos, in the meantime I don't think the struggling factions are going to be thinking any more long-term than we are today.
I agree that working with communal organizations is critical, but that can (and does) happen inside this system and outside. In the US cohousing is booming, the annual village building convergence just wrapped up. I am sure members of this group could lob many more examples of proactive communal organizing going on. So I'm with you on that part, but I just don't believe opting for collapse is the best path.
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LegumeSam Posted 4:02 pm
27 Jun 2006
So this is what I meant when I said "in anticipation of" catastrophe. I didn't mean "choosing" catastrophe. BTW, if capitalism is going to pave the streets with gold and make all environmental problems vanish into thin air, why bother with Gristmill? Wouldn't it be better just to pursue a career?
I am of the second opinion. I am not in favor of waiting for a revolution to do something. Does this make me a reformist? Yes. By this definition, since neither Engels nor Marx were not in favor of waiting for a revolution, they must have been reformists, too. In fact, both Marx and Engels were opposed to the Corn Laws and in favor of the Ten Hour Bill, thus cementing their reputations as such. I think I want to be a reformist just like them.My vision of how we get change includes the idea that as people see that change is possible, they will demand more of it. This, indeed, was Marx and Engels' idea, too. However, they did not think of change as cumulative, but structural. Remember that Paul Prew essay I quoted?
As much as I admire "Food Not Bombs", it is not a social model. It provides only one resource to a limited number of people (while pointing out the failures of American society). The idea is to regard Food Not Bombs as a model for social (re)organization. We could have Clothes Not Bombs, Books Not Bombs, Housing Not Bombs, and so on.
I am not so sure the current world order will collapse. The idea that it will seems to me to be based on the assumption that people will refuse to change even when disaster is clearly staring them in the face.
Let's take a poll to assess the public willingness to change. Our poll will have one, and only one, question, answered yes or no, asked to each respondent separately: 1) Would you be willing to give up your high-consumption lifestyle, and live on $2/ day (which in southern California would mean homelessness) in order to do your one-billionth-part to save the Earth from ecodestruction?
My point is that, no matter how bad things got ecologically, only a small number of people would say "yes" to your poll, and of that number, only a small fraction would go through with it. The vast majority of your respondents will have careers to pursue, rents/ mortgages to pay, places to go in their gasoline-consuming motor vehicles, and food (shipped across the country from Washington or Florida or California) to eat. That is, unless some sort of revolutionary action frees them from those situations.
The poll, of course, presents a false dilemma: it suggests that either people must choose individually to drop out of the consumer society that spreads like a cancer across the globe, or pay the price collectively. There are of course other ways to organize the public than through appeal to their individual roles as consumers. Yet this is the sort of dilemma we present to the public when we suggest that "people will change when disaster is staring them in the face." They won't, if they don't have effective change-options. These change-options depend upon the availability of collective decision-making systems.
My further, and greater, point is that, if we are to get people to change the world, we must organize them in such a way that will make their desires for a sustainable world-society effective. The structure of a human society enlists people in what John Dryzek called "decision-making systems." Decision-making systems are what enable desires to be effective.
Under bourgeois democracy, operating under neoliberal conditions, decision-making systems have consumers/ workers pointed in the wrong direction, toward catastrophe. Voting means my right to elect the corporate candidate of my choice, and the sneering at Nader I've seen in face-to-face life and on the Web only re-emphasizes that point. Consumerism is our right to support the assembly line of our choice. Organic or local? Aren't we special! How many Amaricans can claim even one of those choices?
So this is what I'm suggesting: Ecosocialist organizing, as outlined by my friend Joel, attempts to replace those decision-making systems with decision-making systems that would favor a regime of "ecological production," human endeavor that brings about a more-or-less stable metabolism of terrestrial ecosystems. Cohousing is nice for its communal aspects, but it isn't really a stab in that direction, since one of its principles is (see no. 6) "no shared community economy." More in keeping with such an ideal would be permaculture, although what I am suggesting is a regime of political economy that would make permaculture accessible to (and desirable by) everyone, and not just folks who can afford land and don't have "better things to do."
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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LegumeSam Posted 3:30 am
28 Jun 2006
...population growth itself is not the problem; it is only a manifestation of a much greter problem -- the fundamental inequity of the world order. Rapid population growth is taking place in poor regions of the world, where an additional child provides extra income to help support the family and increases the chance that enough children will survive to take care of the parents as they grow old. In fact, the best means of reducing population is increased economic and educational opportunities, particularly for women. So, population growth can be seen as a result of the gross inequities of the world.
Yet the trouble is not really population in itself. The issue is not really about how many people are on the planet; it's about how much pressure these people put on the earth's resources. That is where things get complicated. The average American, over her or his lifetime, will account for 13 times the environmental damage of the average Brazilian and 280 times more than the average Haitian. The amount of space needed to produce the food, material, and energy consumed by the average American is twelve times as great as that for the average person living in the world's poorest countries. Overall, a child born in the United States will add more pollution and waste to the earth over her or his lifetime than forty to seventy children born in the impoverished world. And yet it is the poor who will feel the most devastating consequences of this pollution. This is not simply a 'cruel twist of fate,' a necessary evil, or even an unfortunate side effect of a fundamentally fair system; it is built into the game -- an integral component of the global system. The wealth and massive consumption of a small minority of the world's people is dependent on the poverty, marginalization, and environmenal injury of a majority of the earth's population, and the system is designed to ensure that this inequity continues. From pages 35 and 36...
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 1:00 pm
28 Jun 2006
Everything is timing (unless it's location).
A lot of scientists are saying that we are close to tipping point, and have about ten years to determine whether we face the least case Global Warming (manageable) or the worse case (unimaginable).
We may not have time for a new world order to emerge, and if we wait for the old one to collapse (whether with joy, or resignation), untold millions will suffer.
It's not that I am opposed to ecosocialism or economic democracy. It's that I don't feel that either one is immediately relevant to addressing not only the survival of many humans, but also many species.
And after all, it is the poor who will suffer first in the collapse of the existing world order. To those who will suffer and die, suggesting that things will be better by and by, may be of little consolation.
The poll you suggest "1) Would you be willing to give up your high-consumption lifestyle, and live on $2/ day (which in southern California would mean homelessness) in order to do your one-billionth-part to save the Earth from ecodestruction?" is at typical false question.
It sounds like something George Bush asked approaching the war in Iraq "Would you rather 1)liberate the people of Iraq from tyranny and suffering or 2)see the world destroyed by a nuclear armed madman named Saddam Hussein?" You may fell free to answer this question picking from one or two (no comments, criticism or other choices allowed).
The choice is not between the present path and individual poverty (though it might be if you accepted the idea that invididual consumer choices are the only ones that matter).
Much of the global warming is based on choices made by institutions and government. The issue for individuals is not just to make better personal choices.
The issue for individuals is to organize in groups in order to more effectively demand that social institutions respond to the issue of global warming.
Patrick
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bookerly Posted 1:15 pm
28 Jun 2006
(It seems useful for me to break these up, but maybe I am wrong).
While LegumeSam goes on to point out that the choice between $2 a day and doing nothing, is a false choice, he is the one who offered it in the first place. Not I, nor anyone else. So, it still serves as a straw man. Very easy to attack, but not what is being discussed. Sigh.
I don't disagree with Kovel or even LegumeSam on many issues (not the ideals certainly, not many of the critiques of the current system).
The problem (which he never addresses), is timing.
Can one of two things happen.
1) The existing order collapse/be overthrown and a new more equitable sustainable order be put in place in time to prevent the worse case global warming scenarios?
(These include mass extinctions (some have suggested 50% of all existing species) and hundreds of millions (perhaps a billion or more) people being dislocated, with untold numbers of deaths).
2) The existing order be forced to change to mitigate global warming and reduce it's impact?
All of this needs to happen in the next ten years (best guess). This generally means we can't wait until the tenth year and do everything at once.
Working towards number two does not preclude wishing for number one to occur at some later date (it will happen if and when it will happen).
Working towards number one does not mean you cannot also support efforts being made towards number two.
There is nothing happening in the current world situation that suggests to me that a new economic democracy or ecosocialism is going to take place worldwide in the next ten years.
patrick
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bookerly Posted 1:24 pm
28 Jun 2006
I reluctantly voted for Nader the first time. He did not cost Gore the election, Gore's lawyers and advisors cost Gore the election (which he won).
Voting for Nader in states like California made a lot of sense, to create a protest block, and hopefully to raise awareness of Green issues.
Except, Nader wasn't a Green.
He's a technocrat and lover of consumption. He refused to advocate Green values or support the Green Party. (And I saw him debate Pat Buchaanan once, and practically endorse his nativist views! (after the election or I would never have voted for Nader)).
I believe the Green Party is best served by running local candidates, and by working to become the opposition party in districts (many, many) abandoned by either one of the two major parties.
As for Gore, he sounds good now, but this is not what he sounded like in 2000.
As for the idea that candidates will do things differently in office than what they promise during an election, well this is kind of true. Most of them do things WORSE in office than they indicated during elections. Not better.
The Greens are better off staying away from Ralph Nader, who in the final analysis, was only about himself.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 4:27 pm
28 Jun 2006
The issue for individuals is to organize in groups in order to more effectively demand that social institutions respond to the issue of global warming.
And if said social institutions ignore those demands?
Back in the spring of 2003, George W. Bush ignored a series of antiwar demonstrations that were the world's largest, ever, in choosing to go to war in Iraq. These demonstrations were truly huge, and they took place across America and the world. In this example of mass "demand," individuals did indeed demand that social institutions respond to the issue of destructive warfare. Bush won, the demonstrators lost, and the demonstrators were not effective. It was a contest of half-a-billion versus one, and the one won.
How could this be so?
Did Bush go to war because of the American "public's unwillingness to change" from its warlike ways? Was it the case that, in America's hour of greatest need, her peaceniks deserted her, and thus America went to war?
Clearly nothing of the sort occurred. Bush went to war because the antiwar spirit so clearly in evidence in antiwar demonstrations played no part in the decision-making systems that chose war. There are polls now that suggest that the American public wants at least a partial withdrawal of troops from Iraq. They, too, mean nothing. Talk is cheap.
So, if the existing order is to be "forced to change to mitigate global warming and reduce it's impact," what existing decision-making systems will actually force this existing order to do this thing?
And how is this mitigation to be meaningful in terms of the changes global warming will bring to the Earth?
I don't think it can be done by "demanding" something without having any real power over "the existing order." I think that "demands" without power are toothless, and that such demands are likely to stay toothless until this "ten-year window" (whose sources I'd like to see) for changing global warming closes.
The idea that we can just "do it through the Democrats" (and remember, Patrick, I am not trying to be personal here, just examining ideas) appeals to me as just another appeal to a party whose organizational particulars render it moribund.
What will happen in 2008, 2012, and 2016 is that the Democrats will opt, as they have time after time, for a candidate selected according to the dictates of a philosophy of "political realism" that appeals to a constituency that believes in the moral uprightness of advocating glacially-slow incremental change within the confines of the (regressive) neoliberal paradigm. This is how Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry were selected by the Democrats, it's how Clinton was re-elected, and it had a big part in the initial selection of Clinton, whose 1992 win was made possible only through the divisive magic of Ross Perot's campaign. I have about zero faith in the Democrats' ability to develop a backbone on global warming. The party elite always seem to find it convenient to consult the demographics experts, and then to come out with a position that takes the "base" for granted, and appeals to the "swing voters" who didn't really care that much about global warming in the first instance. Maybe in 2016 they'll be daring enough to come out in favor of the Kyoto Protocol, after 90% of the public declares in favor of it. Wowie zowie.
I am beginning to feel that the Green Party is about as moribund as the Democrats. For if Greens are only willing to support their own in races where being a Green is unimportant (i.e. in races where one of the duopoly parties isn't running), then the Democrats and the Republicans will just gang up on the Greens, and their membership will fall to zero. There is an easy way to beat a party that will only run candidates where it's "safe" -- make it "safe" nowhere. And nobody is going to vote for a Green Party that is too timid to take on the Two-Party System as a whole. And, as Steve Greenfield (who is now a Democrat, btw) pointed out, Green timidity in the 2004 election was a catastrophe:Our enrollment declined, our enrollment as a percentage of total national registration declined even more, our spring candidates performed far better than our fall candidates, the number of local Green candidacies and the number of victories both declined, two-thirds of states with ballot lines lost them, and our national vote totals almost disappeared. So much for the Green Party.
So I have little faith in electoral pressure. Bourgeois democracy sucks; it will continue to suck as long as those of its participants who believe in a better way jettison their convictions for the thought that the next election is all that matters. Or rather, it will continue to suck as long as those who cling to their convictions are deemed "spoilers" and made into pariahs, to be attacked through "dirty tricks" campaigns.
And as I've been trying to show, here, the capitalist economic system is based on growth, and growth is based on steadily-increasing "carbon consumption," simply because the fact of the matter is that cheap oil has the highest return on energy investment for a civilization that burns 85 million barrels of the stuff every day and that will be increasing that demand at a rate of about 2% per year. Technological innovation just makes growth easier; it doesn't make using fossil fuels less attractive. And in a world that exchanges $2 trillion dollars every day, economics, not politics, rules the roost.
So what decision-making system will allow humanity to decide the right way w/ respect to global warming? If it were part of the institutional status quo, there wouldn't be a global-warming problem, never mind a steady worsening of climate change or a supposed window of a few years after which the solution gets out of reach.
One of the reasons I stick with the demand for ecological revolution is that I don't see the decision-making systems of the existing order doing anything meaningful about global warming, not now, and not for the next ten years. Ralph Nader, at least, had ecosocialists talking into his (generally agreeing) ears; my friend Walt Sheasby, distorted as his health priorities might have been, was one of them. In fact, I saw the conversation with my own two eyes. And it's easier to spit on Nader's campaign as "not Green" than it is to say anything about his actual positions, such is the chokehold that "political realism" has upon the American "progressive" faithful. Ralph Nader, at least, believed in the power of giving protest the leverage of a genuine challenge to the system. He deserves more respect from me than those who cannot see that the status quo's decision-making systems, both political and economic, are pointed irrevocably in the wrong direction, and that it's high time we started to invent new ones.
By the way, at the (future) point when the existing system will have done nothing serious about global warming for the next ten years (and the Kyoto Protocol counts as nothing serious), and there's a global ecological collapse, will we then appeal to individual consumers to give up their lifestyles to do their one-billionth-parts to save the Earth, everything else having failed to stop the deluge? At least an appeal to the consumers has a "safer" sound than the call to revolution. It isn't, in reality, any safer.
Or are we to foreswear such an appeal, and leave the SUV-drivers and Monday-morning long-distance car commuters in peace, comfortable in the commonly-held belief that the choice between giving up one's consumer lifestyle and allowing the deluge is a "straw man"?
We need to stop pretending that revolutions are caused by waiting. The only people who really believe that are those who don't really don't want to do anything for a revolution anyway, even insofar as the idea is merely being promoted without being acted upon.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Kif Scheuer Posted 11:17 pm
28 Jun 2006
Can you point to some historical examples where something like what you envision has happened on a large scale. My socialist history is woefully limited, and you're clearly well-versed.
I'm probably running around with Hollywood versions of socialist movements, but what comes to mind for me is that movements/revolutions start with high ideals, but once they scale up to involve large numbers of people, or whole countries they end up replicating the hierarchical, special-interest decision-making they were intending to replace, and along the way can cause immense suffering.
Another point of concern for me - You are talking about a near global change in social order, but one which fundamentally respects individual and cultural roots, right?
If so, how do you reconcile bringing eco-socialism to groups who may absolutely reject it? There are groups around the world (not just rich, not just part of the status quo) who actively choose hierarchical/authoritarian decision-making. In the chaos of post-collapse why do you think these people, will choose eco-socialism over what they've known and embraced for perhaps hundreds of years?
As always, I'm not attacking but seeking understanding.
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LegumeSam Posted 4:50 am
29 Jun 2006
The immediate cause of "immense suffering" after the Russian Revolution was the civil war that accompanied it; it put the Soviet regime on a footing of "war Communism" that it never quite renounced, especially after Stalin instituted a sort of "state capitalism." The US, by the way, participated in the Russian civil war; Woodrow Wilson sent 50,000 US troops over to Russia to battle the commies.
The old "socialisms" were always either on a war footing or in a state of capitalist competition with the corporate-capitalist nations. This is why Tony Cliff calls it state capitalism. "Socialism," in that regard, was a pretext for peasant nations which wished to industrialize without the "help" of imperialists. Once said nations industrialized, there was nowhere to go but toward integration with global markets, since the pretexts for the transition to globalization were already set in motion within these countries.
Can you point to some historical examples where something like what you envision has happened on a large scale.
Ecosocialism has never happened before. If it had, we'd be living it now. Of course, catastrophic human-caused global warming, peak oil, the fishing-dry of the oceans, the colonization of the grain supply by genetically-engineered crops, etc. had never happened before, either, yet for some silly reason the folks at Gristmill persist in talking about these things as if they were possible. Orville and Wilbur Wright decided, for that matter, to build a motorized airplane even though that hadn't happened before, either. Sometimes the past is no guide to the future. At any rate, there have been societies that used sustainable agriculture; there have been (small-scale) societies that were arranged communally, and those are historical models that can be appropriated by larger societies.
If so, how do you reconcile bringing eco-socialism to groups who may absolutely reject it? There are groups around the world (not just rich, not just part of the status quo) who actively choose hierarchical/authoritarian decision-making.
If their decision-making systems are already hierarchical/ authoritarian, how can anyone know that they "actively choose" them? Are they free people who, having been raised to be free people, freely choose to be dominated by authoritarian systems? Or are they people who have been pushed down all their lives, who believe (like Freire's peasants in Pedagogy of Hope) that God is responsible for their fates, and who acquiesce in the current system because, under the reigning decision-making structure, their opinions don't matter anyway?
If they are the former, free people who freely choose authoritarianism, how can we have any conviction that anyone will choose a sustainable society? Would it not be more plausible to suppose that "free" people would freely choose to die in massive eco-disasters aided by human-caused global warming, if they're frivolous enough to choose unfreedom? Wait a minute, let's look again. How free are people?
One of the reasons for the amazing success of capitalism, even among its more oppressive, neoliberal, manifestations, is that it offers people life-alternatives to oppressive traditional systems under which they have no choice anyway. See, for instance, Aihwa Ong's Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline, an ethnographic study of Malaysian peasant-women who leave the patriarchy of rural Malaysian life for the patriarchy of long hours at low wages working in factories, during which the stress makes them crack and they start behaving as if they were "possessed by the gods." Now, if these women had truly "chosen authoritarianism," why wouldn't they have chosen the authoritarianism of their old, rural lives? What makes life under capital appealing to these women, Ong notes explicitly, is its promise of relative freedom. Capitalism is better in that regard than what came before.
My point is this: How are we to say that authoritarian decision-making systems are themselves "freely chosen"? In fact, they aren't. If you can choose between decision-making systems, you are in fact conditioned by having that power to choose. If you can't, you're conditioned by not having power to choose. Marx understood well that one's range of freedoms is predicated upon membership in a decent society. Socialism was intended as an advance in freedom. We would do well to continue in that vein.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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Bart Anderson Posted 5:47 am
29 Jun 2006
"Socialism" encompasses an extremely wide spectrum of belief.
From my point of view, LS's approach is overly theoretical and ultra-left (that is, he eschews immediate opportunities and alliances in favor of denunciation and hazy visions of the future).
It's a characteristic of the ultra-left that most of its energy is spent attacking people who have similar positions - "sectarianism."
My experience is that ultra-leftism is counter-productive and demoralizing.
In contrast, there are those socialists and eco-socialists who welcome discussion and alliances. They don't claim to possess the absolute truth; they listen to others and are open to learning more.
Rather than engaging in theoretical arguments, they tend to be involved in concrete projects.
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LegumeSam Posted 6:38 am
29 Jun 2006
From my point of view, LS's approach is overly theoretical and ultra-left (that is, he eschews immediate opportunities and alliances in favor of denunciation and hazy visions of the future). Who have I denounced? And what's "overly theoretical"? That is like the denunciation of Mozart's music in the movie Amadeus: "too many notes." Is it bad to have a theory, and good to respond to news events as they happen, in immediate fashion? And from what clairvoyant perspective is my vision of the future to be viewed as "hazy"? Please, by all means, we should all see a "clear" vision of the future so that mine may be rendered "hazy" by comparison.
It's a characteristic of the ultra-left that most of its energy is spent attacking people who have similar positions - "sectarianism." Then I don't belong to that ultra-left. I have, so far, tried to keep this conversation from being a personal squabble, and to keep it flowing into interesting channels. From such a perspective, I don't really see how the above stereotype has any substance. It certainly doesn't engage what I have said, as I have attempted to reply directly to what others have said rather than stereotyping them. I would certainly like to see such an engagement.
In contrast, there are those socialists and eco-socialists who welcome discussion and alliances. They don't claim to possess the absolute truth; they listen to others and are open to learning more. I would like to read about these socialists and ecosocialists, especially as regards specific examples. I would especially like to read about how they are so far different from me as to evade comparison.
And look, Bart, instead of denouncing me for not being interested in learning more, have you thought of teaching me what it is you know?
Rather than engaging in theoretical arguments, they tend to be involved in concrete projects. Is it really one or the other, and not both? How so?
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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LegumeSam Posted 6:59 am
29 Jun 2006
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 10:00 am
29 Jun 2006
I said previously that we have about ten years to do something before we fall into the "worst case scenario". Where do I get that from? Why from my old friend Grist!
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/6/19/16571/7485
Which points to an article in the New York Review of Books by Jim Hansen. It's actually his number (though I believe I have seen similar numbers in other papers, and some scientists have been quoted as saying we may have less than that).
LegumeSam, I can hardly take what you are saying as personal, since you frequently disagree with things I (nor anyone else that I can see) has said. Maybe it would be helpful if you broke your posts up according to what you are replying to.
For instance, I never advocate supporting the Democratic Party, so am not sure why you mention it when you seem to be replying to me. It mainly confuses me (which I hope is not your intention! (smile)).
So, let me use this post to continue my disagreement with Nader. In 2000 (when he was the Green candidate), he refused to endorse the Green Party platform, promote the party, or pretty much do anything except "take" from the party.
He tends to be dodgy on issues of things like social justice (I couldn't find anything about the so-called "war on drugs" or the prison system). His position on immigration, for instance, is so much all over the place, that I couldn't decide what exactly he was advocating (except discussion). He sounded like George W. Bush lite!
And I watched him debate Pat Buchaanan on tv, and he seemed to pretty much agree with him on the subject (sorry I didn't record it).
I am happy he listened to your friends, but frankly, by that point, no one cared. He had alienated a lot of his potential support with his ego-centric petulance, and was going nowhere. This is the problem with supporting candidates rather than movements.
patrick
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bookerly Posted 10:22 am
29 Jun 2006
Revolutions are not caused because someone wants a revolution to happen. Revolutions occur when large numbers of people find themselves in a position where the existing system isn't acceptable, and they are willing to risk all to change it.
What are the conditions that now exist that will lead to:
1) A revolution?
2) A revolution that is progressive in nature, leading towards "economic democracy" and/or "eco-socialism"?
Are there organizations that will play a part in such a revolution, where are they?
Frankly, if the old order were to collapse, the vaccuum would be likely filled by existing organizational structures. This is what happened in Afghaniztan, when the Taliban came to power. They were attractive to people who were looking for something to fill the vaccuum in power that resulted from the collapse of the previous government. I don't know anything about their environmental policies.
In America, who is more like to take power, Pat Robertson or Ralph Nader? I'd hate to gamble on whom the majority would look for leadership.
Why wouldn't people turn to local communal organizing? A lot probably would, and in a world where there were no forces aligned against this idea, it might prevail. But, even as the existing order collapsed, there would be many inimical forces waiting to fill the vaccuum. How would "economic democracy" or "eco-socialism" ever get established? Where is it's base among the populace? (Speaking here of the American populace, the rest of the world is a different matter).
Unfortunately, given the current stage of "the left" in America (which is one of lacking unity, clear cut ideology, and any mass base), I see no conditions that are likely to lead to a "progressive" revolution.
Before deciding to commit myself to a revolution, I would want to believe that it is possible and practicable. Lacking any roadmap (and most of those writing about such possibilities stop when it gets to exactly how such a thing might happen), lacking any sense of how it would work, than it becomes nothing more than a dream (in my mind).
Global Warming is not a dream. It is a real problem now. Waiting for a revolution for which no conditions exist, is akin to doing nothing about Global Warming.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 10:36 am
29 Jun 2006
For instance, I never advocate supporting the Democratic Party, so am not sure why you mention it when you seem to be replying to me. It mainly confuses me (which I hope is not your intention! (smile)). Because my opinion is shared by so small a percentage of the American public, I have been taking pains to keep the discussion out of the "personal attack" realm. Maybe I am confusing at times in the way I do this. Sorry.
So, let me use this post to continue my disagreement with Nader. In 2000 (when he was the Green candidate), he refused to endorse the Green Party platform, promote the party, or pretty much do anything except "take" from the party. A lot of Nader's non-position toward the Green Party had to do with internal Green Party politics. The anti-Nader faction (Jody Haug, Phil Huckelberry, etc.) were apparently in control of the GPUS apparatus when Nader asked the GPUS if it was willing to endorse him in the '04 race. They told him "no," without really asking the Green Party rank-and-file what it thought.
Nader wanted to create a situation where Green members and groups could support him, separately, regardless of whether or not the Green Party chose to nominate him in Milwaukee. He was also told that he would be booed if he showed up at Milwaukee. I am sure the whole situation left a lot of people confused. The end result was not good for the Green Party, either, since much of its membership-list was due to the fact that Nader ran in 2000, and the Green Party must itself shoulder a good amount of the blame for having so cavalierly tossed Nader aside without asking the rank-and-file. The GPUS needs to democratize its internal workings.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 10:44 am
29 Jun 2006
America is in a funny place. There is only a very small organized left (or maybe I should say a number of very small semi-organized lefts), while there is a sizable right wing which currently dominates and frames the discussion of issues.
From a technocratic point of view, it would nice to remove issues like the environment from the traditional left/right frame, and address them across groupings.
This is the "national unity" concept from WWII that is very appealing.
This would allow conservatives and liberals to work together to solve the environmental problem, then afterwards go back to squabbling over other issues.
For many environmentalists, this vision has a broad appeal.
The problem is this. The current conservative movement (which is not the same as the conservative movement of, say, forty years ago), has included an intense hatred of the environmental movement and environmental issues as part of it's core set of values.
As such, it is not likely to change. And as long as oil companies and the auto industry (and others) fund it, it will continue to organize and fight against any attempts to do something about Global Warming.
This leaves the environmental movement in a dilemna. It can continue to try to woo the right (agains all common sense), it can try to determinedly stick to a neutral technocratic stance, or it can decide that it needs to be part of a unified left (liberal, progressive, or other).
In some ways the problem comes down to whether people see Global Warming as something to be addressed best by individuals, or collectively.
There is a strong libertarian/individualist trend in the environmental movement. There is also a growing communal movement in America, which is environmentalist, but often does not connect to the MEM.
This contradiction needs to be addressed and resolved if we are to make much progress (in my opinion).
Whichever direction we end up moving in, clearly, we lack the numbers. We need to begin organizing masses of people around environmental issues.
One option would be for the environmental movement to disband, for environmental groups to cease to exist. Their members would instead move into other organizations and make environmental issues part of their message, central to every issue, but seperate from none.
Another would be for environmental organizations to begin to create more formal alliances with non-environmental organizations (such as the Sierra Club/Steel Workers). Imagine if the Environmental Movement was seen as a key component in the immigration marches, reaching and being part of a broader social movement.
And another option is for environmental movements to begin to build their own mass organizations, begin to really mobilize large numbers of people to be actively involved with environmentalism as a central focus of their lives. To a certain extent, this is what the Green Party is trying to do.
My main purpose here, is to try to suggest that we need to get out and to organize people, to build a clear mass support that can counter the anti-environmentalist trends. Unless and until we do so, we won't make any progress. And we must make progress.
patrick
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bookerly Posted 10:54 am
29 Jun 2006
Dear LegumeSam,
It's not that I take things personally, but I do get confused sometimes between your general posts, and your replies to what I have said. Of course, I am almost certainly guilty of the same thing. It seems that you, Bart, CanisCandida, Kif and myself are involved in a convoluted discussion that no one else may be able to follow!! ROFLMAO!!!
Back to Nader. My criticisms of him stem from his stance in 2000, when he was the Green Party candidate, but refused to do anything to build the part, support it's platform, or even mention it by name on occassion.
If by 2004, there was a bitter taste in people's mouths towards him, he has only himself to blame.
And certainly he wanted local chapters to be able to endorse him, but what would he do for them? Nothing!
He put his own ego ahead of building a party or a movement. In this sense, he was just like Ross Perot. (Who is nuts in my opinion).
And his weakness on any issues other than purely technocratic issues does nothing to endear him to me.
Ever nominating him was a huge mistake for the Green Party.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 10:55 am
29 Jun 2006
I do not think "the Left" in America is the right place to look for any sort of proactive social movement. As you yourself have pointed out, they have no ideology, no unity, and no mass base. I think that the proactive social movements are the ones that work under ideologies of mutual aid: Justice for New Orleans, or Food Not Bombs, or Common Ground. You will also have church-based groups, food banks, and so on. Those are the real revolutionaries. When neoliberalism crashes and burns, they will be the ones proposing an alternative.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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LegumeSam Posted 10:59 am
29 Jun 2006
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 11:11 am
29 Jun 2006
The point about proactive social movements is well taken. However, there are also far right social movements with anti-environmentalism as part of their ideology. And some of the biggest religious social movements that organize the poor (the Catholic Church and the Salvation Army) are not known for their support of environmental causes.
One of my concers is that a collapse of the existing order may strengthen the regressive forces in society.
Alas, there are no easy ways out!
patrick
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bookerly Posted 11:14 am
29 Jun 2006
There were Green Parties in many places besides CA and NY before Nader. They may have gotten a temporary boost in membership, but most of those members were not interested in a party, but a person, and have moved on.
Would the energy and focus of the Green Party have been better spent of becoming the part of opposition in one party districts? In my opinion yes.
Nader was a distraction, since he is not a real "Green" (and would probably not describe himself as one).
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 11:46 am
29 Jun 2006
Here's something from Illinois: February 2004
by Mandy Burrell
Ralph Nader's high-profile presidential run in 2000 sparked record participation levels in Green Party efforts throughout the nation, with Illinois no exception. Though the Greens have yet to get a candidate elected to office in Illinois, 20 active locals exist throughout the state today, compared with six locals before Nader's run. If your version of Green history had been correct, the twenty locals would have gone back to being six locals after Nader's 2000 run was over.
And this argument about "the energy and focus of the Green Party" doesn't persuade me, either. "The energy and focus of the Green Party" was, is, and will be a number close to zero without something to attract energy to the Green Party. And Nader, love him or hate him, was at one time that attraction.
You just don't like Nader. Whatever. You have a right to your preferences.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 12:55 pm
29 Jun 2006
Dear LegumeSam,
You are correct that I don't like Nader, but I don't like him because of his politics. His refusal to support the Green Party (he refused to join!), his poor positions on many issues (particularly those related to race, social and environmental justice, immigration), his putting his own ego ahead of the Green Party; all of these things make me dislike him.
But I voted for him in 2000. So, it is hardly a "personal" issue.
It is certainly true that Nader's vote totals helped some Green Party's gain ballot status. But again, his campaign was mostly about him, and less about party building. And he made no effort to reach out beyond the existing Green Party base (most white folks).
On Nader's relationships with the Greens, here is a link to someone who supported him, but read about the problems they were having.
http://www.afsc.org/pwork/0600/062k14.htm
Here is a link from a left wing group supporting Nader and angry about Green disagreements with him, but read the whole article and see what they say about Nader and the Greens.
http://www.sf-frontlines.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=757
And here is a better critique than anything I have written about the Nader campaign.
http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2001/53X/lockard.html
(Which doesn't mean I agree with all of it, but a lot of it is right on target in pointing out the Green Party and Nader's failures in reaching out beyond white middle class disillusioned folks. I disagree with the call to support the Democrats, just as I disagree with Front Line's support of Nader, but both of the criticisms have large grains of truth.)
And here is an article detailing the alternate strategy.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/06/24/cobb_campaign/index.html
and more.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/23/1359244
Beyond my disagreements with some of Nader's politics (which I don't regard as particularly green, and certainly not progressive!!), I have tactical disagreements with his campaign.
And frankly his tone during the campaign too often veered away from issues and into personalities.
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 3:17 pm
29 Jun 2006
Secondly, I don't see any point in supporting a Green Party that is too timid to run against the Two-Party System. We need a party to stand against the bankruptcy of the existing system, or no party at all. If I can't have the first, I'll choose the second. I support Todd for Senate.
Thirdly, where is David Cobb these days? If the Greens are going to avoid nominating Ralph Nader or Peter Camejo, they could at least avoid nominating a stand-in.
Lastly, I don't see anything really happening in politics until after the next crisis rocks the US. I believe I have already outlined in detail why I think the decision-making systems here, both in politics and in economics, are pointed backwards. I suppose I left out some details, speculation about how the US economy is dependent for its prosperity on a fragile home equity business, one not aided by rises in the interest rates, or how the Bush deficits will add up to something frightening if they are carried out over enough of a lifespan. But that's a small thing. I have yet to see an argument here that seriously engages these arguments, especially the ones that assess the Democratic and Green Parties as moribund entities. That's OK, I can wait. I'm not unchangingly committed to those arguments. The best thing about pessimism is that life gets better if you're wrong, and if you're right, you can always say "I told you so."
And, no, no part of my own strategy involves "waiting." I support all good reformist efforts, mostly with my word (since so many of them demand money that I don't have). But my serious politics involves creating communities based on principles of mutual aid. I'll try to put up an ecosocialist reading list somewhere on the Web, and I'll pop back in to tell you all about it. Y'all know where my blog is. Kudos to all who responded, even Bart.
Bye now!
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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caniscandida Posted 9:56 pm
29 Jun 2006
I do not want you to go. But if you must, please know I have enjoyed, and appreciated, and learned from all you have written for us.
I am thankful for your final links to the Foodnotbombs site, and the In Defense of Animals site.
God speed.
Marcus Stephanus
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Bart Anderson Posted 5:22 am
30 Jun 2006
To respond to a previous post...
Re: Being theoretical
Marxist theory is like salt -- a little adds savor. Too much is inedible.
The problem is that Marxism really does explain a lot, and it is very frustrating to have to begin from scratch when talking to other people. Consequently many Marxists end up talking among themselves, feuding about relatively minor points, digging themselves deeper & deeper into the jargon.
Marxism can restrict one's world, so that one only talks to the shrinking circle of people with whom agreees. This sectarianism and ultra-correctness is an occupational hazard of Marxism.
On the other hand, Marxism can open one up in so many ways. I read a phrase once that captures the experience -- "when the mirrors around one turn to windows."
You asked about other forms of eco-socialism. In my eyes, eco-socialism is just one small part of the centuries-long movement towards social justice. There are so many voices, so much experience to learn from. Some that come easily to mind:
Amer. writers: Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Ursula LeGuin, P.K. Dick, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett, Theodore Dreiser, Edmund Wilson (wrote an excellent history of socialist/anarchist figures, "To the Finland Station"), Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut.
Ital. writers: Natalia Ginzburg, Ignazio Silone, Primo Levi, Carlos Levi, Gianni Rodari.
Scientists: Albert Einstein, the Curies, J.B.S. Haldane.
History, anthropology, economics, other cultures, art history... all start to come alive.
One sees how truth comes in many different forms, some labelled "left", some not.
From your posts, LS, you seem to have been deeply affected by your encounter with Marxist thought. It is a gift to be nurtured.
My best,
Bart
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SMLowry Posted 7:03 am
30 Jun 2006
That said, there are many possibilities, some of which were just nascent babies when my first book came out -- like co-housing and land trusts and community currency and community supported agriculture. Alone these models are cool but not that transformative to the larger picture. Taken together and expanded upon in towns, cities, states, networked together (rather than competing for funds) they can make a difference. At the very least they can show people that alternatives not only exist, but can make a difference in people's lives. And it is only by doing something that we'll know the next step and so on. We can't plan the revolution beyond a certain point. We just have to act and do it. What's missing is compassion, the willingness to sacrifice not only to make our budgets stretch, but to help those whose budgets have long since broken.
This is in the U.S. and other western capitalist countries. As others have pointed out activists and so-called ordinary people in other countries have a very different view on things than we do. The average American just doesn't hear about it because it's not covered by our media. Sometimes I think people in general (not "us" of course because "we" know better) think every one is like we are in the U.S. But fortunately that's not the case.
The World Social Forum is planning a US gathering in 2007. I'm not a big fan of huge conference-type events. They're fun and exciting and people often leave feeling very energized but all too often the energy dissolves in a few short months (or less) and nothing happens but position papers and strategy sessions. However, maybe this one will be different.
Okay, that's enough from me. I'll check back for more comments because it's so interesting.
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LegumeSam Posted 2:12 pm
30 Jun 2006
I've tried to demonstrate here, to the best of my powers, that capitalism is destroying the Earth's ecosystems. And the best response I've read to this argument is this complaint that "no revolution is happening in the US today." Let's imagine Che Guevara responding to this:
Regardless of how far away the socialist countries may be, their favorable influence will be felt by the people who struggle, just as their example will give the people further strength. Fidel Castro said on July 26 [1963]:
The duty of the revolutionaries, especially at this moment, is to know how to recognize and how to take advantage of the changes in the correlation of forces that have taken place in the world and to understand that these changes facilitate the people's struggle. The duty of revolutionaries, of Latin American revolutionaries, is not to wait for the change in the correlation of forces to produce a miracle of social revolutions in Latin America, but to take full advantage of everything that is favorable to the revolutionary movement -- and to make revolution!
So that's the idea - the revolutionaries make the revolution.
The main theoretical criticism leveled by Marxists at Che is that he tried to make revolutions in places (the Congo, Bolivia) where revolutions were not there to be made. Che had a hard time distinguishing between what the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci called the "war of position" and what he (Gramsci) called the "war of movement." Che was all about the "war of movement" - create an army, and storm the halls of power. This was a meaningful thing to do in a place like Cuba, where the reigning government was thoroughly hated and where the people were ready to conduct an overthrow. The "war of position," on the other hand, is what you do in a place where there is no revolution on the horizon. The "war of position" is basically a contest for the ideological attitudes of the country's working-class thinkers. Che wasn't so good at it, and impatient to boot. We should, even if we're poor at it, try to do better.
If the "environmental movement" is conducting a "war of position" in the US these days, this "war of position" is moving in a thoroughly inappropriate manner, given the goals it will be necessary to have in order to survive the next three decades. Three criticisms:
The "movement" is moving way too slowly. Environmentalists have conducted far too much scientific research, pointing to way too many ecological disasters on the horizon, to be proposing the sort of milk-and-water proposals you see emanating from most environmental critiques of present-day globalization.
The "movement" needs class-consciousness. It has been infected by too many relatively wealthy folks trying to minimize the environmental crisis, or cast its blame elsewhere, when in fact the habits of the high-consumption wealthier classes are themselves the bulk of the problem. The "movement" also relies too heavily on established sources of power (e.g. the Democratic Party) which are themselves a significant part of the problem. We need to inject a class dimension to public awareness of the environmental crisis.
The idea of revolution needs to be put back on the table. Why? We need a revolution. "Economic democracy" is a good name for its goal. It won't be necessary for us to have a plan - the revolution will create itself through the action of those groups who want change the most. And this change needs to be a structural change, not an incremental, reformist change. No violence will be necessary - the defenders of the status quo will bring it anyway, revolution or not. We can't say that the Bush drive to dictatorship is being provoked by anything.
In the US, the Right has read Gramsci, thoroughly, and is busy applying his wisdom. In an essay recently published in the journal Race & Class, (Carl Davidson and Jerry Harris, "Globalisation, theocracy and the new fascism: the US Right's rise to power": 47 (3): 47-67), prominent US conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan are quoted as having read and interpreted Antonio Gramsci. In tests such as Limbaugh's I Told You So and Buchanan's Reclaiming the American Right, Gramsci's theoretical notion of a "war of position" is described and used in support of the US Right's (apparently rather successful) takeover of the American political system. Partisans of the environmentalist Left in the US should read selections from Gramsci's Prison Notebooks and wonder about a political culture in which "Gramscian theory" is made by Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan. The Left is probably scared away from identification with an Italian communist. The Right, evidently, isn't. One thing is for sure: nobody is calling Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan "ultra-leftists" or "overly theoretical."
A handful of very dedicated people in the US have created the "Green Party" as a vehicle for social movements which are being ignored elsewhere. The environmentalist "movement" in the US should derive strength from their dedication, far exceeding their actual numbers. Instead, careerists have led it in another direction.
We need to be conducting a full-scale "war of position" against Bush, and against the corporate establishment as a whole, given that it selected Bush, played the role of mass accomplice in his aspirations to dictatorship, and propped him up until this day against the impeachment he so fully deserves.
I have already pointed out why the political and economic systems in this country are pointed backwards. So far I haven't gotten any response. Perhaps the most discerning readers of this message are the NSA spies the Bush administration hires to spy on ordinary, patriotic Americans so as to better screw political rivals. I should probably be looking for more people to talk to.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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SMLowry Posted 1:27 am
01 Jul 2006
LSam, what kind of response are you looking for with regard to this issue? There's no arguing against what you say, not in any major way. You're right. The thing with theory is it inspires some people and not others, even others who intuitively understand and agree with the theory. Theory is only as good as its practice. What I want to know is, what is currently favorable to the revolution here in the U.S. for us to take advantage of? Obviously we have increasing poverty, underfunded and gutted social programs, a health care system that exists only for those who can afford it, crumbling infrastructure, the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer (as my father used to say), and, for me the biggest issue is the environment and climate change, which eventually will create a level playing field one way or another -- but at great cost (and I'm not talking money). These are the negatives. And they freak people out. It's much easier to remain in as much denial as your personal circumstances allow. Within this post and countless others on Grist since I've been paying attention, these negatives have been variously discussed as opportunities for bringing people together (although in reality it's slow in coming). Are there any real positives that support the revolution? I believe there are but they aren't networked together into a more cohesive vision. Ordinary people don't see a place for themselves in this vision. Even me, who has espoused vision after vision in my own work, detailing those organizations and enterprises that will play roles, find myself at this point in my life unable to take advantage of the benefits of the positive, and in turn to support them substantively. This is because it takes money and I don't have it. The question is, how can we make it possible for people without much means to be part of those strategies that are necessary for economic democracy, justice, and environmental sanity? How can those of us who are just managing to pay today's bills, with little or no savings, help grow and participate in the alternatives? I believe a nonviolent revolution, which I assume is what we're talking about here, will need to include more than leftists and radicals. And it will need more than trust fund babies on one extreme and individuals who have basically given their whole lives to activism and revolutionary change at the other extreme. I say this because I was an activist and single mother with three kids (now grown) and I couldn't afford to volunteer most of my time as many of my colleagues did. I ran an organization, organized conferences and projects, published a newsletter and generally did what people said was "valuable" work. Yet when I needed a paycheck for it I was told that I shouldn't expect to support myself as an activist. So the alternative was to stop being an activist and get myself a "real" job. But I never did that because I couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead I struggled and patched together a livelihood of payment for articles, honorariums, and the occasional "fee" for doing non-profit work. Plus food stamps, Medicaid, and, when my ex didn't send childsupport, welfare. It was stressful but not as stressful, for me anyway, as working at McDonalds would have been. However, that was my decision. Most people I know would not make that decision, and thus we lose valuable people (of all races, I'm white), many of them women. So this is a class issue we have to deal with, not just in acknowledging it, which I believe we do, but in finding ways of addressing it.
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bookerly Posted 5:07 am
01 Jul 2006
Welcome SMLowry to this discussion (as such!, sometimes I fear we are engaged in a series of semi-connected monologues).
You made a very telling point "It's frustrating to have the "powers that be" tell us that it's up to individuals to make changes when it's the whole global economic system that needs to be transformed. No matter what I do, it accomplishes nothing in the larger picture as long as my community, my state, my country, act as though the way it has been is the way it will continue to be."
One of the key issues in the environmental movement is the difference between "individual" and "collective" responses. The individual response is what people have correctly criticized as "being better consumers, making more correct individual lifestyle choices."
The problem with this is that it doesn't address the structure or framework of our societal ills. Individuals find themselves locked into false dichotomies which give them only carefully controlled choices.
(Should I buy a Prius or should I buy an SUV)
What some folks speak of as the rich or ruling class is the not-only the wealthy, but the institutional structures of our society. (The military are major polluters, but are left out of a discussion where we talk about individual choices.)
Look at discussion of Americans use of resources. We typically take the whole carbon footprint and divide it up by the number of people, and say "look what you did"! But we don't ask why you get averaged with General Motors, I get averaged with Andrews Air Force Base, and LegumeSam gets averaged with Bill Gates.
We are missing an analysis that does what LegumeSam is requesting, and puts class on the table. After all, if the top 10% get almost all of the money, shouldn't they make most of the sacrifices, and aren't they most of the problem?
