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

[FAC_BROSSER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

To Trond Anderson:
     On factors (1) and (2) I am generally in accord, but note that
(2) ("competitive pressure, fear of job loss") may also operate in
a socialist environment.  The competitive pressure may be with the
capitalist world, or even with other socialist countries (e.g.
China in the case of the former USSR), driving the push for expanding
material output at all costs which clearly lay behind the environmental
disasters of the FSU.
     It may be that it is only with the introduction of markets and
some capitalism, but we now see "fear of job loss" entering in as a
factor in the FSU.  This is exacerbated by previous gigantomania.
Thus, what to do about the Lenin Steel Works in Magnitogorsk, world's
largest steel mill (a Stalinist triumph of the 1930's and "Hero Plant"
in the Great Patriotic War), with 50,000 workers, nothing else in
town or anywhere else around, output sellable only as scrap metal,
and a pollution monstrosity.  Even without the systemic crisis,
this plant was going to get shut down someday and the resistance of
workers to the shock would slow it down.
Barkley Rosser
James Madison University
PS:  What's the skinny on Norway wanting to "harvest" whales again?
Going to ski for the environmental gold are we?