Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 00:33:02 -0700
From: Michael Novick <mnovick-AT-laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us>
Subject: Re: Economics of Communist Society


At 06:04 PM 5/13/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I fine "Ecofeminism" by Maria Mies and Vandanna Shiva to be a powerful and
>valuable book.  I think it has some serious flaws as well, particularly
>Shiva's arguments which I read as flat-out opposition to all technology
>developed under capitalism (if that is not her view, then such is to be found
>in other of her writing); and her complementary support for pre-capitalist
>formations that I am unpersuaded were so wonderful (even if capitalism
>underdeveloped and otherwise made the bad worse) -- it leaves me wondering
>about a viable program that comes from her ideas, centered on her Indian
> religious conceptions of nature. That said, it is powerful because there is
>an important critique of capitalism in her work and support for conceptions
>of development that make a lot more sense than capitalism. Currently she is a
>board (or whatever title) member of the International Forum on Globalization,
>which I'm very critical of and view as representing a new effort at social
>democracy (though they have a mountain of information about the miseries of
>neoliberalism) -- the Forum is international  and they've held some
>well-attended events in the US (I was at one in DC, so got a strong sense of
>the operation, which only deepened my criticism).  I have not read her other
>work, save a short piece or two on the battles against dams and the WB/IMF in
>India a few years ago.
>

TTT has run several short pieces, and I have seen some other recent writing
and speeches.  I agree that her prescriptions are not always on the mark,
but her awareness and exposure of the way in which capitalism/imperialism
is necessitated to constantly re-colonize, and her sharp critique of
current international (commercial) law as an enforcement mechanism for
Western piracy is on the mark and exposes the class and racial content of
current "technological" development of the productive forces.


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