Re: [Marxism] Eating is not over-consumption

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 24, 2009, at 1:16 PM, Waistline2@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> Did the old Soviets over fish "their waters?" Let's assume that they  
> did
> for the moment. The solution remains the same: "stop doing it." Does  
> that
> mean  that over fishing by say the Soviets was driven by the same  
> economic
> impulses?  Of course not.


Why of course not?  Look at the Aral Sea, once one of the worlds best  
fisheries.  It was destroyed, fish and all, to grow cotton.  For what  
economic impulse?  Not to acquire cotton, which could have been bought  
on the world market.  The state-capitalist bureaucracy made a typical  
calculation--the ruble cost of imported cotton would be more than the  
ruble cost of growing cotton on irrigated land in Uzbekistan.  That  
this typically capitalist  calculation was utterly stupid doesn't make  
it "socialist"--quite the contrary.


Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu