Re: mad cows and sane marxists

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 9 Apr 1996, Rahul Mahajan wrote:

> possibility of new super-plagues. The green revolution has led to serious
> problems with the dependence of farming on oil and chemical fertilizers and
> to greater precariousness of food supply, with the establishment of
> monocultures where previously there was considerable diversity in strains.
> The plus side is that we now live to 65 instead of 45 (world average), and
> food production in the Third World has kept pace with or even advanced on
> population growth (though not recently). We are going to keep on monkeying
> with nature, not simply because of profit but because of need. The question

Louis: Rahul raises a crucial point. Environmentalism is something that
the Volvo-driving, white-wine imbibing petty-bourgeoisie has embraced.
They would like to see "nature" restored no matter what impact it has on
the Third World. At its most extreme, some of these elements welcome AIDS
since it will reduce the population pressure on the environment in Africa
and elsewhere.

I am coming at this from an entirely different perspective: ecosocialism.
Ecosocialists can not sit on their hands and simply say that more
production, at any expense, is necessary. The reason they can't is that
unplanned production is killing the planet. If the planet dies, so will
humanity. I am basically paraphrasing Rifkin's "Beyond Beef" in these
series of posts, but I arrive at radically different political
conclusions from this moralizing green-green social critic. These
conclusions, as the catepillar in Alice in Wonderland would put it, will
be put forward at the conclusion of my posts on the beef subject.


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