But even further, we need to move beyond the individual analysis, and look at how much of the pollution and waste is generated by institutions. They don't want us to talk about this, they would rather CanisCandida take responsibility for ExxonMobile's pollution and Bart take it for the Department of Energy.
We always assume that it is the individuals who need to make all the changes, when in reality, it is the institutions.
Until we begin to organize and make demands of the institutions (all of them; corporate, military, religious, educational, labor, government, NGO and any broad category I have left out), until that time, we are in the position of the poor arguing over crumbs while the feast is kept carefully out of sight.
(Not my best analogy, but hopefully understandable!).
patrick
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bookerly Posted 5:30 am
01 Jul 2006
LegumeSam said "I've tried to demonstrate here, to the best of my powers, that capitalism is destroying the Earth's ecosystems. And the best response I've read to this argument is this complaint that "no revolution is happening in the US today." "
No one is disagreeing that American monopoly capitalism is destroying the Earth's ecosystems, at least as far as I can see. People are trying to figure out what to do about it.
The "complaint" that "no revolution is happening in the US today" is not a response to the idea that capitalism is destroying the Earth's ecosystems. You should really stop creating straw men to knock down, it is more helpful when you respond to what people are actually saying.
The problem is that there is no organizing going on that seems likely to lead in the direction of an "economic democracy" in the time frame needed to prevent serious global problems due to global warming.
It is true we are in a "war of position", but that is exactly the problem some of us have been trying to deal with. A "war of position" means that "there is no revolution on the horizon."
Global Warming is on the horizon. You can make great strides in the "war of position", only to see them swept away by the changes that Global Warming will bring.
Surviving the next three decades (actually in my case, living that long would be pretty good (grin)) is exactly the issue.
Over the long term, I believe we need to make profound structural changes. They will be created by folks who see the need and act. But what conditions will they have in which to act? Can we make enough "reforms" to buy time for people to move beyond a "war of position"?
The word "revolution" is a scary word to many people, suggesting violence, death and destruction (like many words, it has been carefully stripped of it's positive values by people who don't want change).
If we want to talk about a "revolution", we need to do so in enough detail that people can pick it up, smell it, taste it, pinch it. As long as we try to avoid such messy details as "how do we get there", and "how can we do it without violence", then many ordinary people will be suspicious and refuse to trust the idea.
The argument that we can't describe it because we haven't been there before doesn't work very well. If we can't describe it, most people don't want any part of it.
How can we begin to more clearly define our vision for how ecosocialism might work, or what an "economic democracy" would look like?
If all of our ideas are theoretical and far removed from folks daily lives, then they will be even less interested in considering becoming part of a movement or revolution.
patrick
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:30 am
01 Jul 2006
Here are some examples about what would make sense in the US:
The nations of Latin America are one-by-one electing social-democrat, leftist or nationalist-populist governments. They keys to their success seem to be coalitions and pragmatism. Gone is the romantic leftism of the past.
The ideas of Antonio Gramsci.In Gramsci's view, any class that wishes to dominate in modern conditions has to move beyond its own narrow `economic-corporate' interests, to exert intellectual and moral leadership, and to make alliances and compromises with a variety of forces.I hadn't heard that the U.S. Right has read Gramsci, as LS says, but I wouldn't be surprised. Note how successful they have been!
The various parties of the left in Italy. I was always impressed with their intelligence and cultural depth. The Communist Party of Italy (now re-named) was probably the most healthy and successful communist party in the world, partly due to the influence of Gramsci. Incidentally, a leftist coalition has just beaten Berlusconi.
The U.S. left during the 30s and 40s, the period of the popular front (co-operation in favor of winning WW2). Reading the history of the period now, one realizes what a string of successes they had - unionization, New Deal programs, spread of ideals of social justice, etc. It's especially important for us in the U.S. to reclaim our heritage from that period. The tragedy of that time was the Stalinism and subservience to Russia by the communist party.
In fact, I think a broad movement in the U.S. is in the early stages, based on revulsion towards the neo-cons and a growing awareness of the serious problems we face (global warming, U.S. indebtedness, military overstretch, economic polarization, energy). The movement would include many different groups and philosophies, but with the overarching goal of achieving sustainability.
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SMLowry Posted 6:43 am
01 Jul 2006
Bob Swam (now deceased) with the E.F. Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, MA used to talk about creating economic lifeboats -- models like land trusts, revolving loan funds, community currencies, CSA's, various forms of communities, co-ops, etc. -- the kinds of projects I've written about in the past, and how important it was to do this everywhere so that, as he used to say, when the shit hits the fan the lifeboats are there. Bob lived through the depression but he was convinced that the next depression would probably be caused by ecological issues, and I believe he was right.
The criticism I always used to get when I traveled around talking and giving workshops about this stuff is that while the alternatives are cool and exciting, they can't, in and of themselves, take the place of what already exists. In other words, loggers and folks working in paper mills knew that no neat fund or trust or currency or worker-owned enterprise was going to replace, job for job, dollar for dollar, what we're used to from corporations. And this is absolutely true. And so what folks were (and probably still are) waiting for is some magic bullet that allows us to shut down, say, the paper mills and put something equal but environmentally benign in its place. Until we can come up with that, we won't get anywhere.
But the thing is we'll never be able to come up with that, we probably shouldn't even try, because we need to totally transform our expections regarding money, "stuff", jobs, quality of life, all that. My response always was, well of course you're right but we still have to do it because we won't know what the next steps are until we take that first step.
I think we do need to address the questions, how will we get there and how can we do it without violence and I believe we already have some tangible strategies. There are projects out there both in this country and especially in other countries that can be used as examples. What needs to be done is the various models need to be webbed together so they grow and feed on each other, supporting each other. In other words, we need to create an economy that is modeled after healthy ecosystems (which is what I said in my first book in 1985). We need to take the qualities and relationships that keep ecosystems healthy and dynamic and translate them into creating healthy community-and regionally- based economies.
Some elements that are key to this are cooperation (as opposed to competition -- I see survival of the fittest, for example, as cooperation for the good of the whole), appropriate scale (some things, such as basic food stuffs, energy, basically those things we need in order to survive, should be provide locally/regionally, while other goods can be imported because economies of scale mean it makes more sense to produce these things at larger sites and ship them). Plus these things are probably not necessary for survival, in the moment anyway.
Other qualities are balance, diversity, and self-reliance. These can all be translated into economic relationships and from there can be used to inform the creation of economic alternatives.
The key I think (most times anyway, when I'm feeling more optimistic), is to focus on creating these alternatives and not give too much energy to trying to recreate the old with an ecologically benign face. We need to revolutionize the system by creating alternatives outside the system and integrate them into our communities, literally shoving the old aside to create space when necessary. My sense is that once people actually see and experience the alternatives they will be excited enough to participate.
There are problems of course. For example, most people want to purchase high quality, locally-made goods (clothing, furniture, whatever) but only the wealthiest among us can afford it so instead folks go to walmart or some equivalent. The only way to shift out of this pattern is to get rid of the walmarts, because no matter how many of us won't shop there we're no match for those who do. But no one said it would be easy. These are just a few of my ideas.
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LegumeSam Posted 8:57 am
01 Jul 2006
LSam, what kind of response are you looking for with regard to this issue? There's no arguing against what you say, not in any major way. You're right. The thing with theory is it inspires some people and not others, even others who intuitively understand and agree with the theory. Theory is only as good as its practice. What I want to know is, what is currently favorable to the revolution here in the U.S. for us to take advantage of? Educate -- be an inspiration to others -- organize if you can. You probably have heard this already. I vote with my friend Peter on this matter -- we need a revolutionary critical pedagogy, so that our education isn't just pouring facts into heads but actually means something for the future. I'm not sure that this is the place to define or describe such a thing.
I see theory, by the way, as an essential nutrient -- once you've decided to do something, the question of "what do you do" needs to be resolved in terms of theory. I don't, however, think we need to be clairvoyant and predict the future in order to do anything at all, nor do we need to rely on past models for doing things in order to create the future. Theory is an ongoing process, not a resolved issue.
The question is, how can we make it possible for people without much means to be part of those strategies that are necessary for economic democracy, justice, and environmental sanity? We can start by creating options within the activist community which are not tied down to the money economy. I participate in an agency called Food Not Bombs -- I serve food to the homeless at minimal cost, and give the rest away to the local food bank. We need a Food Not Bombs for everything -- Clothing Not Bombs, Shelter Not Bombs, Life Not Bombs. A life spent outside of the money economy is not taxable, and not divided by class distinctions.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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bookerly Posted 9:03 am
02 Jul 2006
I keep trying to focus on the practical, but I do agree with LegumeSam. Without theory, we lack the basic underpinnings for eventual success.
It seems to me that since the "fall" of the Soviet Union and the discreditation of it's model, the traditional left theories have been in disarray (in the United States, in the rest of the world, there are many other forces at play). The popularity of Gramsci is partly due to both his relative pragmatism and the relative success the Italian Party has achieved electorally and especially culturally.
The right generally has it's theories in order (even if they are somewhat insane and not to forget, totally anti-environmental!!).
The "left" as such in America is tiny and fragmented with a mixture of traditional ideologies. While each argues that it is correct, the fact is that no progressive ideology has taken hold among people in large numbers.
