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> There's even a Godwin point as he gently critiques people who "see a market economy and consumer culture as sterile and false (...) and who defend the world's

by anamax 17y ago

> There's even a Godwin point as he gently critiques people who "see a market economy and consumer culture as sterile and false (...) and who defend the world's most repressive cultures". What??? If we're against consumerism we're for Stalin? There does seem to be correlation. Whether it's coincidence or causation (in either direction) is unclear. Why should we ignore this? FWIW, "marxist analysis" does produce a lot of railing against consumer culture which is apparently derived from their first principles. If you want to argue against market economy and consumer culture without invoking marxist principles, have at it. > However it is important to note that our overall interlinked and financiarized economy needs a lot more progress to transform itself into a more decentralized and resilient system: that's where local culture, organic food, mixed cultures, and others enter into the picture! This "resilent" claim is interesting. The dependent systems haven't had the mass famines that are a staple of the decentralized ones. Yes, I agree that there are lots of potential failure points in centralized agriculture. However, experience matters too. Note that there actually isn't "a" centralized agriculture system, there are many, one or more for each common foodstuff. For example, Kansas grows lots of wheat, but so does Canada, so crop failures in Kansas don't have a huge effect in California, even though CA doesn't grow much wheat. (I'm guessing that CA doesn't produce much wheat, so substitute a state that doesn't produce wheat if CA does.) There is one counter-example - "gas from corn" in the US had a horrible effect on food prices in Mexico. (We'd be better off importing methanol from Brazil.)

plesn 17y ago
First point ("consumerism vs. repressive cultures"): reread my post, don't do amalgams. I fail to see the correlation between proponents of "authenticity" and dictator regimes. First, in the article authenticity proponents are pictured as "anti-globalization" activists: I rarely see vegetarians as mostly concerned by marxism. Moreover it is questionnable to correlate dictator regimes with Marxism: many south-amercian or african regimes are/were backed by the US/France/etc... Finally, Marxism was mostly productivist (except Lafargue), non-decentralised (you don't have to go to Lenin and Trotsky taking over the Soviets, you already see it in the argument between Marx and Bakounin), and moreover its analysis did not insist on differentiating financial and industrial capital, which is important to understand the current crisis. All in all, as I was saying, the media industry frames all opposition as "repressive" and "brutal" and makes it diffult to find alternatives: hopefully people everywhere are creative in actions and thoughts. Second point: I was not formulating a binary centralized vs decentralized debate where transporting food is not allowed or we go back to the Middle-Age; I'm just saying that there is a need for more autonomy in the system to prevent crises like recent ones (e.g. the rice crisis in 2008). It's just common sense to say that third world countries with more food-producing agriculture (instead of say, cotton) are less fragile to speculation on food which can lead to disasters especially in bad years, or that controlling their crops vs using GMO's makes them less economically dependent on big corporations.
- anamax 17y ago
  > reread my post, don't do amalgams. If I misrepresented you, feel free to demonstrate said misrepresentations. > I fail to see the correlation between proponents of "authenticity" and dictator regimes. First, in the article authenticity proponents are pictured as "anti-globalization" activists: Do you really want to argue that anti-globalization folks are not (mostly) left of US center? Or that they don't idealize rather crappy third world countries? > I rarely see vegetarians as mostly concerned by marxism. Good for you, but no one said that they were. Few people, including vegetarians are "mostly concerned" with Marxism and it's quite possible to criticize consumer culture from a non-Marxist perspective. Nevertheless, a lot of such criticism is from such a perspective. That's why I wrote "FWIW, "marxist analysis" does produce a lot of railing against consumer culture which is apparently derived from their first principles. If you want to argue against market economy and consumer culture without invoking marxist principles, have at it." > Moreover it is questionnable to correlate dictator regimes with Marxism: many south-amercian or african regimes are/were backed by the US/France/etc... The existence of non-Marxist dictatorial regimes doesn't imply that Marxist regimes don't tend toward the dictatorial. Note also that western countries have supported somewhat Marxist clients. > I'm just saying that there is a need for more autonomy in the system to prevent crises like recent ones (e.g. the rice crisis in 2008). How about some supporting evidence for the "more autonomy" theory? IIRC, the rice crisis was due to a price increase that wasn't even noticed in the US. That's why I mentioned the recent corn crisis in Mexico. Prices went up more in the US, but Mexico had food riots. > It's just common sense to say that third world countries with more food-producing agriculture (instead of say, cotton) are less fragile to speculation on food which can lead to disasters especially in bad years, or I'm not interested in "common sense", I'm interested in what's actually true. If cotton gives them a GDP of $2000/year while rice gives them a GDP of $500/year, cotton gives them a much bigger cushion if the rice price doubles. Yes, a cotton failure hurts, but so does a rice failure. An extra $500/year can make a huge difference at this level. It may let them save enough to survive a bad year. > that controlling their crops vs using GMO's makes them less economically dependent on big corporations. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that GMOs double their yield and the price is equal to 10% of their crop vs a "traditional" price of 0. That still looks like a 90% benefit. Why is that bad? Of course, if the benefit is 10% but the extra cost is 50%, it's a bad deal, but foreign corps aren't in a position to force anyone to buy. (Their govts are, but that's a different problem.) If you're going to argue that someone close to the edge shouldn't do what's most profitable for them, please provide the numbers.

