A new article on the RED website - "The path to a just and sustainable society"

[Pallav Das]

The "eco-anarchist" transition strategy relies on “prefiguring” the new social forms in the existing society. The most effective way to get people to see the sense and the merits of the new ways is to establish as many examples of them as possible here and now. This approach minimizes the chances of violent conflict; if we persuade large numbers to the alternative then radical change in structures might be brought about peacefully.

Friends,

A new article, "The path to a just and sustainable society" has been uploaded to the "Radical Ecological Democracy" website. In the second part of his discussion on “Eco-anarchism”, Ted Trainer lays out the core characteristics of a post consumer capitalist society, operating on the principles of “The Simpler Way”.  Please share the article with your networks and join the discussion on REDlistserv. The author is copied here in case you would like to contact him directly.

https://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/the-path-to-a-just-and-sustainable-society/

Best,

Pallav

[Carlos Tornel]

Hi all and thanks Pallav for sharing this article!

I'm relatively new on some of the lists, but I thought I could share some thoughts after the reading. 

I found the article quite useful for thinking about how we can start to build a post (growth, capitalism, extractive, etc.) society. I have faced similar questions and concerns when advocating for a convivial or a communal society in different spaces, such as what do we do with state power? With armies, the military, nuclear weapons, etc.? How do we move away from the Hobbian reality of power and the state? Several of the anarchist and degrowth proponentes (although not so many have looked seriously at this link until recently) have formulated proposals against this, i.e. try to reduce our dependence on the state and progressively move away from it. However this brings back the debate we've been having for some time now in Latin America, should we seek to take back the state or not? My own opinion is that we should, through several of the proposals presented in the article, such as food and energy sovereignty, we can progressively start to move away from the state, leading towards more convivial societies. However it does seem that the state will have to play a part in this transition, so perhaps we need to think of the transition from one society to another in different scales and with different agencies: I.e. What should we ask from the state? What can we do ourselves in local and communal terms and how can we continue to build networks of solidarity or communitarian entanglements at the regional, and even global level.  

My thanks again Pallav for sharing and to Ted for a very insightful and useful analysis.

Best, 

Carlos 

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[Ariel Salleh]

Nice point Carlos.
Considering how states are historically sex-gendered institutions may offer a way forward that mediates yours and Ted’s position …?
Ariel

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[Tom Abeles]

I would be concerned, living in such a world, if I needed life-saving medical services from vaccines to heart surgery. Similarly, I would be concerned without universities, research and technology which has given us solar panels, broadband internet and similar which is imbedded in much of what we use on a daily basis. The Buddhist Gross Happiness Index ponders these issues.

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[Carlos Tornel]

Thanks Ariel and Tom!

As I was saying to Ted, I just want to clarify that I'm not advocating nor think that struggling to achieve state power is the way through - We have the experiences of Bolivia and Ecuador with indigenous or indigenous backed governments that tried to take control of the state only to find that the state operates in a global capitalist context which meant for many of them an increase forms of extraction and forms of violence against them and the very nature that they gave rights to. So I do agree with Ted that this is not the way forward, as well as with many Latin American thinkers who argue along the same lines (Holloway, Esteva, Dinerstein, etc). What I was thinking about was more in the lines of what can we still demand of the actually existing state or use the tools that already exist within it, to achieve some of the goals we want to achieve. I'm thinking particularly about some indigenous communities' struggles that are suing the state or demanding their rights be granted and respected. These are of course tools that were built by and "inside" the master's house, so I wouldn't say these will necessarily lead towards a more just or equal world, but they are nonetheless tools we can use to resist as we move forwards in the creation of a new world. So long story short, should we just ignore the state or can we 'use it', not to conquer state power, but to use the tools at our disposal keeping in mind that the ultimate goal should be societies that are rid of the state? 

This might refer back to the point Ariel was making about what can be mediated with existing institutions. Although I'm not sure that I agree with what Tom was mentioning. Why assume that life-saving medicine of technological innovations such as solar panels of broadband need the State? Just thinking about this in 10 year anniversary of Occupy shows that people can organize food systems, health clinics, reflection and discussion groups all without the state, universities of hospitals. Of course this doesn't mean that we should get rid of the hospitals now, but we can surely work our way forward so that all these institutions that are not necessarily there for our well-being but to create and exacerbate our dependencies on them can be rethought or simply cese to be needed in the not so distant future?

Apologies for the long response but I do appreciate the chance to continue  this debate and listening to other folk's opinions!

All the best,

C.

[mp]

Hi,

On 29/09/2021 14:14, Tom Abeles wrote:
> I would be concerned, living in such a world, if I needed life-saving
> medical services from vaccines to heart surgery. Similarly, I would be
> concerned without universities, research and technology which has given us
> solar panels, broadband internet and similar which is imbedded in much of
> what we use on a daily basis. The Buddhist Gross Happiness Index ponders
> these issues.

You hit the nail right on the head here.

Paradigms.

It can be difficult to imagine an alternative reality (though sci-fi
writers have been pushing the boundaries on that for a century or more)
when you are living in a (highly) captive one.

Additionally, if you can imagine different paradigms, think in systems
terms, and hold multiple versions of reality in mind at once, for the
purposes of analysis/evaluation, then you'd still have to choose which
one you'd want to move towards...

Each paradigm has its own pathways and -dependencies, of course. As
Elizabeth Kolbert says in her critical review of climate market hi-tech
- in "Under a White Sky" - this is "a book about people trying to solve
problems created by people trying to solve problems” - or about a
"vicious circle created by its own skewed logic and techno-dependency".

The progress myth is one of the phenomena or memes at the heart of our
trouble - and by trouble, in brief, I mean:

/ climate chaos;
medical state of exception;
and the collapse - in tandem - of global civilisation and the human
immune system.

Hence, vaccines and robotic heart surgery, for instance, are not simply
_advances_, but also well understood as short-term plasters on festering
wounds that result from the separation of nature/culture, elite/the
rest, centres of control/disposable margins and so on. Plasters, that
is, which trap dirt and obscure stratification and thus make the wounds
deeper, while those swimming in the puss - that'd be us - systematically
drown.

Rupa and Patel's recent book is essential reading for
movements/activists on these matters it seems to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXvIkj7grN8

So, I would be concerned if I were living in a world dependent on
industrial hospitals, where the value of plant-based medicine and folk
knowledge was abandoned entirely and buried alongside common sense. On
these issues see also:

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2021/02/how-sustainable-is-high-tech-health-care.html

Finally, on the progress myth - so fundamentally tied up with
European/White Man philosophy, racist politics, and colonial extraction
- it is worth paying attention to new currents in archaeology:

“A profound consideration is underway of the nature of long-term human
history. The major turning points we once identified – the invention of
farming, the growth of cities, and technological change – were not
events, but long term processes, the effects of which were
unpredictable. At the heart of the older stories was the idea of
progress from small, egalitarian human groups moving in pursuit of wild
resources to large, sedentary, hierarchical polities based on mass
production and consumption of food and artefacts. Many popular accounts
still tell a story of progress. These stories ultimately derive from the
19th century, when the inventors of prehistory assumed progress as a
central trait of human history, ranging societies from the primitive to
the civilized. A tale told by the so-called civilized about the rise of
civilization allowed a calm presumption that history had been creating
their personalities and their lifestyle all along. (Gosden 2018: 1)”

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prehistory-a-very-short-introduction-9780198803515

Take your health into your own hand? Or as Cicero said, quoted without
reference by Kierkegaard:

Any person who reaches their 30th year of living should know themself
well enough to be their own physician....

cheers/mp

[Hari DK]

I've always had similar questions about anarchist visions. Even Noam Chomsky's book 'on Anarchism' seemed to skirt/avoid these questions for me.

-Who provisions 'public' goods that are too unprofitable for the corporations or communities to finance? Include public parks, fire brigade, etc. Also defense - unless there is a step change in human consciousness (tell me how/which pathway), will we ever stop having the need to protect ourselves? Would anarchism without a nationalized defense fund work if there were a big, unfriendly country on our borders? or does everyone in the world need to give up arms once and for all for anarchic futures to be realized?

-Also, as hinted in some of the comments by others - how is this future achieved? is it an organic emergent? or is it top down? capitalism in its original form is arguably an organic emergent of human settlement (farming societies stored seeds for the next harvest. of course I am not talking about degenerate, technologically amplified capitalism we might find ourselves trapped in.) My point of view: if this future is an organic emergent, it has a chance of realization. what are the 'drivers' for this systems change (i.e. the loops and archetypes which are driving this transition?).

Asking these out of a desire to understand more and factor into my own thinking,

Thanks,

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Hari Dilip Kumar

The Sustainability Problemsolver | Initiative for Climate Action

LinkedIn | Skype haridk.skype

[Hari DK]

Regarding my second question - is 'prefiguring' the intended pathway/theory-of-change? (sorry this was an unfamiliar term)

Thanks,

[mp]

...the state we're in..

On 29/09/2021 16:22, Hari DK wrote:

> -Also, as hinted in some of the comments by others - how is this future
> achieved? is it an organic emergent? or is it top down? capitalism in its
> original form is arguably an organic emergent of human settlement (farming
> societies stored seeds for the next harvest. of course I am not talking
> about degenerate, technologically amplified capitalism we might find
> ourselves trapped in.)

In a sense I guess everything is arguably emergent - but I'd prefer to
look at the world differently here:

And say: It was always imposed, always an elite construction from the
top down and little has changed in basic terms the last 6000 years:
still turning on grains/ploughing, slaves, taxation, debt and
extraction. See for instance James Scott's

https://read.dukeupress.edu/common-knowledge/article-abstract/27/1/111/168419/Against-the-Grain-A-Deep-History-of-the-Earliest

In that light "Capitalism" is simply a reimposition, a re-application of
same old tested and tried model of civilisation -- which collapses on
average after 250 years when the soil is depleted - see David Montgomery:

The original study: "Dirt: The Erosion of
Civilizations"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/587916.Dirt

Or the more interesting, constructive, later response (with a summary of
Dirt):

"Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life" /
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36236132-growing-a-revolution

[Hari DK]

Well, thanks for the points and the pointers to reading mp, appreciate it. I do understand of course the points you make about "dirt" :)

May I reframe again - something I have been thinking of. Perhaps not well-formed enough but here goes.

I = PAT

There's an exponentially growing human population that (mostly) desires to become exponentially more affluent. The capitalists would merely say that they are the ones serving humanity in this aspiration, and they are as trapped as anyone (T being carbon intensive and difficult to pivot out of, for example).

What I'm trying to say: capitalism wouldn't exist without human needs. Of people like you and me. If we could live without computers and Google and mobile phones and fast food, perhaps capitalism would have no place in the world?

So who is responsible - the mass of us or the handful of evil geniuses 'enslaving' us?

Just stress-testing some ideas here, not ideological.

Thank you,

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[David Barkin]

Some time ago I argued on this RED Listserve that there are hundreds of communities already involved in constructing their own societies on the margins of the capitalist states of which they are a part.  (I enclose a published version of that contribution for those who dont recall our shorter piece, so nicely mentored by Dev) These groups are forming alliances and networks on a global scale (I.e., consider the example of the Territories of Life consortium whose participating members occupy as much as one-quarter of the planet's land area; or the efforts of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives, whose origins are in India, but now extend widely across the globe). Most of these groups are explicitly confronting inherited challenges, such as women's participation and significance in governance and socio-cultural definition, as well as the need to reshape their food and production systems while caring for their natural environments, while assuming control of their territories. 

Here in Mexico, of course, is the iconic example of the Zapatistas, whose ranks now number perhaps one-half million people from several different ethnic groups of Mayan origin.  Their present foray into Europe to explore the paths to constructing international solidarity is a notable complement to the work that they are doing within Mexico with their allies in the National Indigeous Congress, with its 25 million members. Other sizable groups with less international visibility include the Tosepan Cooperative founded in 1977 and with almost 200,000 members at present. Resistance struggles against capitalist mega projects are also mobilizing uncounted numbers of communities who are now realizing the importance of moving beyond protest to forge their own models of societies  moving forward.

Abrazos and Saludos from Mexico ---

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David Barkin
Mexico

[Hari DK]

Hi,

Regarding the original article by Ted Trainer...

I'd love to live in one of those eco-communes with the happy backyard chickens and 2 days of work.. :)

always more questions :P

-would the process of creating communes scale quickly enough (via good examples and prefiguration) to mitigate the climate crisis? or is that a secondary objective?

-if the communes don't scale fast enough to avert the climate crisis, then wouldn't we necessarily need to solve within the system of consumer capitalism (through climate-tech innovation, initiatives like CDP etc).

-is this a model only for the rich countries? what's happening in the poor ones?

-I'm very interested in how the devolution of consumer capitalist value chains might occur to the local business models.

Best,

[Marko Ulvila]

Dear friends,

thanks for the important insights. Let my chip-in just by sharing the link to a small school for self-sufficiency established by a couple that have studied, explored and established conditions for good fairly self-sufficient life in the boreal region of Europe, namely in Karelia of Finland. Starting with eco-anarchist orientation they have for example concluded that with a kitchen garden and active collection of wild foods (greens, berries and mushroom) food can be obtained securely with a reasonable effort. In their web site you can find also theoretical texts and commentaries on the times, having deep insights emerging from the self-sufficiency perspective and reality, in several languages.

http://omavaraopisto.fi/english/

With best regards,

Marko

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[Davis, Laurence]

I don't think this argument holds up to critical scrutiny. In the early capitalist period, before the formation of labour markets completed the subordination of production to exchange, it might have been reasonable to claim that the relative disparity between output expansion and toil reduction was due to consumer demand for what could then be produced. In our own time, such a claim no longer makes sense because the economic structures of advanced capitalism deny to all but a self-interested few the power to decide what, how much, and under what circumstances to produce. Economic power in advanced capitalism is concentrated in enterprises so situated that they have a compelling reason to assess productive activity solely in terms of its value in increasing growth and profit. Treatment of the energy and time of labourers as other than a factor of production is simply not a realistic option in a fiercely competitive market system where the penalty for sustained profit loses is the possibility of insolvency.

Of course, as students of radical ecology have long pointed out, transformation of economic, political, and other institutions must be complemented by wider cultural-level changes.

Laurence

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From: radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com <radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Hari DK <hari....@gmail.com>
Sent: 29 September 2021 17:01
To: mp <m...@aktivix.org>
Cc: Tom Abeles <tab...@gmail.com>; Ariel Salleh <ariels...@gmail.com>; Carlos Tornel <tor...@gmail.com>; Radcal Democracy <radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com>; Ted Trainer <tedtra...@gmail.com>; gta-p...@lists.ourproject.org <gta-p...@lists.ourproject.org>
Subject: Re: [REDlistserve] A new article on the RED website - "The path to a just and sustainable society"

 

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[Hari DK]

Thank you for the critique Laurence, i appreciate it. To be honest I'll need to spend some time figuring our what is meant by "relative disparity between output expansion and toil reduction was due to consumer demand for what could then be produced..."

Two questions to critics of capitalism in general..

-what of the 'heroic journey' of the individual entrepreneur, who assumes individual risk in order to bring a project to reality? I know several of them who are motivated by much, much more than the desire to make a huge profit. However, the desire of others to make a huge profit provides them the 'fuel' (risk capital) they need. What about social enterprise that scales through blended impact and risk capital?

-a practical question - I live in India and am trained as an engineer. The other day I saw some beautiful projects based on data and artificial intelligence by some students who were trying to solve practical societal problems in healthcare and sustainable transportation. Should I tell them "don't work on these, they are based on the capitalist empire in which you have no agency'. What is the future of engineering, innovation and technology - which do have so many positive benefits after all?

Practical questions since I am stuck in the capitalist world and don't have the luxury of shifting into an alternative (not right now).

Thanks,

[Ariel Salleh]

Thanks so much to Mofwoofoo for sharing this.

Not only an excellent model of autonomous governance - but highlights the role of patriarchal attitudes behind our political crises.

It would be great if this list could grow a conversation to deepen understandings about this.

At the moment feminist questions tend to be ‘objectified’ and organised separately in seminars and such.

Ariel

Ariel Salleh writer/activist Sydney

Founding Member

Global Univ. for Sustainability, HK

Visiting Professor

Nelson Mandela University, SA
Email:       ariels...@gmail.com 
Website:         www.arielsalleh.info   

On 30 Sep 2021, at 7:06 am, Mofwoofoo <mofw...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am writing as a long time radical anarchist activist "on the ground". I am not a scholar, but I have read a lot over 55 years. While I view the article worthwhile, it is nothing new at all. Anarchist literature and scholarship goes back to the 1860's when these same ideas were expressed. Anarchists have seen through the problem of hierarchies in gov't. and in general. I have submitted the 7 minute animation that I made in 2020 which explains a lot about organizing in a horizontal fashion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywMhg604W8&t=5s. And how it might be the only way to eliminate once and for all corruption in governments.

Citizen participation a la transition towns initiatives, localization, collectivism, decentralization, deconsummerism, self-reliance, economies that promote the good of the whole, cooperation, respect for the environment, etc. are ideas whirling around throughout the internet and the world. And as I am sure it is clear to everyone in this group, that the current system of capitalism is the perfect recipe for suiciding the human race.

Meanwhile, as capitalism is collapsing or is being collapsed, there seems to be a rush to assert authoritarianism as soon as possible. And clearly the vaccine mandate and the pcr tests are ways to do this. But since the vaccine mandates will not go away no matter how hard the pushback is, they seem to have plan b ready to go: world-wide food shortages which would result in world-wide food riots and chaos, which will justify martial law and state of emergency declarations, which at least in the USA would empower FEMA to overstep the Constitution and do whatever they want due to the executive orders that give them total power. 

To avoid this from happening, people need to check on where their area's food sources are coming from and if they will be available or not. And in this way, using google or duck, duck, go one can ascertain what really is happening and what is going to happen in these regards. And if food shortages are indeed imminent, alert the citizenry to prepare by storing up on rice, beans, lentils, grains, tins, and storing food in preserves and salt for perhaps 6 months and setting up programs for those who don't have a few hundred dollars to spend to be able to be prepared as well.

Finally, I am the founder of a mostly latino, artist, eco-community in Ecuador (chambalabamba.org, under construction) since 2012, and believe me, this is not the solution for the world. It takes years to get it going, most communities fail for lack of funds or cohesion, it is not for everybody, and it is a false hope for those who believe that this is the way, imho.

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/CA%2BbrHUZ_etSvb_Svw9ZwSF1vgY4jtHgsh9Hba7LcSVzea7dhgw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ariel Salleh]

Fabulous!

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/76bce414-1479-c135-6fbc-38ff1a566ace%40kapsi.fi.

[Steven Johnson]

I agree, Tom, that we wouldn't want to do without the best of modern research and technology. I would only hasten to clarify that that is NOT Ted's position. Rather, he wants to do away with the 90% or so of production that we don't really need to live well, that enriches capitalists but does not really meet essential needs or truly improve our lives, and to radically reduce consumption in the affluent countries. And this is precisely so that we can collectively afford, resource-wise, to preserve the most useful and essential things like medical care, and so that the resources that capitalist profiteers and gluttonous Western consumers are squandering can be shared equitably with the majority world so that all may live at a sustainable and frugal but decent standard of living. 

Tom mentioned broadband Internet, and here we are, using that to hold this conversation. I'm glad that tech is here, and those of us whose work is information-intensive can certainly access a lot of information more efficiently with it. I do remember life before it, though, and it honestly wasn't that bad. In some ways I think it was better. I think a happy median, if we re-organize society to live in the kinds of communities of the Simpler Way vision that Ted advocates, might be for the shared space in each community to have a few shared computers, like a library. Perhaps a few whose occupations require it might possess a dedicated computer for themselves, though if we want to transition to a society where manual and intellectual labor is more equitably shared, as I think we must do if we are to seek justice and avoid fostering a dominant managerial class, perhaps the shared computer model, combined with democratic allocation of the workload and associated computer access time, might be a solution that massively reduces the total number of machines and devices that are needed, with all of their life cycle environmental and other costs, while still supplying communities with all of the equipment that is really needed to supply the computer access time that is efficiently allocated to achieve collective production goals in their democratic economic plans. Eliminating planned obsolescence, and building each machine to last, would also be crucial, and this would be something a socially planned economy would have incentive to do, unlike the current system whose goal is to maximize corporate profits. There is a question of how much of a good thing we need, and I think the massive expansion of infrastructure associated with the rollout of 5G that is underway is disastrous for the planet, and should be urgently resisted. It's not really an efficient use of scarce resources and sinks to use Internet-controlled machines to blow our noses when we can just grab a tissue ourselves. That is hopefully a slight exaggeration of what they have in store for us, but the logic of capital is to get us to think we need stuff analogous to that if it will increase corporate sales. An excellent treatment of 5G and related issues is Jorge Riechmann's, in Spanish, though there are hopefully comparable materials in English. (It has nothing to do with the wild conspiracy theories that are out there about this topic, but takes into account real-world analysis of ecological footprints, resource limits, and the evidence for a pending collapse rather than ongoing expansion of industrial civilization as we know it.)

Ted's views and mine overlap considerably, and within that overlap lie what I think are some of the very most important tasks that we can be doing. His emphasis is on affluent Westerners withdrawing from consumerism and building local materially simple substantially egalitarian economies, which I think is an essential pillar of the path we need to travel. I would add to that, perhaps a bit more explicitly and prominently than he does (though it is not absent from his viewpoint), another complementary emphasis, as a twin pillar, on active practical solidarity by people in the minority affluent countries and communities with the struggles of great masses of already-simply-living peoples throughout the majority world to recover and defend Indigenous territories, achieve equitable redistributive land reform and supports for sustainable peasant producers facilitating substantial de-urbanization and re-population of countrysides, and stop destructive megaprojects. Ted talks of starving capitalism by withdrawing from consumerism, but it is also essential to support the numerous environmental struggles throughout the world (see the Environmental Justice Atlas) which, if successful, will starve capitalism of the unbridled resource extraction that it requires to reproduce its monstrous self. This solidarity work involves politically pressuring and confronting, by all ethical and effective means, capitalist governments that are aiding and abetting corporate violence and destruction throughout the world

Though there is an important truth in it, I'm not entirely happy with the language that Ted sometimes uses of ignoring capitalism to death, or of rallying rebels to the community garden rather than to the barricades. I think the path ahead will include plenty of both. Currently, life is structured by the rule of capital in such a way that people HAVE to consume more than is sustainable, for example, in many places they need a car to get to work. And most people cannot afford to buy land on which to sustainably produce for their direct consumption, but have to earn cash in the unsustainable economy to pay rent to a landlord, etc. Middle class people who can afford to buy land, because they either worked in the unsustainable economy for 30 years or were given money by someone who did, can do valuable and instructive experiments on purchased land that can help educate the public. But even if widespread consciousness arises of the need to return to sustainable ways of individual and communal self-provisioning within a land base that we care for and that sustains us, it won't happen on a large scale without land redistribution, and I don't see that being achieved by ignoring the capitalist banks and land owning interests. It will require great struggle, of the barricade variety. 

Related to the land issue, as a recent article from Megan Seibert and William Rees points out, life after the age of cheap and abundant energy will likely be a lot like life before it. And if there is anything we should learn from the millennia of recorded history before the industrial age, it is that environmentally destructive and socially oppressive ruling class elites do not need modern consumer capitalism to be in place in order to maintain their power, lay waste to the environment, and control people and appropriate the value of their labor power, leaving them with barely enough to survive. As commodity-based capitalism implodes due to its environmental destruction and exhaustion of resources, it seems likely to me that the default successor system, in the absence of extremely concerted and energetic popular struggle, will be a morphing of the current capitalist class rule into arrangements that resemble ancient imperial command economies. We may eventually be able to ignore capitalists but we will not be able to ignore their heirs who will continue to try to violently control lands and dominate and enslave and exploit us, using their privileged access to the declining resources that remain to do so. If ancient aristocracies and empires could be built by the simple low-tech, low-energy process of controlling access to granaries that could feed soldiers and slaves, the post-capitalist elites will have more than that at their disposal as we travel down the slope of energy availability. 

What I'm hoping will be different from the past is that our struggles to defeat capitalism and prevent the rise of a successor form of class domination will be starting from a point, unique in history, when it is possible for there to be global concerted action by Indigenous peoples, peasants, and the popular classes, simultaneously and everywhere, against hierarchical and exploitative class rule. Marxists have thought that the factor that would make popular struggles enduringly succeed today though they failed, or only achieved partial or temporary victories in the past, is the emergence of industrialism and the proletariat. I think that is a mistake. I think that the limiting factors in the past were, generally speaking, not technological but relational, though I do think that the technology of global communications (though we need to scale it down) could make a decisive difference. The primary unique hopeful factor of our time, I think, is the fact that, while capitalist domination is global, so is resistance to it. When thinking of the Paris Commune, or the Huasteca peasant rebellions in Mexico in the 19th C., the river irrigation sharing systems of what is now called the American Southwest, or any number of other similar popular struggles or cooperative models of the past, sooner or later, after the people had won control of territories or established cooperative arrangements and a degree of autonomy for some time, the ruling elites were always able to muster superior forces from outside to come and annihilate the rebels. Struggles in the future will be no picnic, but what is different about today is that there is now no more "outside" from which to invade, which means that, though victories will be hard to achieve, once enough victories are won, it may be possible to consolidate them over time, so that victories come to outnumber defeats rather than the reverse, popular power grows more enduringly, and the power of elites declines rather than ascends. That is to say, while it will be essential and not easy to maintain sufficient unified vision and resolve, we may be at a point in a cycle of thousands of years of history where we are about to get over a hump, after which further progress may be achieved along a somewhat easier downhill rather than uphill path. Time is of the essence if we are to get to that point while still having much of a world left that can be restored to support a decent future for our progeny and their nonhuman neighbors in the web of life.

I have not finished reading all the posts in this thread, but I love how the contributions I have read so far give reminders of crucial elements and dimensions that we need to continually keep in mind and attend to. Besides Ted's worthwhile article, Ariel Salleh called attention to the patriarchal dimension of our history and struggles and, while understandings of that are not sufficiently woven through my thinking and practice, since male voices have dominated discussions and this dimension isn't focused on enough, I'm hoping we can all put forth requisite efforts and make collective progress to correct these deficiencies. David Barkin mentioned organizations and movements that relate to matters at the heart of my personal involvements and concerns and that I will be eager to follow up on and research further. I'm very glad this forum and community exists.

Steven Johnson

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/CAC0ykQGJjoixRk--%2BYx5Gyymq0PGAPHh0cPALYWchEyaif_8Dw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Rosamma Thomas]

I'm copying in Bhushan Patil, who is part of such a community close to Pune in Maharashtra, India. 

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/CA%2BbrHUZ_etSvb_Svw9ZwSF1vgY4jtHgsh9Hba7LcSVzea7dhgw%40mail.gmail.com.

