Re: Re: Current implications for South Africa

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>
To: <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 7:26 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:13914] Re: Current implications for South Africa


> >  ><http://www.unfpa.org/swp/1999/pressumary1.htm>).  What's
> >>fundamentally preventing us from providing people with means to meet
> >>their basic needs -- capitalism & imperialism or natural constraints?
> >
> >Imperialism, but ecological imperialism to be more exact.
> >
> >>If the former, socialism is the answer.  If the latter, socialism is
> >>not only not the answer but may exacerbate the environmental problem,
> >>in that under capitalism the poor can be simply priced out of the
> >>market (as they have been) but under socialism all are entitled to
> >>the satisfaction of basic needs (at the very least), the fulfillment
> >>of which may make more demands upon natural resources (at least in
> >>the short term) than today, even if global socialism eliminates such
> >>sources of waste as production of weapons.
> >
> >Look, Yoshie. If we are serious about these questions, the first thing we
> >have to stop doing is bullshiting about fast food being a "gain" for the
> >working class. I know it is very groovily "transgressive" to talk up
> >MacDonalds in leftwing circles, but it goes against the grain of what
Marx
> >took seriously. This issue is not about morality but political economy.
> >Socialists have to explain to working people that their lifestyle is not
> >only *unhealthy* in the terms that Ralph Nader talked about, but that it
> >rests on fucking over peasants in places like Honduras and Nicaragua
where
> >fast food beef comes from. When all the water and all the soil has been
> >exhausted in places like these, DelMonte and MacDonalds and Swift will go
> >somewhere else and do the same thing until the planet looks like Haiti.
> >
> >Louis Proyect
>
> Let's forget about fast food as it is merely red herring in this
> thread.  Is it possible to provide all human beings with food, clean
> water, sanitation, shelter, energy, medicine, education,
> transportation, etc. that are necessary to meet historically
> developed minimum needs (setting aside other needs & desires for the
> time being) under socialism?  Or is it impossible since we are
> running out of fossil fuels & clean water soon & the population is
> exploding, as Mark says?
>
> Yoshie
>