File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9801, message 103


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 ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005