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,

On Wed, 29 Sept 2021 at 21:16, mp <mp@aktivix.org> wrote:

...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

--
To reply to the author of this message, select "reply"; to reply to the whole list, select "reply to all".
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Radical Ecological Democracy" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to radical_ecological_democracy+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/1dcca51f-01d1-8512-a52e-29f210141113%40aktivix.org.


--
Hari Dilip Kumar

The Sustainability Problemsolver | Initiative for Climate Action
LinkedIn | Skype haridk.skype