File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9802, message 484


From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Ecology and "value free" Marxism
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 22:23:44 -0600 (CST)


Lou writes:

> Meanwhile, Marxism's irrelevancy deepens. It clings to schemas that were
> appropriate to the mid-19th century. When the subject of ecological
> catastrophe comes up, people like Boucher blather on 

Lou, you know that all statements of the kind "Marxism [is such and such"
are wrong. You reify "marxism" as though there really were a platonic form
of the "M-L" party in existence, and the membership of that party and
"Marxists" were one and the same, that the "line" of that Party and
"Marxism" were the same. In fact, I suspect the bulk of the readership of
*MR*, of *Against the Current*, of *Labor Notes*, of *New Left Review*, of
*LBO* (and, incidentally, I'm speaking of *readership*, not *editorial
collective*, so anyone's particular judgment of one or more of these
periodicals is irrelevant), of *Prison Legal News*, of Cockburn's column
in the *Nation*--that the bulk of this leadership, plus the bulk of those
who attend various conferences and subscribe to various leftist maillists,
are in one way or another "green." If Marxism were really even close to
irrelevant, this list wouldn't exist and you would not be writing the post
I'm responding to.

We do not have an organized class movement, we do not have even the core
of an organized class, we do not have a coherent set of marxist principles
agreed to by a linked set of people and local groups. When that occurs,
then you will be able to say that Marxism is relevant or irrelevant, but
for now, such statements are irrelevant.

You and Mark and others have been arguing well the case for believing the
earth endangered. That's what Marxists are supposed to do--fight for the
princples they believe in and try to unite others around them.

And incidentally, while as I've already indicated, I'm bored with
continued pointless debate for overt and unthinking "productivists," you
are not going to get the kind of party you want, or the kind of party we
all eventually participate in building, if you declare a divine line on
ecology: you are going to have to unite with many who are sceptical with
some parts of your position on ecology. You know that.

In practice, I suspect that unity will in fact be fairly easy between
those who accept essentially the position pushed by you and Mark and those
who want to protect specific working class constituencies, or specific
third-world peoples against being dumping grounds for waste or being
flooded out by useless dams.

You won't get full "philosophical unity," but there is nothing you have
pushed harder since I first came on this list than you have your
condemnation of the sectarian demand for "philosophical unity" as a
precondition for political union.

And in conclusion. Please. Really. Stop fighting with Boddi and James. All
it does is rile you up to repeat established points. Fight with your
friends: that's how the unity of principle that builds movements gets
established, not by endlessly defeating the same pigeons.

I think after three years of thrashing around, we are (thanks perhaps
particularly to Mark) approaching that point where friends can carry on
principled debate over real issues. Let's go for it. 

Carrol


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