Eco-localism
One of the main projects adopted by progressive, anti-corporate, anti-globalization, environmentalist-type- folks is building local food systems. Around here it has expanded into local currency/ barter systems, farmers markets, community gardens and cooperatives. Because it is a very rural area (western Montana) there are lots of folks who make efforts to get "off the grid", raise their own food, and try to be both self-sufficient and leave as small an ecological footprint as possible.Small is Beautiful.
In terms of politics, most of these folks seem to support the notion of "green capitalism", that is, they are fine with private ownership of productive property, fine with "regulated" markets and willing to put their energy into pro-Kyoto, pro -cap and trade type campaigns. They recycle and drive hybrids.
This essay by a guy named Albo ( hat tip to Che Bob) provides a thorough critique of these tendencies. Even Bookchin's Social Ecology, with it's attention to property relations, gets swiped at as a reformist, anarchist evasion of true social transformation.
Not that Albo is an all or nothing type revolutionary, he sees the usefulness of local action, he just wants it embedded in a wider, Marxist analysis. Think nested, concentric orders of power and agency. Like a dartboard or target, with local in the bulls eye.
We know the problems of so-called no-growth or "steady state" green capitalism. It would take a powerful political movement to create a strong enough central state structure to regulate it, to incentivise or green tax your way past externalities. Who wants such a state, even if it were possible? At a more basic level, can we really rely on prices to transmit perfect information about ecologically sustainable outcomes? Hasn't happened so far.Eternal optimists believe in "technological and organizational transformation", you know, Meet the Jetsons, but capitalist development is too uneven to be just. Just is!
Eco-localism has value as a model, as a way to start organizing, but it is not a movement for justice, democracy or emancipation unless it is accompanied by an explicit anti-capitalist critique. It avoids the tricky questions of politics: how does one locality negotiate with another? With the watershed? The outside world? Antagonism isn't going away just because we are small. And the autonomy is just an illusion, capital can crush it whenever it gets tired of the game.
"Liberated ecological and political spaces can only be defended to the extent that the scale and scope of capitalist market logic is reduced and democracy extended."
The whole idea of local resources for local needs makes California or anywhere around the 30th Parallel a pretty nice location but Montanans would be back to venison, bitterroots and pickled cabbage.
posted by troutsky @ 9:22 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:
This goes back to at least the late seventies. John and Yoko Lennon used to promote it. But you have to be able to trade with the outside world in order to have access to all the different commodities a community needs. Even California can't raise everything it needs, I suspect. Nor is a top down bureaucratic approach going to help by design, not as long as Big Ag is around to take advantage of the bureaucratic ax wielded by their pussy little friends in State Ag Dept. and FDA, and not as long as the government is doling out federal subsidies to things like ethanol, which is now proving to be no more cleaner than oil, and is creating an artificial rise in the price of food as well as oil. If this keeps up it will be more than just Montana living on nuts and berries.
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Funny you should bring up ethanol, Pagan. A large percentage of our (that's right OUR) arable land is devoted to very low nutrition strains of corn.
Now how do we convince the "free market"(LMAO) to stop devoting so much subsidized cultivation to corn for animal feed, ethanol and high fructose corn syrup? Leave alone the devastation this low nutrition junk has brought to the Mexican corn farmer whose higher nutrition crop couldn't compete (major source of emigration issues).
What do we do? How do we convince people to eat less meat, ditch the high fructose shit?
Education won't do it because you are battling advertising. Now I know you don't think advertising is pernicious but if you watch people in poor neighborhoods walk up to checkout with a couple gallons of Pepsi or watch a rather heavy individual pick up some "low calorie organic brownie mix" (real product) then you know that our decisions are on auto pilot and we need to do some radical change.
It would help if the fucking government didn't over-regulate everything so much that they cause the price of healthier foods to sky-rocket. And when you say eat less meat, do you really mean eat no meat? Or just more free-range chicken and such? Again, regulation makes it easier for Big Ag to dominate the market. All regulation does is make everything go up. Then of course everybody is going to buy the less healthy alternatives because otherwise they can't eat everyday in addition to pay their energy bills that the doofus shits in Washington also make sure keeps jacked up in price. Then advertising comes alone and lets everybody know where the best deals are to be found. That is to be expected.
By the way, Pepsi and Coke in moderate amounts is good for the digestion.
Over regulate in what way, Pagan? Minimum wage for migrant pickers?
I say eat less meat because it is an extremely inefficient source of protein. Again one of the problems we have is that the true cost of our consumption isn't obvious.
Moderation in all things and those who drink Coke are very often not drinking in moderation.
