Re: Re: oil and socialism

[ALI KADRI <akadri_00@xxxxxxxxx>]

Socialism is about organizing man and nature as
opposed to capital which undermines man and nature -
anarchy in production. That is the theme Arthur K.
Davis used to repeat in his seminars. So, a different
energy dependency strategy/non-fossil fuels, one which
squeezes profits in order to safeguard nature, would,
among other things, save many lives in the middle
east. This of course will never happen in this system,
i.e. capitalism. It also cannot happen in one country
socialism that is  in direct competition with
capitalism since it must maintain a high rate of
exploitation cum capital accumulation to keep pace
with the industrial world, now imagine if that
socialism had the lesser technology the environmental
consequences are all too well known. An Environment
friendly energy strategy, i.e. allowing for undeterred
entry of energy saving means into the market, erodes
profits and devalorizes the economy at a much higher
frequency under capitalism. Thus, and this may be a
surmised result, socialism as a world system is better
equipped under its "value" scale to deal with
ecological questions. In fact, socialism may also
represent the system that is more innovative in
environmental technology because profit considerations
or return on investment rank lower than public health
issues. Had the US adopted a fossil fuel independent
strategy, many wars would have been unlikely, unless
wars happen for the fun of it which is never the case.
--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hola Paul:
>
> >Yoshie,
> >I might be happy to consider it.  But first a few
> changes to make
> >living in the US possible.
> >
> >Introduction of Medicare,
> >Gun control legislation
> >End to the Death Penalty
> >Establishment of a decent public school system
> >An adequate unemployment insurance system
> >Old age pensions
> >
> >That would be a start, anyhow.
>
> Ah, you Canadian socialists are a fussy & spoiled
> lot.  You'd have to
> accept the invitation as a great challenge (or the
> Socialist Man's
> Burden perhaps)!
>
> Anyhow, on the subject of social democracy, I
> recently posted the
> following on LBO-talk:
>
> *****   Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 13:21:49 -0500
> To: lbo-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Challenging the Black & Feminist
> Talented Tenth (was
> economic stats...)
>
> Gordon wrote:
>
> >Yoshie Furuhashi:
> >>  ...
> >>  I don't know if Nader & the Greens are up for
> it, though, for I think
> >>  that Katha is correct to say that the CP had a
> lot more "moxie,"
> >>  partisan discipline, organizational savvy, etc.
> than Nader/the
> >>  Greens, David McReynolds/the SP, etc. do.
> >
> >I don't know about the Socialist Party, but the
> material
> >I've seen from the Greens doesn't challenge the
> basic
> >assumptions of capitalism, liberalism and social
> democracy,
> >so in effect the people they are going to relate to
> among
> >Blacks and women (as political categories) are
> precisely the
> >Talented Tenth, because that's what social
> democracy is all
> >about -- the bourgeoisie with a human face, you
> might say,
> >achieved by replicating bourgeois relations and
> ideology
> >among the lower orders and thus incorporating them
> into the
> >system.
>
> At this point in history, we don't have to worry
> about the American
> Greens becoming part of social democracy, for the
> USA does not, and
> _will never_, have social democracy.  Only late
> industrializers &
> second-rate imperialists became social democratic;
> imperial hegemons
> (the UK, and then the USA) never became really
> social democratic.
> Moreover, all countries that are still social
> democratic now
> (Germany, Sweden, etc.) began to become so much,
> much earlier in
> history (during the periods of the Enlightened
> Despots and/or of
> alliance of radical peasant and working-class
> parties); the working
> class & petty producers in those countries are
> trying to hang onto &
> defend what's left of earlier gains, instead of
> making social
> democratic advance.  American radicals had several
> chances to lay the
> foundations for social democracy -- Black
> Reconstruction, Populism, &
> then the New Deal -- but they lost each time, due to
> American racism.
>
> Besides, now that we have no serious Communist
> challenge to
> capitalism, there is no reason why the ruling class
> in rich nations
> should concede to social democratic compromises.
>
> A good number of Greens are technocratic as you say,
> resembling the
> Fabians, but rest assured that wannabe Green
> technocrats will not be
> able to deliver social democracy.  Social democracy
> is dead, and not
> just here.  Recall what became of the German Greens:
> the Green
> scissors of neoliberalism & the humane face of
> imperialism.  The job
> of radicals in/near the Green movements in America
> is to stop the
> American Greens from following the footsteps of
> their German
> counterparts & to help them gain the guts to
> de-legitimate the
> Democratic Party & its supporters -- including the
> Black & Feminist
> Talented Tenth -- instead of promoting
> Nader-Traders.
>
> >The people around today who do challenge
> liberalism, etc.,
> >are mostly anarchists, so they're not likely to be
> big on
> >electoral organization and conventional
> politicking.  The old
> >CP must have had some idea of how they could turn
> electoral
> >victories and government power into fundamental
> social change.
>
> We should not hope for electoral victories: (1)
> because we will never
> get them, except at municipal levels; and (2)
> because we should not
> aspire to manage the working class for the benefit
> of capital (that's
> what electoral victories of the Left under
> capitalism amount to).
> Electoral campaigns are & should be for the sole
> purpose of political
> education & agitation, while forcing a few
> progressive reforms on the
> ruling class in the meantime, or more likely at
> present, preventing
> reactionary reform initiatives from coming to pass.
>
> >The idea is too sophisticated or too naive for me;
> I don't
> >see it.  But it could have given them the moxie we
> don't see
> >today.  Suppose they were naive: recall what
> Nietzsche said
> >about the necessity of ignorance.
>
> The false ideas that gave the CPs their "moxie," I
> believe, are not
> hopes for electoral victories but naive beliefs that
> (A) history is
> on their side (teleology sometimes helps!); (B)
> truth is on their
> side (dogmatism sometimes helps!); and (C) the
> Soviet Union created a
> workers' paradise free from racism & sexism
> (utopianism sometimes
> helps!).  Even the false belief (D) that Stalin was
> a fount of
> political wisdom helped on a few occasions, for
> instance by making
> the white American Communists believe that
> anti-racism was the
> foremost duty of American Communists, because Stalin
> said so at the
> 6th Congress (see Oscar Berland, "The Emergence of
> the Communist
> Perspective on the 'Negro Question' in America:
> 1919-1931: Part Two,"
> _Science & Society_ 64.2, Summer 2000, pp. 194-217;
> Mark Naison,
> _Communists in Harlem during the Depression_,
> Urbana, IL: U of
> Illinois P, 1983)!
>
> At the same time, the same beliefs A, B, C, & D
> debilitated the
> Communists in many ways, by making them defend the
> indefensible _and_
> defend _even_ the defensible (e.g., the Nazi-Soviet
> Pact) _in an
> indefensible fashion_, as Justin might say.
>
> I suppose this may be called dialectical irony; the
> cunning of
> political reason works mysteriously.
>
> Yoshie   *****
>
> Yoshie
>


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