Environment, economy, politics - was: Participatory ...

[Trond Andresen <Trond.Andresen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On the relative importance of economics vs democracy for environmental
destruction. I will modify my last message a bit, and say that IMO
environmental destruction will happen for two reasons, alone or in
combination:

1) Lack of democracy, freedom of speech and organization, media access,
   etc.

2) Capitalist competition, conomic pressure, i.e. choose between jobs
   or environment. People "voluntarily" abstain from fighting to defend
   the environment.

Soviet type devastation was due to factor (1) almost exclusively.

Capitalist type devastation is due to both factors, where factor (2)
is the dominating one. Factor (1) is there, too. The presence of factor
(1) in this case is mainly a consequence of factor (2).



(Hmmm - reading through the above one more time, it seems embarassingly
self-evident. Maybe I am deeper than I think, so I send it on all the
same   :-) )


Trond Andresen