I'm fine with minimum wage for migrant pickers as long as they're here legally. I don't have a problem with minimum wage. That ship's done sailed. That doesn't mean the government has to stick their noses in everything. Regulations are the reason for taxes. End most of them and taxes can be lowered substantially without adding to the deficit. Bottom line. It will happen sooner or later, because the current system is clearly unsustainable. It's not the fault of "Kapital", its the fault of nanny-statism.
When you threw off on the people buying Pepsi you were making sport of the amount they were buying. Most people tend to buy items in bulk quantities. Not everybody buys a days supply at a time.
I don't want a "nanny state", or a top down bureaucratic approach", or "Big Ag"or subsidies either, Pagan.
Nor do I want to go back to 1920's free market capitalism. Talk about barbarism! The invisible hand produced vast wealth but divided it poorly. It accelerated the process of destroying the ecosystem. It created a century of war ( with no end in sight, the NY Times has a great piece on the what resource wars to expect in 2011) Why can't we move on, try something new?
Democracy cannot co-exist with capitalism whether it is the Ivory Coast, Belarus or America.Politics become hollowed out,( Big Ag,Banks etc) The regulatory state is corrupt and bureaucratized, citizenship becomes spectatorship. Where is it a successful partnership? Brazil? European Union? Japan? Israel?
As for "decision" making Ducky, it is a common expression that "we vote with our dollars". Think of the implications.
Meanwhile, debates rage over this amorphous beast some call neoliberalism and others call socialism (nanny state).
It is both. We tried (unsuccesfully, they now have single payer health care system) to create neoliberalism in Iraq and "Kapital " is allowed total freedom. Big Ag, Defence, High Tech, Energy are subsidized, Construction market is manipulated, while Water is being privitized.Then there is the whole issue of concentration and monopoly is some areas and micro-credit in others.
One has to look sector by sector and Global region by region.
The 1920's weren't all bad. That was the decade that a Republican President reduced the size of the military and the amount of military spending, and did so substantially, in addition to cutting taxes and regulations. That was why the twenties became the roaring twenties. Unfortunately, the market crash is also an example of what can happen when there isn't enough regulation.
Having said that, I'd take then over now any time. But sure, have some reasonable rules and regulations, with some reasonable safety nets. Just don't piss in my face and tell me its raining. Most people can tell the difference.
Pagan, I don't get it. On one hand you rail against excessive regulation in agriculture, although for the life of me I don't know what those regs are and on the other hand you agree that the invisible hand picked everyone's pocket in the 20's.
We seem to agree that the unregulated market is a disaster for all but a few and has to be avoided. Can we agree on that much?
Ducky, some regulations are necessary, haven't I always said that? You seem to have this idea that there needs to be an abundance of regulations or none at all. My idea is most of them need to be done away with. Get it through your head, they only exist to provide payola for political hacks, and increased power for Washington politicians at the expense of the states, local communities, and the people. That is including the people they are purported to "help". For the most part, the only people they help, aside from politicians and bureaucrats, is big business, by helping them eliminate their competition.
Without them, taxes are not an issue. There would be no constantly growing deficit. Most regulations that are worth having can be run by the states with a minimum of federal oversight, and that just to prevent bribery, or at least reduce the likelihood of it.
Here we go with the exponents of planned starvation as a tool of social control talking about food production. Commies like Troutsky have quite a history in this area. Add a touch of Marxist criminality to a food producers experience starvation.
The Duck rails about government in the bedroom, but he wants to be in everyone's refrigerator. Sorry, Duck but you can emigrate to Venezuela or Cuba and play God with the unwashed masses.
Marxism = Death = Stupidity
Exactly Pagan. You have no way, no metric, not even a philosophy to guide you as to WHICH regulations are good or bad, how it should be decided or by whom.Some things are OVER regulated, some are UNDER regulated, but we only find out after the fact.
Trapped in the circle to which you remain blind you want government to SOMEHOW not be captured by and able to effectively regulate capital.
You are only able with hindsight to say in this brief period,these snap-shots, "it seemed to be working", capitalism and democracy were symbiotic. You cling to the idea that "politics" as such can establish this equilibrium but can point to no example of this EVER happening.
Why would Big Ag lead the charge against regulation if it gave it such market advantage?
Who is going to propose anti-trust legislation? Ron Paul? Rand?
Do you want to vote for "responsible" banking practices? Try it.
Troutsky-
Liberals always give big business and out. You will never find a year in which Coca-Cola paid a ninety-one percent tax rate. Just because big business in general has the capacity and means to adjust, doesn't mean they prefer the system. They just make it work to their advantage.
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