File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9801, message 305


Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:42:34 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Fertilizer runoff kills marine life


D. Baker (aka "Boobysatva")

>	Nutrient wastes can safely be allowed to run into natural systems
>as long as they are free from toxins and channeled to the kinds of
>ecosystems that can handle them. 

Speaking of waste, Baker's post is about as fine an example of
spin-doctoring as I've seen outside the ranks of LM. I post an article from
the NY Times that implicitly makes the point that the needs of industrial
farming and industrial fishing are in conflict. One or the other has to
change.

So Baker does not discuss the actual points of the article, but makes a
bunch of blithe assertions about how the capitalist system can fine-tune
itself. He says that fertilizers can be flushed into "ecosystems that can
handle them." What a joke.

There is not some kind of control panel that governs all this. When there
is flooding, such as there was in 1993, runoff from waterlogged cities and
agricultural lands pours into the gulf. That summer the algae-producing
hypoxic zone doubled in size. By contrast, 1988 was the year of a great
drought in the Midwest and the hypoxic zone was much less prevalent.

There is no dial on the control panel of the capitalist system titled "turn
off flooding." No, the problem is within the capitalist system itself. It
has brought into existence a form of farming that is like all other
production. It sacrifices the long-term needs of humanity for the short
term need of profit. In the field of agriculture, Marx observed this
process and was led to conclude:

"The moral history...concerning agriculture...is that the capitalist system
works against a rational agriculture, or that a rational agriculture is
incompatible with the capitalist system (although the latter promotes
technical improvements in agriculture), and needs either the hand of the
small farmer living by his own labor or the control of associated producers."

Louis Proyect



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