[PEN-L:2423] Re: The V-word

[blairs@xxxxxxxxxxx (Blair Sandler)]

At 6:59 AM 1/18/96, Terrence  Mc Donough wrote:
>[Nature] has no relation to value in the Marxian sense....

>Thus the human system and the natural system must be
>analyzed differently and one is unlikely to be able to find any
>measuring rod common to both.

>Both systems interact however.  The human economic system draws
>resources from the eco-system and discharges products into it.  This
>relationship is inevitably competitive.

>It seems to
>me that the only solution to this problem is to independently
>designate the preservation of the eco-system at its current level of
>diversity as a bedrock value which then places physical limits on the size of
>the human economy in terms of both its resource use and its discharge
>into the environment.
>
>Terry McDonough

It is NOT TRUE that nature has no relation to value in Marxian theory. I
hate to repeat myself but some people are not getting it. Value, socially
necessary abstract labor time, is partially constituted (overdetermined) by
natural processes. It is impossible to construct any system of value, to
value anything, without making a whole series of assumptions about the
state of nature (to put it simplistically) and the specific forms in which
humans act within nature. The fact that such assumptions are usually not
specified does not mean that no assumptions are being made.

One way, extremely problematic in my view, of relating nature to value is
through the discourse of externalities and internalization, i.e. by
focusing on market and exchange processes. In short, to put a price on
nature. Another way, from within a Marxian perspective, is to conceive
SNALT as overdetermined by nature and to theorize and explore the specific
ways that "nature" helps to constitute specific forms of concrete labor as
productive or unproductive. Further elaboration can then theorize the
specific ways that determinate natural processes overdetermine the division
of SNALT into necessary and surplus labor, and even the way specific forms
of surplus appropriation (e.g. exploitation) come into existence and
reproduce themselves (and perhaps are replaced by still others...).

I think the dominance of neoclassical thought is expressed nowhere so
dramatically as in the inability of many Marxists even to think outside of
its framework. Frankly, I think the discourse of externalities is death to
any genuinely Marxian environmentalism.

Economics and ecology ("the human system and the natural system") don't
"interact." The economy is a subsystem of the natural system. Humans do not
interact with but rather act within nature. The idea that humans an nature
interact accepts the cartesian (I think it's cartesian but could be wrong
about this) notion that humans are themselves not natural, not part of
nature; that there are two separate worlds that interact, instead of one
world that we partially constitute through our actions (just as birds,
arthropods, and trees also partially constitute the natural world -- and
thus "the human system" as well -- through their actions). It is precisely
this view of separation that is a big part of the problem we are having
understanding how to act within nature.

The relationship between the human economy and the natural system is NOT
"inevitably competitive"; only CERTAIN FORMS of human economy are
destructive of the natural system. Human actions are intrinsically neither
more nor less destructive of ecology than any other species. As Levins and
Lewontin say, "It is often forgotten that the seedling is the 'environment'
of the soil" (DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST, 134).

It is not obvious to me how Terry's conclusion (a form of what is commonly
known as the "precautionary principle" -- which by the way has nothing to
do with creating any kind of price or value for nature, in fact is entirely
opposed to it) follows from the way he sets up the problem, in fact, I
don't think it does. Precisely if human and nature are seen as "inevitably"
(rather than contingently) competitive, if humans are conceived to
"interact with" nature, then the precautionary principle is NOT "the only
solution" to the problem. The precautionary principle in fact presupposes a
perspective that humans are part of and act within nature just like every
other species (i.e., every species has its unique effectivity within world
ecology, so don't start accusing me of saying that every species is
"equal," or that our effects are the "same as" or "no greater than" the
effects of raccoons or dogs or pigeons or minnows or anything else!).

[god, is this a rant or what?!]

With love for life and hope for a uniquely and genuinely Marxian
environmentalism,

Blair Sandler