Pinkwashing Pachamama in the Pinktide will draw on a number of sources, especially

1. The New Extractivism of the 21st Century: Ten Urgent Theses about Extractivism in Relation to Current South American Progressivism, Eduardo Gudynas, January 21, 2010
2. The New Developmental Extractivism in South America, Ricardo Verdum | January 19, 2010 
3. What’s left in Latin America?: regime change in new times
   

”The New Extractivism of the 21st Century: Ten Urgent Theses about Extractivism in Relation to Current South American Progressivism”

Eduardo Gudynas, Americas Program Report (Washington, DC: Center for International Policy, January 21, 2010).

The recognition of the unique identity of this progressive style of extractivism requires a rigorous and measured approach. It is important to understand that neo-extractivism cannot be understood as a neoliberal strategy similar to those seen in previous decades, but neither can it be interpreted as a promising alternative, which automatically improves the quality of life and citizen autonomy.

It is evident that present progressivism offers in many cases substantial improvements over conservative regimes; the regime of Rafael Correa, for example, is not the same as that of Alan García.

But as is left clear in the present essay that limitations, resistances, and contradictions persist, and therefore one can’t analyze the present South American Left with the old paradigms.

Neo-extractivism is not a retreat to the past obsession with the market,
but neither does it exemplify a socialist paradise,
since many tensions and contradictions persist.

To ignore the impacts of neo-extractivism or to silence the analyses out of partisan sympathy is an unwise road to take, especially in academic and militant social settings.

To take advantage of this lack of clarity is to reject insidiously all the actions of the governing Left and to follow another mistaken path.

It is true that under neo-extractivism many impacts persist, especially social and environmental aspects. But in spite of this, it can’t be maintained that this represents in reality a neoliberalism or a “savage capitalism,” as for example García-Gaudilla (2009) maintained Chavismo in Venezuela is.

1. The importance of extractivist sectors as a relevant pillar of the styles of development: in spite of the profound political shift to the Left on the South American continent, the extractivist sectors maintain their importance and are one of the pillars of the strategies of present development in all the countries, from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela to the moderate Lula de Silva’s Brazil.

2. South American progressivism is generating a new type of extractivism, as much because of its components as because of the combination of old and new attributes: a new style of extractivism has developed, bearing a progressive stamp. It is important to recognize this fact in order to avoid falling into one of two extremes which would result in an inadequate analysis.

On the one hand, one cannot maintain that the governments of the Left haven’t done anything and that the systems of management of sectors like mining and petroleum are the same as they were in 1980s or 1990s.

But on the other hand, neither can one defend a hopeful position which would suggest that these new governments have substantially modified the extractive sector, and that they are ameliorating their social and environmental impacts through a transition to another kind of development which does not depend on the exportation of primary materials such as copper and petroleum.

3. The state is seen to have a larger presence and a more active role, with both direct and indirect actions: In neo-extractivism, the state is much more active, with rules that are much clearer (regardless of whether they are good or not), and not necessarily oriented to serve “friends” of political power. In some cases, the new governments renegotiated contracts, increased taxes, and boosted the role of state businesses.

Conceivably it was in Bolivia that there were substantial changes, since by 2006 the administration of Evo Morales had imposed the renegotiation of contracts with petroleum businesses, raised taxes 50%, and tried to boost the state petroleum business, YPFB. In Venezuela, the Chavez administration has undone many of the privatization measures of previous governments which led to private enterprises holding a majority share of PDVSA (the state petroleum firm), and private companies having ties with state businesses in other countries (like China, India, and Russia). Ecuador is following the same route.

For example, the Correa government has adjusted the tax system and has thrown out new petroleum contracts. In Brazil, a new regulatory system for the sector is being discussed, including the idea of creating a new kind of state agency to handle petroleum resources.

4. Neo-extractivism serves a subordinate and functional role in inserting itself into commercial and financial globalization:  neo-extractivism is functional for commercial globalization—it will finance and maintain the international subordination of South America.

Meanwhile, extractivism for export advances, as much in classic products provided by mining and petroleum as in the new type of agriculture and forestry. For example, the exports provided by mining and quarrying in the countries of the enlarged Mercosur (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay), increased from 20 billion dollars in 2004 to more than 46 billion in 2007 (CEPAL, 2009)

5. Territorial fragmentation continues to advance, with relegated areas and extractive enclaves associated with global markets: territorial fragmentation in deterritorialized areas persists under the new extractivism, generating a network of enclaves and their connections to global markets which exacerbate territorial tensions. The territorial configuration, the participating actors, and their forms of relationship and institutions are modified resulting in the disintegration of communities. (Bebbington and Hinojosa Valencia, 2007).

6. Beyond the ownership of resources, rules and the functioning of productive processes are displaced by competition, efficiency, maximization of profits, and externalization of impacts: under progressive governments it is especially important to recognize that, except for the ownership of the resources, the rules and functions of productive processes oriented to enhance competition, increase profits according to classic criteria of efficiency including the externalization of social and environmental impacts, are repeated.

Not only that, the true state capacity is debatable because of the contracts of association, societies, or “joint ventures” with private corporations which generate a privatization in fact of the productive processes, as is happening at the moment in Bolivia.

7. Social and environmental impacts in extractive sectors continue, and in some cases have been aggravated:  that neo-extractivism is perpetuated, and in some cases, its social and environmental impacts have increased, and that actions to confront them and to deal with them are still ineffective and even, on occasion have been weakened.

Under the progressive governments the debate over social, environmental, and territorial effects is more opaque. Regarding environmental concerns on various occasions their very existence has been denied or minimized, and in other cases environmental effects of extractivism have not only been denied but also presented as different kinds of issues, for example, as struggles over economic interests, as confrontations in matters of territorial planning, or expressions of hidden agendas of political parties (see for example the cases in Argentina in Svampa and Antonelli, 2009 and Rodríguez Pardo, 2009). But these impacts have been presented as impacts that ought to be accepted as “sacrifices” for the greater benefit of the whole nation. For example, in Chavez’s Venezuela, it should be accepted that the state of Zulia has been converted into a “zone of sacrifice for petroleum exploration” (García-Gaudilla, 2009).

Regarding the social dimension, social conflicts unleashed by extractivism exist in all the countries under progressive governments: there is opposition to mining and denunciation of petroleum contamination in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia; there are protests against mining exploitation in Argentina and Chile; there are denunciations of the monoculture of soy and forest products in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Uruguay, etc. The governments reject these protests, refusing to recognize their causes, or minimizing them. Sometimes protest leaders are accused of harboring other interests, and furthermore, there is no lack of people claiming that they accept these impacts in exchange for the greater good of the whole nation. On the other hand, indigenous groups and campesinos are attacked with accusations of “impeding” development and “generating damages throughout the country”(Bebbington, 2009).

Even in countries which supposedly enjoyed the tranquility of not having such conflicts, a close examination shows another picture. For example, in Brazil, during Lula da Silva’s first term, rural conflicts increased substantially, and if they have fallen off in the second term, they nonetheless continue at a high rate (Fig. 2). This is owing to factors such as bad working conditions, slave labor, and violence against indigenous people, all of which occur especially in the Amazon, much of which is tied directly to neo-extractivism

8. The state captures (or tries to capture) a greater proportion of the surplus generated by the extractive sectors, and a part of these resources finances social programs, with which the state gains new sources of social legitimization: the state captures a bigger portion of the surplus, a part of which is destined for social programs which generate legitimacy, as much for the governments as for the extractivist industries, and this contributes to the pacification of local social demands.

Progressive social programs, like those enumerated above, include activities which, among other things, compensate for some of the negative consequences of extractivist strategies that these same governments encourage and promote. They moderate social demands and calm social protest. In the case of Brazil, evidence is already accumulating documenting these effects. De Oliveira (2009) demonstrates the paradoxical situation where, although the Lula government abandoned the goals of agricultural reform, the number of people involved in protests is falling. In his analysis, this “ebbing of mass movements and the flow of government financial resources channeled for the purpose of compensation policies (packages of aid of all kinds and styles, etc.), is pacifying those who fought strongly for agricultural reform over the last 30 years. Everything indicates that these two processes are interwoven” (de Oliveira, 2009).

9. There are some contradictions inherent in extractionism that have come to be seen as indispensable for combating poverty and promoting development: neo-extractivism is accepted as one of the fundamental motors of economic growth and a key contributor to the battle against poverty on a national scale. It is assumed that part of this growth will generate benefits which will fall to the rest of society (”drip” or “trickle”). The state, now more dominant, should encourage and guide this outpouring.

One of the implications of this logic is that this reductionist vision is not questioned, rather its equation of economic growth with development is accepted, and thus, at least for now, an alternative vision for development has not been generated. Although Bolivian and Ecuadorian discussions about the “good life” have this potential, the governments and many other social actors appear to steer toward instrumental issues. In the Bolivian case, the situation is still more tense owing to the fact that, surprisingly, the new constitution indicates in various articles that one of the purposes of the state is the “industrialization” of natural resources.

10. Neo-extractivism is a part of South America’s own contemporary version of development, which maintains the myth of progress under a new hybridization of culture and politics. Neo-extractivism is a new ingredient in the contemporary South American version of development. This version is heir to the classical ideas of modernity, and as such it keeps its faith with material progress, but it is a contemporary hybrid which results from the cultural political conditions unique to South America.

Progressivism would represent a form of nationalism regarding recourses, according to the words of Bebbington (2009), where extraction is not itself questioned, but rather whether or not it is under private and foreign control. These governments move to take state control over these resources, although they end up reproducing the same productive processes, similar relations of power, and the same social and environmental impacts.

Published by the Americas Program. Copyright © Creative Commons - some rights reserved.

Recommended citation:

Eduardo Gudynas, “The New Extractivism of the 21st Century: Ten Urgent Theses about Extractivism in Relation to Current South American Progressivism,” Americas Program Report (Washington, DC: Center for International Policy, January 21, 2010).

Web location:

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6653

Production Information:

Author(s): Eduardo Gudynas

Translator(s): Esther Buddenhagen

Editor(s): Michael Collins

Production: Chellee Chase-Saiz

Over the past month we have travelled from the Mondragon Cooperative of Arrasate, in the Basque Country, and then down to Malaga, southern Spain where greenhouses are so prevalent they can be clearly seen from space. We then made our way to Scotland for Climate Camp and a confrontation with Greenhouse Feudalism.

After arriving from the super-hot and super-commercial neoliberal wasteland of southern, coastal Spain, we flew to London to stay with a good friend from UK Indymedia.

After one day of wandering around Portobello Road, we were on a National Express bus (we couldn’t afford a train) to Edinburgh, and then a local train to Lanark, where we got a lift after buying food, camping supplies, and wellies for the mud and rain.

When we arrived at Mainshill, we joined the Mainshill Solidarity Camp, on the rise of one side of the Mainshill, and pitched our tent near a line of sycamore trees that hosted tree-houses high in their branches and defensive tunnels beneath. The trees provided us with much needed protection from the prevailing wind and the rain. Later the tree-houses and tunnels were the stage for some media stunts, photos published in a few national newspapers.

When we set-up our 2 person tent, in the rain, with our Indymedia friend nearby, we were the only ones in the field, and proudly surveyed the grassy slope in front of us, and the two open-cast mines across the road from us, as if we weren’t mere trespassers, but as if we owned the joint.

Over the next two weeks we watched the full Scottish Camp for Climate Action lifecycle, and the number of tents around us multiplied.  The Scottish Camp for Climate Action 2009 was hosted by the Mainshill Solidarity Camp, a resistance group which has occupied the proposed site of a new opencast mine for about 2 months.

The land is owned by Lord Home, who is not one of Grist’s green royals.  In my view, it’s more of a case of a felonous Lord who is liable for forfeiture of his titles, lands and freedom. His dealings with Scottish Coal, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and politicians of all flavours — Labour, Scottish National, and Conservatives — is more a kind of Greenhouse Feudalism.

The 10-day event was very interesting as there were a number of groups with overlapping aims, with strategic and tactical differences. Sometimes these differences created such tension that there were almost breaks. However, we managed to maintain cooperation and the event was a success.

It wasn’t possible to use Climate Change as a filter, or simplify the problem via a kind of carbon rationalism. i.e. “how much emissions, by whom, when, how do we stop it?”. The Mainshill Solidarity Camp, which is a longer term project than the 2009 Scottish Climate Camp, aims to continue to physically resist the opencast mine for as long as possible, and these individuals work in conjunction with the local community.

The context of the campaign, become the Greenhouse Feudalism, the local equivalent of the Australian Greenhouse Mafia. The corrupt planning process, the distorted politics, the money, and most of all, the immediate negative health effects of opencast mining. See the Coal Health Study BLOG.

Kirstie made national press with the Coal Health Study, Sunday Herald “A climate of fear“. A new edition of the study is being prepared under the auspices of local organisations. The Coal Health Study scope is being expanded, and we are making important international connections.

