Date: Tue, 6 Jan 98 18:46:53 EST From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com> Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Marx on Native Americans C. Blaut, It is not "bullshit" to say that small farmers tend to over-produce. Farmers trying to make money to support next year's operations have no choice but to over-produce and take the risk. This analysis is no result of some racism, thank youm but the result of looking at the way *Western* farmers have treated their lands, and gone bankrupt without price supports and regulation. As for the ecological consciousness of small farmers, what are those small farmers doing burning down the rain-forest, except exactly what I said, and don't tell me how it's only the capitalists who do it because it's just not true. Peasants are deforesting Africa for firewood. Peasants are fishing out tropical reef systems. They don't so this because they are bad people. They do this because they are poor (which trumps any long-term perspective they might otherwise have) and they are bringing technology to bear (whether technology in reaping, clearing, or just basic medical technology increasing the population) on an economic system that can't handle it. I'm not condemning them to life in the slums. The modern economy will send them to the cities and the slums there are capitalism's responsibility. Capitalist agriculture is inevitable in my view. The only question is whether these people will have money to pay, keeping the land cultivated in staples, or whether their poverty will allow capitalists to turn the land over to export agriculture. Socialism depends on the efficiency of each worker. Peasant farming is vastly inefficient. I believe that these people have far more to offer mankind than scratching out a living with a hoe and a water buffalo. peace --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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