Re: Immanuel Wallerstein's "Ecology and Capitalist Costs of Production: No Exit"

Fri, 27 Feb 1998 00:36:12 +0000
M.A.&N.G. Jones (Jones_M@netcomuk.co.uk)

Carl H.A. Dassbach wrote:

> $5K is nothing today

But $1 a day is the UN's official poverty line BELOW which live around
a billion people (actually it's not clear to me how you establish the presence
of that kind of income; I mean, do you go up to crossing-sweepers or homeless
urchins, clipboard in hand: 'I say, I'm from UNESCO, I wonder if you could tell me
your net income in dollar terms?')

What I think will happen is that there will be catastrophes and they will take a
political form, ie, their 'substantive' content will be veiled; and the
political form will exactly be a demand, more or less politely expressed, by
those same 3 or 4 billion unwashed denizens of the barrios, for a SHARE; and I
look forward to seeing the expressions on our faces when that day comes. I hope
said proles remember that 'as someone said' (as IW likes to say, when he
actually means Karl Marx), 'political power grows out of the barrel of a gun'.

Mark