For the last few years I have been struggling to articulate the outline of a book called Climate War: Sustainment, Apocalypse and Liberation.

In a couple of emails, and a number of threaded discussions off those emails, this concept developed. The initial seed came while studying (and failing my coursework through inattention) the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Sustainability Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Having read a lot of Noam Chomsky and then the essay Corporate Climate Coup by David F Noble, parts of the book Al Gore a Users Manual and watching the Carbon Finance created carbon trading options marginalise alternatives and debate the climate justice movement, I became increasingly convinced that a faction of the elites where coopting - again - the climate change agenda, and at first financialising it with carbon Finance, and in the background, increasingly militarising it. 

With the change of US administrations, and the economic depression developing, I feel I have enough evidence to elaborate this project. 

Climate War: just as the Cold War subsumed and defined the peace after World War 2, the Climate War subsumes and defines the period after the Cold War. The Cold War ideology on the US side was anti-communism. The Climate War ideology (shared by most central governments) is anti-environmentalism, with communists being replaced with terrorists and increasingly eco-terrorists. Green is the new red, the FBI’s most wanted is an eco-terrorist. Insurgencies have always been embedded in a place, and so, in reality, all terrorists are fighting for rights to control an environment. The Climate War is the Cold War within the context of climate change, peak oil, peak debt, indeed peak everything. The US framework for managing the world, within the context of Climate War, is Sustainment. 

Sustainment: sustainment is an extension of the military term describing the supply and operations of maintenance to military operations. Sustainment is military-industrial supplied sustainability. In the latest US Counter-Insurgency military doctrine, Sustainment leads all counter-insurgency operations. Within the Human Terrain System, hearts and minds are won by the the supply of infrastructure and utilities. Sustainment leads operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “civilian surge” is sustainment. With the increasing instability of the climate system, the global economic and geo-political system, sustainment will be supplied with the strongest aspect of US national power; the military industrial complex. Within the neo-liberal environment, the military-industrial compex is increasingly privatised and fragmented. As Noam Klein describes in Shock Doctrine, disaster capitalism profits greatly from crisis, real or imagined, and as the Climate War becomes the dominant organising principle for the planet, through real and imagined crisis, sustainment supplied by corporate-state military industrial system. This military industrial system will seek to profit and expand from both the crisis of conflict, of destruction of war and the maintenance of peace, and the rebuilding of damaged systems.

Apocalypse: the Bush administration actively promoted an Apocalyptic - as in catastrophic - self-fulfilling prophecy for the future of the planet. This end-times world-view sees the natural and correct direction of history taking humanity towards a historic conflict in the Middle East - centered on Jerusalem - involving the three major religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. The true meaning of Apocalypse, the revelation at the end of the world, offers a hope that all people will recognise that only a global and radical transition of planetary management can take the world of peak everything and crisis.

Apocalypse is also eco-catostophie or eco-cide being committed on most of the worlds peoples and ecosystems. Except on tiny pockets of economic, ecological and social sustainability, won through resistance and resilience, and often conquest and empire building. The green zones at the core of the world system, as described in the Shock Doctrine, are often subsidized by exploitation and despoilation at the perpiphery.

Liberation: Every system on the planet needs revolution. Key to these revolutions are democratisation of decision making and finances, within the constraints of equity, justice, the limits to growth, peak oil and climate change. All institutions captured by the narrow interests of elites, need to be liberated and transitioned to democratic and sustainable management. 

The Sustainment future is an extension of the Cold War paradigm dominated by multinational corporations, financial capital and militarisation. The Green Revolution (which was the extension of war technology to agriculture) used industrial processes, mechanization, petro-chemical based fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and a concentration of control through financial capital, contracts and legal requirements that could only be matched and master by the largest corporations. Although organic farming has changed some aspects of soil and plant management it has operated with the context of corporate industrial capitalism.

The next Green Revolution is hailed by popular magazines such as Wired, The Economist, Scientific American and Popular Mechanics and relies on further developments in Genetic Engineering, and industrial processes. Sustainment wil also involved financialisation of climate change through complex financial products based on carbon emissions trading. 

As this RAND corporation report notes, corporate industrial capitalism may adapt to perennial polyculture and organic techniques in the narrowist sense.

Economic and environmental sustainability might be possible through the Sustainment scenario, however, full social sustainability cannot ever be supplied or created, sustained, by tyrannical systems such as the modern corporation, financial capitalism, centralised government.