by anamax 17y ago

plesn 17y ago

First point ("consumerism vs. repressive cultures"): reread my post, don't do amalgams. I fail to see the correlation between proponents of "authenticity" and dictator regimes. First, in the article authenticity proponents are pictured as "anti-globalization" activists: I rarely see vegetarians as mostly concerned by marxism. Moreover it is questionnable to correlate dictator regimes with Marxism: many south-amercian or african regimes are/were backed by the US/France/etc... Finally, Marxism was mostly productivist (except Lafargue), non-decentralised (you don't have to go to Lenin and Trotsky taking over the Soviets, you already see it in the argument between Marx and Bakounin), and moreover its analysis did not insist on differentiating financial and industrial capital, which is important to understand the current crisis. All in all, as I was saying, the media industry frames all opposition as "repressive" and "brutal" and makes it diffult to find alternatives: hopefully people everywhere are creative in actions and thoughts. Second point: I was not formulating a binary centralized vs decentralized debate where transporting food is not allowed or we go back to the Middle-Age; I'm just saying that there is a need for more autonomy in the system to prevent crises like recent ones (e.g. the rice crisis in 2008). It's just common sense to say that third world countries with more food-producing agriculture (instead of say, cotton) are less fragile to speculation on food which can lead to disasters especially in bad years, or that controlling their crops vs using GMO's makes them less economically dependent on big corporations.

anamax 17y ago
> reread my post, don't do amalgams. If I misrepresented you, feel free to demonstrate said misrepresentations. > I fail to see the correlation between proponents of "authenticity" and dictator regimes. First, in the article authenticity proponents are pictured as "anti-globalization" activists: Do you really want to argue that anti-globalization folks are not (mostly) left of US center? Or that they don't idealize rather crappy third world countries? > I rarely see vegetarians as mostly concerned by marxism. Good for you, but no one said that they were. Few people, including vegetarians are "mostly concerned" with Marxism and it's quite possible to criticize consumer culture from a non-Marxist perspective. Nevertheless, a lot of such criticism is from such a perspective. That's why I wrote "FWIW, "marxist analysis" does produce a lot of railing against consumer culture which is apparently derived from their first principles. If you want to argue against market economy and consumer culture without invoking marxist principles, have at it." > Moreover it is questionnable to correlate dictator regimes with Marxism: many south-amercian or african regimes are/were backed by the US/France/etc... The existence of non-Marxist dictatorial regimes doesn't imply that Marxist regimes don't tend toward the dictatorial. Note also that western countries have supported somewhat Marxist clients. > I'm just saying that there is a need for more autonomy in the system to prevent crises like recent ones (e.g. the rice crisis in 2008). How about some supporting evidence for the "more autonomy" theory? IIRC, the rice crisis was due to a price increase that wasn't even noticed in the US. That's why I mentioned the recent corn crisis in Mexico. Prices went up more in the US, but Mexico had food riots. > It's just common sense to say that third world countries with more food-producing agriculture (instead of say, cotton) are less fragile to speculation on food which can lead to disasters especially in bad years, or I'm not interested in "common sense", I'm interested in what's actually true. If cotton gives them a GDP of $2000/year while rice gives them a GDP of $500/year, cotton gives them a much bigger cushion if the rice price doubles. Yes, a cotton failure hurts, but so does a rice failure. An extra $500/year can make a huge difference at this level. It may let them save enough to survive a bad year. > that controlling their crops vs using GMO's makes them less economically dependent on big corporations. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that GMOs double their yield and the price is equal to 10% of their crop vs a "traditional" price of 0. That still looks like a 90% benefit. Why is that bad? Of course, if the benefit is 10% but the extra cost is 50%, it's a bad deal, but foreign corps aren't in a position to force anyone to buy. (Their govts are, but that's a different problem.) If you're going to argue that someone close to the edge shouldn't do what's most profitable for them, please provide the numbers.