This should suggest to us that we still have work to do. If we talk to people about our ideology (as SMLowry points out), we may find that without being able to provide clearer ideas, they aren't interested.
Stated another way, one of our problems is that we don't have a good clear definition of exactly who we are and what we believe in that will allow us to rally people to our banners.
(For those who do have such definitions, notice whether people are in fact rallying.)
As Bart points out, the times of progress in our country were when there was a good solid left propelling things forward.
Today, we have a bad solid right, and facing it, a centrist Democratic party which is largely about nothing.
Beyond that, we have a potpurri of issues and groups (including environmental groups) that are so far unable to connect into a broader coalition with a clear cut ideology (though hopefully, as Bart suggest, sustainability will be a key element in what emerges).
There is a good chance that this is just a historical period we are going through, and over time, a revitalized left without values beyond "money" and "consumption" will appear.
And there are indeed small groupings and forces at work in this direction.
But, but, but.
In the meantime, the clouds of war are gathering. All of the co-housing, farmers markets, and food serving groups may find themselves swept away by the forces global warming is likely to unleash.
The United States has pretty much lost one major city (New Orleans) already, and it's early days yet. Unless we get our national act together, the following is likely to happen (worst case scenarios).
1) Coastal cities will pretty much be destroyed. A number of them will be ocean.
2) What are now inland areas near the coast will be the coast.
3) These areas will be pummelled by nasty hurricans.
4) Central areas will be subject to more extreme weather conditions, and some may become uninhabitable.
5). Within the US, there will be a dislocation and refugee flow of tens fo millions (so if you are in the "hey, we won't flood midwest, be ready to welcome a million or so new neighbors.)
6) From without the US, refugees from the Caribbean and South and Central America will head north, a hundred million or so.
7) Massive numbers of species will die off.
And this is only locally, globally, it will be the same.
Some countries will do a better job handling the problems.
The thing is, this will happen relatively quickly. And we are unlikely to be ready to deal with it (look at our inability to rebuild New Orleans, which we appear to have mostly written off.)
So, adaptation is not a great solution. Mitigation is our best bet. But we seem unable to do much about it.
Theory, we need at some point to have a good theory of how to live and transform society. A theory we can show to people for when they are ready for it.
In the meantime, though, we also need to be practical, and recognize that Global Warming is a big event and we need to try to stop it (or at least mitigate it) as best we can.
As we grope towards our new paradigm, we also need to be active. We need to directly challenge those who are driving us towards destruction. We need to organize and educate.
patrick
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bookerly Posted 9:23 am
02 Jul 2006
Bart,
Your points about South America and the leftist parties there are well taken. In China (which is learning as it transforms and modernizes), the talk is how how to build a harmonious society, and sustainability is a key element.
(People should not be mislead by what they read in the Western media, the real situation is much more complex and interesting.)
One of the hopeful signs is the nation to nation cooperation among developing countries. What is interesting is that this is outside (and perhaps thus invisible to) the power structure set up by the developed countries.
Hugo Chavez proposing new models of deal with oil companies at an OPEC meeting. Saudia Arabia developing relationships with China. New regional groupings of developing countries that do not include the developed nations.
All of these are signs of a rapidly emerging "different" (the word "new" in this context carries too many conotations) world order.
There are a lot of reasons for longer term optimism economically in the world.
Environmentally, things are not so clear.
The traditional models of economic developement all included periods of major environmental destruction (in the now developed countries). Read about the air condition in cities like London and New York a hundred years ago.
The world may not be able to handle both the overconsumption and pollution of the developed countries, and the increased consumption and pollution of the developing countries at the same time.
What needs to happen, is for the developed countries to use their wealth to create sustainable models for themselves, and share their wealth and technology to help developing countires leapfrog past the "dirty" period.
That is really what Kyoto was about.
We can see the weakness of both the left and the environmental movement in the United States, in that there was (and still is not) any concerted movement being built to do these things (working initially with the treaty, then moving beyond it).
Instead, the right wallowed in a "it cost too much" and "make the poor people in the world pay more" orgy of greed and xenophobia largely unchallenged.
Our national challenge is to find a way to organize, and then do it.
Many of the middle class technophiles spend most of their time on the net. This may be a new model (obviously I hope it is part of the answer, which is why I am here), but it is not clear that it will replace old fashioned people to people (in the flesh) organizing.
In many ways, we seem stuck (which is why we discuss!)
Maybe next year, we should cancel Earth Day, and turn it into a day of mass protest.
patrick
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bookerly Posted 9:38 am
02 Jul 2006
Dear SMLowry, you make a lot of good points, and mostly I agree with you.
But I want to challenge one idea that I have doubts about. Perhaps through discussion, you and others can answer my doubts (smile).
This is the idea of "local" as part of sustainability.
On the one hand, it seems to make a lot of sense, it reduces the energy components of production by reducing transportation. It has a nice cosy comfy flavor (we can talk to the farmers, we can drive by the factories).
And I am not opposed to the idea of local, but it also seems to me to carry some negatives.
People (and countries) improve their lives by having surplus wealth that they can spend on things like education, housing, health care, culture, infastructure. Usually this surplus wealth comes from having something that attracts wealth from elsewhere (in our modern world), which is then invested into building the infastructure that will produce more surplus wealth locally.
One of the complaints of poorer countries, is that the developed countries cherry pick (ie, pick and choose what items they will trade for) in ways that end up keeping the developing countries poor.
Where does the "shop local" movement fit into this? A number of the poorest developing countries have no raw resources that can be extracted by the developed countries. What they hope to do, is to sell food to the developed countries (the profits from which will be used to help them escape poverty).
Their complaint is that the developed countries in the interest of protecting their own agriculture, create a trading playing field that is stacked against them.
Is there a way, that a "shop local" movement can both support local agriculture, and at the same time, allow access to wealthy markets for the poorest nations?
I am interested in hearing people's thoughts on this.
patrick
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SMLowry Posted 9:44 am
02 Jul 2006
China may be working towards a harmonious society, which is great, but the pollution in China is something else again.
And absolutely no way will online "organizing" ever take the place of face to face. You're right -- I discuss because I'm frustrated but when I'm busy and doing stuff I don't have time to discuss online. The real work happens in real time, as they say. Certainly some things can be done online and done well, but part of organizing is the comeraderie, getting to know people, not just the words they type. That said, we need to transform our whole idea of organizing in this country. I don't know how, I just know what we're doing, and what I've done in the past, doesn't work. It's like we're always fighting the same battles over and over. And that's how it feels. Creating something positive, while at the same time educating about why and how, may be the way to go.
Take Food Not Bombs, for example, (given in earlier posts). I live in rural Maine and there's not a Food Not Bombs in sight. But there could be, and hopefully not a two hour drive away. We need these things where we live. Here people are so busy often working two jobs, that they just don't feel they have the time to go to meetings and organize. On line could help that somewhat but if you aren't willing or able to go out once a month to accomplish something positive, then nothing will ever get done. That's what I feel I'm up against here. Sorry for the rant. But when I think of what we're facing and look out at the country I live in then, well, sometimes rant is all I can do.
But then, an Earth Day of mass protest might actually work.
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bookerly Posted 10:33 am
02 Jul 2006
Dear SMLowry,
Thanks for your comments, your perceptions are very useful. Especially on the difficulty of organizing in the midst of "daily life" and struggles.
I have no immediate answers for that, except to note that if we don't find ways to include organizing in our lives, we will face the consequences.
As to China, yes the pollution is bad in some times and at some places. But beware of what you read in the MSM. Remember that they have an agenda for everything they publish.
For instance, they often state that Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world. This was true perhaps 10 or 15 years ago. And there are days and periods of bad pollution, but at the same time there are periods when the skies are blue and the air is clean for days at a time.
So, "most polluted cities in the world"? The few times I have tried to track this down, they were relying on data from 1990. In China, 1990 is forever ago.
It is a big country, and there is a lot more to it than "scare" stories in the MSM.
Back to the US. Food Not Bombs is admirable. But are they scalable? Any solutions we seek must be applicable to large numbers of people or they are useful niches, but not really society-wide solutions.
Any thoughts on my local conundrum (grin)?
patrick
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LegumeSam Posted 5:30 am
03 Jul 2006
I would recommend starting a Food Not Bombs yourself. The FNB manual is here. You will have to have a food source. I found mine by going to the local farmer's market at closing time and asking the farmers if they had vegetables/ fruits they couldn't use. You will also need to find a population in need of healthy food. My area in southern California has a plentiful homeless population, living outdoors; circumstances are likely to be different in Maine. Food banks and churches can give information about their hungry clienteles. You should eventually be able to rustle up people who can come by a house once a week on the weekend to help prepare food or circulate leaflets or gather items for giving away.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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SMLowry Posted 9:37 am
03 Jul 2006
Here in the states, I think the issue is appropriate scale. And perhaps we need to expand the idea of local to regional, or better, bioregional. Perhaps there is a balance that can be reached, assuming we start decoupling from the corporate morass soon, between local and imported. The key, I think is whether the trade is mutually beneficial or exploitative.
