Ecology

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Russell Grinker:
>Unfortunately this is true. The real content of "sustainable development" is
>the introduction of regulating mechanisms upon capitalism designed to
>counter assumed future environmental and social damage caused by the
>unfettered reproduction of capital. While this may have originally been the
>preserve of green, leftwing and feminist movements that arose out of their
>disillusionment with the market, these concerns have entered mainstream
>bourgeois ideology. Although not presented as anti-growth, the effect of
>these regulations (particularly for countries dominated or oppressed by
>imperialism) is a 'slow down/live within your means' outlook.

You are not thinking dialectically. Capitalism creates oppositional
movements of all sorts. Inevitably it tries to co-opt these movements,
including the trade union movement itself. For example, the trade union
officials and middle-class Greens put all sorts of retrograde notions on
display in the recent Seattle protests. John Sweeny and Jimmy Hoffa Jr.
pushed economic nationalism, while Greens such as Vandana Shiva and Jerry
Mander used the protests as an opportunity to attack the notion of growth
per se. So what political conclusions can one draw from this? Should we
view trade unionism and environmentalism as the enemy? This clearly is the
logic of LM Magazine, which Russell identifies with. It is put out by a
group in Great Britain that broke with Marxism and attached itself to the
libertarian cause. As such it is understandable why its pages rail against
environmental controls of any sort, while trade union struggles go
unmentioned.

When you create a dichotomy of "growth" versus "anti-growth," you are
accepting an economic agenda which is framed by the Wall Street Journal on
one side and the Sierra Club on the other. As Marxists, we have a different
agenda entirely, which is to combine social ownership of the means of
production and scientific planning in pursuit of the common good. This
common good must take into account SUSTAINABILITY. It is reactionary and
anti-scientific to, for example, promote the use of DDT as LM does. Any
first year biology student here at Columbia University can explain to you
why DDT is counter-productive. For example, its use simply leads to a new
generation of insects who have genetic resistance to the poison. Thus,
increased dosages are required. Understanding this requires a knowledge of
ECOLOGY, a branch of science that is unknown to LM followers. In all of the
postings I've read over the years from their supporters, from James
Heartfield, a rather bright fellow in other respects, to Russell Grinker,
there is zero demonstration that they have actually read any scientific
literature in this field. It is very sad for self-professed Marxists to be
so deficient in this manner. Marx devoted himself to a systematic study of
the work of soil chemist Justin Liebeg so as to be able to address the
problem of soil fertility, which was the pre-eminent ecological problem of
the 19th century. Let's try to emulate Marx in our own modest fashion on
this question.






Louis Proyect

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