File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9801, message 222


Date: Wed, 14 Jan 98 5:06:54 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-I: Reply to boobysatva







		Proyect,





	If you think that you can recruit all the workers to be hippies, I
say: "Good luck to you" and I mean it.  I'll applaud you for every
tie-dye, every bong hit, every native folk dance and every line of
eco-beat poetry you do.  I'll envy you for your focus, your dedication,
and the company of bra-less unshaven women.  I'll hoist a shovel at the
ground-breaking of every new commune.  Hippies are good people.  The meek
shall inherit the earth.  I believe it right down to my socks. 



	Industrial socialism is a cruel and necessary evil.  I have thought
many times that socialism will be led from ashram, monastery and commune.  I
don't know how socialists will be able to get a purchase - to find a life
centered enough in the atomized industrial world.  Unions are battle lines. 
We need headquarters or at least tents.  Structurally I have no argument with
you, other than to say that I think you are fighting on a different front.



	It seems completely clear to me that you will not stop capitalist
degradation of the environment and you will not stop development.  You can
contain them and make sure that there are relatively peaceful, unspoiled
places to retreat to, and that is important.  You cannot, however, say
anything to the proletariat but that environmentalists are fighting a doomed
battle without worker control of the means of production.  You can't say to
them "This is bad, we can change this." because reform is not possible.  You
have to say "This is the kind of thing capitalism will keep doing no matter
what we try short of taking control of our own economic lives." 




	Ultimately, I believe that the battle is to make capitalism
superfluous.  That is what the capitalists did to the monarchists. 
Communal living in ecological balance is an important part of the message
that capitalism is simply not necessary.  It is very incomplete, however. 
That's because the struggle is not to dismantle the modern economy, but to
give it to the people it belongs to and let them decide what to do with
it.  Along the way many people will have to decide that they simply don't
care what the modern economy provides, the injustice and violence that the
ruling class instills in it makes it too rich for their blood. 



	They'll be an inspiration to the rest of us.  





	peace





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