Re: Food Not Bombs -- it may not work everywhere -- nothing will but the key is diversity. Food Not Bombs, as a model, is part of, but not THE solution for sustainablilty. Every place is unique. That's one of the things corporations have tried very hard to take away from us. Every where you go there are the same chains. Everything looks alike. It's actually a selling point to the consumer -- you can count on a certain level of service, "quality", etc, no matter where you are. To me this is just the pits. But focusing on how each place is unique and finding value in that is another important step we can take. (And not from the tourist perspective.)
Good to hear China's environment is improving. You're right. A friend of mine visited about ten years ago and that's the report she brought back. I haven't heard anything since that has refuted it. But then I was in Athens not long ago. I spoke with someone who had been there several years before who remarked about how dirty the city was. Well, my experience was decidedly different. I was impressed. There was air pollution, absolutely, and they are aware of it and working on ways of dealing with it by limiting cars, etc. But overall I'd revist Athens at the drop of a hat (if I could afford it -- while it's still possible.)
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bookerly Posted 11:53 am
03 Jul 2006
SMLowry writes "What did people in the poroer countries do for food, for their livelihoods before Western capitalist "free trade" was the law of the globe? It's my understanding that the reason many of these peoples are in the straits they're in today is because traditional relationships with regard to access to land and markets, traditional ways of trading and relating with each other have been ursurped by the Market."
This is one of the lovely myths that some well meaning people spread. The idea of a mythical past when all was well, and humans lived in perfect harmony with nature, which has been destroyed by modern civilization.
Interestingly, there are parallels between this kind of thinking and various myths from our past such as that of the "noble savage".
What did people do in the past? Frequently, they lived short difficult lives. Women especially died young (multiple childbirths tended to wear them out, and society was hardly friendly). They starved. They struggled all of their lives just to fill their bellies.
Poorer people in the world are not looking for "less" access to the market, they are looking for "more". Read about the latest round of WTO talks, they broke down, because the developed countries, especially the US want to protect "local" markets for food at the expense of the poorer countries.
This is a contradiction, and we must be careful not to "romanticize" the idea of "local".
The developing countries watch the US absorb natural resources (such as oil) that provide very few jobs, and in a way that most of the money goes to central governments (to be used for good or ill).
Small farmers, see agricultural trade as their chance to get some capital from the West for themselves. But they see trade barriers that keep them from doing so.
We can't ask what people did before "Western Capitalist Free Trade was the law of the globe" because it NEVER has been the law of the globe. Not for agriculture, not in a two way manner.
As for traditional ways of living, remember that they often come with terrible exploitation of women. The Taliban promote "traditional ways of living".
There is a difference between fighting against colonization of agriculture by big agri-business, which is what I believe Vandana Shiva is doing, and blocking access to markets for poor people, which is my concern.
patrick
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SMLowry Posted 7:27 am
04 Jul 2006
I can't argue that life was hard in the past. But life is hard now, too. I feel as though we're living in the eye of the hurricane at this point in time and the future we're creating is going to make the hard past look like the good times. For instance, we still haven't dealt with the devastation in New Orleans. It's like a third world country in many places. Life is hard for rural people in the US, too. You don't have to drive too far off the main roads here in Maine, for example, to see poverty. Of course it's not as bad as some third world countries yet, but with energy prices climbing and lack of access to health care and decent paying jobs things are going to get a lot worse.
I don't want to romanticize local but it only makes sense to become as regionally self-reliant (not self-sufficient, there's a difference) as possible for those things that are the basic necessities of life.
A few years ago I worked on various campaigns to fight rainforest destruction. Many of the organizations I connected with worked directly with indigenous peoples. Certainly there were some tribal people who wanted the development and the stuff it brought, but at that time a majority valued their homeland, their culture and traditions. They wanted to be the ones to decide their future, not Exxon or Shell or BP or UNOCAL or other mining companies. They put their lives on the line protesting clearcutting and mining and they traveled to this country and spoke at conferences, including one my organization organized (Industrial Nations' Impact on Tribal Lands).
Jose Barriero, a Native American educator, activist and editor of Akwe:non Journal (I'm not sure if it's still being published) contributed to my books and wrote about what he called the Fourth World peoples -- people from aborigional or tribal cultures who still have a memory of their culture, language, and religion, and who want the freedom for their cultures to continue to exist. I am not trying to do the "noble savage" thing here, merely to point out that there are many, many ways of perceiving sustainablity and livelihood. There is much to be learned from people who don't want the contraptions associated with our technological, industrial culture.
I'll never forget a conference I was at in the mid 1980s sponsored by the Seventh Generation Fund. I was one of the few (about nine out of over two hundred participants) non-Native people there. I was asked to be a resource person on economic alternatives. I brought handouts and flyers and so did the other people there, Native or not. Usually people who attend informational conferences pick up flyers and booklets and whatever is out there almost mindlessly. You have to wonder how much of it even gets looked at and you can only hope it gets recycled rather than tossed in the trash. But not at this conference. People only took what they actually thought they'd use. There were plenty of handouts left over. It as a whole different perspective on information. Less greedy. More thoughtful. And more critical as well. There were many things about this event that stayed with me, but one of the biggest things was an attitude of greater respect for everything -- people, information, even paper. I met some powerful activists at this conference -- John Mohawk, Winona LaDuke, Mike Myers, people I was able to work with over the years at various times. I have not had a lot of experience traveling in the third world which I know is a liability because I don't really know so much. I try not to romanticize, and may not always succeed, but this is because I feel we'd all be so much better off if we integrated a bit of the indigenous world view into our industrial world view.
One more thing -- I know traditional societies can be oppressive to women or minorities within them. I think it is possible to learn from them anyway without swallowing everything whole. The whole point of evolution, after all, is to evolve and not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. We can learn from each other and hopefully everyone will grow so that not only will all people be respected, but so will the land, the air, the water, and the non-human species we share the Earth with. I know, I know, it's pie-in-the-sky stuff, but it's a vision, something to aspire to. I also know that the changes of achieving it are, well, not huge. Still. I can dream -- and do what I can to help it along.
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Storm Dragon Posted 8:25 am
04 Jul 2006
The Taliban is, basically, a group of zealous young men who want to enforce what they regard as a "pure" form of Islam. They do not represent the "traditional" culture of Afganistan, any more than the Puritans of Oliver Cromwell's day represented the "traditional" culture of England. (And we zealous environmentalists should beware of regarding them as role models!).
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bookerly Posted 10:02 am
04 Jul 2006
Dear StormDragon,
Thank you very much for making the point about the Taliban clearly. My intent (though not clear!) was to 1) suggest that "traditional values" are not always those that should be supported and (what I should have said clearly) 2) people can use the idea of "traditional values" to suppress dissent.
On Afghanistan, that poor country has been fought over for so many years, it is hard to know what to say. I certainly am not in favor of the Taliban, but the current government (such as it is) has a number of terrible problems. The place of women in traditional culture is not good there.
Nor is it in a large number of other countries, I single Afghanistan out largely because the United States has invaded and imposed the latest government, promising (in the MSM) new rights for females. Which are largely illusory outside of Kabul, and weak there.
Dear SMLowry,
There is a difference between supporting local people's control of their resources and their future (a good thing), and seguing from that into the idea of "everything local is good". In many cases, while local people want to determine their own destiny, that destiny includes the ability to improve their lives.
There is a difference between "robbing other countries of their resources", which we can all agree is bad, and entering into "win-win" mutually beneficial trade agreements, which can help other countries pull themselves out of poverty.
I lived in Maine at one time, had my draft physical there, and remember the room being full of young men from the countryside with very bad teeth and a lot of them with the bow legs associated with rickets. I know about poverty in America, it is one of the disgraces of the richest society on earth.
But, just as I (an anti-war activist) could not criticize those young men who looked forward to joining the military for the benefits and opportunities it offered (there were no other visible alternatives for them), so also, can I not criticize people who are living in poverty and want a better life for their children.
I am not going to comment on any particular group of indigenous people and their desires to stay "traditional", since there may be many "flavors" of such. But we should all note, that the voices we hear are usually those of the elites in those societies, who are basically demanding that their own elite positions be maintained.
I am not in favor of "imposing" my ideas on indigenous peoples, that is not the point. They are usually in different categories that what we call "the third world".
The issue of access to local markets (especially for agricultural products) is that of poor people trying to escape poverty, current rules block their access.
Current rules (all imposed by the developed countries through the WTC) encourage monoculture farming, by allowing those crops (but not others) access.
The question, remains.
How, in all the talk of supporting local farming (in particular), do we take into account the needs and desires of people trying to escape poverty for access to those markets?
patrick
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SMLowry Posted 5:39 am
05 Jul 2006
I'm not sure the Native leaders I mentioned would be considered "elite" but maybe so. Rather they are traditionalists. Some are elders, others more radical younger people. But then I've been called elitist myself because of my values and ideals (such as supporting fair trade, organics, goods that are generally more expensive than conventional goods). And no way am I wealthy, unless you're going by the standards the third world. So it all depends on where you're coming from as to who is "elite" or not, I guess.
Re: poverty in Maine. I do think things are a bit better than when you were here for your draft physical, um, many years ago. At least as far as things like rickets and tooth decay in young people. Medicaid, WIC, school screenings, etc. have done a lot to help. Still, there's plenty of poverty, especially for older people living on fixed incomes.
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