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

Thu Sep 30 15:25:19 CEST 2021

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,

On Thu, 30 Sept 2021 at 18:31, Davis, Laurence <L.Davis at ucc.ie> wrote:

> 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
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* radical_ecological_democracy at googlegroups.com <
> radical_ecological_democracy at googlegroups.com> on behalf of Hari DK <
> hari.coding at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* 29 September 2021 17:01
> *To:* mp <mp at aktivix.org>
> *Cc:* Tom Abeles <tabeles at gmail.com>; Ariel Salleh <arielsalleh7 at gmail.com>;
> Carlos Tornel <tornelc at gmail.com>; Radcal Democracy <
> radical_ecological_democracy at googlegroups.com>; Ted Trainer <
> tedtrainertsw at gmail.com>; gta-pedagog at lists.ourproject.org <
> gta-pedagog at lists.ourproject.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [REDlistserve] A new article on the RED website - "The
> path to a just and sustainable society"
>
>
> *[EXTERNAL] *This email was sent from outside of UCC.
> 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 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_%3D_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 at 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
>
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>
> --
> Hari Dilip Kumar
>
> *The Sustainability Problemsolver <http://www.haridk.me> | Initiative for
> Climate Action <https://actionclimate.org/>*
> *LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/hari-dilip-kumar-4b566621/>* |
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-- 
Hari Dilip Kumar

*The Sustainability Problemsolver <http://www.haridk.me> | Initiative for
Climate Action <https://actionclimate.org/>*
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