Reply to: Re: "Second contradiction" of

[Jon Flanders <72763.2240@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 >>  The worker and citizen should be made to bear personal responsibility for
the side-effects of his industry. The industrial proletariat is eager for this
responsibility, the farmer, rancher and logger are really not. <<Boddhisatva

 Jon Flanders:

  Huh? On what do you base this statement? I wish this were true, but the sad
fact is that all too many workers chose to hide behind their non-ownership of
the means of production and shrug their shoulders at the pollution caused by
"their industry."

  One thing we should rid ourselves of is any illusions that being a worker
automatically leads to greater class or political consciousness. I wish some
of my co-workers had the political smarts and willingness to show some
solidarity that the farmers of our NY State Empire Farm Alliance do.

  My cousins are politically active on the "progressive" side of things in
their small farm community. They are respectful and open to new political
ideas. If anything, they, and the other farmers I have met, are far ahead of
the average worker in critical thinking about the world. My cousin Buck, by
the way, was hooked up to AOL before I even knew it existed.

  This is not to say that being a small propriator does not affect
consciousness. It does. But lets dump simplistic workerism and cheerleading
for the automatic progress led by agribusiness. I will take the small farmer
as an environmental steward of the land any day over the depradations of
Tyson, Armour and company.



  E-mail from: Jonathan E. Flanders, 25-Apr-1996




     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---