Sustainment, as practiced now, is leading to eco-cide, eco-catastrophie and a violent mega-death, which may be the result of abrupt climate disruptions through rapid climate change and/or triggered by a world war.

Notes

Maslows hierachy of needs

different aspects

human systems: food, air, money, water, social, education, health,

cycles i.e carbon cycle, democratising the carbon cycle

12 leverage points on systems

permaculture ethics: 3 ethics, 12 principles

gaia 

gaiapermaculture synthesis

climate systems

transition movement - transitions from sustainment - through apocalypse - heaven or hell - to liberation

liberation ecology, theology

end times - interfaith compare

carbon finance, oil,war, energy politics

water

[permaculture] Fwd: Great Depression 2.0 + Climate Crisis = Climate War (Cold War 2 + WW3)

Nicholas Roberts nicholas at themediasociety.org

Thu Nov 27 13:16:01 EST 2008

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nicholas Roberts <nicholas at themediasociety.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 10:03 PM
Subject: Re: Great Depression 2.0 + Climate Crisis = Climate War (Cold War 2
+ WW3)
To: Noam Chomsky <chomsky at mit.edu>

fyi

*A Grand Strategy of Sustainment*

*By Shawn Brimley, Small Wars Journal
*
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2008/03/a-grand-strategy-of-sustainmen/
A grand strategy of sustainment would be more selective in the use of
American force. Sustaining a global system will at times require the use of
military power, but would shun the preventive use of force. As a global
leader, the United States should invest sufficient resources to ensure it
continues to field the world’s most dominant military. When force must be
used, a strategy of sustainment would accept some risk to ensure the
participation of allies. Working by, with, and through security alliances
helps sustain American legitimacy and moral authority and are not
deleterious to success, especially when ideational dimensions are central to
modern conflict.

*Shawn Brimley <http://www.cnas.org/en/cms/?133> is the Bacevich Fellow at
the Center for a New American Security. <http://www.cnas.org/>*

—-

*SWJ Editors’ Links (Updated)*

A Grand Strategy of
Sustainment<http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/a_grand_strategy_of_sustainmen.php>-
Matthew Yglesias,
*The Atlantic*

Sustainment <http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2008/03/sustainment.html> -
Ilan Goldenberg, *Democracy Arsenal*

Sustainment<http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/strategy-of-sus.html#more>-
Andrew Sullivan,
*The Atlantic*

Kinder, Gentler
Superpower<http://www.julescrittenden.com/2008/03/22/kinder-gentler-superpower/>-
Jules Crittenden,
*Forward Movement*

A Grand Strategy of
Sustainment<http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2008/03/20/a-grand-strategy-of-sustainment/>-
Chet Richards,
*Defense and the National Interest*

4GW: A Solution of the Second
Kind<http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/grand-sustainment/>-
*Fabius Maximus*

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Noam Chomsky <chomsky at mit.edu> wrote:

