5/27/97, Mark Jones wrote:
>In a century's time, after the final and catastrophic colapse, after
>capitalism has been dismissed from history by the proletariat, there
>will far fewer humans living on earth, 2, billion or less at the best
>estimate, and they will not live as they do now. They will live in
>sustainable economies, they will not use non-renewable energy sources
>and they will not live under capitalism.
Geez - don't they ever learn? The one thing Marx was 180 degrees wrong
about was how political change would occur. He predicted revolution in the
most industrialized countries, and it came instead among the least
industrialized.
Marx didn't foresee the role of human intiative and responsiveness. In the
industrialized world, the capitalists learned how to move the goalposts and
fiddle the money and keep the system moving. In un-developed Russia, the
people simply decided they weren't having any more of the czar - and it was
Marx's inspiration - not his predictions - that contributed.
Marx can be forgiven his mechanistic prediction model, coming out of a
nineteenth century tradition mesmerized by the successes of Newton's simple
mechanics - but we've now got more sophisticated scientific paradigms, not
to mention the knowledge of subsequent history.
Harder times, which Mark accurately foresees, are as likely to lead to
fascist dictatorship as they are to enlightened revolution. Those who
extrapolate infrastructure failure might also extrapolate trends toward
police states in the West and increased military suppression in the rest -
and put two and two together. When the last barrel of oil is allocated, it
will be to a tank. The first vehicles be nuclear powered were military.
Consider the frog who submits to be being boiled slowly to death. Yes, the
Zapatistas responded with revolutionary zeal when their land was _suddenly_
taken from them, but most of us suffer a more gradual disenfranchisement,
continually reduce our expectations - and the urgent spark of revolutionary
fervor never kindles. Not from materialist necessity alone.
If humanity is to wake up to the PRESENT NECESSITY of sustainable economies
and renewable energy sources, it has ample warning already. The missing
factor is poltical imaginaton and initiative, not materialist motivation.
I think back to when I was a youth - if we had known then how bad things
would be now, there would have been universal outrage. The frog factor is
powerful.
We cannot count on the contradictions of capitalism to deliver to us an
inevitable salvation.
5/28/97, Mark wrote:
>All value (and profit) comes from the exploitation of labor.
>Laborless production means valueless production - and hence,
>profitless production.
Whoa! If I build a factory that produces paper-weights by a
fully-automated process, then I can sell the paper-weights and make a
profit. Or did the water turn to wine when I wasn't looking? Guinness
printed some beer coasters which on one side say "`All property is theft' -
Karl Marx",and on the other say "Not everything in black and white makes
sense".
>The economic middle ground is destroyed, resulting in a handful of
>international capitalists on one side, and a vast majority of
>marginalized or destitute proletarians, incapable of purchasing
>the flood of goods, on the other. Such is the inescapable dilemma
>faced by capital in the age of globalization.
Objectively this trend will indeed continue - but the wealth disparity is
_already_ severely polarized, and the masses, so to speak, are _not_ moving
toward any sense of mutual solidarity. The middle class as we knew it may
be collapsing, but whites are still better off than blacks, the employed
than the unemployed, managers than workers, men than women, First World
than Third World, etc. Divide and conquer continues to function, with
"each one wishing for what the other has got". Down to the last crumb.
By the way Mark - thanks for a brilliant globalization report ("ECONOMIC
GLOBALIZATION: CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF ELECTRONICS"). You've described
well the new bottle, but old wine isn't appropriate to fill it.
Be assured that the Masters of Globalization have long understood what
Greider now popularizes. They're building their global police forces;
they've survived depressions; they can start wars when they want to; they
routinely install fascism when peasants rebel - we cannot afford to be
passive passengers on the roller coaster, waiting to arrive at some magic
destination where contradictions are manifest and the masses - spontaneous
and enlightened - take over.
rkm