Re: Participatory Planning

[HERBERT GINTIS <gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Trond Andresen notes:
>
>	Was Chernoble worse than Bhopal - certainly not interms of human
>	casualties. Is the damage to the Aral sea worse than the destruction
>	of the ozone layer, the driving of whales to near extintion, the
>	goss pollution of the North Sea with heavy metals and PCBs which with
>	overfishing has caused the previously profitable fishing industries
>	to collapse. There is little to chose between different industrial
>	systems in this respect.
>	
>	Paul Cockshott
>
>The main factor in environmental destruction has not been the type of
>economic system. Whether a bureaucratic centralized economic system, or
>a capitalist economic system, IMO the crucial factors for taking care
>of the environment has been--and is--democracy, freedom of speech and
>organization, education level. Of course the economic system in general
>is important for the superstructure, but I think it is appropriate here
>to focus on the superstrucure itself, and not be so hung up on the
>economic system itself (a tradition in dogmatic marxism, which indeed
>is not marxism at all).
>
	I think this is quite correct--note that the US military has
also gotten away with incredible amounts of environmental destruction,
due mostly to its unaccountability and veil of secrecy. I would not
call this 'superstructure,' however, since I think these ancient
Marxist categories (with their roots in Hegelian philosophy) tend not
to shed much light. I might note that Amartya Sen's article in
Scientific American on hunger gave rise to an interchange between
himself and Vicente Navarro (Johns Hopkins' health economist) along
the same lines.  Sen maintained (correctly, I believe) that famines
occur when there is an absence of free speech (press,
telecommunications), whatever the system of property relations in the
economy.

Herb gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx