March of the eco-imperialists

[Vanguard1917]

Article discussing some of the ways in which Western environmental organisations try to prevent economic and technological advancement in the developing world.

----------


March of the eco-imperialists (http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/44753,opinion,march-of-the-eco-imperialists)

A leaflet from the charity Practical Action recently solicited donations for some "real cutting-edge technology" to give to African farmers: namely, a plough.

Ploughs might cut the earth, but they haven't been "cutting-edge technology" for more than 400 years. Nor have water pumps, operated by pulling on a rope or laboriously treading on a wooden platform, which are being pushed onto communities from Ghana to India by carbon-offsetting charities like Climate Care, as replacements for diesel-powered machinery. Some of the treadle pumps are even disguised as roundabouts to exploit child labour.

There is no disguising the utter poverty of what now passes for 'sustainable development'. Our aspirations for Third World development have sunk so low that our idea of what these charities call 'appropriate technology' are devices outlawed in British prisons in the 19th Century.

As climate change hysteria has gripped Western elites, instead of marvelling at the way China and India's rapid economic development has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of grinding poverty, we see them as 'climate criminals'.

The WWF has famously warned that we will need three more planets for everyone to enjoy Western European lifestyles. Never mind that China and India are still the 129th and 167th poorest countries on earth, not to mention the rest of the developing world. The only way to save the planet, greens insist, is to scale back consumption at home, and prevent development abroad.

This worldview puts the environment, not people, at its centre, and its consequences are disastrous. Eco-activists managed to slash €4bn worth of EU aid to Third World industries in 2007 alone. They have sabotaged World Bank funding for infrastructure projects, like a hydro-electric dam in Gujarat province, India, which would have provided power for 5,000 villages, industries and sewage-treatment works, irrigation for crops and clean water for 35m people - all because, as one activist said, it would "change the path of the river, kill little creatures along its banks and uproot tribal people".

Western development agencies have banned the use of DDT when 300m people suffer from malaria and up to 3m die from it each year. The UN promotes the burning of charcoal instead of kerosene when 5m young people die annually from diseases caused by indoor wood-smoke inhalation.

Organic farming is promoted at the expense of mechanised agriculture when 840m people suffer from malnutrition. Guilt-ridden Westerners offset their carbon via charities that re-impose back-breaking drudgery on Third World peasants, while their governments, via the 2008 Bali Accord, pay poor countries to plant trees instead of developing their economies.

Historically, it is not through imposing limits but by transcending them that we have achieved truly remarkable progress. In the last century, although global population quadrupled, human wealth quintupled. Food production steadily outstripped population growth, and today we still produce enough to feed everyone on earth, and billions more. People starve because they can't afford food - not because it doesn't exist.

Human ingenuity has overcome resource shortages time and again, developing new technologies, using commodities more efficiently, overcoming scarcity and improving our living standards. The real question is why, given this historical record, we seem to have completely lost faith in our ability to keep doing this.

Developing countries, however, share neither our eco-angst, nor our poverty of ambition. Chinese investment is transforming southern Africa whether we like it or not, helping double economic growth rates in the last five years. We must stop wasting time trying to hold back global development and instead push ever faster, cooperating to develop and distribute cleaner, more efficient technology, and providing aid where necessary to help countries adapt to environmental changes.

As Millicent Kumeni from Ghana told the educational charity WorldWrite, "You think we don't want modern development? You must be dreaming. We want what you have... you've screwed Africa and held us back. I pray that you don't keep doing this."

[Lynx]

These environmentalists are working within the framework of capitalism and/or imperialism. They are working on a planet comprised of competing nation-states. From their perspective, they believe they are being rational.

[Wilfred]

Okay, I really can't stand such nonsense from supposedly left-wing people. Why don't you research how much of the earths natural resources we use and how much there is and how much is produced. Insisting on saving, when your funds being drained, is a wise course of action. The malice part is with the communists here, who don't want their children to have a good life too, and want to drain earth's resources as quickly as possible. BAH!

[Vanguard1917]

Okay, I really can't stand such nonsense from supposedly left-wing people. Why don't you research how much of the earths natural resources we use and how much there is and how much is produced. Insisting on saving, when your funds being drained, is a wise course of action. The malice part is with the communists here, who don't want their children to have a good life too, and want to drain earth's resources as quickly as possible. BAH!

So the third world should not be allowed to develop because privileged Westerners reckon it will destroy the earth?

And if you want to bring future generations into this, what kind of life have they got in store for them if there are people out there currently trying to hold back most basic development?

[Dean]

In an age when as few as US$30 can connect a water pipe to a dehydrated village, there is no need to waste time on the more archaic methods of production. However, I totally reject the notion that any environmentalists are imperialist; to say so indicates a seriously deficient understanding of the term and of global politics.

[Vanguard1917]

'Eco-imperialist' is a loose term which generally refers to Western officials who, through their influence and clout, try to enforce their Western environmentalist prejudices onto developing countries in order to prevent or slow down economic development there.

[chimx]

I think VG1917 needs to take a step back and review basic marxism. While we center most of our attention here on the relationship between capitalist and labor power, it's important to remember that this is simply once relationship capitalists have with one particular resource. To create capital, they need to "exploit" (in the ecological sense of the term) natural resources.

As has been pointed out, most environmentalists are working within the capitalist paradigm. As such they take a necessarily idealistic approach to resource exploitation that ignores the material cause in the first place. This is of course less than ideal, but what VG proposes as an alternative is the destruction of any sort of legislation that hinders capitalist ecological exploitation. He seems to want to give capitalists carte blanche in terms of ecological havoc they can wreak. Why?

The evidence is overwhelming that our resources on this earth are being exploited at a rate that exceeds any possibility for replenishment. While I don't think the solution is to pressure people to buy green, organic, etc, it is significantly better than what VG1917 seems to be proposing.

Realistically there are only two solutions. Either the resources are exploited to a point where it ceases to be financially viable to use them and the free market shifts itself towards the use of other resources (either green or otherwise), or we dismantle the coercive production relationships that have exploited both labor and the earth and got us into this pickle in the first place. I prefer the latter, and while I don't think the "eco-imperialists" are ant-thetical to this, I certainly think what VG1917 proposes here regularly significantly aids the former.

[Vanguard1917]

As has been pointed out, most environmentalists are working within the capitalist paradigm. As such they take a necessarily idealistic approach to resource exploitation that ignores the material cause in the first place. This is of course less than ideal, but what VG proposes as an alternative is the destruction of any sort of legislation that hinders capitalist ecological exploitation. He seems to want to give capitalists carte blanche in terms of ecological havoc they can wreak. Why?

Not at all. I want developing countries to have the freedom to develop their economies. Leftists opposed capitalism in its imperialist stage precisely because it denied the underdeveloped world this most basic right.


The evidence is overwhelming that our resources on this earth are being exploited at a rate that exceeds any possibility for replenishment.

Where is this overwhelming evidence exactly?



I prefer the latter, and while I don't think the "eco-imperialists" are ant-thetical to this,


I oppose Western environmental influence in the developing world because it is helping to lower horizons as to the kind of economic progress developing countries should be permitted to achieve. I believe that the developing world should be alowed to develop to, at the bare minimum, the levels which we currently have in the West, so that they can have full access to the best that the world currently has to offer. People in the developing world demand this, and they have been fighting for this.

Western environmentalists, who overwhelmingly come from privileged middle class backgrounds, tell poor countries that they unfortunately cannot develop because if they do the world will explode. Hence eco-imperialists dictating to African nations that they're better off with means of production from the Middle Ages, rather than a society better suited to human beings in the 21st century.

[tirade]

Horizons have already been lowered my friend, have this discussion when you've read the material.

[chimx]

I oppose Western environmental influence in the developing world because it is helping to lower horizons as to the kind of economic progress developing countries should be permitted to achieve. I believe that the developing world should be alowed to develop to, at the bare minimum, the levels which we currently have in the West, so that they can have full access to the best that the world currently has to offer. People in the developing world demand this, and they have been fighting for this.

Western environmentalists, who overwhelmingly come from privileged middle class backgrounds, tell poor countries that they unfortunately cannot develop because if they do the world will explode. Hence eco-imperialists dictating to African nations that they're better off with means of production from the Middle Ages, rather than a society better suited to human beings in the 21st century.

Like I said, you want to give capitalists in developing countries a carte blanche to exploit their countries resources just as capitalists in imperialists countries have done for over a century.

[jake williams]

'Eco-imperialist' is a loose term which generally refers to Western officials who, through their influence and clout, try to enforce their Western environmentalist prejudices onto developing countries in order to prevent or slow down economic development there.
As far as I understand - and for reasons I'm not going to go into, it's probably more than you - the problem is completely the opposite of what you're describing. I have heard plenty of stories of Western NGO ignorance suggesting "technologically advanced" but utterly inappropriate "solutions" to problems in non-Western countries. This does not mean that technological solutions are always wrong, they're in fact critical I think, but you need to do it intelligently, and the most common, but indeed not only, example of Western ignorance is your type of Western ignorance.

[Sendo]

Plows are too "cutting edge technology"!

They certainly aren't "dull edge technology"

I thought you were smarter than that.

[Vanguard1917]

Like I said, you want to give capitalists in developing countries a carte blanche to exploit their countries resources just as capitalists in imperialists countries have done for over a century.

Nope. You're failing to address the issue as usual. I want what the people in developing countries want: economic development and mass prosperity. That's why i'm an anti-capitalist. Environmental organisations are openly opposed to this and they're trying to prevent development in places where it is needed most.

[chimx]

Who do you think are going to be capitalizing on these ecologically unsustainable business ventures?

[Vanguard1917]

Ultimately working people are going to be capitalising from industrial progress. Aside from the fact that hundreds of millions of people have been rescued from absolute poverty in recent decades as a result of economic development, industrialisation is also in the political interests of the historical revolutionary tasks of the working class, as Marxists have always emphasised.

[Dean]

'Eco-imperialist' is a loose term which generally refers to Western officials who, through their influence and clout, try to enforce their Western environmentalist prejudices onto developing countries in order to prevent or slow down economic development there.

What? You think environmentalists have some insidious hidden agenda that hates poor people?

Sorry, they're very simple. They want to protect the environment.

[Vanguard1917]

What? You think environmentalists have some insidious hidden agenda that hates poor people?

No, they actually quite like poverty. It's mass prosperity which they hate. And it's no secret, conspiracy or secret agenda: they're very open about it.



Sorry, they're very simple. They want to protect the environment


And, for them, 'protecting the environment' means opposing basic human progress.

[chimx]

You are avoiding my point purposefully. You want to promote capitalist industrialization in developing countries and give them free reign over the earths resources (not to mention labor relations).

[Vanguard1917]

You are avoiding my point purposefully. You want to promote capitalist industrialization in developing countries and give them free reign over the earths resources (not to mention labor relations).

I think you're the one avoiding the issue. The issue is whether we support industrial development or not. Marxists welcome it; environmentalists oppose it.

If capitalism is hell for people, underdeveloped capitalism is usually worse. But that's besides the point: environmentalists oppose industrial development itself, not capitalist exploitation of people. They oppose the basic notion that material progress, and the rise in living standards which tend to follow, is a good thing.

[chimx]

industrial development itself

This is of course not true. They oppose reckless industrial development, that in many leftists opinions lets capitalists freely exploit natural non-renewable resources.

[Vanguard1917]

This is of course not true. They oppose reckless industrial development

Nope, environmentalists oppose even basic industrial development in the developing world. They oppose developing countries developing even to the modest levels of development that exist in the Western world.

"If developing world living standards were as high as they are in the West, we would need 3 planets", etc etc...

[Dean]

No, they actually quite like poverty. It's mass prosperity which they hate. And it's no secret, conspiracy or secret agenda: they're very open about it.
Then please cite some specific statements by environmentalist groups. And no, opposing certain forms of industrialization isn't enough.

For instance, there was a GM form of seed that was meant to help fertilize barren land. A great idea, I'm sure, though I tend to oppose GM foods because the genetic structure is poor. I would of course, if I had the power, have done exhaustive testing on the product to insure its safety and then spread it all over regions where food is hard to grow. However, as a principle, certain environmental groups fully oppose all GM food, as well as these seeds. Their priorities are incorrect, of course. But it is laughable to think that that oppose poor people having food.




And, for them, 'protecting the environment' means opposing basic human progress.
As usual, you miss the point entirely. It may be true that some environmentalist groups oppose any industrialization. But that isn't the point, and it is not an intrinsic character of environmentalism.

Consider if I said "I support communist revolution." Would you then respond, "you don't respect human life" since I agree with violent action against the state / captial structures? I doubt you would, because while some communists may indeed support wanton purges, most support the creation and defense of a revolution. People may die, yes, but that isn't the goal.

The same is true of environmentalists. It is an obvious character of environmental groups to be wary of or to oppose industrialization, since it is almost universally characterized as damaging to the environment. However, when they do say "I oppose X form of industrial growth" they don't mean that poor people shouldn't have access to technology or products. Indeed, every environmentalist I have met has also had heavily egalitarian views on social organization. You might say that they have their priorities mixed up, and I'm sure this is often true.

However, it is completely ridiculous to paint an entire spectrum of political belief and theory as "anti-poor" because they oppose a very specific form of industrial development. It's like saying that "You hate class systems" means "you hate humans since killing humans will end class"; it's ridiculous and irrelevant. I might as well say that you hate the poor because you support methods of industrialization I don't like!

Consider this last example:

Many communists believe quite strictly in the concept that nations must undergo capitalist industrailization long before they can become socialist or communist. Nation X is undergoing a reorganization which expects to see the feudal system shrugged off, and a liberal capitalist society put in its place. There have emerged two dominant camps:
The bourgeoise, who would like to see this revolution grant full property rights with the backign of state violence.
The conservative feudalists and communists, who support economic planning by the state.

This actually mirrors the state of capitalist revolutions from feudalism as Marx saw them. He points out that the communists have more ideologically to agree with with the feudalists, though a capitalist revolution may indeed be a required step. If we were to compare your statements on industrialization here, you would be squarely in line with the bourgeoise, who view capitalism as a necessary step for human progress. However, environmentalists, like communists to classless society, look at sustainable green tech as a necessary goal, and fight for it however possible. Do communists oppose progress because they oppose one very specific development? Of course not. And neither do environmentalists.

[Vanguard1917]

Then please cite some specific statements by environmentalist groups.


Specific examples of environmentalists opposing mass prosperity? The real question is, which environmentalists groups do not oppose mass material prosperity?

Consider the WWF's argument that if people in developing countries were to have the living standards of those in the West, we would need three planet earths. In other words, what is being said is that raising the living standards of the poorest countries to even the modest levels which we currently have in the West is impossible.

In the West itself, when they're not busy condemning development in the 'third world', Green Parties and environmental organisations like Greenpeace call for rationing and other austerity measures in order to reduce living standards and mass consumption.

Like i pointed out in another thread recently, who needs the bosses to attack our living standards, when you have people like environmentalists doing it and managing to pass themselves off as radical at the same time?

British environmentalist write George Monbiot puts it like this:

'the campaign against climate change is an odd one. Unlike almost all the public protests which have preceded it, it is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. It is a campaign not just against other people, but also against ourselves.'

[bretty]

Article discussing some of the ways in which Western environmental organisations try to prevent economic and technological advancement in the developing world.

----------


March of the eco-imperialists (http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/44753,opinion,march-of-the-eco-imperialists)

A leaflet from the charity Practical Action recently solicited donations for some "real cutting-edge technology" to give to African farmers: namely, a plough.

Ploughs might cut the earth, but they haven't been "cutting-edge technology" for more than 400 years. Nor have water pumps, operated by pulling on a rope or laboriously treading on a wooden platform, which are being pushed onto communities from Ghana to India by carbon-offsetting charities like Climate Care, as replacements for diesel-powered machinery. Some of the treadle pumps are even disguised as roundabouts to exploit child labour.

There is no disguising the utter poverty of what now passes for 'sustainable development'. Our aspirations for Third World development have sunk so low that our idea of what these charities call 'appropriate technology' are devices outlawed in British prisons in the 19th Century.

As climate change hysteria has gripped Western elites, instead of marvelling at the way China and India's rapid economic development has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of grinding poverty, we see them as 'climate criminals'.

The WWF has famously warned that we will need three more planets for everyone to enjoy Western European lifestyles. Never mind that China and India are still the 129th and 167th poorest countries on earth, not to mention the rest of the developing world. The only way to save the planet, greens insist, is to scale back consumption at home, and prevent development abroad.

This worldview puts the environment, not people, at its centre, and its consequences are disastrous. Eco-activists managed to slash €4bn worth of EU aid to Third World industries in 2007 alone. They have sabotaged World Bank funding for infrastructure projects, like a hydro-electric dam in Gujarat province, India, which would have provided power for 5,000 villages, industries and sewage-treatment works, irrigation for crops and clean water for 35m people - all because, as one activist said, it would "change the path of the river, kill little creatures along its banks and uproot tribal people".

Western development agencies have banned the use of DDT when 300m people suffer from malaria and up to 3m die from it each year. The UN promotes the burning of charcoal instead of kerosene when 5m young people die annually from diseases caused by indoor wood-smoke inhalation.

Organic farming is promoted at the expense of mechanised agriculture when 840m people suffer from malnutrition. Guilt-ridden Westerners offset their carbon via charities that re-impose back-breaking drudgery on Third World peasants, while their governments, via the 2008 Bali Accord, pay poor countries to plant trees instead of developing their economies.

Historically, it is not through imposing limits but by transcending them that we have achieved truly remarkable progress. In the last century, although global population quadrupled, human wealth quintupled. Food production steadily outstripped population growth, and today we still produce enough to feed everyone on earth, and billions more. People starve because they can't afford food - not because it doesn't exist.

Human ingenuity has overcome resource shortages time and again, developing new technologies, using commodities more efficiently, overcoming scarcity and improving our living standards. The real question is why, given this historical record, we seem to have completely lost faith in our ability to keep doing this.

Developing countries, however, share neither our eco-angst, nor our poverty of ambition. Chinese investment is transforming southern Africa whether we like it or not, helping double economic growth rates in the last five years. We must stop wasting time trying to hold back global development and instead push ever faster, cooperating to develop and distribute cleaner, more efficient technology, and providing aid where necessary to help countries adapt to environmental changes.

As Millicent Kumeni from Ghana told the educational charity WorldWrite, "You think we don't want modern development? You must be dreaming. We want what you have... you've screwed Africa and held us back. I pray that you don't keep doing this."

Have you read anything about the Sardar Sarovar dam project?

I agree with a lot of the other things you've mentioned. I study International Development at University, and the process of development by foreign and domestic governments, NGO's, Inter-governmentals, and corporations is a dead-end. Moderate change is a dead-end, and there's no point in blaming developing countries because they're nothing compared to the waste and destruction that the developed countries output in contrast.

[Dean]

Consider the WWF's argument that if people in developing countries were to have the living standards of those in the West, we would need three planet earths. In other words, what is being said is that raising the living standards of the poorest countries to even the modest levels which we currently have in the West is impossible.

In the West itself, when they're not busy condemning development in the 'third world', Green Parties and environmental organisations like Greenpeace call for rationing and other austerity measures in order to reduce living standards and mass consumption.

Like i pointed out in another thread recently, who needs the bosses to attack our living standards, when you have people like environmentalists doing it and managing to pass themselves off as radical at the same time?

British environmentalist write George Monbiot puts it like this:

'the campaign against climate change is an odd one. Unlike almost all the public protests which have preceded it, it is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. It is a campaign not just against other people, but also against ourselves.'
Please respond to my other points. Interesting, not a shred of what you say indicates that these people are "against spreading the goods of production," but rahter are interested in susainable development. Something which is required for any stable economy or society. I don't see where they say that the impoverished should be in such a position - where are you getting that from?

[Vanguard1917]

Have you read anything about the Sardar Sarovar dam project?

I agree with a lot of the other things you've mentioned. I study International Development at University, and the process of development by foreign and domestic governments, NGO's, Inter-governmentals, and corporations is a dead-end. Moderate change is a dead-end, and there's no point in blaming developing countries because they're nothing compared to the waste and destruction that the developed countries output in contrast.

But even when it does focus on the West, environmentalism is still usually saturated with reactionary arguments. The idea, for example, that living standards in the West are too high and that we should therefore call on governments to introduce austerity policies and rationing.



I don't see where they say that the impoverished should be in such a position - where are you getting that from?


From the fact that they call for policies to reduce living standards in the West and the fact that they're against rising living standards in the developing world. Did you read my last post?

[Dean]

From the fact that they call for policies to reduce living standards in the West and the fact that they're against rising living standards in the developing world. Did you read my last post?

I read it fully. However, I didn't respond because I wanted you to respond to my other points, and I don't want to get bogged down defending a couple organizations when the whole issue is much bigger than that. If I hadn't posted that single line which you exclusively responded to, what would you have said?

[Vanguard1917]

I read it fully. However, I didn't respond because I wanted you to respond to my other points

I did not respond to your other points because, to be frank, i had no idea about what you were going on about. E.g. here:


This actually mirrors the state of capitalist revolutions from feudalism as Marx saw them. He points out that the communists have more ideologically to agree with with the feudalists

I would love to know where Marx 'points out' anything resembling this. As i understood it, Marx admired capitalism's historical role precisely for smashing feudalism to pieces and revolutionising economic production.



I don't want to get bogged down defending a couple organizations


It's not just a 'couple of organisations'; it's environmentalism as a whole.

[bretty]

But even when it does focus on the West, environmentalism is still usually saturated with reactionary arguments. The idea, for example, that living standards in the West are too high and that we should therefore call on governments to introduce austerity policies and rationing.



From the fact that they call for policies to reduce living standards in the West and the fact that they're against rising living standards in the developing world. Did you read my last post?

Which is why I said moderation is a dead-end outlook. There's nothing wrong with searching for more sustainable energy sources and more sustainable development practices. But this moderate outlook of curbing input/output I'm highly skeptical of, in and of itself. However I think among other systemic issues it is going to inevitably be a legitimate issue.

[Sendo]

For some reason Vg1917 seems to be really into this false dichotomy of:

"Human progress" vs. biodiversity, clean air, clean water, stable global temperatures, healthy food, sustainable production, etc.

I won't deny that there's bourgeois environmentalism. the hypocrisy of urban folk who have everything they need already and want to "preserve" national parks for their own enjoyment. This means full of birds and deer (and paved trails) but no Amerindian fishing/hunting rights.

Bourgeois environmentalism is not only annoying, but ineffective. It's better to keep farmers prosperous, rather than economically force them to cut down trees and then ban deforestation. Mexico is a clear example of this. Where traditional communities have won sovereignty they have had net forest growth whereas National Park have had a net loss in forest cover.

In the Global South, there is something called "environmentalism of the poor". Not every environmentalist is some arrogant prick from LA driving a hybrid up and down the street all day.

[Vanguard1917]

Which is why I said moderation is a dead-end outlook. There's nothing wrong with searching for more sustainable energy sources and more sustainable development practices. But this moderate outlook of curbing input/output I'm highly skeptical of, in and of itself. However I think among other systemic issues it is going to inevitably be a legitimate issue.

Reducing living standards is 'legitimate'? What's the point of being a 'radical' if we're just going to do the dirty work of the bosses?

What we need to do is find more and more efficient ways to produce goods so that we can radically increase productive output in order to provide prosperity for all. Reducing mass consumption and other austerity measures are not radical - in fact, they're the common policies of capitalist governments in economic downturns and recessions.

[Lynx]

Consider the WWF's argument that if people in developing countries were to have the living standards of those in the West, we would need three planet earths. In other words, what is being said is that raising the living standards of the poorest countries to even the modest levels which we currently have in the West is impossible.
It is impossible given how much energy and resources are wasted by the profligate western lifestyle. It is impossible under a non-egalitarian economic system.
I don't have a problem with environmentalists or Technocrats who raise these sort of questions. And I certainly don't have a problem with engineers and technical personnel who suggest possible solutions to very real challenges.

[Vanguard1917]

It is impossible given how much energy and resources are wasted by the profligate western lifestyle.


What is profligate about the lifestyles of the masses in the West? If the modest living standards in the West are so extravagant from your POV, then does this mean that you advocate lowering them?

There is no evidence that there are natural limits preventing industrialisation in the developing world. With technological progress, we are discovering more and more efficient ways of bringing about economic development, which is part of the reason why it is such a disgrace that economic underdevelopment still exists, bringing misery to the lives of billions. Industrialisation is being held back by social limitations, which are thrown up by capitalism, which is why we seek to replace the latter with a society which does not restrain economic progress.

[Lynx]

What is profligate about the lifestyles of the masses in the West? If the modest living standards in the West are so extravagant from your POV, then does this mean that you advocate lowering them?
Ideally, living standards would be maintained while achieving greater energy efficiency. In other words, doing the same with less. This frees up energy and resources for use by a greater number of people.


There is no evidence that there are natural limits preventing industrialisation in the developing world. With technological progress, we are discovering more and more efficient ways of bringing about economic development, which is part of the reason why it is such a disgrace that economic underdevelopment still exists, bringing misery to the lives of billions. Industrialisation is being held back by social limitations, which are thrown up by capitalism, which is why we seek to replace the latter with a society which does not restrain economic progress.
Longer term I am optimistic that technological advances will overcome limitations just as they have in the past. But those days lie in the future and in a future without capitalism.
I would like to be able to make the argument that global abundance exists now, evidence of abundance would be a blow to capitalism.

[Sendo]

living standards is complex, not a simple gauge, and not wholly dependent on industrialization.

I don't think we want the living standards of the Western World lowered (we don't want more lead in our drinking water, we don't want houses falling apart) but we want to give up the unsustainable patterns of our lifestyle (maybe self-destructing iPods, an infrastructure dependent on universal personal car ownership)

[Dean]

I did not respond to your other points because, to be frank, i had no idea about what you were going on about. E.g. here:
Calling someone incoherant isn't an argument - at least, not a good one.




I would love to know where Marx 'points out' anything resembling this. As i understood it, Marx admired capitalism's historical role precisely for smashing feudalism to pieces and revolutionising economic production.
Well, it is mentioned in The Communist Manifesto. In any case, it is well known that a major base of support that communists had were the pro-feudalists - it is estimated that half of those who supported the Russian Revolution were pro-feudalists.

That isn't the main point, in any case. I think that portion of the argument can be shed completely, and it still stands - what Marx said is ultimately not as important as the total theory, which leaves you grasping for capitalist development while the environmentalists ask for communism, proverbially.


It's not just a 'couple of organisations'; it's environmentalism as a whole.
Right, so I am going to start quoting communist organizations and claim that you support the same programs &c.. Get a grip.

You have still failed to respond to a single one of my metaphors, analyses of your argument or proven that even a single environmental organization has the disinterest of the lower classes / 3rd worlders as an interest. I can only assume that you simply cannot answer these questions. It seems that you simply want to bash the environemntalists because they have economic goals not fully in support of maximum production, efficiency and don't believe that a callous disregard for our environemental resources is a useful orientation.

[Sendo]

It's useless, Dean. Vg is convinced that we have a dilemma here and that all environmentalism is evil and dishonest and evil.

We could mention Marx's hintings of environmentalism when he talked about unsustainable over-farming (more than necessary to feed people). We could see the disastrous effects in the Great Plains. Check out Donald Worster's Dust Bowl. You could acknowledge that the Global South was environmentalist before the North. (We had the annoying European Romantics and US hypocrites like Teddy, yes, and then the genuine Henry David Thoreau, but environmental caught on in Banana republics decades before the hippie movements. Environmentalism was also a big deal for Amerindians, especially the ones north of Greater Mexico and to the ones east of the Mississippi. Maybe they were just ivory-tower elitists.

Or we could keep making up poor-hating environmentalist demons as Vg does.

Hey, I think Global Jewish Bank World Government nutsos like Alex Jones could interview, you, VG. You could talk about how the UN wants to hype up global warming to kill off 80% of the world and establish a New World Order.

[Vanguard1917]

Ideally, living standards would be maintained while achieving greater energy efficiency.

Ideally? What about practically? And what about not just maintaining living standards, but actually raising them? Should we support measures to prevent working class living standards from rising?



Well, it is mentioned in The Communist Manifesto.


Really?! Please provide quote. No? Of course not: 'cause you're making it up.


In any case, it is well known that a major base of support that communists had were the pro-feudalists

Where do you get these things from?

[Vanguard1917]

We could mention Marx's hintings of environmentalism when he talked about unsustainable over-farming (more than necessary to feed people)

Marx supported industrialising all spheres of production and he welcomed mass economic growth. Although he did indeed make some remarks about the problems of soil erosion, he fully rejected the eco-arguments of his time, e.g those of the 'naturalist' philosopher Georg Friedrich Daumer, who talked about 'harmony' between nature and man.

'There is no question, of course of modern sciences, which, with modern industry, have revolutionised the whole of nature and put an end to man's childish attitude to nature... It would be desirable that Bavaria's sluggish economy, the ground on which priests and Daumers likewise grow, should at last be ploughed up by modern cultivation and modern machines.' (Marx)


Marx viewed the increased mastery over nature as part of capitalism's great 'civilising influence' and 'revolutionary' role:


'Hence the great civilizing influence of capital, its production of a stage of society compared with which all earlier stages appear to be merely local progress and idolatory of nature. Nature becomes for the first time simply an object for manking, purely a matter of utility; it ceases to be recognised as a power in its own right; and the theoretical knowledge of its independent laws appears only as a stratagem designed to subdue it to human requirements, whether as the object of consumption or as the means of production. Pursuing this tendency, capital has pushed beyond national boundaries and prejudices, beyond the deification of nature and the inherited, self-sufficient satisfaction of existing needs confined within well-defined bounds, and the reproduction of the traditional way of life. It is destructive of all this, and permanently revolutionary, tearing down all obstacles that impede the development of the productive forces, the expansion of needs, the diversity of production and the exploitation and exchange of natural and intellectual forces.'

[Lynx]

Ideally? What about practically? And what about not just maintaining living standards, but actually raising them? Should we support measures to prevent working class living standards from rising?
Practically means we have to make do with current limitations. If the objective of applied science and technology continues to be the pursuit of profit, current limitations may remain for a long time. We can raise living standards for everyone as soon as that level of demand becomes sustainable.

[Dean]

Really?! Please provide quote. No? Of course not: 'cause you're making it up.
I was incorrect about the specific source, but it is besides the point in any case. Right, let's put that to the side, then.

Again, please respond to various criticisms in my earlier post, as I have requested multiple times. You and I both know that the very specific issues surrounding Marx's statements, and indeed the base of support for communists, is a rhetorical anecdote which has no bearing over the real meat of my argument, which you have conveniently - in every single post - refused to answer in the least.

Funny, however, that you blame Rosa for not providing substance in her responses. You actually believe that finding and attacking the weakest fragment in a post proves your point - fragments which have, as a rule, had little to nothign to do with the relevant argument or topic. Perhaps I should be running to the CC as you do? :laugh:

[Vanguard1917]

Practically means we have to make do with current limitations. If the objective of applied science and technology continues to be the pursuit of profit, current limitations may remain for a long time. We can raise living standards for everyone as soon as that level of demand becomes sustainable.


But for now living standards should remains as they are, i.e. low, if not lowered?


I was incorrect about the specific source, but it is besides the point in any case. Right, let's put that to the side, then.

The problem is, and it is a big problem, you do this a lot. You simply make things up. You have done it in this thread, and you did it in the other thread where we discussed (the one on neo-malthusianism). Why should i take anything you say seriously? Why should anyone?



Funny, however, that you blame Rosa for not providing substance in her responses.


The difference is i addressed all your points, at least the ones that i could make some sense of. It's when you started talking nonsense (about how the Communist Manifesto is sympathetic to feudalism, how communists are supported by feudalists, how environmentalists call for communism, etc) that i stopped bothering.

[spartan]

So basically all those arguing against VG1917 are saying that all those in the third world will have to stop any economic development, which would lead to an increase in living standards, and keep on living their lives in poverty, so that we in the first world can continue living our luxurious (when compared to them) lifestyles because of any potential negative effects the third world's economic progress could have in terms of global warming, which we in the first world mostly caused?

That hardly seems fair now does it?

Indeed it's punishing the third world for something which they, by and large, didn't contribute to (global warming) at least not at the excessive levels of us in the first world.

Perhaps I have got it wrong but that's what I see when reading this thread.

The best way to overcome global warming is to develop new technologies, not prevent other copuntries from developing.

[Dean]

EDIT: Vanguard, I am not wasting my time here anymore so I removed my last post, quite frankly I don't care what your next response would be, beacuse you prove by example that you cannot or will not understand even the most basic language. Go to the next young republicans meeting if you want someone to listen to your anti-environment nonsense.

[Dean]

So basically all those arguing against VG1917 are saying that all those in the third world will have to stop any economic development, which would lead to an increase in living standards, and keep on living their lives in poverty, so that we in the first world can continue living our luxurious (when compared to them) lifestyles because of any potential negative effects the third world's economic progress could have in terms of global warming, which we in the first world mostly caused?

That hardly seems fair now does it?

Indeed it's punishing the third world for something which they, by and large, didn't contribute to (global warming) at least not at the excessive levels of us in the first world.

Perhaps I have got it wrong but that's what I see when reading this thread.

That's what he would like for you to believe, as he is twisting the debate by refusing to acknowledge the facts. Simply put, I have never once argued against any form of industrialization here. In fact, I have supplied the only piece of evidence which exemplifies an environmental group acting agains the interests of third-worlders! VG claims that environmental groups not only seek to arrest development in the third world, but that that is their goal:


...try to enforce their Western environmentalist prejudices onto developing countries in order to prevent or slow down economic development there.

Apparently he overlooked the title "environmentalist" which has an ulterior motive: the insidious interest to preserve the health of our natural environment. In any case, he has failed to provide instances where the environmental groups have either sought to slow development in the third world or stated that they oppose it.

[Sendo]

not quite, spartan. Industrial agriculture crreates more problems than its worth. We have a problem of distribution and trade agreements and monopolization and Monsanto/Cargill practices which decimate domestic farming around the world. We don't need more food. And we shouldn't marvel at India and China. I don't BLAME them, but I can't say it's good that they or anyone else is making that much CO2.

China should not be patted on the back at all. What "achievements" lifted millions out of poverty. If you mean that they have cheap polyester shit in every store and a TV in every torture chamber...WOWEE! They got their success by burning obscene amounts of oil and poisoning their people with, gee, LEAD in their air. They got their production up by turning the East Coast into one giant sweatshop.

Spartan, did you read the comments, or just skim them? You're painting the opposition here as people who put "pretty picturesque exotic locales" above the bread and water of foreign peoples.

How about reading up on the Three Gorges Dam. China's "progress" my ass! Flooding towns, corralling people into a Big Brother-esque cities where they breathe mercury, lead, and sulfuric acid? No thanks!

I have my own computer, but the thing's 5 years old and I don't plan on buying a new one anytime soon, hope to use public libraries. I wear clothes until the holes show my underwear or for work clothes, until they're unacceptable. I don't do anything with my money but travel and drink my sorrows away. I am not advocating holding the rest of the world back so I can enjoy my technology. Capitalist development and fossil fuel power sources are what's causing damage, not industrialization itself.

Don't paint environmentalism with one big brush. I'm a die hard tree hugger but I'll go off anybody who brags about being able to afford a hybrid (I drove a Geo Metro for a few years, getting 45 m/gallon. To hear people brag about their Priuses made we want to kill them). I go off on people who blame environmental problems on Americans' insatiable greed, ignoring propaganda, marketing, and industrial pollution.

[Sendo]

Why push for capitalist development and big oil chuggers in Africa, and in nations places where countrymen who want to slow down oil output CLEAN UP communities and nationalize the wells? You could just as well push for wind energy, socialism, free water and healthcare, etc. It's just not practical to advocate oil either. It's running out #1, and #2, global warming has decimated First Nation and Inuit peoples' villages (yeah, VG, Indians are still around, learn about more than just the UK once in a while)...they're currently suing Exxon Mobil for contributing to global warming which melted permafrost. Global warming will also drown much of the tropical 3rd world, and make things worse for Cuba hurricane-wise. It's a freaking miracle they lost only 4 people this year with the embargo and a cat4 hurricane to boot. Too bad for Haiti, though. Maybe Haiti just needs more industry? Nope, they were putting along fine until the IMF stepped in in the late 80s.

Sorry for splitting this into two posts, but the site was going buggy for me right now.

[Dean]

Why push for capitalist development and big oil chuggers in Africa,

It is a standard corporate policy for Vanguard1917 Management Solutions LLC to welcome all opportunities for further cooperation with Oil!

[Vanguard1917]

EDIT: Vanguard, I am not wasting my time here anymore so I removed my last post, quite frankly I don't care what your next response would be, beacuse you prove by example that you cannot or will not understand even the most basic language. Go to the next young republicans meeting if you want someone to listen to your anti-environment nonsense.


Lol, OK. Better luck next time. I think anyone who's read your posts in this thread knows who's the one failing to get their basic facts straight.



not quite, spartan. Industrial agriculture crreates more problems than its worth


Really? Tell the hundreds of millions of people in China and India who have been rescued from absolute poverty precisely as a result of industrialised agriculture, along with industrial development in general, whether or not they were better off with the backward production methods of the past.



China should not be patted on the back at all. What "achievements" lifted millions out of poverty.


Mass, large-scale industrial development. And not millions, but more like hundreds of millions, no longer have to experience the worst levels of poverty as a result of it.

Of course, no one here is denying that this development has not taken place without contradictions (since this is, after all, capitalist development). But the argument that developing countries like China and India were somehow better off without development can only make sense to those who have total disregard for the significant improvements to the standard of human life which have taken place.

[butterfly]

The thing is VG we are going to see millions upon millions thrust back into poverty if nothing is done in the immediate future.
No one is denying that industrial development has seen some dramatic improments in developing states but we don't want to see these improvments come undone either.
You have an inability to invisage an alternative future to the one you have consolidated in your mind.

[Sendo]

well, VG industrial agriculture is dependent on fossil fuels for the machinery, dependent on fossil fuels for fertilization, and dependent on fossil fuels for transporting it. The chemical pesticides and fertilizers will run off and gee, make the Yellow Sea one big dead zone. The PRC had to clean up swathes of algae from the Sea for the Olympics. That algae would've died and sunk and deoxygenated the water, just like in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm sure it does on a yearly basis. This time, authorities intervened (to the tune of how many billion$) to clean up the algae (ableit to make the area navigable)

What I like in Korea, here, is how many people take roadside patches of dirt and make mini gardens of corn and peppers. Fresh stuff. Too bad the farmers' market people don't speak English and rip off whiteys.....god damn it.

Also, on China, figures of industrial growth don't change simple things....like I don't know, massive contaminations of vegetables. Nor does it change the fact that we don't need to make more food. China had gotten out of feudalism long ago. 1980s/90s industrialization/capitalization has not brought wide happiness. Read up on this stuff. A lot of Chinese are very nostalgic for the days of Mao.

[Lynx]

But for now living standards should remains as they are, i.e. low, if not lowered?
In the here and now they will remain low or be lowered.

[Vanguard1917]

The thing is VG we are going to see millions upon millions thrust back into poverty if nothing is done in the immediate future.

Billions of people already live in poverty, as a result of economic underdevelopment.



In the here and now they will remain low or be lowered.


So you openly admit that you'd like to see living standards lowered. I'm highly intrigued to know how you reconcile your supposed leftism with your desire to reduce the living standards of the working class.

[butterfly]

Billions of people already live in poverty, as a result of economic underdevelopment.
Not as a result of the economic system itself, which is unlikely to go away any time soon.

In the immediate future if consumption or population are not reduced, we won't see billions of people living in poverty but starving of malnutrician.
I think the point Lynx was trying to make is that a reduction in the standard of living is an inevitable consequence of an inability to preserve the earths climate as we see it today.

The question you have to ask yourself is 'Am I willing to make a personal decision to reduce my level of consumption to prevent suffering and preserve a future for humankind?'

[Vanguard1917]

Not as a result of the economic system itself, which is unlikely to go away any time soon.


Poverty today isn't caused by the capitalist system? What is it caused by then?



In the immediate future if consumption or population are not reduced, we won't see billions of people living in poverty but starving of malnutrician.


Don't confuse you own eco-fantasy with reality.

[butterfly]

No, as a result of the economic system itself, which is unlikely to go away any time soon.

Typing error, sorry. You were blaming poverty on underdevelopment, not the system, which I think could be the problem you have with grasping the reality of environmental degredation...it cannot be solved purely through industrial development which you have always asumed is the only method to alleviate poverty...it requires a certain degree of degression.

That is hard for some on the radical left to grasp because industrial development is fundamental to your ideology.

[Vanguard1917]

No, as a result of the economic system itself,

And underdevelopment is an integral characteristic of the capitalist system.

[butterfly]

Which is unlikely to go away anytime soon...

[Vanguard1917]

...especially if you provide environmentalist apologism for it.

[Lynx]

So you openly admit that you'd like to see living standards lowered. I'm highly intrigued to know how you reconcile your supposed leftism with your desire to reduce the living standards of the working class.
I told you what will happen, not that I like it or support it. Practically vs. ideally, remember?

[Vanguard1917]

Putting aside your eco doom-mongering, it is clear that you want living standards to be lowered, since you earlier argued that living standards are already too high (or 'profligate', as you put it).

[butterfly]

Since you refuse to define living standards VG, what you say is too ambiguous for anyone to answer.

[Lynx]

If living standards are unsustainable then there will come a point when they will be lowered, and brutally. This would be a consequence of material limitations, not because I want it to happen. Stop assuming bad faith, I'm not a member of the VHEM.

[Dean]

If living standards are unsustainable then there will come a point when they will be lowered, and brutally. This would be a consequence of material limitations, not because I want it to happen. Stop assuming bad faith, I'm not a member of the VHEM.

It's in his character to assume bad faith:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/lm_watch.html

Affiliated with Spiked, his idols.

[Vanguard1917]

If living standards are unsustainable then there will come a point when they will be lowered, and brutally. This would be a consequence of material limitations, not because I want it to happen. Stop assuming bad faith, I'm not a member of the VHEM.

But you clearly do want them to be lowered because according to you, as you argued earlier in the thread, they're too high. In other words, what you claim as some kind of objective necessity, is in fact your own highly subjective political standpoint: the desire to make working people poorer.

[Vanguard1917]

Since you refuse to define living standards VG, what you say is too ambiguous for anyone to answer.

A living standard, from a materialist POV, is the level of access which a person has to the best that society, at its current level of development, has to offer in terms of goods and services.

For example, around 2 billion people currently have no access to electricity. Around a billion people are illiterate, because they have no access to education. More than a billion people lack adequate access to clean water, and more than 2.5 billion lack basic sanitation. Access to piped water in the household is still a privilege for many of the world's poor.

2.5 billion people still depend on biomass (e.g. charcoal and animal shit) in order to produce energy for cooking food. The indoor polution created by this lack of access to a proper energy supply kills 1.5 million people each year, half of whom are children.

Around a billion people live in slum conditions due to a lack of adequate urban development. Of those living on less than $1 a day globally, 3/4 of them are living in rural areas.

It is clear to anyone with sense that the developing world urgently needs mass, large-scale economic development in order to be able to provide at least the standard of living which exists in the West, which, for progressives, is itself not high enough. For us on the left, it's clear that capitalism cannot provide the development that is needed for mass human prosperity. That's why we need to get rid of it and create a system of production which does not hold back economic progress. Western environmentalists, meanwhile, who overwhelmingly come from economically privileged backgrounds, try to prevent basic development in the world's poorest areas.

[butterfly]

Within the framework of the assumption you make about the underlying motives of environmentalism, the environmentalist would claim that whilst raising living standards through industrial over-development you are effectually removing maximised living standards in the long-term.
Therfore you are playing out a dangerous self-fullfilling prophersy.

[Vanguard1917]

Within the framework of the assumption you make about the underlying motives of environmentalism, the environmentalist would claim that whilst raising living standards through industrial over-development you are effectually removing maximised living standards in the long-term.

Which is obviously a claim with no basis or supporting evidence. Economic development not only increases living standards, but it also makes societies less vulnerable to natural threats, since they have greater resources to protect themselves. Although, of course, whether bourgeois governments will allow access to these resources is another matter. That's part of the reason why we need democratic, socialist control over them.

Today, economic underdevelopment is causing misery for billions of human beings, as the stats in my previous post illustrate. Environmentalists wish to prevent development and let this state of affairs continue because of risks and end-of-the-world scenarios fabricated in their own heads?

[butterfly]

No, first I can't speak for all environmentalists but I stand against wasteful industrial development, secondly this view is based on a solid consensus of expertise, which is all anyone can work with, whether that be the concepts involved in workers revolution or environmental degredation.
I'm guessing that you have a decent understanding of this consensus but your follow-up research has been biased in attempting to dismiss any real unpleasant consequences that threaten to derail the possibility of revolution in your lifetime.
Focus on the acceleration effect if you are willing to consider objective analysis.
Having said that, I do admire your revolutionary spirit:):cursing:

[Lynx]

But you clearly do want them to be lowered because according to you, as you argued earlier in the thread, they're too high. In other words, what you claim as some kind of objective necessity, is in fact your own highly subjective political standpoint: the desire to make working people poorer.
They are too high and they cannot be extended to 6.5 billion people. One limitation is due to the extraneous energy requirements of the Western lifestyle. I prefer factual analysis to politically motivated assertions, or the old capitalist refrain: "there's no money"

[Vanguard1917]

No, first I can't speak for all environmentalists but I stand against wasteful industrial development, secondly this view is based on a solid consensus of expertise, which is all anyone can work with, whether that be the concepts involved in workers revolution or environmental degredation.
I'm guessing that you have a decent understanding of this consensus but your follow-up research has been biased in attempting to dismiss any real unpleasant consequences that threaten to derail the possibility of revolution in your lifetime.

There is a scientific consensus that industrial development in the developing world will lead to greater poverty?


They are too high and they cannot be extended to 6.5 billion people.

So then you do believe that working class living standards in the West need to be lowered? And you don't believe that this is a political position directly opposed to anything progressive?



One limitation is due to the extraneous energy requirements of the Western lifestyle.


If these energy requirements where 'extraneous' they would not be being met. But they of course are. We are producing more energy more efficiently than ever before. With greater progress in methods of energy production like nuclear and hydroelectric, there is nothing to stop us from producing an abundance of energy to fuel development worldwide. This is already taken place, however limited. Capitalism is holding back progress, and increasingly using environmentalist language to justify it.

[Lynx]

So then you do believe that working class living standards in the West need to be lowered? And you don't believe that this is a political position directly opposed to anything progressive?
If we are to build an egalitarian society, and scarcity exists, then the standard of living of some people must be lowered so that all people can achieve the same living standard.

If these energy requirements where 'extraneous' they would not be being met.
My bad, extraneous energy is a term used by Technocacy, I should have just written 'energy'.

But they of course are.
If you mean 'are we satisfying the needs of the minority of the population who consume a majority of its resources' then yes. Scaling the western lifestyle to include all humans would require a six fold increase in energy production.

We are producing more energy more efficiently than ever before. With greater progress in methods of energy production like nuclear and hydroelectric, there is nothing to stop us from producing an abundance of energy to fuel development worldwide. This is already taken place, however limited. Capitalism is holding back progress, and increasingly using environmentalist language to justify it.
And so the obstacle remains capitalism, with the puppet-masters wishing to keep the status quo. Fortunately the environmental movement includes scientists and engineers.

[Lynx]

May as well post this link as an introduction to what is being discussed here, if not obliquely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

[Dr Mindbender]

If we are to build an egalitarian society, and scarcity exists, then the standard of living of some people must be lowered so that all people can achieve the same living standard.


yes, those people you are referring to are called the bourgeois.

[Vanguard1917]

If you mean 'are we satisfying the needs of the minority of the population who consume a majority of its resources' then yes. Scaling the western lifestyle to include all humans would require a six fold increase in energy production.



Then let's start building more power plants. The fact that capitalism can't raise the living standards of the world's masses to even the modest heights of the Western median is surely indicative of its utter backwardness.

[spartan]

Then let's start building more power plants. The fact that capitalism can't raise the living standards of the world's masses to even the modest heights of the Western median is surely indicative of its utter backwardness.
It's not that it can't, it won't do it because the way the world is now (a prosperous first world and poverty stricken third world) benefits the bourgeois class.

That's why any right (or is that left?) thinking person should be a socialist as it's the only system that can give us all what we want, which is a decent standard of living.

[Lynx]

yes, those people you are referring to are called the bourgeois.
You might want to ask a Maoist for a 2nd opinion on that.

Then let's start building more power plants. The fact that capitalism can't raise the living standards of the world's masses to even the modest heights of the Western median is surely indicative of its utter backwardness.
Yes, well capitalism needs to go the way of the Dodo before any planning or building can take place.

[Sendo]

Global Carbon Project just said CO2 emissions exceed all expectations. I don't care what we have to do, hell, I'd give up all computer use if some magical God could guarantee that we won't be extinct in a hundred years. All this arguing over raising the availability of heavy industry in every part of the world at any cost will be moot if we go through post-polar ice cap floods, crop failures, and a fuel crisis.