From: "Dave Coull" <coull2-AT-btinternet.com>
Subject: RE: primitivism and anarchism
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 21:18:04 -0000




Iain wrote


> I think we would use existing technology and industry as
> a starting pointing and as time progresses modify the existing 
> industrial infrastructure to make it more humane. 


Yes, we would start with what we've got and develop from
there, but there are a few things that would have to change
IMMEDIATELY. A factory which manufactures nuclear weapons
can't go on manufacturing nuclear weapons for a single day.


> This will involve dismantling cities and so forth 
> and creating more human scale communities. It will 
> not happen overnight.


No, it will not happen overnight, but in some cases
it will  START  to happen immediately. Take the case
of London. Glasgow builds ships, sewing machines, etc.
Birmingham makes bicycles, cars, etc. What is London for?
Answer, it is for being the centre of government. It is
a great swollen pus-filled lump of a place with no reason
for existing other than government. It was already too
big, and a drain on the rest of the country, when it was 
just the capital of England. Then it became the capital 
of the United Kingdom, too. Then the capital of the British
Empire. And although the Empire is gone, it remained
a hugely important financial capital, the centre of
the Sterling Area. Nowadays, it is ranked along with
Tokyo and New York as one of just three "world cities"
which drain the rest of the world's finances. But
it doesn't actually  DO  anything. People in London 
either work for the government; or they work for 
bodies  _supposedly_  independent of the government,
like the BBC; or they work in the offices of company
headquarters which are there because the Government
is there; or they work for Banks which are there 
because the government is there; or they work for 
public relations firms which are there because
the government is there; or they work for global 
capitalist outfits which are there because the government
and all these other things connected with government
are there; or they work for service industries which 
are there to service the people who work for the government 
and the people who are there because the government is there; 
or they work for service industries which are there to service 
the people who work for service industries which are there 
to service the people who work for the government and the people 
who are there because the government is there; and so on....

Take away government and bureacracy and global capitalist
headquarters and there is no reason for London. Reaching
a post-London society would take many years, but the population 
would start to drain away immediately after the revolution.

Dave C