>  You might be right.  I don’t have the technical competence to judge.  I
> know that highly regarded engineers here at MIT think there are
> technological fixes, particularly solar.  Not nuclear of course, another
> wasting resource apart from numerous other problems.
>
> Thanks for the reference to Beevor.  It’s been on my reading list.  On the
> Latin American efforts, I doubt that there’s much systematic work — too
> recent.  Mark Weisbrot of CEPR is likely to know, if anyone does.
>
> Hard to judge whether the global justice and related movements are more
> marginalized than they’ve been since the beginning.  What’s really important
> is whether they can flourish.  To an extent they do.  But it’s also not easy
> to evaluate.
>
>
>
>
> —– Original Message —–
>  *From:* Nicholas Roberts (by way of Noam Chomsky <chomsky at mit.edu>)<chomsky at mit.edu%3E%29>
> *To:* Noam Chomsky <chomsky2 at mit.edu>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 29, 2008 9:02 AM
> *Subject:* Re: Great Depression 2.0 + Climate Crisis = Climate War (Cold
> War 2 + WW3)
>
> hi
>
> Nathon Lewis really deserves more attention…mostly because he seems to
> prove (to me at least) that we have no technological fix for energy supply
> going forward… from any know source.. even if we did decide to use ALL the
> nuclear material available for instance…
>
> just like the Cold War framework was containment, the new Climate War
> framework will be sustainment… as in the US counter-insurgency manual..
> supply of basic services for life directly from the military, indeed the
> disaster capitalism complex
>
> http://books.google.com.au/books?id=FHy5Ev8yg20C&pg=PT156&lpg=PT156&dq=sustainment+counter+insurgency&source=web&ots=03gqEL1V0C&sig=kVfxJMQgjFa9crZScofTMseAcPw&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
>
> my intuition is that a green technocracy will convert the world capitalist
> system (which is based on the military industrial system anyway) into a
> sustainable world military industrial system with a focus on carbon trading
> and ecosystem services financialisation, privatisation, genetically modified
> organisisms, nuclear power, (some renewables), massive surveillance,
> geo-enigneering, social engineering, and a massive epansion of the
> entertainment and other de-carbonised, service based industries where
> complex growth can still occur. In Revenge of Gaia Lovelock talks about a
> new low-carbon economy where most people live in cities and spend their time
> eating GMO fungi and entertaining themselves consuming digital and
> de-carbonised services… Lovelock is closely connected to various
> conservatives and captains of industry and has a big effect on the UK
> environmentalists such as Monbiot and also the new scheme Kyoto2
> www.kyoto2.org. Kyoto2 is market bases, advocates GMO, nuclear,
> geo-engineering… and is backed by many ‘radicals’. It contains 4 quotes
> about climate change by Margaret Thatcher ! 2 more than Lovelock. The UK
> environmental movement is being subsumed by the Vote Blue Go Green campaign
> of the Tories under David Cameron which is an front for the broader green
> consumerism. Kind of a UK equivalent to the guilt-free green Governator in
> California.
>
> capitalism is trying to create markets in these de-carbonised complex
> growth modalities… finance, entertainment, education.. .largely around the
> internet.. for instance you can buy Second Life consumer objects, and other
> games online. although, its largely a fraud right now, supposedly Second
> Life uses more electricity than Brazil.
> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php
>
> regarding libertarian socialism or anarcho syndicalism you might be
> insterested in new research referenced in The Battle for Spain: The Spanish
> Civil War 1936-1939 which suggests that the anarcho-syndicalist sections of
> the country had more efficient and productive economies than ceratinly
> Monarchist Spain, Francoist Spain, and probably the Socialist/Communist
> sectors. Has there been any good work done of the economic productivity,
> efficiency of the Bolivarian Revolution with its heavy emphasis on
> participation ?
>
> http://books.google.com.au/books?id=_Mt_AAAACAAJ&dq=the+battle+for+spain&ei=fqIHSZKjH4WYsgOt8eDdDQ
>
>
> having worked in some large organisations (NEws Ltd in Australia had 2000
> people in its HQ) and within the internet, it makes intuitive sense that
> collective, cooperative, particpiatory and social economies are best
> described by idea of anarcho syndicalism, libertarian socialism, or the
> participatory economics
>
> the hype around the particpation age in the internet is revolting, but it
> is really significant that such free software projects such as Linux and
> free content projects such as Wikipedia can be organised with a social and
> cooperative framework and are based on voluntary associations and
> affinities….
>
> there seem to be principles common to all historical examples past, present
> and emerging and its only some minor parameters that are different
>
> my feeling is the global justice movement and the peoples revolutions are
> being increasingly marginsalised like during the Spanish Civil War..
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 4:52 PM, <minqi.li @economics.utah.edu> wrote:
>  Dear Nicholas Roberts:
>
>  Thanks a lot for your interest in my work and thanks for bringing Nathan
> Lewis’s work to my attention.
>  I am all participatory socialism or communism (though I’d hesitate to call
> it libertarian socialism).  But I tend to think that participatory democracy
> is more likely to grow out of the practice of workers’ struggle than from
> theoretical schemes.  Theoretical analysis can only help to illustrate the
