Re: Ecology

["Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

En relación a Re: Ecology,
el 5 Feb 00, a las 8:54, Louis Proyect dijo:

> Russell, bourgeois ideas are dominant everywhere. Unfortunately, you
> have so little familiarity with anti-capitalist, left-wing
> environmentalism that your reference to the "average punter" must
> include you as well. If you go to the links/ecology section of the
> Marxism list webpage, you will find ample references to groups like
> Project Underground (www.moles.org) who focus on radical political
> economy:
>

I am afraid that we are talking different languages, or we are
referring to different things. Nobody is saying that there is no
radical political economy, nor that ecological concerns are
reactionary per se. What Russell is describing (and I find amazingly
similar to what I encounter in Argentina, which leads me to think
that the situation may be similar the Third World over) is the actual
working of the ecologist ideology here.

The way this ideology works is very simple, and can even resort to
"left" phraseology. I am afraid that something of sorts happens with
Lou when he explains (astonishingly so for a seasoned Marxist like
him) that:

>  the Narmada Dam in India [...] favored the capitalist landowner against the 
> small
> peasantry.

I do not know the Narmada Dam nor the Narmada project. But there is
something I am absolutely convinced of: the social meaning of
development projects is NOT an absolute datum, inherent to the
project, but a relative datum. The same project, under different
social conditions, has different and even opposite meanings. Of
course, there are projects which embody a wholly reactionary
conception of things, but this is not something that can be usually
predicated of power and irrigation projects.

I can speak of the Argentinian dams on the Paraná, Uruguay and Limay
rivers, and of the Brazilian dams in the Paraná and Uruguay basins.
The dams are necessary in themselves: we need to obtain as much hydro
energy as possible (or it is only the USA who can have a Hoover
Dam?), and we also need to enhance the navigability of our inner
rivers.

The way the projects eventually materialized was very demonstrative
of the limitations imposed by imperialism and our senile capitalisms,
since no work was made to ensure navigation (this has been left for
trucks and road haulage, which is the great deal for oil companies
and truck manufacturers, at the expense of our own economies). The
dams were planted as mere barrages producing electric power, and they
were later transferred to private hands (in Argentina, at least).
After full privatization of Argentinian power supply, no more dams
were built, and we are increasingly depending on oil and gas for our
enregy needs. At the same time, pipe lines are built across fragile
ecosystems in the Northern provinces of Salta and Jujuy to profit the
development of an industrial center (under imperialist control) in
Northern Chile, exporting fuels that Argentina will sorely miss a few
years ahead in the future.

What does all this imply?  You have

(a) so to say "neutral" projects, that is projects that must be
carried on, either under a socialist or a capitalist regime; the
social implications of these projects will be different according to
the regime that builds them, but they are necessary nevertheless. The
dams are a good example. Proper ecologic management and a social
structure that undergoes transformation are the way to obtain the
best from them.

In Spanish there is a difference, which English misses, between
"ecóloga/ecólogo", that means a professional practitioner of ecology,
and "ecologista", that means one who assumes the vague "ecologist"
ideology that is permeating our "progressive reactionary" layers
today. While the ecologists in the first sense can debate these
things rationally, the ecologists in the second sense (that is the
mainstream way of mind among petty bourgeois and bourgeois here)
oppose the debate ab initio.

(b) "reactionary" projects, such as the pipe lines in the North,
which barter huge but short lived profit for ecologic damage, social
deprivement and energy waste. These are hardly defensible, from any
point of view. But the "ecologistas" (second sense) do not speak of
these projects, they don't even use them as an argument against the
projects in the first category. This is probably the best
demonstration of the ideological (and material) consequence of
"ecologism" (not "ecology", a subject matter I not only respect but I
also love) in Argentina.

Lou goes on, then, with his polemics against LM. Since I have nothing
to do with LM (I smoke Marlboro and even LM from time to time, but
Liggett & Myers are not the LM he is talking about, certainly!), I
will not answer him on things I do not care about. But I would ask
him to have a broader view of the concrete effects of the ideology of
ecologism in the Third World.

Probably Louis does not know this, but the "ecologist" ideology (not
concern with ecological issues, which is something different and
which was one of the targets of this widespread introduction of
ecologist ideology) was first introduced by the 1976-1983 Junta
government. It was even employed in order to deindustrialize the
Province of Buenos Aires, through a law issued in 1977 or 1978. The
intention of this and other similar laws was not, of course, to take
care of our own people's and enviroment's health, but to simply crush
the power of the working class either by closing plants or by
transferring them to isolated points in the Inland country, where
fresh workers were to be hired, workers who (the strategists
believed) would be more amenable to the harshness of the new labor
climate.

And, on the other hand, EVERY World Bank project includes an
"ecological" chapter today. These chapters are always talking of
"sustainability" of the project, and so on. So that ecologism is not
revolutionary in itself, least of all in the colonial world.

I insist:  only socialism is ecologically sound here.







Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxx