Re: [Marxism] Re: Oil & MJ

["Barry Brooks" <durable@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Here's my take on the question. At best, the experts--even those who
>differ from Campbell et al--think that oil will run out in a few decades.

And including the CO2 problem, and the generational resource issues...

> As revolutionary socialists, we should be hitting away at the need to
>conserve scarce resources and propose more rational ways of living with nature.
>This involves first of all a reintegration of the city with the countryside, as
>Marx and Engels called for in the Communist Manifesto.
>

Only revolutionary socialists have any hope of finding more
rational ways of living with nature.

Serious conservation will require an end to hyperactivity
as a means of producing full employment. The wage
system requires production growth matching productivity.
The pursuit of profit also motivates growth. Either the
wage system or the free pursuit of profit would make it
impossible to change an economy to just provide
needed goods and services. Only a radical
view of economics has any chance of informing
practical methods of conservation.

Increased durablilty is an very underestimated
tool for conservation, which costs very little
to arrange and yields radical conservation. Easy
repair and updates are much labor-cheaper and
resource-cheaper than replacement. There is a
reverse multiplier effect reducing demand for various
supplies used by any producer of more durable items.

Conservation reduces demand, by definition. That's
what conservation is for. But, increasing demand is
the main quest of working economists, advertising,
etc. That makes conservation of any kind a serious
threat to automated full-employment, and to the whole
wage system.

Big investments must be political acts. Only then, will
people and the future have any chance of pushing the
the bottom line out of its undeserved dominant role in
deciding the biggest political question, "what are we
going to do next?"

Barry
http://home.earthlink.net/~durable







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