[mp]

On 30/09/2021 14:25, Hari DK wrote:
> Two questions to critics of capitalism in general..
>
> -what of the 'heroic journey' of the individual entrepreneur, who assumes
> individual risk in order to bring a project to reality? I know several of
> them who are motivated by much, much more than the desire to make a huge
> profit. However, the desire of others to make a huge profit provides them
> the 'fuel' (risk capital) they need. What about social enterprise that
> scales through blended impact and risk capital?

Unexpected winners can always be found, even in a game that is rigged.
The American Dream does not always turn into a nightmare and there are
even trailer parks filled with hopeful souls, who crashed once or twice
before, but who incredulously (to me) maintain their beliefs in that game.

Two texts come to mind here (observing a 50/50% gender split):

- Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

- and Katharina Pistor's excellent analysis/review: 'The Code of
Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality'.

I don't suppose it should be necessary to point to critiques of
microfinancing and all that sort of developmentalist stuff?

Whichever way - however you twist and turn it - it is a system, a game
play, where benefits come at the cost and pain of someone else. It is
that cost/pain, I believe, which one can try to minimise in the course
of one's life and in the process of realising one's dreams. There is no
win/win, so one needs to minimise one's winning.

There are many pathways - of course - such as avoiding supermarket food,
not driving a big car around for fun, not buying new clothes, building
ecovillages, whatever ideas people come up with. Keeping in mind that
the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

> -a practical question - I live in India and am trained as an engineer. The
> other day I saw some beautiful projects based on data and artificial
> intelligence by some students who were trying to solve practical societal
> problems in healthcare and sustainable transportation. Should I tell them
> "don't work on these, they are based on the capitalist empire in which you
> have no agency'. What is the future of engineering, innovation and
> technology - which do have so many positive benefits after all?

Those benefits - which are not easily disentangled from the costs and
pain upon which they rest - are not always clear-cut. I would tell them
that. I would analyse and move far beyond the illusion that
cyberspace/AI are immaterial. They are not. They are extremely material
with extreme costs.

Perhaps consider Roberto Verzola's work 'Towards a Political Economy of
Information' which begins with this telling little vignette:

“We are all familiar with the typical story of an isolated village at
the edge of the forest. Some villagers have to go to town to buy a few
necessities, and maybe to stock the village store. Others need to go to
sell some products for cash. Villagers start to feel that the foot path
to town is insufficient for their needs.

Village activists may even pursue the issue and organize the people to
demand a better road. Eventually, public opinion is swayed, and a
petition is submitted. The government, the villagers are pleasantly
surprised, is amenable to the idea. Road-building eventually starts.

As completion date nears, the village organizes a welcome party for the
first vehicle that is coming in. A few days later, the village wakes up
to the rumble of engines and smell of diesel exhaust. The vehicles have
come. And they are logging trucks, carrying men with chain saws.” -
https://rverzola.wordpress.com/2008/01/26/towards-a-political-economy-of-information-full-text/

The IT industry is a disaster for people and planet. When I click send
in a minute I have engaged a system that is worse than the aviation
industry. What's the gain, exactly? Sounds like you take them as read,
those benefits. I would argue that they require critical evaluation on a
case-by-case basis.

Whichever way we move forward, at this stage I reckon the most important
thing is to create and maintain spaces of conviviality where the spirit
of community and love can endure. The collapse is coming sooner than
later, probably, and eventually all we will have left - once AI and the
technosphere are reduced to value-less memories that are better
forgotten - is dreams and ideas of freedom. And even those are under
severe attack.


mp

[Hari DK]

Thanks mp for the comments. I won't critique your critique, but will save for future reference, factoring in and course-corrections as someone embedded by choice in the capitalist world with the intent to improve whatever I can leveraging its 'logic' as you put it.

All I'd like to say is that - people are changing, consciousness is changing. What might be the next emergent of a consumer-capitalist world where everyone is empathetic and conscious?

I'd say the question is open enough for me to stay optimistic..

Fading into background mode..

Cheers :)