> broad historical possibilities and necessities.
>  It is a real possibility that the system’s elites would pursue
> environmental/resources war economy as their preferred solution.  But I
> suspect the outcome is likely to accelerate the bankruptcy of the system.  A
> military-industrial economy cannot be be sustained for very long for
> economic, social, and ecological reasons.
>  The ruling elites cannot just have whatever system they want.  A viable
> system, even an exploitative one, has to meet the following criteria:
> (1)ecological sustainability (so the economy must not pursue growth, either
> for more consumption or for more military); (2)meet people’s “basic needs”.
> It can starve some people but the percentage of starvation has to be limited
> - this will not be easy for the current and future elites; (3) the political
> constraints imposed by the historical context - in our case, bourgeois
> democracy in some countries and socialist legacy in some other parts of the
> world as well as the global working class.
>  I think ultimately people will not wait to die, but will rise up to save
> themselves, though things probably will first get worse before a new path is
> opened.
>
> Minqi
>
>
> Quoting Nicholas Roberts < nicholas at themediasociety.org>:
>
>  hi Minq Li
>
> I have become an avid reader of your work after seeing you on The Real News
> talking about New Left in China, climate change etc
>
> am just reading your article regarding needing a kind of global socialism
> to
> deal with global climate change, http://www.monthlyreview.org/080721li.php
>
> regarding energy futures you might find the work of Nathan Lewis at Caltech
> useful, regarding the lack of technology for world energy.. Nathan Lewis’
> work is seriously under-reported, I guess mostly because it portrays a very
> grim picture going forward.. http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
>
> I also wonder whether you have considered Libertarian Socialism or
> Participatory Economics in your advocacy for socialism or the 21st century
>
> Certainly some of the leading radical left intellectuals in the US and the
> Bolivarian Revolution are heavily based on participation
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parecon
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Venezuela
>
> http://books.google.com.au/books?id=CI5d2CpL60oC&dq=Economic+Justice+and+Democracy:+From+Competition+to+Cooperatio&pg=PP1&ots=zNUSctPrY6&source=bn&sig=cdMrXNJ14XAFyEKzn19Z-X4amZQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA139,M1
>
> it seems to me that we could possibly switch from neo-liberal
> corporate-state “environmental un-sustainability”, to a neo-socialist
> corporate-state “environmental sustainability” but human development would
> suffer
>
> my worry is that we will be placed in a Permanent Environmental War
> Economy… a military industrial sustainability, Sustainment, you can find
> threads of this future everywhere; Revenge of Gaia, Thomas Friedman, Tim
> Flannery’s chapter The Carbon Dicatorship, Naomi Klein’s Disaster
> Capitalism, even Climate Code Red (Friends of the Earth co-opted), Gore
> Vidal’s essay “Cue the Green God, Ted”, David F Noble’s The Corporate
> Climate Coup, reports by the Pentagon, UN security council etc etc
>
> “Environmental War Economy
> Governments have left it late to deal with climate change and have been
> forced to rationalise whole industry sectors and take control of many
> aspects of citizens’ lives.They build dams and powerful sea wall defences
> to
> protect land from the raging oceans, yet growing numbers of environmental
> refugees must find new countries willing to accommodate them. Greenhouse
> gases are beginning to decline, but the cost to individual liberty has been
> great.” http://www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/climate-futures
> a book that explores the converagance of these themes is American
> Theocracy:
> The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the
> 21stCentury (Hardcover)
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067003486X/leftbusinessobseA/
>
> for a while, I’ve been researching a book idea: Climate War: Apocalypse,
> Sustainment or Liberation, which explores these ideas, and your work is
> exteremely useful
>
> I was working a News Corp when the War on Terror was re-announced after
> S11,
> and many people trusted our glorious leaders, it seemed like a just war, it
> seems to me, that we are making the same mistake, when we rush to support
> the new war on climate change
>
> we need to ask who are we fighting for ? what kind of war are we fighting ?
> are we setting-up a new Green technocratic elite ? or is this a war of
> liberation ? is more war even the right way to frame and to act ?
>
> keep up the good work
>
> cheers
>
> –
> Nicholas Roberts
> [im] skype:niccolor
>
> Australian Social Forum
> http://www.AustralianSocialForum.org
>
> “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the
> new
> cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms
> appear.
>   * Gramsci. Prison Notebooks
>
>
>
>
> Minqi Li, Assistant Professor
> Department of Economics, University of Utah
> Salt Lake City, UT 84112
> Phone: 801-581-7697; Fax: 801-585-5649
>
>
>
>
>
>
> –
> –
> Nicholas Roberts
> [im] skype:niccolor
>
> Australian Social Forum
> http://www.AustralianSocialForum.org
>
> “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the
> new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms
> appear.
>   * Gramsci. Prison Notebooks
>
>


–
–
Nicholas Roberts
[im] skype:niccolor

http://www.Permaculture.TV
http://www.WorkerCooperatives.com
http://www.AustralianSocialForum.org

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture/2008-November/032292.html