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I never understood the "minimising consumption" thing. It's some form of Luddism. After all, the Left comes from original Socialists of the XIXth century and (p
by anovikov 1y ago
I never understood the "minimising consumption" thing. It's some form of Luddism. After all, the Left comes from original Socialists of the XIXth century and (proper, not Stalin type) Communists of the XXth. And these were not the Luddites, they stood for massive growth of production and consumption and claimed that progress in productive forces itself will eventually make capitalism unworkable, paving the way to Socialism and eventually, Communism (with probably a bit of a violent push necessary to make it work faster to overcome resistance of the 'capitalist pig' baddies). Why did the late XX century Left switch to idealisation of treehugger-hobbit lifestyle?
- rawgabbit 1y agoI can only speak from my experience living in the 1980s US. At that time, if you publicly announced you supported "Saving the Whales" or "Protecting our Forests", it was a form of identity politics. You were announcing you were left of center and probably rejected traditional values etc. Because it was political, it was not necessary logical or beneficial. Some good came out of it such as maybe we should stop spraying pesticides everywhere and take another look if these pesticides were safe for human contact. Some of it was self-defeating. The left claimed they supported working people but some of their policies hurt working people like NIMBY.